The Wishbones. Tom Perrotta
with broken glass.
Stan leaned into the car, reaching around the steering wheel to turn off the engine. Better me than some fucking car thief, he thought, shoving the keys into his pocket and glancing uneasily at the cloudless sky.
Warm water. He held his face in the pulsing stream, remembering the pleasure he'd felt as the rock erased the window. It was the kind of thing he could imagine doing again and again and again.
Climbing out of the shower, he felt alive again, nearly refreshed. The idea of spending his wife's twenty-seventh birthday at an old man's wake no longer seemed like a cruel joke. He thought about asking Dave and Buzzy to go out with him afterward, maybe to a club with music, or to one of those restaurant bars where the pretty secretaries went, hoping to meet a nice guy.
Why not? he thought. I'm a nice guy.
He opened the closet door and looked inside. It seemed so empty in there without Susie's clothes, the multicolored jumble of skirts and blouses, some of them sheathed in filmy plastic from the cleaners. After she left, he tried to rearrange his stuff to fill the available space, but the effect was vaguely disturbing, like a smile full of missing teeth.
He couldn't remember if he was supposed to dress like a Wishbone for the wake or not. Artie had mentioned something about it on the phone, but Stan hadn't really been listening.
Just to be on the safe side, he decided to go for the tux. Reaching for the hanger, he looked down by reflex and saw his missing dress shoes gleaming on the closet floor, right where they were supposed to be. The sight of them made his mouth taste funny.
Freshly dressed and mostly sober, he swept the glass off the front seat, climbed into his car, and set off into the night. The DJ on K-rock said it was the beginning of a commercial-free hour, one of those everyday events you couldn't help thinking of as a good omen.
He was coming down Central Avenue in West Plains, singing along with Melissa Etheridge, when it occurred to him that he didn't know where he was going. He had a clear memory of Artie saying, “We'll meet at the funeral home around seven,” but nothing beyond that. Not a word about which funeral home on what street, or even what town.
An unpleasant chill spread up the back of Stan's neck. He saw himself at that moment—a man in a tuxedo, driving nowhere in a car with a broken window—and was overcome by a feeling worse than simple embarrassment. For a few seconds he toyed with the idea that he was losing his mind.
In his heart, though, he didn't really believe it. He was just going through a bad patch, the kind of situation that took a toll on your day-to-day functioning. What he needed was some understanding, a little encouragement, a few kind words. Most of the guys in the band were sympathetic, especially Buzzy and Dave. Ian was okay too, though Stan hadn't been able to take him seriously for a long time now, ever since he'd learned that his real name was Frank. “Ian” was a stage name, borrowed from the lead singer in Jethro Tull. It was the kind of thing you didn't want to know about a grown man you thought of as a friend.
The problem was Artie. A decent manager would have patted him on the back and tried to help him through the mess. But Artie wasn't like that—Stan understood that now. Artie was a shark, the kind of guy who'd risk his life crossing a busy highway just for the chance to kick you while you were down.
Phil's widow had stopped crying by the time Dave shook her hand and told her how sorry he was. She introduced herself as Rose Cardini.
“Cardini?” he said. “Phil's last name was Cardini?” She looked amused. “What did you think it was?” “Hart,” he replied, feeling foolish as soon as he said it. “Back when he started out, most of the Italian performers changed their names to sound more American. That's how you got Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, people like that.” “Not Sinatra, though.”
“That's true,” she said. “Sinatra was the exception.” On the boom box, “You've Got a Friend” segued into “Danny Boy,” and Mrs. Cardini seemed to lose track of the conversation. Her blue eyes clouded over; she craned her neck as though looking past Dave to a taller person standing behind him. Softly at first, but then with more confidence, she began humming along with her husband's voice, effortlessly harmonizing. After just a few bars, though, she stopped. The alertness returned to her face. “We were married for fifty-two years,” she said, gazing in wonder at her own hands. “Can you imagine that?”
Dave shook his head; he couldn't.
“On long car trips, we used to sing to pass the time. ‘Danny Boy’ was one of our favorites.”
“It's a great song.”
“He seemed so healthy,” she said. “I thought we had a few more years.”
At the Other end of the line, Dave held out his hand to Joey Franco. They'd known each other since they were kids without ever really being friends. Joey had gone to Catholic grammar school and was already deep into drugs by the time he arrived at Harding High.
“I'm sorry,” said Dave.
Before the words were out of his mouth, Joey's arms were around him, squeezing hard. Dave grunted in surprise, surrendering to the embrace.
“Dave,” said Joey.
“Joey,” said Dave.
Dave had always tried to keep his distance from Joey—it was as much his bad skin as the fact that he'd been a junkie— but it felt okay to hug him inside the funeral home. Joey was sobbing now, the muscles in his back jumping beneath the fabric of his suit.
“Dave,” he said again.
“Joey.”
“Believe me,” Artie said, when the Wishbones had reassembled on the lawn outside the funeral home, “the Heartstring Orchestra is history.”
“Not necessarily,” said Ian. “All they need is a new front man.”
“Where they gonna find another seventy-year-old front man?”
“Why does he have to be seventy?” Buzzy inquired.
“Because they're a concept band.”
“Concept?” said Ian. “What concept is that?”
Artie stared at him like he was an idiot. “Whaddaya mean, what concept?”
“Whaddaya mean, what do I mean?” Ian shot back. “I asked what concept.”
“They're a bunch of old guys,” Artie explained. “That's the fucking concept.”
“What about Joey?” Dave asked.
“What about him?”
“He's our age.”
“That's right,” said Artie. “And if Stan doesn't get his shit together, maybe Joey wouldn't mind a chance to play with some guys who don't belong to the American Association of Fucking Retired People.”
“That's a good organization,” Buzzy told him. “Don't knock the AARP.”
“Mel's a pretty hot sax player,” Ian pointed out. “Maybe we could use him too.”
“Eat me,” said Artie.
They were Still standing on the lawn ten minutes later when Alan Zelack pulled up in front of the funeral home in his red Mitsubishi Eclipse, which Artie liked to mock as a “poor man's Porsche.” In a soft voice, Ian began singing “Stairway to Heaven” as Zelack climbed out of the car, pausing in the street to straighten his tie and run his fingers through his expensive haircut. Dave remembered him breathing into Phil's mouth, pressing on his chest.
“Hey, guys.” Zelack seemed delighted by the opportunity to stop and chat. “It's a shame about Phil, huh?”
“You did a good thing the other night,” Dave told him. “The mouth-to-mouth and all.”
Zelack