by John Cariani
“Broke, dude, it broke. How many times are you gonna make me say it?!” snapped Randy.
Chad wasn’t trying to make Randy keep saying that Yvonne’s face had broken. He was just trying to understand.
“Told you it was bad,” chuckled Randy sardonically.
And Chad wasn’t denying that it was bad. He was just trying to figure out how Yvonne’s face had broken. He sure hoped Randy hadn’t hit her. Randy had broken a lot of guys’ faces. Because he had punched them. Because they had made him mad.
But Randy would never hit a girl. Chad was sure of it.
“Well … how did her face break?” Chad asked, hoping it wasn’t as serious as it all sounded.
“When we were dancin’.”
The word dancin’ stuck to the air like a fly sticks to flypaper.
Chad and Randy did not dance.
Not even at their proms. Which is probably why their prom dates had dumped them on prom night.
“Dancin’?” Chad smirked.
“Yeah…,” Randy said, in a way that let Chad know he wasn’t happy about having gone dancing.
Chad conjured up an image of his best bud dancing and couldn’t help but laugh—hard. But not so hard that he couldn’t ask the all-important question, “Why the heck were you dancin’?!?”
“’Cause that’s what she wanted to do!” snapped Randy. “On our date! So I took her! Down to the Rec Center. They had a bean supper at five and then lessons at five thirty and then you dance all night. And they teach together dancing—how to dance … together. And we learned that thing where you throw the girl up and over your shoulder—”
“Whoa—what?”
“It’s just this fancy move she wanted me to try with her.” It wasn’t just Yvonne who wanted Randy to try it. Lalaine Deshain, the country swing dance instructor from Presque Isle, thought that Yvonne and Randy were really good dancing together. And she was particularly impressed with Randy’s ability, so she showed him how to do a complicated over-the-shoulder flip with Yvonne, because she thought he was strong enough and that they were both skilled enough to execute it. And then she supervised them when they tried it, and Yvonne faced Randy and put her left hand on his right shoulder and jumped up, and Randy guided her body with his right hand, and she glided over his back and over his head and she landed on her feet, facing him. And Lalaine gleefully shrieked, “Yes!” and told them to try it again, but to incorporate the fancy flips into the other moves they had learned. And then she went over to teach some less-skilled newbies some basics like the cuddle and the jitterbug step.
So Randy and Yvonne tried the over-the-shoulder flip again unsupervised, this time incorporating it into the other moves they had learned. But that second time they tried it, Yvonne asked Randy to throw her a little higher, for fun. “And I said sure,” said Randy, continuing his story, “and, well … Yvonne’s pretty small … and I’m pretty strong, and when I threw her up and over—a little higher—well … I guess I threw her a little too high or somethin’.”
“Oh, no,” groaned Chad.
“Yeah.” Randy took a moment to relive the incident, and then added, “And she landed on her face.”
Randy took another moment to relive the incident. And then added, “And it broke.”
Chad took the same moment to imagine the incident. And didn’t know what to say. This was truly one of the saddest things he had ever heard—and also one of the most absurd. And something about the absurdity of it made him want to snicker. But he didn’t, because he could tell that the big guy was pretty broken up about what had happened. So he stifled his snicker.
And the fellas sat in silence for a long time.
And Randy relived his dancing debacle. Over and over.
And Chad relived his imagined version of the dancing debacle over and over. And wondered if Yvonne was okay. And took a swig of his beer. And hoped he never broke anybody’s face.
And Randy hoped that Yvonne was okay, too. And took a swig of his beer. And vowed that he was done with breaking people’s faces. On purpose or accidentally.
And then he crushed his can on his head and tossed it in the paper bag he had brought his six-pack of beer in. And Chad wished that he was as good at crushing a beer can on his head as Randy was.
And then Randy grabbed another beer and opened it and started drinking it. And then shared the kicker to his story: “I had to take her to the emergency room.”
“Oof,” groaned Chad.
And then he tried to imagine the drive to the emergency room.
And then wondered which emergency room Randy had taken Yvonne to. “Fort Kent?”
“Huh?”
“Fort Kent or Caribou?”
“Oh. Fort Kent.”
Chad shook his head in pity. It was thirty-eight miles to Fort Kent. “That’s a drive,” he said flatly.
“Yup.”
Randy relived the thirty-eight-mile drive to Fort Kent.
And Chad imagined the thirty-eight-mile drive to Fort Kent. And then asked, “What’d they say?”
“What do you mean, ‘What’d they say?’”
“At the hospital?”
“What do you think they said? They said her face broke, dude.”
“Yeah, where?”
“Orbit—somethin’.” Randy indicated his eye and couldn’t remember the term “orbital fracture,” so he said, “Her eye bone and cheekbone broke.”
“Oof.” Chad took a swig of his beer. And then asked, “Blood?”
“Oh, yeah.” Randy took a swig of his beer and then sneered, “And she cried!”
“Hate that,” griped Chad.
“The whole way.”
“Ugh.”
“And then—when we get to the hospital—she asks me to call her old boyfriend—who lives up there—to come be with her!”
“Oh, no!” Chad half groaned and half exclaimed.
“Oh, yeah!” Randy took a swig of his beer. “And I call him. And when he gets there, he asks me to ‘please leave.’ As if she was his.”
Chad hissed. And took a swig of his beer.
“He’s as small as she is,” added Randy wryly.
And Chad laughed. And the beer he had just drunk sprayed out of his mouth and up his nose.
And Randy laughed, too. At Yvonne’s tiny boyfriend. And at the absurdity of it all. And at Chad’s spit take.
And Chad coughed for a while and eventually recovered from the beer that had gone up his nose.
And then the guys sat in silence for a bit.
And Randy relived his drive to the hospital in Fort Kent.
And Chad imagined Randy’s drive to the hospital in Fort Kent. With Yvonne. And all her blood. And all her tears.
And then he made a weird sound—a combination of a snort and a chortle and a scoff.
“What?” asked Randy.
“That’s just pretty bad,” said Chad in grand understatement.
“Yup,” nodded Randy, almost triumphantly.
“And sad.”
“Yup.”
“So … I guess you win,” Chad capitulated.
Randy raised his arms, fists clenched, assuming a championship pose. “Yes!” he bellowed.
Chad laughed and said, “That right there might make you the big winner of all time!”
“Yup!” Randy bellowed louder, fists still clenched, arms still raised.
“Baddest-date guy of all time!” announced Chad, egging Randy on.
“Yaaaaaaah!” cheered Randy, strutting like a rooster.
“Congratulations!” cheered Chad.
“Thank you!” grunted Randy and he assumed the championship pose again and opened his mouth wide and made a sound like there was an imaginary crowd cheering for him.
And Chad laughed.
And then Randy dropped the championship pose.
And it was quiet again.
And the guys fell into a deep sadness as they contemplated their worst dates ever.
And then Chad managed to pull himself
out of his sadness and asked Randy, “So what do you pick tomorrow?”
Randy shrugged and said what the winner always said. “Bowlin’. Supper at the Snowmobile Club. Coupla beers at the Moose Paddy. Hang out.”
Chad said, “Good.”
And then he wondered if someday they’d pick something else as the prize.
And then he air-toasted Randy.
And Randy air-toasted back.
And then Chad finished his beer.
And Randy finished his.
And crushed his empty can on his head.
And Chad didn’t quite crush his empty can on his head.
And then Randy made like his crushed beer can was a basketball and he pretended he was in the closing seconds of a championship game, and he counted down, “Three!… Two!… One!” and made a buzzer-beating shot into the paper bag that he had brought the Natty Light in. And then he made like an imaginary crowd was roaring for him in adoration. And then said, “And now, Chad Buzza for the win!” to let Chad know it was his turn to be the hero.
And Chad got up and fake-dribbled and pulled up.
And missed his buzzer-beating shot.
And his almost-crushed empty beer can clinked and clanked on the packed snow and finally settled behind the bag.
And Randy made the sounds of an imaginary crowd booing.
And the guys laughed.
And their laughter melted away and they slid into another sad silence. Which Chad tried to pull himself out of by laughing. And his laugh sounded like a dying animal.
Randy looked at Chad, wondering what the heck the sound he just made was. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I don’t know. Just … sometimes I don’t know why I bother goin’ out. I don’t like it, Randy. I hate it. I hate goin’ out on these … dates.” Chad’s voice was getting high and phlegmy. “I mean, why do I wanna spend my Friday night with some girl I might maybe like, when I could be spendin’ it hangin’ out with someone I know I like, like you, you know?”
“Yeah,” Randy laughed, and wondered why they put so much effort into the ‘big maybe’ that was dating.
“I mean … that was rough tonight,” continued Chad, and he kicked at the snow and started pacing. “In the middle of Sally tellin’ me how she didn’t like the way I smelled … I got sad.”
“Yeah, well, you’re always sad.”
“No. This was different. This was a new kind of sad.”
Randy really didn’t want to hear about Chad’s new kind of sadness.
But Chad really wanted to tell Randy about it. So he did. “And all I could think about was how not much in this world makes me feel good or makes much sense anymore.”
Randy stopped breathing for a second and hoped Chad wasn’t going to tell him that he wanted to kill himself or something.
“And I got really scared,” continued Chad, still pacing. “’Cause there’s gotta be something that makes you feel good or at least makes sense in this world, or what’s the point, right?”
“I guess…” Randy was trying to figure out what he was going to do if Chad said he wanted to kill himself.
“But then…” Chad stopped pacing and continued, “I kinda came out of bein’ sad and actually felt okay, ’cause I realized that there is one thing in this world that makes me feel really good and that does make sense, and it’s you.”
The words flew out of Chad’s mouth—before the thought they were trying to describe had even been fully formed.
So Chad wasn’t quite sure what he meant by what he had just said.
And Randy wasn’t quite sure what he had just heard Chad say. Or what Chad meant.
And the guys felt like everything had stopped—like some kind of cosmic shutdown had occurred.
And they sat in the midwinter northern Maine silence and stillness.
And Chad started to feel a strange lightness suddenly grow inside him. It made him feel warm and weightless—like the gentlest fireworks ever were going off inside him, and like helium was filling his body. And—like he had been released from a great sadness.
But then, just as suddenly as it had come on, the lightness was being replaced by a strange heaviness—and not the usual heaviness he felt inside. It was an even heavier heaviness. And it made him feel like it was going to pull him to the ground.
Chad fought the feeling that he was going to fall, and, as he did, Randy suddenly hopped up—so fast that it felt like he had singlehandedly jumpstarted the cosmos and made everything start moving again, and the stillness gave way to motion and the silence gave way to sound as Randy got to his feet.
And Randy decided that he was going to ignore what Chad had just said—whatever it was that he had just said—and carry on as if it had never been said—if it had even been said at all.
“Well, I’m gonna head,” Randy said gruffly, and he started bending down to grab his flashlight and his bag of beer when Chad realized that he could no longer fight the strange feeling that he was going to fall.
And then he fell.
His knees buckled.
And his legs crumpled.
And he couldn’t get his hands out of his pants pockets in time to brace his fall.
And he face-planted onto the snow.
Suddenly and completely—and almost in slow motion.
Randy witnessed Chad’s strange face-plant.
And tried to figure out what had just happened.
And wondered if Chad had had a seizure or something. His cousin from Frenchville had a miniature pony that had some sort of neurological disorder and would periodically collapse. Maybe Chad had a similar condition.
“What is wrong with you?” demanded Randy, implying that a lot was wrong with Chad. Because something was definitely wrong with Chad. Because of what he had just done. And because of what he had just said.
Chad didn’t answer Randy’s question. And slowly started getting up, brushing the snow off his beard and his face and his coat and his jeans as he did.
When he was on his feet again, he looked completely bewildered.
And so did Randy. “You all right or what?” he asked in a way that let Chad know that the only answer he would accept was yes.
“Yeah,” answered Chad unconvincingly.
“All right. Well, I’m gonna head,” he said again, and he grabbed his flashlight and his bag of beer.
“Yeah,” said Chad. “Me, too.”
“I gotta work in the mornin’,” said Randy, and he started to make his way up the snowbank.
“Yeah, well, let me know when you’re done, and I’ll pick you up whenever you want.”
Randy didn’t really want to hang out with Chad tomorrow and felt like maybe he didn’t want to hang out with him ever again, and said, “Oh, I don’t know, Chad. I’m helpin’ Lendall—he brought me on to work on Marvalyn and Eric’s roof, and—”
“Well, whenever you’re done, just let me know.”
“Well, their roof collapsed, you know? So it’s gonna be a big job.”
“Well, just give me a call when you’re done.”
“I don’t know when we’ll be done—could take all day—so let’s just bag it.”
“Well, you can’t bag it!” cried Chad, almost pleading.
Chad was deeply regretting saying what he had said—even though he hadn’t planned to say it—and hadn’t meant to say it. And he started to feel like he was losing his best friend because he had said it. And the heaviness that had made him crumple to the ground grew inside him again and made him feel like he could barely stand. “You’re the big winner!” he reminded Randy as he tried to remain upright, “So I can be ready whenever you want me to come pick ya up.”
“You know what—?”
“Just say when and I’ll be there!”
“You know what, Chad—?”
“’Cause you can’t bag it! We gotta—!”
“Chad! You know what?” Randy held his hand out in front of him—like he was stopping traffic—to let Chad know that the conversation was ov
er and that he was getting a little ticked off. “I’ll see ya later!” And he knew he was lying. Because he wouldn’t be seeing Chad later—or ever again. If he could help it.
And he made his way back up the snowbank.
And Chad said, “Okay,” and he watched Randy go. And he felt for sure that he wasn’t going to see him later. Or ever again. And he didn’t want that. So he tried not to sound desperate when he called, “Hey, Randy!”
Randy ignored Chad and continued climbing the snowbank.
And then heard the oof sound that a body makes when the wind gets knocked out of it from a sudden fall.
Randy turned and directed the beam from his flashlight onto Chad.
And it revealed Chad facedown in the snow.
Again.
Because Chad had suddenly and completely fallen down—almost in slow motion—again.
Randy was now convinced that Chad had the same thing wrong with him that his cousin from Frenchville’s pony did.
“Hey!” called Randy. And he made his way down the snowbank to make sure Chad was okay. Because, even though Chad had said something that Randy didn’t quite want to understand, he didn’t want to leave Chad there if he had the same thing wrong with him that his cousin’s pony did. “You all right?”
Chad pushed himself up out of the snow. “I don’t know,” he answered.
“What the—here…” Randy grabbed Chad by the arms and hauled his former best friend up onto his feet again.
“Thanks,” said Chad, brushing snow off himself again and wondering what in the world had just happened.
“What was that? You okay?”
“Yeah. I just … fell.”
“Yeah,” scoffed Randy. “I kinda figured that out. Has this happened before?” he asked, shining his light in Chad’s eyes to see if he could diagnose a neurological impairment.
“No—just…” Chad thought. Deeply. And for a while. And tried to sort out what had just happened. And what he was going to say. And he felt that strange lightness fill him up again. And it made his heart swell this time. And he gasped a little and pressed his hand on the part of his chest where his heart lived.
“What? What’s wrong?” asked Randy, suddenly wondering if Chad had a heart condition, and not a neurological one.