Crooked Numbers

by Tim O'Mara

  “You think it’s okay if I talk to him?” I asked the bartender.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “He’s not been real chatty these days. Lost his kid recently. Shot or something. The other side of the bridge.”

  “Stabbed,” I said. “That’s what I want to talk to him about.”

  “Ah, shit. You’re not a reporter, are ya?” He made a big gesture of pointing at the front door. “’Cause if that’s the case, you can just—”

  “I’m not a reporter,” I said. “And I’m not a cop. I’m just someone who wants to talk to Bill Lee about his son.” I took another sip. “I knew Dougie. I was his teacher.”

  “Teacher?” The bartender gave that some thought. “Well, it’s still a free country. You can talk to just about anybody you want. Don’t mean they hafta talk back, though.”

  “I hear that,” I said, picking up my beer and sliding a ten-dollar bill at the bartender. “Get Mr. Lee another of whatever he’s drinking. Thanks.” I got off my stool and headed over to Dougie’s father.

  It’s hard to tell the age of someone who drinks a lot. Mr. Lee could have been anywhere between thirty and sixty. He was a bit lighter-skinned than Dougie, but I could see the resemblance in the shape of his nose and in the way his eyebrows were set on his forehead. He might have been handsome a while ago. The booze took care of that. The wrinkles on his face made me think of a poorly drawn road map. I immediately felt guilty about buying him another drink.

  I put my hand on the back of the barstool next to him. “This seat taken?”

  He just shrugged, not taking his eyes off the soccer game.

  I pulled out the stool and sat down. I placed my beer and the rest of my change on the bar. Mr. Lee had his left hand wrapped around a cocktail glass that held a bunch of melting ice cubes and a brown liquid. I could tell by the aroma it was bourbon.

  I motioned with my head at the TV. “Who’s playing?”

  He shrugged again just as the bartender came over with a fresh bourbon and ice.

  “This is on your new friend, Spaceman. He gave me enough to pour the good stuff, including tip.” He winked at me. “Not that crap you always ask for.”

  After the bartender walked away, Mr. Lee drained what was left of his old drink, pushed the glass away, and brought in the one I had bought for him. He raised the glass and mumbled something that might have been “thank you.”

  “No problem,” I said. “My name’s Raymond Donne, and I was hoping I could talk to you for a bit, Mr. Lee.”

  Another shrug. “About what?”

  I took another sip of beer and said, “Your son. Dougie.”

  He placed his drink down and gently touched his glass with all ten fingers. After a few seconds, he pulled his fingers away and rubbed them together as if making the international signal for money. He turned, allowing me to see his full face for the first time. His eyes were teary and red; the left one was looking slightly off to the side.

  “Never trusted this game,” he said, taking a quick glance at the TV and then looking back at me. “Don’t understand how people all over the world can get so damned excited about a game that could possibly end up zero to zero.”

  I took some time to digest that and said, “I never thought about it that way.”

  “Most people don’t,” he said. He reached over and picked up his drink. He put the glass to his lips. “Whatchoo wanna talk about my son for?” Then he completed the act of taking a sip.

  “I was his teacher, Mr. Lee.”

  “Ain’t nobody calls me that anymore. You can call me Spaceman like everyone else around here, or you can call me Bill.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Bill. I was Dougie’s teacher back when he was in middle school. I don’t believe we’ve ever met before.”

  “Probably not. Let his mother take care of that kind of stuff.”

  What kind of stuff? Parenting?

  “Yeah,” I said. “I got to know Mrs. Lee pretty well.”

  “Good woman,” he said. “Real good woman. Sometimes I’m amazed she put up with me for so long. Gotta love them good Christian women, know what I mean?”

  “I guess,” I said, half smiling. “My mother’s one of them.”

  He raised his glass. “Here’s to good Christian women.” He took a sip of his bourbon and slid one of the ice cubes into his mouth. He rolled it around for a bit and then crunched. His face turned serious. “Why you wanna talk about my son, Mr. Donne? Obviously you heard what happened.”

  “I did, and I first want to offer my condolences. He was a great kid.”

  “Yeah. Got his mother to thank for that, I guess. But…” His attention was drawn back to the soccer game, which now seemed to be taking place on purple grass.

  “Dougie’s mom said he’d been calling you lately,” I said, trying to refocus the conversation. It wasn’t working. I raised my voice a touch. “Before he died? You and Dougie had talked on the phone a few times?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Mr. Lee said, still watching the game. “We’d talk on the phone a coupla times a week. He got himself one of them cell phones.”

  “Did he call you or did you call him?”

  “Sometimes I’d call him from here.” He motioned with his head at the pay phone near the rear door of the bar. “I’d tell him I was here, and he’d call me right back so as I didn’t hafta keep putting quarters in the phone. Good kid, my Douglas. I even let him meet me here once. Just before he … you know … before what happened to him.”

  “They let a seventeen-year-old into a bar?”

  “Just for a few minutes,” he explained, his watery bloodshot eyes now on me. “Just wanted to show him off a bit. Let everybody see there was more to me than just whiskey and ice, know what I mean?” He picked up said drink and swirled the ice around a few times. “Let them see a bit of what I used to be.” He touched the glass to his lips and moved it back and forth a few times. His glance went off over my shoulders, to someplace far beyond his barstool.

  After a suitable amount of time, I spoke. “What did you two talk about?”

  “You ask a lot of questions, you know that?” He took a sip. “We talked about what fathers and sons talk about. School, sports … and shit. What do you think we talked about? Nuclear energy?” He smiled at his own joke, and then the smile went away. “Talked about life, Mr. Donne. Life.”

  “Did he ever mention any friends? Jack Quinn? Paulie Sherman? Elliot Finch?”

  He squinted as he thought about the question. Then he opened his right eye. “Elliot?” he said. “He’s the bird-watching kid?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yeah, he mentioned him once or twice. Always thought it was kinda funny a bird-watcher had the last name of Finch. Knew a veterinarian years ago named Katz. Or was it Fisch? Kinda stuff makes me laugh. Don’t recognize the other names, though. Why you asking about his friends?”

  “I met them this week.”

  “You been getting around, haven’t ya?”

  “I guess. I’m sorry I missed you at Dougie’s wake.”

  He turned back around to face the TV set. “Yeah,” he said. “I chose to do my mourning in private. Don’t go in for all those flowers and prayers and shit. Always felt if I had something to say to God, I could say it any damn place I pleased, and it did not please me to do it in some sweet-smelling funeral home.”

  “So you didn’t go to the church, either?”

  “No, I did not. I said all I got to say to God.” He slowly looked up at the bar’s ceiling and sucked his teeth. “He heard me.”

  I took a sip of my beer and let that last thought hang in the air for a bit.

  “If you don’t mind me asking,” I said, “what did you say to God?”

  “Why you wanna know that?”

  “I’m not religious. I just wonder what people say to God when something like this happens.” I thought back to Dougie’s mom at the wake. “What is there to say?”

  He picked up his glass and swirled the ice around a few times. “Well
,” he said, raising his glass to me, “you bought me one, so I guess that entitles you to ask one personal question.”

  He sipped from his glass and stayed silent for half a minute. I waited.

  “Said what every parent who loses a child says, I guess. ‘Why’d you take my boy? Why not me?’ I mean, the kid wasn’t even seventeen yet. What the hell did he do to deserve what happened to him, huh?” He paused. “Ain’t nobody can give me an answer to that one, Mr. Donne. Not even the good Lord himself. Now, me? I done plenty coulda cashed my ticket early. But here I still sit, drinking my whiskey and ice, watching stupid shit on the TV, and cashing my disability check twice a month. Nobody expects shit from me. Now, Dougie…” His next words got caught in his throat. He had a little more whiskey to loosen them up. “Dougie was different. You seen the fancy school he was going to?”

  “I did.”

  “He was doing all right. Hanging with the right kids, learning the right stuff. Reminded me of myself when I was that age. Before…” He pointed at his left eye. “Y’know what I mean?”

  I shook my head. “No, Mr. Lee. Bill. I don’t.”

  “Dougie never told you?”

  “Told me what?”

  He smiled, lifted his glass to his lips, and downed what was left of his bourbon and water. He raised his hand to get the bartender’s attention. The bartender waved and fixed Spaceman another drink.

  “Don’t worry,” Mr. Lee said. “I won’t make ya pay for any more. I can buy my own drinks, and I don’t want you feeling like you’re contributing to the delinquency of an alcoholic. I’m guessing you noticed the eye, huh?” He pointed to it again. “The way it goes off a bit? You seem like a pretty observant guy.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I noticed.”

  “Well,” he began, taking a deep breath, “the man who sits before you was not always the man who sits before you. Believe it or not, there used to be a time when I was pretty sharp. Used to be a time when I had the world where I wanted it.”

  The bartender came over with the new drink and winced. “Spaceman,” he said. “You ain’t telling the story about how you got that eye again, are ya?”

  “And what if I am?”

  The bartender waved his hand as if shooing away a fly. “Just keep your voice down.” He turned to me. “The rest of us have heard the story a dozen times, mister. I’ll be down at the other end if ya need me.”

  “Thanks,” I said. And then to Mr. Lee, “Go on.”

  “Maybe I didn’t have it all,” he said, “but I was pretty damned close. College scholarship, pretty girls, enough cash money to do something about them pretty girls. I was living the life.”

  “What was the scholarship for?”

  “Baseball. Got clocked one time at ninety-five miles per. Not many kids doing that back in the day. Got me a free ride to school. I never was as smart as my big brother. You meet Douglas?”

  “Twice.”

  “Yeah, he got the scholarship for what he had up here.” He tapped his temple. “I got mine ’cause of my right arm. Anyways, I was halfway through my four years, started noticing some scouts coming around, checking me out with their clipboards and radar guns. None of them came up and spoke with me, just sat in the stands working their numbers. That’s when I figured one thing out for sure.”

  After the required pause, I said, “What was that?”

  He grinned. “Gotta get me one girl and stick with her. I figured I’d be getting paid real soon with all them scouts floating around. Didn’t think it’d be wise to have too many irons in the fire, if you know what I mean. Not that I was ready to settle down, but I had to keep my focus on what was important. Too many young beauties around can distract a guy. So”—he raised his glass—“I picked the prettiest and the smartest one and said adios to all the others.”

  “Dougie’s mom?”

  “You got that right. Glorious Gloria. That’s what I called her back then. And she was. Best damn decision I ever made, that one.”

  His eyes went off again, back over my shoulder and somewhere far away. I finished my beer and let him stay there for a minute before I spoke.

  “What’s all that got to do with your eye?”

  His eyes came slowly back to me. At least, the right one did.

  “I’m getting to that,” he said. “So we’re together. I mean, I’m upstate in school and she’s down here in Brooklyn, but we’re together. See each other every coupla weekends. She comes up to me. I come down here. Liked it better when she came up, because then I could show her off around campus. Anyways, we do that for a coupla months and one time she comes up, says she’s got something real important to tell me. Shit. I was barely twenty. What’s real important to a kid just outta his teens, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Tells me she’s pregnant. Boom!” He clapped his hands together. “Just like that. Well, long story short, I don’t react right away the way she wants me to react, and she takes off. Walked herself all the way to the train station before I finally caught up with her. She’s all crying and shit, saying I don’t love her. I said bullshit. I love you. Just didn’t expect the news you dropped on me, baby. We sit there for a while—ain’t no train coming ’til the next day anyway—and we work it out. Go back to my dorm and fall asleep together. Just like everything was normal.”

  “But it wasn’t,” I said. “Normal.”

  “Shit, no, it wasn’t. I’m twenty years old with a future in the bigs staring me in the face, and I’m gonna be a daddy? Damn. That’s a lot to stick in my head, y’know?”

  “I can imagine,” I said.

  “Hmmm,” he said, taking a sip of his drink. “Don’t know if you can, Mr. Donne. Anyways, that’s what’s in my head, and I got all distracted. Got together with Gloria in the first place to avoid distractions, and she ends up giving me a big one. Hard to keep my head in the game, y’know?” He closed his eyes and ran his tongue over his lips. “So a few days after I get the news, I’m pitching against a school in Jersey. Had everything going that day: curveball, changeup, fastball. My arm was alive. Think there mighta been a scout or two in the bleachers, checking me out. They saw me at my best.”

  He stopped and smiled, eyes still shut. After thirty seconds went by, I spoke.

  “The eye?”

  The smile faded. “I’m getting to that.” He opened his eyes. “Fifth inning, we’re up, two–zip. I’m shutting them down, ain’t walking no one. I am in control. Gave up only one hit and the guy who got it steps up to the plate. Digs in, makes a big show of taking his practice swings. Gets himself settled in a bit too close to home plate, know what I’m saying? He’s in my territory. First pitch, I throw him an outside curve off the plate, but he gets enough wood on it to foul it off. Shouldn’t of come close to that pitch, but he’s all over the plate. My plate. So next pitch, I put a fastball high and inside, back him off.”

  “Chin music,” I said, remembering the Yankees–Red Sox rerun Edgar and I watched the other night.

  “Yeah,” Mr. Lee said, the smile returning. “So he settles in again, this time an inch or two back from where he started, so I decide to throw him the slow curve again. I’m looking at the outside corner, but the damn thing didn’t break. Just hung there like a goddamn batting-practice pitch. Guy’s eyes get as big as cue balls, and he jumps all over it.” He shuddered, as if touched by a cold breeze. “Came right at me faster’n anything I ever got hit back to me.” He paused for a few seconds and lowered his chin almost to his chest. “Next thing I know, I’m waking up in the emergency room at some Jersey hospital surrounded by white people in white coats. Couldn’t understand most of what they were saying, but the general idea seemed to be I was lucky to be alive.

  “Long story short—ha—that was the last pitch I ever threw. The headaches and blurriness pretty much put an end to my college career, too. Came back home to Brooklyn with nothing. No school, no baseball, no job. Just another unemployed black man who’s gonna have a kid.”

  “Wasn’t your fa
ult, though,” I said.

  He laughed. “Life don’t give a shit if it’s your fault or not, Mr. Donne. You old enough to know that.”

  I thought about my accident and how it had changed my life. How it turned me from a cop to a teacher. How Allison went from runner to reporter. “Yeah,” I said. “I am.”

  “So,” Mr. Lee continued, “we do the right thing and get married, move in with her folks until we can get a place of our own. Gloria’s the one with the real job. I’m over at the ninety-nine-cents store stocking the shelves. We did it, though. Just before Dougie was born, we got ourselves a two-bedroom over by the J train, and we bring our baby back to our house.”

  “How long were you married?”

  “Dougie was three when she told me she couldn’t take it no more. I couldn’t hold a job, ’cause the headaches never stopped and the eyes couldn’t stay focused for too long. I figured someone as bright as myself didn’t need a doctor to tell him what was wrong, so I started medicating myself. A little pot at first, then some harder stuff. Never did that shit in front of Dougie, though. Never. After a few years of that, I switched to this.” He tapped his glass. “I guess somewheres along the line, I just forgot about everything else. She didn’t want me around no more, and I couldn’t blame her.”

  He spun around and returned to the soccer game. With his eyes glued to the TV, he said, “Pretty boring story, huh?”

  “I’ve heard worse. So you and Dougie had been talking lately?”

  “Yep.” He nodded. “Last coupla conversations got weird, though.”

  “Weird how?”

  “I don’t know. He was going on about how he was gonna help me get better. I tried to tell him this was the best it was gonna get for me, but he kept saying he was learning about some shit … I don’t know … something to do with the brain. Like I said, I ain’t the bright one in the family.”