Adonis

 

Darin A. Bonham had a t-shirt that says Eight Kills. You don’t know why that’s important do you? Eight kills. That is man’s man territory. That is working for the Company. Working for Blackwater after. That is going from being a Hickory Farms meat slicer in the Sun Valley Mall to Special Agent Bonham kill-for-hire security detail. Darin would tell you: The Company hires you as a sniper because you are an ace marksman. You do your job. They like you. But after you kill eight, when you get to nine, they come after you. They think you are damaged. They come after you and they stay coming after you. There’s probably a few of them in this congregation here today.  Just to make sure the Bonham sniper is officially retired.

Darin pretended to be an expert in every subject. That would he him, over in the corner of our dive bar, talking to somebody new, and wiggling his fingers like he’s playing a clarinet as he told his story (he always did this when he told stories, like he was a villain in a silent movie and was delighted in all the mayhem he caused).  There would be just enough facts sprinkled in to make you wonder if he did know what he was talking about.  He’d been everywhere, he said. Spain. Russia. Afghanistan. Alaska. South America.  Southeast Asia.  But when did he go? You couldn’t fact-check him because he wouldn’t give you dates. But you can’t fact-check anyone who is good at intelligence or counterintelligence or espionage anyway, right? 

One day, this Blackwater-looking guy with a clichéd black leather jacket and the clichéd mirrored sunglass came into the bar.  He asked if anyone had seen Darin.  We don’t know him, so we asked why he was looking for him.  He didn’t answer; he turned and walked out.   When we saw Darin, we told him about Blackwater guy, and Darin, visibly drunk, sobered up immediately and left.  We didn’t see Darin again for a week, and then, there he was, posted on his usual barstool, slumped over and mumbling to himself.  Where did he go?  What did he do?

Darin didn’t wash his hands.  Didn’t believe in it.  That was our running conversation, since I’m a germ-freak.  We made a deal about it.  I would agree to eat the food he served me, and he would make sure to wash his hands after he went out to the backyard to piss whenever we played poker.  And by wash his hands, he meant splash them around in the pool so the chlorine could kill the germs before he ran his hands through his unwashed hair to dry them (I never ate food that he served me. Sorry, Darin).

Darin chose not to change clothes on weekends.  He was ripe by Sunday night, every Sunday night.  He liked to say he was a dirty white boy and all that came with that.  Then, in the next breath, he would tell the story of how he was able to talk a beautiful local newscaster into bed.  On the Sunday he met her.  Right after she finished a date with another man.  Not likely, right?  But then he provided weird specific details about the evening; another Bonham story you couldn’t quite say wasn’t true.

So after I told you about his hygiene proclivities, I need to tell you that his middle name is Adonis.  Scene: Sunday night in our dive bar, and Darin is in the corner, slumped over his gin press, three-day-old shirt on, mumbling to himself.  A young female sits near him and he perks up (she slightly recoils).  Hi, my name is Darin A. Bonham, he says.  What’s the A stand for? she asks. Adonis, he says.  She looks him up and down and says, No, it isn’t.  That is Bonham experience in a nutshell.  There was no way that the scraggily dude she was talking to was named Adonis, God of Beauty and Desire.  But that sure is what the A stands for.  The thing he told her that couldn’t have been true, turned out to be 100% true.  Hold that thought.

Darin was Jewish. No, he wasn’t. Yes, he was. No, he wasn’t. He said he was. His mom said he wasn’t. He called himself a dirty Jew, but his mother decorated the house during Christmastime with non-Jewish Christmas decorations.  Both of his parents were adopted; did they even know? Darin was Jewish. No, he wasn’t. Yes, he was. No, he wasn’t. Yes, he was?  

He loved his son, Grant. I never spent any time with him when he did not speak of Grant.  He loved Grant so much that he included him in his espionage life. Grant, is an English-language instructor in Spain. Or is he? Or is he so smart, he’s working for the Company and nobody knows. Grant moves through Europe like Jason Bourne. Wait, I meant: Grant moves through Europe like a Special Ops Renaissance man. Like the Bonham.

On September 3, 1977, Darrin’s 6 year-old sister was kidnapped from their family.  The evil that took her, the evil that harmed her, the evil that murdered her, was the worst evil that could happen to a little girl.  And it happened when Darin was 12 years old.  He struggled with her absence every day of his life.  Of all his stories, that was the one that you didn’t want to believe.  The worst story, the one you hoped was a lie, was the truest story Darin ever told. 

The last time I saw Darin, he was slumped over his gin press and mumbling to himself in the corner of a dive bar. I sat down next to him, but he didn’t look up. He asked, Did the Company send you to finally kill me?  I answered, Fool, I was sent here to keep you alive. He thought that was funny, and he let out a, Huh-Hah!

I hope that I have kept Darin alive for you here today. I know he is not dead to me. I can still see him at the bar, talking to somebody new and wiggling his fingers like he’s playing clarinet. He is pretending to be an expert in something random like precious metals. There is just enough truth in what he is saying so that you can tell he does know something about the topic.  Darin is dead. No, he isn’t. Yes, he is. No, he isn’t.