“Fuck him up, big time. Paulie’s a mean prick. You don’t want to be messing with him.”
“I can take care of myself.”
Bobby gave him a look. “You talking about the kid from Rosie?”
Bobby had taught Kevin how to hit last summer in his room above the cab office. They’d wrapped towels around their fists and boxed, Bobby popping Kevin in the face every time he tried to throw a punch. Kevin bled all over himself, stuffed his nose with toilet paper, and kept coming. After a couple of weeks, he got better. Bobby even let him land a few, just to feel what it was like. Then Kevin kicked the shit out of a kid from Roslindale who’d called one of his classmates a “Latin fag.” The kid from Rosie walked into two straight rights, went down, and didn’t move. The whole thing happened in a handful of seconds outside Rourke’s, a hamburger joint a couple blocks from school. Kevin stood over the kid, blood pounding in his ears, terrified at what he’d done and hoping against hope the kid would get up so he could hit him again. That night he stared at his clenched fist in the bathroom mirror and wondered what he had there. According to Bobby, not very much.
“That kid weighed even less than you.”
“I weigh a hundred and three.”
“Jesus Christ, do they feed you in that house?”
Kevin pulled a napkin full of crumbs from his pocket. “I like corn muffins.”
“Listen, the kid didn’t weigh much more than you. Besides, I know his older brother and he’s a pussy. Paul Corey isn’t. You know he busted some kid’s jaw from Smith Park last weekend?”
Kevin shook his head.
“Said he didn’t like the way he looked at him. Busted his jaw, then went at him with a baseball bat. Took three cops from Fourteen to pull him off.”
“I didn’t hear about that.”
“Yeah, well, you’re hearing it now.”
They stopped near the front of the cab. Bobby put a foot up on the fender. Kevin sat on the hood, then leaned back across the windshield so he was looking at the bruised and broken sky when he spoke.
“You don’t like Paulie, do you?”
“He’s a loser.”
“How about what he said about you?”
“You mean when he called me a nigger lover?” Bobby picked up a rock and fired it at a NO LOITERING sign fixed to the side of the building. He missed. “I don’t hate people cuz of their color if that’s what you’re asking. And I don’t really give a fuck who knows it. The truth is half these jag-offs don’t care what color you are. They just want to mess someone up.”
“I guess.”
“You guess?” Bobby threw another rock. This time he hit the sign. The metal ping rippled across the lot. “This place likes to eat its own. And it’s always looking to be fed. Remember that.”
Kevin sat up again. “I’m not like you, Bobby. I can’t just look at someone and they walk away.”
“Then you walk away.”
“You mean be a pussy.”
“I mean stay alive long enough to fucking stay alive. You wanna go to college or what?”
The great dream. Getting out of Brighton. Getting anywhere but where you were. Some people hated Kevin cuz he had a clean shot. Others lived for it, pushing in all their chips on the teenager, knitting his future out of the cloth of their own fears and failures. Kevin could feel it, too. Something out there, alive and electric. All he needed to do was plug in. But first, he had to get out.
“Sure, I wanna go.”
“All right, then,” Bobby said. “Keep your nose clean. And don’t mess with guys like Corey.”
“And if I can’t?”
“If you got no choice . . . I mean no choice at all . . . then you go hard-core. Kill-or-be-killed sort of shit. But you walk away first. Or you find me. Got it?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. You ever drive a stick?”
“I was born for the stick.”
Bobby chuckled. “Come on.”
Kevin climbed in the driver’s side of the cab, hands running over the steering wheel and sliding down to touch the round knobs and thick buttons. Bobby slipped into the passenger’s seat and pointed to the floor. “That pedal there is the clutch. You put the car in first, let the clutch out slow, and feed it some gas at the same time.”
“Piece of cake.”
“Yeah, right. Clutch is loose as hell on this tank so that’ll make it easier. All right, Mario, give it a go.”
Kevin stomped on the clutch with his left foot, touched the gas with his right, and jammed the shift lever into first. The car never moved. Bobby swung a set of keys off his finger. “Be nice if you turned the thing on.” He thought that was funny as all hell and stuck a key in the ignition.
The first three times the car bucked and died. The fourth time it went five feet. After six tries, Kevin got the sense of it. Pretty soon, he was rolling across the lot, shifting from first to second to third, then back to second.
“Good. You can downshift instead of using your brakes. Watch the fucking wall.”
Kevin hit the brakes five feet from the redbrick side of the school. The car sputtered and stalled. “I saw it.”
“Sure you did. That’s enough for today.”
“Let me drive home.”
“Next time. Now, get out.” Bobby slid behind the wheel as Kevin ran around to the passenger’s side. Bobby reached forward to turn over the engine, then stopped. They both heard the hard thump of rubber on brick.
“Finn,” Bobby said.
“You think?”
“Who else?”
They walked around the corner to a smaller lot on the far side of the school. Finn McDermott tossed a tennis ball high in the air, arched his back, and rocketed a serve against the brick wall fifty feet away.
“What’s up, boys?” Finn had a wiffle cut and a hard, square chin. He wore blue sweats, a long-sleeved gray shirt, and white Adidas tennis shoes. At his feet was a half-empty wire bucket of green tennis balls and maybe fifteen more rolling around on the blacktop. Pushed up against the wall was a shopping cart, filled with three more buckets of balls, another racket, a jacket, an extra pair of suede Cons, and a full tennis net with the hard wire needed to hook it up to the posts down at the park.
Finn bounced a palm off the face of his racket and nodded toward the back lot. “Having a liquid breakfast with the Coreys?”
“They back there every day?” Bobby said.
“Sure.” Finn picked up a ball that had rolled to his feet. “They’ll be there until they head to AA, or the graveyard.” Finn held the ball tight to the strings of his racket, stared down an imaginary opponent, coiled his body, and unleashed another serve. “What’s up, Kevin?”
“Nothing, Finn. How you doing?”
Finn lifted up his shirt and pulled at a quarter inch of skin at his waist. “Look at this.”
“What?” Kevin’s eyes searched for a scar or a bruise or something.
“Love handles. I’m seventeen years old and I have love handles.”
Kevin had never heard of love handles and didn’t know what to say. Turns out he didn’t have to say anything because Finn wasn’t half done.
“Five hundred serves a day. That’s what I do, Bobby. Just like Borg.” Finn looked over to see if Bobby was listening, which was impossible to tell. “See this board I got?” Finn went over to his cart and pulled out a long piece of plywood about one-third the height of a hockey net. “I tie this to the fence down at the park.”
“Why?” Kevin said.
“When I serve, the ball bounces right back. And see here.”
Finn pointed to a couple of squares marked on the board in black Magic Marker. “I read about this in SI. These are my hot zones. I hit them and know the serve will be good when I get on the court.”
“So you can practice your serve anywhere,” Kevin said.
“With this board, I’m golden. Course I’m still down here every morning. Pounding the brick. That’s the only way I get to Florida.”
“Flor
ida?” Kevin said.
“I’ll be down there for six months of training next winter and then on to the pro circuit. Right, Bobby?”
“Right, Finn.”
“You gonna come down with me?”
“I told you I’d visit.”
“Two years, we’ll be sipping champagne and eating strawberries at Wimbledon. That’s what they serve at Wimbledon. Strawberries and cream. Right, Bobby?”
“Right, Finn.”
“Gotta be in shape. Eat good. See that?” Finn pointed his racket at the shopping cart. In the compartment where they put the kids was a carton of milk and a box of powdered doughnuts. “Quart of milk for breakfast. No fucking around. Meanwhile, they’re back there. Who drinks a six-pack at eight in the morning?”
Kevin shrugged. “The Coreys do.”
Finn took out the doughnuts and offered them around. Bobby and Kevin passed. Finn ate two in four bites, then washed the powdered sugar off his lips with some milk. After that, he began to pick up tennis balls and put them in the bucket.
“Where you going?” Bobby said.
“Cunt from the YMCA has classes at the park on Saturdays. Takes all the courts unless I get there early.”
“Why don’t you play her for the court?” Bobby said, a gentle needle in his voice. Finn was oblivious.
“Wouldn’t waste my time on the bitch. See you boys around.” He scarfed the last doughnut and threw the box in a barrel. Then he pushed his overloaded cart across the lot, back left wheel in a steady wobble as he went.
“Soft as puppy shit,” Bobby said.
“You think he’ll make it to Florida?”
“He’ll be lucky if he makes it to the park.”
“He’s a pretty good tennis player.”
“Pretty good ain’t gonna cut it.”
“He’s out here practicing every morning.”
“Hitting balls off a brick wall. And in between eating a box of doughnuts. Finn’s going nowhere and he knows it. We all know it.”
“We?”
“The Coreys, Shuks, your old man. Me. We were all born here and we’ll all die here. Scares the fuck out of us even though no one will admit it. Why do you think everyone’s always strutting around, looking for a beef?” Bobby flicked his wrist, stinging Kevin in the arm with a jab. “Cheer up, fuckhead. I told you, you’re not one of us.”
“I live here.”
“And you’re getting out.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Cuz your grandmother says so. And she’s not a person to mess with. Come on, you gotta get back and I have a fare to pick up.”
They climbed into cab number four. Bobby slammed the stick into first and rumbled out of the lot. They listened to the radio on the way back and talked about the Red Sox and whether they’d win the pennant.
8
BRIDGET WATCHED her little sister walk over to the ladder and climb down off the roof. She listened for Colleen’s footsteps on the back steps and, finally, the slam of the door to their apartment. Then she was alone. Bridget crept over to a low parapet wall that ran along the back and sides of the roof, dangling her legs over the drop and staring hard at the cab office. Her grandmother was silhouetted at her desk, talking on the phone and rolling back and forth in her chair. Bridget watched for a while, then padded along the roofline to the far end of the building. She moved a couple of loose bricks and pulled out a notebook. It was dirty brown and had “Saint Andrew’s Grammar School” written in Old English script across the cover. Bridget sat up against the chipped facing of the chimney and read through the last few pages. Then she took out a pen she kept clipped to the front cover and wrote down everything that happened at breakfast, followed by her conversation on the roof with Colleen. When she was done, she sealed up the notebook again behind the bricks and walked over to the ladder. She lay flat on her stomach, staring down the hole at the third-floor landing and the back door to her grandmother’s apartment. The wind was still up and the building smelled like wood and coal and soot. Bridget picked herself up, slung her book bag over her shoulder, and started to climb down.
It had been nearly an hour since he’d seen the outline of the old lady, standing on the back porch like an inky scarecrow, then making her way across the yard and disappearing inside the office. Earlier, the kid had sloped out of the same door with the other one. Older, taller, lean and strong, skin sculpted white in a bloom of random light. Even safe in his hide, the cat had felt the older one’s eyes as he scanned the tree line, stopped, then scanned again. They’d climbed into one of the black cabs, engine roaring to life, and left. Now, it was quiet. The air felt wet and gray and hugged the big cat’s skin. He pulled out a knife and ran a finger along its edge. She was sitting at her desk, a cardboard cutout hanging in the window, smoking a cigarette like a scene out of a painting about a diner he’d seen once in a book. Nighthawks. Back in the day his teacher had gone on about it, but he’d never bothered to listen. At least not to his teacher. The painting was another story. It spoke to him, more like a movie than a painting, and he wondered, in the remaining hours he had left on this earth, as he sat in the bushes and waited until the time was right, if there would be other things that would speak to him. He hoped so but didn’t count on it. The cutout tipped her chin up and blew a soft line of smoke toward light that collected near the ceiling. And then the cat moved. His name was Curtis Jordan. He was a part-time thief and full-time drug dealer. One profession fed the other, clients providing him with information on easy marks in return for an extra bit of blow or bag of weed. That was how Curtis knew the old lady lived alone. Worked Saturday mornings in the office. And kept a strongbox full of cash in her apartment. He flattened himself against the side of the three-decker. All it took was one white face peering out a window. And finding a black one looking back. Jordan flared his nostrils and filled his lungs. Then he ran up the first flight of stairs, turned on the landing, and bounded up the next.
9
KEVIN WALKED up the short, sharp hill with his head down. Bobby hadn’t wanted to talk anymore about Brighton, about getting out. If it had been anyone else, there’d have been more talk. But that was Bobby. And so his future cut its own throat. And no one was there to raise a hand in protest. Or even an eyebrow to record its passing. A breeze brushed past, prickling the skin on Kevin’s scalp and causing him to lift his eyes off the pavement. Thirty feet up the road, a blurry sketch of arms and legs was crouched at the corner of his grandmother’s building. The sketch turned, head on a swivel, eyes locking on Kevin’s. Then he scuttled away, flitting across Champney Street and ducking into the backyard of a two-family the thirteen Santoro kids lived in with their mother.
Kevin rocked hard in his tracks, staring at the spot where the black man had disappeared, feeling the urge to chase while wondering where that lust came from and if he wasn’t destined to be a racist like all the others. Then he heard the scream, high and pure, chilling his blood and stopping his heart in midbeat. Kevin’s legs carried him down the alley and into the yard behind his house. He could see lights in his grandmother’s cab office, bright smudges against a smoky pall that suddenly hung in the air. Fresh light flared as the office door swung open and a small, dark figure wavered on the threshold. Another scream, long and winding, ribboning through the trees, coming from his grandmother’s apartment. The figure on the threshold began to move across the yard. Short, clumsy strides. Kevin turned and took the back steps, up and around one landing, then a second. Somewhere below he heard people yelling and windows slamming open. A third corner and Bridget was there, lying on the steps, legs splayed, one hand clutching her side as blood wept between her fingers.
“Bridget.”
Kevin fell to his knees and put a hand to her wound. She pushed him away and pointed. In the fine grain of light, he could see a trail of blood running up the stairs. Behind him, he heard footsteps, heavy breathing, a muttered prayer doubling as a curse. Kevin turned and found his mother at his elbow, pale eyes on stalks,
staring at her children, both of them smeared and torn. Bridget clawed at his arm and dragged him close.
“Upstairs, go.” His sister’s eyes were as full and rich as any he’d ever seen, glittering with the same light he remembered in his father’s, late at night when he was filled with drink and doubt and fury and regret.
Kevin’s mother dropped to her knees beside him. “Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” She pressed her hands into Bridget’s side, trying to stop the flow of blood and only making it worse.
“I’m fine,” Bridget whispered, never letting her brother look away. “Go.”
He found her in the narrow hallway that led to the living room. She was curled over on her side, legs pulled toward her body like she was trying to hug herself, face floating in a perfect pool of light. Years later, Kevin would wonder where the light had come from. At the time, all he could wonder about were her features, peaceful and unmarked. For a wild moment, he thought she was sleeping, perhaps hit her head and merely unconscious. He touched her shoulder and whispered Gram for the last time in his life. On cue, she rolled onto her back so he could see the belly laid open, a coil of something wet and grayish-blue leaking onto the floor. Kevin ran for the back door and vomited on the scarred boards of the porch. His mother was halfway up the stairs. She saw death cast in his eyes and howled. Then she ran past him and fell to the floor beside the body. Kevin got sick again as his mother screamed and wept and cried and called out for a divine presence she’d never know nor understand. She screamed until the sirens drowned her out and they took her away. The last thing Kevin saw was his baseball glove. Someone had picked it up off the landing where he’d found Bridget. It was sticky with blood.
10
ONE NIGHT when he was nine, Kevin asked about his grandfather and she started talking about McNamara’s. Everyone in Brighton got their turn at McNamara’s, his grandmother told him, the big white funeral home perched up on a hill. “What does that have to do with my grandfather?” Kevin said. She glared across the table and asked if he wanted to hear the story. Kevin shut up and she continued. His grandfather had worked at McNamara’s when he was a kid. Back then they didn’t embalm bodies like they do now. “What’s embalming?” Kevin said and got another baleful blue eye for his trouble. One of his grandfather’s jobs involved “tying down the body.” This usually occurred when someone died sitting up in a chair. If rigor mortis set in before they could straighten out the limbs, the folks at McNamara’s would have to stretch the body flat and tie it to the table for the wake. So it happened one day that Kevin’s grandfather had finished tying down one of McNamara’s clients when he took it in his head to remain under the table as the family was led in for the final viewing. It was at the height of the proceedings that he pulled out a knife and cut the ropes, allowing the recently deceased to sit up and give his loved ones a final, unforgettable good-bye. “Everyone was screaming and fainting,” Kevin’s grandmother said between teary gasps of laughter. “Your grandfather was no older than you. He ran like hell and didn’t set foot inside McNamara’s again until the day they laid him out. And, to their credit, they did a lovely job.”
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