FOUR
AIDAN
Well, look at that. It’s eleven-thirty and I’m loading my board onto the Jeep, seconds from heading to the beach. The plane Alex arranged for me to be on took off an hour ago. I could be wrong about the time, though. I gave the ticket that arrived this morning—express post, like my fuckhead brother’s never heard of email confirmation—to my friend Brewster. His rolling papers weren’t quite cutting it, and that motherfucking ticket was just the right thickness for blunt building.
If me missing the flight means Alex is going to make the pilgrimage down here in order to drag me back to Chicago, well…I’d like to see that. It’ll be entertaining as fuck, I’m sure. No way am I spending Christmas in that barren winter wasteland my brother likes to call home. No, today I’m visiting Celeste, the short blonde with the perky tits I hooked up with last weekend. We’re planning on celebrating Christmas a little early. Our festivities will involve a full three-hour sixty-nine session, and I’m sure there’ll be some reverse cowgirl to finish off the session. Celeste has a mirrored wall in her bedroom and likes to watch herself getting fucked.
My dick’s already hard as I’m driving over to her place, thinking about fucking her, thinking about how badly my tongue’s gonna ache from three hours of eating pussy, when my cell phone starts to go off.
It’s bound to be Alex, realizing that I’m not on that motherfucking plane.
“Ohhhh. Yeah. Fuck you, man.” I hit the reject button. The phone rings again less than a second later. Again, I hit the big red icon, cutting him off. “Eat a big bag of dicks, man.”
I should just get a new number is what I should do. The third time when it starts to ring, I actually fumble the damn thing in my haste to make it shut the hell up. I get a good look at the screen, and I realize it’s not my brother, after all. The A at the beginning of the caller ID isn’t for Alex like I assumed it was. It’s for Arturo. Arturo Mendel, our family lawyer for the past thirty years. He’s been around longer than I’ve been alive. Seeing his name light up my cellphone’s screen is a little strange. Strange enough that I’m compelled to answer the phone.
“Hey, Art. What’s up?”
“Aidan? Aidan, I can barely—are you there?” A wave of static blasts down the phone, and then Arturo’s broken speech again. “—driving? Can—terrible. Sorry, I—” His words are scrambled, but there’s a tension in his tone that I can hear plainly down the distorted line. My father’s probably taking steps to cut me out of the will and good ol’ Art wants me to call home and make nice. When we were kids, Alex and I used to call the old guy Art the Fart. He’s one of those people who seem like they’ve been old forever and ever. He looks a little like a Jewish E.T. now.
Anyways. Nothing like a call from the family lawyer to make you lose your erection. It was Arturo, actually, who walked in on me in the pool house when I was fifteen and losing my virginity. The man certainly has a knack for these sorts of things. Boner killer extraordinaire. If he got a hard on himself, he’d likely have a heart attack, keel over and die. Also, Alex has always been his favorite, though I’m sure he’d deny it if you were to ask.
I sigh. “I didn’t hear a word of what you just said, man. Did Alex recruit you to convince me to come home? Let me just save us all some time, okay? It’s not gonna happen. The sun’s out. It’s eighty-three degrees today. I’m just coming off the beach, and I’m heading over to this girl’s house. I’m going to screw her brains out. You have taken a vow of celibacy, but trust me when I tell you that fucking in eighty-degree weather, no matter how sweaty your balls get, is far better than being stuck in Chicago in the dead of winter.”
“Aidan, now’s not the—”
“I know, I know. Now’s not the time to be talking about sweaty balls. Yours must be frozen solid. Whatever. The point is, I am not leaving Hawaii. Not for Alex. Not for you. Not for the Callahan Corporation or any other goddamn—”
“Aidan! Your parents—”
“And especially not for my parents. Dad hasn’t even bothered to call in three months. I’m glad he’s retiring now. Maybe that means he can drag his wrinkled ass around the golf course and remember what it’s like to actually move his body. Maybe, with all his new found free time, he could actually call his other son!”
“He’s dead, Aidan! Your parents, Alex… all three of them. They’re dead.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I grind my teeth together, pulling the Jeep off to the side of the road. This is a new one. I’ve heard, we’ll cut you off. I’ve heard, your mother misses you. Believe it or not, I’ve even had Alex tell me my ex girlfriend Hannah was home from her stint in Africa with Doctors Without Borders, and that she was willing to consider dating me again, so long as I agreed to take an executive position within the Callahan Corporation. Unbelievable, right? I am yet to hear the ‘they’re all dead’ bit.
Interesting.
“Listen, Art. I already told Alex the answer was no. The answer is still no, and will always be no. Pretending they died is definitely a ballsy change in tack, but it’s not going to make a difference
Arturo remains silent. At least I think he does. And then his voice rattles out of the speaker on my cell phone, all of a sudden crytsal clear. He says. “—not pretending! Your brother was driving your parents to the fundraiser last night. It was late. Alex was tired. They should have left hours earlier than they did. I should have driven them home. I’m—I’m so sorry.” The noise on the other end of the line no longer sound like static, but more like crying. Uncontrollable, soul-wrenchingly pained, distraught crying.
A cold chill runs from the crown of my head, down through my body, settling in the backs of my knees. What a bizarre sensation. “Art? Art, what—what do you mean?”
“I should have called them a cab or something. None of us were drunk, but still…it all just happened so quickly. The police think Alex fell asleep at the wheel. I was meant to meet your father this morning. I—”
Holy fuck, he’s not joking. My grip tightens on the phone, my vision suddenly dimming. How can he not be fucking joking? “Art? Art, slow down. Tell me exactly what happened.” My heart feels like it’s galloping in my chest, like it’s trying to flee the scene of the crime. This can’t be fucking real. It can’t be. I hold my breath, waiting for Art to start explaining so I can stop him a second later, telling him that none of it can be possible because my father, Jeremy August Callahan, the man who raised me would never have allowed himself such an arbitrary death. A car crash? No. The old man was always determined to go out skydiving or running a marathon or some shit. Not drooling on the backseat of his Mercedes Benz.
“I’m so, so sorry, Aidan.”
“So, Alex…this is Alex’s fault?” I’m having trouble even computing that. My brain just won’t comprehend it. Alex, the goddamn saint. Alex, next in line to the throne. Alex, the guy who’s been fucking perfect since we were kids. How can he be to blame for this?
“I’m afraid it’s looking like th—” The line breaks again. I press my chest against the steering wheel, holding the phone to my head, holding my breath, like these actions will somehow make the connection better. “That’s not all,” Art says. “The car crashed through the barrier into oncoming traffic. There…there was another car involved, too. A truck.”
Oh god. It feels like there are razor blades grinding against the bone of my ribs. Fuck. “And the other driver? How many people were in the other car?” I can imagine two angelic, curly haired children sleeping, feeling the impact, waking, screaming…
“Just the driver. He was the only person in the truck at the time. He was badly injured on the scene. It looked like he might make it for a moment, apparently, but his injuries were just…”
“Fatal.”
“Yes.”
I think I’m going to throw up. “What…what am I supposed to do?”
“Come home, Aidan. Please. Come home.”
The line goes dead.
I kill the Jeep’s engine and climb out of the car. Above me the sky is a deep blue, the breeze warm. The sun carries on blazing regardless, completely oblivious to the fact that my life just ended. The air smells sweet, like coconuts. A car, a red convertible, zooms past me, the laughter of the girls inside it washing over me. Happy people, going about their business. Just a few moments ago, I was one of them. But now this.
Now, I don’t think I’ll be happy ever again.