My Best Man by Andy Schell (unputdownable books .txt) 📗

“You are sweet, like Nicolo says. Many people are awkward and unable to speak of it, but it is comforting for us to speak of our loved ones. Would you like to see pictures?”

“Sure.”

She sets her coffee down and rises from her chair. “Come,” she says, and I follow her across the room to the photographs she’s lovingly hung in various, beautiful, handmade frames. “Here is my precious Graciela,” she sighs, taking a photo from the wall. “She was the strength of all women.”

The girl in the photo is small, but her energy nearly bursts the frame. She is smiling broadly and carrying a bag on her shoulder. The beret on her head makes her look as if she’s in some kind of army. The Army of Dynamism maybe. In her hands is a small painting, but I can’t tell of what. I smile and tell her, “I can feel her strength.”

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“I too,” she answers, nodding her head. “And this is Gianni, my husband,” she says, unhooking another picture from the wall. The man in the photograph is wearing an argyle sweater and dark pants. He’s holding a rolled-up newspaper in one hand and a cigar in the other. His face is square, handsome, full of knowledge. His eyes are Nicolo’s almost black. At his feet is a little dog, a mutt of some kind.

“He’s very good-looking,” I say. “Nicolo looks like him.” “Yes,” she smiles.

“Gianni, Graciela, and Nicolo. Italian names?”

“There are many Italians in Argentina,” she explains. “Gianni’s great-great grandfather came from Italy in 1857 to farm the land in the Santa Fe province. He gained title to his land and integrated his family culture with Argentina’s.”

“But your husband was a journalist, right? Or was he a farmer?” “Gianni farm?” she asks, laughing at the question. “Crops need water, not words. His brother declined to farm also. To the salvation of their father, they have a sister, Angelica, who stayed and worked the land. She is handsome, manly, and lives with another woman on the farmland. I love her.”

God, how wonderful to hear someone of my parents’ generation be gentle and accepting of a gay person. “And where is Gianni’s brother?”

She turns, hangs the picture back on the wall. “He is in Argen tina,” she answers, her back to me. “We owe him our lives. He helped us escape.”

When she turns around to face me again, I see that her face is unsettled; there is a disturbance in her eyes. I swallow the last gulp of coffee. “Well, thanks for the coffee,” I tell her, not wanting to push it and wondering if Amity has pushed Kim out of the house yet. “I better go. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

“Enchanted,” she says. “I make sure Nicolo receives the box,” she adds, motioning to my present.

We shake hands, and she holds the door open while I depart. I feel her watching me as I walk to the street. There’s something about her energy that levels me out, brings me back to my old self, and I feel embarrassed that I’m driving this Jaguar. I even wish I had my VW. I open the door, step in, start the car. Before I drive away, I look up to the duplex to see her standing in the doorway. She waves. I wave back. Drive away.

When I get back with the car, I reach back to grab my shirts, pants, and jacket from the hook behind me. A shirt falls off the hanger, and I try to reach behind me under the seat to grab it without having to crawl into the back. My fingers feel something cold, hard, made of steel. I get a horrible feeling and quickly lift my hand away. I step out, reach behind the driver’s seat, lift the shirt off the back floor, and lean down to look under the seat. A gun. A pistol. Sitting there. No case. Just sitting there.

Amity and Kim come bursting out of the house. “Come on, Harry!” Amity says excitedly. “Kim wants to show us the new condo he just bought.”

“Let me put this stuff in the house,” I tell her. I motion for her to follow me, but she is oblivious to my gesturing, so. I dump the clothes on my bed and head back out. I don’t really want to be driving with this maniac and his gun, nor do I want Amity to do so. I decide to go along and see the condo to make sure she’s safe.

We whiz down the Tollway to north Dallas, and do a walk through of Kim’s new place. It’s the quintessential bachelor’s pad, with wall-to-wall carpeting, ceiling fans, fireplaces, a wet bar, and sliding closet doors with mirrors on them so you can watch yourself from the bed as your blubbery mid life ass goes up and down while you pork girls half your age. I see Kim as a bad Southern Hugh Hefner in need of Reverend Moon and the Betty Ford Center. I’m getting an icky feeling, and at the same time I’m bored with having to fake my interest in this dump. It’s totally empty: no furniture, no paintings, no Seoul. He’s telling us what pieces are going to go where, but he can’t seem to concentrate, and he’s getting more and more agitated. I can tell Amity is slightly nervous, but she goes along with him, oohing and ahhing over his proposed design.

We get to the kitchen, and Kim picks up a carton of cigarettes, the only sustenance in the house, and takes out a pack. He tries to open the pack, but can’t; his hands are shaking, and he can’t get a grip. Out of nowhere he freaks out, screams at the cigarettes, and literally rips the pack of smokes in half, sending cigarettes flying in all directions as if they’re scampering for their lives. They rain on the kitchen floor while Amity and I