He knows Chape has an agenda; he always does. Why else would he call? ‘What’s up?’
‘Long time no see.’ Of course Chape won’t show his hand right away. He never does. He’s set the ritual bottle of Jack Daniels out on the crate with a bowl of Cheetos and some weed, a gesture to the past. Chape is drinking Diet Dr Pepper out of the can but he greets Bobby with the usual: ‘Hair of the dog?’
Bobby says the usual: ‘No thanks, I’m driving.’ Har har. Cheap, but it’s the easy way in. They can jump cut to the present without stumbling over the years between then and now.
‘Beer?’
‘No thanks. You called?’
‘We have a problem.’
‘You said.’
‘It’s not what you think.’
His best friend from high school is touchy. They both are. What stands between them is the thing they never talk about. It’s tacit. They never did. They’ve spent their lives since that night avoiding the matter even though, walking away, silent and dumbfounded, they recognized it as a central event. In a way, it would be a relief to get it out and get it over with. Chapter and verse on what happened. The guilt.
If unpacking the business of that old, bad night is on Chape’s agenda, Bobby thinks, bring it on. He starts. ‘About this Carteret kid.’
Chape cuts him off. ‘That’s not why you’re here.’
‘Chape, I saw him. He’s got to be Lucy’s . . .’
‘Don’t.’ Chape rakes him with a look sharp enough to cut him off at the knees.
Bobby finishes anyway. ‘. . . son.’
‘I said, don’t.’ There are things they never talk about. They aren’t going to talk about them now.
Bobby goes cold. ‘Then why am I here?’
‘Yeah, well.’ Amiable Chape mends it all, with that familiar, polished grin. ‘I had to get you here somehow.’
Bobby shrugs. ‘I’d have made it sooner or later.’ They both know this is not necessarily true.
‘OK. It’s Brad.’
‘Brad!’
‘He’s out there somewhere, raving, puking drunk.’
‘So what else is new?’
‘He’s supposed to be hosting this great big fucking party at the club.’
‘You got me all the way out here for this? For another stupid party at the club?’
‘No. For Brad. For the Famous Five.’ The tired tagline makes Bobby flinch. They are both embarrassed by what Chape says next. ‘I thought maybe you could help us, you being A.A. and all.’
‘How did you know?’
Chape shrugs. Everybody knows everything in this town. ‘Buck is checking the bars on Baywater Drive and Stitch is covering the beach dives as we speak.’ He adds, to make Bobby feel better, ‘You might as well know, Buck isn’t doing so good.’
‘What’s the problem.’
‘Depression. He’s scared shit he’ll catch it.’
‘Catch what?’
Chape gives him a you-know look. ‘What Darcy had.’
‘Suicide isn’t catching . . .’ After Darcy’s funeral the Colemans took Buck away sobbing, but Bobby and Chape and the others got crazy in the parking lot, cackling with relief. Next day they brought Buck out here to the shack and they all got loaded – survivors, same as it ever was. It’s funny how easy it is to get over a thing, when you have friends. He falters. ‘. . . I don’t think.’
In that spirit Chape offers, ‘Stitch has prostate cancer.’
‘Men die with it, not of it. He’ll be fine.’
‘He hates to sit down. Says he feels all those radioactive seeds, sliding around.’
‘Ow.’
Chape is studying him. ‘You look good.’
Bobby approximates a smile. ‘You said dress for the club.’
‘With Cecilia dead, the girls are throwing the engagement party for Brad’s girl. Grand ballroom, silver everything. The works.’
‘Brad has a daughter?’
‘Somebody has to do it,’ Chape says.
‘You got me here for a party?’
‘I know how you feel about the club, but we’re all going, for Brad.’
‘You got me all the way over here for a party?’
Chape adds with a stern look, ‘Even you. Re-entry.’
‘I should have known.’ He understands what’s happening here, at least part of it. With Chape, it’s never just the agenda. There’s always the hidden one.
‘Brad needs all the help he can get.’ Chape falls into one of his rhetorical silences that he thinks of as a significant pause.
During the beat, Bobby does not say eagerly, Whatever you say! He narrows his eyes. OK then. Show me your hand.
Here it comes. When he thinks the pause has done its work Chape adds, ‘If you can find him.’
‘What do you mean you, white man?’
‘Given the . . . you know.’
He sighs. ‘A.A.’
‘Give me a little bit of credit, Bob. It’s more than that. You know that girl