Chapter Twenty-Six The Flagpole
Bastian thoroughly enjoyed his afternoon golfing with Robert, Victor, and Wyatt. He loved any time he got to spend on the golf course, but he also genuinely enjoyed Robert and Victor's company. They played with the right amount of seriousness and lightness, which made for a relaxing time on the course despite the difficulty. Wyatt, on the other hand, was hit or miss. His frustration was never directed at anyone, but he would visibly get upset when he didn't hit well, and it would bring the whole mood down until he managed to hit a hole either at par or under, and he would relax again.
When they finished and returned to the club, Bastian was delighted. He came in just two strokes over par for the course, which was excellent, in his opinion, as he'd never played it before. They thanked Wyatt for a great afternoon; Bastian and Robert changed back into their jeans and button-downs and met Victor at the car. “Thank you for this.” Bastian leaned back in his seat with a smile. “That was amazing.”
“I'm glad you enjoyed it. Victor smiled at him as he settled into his seat, looking tired but happy. “I was impressed; you played very well.”
“Golf is one of my passions.” Bastian leaned forward, pulled three bottles of water from the fridge, and passed them out. “I rarely turn down a chance to play, and as much as Mira and I love to spend time together, we know each other well enough to be able to tell when the other needs space. I love golf, and while she will join me occasionally and is a good player, she is a water nymph. She loves anything she can do in the water, so I brought my clubs to spend a day on a course because I knew she'd want a day in the pool.”
“It's important to spend time apart.” chuckled Victor, accepting the water with a nod of thanks. “Francesca and I have mastered knowing when we're irritating the other. She does this subtle little mouth quirk that's adorable but lets me know I have overstayed my welcome.”
“How long have you been married?” Bastian asked curiously. He knew they were both in their mid-late sixties and that Eddie and Eleanor were both older than him and Mirabelle, but he had no idea of their actual ages.
“Forty-two years this year,” Victor answered, and Bastian could tell he was incredibly proud of his wife and marriage. “My family had made a large donation to some cause and received two tickets to a gala as a thank you. I ended up attending for my parents, who had a prior commitment and brought a girl I was casually dating at the time. I’m ashamed to say the moment I was introduced to Francesca, I forgot all about my date, and we’ve been practically inseparable ever since. We were married on the second anniversary of our meeting.”
“That's incredible.” Bastian shook his head. His parents were coming up on that, but they pretty much ignored each other as far as he knew.
“What happened to the girl you were dating?” Robert asked curiously.
“I found out later that she went home with some singer.” Victor frowned as he thought about it. “I can’t remember his name now. He had a song that was rapidly climbing the charts at the time, but he was a one-hit wonder. Isabelle later married a good friend of mine and holds no resentment. She still likes to make fun of me by making the face I made when I first saw Francesca.” He shook his head, his cheeks faintly pink. “If she’s telling the truth, I’m fortunate Francesca gave me the time of day.” Both Bastian and Robert laughed as Victor demonstrated the face for them, going slack-jawed, wide-eyed and becoming foolish-looking.
“Mira said you and Eleanor met at Mardi Gras, Robert?” Bastian said when they stopped laughing.
“Yeah,” Robert nodded as he took a drink of water. “I was in New Orleans to work on the Contemporary Art Museum and was actually flying back to New York the next day. I noticed them signing up for a tour. They both caught my eye, but Eleanor held my attention, so I signed up for the tour, thinking I could use it as an excuse to talk to them and at most, I’d be out an hour and ten bucks if she wasn’t interested.’
“We started talking, and I didn’t want to stop. I invited them out for dinner, and Mirabelle sort of grilled me about myself. Then she said she wasn’t feeling good and went back to their hotel after we ate, leaving Eleanor and me to get to know one another. I ended up extending my stay in New Orleans and crashed the rest of their trip. I have to say, Mira was very gracious about everything and encouraged Eleanor to spend time with me.”
“Yeah, Mira loves love.” Bastian chuckled as Robert confirmed his theory on what had happened when they met him. “I don’t remember her talking about your wedding, though.”
“We never had a wedding. About six months into our relationship, I had to go to London for four months for work and asked her to join me because I couldn’t stand the idea of being apart from her for that long.” Robert cleared his throat, looking a little guilty as he glanced at Victor, who was shaking his head. “We were joking around one morning about how well we got along and handled being together on a different continent for three months just six months into the relationship. The next thing we knew, we were looking up requirements for marriage in England and making appointments. We were married by a judge in London just before we came back.”
“And never told anyone until after Eddie and Mirabelle were married, and someone asked when they were going to make it official.” Victor huffed, looking put out.
“We’re both pretty low-key people.” Robert shrugged when Bastian gave him an inquiring look. “We didn’t want the fuss and or to plan a wedding. There’s no such thing as a small wedding in either of our families and while we have some regrets about not inviting our parents, we have no regrets about how we did things. We had a small dinner party afterward to celebrate and let Victor and my mom have their dances with us. Why did it take you and Mirabelle so long to get together?
Bastian knew Robert wanted to head off Victor, who looked like he was about to say something and smiled. “There was a bunch of things. When I was younger, I wanted kids, for what I can admit now were some very selfish reasons, whereas Mirabelle has always been very against having them. I met my ex-wife at university and got married after we graduated, wanting to start a family, and you know how that ended. I knew I needed to work on myself and my issues after that, and I did start therapy almost immediately after, but I said something to Mirabelle that made her give up on me, and she started dating Eddie.”
“What did you say?” Victor leaned forward slightly, clearly distracted from his earlier issues with Robert and Eleanor's wedding.
“I told her, “Love is made up by Disney.” Bastian sighed, feeling his lingering frustration and regret come to the surface again. “And I’ve never regretted a statement so much in my life. Mirabelle took it to mean I no longer believed in love, but what I meant – and this will sound terrible – was that her idea of love, which is big romantic gestures and declarations of devotion, was made up by Disney. She asked if I loved her, and I said yes but couldn’t find the words to explain how it was different.”
Both Victor and Robert winced. “Yes, knowing Mirabelle as well as I do, I can see how that would be difficult for her to swallow.” Victor nodded, looking sympathetic. Bastian chuckled ruefully.
“You can say that again.” He leaned back against the seat, shaking his head. “When we were hashing things out before we got together, she admitted she was waiting for me to make some big announcement and declare I was in love with her. Meanwhile, I'm flat out telling her I love her, doing my damnedest to show her I love her, all without overstepping her boundaries because I was terrified she would reject me, and I didn't want to lose her.”
“I can only imagine the fear that would come with being friends with someone for so long and wanting to take the relationship to the next level, but not knowing if they feel the same way,” Robert said quietly. “I don’t think I could do it; I don’t think I could handle it. It’s easier if it remains unknown than being outright rebuffed.”
“I'm not sure what would have happened if she turned me down. I want to say I would be man enough to move past it, but I don't know that I could.” Bastian admitted. He had promised her he wouldn’t leave if she didn’t want to be with him, but looking back and being honest with himself, he really didn’t know if he would have been able to keep his promise; he was pretty sure her telling him she didn’t feel the same way would have destroyed him. “But thankfully, that's not a concern anymore.” He shook off his thoughts and smiled. “So, what can I expect from this bachelor party?”
“We're going to a football game.” Robert rolled his eyes, looking annoyed by the very thought of being forced to sit through an entire game with Eddie and his friends. “With a bunch of trust fund frat boys.”
“I was a trust fund frat boy,” Victor said, and Bastain noted that he looked vaguely insulted, but his voice was teasing.
“And did you ever get up to the stuff they do?” Robert asked after he finished his water. “Because they all act like they’re still in the frat.”
“No.” Victor shook his head. “I can honestly say I've never goosestepped into a Jewish wedding reception or left my friend tied to a flagpole, naked and drunk in minus five-degree weather...”
“They actually pulled that one?” Bastian raised his eyebrow in surprise. He never joined a fraternity when he was in university, but he did attend a couple of parties with Mirabelle in their first year just to experience them. He came out of them happy he hadn’t accepted the offer to be a pledge.
“Trust me, the list of things they pulled in that fraternity is long and unpleasant. Between hazing pledges and pranks on each other and the other fraternities, plus the fact that they could not keep their mouths shut about the things they did,” Victor sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “By Eddie’s second year, I had a lawyer on retainer for him, at Francesca’s request, because I felt he needed to deal with the consequences. Still, she’s always had a soft spot for him. It hurts her deeply that he’s alienated himself from us just because he wants to fit in with his friends.”
“Anyway.” Victor released his nose, and for a second, Bastian thought he was going to change the subject. “Yes, they tied their friend to the metal flagpole naked after he passed out while they were drinking. That was the prank that really emptied his trust; skin grafts cost quite a lot of money, and he sued them.”
Bastian choked on his water, and Robert had to hit him on the back. “Skin grafts? What the hell?”
Victor chuckled, but there was no humour to it. “Since you grew up in Louisiana, you probably never experienced this, but if you touch wet skin or your tongue to something metal when it’s below freezing, it freezes to the metal object. If you don’t want to do damage, you have to heat the metal.”
“My son and his friends, in their infinite wisdom, were drinking at a Christmas party in their junior year, and someone made the hilarious suggestion while they were doing shots that whoever passed out first would be tied to the flagpole naked. They all thought it was a great idea and jumped on it. A few hours later, a freshman named Bradley Flanker passed out. So they stripped off all his clothes, which woke him up enough for him to tell them to leave him alone; they ignored him and carried him out to the flag pole and tied him to it front first. It was snowing, and the snowflakes melted on his skin, making him a little damp, and he stuck to it.”
Both Bastian and Robert were struck dumb and were quiet for a few minutes when Victor finished talking. “These guys are sociopathic.” Bastian shook his head in disgust, Robert nodding in agreement beside him.
“I will say they were remorseful for that one, even before he sued them.” Victor allowed. “I think they realized it could have been any of them.”
“How did he successfully sue? It sounds like there was consent.” Robert pointed out, glancing at Bastian. “Bast?”
“I’m not a litigation lawyer anymore, but I would have argued that he withdrew consent when he told them to leave him alone,” Bastian said slowly after a moment of thought. “Of course, that would be hearsay since everyone was drunk, and there’s no actual proof that he told them to leave him alone, so I would have focused on the fact that if he were able to, he would have withdrawn his consent. No one would have agreed to be stripped, dragged outside, and tied to a metal flagpole at minus-five degrees with the front of the body pressed up against the metal.
“I would have called each one to the stand and asked if they would have done it. Would they have consented to it if it had been them, and they could say yes or no? I'm willing to bet not one of them would say yes. They took advantage of his inebriated state.”
“But they were all drunk as well.” Robert pointed out. “They weren’t making choices they normally would.”
“Actually, that argument would go out the window if I could bring up past actions to show they have a history of making poor decisions while drinking, but they still know right from wrong. Being drunk doesn’t take that away; most people, when drunk, still know they shouldn’t drink and drive, they still know they shouldn’t hurt people, and they still know they shouldn’t steal.” Bastian looked at Victor curiously. “Did anyone protest what was going on or realize there was a problem?”
“According to the video surveillance, they stood around waiting for him to wake up, laughing and joking. It was only when Eddie noticed his lips turning blue that they untied him and pulled him off the pole.”
“They pulled him off the pole?” Bastian eyes widened in horror. He hadn’t realized that part; he’d been thinking that his body weight made him fall one way or the other, and that was why he needed the skin grafts.
“That's why there was so much damage.” Victor nodded, his mouth in a thin, hard line. “Paramedics would have removed him properly. In his defence, Eddie did try to stop them from pulling him off, but the others said if the cops came, they would all be fucked.”
“Well, there it is.” Bastian leaned back in his seat and nodded. “That’s how he won the lawsuit, they knew what they did was wrong, and they admitted it.
Victor nodded. “Yeah, the security footage is what clinched the case for him, but his lawyer did make basically the same argument you did, Bastian. He hesitated and leaned forward. “I paid for his lawyer.” Victor’s voice was quiet as if he were afraid Eddie would pop out of the seat. “I went to the hospital after the police contacted me and told him to find the best possible lawyer he could and to give him my contact information for payment.”
Victor leaned back as they pulled up to the hotel. “The bar for Eddie was so low; I was proud of him for doing the right thing, calling 9-1-1 despite his friends telling him not to as they pulled him off the pole. But the fact that he agreed to it and was definitely one of the ring leaders in the beginning.” He sighed and shook his head. “When I tell you that Francesca and I have been asking ourselves what went wrong with him…” He fell silent, and Robert and Bastian looked at each other, not sure how to comfort him or if he even wanted it. After a few minutes, he looked up and gave them a small smile. “Anyway, myself, Robert, Benji, who is married to my niece Lila, and Peter, who is married to my other niece Caroline, will be at the bachelor party as well, so we can all sit in a corner, sip expensive scotch, and discuss anything but the game.”
“Scotch?” Bastian perked up immediately. “I believe I've found my people.”