The Grievers (16 page)

When I got home, Karen asked how my date with Greg had gone. She’d finished scrubbing three of the four dining room walls, and though the filmy layer of sweat and grime that covered her skin had grown thicker in my absence, her question made me feel as if I were the one who needed a long, hot shower.

“Don’t ask,” I said.

“It was that bad?”

“He wants to be your best friend.”

“Don’t even joke about it.”

“I’m serious,” I said. “But don’t worry. If things work out with this woman in Chicago, I’m sure he’ll forget all about you.”

“That’s comforting,” Karen said.

“You don’t think I’m like him, do you?” I asked.

“You? Like Greg Packer?” She wrinkled her nose and put her arms around my waist. “I don’t think so, Charley.”

“What I mean is, do you think Neil gets home and has this same conversation with Madeline about how crazy I am? About how I’m a huge pain in the ass?”

“Are you kidding? He’d do anything for you.”

“Just like he’d do anything for Greg.”

“That’s different. You’re his best friend.”

“Yeah, but for how long?” I asked.

And how far can I push him before he’ll give up on me?

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Karen said. “You’re nothing like Greg Packer.”

“I hope not,” I said.

“Trust me,” Karen said. “You’re not.”

All I wanted was to believe her, so I dipped a scrub brush into the warm, gray water of her bucket and went to work on the fourth wall of our dining room.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN  

D
espite my best intentions, Monday morning found me lying flat on my back again, balloons tied to my wrist, water dripping into my unwieldy costume as the sprinklers came to life on the lawn in front of the bank. Little by little, I was getting used to the idea that Neil was leaving. Maryland wasn’t
too
far away, I told myself—certainly not far enough to keep Greg Packer from showing up on Neil’s doorstep if, perchance, he stumbled upon a woman in the DC area who was willing to meet him for drinks. But it was enough distance to ensure that Neil wouldn’t be around to get the rest of us out of whatever jams we managed to get ourselves into.

He wouldn’t be around to broker deals between Greg and his mother when their squabbles drove Greg out of the house and onto the sofa of some poor, unfortunate friend. He wouldn’t be around to coordinate lunches and dinners with Sean Sullivan, Dwayne Coleman, Anthony Gambacorta, and anyone else who bothered to keep in touch with us after we graduated from the Academy. And he definitely wasn’t going to be around to get me back on my feet whenever I slipped in the mud—literally or otherwise.

What all of this meant in practical terms was that our little gang of misfits was going to need a new leader, and as I lay on my back in the stuffy, damp darkness of my giant dollar sign, I could think of no better candidate than myself.

In Neil’s absence, I would be the new Neil.

My first course of action in this regard was to call Phil Ennis and clear up any bad blood that might have resulted from the letter I’d forwarded to him over the weekend. It was all my doing, I’d tell him, and Neil had nothing to do with it. It was embarrassing and terrible and something I’d always regret. If I could take it back, I’d do it in a heartbeat. The letter, I imagined myself insisting as I found Ennis’s number on the speed dial of my cell phone, did not reflect my true feelings for the Academy, which were nothing but positive. From here on out, I’d be a team player. Whatever Ennis needed, I’d provide without a second’s hesitation.

“Do you know what your problem is, Schwartz?” Ennis said before I could hurl myself onto my sword.

“No,” I said, forcing a chipper tone. “But I’m willing to learn.”

“
That
,” Ennis said. “That right there is your problem.”

“That I’m willing to learn?” I said.

“No, Schwartz,” Ennis said. “Your attitude. You think your hands are clean just because you’re a cynic. Well, let me tell you something—the rest of us have to live in the real world. The rest of us have bills to pay. The rest of us need to get our hands dirty so we can get shit done, so fuck you, Schwartz, if you can’t deal with it. Fuck you, fuck your idealism, and fuck your naive grasp of how the fucking world works. Do you know how much money it costs to run this place? Do you know how many kids are here on bullshit grants and scholarships? Do you know how many parents never pay their tuition on time? Do you think I like wearing a shit-eating grin every time I meet an asshole with deep pockets? Do you think I like hitting alums up for cash every goddamn day? I don’t, Schwartz, but it’s my job, and if you don’t like it, you can go to hell.”

“Look, I’m calling to apologize, okay?”

Ennis said nothing, but I could imagine him sitting at his desk and trying to regain his composure. At the end of the day, I represented money—maybe only a small amount, but money nonetheless. And if he could still use my name to squeeze a few more dollars out of my graduating class, then so much the better.

“Okay, Schwartz,” he eventually said in a strangled tone that suggested he was doing his utmost to rein in his palpable rage. “Let me tell you how this is going to work. When I get off the phone with you, I’m reaching out to your graduating class, I’m reaching out to some key alums, I’m reaching out to the community, and I’m reaching out to the media. From this point on, it’s a full-court press. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” I said. “But why the media?”

“You’re obviously not a newspaper man,” Ennis said with undisguised contempt. “We’ve been taking hits in the
Inquirer
ever since we put in the new parking lot. They say we destroyed the neighborhood when all we ever did was tear down a few abandoned houses. But if we invite a few local kids into the school and talk about how we’re taking donations in Billy’s name to help fund our new initiative to get Philly boys in the door, it might help win a few hearts and minds, if you’ll pardon the expression.”

“So, what? This is all a big PR campaign for the Raging Donkeys?”

“Enough with the moralizing, Schwartz. Are you in or out?”

“I’m in,” I said, reminding myself that I was trying to be the new Neil. “I’m in. Definitely.”

“Good,” Ennis said. “We’ve been presented with an opportunity to take something positive away from what, by all counts, is a tragic situation. Your job in all of this is to answer any and all questions about Billy with the simple facts that he was a kindhearted soul and that he loved the Academy. And at the end of all this, when we all sit down to remember Billy, you’ll get up and say a few pleasant words, and we’ll all feel good for having known him. Can you handle that?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “No problem.”

“And from now on, you report to Frank Dearborn.”

“Oh,” I said. “
That
might be a problem.”

“I don’t want to hear it, Schwartz. Whatever you have against Frank, get over it. Otherwise—”

“No,” I said. “You’re right. I’ll get over it. We’ll have dinner together. Catch up on old times. It’ll be a riot.”

“Watch the sarcasm, Schwartz,” Ennis said. “You’re hanging by a thread as it is.”

I took a breath to apologize, but Ennis had already hung up on me. Though my first instinct was to call the bastard back and tell him that we must have been cut off, I let out my breath and reminded myself that if I wanted to be the new Neil, I had to do the kind of things Neil did—which, above all, meant avoiding the kind of things
I
usually did, like flying off the handle every time someone pissed me off.

T
RUE TO
his word, Ennis didn’t waste any time sending an email about the memorial service to everyone he knew. I know this because I’d barely gotten off the line with him when my cell phone started to ring—and ring, and ring, and ring. Which meant that I spent the next hour-and-ahalf listening to a gospel choir tell me that I was moving on up to a deluxe apartment on the East Side, while fielding phone calls from people I hadn’t spoken to in years. They all wanted to know what happened to Billy, and when I told them that his death had been a suicide, there was always an awkward pause. As Greg Packer’s unbending model of the universe insisted, the information just didn’t compute, so I filled the silence with only the details that cushioned the blow.

He was in a bad place, I said, echoing the words Neil had used when I first broke the news to him. He always loved the Academy, I said, repeating only some of the information that Billy’s mother had given me. I left out any mention of the Henry Avenue Bridge. I left out the fact that he had jumped to his death. I left out the line of stitches I’d seen running up his arm on New Year’s Eve. Instead, I talked about the memorial service and how I hoped to see everyone there. To honor Billy’s memory, I added. And his love for the Academy.

After fielding a dozen or so calls, I was about to turn off my phone when Greg Packer called to give me the rundown on his expedition to the windy city.

“The mission was a failure,” he said before I could say hello. “Evangeline used the F-word.”

“The F-word?” I said.

In the distance, I could hear footsteps squishing across the lawn.

“
Friend
,” Greg said. “Can you believe that? She wants to be friends. I tried to persuade her otherwise, but she wouldn’t have it.”

“I’d love to chat, Greg,” I said as the footsteps drew closer. “But now isn’t the time.”

Was this it, I wondered? My performance review?

“Nonsense,” Greg said. “No time like the present.”

Craning my neck, I pressed an eye to one of the vents in the shoulder of my costume, but all I could see was a pair of black leather boots.

“Sorry, Greg,” I said. “But I have to go.”

Greg tried to protest, but I turned off my phone just in time to hear someone speak my name. It was a voice I knew, but one I hadn’t heard in a while. A man’s voice—and more important, unless she’d started smoking much more heavily than usual, not Sue’s.

“Is that you, Schwartz?”

“Anthony?” I said, shouting at his feet from inside my dollar sign. “Gambacorta?”

“Neil said I could find you here.”

“Remind me to thank him,” I said. “How was the
Dukes of Hazzard
marathon?”

If Anthony had any inkling that I was taking a shot at him for missing dinner with me and Neil the first time we tried to raise money in Billy’s name, he didn’t let on. Instead, he told me that he’d recorded the marathon in question and was editing together a compilation of Daisy Duke’s best scenes. He’d sell me a copy if I wanted one, he added, but that wasn’t the main reason he wanted to talk to me.

“I had an idea, Schwartz. About the Billy Chin Festival.”

“It’s not exactly a festival,” I said. “It’s more of a memorial service.”

“Exactly,” Anthony said. “And what better way to remember Billy than with the magic of theater?”

“What do you have in mind?” I said. “A revival of
Fellatio
!”

“Better,” Anthony said. “The world premiere of
Down in the Stalag.
”

“The
Hogan’s Heroes
musical?” I said, reminding myself once again to be diplomatic if only because that was how Neil would handle the situation. “I’m not sure Billy’s memorial service is the right venue for that. Besides, it’s only three weeks away, and that doesn’t give you much time to put everything together.”