After the Shut Up Ring

Chapter 2 – Brandon

The back doorof the Elks Lodge squeals as it slowly shuts, and my buddy Shane saunters over carrying a dinner plate heaped high with wedding cake.

“Things are getting weird in there,” he says through a massive mouthful of cake.

I grunt and continue glaring at Tyler’s stupid truck.

“He still around?” Shane asks.

“He left with his boys.”

The truck’s a heavy-duty turbo diesel with a gooseneck hitch. What the fuck is he hauling? He borrows his daddy’s boat, which is tied up at his daddy’s pier. Back in high school, the team would take it out crabbing sometimes, and I didn’t want anyone to catch on that I hated the motherfucker, so I’d go.

Shane comes to stand beside me and stares at the truck like he’s trying to figure out what I’m looking at.

“Surprised it doesn’t have a window decal that says douchebag,” he says.

“Doesn’t need it.”

Anyone could tell it’s driven by a dickhead just by looking, if not from the lift or the aftermarket rims or the pristine bed lining, then from the big ol’ pipe for rollin’ coal. So fucking stupid.

Why would you remove your particulate filter, install a whole new injector, and lay out hundreds of dollars just so you can spew black smoke on a hybrid or a guy on a bicycle? Those folks are clueless about trucks. They have no idea you’re doing it on purpose; they just figure your vehicle’s a piece of shit.

I take a drag off the cigarette I’ve got pinched between my index finger and thumb. I haven’t had a smoke in three years, and it’s hitting like it did when I was thirteen and finishing off my dad’s butts behind the backyard shed—my head swims and my hands shake.

“Got a spare?” Shane asks, nodding to the Virginia Slim I’m hotboxing.

“I bummed this myself.”

Shane shrugs and shovels another piece of cake into his gob. “All the steak’s gone. There’s chicken left, but it’s going fast.”

I tap my ash onto the weed cracked parking lot and try to get my brain to work. It feels run over. I should be relieved, I guess. Instead, it’s like I went twelve rounds in the ring and ended up with a split decision.

Angie didn’t marry that asshole, but she was going to. If not for his unforced error at the very last minute, she’d have married him, and I was going to watch her do it.

I don’t know who I’m madder at—myself or her or him—but I’m fucking furious. I don’t know what to do with the energy.

I’ve got a half-full, three-gallon jerrycan in my truck from my last mechanic order, and Mrs. Ekholm gave me a book of matches with the cigarette. I’ve got some ideas.

Frankly, I’m surprised that Tyler left his truck behind—he obviously loves it more than Angie or his kids—but he probably went down to the bar to get wasted and wanted someone else to drive.

“Everybody left inside is getting drunk off their ass,” Shane says. “Uncle Randy got the DJ to play Toto’s IV, the entire album, and your mom is trying to fight him now.”

“The DJ?”

“Uncle Randy.” He scrapes icing off the plate with the spoon.

“I didn’t know Mom hated Toto.”

“I think she just hates Randy.”

Probably. Randy’s a dick. He heads up our gang down at the port. Shane is Randy’s brother’s kid, and Randy married my mom’s sister, so he’s uncle to both of us, but we aren’t blood related. We might as well be, though. We were the two youngest guys on the gang for a long time, and that’ll either make you best friends or worst enemies. Since neither Shane or I are lazy or stupid, we’re tight.

Not so close that I share my fucking feelings with him, but like I said, he’s not stupid. He knows who I mean when I ask, “Is she still in there?”

He shakes his head. “She and the kids left with Maddie a while ago.”

“How did she look?” It feels weird as hell to ask straight out. Sometimes, it feels like I’ve spent my whole life acting like I’m not hopelessly gone for Angie Miller.

Shane’s eyebrows go up, but he’s not dick enough to bust my balls. “Shell-shocked,” he says.

Makes sense. Those vows had to come at her out of the blue, even though I’ve never met anyone more likely to pull that kind of shit than Tyler Reynolds. He’s a giant chode. And she loved him enough—or thought so little of herself—to overlook that fact until he humiliated her in front of everyone she knows.

I don’t want to be angry. I’m not an angry person. But I want to take a tire iron to the windows of that truck and that pristine bed liner. I want to yell at her, and I’ve never raised my voice to a woman in my life.

I brace myself and ask, “Was she crying?”

I don’t need to fucking know the answer to that. Why did I ask?

Now I’ve got a picture of her tear-streaked face in my mind. I can feel that powerlessness again in my gut. I’ve only seen her cry a few times—the night when her mom was found, my dad’s funeral. I’ll be happy if I never see her that way again. Both times, I’d never felt more useless.

“No, she was fussing over the kids.”

My lungs expand. I can breathe again.

“Maddie was pissed.” Shane chuckles. “She wanted to go after him.”

“Tyler?”

“Yeah, she was looking for the cake knife. Good thing he bailed. She wants blood.”

I understand the feeling. Tyler was smiling when he said that shit up under that balloon arch, smirking like a little bitch. I was all ready to shut his mouth. I’d stood up. Knocked my chair over. Mom was hissing at me under her breath to sit my ass down, and then the clouds parted, and hallelujah, Angie decided she was done with his shit. I never thought it would happen.

She used to be sweet and tough. Quiet and nice, but tough. She still is, but it’s a different kind of sweet and tough now. It makes you feel sorry for her instead of happy, and that pisses me off, too.

I scowl at his truck. He hurt her. He’s been eating away at her for years, and we were all forced to watch. He’s probably down at Donovan’s, running his mouth about her to one of his side pieces right now.

I could go down there. I could shut his mouth for him. I’d feel a lot fucking better.

But then I’d break his jaw, and their girls would want to know what happened, and he’d definitely tell them because he’s the type who could never take a well-deserved punch in the face like a man.

“The girls were fussing? Like crying?” I ask Shane.

“No, they wanted to get out of that puffy stuff under their dresses.”

Good. I hate it when the girls cry, too. I’m not one of those guys who can’t handle seeing a woman cry. Maddie leaks like a faucet, and it doesn’t faze me, but if it’s Angie or the girls, I can’t stand it.

There was this one time when we were kids—I used to spend hours playing wallball against the side of our garage. One day, Angie and Maddie were painting their toes on the front porch steps. It was summer, and Angie was wearing short shorts, so all you could see when she sat were her long legs.

She didn’t dress slutty or anything, but she didn’t get new clothes very often, so her shorts would get real short and tight, and I’d started to notice. I couldn’t stop noticing, even when I tried.

Anyway, Angie and Maddie were painting their nails, paying no attention to me, and I didn’t like that. I got the idea that I’d let a ball get away from me, and then I’d go after it. Angie would notice me. The plan wasn’t totally clear in my head.

I guess I was thinking that if I was going to be clumsy in front of her, I should make up for it with a show of brute strength, so I winged the lacrosse ball at the wall as hard as I could, and per my plan, it clipped the scoop and flew across the front lawn. And it nailed Angie.

Her scream of pain lives on a loop in my nightmares. She folded over and clutched her foot.

I don’t remember going to her, but I remember sinking onto a knee in front of her on the concrete walk. Tears were pooling in her brown eyes, and for reasons that I have never figured out, she looked at me like I could fix it. Most of me felt like a total asshole, but to this day, I’ve never felt taller than I did when she looked at me like that. Like she trusted me. Like I was man enough to have earned it.

But I wasn’t. I was a dumbass kid.

I kept saying, “Oh fuck, oh fuck.” I peeled her hands away so I could see. The ball had chipped her big toenail and smeared the polish. It wasn’t much of a nick. It didn’t go past the nail bed, but I felt like the world’s biggest asshole, and an idiot besides because I had no idea what to do.

Maddie said she’d go get an ice pack, and I felt even dumber, but no matter how bright my face got, I couldn’t drop Angie’s foot or look away from her. I cradled it, trying to smooth the wet polish with my thumb, which was the opposite of helpful.

Angie didn’t move. She let me kneel there and hold her foot. She stared down at me, and I stared up at her. I don’t know how I didn’t pass out because I wasn’t breathing and all the blood was rushing out of my head.

“It’s okay,” she’d said quietly and wiggled her toes. I fell in love. Who knows what I would have done if my dad hadn’t hacked a cough from the garage door.

“Over here, champ,” he’d said. “I need your help.”

Maddie had reemerged from the house with one of the boo boo buddies that Mom used with her daycare kids. I was too dazed to think of anything to say, so I mumbled sorry, dropped Angie’s foot, and went to my dad.

He had been changing the oil in his Mustang. This was when he had the cough, but the doctor was still saying it was COPD.

When I got to the garage, he handed me some sockets, a ratchet, and a wrench and told me to put them back while he refilled his wiper fluid. Then he had me lie on the ground and check for leaks while he ran the engine for a minute. It was fine. There were never leaks, but Dad always checked, and he’d do a final dipstick check, too, I think because he liked that evidence of a job well done. At least, that’s why I do it now myself.

When he dropped the hood, I figured we were done, but he held me back. I still remember exactly what he said.

“Remind me what grade you are going into again?” he’d asked.

“Ninth.”

“And that’s high school?”

“Yeah.” He knew this. Ninth grade might have been junior high when my granddad was in school, but it’d been high school for a while by the time my dad went. And Dad sure as hell knew what grade I was going into. He talked enough about whether I would make varsity my freshman year or not.

“And what grade is Angie going into?”

“Eighth,” I’d said, immediately understanding him.

“And that’s middle school?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” he’d repeated. “She’s got enough with that mother of hers. Leave it be.” He said no more. He didn’t have to.

We cleaned up in silence, and like he always did after we worked on the Mustang together, he asked if I wanted to take it for a spin down to Tollgate Road and back, and of course I did. I ground the gears once or twice, and he pretended not to notice.

My dad was a great guy, and despite how it all turned out, I still take his point. I’d tell my own son the same thing. A high school kid has no business with a middle school girl. Besides, who can say things would have ended up any differently if I’d been able to shoot my shot? I had no game back then. I’ve got precious little now.

It’s been little comfort over the years, but Dad was right. Angie was too young, and her home life was a mess. And wouldn’t it be worse if she’d attached herself to me like she did to Tyler? I couldn’t carry a whole other person back then, either.

I glare at Tyler’s truck, and I swear I could flip it. I’ve got that much frustration surging through me. I could take it by the grille guard and just flip it end over end. What does he need a grille guard for in this town anyway? Is he driving through a lot of cattle herds on the way to his job at the phone store?

I must make some kind of noise because Shane side-eyes me. “Stop thinking whatever you’re thinking,” he says. “They’ve got CCTV.” He jerks his head back toward the lodge.

I look behind me. There are two cameras, one aimed at the dumpsters, the other at the parking lot. “I’ve got a baseball bat in my cab.”

Shane snorts. “You think they wouldn’t be able to figure out it was you?”

“I’ll stand right here. You do the cameras and then go inside. Perfect alibi.”

“I’m not vandalizing the Elk Lodge for you, brother.” There’s already a note in his voice, though, that says he’s intrigued. Shane has never met a bad idea he didn’t want to get to know better. “So what, are you gonna key it?”

“I’ve got a dick. I’m not keying a car.”

“Gonna bust it up with a bat like that chick in Footloose?” Shane grins.

“Not now that you put it like that.”

We both sink into contemplation.

“We could move it somewhere,” Shane breaks the silence to suggest. “Remember how they got Mr. Prescott’s car onto the roof of the gym for senior prank? How’d they do that?”

“It was a Smart Car. They probably carried it up there.” And Mr. Prescott looked like he was about to cry the next day. He took it very personally, but if he’d been absent that day, it would have been Ms. Francisco’s Fiat. I sigh. “This is stupid.”

I should go inside, find Mom, excuse myself, and go get wasted. Again. A piece of my liver might still be working after last night.

Shane bumps me with his elbow. “What we should do is load it on a ship.”

“Send it to Dakar.” My lips curve.

“Switch out the VIN plate with some old beater and just drive it on. It’s a nice truck. Whoever picks it up on the other end isn’t going to say shit.”

We both grow silent again, considering the logistics. It’s doable.

“It wouldn’t solve anything,” I finally say, filing the idea away.

“Yeah,” Shane agrees. “He’s definitely insured.” He uses his finger to wipe the last of the icing off his plate and then crumples it in his hand. “I’m gonna go see if there’s any chicken left. Coming?”

I grunt. We both give Tyler’s truck one long, last look, and we’re heading in when a kid comes tripping out the back door, his nose stuck in his phone. It’s the punk who was recording during the vows. All of a sudden, my frustration has an outlet.

I cast Shane a look, and we’ve been in enough tight spots together that he can read me like a book by now. He grins.

We step into the kid’s path.

He nearly runs into me before he notices that I’m blocking his way.

“What the fuck?” He’s probably eighteen or nineteen, and he’s taller than me, but I outweigh him by forty pounds. He’s fit, but he’s also got that nice, gooped-up hair that guys have when they care a lot about what people think. In my experience, guys with nice, gooped-up hair aren’t keen to do anything that’ll mess it up.

“Delete the video,” I tell him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He tries to sidestep me, but like I said, I’m bigger. I’m also quicker. He barely stops himself from colliding into me.

“You were recording during the ceremony. Delete it.”

“Can’t, man. I was live. It’s out there now. The internet’s forever.” He shrugs.

I hate this kid. A punch in the face would do him good, but he’s so dumb. It’d feel like punching a gerbil.

I pluck the phone from his hand. It’s locked. I frown. He smirks. I hold it up to his face. It unlocks. Bingo.

“Hey, you can’t do that!” He swipes for the phone, but his reflexes suck. And this is the kid who makes influencer money from dirt bike stunts? They must be videos of him wiping out. I’d pay to watch that.

I flip through screens. His background is a huge pair of fake tits. It’s hard to focus on the apps with so much nipple.

“Where’d you post it?” I ask. “I know you saved it.”

“Fuck you.”

I tap the gear icon and cock my head. “Do we need to reset this thing to factory settings?”

I watch his expression as his shittiness goes to war with his laziness. Downloading everything again is a pain in the ass.

“Don’t do it, man,” he finally huffs. “The video’s already out there. You can’t put the ship back in the bottle.”

“It’s the genie in the bottle, dumbass,” Shane pipes up.

“Same difference,” he mumbles.

“It really isn’t.” Shane shakes his head.

I glare at the kid. He stares sulkily upward.

“Fine.” He snatches the phone back. His fingers fly, and then he holds it up way too close to my face.

Angie is frozen on the screen in her pretty dress, her face twisted and red like she’s been slapped. My guts cramp.

“See?” He taps the garbage can. Then he pulls the video up on another app and repeats the process. Twice. “You know there’s such a thing as freedom of speech, man,” he mutters as he does it. “This is bullshit.”

“Sue me,” I say, taking the phone, opening his recent apps, and scrolling a ways to make sure I don’t see anything but dirt bikes and his ugly mug talking to the camera.

When I hand the phone back, his fingers fly. Looks like he’s changing from facial recognition to a password. Smart. “Tyler’s the one who chose to make an ass of himself. You shouldn’t get in the way of natural consequences, man,” he grumbles.

“Angie didn’t choose that,” Shane says, stepping out of the kid’s way.

The kid raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t she?” He slides his phone back into the pocket of his tight pants. “Well, fuck you both,” he says, flips us off, and strides off to his souped-up Civic.

Shane and I watch him peel out onto Sollers Point Road, only to immediately get stopped by the red light at the fire station. We grin at each other.

“I like him,” Shane says. “I’d totally watch him wreck his bike in his mommy’s backyard.”

“Aren’t you related?” I ask him. Shane’s here because he’s related to Tyler somehow. He was seated on the other side of the aisle for the ceremony.

“Aren’t we all?”

I snort. It’s true. If we’re not related by blood, then we are by marriage or by virtue of our parents being friends since kindergarten. We live in a small town at the edge of a big city which none of us ever visit except for ball games and clubbing. Folks never move away, and they marry early and often. Eventually we’re all gonna have six toes like Ernest Hemingway’s cats.

“Chicken and beer?” Shane suggests, nodding toward the hall.

I nod, and we head back inside. The first thing I see is Mom and Randy drunkenly dancing to Toto’s “Rosana.” Randy’s wife isn’t paying them the least bit of attention, having a grand old time getting blitzed with her girlfriends. The ladies are three sheets to the wind, going by the debris radius of high heels around their chairs.

I get myself a beer and a plate of chicken. I eat standing. No one bothered to roll out the banquet tables. Whoever’s working the event left things how they were for the ceremony and just brought out the food. Folks have rearranged the chairs, clearing a dance floor and a space for the kids to run and chase each other.

Honestly, the vibe is better than a lot of weddings. The muscles in my neck and back slowly relax. For the first time in months, I don’t feel sick to my stomach. The nausea has been replaced by a gnawing need.

I need to see her.

Go to her. Shake her and ask her what the hell she’s been thinking all these years. Kiss her. Throw her on my bed and tear off her clothes and fuck her until time goes backwards.

I want to have had the balls at sixteen to go after her.

I want to go back and pay attention in English class so I’d know what words to use.

I haven’t lost her, but I’ve never had her, either. I have no idea how to make that happen.

Or if I should even try.

My brain knows that she didn’t do this to me, but damn if it doesn’t feel like she did.

I’m standing here, picking a piece of rubbery chicken clean, watching the balloon arch slowly tilt over until a kid decides to try and run through it like the ribbon at a finishing line. The balloons fold around his waist, and he tears around the hall, ducking the hands reaching out as he passes to try and pop his fun.

He’s going to lose it sooner or later, to gravity or another kid’s plastic fork, but he doesn’t slow down. The grin of victory does not fade from his face until Randy grabs the arch from him and drapes it around Mom’s neck like a boa.

Like I said, Randy’s a dick.

The boy stands in the middle of the dance floor, shoulders heaving as he catches his breath, a dumb smile still plastered on his face. He might have fallen back to earth, but damn it, he almost touched the sun.

Falling is easy when you’re young.

I’m not a kid anymore.

I can’t be pressed about a grown woman with two kids because once upon a time she wiggled her toes and looked at me like I was her hero. That’s insane.

I finish my beer and set it on a ledge. Later, when Mom corrals me so that she can drunkenly rehash the entire debacle like I wasn’t there, I act like I don’t notice when the kid skulks over to drain the dregs. I did the same at his age, at weddings and wakes in this same hall. Hope he likes backwash.

It’s insane to be in love with Angie Miller, even now, after all these years, but I don’t know what else to call this tightness in my chest.

And as the drunken debacle unfolding around me attests, she’s got some shit to work out.

I say bye to Mom and make sure she has a sober ride home, and then I bail. When I’m walking out, the arch is on the floor, and kids are dropping to their butts to pop the balloons, one by one.

Not sure exactly how, but it seems symbolic.