here. I can use all the laughs I can get.”
“You an’ me both,” Addy said, raising a forkful of chicken salad to her mouth. That cracked them both up, it was so funny in a sad and unintended kind of way. Clay smiled, felt good for the first time that day. The grieving widow and the stroke victim, yukking it up. Good for them. He grabbed an empty folding chair and pulled it over, put his plate down on it.
“Can I get either of you a drink?” he asked.
“What are you, a bartender?” Joanne asked. For some reason, this was even funnier than the last crack, and they hooted. People turned their heads, wondering who was disrupting the solemn occasion. Joanne cupped her hand over her mouth and buried her head on her knees. Clay, worried she was sobbing, put his hand on her shoulder. She popped up, looked around the room, looked at Addy, and they started all over again.
Sometimes you just gotta let them laugh at you. Like that time they took over some K Company foxholes outside of—where was that—Durier, maybe. Kraut artillery was dropping all around them, and everyone raced for the foxholes. Clay jumped in the nearest one, landing right in a pile of shit. The foxholes were about five yards apart, but everyone heard him yelling and cussing. The previous occupant had taken a crap into an empty D-Ration box, common enough when getting out of your foxhole for any reason meant a sniper’s bullet or an artillery barrage. Usual practice was to toss the box out, but this guy must’ve done his duty right before pulling out, and left it, maybe because he forgot or maybe he was a real bastard.
The whole squad laughed at him for two days. All they had to do was look at him and they’d burst out laughing. He was mad at first, then irritated, then he gave up. If it was good for a laugh, so what? He came back with a scotch and soda for them both. A good bartender knows.
He sipped his own drink, good bourbon from a bottle he had given Bob for a birthday present last year. It stinks when your whisky outlives you. He looked at the empty glass and was about to get another when Joanne leaned forward from the couch. She was laughed out now, eyes red with tears, spent. She rubbed her hands together, massaging aching knuckles and trying to bring back any of the warmth they had once held.
“Clay, I want you to know how much it meant to Bob that you two patched things up, or whatever happened. Maybe you just put it aside, I don’t know, and I don’t care. You were there when he needed you. You both were.” She turned and grasped Addy’s good hand. “You were a good friend to him, Clay.”
He couldn’t speak. He took her other hand and the three of them sat there, faces set in grim smiles, connected to each other through death in more ways than Clay dared count. After twenty-two years of not speaking, of not acknowledging each other on the street, at ball games, restaurants, anywhere their paths might cross, Clay had heard the news. Bob and Joanne’s boy Gary, their oldest, had been killed in a car accident. Clay drove over to their house, this house, with Addy nervously standing behind him. She and Joanne had not been party to what had driven the men apart, but had drifted apart themselves, the gulf between their husbands too great for them to bridge alone. The house had been full then too, cops and casseroles wall to wall. Clay found Bob and said, “I’m sorry, Bob,” and it was all over. Clay and Addy entered their grief and stayed on, as if the intervening decades were just a blip, a little misunderstanding that no one even remembered.
Clay let her hand go, sat back in his chair, contented. Thank God I did something right.
Chris drifted into the room, trailed by two young boys, somebody’s nephews, Clay couldn’t remember whose. Chris was holding a bottle of beer and answering their excited questions about the State Police.
“Auntie,” the older boy said to Joanne, “did you know Mr. Brock is a detective? A real
“You an’ me both,” Addy said, raising a forkful of chicken salad to her mouth. That cracked them both up, it was so funny in a sad and unintended kind of way. Clay smiled, felt good for the first time that day. The grieving widow and the stroke victim, yukking it up. Good for them. He grabbed an empty folding chair and pulled it over, put his plate down on it.
“Can I get either of you a drink?” he asked.
“What are you, a bartender?” Joanne asked. For some reason, this was even funnier than the last crack, and they hooted. People turned their heads, wondering who was disrupting the solemn occasion. Joanne cupped her hand over her mouth and buried her head on her knees. Clay, worried she was sobbing, put his hand on her shoulder. She popped up, looked around the room, looked at Addy, and they started all over again.
Sometimes you just gotta let them laugh at you. Like that time they took over some K Company foxholes outside of—where was that—Durier, maybe. Kraut artillery was dropping all around them, and everyone raced for the foxholes. Clay jumped in the nearest one, landing right in a pile of shit. The foxholes were about five yards apart, but everyone heard him yelling and cussing. The previous occupant had taken a crap into an empty D-Ration box, common enough when getting out of your foxhole for any reason meant a sniper’s bullet or an artillery barrage. Usual practice was to toss the box out, but this guy must’ve done his duty right before pulling out, and left it, maybe because he forgot or maybe he was a real bastard.
The whole squad laughed at him for two days. All they had to do was look at him and they’d burst out laughing. He was mad at first, then irritated, then he gave up. If it was good for a laugh, so what? He came back with a scotch and soda for them both. A good bartender knows.
He sipped his own drink, good bourbon from a bottle he had given Bob for a birthday present last year. It stinks when your whisky outlives you. He looked at the empty glass and was about to get another when Joanne leaned forward from the couch. She was laughed out now, eyes red with tears, spent. She rubbed her hands together, massaging aching knuckles and trying to bring back any of the warmth they had once held.
“Clay, I want you to know how much it meant to Bob that you two patched things up, or whatever happened. Maybe you just put it aside, I don’t know, and I don’t care. You were there when he needed you. You both were.” She turned and grasped Addy’s good hand. “You were a good friend to him, Clay.”
He couldn’t speak. He took her other hand and the three of them sat there, faces set in grim smiles, connected to each other through death in more ways than Clay dared count. After twenty-two years of not speaking, of not acknowledging each other on the street, at ball games, restaurants, anywhere their paths might cross, Clay had heard the news. Bob and Joanne’s boy Gary, their oldest, had been killed in a car accident. Clay drove over to their house, this house, with Addy nervously standing behind him. She and Joanne had not been party to what had driven the men apart, but had drifted apart themselves, the gulf between their husbands too great for them to bridge alone. The house had been full then too, cops and casseroles wall to wall. Clay found Bob and said, “I’m sorry, Bob,” and it was all over. Clay and Addy entered their grief and stayed on, as if the intervening decades were just a blip, a little misunderstanding that no one even remembered.
Clay let her hand go, sat back in his chair, contented. Thank God I did something right.
Chris drifted into the room, trailed by two young boys, somebody’s nephews, Clay couldn’t remember whose. Chris was holding a bottle of beer and answering their excited questions about the State Police.
“Auntie,” the older boy said to Joanne, “did you know Mr. Brock is a detective? A real
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