The Brooklyn Rail

Imagine John Cheever chronicling the domestic tensions of brownstone Brooklyn rather than those of Westchester County. A half-hearted obsession with IPA has replaced getting a highball just right, and kitchen islands have replaced swimming pools as the inducers of envy. But, in this story, Cheshire shows that action born from feeling remains constant. And, like Cheever does so masterfully, Cheshire deftly walks the line between facade and interior simmer, between inevitability and surprise.

I knew Budgie Sauvage was in love with my girlfriend from the first moment we met. I should also say Darla seemed to have a soft spot for him. She tried to hide it, but I could tell. And Budgie’s affection was clear. Plus we’d brought him and his wife two bottles of thirty-dollar wine. I’d never had two thirty-dollar bottles. Certainly not with Darla.   

Budgie looked me up and down in his doorway, as if appraising me for purchase. 

Good teeth? Tall? Shoes? Like I was a horse.

And then he said, while examining: “You’ll do.” He barely shook my hand. 

“And you look lovely, Darla,” he said while still looking at me. 

I attempted a joke: “Actually, I’m Aaron. This is Darla.” 

He looked at me like he didn’t understand.

Darla said, “You’re nice, Budgie. Always so nice.” Lightly punched his arm. “Thanks for having us!”

We all lived in South Brooklyn, so Darla and I had walked over. It wasn’t far. Nevertheless, I mostly hated Budgie right from the beginning, as he presented us to the room, and then I mostly hated everyone gathered in his home, people I found out were his wife, Joanna, his friends, his brother, his wife. All of them enemies. I asked Darla how long we had to stay, but before she could answer, she was pulled away by Joanna and threw me a look. Patience. Please. Next thing I knew Budgie and a small circle of large and heavily-bearded dudes, smoking cigars, were testing my knowledge of Captain Beefheart and the art of Raymond Pettibon. I had no chance. Instead I sipped my beer, stayed mostly quiet, and definitely did not impress. Before long, I scooped a handful of cat treats from a bowl I had mistaken for Chex mix and tossed them into my mouth. I quickly spat into a drink napkin. They laughed hardest when I asked, “Where’s the trash?” 

Budgie should have offered up that information without my even asking.

But he did not. 

“Under the sink,” he said reluctantly. “You get a beer yet?” He turned away, back to his friends. 

Apparently, Budgie had home-brewed beer and all of us were drinking it. 

I got another beer from the small keg and noticed our wine bottles sitting on the counter.

Untouched.

Darla was busy chatting with Joanna. After all, these were her friends. She’d been talking about them for months. I just had to meet them. The story was she used to be neighbors with Joanna and Budgie. She had lived in the bottom floor of the house right next door. I wanted to go see it. I figured maybe I could sneak out later and take a look. 

In the meantime, I tried to kindle conversation with one of the women there. Her name was Patty. 

I asked her how she knew Darla. 

“Oh we used to do this all time. Drinks at Budgie’s. Home-made beer.” 

We both nodded. 

“So what do you do?” Patty asked.

“I’m a social worker,” I said. 

“Oh,” she said. “That’s nice. Honorable, respectable work.”

I must have made a face. 

“With the kind of world Darla comes from you must be a fresh blast of air.”

Nodding, I said, “Yeah, if you’ll excuse me.”

The beer was not bad. I wanted it to be bad.

As the night wore on, as the others left one by one, friends, Budgie’s brother, his brother’s wife, Patty, it was finally just Budgie and me talking, while Joanna and Darla chatted in the kitchen. He talked about Darla constantly, focusing on how we met. 

He said to me, “Let’s go outside. I’ll show you where she lived.”

We went outside and he pointed to the house next door.

“We used to watch TV in that room. Until Joanna would call and say it was time for me to come home.” He laughed.

I did not. 

He offered me a cigar.

“I don’t smoke.”

“I know, Aaron. Did you ever say how you all met?”

I sipped my beer. “At a bar.”

He was incredulous. “That’s it.”

I said, “What do you mean that’s it?”

“You’re not much of a romantic, are you, Aaron?”

I did not respond. 

“I think it’s probably uncomfortable, the disparity, huh?”

“What disparity?”

I knew he meant the money, but I would not give him the satisfaction. I kept quiet. 

“Is she still in TV?”

I nodded. “Yup.”

We kept looking at her old place, through the windows.  I imagined him standing here alone watching Darla on the phone or cooking dinner.

Eventually, we went back inside, and Joanna and Darla joined us in the living room, where we all sat and switched to cheap white wine.  We talked and poured from a large bottle, while Budgie mostly held court. I could see that Darla looked out for him. Even concerning things I knew she was ambivalent about. For instance, which sounds silly now, when I said I liked golf more than football, Darla came to Budgie’s defense. I felt abandoned. In those days I often felt abandoned in mixed company. But we’d only been going out for about eight months. So I chalked it up to that.

But that night, I had a lot of wine, and Darla did, too, and before you know it we were fighting. She hinted that I had been staying at her place a lot, and I guess sometimes she missed her alone time. I said it was the first time I was hearing this and was this really the best time to bring it up? Why bring it up in front of her friends? Why in front of Budgie, of all people?

“It’s not news to me,” said Budgie.

I looked at him. “What?”

“Well, Darla told Joanna, and Joanna told me. That’s how relationships work, Aaron.”

  The argument escalated from there. 

I said I was leaving and opened the front door.

“Don’t be silly, Aaron,” Darla said.

“Yeah, don’t be silly,” said Budgie, laying it on. “Show some respect for your lady’s feelings, you know?”

“Do not call me silly. I’m not being silly.”

I went outside and Joanna followed. We were now arguing in the street.

I saw Budgie on his front steps. He was grinning. Joanna was not.

“Why not just stay here with your friends?” I said.

Budgie was still grinning. 

Joanna said, “Everyone should just calm down.” 

And then Budgie said I was just “being an asshole.”

I wanted to kill him. 

I don’t really mean that.                 

Darla walked over to me and took my hand, and said, “I love you. I shouldn’t have brought that up. Not here. I don’t know why I did. It’s the wine.”

We went back inside Budgie’s house, although I was a little vague on whether it was his house or Joanna’s, or how he paid for rent or a mortgage. I did come to understand throughout the previous hours that Budgie was lately on disability, and took painkillers because of an injury, and had—get this—won the lottery a few years back. No joke. Years before he met Joanna. Rumor was, according to his friends, he kept the giant fake check under their bed, and sometimes when he got drunk he would take it out and show it off at parties. But so far not that night. All of this this I culled together from cryptic conversations, here and there, with his friends and his brother and Patty and Joanna. After Darla and I calmed down, Budgie broke into applause.

“Your fight went outside,” said Budgie. “Amazing.”

We walked into their house and my sightline zeroed in on the unopened wine bottles still on the kitchen counter. Like two forgotten Oscars. We all sat down. Darla took a deep breath, a gulp of cheap wine, and said: “One night we fought so bad, this was during an attempt at sex, Aaron was naked. I pushed him out onto the front porch.” She laughed. “I closed the door. I did not lock the door. But I closed it.” 

Joanna got up to get another bottle. 

I had a hangover headache even as I was drinking. 

“I stayed out there,” I said, laughing. “I was making a point. A cold, naked point.” 

“How long were you out there,” asked Joanna, unscrewing a new jug of wine and pouring for Darla.

“You know the porch swing I have?” Darla said.

Joanna nodded, yes.

I said, “I balled up on top of that thing in a knot and slept there for what—?’

“Two hours,” said Darla. “Two.” She put up her fingers.

“I was freezing,” I said. “Testicles like almonds.”

“Dude,” Budgie laughed. “She beat your ass without raising a finger.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said. “I showed her she couldn’t beat me. I was unbeatable. She had to beg me to come back in.”

“Whatever,” said Budgie. “Were you fighting because you weren’t actually having sex, and just ‘attempting’ sex? Your word.” He put out his palms.

I looked at Darla. She shrugged and said nothing.

This was one of those times. Who was she?

We all cheered glasses.

“It wasn’t like that,” she said. “But we did have problems in that department.” And then she looked at me. 

“Seriously?” I said.

“Stop it, Aaron,” said Budgie.

I stood up. “How about you go to hell, Budgie.” 

“You don’t know what you have here,” he said, pointing at Darla.

“And you do, I’m sure.” I said, sitting and reaching for the wine.

“I do know, for sure,” he said. “I would do anything for my wife,” he said. “And I would do anything for Darla. Emotionally. Financially. Whatever.”

“Of course, you would,” I said.

“Stop it,” said Darla. “The both of you. You’re being rude and silly.”

“My girlfriend doesn’t need your money,” I said.

He looked at me. “You think I need the money I have? You think I wouldn’t give you some,” he said to Darla. 

This was uncomfortable for us all. Especially for Joanna. I could tell.

He stood up, downed what considerable wine he had left in his glass, and went into a bedroom.

And then he came out with the famous check, which had to be five feet long. “Come with me, Darla.” 

All three of us followed him as he went sideways through the kitchen door, angling the check. He set it on the backyard grass, and then ripped the cover off of his backyard grill. And there in the basket below the grill was a can of lighter fluid. He picked it up and fumbled with the red cap. It was uncomfortable to watch. He was having a hard time. Until he took what looked like a quarter from his pocket, and used it to pop off the nozzle. Finally. He squirted streams onto the check, absolutely drenching the check.  

I got closer to see the numbers: One Million Dollars. 

“I need fire!” Budgie shouted. “Matches, whatever.” 

He went back inside. We watched from outside. 

Joanna said, “What are you doing?”

“Proving a point!” he said.

We three gathered by the doorway now to watch him, as he bunched up some newspaper and lit the stove and set the newspaper on fire.

  “Move!” he said, rushing past us.

We did.

He set the burning paper down on the drenched check, and the check went up in red and orange flames. Blue flames. Each and every number, the one, the six zeroes. All of it ablaze.

He stared at it, squeezed more fluid.

“I bought a motorcycle,” he said. “It’s in the garage.” 

“He did. And I'm worried,” said Joanna.

“I’m not a child, Joanna.”

The check burned like a bed on fire. 

“There’s hardly anything left,” he said. “And still I would give everything I have to you two.” He said looking at us.

Joanna said, “That’s nice, honey.”  

Darla walked over to him and paused. He looked at her, and she kissed his cheek. “I know. We know.”

“Do you?” He ran back inside and came out with the jug and took a slug of it, passed it to Joanna. “The money’s all gone, but I don’t mind, because I have you two. And Joanna. I have Joanna. Joanna, pass the wine. Give it to Darla. What is life without money? I haven’t known for years. And now I know. And I don’t mind, I swear it. And I bought the bike with the last of it and now I have this fire to prove it.” 

He pointed at the check in the grass. All I could think of were our unopened wine bottles in the kitchen. It had been a long night, and I was tired. I watched the check bubble and blister. The Styrofoam slowly buckled until the check began to practically fold in half, smoldering. He added more lighter fluid, and the check flared and then fizzled, ashen, ruined. What a waste, I thought.

I said, “We should go. It’s late.”

“Don’t you dare leave now!” Budgie blurted. He squirted lighter fluid on the grass between us, between him and me. 

“We have to go,” I said to Darla.  

Budgie squirted more fluid between us. 

“I dare you,” I said. “You chicken-heart. I dare you.”

When we got home, Darla unlocked the front door, and I stayed on the porch behind her.

“Aren’t you coming in?” she asked.

“Who are you sometimes?” I said. 

“This again,” she said, and entered the house, put on the porch light and the front room lights. “I can’t do this right now.”

“I’m sorry to inconvenience you,” I said. “And why do you like this guy so much?”

“I can’t do this. Not tonight. Not now.”

“Airing our dirty laundry.” I was still on the porch. “And that dude, even after I just met him, I can see he just delights in my misfortune,” I said.

“He does not.”

“Oh, he does, but God forbid you see it.”

“You’re being silly,” she said.

“Do not call me silly. I am anything but silly, right now. He threatened me.”

“What are you talking about? He did not threaten you.”

“You were there! When he sprayed the lighter fluid at me.”

“It wasn’t at you. It was in the grass.”

“That’s the whole point. It was a line. Daring me to cross it.”

“I’m going inside.”

“He’s totally in love with you, and you know it. Joanna knows it. We all know it.”

“This is so silly.”

“I told you. Do not call me silly. And he didn’t even have the decency to our open bottles of wine! Two thirty-dollar bottles! You’ve never gotten us thirty dollar-bottles,” I said.

“What are you even talking about?”

“It’s about your friends thinking I do ‘nice, decent, honorable work.’” 

She shook her head in disbelief. “I’m going to bed.”

“You do that.”

I sat on the porch swing. She closed the door. I stayed there for a while before going inside and sneaking into bed, where I quickly fell into a heavy, dreamless asleep.

We awoke to what sounded like thunder. And then, after that, the thunder revved and revved and got louder and louder and then we both knew it was a motorcycle. 

“Don’t go out there,” said Darla. “Please.”

I zipped up a sweatshirt, put on slippers, all the while the motorcycle revving again, and again. I looked at the clock on the wall by the door: nearly 4 a.m.

I saw Darla had followed me to the door.

“Stay back,” I said. “Do not follow me out there. I’ll tell him you’re asleep.”

I opened the door.

And there he was, Budgie Sauvage, on his new motorcycle, front wheel on our porch steps, as he revved and revved.

“I’m not here to see you, Aaron,” he said.

“Budgie. Shut off the bike. You’re gonna wake the neighbors. Someone’s gonna call the police.” 

“So call the police!” he shouted. “Darla! I’m here to talk with you.”

“You’re drunk, Budgie. You shouldn’t be driving.”

“I can handle my drink, Aaron. I don’t get drunk and start fights with my wife. And with her friends.”

“Back up, Budgie. Get off the porch. Go home.”

“You’re a small man, Aaron. Stop trying to act tough.”

“I can smell the wine on your breath from here,” I said.

“Darla!”

“She’s asleep, Budgie.”

“She doesn’t love you. You don’t deserve her.”

“And you do?” I laughed while saying it. 

He backed his bike off the steps and got off it. Shut it off. Set the kickstand. I looked behind me and Darla was in the doorway. 

“Go home, Budgie,” she said. “Sleep this off. I’m sure Joanna’s worried sick.”

“Joanna doesn’t love me,” he said.

“That’s not true,” Darla said.

“It is.” Budgie hung his head. “I want to talk with you, Darla. You can sit outside, Aaron.” 

He started to walk past me. 

I put my hand against his shoulder. He stopped. I stepped back between him and the door, between him and Darla. 

“Darla, go inside. Budgie, get the hell off this porch, or I’m going to get my bat.”

We stared each other down.

Then he got on his bike—to my relief—and started the bike, revved it, again.

“You shouldn’t be driving,” I said. “Be careful.”  

  He revved the engine, and then gave me both of his middle fingers, and sped off, wobbling away.   

We never heard from Budgie and Joanna again. I’m sure Budgie was embarrassed and told some sort of lie to Joanna to account for what happened that early morning, maybe not. Darla did call Joanna once and Joanna answered, but she said she was too busy to talk, that she would call Darla right back, but she never did. And every time I heard a motorcycle nearby I’d swear it was Budgie. But it was never him. Never.

The closest we got was about three months after Budgie’s early morning visit, when we were in line for coffees at a coffee shop, and the guy standing behind us happened to be Budgie’s brother. It took me by surprise. 

I said, “Hey aren’t you Budgie’s brother?” 

I’d forgotten his name.

He looked at me with a strange face, as if he smelled something on fire, something smoking.

“You don’t know,” he said.

“Know what?” Darla said, stepping in between us.

“About Budgie.”

“What about Budgie?” Darla said.

He took a deep lungful. “I’m not used to talking about it yet.”

“What happened," I asked.

He looked away and then back. “Overdose. Opiates. Fentanyl. I warned him about that stuff.”

Darla covered her mouth. “He’s not—"

“Funeral was last week.”

Darla gasped, started to cry, covering her mouth. “And Joanna?” Darla said.

“She’s a mess.”

Darla looked at me, and I tried to look at her but instead I was looking at Budgie’s brother and I must say I felt like I was losing control as my mouth slightly smiled.

Darla’s face changed. She said: “You’re smiling?”

“I’m not smiling.”   

She said: “You’re smiling.”

“I told you I’m not smiling. I’m beside myself. I’m shocked. I’m not smiling.”  

“You might as well be naked and saying you’re not naked. You’re smiling.”

Our coffees were ready. Budgie’s brother stepped up to the counter, and said, “I’d rather not continue this conversation.” 

He turned away.

  We walked out with our coffees, and Darla could not stop looking at me. We kept walking. We did not talk. But she kept looking at me. And it felt like we would never talk about anything ever again. And as we walked it felt like I was on complete display, just like she said, because I knew I had smiled, and what did that say about me? I was afraid to ask Darla. It was a hard and dangerous question. And so I would never come to know. Because marriage is hard. Years are hard. And we buried it with all the other uncomfortable questions, the inconvenient facts. We never fought about it. We never talked about it again.