HARMONY

Part 20 "Calling on my best friend"

Steve calls his childhood friend, Chad, who is then forced to be the adult...

"It's 4am," Chad said. "Where the hell are you?"  He pulled the covers to his chin and tried to whisper so as to  not wake up Darcy. 

"I just took the coldest ass shower from a hose we rigged behind a gas station," Steve answered. "But they let me go first."

"Are you in jail?"

"Dude, pay phone behind a gaaaaas staaaaaation."

Darcy rolled over. "Is it Steve?"

Chad nodded and clicked on the light. "Start again."

"I'm in Bolder City," Steve said. "I'm a roadie for Snicked Wicker."

"No," Chad said. "You are not a roadie for Wicked Snicker. You're a father and a husband and owner of a brokerage company."

"That was never me," Steve said. "And I have yoooooou to thank for showing me my real roooooooots."

Darcy leaned over to Chad and whispered, "Is he having a nervous breakdown?"

Chad shrugged his shoulders. "Come home and we'll buy you a Harley."

"Oh Chad," Steve said. "That's why I love you. Since we were five, you always had that way of sorting things out. Remember when I gave up the two-run homer and lost the division championship? And we hid in the big tree behind the snack bar and planned to live there and exist off hotdogs and Abba Zabbas?"

"We were eight."

"But then my dad found us and he...he threw my glove in the lake and made me swim out to get it."

"Are you high?"

"But I couldn't get there in time and it sunk and he called me a weak son-of-a-bitch so I kept diving until I found it and then I got that double ear infection and couldn't swim all summer so we—"

Chad pulled on a pair of shorts with one hand and walked into the hall. "Have you lost your fucking mind?"

"Lost my mind, found my soul," Steve said.

"Do you have any fucking idea what's going on around here?" Chad moved a Lego village and sat on his couch. "Get your ass home."

"Dude. About that. Call Michelle and tell her to contact her brother for the bankruptcy thing. She can have one helluva garage sale with all that shit she's always buying."

"You need to call your wife," Chad said. "And what about Claire and Drew?"

"I just can't face them right now."

"Can't what?" Chad said. "I'll tell you what you can't do. You can't do this. You can't run away. You can't be a fucking coward. You can't abandon the three people who love you. And sure as hell can't ignore your employees who depend on you to figure out their severance packages because they want to actually go home to their families and look them in the eye and say, 'this is the best I can do right now but we're going to get through this together' like real fucking men do!"

"I think Michelle's having an affair."

"That's no excuse for this shit," Chad said. "No fucking way are you going to pin this on Michelle. Now, get your fucking ass home and take care of your fucking life no matter how fucked up it is and how fucked up you are and how fucked up your marriage is. You get your fucking ass home and you fucking handle it!" Chad threw the phone against the wall. "That mother fucker!"

***

Later that day... 

Chad sat behind Steve's desk. He spun in the chair and looked out the window into the five a.m. layer of haze.

"Is Steve coming in today?" Maggie asked.

Without turning Chad replied, "I don't know." Then he turned to face her. "Thanks for coming in early. Again."

She shrugged. "No problem. Is he coming tomorrow?"

"Maybe." Chad had no other answer. "Sorry. Wish I could tell you."

Maggie nodded.

"Can you, ah, please shut the door on your way out?"

Upon hearing the door close, he resumed his search through Steve's papers. Stacks of folders and files lay in various states of unorganized. By the time Chad watched the sun set over the John Wayne Airport, he understood. He picked up the phone and dialed.

"Michelle."

"Why haven't you answered my calls?" she blurted.

"Listen to me. You need to call your brother Russ."

"I didn't say I was getting a divorce. I just said that Steve's going through some crazyass midlife crisis. He needs a psychiatrist, not an attorney."

Chad gave the chair another spin and then placed his elbows on the desk. "This is not about a divorce or some mental breakdown." He paused. "As a partner, Steve owes a lot of people a lot of money and you're going to need your brother to represent you in bankruptcy court."

Her words flipped over themselves. "Wait, I have access to about sixty thousand in quick cash and maybe even more. Just give me a couple of weeks and I can come up with—"

"Sixty thousand doesn't even scratch the surface," Chad said. "But, I'm too fucking tired to go through all the numbers now. Just call Russ."

"We own a multimillion dollar brokerage firm. How can we be broke?"

"How? Well, why don't you come down here and figure out what the rest of the fucking world can't seem to figure out." Sleepless nights and cluster headaches gave Chad's voice a toxic chill.

"What are you talking about?"

"See, we lend people money. 'Cept we didn't really do a good job of investigating which people would actually pay us back. 'Cause we didn't really give a shit—we just stuffed all those loans into big boxes and sold them to Fannie Fucking Mae and Freddie Fuck Me Mac and others, who also didn't seem to care if people could pay us back either. Because they put our boxes in with their boxes and sold them again."

"So.... just keep selling the loans."

Chad banged his forehead against the desk. "Why didn't I think of that? You're brilliant Michelle. Just keep selling the loans. Except, guess what?" 

He held the phone at arm's length and screamed. "The loans ain't worth the paper they're printed on! And why you ask?" Another deep breath. "Because housing prices are dropping like shit from a mule's ass, people ain't making payments and here's the crazy part—no one will buy the loans!"

Silence.

"Did you hear me?"

"Ya," she croaked. "I'll...I'll call."