DITW 14-7: Odyssey 2 (Patreon)

The hot tub was big enough to seat a dozen people, but it was more comfortable with nine. It was also more comfortable with six wobbly-pops in his belly. The acceptance of this shindig had arrived with unnecessary reluctance, but now that it was here, there was one truth he had to admit: he needed to be around people. It was hard to dwell on his hardships when everyone around him only wanted to have a good time. Quinn’s brothers were loud but funny. Big guys who liked hunting and fishing and snowmobiling and worked construction trades, and both of them ready to insult the other at any moment. Seeing such camaraderie made him feel better. Like there was hope, like there was a big friendly world beyond the confines of his marriage and the woman who’d given him the darkest pleasures he’d never dreamed he wanted. He did his best to joke it up with the group, sometimes to chase away depression, other times to make sure he didn’t sport the long-lost look of some survivor at sea found by hardy sailors after three months on a life raft, parched and sunburned and half-crazed. It would be easy to fall into that trap.

There was goodness in Quinn. Meyer was a lucky guy. Maybe Quinn had been through the wringer when she divorced from whoever her son Harley’s father was. Seeing her laughing and playful burned a small measure of resentment inside him. Kimmy was long and lean, owning a newfound and striking beauty that developed post college. She was built like a supermodel. She could wither a man in a boardroom, of that he was sure. She was dangerous. He’d grown up with her, and she’d never been that way when she was young. But Quinn was something altogether different. Soft and feminine, but still a little brassy. Like a tomboy who’d grown up sexy but couldn’t shake the ball cap and country music now that she was a woman. But Quinn could be a partner for Meyer, someone for Meyer to look forward to coming home to. Soft, feminine, comforting. Quinn wouldn’t break away and lead a charge up a hill like some demonic force suddenly consumed with an unknown bloodlust. Leave Meyer behind, or worse, command him to follow.

As for the former reticence, the current glory couldn’t be denied. Balls deep in video games and pizza were a pale comparison. Now he was in a beer commercial; sitting in a hot tub up north, a bunch of young and some quite attractive young people (like yourself, admit it, old boy), in hot bubbling water during cold Canadian October, patio lanterns strung above, music pumping out of a high-power JBL bluetooth, people laughing and talking, all of them having a good time.

Quinn’s friends were nurses. They were cute and funny. Sure, they swore a lot and all of them had tattoos, but they were great company. And looked good in skimpy swimwear, too. It was a horrible thought, but a snapshot of his current circumstance sent to one cunning lawyer who lived in his apartment right now would send that dragon into apoplexy. If he’d let his FindMyPhone ping his location, she might follow. And now, instead of feeling sad about thoughts of his wife, he chuckled to himself, seeing some grave humor in his terrible circumstance. A harmless look at how revenge might form. Living well, as they say. Facebook pictures of him with some buxom young single mom with two kids, a soft and pretty girl, one with lots of ink on her arms and the small of her back, but maybe one who was a great cook, or an artist of some kind. Kimmy would erupt in flames. 

Now he was chuckling harder, looking around the scene. Gabrielle and Samara laughing at a nearby picnic table with one of Quinn’s guy friends; eight people with him in the tub; two girls dancing in place, standing beside the tub. And Meyer, looking at him now, liking what he saw. They both smiled at each other. Quinn was beside Meyer, yakking it up with one of the standing friends, the standing friend in a straw cowboy hat, smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer, leaning over Quinn. The friend offered Quinn the cigarette and Quinn took a puff before handing it back. The friend then offered Quinn’s phone from the hot tub’s edge, the screen lit up. Quinn took the phone, saw the screen and stood up, stepping out of the tub, splashing water in Meyer’s face on purpose as she did, taking off and laughing before Meyer could get a hold of her.

Meyer bobbed over to Josh’s side of the tub and squeezed in beside him. “It’s not so bad, huh?”

“I guess not.”

“I guess not, he says,” Meyer muttered, and swigged his beer. “We can head home if you want.”

Josh smiled, looking down at his hands on a beer bottle. “I think I’ll stick it out.”

“That’s a good idea,” Meyer said. He lifted his bottle a little higher. “Don’t think I can drive now, anyway.”

Josh shrugged a shoulder. “Looks like you got me stuck in this hellhole.”

Meyer nodded, smirking, leaning forward to look at the two Chatty Cathy’s next to Josh, all glistening skin and bikini tops.

Steve’s leg climbed over the side of the tub, across from them, Steve claiming Meyer’s vacated spot. Steve was lit up and having a blast, eating something, chewing, holding not a beer, but some fruity concoction that someone had served him, bright yellow up top, and a slushy mango bottom. Steve drew on the straw and settled shoulder deep in the water, looking blissful. Meyer and Josh laughed. 

Then Quinn waving an arm got their attention, standing near the back door of the cottage, looking like she wanted them to come to her. But it would take a lot to get them out of the tub and Quinn had to come around behind them, stick her head between theirs and explain.

  *

Quinn said, “Irreconcilable differences, I guess, if that’s the term. Infidelity.”

Josh brightened. “Oh, yeah?”

The three of them were in the cottage’s sitting room, view toward the lake, a room with a stone fireplace, a fire burning, the gang of partiers visible out the windows. Josh stood in bare feet, dried off, the towel around his shoulders.

Quinn said, “Yeah, the guy cheated on his wife with like a nineteen-year-old.”

Meyer said, “Why do you care about this guy? He’s some fucking hockey bum. Guy’s a deadbeat.”

Quinn nodded. “He declared bankruptcy after the divorce.”

Josh brightened again. “He did?”

“What’s he got to do with you?”

The guy in question was Johnny Rumble. Quinn was relating back what her PI friend had told her about him, as Josh had requested.

“Nothing,” Josh said. “It was a long shot. I just thought...”

Quinn and Meyer looked at each other. “Tell us.”

“I . . . thought Devlin might have slept with his wife.”

Quinn said, “Slept with this guy’s wife? Rumble? No. It was him who cheated. So, you thought Devlin was messing with this guy’s wife?”

“I hoped.”

Meyer said, “Why would you hope that?”

“So Rumble would cave Devlin’s head in.”

“Ohhh. Oh, okay,” Meyer said, nodding. “Do to Devlin what you want to do.”

Josh sighed, hating this distraction from the party, wanting to be back outside and away from all of his problems. He turned to the fireplace, stepped closer and put his butt to it, letting the heat bake the back of his legs. He said, “I guess.”

Meyer said, “You’re not going to do it?”

He stood silent for a moment. “I can’t.”

Quinn said, “Hit him with a car or something.”

Josh laughed. “It’s not worth going to jail for. I was just looking for . . . Looking for...”

“You’re looking for justice.”

“Yeah. I thought if he’d fucked over Rumble, it would be justice if Rumble found out, and did what Rumble is known for. Beating a dude’s head in.”

“Universal karma failed you,” Meyer said.

“Like always.”

Quinn shook her head and Meyer said, “Don’t be such a downer.”

“I’m not. I’m just used to not getting what I want.”

“That’s bullshit.”

And it was. He’d received everything he’d asked for. He’d received all the gifts he’d requested. Or imagined he’d requested. It was just that Kimmy had given him something before even looking if it was on his wishlist. It counted as betrayal, even if she could rationalize it all away. He looked over his shoulder at the bright theater of life that he’d been a part of a moment ago, then turned back to face Quinn and Meyer. “You know, I’m going to tell you something. I did it. I did it already.”

“Did what?”

“Caved Devlin’s head in.”

Quinn stared and Meyer frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It’s why I’m on your couch. I picked up a chair, and I fucking hit him over the head with it. Almost knocked him out.”

Now Meyer stared, and Quinn cocked her head, showing the smallest smile. Meyer said, “Get the fuck out of here.”

“I’m serious. I did,” Josh said, smiling a little himself now. “I fucking wailed him with it.”

“Holy shit, Josh,” Meyer said, frown deepening, walking a step away and circling, rubbing his chin, considering it. Meyer chuckled then, decision made. “Fucking way to go, man. Where was this?”

Josh waved it away. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not tonight. But yeah, I took care of it. I didn’t need Rumble at all.”

Quinn committed to the smile, raising her eyebrows. Meyer grabbed Josh’s shoulder and squeezed it. “You need to open up to me. You should have already told me this.” Meyer’s smile was gone, Meyer now realizing what it would take for a guy like Josh Waters to pick up a chair and strike someone with it. It probably would be very bad. Quinn hadn’t pieced that part together yet, and Josh hoped Meyer would let her believe Meyer’s cousin Josh was just an everyday badass.

Josh said, “Can we just go back to the tub now, please?”

Quinn approached him, eyes slimmed, and hooked an arm under his, like she would personally escort his return to the hot tub.

He said to her, “Thank you for doing that. For having him look into it for me. It’s very kind.”

“Sounds like it was too late to help, anyway. Even if we could dig up some dirt on the guy that would pit him against your enemy.”

“I’m not proud of what I did,” he said. “But I’m glad I did it.”

Quinn walked him to the double doors leading from the sitting room to the kitchen. “I think it needed to be done.”

Quinn’s skin was cold, her flesh soft, and he loved the comfort she gave him. In the enduring absence of support, he’d been in free fall, and now here he was somehow landed in a stuntman’s air bag. All three of them returned to the party, and Quinn let his arm go and went ahead. Meyer slapped him on the back as he passed. They climbed into the hot tub, and Josh took a moment standing under the eaves to watch everything going on around him and for once not feeling so small or alone or trapped. Everyone was having a good time. Life always moved on. Quinn’s marriage had ended. So had Meyer’s. And that one had been tragic to witness. But look at Meyer now. Look at all these people. All of them had some kind of fucked-up tale to tell. They were here today, alive enough to tell it. 

He stepped down to the grass and crossed to the hot tub. Steve yelled at him for not having a drink in his hand and thrusted a beer at him. He took it and popped the top. One of Quinn’s brothers turned up the stereo when Eminem came on. Everyone cheered. Girls danced. Steve danced with them. Josh lifted a leg and stepped into the hot tub. Quinn’s other brother hunched over the cooler, then rose with a bottle of Jim Beam dripping with ice water, and told everyone it was time for shots.