Chapter 26: Closing Time | Long Left East

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Chapter 26

Most of what happened to Brandon we piece together in a bar off Durant Avenue, on the other side of the college. A hushed table of four in some college bar surrounded by a sea of rowdy twentysomethings. Glued to our phones, we pore over the few local new articles which were published this morning and the night before. Missy had called Cary when she saw them. Had wanted him to hear it from her before he might stumble upon the articles on his own (though Brandon’s name was not mentioned anywhere yet). The car, however, was unmistakable, even with the expletive on its bumper mostly blurred out.

“Do you think he did it on purpose?” Cary asks, rotating a green beer bottle between his fingers. His eyes are wet, sullen.

“There’s nothing in here that would say that,” Kat says, setting her phone down. “He sounded genuine in coming, right?”

“Yeah,” Cary says, “he sounded a bit crazy in retrospect.”

“I’m sure it was only an accident,” Marie says.

“Right,” Cary says, now picking the label off the bottle.

The mood is grim and I’m anxious to correct it, though it doesn’t need correcting. “At least you’re not going to have to share the couch with him,” I joke. Marie kicks me under the table.

“Jesus.”

“Goddamn,” Kat says. When Cary returns to his beer, she gives me a slight, albeit disappointed smile. So I tell myself.

“Just trying to lighten the mood,” I say. “Sorry. I’ll get another round. On me.”

I walk slowly to the bar. Look around at all the commotion. Busy Sunday. Women only four years my junior already in outfits I’m unfamiliar with. Men holding court in ways I never did or could.

The bartender is nice enough, though slow. My eyes drift across the bottles and glassware. Drift across themselves in the mirror’s reflection—quick to do so. I return with an ice bucket filled with beers and set it in the center of the table. The all-day Sunday happy hour special.

“Something had to be wrong with him,” Cary says.

“How do you mean?” I ask, throat tied up. A tingling sensation crawling up my spine.

“I’m just thinking about it all. Knowing where it went. It feels like it could only ever have ended up here. If I paid more attention.”

“That’s how these things always are,” Kat says, actually trying to comfort him. “It’s like watching a movie based on a book you read. You can’t imagine the characters looking any other way after you see the actors.”

“Maybe,” Cary says blankly. “I’ll be right back.” He slinks over to the bathroom far across the bar.

Marie stands. “I’ve got to go as well.” She walks off.

Kat and I sit in silence until I muster the courage: “Should we talk about earlier?”

Another silence. Then: “No. I don’t think so. Maybe some other time.”

We sit quietly, both glancing at each other when the other isn’t looking. Knowing, feeling the other’s gaze. Ignoring that each of us knows.

Cary returns, then Marie.

“I just want this day to be over with,” Cary says.

Marie fishes a beer out of the bucket and twists the cap off. The sight of her holding a beer startles me. I grab one as well.

It’s almost two in the morning when we leave. The three of us (Marie went home an hour before) walk out into dark Berkeley night. Across the road a car idles for us. We pour into it and the driver starts off with a jerk.

Rain kicks up as we merge onto the Bay Bridge, white and new and studded everywhere with red and orange tail lights. We’re stuck for a long time waiting. Far in the distance red and blue lights flicker.

Outside the apartment, we spill from the car. Even darker now with dawn somewhere nearby. We clomp up the steps to the third floor. I scratch the key around the lock, rattle it in and unlock it. Try to open the door quietly, but don’t. The door always groaning in its frame when swung. To my relief David is awake. We close the door carelessly behind us.

The television illuminates David in a wash of blues and whites. Gunfire and bombs blare from whatever game he’s playing. He glances over then back. The three of us surely looking like some drunken wet bunch of mourners. Two, perhaps. I don’t know what I am. Perhaps it’s always that way. He pauses the game, takes a drag from a cigarette which was perched on the windowsill, and asks: “Get up to anything fun without me?”

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