The Wishbones

by Tom Perrotta

  “I haven't really been following it,” he admits, “but I thought he was guilty right from the start. I mean, that suicide note, or whatever it was, didn't sound like it was written by an innocent man.”

  “Right.” Paul turns back to Melanie, nodding triumphantly. “Exactly. What about that note?”

  “It wasn't admitted into evidence,” she tells him. “Besides, you're changing the subject. I was talking about the police.”

  “The guy's guilty,” Paul insists. “He beat her, he threatened her, and then he sliced her throat.”

  “What about the glove?” Mel asks. “It didn't fit. There are just so many ways for a jury to find reasonable doubt.”

  “Bullshit,” Paul declares. “No jury in their right mind could acquit.”

  “You never know,” Dave points out. “Look at the Rodney King case. There you had the videotape and everything and they still acquitted.”

  Paul looks troubled, almost like Dave's betrayed him. He picks up his napkin and dabs at the corners of his mouth, buying time.

  “That was different,” he says finally.

  “Why?” asks Mel.

  “The cops were scared,” Paul informs them. “The guy was going apeshit. He had to be restrained.”

  Dave takes another sip of wine and looks around the table, searching for a way out. Ian's locked in conversation with Tammi. Julie's chatting with Dave's mother and sister-in-law, and Buzzy's telling a story to Dave's father. Glenn's disappeared. Dave sighs and turns back to Mr. Müller, who's been eating his pasta with an air of deep reflection.

  “So,” he says. “What's that you were saying about Armor-All?”

  In the middle of dessert, Dave's father begins tapping his butter knife against his water glass. He keeps this up longer than necessary, looking flushed and cheerful, necktie askew, and doesn't stop until Dave's mother takes hold of his wrist.

  “Hear ye, hear ye,” he says. “Before Julie makes her, uh … presentation, Jane and I would just like to say a couple of words.”

  He turns to Dave's mother, yielding the floor. Dave leans out over the table, trying to make eye contact with Julie, but she's looking the other way. No one's told him anything about a “presentation.”

  “This is a very happy night for all of us,” his mother says, and he can see from her face that she means it. Her smile seems effortless, not strained and fake the way it sometimes gets during holiday gatherings, when she's been on her feet too long, cooking and cleaning with next-to-no-help from the men in the house. “There are so many people we'd like to thank, especially Jack and Dolores Müller, for their kindness to us and our son for all these”— she screws up her face, as if the math is too complicated to perform on the spot-—” these many, many years.”

  Laughter ripples through the room. Oh great, Dave thinks, warm blood rising into his face as he spoons up a melted blob of ice cream, here it comes. His mother looks across the table, her eyes locking with his.

  “I have to be honest,” she continues, her smile morphing into a sadder, more thoughtful expression. “There were times when I didn't think I'd live long enough to see this day.”

  “Me neither,” Julie's great-aunt Bertha chimes in emphatically. Bertha's eighty-seven and uses a walker, so it's not really a joke, but everyone laughs anyway.

  “Thank you,” his mother tells Julie, her voice wavering with emotion. “Thank you for waiting.”

  Almost as if it's prearranged, like some kind of reunion of long-lost relatives on Phil Donahue, both women rise simultaneously from their chairs. Dave's mother stands still while Julie loops around the head of the table to meet her. Then, with a passion that startles Dave, they embrace in front of everyone, the woman who is his mother and the one who's going to be his wife. As the room bursts into applause, it suddenly occurs to him that they are the exact same height and share the same basic build, sturdy and shapely—womanly is the word that comes to mind. It's strange that he's never noticed it before.

  His mother sits down, smiling to fight off tears, while Julie makes her way back to her own seat, blushing fiercely. Dave tries to signal her, but she keeps her eyes down, unwilling to share the moment.

  Some invisible baton seems to have been passed and his father takes the spotlight. He's got that scary look on his face, the pompous, slightly bemused expression Dave has come to associate with supper-time oratory.

  “Maybe the other parents in the room see it differently,” he begins, “but it's always seemed to me that the most mysterious people in the world are your own kids. You bring them into the world, you feed and clothe them and teach them as best you know how, and then one day you wake up and find these … these strangers living in your house. These teenagers. They listen to this horrible music, they wear these awful clothes, they mumble when they talk. They don't always smell so good. You know it's a phase, but sometimes it doesn't seem like that. Sometimes you can't help wondering what happened to that cute little kid you used to bounce on your knee, if you're ever going to see him again, or if you're going to have to get used to this alien who's invaded your kid's room and taken over his name.”

  Dave finally catches his mother's eye and wordlessly asks her what the hell his father is blathering on about. She responds with an indulgent shrug, still beaming from her moment in the sun.

  “I went through this with both of my sons,” his father continues, “but I have to admit, the whole thing was much more severe with Dave. Part of it was the music, I guess, the way he threw himself into it and couldn't seem to think about anything else. There were days when he didn't really seem to be living in the same world—let alone the same house—as the rest of us. We stopped talking and I almost came to dread those times when I had to take him somewhere, just the two of us in the car, because that meant we'd have to try to talk to each other. I mean, there was a year or two when I really did think he was lost. If he was taking drugs or whatever, or if he maybe just hated my guts. And then one day in … 1979 or ‘80, it must have been, he brought this girl home. She was pretty and smart and she looked you right in the eye and had the most wonderful laugh, and my son seemed like a different person around her, like the Dave I used to know, funny and attentive, and I remember looking at this girl and thinking, Marry her, kid. Don't let this one get away, and I've never stopped thinking it since. Not for a day.” He pauses as the room releases a collective “aaah,” then smiles across the table at Dave. “Congratulations, kid. You finally read my mind.”

  Dave's father raises his glass, his arm fully extended in front of him. Dave sees it all so clearly—his father's face, the pale yellow wine, his mother nodding and biting her lip as she reaches for her water glass, Buzzy in the foreground, stuffing a cannoli into his wide-open mouth.

  “God bless you,” his father says, his voice clear and strong. “God bless both of you.”

  No deception, persuasion, or arm-twisting is even remotely necessary. Randy recognizes them right away as members of the Wishbones, and invites them upstairs for a beer. He doesn't seem at all troubled by the fact that they aren't the search committee for Fuckwad Technologies.

  The guy's apartment is a music lover's paradise, and for a minute or two Artie and Stan forget why they've come and just scan the shelves like kids in a toy store. An old Weather Report album's on, something Artie hasn't listened to for years. It sounds even better than he remembered.

  “We need to talk to you about the wedding tomorrow,” Artie begins, as soon as Randy returns from the kitchen with the beers.

  Randy nods, as if he'd expected as much.

  “I guess Dave sent you,” he says.

  “Excuse me?” Artie can't quite hide his confusion. “What makes you think that?”

  “He didn't?” Now it's Randy's turn to look puzzled.

  Artie shakes his head. “We're doing this on our own. How would you feel about letting us take the gig?”

  Randy shrugs. “No problem.”

  Artie shoots a quick glance at Stan, who seems more co
ncerned with the label on his beer bottle than he is with the conversation.

  “Elm City?” he says.

  “It's from Connecticut,” Randy informs him. “It's not bad.”

  “Interesting.” Stan takes a swig, swirling the beer around in his mouth like a wine taster. “What is it, one of those microbrews?”

  “I think so,” says Randy.

  “Expensive?”

  “Pretty reasonable, actually.”

  “You're okay about this?” Artie asks, trying to steer the conversation back to more relevant matters.

  “No problem,” Randy repeats. “You want it, it's yours.”

  “You'll still get paid,” Artie assures him. “I'll work it out with Julie's father.”

  “Don't worry about it.”

  “I mean it,” says Artie. “We're not trying to steal anything. This isn't about money. It's just our wedding present to Dave and Julie.”

  “It's cool,” Randy says, waving him off. “I don't want the money. It's kind of a relief, actually. I've got this new girlfriend, and these weekend gigs are starting to interfere with our relationship. I'm happy just for the night off.”

  Artie's getting that weird feeling again, like everything's falling into place a little too easily. He turns to share his astonishment, but Stan's wandered away from the conversation, kneeling to examine the albums Randy's filed under the rubric of “Acid Rock.”

  “We appreciate it,” Artie says. “It's really big of you.”

  “Dave's a good guy,” Randy tells him. “Good taste in women.”

  “Damn,” Stan calls out. He pulls an album out of the stack and waves it in the air. “Do you have everything Captain Beefheart ever did or what?”

  “His stuff holds up,” Randy says, nodding his approval. “You want me to put that on?”

  Dave never expected to find himself home at eleven o'clock with no one to talk to on the night before his wedding, but here he is. He figured he'd be out getting drunk or watching some nearly naked woman hump a metal pole, doing something to mark the passing of the last night of the first phase of his life. But when the time came, no one was available. Ian and Tammi had another party to go to. Glenn was wiped out; he said his new medication was wreaking havoc with his sleep/wake cycle. Even Buzzy begged off. He was making an effort to cut down on his drinking and be a more responsible husband and father, and had promised JoAnn he'd be home as soon as the dinner ended.

  His own family didn't have much more to offer in the way of company. Chuck and Linda disappeared upstairs as soon as they got into the house, both looking exhausted. (They're sleeping on the twin beds in Dave's room, leaving him to fend for himself on the furry couch in the TV room, hardly luxury quarters for his last night in the family home.) His parents stayed up for a brief, self-congratulatory postmortem on the dinner, then hightailed it up to bed, repeatedly reminding Dave and themselves of the fact that they all had “a big day coming up.”

  Dave gives some serious consideration to calling Julie, but resists the temptation, knowing how concerned she is about looking fresh and rested on her wedding day. He wants to tell her again how surprised and moved he was by her slide presentation, which she'd introduced to the dinner guests as Dave and Julie: Fifteen Years in Fifteen Minutes.

  “Some of you might have been wondering what took us so long,” she said. A few people giggled, even though Julie didn't seem to be making a joke. “It's a question I've asked myself more than once. This was the only answer I could come up with.”

  What followed was a blizzard of images, arranged in no particular order. Prom pictures, vacation snapshots, photographs from weddings, retirement parties, graduations, picnics, birthdays, Christmases, and countless forgotten occasions. Julie making a human pyramid with some college friends. Dave singing with the Tragics, his short-lived New Wave band, wearing his trademark dinner jacket and ascot. Julie in a pink bikini and sunglasses, sitting atop a tall lifeguard chair, whistle around her neck. Dave with his shirt off, posing beneath his father's prize sunflower. Dave and Julie mugging in a photo booth, looking impossibly young and happy. The boys from Lockjaw. A chorus line of Julie and her sisters, all three wearing identical flannel nightgowns and kneesocks, kicking for the camera. The Wishbones rehearsing in street clothes. Julie as a bridesmaid. Dave in an ugly suit. Julie acting in a college play Dave never saw, due to the fact that she was living with Brendan at the time. Four of the five members of Lost Cause standing in front of a kiddie airplane ride on the boardwalk at Asbury Park, looking like contestants in a Bruce Springsteen wannabe contest. Julie and her young-looking father carrying boxes into a dorm. Sensitive Dave singing at an open mike, during an abortive attempt to reinvent himself as a folkie. Julie glamorous in a black leather jacket, cigarette planted between bright red lips. Five-year-old Dave, wearing an Indian warbonnet, blowing on a toy trumpet. Five-year-old Julie, dressed like a bride for Halloween.

  It wasn't just the pictures, though. Julie had put together a sound track of songs performed by bands Dave had played in over the past decade and a half. Exit 36 doing a credible rendition of “Angie.” Lost Cause covering “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” The Tragics playing “Scared of the Light,” probably the best song Dave had ever written. And finally, the Wishbones’ exuberant version of “Brown-Eyed Girl,” from a promo tape they'd put together about a year ago.

  The show ended with a rapid-fire series of Dave and Julie kissing. Some of them were little pecks obviously staged for the camera, but others were candid shots. They kissed in a pool. In a photo booth. At someone's wedding. On Christmas morning. Passionately. On a couch. Under a tree. As sixteen-year-olds. Just the other day. Dave sat there laughing as the memories rolled by, and for a minute or two, his life seemed to have consisted of nothing but love and music, and it seemed to him as good a life as he ever could have wished for.

  Sometime after midnight he looks up and sees his brother standing in the doorway of the TV room, a bulky, balding guy with incongruously trendy eyeglasses, wearing a V-neck T-shirt and red flannel boxers with blue cowboy hats and yellow lassos printed on them.

  “Hey,” says Dave. “Cool shorts.”

  Chuck ponders his racy underwear for a few seconds, shaking his head as if at a loss to explain the presence of such an item of clothing on his body.

  “Doctor's orders,” he reports. “Boxers are better for the blood flow.”

  “After those twins are born you might want to go back to briefs, just to be on the safe side. Maybe get them a size or two too small.”

  Chuck lifts the front of his T-shirt to display an impressive roll of flab drooping over the puckered waistband of his shorts. “These days everything is a size or two too small. I think I'm having a sympathetic pregnancy or something. I have more cravings than Linda does.” He says this in a tone that expresses wonder rather than regret, and Dave understands for the first time just how happy his brother is at the prospect of fatherhood. Ever since adolescence, Chuck's been fighting a weight problem with a near-religious regimen of jogging and weight lifting and pickup basketball. It was his only vanity, and he seems to have surrendered it without a second thought. “Twenty pounds in seven months,” he laughs. “It's kind of amazing.”

  Dave clicks off the TV to signify his availability for a more serious conversation, and his brother accepts the invitation, abandoning the doorway for a seat on the worn velveteen recliner.

  “I thought you were asleep,” Dave tells him.

  Chuck shakes his head. “I got a second wind.”

  “Linda looks great.”

  “Doesn't she?” His brother grins. “I never realized how sexy pregnant women could be.”

  Dave doesn't reply. Linda looks happy, all right, but “sexy” isn't a word he'd use to describe her in her present state. Her face is bright red and she needs help just to get out of a chair. She wears sneakers all the time because her shoes no longer fit her swollen feet. Dave can't even begin to imagine how big she's going to be in another eight week
s.

  “That was a terrific slide show,” Chuck tells him. “I guess you two have a lot of pictures to choose from.”

  “Julie did the whole thing. I didn't even know she was putting it together.”

  “Mom and Pop really enjoyed it.” Chuck glances up at the ceiling, as if he can see right into their bedroom. “I haven't seen them so happy in a long time.”

  “Listen,” Dave says. “About the best man thing. I hope—”

  Chuck waves him off. “No problem. It's a hundred percent okay with me.”

  “You sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “It's just—I don't know, I thought it would be good for Glenn. He's so cut off from the world most of the time. I just hope he's not too nervous tomorrow.”

  “He'll be fine,” Chuck says, and for some reason Dave knows that his brother's right. Glenn will be fine. For the moment, it seems like they all will.

  The conversation appears to have run its course. Chuck yawns and a pleasant feeling of drowsiness settles over Dave, the first inkling he's had that he might actually be able to fall asleep tonight. He puts his feet up on the couch and leans back against the armrest.