The Grievers (17 page)

“Not a problem. I threw
Hung Jury
together in half that time.”

“
Hung Jury
?” I said, regretting the words as soon as I’d spoken them.

“A nude version of
Twelve Angry Men
. You didn’t hear about it?”

“I guess I missed it.”

“Anyway, I was thinking we could do it in the Academy’s new theater and dedicate the show to Billy. You’re still in touch with Greg Packer, right?”

“Unfortunately,” I said. “What does he have to do with anything?”

“Are you kidding? He’d make the perfect Sergeant Schlitz.”

“I thought it was Schultz,” I said.

“On TV, yeah. But I had to make a few adjustments for legal purposes. Hogan is Logan—I’ll be playing
him
, of course. Klink is Klein. Schultz is Schlitz. Do you want to see the script? You’d make a great Newhouse.”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“You’re saying no?”

“I’m saying I don’t want anything to do with it.”

“You don’t understand,” Anthony said, going down on one knee and speaking directly into the narrow slot that afforded my main view of the outside world. “This could be big. If the right people see it, I can really go places.”

“What people?” I said.

“The media,” Anthony said. “Didn’t you get the email? Ennis sent it to
everybody
. All I’m asking is that you read the script. You at least owe me that much.”

More than likely, Anthony was correct about what I owed him, but only due to a technicality. Towards the end of our senior year at the Academy, Anthony and I had agreed to be roommates when we both found out that we’d be attending the same college come autumn. As things turned out, this was a bad idea—a fact I should have recognized when, independent of each other, Neil, Dwayne, and Sean all asked if I’d lost my mind after I told them that Anthony and I would be rooming together. It wasn’t so much that Anthony was a terrible person, they all agreed, as the fact that living with him would pose certain logistical problems involving the maintenance and storage of his wardrobe and vast collection of hair-care products, not to mention pornography. At the same time, my lack of respect for other people’s property wasn’t going to help matters a whole lot either, so no one was the least surprised when the whole relationship went up in flames the night I invited the men’s rugby team into our room to try on all of Anthony’s clothes and rummage through his porn. So, yes, maybe I did have a moral obligation to read
Down in the Stalag
, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it—even if I
was
trying to be the new Neil.

“I don’t think it’ll make much of a difference,” I said. “But if you really want to do this, the guy you want to talk to is Ennis.”

“I didn’t know he was into theater,” Anthony said.

“He’s not,” I said. “He’s into money. How much are you willing to part with?”

“So, what?” Anthony said. “This is all about cash?”

“That’s about the long and short of it.”

“Can I mention your name? Tell Ennis you’re on board?”

“Do whatever you want,” I said.

“Sweet,” Anthony said, already squishing his way back to the parking lot. “I won’t forget this, Charley. I promise. When
Down in the Stalag
hits Broadway, you’re getting an Executive Producer credit.”

He was halfway across the lawn when I switched on my phone and remembered why, despite my shenanigans with the rugby team, I didn’t owe him a thing.

“Wait!” I screamed as the gospel choir resumed its maddening serenade. “Anthony! You need to fix my cell phone!”

“No time!” Anthony shouted back. “I have a musical to produce!”

“Bastard,” I muttered as I scrolled through my messages.

In the time it took Anthony to pitch
Down in the Stalag
, my cell phone had logged seventeen missed calls and taken four messages—three from Greg Packer and one from Frank Dearborn.

Apparently we’d been cut off, Greg said, his low, guttural voice slurping in my ear as he delivered the very line I’d been tempted to foist upon Ennis when he hung up on me earlier that morning. Perhaps, he added, I should think about selecting a new provider for my wireless service. One that wouldn’t drop so many calls. One that respected the meaning of friendship. One that recognized the duty of every Raging Donkey to comfort his fellow man, particularly in times of heartbreak and pain. Needless to say, he concluded, such wireless providers were increasingly difficult to come by lately, and though he had no expectation of finding one for himself anytime in the near future, he hoped that I might have better luck than he would.

In case I missed it, Greg explained in his next message, he wasn’t really talking about cell phone providers at all. He was talking about friends, and he couldn’t believe I’d hung up on him. In his time of need, no less. In his darkest hour. What kind of friend was I, he demanded? Was this how I treated everyone?

I thought about Billy as Greg’s second message bled into his third. How many calls had I failed to return? How many emails? How many times had my mind drifted when he was talking about—

God, I couldn’t even remember anything we’d ever talked about.

In his own self-absorbed way, Greg was right.

What kind of friend was I?

The tail end of Greg’s third message more or less told me to go to hell, and then Frank Dearborn was on the line asking if Karen and I were available for dinner on Friday. We could certainly do with some catching up, he said. And while we were at it, maybe we could work out some more of the details surrounding the Billy Chin Festival.

Festival
, I thought? Why did that word keep popping up?

Whatever the reason, I could almost hear Ennis breathing down Frank’s neck, pulling his strings, and forcing him to call me—or at least to call my bluff. If I were really serious about being a team player, I’d swallow my pride and sit down to dinner with the guy. Not that I had to like it, of course. Frank was still a pompous asshole and a racist to boot, not to mention the fact that his trust fund probably spouted more money in a week than I could make walking to the moon and back dressed as a giant dollar sign.

But I could do it, I told myself.

If only to prove that I was the better man.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN  

T
he week dragged on, and the messages piled up—disembodied voices on my answering machine and cell phone, names and numbers scribbled on uneven scraps of paper. By Thursday, Karen had stopped bothering to answer the phone altogether. We were scrubbing the upstairs hallway by then, and Karen wanted to put a layer of paint on the walls before final exams forced her to take a break from what had evolved into an apparently endless undertaking.

“I forgot to tell you,” I said as the telephone rang and Karen continued to scrub away at the plaster outside of our bedroom, “I told Frank Dearborn that we’d have dinner with him and his wife on Friday.”

“That’s tomorrow.” Karen said. “How long have you known about this?”

“Not long,” I said. “A day or so. But you have to understand—I’ve been busy with the Billy Chin Festival.”

“Festival?” Karen asked

“Memorial service,” I said, silently cursing the slip of my tongue. “Billy’s memorial service is what I meant.”

Since Monday, I’d heard the phrase
Billy Chin Festival
repeated so often that it was starting to take root in my mind—as if Billy were a sainted figure from years gone by, the martyred founder of some long-forgotten movement, the only reminder of which was the amorphous festival that still bore his name. Technically speaking, I was only supposed to be answering questions about Billy’s death with the pleasantries that Ennis had prescribed, but when the calls turned to other matters—queries from businesses large and small about setting up tables and kiosks and handing out fliers to promote their goods and services, for example—I responded with the enthusiasm of the newly converted and agreed to every proposal that came my way. Because I was a go-getter now. Because I was a team player. Because I was the new Neil.

And so what if Ennis still had to approve everything I was agreeing to? He’d approve a Jim Jones Kool-Aid stand if a big enough donation was involved. The important thing—the thing I stressed to everyone who called—was that they mention my name when they spoke to him, that they specifically say that Charley Schwartz loved whatever the hell they were proposing. If Ennis heard my name enough times and in relation to enough dollar signs, he’d have to take me seriously. More to the point, he’d have to see that I could eat shit and come up smiling as professionally as anyone—including Frank Dearborn. If a festival was what he wanted, then that’s what I’d deliver, no questions asked. All to honor Billy Chin, of course. All in the spirit of Saint Leonard de Noblac.

All in the name of our precious Academy.

“So what are we bringing?” Karen asked, dipping her scrub brush into her bucket and resuming her work without so much as a look in my direction.

“Bringing?” I said.

“To dinner,” Karen said. “At Frank’s house.”

“Why would we bring anything?” I asked.

“Because that’s what people do, Charley. When you visit someone’s house, you bring something.”

“But this is Frank Dearborn we’re talking about. Antichrist at large. Racist extraordinaire. Unmitigated asshole. Did I tell you how he used to torture Billy?”

“You may have mentioned it,” Karen said. “But that’s not the point. The point is that we need to bring something, and you need to call him to find out what.”

“Do I have to?” I said.

“What are you? Twelve? Pick up the phone and call.”

“Can’t I just email?”

“Would you just—” Karen said, exasperation choking off whatever she meant to say next. “Please? Charley?”

Karen glanced up from her endless scrubbing long enough to give me a look that said she wasn’t kidding, so I grabbed my phone and went downstairs to check my latest slew of messages, pretending all along that I was on a call with Frank.

Charley, it’s Greg
, the first message began as I asked the empty dining room if I could speak to Frank.
I apologize profusely for any undue consternation my previous communiqués may have caused. I just got off the phone with Anthony Gambacorta, and I now realize that the only reason you ended our last discussion so abruptly and, I must add in all good conscience, rudely, is that you were in the middle of intense negotiations with Anthony regarding my role in his latest musical. He didn’t state this fact explicitly, of course, but he did say that he met with you earlier this week, and the time frames certainly match up. As a result, I can only draw one conclusion: You were boldly and vigorously lobbying Anthony on my behalf. For this, I thank you and hasten to add that your name shall forever be on the lips of my sons and daughters and all generations of Packers to come. You will be remembered forever, Charley Schwartz, as my friend and ally, my constant companion, my footman, my attendant, my loyal—

My voicemail cut him off, and I asked my phone if there was anything Karen and I could bring to Frank’s house. By way of a response, a reporter from a Chinese-language newspaper asked if Billy had a birth name that might translate more freely to pictogram before leaving a number where I could get back to her. After that, a producer from a local cable news station offered to cover what was now almost solely referred to as the Billy Chin Festival, if we could manage to postpone the event until February when he could tie the story to a piece the station was planning for the Chinese New Year.

“A bottle of wine?” I nearly shouted. “You’re sure that’s all we can bring?”

Hey,
the next message began.
It’s Neil. Sorry for being a dick on Saturday. Give me a call sometime, okay? I got a weird message from Greg, and I’m not sure what to make of it. Something about fighting a restraining order in Chicago.

“Red or white?” I said loud enough for Karen to hear me upstairs.

I couldn’t really understand what he was saying because he was shouting in German. Do you know anything about this?

“Sounds good, Frank,” I said in case Karen was still listening. “We’re looking forward to it, too.”