The Wishbones

by Tom Perrotta

  Now that the initial shock had worn off, Dave had a clearer picture of his options. Gretchen was upstairs, alone in her apartment. He could give Randy the twenty bucks, send him on his way, and try her buzzer again. Maybe that was what she wanted. Maybe she'd asked Randy to leave for just that reason. Even if she didn't buzz him, he could still call her from a pay phone or leave a note in her mail slot, figure out some way to reinforce the message he'd been forced to deliver via intercom.

  But all at once, with a certainty that washed over him like a wave of fatigue, he discovered that he wasn't going to do any of these things. It was late; the day had been full of nasty surprises. He had some thinking to do, but his brain felt muddled, no longer up to the task. He popped open the passenger door, sweeping some cassette boxes off the seat to clear a space for Randy.

  They took the Manhattan Bridge instead of the Verrazano, cutting across Canal to the Holland Tunnel. Dave had been stuck inside the tunnel so often on his courier runs that he couldn't help but feel his spirits lift a little as they passed through the sickly yellow tube at sixty miles an hour. Randy must have sensed the change in his mood. He hadn't said much since climbing into the car, but now he wanted to explain himself.

  “I couldn't believe it when she called,” he said, tracing one finger over the zipper on his overnight bag. “I'd kinda forgotten about her, to tell the truth. She said she'd been thinking about calling for a while, but didn't because she was involved with someone else. But now the other thing was over, so she was wondering if we could get together sometime.”

  He looked up, checking to see how Dave was taking this.

  “Go ahead,” Dave told him. “I'm listening.”

  “It didn't occur to me that you—”

  “I know.” Dave nodded, accepting his share of the blame for Randy's confusion. “Sorry about that.”

  Randy made a vague gesture of absolution. “So anyway, I went into the city that night. She was even better than I remembered. We've got this chemistry, right?” He paused, in what appeared to be silent tribute to their chemistry. “Do you know she writes poetry?”

  Dave nodded, smiling in spite of himself at Randy's enthusiasm.

  “She mentioned it,” he said.

  “It's incredible stuff,” Randy assured him. “Blew me away. Anyway, it wasn't until afterward … you know … that I found out that you—”

  They emerged from the tunnel on the brightly lit Jersey side. Randy didn't seem to know how to finish his sentence, and Dave couldn't see much point in helping him out. The situation was painfully clear without having to dot all the is.

  “It's a real fucking soap opera, isn't it?”

  Randy chuckled nervously, granting him that much. He waited for Dave to elaborate, but Dave had nothing to add. For a moment, all he could think about was the awful, embarrassing fact that Randy worked all day with Julie's father. It seemed like a miserable secret for Randy to have to drag around the office, the knowledge that he had listened to Jack's prospective son-in-law tell another woman that he loved her through an intercom in Brooklyn. On reflection, though, Dave couldn't imagine Randy telling Jack, or Jack believing him if he did. It hardly seemed possible, even to Dave, even this close to the actual event.

  Finally, Randy couldn't stand the silence or the uncertainty any longer.

  “Is it over between you and Julie?”

  Dave considered the question as they followed the highway through the swampy wastelands outside Newark Airport. A tangy industrial odor flavored the air rushing through the open windows. He understood that Randy was really asking if he was going to keep fighting for Gretchen. And it wasn't until that moment that Dave realized he wasn't.

  The clear strong feelings that had launched him into the city that night already seemed like a memory. The effort it had taken simply to begin imagining a new life with Gretchen had drained him; the actual task of making that life a reality seemed way beyond his strength, too daunting even to contemplate, especially with Randy's sudden appearance in the picture. He was wiped out, like one of those underdog football teams that gives everything it has just to win the conference championship and has nothing left for the Super Bowl. This realization saddened him, but the sadness was sweetened by a faint undertone of pride. He had been defeated in some way, but not for lack of trying. He hadn't just laid down and died.

  “It's never over between Julie and me,” he said. “I keep thinking it is, and I keep finding out I'm wrong.”

  The last fifteen minutes of the ride passed in awkward patches of silence interrupted by equally awkward stabs at small talk. Dave felt a deep sense of relief when he finally pulled up in front of Randy's building in Chestnut Gardens.

  “Here we are,” he said.

  Randy undid his seat belt, but seemed reluctant to leave the car.

  “Listen,” he said. “I won't hold it against you if you decide you need another DJ.”

  Dave couldn't help laughing. “Yeah, right. I'll explain it all to Julie. I'm sure she'll agree.”

  Randy nodded, conceding the point. “Maybe I'll catch a cold or something,” he decided. “I know a few people who could fill in at the last minute.”

  “Whatever,” Dave told him. The wedding felt unreal, a million miles away.

  Randy slid one leg out the door, but the rest of his body didn't follow. His face tightened with concentration.

  “I'm probably gonna see Gretchen tomorrow night. I'm supposed to, anyway. Anything you want me to tell her?”

  Dave shut his eyes. There were still hundreds of things he had to say to Gretchen. But she was already slipping away from him, into another orbit. It hurt to see that, to know she was lost, along with some version of himself that she'd helped to keep alive. His world seemed smaller already.

  “Tell her to send me some poems.”

  “I'll do that,” Randy assured him.

  An air of finality had been hanging over the conversation for some time now, but Randy didn't seem to notice. He gnawed worriedly at his thumbnail for a few seconds, then filed the ragged edges down on the leg of his jeans.

  “I know it's none of my business,” he said, “but a guy could do a helluva lot worse than Julie Müller.”

  FIFTEEN YEARS IN FIFTEEN MINUTES

  The rehearsal dinner makes it official in a way that none of the other preliminaries in this final hectic week have—not picking up the wedding rings and the engraved key chains at Gold Star jewelers, not spray-painting the rust spots on his Metro at the strong urging of Julie's father, not submitting, against his own better judgment, to a last-minute trim and sideburn adjustment at Hair Down Below, not renting a tropical-motif bow tie and cummerbund at Rod's Formals to add a little zest to his otherwise plain—Julie called it “drab”— Wishbones tuxedo. An excruciating forty-five-minute discussion on “the joys and obligations of marriage” with Julie's minister, a burly, New Age Presbyterian who insisted on the three of them holding hands in a circle as though conducting a séance hadn't done the trick, nor had the somewhat dispiriting bachelor party at Glenn's house, which Dave had spent shuttling between a basement jam session, a kitchen-table poker game, and a seemingly endless living-room video—on loan from Artie's private collection—that featured one “amateur” couple after another engaging in anal sex, close-up and in real time.

  But now, surveying the single long table in the lavender-walled “Function Room” in the basement of Aldo's Ristorante, occupied end-to-end by smiling, well-dressed people, some of whom have traveled impressive distances to be here, he feels an unfamiliar sense of shyness and solemnity settle over him, and he freezes in the doorway, his mouth dropping open as though this is a surprise party in his honor, rather than an event he's known about for several months and, in fact, helped to plan.

  The obvious people are here—his parents, brother and sister-in-law, Julie's parents, her two sisters and their respective spouses, her great-aunt Bertha, the wedding party, a handful of out-of-town guests, and a couple of stragglers. This last
category includes Ian, who's tagging along with Tammi; as Maid of Honor, she apparently managed to finagle a last-minute addition to the guest list. Dave's happy to see him, his lingering resentment temporarily eclipsed by pleasure that another one of his bandmates could make it. His eyes settle next on his brother Chuck—Dave can't help thinking of him as “Chick,” his now-renounced boyhood nickname—-just in from North Carolina with his hugely pregnant wife, both of them basking in the attention that her condition can't fail to evoke at a gathering such as this, especially since Linda's packing twins, fruit of the best fertility technology two large corporate salaries can buy. Chuck and Linda met in business school and happily describe themselves as “bean counters” to anyone who inquires about their line of work, though the beans they count belong to a gigantic poultry-processing empire. Dave has only met Linda a few times, and her main effect is to remind him of how far apart he and his brother have drifted since the days when Chick shared the room that Dave now considers his own, back when they engaged in elaborate Nerf basketball tournaments, played each other their new records, and gawked in undisguised wonderment at Carly Simon's nipples on the cover of No Secrets. It's less that Dave dislikes Linda than that they simply miss each other, like cars traveling at high speed in opposite directions. She wrinkles her forehead at his jokes and asks lots of complicated questions about the courier business, as though he were the owner of the company, rather than a thirty-two-year-old schmuck without a real job. This visit already feels different, though. His marriage and her pregnancy have saved them; small talk is simple, her happiness both radiant and infectious. She even seems to have acquired a North Carolina accent over the past couple of years, a surprising development considering that the first three decades of her life were spent in Minnesota and Chicago.

  Julie studies him from her seat at one end of the table, head tilted at an angle that seems to convey flirtation and suspicion at the same time. She's been looking especially good to him now that they've stopped having sex, and tonight she's glowing. Her hair looks different, flowing over her shoulders in a loosely kinked perm he finds as alluring as it is unexpected. After all these years, his straight-haired girlfriend has suddenly turned into one of those wavy-haired women he sees all the time on the streets of New York and can't help fantasizing about. She's wearing a new dress, a sleeveless, mustard-colored sheath similar to the one Gretchen wore on her birthday, but the effect is entirely different—warmer, less elegant, more overtly sexual. Less Gretchen and more Julie.

  He's been thinking a lot about Gretchen these past few weeks, sometimes with a piercing sense of loss, sometimes with a quieter sadness, as though she were someone he'd loved a long time ago and had somehow learned to live without. They've had no contact at all since his last visit except for a spiral-bound book of her poems that arrived in the mail about a week ago, with no note attached. He reads them almost daily with the concentration he'd devoted as a teenager to lyrics by Patti Smith and Blue Oyster Cult, teasing out the implications of every single line, hoping for a flash of mental lightning. He's given up trying to understand them, searching only for a glimpse of her in the language, or a possible secret message for himself. He's looking forward to hearing more about her tomorrow from Rockin’ Randy, who called yesterday to report that he'd been unable to find a substitute DJ and would, in fact, be providing the entertainment as planned, if Dave didn't mind. Dave said he didn't.

  By now, he's been standing in the doorway a little too long, and the Function Room has grown appreciably quieter. Almost everyone at the table is staring at him, their smiles beginning to fade. His mother's giving him that squinty look, the one that means Grow up, already!, and Julie's jabbing her finger to indicate that the empty seat between her father and her sister Melanie belongs to him, and Dave finally understands that the moment has arrived, and that he really is going to do this.

  Artie's aware of the risks, but the band's in bad enough shape that it almost doesn't matter. The inspiration came to him a couple of weeks ago, shortly after the Genial Jim fiasco, and since then he's put the plan into operation with such speed and conviction that it's starting to feel eerie, almost as if he's the tool of some higher power. He canceled a scheduled gig—an unheard-of act in the annals of the Wishbones—and found top-notch replacements for Buzzy and Ian and Dave. All that remains is this one last obstacle, minor but potentially treacherous.

  At quarter to nine sharp, he pulls up in front of Stan's house and beeps twice. You better be home, he mutters to himself. Don't fuck up on me now. The words are barely out when Stan's shadowy form comes lumbering down the steps. He's not mean-looking, but he is big—football-player big—with meaty biceps and a vaguely Neanderthal dangle to his arms. Considering that he was able to face down three angry skinheads who wanted revenge for their buddy's broken nose, Artie figures he'll do just fine on tonight's more placid mission.

  Stan slides into the passenger seat, dressed exactly as Artie instructed him—black jeans, black T-shirt, the same scuffed-up work boots he'd worn to the showcase the night Phil Hart collapsed, the boots Artie almost fired him over. It's disconcerting to admit it, but in a matter of a few months, Stan's gone from being the least reliable Wishbone to the one guy Artie knows he can count on. Sure, Buzzy cares about the band, but a bass player with a broken hand, no driver's license, and a serious drinking problem hardly rates as a model employee. Even Dave—rock-solid Dave, the guy he'd always considered his pillar of strength—has been faltering lately, fucking up at practice, going through the motions at gigs. Artie hopes like hell it's just the temporary distraction of his marriage, but he's seen these signs before and they're not encouraging. And Ian—Artie can't even think about Ian without having to pop a Motrin and wash it down with a mouthful of Mylanta. He still wakes up in a cold sweat a couple of nights a week, wondering what the hell they're supposed to do without him, how they're going to scrounge up someone even remotely qualified to fill his shoes. Artie's not stupid; he knows what's out there. It's scary, a frigging horror show of no-talent crooners whose egos somehow haven't gotten the message. The thought of auditioning a parade of these clowns paralyzes him with dread; this, he knows, is when the enormity of the band's loss will finally become apparent. And avoiding this moment is the real, if unlikely, objective of Artie's plan. As much as he wants to celebrate Dave's wedding in the proper style, what he really wants to do is make Ian jealous, to remind him, as vividly as possible, of the good thing he's turned his back on.

  “So tell me,” Stan says, ostentatiously cracking his knuckles as Artie pulls away from the curb, “how are we going to work this?”

  “We're just gonna talk to the guy,” Artie explains. “Show him what's in his best interest. I don't expect any trouble.”

  “But what am I supposed to say?”

  “Nothing. I'll do all the talking. You just stand there and look interested. I've got it all figured out.”

  “How do we even know he's gonna be home?”

  “We've got an appointment,” Artie informs him. “We're the search committee for our company Christmas party.”

  Stan seems pleased by this ruse, but also a bit concerned. “What's the name of our company?”

  “Who the fuck cares? It's just some bullshit I fed him to make the appointment.”

  “What if he asks?”

  “Trust me, Stan. It's not important.”

  Stan shrugs. “I just like to be prepared.”

  “Okay,” Artie tells him. “Fine. Just make something up. Dickhead Industries, Cocksucker, Incorporated, whatever you want. Fuckwad Technologies.”

  “Pussyco,” Stan adds, after a moment's consideration.

  “Prick, Wang, and Peter.”

  “Sphincter Brothers.”

  “Turd-Tek.”

  “Dildo and Son.”

  “Cunnilingus Farms.”

  Stan pauses, momentarily stumped. Then he smiles with satisfaction.

  “Testicle Laboratories.”

  “Scrotum World.”<
br />
  “Scrotum World.” Stan shakes his head, choking with laughter. “I like that.” He mimes a handshake. “Hi, there. We're from Scrotum World. Damn glad to meet you.”

  They fall silent for a minute or two, unable to continue. A new one occurs to Artie, and he can't stop himself from laughing.

  “What?” says Stan. “Nothing.” “Come on.” “You won't get it.” “Sure I will.”

  “You won't. I'm telling you.” “Try me anyway.”

  “Okay.” Artie clears his throat, smirking with barely suppressed hilarity. “The Merkin King.”

  Stan's eyes narrow. “The Merkin King?”

  Artie slaps his leg, celebrating his own cleverness.

  “Yup,” he says. “The Merkin King.”

  “What the fuck's a merkin?”

  “Look it up,” Artie tells him. “You're in for a treat.”

  Dave's always liked Julie's sister Mel, but something seems to have happened to her in the past year or so. She hasn't worked for a long time now, not since the birth of her first child, but now that both girls are in school she clearly has too much time on her hands. All through dinner she talks obsessively about the OJ. Simpson trial, which she's been watching pretty much in its entirety, almost as though she considers herself some kind of alternate, out-of-state juror.

  “But what about the Vannatter testimony?” she asks Paul, the annoying guy who's hogging the spot in the wedding party Dave had hoped to reserve for Ian. (Paul had inexplicably asked Dave to usher at his wedding, and Dave felt he had no choice but to reciprocate.) “You've got to admit, some of his behavior was pretty suspicious.”

  Paul doesn't want to hear it.

  “The guy's guilty,” he says, offering the table a candid glimpse of the chewed-up mouthful of chicken parmigiana he seems curiously reluctant to swallow. “His DNA's all over the place.”

  Paul shifts his glance from Mel to Dave, hoping to bolster his case with some moral support from the groom-to-be. Dave hesitates, dreading the thought of becoming enmeshed in yet another conversation about OJ. Simpson. For months now, he's been doing his best to ignore the trial, but it's been an uphill battle, like pretending not to notice that it's Christmastime in December. He's also less than eager to cast his lot with Paul, whom he's had trouble talking to ever since Julie mentioned that he makes his wife have sex with him pretty much on a daily basis, whether she wants to or not. It's not that Dave thinks it's any of his business what Paul and Margaret do in bed, but it's hard to focus on anything else when he happens to find himself in their company. On the other hand, he's just spent fifteen minutes listening to Julie's father explain his elaborate theories about car washing and knows there's more where that came from, so it's not like he has anywhere else to turn.