The bartender switched the Musak from Southwest Strip Club to Intermission Rhythm-and-Blues. First song up: “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone.”
John groaned and put his face on the bar. Vinnie shook his head. “OK, we need to deal with this. Not to be insensitive or anything, but this is my bachelor party and as best man you’re supposed to be making sure it’s a totally mind-blowing, over-the-top, no-holds-barred experience of debauchery and sexist indulgence that I will be able to remember and treasure down the long dark years of marital imprisonment when I’m wondering why my wife has custody of my balls and if we’ll ever make whoopee again and if I even want to. It’s my last night on earth as a free man and you, my friend, are totally screwing it up.”
“I’m sorry,” John’s voice was muffled, but profoundly contrite.
“Whatever is eating you, you need to get it off your chest and I mean pronto. When those babes come back, they should find not one but two of the most hard-drinking, womanizing, take-no-prisoners party animals this shitty excuse for a world has ever known. Together again. If only for this one night. When they carry us out of here, we should be legends, if only in our own minds. If only in my mind. After that, you can dissolve in a puddle of beer-soaked self-pity and it’s your funeral. Not really - but you need to snap out of it. If you won’t do it for you, do it for me. Do it for my sake. OK? This is me, begging. Can you possibly, just for tonight, get past whatever is making you an absolute sorry-ass killjoy and for once in your life pretend it’s all about me?”
“I suck,” John admitted, sitting up again.
“Well, as a wingman, you’re a great little tea cozy.”
“Ten years of marriage will do that.”
“You have about ten minutes to tell me what’s wrong.”
“What isn’t wrong? Lately we can’t agree on anything. She’s back to being impossible. I can’t do anything right. Everything is ‘no.’ No, she doesn’t want to go to Detroit, they’re a bunch of fucking amateurs. No, she doesn’t want to try and get back on the circuit and do hits under a new identity. No, she doesn’t want children…”
“Wait. You want children?”
“Don’t you?”
“Knowing what we know?” Vinnie tossed down the rest of his Tequila and reached over the bar for the bottle. “That’s one for Jane. Go on.”
“We argue all the time. If I so much as breathe, she’s on my case.”
“If you so much as drink too much?”
“I am drinking the same as ever,” John bridled. “She used to drink me under the table. No more.”
“Uh huh.” Vinnie was refilling his empty shot glass. Poured another for John. “And who’d you fuck?”
“Oh, come on, I’m married to Jane. Even you have a thing for Jane.” John bolted his shot, suffered the consequences.
“Do not.” Vinnie looked disgusted. John waited, exhaling hard, skeptical. “Alright, I’ve had the occasional involuntary wet dream - which you will not hold against me if you guys reconcile. And I notice you changed the subject. Five minutes, dude.”
“It was nothing.”
“It never is. Was she gorgeous? Which, weird as it may sound, can be better than if she’s not, because I’ve noticed good-looking women get really pissy if they’re replaced by a chick who’s just so-so. And if she was downright ugly you’re a dead man.”
“Picture a young Angelina Jolie,” John admitted.
Vinnie whistled silently. “We talking before or after Brad Pitt? Because I always thought he was the beginning of her high classical period and now you mention it, I always thought that Jane was the spitting image of - oh shit. You know age gets to be a thing - ”
“She was just some kid,” John broke in, clutching his head in exasperation. “We felt sorry for her. The entire village is unemployed, so we gave her a job. She was delivering groceries, for god’s sake.”
“How does that even happen?” Vinnie clearly stood in awe of this further proof of John’s effortless success with the fairer sex. “’Here are your bananas, sir.’ ‘Why thank you, young lady, do you like bananas?’ Does Greece even have bananas, the way things are?”
“I can’t explain it. I didn’t ask for it. I open the door, I take the groceries, like I’ve done week in, week out, time and again, I wave at the taxi in the driveway which is there to take me to the nearest airport, and all of a sudden, this sweet young thing is hanging from my neck giving me mouth-to-mouth.”
“Zorba effect,” Vinnie postulated. “Zorba the fucking Greek. You were this exotic stranger, giving off this crazy mid-life crisis vibe -”
“I’m telling you, it wasn’t me. And it was just a kiss.”
“But Jane walked in. And you’re still walking around. I’d say that’s positive.”
John wasn’t so sure. “Too many witnesses. The kid got out just ahead of a kitchen knife. And the taxi was waiting.”
“Timing. Timing is everything. So this was just before you left?”
“I was on my way out the door.”
“You kissed and ran? That is, you kissed someone other than your wife and ran? John, John, John. The new me is all - ‘that’s the stupidest goddamn thing I’ve ever heard.’ The old me is like - ‘you couldn’t do this two months ago, before I signed up for the old ball and chain?’”
“Ladies and gentlemen, first off, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my best friend and bosom buddy for his undying, unconditional support,” John said, speechifying into the mirror behind the bar. Then he dropped his sarcastic tone to confess, “She hasn’t called. She hasn’t texted. And she won’t pick up when I call. Her voicemail is so full it just hangs up on me. It’s been over a week.”
The music ran out and the room fell silent, except for the TV, where the onscreen Indian chief was on top of a mountain saying good-bye. “Come out and fight! It is a good day to die.” The chief on the sofa seemed to have fallen asleep. His chin was on his chest. He sighed deeply and drew a ragged breath.
“I thought - I thought the Klingons started that. ‘Today is a good day to die.’” John repeated. Then gave the Klingonese, one of the 20 languages with which he had at least a nodding acquaintance: “Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam!” And slammed his hand on the bar for good measure.
“Now you’re talking,” Vinnie leaped at the chance to change the subject. He slammed his hand on the bar in agreement. “DaH SojlIj!”
He had to raise his voice because the door had opened, the lights had been turned out, and the women were returning, with flaming batons this time. “Fire on the Mountain” blared from the speakers. “Eat, drink, and speak Klingon,” Vinnie proclaimed, sitting back as the bartender deftly spilled vodka down the length of the bar and tossed a match in it, whereupon blue flames opened out like a field of bluebonnets for the baton dancers to stomp on. “For tomorrow -“
“We go see my mom,” John finished, almost yelling over the music as he accepted a flaming B-52 from a waitress who stood at his side wearing little more than a smile and a halo of sparklers invisibly wired to the back of her head. ”
5 The Glory of Economy
“Careful with that baby.” Startled, Jane froze, looking right-left-right, up-down-around. Like a fucking civilian getting ready for the dash across Sniper Alley in Sarajevo. No baby. She was back in the kitchen of the Greek cottage, with the doors open and the cold pouring in. But no baby, thank god.
The old woman at the table was a dead ringer for the Greek granny who had sung ‘Opa!’ on the day of the eviction, but Jane was not fooled. It was her mother.
“You’re one to talk,” Jane said. The granny had a Molotov cocktail, which she kept huffing like a pro. Getting high on gasoline fumes. Not what you want to see in your mother. But the granny had an excuse.
“This isn’t about me. I’m just an oracle. Inhaling the divine vapors and relaying messages from beyond.”
“Not that I have any r
eason to care about anything you have to say? But the least you could do is speak for yourself.” Jane felt she was being a bad hostess, but she couldn’t remember if her mother preferred coffee or tea. Oh wait. Having never met her, how could she be expected to know? And anyway, the cupboards were all nailed shut. “I thought you were dead, by the way.”
“I probably am. We all are. The problem remains. You’ve lost your way.”
“That might have been helpful before I re-wrote the CIA assassination guide. Now? Not so much.”
“Too many MBAs. Not enough super-heroes. End of marriage - er, message. Beep!”
“Now you sound like John. What tripe.” But her mother was gone and it was John sitting there, half worried, half pleading.
“No, no, you’ve got it all wrong. Let me explain. Jane, sweetheart, put down that knife.”
“Okey-dokey,” she said cheerfully, aiming at a spot just shy of his left ear.
She missed on purpose and he made a beeline for the door, not just to put physical distance between them, but because he had to catch a taxi, because he had to catch a plane, because he had more important things to do than stand there and try to mend what two years of hardship and hopelessness had broken. “Remember,” he said, keeping a wary eye on her shaking hands, “violence is never the answer. Vandalism, violence, and destruction have no place in a democratic country and Greece does not have the luxury of such protests in such difficult