The Wishbones

by Tom Perrotta

  Buzzy returned to the business at hand, mildly perplexed by the presence of the kid so close to his back. There were, after all, two unoccupied urinals at his disposal.

  “You think something's funny?” the kid snarled.

  Buzzy ignored the question. His stream had begun to abate, but he wasn't anywhere near finished. A lot of piss can build up in three and a half hours.

  “You hear me, dickhead? I asked you a question.”

  “I heard you,” Buzzy sighed.

  Buzzy was forty-one years old, and he'd spent much of the past quarter century in biker bars and at metal shows. He'd slam-danced, rumbled, and gotten into his share of drunken altercations. He was retired from all that, but his old instincts remained intact. His body filled with a strange sense of calm.

  “I saw that smartass look on your face,” the kid told him, his voice tight with fury. “Believe me, cocksucker, nobody comes here and disrespects Genial Jim like that. Especially not a faggot like you.”

  “What look?” Buzzy replied, still buying time. He couldn't believe how long it was taking for him to empty out. “I don't know what look you mean.”

  The kid shoved him hard in the back. Buzzy stumbled forward, only keeping his balance by slapping his free hand against the wall in front of him.

  “During the song. I fucking saw it.”

  Buzzy heard the hysterical edge in the kid's voice. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen soon, probably before he was ready. He didn't see much choice but to engage in a preemptive strike.

  “What can I tell you, Spike?” He turned around and calmly pissed on the kid's leg, waggling his dick for maximum coverage. “Genial Jim sucks dog shit.”

  Despite his shaved head and weight lifter's physique, the kid was just a kid; he couldn't get over the fact that he'd just been pissed on. He stared down at his splattered pants in amazement, as though time had stopped. Buzzy almost felt sorry for him. He'd had a bad complexion as a teenager and knew how much it hurt.

  “You're guh—” the kid began, but the rest of his sentence collided with Buzzy's fist.

  The impact was like nothing Buzzy had ever experienced before. He felt everything crumple at once—his hand, the kid's face. The poor kid stumbled backwards, his head slamming into the paper towel dispenser. He didn't actually collapse; he just sat down on the floor, put one hand over his mouth and nose, and started to cry like a baby.

  Something terrible had happened to his right hand—Buzzy knew it right away. He had to put his dick away and zip up with his left, and it was harder than he expected. When he was finished he looked down at the bawling skinhead and shook his head.

  “You're lucky,” he said. “Twenty years ago I would've kicked your teeth down your throat.”

  At the door he turned around. Blood was oozing from between the kid's fingers.

  “And do yourself a favor,” he added. “Get some fucking Clearasil.”

  By the time they got to the hospital, Buzzy's hand bore a faint but unmistakable resemblance to a baseball glove. It was too painful for him to let the injured arm hang at his side, so he held it in front of him, cradled against his chest.

  “Overlook Hospital,” he muttered, as the glass doors parted to admit them to the emergency room. “Hardly a name that inspires your confidence.”

  Dave filled out the admission forms on Buzzy's behalf and they took their seats in the waiting area, exchanging sad smiles with relatives of the two other people in need of urgent medical attention. A fiftyish guy in a gray suit rocked back and forth in his chair, gritting his teeth and pressing on his stomach, while his wife sat beside him, doggedly paging through a People magazine. An Indian woman with a gold ring in her nose and a red dot on her forehead hummed softly to the beautiful little girl whose head rested on her shoulder, eyes wide open. Buzzy lifted the ice pack the nurse had given him and inspected his mutant hand.

  “I hope Artie and Stan make it out of there okay. Those skinheads are not gonna be happy campers.”

  Dave still couldn't quite get his mind around the story Buzzy had told with such pride and relish on the way to the hospital. He'd seen the kid leap up from his table and follow Buzzy out of the Banquet Room, a scary teenage bundle of rage and acne and muscles, and a small part of his mind had registered the possibility of violence. (An even smaller part blamed Buzzy for bringing it down on himself by acting like an asshole in such obviously dicey circumstances.) He'd felt a deep sense of relief when Buzzy reappeared a few minutes later, alive and apparently well. It wasn't until he'd returned to the bandstand that Dave became aware of his injury.

  “I need to go to a hospital,” Buzzy told him. “I broke my hand on someone's face.”

  “You what?”

  Buzzy grinned, a little crazily, Dave thought.

  “A skinhead. I pissed on him too.”

  A furious round of whispering ensued as Dave and Buzzy tried to explain the situation to Artie. Buzzy thought they should all leave together ASAP, but Artie refused to abandon the equipment. At one point the discussion got so heated that one of the softball players found it necessary to make his way over to the bandstand and tell them all to “pipe the fuck down.” In the end, Artie and Stan opted to stay behind.

  The guy with the monster stomachache's name was called, and he and his wife were led off to an examining room. The Indian woman kept humming the same sinuous, almost hypnotic melody to her little girl, who still hadn't moved. Dave was starting to worry about her.

  “This is the worst fucking thing I could have done to myself,” Buzzy said. “I guess you guys are gonna have to find yourselves a new bass player on top of a new singer.”

  “Maybe even a new guitarist,” Dave said, surprising himself with this declaration.

  “Excuse me?”

  Dave felt a strange pressure gathering inside his head, as if something were about to come to a boil. He reached up and massaged his temples.

  “My life's a total fucking mess. I don't know what I'm doing about anything anymore.”

  “I'm not following you,” Buzzy told him.

  “I'm in love,” he explained. “Her name's Gretchen. I'm a total fucking mess.”

  It was after eleven when Buzzy finally got home. He trudged upstairs, crouched down by the bedroom window, and tried to do what he had to do in the dark, with one hand. It wasn't long before JoAnn stirred.

  “Buzz,” she whispered. “That you?”

  “Yeah?”

  She turned on the lamp and sat up in bed, blinking like a mole in broad daylight.

  “What are you doing? What happened to your hand?”

  Buzzy stood up. He put one finger to his lips.

  “Don't ask questions,” he told her. “There's something I have to do. You have to trust me on this.”

  She stared at him for a few seconds, taking stock of the cast on his hand and the sling around his neck. Buzzy knew she'd do what he asked her to. She was a good woman, the best thing that had ever happened to him. If it hadn't been for JoAnn, he'd probably be dead by now.

  “Can you get this window open for me?”

  “It is open.”

  “The screen. Pull open the screen. As high as it will go.”

  Jo Ann climbed out of bed, wearing an old Slayer T-shirt and a pair of Buzzy's boxer shorts, white with little blue stars on them.

  “I don't like the sound of this,” she said.

  “Trust me,” he said again, brushing past her as she made her way over to the window. “I need to do this.”

  She lifted the screen. With his good hand, Buzzy unplugged the sixteen-inch portable TV they kept on top of his dresser for occasional bedtime viewing. The set was fairly light; he found he could lift it with one hand and carry it the short distance to the window. He set it down on the sill and looked at his wife.

  “Buzzy,” she said softly. “What happened to your hand?”

  “No questions,” he told her.

  The toss he'd imagined was a dramatic two-handed overhead re
lease, something like an inbounds pass in soccer. He'd imagined the TV falling from a great height, shattering on the concrete patio of some California luxury hotel, shards of glass sparkling like little ground stars. This was nothing like that. This was just a quick one-handed shove, followed almost immediately by a soft thud, and then a neighbor's dog barking, less in alarm than in confusion. He stuck his head out the window and saw the little white Samsung— they'd paid thirty-five dollars for it at a garage sale—lying facedown on the grass.

  “There,” he said, stepping back from the window, doing his best to smile. “I feel better now.”

  YOU STILL HERE?

  Dave had already pulled up in front of his house and shut off the engine by the time he realized that he would not be going home. The confession in the emergency room had jolted him: it was the first time he'd found the courage to admit, even to himself—especially to himself—that love was the issue between him and Gretchen. From the moment they'd met, he'd trained himself to couch his attraction to her in safer, more tentative terms. But now the real word was out, unpremeditated, with all its unpredictable power.

  He was in love, and love required drastic action. It's been a long time, he thought. A long time since I've been in love.

  He had barely turned onto South Avenue when another, more radical thought entered his mind: Was I ever in love with Julie? He'd never doubted it before. They'd said the words thousands of times, in all kinds of tones and inflections—with awe, with sadness, playfully, matter-of-factly, angrily, in all sincerity, uncertainly, over and over. Julie had written it on her jeans in Magic Marker, on her school notebooks, under her picture in their yearbook. Once she'd even scrawled it on his butt in red ink. He'd said it in song lyrics, whispered it in her ear, proclaimed it in letters, carved it into picnic tables and trees.

  But what did it mean? They were just kids, drunk on sex and dreams, playing at something they didn't really understand. She figured he was going to be a rock star: I love you, Dave. He'd never gotten over the sight of her breasts: I love you, Julie. That was all it was. And once you start saying it, it's easier to keep saying it than it is to stop. Say it enough and you start to think it's true.

  But maybe it isn't, he thought, speeding through Roselle into Elizabeth, heading for the Goethals Bridge.

  Maybe it never was.

  He wasn't precisely sure what he meant to do when he got to Gretchen's apartment, beyond telling her that he loved her. That was his mission, and on that small, but hardly insignificant matter, his mind was clear and resolved. Everything after it was a big scary blur.

  At least he'd stopped kidding himself, though. No matter how he looked at it, he saw that he was making a dramatic break with the only life he'd ever known. At some point in the next couple of days he'd have to drive back to New Jersey and clear up the mess he'd made. The wedding would have to be canceled. Julie would hate him forever. His parents would never forgive him. They'd probably throw him out of the house.

  If he was lucky, Gretchen would offer to let him move into her place, even though it was still too early for such a big step in their relationship. There they'd be in that little nothing apartment with pictures of bicycles all over the walls, trying to create a life for themselves in a swamp of bad circumstances, guilt, and next-to-no money. That was the best scenario he could imagine; lots of other ones came to mind as well.

  Even so, he felt freer than he had in years, shooting down the Staten Island Expressway, listening to an old Fleshtones’ tape, moving closer to his hard new life with every tick of the odometer. They could eat croissants for breakfast, take long walks in the park, maybe even get a puppy. In time he would find a New York band to play with—not a wedding band or a Christian band, but a real band, a cutting-edge garage combo that would play the small clubs downtown, the ones the people from the record labels were known to drop in on from time to time. He and Gretchen would wear berets and secondhand overcoats in the winter; they'd stay out late and have lots of friends. He'd take her best poems and set them to music. He'd been playing it safe for too long, clinging to his high-school girlfriend, sleeping in his little twin bed down the hall from Mommy and Daddy. The time had come to risk it all, to roll the dice, to finally let go and jump off the fucking cliff.

  He found a parking Space right in front of her building, an unheard-of stroke of luck that he couldn't help but interpret as a good omen. Parking was going to be a bitch if he moved here; he was already dreading it. But maybe he wouldn't need a car. Maybe he could quit the courier business, find something steadier, a little more challenging, maybe in a big midtown office tower, use public transportation like everyone else.

  Peering up through the dense leaves of a curbside sycamore, he saw the light shining in her bedroom window, the only light on in the entire building, almost as though she were waiting up for him. He'd never imagined a street anywhere in New York City could be this quiet, even at midnight, even on a Wednesday.

  His legs felt hollow and wobbly as he climbed the front steps and entered her vestibule. For the first time, he allowed himself to wonder if he should have called first, if he was going to frighten her by ringing her doorbell unexpectedly at this time of night. But even as he raised the question he understood that this was the way it needed to be done. He put his finger on the buzzer and held it down for a long time, an interval that would have been obnoxious under any other circumstances.

  He waited.

  Nothing happened.

  He buzzed again, this time less theatrically. Her voice crackled through the intercom, staticky and suspicious.

  “Who is it?”

  Dave had to hunch over, almost to waist level, to use the intercom on his end. He wondered if it had been placed that low so kids could use it, or if the builder was just an idiot.

  “It's me, Dave.”

  Heart racing, he put his sweaty hand on the knob of the inner door, expecting to be buzzed in as usual.

  He waited.

  He waited some more, his courage evaporating by the second.

  Finally, he buzzed again.

  “Go away,” she told him. “It's over.”

  He put his lips against the warm metal of the intercom, hating to have to do it like this. He wanted to say it in her apartment, to watch her face, to take her in his arms and repeat it a second, third, and fourth time. This was no good, overenunciating in a darkened vestibule, not even sure if his words were coming through on the other end. But there didn't seem to be any choice.

  “I love you,” he told her.

  “Go away. You had your chance.”

  “Can't you hear me? I'm saying I love you.”

  Again he waited for her to buzz him in, unable to believe that his magic words had failed to do the trick. He rang the buzzer again, this time as uninsistently as possible.

  “Go away,” she said again. “Don't make me call the police.”

  She sounded frail and ragged through the muddled speaker, but nonetheless strangely determined. He saw no recourse but to do as she said. Let her sleep on it, he thought. This is just a misunderstanding. I'll try again in the morning.

  He retreated backwards down the steps, craning his neck for a glimpse of her face in the yellow window.

  But she wouldn't even give him that.

  He wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting in the car, reminding himself of the necessity of starting the engine and beginning the long journey home, when he sensed some activity on the stoop of her building. Straining across the front seat, trying to ignore the gearshift jabbing into his ribs, he pressed his face against the open window and saw two shadowy figures embracing in the vestibule, one of them propping open the outer door with a sneaker-clad foot.

  Moments later, a man started down the steps, an overnight bag slung over his shoulder. Almost simultaneously, the outer door cracked open behind him, revealing Gretchen's head and shoulders, her glasses catching the streetlight and giving it back in two sharp glints. Furiously, Dave cranked down the window.
>
  “Good night,” she called out, her voice clearly audible on the silent street. “I'll call you tomorrow.”

  Then she was gone. Before Dave could process this sudden glimpse and her equally sudden disappearance, the man had pushed open the wrought-iron gate and stepped onto the sidewalk, just a few feet away. With obvious annoyance, he patted the pockets of his jeans—front, then back, then front again.

  “Fuck,” he said, turning around to peer up at Gretchen's window.

  Dave leaned further across the car, his mouth opening in disbelief.

  “Randy?”

  The DJ whirled on the sidewalk, startled by the sound of his own name. He squatted, bringing his face almost level with Dave's.

  “Jesus,” he said, squinting into the car. “You still here?”

  Before Dave could manage a reply, Randy changed the subject, hitting him for a loan of twenty dollars for train fare. He'd left his wallet up at Gretchen's, he explained, and preferred not to disturb her if he could avoid it.

  “She's upset. You caught her off guard with that love stuff. She wants to be alone for a while.”

  “I— I don't get it,” Dave spluttered. “What are you even doing here?”

  Tired of squatting, Randy straightened up with a grimace, supporting his lower back with both hands. There was a weariness in his voice that Dave understood he was meant to take as an accusation.

  “I was supposed to be spending the night.” Randy patted his luggage as if to supply proof for this distressing assertion. “Now I'm trying to catch the late train.”

  Dave's right arm had begun to quiver from the strain of supporting his awkward lean across the front seat.

  “How long have you been—?”

  “A couple of days. Just since Sunday.”

  “How'd you get her number?”

  “I didn't. She called me.”

  “She called you?”

  Randy shrugged. “I'm in the Yellow Pages.” He glanced impatiently at his watch. “I'd love to hang out and chat, but I'm fucked if I miss this train.”