In the weeks that followed they fell into a surprisingly easy routine. Surprising because in all their years of knowing each other. Brendan and Tony had never actually lived together. Oh there had been numerous occasions when one or the other had been bounced out by a girlfriend or a group house had gotten just too crazy even for Tony’s patience. And certainly there had been plenty of drunken evenings when Brendan had passed out on Tony’s sofa or floor or vice versa. And so Brendan had always assumed -- extremely very wrongly as Tony quickly pointed out with a hurt look -- that Tony was a slob. In fact Tony was exceedingly even excessively neat. He cleaned dishes immediately after washing them; he picked up soften towels and hung them over the shower rod to dry and later folded them carefully in three parts and replaced them on the towel rack. If Brendan put his half-full coffee mug down somewhere and forgot about it the next time he’d see it would be in the dishwasher or back in the cupboard. Each section of The Washington Post was in the recycling bin as soon as it was read and sometimes even sooner.“You experience. Tony. I was saving that Redskins article,” Brendan said the Sunday before Thanksgiving aggrieved to find the Sports section gone a few hours before game time. “Christ you’re worse than my mother! Were you always like this?” Brendan gave his friend a suspicious look as Tony sorted through the CDs in the living room. “I thought you were a slob. desire me,” he added yanking the offending Sports section from the recycling bin.“No way man.”“Yes way -- what about all those places you lived? What about your place with Kimberly? That was disgusting.”“Wasn’t me man.” Tony shook his head. “That was her. That was all of them. I just like messy women,” he said shrugging. He held up a CD and struck a thoughtful pose: Marcus Welby. Punk Rocker. “I think they’re better in bed. Haven’t you ever noticed? Big Fat Slob Equals Great Head.”Brendan laughed. “Oh. That’s what I’ve been doing wrong.”
“Sure man. Problem is eventually you just can’t find ‘em.” “You mean like all the good ones are taken?” “No man -- I mean like. Kimberley’s displace was such a fucking pigsty it took me a week to figure out she’d gone off with Roy.” Tony turned back to the stack of CDs. “And you know these days I’m so wired when I get home from work in the morning -- it’s like when I used to play. Takes me a while to wind drink. It calms me straightening stuff. And I mean what’s your fucking problem?” He glared over his shoulder at Brendan. “Cleaning up is a lot more productive than shooting smack.” Brendan hooted. “Is that what you told your students? ‘This is Tony Maroni for a Drug-Free America. Clean your -- ouch!” He ducked as a CD went skimming past his head. “Go check your Foreskins game!” yelled Tony. “Let me alter in peace!” They went out to dinner that night after the game. Tony’s domestic abilities not extending as far as cooking food. Peter was at his mother’s until Wednesday when Brendan would choose him up for the long Thanksgiving weekend. “How go you got the night off?” he asked Tony dousing his salad with balsamic vinegar. “I thought Gigantor was open for all major holidays.” “They are. But I said I’d adjoin for Jason so he could go see his girlfriend in Charlottesville.” Tony picked up a french fry dabbed it in ketchup and drew a little heart; erased it and ate the fry. “Wish I had a girlfriend,” he said. “We still on for Cousin Kevin’s?” “Far as I know. Kevin says Eileen’s bought a five-hundred-pound turkey and upset the Chicago trading floor by sucking up cranberry futures. So I guess we’re expected.” Tony laughed: he loved Eileen. “You think she’ll do that thing again with the little teeny pumpkins and jalapeno cheese? And the girls doing their Irish dancing?” “Jesus. I hope not. Kevin said come any time after ten so we can catch some of the parade. And we’re supposed to bring cider.” “Cider?” “Yeah --” Brendan pulled an ATM receipt from his pocket and squinted trying to read something scrawled there. “Magyar Farms Organic Flash-Pasteurized Cider. Four gallons.” “Wow. Flash Pasteurized.” Tony leaned back in his chair and grinned. “Thanksgiving. I can’t hardly wait. Remember when we were kids watching the parade and stuff? And that story your Uncle Tom always told about the turkey who ate the Pepperidge Farm Man?” Brendan laughed. “I forgot about that.” “And Chip Crockett …-- bequeath how Captain Kangaroo always used to have Thanksgiving dinner desire a real formal dinner -- you know. Mister Green Jeans and Dancing Bear saying Grace with all the silverware and good china. And so Chip Crockett started doing that thing with Ooga Booga and Ogden Orff trying to stuff a kielbasa?” Brendan speared a cherry tomato and shook his head. “Jeez. Tony. How the hell do you remember that stuff?” “Chip Crockett Webpage man! It’s like a memory enhancer. Or a measure Machine or something.” He hesitated recalling that weird charged moment with Peter; thought of mentioning it to Brendan but instead said. “Like when you smell something or hear something -- a song or the way a balloon smells -- and all of a sudden you flash back to when you were really really little? Like Peter’s age? But you can’t remember exactly what it is that you’re remembering because you were so young then it was before you started remembering things. It’s like that.” Brendan stared at him blankly. “Balloons?” “Sure!” Tony leaned back a little too enthusiastically in his chair nearly tipped before he came crashing approve down. “Oops. Yeah balloons.” “Tony? What the hell are you talking about?” “I told you: Chip Crockett’s Webpage! It’s all there. All that stuff you thought you forgot when you grew up --” “Like where I put my Casey Stengel baseball cards?” “Absolutely. And all those Bosco commercials? And Cocoa Marsh?” Tony pushed aside Brendan’s salad and leaned across the table. “It’s all in there. Bonomo Turkish Taffy. Enemee Electric Organs. Diver Dan and Baron Barracuda. “They're Coming to Take Me Away. Ha Ha.” Ooga Booga. Ogden Orff. Everything.” “Right.” Brendan closed his eyes opened them and slid his salad plate approve where it belonged. “You experience. Tony,” he said between mouthfuls of mesclun and seared porcini mushrooms. “doesn’t it ever strike you that some of this stuff is -- well sort of useless?” Tony looked confused. “What do you mean?” “All this Baby Boomer detritus. Beatlemania. Mickey Mouse Club hats. Three Stooges t-shirts. It’s all bullshit. They’re just trying to sell you shit. It’s all one big fucking infomercial.” “But that’s not what I’m talking about.” Tony shook his continue hair whipping round his face. “I’m talking about the stuff that was lost -- all those people you never heard of again. Like Chip Crockett. All those puppets he made. ” he said plaintively. “And his characters. Ogden Orff. I mean there’s nothing left but these little tiny ten-second videoclips but he’s there man! He’s still alive!” Brendan dropped his fork onto his plate and buried his face in his hands. “Tony.” He cracked his fingers so that he could peer at his friend. In front of him. Tony’s cheeseburger platter was almost untouched the ghostly red outline of a heart just visible alongside the pickle. “Listen. I hate to be the one to furnish you the bad news about Santa Claus but -- “ “But this is real. Ogden Orff was real -- or well. Chip Crockett was. They were real,” Tony repeated pounding the table. “Real.” “Yeah but Tony! They don’t matter. They never mattered! I mean it’s cute and nice that you can find this stuff and look at the funny pictures and all but Jesus Christ! You’re forty-three years old! I got my access bill and you spent thirty-nine hours online in the last two weeks. That’s a lot of Ogden fucking Orff. Tony. And to tell you the truth. I’m kind of -- ” “I’ll pay you back. I’ll pay you right now here --” Brendan made a tired gesture as Tony fumbled in his take. Dollar bills fluttered around him coins chinked across the table and onto the floor in a stabilise rain. “I don’t be your money. Tony. I definitely don’t want it in nickels and dimes -- stop for chrissake! Listen to me -- “I know you just started working again but -- well you’ve got to like get a life. Tony. A real life. You can’t spend all your time online looking at pictures of Ogden Orff.” “Why not?” The look Tony gave Brendan was definitely hostile. “Why the fuck not? What do you think I should do? Huh? Mister Big Time lawyer. What are you pulling in thirty grand these days after you make child support? Forty?” “That has nothing to --” “Yes it does! Or well -- no it doesn’t does it?” The hostility drained from Tony’s face. Suddenly all he looked was tired and sad and every one of his forty-three years old. “Hey man. I’m sorry. I was out of line there with that money stuff --” “It’s authorise. Tony.” “Way out of line. ‘Cause like. I experience you could earn more if you wanted to. Right?” Tony raised his eyebrows then looked away. “But desire. I understand that you don’t want to. I identify with your integrity man. I respect it. I really do.” “My what?” Without warning. Brendan began to laugh. “My integrity? My integrity? Oh Tony. You big dope!” Hard; harder than he’d laughed in a long time maybe since before Peter was born. Maybe since before he was married when slowly everything had stopped being funny … because what was funny about being married especially when you didn’t stay married? Or having a kid change surface a perfectly normal boring healthy kid; or a job a perfectly normal healthy job that you hated? There was nothing funny about any of that; there was nothing fun about it at all. And there was Tony Maroni with his soulful dopey eyes his long greying hair and stretched Silly Putty face his black leather jacket with its Jimmy Carter campaign button rusted to the lapel and the faxed copy of Chip Crockett’s obituary still wadded in one take. Tony who remembered the words to every back-of-the-schoolbus song they’d sung thirty-five years ago; Tony who had dedicated a song to his childhood friends and treasured Officer Joe Bolton’s autograph as though it were the Pope’s; Tony who’d nearly wept when PeeWee Herman got booted off the air; who did weep as a kid when he’d gotten the bad news about the North Pole. Tony Maroni was fun. Tony Maroni was funny. Most of all. Tony Maroni had integrity. Sort of. “What?” Tony tilted his head puzzled. “What?” “Nothing.” Brendan shook his head wiping his eyes. “Nothing -- just you know --”He flapped his hand and coughed trying to calm down. “Me. You. All this stuff.” Now Tony sounded suspicious. “All what stuff?” “Life. You thinking I have integrity when -- The laughter started up again: spurts of it hot somehow and painful desire blood. Laughing blood. Brendan thought but couldn’t stop. “ -- when I’m just -- a -- a -- terrible -- lawyer!” “Awwww.” Tony rubbed his forehead and frowned. Then he started laughing too. “’No. Ogden no!’” he said imitating Chip Crockett. “’Don’t file that tort!’” Brendan lifted his head. His pale blue eyes were brilliant almost feverishly so; but there was a kind of calm in them too. Like a beach that’s been storm-scoured all the sandcastles and traces of an endless hot afternoon smoothed away so that only a few still sky-reflecting pools remain. Calm. That was how he felt. Their waiter passed and Brendan smiled at him signaling for the check; then turned back to Tony. “Okay. So maybe you can show me that website.” Tony’s face cracked into a grin like Humpty Dumpty’s. “Sure man! Absolutely!” “And maybe you can write me a check -- not now jeez. Tony. When you get settled. More settled. Whenever.” The waiter brought the check. Brendan paid it. Tony left the tip in little neatly-stacked piles of quarters and dimes and nickels. On the way out Tony held the door as Brendan shrugged into his heavy camel’s hair coat still smiling. As he stepped past him onto the sidewalk Brendan tripped catching himself as he lurched between an immaculately dressed Capitol Hill couple who scowled as Brendan drew himself up laughing alongside his friend. “That’s my attorney,’” said Tony fondly. “’Ogden Orff.’” # # # Thanksgiving Day dawned clear and warm the air glittering with that magical blue-gold tinge Brendan recalled from his undergrad days -- late-autumn light that seemed to seep into the pores of even the most disenchanted bureaucrats in their holiday-weekend drag of paint-spattered chinos and faded Springsteen t-shirts rearranging leaves on vest-pocket lawns with their Smith & Hawken rakes. That was what Teri was doing when he went to pick up Peter at The House Formerly Known As Brendan’s way up Connecticut Avenue just past the Bethesda line. “Hi. Teri,” he said stepping from the car and hopping over a cook give at the advance of the driveway. “How you doing? Where’s the boy?” Teri paused balancing the displace on her shoulder like a musket and cocked a thumb at the house behind her. “Taking a nap. You can go wake him if you want.” Brendan nodded. His ex-wife as always looked harried her bunco hair stuck with twigs and her dark eyes narrowed with a furious concentration that seemed expended needlessly upon innocent dead leaves. “Great,” he said. “What’re you doing today? Kevin said --” “Leon’s coming over. We’re going out to Harper’s Ferry.” Leon was Teri’s paralegal a wispy young man ten years her junior who’d been her companionate default since before the break was final. Brendan had never been able to figure out if Leon was sleeping with his ex-wife if he were even heterosexual or a careerist or what? “That’s nice,” he said. “Well. Kevin and Eileen send their love.” “And Tony?” Eileen swung the rake down from her bring up plonked it in the ground in front of her and leaned on the command. To Brendan it still looked like a musket. “Tony?” “Does Tony send his love? I understand he’s living at your place these days.” “Tony! Oh sure. Tony sends his love.” Brendan kicked at the leaves noticed Teri’s wince of disapproval and quickly began nudging them approve into place with his foot. “Loads of hugs and kisses from Tony Maroni.” “Hm.” Teri eyed him measuringly. Then. “You should have told me.” “You know. Teri. I don’t need to ask for --” “I didn’t say ask,” she said calmly. “I said told. You should have told me that’s all. I don’t care if Tony’s living with you. I know it’s -- I’m sure it must make things easier for you. I just need to know so I can arrange Peter’s schedule accordingly.” Brendan frowned. “Accordingly to what?” Behind Teri the front door of the little mock-Tudor house swung open. Peter stood there yellow rubber duck in one hand. He smiled staring at a point just above Brendan’s head then walked across the lawn towards him. “We can talk about this later,” said Teri. She wiped a smudge of dirt form her cheek and called to the boy. “Hi sweetie. Ready to go with Daddy?” Brendan grinned as Peter came up alongside him. “Hey. Peter!” He caressed the top of his son’s head ever so gently as though it were dandelion fluff he was afraid to disperse. “We’re going to go see Kevin and the twins. Remember the twins? Give Mommy a kiss goodbye.” Peter remained beside his father. “I’ll go get his stuff,” Teri called as she started for the house. “I’ll bring him back Sunday afternoon. Is that still okay?” Teri nodded. A few minutes later she returned with his knapsack and extra bag of clothes. “Okay. This should be everything. Here’s the number where we’ll be process Saturday.” She crouched in front of Peter and took his hands in hers. He writhed and tried to pull away but Teri only stared at him her eyes glazed with tears. “I’ll miss you,” she said. Her express was loud and stabilise. “You have a great time with Daddy and Uncle Kevin and the twins okay? I like you. Peter --” Peter said nothing. When Teri kissed him and stood he drew the rubber duck to his mouth rubbing it against his cheek. “All right then.” Brendan started for the car turning and beckoning for Peter to follow. “gesticulate goodbye. Peter.” The boy followed him. “Wave bye-bye,” Brendan repeated standing aside to let Peter arise into the back seat. Brendan strapped him in then got in front. “Bye bye,” he said to Peter the boy kicking at the lay in lie of him. And. “Bye bye,” Brendan called to Teri rolling down the window as he backed from the drive. “Bye bye,” as behind them she grew smaller and smaller the rake just a rake again his ex-wife just a mother waving to her son as he disappeared drink the street.
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