95 - Brothers in Arms

Tony didn’t check into a hotel right away.  Instead, he drove the hour and a half to his younger brother’s nightclub, knowing Matt didn’t close up shop until two on Saturday nights.  It was one-thirty when Tony walked in the front door of 84 Park, nodding at the doorman.

“Hey, Mikey.  Any idea where Matt is?”

“Hey, Tony.  Probably in the office.  Want me to let him know you’re here?” he asked, gesturing to the security telecom hanging by his right ear.

“Nah, I’ll find him.  Thanks, man.”

Navigating his way through the fair crowd of patrons still hanging around at this hour, Tony passed the bar and progressed into the short hallway between the club and private function room.  Matty’s office door was on the right, and standing slightly ajar.  He rapped lightly, easing it open a bit further.

Matt looked up from his paperwork with mild curiosity as to who was entering his domain.  The curiosity turned to confusion when he registered exactly who was knocking.  Pushing the desk chair back, he stood and extended his hand.  “Hey, bro.  What the hell are you doing here?”

“Matty.”  Tony shook his brother’s hand with a congenial dip of his head.  “I need to talk if you’ve got a minute.”

The taller man’s brow wrinkled slightly, but he waved Tony in and gestured for him to have a seat before pushing the door closed.  “I’m a little busy wrapping things up for the week, but considering that you never want to ‘talk’, it can wait a few more minutes.  What’s up?”  The desk chair squeaked as he settled his frame into it and rolled forward, leaning his arms against the desk.

Tony brought his right ankle to rest on his left knee, settling into the only other seat in the room with a sigh.   During the drive over here, it had seemed like a good idea to pick Matt’s brain.  It had given him a purpose.  Something to do other than stew and question everything he’d ever done.  There were enough years between them that they weren’t actively involved in one another’s daily lives, but they’d also been raised by the same parents with the same big brother.  He needed to know what Matt saw.

Now, however, he felt like a pussy.  He wasn’t even sure where to start.

“Tony?”

“Yeah.”  Reseating the glasses on his nose, he rubbed a hand across the top of his head.  “Can I ask you something stupid?”

“Okayyyy…?”

“Do you feel like you’re living in Jonny’s shadow?”

A frown pulled at Matt’s mouth, and his head tipped in confusion.  “I dunno what you’re talking about, man.”

Of course he didn’t.  Why should this be easy for Tony?  Maybe asking vague questions wasn’t the best way to address this.

“Do you feel like a puppy trailing after Jon by working for him?”

Matt guffawed.  “No.  Who else is gonna pay me as well as he does to play bouncer and take me on a trip of the world?”

“But you don’t feel like you’re riding in his shadow?  Like you’re taking his charity job to have your brush with fame?”

“Uhh… no?  I’m an employee just like anybody else he has on staff.  If I weren’t doing a good job, he wouldn’t let me do the work and you know it.  Same for you.  Brother or not, if you fucked up his video, you’d be looking for another gig.”  Matt leaned back in his chair, the faint squeak echoing through the room.  “Besides, working for Jonny made me enough money to fulfill my real dream – this club.  I get the best of both worlds.”

So Matt was using it as a means to an end.  He was trailing after big brother, but he had his own agenda.  Could Tony say the same?

“Okay, now for a totally pansy-ass question.”  God, he didn’t want to do this – appear like less than a testosterone laden alpha male in front of his brother.  But who else would be able to give him an informed opinion?  He was the only other one who was in the house all those years.  “Do you think I’ve spent my life trying to be Jon?”

Apparently, it was just as pansy-ass as he thought it was.  Matt screwed up his face with some unnamed emotion and sat up in his seat, leaning on the desk once again.  “What?”

“You heard me.”  He sure as hell had no intention of repeating himself.  It took all he had to sit there and look his brother in the face, and not haul ass out the door.

“Okay, what’s up?  This kinda shit doesn’t just come outta the blue.”  His eyes narrowed with conjecture and… annoyance?  “Did Jonny say something to you?”

“Jesus, no.”  Their brother might be a pompous prima donna a lot of times, but he took care of family and he did it without rubbing anyone’s face in it.  There had been countless cousins who’d been given mundane jobs on the road crew just because they asked.  Jon didn’t bust anyone’s chops, or throw it back in anybody’s face.  He considered it an obligation of his good fortune. 

“Sooo…?  What?” Matt persisted, shrugging his hands in a gesture of frustration.  “’Cause I’ve known you my whole life, and this insecurity shit isn’t like you.  What the hell is goin’ on?”

Now his balls were to the wall.  It was tell Matty the truth or back the fuck off, and the look of disappointment on Dorothea’s face tonight when he left cinched the deal.  He may not know why the hell his subconscious had chosen her, but regardless, she was worth biting the bullet.

“Mom,” Tony growled, his foot dropping to the floor with a heavy ‘thunk’.  He slumped down in the uncomfortable chair, knees bumping against the metal desk.  “When I told her about me and Dorothea, she started in with, ‘You don’t have to take Jonny’s hand-me-downs.  You’ve always wanted to be your brother, but show some self-respect.  There’s only one Jon Bon Jovi,’ and a bunch of other crap.”

His brother winced with empathetic pain.  “Ouch, man.  That’s harsh.”

“Yeah, no shit,” he mumbled.  “Kinda fucks with a guy’s head coming from his own mother, so now I’m trying to decide if she’s right.”

“Tone,” Matty counseled with a wise shake of his head.  “Are you doing what you love to do?  Is the video what you want to do?”

Considering the question, Tony could admit that he enjoyed his work for Bon Jovi.  Making the shows come to life after the fact was a pretty big high for him.  That could be because it was a sense of family pride, though.  The rest of the video work, with the other bands and TV and weddings?  It was okay.

“I like doing my part to make the family look good,” he admitted reluctantly.  “And I like the whole tour gig.  So, yeah, I like the Bon Jovi aspect.  As far as the rest goes, I can take it or leave it.”

“So do whatcha wanna do,” was Matty’s philosophical advice. “I’m sure you’ve got at least as much money to play with as I did when I started 84 Park.  If you like the tour, then do the tour and do something else in between.  I’ll be honest.  This place is a nice break from the other.  It makes me appreciate going on the road.” 

What did he want to do?  Tony wasn’t sure he’d ever asked himself that particular question.  Jonny had a need and Tony learned what he needed to know in order to fill that need.  If he had his choice of anything, what would it be?  He had a long-term love affair with classic cars and motorcycles.  Something along those avenues, maybe?  That wasn’t his immediate concern, though.

Where did that leave him with Dorothea?

His brother also had a ready answer for that.  “And if you’re gonna let Mom bad-mouth your woman, then you are a pansy-ass.  Somehow I can’t imagine you thinking to yourself, ‘Jon’s outta the picture so now I can move in on his wife and take my rightful place in his dynasty’.”  Matty’s eyebrows shot way up on his forehead.  “Do you know how fucked up that sounds?”

Tony couldn’t help but snicker.  When put that way, it did sound pretty fucked up.  He could honestly say that those words had never crossed his mind. 

“Yeah, I guess it does.”

“So?”  Matt pointed an accusing finger at him.  “Have you been hanging around all these years waiting to move in on her?”

Tony shook his head bemusedly.  “No.  I never even thought of her that way while they were married.  I didn’t plan this, it just kinda happened.”

“When you were moving in on her, was it with the thought of maybe living Jon’s old house?  Or to take his place in the kids’ lives?”

Damn Matty was putting it all out there, but Tony had shown up asking for this. 

The house.  The kids.  He took a moment, going back to even a couple of months ago.  Could he even remember what he thought? 

Yeah, he could.  He’d been helping Dorothea with stuff around the house and property for a year now.  It wasn’t Jonny’s house.  As for the kids…  To him, the kids were the same kids they’d always been. 

“No.  The kids are my niece and nephews, and in my mind it’s Dorothea’s house, not Jon’s.”  That one time in the bedroom notwithstanding.

“Then there’s your answer.”  Satisfied, Matty creaked himself back into a reclined position and regarded his brother smugly.  “I love Mom, but she’s blinded by the spotlight bouncing off of Jonny’s teeth.  She thinks he’s better than even he does.  I learned to tune it out years ago.”  He chuckled, scratching the back of his head.  “It was always my permission to do exactly what I pleased.  I was never gonna live up to Jon in her mind, so why not enjoy myself?  You should take a lesson, big brother.”

“Jesus.  Enough is enough,” Tony laughed, rising to his feet.  “I can only take so many lessons from my baby brother in one night.”

Matt rose, too, looking down his nose at Tony.  “So good talk?”

He rolled his eyes.  “Yeah.  Good talk.”

Matt extended a hand, and when Tony reached for it, he got hauled into a back-thumping man-hug.  “It’s no disgrace to admit I’m smarter than you.  Maybe now you’ll do it more often.”

Tony separated himself with a snort of disgust.  “In your wet dreams.”

“Yeah, whatthefuckever.”  He planted his hands on his hips and with a tip of the chin, asked, “So why are you here when I happen to know for a fact that the kids are with Jon?”

He was there because Dorothea had unknowingly accused him of pretty much the same thing as his mother and scared the bejesus out of him.  But now, after Matt's blunt questions, he was confident in the knowledge that he didn’t want his brother’s ex-wife. 

Tony smiled to himself.

He wanted Dorothea. 

But...  Considering he'd walked out on her two hours before with little or no explanation, and it would be four in the morning before he could get back to her, it probably wasn't best to talk to her tonight.  No, tonight he’d find a hotel room, figure out how to explain this whole mess and hope she understood and forgave him.

Don’t give up on me yet, Babes.  I swear I'm not a total fucknut.