The Coaster (9 page)

Chapter Eleven

“Don't forget,” Sarah reminded me over dinner the next evening. “The kids and I are going to the mountains with Carol next week.”

“Better you than me.” I can't go anyway. For once, I'm legitimately too busy at work.

“You spend a lot of home time with the kids. It's fun for me to do something special with them.”

“Okay. You make all the ‘special' memories and I'll just be happy to be remembered for laundry and bologna sandwiches.”

Sarah and a friend took the kids on a memorably “fun” trip to someplace exciting every year.
Mom's Amazingly Spectacular Vacation, sponsored by Dr. Pepper!
I'm happy not to be included. The week provides me with a wonderful opportunity to do whatever I want, which most of the time means absolutely nothing. Sarah leaves me with a list of Honey Dos, but it's a pretty short list because my past efforts have given her the impression that household tasks take a lot longer than they actually do. So I get those done and then spend the rest of the time productively watching what I want to watch, and eating and drinking what I want to eat and drink. That may not seem exciting to you, but good husbands and fathers
never
get to do what they want, so there could be no better use of my time.

“I'm sorry you're too busy to come,” Sarah said. “I hate to think of you here all alone.”

“Don't worry about me. I think Corny's going to be in town for a night.”

“What does that asshole want?”

“Remember when I saw him at the gala? He said he had something I'd be interested in. He said he was already working with Sam.”

“Even if that were true, which I doubt, it doesn't matter now. The guy is nothing but trouble. Everybody sees it except you and your immature friends trying to relive your fraternity days.”

“I don't like certain things about him either, but he's fortysomething years old now. He's not screwing sorority girls in the laundry room anymore.” I may have forgotten to mention earlier that the girl who unwittingly starred in Corny's sex show was a close friend and sorority sister of Sarah's. So Sarah had a pretty good reason for not liking him.

“Just knowing he would ever do something like that, how can you even stand to be around him?”

“He
is
entertaining. For men, that's all that matters.”

“It's not all that matters to me,” Sarah said.

“I know,” I said. “That's why I'm waiting to wheel him in until after you're gone.”

“I don't want him in our house.”

“You're overreacting.”

Truth be told, I hadn't had any real contact with the guy since college. I was on a huge distribution list of guys who received almost daily doses of Internet porn from him and we occasionally exchanged alma mater sports-related e-mails, but nothing substantial. I didn't see him at Sam's funeral, but they apparently had some business dealings that were bringing him to town again. It seemed serendipitous when his offered dates fell during my family-free independence. I was actually looking forward to reliving our college days for a night or two.

“Well, get him and any traces of his DNA out of here before we get back,” Sarah said, presciently, as it turned out. The next morning, she was still pissed and rebuffed my attempt at departure sex.

***

Your friends from college often turn out completely different from what you would expect. One of my buddies who used to love to get high and sit around watching TV and listening to music became a Mennonite. He used to be too lazy to get off the couch. He ordered a pizza every single night. Now he drives a horse and buggy and churns his own butter. Another guy was so shy around girls we had to set him up with a date for every fraternity party. Now he fucks around on his wife constantly. The point is, people change. But not Corny. I didn't notice when I saw him at the gala because he was wearing a tuxedo. But when I picked him up at the airport Tuesday evening, he looked exactly like he did in college.

Same ball-hugging jeans, same boots, same navy blue sportcoat, and same thick head of hair. The only difference was he had shaved his 1990s porn 'stache.

“Look at you!” I exclaimed when he got in the car. “You could pass for a college student. I'd screw you myself if I wasn't aware of your numerous anonymous sexual partners.”

“And you could pass for…” Corny looked me over, “…the father of a college student. We can hit the college bars and tell the girls it's Dad's weekend.”

Once I'd managed to maneuver us out of the typical airport traffic clusterfuck, Corny put a serious expression on his face. “Hey, I just want to say how sorry I am about Sam.”

“Thanks, Corny. It's been pretty rough.”

“Is Sarah taking it hard?”

“She is,” I said. “They were very close.”

“If there's anything I can do for either of you, let me know.”

“I will. But for now let's head back to the house, shower up, and have a couple of cool ones. I wouldn't expect much since it's a Tuesday, but Nellie and Lang managed to secure a couple of limited weeknight passes.”

“Every night's a Saturday night if you play it right.”

“My Saturday nights are probably like your Sunday nights.”

“Sunday's one of the best nights. The bars are filled with hairdressers and dental hygienists because they don't work Mondays.”

“How do you know this stuff? No wonder I never got laid in college. Who goes out on Tuesday nights?”

“Doesn't matter,” Corny said, with what in hindsight must have been a devious smile. “I'm sure we'll run into some fun people. Fun always finds me.”

***

When we walked in the front door, my mongrel mutt Max trotted up happily and then suddenly stopped. He lowered his head to the ground and bared his teeth. The fur on his back was standing up. I don't think I'd ever seen Max growl at anyone like that before.

“I guess it's true what they say, Corny,” I joked. “Animals can sense evil.”

“As long as women can't sense it, I'll be okay,” Corny said. “And I have a lot of experience that says they can't.”

“Seriously, animals can sense things. I once read if you ever see a turtle climbing a tree, run for high ground. There's a flood coming.”

“Thanks, Bob. That's a helpful safety tip.”

“Do me a favor and don't go anywhere near our horses. We don't want a stampede.”

Corny held out his hand and Max cautiously approached. “I'll win him over. I'm impossible to resist.” Max sniffed the hand and it apparently passed his admission test because he allowed Corny to scratch his ears and come into the house. It took Corny all of five seconds to turn him. Max is quite a watchdog.

***

“Can I get you a drink, Scarface?” I walked into my kitchen after showering. Corny was sitting at the kitchen table right where my children eat their breakfast, gesturing toward an enormous pile of white powder. You didn't have to be Lindsay Lohan to figure out it was probably cocaine.

“Come on, jump on in,” Corny said. “The water's fine.”

“I'll pass this round,” I said. “And clean that shit up before one of my kids accidentally puts it on their cornflakes.”

“They'd probably be a lot more focused in class.”

“Good point,” I said. “But we'd like them to live at least through high school.”

Corny threw a couple Bud Lights on top of his cocaine dinner and I threw a couple on top of my ham sandwich and we headed out to meet the guys. We took a cab to avoid any possible trouble. A sound plan in principle.

***

When we arrived at the bar, the boys already had a table. We'd all been friends in college, if by “friends” you mean people who got drunk together frequently. Nowadays we rarely see Corny, but Kevin Nelson and Dan Langham are closer friends of mine now than they were then. Our wives are friends, too, so we even vacation as a group. Corny was an indispensable ingredient for a wild time in college, but he wasn't the guy you forged a lifelong friendship with, unless you planned to stay single and nail twenty-five-year-olds until you were fifty.

“Corny!” Nellie shouted. “You made it! I thought Bob might have fabricated your visit just to get me out of the house on a weeknight.”

The cocaine made Corny's eyes sparkle. “I've come to town to wake you pussies out of your doldrums. For this one night, you're going to forget you're old, fat, and married.”

“There's not enough alcohol in this bar to make me forget that,” Nellie said.

“Goddamn,” Lang said. “You look the same as you did in college. Maybe married life is killing us.”

“Boys, lemme tell ya,” Corny said. “It's all about clean livin'. Work, church, home is my daily schedule and moderation is my middle name.”

“Says the guy who just did a kilo of cocaine on my kitchen table,” I said.

I thought I saw Nellie's ears perk up at the word cocaine, but Lang headed him off. “You don't want to go down that rabbit hole, Nellie. Karen wants you home by ten. Once again, everyone, it's a
Tuesday
.”

“You're right, she'd kill me,” Nellie said. “So Corny, what are you up to these days?”

“Let's call it high finance,” Corny said. “I do a little M&A work for an East Coast firm. That's one of the reasons I'm in town. I can't talk about it but you'll be able to read about it in the funny pages eventually.”

We all probably thought the same thing. Mergers and acquisitions?
Pure. Unadulterated. Bullshit.
Corny always talked a big game. It's one of the reasons he got laid so much in college. His sales pitch was relentless. He wouldn't take no for an answer.

“What do you mean you can't tell us?” Nellie asked. “If you tell us, you'll have to kill us?”

“Something like that.” Corny winked at me. I hate when people wink. I never know if it was intentional or even if it was, what it was supposed to mean. I guessed Corny was telling me he was here to follow up on the deal with Sam he mentioned at the gala, if it really existed.

“Something in your eye, Corny?” I asked.

“You idiot,” Corny said. “That wink wasn't directed at you. I was winking at that MILF over there.”

I turned around. Sitting at a table against the wall was a fairly attractive woman of an indeterminate age due to years of drinking and smoking.

“That's not a MILF,” I said. “A MILF is the mother of one of your kid's friends or the attractive woman you see in an SUV in the school parking lot. That woman is a barfly.”

“Okay, call her a BILF,” Corny said. “But I'd still L to F her.”

“You'd L to F almost anyone,” I said.

Corny played along. The same confidence that allowed him to pick up strange women also made him impervious to mockery. “Well, excluding children and men.”

“Let's get a few more drinks in you before we make that call,” I said. “Hopefully there won't be any children in here.”

“Nice, Bob,” Corny admonished me. “Nothing funnier than a good pedophile joke.” He paused and then went on. “Like this one: This guy and his girlfriend are fighting. She says, ‘I'm breaking up with you.' He asks why and she says ‘Because you're a pedophile.' The guy says ‘Pedophile? That's an awfully big word for a ten-year-old.'”

Corny burst into laughter. The rest of us didn't laugh but that didn't bother Corny. It made him laugh harder.

***

When we were on our third round of beers, Corny turned to me. “So, Bob, how's the trustee work going?”

Had I even told Corny about my new job?

“Very well, thanks. I'm still not entirely sure why Sam put me in charge, but I think I've got everything under control.”

“How the hell did that happen?” Nellie asked, looking at Lang. “Bob in charge of a giant trust. Shouldn't your firm have advised against that?”

Lang wouldn't comment—client confidentiality—but Corny had no such issue. “What are you talking about? Bob's perfect for that gig.”

“How so?” I asked.

“You're a coaster, Bob.”

“What's a coaster?” Nellie asked.

“Let me explain to you guys how American society operates at the highest levels,” Corny continued. “Let this be a primer on the various species you'll see on a safari to big swinging dick country.”

Nellie looked at me. “Big swinging dick country?”

“Forget it, he's rolling,” I replied.

Corny held court. “At the top of the heap are the engines. These are the bigger-than-big swingers, the CEOs, the chairmen of the board, the men who make the big deals and create all the jobs. These are the guys who would have found the top of the heap in almost any era or set of circumstances. They deserve the highest status in our hierarchy of rich people living well.”

“Okay,” Lang said. “We're with you so far.”

“So then one level down, though almost as rich and equally admirable, are the propellers. The propellers are the lieutenants for the engines or top dogs in lesser companies or industries. The distinction here is minor. Both engines and propellers are the people who truly make the world go 'round.” Corny stopped talking, chugged his beer, and signaled the waitress for another round. The rest of us had barely taken a sip of ours.

Nellie raised an eyebrow at me. “Yeah, we definitely need another one,” he said. “Good call, Corny.”

I tried to get Corny back on track. “Engines and propellers. Those are pretty self-explanatory. What's next?”

“The next group exists because these engines and propellers need friends to hang out with. They really don't want to spend time with other engines and propellers because they are so accustomed to being the alphas, they can't share a stage. Thus the need for a new class of people. These are Bob's people!” Corny looked at me with a huge smile. “Bob is a coaster.”