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again. The rest of the heap fragmented into blots of shadow: a thatch of unruly hair, a maroon t-shirt,
another arm: a man, his shoulders heaved forward and shaking.
"Brendan?"
Tony wasn't even sure if he'd said the name aloud. It didn't matter. His friend clasped both hands around
the bedrails, so tightly that the entire bed shook.
"Peter & "
Tony flinched, turning his head so he wouldn't have to see Brendan there in his sweatpants and Redskins
T-shirt, rocking back and forth until the bed began to racket against the wall. But he could do nothing to
shut out the sound, Brendan crying out wordlessly, unrelentingly, his fingers weaving through the rails and
tugging helplessly at the blankets.
"& come back please come back "
Tony turned and stumbled down the hall. His own breath came in such short sharp bursts that when he
reached the kitchen he slid to the floor and sat there, heart pounding, waiting for Brendan to suddenly
burst in and turn that awful spotlit glare of grief upon him.
But Brendan did not come. Tony waited for a long time, watching the dawn brighten from grey to pearl
to white. Gradually the echo of his friend's weeping died away, into the faint rattle of the first buses on
Maryland Avenue. And with that small reassuring sound, Tony felt better. He got to his feet, a little
unsteadily, opened the fridge and grabbed a carton of orange juice. He downed it, shoved the empty
carton into the trash and then stuck his head back out into the hall, listening.
Silence. He waited, then very softly crept back down to Peter's room.
On the floor beside the bed sprawled Brendan, seemingly fast asleep, one hand against his cheek. Above
him, Peter's body was curled into the same posture. The rubber duck had fallen from his grasp, and his
hand had escaped between two of the rails to rest upon his father's shoulder. For a minute Tony stood
and watched them. Then he turned away.
He went back to the living room and did a peremptory check of the television, half-hoping to find some
remnant of Thanksgiving Past buried in the strata of infomercials and commercial sludge he sifted through.
Except for the fade-out of It's a Wonderful Life, there was nothing. He clicked it off, singing "Auld Lang
Syne" under his breath as he wandered down the hall. By the time he'd settled in behind Brendan's
computer, he was humming "Rudolph" and beating time with a pair of unsharpened pencils.
He checked his e-mail, the usual notes from friends and several of the effusive, occasionally lunatic,
letters from Maroni fans that made up the bulk of his correspondence. There was also a brief message
from Marty Berenstein, a.k.a. Mony Maroni.
Dear Tony,
Just wanted to let you know that our latest effort to extricate the catalog from EMI went down in flames,
again. Sorry.
Otherwise things here are fine. Jocelyn's doing her junior year abroad in Madrid, so Helen and I are
having a second honeymoon, of sorts. Actually, make that a *first* honeymoon. All the best to you and
yours for the holiday season
Marty
"Ho ho ho," said Tony. "Another day, another lawsuit. Now "
He started clicking around, looking at the New York Times headlines, checking Amazon for the standing
of the first three Maronis albums. Even twenty-odd years later, these sold well enough to generate
modest but reliable royalties if, of course, any of the surviving band members could have collected
them. He was just starting to compare the sales figures for various musical rivals, when a shadow drifted
across the keyboard.
"You know, I always figured there'd be a Tony Maroni Web page."
Tony looked up to see Brendan, holding a glass of water. He still wore his sweatpants and rumpled
T-shirt, his face stubbled and eyes bleary as though he'd been on a three-day toot, rather than the losing
end of a minor skirmish with three quarters of a bottle of expensive sémillon. "You guys were so big in
Japan," Brendan went on, pulling up a chair. "I would've thought you'd at least have a Web site."
"Well, yeah, sure. I mean, actually, there's a lot of them. A lot for me, I mean. I don't know about the
others."
Brendan raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, a lot? Like how many?"
Tony bounced out of the Amazon page, nibbling thoughtfully at a long strand of hair. "I dunno. Like fifty,
maybe? I forget."
"Fifty? Fifty Tony Maroni Web pages?"
Tony looked embarrassed. "Well, yeah. But, I mean, none of 'em's authorized."
Brendan laughed. "How come none of 'em's ever helped you get the rights back to your stuff?"
"I dunno. Sometimes they offer to, you know? Like some big LA lawyer writes me about it. But I
guess I just don't care so much anymore, with all the other guys being gone." Tony sighed. "We wrote all
that stuff together. It just wouldn't feel right."
Brendan nodded. "Yeah. Well, I guess I can see that."
He leaned forward, and Tony caught the faint reek of wine and sweat and unwashed clothes, that sad
tired smell he associated with church meeting rooms and the long tearful exegeses of weekend
binges conventions where sales reps got locked out of their hotel room after closing time, college
students missing the crucial exam after a beer bash, mothers forgetting to feed their kids. Brendan sipped
his water and Tony waited, hoping there wasn't going to be an apology.
There wasn't. Instead, Brendan ran a finger across the computer screen, raising a little trail of electrified
dust. "Okay." He cocked his finger at Tony and smiled. "So, like, where's Chip Crockett's Web page?"
Tony's head bobbed up and down. "Aw right," he said, relieved. "Check this out, man, you're gonna love
this "
Tony hunched over the keyboard, fingers tapping eagerly. Brendan sank back into his chair and watched
him. He rubbed his forehead, hoping he looked better than he felt although what he felt wasn't even
hung-over so much as some pure distillation of humiliation, depression, and exhaustion, with a healthy
dollop of anxiety about just how Teri was going to react when she heard about him falling off the wagon.
It hadn't happened once in the years since he'd joined AA, and somehow he suspected it wouldn't
happen again. Brendan didn't drink because he was depressed, or lonely, or even just out of habit. He
used to drink when he was happy, in that long joyous sunny rush of years between high school and the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]