Chum Read online

  CHUM

  A Novel

  Jeff Somers

  F+W Media, Inc.

  CONTENTS

  I. Mary’s Wedding

  II. Saint Patrick’s Day

  III. The Fourth of July

  IV. Christmas

  V. Mary’s Wedding

  VI. Monday

  VII. New Year’s Eve

  VIII. Christmas

  IX. Saint Patrick’s Day

  X. Mary’s Funeral

  XI. Thanksgiving

  XII. Monday

  XIII. Today

  XIV. Luis’s Birthday

  XV. Tomorrow

  Copyright

  I.

  MARY’S WEDDING

  Tom and I were standing on the church steps, smoking cigarettes and enjoying the ozone smell of a late October storm coming. I was freezing, but was manfully pretending otherwise. We leaned over the wrought-iron railing, blowing smoke into the wind and tossing sentences back and forth.

  “Bick cleaned up pretty good,” Tom said.

  “That’s the consensus.”

  It was the kind of day that let loose a little patter of rain every time you ventured out to do something, and then produced a thin, watery ray of sunshine the moment you retreated under cover. We were each wearing black suits, white shirts, shined shoes. We were each smoking cigarettes from the same communal pack. We were each about the same height and weight. Standing elbow to elbow, leaning over the railing in the same postures, we were each slightly aware of being twins.

  Suddenly, Mike skidded out onto the steps, his breath puffing into steam. His tuxedo was askew.

  “You see Bick out here?”

  “They’ve lost the groom,” Tom said to me, quietly.

  “Again.”

  “Haven’t seen him, Mikey,” Tom said over his shoulder.

  “I hear he cleans up nice, though,” I added. “Mare still in hiding?”

  “Who knows—no one can get into the women’s room to check.”

  We heard Mike’s shoes skid back into the church, the sound of panic, and resumed our weather watching. It was peaceful.

  The bride was, at last report, weeping in the bathroom, having a vague sort of commitment crisis. The door was guarded by bridesmaids Flo and Kelly, in pink dresses that sounded like paper tearing whenever they moved—and resembled marshmallows from some breakfast cereal. Mary was attended only by the maid of honor, so no one was getting inside for a first-hand report.

  “Hope someone secured the Communion wine,” I said.

  “Bick, I’m sure. We should be checking the closets and other hiding places,” Tom replied.

  Clicking heels, and we both turned in time to see Denise sweep outside in her little black dress and the cape she used to great dramatic effect.

  “There you are,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “You could be lending a hand, you know. It’s chaos in there.”

  “Hey, hon,” I said, turning to lean my back against the railing. “That’s why we’re out here. The chaos.”

  “We could only increase the chaos,” Tom added, flicking away his cigarette. “We’re chaos instigators.”

  “You look gorgeous, you know,” I said.

  She snorted in the way I knew meant she was pleased. “Well, I guess it’s best that you two stay out of trouble. Have you—”

  “Bickerman hasn’t been out here,” Tom said.

  She snorted again, somehow communicating her low opinion of Tommy.

  “Has the bride reappeared?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “The official cover story is that she’s heaving her guts up from nerves.”

  Tom barked out a laugh. “That’s fan-tastic. The bride is puking her guts out. Thanks so much for your concern.”

  I smiled. “You gals were out pretty late last night, rumor has it.”

  She eyed us coolly. “Didn’t I forbid you to play with Tom anymore?”

  I nodded. Somber. “You did.”

  She turned to go back inside, and Tom and I turned to lean against the railing again.

  “Do you suppose the reception’s on no matter what?”

  “What, open bar, free food, blitzed bridesmaids and all?”

  “Sure.”

  I sighed. “Tom, I don’t think so.”

  “We’ve got to set this right, then. I didn’t wear my school clothes just to admire the goddamn parking lot.”

  “A noble suggestion.”

  A moment of silence, then, between us.

  More high heels, and we turned in time for the breathtaking view of Miriam, Maid of Honor. The younger of the Harrows sisters, just eighteen and painfully gorgeous. Tom and I held ourselves upright through practice and determination, and I made a conscious effort to keep my mouth closed.

  “Guys, crisis passed. We’re on in ten minutes.”

  I nodded feebly. “Thanks, Mir.”

  We didn’t dare watch her ass as she walked back into the church. It would’ve burst us into flames.

  Tom and I turned to lean against the railing again, and lit up our final cigarettes.

  “Crisis averted,” he said.

  “Still a bad omen.”

  More shoes on the floorboards. Tom and I passed a tired glance between us before we turned around to find Luis beaming at us.

  “What are you doing out here?” he said in his heavy Spanish accent. “The wedding is going to happen soon.”

  “We’re waiting for a cable from the governor,” Tom said.

  “A stay of execution.”

  Luis, as was common, had no idea what we were talking about. His English, while excellent, was not subtle. His common reaction was to smile broadly, which he did.

  “Come inside. You should not wish for bad things to happen to Bick and Marie.” He nodded sadly. Their names came out beek and maree. “Life is very hard.”

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll meet you in there.”

  Luis seemed to be struggling for something more to say when Mike, bald head shining in the weak sun, a perfect shade of rich brown, skidded back onto the porch, almost tumbling down the stairs. The three of us just looked at him.

  “Conference,” he panted. “Bick’s in the bathroom, now.”

  • • •

  We walked through the corridor toward the basement bathroom like Important Men, in nice suits, with grim demeanors. We walked in step. Next to me, I could feel the Glee, dark and tense, rising up in Tom like wings spreading. I was wary of the Glee. The Glee had done Bad Things before. Although usually amusing things, I had to admit.

  The bathroom was at the end of the dim corridor. We stopped outside of it. Tom tried the handle, shook his head at us, and we both pounded on the door.

  “Bick!” Tom shouted. “Bick, you punk-ass motherfucker I’m fucking wearing dark socks for you so this had better involve bloody puke!”

  “Go away!”

  The voice of Bickerman. Nasal but always at top volume, it took a moment before I could put my finger on what was subtly different about it: an almost complete lack of sarcasm.

  Tom looked at each of us in turn. “I’ll need five minutes.”

  “The door,” Luis said somberly, “it is locked.”

  Tom shrugged, and with a sudden jerk banged his shoulder against the door. It gave with a small cracking sound, and Tom slipped inside, slamming the door shut behind him.

  We took up our positions: Mike and Luis standing together in front of the door, me leaning against the wall across from them, smoking a cigarette. On the wall directly across from me was a stark white and red sign: NO SMOKING. As usual, I ignored it. We all did, always. It had become a silent game without rules that we played, smoking where we weren’t supposed to.

  There was no sound from within that we could detect. There was a vague smell
of licorice, which was maddening, as it had no obvious source.

  “Do we have a backup plan in case he goes out the window?” I asked.

  Mike looked stricken. “Why do we need a plan?”

  “Because the girls will need someone to tear apart if he bolts, and he won’t be here.”

  Luis nodded gravely. “It will be horrible.”

  On cue, the sound of high heels and the temporarily twin forms of Kelly and Florence appeared in their pink bridesmaid uniforms. Mary’s best friends, Kelly dating back to their paste-eating heydays in Mrs. Fox’s kindergarten class, and Florence credited with teaching Mary how to roll joints in college. Between paste-eating and joint-rolling, they had rounded Mary’s education off nicely, and were rewarded now with the most ridiculous outfits ever fever-dreamed by a designer. Humiliated, they had each been terrors from the moment of the first fitting. We’d spent the intervening weeks hiding from them.

  “Is he in there?” Kelly demanded as they drew up before us. Kelly had a sharply turned up nose and dark brown hair, giving her an automatically snobbish appearance. She always appeared to be looking down her nose at you. She was curvy, and sometimes seemed to like it, and sometimes seemed to think she was hideous.

  I exhaled smoke and tried to stay calm. “We’re not at liberty to say.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Henry,” Flo snapped.

  Flo was a tall girl, so tall she’d obviously been made fun of during her formative years by cooler, shorter classmates. Dark red hair, gone to gray but carefully dyed. She still walked bent over, trained through the years to hide her height. She wasn’t exactly pretty, but her sheer length of leg was enough to make her attractive, as was the fact that she could (and often did) drink any one of us under whatever table happened to be available.

  “We had time for Mare’s bullshit,” I offered reasonably. “Why not Bick’s?”

  Luis, not quite grasping the exchange, smiled broadly, as if enjoying the show.

  Flo and Kelly each stiffened, regarding me with dangerous expressions. “Mary,” Kelly said through clenched teeth, “experienced a momentary existential moment of doubt that had to be worked through. Her fiancé is simply being an ass.”

  The women were always so sure of themselves. It was intimidating. I woke up uncertain. I didn’t know how to function, how to dress. You fought back when you could.

  “How about: They’re both asses, as we’re all standing outside the john like idiots.”

  “Henry—” Flo managed, and just then the door opened. Tom stepped back into the corridor, shutting the door behind him and taking the scene in. He was flushed.

  “Ladies,” he said with a slight nod of his head. Then he looked around at all of us. “He’ll be out in a minute.”

  I grinned at Flo. “He’ll be out in a minute.”

  • • •

  Denise was already seated as Tom, Luis, and I gently pushed and shoved our way into the pew. She smelled heavenly, and I placed a lingering peck on her bare shoulder.

  “Everything back on track?” she asked.

  “No,” I sighed, “but I think they’re getting married.”

  “It is very beautiful,” Luis sighed. “So wonderful that Bick and Marie have found each other. I had my doubts, you know, about them, but today has shown me that they are right for each other.”

  “How’s that?” Denise asked brightly.

  Luis was in Serious Philosopher mode, which usually only showed up at parties and other alcoholically fueled occasions. “Look at how they react today, to the doubt. They react the same way. Each of them, locked in the bathroom, with a single advisor. They are so similar.” He nodded wisely. “They will be very happy.”

  Denise nodded. “I like that. Luis, you’re a gem.”

  He smiled slyly. “Yes.”

  I made a show of looking around the church. “This crowd feels angry.”

  “Hmmph. You smell like old cigarette butts, mister,” she said primly. I pinched her on the thigh, making her giggle, so she hit me lightly on the shoulder.

  “Mike looks like he is going to piss himself,” Luis observed.

  Denise and I looked up the aisle, to where Mike stood in his tux, nervously pacing in front of the crowd. Bick and Mike had been friends since high school—a dull, boring kind of friendship made up of football games, drinking binges, and occasional phone calls. We all hated him instinctively. He was like talking to wallpaper.

  “Combust spontaneously, more like it,” Tom said, pushing his head between Denise and me from behind us. “That would be great! With all that holy oil and those diaphanous priestly gowns, this whole place would be in flames in moments.”

  “Why would that be great?” Denise asked seriously.

  Tom looked at her. “You’re right. Substitute ‘exciting’ for ‘great.’ God! Smart women are so threatening. It’s quite a turn-on, actually.”

  “It’s true, I fear Denise,” Luis added helpfully.

  “Shut up, all of you,” she hissed, looking at me for some reason. “They’re beginning.”

  Bick had joined Mike up at the front of the church. They stood tugging at their cufflinks pathetically.

  “It’s obvious: tranquilizers,” Tom said happily.

  “You would know. You were the one in the bathroom for those intimate moments,” Luis pointed out, an expression of innocence on his face.

  “I will never betray that tender young man’s trust,” Tom said immediately. “Here we go!”

  Denise took my hand and held it in her lap gently, which made me nervous, of course. Weddings and women are nerve-wracking, I’d always thought. So many bad examples wuffling about, looking grand in their finery, their gold bands on their fingers. I slid a finger inside my collar and pulled on it.

  Tom began a low-volume color commentary on the whole show.

  “To those of you joining us mid-program today, welcome to the romantic event of the season, the Bick-Mare wedding. Bick, all-star skirtchaser and recent Boozehound Hall of Fame inductee has been off his game thus far, with a barely raised eyebrow at the sight of so much bared female flesh—weddings having become fashion shows for the less pious among us. Mare seemed to be in better shape for this bout early in the running—marching about as if she owned the church and ordering her minions about with thunderous confidence, but recent gastrointestinal-cum-existential crises have weakened her position with the crowd.”

  Luis made a vain attempt to listen in and then sat back, his smile in place, Spanish thoughts comforting him.

  “Now we see Bick and his main defenseman, the defenseless Mike Billings getting into position to receive the kickoff … and there it is! Stunning little sister Miriam leads the offense here, and what moves she has! Ouch! Jesus, Hank, control the woman, will you?”

  “She’s stronger than she looks,” I said.

  “Miriam in fine form today, a future Hall of Famer I’m sure. Flo and Kelly both look like they’ve been eating lemons back in the ready room. Likely pondering their own unmarriedness in the harsh light of Mary bagging the lame—but serviceable!—Bick out of the thinning ranks of unmarried men sans social diseases or criminal records.

  “And there—a perfect formation! Huzzah! I’ve never seen three chicks in such ugly dresses move so gracefully despite the binding nature of their skirts!

  “Ah, now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for, the bride! Moving with the slow care of the drugged, she seems to glide, most probably on wheels and just pushed gently down the aisle by her father.”

  I looked at Denise, and she rolled her eyes.

  “I have no influence,” I admitted. They blamed me for Tom. I knew that. And it was true. Tom was my fault.

  “Obviously.”

  Tom sat back. “I’ll be appreciated by the French after I’m dead. Heathens.”

  • • •

  “We’re lost.”

  I refused to look at Denise. I kept my eyes straight ahead. The rain was coming down hard enough to make visibility low, an
d I wasn’t sure I’d see a sign if one actually loomed out of the storm at us. The reception was in thirteen minutes; we’d been driving for an hour and a half.

  “Who in hell sets up the reception so goddamn far away?” Tom groused. “These people are idiots.”

  “They will be drunk,” Luis said from the back seat. “They will not miss us. It will be days before the police are contacted.”

  “I need a drink,” Tom said quietly. “Badly.”

  “There won’t be any drinks left by the time we arrive,” Denise added.

  I glanced at her and said nothing.

  “Pull over at that gas station. Let’s ask them.”

  “Where?” I asked her.

  “Sweet lord,” Tom said, “who let the blind one behind the wheel? No wonder we’re lost. Right over there!”

  • • •

  I lit cigarettes for Tom and me. Luis settled back with his eyes closed. Denise had scampered into the little grocery store all the gas stations had now. The rental car was off, clicking contently, and the radio was on very low. The rain hitting the car was soothing.

  “How long you give them?” I asked.

  Tom sat forward immediately, as if he’d been thinking about the very subject. “Well, let’s be logical. Bick drinks, and Mary doesn’t like it when he does. Mary drinks, but doesn’t think she has a problem, when she very obviously does. Mary is jealous and controlling. On the other hand, Bick is snide and weak, while Mare is easily annoyed and shallow.”

  “Be fair,” I admonished, “they’re both shallow.”

  “Fine. Put all that together, and I don’t give them a day over seventy years. Eighty years, tops.”

  “What?” Even Luis popped open an eye.

  “Sure—think about it this way: Bick and Mare are already expressing their troubles to each other. No hiding, no bullshit. If they’re pissed off, they let each other know it. That’s the secret to success, dammit. No bull. You’re pissed? Be pissed. Then you deal with it.” He held up his hands. “It’s the pussyfooting around that makes trouble.”

  I digested that amidst smoke. “My God—that’s depressing, man.”

  “Sure is. That’s why I can’t wait another second for a free cocktail. Ever notice the similarities between weddings and funerals? People get dressed up. There are religious ceremonies with bizarre, unexplained pagan overtones. People weep. People get up and make speeches about the principles. Ceremonies are held in places designed specifically for that purpose.” He sighed out smoke. “Man, it’s creepy. Marriage equals death.”