Teddy was smiling broadly. “Kind of makes you wonder what your mom was like as a girl.”
“My exact thought at the time. When I asked about that, she just gave this rueful laugh and said she’d had this friend that Jacy reminded her of. Then she told me the world wasn’t always kind to fiery girls who didn’t have strong men to protect them. I think she was hinting that I might’ve been that man for Jacy, and that her biggest fear was that I’d end up being somebody who played things safe.”
Nobody said anything until Teddy broke the silence. “I’m envious, actually. Your parents both cared about you enough to give you bad advice.”
Lincoln chuckled yet again. “What’s that poem you’re always quoting? About parents?”
Teddy nodded. “Larkin. ‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do…’ ”
“The original proximate causes.”
They were coming into Oak Bluffs now, the Atlantic on their right, Teddy staring out across its expanse as if he could see whatever lay on the far side.
“Hey,” Lincoln said. “You gonna be okay?”
“Yep,” his friend replied. “I’m ready. Put me in, Coach.”
When they turned onto Circuit Avenue, Mickey’s Harley was parked right in front of the neon ROCKERS sign.
Teddy took a deep breath, his hand already on the door handle. “Here we go,” he said. “Rock and roll, played at a very high volume.”
Teddy
They selected one of the tables farthest from the stage. Though their first set wasn’t until nine, over an hour away, the band Mickey had dragged them into Oak Bluffs to hear had already set up, and their sound system, given the size of the room, was truly terrifying to behold. In addition to several enormous guitar amps, there were four column speakers on adjustable stands that almost reached the acoustic-tiled ceiling, as well as several smaller stage-mounted amps pointing back where the musicians would stand, presumably so they, too, could hear the deafness-inducing sound. Even more disconcerting were the three microphones arranged on the floor around the drum kit. In a room this small, why would drums need further amplification?
At Mickey’s insistence they’d all ordered ribs, the best on the island, he claimed, no point in even glancing at the menu. Each order came with coleslaw, baked beans, cornbread, pickles, a mountain of fries and, incredibly, two deviled eggs. Teddy, who hadn’t had anything to eat since that clam roll at Gay Head, should’ve been hungry but wasn’t, a possible sign that the episode he’d hoped had been forestalled might still be lurking. If so, he’d just have to deal with it, like always. Meanwhile, his goal would be to get through the threatened evening of beer drinking and very loud music. When they arrived, Mickey made them promise to stay for at least one full set, after which they were free to head back to Chilmark and be fucking dweebs if they wanted to. Copy that. And in the morning, if Teddy was still feeling iffy, he’d catch an early ferry off the island, then decide whether to visit Brother John or just head back to Syracuse. A Marx Brothers marathon and some long walks in the Vermont woods would be a pleasant distraction but little more unless he took his old friend up on his standing offer to move in. The idea of a cloistered religious setting wasn’t wholly without appeal. Possibly this was what had attracted him to Merton so long ago. Nor would not having any attractive women around be a bad idea, either. Now that Theresa was all but gone, he could admit to being more than a little in love with her. Why risk that happening again? Unfortunately, present company excepted, he generally liked women better than men and was happier in their less competitive proximity. Maybe there was a convent somewhere that would take him in.
At the moment Lincoln was watching with undisguised amazement as Mickey devoured a full rack of ribs; Lincoln and Teddy ordered the half. “Tell me you don’t eat like this all the time,” he said.
“Like what?” Mickey replied, a tiny spot of barbecue sauce on the tip of his nose.
“Like this,” Lincoln said, gesturing widely at what was an astonishing amount of food, even for three grown men.
Mickey pointed a gnawed rib bone at him, and he leaned back away from it. “This is food. So yeah, I do eat like this all the time. What do you eat, tofu?”
“Occasionally,” Lincoln confessed. “Pasta. Vegetables.”
“Hey, I eat vegetables. Just this morning I ate a stalk of celery with my Bloody Mary. You want my coleslaw? Because that I probably won’t eat.”
“Of course not. It’s the one mostly healthy thing on the plate.”
Mickey considered this, his eyes narrowing. “Why mostly?”
“Well, I assume it’s dressed with mayonnaise.”
“I should fucking hope so,” an indignant Mickey said before turning his attention to Teddy. “How about you, Teduski? What are you ingesting these days?”
Having anticipated this question, Teddy was prepared. “Lately, I’m really into crudo,” he said.
“Crudo,” Mickey repeated, glancing at Lincoln for enlightenment. When Lincoln shrugged, he fixed Teddy suspiciously. “The fuck is crudo.”
“Raw fish,” Teddy explained. “Tuna. Salmon. Scallops.”
The look of outrage on his friend’s face was deeply satisfying. “That’s bait.”
Teddy nodded. “Yum.”
“See?” Mickey said, this time pointing the rib bone at him. “This is what comes of listening to fucking Belle and Sebastian. You’re not going to finish those?”
Teddy handed over what remained of his half rack. At least a quarter.
Ever since they’d arrived at Rockers, he’d been studying his friend, trying to imagine whatever could’ve possessed Troyer to suggest it was Mickey they should be talking to if they wanted to find out what happened to Jacy. Probably he’d meant only to divert attention from himself. When Teddy pointed out that Mickey had been in love with her, Troyer had scoffed, but why? Was he just projecting his own hatred of women onto someone against whom he already held a grudge, or did he actually have a reason to believe Mickey might be one of those men capable of harming a woman he loved? That afternoon they all spent drinking beer on the deck, had Mickey said or done anything Troyer could have misinterpreted? Teddy racked his brain but came up empty.
“Also,” Mickey was saying, “I’m guessing you guys eat three meals a day, right? While I have one.”
“Seriously?” Lincoln frowned.
“Hey, musicians are nocturnal. When I was younger I’d still be up at dawn, which meant I could eat breakfast before heading home. Double stack of pancakes, side of greasy sausage, pile of home fries, toast. Kill the hangover before it starts. These days I’m home by three at the latest, which means I’m down to a single meal.”
“Well”—Lincoln shook his head—“this one’s a doozy.”
“Tedmarek,” Mickey said, shifting gears. “Why the hell are you rushing back to the Rust Belt tomorrow? Come hang out with me on the Cape for a few days. I’ve got a pullout sofa.”
Okay, Teddy thought, so who is Delia? The conversation he’d overheard part of earlier had sounded intimate, but whoever she was, this Delia person must not be living with Mickey, or he wouldn’t have extended the invitation so cavalierly.
“My dog won’t like you sleeping on it,” Mickey conceded, “but his affection and forgiveness can usually be bought with chocolate.”
“You have a dog?” Lincoln said, surprised.
Mickey nodded. “Clapton.”
“Clapton?”
Mickey turned to Teddy. “Again,” he said, “can you tell when he’s joking?” When Teddy shrugged, he continued, “He wandered in one day. He’s old now. Blind. Arthritic. Occasionally incontinent.”
“You make staying with you sound really attractive,” Teddy told him.
“Hey, don’t turn your nose up. By the end of the week I’ll have you eating real food again. I bet I could c
ure you of that Mumford and Sons disorder, too.”
“Hey, what was the upshot with that guitar?” Teddy asked.
Mickey blinked at him. “What guitar?”
“You said some guy had a Rickenbacker for sale.”
“Oh, right,” Mickey said, pushing his plate toward the center of the table and stifling a well-earned belch. “He wants too much, so I’m letting him sweat a bit. I may call him again before heading home.”
It was still fifteen minutes until the first set, but Rockers, nearly empty when they got there, was starting to fill up. Having drunk two pints of beer, Teddy was, too. On his way to the men’s room, he passed the stage and marveled again at how crammed it was with sound equipment. Back at Minerva all Mickey’s band had required was a couple amps and a small, portable PA system. How much did all this extra stuff cost? he wondered. There were two bass drums, their facings covered with drop cloths for some reason (had the drummer recently quit a band with another name to join this one?) as well as two snares and four cymbals of varying sizes. Did a local rock band really require a keyboard and a synthesizer? What was with all the foot pedals? The musicians had apparently done their sound check earlier because the amps were humming with static electricity, the mics picking up an ambient buzz of conversation from nearby tables. At one of these, off to the side, lounged four wraithlike guys who had to be the band. Only four, Teddy thought, counting the instruments again. In addition to the keyboards and drums, an electric bass and two six-string guitars were propped on their stands. One of them, he now noticed, was an old Rickenbacker that looked to be in cherry condition, as Mickey had put it.
Teddy was still chuckling to himself when the door opened and Mickey appeared in the men’s room mirror, unzipping at an adjacent urinal. “Asshole,” he said. “You figured it out, didn’t you?”
“Yep.”
“Don’t you dare tell Lincoln.”
“I won’t.”
They peed side by side, two men with prostates that, like the rest of their organs, had seen better days. “All kidding aside,” Mickey said when Teddy zipped up and moved to the sink. “You should come hang out on the Cape for a few days.”
Had he and Lincoln been talking? Not that it mattered. Nothing he’d told Lincoln about his spells had been in confidence. Of course it was also possible that Lincoln hadn’t said a thing. Mickey might’ve looked him over and concluded he was in a bad way. “I wish I could.”
“Why can’t you? You’re done teaching, right?”
“Yeah, but I need to get back.”
Mickey made a don’t-shit-a-shitter face. “BS,” he said. Friendly enough, but a challenge nevertheless.
Teddy decided to be forthright. “You can’t help me, Mick. I appreciate the concern, but I’ll just have to soldier through it, like always.”
Mickey zipped up and joined him at the sink. “Maybe it’s time to try something different,” he offered, “though for the record, the invitation wasn’t about you. There’s somebody I’d like you to meet.”
“Yeah? Who?” Because if there was somebody new in Mickey’s life, Teddy was happy for him, even if that happiness was tinged with envy.
“No dice,” Mickey said. “It’s a surprise.” He grabbed a fistful of paper towels from the dispenser. “Anyway, think about it.”
When their eyes met in the mirror, it occurred to Teddy that his friend might actually be asking for a favor. If so, it would be his first ever. “Okay,” he promised, “I will.”
When they returned to the table, their plates had been cleared away, and the musicians were casually mounting the stage. “You’re gonna like these guys,” Mickey said, draining the last of his beer.
The waitress came by to see if they wanted another round, and both Lincoln and Teddy nodded. Mickey shook his head almost imperceptibly, a gesture Lincoln didn’t catch, though he did notice when Mickey and Teddy grinned at each other. “What?” he said, immediately suspicious.
“Nothing, Your Honor,” Mickey assured him.
“Nothing,” Teddy agreed.
When the drummer hit the rim of his snare, it sounded like a gunshot played through a bullhorn, and the bassist thumped a note that Teddy didn’t so much hear as feel in the pit of his stomach. The keyboard player adjusted his dials so that the instrument sounded like a honky-tonk piano. One of the bartenders, a muscle-bound, goateed, midthirties guy in a white T-shirt, both arms sleeved with tattoos, yelled, “Rock and roll!” The drummer, arms raised above his head, clicked his sticks—one, two, three—and the rhythm guitarist and keyboard man came in on the downbeat, which started the crowd clapping. The Rickenbacker guitar sat unclaimed in the middle of the stage. “Well,” Mickey said, grinning over at Lincoln. “I guess I’ll see you boys later.”
The audience was no longer looking at the stage but instead had pivoted in their direction, and suddenly a spotlight blinded them. The look on Lincoln’s face, Teddy had to admit, was priceless. “I don’t—” he began, bewildered and blinking, until the spotlight left them to follow Mickey as he strode to the stage, which he bounded onto with one leap. The drummer had removed the drop cloths that had covered his two bass drums, one of which now read BIG MICK and the other ON POTS, the name of Mickey’s old band. The drummer also joined in literally with both feet. Slinging the Rickenbacker over his shoulder, Mickey stepped to the mic, his voice filling the room with thunder. “Church house, gin house!”
To which the other singers and the crowd responded, “School house, out house!”
Mickey: “Highway number nineteen!”
Crowd: “People keep the city clean!”
Teddy recognized the song, “Nutbush City Limits,” the old Ike and Tina Turner hit, and of course he thought again of Jacy, because this was exactly the kind of song she would’ve belted out back in the day. Only there was no Jacy anymore, so it was the Bob Seger version they were playing, Mickey’s voice all rasp and grind.
“Nutbush!” he called.
“Nutbush City!” the crowd roared back.
“Nutbush City Limits!”
Everyone in the room agreed. “Nutbush City Limits!”
Teddy glanced over at Lincoln, who was shaking his head but also grinning ear to ear, having finally realized that he was the only one not in the know. “Tell me something,” he shouted, so as to be heard over the roar of the guitars and the pounding drums and the frenzied crowd. “How did I get such dicks for friends?” But he had his phone out and Teddy watched him switch it from photo mode to video. With everybody in the joint on their feet, his only chance of getting a clear shot of the band was to climb up on a chair, so Lincoln did. Teddy followed suit, sorry all over again that Theresa was no longer in his life. If he, too, made a recording, he’d have no one to share it with.
Maybe, he thought, Mickey was right. Maybe it wasn’t too late to try a new tack. Maybe give the monastery a chance. What he couldn’t quite decide was whether that would constitute a bold new direction or just a timid recycling of the old divinity school idea. At twenty-one, having given up on love, cloistered life had seemed a sensible option. Like so many serious young men back then, he’d been genuinely taken with the idea (Merton’s, actually) of a simple, consecrated life, far outside the madness of the secular world. But now? Who was he kidding? At some point, probably not long after starting Seven Storey Books, it’d dawned on him that he in fact hated Merton and despised how he’d turned his back on the world in favor of religious devotion. Ego-driven, self-deceived little shit that he was, old Tom had been every bit as competitive about piety as he’d been in the pursuit of carnal pleasure. Perhaps because so many people had concluded wrongly that Teddy was gay, he’d always rejected any suggestion that Merton might be, but now he wasn’t so sure. Why had he been so vague and coy about his sexual adventures in Seven Storey Mountain? Why did he seem to hang out only with men? Even Aramis, Dumas’s middle Musketeer
, a serial adulterer even as he prepared for the priesthood, had been less dishonest.
“Nutbush!” Mickey howled, the song’s refrain having come back around again, and the emotion on his friend’s face was one Teddy hadn’t felt in such a long time that he at first couldn’t identify it. Joy. Pure, unadulterated joy. What Mickey loved now—rock and roll played at a very high volume—was what he’d loved as a boy. Recognizing what filled his soul to bursting, he’d cleaved to it, and across the decades they had remained the most faithful of lovers. It also occurred to Teddy that his not letting him and Lincoln in on whose band was playing tonight was exactly the kind of secret Mickey loved to keep and then reveal at the precise right moment, as if to prove that the world truly was a magical place full of wondrous surprises. Otherwise, just as Lincoln said earlier, he really was a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy. He’d stayed in the steamy sorority-house kitchen washing pots because he preferred doing that to flirting with pretty girls in the front room. There was only one Theta he ever cared about, and he never pretended otherwise. He’d punched that SAE pledge because those stone lions out front, whatever they represented to him in that drunken moment, had in fact pissed him off. Why, at the last possible moment, had he changed his mind and gone to Canada instead of reporting for duty in Vietnam? Well, okay, Teddy didn’t have a clue, but he was confident that the answer, if revealed, wouldn’t be complicated, because Mickey himself wasn’t complicated. No general studies major, he knew who and what he loved; in other words he knew who he was. If Troyer had arrived at a different conclusion, he was full of shit.
“Nutbush City!” the crowd roared, their fists pumping in the air.
“Nutbush City Limits!” cried Mickey.
Cried the crowd.
Cried Lincoln.
Cried Teddy himself, his own fist pumping with the rest.
“Nutbush City Limits!”
Lincoln
Chances Are . . . Page 19