Back in high school we had all purchased identical silver satin jackets and dubbed ourselves: The Sultans, the only gang in Potter’s Cove, Massachusetts; an otherwise quiet and unassuming working-class town nestled along the coast south of Boston. It was a joke, really, but it signified that we were one. Friends for life, always there for each other, the same blood brothers we’d become years before as kids, huddled in a tree house in Tommy’s backyard, nicking our thumbs and sharing blood like in the B-Westerns.
Nineteen years out of high school I found myself standing in our bedroom holding that old Sultans jacket and wondering how we’d all managed to go so wrong.
Frustrated…marking time…
And now, we were only three.
I slipped the jacket back onto its plastic hangar, slid the closet door shut and moved to the window. My hands were trembling.
I never heard her get out of bed, only felt the sudden warmth of her as she embraced me from behind. Her voice filtered through those whispering in my head; distracted me from memories and the beginnings of a sunrise.
“Why did he do it?” I heard myself ask. “Why didn’t he come to one of us?”
I replayed the moment the phone rang, jarring us from sleep, my startled and angry middle-of-the-night “Hello!” answered by Donald’s voice—cracked, uncertain, vodka-slurred and void of the confidence that often bordered on arrogance in his tone. Alan, I’m—Christ, I’m sorry to wake you, but—Alan, something terrible has happened.
No longer worried she might see the tears in my eyes I looked at her and realized she was trying to comfort me, trying to be there for me, doing her best.
Her brown, doe-like eyes blinked, cleared. “You going to be OK?”
I touched her shoulder, so delicate beneath a plaid flannel nightshirt. Reminded of the nightmare Donald’s phone call had interrupted—one horror replaced with another—I drew a deep breath and tried to sort my thoughts. Bernard was dead and the world hadn’t even noticed. We hadn’t even noticed. “I have to meet Donald and Rick in an hour.”
She padded silently to the bed, plucked her cigarette from an ashtray on the nightstand and took a final drag before slipping her feet into a pair of slippers shaped like floppy-eared bunny rabbits.
I wanted to turn back to the window. I wanted to watch the sun come up, to wander into the living room, to slip the stereo headphones on and listen to The Mamas & The Papas sing about California and dreams and dancing in the streets while a thick and sloppy rain bled from gray skies. I wanted to forget the whole goddamn thing.
“You were having a nightmare,” Toni said suddenly, as if she’d just remembered. “I was about to wake you when the phone rang.”
I clenched shut my eyes. In those few short and blurred seconds before I’d escaped sleep and answered the phone, I’d already known Bernard was dead.
“He’s been dead for five days.” I focused on the slush sluicing along the window, rain becoming snow, night becoming day. “He didn’t even leave a note.”
“Come on,” she said, gently taking my hand, “I’ll make some coffee.”
On our way down the hallway, Toni promised everything would be all right.
She lied.
CHAPTER 2
We stood near the tracks talking; the whistle from an approaching train blaring in the distance as an icy wind blew through the tall grass surrounding us. The snow had again become a light though slushy rain.
Nothing seemed real.
Donald flashed an annoyed look through bloodshot eyes. “Is there some point to being out here?”
“Privacy.” Rick gazed through the grass, across the parking lot separating us from the diner, then considered his watch. “Besides, they don’t open for a couple minutes anyway.”
Fumbling through the pockets of his raincoat for cigarettes and a lighter, Donald rolled his eyes and sighed, his breath already converted to smoky plumes wafting about and tangling with ours like warring apparitions. “For Christ’s sake, it’s freezing out here.”
“Don’t be such a pussy, Donny.” Rick puffed his chest up like a rooster and folded his arms across it. “So what did his cousin say, exactly?”
I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my leather jacket, shuffled my feet, and exchanged glances with Rick, who seemed unaffected by the weather. Our individuality was more evident at that moment somehow, and I found myself wondering how we had managed to stay so close despite our glaring differences.
Pieces of the whole, Tommy had said back in high school. Our original leader, long dead now, at some point replaced by Rick, the ultimate Alpha Male, always so happy to remind the rest of us how inadequate we were, how we were half the men we’d once been, yet always there to save us, to defend us if need be.
Donald struggled to light the cigarette against a mounting breeze. His eyes, saddled with heavy black bags, seemed more sunken than usual; his complexion more pallid, his frame thinner, bordering on emaciated. “I called him about ten o’clock.” He finally got the cigarette going. “I’d had a few drinks and I didn’t realize it was quite so late. I think I woke his cousin up, he sounded groggy when he answered. Bernard had called me a few times, left messages on my machine, but I hadn’t had the chance to get back to him and I wanted to see how he was.”
The train interrupted him, rushing past, its whistle deafening. We turned and watched the seemingly endless procession of boxcars until they had snaked off around a bend in the tracks. “Trash train,” Rick announced, as if this common knowledge was something only he possessed.
Donald’s wiry frame swayed with the wind as he smoothed his thinning hair with long, narrow fingers. “When I asked for Bernard,” he continued, “his cousin didn’t answer, and I thought for a moment maybe the line had gone dead. But then I could hear him breathing and I knew—I knew something was wrong. He finally said he was sorry and that Bernard had passed away. Those were the words he used, passed away.”
“I still can’t believe it.” Rick shook his head, drawing attention to the blue bandana covering it and the small gold cross dangling from his ear. With his swarthy good looks and athletic, muscular build, he looked younger and better than Donald and I did, and he knew it. He’d stayed in shape playing various sports and lifting weights, still had all his hair, didn’t smoke and rarely drank. Vanity, competition, sex with young women—those were Rick’s vices, and his job as a bouncer at a local club gave him the opportunity to pursue all three.
“I asked what happened,” Donald said flatly, smoking his cigarette with mechanical repetition. “He said he found Bernard Tuesday afternoon.”
“Jesus,” Rick sighed. “He was dead since then and we didn’t even know.”
Donald looked away. “When he didn’t offer anything more, I asked again what had happened. That’s when he said Bernard had hanged himself.”
I ignored the vision of a limp body suspended from rafters as it flashed across my mind’s eye. I considered mentioning the nightmare I’d had, but decided against it.
“It’s state law that an autopsy be performed in all cases of unattended death,” Donald explained. “Of course, Bernard’s death was ruled a suicide, but apparently his cousin didn’t have the funds to provide for funeral arrangements and Bernard was broke, so—”
“Why didn’t this asshole call one of us?” Rick snapped. “Did you ask him that?”
Donald dropped his cigarette, crushed it beneath the sole of his shoe then hugged himself and shook his head in the negative. “I was in shock, I—I just wanted to get off the phone. I didn’t want to hear anymore.”
“So where is he?” I asked.
“The state covered the cost of his burial. Absolute minimum, I’m sure. His cousin said they have a section of one of the public cemeteries in the city for this kind of thing, and that’s where Bernard was buried. He doesn’t even have a headstone.”
Rick put hands on hips and assumed an unintentional heroic-like pose that would have been comical under different circumstances. “We’l
l take care of that down the road. I know a guy. Now, what about his things?”
“I don’t imagine Bernard had much left.” Donald motioned with his chin to the diner. The lights had come on. “Let’s get out of the rain.”
Normally the diner was hopping first thing in the morning, but since most of the clientele didn’t work weekends, Saturdays got off to a slower start. But for two elderly and grizzled regulars already slumped on stools at the counter, swapping stories and sipping coffee, we were alone.
Donald and I slipped into a booth near the back while Rick grabbed a toothpick from a cup on the counter, rolled it into the corner of his mouth and chatted briefly with the waitress. He ambled down the aisle separating the rows of booths and joined us a moment later. “Ordered some coffees,” he said, dropping across from me, next to Donald. “I worked last night, haven’t been to bed yet, but I’m too wired to sleep now anyway. I say we take a ride to New Bedford and have a talk with Bernard’s cousin.”
“Look, we don’t know this guy at all,” I said. “He might not want us around.”
“Who gives a shit what he wants?”
Donald scrambled for his cigarettes. “What’s the point?”
“I want to know what happened.”
“For Christ’s sake, I just told you what happened.”
The waitress interrupted just in time, placed steaming mugs of coffee in front of us and asked if we planned to order breakfast. Through a forced smile I told her the coffee would be sufficient. Once she was out of earshot Rick leaned forward and zeroed in on me, forearms on the table between us. “What do you think?”
I warmed my hands on the side of the mug and gazed at the rain. “Bernard’s gone, man. Doesn’t make a damn bit of difference what we do.”
Rick flopped back against the bench. “Fine, you guys do whatever you want. I’m going over there.”
“Why?” Donald asked. “For what purpose, exactly?”
“One,” Rick snapped, “I want to know where they buried him. Two, I want to know if he has any stuff left. Might be nice to have something of his, right? Like, remember when Tommy died and his mother sent us stuff?”
I did remember. Specifically, an illustration Tommy had made in elementary school his mother had given me not long after his death. I still had it tucked neatly away in my desk at home, and though I hadn’t looked at it in years, the knowledge that it was there—some palpable piece of him, his history—was somehow comforting. I glanced at Donald, who was twisting a napkin in his hands as if it had done something to offend him. “We do need to know where he’s buried.”
“I don’t even know where the house is,” Donald said.
Rick threw back some coffee. “I do. We went out for lunch a couple weeks ago. I picked him up out in front.”
“Was that the last time you saw him?” I asked. Rick gave a nod and looked away. An uncomfortable silence fell for what seemed an eternity, amplifying the sound of the rain. Flashes of the nightmare slithered through me, summoning a chill that began at the nape of my neck. “I hadn’t seen him in about a month,” I finally said.
“Me either.” Donald threw the napkin aside. “I should’ve called him back sooner, I—”
“Don’t do that to yourself, man.” Rick cracked his knuckles with a loud pop; a nervous habit he’d possessed since childhood. “This ain’t our fault. Bernard had some hard times—just like the rest of us—and he made a decision. That’s it.”
I sipped my coffee. “Why would he do it? Jesus, why would he—”
“Fucking cowardly if you ask me.”
Donald glared at him. “No one asked.”
“He didn’t even have the balls to leave a note.”
Donald crushed his cigarette in a small glass ashtray and slid it away with disgust. “Sometimes you are such an asshole. Do you think maybe we could mourn for a while before you start passing your usual lofty judgements? Don’t we owe him that much?”
“We were his friends. We’re like brothers. He should’ve come to us if it got that bad. He should’ve—”
“Did he call you in the two weeks since you saw him last? Did he? He called me. I know he called Alan, did he call you too, Rick? Did he?”
“I never called him back either,” I admitted. “I kept meaning to but…”
Rick took a gulp of coffee and returned the mug to the table with a violent slam. “Fuck this. Things got tough and Bernard checked out. He took the easy way out, man, that’s all I’m saying.”
“The easy way,” Donald said through a mock chuckle. “Is there such a thing?”
I reached across the table, grabbed Donald’s pack of cigarettes and shook one free. I’d quit a few months prior, but now, recognizing a stressful and sorrowful time, the addiction was beckoning, calling to me once again. I rolled the cigarette between my fingers. “If we’re going to do this let’s get it the hell over with.”
“You don’t need that.” Rick reached across the table, snatched the cigarette and crushed it in his hand. “Took you months to quit, why blow it now?”
Donald’s jaw dropped. “Yeah, crush the whole pack, it’s not like I have to pay for them or anything.”
“Like I give a shit. Those things are killing us.” Rick opened his hand, emptied the torn paper and loose tobacco onto the table then scrambled out of the booth. “Come on.” He dug a wad of bills from his pocket, peeled off a few singles and tossed them over the mess he’d made. “We’ll take my Jeep.”
* * *
Rain drummed the roof, struggled with the squealing cadence of windshield wipers for attention. The interior of Rick’s Jeep Cherokee was neurotically immaculate, and since he didn’t allow smoking, Donald, who was already fidgeting about in back, leaned forward and poked his head between the bucket seats. “What the hell is he doing in there?”
I squinted through the blurred window. “Looks like he’s talking with the attendant.”
“Christ, pay for the gas and get on with it.” Donald sat back and crossed his legs, jeans squeaking against leather. “Sometimes, Alan, I could strangle the bastard.”
“It’s just Rick’s way. You know he doesn’t mean anything by it.”
“Well I’m getting tired of Rick’s way. God forbid he shows any emotion other than happiness or anger. Wouldn’t be sufficiently butch, apparently.”
I adjusted my position so I could look into the back. “That’s Rick, always has been, always will be. He’s as torn up over this as we are, he’ll just never show it.”
“Just like when Tommy died. The sonofabitch never shed a tear,” Donald said in an almost absent tone. “It doesn’t surprise me two of us ended up dead before we hit forty, only which two. I never thought I’d outlive any of you. Makes you wonder if life isn’t arbitrary after all.”
“Maybe you’re just indestructible, you miserable prick.”
Our eyes met, and somewhere behind the bloodshot roadmaps and dark circles I caught a glimpse of the past in Donald’s expression, one of impish humor and biting exuberance, his trademark in years past, before the booze, before the darkness.
It seemed an inappropriate time for laughter, but we laughed anyway.
It faded quickly; absorbed by the din of a relentless rain.
* * *
The grating voice of a local sportscaster droned from the car stereo. The Bruins were struggling for a playoff spot and had lost the night before. Normally I would have been interested, but I focused instead on the hiss of tires against wet pavement and the fast-approaching cityscape of New Bedford.
“Fucking Bruins,” Rick moaned. “You ask me, they need to goon it up, drop the gloves and throw some fists. All these fucking do-gooders are ruining the game.”
I turned from the window long enough to glance at him and offer a quick nod, hopeful he would take my cue and be quiet before Donald let loose on him.
“It’s even changed at the high school level,” Rick said. “Shit, when we played we got the job done—and we played like fucking men. Remem
ber the game against—”
“If I give you a dollar,” Donald said from the back, “will you stop talking?”
Rick grinned. “You’re just jealous because you never played.”
“Yes, positively green with envy.”
“Sure, make jokes, you know it’s true.”
“Can we talk about something else?” I said quickly.
Donald scoffed. “How about nothing at all?”
Rick tightened his grip on the wheel and decreased speed as we left the highway and veered along the Downtown New Bedford Exit. “Same thing with football,” he said. “I was one of the best players our school ever had, but you always made it out like it was no big deal. Guys like you always do, because you got no talent for it.”
“Guys like me. Interesting.”
“You know what I mean, don’t go getting all politically correct on me.”
Donald poked his head between the seats. “I’m glad you found such satisfaction in playing your games, Rick, really I am. But you’re pushing forty, maybe it’s time to focus on something a tad more adult.”
“You’re just bitter. All that fancy bullshit—books and classical music and all that poof-poof crap—none of it mattered in the long run. You can recite a poem some guy wrote a hundred fucking years ago, and you know all about plays and paintings and all that crap. So what? You ended up ditching college and living in Potter’s Cove working a regular job just like the rest of us. At least I got—”
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