Two

Billy Finster was kicking back on the turquoise leather couch, legs on the coffee table next to a half-open bag of Cheetos. He had a TV remote in one hand and a can of Sapporo in the other, flipping through the channels so quickly the wide-screen television was a relentless blur.

He put the remote down long enough to reach into the Cheetos bag, stuffed a few in his mouth, wiped his fingers on his threadbare Hartford Whalers sweatshirt to get rid of the orange dust, and saw that he had landed on a station that ran game shows from decades past. It was an episode of The $100,000 Pyramid, old enough that Dick Clark was hosting.

Billy stopped flipping.

Some long-forgotten celebrity was rattling off a list of things to her contestant partner. "A frog's skin. A pine tree." The contestant had come up with "things that are shiny" and "things that are smooth" but was missing the obvious "things that are green," so Billy decided to offer some assistance.

"Snot!" he shouted at the screen. "Gangrene!"

"Who the fuck are you shouting at?"

Billy didn't have to turn around to know who it was. His wife, Lucy, halfway down the stairs to the basement rec room. She was lollipop-thin, with streaked blond hair, ripped jeans, and a blue blouse adorned with sparkles, having changed out of her pale green hospital cafeteria uniform.

"Pyramid," he said.

"Whoosit's here," she said, making it sound like she'd spotted mouse droppings.

Billy tilted his head back, shouted: "Stuart! Downstairs!"

Stuart Betz waited for her to come back to the top of the stairs before heading down. "Nice to see you, Lucy," he said obsequiously as she passed, barely mumbling a reply.

Stuart beelined it to the bar fridge in the corner of the room, next to the Fast and Furious movie poster, and helped himself to a beer. His fashion sense mirrored Billy's. Sweats, oversized sneakers, but instead of a Hartford Whalers shirt he was wearing the Boston Bruins. The two of them, with their similar wardrobes, paunches, and shoulder-length black hair, could have passed for brothers.

Stuart pulled back the tab on the beer and stood in front of Billy.

"Do I look funny?"

"You always look funny."

"No, I mean, like I got somethin' on me or bird shit in my hair? 'Cause Lucy gave me a look."

"She just thinks you're an asshole."

He held out the bag of Cheetos to Stuart. But as Stuart reached for some, Billy suddenly pulled the bag back.

"Too slow," he said.

Stuart sat. Billy picked up the remote again, bailed on Pyramid, and resumed flipping through channels at light speed. Stuart's eyes widened as he watched the channels flash by.

"You're giving me a seizure," he said, and sniffed.

Billy kept flipping. "Blow your fucking nose. You're like a three-year-old."

Stuart brought out the tattered remains of a tissue from his pocket and asked, "Shipment come in okay today?"

Eyes fixed on the screen, Billy said, "Right where it was supposed to be. They're coming later to pick it up."

"Psycho Bitch and Butthead?"

"Call them that to their faces and they'll stick your dick into a pencil sharpener."

"Hey, they're your nicknames. I never even met them." Stuart sniffed again, wiped his nose, and tucked the tattered tissue back into his pants. "You should introduce me. Cut me in."

"Told you. It's between me and them."

"I could help. Like, stand guard or something. Be part of your security detail. Find other hiding spots." He gave Billy a sad puppy face. "I could use the scratch."

Billy replied with a dismissive grunt.

"Fine. You don't want to mix business with friendship. Whatever." Stuart dug into his pocket and brought out a joint.

Billy shook his head. "Take that outside. Lucy don't want the house smelling like a skunk's ass. Bad enough letting you in. When's the last time you did a wash?"

"Ran out of quarters this week. And why's Lucy all pissy with me?"

"You're creeping her out. Looking her up and down. Starin' at her tits."

"Bullshit," Stuart said defensively. "She's barely got any."

Billy tossed the remote right at Stuart's face, catching him in the eye.

"Fuck!" Stuart said, putting his hand over his eye, rubbing it.

"Not cool," Billy said.

"Sorry. I'm just sayin'. Didn't mean anything by it."

Billy went back to channel surfing, oblivious to the short, hateful glare from his friend. He'd flipped past something that caught his eye, went back a station. It was the Fox affiliate up in Hartford. A woman, mike in hand, was standing out front of an institutional-looking building. Across the bottom, the words school bombing averted, one dead.

"Fuck," Billy said, thumbing up the volume. "Some dude just blew himself up."

"...could have been much worse," the woman said. "The would-be bomber, a former student whose motivations remain unclear at this time, ended up taking his own life, perhaps accidentally, but not before threatening to come into the school and kill an undetermined number of people. Police said..."

"That's my school," Billy said, leaning forward, as though that would give him a better view. "Lodge. That's where I went."

A headshot of Mark LeDrew appeared in the corner of the screen, with his name below.

"You know him?" Stuart asked.

"Shut up. Want to hear this."

Stuart, almost giggling, asked, "They got pictures of him after he was blowed up?"

Billy, shaking his head, raised a silencing palm.

"... was met at the door by one or more of the teachers, who engaged Mr. LeDrew in conversation long enough, police say, to somehow talk him out of setting off an explosive device he had strapped to his chest. But when he started walking away from the school, the device detonated, killing the man and injuring..."

"Yeah, don't think I knew that guy. Probably a few years behind me. What's he look like to you? Twenty? Twenty-two?"

"Crawly thing at the bottom said he was twenty-one."

"So, I'm four years older, I'd've just missed him. He'd have been some pimply-faced pipsqueak coming in as I was leaving. Over there? Bottom shelf? My yearbooks. Grab 'em."

Stuart put down his beer, went to the shelf, located the books, and pulled one out. "Which year?"

"Bring them all. He might be—oh shit, whaddya know."

Billy's eyes were back on the TV. It was a long shot of several school staff members milling around near the main doors, talking with police officials. Clearly this was as close as the news crew was allowed to get.

"... from here we can see teachers and administrators from Lodge High, including some of the staff we believe stood up to the bomber and persuaded him not to come into the school."

There was a close-up shot of a cluster of staff members, one wearing a bloodied sport jacket, bandages applied to his neck and forehead.

"Him," Billy said, pointing at the screen. "That son of a bitch."

Stuart, now sitting cross-legged on the floor, leafing through the pages of one of the yearbooks, hunting for the man who'd blown himself up, said, "What? Who?" He looked at the television.

"Would've thought they'd have gotten rid of him by now. I couldn't have been the only one."

The reporter was on camera again, wrapping up the report, and then the newscast went to weather.

"What are you talking about?"

"The guy. Remember me telling you about when I was on the wrestling team?"

It was no surprise to Stuart that Billy might have some wrestling in his past. How many times had his so-called friend put him in a headlock and driven his knuckles into the top of his skull? That could really fucking hurt.

"Maybe," Stuart said. "Tell me again."

"He's the fucking fondler," he said, pointing at the screen, although the scene of people out front of the school was over.

Stuart started turning the yearbook pages more quickly. "God, everybody looks like a dweeb." He scanned a page, turned it, scanned another. "Okay, sports teams. Football, hockey... here we go, wrestling."

"Don't even know if I got my picture took. Wasn't on the team long."

"What was his name?"

"Dick Grabber," Billy said.

"No, seriously, what— Hang on, I found his picture."

Billy was slowly shaking his head from side to side, looking at the television as though the news item were still running, while Stuart studied the yearbook photo.

"So now he's all over the news like a big fucking hero." He looked at Stuart and grinned. "I could sure set them straight on that."