If I Should Fall: The Second Book of Geshichte Falls

 “Orangutans are skeptical of changes in their cages
And the zoo keeper is very fond of rum.
Zebras are reactionaries,
Antelopes are missionaries.
Pigeons plot in secrecy
And hamsters turn on frequently.
What a gas you got to come and see
At the zoo!”

Brad and Nehru sang!

“At the zoo!”

They sang with so much passion and Nehru leaned back against Cody whose fingers trilled across the bass. Marissa envied the three of them. The closeness. In her life she had Marcia, and as they sang the end of the Simon and Garfunkel song, and Brad and Nehru’s voices rose up in a roar, Marissa remembered the night before.

The snow was falling thick outside. On 123 Indragal Road, Brad Long was stretched out on the sofa in the living room.

“I mean, even if it was something like 345, or 678 that wouldn’t be nearly as neat, ya know, but 123 is the best address in the world.”

He was talking to himself while strumming his guitar.  He stopped and began trying to turn the words on paper into a song. So far he had a good first verse. He thought it was a good melody. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t sung well. Nehru would be the one to sing it.

“Brad!” Marissa shouted from the bathroom.

“Huh?”
He stopped playing and turned his head. Marissa came out.

“Brad—” she held out something.

“What is this?”

“You know exactly what it is.”

Brad nodded, a little dumbfounded.

“I can’t translate though,” he said.

“Well I can.”

 Marissa lifted the stick to her face as if examining a piece of evidence—which, in a way, she was.

“It says I’m pregnant.”

“I thought we knew that.”

“But I wanted to confirm it.”

There had been something missing. Something not there, or either, she thought, as she saw Brad in his snug jeans and fitted tee shirt, leaning into Nehru, something lacking between she and him.

When she saw Brad and Nehru and Cody twisting and turning, instruments and voices melding, she remembered nights in bed with Brad, how he was the most careful lover, the most intense one. He hit all the right places, tasted her in just the right way, looked down in tenderness while he fucked her. Their bodies moved in rhythm as often had not been the case with lovers in the past, And yet… and yet…

As he smiled into Nehru’s face and Nehru turned away…. Marissa understood.

He doesn’t love me.

Now she realized…

“And I don’t love him.

Niall could tell by the thump that it was Cameron at the door.

He opened and she said, “You can stop blaming me for your disappearing... business.”

She dropped a dime bag on her brother’s bed, “And blame yourself for slipping. It’s a good thing Mom and Dad didn’t find it and I did.”

Cameron now noticed that Niall seemed only vaguely concerned with the bag he was putting on the bed. His eyes were focused somewhere else, but he shook his head and said, “It’s not possible... It’s not possible. I bring it into the house and into my room and that’s it.”

“Well,” said Cameron. “You left this in the study.”

“Sorry, Cam,” Niall still seemed only half there. “Sorry. Say, can you do me a favor?”

“Probably.”

“I need to go to the drug store. Can you give me a ride?”

“Whaddo you need?”

Niall shook his head and put on a smile that did not convince his sister. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll get it myself.”

“Niall, if it bothers you that much then I won’t ask any questions. We’ll just go. Alright?”

Niall nodded, “Let me get my money, and I’ll meet you downstairs.”

Cameron nodded. She had promised not to ask about it, but now she was sure with all the instinct of someone past twelve that it had to be about sex.

They stood in the empty living room of the Cormorant house on Keyworthy Street. The lights were out except for the one that shone from the kitchen, and the other one from the bathroom. Snow fell, saying Christmas would soon be here and everything was going to be alright, but for the first time Niall Dwyer understood that weather lies.

“Read the directions again,” Niall pleaded.

“Niall,” Sonia’s voice was half angry, half desperate, “if I read the directions a thousand times they’ll still say the same thing.”

They stood there a little while longer. Niall face was hot and his palms sweat.

“Niall, I’m scared.”

Niall bit his lip, nodded and remembered to kiss her.

Bill Dwyer had already decided not to make an excuse and tell Dena he couldn’t get home because of the snow. It seemed flimsy and transparent. Now, on the road through Fort Atkins, half blinded by snow, he thought he’d been a fool. The excuse could have very well been true. And this drive in the dark had twice nearly caused his demise.

When Bill got home that night, the light was on in the kitchen, and the whole family was there. For a moment he had the ludicrous idea that they had found out about Lynn and it was now time for a group pow wow. But no, as he entered, his brother-in-law looked up and they were all laughing. Even Dena.

“Hey, Bill.”

“Hi, Big Brother!”

Dena was the last to speak, “Hey honey,” she murmured.

Slipping out of his shoes, Bill went into the hall, to hang his things up and came back into the kitchen. Lee had put tea on.

“We’re all making a pilgrimage this weekend,” David said.

Bill cocked his head at the tall, bespectacled man.

“I think Dave’s being a little more dramatic about it than it really is,” said Dena. “Lee decided we should all go up to the house in Idlewile before Christmas.”

“How’s that sound?” Lee said.

“Sounds like you already made the plan without me,” Bill was aware of how hard he smiled to keep the resentment out of his face.

“Grandma’s going to take me through the forest paths,” Dave Jr. announced. “It’s gonna be great, right, Dad?”

Bill wondered why he didn’t have this kind of relationship with Niall.

“It could indeed be great,” David agreed with his son. “It might be an epiphany.”

The tea kettle whistled shrilly.

“Hardly an epiphany,” Dena said, her eyes full of mock scorn for her younger brother.

“It could change our whole lives,” said Dave, who was big on life changing. “A lot can happen in one little weekend.”

“You don’t know how surprised I am you brought me here!” Faye said as she and Chuck came into the Blue Jewell.

“Well, you and Chayne love this place.”

“But you don’t.”

Chuck looked around the loud bar and said, “It’s not that I don’t like it... It’s out of the way. I think I may have been here once.”

“What are yawl standing around for?” Jewell shouted from the bar, a towel over her shoulder. “Read this sign.”

She finished pouring a beer, sent it sailing across the bar toward the very Tim Emery who had—not so long ago—driven two priests into the middle of a cornfield and left them there on the eve of Jackie Lewis’s wedding.

Chuck read the sign aloud: “SEAT YOUR OWN GODDAMNED SELF.”

As they paid heed to the notice and found a table in the corner, Jewell shouted, “I’ll be with yawl in a minute.”

“Honey,” she told Faye when she got to the table, “you don’t know what it’s like to be on the wrong side of thirty-five with a baby.”

“Maybe one day we’ll find out,” Chuck said.

“A man can always afford to say that,” Jewell said casting Chuck a look of scorn. “If it’s not the baby wanting one thing, it’s Tim wanting another, and all my back wants to do is lie down. Now enough of my private bullshit. What can I get you?”

“What do you have that’s...” Chuck looked for the right word, “special.”

“Look around,” Jewell said. There were farmers and factory workers swilling beer, neon signs that read Michelob and blue neon guitars. “A burger is special around here.”

“Give us the most special burger you have,” Faye said. “And the most special beer you can find.”

“I like you, Faye,” Jewell said. “Yawl want chips or fires?”

Chuck said fries, Faye said chips. Jewell went away.

When the beers came Faye started to tell Chuck stories about everyone in the place, Ann Ford who was engaged to the guitarist on stage, Will Shuster who worked at the old mill out near Thompson Road and his wife Hannah who played organ at Saint Adjeanet’s. And there was Shannon, her husband Bill and her uncle who had come to down last year—a rabbi—to perform Jackie Lewis’s wedding after Tim Emory had left the priests in a cornfield.

“You know more about this town than I do,” Chuck marveled.

Faye shrugged. “I’m a psychologist.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I don’t know,” Faye shrugged. “It’s just nice to say. I think it’s a valid reason for anything. I just always shrug and say, I’m a psychologist.”

Chuck grinned and touched Faye’s cheek. She softened then.

“I love your eyes,” he told her tenderly, and then he swigged from his beer and suddenly his eyes went wide and so did Faye’s.

Chuck began to gasp and Faye came up behind him, attempting the Heimlich. Big eared Bill Hall came away from the table where he sat with Shannon, and thumped Chuck on his back. Chuck gagged, and coughed, and onto the floor pinged a golden ring.

While Bill was still clapping Chuck Shrader on the back, he looked up at Faye and then down at the ring.

“It didn’t go completely according to plan,” she confessed. “But that was my way of asking if you’d marry me?”