Short story written in the winter of 2007.

Nick hadn’t worn the suit, his only, since his grandfather’s funeral the previous March. It was black, pinstriped, and cost $300 from a chain store in Long Island where he bought it for another funeral, years before. The hem had come out of the cuff in the left pant leg, the morning of his Grandfather’s services. His wife fixed them with a safety pin. He had forgotten this completely and now the safety pin had come loose and fallen off somewhere on Lafayette Street.

Nick hadn’t noticed when he arrived at the parking garage on Broadway, seeing Rob standing at the counter of the tiny glass walled rental office. Rob shrugged his shoulders. Nick bought a coke from the machine on the opposite cement wall.

Rob emerged, keys and yellow paper contract in hand, dressed in brown corduroy pants with a nearly matching tweed jacket. He looked at Nick.

“What?” Nick said.

“I’m underdressed,” Rob said.

“You look fine.”

“I’m underdressed.”

“You’re not.”

“Bill?”

“Not coming. He couldn’t get out of work and he says he feels like shit.”

They both got into the car. Rob had already placed his jacket and the dirty yellow paper in the backseat. Nick got out of the car, removed his jacket, placed it neatly atop Rob’s and got back in.

They drove nearly four blocks without speaking. Rob connected his iPod and scanned through the radio channels, looking for one with a weak signal.

“Did you hear about Val Kilmer?” Nick said.

“No, what?” Rob said.

“Apparently he was walking down the street-”

“Here?”

“No, in LA. So, he hitches a ride, or asks this random guy for a ride. Whatever. The guy recognizes him and gives him a ride and Val wants the guy to take him to a strip club.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, and the guy does.”

“Man, what happened to him?”

“I don’t know. What did he just walk up to this guy like, ‘Iceman needs a lap dance.’ and this guy’s like ‘I’ll be your wingman any time.’”

“Don’t talk to me for a minute.”

“Ok.”

“This part always freaks me out.”

“Ok.”

They had reached the West Side Highway.

“Is this it?”

“No, this is 11^th. It’s the next one.”

As they passed 34^th Street the signal on the radio picked up, cutting into their playlist. It was an ad for a gym, or a sale on kids clothes, it was difficult to tell. Rob paused the iPod. Nick reached for the radio, moving it to another station with lower signal. The ads disappeared and the music was resumed.

They got on the GWB with little outbound traffic and Rob visibly relaxed.

“I’m sorry. I hate that part. Fucking city traffic,” Rob said.

“No problem,” Nick said.

“So, what was that about Val Kilmer?”

“He had some random guy take to him to a strip club.”

“Did the guy go with him or just drive him?”

“He prolly went with him. Wouldn’t you?”

“With Iceman?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, I’d go.”

A new song started, and Rob reached forward, skipping to the next song on the playlist. They were off the bridge now, and getting onto the Palisades.

“Iceman needs a lap dance.”

“Hah.”

“You come up with that?”

“No. Read it on a blog.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Still funny.”

“Definitely.”

Sufjan Stevens was now, not ironically, singing about the Palisades. Rob smiled as Nick took notice.

“Great timing.”

“Almost. I was off by a song.”

“Did you plan the whole soundtrack?”

“No. Just this part.”

“I see.”

“Actually, we’ve used this mix before, heading upstate, and Tara noticed that every time we got onto the Palisades this song would start.”

“Neat.”

“I thought so.”

“This trip does seem like a movie.”

“A bad one.”

“Yeah.”

“But a good bad one.”

Nick noticed there didn’t seem to be many cars on the road. He looked back towards the heights of the city across the river. The grey clouds hung low, only defined at their bottoms, their apex seemingly stretching all the way to space, becoming whiter as they climbed.

“You know what?” Nick said.

“What?”

“I wore this exact same outfit to Michelle’s wedding.”

“Really.”

“Yeah, same red shirt, no tie.”

“I doubt she’ll remember, it was almost a year ago.”

“I hope not.”

“She won’t.”

Nick looked out the window again as they passed a tiny gas station and rest stop that was about two feet off the highway, partially obscured in the dense cluster of thin pine trees that lined the road.

“So,” Rob said.

“So,” Nick said.

“Val Kilmer. Or Tom Cruise?”

“Val Kilmer.”

“Val Kilmer or Dennis Quaid?”

“Val Kilmer. ‘I’m your huckleberry.’”

“Val Kilmer or Warwick Davis?”

“Warwick Davis.”

“Warwick Davis or Gary Coleman?”

“Gary Coleman.”

“Gary Coleman. Or Dabney Coleman?”

“Gary Coleman.”

“Gary Coleman or Gary Busey?”

“Busey.”

“Gary Busey. Or Nick Nolte?”

“Busey.”

“Gary Busey or Gary Oldman.”

“Gary Oldman!”

“Gary Oldman or-“

“Forget it. You’re done.”

“Gary Oldman or-“

“Nobody tops Oldman.”

“Gary Oldman. Or Christopher Walken?”

“Oooh.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I see.”

“I told you.”

“Walken. Definitely Walken.”

“Christopher Walken or-“

“Now you’re done.”

“Nope.”

“You can’t beat Walken. Nobody beats Walken.”

“Christopher-“

“I’m sorry. It’s over.”

“Christopher Walken..”

Nick laughed. Rob laughed too.

“… Or William Shatner!”

“SHATNER!”

They both laughed again.

“I win.” Rob said.

“Was that less than ten?” Nick said.

“It was exactly ten.”

“Not bad.”

“You want to go?”

“Sure.”

“Use women instead.”

“Ok.”

“Um, how about, hmmm.”

“Too hard?”

“Yeah.”

They were getting off the Palisades now, merging onto the Thruway, and being welcomed back into New York. The drove for a few minutes in silence, and passed a sign for an upcoming service area.

“Do you need to stop?” Rob said.

“No, I’m fine,” Nick said.

“Did I tell you I have a secret admirer?”

“No.”

“I lent this Bukowski book to a guy I work with, and he found a note inside it.”

“What did the note say?”

“It said something like, ‘We should get together and talk about Bukowski sometime.’”

“Was it signed?”

“Only with an extension.”

“Did you call it?”

“No.”

“Look up who it was?”

“No.”

“Aren’t you curious?”

“Extremely.”

“Then-“

“It was from someone I worked with at the Trib.”

“But you don’t know who?”

“No, I don’t recognize the extension.”

“Is Steve still there? Have him look it up.”

“It’s been three years. They’ve changed.”

“You already called him?”

“Yeah.”

“Was this from before you started dating Tara?”

“Probably. I had that book on my desk for months. I never read it.”

“Oh well.”

“Yup.”

“It’s killing you isn’t it.”

“It’s not like I really care who it is. But I just want to know. It’s so weird.”

“What did Tara say?”

“She was surprised.”

“Oh?’

“She thought I had already dated everyone there.”

“I thought you had too.”

It had started to rain a little by the time they got off the Thruway. The local highways of their home region evoked a string of memories, some shared, or simply remembered, overlapping with each other’s. Despite the familiarity of the signposts and trees, Nick wasn’t sure if he actually had ever been on this particular road before. They reached the main street of Middletown, which wasn’t called Main Street, when the rain stopped. There was some sunlight, not breaking the clouds, but illuminating them like unfolded paper lampshades.

“We’re early,” Rob said.

“When does it start?” Nick said.

“6:30,” Rob said.

It was ten after five.

“We made good time,” Nick said.

“Are you hungry?” Rob said.

“A little.”

“Want to stop at the diner?”

“Forum or the Colonial?”

“Colonial. Forum’s on the other side of town.”

“Ok.”

Nick realized they were near the office building that housed the newspaper that Rob, and Tara, used to work for. They drove past it. Looking down the avenue the building was on, Nick could see the cemetery at the end of the street.

“We should stop and hunt down your secret admirer.”

“Very funny.”

They reached the diner and Nick retrieved his suit jacket from the backseat. Rob left his. The last time they were at this diner, sometime after college, they had an argument over who wrote “Sing, Sing, Sing”, which they had just been listening to in the car. Nick knew it was Benny Goodman. Rob swore it was Duke Ellington. At some point in their argument, Rob realized that it was in fact, Benny Goodman, but he made his case for Ellington all the same. Nick capitulated, no longer sure if it was Goodman or not, but held firm that it was Gene Krupa on drums. Driving home, the song resumed, and when Goodman came swinging in, Rob said, “There’s that clarinet,” and they both laughed till there were tears.

After ordering the same cheeseburger platter, Nick went to the bathroom. When he came back out, the food had arrived, and Rob was half finished. Nick picked at his. His left shoe felt loose, and when he went to tie it he saw that his pant cuff had come undone again, and remembering the safety pin, saw that it was gone. There was a white stain on the cuff, which Nick thought he had picked up in the city, the loose cuff scraping against the pavement, but was actually a salt stain from outside the restaurant his family had gone to after his grandfather’s funeral.

When the waitress returned, she took both plates, asked Nick if he was feeling well, and went to look for a safety pin. His pants mended and time killed, they drove the remaining few miles to their destination. The parking lot was nearly full when they arrived.

When they came back out to the parking lot, it was simultaneously a fall and summer night. The air was sweet and heavy, but the trees brown and wet. The air was warm, but with a chill, and their jackets felt needed and welcomed. There was no one else outside. The street was fairly dark, only muted light from the windows of houses. The brighter lights from the commercial avenue, two blocks over could be seen faintly glowing. They got into the car, both leaving their jackets on, and drove away without really saying anything.

They came to a traffic light and Rob rolled down the windows, letting the air in. It was nice. Nick put his arm on the window, elbow sticking out, and looked at a large Spanish looking church, that he was pretty sure he had never seen before.

Rob turned on the radio. And the iPod. It worked with the first station they tried.

“This doesn’t look like Middletown,” Nick said.

“These are the back roads,” Rob said.

Ray Charles crooned about the heat of the night as they drove slowly from stoplight to stoplight, passing the shopping centers, restaurants, and banks from their youth, none of it familiar.

“I think this would play at the end of the movie,” Nick said.

“As we drove away, into the credits?”

“On the darkened highway, the only car.”

“That’s a pretty good ending.”

“What’s the rest of the movie?”

“The whole trip.”

“How’s it start?”

“We’re each leaving our apartments.”

“But I came from work.”

“It’s a movie.”

“Fine.”

“You get dressed quietly, so as not to wake your sleeping wife.”

“Is she pregnant in the movie?”

“Yeah, she’s taking a nap. It’s still afternoon.”

“Ok.”

“So your place is all quiet, but at mine, I’m having a fight.”

“With Tara?”

“No my character’s wife. I’ve been screwing around. And we’re fighting. The place is a mess. I’m picking clothes off the floor while she’s screaming at me.”

“Nice contrast.”

“So, we meet at the parking garage. Only we haven’t seen each other in years.”

“How many?”

“Two or three.”

“So you walk up to me and you’re like, ‘Why do you look like you slept in your clothes?’ and I say, ‘Why are you dressed like a Guido?’ Then it’s smash cut, we’re driving.”

“Same music?”

“No, no. It’s rap. Mos-Def or something. Or maybe go old school.”

“Public Enemy.”

“Perfect.”

“So, it’s all these quick cuts of us driving, jumping to the city around us, your typical graffiti walls, Chelsea Piers, dog walkers in Riverside Park, the nice apartment buildings, playgrounds, the bridge, etc.”

“Sounds good.”

“Now we’re over the bridge and it’s all ‘Gary Coleman/Dabney Coleman’ and we’re talking about me finding that note. Only, I’m lying and I know who it is.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. So we go to the diner and you get sick.”

“I didn’t get sick. I just wasn’t very hungry.”

“Well, in the movie you do.”

“Why?”

“You’re nervous about seeing your parents. You haven’t told them about the pregnancy. They don’t even know that you’re married. They’ve never even met your wife. You’ve only seen them once or twice in the last five years.”

“I wish.”

“Heh.”

“I’d be nervous. Hell, I am nervous. But I don’t think I’d get sick.”

“It’s your character.”

“Well, I don’t think he’d get sick either.”

“Ok.”

“So we go to the wake.”

“We go.”

They both pause.

“Is that part the same in the movie?” Nick said.

“Maybe the movie just skips over it?”

“I like that. But it would make it pretty short.”

“Alright. You go to the bathroom. And when you come out, I’m gone.”

“What do I do?”

“Nothing. We cut to my story.”

“What do you do?”

“I go to the paper to see the girl whose note I found.”

“In the Bukowski book?”

“No, that’s not pretentious enough. It’s a biography of Eugene O’Neill. Cause I’m obsessed with him. I’ve had it since high school.”

“But I’m the O’Neill buff.”

“Yeah, but this fits the story better. You even see the book in my bag when we meet up and say something about it.”

“Like, ‘You still carrying that thing around?’”

“Yeah, and I take it with me and go see the girl.”

“Does she remember you?”

“Not at first, but I show her the book and the note and she laughs. We talk for a bit and then she takes her dinner break and we go for a walk.”

“Down to that cemetery.”

“Right, and we walk around, it’s empty, and we start making out. She wants to have sex, but I can’t. I’m suddenly impotent. I can’t cheat on my wife.”

“I thought you were fucking around?”

“No, that doesn’t work. She had the affair. And now she’s pregnant. Maybe I shoot her before I leave? No, that’s too dark. This is a dramedy.”

“It’s Garden State meets Garden State.”

“Exactly. So the girl goes back to work, and I stay behind, embarrassed and depressed.”

“It starts to rain.”

“But only a little. I leave the book on the headstone and go back to the car.”

“You come pick me up?”

“Yeah, but you’re not mad.”

“Oh no?”

“No, you understand.”

“Then we go.”

“We do.”

“And after we’re back on the road and it’s dark.”

“Listening to Ray Charles.”

“Driving through Middletown.”

“What’s my story?”

“I drop you off at your parents.”

“And?”

“You tell them the truth.”

“You’re waiting in the car.”

“We need a drink.”

“So we go to a bar.”

“It’s a dive, back in Middletown. Whispers.”

“And it’s karaoke night.”

“We get trashed and get on stage.”

“What do we sing?”

“’I Would Do Anything for Love.’”

“Wow.”

“Now, Vinny, Vinny’s been laid off since the Orange Plaza closed. And he gets mad. Because everyone knows that it’s Vinny that sings the Meatloaf at Whispers.”

“He even looks like Meatloaf. Meatloaf can play him in the movie!”

“And to make matters worse, there’s a talent scout, from-“

“American Idol.”

“There’s a talent scout from American Idol in the crowd. And this was Vinny’s big break.”

“His only chance to make it and get back Marlene, his wife.”

“Ex-wife.”

“And high-school sweetheart.”

“So he gets up on the stage and he pokes me in the chest, saying that he sings the Meatloaf at Whispers.”

“And he isn’t going to let a couple of New York City faggots steal his show!”

“And I’m drunk, and feeling self-destructive, so I take a swing at him. Only I miss, but he doesn’t.”

“He knocks you out.”

“You cold-clock him and a brawl starts.”

“The whole place goes nuts.”

“The police come.”

“You crawl across the floor and slap me awake, and we slip out.”

“Only our car is gone.”

“Stolen.”

“So, we take the police car!”

“We’re driving down the highway, red lights on.”

“Bloody and smoking a cigarette.”

“You turn on the radio.”

“And it’s ‘In the Heat of the Night’”

“We drive away.”

“Roll credits.”

It was very dark on the road now, a local highway that they both remembered. They were almost to Nick’s parent’s house now. Nick got out of the car. Rob popped the trunk. Bag slung over his shoulder, Nick leaned down to the open window.

“What do we call it?” Nick said.

“Middletown,” Rob said.

“The Icemen,” Nick said.

“The Icemen,” Rob said.

The car drove away, up the hill, and out of sight. Nick walked up the driveway towards the house. All of the lights were off.