One Shot Away

by T. Glen Coughlin

  The front door is flat on the floor. Hinges hang from the doorframe. The brass doorknob has rolled into the kitchen. Hard chunks of the wall are splattered on the brown rug. The Springsteen T-shirt is on the floor, the glass cracked in two places. It’s over, thinks Jimmy. Wrestling, his chance of going to college, his life the way he knew it, over.

  His mother whimpers again.

  And it’s Pops’s fault.

  Policemen drag Pops from his bedroom. Blood runs from his nose across his lips. He’s leaning forward, cuffed from behind. He looks weak in his T-shirt and plaid boxer shorts, legs white and hairless.

  Jimmy doesn’t feel anything for him. Why couldn’t he understand that no one owes him?

  They plop Pops on the couch, so that Jimmy is between his parents. Pops hangs his head. He brought this on us, thinks Jimmy. You brought this into the house like a disease.

  “Did they hurt you?” asks Trish.

  “They banged my face on the goddamn nightstand,” he moans.

  “Pops, you got Ma and me in cuffs,” says Jimmy, seething. “In cuffs.”

  “No talking,” snaps a policeman.

  “You didn’t have to break the door down,” says Pops, showing his bloody teeth. “You could have knocked. We would have let you in.”

  Detective Barnes steps over the door and comes close to Jimmy’s father. Barnes’s windbreaker reads “POL” on one side of the snaps and “ICE” on the other. “You made us do it the hard way. Now there’s no going back. Artie, you’re under arrest.”

  “Just him?” asks Trish.

  “That’s your husband’s decision,” he says.

  “Please God, leave my son alone!” she pleads.

  “He had nothing to do with any of it,” says Pops.

  “No more lies,” says Barnes. “Okay? If you’re going to lie, just keep your mouth shut.” He raises his brows and smiles sarcastically. “Okay?”

  Jimmy bites his bottom lip. He’s afraid. Afraid to confirm what Barnes already knows. The O’Sheas are all liars.

  Barnes reads from a laminated yellow card. “… the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney....”

  Jimmy watches Barnes’s lips move. The words blur together.

  “Do you understand?” asks Barnes.

  “Yeah,” says Pops. “I got it.”

  “What about you, Jim?”

  Jimmy understands. The right to remain silent is all he can do now, all he has done to this point.

  Detective Santos comes in. He lifts the framed T-shirt and stands it against the door. A shard of glass falls to the floor.

  “Look at this,” yells one of the policemen coming out of Jimmy’s parents’ bedroom. He’s carrying a gym bag. Jimmy’s never seen it before. “Got to be twenty thousand in here.”

  Pops’s mouth opens as if he’s about to say something, but nothing comes out.

  Barnes looks into the bag. “That’s a lot of money to have around the house. This kind of money people keep in a bank.”

  “Unless you can’t put it in a bank,” says Santos.

  The amount surprises Jimmy. He knew his father was stealing for a long time, knew this all along, knew it couldn’t have been all for the mortgage, but a bag full of money?

  A policeman tears the Egyptian rug off Ricky’s alcove. He looks back at the other policeman. “This can’t be up to code,” he smirks. They shake their heads at the mattress on the floor, the overturned crates painted as if they’re actually furniture, the stacks of kids’ books and mess of clothes everywhere.

  Jimmy sees his mother’s face stiffen with shame. He’s never felt more helpless.

  Santos and Barnes hoist Pops off the couch. They lead him into the kitchen and sit him in a chair. “Artie, before you call anyone, we want to make you an offer. You start talking and Jim will sleep in his own bed tonight,” says Barnes. “We want names, who’s involved, what they did, and when they did it.”

  Trish raises her head. “Artie, you goddamn better tell them.” Then she looks at Detective Barnes. “And you better keep your word.”

  PART FOUR

  Trevor

  POLICE CARS, AMBULANCES, AND FIRE ENGINES, EMERGENCY lights revolving, block two lanes of the turnpike. Cars are forced into a single lane. Camille squeezes the pickup truck over. The smell of fuel wafts into the window. An eighteen-wheeler, on its side like a giant bleeding motorized centipede, leaks black oil onto the road. A white car is crushed under the truck’s rear tire. Glass and silver parts are spread across the road as if a bomb went off. A kid’s baseball mitt lies in a puddle of oil. Trevor feels a wave of nausea move through him.

  Camille presses her hand against her mouth and makes a gasping sound, so high and quick, Trevor’s heart stops beating. Her entire body begins to shake.

  Whizzer awakes and stands on the front seat. Trevor pulls him to his lap. His father’s accident must have been the same way; police cars and ambulances at odd angles, shattered glass in the road, the turnpike clogged with impatient drivers gawking at the wreckage.

  They crawl past an open suitcase. Clothes are scattered in the road: a child’s shirt, a tiny white shoe, a ski hat.

  Camille swerves off the turnpike and rides the shoulder into a rest area, winding around the crowded lot to a stand of trees along a stretch of open concrete. She turns the car off, leans back, and shuts her eyes. Trevor puts his hand on her shoulder.

  “I’ve tried not to think about what it must have been like,” she says.

  It scares him to think that his dad was alive when they brought him to the hospital. Blood loss was the official finding on the death certificate. How much pain was he in?

  They leave the car under the late March sun. Whizzer pulls and bites his leather leash. The only sound is the turnpike whooshing like surf on a beach. Trevor stretches his arms. He’s tight from the long drive back from Maine. The three-day trip left him exhausted—between the drive, the lumpy hotel room bed, his mother’s snoring, and the student ambassador who led them around the campus, half the time arguing with her boyfriend on her cell phone, his mind is shot.

  He sits next to his mother on a stockade fence.

  Whizzer sniffs the ground, then tugs toward a white birch.

  “I’m glad we’re putting a plan together for September,” she says.

  Yes, there is a plan. Trevor sent three applications. He marked the spot “Native American” under “Origin” on them, then completed a short lineage of his Indian roots. “Father: Joseph Crow—Penobscot Indian; Grandfather: Zachariah Crow; Grandmother: Spring Sky Crow—Penobscot Indians.” If Trevor gets in, and his guidance counselor guarantees it, his tuition will be waived. Native Americans attend for free. “You didn’t know that?” asked the counselor.

  They visited the University of Maine. Beautiful, lots of open space, trees, and sky. He met the assistant wrestling coach, who only asked him about his varsity record. After hearing 12 wins and 9 losses, he shrugged and said, “Try out, who knows.”

  In Maine, Trevor expected to feel something like magic, something that told him he had finally found his home, but all he felt was far from New Jersey. Today, on the ride back, they stopped at a New Jersey state college for the open house. He was surprised that the college was tucked in the mountains, yet still in Jersey. The college didn’t have a wrestling team, and Trevor realized he didn’t care. He made a stand at 152 and has a winning record. Trevor’s sure his father would be proud of him. He may not get past the second round of the Districts, but he’s satisfied. He feels like a wrestler, a teammate that can be counted on to give his best. He feels it in every muscle. Greco calls him a brawler because Trevor doesn’t mind mixing it up, taking punishment. He’s grown used to ordinary pain. He’s not afraid on the mat. He looks forward to hearing his name pounded on the bleachers, “Tre-vor, Tre-vor.” A group of girls he hardly knows made a mural of a crow wearing a wresting singlet. It’s all good.

>   “We’ll have to get you a college wardrobe,” says Camille. “You can’t walk around wearing wrestling shirts for the rest of your life. If you’d come to the mall with me, we could hit a sale.”

  Trevor exhales a long breath. He hates shopping with his mother. A truck rumbles across the lot and the fence picks up the vibrations.

  “I want you to have everything you need.” She smiles and laugh lines wrinkle from her eyes.

  “Just take good care of Whizzer.” Trevor pets the puppy’s back.

  “I know I made a mess of things,” she says. “That motel is no place for you. At college you can have a fresh start.”

  “What about you? What are you going to do? You can’t stay at that motel with London.”

  “I want to show you something,” she says. “I was waiting for the right time, and I thought you would notice.” She holds out her hand. A small diamond ring sparkles on her finger. “Harry gave it to me. He’s calling it a pre-engagement ring.”

  The tiny diamond. It’s nothing compared to her real engagement ring.

  “It’s only a quarter karat, but the clarity is—”

  “What did you do with the ring Dad gave you?”

  “I have it.”

  “Are you saying you’re going to marry London?”

  “I told him I’d think about it.”

  “You like him that much?”

  “I think so. He’s got a good heart.” She gazes at the ring.

  He wants to tell her to be careful. She’s moving too fast. She just lost her husband, his father. London could be taking advantage of her, but he’s not certain of anything anymore. He will leave her in September. Maybe she shouldn’t be alone.

  She smiles watching his face. “Say something.”

  “I guess congratulations.”

  She kisses his cheek. “Thank you. I’m going to get a coffee. Do you want anything?”

  “Get me one too.” He smiles. “Please.”

  She crosses the lot to the pavilion. Her stride is confident. Her dark hair bounces on her shoulders. He watches her until she joins a stream of people entering the building.

  He walks Whizzer into the trees, stepping farther from the parking area, until there is a clearing and miles of dark, still water. The feeling of being submerged in the pool comes to him, water pressing above and below him, the numbing cold leaving his body and that sensation of letting go, accepting. Trevor remembers Molly’s motto about not knowing where you’re going until you get there. It’s mostly true, but he hopes that where he’s going is where he’s supposed to be.

  Jimmy

  THE SUPERMARKET LOADING AREA IS CRAMMED WITH MINIVANS and mothers. Jimmy leans on the brick wall that encloses the shopping carts. It’s chilly, but he takes off his green and white clerk’s jacket. His nametag reads “Welcome to Foodtown. Hi, I’m James.” He sees his mother through the window, still talking to the butcher. She’s holding a ham so large, she has her arms wrapped around it.

  Tonight is the wrestling dinner. Tomorrow is Easter. His mother will hide some plastic eggs filled with quarters and dollar bills around the house for Ricky. She’ll fill their Easter baskets with chocolate bunnies, jellybeans, and marshmallow Peeps. It’s the first holiday since his father went to jail. Eighteen days marked off on the calendar.

  At home, nothing is right. It always seems as if the front door will open and his father will come through, flinging his cap into the pantry. But it doesn’t open. Jimmy hasn’t visited his father. Why should he visit? It’s easier not hearing Pops trying to explain that he did what any father would have done—Jimmy, I did it for you, your mother, and Ricky. I did it for you. No, Jimmy’s not ready for this. His mother was on the phone last night with Pops. She waved the cell at Jimmy, saying, “Here come on. Take it. It’s your father, you’ve got to talk to him.” Jimmy left the house.

  Trish emerges from the supermarket lugging the ham in a plastic bag. She recently dyed her hair, a color called “brazenly blonde.” He takes the bag and heaves it over his shoulder.

  “You forgot your first paycheck!” She removes the check from her pocketbook and waves it. Getting the job was his idea. The napkin holder on the kitchen table was stuffed with unpaid bills. Half the calls at the house were from collection agencies.

  “Thanks, Ma.” He glances at the amount, then hands it back to her. “Pay the cable bill.”

  “Half is going toward your college expense fund,” she says.

  Jimmy’s scholarship letter is fastened to the refrigerator next to the visiting hours at the jail. “In recognition of your outstanding performance in wrestling, a sport that is vital to our overall athletic program, we have awarded you the East Stroudsburg College Athletic Scholarship.”

  He toured the East Stroudsburg campus with the other incoming wrestler on scholarship, ate turkey sandwiches in the rathskeller, visited the swimming pool, saw the huge wrestling room, sat in the massive library filling out forms, and the entire time, Jimmy felt like he had a hard candy stuck in his throat. Leaving Ricky, leaving his mother, without Pops at home, is going to be tough. But there isn’t a backup plan. Getting out of Molly Pitcher is the only thing that keeps him moving forward.

  He dumps the ham in the back of their minivan and gets in the driver’s seat. “Do me a favor,” he says, buckling his seat belt. “Stay away from the butcher. All he wants to do is get in your pants.”

  She punches him in the arm. Her fist feels like a kid’s.

  “He’s a creep,” he says.

  “What do you mean? There’s hardly an ounce of fat on that ham, and he took the bone out and charged me for bone-in.”

  “Ma, that’s the same stuff Pops did.”

  “It’s a little discount. It beats lutefisk, right?”

  Jimmy’s not laughing. “You and Pops are like this joke my English teacher told us. A guy gets arrested and tells the police he’s not a thief, he’s into steel and iron. He steals and his wife irons.”

  “That’s not nice.”

  “Except you stopped ironing.”

  “It’s a five-dollar discount, for heaven’s sake,” she says. “And I would appreciate it if you didn’t announce this to your brother. I don’t need him on my back too.”

  “What if you get caught? You could get arrested.”

  “They would never arrest me for a discounted ham.”

  “What if you lose your job? That would be bad enough, wouldn’t it?” He wants to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. Doesn’t she know that something has been taken from him, not just his father, but part of him? Today, in the supermarket men’s room mirror, two Jimmy O’Sheas stared at him—one wrestling Jimmy, who must win, will win, and will leave Molly Pitcher, and this other boy who once suspected his father might be a crook and now knows the truth. “It’s not just Pops, it’s everything,” he says.

  “Repeat after me: This is tem-po-rary. Temporary.”

  “It’s not only this job.” He pulls the minivan from the lot.

  “When your father is released we’ll see …”

  “When is the big question, isn’t it?” His father has twenty-five months left, and is trying for a sentence reduction with a new lawyer. Each court action costs two weeks of his mother’s salary. She’s taken a second mortgage. His mother thinks Pops is going to emerge from jail with a brand-new set of rules to live by, but can time wipe away who you are or what you’ve done?

  She takes his hand. “Doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance? You got one.”

  Maybe she’s right. His father could learn from his mistakes, but it’s too soon to think about it.

  “Tonight’s the wrestling dinner,” she says. “We should put our problems on hold and have a good time.”

  “And how do I do that?”

  “Things could be worse. I heard Diggy—”

  “Is that the way I look to you?” he asks. “In the same league as Diggy?”

  “No,” she says. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “For t
he record”—his voice explodes in the car—“I didn’t steal anyone’s dog. Except for the single time when Pops convinced me to help him, I never stole anything in my life. Diggy quit. I would never quit. So don’t include me with Diggy.” He makes a sharp right onto Molly Pitcher Road. He’s doing sixty in a forty-mile-an-hour zone.

  “Okay, I’m sorry,” she says in a small voice.

  Jimmy

  THE SPARTA CATERING HALL IS BEHIND A NEW SHOPPING CENTER. The neon sign, with half its letters dark, twinkles next to a highway overpass. From the backseat, Ricky sounds out the sign: “Co—tail Lounge, -appy -our every Hour.” He leans into the front. “What’s that mean?”

  “It means you shouldn’t act like a comedian tonight,” snaps Jimmy.

  “Oh, your brother’s cute.” Trish examines her face in a folding makeup mirror. She touches her fingertip to her tongue and rubs it over her eyebrows. “Let’s try to be civil to each other.”

  “Remember last year?” Ricky laughs. “Pops took us for haircuts in the afternoon and he got his sideburns cut off and there were white patches on his face.”

  “And he wouldn’t let me put a little makeup on him,” says Trish.

  “I bet he doesn’t get his hair cut the whole time he’s in there,” says Ricky.

  Trish snaps the makeup case closed. “Your father will be home before you know it.” She turns to Jimmy and lifts her eyebrows, daring him to disagree.

  Home before you know it is her mantra. Jimmy will be a sophomore in college when his father’s up for parole. That’s not “before you know it.”

  They pull next to Greco’s Jeep. Jimmy jams the car into park and shuts off the engine. “Let’s take a break from talking about Pops.”

  “We weren’t talking about him,” says Trish, like she’s explaining to a two-year-old. “I was saying …”

  Jimmy gets out, considers waiting for them, then strides across the parking lot toward the hall, knowing it’s going to piss her off. He wants to save a table near the dais. For three years, he’s attended the dinners and listened to the coach make speeches and the seniors announce their college plans. Now it’s his turn.