Lush Life (42 page)

The last slide was of Ike mooning the photographer, and as the accompanying song, Wilson Pickett's "International Playboy," blasted the plaster off the walls, the pews once again broke out in raucous appreciative laughter, and Billy suddenly turned around to Matty as if they'd been talking all along, "These goddamned kids, right?" his voice clotted with gratitude as he squeezed Matty's arm.

The first speaker, a dazed-looking kid Ike's age, stepped to the mike in the expectant silence that followed Boulware's introduction, then just stood there, blinking out at the audience as if there were a flashlight trained on his eyes. Even from the middle of the vast hall Matty could see that his hands were trembling.

"My name is Russell Cafritz?"

"Russell . . ." Billy murmured.

"And, I've known Ike for seven years, since we were freshman roommates at Ohio State." He coughed into his fist and shifted his feet so that his shoes touched each other.

"Go ahead, Russ," one of the audience called out, and he smiled gratefully. "The first . . . Let me tell you what Ike did for me that first week we were living together. I was so homesick, so ... I cried myself to sleep for longer than I want to admit, until Ike came and sat on my bed one night and told me he felt the same way. He said, 'Here's what I do and maybe you should try it too. Don't call home for a while. You're not alone, you have me, I'm your roommate, just try not calling home so much and don't be embarrassed about how you feel. With any luck we'll both get over it.'And we did. Well, I did at any rate. I think Ike was lying to me. I don't think he was ever homesick a day in his life. But here's the thing ... I was from Columbus. My parents lived ten blocks from campus. But he never brought that up, and he never told anyone else. He never made me feel more ashamed of myself than I already was. He was my secret sharer. My secret brother. And he pulled me through."

Minette and Nina sat riveted, but Billy abruptly hunched over, elbows on knees, stared at the floor, and shook his head. Minette palmed his back without looking away from the speaker.

"And in the last year or so, when we reconnected with each other down here and became friends again? It was like dormo redux. Anytime I'd get down about myself, get in a panic about wasting my life, applying for this grant, for that fellowship, working in some stupid restaurant to make ends meet, Ike was always there to pick me up. Say how we were both gonna make it, probably get inducted into the academy together, although I'm not exactly sure what academy he was referring to. He'd say, 'If you fold on me and take the law boards, I will kill you.'"

"Hell, yeah!" someone shouted, and people began laughing, egging each other on.

"He'd say, 'Don't begrudge the gigs that pay the bills, they're going to give you the life experience. Besides, fuck it, man, we have all the time in the world.'... All the time in the world." The kid coughing into his fist again to mask his teariness. "Ike made me feel like the world was -
mine, or if not exactly mine, certainly his, and I had been granted one hell of a backstage pass for it. Ike made me strong. He made me believe in myself, he gave me hope . . . Who on earth will do that for me now? 'Stop calling home for a while.' " Russell's voice finally started to break. "I don't want to call home anymore, Ike ... I want to call you."

In the vast sniffly rustle that followed the speaker back to his seat, Billy abruptly stood up again, hoarsely whispered to Minette, "I'm sorry, I can't do this." He was halfway up the aisle before she could even open her mouth but then wheeled and came back down, leaning into his daughter this time. "Sweetheart, I'm sorry. I'll see you at home."

Then bolted for good.

"Mom?" Nina's voice floating away from her. "He's not going to hear me talk?"

Minette, suddenly a wet mess, responded by leaning in and touching foreheads.

"Mom," Nina said more sharply, recoiling from the Eskimo tap.

"Just . . ." Minette smiled at her. "Give him a break."

"Me? What did I do?"

Yolonda leaned forward and touched Minette's shoulder. "Is he OK?"

Minette turned to them while wiping her eyes. "Just needs some room."

"We can probably get someone from the squad to drive him home."

"Just . . ." Smiling tight. "Thanks, thank you."

Yolonda touched Ninas hair, whisper-cooed, "It'll be OK," then leaned back into Matty. "Hope he doesn't step in front of a bus."

Leaning over the balcony between the telephoto cameras, Eric avoided looking at Ike's family, at the two detectives sitting behind them. He gazed instead at the hundreds of mourners, wondering, and how could you not, if it had been he who took that bullet, how many people would have shown up here? Who would even think to put something like this together? And what could they possibly say? It seemed like Ike dead had more of a connection to this world than himself alive.

The second speaker was from the balcony presser, his thin black suit, narrow black tie, and Elvis Costello glasses giving him the appearance of a seventies skatalite.

"Hi, my name is Jeremy Spencer? And I'm an alcoholic."

"Hi, Jeremy!" half the kids in the audience shouted in unison. "We're alcoholics too!" Like the world's biggest in-joke.

"How is that funny," Yolonda side-mouthed. "The kid died drunk."

"The morning after the night that I first met Ike," Jeremy began without notes, "I was just coming off my half of our hangover, sitting there in Kid Dropper's with a soup bowl of coffee, had my first good idea in a week? The minute I put my hands to the keyboard, he snuck up behind me, whispered in my ear, 'Anybody'd write a poem'd suck a dick.' "

People howled, and Jeremy waited for them to quiet down before dipping his head to the mike again.

"No offense to either party."

Another howl, the speaker giving up a half-smile.

"Like Russell said, Ike was always so sure we would make it. To be friends with him was to be a member of an elite club, the future Hall of Famers of America. To be friends with him automatically made you the best unknown writer, actor, singer, accountant, tap dancer, bouncer, social worker, hot-oil wrestler of your generation, and it was just a matter of time before everybody realized it. And, yes, Ike always said, time we had in spades.

"And like Russell too, anytime I felt depressed, started to lose faith in myself, I'd go into whatever bar Ike was working at, he'd take one look at me, slide me a cold one on the house, say, 'Don't even think about quitting. You'll regret it for the rest of your life.'... He made me feel like we were all blessed with so much talent. Then he'd say, 'But, Jeremy? Talent without drive is a tragedy.'

"He'd say, 'Look at me. Do you think I'd be killing myself doing this shitwork day after day if it wasn't anything more than a means to an end?'

"At which point I would have to say, 'But, Ike, you've only had the job since Monday.'"

Another a big laugh out in the sea, Matty surprising himself by joining in.

He should at least call upstate to find out what was happening in court with the boys, but then was gratefully distracted by a kid from the middle of their row brushing sideways past his knees, trilling, "'Scuse please, 'scuse please," in her eagerness to get to the stage.

"Hi. My name is Fraunces Tavern?"

The crowd laughed and whistled for the dolled-up raven-haired girl onstage in high, fur-seamed Uggs and a low-cut dress the red-orange hue of Fiestaware. "Hi there." Waving to her people. "My perspective on Ike was a little different than everybody else so far? First of all, I'm different. I don't want to be anything? You know, except on Halloween?

"I know Ike because we, how do you say, dated, on and off for about a year, year and a half, not like in-love dating? But Ike? . . . Am I allowed to even say this?" she faux-asked Boulware the MC, sitting in the front row. "Ike was like," gazing out, "Ike was like, great in bed."

The cheering was explosive, people jumping up and whoo-hooing.

Minette abruptly turned her head profile to Matty to hide her smile from Nina, who sat there rigid as a stick, Matty smiling in complicity, but he didn't think Minette caught it.

"Ike was like one of those guards in front of Buckingham Palace? You know, totally erect-not, I didn't mean that, I'm cleverer than that, give me a break, now." She beamed, floating on the laughs.

"I meant he was always ready, you know, clap-on-clap-off ready to, you know ... I mean, guys being guys, it doesn't sound like that big a deal? But he was always so present with me, never, like, you know, close your eyes and go at it. I mean, he had fun, with me.

"And for me, it wasn't about, you know," and she cut loose with a chesty yodel, people rolling on the floor. "It was about being with someone who really, really enjoys you, makes you feel good about yourself. What Ike knew, or just, maybe intuited is a better word, was that the secret to being a good lover is that, A, knowing you're not in this alone, and, B, once you get that established? Sometimes you can pleasure the other person most by pleasuring yourself." She paused again, waiting for the first confused laughs to build, then build some more, knowing that people needed to chew on it, then, "That didn't come out right. Oh, c'mon, you know what I'm saying."

The one person not laughing along was Ike's sister, who, cupping her wounded arm, glared at her brother's friends with sheer disgust.

"In my life?" Fraunces Tavern said. "I know, well, I hope, that I will be with more, you know, men who I'll maybe have more passion for? But I will count myself very, very lucky if I ever have that much, just, fun with a guy again.

"I miss you, Ikey, and I'll see you in my dreams."

Stepping off to whistles and cheers, red-faced with her coup, she slid past Matty's knees again and collapsed back into her midrow seat, into a flurry of whispers with her friends, her eyes wild in her head.

"You know, if she took better care of her skin?" Yolonda side
-
mouthed. "She'd be nice-looking."

In the aftermath of Fraunces Tavern's performance piece, the room slid into a coughy silence, everyone waiting a little too long for the next speaker. Checking the program, Matty saw the reason for the delay, then looked to Minette to see how she was going to play it; and when she reluctantly showed the batting order to her daughter, Nina froze, just like Matty thought she would.

"Now?" The kid white with horror.

Steven Boulware, rising from his seat on the aisle, looked out over the audience. "Nina Davidson."

"Nina."

"I'm not going up after that!" her voice breaking.

"Do you want another person to go before you?" Minette asked as calmly as she could.

Nina slapped the tears from her cheeks and stared straight ahead.

"Nina Davidson." Boulware raised a finger. "Going once . . ."

To Matty's left, Fraunces Tavern, still flush-faced with victory, alertly and hungrily absorbing every last sigh and coo, every last review, was drawn to the heated whispering in the row ahead of her. And quickly putting together what the drama was all about, what her own unwitting part in it was, she just caved, the sweeping high of a moment ago turning to a painfully transparent self-loathing.

"Nina Davidson, going twice . . ."

"Nina." Minette put her lips to her daughter's ear. "If you don't get up there, you'll regret it the rest of your life."

"Tough shit on me."

Boulware then looked directly at her, smiled with mock reproach. "Oh, Ni-na . . ."

"Mom," she hissed pleadingly, and Minette reluctantly signaled Boulware to back off.

"Well, I guess that leaves me," he said, then headed for the stage.

The notion of sitting there for Boulware's eulogy was intolerable, so Eric trotted down the stairs and out the door, straight into some kind of marching band gathered on the front steps of the Langenshield: a crowd of frizzle-haired kids too young for their beards and handlebar mustaches; sporting Shriner hats, top hats, derbies, jester caps, and burnooses, frogged and beribboned tunics, aviator goggles and Salome veils, with trombones and tubas, slide whistles and sousaphones, cornets and kazoos; too fucking whatever it was, and doing an immediate about-face, he returned to the service, to Boulware, to the exhausting effort of not looking at the cops and Ikes remaining family.

What to say that hasn't been said," Boulware began. " 'He gave me hope, he made me believe in myself, he made me . . . believe.' 'Where do I go now. Who do I turn to.'" Then, looking out at his audience, "Ah, Jesus, the perils of speaking last."

Nina abruptly stood up and, with her eyes trained on the floor, walked to the short stairs at the side of the stage as calmly as if she were coming up to receive a diploma.

Boulware faltered, not sure what to do. At first he stood his ground, then tentatively backed away from the mike, then offered it to her with a courtly sweep and bow, backstepping afterwards into the shadows like a presenter at the Academy Awards.

Nina stood there, eyes downcast, her multipage speech crushed in her fist.

The silence seemed to go forever, Matty watching Minette's shoulders rise then lock with the breath in her lungs.

The room waited as Nina gathered herself.