Chum

by Jeff Somers

  I pounded her back as she coughed, and she weakly clinked the little glass against Luis’s.

  “I have realized that being drunk solves all problems,” he said seriously. “The trick, of course, is to be just drunk enough, but not too drunk.”

  I ran a finger along my nose. “You hit the nail on the head, chief. You’d do the world a good turn if you’d sacrifice yourself and find out how that can be done.”

  “Yes.”

  Denise and I waited a moment for the rest of his thoughts on the matter, and then, realizing that his thoughts had all been contained in that single word, we started laughing.

  I realized it was the first time all night that I’d felt normal, which underscored how strange the whole evening had felt up to that point.

  “What time is it?”

  Denise was bopping around, doing a cute little in-place dance. I glanced up at the wall clock that was plain for all to see and then back at her. “Eleven-thirty-three.” I pushed a stray strand of hair from her face. She was beautiful. Flushed and bopping, she was more gorgeous than I’d ever noticed. Or maybe I just hadn’t been paying attention.

  “We should start finding a good place to be for midnight,” she suggested, rubbing her hand across her little nose. She was delectable. She wanted to be someplace romantic so we could have a kiss at midnight, and I didn’t much care where I was, so it all worked out.

  “I will have no one to kiss,” Luis lamented. “I will be alone.”

  I put a manly hand on his shoulder. “You can kiss me, weirdo.”

  He nodded. “I accept.”

  We wormed our way out of the tiny kitchen and almost ran into Tom, who appeared to be a little frazzled.

  “Hank! Thank God!”

  “Problem, Thomas?”

  He snorted. “I got red wine soaking into a couch cushion in the living room, some guy wandering the place trying to puke into the potted plants, and oh, by the way, your presence has been requested in the bedroom, where Mary has hidden herself in my closet.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He rolled his eyes. “You heard me, Precious. Bick asked if you would step in for a moment. I’ve delivered his message, so if you’ll excuse me, I have stain management to engage in.”

  I glanced at Denise, who waved me away in annoyance. “Go, your idiot friends need you.”

  Luis nodded. “Do not worry. I will kiss Denise in your absence.”

  The door to Tom’s bedroom was closed, so I knocked lightly. Behind the door I could hear muffled sound: a female voice, Mary I supposed, and a general rumpus.

  “Yeah?” Bickerman called out.

  “It’s Henry.”

  The door opened and I was pulled in. Bick closed the door behind us. I looked around, but saw no Mary, and gave him a perplexed look before I realized where all the Mary-related noise was coming from. Mary was, indeed, in the closet. I processed this slowly.

  “How long has she been in there?”

  Bick looked desperate. “Twenty minutes or so. She’s trashed. She always gets this way after a certain point.”

  A moment of quiet between us revealed that Mary was cursing like a sailor from within the closet, her voice nasal and nasty and strained.

  Bick looked back at me. “She won’t come out.”

  I crawled over the bed and sat on its edge, near the closet. The room was so small and the bed so large that the closet door couldn’t be opened all the way. “Mary? Mare? It’s Henry.”

  “Go away!”

  I glanced at Bick, who shrugged. “First non-curse words she’s used in a while. Go with it!”

  “Mary, honey, come on out of there, okay? You need to relax now,” I said, staring at Bick. He waved me on, full of confidence.

  “No!” she shouted. “Not until he leaves! I’m not coming out until he’s gone!”

  “Mary, sweetheart, come on. He’s going to be here. You can’t hide in there forever.”

  There were a few moments of silence. “Are you going to stay, Henry?”

  I nodded, for some reason. Bick threw his hands in the air and stared up at the ceiling. “Yes, Mary, I’ll stay here if you want me to.”

  The closet door opened and she stepped out, and I struggled to keep my face blank, struggled to not think about the ridiculousness of the scene: Mary emerging from Tom’s closet, ready to fall over and pass out, and smiling at me as if it were the most delightful joke.

  “We’re going home,” Bick said flatly. “Thanks, Hank.”

  He tried to be blustery and violent, but the dimensions of the room forced him to slowly side-step his way along the wall, bent over because of the shelves, until he could reach out and grab her arm. Just before she was pulled through, Mary winked at me, and then she was gone, pulled away roughly by the Bick. He left the door open, the party noise seeping in like fog. The wink stayed with me, and I just sat there, staring at the floor, feeling very tired. I felt like I could lie back on all the coats and just sleep. So much effort just to get through the day.

  “What are you doing?”

  Denise was in the doorway then, looking scandalous.

  “Nothing,” I said, standing up. “It’s just sad.”

  “What is?”

  I took her hand and we started walking back to the party, where everyone was getting ready for the new year. I squeezed her hand, and told her.

  VIII.

  CHRISTMAS

  I was going to have to kill him.

  If I never had to have a fucking cocktail with David Bickerman, the sole surviving Bickerman, I will be a very happy man. Having been dragged through every lame, holiday-themed and overstuffed bar in the universe, I was filled to the brim with cheap draft beer and even cheaper low-rent hooch, cigarette smoke, and swelling ennui. Being a slave to this bloated asshole, this hard-shelled beetle with his tiny human head, was what I got for being an asshole myself, I guessed.

  It was my penance. The lesson: Never fucking try.

  “Let’s get moving,” I suggested, slumping back in my uncomfortable wooden chair, a chair mended together by so many metal brackets and screws I knew it was just a matter of time before it collapsed under someone, comically, probably killing them with a sharp stake up the ass in the process. I fervently did not wish to be that person, which required that I get the Bickerman Zeppelin—Graf Bickerman, slow and floaty—moving toward the door within the next century.

  We were in a place called—literally—Stinky Sullivans, an old bar filled to the brim with mouth-breathers. We’d gotten our table by sheer doomy luck, as Graf Bickerman was losing steam and needed to refuel and magically there was a damp, wobbly table and two chairs being abandoned by luckier folks just as we entered. Graf Bickerman required frequent refueling, as he’d made some sort of pre-New Year’s resolution to be as fucking drunk as fucking possible continuously for the rest of his fucking short, sad life.

  Which was pretty drunk, shattering previous scientific theories on the origin and nature of human life. Bickerman was some sort of alien life form that was based on alcohol instead of carbon. He was obsessed with finding Henry, but since we were searching bars this also meant he was obsessed with drinking at every place we stopped at.

  Our waitress reappeared from the throng of denim-clad assholes, magically pushing her way through the lowing crowd with a tray of empties balanced on one hand. She was a pro. She was ugly as sin, with a humongous, nightmare-inspiring honker of a nose and a single ratty eyebrow over her eyes—which she’d outlined in heavy black liner—giving her a raccoon-like appearance that almost crossed so far over into hideous it was attractive. Almost.

  Still, she was a damned good booze-slinger. I was halfway pissed myself thanks to Graf Bickerman’s fuel requirements, and in recent months I found myself flirting on autopilot with anything with tits. Including some jolly fat men I’d run into at all-night diners.

  “Need anything, fellas?” she asked, her accent sort of Boston-y.

  “Sweetheart,” I said brightly, half-shou
ting, “you’re an angel.”

  She grinned. I had her pegged: She’d watched a lot of fucking movies, and in the movies rich guys in bars always picked up the waitresses and banged them like a piledriver. She’d been working at bars for years and so far nothing had happened. Just as she was beginning to wonder if maybe she wasn’t as hot as her dancing-in-front-of-the-mirror-my-girlfriends-all-tell-me-I’m-cute self-image had suggested, she meets me: clever, handsome Tom Wallace, tipping well, drunk as hell, and being nice to her. I was going to end up a picture in her locker, no doubt, and I’d probably have to get the cops on her for stalking before too long. Such was the price you paid for being a Wallace man.

  “Angel,” Bick said, leaning back and grinning. “Scotch. Single malt. Neat.”

  The waitress looked at Bickerman like he was some sort of bug. A beetle, I wanted to say; he’s a beetle! But I contented myself with a withering look at Graf Bickerman that he didn’t notice. Bick wouldn’t know single-malt Scotch from moonshine if we doused him with them and set him on fire, but I held my tongue—I’d sold myself to Graf Bickerman. We were conjoined twins, now, and I hated him.

  “We gotta go,” I shouted at him. “We got miles to fucking go before we sleep.”

  He managed a greasy wink at the waitress. “Scotch. Pronto.”

  She looked back at me and I shrugged. “M’lord says Scotch. I’ll take one too, whatever he ends up with.” This to keep Graf Bickerman from being poisoned by the bar staff, since I was too popular to be killed in his wake.

  I let her slip back into the maelstrom of guts and haunches, fat people sucking down light beer and eating germy beer nuts. People always ate free food, no matter how disgusting. You could make nachos grande in your fucking toilet and people would sink to their knees in joy, sticking their whole heads in there.

  I could feel the spotlight on me, my special glow, somewhat inhibited by Graf Bickerman’s immense and grubby shadow. Every day I regretted tying my caboose to his engine. We were going uphill, and he was spluttering, and I was breathing his fucking exhaust.

  “How are we going to find Henry,” I asked, shaking out a cigarette and putting it in the corner of my mouth, “if we just sit here?”

  Henry was out there in the world, and whenever Bick couldn’t see him, Bick got nervous. As if Henry was at the police station right now, telling tales. As if Henry were working hard to undermine Graf Bickerman, maybe signing up for the Witness Protection Program—poof! He’s gone. Never seen again, rumors of Henry in the wild post–plastic surgery, surfacing every now and then; and Bickerman would release the winged monkeys and the ninjas every time with orders to hunt him down.

  Bickerman focused on me. It was an effort, obviously, a series of precise calibrations. “We’ll find him, Tommy. Maybe he’ll come here.”

  I sighed, shaking my head. “Hank hasn’t hung out here in fucking years, man. Think: He’s avoiding you. He’s somewhere he never goes.” This was so obvious my brain ached, boggling.

  Graf Bickerman shook his head, fluttering his beetle wings and rubbing two hind legs together, making a sweet violin-ish noise. “No rush, man. Have a drink.”

  I lit my cigarette, wondering if he noticed I hadn’t offered him one. I fucking hated this new Bickerman. Soft, drunk, spacey, bad-smelling. The fucking time of his life.

  • • •

  “Well, this is much better,” I said. I didn’t think Graf Bickerman, floating up above the rest of us like a Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon, could actually hear me. I had an urge to hold onto the hem of his heavy coat, to make sure he didn’t just sail away, belching and farting for propulsion, never to be seen again. Aside from the tales about me—most incriminating and some downright criminal—the bastard might mutter in his sleep were I not around to stroke his hair and coo softly to him, I didn’t want to lose sight of Bickerman because if I did, the whole endless, horrible evening would have been pointless.

  This was a slightly more upscale-looking place, all black furniture and chrome, a trio of slender, buff male bartenders working the room efficiently, like some sort of East German Olympic Team of bartenders. I remembered coming here—it had always been our before-evening gathering place, a good spot to have a cocktail, read the paper while waiting for everyone else to crawl out of work. I didn’t recall ever being here after hours, and now I was heartily glad of it, as the place was crawling with college-aged assholes, all hairspray and tight T-shirts and gold fucking chains and macho bullshit. Graf Bickerman and I stood out like sore thumbs in our middle-aged splendor—decent suits, nice coats, shined shoes instead of sneakers. Whiskey instead of tap beer made from piss and foam.

  It was all fucking cocks, too. There were like three chicks in the whole place, none of whom were worth my time. I’d never been so bored in my life.

  The brisk walk over had revived Bickerman a bit, at least, and he had something of his old red-cheeked bravado, drinking whiskey through a little red straw and eyeing the room like a wild animal waking up to find itself in a cage. My thumbs were pricking and I was cheered—maybe the evening was going to end well after all, instead of with me dragging Bickerman, soggy and heavy, through the city streets like a corpse. Or perhaps as a corpse, if he kept drinking the paint they were serving in this place.

  “Dave,” I said plaintively, “Hank is never—”

  I was interrupted by the sudden intrusion of someone’s elbow, jostling my arm and causing me to spill most of my drink on myself. I imagined the rotgut burning through my clothes, smoke rising up as I caught fire from it, burning alive while Graf Bickerman stared down at me with his bloated, slightly amused expression. This was no way to die, anchored to Bickerman, joined via horror and despair and guilt to his sinking ship, being dragged down. I hadn’t had a night to myself in weeks. He was there, all the time, always inebriated and always leering at me, always worrying about Henry and terrified of sleeping alone. Motherfucker ought to be paying me rent the amount of time he spends in my living room, fluttering his beetley wings and drooling into my couch cushions, which would have to be burned, eventually. Along with the rest of my apartment.

  I made a note to check on my homeowner’s insurance.

  I glanced at the elbow, then at the jerkoff attached to it. He was a big guy, sweaty, with a baseball cap on backwards and a huge tattoo of something gray and blurry on his forearm. Based on the disparity in size between us, I decided to let his rudeness slide, as nothing ruins my carefully cultivated image of cool indifference to the lowing crowds than having those crowds rise up and hurt me.

  Without warning, the jerkoff turned and focused on me, his eyes small and dark. They were the eyes of a Roman emperor, one of the ones who’d lasted about thirteen days—glorious, lusty days, no doubt, but ended with a thorough garroting nonetheless. This guy wasn’t a Roman emperor. He looked like a business major, though, which put him in the same general category: incredible asshole.

  “What’s your problem, nerd?”

  I blinked. I was drunk enough that it took me a moment to realize the jerkoff was talking to Graf Bickerman, which was fine by me. I took a subtle step backward, giving the jerkoff a nice view of Bick, adrenaline racing through me. Had the jerkoff really called him a nerd? Eyeing Bick’s slow realization that someone was speaking at him, I decided to table the issue.

  Graf Bickerman was attempting a midflight course-correction, slowly listing over to orient on the jerkoff. “What?” he said, licking his lips. I had a sudden surge of energy. Henry, had we been able to locate the droopy bastard, would have identified it as the Glee in his usual irritating style. I had a sudden vision of Bick’s nose once again getting smashed into a bloody pancake, and couldn’t stop myself from smiling a little at the thought. Especially after the last month and a half, wherein Bick had become my own personal albatross.

  Unfortunately, the jerkoff surmised Bick’s general uselessness and with a disdainful tick of his lantern-like jaw, he turned back to his friends, none of whom seemed to have even noticed
the blip. My hopes deflated and I contemplated having yet another watery drink here with nothing but a mush-mouthed Bickerman for company with the same level of enthusiasm I’d had for a broken nose a few seconds earlier.

  And then, Graf Bickerman suddenly inflated and lifted up a foot or two from the floor, swelling up to his former glorious proportions for one shining moment of hope, and reached out across me to give the jerkoff a little shove.

  “What?” Bick said wetly, lips shining, a familiar expression of stupid belligerence spreading like melting wax over his face.

  I couldn’t stop myself: I grinned. This was excellent.

  The jerkoff glanced at his own shoulder as if seeking evidence that yes, he’d actually been touched. I clocked the jerkoff’s mental speed at about retarded and considered ordering a fresh drink with which to enjoy the spectacle—I figured I could go to the bathroom, piss all over the floor and toilet seat, amble by the jukebox and choose a few songs, and get a fresh drink all in the time it was going to take the jerkoff to figure out what was going on.

  “I said,” the jerkoff shouted, “what’re you looking at, fag?”

  Bick, thus promoted from nerd, smiled, an expression of dopey happiness blooming on his face and making him almost pretty. “What?”

  The jerkoff looked at me. “You better get your friend out of here, man.”

  Incredible assholes were always all piss and vinegar until someone actually shoved them back. Then it was diplomacy. I raised an eyebrow. “Non mon ami, et vous sentez comme une femme.”

  “Great,” the jerkoff said, “two fags.” He leaned in toward Bick—a rookie mistake, I knew. The jerkoff took a breath to say something he imagined would be devastating to Bickerman—imagining, naturally, that Bickerman was a human being with feelings, also a common rookie mistake—and Bickerman swung his arm up and smashed his tumbler into the jerkoff’s head.

  “Sacre bleu!” I shouted, pushing myself clumsily up onto the bar, knocking several tons of glassware onto the floor with a crash and thoroughly soaking my pants. This, I decided, was my chance for escape—Bickerman beaten to a bloody pulp by enraged assholes, and me sneaking off for a little vacation, Bickerman-free for the first time in weeks. I’d visit him in the hospital in a few days and when he got all pissy, pointing accusingly at his catheter and colostomy, I’d say you got off easy, didn’t you? and there would be an awkward, ominous silence.