Chum

by Jeff Somers

  “Thomas,” she said crisply, making an obvious effort, “can I help you?”

  “You’re gorgeous.”

  She stared at me for some seconds, just a blank, empty stare I gave her a lot of credit for, then she let out a frustrated little yelp and marched past me, probably to complain again to her fiancé that I was a miserable jerk. Problem was, Bick knew I was a miserable jerk. Nothing she could tell him about me would be much of a surprise to him.

  I smelled her perfume and savored it. Then, I piled salad, flies and all, onto a plate and dug in, washing it down with cold beer. I was alive and happy as hell, and I doubted if there was another living thing vibrating with such enjoyment as I was right then and there.

  Off in the distance on the other side of the yard, in a place hidden by the house, I heard a loud explosion and some screaming. I grinned and began to saunter.

  • • •

  The emergency room was white, white everywhere, and was giving me a sun glare headache or something. Or perhaps it was beers in the sunlight and then a few hours of breathing, or again perhaps bad potato salad covered in gross fly-borne germs. At any rate my head hurt and all the white in the emergency room was killing me.

  I glanced in Henry’s direction. “I’m going to grab a smoke. Tell the herd.”

  “Fuck that,” he groused. “I’ll join you.”

  “Where are you going?”

  The shrewish snap of Denise, who was apparently convinced that Henry was somehow more involved in Mike’s injuries than was being let on. No doubt she thought I’d puppet-mastered the whole thing, and she feared that letting Hank have a smoke with me would result in more injuries, possibly death.

  Henry ricked his head a little as if swallowing bile but turned with a placating smile. “Just going to have a cigarette, honey. Be right back.”

  She nodded. I noted the absence of Miriam, probably giving the girl a sense of security regarding Henry’s prick.

  Outside it was blissfully gray now, dusk everywhere, and my head felt immediately better with some fresh air and some low light. I shook out a pair of cigarettes and lit them, handing one to Henry. He smoked it with his hand curled around it in a peculiar way I assumed he’d once seen in a prison movie.

  “She still giving you hell about Miriam?” I said.

  He nodded. “She’s convinced I was inches from cheating on her.”

  “What do you want? Mir’s eighteen, gorgeous, and a flirt. All women hate her. I’m surprised she doesn’t burst into flame from their combined hatred.”

  He smoked. “Looks like Mike’s gonna be okay.”

  “Fucking pussy. A little second-degree burn. You’d think he’d had his thumbs blown off the way he was screaming. And why do we have to sit out here staring at the floor waiting for them to send him out with his bandaged thumbs? What purpose does it serve?”

  “To show Mike that we care, I guess. Support.”

  “But I don’t care about Mike.”

  Henry laughed. “Then I guess you’re free to go.”

  “I guess I am.”

  We stood and stared in different directions. Four burgers and eight beers were worming their way through my system, and I tossed my cigarette to the floor.

  “I gotta go take a dump,” I said. Henry stared into the dusk. I went back inside and avoided looking at anyone.

  • • •

  The bathroom was one of those oft-soiled places that looked infectious no matter how clean it actually was. The grime was so beaten into the porcelain and metal there was no such thing as really removing it; you could just scrub away that day’s growth and hope for the best. I paused for a moment upon entry, reviewing my options. Depressed, I selected a stall with the minimal amount of obvious defecatory mishaps, checked the lock, and went to work.

  I sat there and stared thoughtlessly at the stall door before me. I had a meditative approach to lavatory visits. You got few enough chances to just sit and enjoy some industrial-strength silence. The bathroom was a perfect place to do it.

  The outer door opened and I closed my eyes against the invasion: a perfectly squalid lavatory, ruined. When I heard Bickerman’s voice, I shuddered.

  “Monster!” he hissed. Then, running water. “Goddamn monster!”

  I waited a moment to see where he was going with that, eavesdropping being one of my more favorite activities. All that followed was some moaning, so I cleared my throat.

  “Christ, Bickerman, you ain’t married yet.”

  Nothing for a moment. I sat and listened to my guts gurgling within me, begging for some sort of action on my part. It was the proximity of Bickerman. He always stirred up my digestive system. It was the simultaneous disgust and leering hope for fun. He was the most entertaining monkey I’d ever had.

  “Tommy,” he finally said, sounding winded. “You doing anything deviant in there?”

  “Yes. But it’s all scatological.”

  “Can you believe That Stupid Fuck?”

  That was Mikey. Bickerman always referred to Mike as “That Stupid Fuck” in private.

  “Some huge number of idiots in this grand country blow their hands off every summer playing with fireworks. That’s why they’re illegal. The Stupid Fuck had it coming. Besides,” I added as a sop to their inexplicable friendship, “he got off lucky with some burns. He won’t even be a visual liability at your wedding, much is the pity.”

  “Christ, don’t bring up the nuptials. I’m considering fleeing the country.”

  “Don’t be such a cunt, Bickerman. Besides, she’d find you. And sic her faithful minions Kelly and Florence on you. You’d be lucky to be brought back without significant facial reconstructive surgery required.”

  “I swear, Tommy, sometimes that bitch just crawls under my skin and does a little tap dance. Sometimes I just want to belt her one to just shut her the fuck up. The Bitch is out there now, telling me, over and over again, that this is the quality of friend I hang out with. Guys who get poor Mike to almost burn his face off.”

  The Bitch, of course, was Bickerman’s inscrutable secret code for Mary. She was convinced that Mikey was an innocent, and Henry and I were evil bastards. She was pretty much right, but the contest of wills was getting messy.

  “Ah, the quality of friends. We’re terrible. Say the word, mi amigo, and we’ll fade away. Promise. No hard feelings.”

  “Fuck that. Without you and Hank, all I’d have is That Stupid Fuck to keep me sane in this goddamn world of women I’ve fallen into. At least you and Hank know how to have a good time, and keep your mouths shut. Mike wouldn’t know what to do with himself.”

  I had nothing more to say on the subject. I sat and stared. After a moment, I heard the door open and shut, and I was alone in the bathroom again. The bastard hadn’t bothered to say anything, just left. I was irritated for a moment, but Bickerman was far too entertaining to stay mad at. I wondered, with breathless awe, what wonders he’d get up to once he was married.

  IV.

  CHRISTMAS

  I ran a shaky hand over my face and picked up the glass, held it up before me. I drank it fast, didn’t even taste it. Nothing affected me anymore. I put it down on the bar hard and winked at the bartender. She nodded and held up a finger. I’d been drinking here all day. We had a system worked out.

  I closed my eyes and there it was: huge, invisible, coming closer. A million trees shivering in terror, me kneeling in the damp grass, arms out, waiting.

  A group of really drunk guys were singing carols near the juke, where some evil person, long since fled, had plunked down six dollars’ worth of John Denver and the Muppets. Everyone thought this was hilarious. I tried to ignore it. The bar was decked out in blinking lights and tinsel, and the bartenders were all wearing Santa hats. I opened my eyes and looked at myself in the mirror behind the bar, which was obscured by bottles and tinsel and disgusting fake snow-in-a-can spelling out holiday wishes. I noticed I was wearing a Santa hat, too. I didn’t remember owning a Santa hat.

&nbs
p; Hands on my shoulders, aftershave, and a heartily bullshitted “Ho-ho-ho” and Mike had found me. I raised an empty glass at him. He was blurry, and I felt nauseous.

  “What are you doing here, Hank?” Mike wanted to know. “Is anyone else here? I’m here with some work buds. I think everyone else is over at Ray’s.”

  “I’m hiding from Bickerman and Tom,” I said truthfully. “I don’t want to get ratted out, okay? So if you see them, you didn’t see me.”

  Mike smiled his clueless grin. Kind of sweet, actually. “Hiding, huh? Owe some money?” he cackled. “Here, I’ll buy you a drink.”

  The bartender slopped a shot glass and a beer in front of me, extracting a damp fiver from my pile and walking away without a word.

  Mike chuckled. “Not kidding around, huh?”

  Another cackle. I held up the shot glass to him and smiled a good imitation of a smile.

  “All right,” he laughed. “Buy me a drink.”

  I shook my head. I needed every dime for myself.

  Finally, a flicker in his wall of insincerity. “O-kay. Guess I’ll just get back to my work buds. See you around, Hank. Hope you feel better.”

  I just about let him go and then caught him by the arm. I didn’t look up at him and had to swallow back vomit before I could talk. “I mean it, Mike. Don’t tell Bickerman and Tommy where I am. They’ll ask.”

  “Okay, Hank, okay.”

  I let him go. I sat there and swallowed reflexively for a while, trying to keep a lid on whatever shameful expulsion was coming up, and finally stood up and weaved my dramatic way to the bathroom.

  • • •

  Kneeling in the crud that coated every disgusting tavern restroom everywhere in the world, I heaved into the toilet and tried not to notice anything or smell anything or, indeed, have any of my five senses functioning at all. When I was reasonably sure I’d hit empty, I sat down on the damp floor and leaned against the stall wall and lit a cigarette. The busy traffic of the bathroom ignored me, for a while. There were plenty of places to piss, and no one wanted to know about the guy sitting in pisswater, until one of them knocked on the stall door.

  I closed my eyes again.

  It was dark and windy; the wind was epic. Booming, hissing wind. Moving through the tall grass and the trees. I was tiny and forgotten. Insignificant.

  Something was coming.

  It was huge. Its footfalls made the ground tremble. There was the crack of trees tearing loose as it came. I stared into the gloom and all I could see was purple sky and black trees. All I could feel was the wind. I was so tiny, I would be stepped on and flattened into the soft loam and never noticed.

  “Buddy, you okay?”

  I shook my head. Kept my eyes closed. “Sure.”

  “Some of us gotta take a dump, you know?”

  Christmas Eve, party time, and some have yet to master their bowels. I opened my eyes again and waved my cigarette around. “All right. Don’t blame me for what’s in here. It’s only half my fault.”

  Feeling less wobbly, I stood up, damp with pisswater and wondering what I was going to smell like to other people. I pushed open the stall door. A beefy guy in a suit greeted me.

  “Jesus,” is all he said.

  I decided to go get some air. I left my coat on the chair. I left my money on the bar. I pretended I couldn’t see Mike on the way out. I walked outside into the snow and the wind and just kept walking. It was about two miles to my apartment, and I figured I might die on the way.

  • • •

  Numb and persistently nauseous despite my best efforts, I stopped across the street from my building to stare.

  “Fuck me.” I repeated it in my head: Fuck me.

  Tom and Bickerman both grinned at me. They were warm and plump with coats and scarves, looking hale and hearty. Bickerman, with a flask in one hand, spread his arms.

  “Henry!” he bellowed. “Thank God you’re alive!”

  I wasn’t, really, but why bother telling them that? They were blocking the front door anyway. I hung my head and stumbled toward them.

  “Christ,” I heard Tom say, “you look like fucking terrible. Maybe you need to see a doctor.”

  “How far did you walk like that?” Bickerman demanded.

  I shrugged. My feet were completely numb. I imagined them as black blocks of ice. “How long have you guys been here?”

  “A while,” Tom groused, snatching the flask from Bickerman. “We heard you were all by yourself somewhere, drinking. We were a little worried. We tried a few of your usual haunts but didn’t find you, so we came here to wait.”

  He offered the flask to me. I took it gratefully and sniffed it. Brandy. I took a swallow and felt worse. “Very kind of you.”

  Bickerman slapped me on the back and pushed me gently toward the door. “Let’s get inside.”

  Doom. I felt it nibbling at me. I’d been fleeing the Doom, but the Doom had found me. Such is the doom of men, that they forget. The temple of doom. My apartment. I was finding it difficult to stand upright. “Anything to get you guys out of sight. I don’t want my neighbors getting a good look at you.”

  We took the stairs in single file: Tom, me, the Bick. Bickerman kept his hand on my back, as if he was pushing me up before him. There was some confusion at the door as we sorted ourselves out so I could open things up. Then we stepped inside. It felt oppressively hot, as if my skin were burning.

  “Man, Henry, this place is a fucking sty,” Tom complained. He spun around. “Where do you keep your liquor?”

  I nodded at the upper cabinet over the stove. He glanced at it, then looked back at me. He sat down at the kitchen table and took his gloves off. I looked them both over while Tom rubbed the cold from his hands and Bickerman made a show of walking around the kitchen, looking the place over. They were both wasted. Tom had the sharp-eyed look he gets when he’s loaded, and Bickerman never can sit still when he’s fucked up. I concentrated on breathing. I kept my eyes on Tom because he was sitting still. He stared back at me. He appeared to be vibrating.

  “Got any coffee?” Bickerman suddenly demanded, turning to face me.

  “Instant. Maybe,” I said.

  He nodded, but didn’t actually ask for any. I was suddenly exhausted. Keeping my eyes on both of them, I pulled out one of my chairs and sat down. I felt like I could’ve fallen asleep sitting right there across from Tommy.

  Bickerman sat down too, next to Tommy. His so-blond hair was almost white and was standing up in a weird way. His stubble was dark, though, and against his pale skin it made him look sick.

  “We’re just making sure you’re okay, buddy,” Bickerman suddenly said. “It’s been a tough time for all of us.”

  “You most of all, I’m sure,” Tommy added. Bickerman took the lead as if it were manna from heaven.

  “You most of all. All three of us. It’s a terrible situation, and we’re all having trouble handling it. All of us.”

  Tommy nodded slowly. “The point is, we stick together. Support each other.”

  I nodded, because they wanted me to acknowledge this bullshit. “I’m depressed. So what? I was having a few drinks. So what? You don’t have to worry about me.”

  Their pretended indignation was amusing. They threw up their hands, and Bickerman stood up again.

  “What! Listen to this guy!” he exclaimed.

  “Hell, Hank, we know that!” Tommy said heartily. “No one’s worried about you. Well, we’re worried about you, about your health. Your well being. But not about anything else.”

  Tommy smiled at me. Tom’s smiles are hideous, and he uses them only when really trying to get by.

  “I’m fine,” I lied. I felt like I was stuffed with poison and bleeding antifreeze all over myself. I felt like the kitchen table was my new best friend, that without it I’d fall over, that it was the most comfortable place in the universe.

  “Hell, Hank. It’s Christmas Eve. We’re all out with friends, Luis is dressed up as the thinnest fucking Santa Claus in t
he world, and you’re at some strange bar where That Stupid Fuck goes with his work buds drinking yourself into an early grave,” Tom laid it out for me. “Denise asked about you. Kelly and Flo wondered.”

  “Miriam was really hoping you’d show up,” Bickerman added, giving my refrigerator a thorough inspection.

  And I was suddenly glad for the booze and the nausea, because I could let that pass over me without a flinch, staring Tommy in the face.

  “I’ll see everyone tomorrow at Flo’s party,” I offered. I couldn’t keep this up much longer, I knew. “I’ll be in a better mood. I just get depressed around the holidays … drank too much … need sleep.” I was struggling to give them enough. Feeding them is exhausting. Had been for weeks, ever since Thanksgiving.

  “Jesus, listen to the living corpse here,” Bickerman said good-humoredly. “My fucking wife’s dead, and I’ve got more cheer and holiday spirit.”

  I forced a grin onto my face, my skin cracking and my teeth bleeding. “Jesus, it’s three in the morning, and I just walked two miles in the fucking snow with bad shoes and no coat. I’m already hung over and you idiots are sitting in my kitchen. You’d be fucking depressed, too.”

  Tom laughed, glancing at Bickerman. “Henry’s a bit cranky, huh? C’mon Henry. It’s fucking Christmas. Spare us some good cheer!”

  Bickerman pulled the flask from Tom’s hand and toasted us.

  I looked at them from under my eyebrows. They were pale, the cold itself, the winter, manifested in my kitchen in the forms of old friends. Old acquaintances. Old young men. Tom’s hair was getting long, curling everywhere, a vital head of hair. He was wearing a vest and a tie, undone, perfectly rakish, calculated. Bickerman’s hair stuck up from his head like a wig, like brush bristles. His face was pale and red at the same time, a flush. Thin but jowly. He was wearing a long, beat-up old overcoat he’d had for years. Mary had forbidden him to wear it in public during her Remaking Bickerman campaign early in their relationship. He’d obeyed but had worn it all the time since she’d died.

  Suddenly, he thrust the flask at me, shining with Bickerman saliva. “Come on, Henry, have a fucking Christmas drink with us, you goddamn pussy.”