Chapter 24 Wes
The balcony door is open. January air through the screen, warm, wrong, winter that is not winter.
The ocean is flat past the railing. I am standing at the counter with a glass of water and the game on the laptop, volume low, a Western Conference matchup I have no stake in.
The commentary guy is talking about offensive-zone time for a game I’m not watching.
My phone buzzes on the counter. The screen lights. Luca’s feet on the sand. The wallpaper holds for a second before the notification slides down.
Atlanta area code. I pick it up.
"Hello?"
"Mercer?" A beat. The voice is younger than mine, pitched up with the effort of starting. "It's Marchetti. Teo Marchetti. From the Firebirds. I'm sorry to call like this. I got your number from Berger a while back."
"Yeah, hey, Marchetti. What's up?"
"I know this is out of nowhere. I've been going back and forth on whether to call, and I just…I think somebody who knew him in Miami should know what's going on."
I lean against the counter. The laptop hums.
"Okay."
"I don’t think he's doing well. I don't know how much you guys talk. I know you were his roommate and everything, and he mentions you sometimes, just…you know, in passing. But he's been off for a while and…." Marchetti trails off.
"What do you mean “off”?"
"You know how the spreadsheet and ratings are the whole thing he does. He sort of just stopped doing it. It didn't happen all at once, so I didn’t really notice it at first. I thought maybe he was just in a funk, but I think it’s more than that. It's been going on too long."
The glass of water is next to my elbow. The counter is cold under my hand. I do not say anything. Marchetti waits a beat and continues.
"He's doing one-word answers. You know him.
He's the loudest person in that building.
He used to rate everything. The coffee, the skate sharpener's technique, the hotel soap.
He had categories for hotel soap, Mercer.
And now he comes in and says 'fine' and 'good' and that's it. That's the whole conversation."
"Yeah, that’s not like him." I close my eyes. The apartment is quiet and the ocean is a steady sound through the door.
"And there's..." Marchetti's voice changes.
The voice of someone deciding to say the next thing.
"A month or so ago, we were on a road trip.
We won, and the team went to a bar, and Berger drank too much.
Not fun too much. Bad too much. Like he was trying to get to a place where he didn't have to be in the room anymore. "
"Okay."
"He was in bad shape that night. We got him to his room, but…
" Marchetti pauses. I can hear him breathing.
"He kept saying he wanted mercy. Over and over.
'I want mercy. I need mercy.' And I told him he was going to be okay.
I told him he'd feel better in the morning.
I thought he was just drunk and miserable.
But I think he was asking for something specific. "
He was drunk, with Marchetti saying my name and Marchetti didn’t know. And I was in this apartment in Miami.
"Mercer? You there?"
"Yeah. I'm here."
"But he was in a bad way that night and I thought…I thought his friend from Miami should know."
"I appreciate the call, Marchetti."
My voice comes out level. The same register I would use with a reporter after a bad game. Short, complete, giving nothing. The gap between what is coming out of my mouth and what is happening in my chest is the widest it has been in fifteen years of holding it.
"I don't want to overstep," Marchetti says. "He talks about Miami like it was home. He talks about you like you were the best part of it. I just…If you could reach out. Check in on him. I think he'd pick up for you."
"I'll reach out."
"Okay. Okay, good. That's…I wasn't sure if I should call."
"No, I’m glad you did."
"Thank you, Mercer. Take care."
"Thanks, Marchetti."
The line goes dead.
I set the phone on the counter. The screen holds his feet on the sand for two seconds and goes dark. I stand in the kitchen. My hand is still flat on the counter where it has been since the phone rang.
He was saying my name. He was drunk in an elevator in a hotel on a road trip and calling for me across however many miles were between his hotel and this apartment.
I was standing on this balcony or lying in this bed or making coffee.
I was holding the distance between us like a thing I was carrying for both of us and he was in an elevator asking for me by the name only the locker room uses.
I pick up the glass of water. I drink it. I set it in the rack next to the cup from this morning.
The camera bag is on the counter. I unzip it and take out the camera and turn it on.
The last image on the card is from three days ago.
The ocean from this railing. Gray water, gray sky, nothing alive in the frame.
I press the back button. The image before it is from Aruba.
His shoulders, the villa steps, the bougainvillea on the wall.
I press it again. His hand on the railing of the restaurant patio, the candlelight on his knuckles.
I turn the camera off.
In Aruba he rated the ceviche lower than last year and he said the acid was sharper. The acid was not sharper. The thing that was different was the guy tasting it, and I noticed it but kept quiet, like I've done for 15 years.
And tonight Marchetti picked up a phone and called a man he has never talked to before because he did not know what else to do.
I go out and stand at the railing. My road trip starts in a couple days. Carolina, then a back-to-back in New York, then DC.
I stand at the railing with my hands on the metal. I am going to do something. The not-knowing from Aruba has changed shape. It is not the same not-knowing. This one has a direction. I do not know when. I do not know what it costs. But I know the direction.
?