CHAPTER FOUR

Matt Campbell was drunk; he was drunk; it was one in the morning and he wanted to go home, yet he couldn’t seem to extricate himself from Ken’s back-slapping, hard-drinking resurrection of old times. He handed the bartender the last of his money, closed his eyes and prayed for someone to save him.

At first, he’d been glad to see Ken. They’d met for dinner at a downtown pub and it had felt all warm and brotherly; there’d been rounds of drinks and hugging and stories, but he’d let it go on too long, a series of bars and close-talk and taxi-cabs that was starting to blur together: Ken with his crackling intensity and ice blue eyes; Ken with his Machiavellian liver pouring booze down his gullet like it was water, getting brighter and quicker and more energetic as the night wore on, while he, Matt, just grew dumber and meaner, lumbering along behind his old friend like a compliant thug, like Ken the brains and Matty the brawn, as if the past 20 years had never even happened.

“You all right, bud?”

Matt opened his eyes. The bartender was looking at him in a sharp, quizzical way, holding a full pitcher of beer just out of reach, as if he hadn’t quite decided whether to cut Matt off or not. Matt straightened himself out and smiled with the corners of his mouth in a way he hoped looked world-weary rather than wasted. “Long day at the office,” he offered.

The bartender studied him a moment longer, then finally released the pitcher. “Take it easy, bud,” he said, eyeing him critically.

Pitcher in hand, Matt turned towards the main part of the bar. It was one of these gritty working class places like the ones he and Ken used to frequent back in River City, the kind with rough timbers up above and sports on TV and a lurid little corner housing a couple of VLTs, some hollow-faced local planted on a stool in front of them as if he’d always just been there, probably wearing a diaper so as not to lose his machine; the kind of place where the girls all wore plaid shirts and tight jeans and made a big show of how much they didn’t give a fuck but still wore mascara glopped onto their raccoon eyes.

I need to get out of here, Matt told himself as he started across, weaving through the tables of hunched over drinkers, trying not to spill. He passed the pool tables and made his way over to where Ken was holding court, regaling three of these sexy lumberjack girls with the sort of fascinating bullshit that makes twenty-year-olds twinkle and giggle and cross and re-cross their legs. It felt surreal: Ken the runt, the scrappy little wiseass of Matt’s youth, had morphed into some kind of fancy Seattle investment broker, the very picture of urban chic in his dark under-stated clothes, silver stubble and pointy Euro-style shoes.

“Here he is! Matty Matt! Seattle’s finest!” Ken hollered, reaching over to slap Matt on the back as he sat down, a solid blow that rattled memories Matt had long put away: the street where they’d both lived, its rows of dirty townhouses with yellow lights in their windows and shouting through their walls; Matt half expected to get a whiff of cigarette smoke and cheap whisky, to smell the faint sour smell of the pulp-mill in Ken’s clothes, but it wasn’t there. Ken smelled clean and fresh, like new leather and aftershave. Ken gave him another solid whack. “I was just about to tell the ladies here how I sleuthed you out!”

Matt leaned forward and began filling the girls’ glasses. “Yeah, how about that? How did you find me?” he asked absently, his mind already preoccupied with his exit.

“It was totally random. Serendipitous, even . . . is that the word? Serendipity?” Ken went on, lowering his voice so that the girls had to lean closer, their eyes widening, their cleavage deepening, that dark crevice between the mounds of young flesh pulling Matt’s attention despite his best efforts to ignore it: a lacy bra strap cutting in, a girlish ­pendant falling forward and rocking slow . . . It made Matt think suddenly of Jen; it made him miss her achingly, despairingly. He fished his phone out of his pants pocket and looked at the screen but she hadn’t called him. She hadn’t even texted. Not once. Why won’t you ever call me? he wanted to scream but he already knew why: she was too stubborn; she was pretending not to care, sitting at home and hating him for the fact that he was here in the first place.

Beside him, Ken was rattling on, warming to his subject: “So, I’m rushing home to get to this BBQ after work and decide to pop into the grocery store in Northview, which is not where I usually shop . . .”

Northview! Matt’s attention came crashing back. The grocery store in Northview! He set his phone back on the table and took a deep, long drink. He knew exactly where this story was going. Already, he could see the teasing in his old friend’s eyes.

“It’s super-busy and I get in line at the checkout,” Ken continued. “When it’s my turn, I slap my pork roast down on the conveyor, then this lady whirls around and gives me a look like how dare you put that dirty animal carcass near my organic arugula sprouts or whatever she had on there . . .”

A blush began to prickle at the back of Matt’s neck. He drained his glass, then reached for the pitcher again.

Ken glanced over at him with an evil twinkle in his eye and kept right on going, “one of these self-righteous skeleton types who walk around with a yoga mat and get all precious about the micro-fauna in their guts, the kind that examine their own stools and . . .”

“Stools?” one of the girls, the chubby one who kept pulling the tails of her shirt back down over her muffin top, interrupted and then the tall skinny one with wild blonde hair said, “He means their shit,” in a thick Aussie accent and the three of them dissolved into a giggling heap.

They were so young! Again, Matt looked down at his phone. Please, please, please, he thought but the phone remained silent, inert. Jen wouldn’t call; she wouldn’t save him.

Ken waved his hand for silence and the girls stopped their giggling. “So, this woman picks up the divider from the metal runnel alongside the conveyor and sets it down real deliberate-like and I’m standing there, prepping to say something really nasty when I get this creepy feeling, like someone is watching me. I look around and no, no one is paying me any attention. The conveyor is moving forward and forward and then I notice the divider. There’s a photo on it, an ad for real estate. I squint; I look a bit closer and then I’m like holy shit! It’s Matty! There he is, River City’s very own prodigal son, staring at me from a grocery store divider!”

“Like one of those plastic bars you put in between?” the fat girl asked, wrinkling her nose.

Matt closed his eyes. He hated the ads, hated the fact that he’d put them there in the first place. Jen had convinced him it was a good idea, and his mother and her parents, egging him on . . . The photographer he’d hired had told him to wear a sweater instead of a suit; she’d told him to project warmth from his eyes and he’d tried to do so, thinking about Jen and Jacob with a hand over his heart, but the sweater had been itchy, too-tight and too hot and the man in the photos looked squint-eyed and flushed, like he didn’t quite fit, like he was lying somehow.

Now the third girl, a waif-like creature with a toque pushed back on her forehead and her eyebrows plucked into a mask of perpetual surprise, said earnestly, “People are so immune to advertising now you have to be original. You have to find a captive audience.”

“A stroke of genius,” Ken concurred magnanimously but Matt could see the old mischief in his face; he could see Ken’s evil awareness taking it all in: his embarrassment, the way he’d downed his beer, the way the girls annoyed him, and he felt a wave of anger rising up inside, a frustration so deep and pervasive, it scared him, how strong the feeling was.

He stood suddenly, knocking the table with his shin so the beer sloshed over the rims of the glasses. “It was cheaper than taking out an ad on the bus,” he snarled, then wondered what his own face looked like just then because the girls were staring up at him with big wide eyes. They looked terrified.

“I need some air,” he grumbled by way of apology, then made his way outside where he stood next to the service entrance in the red glow of an exit sign. A cold drizzle prickled on his skin and he stood, gulping at the wet, black air, trying to drink its coolness, to soothe the great beast of his anger still tearing him up inside.

Help me. Please help me, he thought. He dialed Jen.

“Hello?” She was awake.

“Jen,” he breathed, cupping the phone against his face. The sound of her voice filled him with relief. His wife. His son. He wanted to be reminded. “It’s me. I’m at a bar.”

She didn’t say anything. Then: “Do you need a ride or something?”

“No, no. I just wanted to talk to you, that’s all. I know I should have called but I . . .”

“So, you’re waking me up at one in the morning to tell me that you’re at a bar?” she asked, her voice sharp and clipped, each word a slamming door.

“I thought you might care where I was,” he tried, switching gears and trying to sound light. “I am your husband, after all. Maybe you remember me? The father of your child?”

She said nothing. There was a time when she might have bantered back, a time when she’d been sharp-tongued and witty and dark but that was years ago, before Jacob was born. He waited. He could hear Sweet Home Alabama pounding through the wall.

“Look, I know I should have called earlier,” he tried again, “But I got talking to Ken and we had a few drinks and well, I just . . . I wish I was home with you and Jacob right now. I miss you guys,” he said and meant it—he did!

“Well, whoever she is, she must be pretty special for you to get loaded on a Thursday night, just out of the blue,” she said coldly.

“Why do you do this?” he exploded, then lowered his voice to an angry hiss. “Why do you always have to assume the fucking worst?”

“You tell me why, Matty Matt,” she sniped and it literally made him writhe in frustration because there was no reason for it; he’d always been loyal; he’d changed his whole fucking life around to make it work with her, and yet, somehow, because he was that much older, because—GOD FORBID—they’d hooked up at a bar, because he had a penis and some waitress from another life had called him Matty Matt, somehow this made him guilty. Of everything. He was guilty no matter what he did. Here he was, hiding in the fucking alley.

Suddenly the door burst open and a young couple all tangled up in each other practically fell over into the alley before they steadied themselves, the guy pushing the girl up against the dumpster where she wrapped her legs around his waist and started grinding her hips into him. Then she looked up and saw Matt. “EEEeek! There’s someone here!” she squealed and they both started laughing then scampered off hand in hand into the night.

Matt put his hand over the phone but it was too late. “Who was that?” Jen cried, her indifference immediately dissolving to panic. “I hear voices. Who’s there with you?” she pleaded, and even though it pissed him off, he felt his heart break under his anger because he knew that her panic was real and that it had something to do with him. She’d been like this ever since Jacob was born: impossibly fragile, insecure. Nothing he ever did made it better.

“Who is there with you?” she pleaded.

“There’s no one.”

“I heard a woman, Matt! You’re lying.”

“I love you, Jen but I can’t do this right now. I have to go.” There was no point in arguing when she was like this.

“Tell me who she is.”

“I’m going.”

He hung up and stood there in the cold.

People always said you were supposed to ask for help. On TV, they were always on about it, about how you should call a friend instead of taking that drink, or talk to a health care professional if you were feeling blue or stressed out but what the fuck? He’d tried all that after Jacob was born, so he already knew what they’d tell him. They’d say he was lucky, that he had a good job and a beautiful family and that he should just do this and just do that in these muted self-righteous tones and they’d be right, it would all be true, it would all be absolutely fucking true and he’d say yes, you are right, I am so lucky, I’m so fucking privileged and blessed and then he’d go away and nothing would actually change. His wife would still hate him; his debts would still be there; he’d still be drunk in a fucking alley with a rage he didn’t understand. He looked up at the black, prickling night and thought: no, I am alone.

Suddenly, a warm, firm hand gripped his shoulder. “Brother,” Ken’s voice said softly, next to his ear. “How are you doing? Are you sure you’re alright?” And in that instant, all his pent-up frustration, all his loneliness and tangledness and screwed-upness came rushing towards the warm weight of his old friend’s hand and he thought he might fall down in the street and weep.

In the cab, on the way home, Matt confessed. He told Ken everything: about his debts, about his marriage, about how he was afraid to lose his house. It felt good to confess. No one in his Seattle life knew him in the way that Ken knew him. They’d grown up together, heard the yelling from one another’s houses and used to walk the streets late at night when it was bad at home, talking about girls and sports and politics and religion but mostly about getting away. Of all the people Matt knew, Ken was the only one who understood how very close they’d both come to not making it. Matt could still remember the moment he’d known he had to get out of there: the two of them were in the parking lot outside the River City bar after another pointless bar fight, the jaundiced underbelly of steam from the mill looming over them like a giant pillar, rising and swirling like some condemning God as they spat blood into the snowbank, saying fuck this and fuck that, the same two who’d once talked for hours saying fuck over and over like it was the only word they knew.

Yes, Matt thought, Ken understood him in a way few people could, and now here they both were in Seattle, this shiny West Coast city where everything was new, where everyone was ­reinvented.

He leaned his head against the window and watched the rainy streets streak by, the lights smeared in broad strokes across the windshield.

Ken said, “You know Matty, I might be able to help you out. I’ve got a line on a pretty sweet investment deal if you’re interested. It’s a big payout, low risk, basically a sure thing.”

“Nothing is a sure thing,” Matt said dreamily, the warmth in the cab and the liquor in his blood lulling him into a kind of trance. He watched the lights, the steaming streets.

“This is bombproof, I swear. You told me yourself, you’re in trouble.”

Matt sighed. Ken, the talker, the wheeler dealer. Nothing had changed. “What is it you’re into?” he asked sleepily.

“Viatical and life settlements,” Ken answered eagerly. “Basically, we buy life insurance policies; we scoop them up for part of their value, then collect the full payout when they mature.”

When Matt didn’t reply right away, Ken leaned towards him, the leather of his jacket creaking against the vinyl. “What’s the one sure thing?” he asked, suddenly intense.

Matt kept his forehead against the glass. He liked the coolness. “Yesterday, I might have said real estate but what do I know? The market’s shit the bed.”

“Real estate’s a crap shoot compared to this.”

“Gold, then.”

The driver, who, until now, had been listening to a soccer match on the radio looked back; Matt could see the whites of his eyes in the rearview.

“Not gold.”

“Securities. Mutual funds.”

“No. You’re thinking like the stock exchange. Think bigger. What’s the one absolutely guaranteed thing in all of life?”

Matt sat up. He shook his head. “I don’t know. Growing old?”

“Even more sure than that.”

“What then?”

Now, the cab passed under a street lamp and the light fell over Ken’s face so that it appeared queer and orange, the streaking drops of rain on the windows painting shadow tears overtop, like black tears streaming backwards over his queer orange cheeks. Matt recoiled momentarily, then Ken became shadowy blue again with only a gleam of light on his eyes. He leaned close, closer still, then whispered in Matt’s ear: “Everybody dies.”