Please Don't Come Back from the Moon (19 page)

"I mean," Nick said, "how many people will really do this?"

It was like he was testing the allegiance of his team.

Everybody started talking at once. They shouted out their predictions—one hundred, two hundred, five hundred—and Nick sat back and beamed. When they called out those numbers, this is what they were really saying: "We won't let you down, Nick. We're behind you 100 percent."

Suddenly, Tom Slowinski let out a loud, shrill whistle. He was crouched down by the television so he could hear it over the noise of the party. Everybody shut up and looked at him.

"Gore took Michigan!" he cried, and everyone went crazy. In the days leading up to the election, Nick had instructed us that a vote for the Democrats was a vote for the rich tradition of labor. He'd even handed out copies of the AFL-CIO's endorsement of Gore and plastered them in the break rooms and bathrooms of the mall.

We were in for a long night. Ella and I were in the kitchen opening some more bags of chips and jars of salsa. She pressed up behind me. "I like your house," she said. "It's very nice."

"Thanks," I said. "It's pretty much furnished and decorated with my mother's leftovers. I haven't done much to it."

"Well, it has character. It feels like a family lived here a long time."

"We did," I said.

From the other room, a chorus of cheers rose up when another state came in for Gore.

"Do you think anybody in there would have voted if it wasn't for Nick?" she asked.

I laughed. "Not a chance."

"Don't tell anyone," she said. "I voted for Nader."

"Wasted vote," I said.

She threw a tortilla chip at my head.

I asked her if she thought it would really happen, if she thought that Maple Rock Mall would make labor history.

"Tonight, for the first time," she said, "I do. I don't know why. I mean, maybe not labor history, but if nothing else, it will get some attention. Nick will have done something, and that's more than all of us can say."

Just then Nick stormed into the room with a red, shiny face and bellowed, "We're dry! We need more beer!"

It was strange to hear him shout this phrase, one I had heard him shout so many times in our lives, on this night infused with politics and history and vision. I almost wished the whole sit-down campaign would stop. It felt like we were being people we were not, people we had no right to be.

Gore had Wisconsin, Gore had Minnesota. We cheered wildly Everybody was good and drunk by the time people started trying to call Florida, which was for the better. It was hard to watch. Tom made a run to the party store for more beer.

A few minutes later, my phone rang. Tom had been arrested on a DUI.

Ella and I drove Tom's fiancée, Tanya Jaworski, to the police station. In the car, Tanya leaned up from the backseat and said, "Mikey, I hope you're fucking happy. You and Nick are a train wreck. Nothing you do works out. It fiicks everything up."

In the early hours of the morning, we watched Tanya post bail for her future husband with a credit card. The ride back to Tom's place was quiet.

"Fuck," I said, after we'd dropped them off at the door.

"She was just mad at Tom and took it out on you. You didn't make him drive."

I drove Ella back home to her trailer. There was a drunk teenager staggering across the road. I swerved onto the shoulder and just missed him.

"Do you want to come in?" Ella asked when we pulled in front of her door. "Margaret's probably asleep in the bed, but we can crash on the pull-out sofa."

"I better get back to my house," I said. "Make sure it's still standing."

She leaned over and gave me a slow kiss on the mouth.

"I love you," I said.

"Michael," she said. Then she touched my cheek with her hand and got out of the car.

THE MONDAY BEFORE
Thanksgiving brought with it the first snow of the season. We still had no incoming President. Snow swirled over the roads as Nick and I drove out to Brighton and listened to public radio's coverage of the Florida recount. Nick was distracted and irritable and he kept telling me I was going the wrong way. We were headed to see Tom at the rehab clinic where he'd gone to dry out. Tanya had insisted he check himself in, a proactive step Tom's lawyer thought might get him a lighter sentence.

Tom ambled into the lobby of the clinic wearing jeans and a blue Michigan sweatshirt. He'd just been through his third day of detox. He was unshaven and thin and he said he hadn't been able to eat much. He was short, but normally a pretty stocky guy, and seeing him look pale and gaunt was a bit of shock. I tried not to stare at him.

"Don't I look great?" he said.

"Better than Mikey," Nick said.

Tom led us down the pristine white hallway to a room he called the lounge, which had a fridge full of Sprite and bottled water, and a hot-beverage machine that only served decaf coffee and herbal tea. We sat around a card table and drank thick, lukewarm coffee with powdered creamer. Across from us, a man in his late forties sat with two teenage girls. He was looking at a magazine, and he kept reading items out loud and trying to make the girls laugh. They looked like they'd been crying all day though, and they weren't in the mood.

"How bad is it?" Nick asked, lighting up a cigarette for Tom and then one for himself.

"It's not so bad," he said. "Man, I'd kill for a drink, you know? But it's not so bad. It might be the best thing that ever happened to me."

"Really?" I said.

"Sure," he said. Soft music played on a radio somewhere. "Margaritaville" came on, and someone turned the radio off. "I mean, how long can you be an asshole who drinks too much?"

"You don't drink too much," Nick said.

At lunch, the lady at the front desk told us that we were allowed to go out to McDonald's and bring some back for Tom. We got him a twenty-piece Chicken McNuggets, but Nick and I ate most of them. Tom just sipped on the milk shake we'd given him. He looked around and said, "I got two weeks in here, but I can stay up to six. Man, this is a helluva milk shake."

"Well, two weeks isn't so bad," I said.

"I think I might stay the full six," he said.

"Why?" Nick said. "You're not really an alcoholic. I don't think so. Do you, Mikey?"

"I think you should stay two weeks," I said. "You don't want to be in here at Christmas."

"No," Tom said. "But I don't want to be here ever again, either. I don't want to be that kind of guy."

"You won't be," Nick said.

"No way," I said.

"Gentleman, we need to step back for a moment and take a look at ourselves," Tom said. "Oh-fucking-kay?"

Normally this would have been just the kind of sudden and passionate Tom Slowinski speech that would have made us bust out laughing. Instead, Nick and I looked at each other and shrugged. Then we each dunked another nugget in barbecue sauce and finished our lunch in silence.

Finally, Tom spoke. "How are the strike plans going, Nick?"

Nick looked around the room, like he was afraid he was being tailed. "It's okay, Tom," he said. "It's going fine."

On the way home, Nick said very little. When we were back on the interstate I said, "I think old Tommy Too Slow is sad that he is going to miss the strike."

"Maybe," Nick said. "A few people are starting to bail on us, you know. About a dozen people have already told me they're having second thoughts. A lot of guys with kids. It'd be a shitty time to lose a job if you had kids."

"Who needs those guys?" I said. "Weak links."

I was thinking about Ella. What would she do if she lost her job over this strike? What would she get Rusty for Christmas? She'd have to win a whole lot more bikini contests to pay the bills without her job at the Book Nook.

The day was windy and some snow blew around, dotting the windshield with ice. The sky over the interstate was gray and the bare trees along the highway looked desperate for warmth, like they might snap in two if the wind picked up any more.

"It's not even Christmas," Nick said, "and I'm already fucking sick of winter."

***

THE NEXT AFTERNOON
, Nick and I were on break smoking cigarettes behind Victoria's Secret. More snow was drifting down from the sky when he said, "I need to talk to you."

"We're talking," I said.

"I've called it off," he said. "Okay, Mikey? It's not going to happen."

"What?" I said.

"The strike. I've already got people spreading the word. It's off."

"Why?" I said. "Because of the election? All this recount bullshit? Is that it? Because if anything, now would be the perfect time to—"

"No," he said. "That has nothing to do with this. It's just not going to happen."

He threw a cigarette butt out ahead of him. It was still smoking when it landed. We were quiet for a minute watching it get covered in snow.

"I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night," Nick said. "And then I woke up and started making calls, telling people it was off, and that felt like the right thing to do. I don't know. Anyway, there's no use discussing it anymore. It's off."

"Whatever," I said.

"Look," Nick said, "people were getting cold feet. It would have been you and me out there all alone—a couple of stupid fucks against the world. Just like old times. We know better than that now."

"There would have been more people there. Ella would be there."

"Fine. You and me and Ella. Three stupid fucks against the world."

"Just like that? You can't do that. It's the only thing anybody has to look forward to right now. I hear people talking about it all the time. That's so goddamn like you, Nick. You don't stick with anything."

"My girlfriend is pregnant. We're going to get married."

"So? So what the fuck!"

"You think anybody is going to hire the leader of a sit-down strike? We're not in a real union, Mikey. There's nothing protecting us, no laws or anything."

"So? Who cares? It was a statement. You said it yourself, you said we'd be famous."

"I need the benefits for the baby. I've worked at Liberty Bell Subs for one year just to get medical insurance. I can't fuck this up."

I had never argued Nick into anything. I knew it wouldn't happen.

"So will I finally get to meet her? This girl? Is she the one from Ann Arbor? Will you have a wedding?"

"No. We're just going to the courthouse. She doesn't want a church wedding or a party or anything."

"Fine, fine. I'll be your witness!"

"Mikey. It's Sunny."

I just looked at him. He shrugged. Then I said, "You mean, Sonya? Sonya Stecko?"

"Right. She goes by Sunny now, you know that."

"I thought you were just friends," I said.

He shrugged.

"She's the one you've been talking about?" I asked. "She's the beautiful, brilliant girl from Ann Arbor?"

"Mikey, are you pissed at me?"

"It was a long time ago," I said. "We were in high school. Do you think I would care about that?"

"I know," he said. "But if you're mad, it's okay."

"I'm with Ella now. Who cares about Sonya Stecko?"

"I know. Ella's great. She's beautiful too."

"Yeah," I said. "She is."

"Mikey, Sunny is trying to finish a dissertation. I don't want to be the guy who wrecks all that for her. So I've got to make some money, pull down some benefits."

We watched each other as our hair and coats grew white with snow. Then I quickly gave him a hug, thumping our chests together and hitting him on the back three times.

"You're going to be a dad," I said. "Holy shit."

"Amazing," he said.

"Wow," I said. "Does that mean I finally have to start calling her Sunny?"

Nick smiled and checked his watch.

"I have to get back to work," he said.

"Of course," I said. "Me too."

"I might end up getting a second job," he said. "Just to save some money until the baby is born."

"Man," I said.

That night I called Ella and told her what Nick had said.

"I know," she said. "I heard. Some guy from American Pants came in and told me. Maybe it's for the best."

"Maybe," I said.

***

WE HAD THANKSGIVING
at Father Mack and my mother's house. Nick was with Sunny's family—Nick and Sunny had planned to break their news to Sunny's mother after she was calm and sleepy from turkey and wine. Aunt Maria was in San Diego with her new boyfriend, her first trip out of the state since she was twenty years old.

I picked up Ella and Rusty in the afternoon and, as we drove to my mother's house, I explained over and over again that Ella should not take anything anybody said seriously. That went for my mom and Mack and Kolya.

"Don't even listen to the cat," I said. "The cat is just as crazy as everybody else."

Rusty laughed from the backseat.

"Rusty, honey, pretend you didn't hear Michael say anything, okay?"

"Is your family crazy?" he said.

"No, Rusty. Michael was just being funny."

"No, Rusty, I mean it. They're wacko." I turned to my side and stuck my tongue out and made a funny face. Rusty found me pretty hilarious and it always made me excited to hear him laugh.

Ella lowered her voice. "You have to watch what you say around him, Mikey. He's like a tape recorder."

Rusty repeated her word for word.

The house in Northville felt like a strange place to have a holiday, even though my mother had been with Mack for a few years by then. Still, all of that dark wood and new china and silverware made me feel like we were staying in some country estate somewhere. We stood in the foyer shaking hands and hugging and everybody was exceedingly polite. After all, my mother and Mack had first coupled while he was under a vow of chastity, so they were kind of sitting in a glass house. They wouldn't say anything about something as common as a single mother. But Kolya was eighteen, in his fourth year of high school, and void of all tact. He said, "So, do you know who Rusty's father is then? Or do you not have a clue?"

"Kolya," my mother said, though I bet she wanted to know the answer too.

"Shut up," I said. "Everybody."