Beneath the Bonfire (5 page)

I'd looked away for only a second, but there was a beautiful blonde moving toward Sven in a languid kind of sashay, jeans tight on long, long legs; it was excruciatingly wonderful watching her move. Her waist was impossibly narrow, and even from my vantage across the room at the bar, I could make out a set of high cheekbones and bee-stung lips that reminded me of a Russian ballerina.

“Where the hell'd
she
come from?” I said to myself, drinking fast and trying to piece together the world in front of me.

“Careful with that one, though,” said the bartender. “She's a goddamn man assassin. Eats 'em alive. Her there, she's been divorced thrice.”

I held up three fingers, brows raised. The bartender nodded gravely.

“She looks a little young for that,” I offered lamely.

“They start early 'round here. Anyway, you watch out for your friend.”

“Oh, Sven'll be okay.”

She was near the cues, touching them, and she selected one from the forest of other sticks and motioned to the table. I could see a shit-eating grin crack over Sven's face like he'd won at bingo or found a twenty-dollar bill on the sidewalk.

Maybe I should and maybe I shouldn't have, but I left the bar just then for a dip of tobacco and a sip of my beer. A girl like that was something out of a dream or a movie, and I didn't want to watch Sven or be around for whatever happened. There was something almost pornographic about the scene that I didn't want to be an audience member of, although that hadn't stopped the rest of the bar, rubbernecking for all they were worth. No, I'd seen enough, thank you. Sven was laboring toward a secret I didn't need to be privy to the details of. I couldn't lie to Nadine about a crime I didn't witness.

Outside the bar, the stars were out, all of them. A billion profusions of light, and closer in, a matrix of lightning bugs hovering off the earth, their own galaxy, blinking on and off and flying their loopy green circuits. I watched the progress of a satellite and spat into the parking lot, feeling my body go limp, the edges of the planet soft and fuzzy. It felt like maybe I was about to drift off into my own orbit, out over the soybeans and corn, over the silos and barns, and I have to say, I was ready for that strange levitation. Ready to start my ascent to wherever, ready to feel weightless, the cord linking me to my known life snipped sharp and clean. And I wanted that lift-off too, just to float off away from everything for a while, only to come back, slide back between my own bedsheets beside Nadine, her naked shoulder alpine and creamy smooth above the sheets.

Just then Sven burst out of the bar, the skinny girl behind him, her lipstick a little smeared and the top button of her jeans loudly unbuttoned. It broke me from my spell.

“Go, go, gogoogogo!” Sven said, pushing me with his hands, shooing me toward the Camry. I fumbled for the keys, dropped them in the dust and gravel of the lot and got to my knees, looking to find them.

“God damn it, I'm drunk,” I slurred.

Sven scooped the keys off the earth in a kind of motion I have seen performed only in jai alai videos and dragged me up too, up off the parking lot, throwing me into the car and somehow bending underneath the wheel and gunning the small engine within a matter of seconds. Sitting in the passenger seat, more than a little stunned, I realized that I had swallowed my chew of Red Man. I would pay for that later, I knew.

“What's the fucking problem?” I said. “Was she
too
beautiful? Jesus! I thought we were having a nice time!” I watched her figure shrink in the side mirror and even gave her a sad little wave.

But Sven was vigorously shaking his head and touching his neck with those long fingers. He looked like a man bitten by a she-vampire.

“You all right?” I asked, coming up out of it, trying to clear my head.

“You left me!” he said. “You left me, Lily!” He punched the steering wheel and the horn beeped feebly in the night. He punched it again and we flew through the humidity of the evening like some drunk bird, squawking obnoxiously as the countryside tore past.

“Jesus, Sven, I'm sorry, I thought you were cool. I mean, she was beautiful.”

“I can't fuck up,” he said. “
All right?
I can't fuck up.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, confused.

“I can't do that, man. I just can't do that kind of shit.” He was almost chanting it, as much to himself as to me.

“She gave me a hickey,” he said, motioning sternly to his throat, where the bruise seemed to glow boldly, one link in an otherwise invisible necklace.

I started laughing, then caught myself, choking on it. Sven punched me good in the arm.

“What the fuck am I supposed to tell Tessa!” he said. “Huh? What the fuck!”

He hit the brakes just then, pulling over too quickly, and my head went into the dashboard. Hard. I knew my nose was broken from the blood in my mouth and down my throat, the iron taste of cutlery there, like sucking on a butter knife.

“Aw, Christ,” Sven said. “Fuck, I should have warned you. I just … I don't know what the hell is happening to me tonight. I'm sorry, man. I'm so sorry about all this.”

He reached over with his long arms and hugged me. We were two men in the countryside, embracing each other. One bleeding badly, the other with a neck sucked raw by a Russian ballerina succubus. The world was quiet and densely humid. There were frogs in the ditches, croaking and groaning. The brake lights of the Camry glowed red against the night behind us and I was happy for the gentle glare. Even though I loved Sven, I did not want to die in that way, rear-ended by some farmer with a sixer on the bench seat of his pickup.

“What am I going to tell Tessa?” he asked me, his body draped over me, sniffles of fear and regret coming from his mouth and nose.

“All right, all right,” I said. “Get off me for a second so I can stop this bleeding.”

I reached into the backseat and grabbed some Kleenex to stuff my nose.

We sat in the car halfway off the road and ruminated. I hadn't realized how drunk Sven was, and now I knew, as I snuck a glance at him behind the wheel, his eyes filled with tears, his long fingers again on his neck, his pompadour totally askew. I didn't want him getting in trouble, either, and I knew that I wasn't going to come out on top of this one, unscathed or unpunished.

“All right,” I said. “I got it. Get out of the car.”

*   *   *

And that was how we came to fight each other in the middle of county highway DD, in the red lights of my Camry. It wasn't much of a fight, because it didn't need to be. I instructed Sven to bend down a bit so that I didn't have to jump when I punched him, and I had him close his eyes. I slugged him under the right eye, closer to the cheekbone, and he went down on the asphalt, laughing and then feeling the pain like a scrape against cement.

“Now,” I said, “I'm sorry, but we need to add some more love bruises to that giraffe neck of yours.”

I've never seen a man so happy to take a punch as Sven was then, and after a few more hooks and uppercuts we took a break, panting on the asphalt, my knuckles bloody on their stumps, my hands tired and sore. I stood up underneath the bath of starlight. Sven did too. I took a deep breath.

“Now me,” I said. “Just not the teeth, okay?” A moment later I frowned, eyeing his incoming fist. It reminded me of Little League. The many times I stood terrified in the batter's box, waiting to be nailed by a pitch that only ever landed in the catcher's mitt.

But this time, I was well beaned.

*   *   *

We pulled up in front of their apartment and Sven shook my hand. He looked at me seriously and happily, and I could see that the fight or the rest of the drive had sobered him up.

“Got your story straight?” I asked.

“Do you?” he asked.

“A bad fight in a redneck bar. We tried to break it up, and instead the bar turned against us. We were so drunk we probably couldn't find the place with a map.”

“That's a big ten-four,” he said, and we shook hands again.

*   *   *

“Bullshit!” said Nadine. “Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! I don't believe that crock for a second. Couldn't find the bar with a map. Tried to break up a fight! You know that after you passed out last night Tessa calls me at three o clock in the morning. Says Sven has a black eye and a cut lip. Says there is blood all over his clothes. Bruises all over his neck! What the hell?”

I decided to really sell that neck part. I could see that even if she didn't believe all the details, the lie was doing its work. We had juked them, deked them off their skates. The Russian ballerina was lost on that limitless prairie of lightning bugs and dive bars, and Nadine and Tessa were never going to be the wiser.

“Whaddaya want me to say?” I said feebly, apologetically, “One of those redneck bastards had a sleeper hold on Sven, and I really thought we'd had it. Lights out, you know? But then I got a boot to that guy's toes and Sven was able to break loose. Tell you what, wouldn't want to see what that guy looks like today. No, sir.”

I sucked air through my nostrils, still throbbing with pain. It was a Wednesday morning before Nadine had to leave for school with Lola, and I had already called in sick to work, thinking that if I could fake illness the next two days I might be healed up for next week and never have to explain myself to the boss. I took a long drink of orange juice and batted my eyes at Nadine.

“Tessa blames this on you,” Nadine said. “She blames all this shit on you. Said Sven had never even come home drunk before he met you.” Her voice was cold. Lola was at the table too, eating pancakes, her feet swinging off the chair. Her plate was awash in maple syrup, the pancakes floating like lily pads.

“Lola!” Nadine said. “Get your bag ready and go to the car, okay, honey? I'll be there in a second.” She leaned in low beside my face and I looked down. Our story had done its work, but I knew how far I had fallen. Lola squirmed down below the table and ran off to her bedroom, her face sticky with syrup and butter.

“Anyway, you're done with all that, aren't you?” Nadine hissed. “You hear me? Done.
Grow up
.”

And then, so much worse, and whispered even quieter: “Be a man.”

Knockout.

She'd swung from her heels and broken my jaw. And down went Lily. Down went Lily.

*   *   *

The house was empty after she slammed the door, so I went to the couch with a glass of orange juice and flipped channels, my belly sour, my face sore. Even a pillow hurt. The telephone rang and I let the machine answer it. It was Sven, but I didn't know what to say anymore. I knew our time had come.

“Hey, it's Sven. Look, I just want to say how sorry I am about everything last night. I hope you're all right. Nadine told Tessa that your nose wasn't broken too badly and that it won't look bad forever. Anyway, I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm looking forward to those five boxes of Thin Mints. I'll be over there later to pick them up. Take it easy. Bye.”

Sven was good people. Through and through good people. Decent and square. But I was too. I was good people too, and I was taking it all on my chin. Nadine was pissed. Tessa was pissed. And I was losing my best friend. Not because I had necked with a Russian ballerina in the bathroom of some country bumpkin bar, but because Sven had, and was either too smart or too dumb to get his skinny ass out of the bind.

I stood up from the couch and went to the refrigerator. It was nine o clock in the morning, but I decided to have a beer and lick my wounds. The orange juice was a nice chaser to the beer and I drank like that until lunch, when I was hungry and found the cases of Girl Scout Cookies in the basement and carried them up to the couch, where I stationed myself in front of the television, eating until I could not eat more, opening up box after box, and deciding that Thin Mints were my favorite. For the second time in twenty-four hours, I passed out with the television screen before me, aglow with happy faces, happy for another Today in New York City.

The doorbell rang and I was covered in the crumbs of my daughter's cookies. I rubbed my eyes, shut off the TV, and went to the door. It was Sven. Black-eyed and broken-lipped, his throat garishly decorated in a chain of bruises, he craned his face to look down at me and I could see there was real sadness there. Sven was my friend and I could see that he understood that we were done.

“Come in,” I said. “Want a beer?”

“Why not,” he said. “Could be the last one, the way Tessa ripped into Nadine last night. Oh, and I got a check for Lola's cookies.” He handed me a check and I put it underneath a magnet on the humming refrigerator.

“Yeah,” I said. “I'm in the doghouse for sure on this one. How's the eye?”

“You got any ice?” he asked.

So we sat that way until five, by which point Nadine might be home with Lola from day care, Sven holding a bag of frozen broccoli on his face, both of us drinking beer and eating Girl Scout Cookies in silence, just the sound of our jaws working.

“I'm so sorry,” he said.

“It's all right, things'll cool down. You know how these things are. They're upset.”

“I know, but it's my fault. Not yours. It was me in there with that girl, not you.”

“Yeah, but I left you. And I took us to that place to begin with.”

I didn't know whose fault it was anymore, and maybe it didn't matter. The whole thing was so dumb and I was losing my best friend in the world for it.

He put his bottle up and drained the last dregs. “Come on, you didn't leave me,” he said. “I just said that. That was all on me. That was on me, and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that because I didn't want or need it anyway. You know?”

I didn't understand at first, but then I did and I nodded and we stood up. I was acutely aware in that moment of our trajectories in life, and how Sven was like the NASA space shuttle, his path nearly a vertical stairway, a plume of thick white cotton smoke beneath him as he raced toward the sky. He was the only person I'd ever met who could've been an astronaut; he was that good.