37. Brendan #3
Where it had been was unclear. How it had survived the Speedo situation was also unclear.
He held the rose between his teeth and did a slow turn. The room saw the back of the Speedo again and screamed again, harder, because somehow they had forgotten about FIVE HOLE and its reappearance was a fresh event.
Finn made the whale sound again.
“Still fine,” he said to Chase, preemptively.
“You’re really not,” Chase managed through gasps.
Tyler, rose between his teeth, executed a slow, dramatic dip toward the floor that got approximately three-quarters of the way down. He stopped, hung there in the comedic pose of a man whose body had opinions about this idea, and then began the return journey.
“He’s not coming back up,” Jacks said.
“He’s coming back up,” Skyler said.
Indeed, Tyler came back up.
Slowly.
With effort.
And with the rose still in his teeth and GOAL glittering in the spotlight.
Then he took the rose out of his mouth and ran it up his leg, across his GOAL, up his happy trail to his right nipple, then offered it to Skyler.
Skyler looked at the rose, looked at Tyler, then looked at the room.
“I hate you,” Skyler said as he took the rose.
“No you don’t,” Tyler said with a wink. “You want all my goals, Cap. You know you do.”
Jacks put his head on Skyler’s shoulder, shaking with laughter. Skyler put his arm around Jacks, and they sat there together, two men who had found the most ridiculous possible family and had decided to keep it.
As the music finally wound down, Tyler bowed.
The crowd roared and applauded.
Even Rod stepped out of the kitchen again, clapping and grinning.
Tyler bowed again, then turned around for a final bow.
The room saw FIVE HOLE one last time.
And the room reacted one last time.
“I need a moment,” Finn said.
“Take your time,” Chase said, patting his hand.
Tyler struck his final pose, his arms wide and chin aloft.
The room erupted.
Not politely.
But genuinely.
Tyler put the trench coat back on with enormous dignity, tied the belt, smoothed the lapels, then faced us.
“Thank you,” he said to the room. “I’m available for private events.”
“You are available for this family’s private events only,” Skyler said. “Nowhere else. Under no circumstances will you do . . . whatever that was . . . anywhere else in the world.”
“Those terms are acceptable,” Tyler said.
Erik raised his glass.
“The cattle,” he said, “are honored.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Tyler performed with whole self,” Erik said. “In tradition of great Norse warriors, who also—”
“ERIK.”
“—made questionable choices in service of—”
“ERIK.”
“—total commitment,” Erik finished, and drank.
Tyler pointed at him. “I’m getting that tattooed.”
“Whole sentence?” Erik said.
“Maybe not the cattle part,” Tyler said.
“The cattle part,” Erik said, “is most important part.”
“WHY IS IT ALWAYS ABOUT THE CATTLE?” Finn shouted to the room.
“Everything,” Erik said, “is about the cattle.”
When Tyler finally left to change into shorts and a Lightning T-shirt, repeatedly promising Skyler he’d never wear FIVE HOLE again, the evening settled into something quieter.
Jacks poured.
Benji mixed.
Peter read.
Erik and Dante found each other’s orbit again, the two of them in the corner in what appeared to be a genuine conversation conducted at a volume the rest of the room couldn’t hear.
Mark was still in his booth with only a drink and the room around him, which was the bar and the family and five years of both. He looked, for the first time in a long time, like a man who wasn’t calculating anything—or necessarily mourning anything either.
At some point, the crowd thinned naturally in the way gatherings did when they’d given everything they had and were ready to let the night close.
Skyler and Jacks left first, with Jacks hugging everyone individually, including Mofongo.
Tyler donned his trench coat and followed, the coat hem still too short, but thankfully no longer hiding only a Speedo.
Erik left last of the hockey contingent, pausing at the door to exchange something with Dante that involved no more than four words and appeared to satisfy both of them completely.
With the Lightning boys gone, the room quieted considerably.
Benji did his closing routine behind the bar, the methodical end-of-night inventory he ran the same way every time, even in the wake of a private event.
The room had whittled itself down to the Barbacks core with Finn and Chase at one table, Mark in his corner booth, and Dante at the door.
Rod leaned through the pass-through, watching the evening end.
Adrian sat beside me, close, the way he had all night.
Mark stood slowly, picked up his empty glass, and walked it to the bar.
He passed the door on the way back.
Dante looked up from his book.
They stood there for a moment. It wasn’t long or dramatic, just two people at the end of a night in a bar. Except that tonight, something about the space felt different, the way a room felt different after something important had happened in it even if you couldn’t name what it was.
Mark said something.
Dante said something back.
Mark nodded once, then went back to his booth to get his jacket.
Dante watched him for a few seconds before returning to his book.
Benji, behind the bar, had gone still.
Finally, he reached into his apron pocket and produced the napkin and added one thing to it, then folded it and returned it to his pocket.
“New note?” Adrian asked.
Benji looked up and hesitated, considering for a moment, then he said something that stuck with me long after the evening ended.
“I don’t think I’m writing parts of my own story anymore. I think . . . I think my napkin may be the beginning of someone else’s.”