Chapter Twenty-Two
Twenty-Two
Sooth is just a really bad bar. Divey and sticky.
It still reeks of decades-old cigarette smoke.
Someone’s spilled a beer on the floor and no one seems to care.
There are blinking neon lights behind the bar and a dirty mirror.
Almost everyone I can see is drinking beer out of the can, I assume, because to drink something on tap would be to send a party invitation to botulism.
What is not really bad is the clientele.
It’s a real smorgasbord of people in here, from (probably) every borough and every walk of life.
Some of them have their arms around one another, others are sitting on laps.
A few people are sitting directly on the bar because seats are very scarce.
There’s a small stage in the back and ten or so high-top tables with people on barstools crowded around each one.
A woman with a wolf cut and a purple satin bomber jacket is on the mic, telling a story about going hunting with her uncle Ira. People are laughing and shouting commentary.
I go on tiptoes and scan the bar but don’t see Vin.
“You want to sign up for the open mic?” a man with a mustache whispers to me. He’s handing me a sign-up sheet. “There’s a few spots left.”
“Oh. Thanks.” I take the sheet. Big block letters at the top read Tonight’s Topic: The big bad wolf. And then there are twelve lines for people to sign their names. Ten are filled out. The second-to-last name? Vin DeLuca.
The crowd erupts into applause and makes me jump. “Aaaaaaaand, let’s hear it one more time for Tammy Talia. Thank you, Tammy.” The man with the mustache is holding the mic with two hands and romancing the crowd. “Next up we’ve got the one, the incomparable, the inimitable LaVoya Loach!”
The crowd erupts for this person and I study the list. Tammy Talia was number six and LaVoya Loach is number seven. Which means there is only number eight before number nine. Number nine being Vin DeLuca. Vinny Green Eyes, to those of us who share a bed with him.
I scan the bar again and this time, I see him halfway up the room, leaning against the wall (not taking up a stool, of course), eyes on the stage. His arms are crossed.
A woman ducks around him and pokes his arm for his attention. He leans down to hear her and then shakes his head. She walks back to her seat and he recrosses his arms.
LaVoya is telling a story about an aged punk rocker who used to live in her building that everyone referred to as Cousin Wolf. It’s funny and sad. At least I gather that it’s funny and sad based on watching Vin’s facial expressions. Because I cannot tear my eyes away.
This is exactly how he must have felt when he found out about my drawing classes.
Hello, heretofore invisible other side of my partner, nice to meet you.
Next up, after LaVoya, is a guy named Bill.
When he takes the stage, everybody says Biiiiiiiilllll-lllll- and it sounds like a round of booing, but he’s clearly loving every minute of it.
He has a high, miniature-sounding voice and he talks a mile a minute.
His story is about visiting this little island in the middle of Lake Michigan where scientists are apparently doing some sort of population study on wolves.
I’m starting to understand tonight’s topic. Basically, it’s just “whatever you think of when you hear the phrase the big bad wolf.”
Bill’s story is sad. The people in the audience are shouting things like “Get ’em, Bill!
” and “Tell it like it is!” At one point he mentions a cat and someone rings something called the cat bell.
His story is about his parents’ messy divorce and spending a night with no sleeping bag and hearing wolves in the distance.
But a full moon makes a special feature, and later, a girl he’ll come to love.
So when he’s on the ferry ride back to the mainland (and we’re there with him), there’s a whiff of hope.
The mustached MC takes the stage and my stomach drops to my toes. Next up. Next up. Next up.
Oh, my God. Vin’s never interacted with a wolf in his entire life. What the hell is his story going to be about? What if it’s bad? Or, perhaps even scarier, what if it’s good?
Also, it occurs to me all at once that Vin is for sure going to see me from the stage. I’m standing here, in the back, but everyone in front of me is seated. Crap! Where to hide?
“Psst.” I whip around to my left and there…is Raff. He’s beckoning me over to the bend in the L-shaped bar. If I stand right next to him, we’ll be hidden by the line of people sitting in front of us.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I used to date Tammy,” he whispers. “She told me a few weeks ago that she spotted my brother here. I’ve been sneaking in since then. He doesn’t know I come. Shh. You’ll miss his intro.”
He tucks me in front of him and I peek around the shoulder of the enormous man in front of me. I can see the stage, but hopefully the stage can’t see me.
“Now, this next reader, despite being a bona fide newbie, needs no introduction. Why no introduction necessary? you might ask. Because every single woman in this bar has already clocked him. But laaaaaadiesssss, he’s maaaaaarrrrried.
He’s so married he makes the rest of us look a lot!
more! single!” This intro is garnering a lot of hoots and hollers, and Vin has one hand over his eyes like he wishes he could blink out of existence.
Also, a lot of the hooting and hollering is from me. This is like going to Barnes & Noble and stumbling on a shirtless calendar starring your husband.
Also, also, I’m so nervous I could puke. Thank God that Raff is here because if I didn’t have his hands on my shoulders, I might shoot off into space like a bottle rocket.
The MC is looking like he’s planning on going on for a long time, but Vin has decided to clear him out. He’s walking up onto the stage and headed for the mic.
“Give it up for Big Vin DeLuuuuuca!”
And they do. Everybody screams. Everybody hollers. Everybody wants to hear what Vin has to say. And join the club, bitches! Because me too!
“Hi,” Vin says into the mic, and his deep, familiar voice heard in such a new and resounding way makes tears spring into my eyes. He’s adjusting the mic stand and asking people how they’re doing tonight.
I turn one-eighty and face Raff. “He knows how to adjust a mic stand,” I say behind my hands. Raff turns me back.
“Just watch,” he whispers.
And then Vin pulls a folded piece of paper out from his back pocket. He unfolds it, and the creases in the paper interact with the stage lights. For just a flash, there’s the shadow of a heart on that paper. And then he starts to talk.
There were three of us. Me, my wife, and my brother. We did good together. Because that’s family.
We don’t have a lot of money.
Actually. Never mind. I’m pretty sure my brother is secretly rich and he probably bought my mom her house in Jersey.
(Intrigue!)
(We got a rich brother, people!)
But that’s not the story I’m telling. What I’m trying to say is that we did not live, and never have lived, fancy. We’re the sort of people that if you break your phone screen, well then you have a broken phone screen until two years from now when you’re eligible for an upgrade.
(These are facts!)
(Eat the rich!)
Anyways. In retrospect our lives were just very simple. The three of us ate dinner together three or four nights a week. Me and Roz—
(Roz!)
(ROOOOOZZZ!)
(Who has Roz on the bingo card?)
Me and Roz went to work, came home, spent time together, thought about Raff.
Thought about having a kid. Thought about what to do for my mom on Mother’s Day.
This was life. And I, honestly, wouldn’t have changed it.
If you’d given me the option to go live on an island.
Or inherit a yacht. Or whatever. I would have said, Nah. I’m good.
But there was a big bad wolf. And maybe everybody has a big bad wolf? Like, maybe if you live long enough, you just get a big bad wolf.
Ours…was maybe a little different than most people’s.
We were three of four people who were sitting in a café this time last year when a truck drove through the front window and almost killed us.
(Oh, Vin.)
(Shit.)
(You got it, Vin!)
I know, I know, I’m not trying to lay out all my bad and terrible moments onstage.
I know that this isn’t therapy. I think a lot about what CJ said to me right before I went up onstage for the first time.
“We don’t want anybody bleeding out onstage.
Take care of yourself up there, man.” And so I’ve just kept not telling this story.
But here’s the thing. I think…I think I’m kind of stuck.
Like, every day, at some point, not all day, but at some point, I realize that I’m pretending it didn’t happen.
That I’ll drive home and not jump out of my skin whenever someone honks at me.
That I’ll get home and walk into the house and Roz won’t have a scar under her shirt.
And she and I won’t cry at loud noises. Or yell at each other because we’re all panicked about absolutely nothing.
Or that I won’t have to see my brother do his PT where he picks up a pencil, draws a circle, puts the pencil down, and then does the whole thing over and over again.
And he’s an engineer, for Chrissake. He needs to be able to—
Sorry. Sorry. Wow. You can hear a pin drop in here. I can’t tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
(It’s a good thing!)
(You got it, Vinny!)
Anyways. I thought that telling the story might be a way to remember that it happened.
And that’s life. And we’re all okay. So here I go.
We were sitting in this little café on the corner of Hudson and Worth.
We were too early to meet some high school friends in Rockefeller Park, so we decided to duck in there and get coffee.
It was raining. So we sat in the café. Roz was trying to figure out how they got their corn muffins so moist.
And this is life. One minute you’re laughing because your brother burned his tongue and the next minute everything is in slow motion.
I learned something very important about myself that day.
It’s the only good thing that came out of it.
I learned that I’m someone who would die for my wife.
Did learning that come at way too high a price?
Yes. But there it is. We heard screeching tires, I looked over my shoulder, a truck came through the window, hit the side of the building, and went on its side.
And in those two seconds I’d jumped across the table and covered her.
Which meant that even though she was really hurt, she was okay. Mostly okay.
Oh, shit.
(What?)
(He’s freezing up.)
(Why is he freezing up?)
(I don’t know, Irene. Why don’t you ask him?)
(You okay, Vin?)
I…didn’t…Shit. Hold on. I just…saw someone I didn’t expect…Oh. Two people I didn’t expect…
You okay, baby? Can I go on?
(Wait, what??)
(Is Roz in the building?)
(Where is she?)
Don’t everyone look at the same time or she’s going to leave and never come back. Baby, really. Is this story fucking you up?
(Finish it, Vinny Green Eyes!)
(Vinny Green Eyes!!)
(She calls him Vinny Green Eyes!!!!)
(Finish it, Vin!)
(You got this, Vin!)
Okay. Okay, then I’ll just read from the paper. Exactly what I wrote. Okay.
When a terrible thing happens to you, it happens and then it’s done, right?
Wrong. That’s why I’m calling this the big bad wolf.
Because when the truck smashed through the building, that was the first time the big bad wolf came around.
But the big bad wolf in the story comes back over and over, right?
And it has. It’s on me. I think I’ll carry it with me forever.
And there were some really dark days. But there was one thing that helped.
One little light that I hold. Right here.
I would have died for her. And that makes me feel good.
At least…at least, now that I’ve got the rest of my life to live…
At least I know that I’ve got something to die for.