The Bedtime Tales of Be287m

Honorable In Fidelity

“The lake’s deep enough here for you to drown yourself,” David said as he cut the boat’s motor. “Jump in.”

“What?” I said. “You’re crazy.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “The insurance company would never believe it was suicide this way.” He rooted around in a bag at his feet. “Of course, if you’d like, I can help.”

He pulled out a gun and pointed it at me. The blood drained from my body.

“C’mon, Tom,” he said. “We all have to die eventually. And I’ve always wanted to know what it was like to kill a man. If you won’t jump, I can shoot you and throw you overboard.”

“You wouldn’t.”

He let out a long, low, unsavory chuckle. “Oh, you have no idea.”

That chilled my remaining blood even further. David had run in a rough crowd as a kid and most of them were now in jail.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked.

He shrugged, which had the effect of waving the barrel of the gun around. “It’s what you want.”

“What?”

“Grace thinks you’re suicidal. She won’t tell me the details, but I think she’s right. Is she?”

I grimaced. No wonder my wife had been so happy to see me go off on this impromptu fishing trip. Particularly the weekend she was ovulating….

“I know you’re too stubborn to get help,” David said, “which means that sooner or later you’re going to succeed in killing yourself. So,” he shrugged again, “it might as well be out here where the won’t be a lot of mess and Grace won’t have to be the one to find your body.”

I swallowed hard. I couldn’t tear my eyes from the gun, which he was so casually waving around. Somewhere, a firearms safety instructor’s heart was breaking.

“I… I don’t want to die.”

He grinned. “You sure?”

I nodded.

“Good.” He set the gun down. “Now tell me about it.”

I sighed. “My life sucks.”

“Bullshit.”

I shook my head. “It does. Last month my boss made it clear I was never going to get promoted. I ‘didn’t have what it takes’ for management. I’m going to be stuck in a dead end job for the rest of my life.”

“So get another one.”

I shook my head again. “That won’t do it. If I don’t have what it takes, I’ll just be in a dead end job somewhere else.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Well, I do. I’m not man enough to rise to the top.”

David snorted but didn’t say anything.

“And then there’s Grace. We’ve been having trouble since this whole pregnancy thing began.”

“From what I can tell, that’s your fault as much as it is hers.”

“She told you! I can’t believe she told you!”

“Calm down, buddy. She told me you were suicidal and you were refusing to get help. She didn’t tell me why.”

I let out a ragged sigh.

“So what’s the problem?” he asked.

“Nothing I want to talk about.”

“Should I pick up the gun again?”

I met David’s eyes. They were cold and serious. I swallowed.

“I’m not man enough to get her pregnant. We’ve been trying hard to have kids and, well, it’s my fault. Low sperm count.”

“So adopt or do a test tube baby.”

“You don’t get it! A real man would be able to knock up his wife!”

“A real man would solve the problem without considering suicide.”

I met David’s eyes again, and this time I flinched. My face flushed and I swallowed hard a couple of times so I wouldn’t start with tears.

“I know your dad instilled all these ideas in you about what being a ‘real man’ meant,” David said, “but I’ve also met your dad, and he was a real piece of work.”

“Hey!”

He grinned at me, almost shark-like.

“I know you’re stubborn, Tom. You get it from your old man, and your brother’s got it too. So does your wife, for that matter. But I can be more stubborn than all of you. And I’ve got the gun.” He picked it up again, holding it between both hands, almost caressing it.

“So what do you want?”

“I want you to get help,” he said. “Oh, I know you’ve got too much pride to admit you need it, even to Grace. So when we get back, you and I are going to take up bowling.”

“Bowling? You’re kidding.”

“Let me finish,” he said. “Bowling’s just the excuse. I’ll come by on Wednesday nights and pick you up. I’ll take you to this therapist I know, Dr. Melfi, and wait in the lobby while you talk to her. Then we go home. Nobody but me needs to know.”

“And if I say no?”

He raised his eyebrows and made a show of polishing the barrel of the gun.

“I really don’t want Grace to be the one to find your body,” he said, “after some lame suicide. If you won’t go… we’ll come fishing again.”

I swallowed. In the back of my head, I knew the logic made no sense. Threatening a suicidal man with death shouldn’t work, but somehow it was. Maybe it was the way David was so calm and serious as he did it.

I slowly nodded. “We’ll take up bowling.”

“Good.” He lowered the gun again, but this time put it back in the bag. “And when we get back, you can make mad passionate love to your wife. Maybe you’ll get lucky on the kid thing.”

I swallowed and nodded. Maybe we would. I still had some sperm, and there was always a chance.

“Meanwhile, get your rod. There are always big fish in this part of the lake and we should catch a couple for supper.” He reached for his own rod as he spoke.

“Really?” I said, “then why haven’t we come here before?”

He smiled, his shark grin appearing once again. “Let’s just say I haven’t been here since high school and leave it at that.”

I snorted and nodded. David was a true, honorable friend. I wasn’t about to spoil that by asking about his past.

-fin-

© 2006. All rights reserved. Characters based on those from Wine Maker’s story “Honorable Infidelity” and used with permission.