by Brent Coffey
Gabe returned with a TV dinner. He sat on the sofa and began eating. It wasn’t the fine dining that his life as a mobster had conditioned him to, but it was hot and it was food. And with August around, he didn’t want to eat at his usual haunts. As he ate, he watched August watch TV. August didn’t move, and he didn’t indicate if he enjoyed the show. Gabe started to feel a little sorry for him. He wanted to say something that would put him at ease:
“You can sit on the sofa if you want.”
August turned and looked at him, then looked back at the television, and then looked back at him.
“Yeah, come on, man. You don’t wanna stand there watching TV. That’s no fun. Have a seat.”
“Okay.”
From the corner of his eye, Gabe saw August eyeing his food as he climbed on the sofa. Without saying anything, Gabe went back into the kitchen and warmed up another frozen meal. Moments later, he returned and, handing the meal and a fork to August, simply said, “Here.” August interpreted the offer as a command to eat and chewed away. Both acted interested in the show, because it was easier than making conversation, until Gabe felt obligated to say something:
“I normally don’t crash here. I usually stay at my place in Back Bay, but I figured I’d lie low for a while… until we figure things out.”
He studied August for a reaction and found none.
“I hope you aren’t pissed at me for taking you from your foster parents,” Gabe said.
August mechanically shook his head no, but it seemed like a dutiful response.
“I’m taking you to the Hudsons. You remember them, right?”
Surprised, August answered, “Yes.” He remembered visiting their home, before it was decided that Bruce couldn’t adopt him.
“Well, I’m not exactly taking you. I’m going to put you in a taxi and send you there. They’ll take care of you once you arrive. I’ll send you with some cash, so you’ll have a little blow money. You might want some stuff that other kids at your new school have, and it’s always nice to keep up with the Joneses. Come to think of it, you’re probably too young to know what that means… ” he paused, unsure how to explain “keeping up with the Joneses.” Searching for a new topic, he heard the muffled sound of a child resisting a good cry. Still pretending to watch TV, Gabe’s peripheral vision confirmed that August was quietly crying as he ate and trying very hard not to.
August may not have understood keeping up with the Joneses, but he understood “new school” and “being too young” and that he was about to live with a couple who he’d only met once and be shipped off by himself to get there. And it was all becoming too much for a kid who unexpectedly found himself in the care of a stranger with a gun. He didn’t miss the Ringers, but he missed the familiarity of their home, the sense that he was supposed to live with them, and the warmth that Sara’s visits gave him. He suddenly missed everything he’d owned, the few toys and clothes he had. He tried harder not to cry and ended up crying harder.
“Hey, there. Did you burn yourself? Is the food too hot?” Gabe asked.
August shook his head no, fighting tears and not wanting to talk.
“What is it? Don’t ya like Salisbury steak and gravy?” Gabe tried again.
Determined not to disappoint or (worse!) anger this adult by wasting food, August jabbed at his half warmed meat through choked sobs, and he overestimated his coordination and tipped the plastic carton upside down, spilling the entire TV dinner onto his lap. August may not have known Gabe, and he was more than a little scared of Gabe’s gun, but all that temporarily ceased to matter, because August felt alone and confused and he’d just spilled food on himself.
Gabe wasn’t expecting August to hug him, bury his face in Gabe’s chest, and cry scared tears into his shirt. Surprised, Gabe didn’t know how to respond. He’d never been hugged by a kid before. Usually, his only thought about kids was that they were “off limits” on contracts put out to kill their meddlesome parents. Not killing kids was as close as Gabe had ever been to being affectionate with them. He didn’t know what to do about this hugging business, and he gladly would’ve chosen killing someone as an alternative to this hug, a much more comfortable task. Seconds passed, and Gabe noticed that it didn’t matter that he wasn’t hugging back, August shook with fear, and he still held on. Gabe suddenly felt out of control.
Gabe didn’t want to admit that he liked August. He’d told himself that he was only concerned about August being adopted by the Hudsons, because… what had he told himself? He’d refused to ask himself, Why am I helping August find a home? He’d tried not to think about why he was helping. He’d tried convincing himself that he didn’t need a reason to help the kid. If he fucking wanted to do something, then he fucking did it. Period. End of story. And he fucking wanted to help the Hudsons adopt this kid. Period. End of Story. He didn’t owe anyone an explanation for what he was doing, not even one to himself. Except… his restless mind would no longer let him follow blank orders. Not after this hugging business. All the effort that he’d recently put into not thinking about why he was helping August flooded back to him. He’d drank more, smoked more, ate more, golfed more, anything and everything’d more to keep his mind too busy to contemplate why he so desperately wanted to help the boy.
Until now, his constant activity allowed him to get away with his mindless behavior. He’d been able to spy on August, send him toys, threaten and bribe a social worker so she’d allow him to be adopted, and all that without ever asking himself What the hell do I care about an orphan who’s never going to make me a single dime? (Or) Shouldn’t I oppose the Hudsons’ efforts to adopt this kid since Bruce Hudson tried to put me away? Whenever similar thoughts threatened him about the nameless feeling in his gut (compassion? empathy?) he killed them with booze and business before they could reach his head and force him to think about his involvement in the kid’s life. But, now, sitting on this sofa with that same kid, the kid wearing pants covered in Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes still frozen in the middle, he hadn’t had a chance to drink or smoke or eat or golf or anything else to keep his mind from recognizing that the weird emotion in his gut was concern of some sort. August had hugged him too quickly for Gabe to avoid dealing with all the buried emotions that instantly sprung to mind.
You Care flashed across the projector screen in Gabe’s brain, as he sat holding his TV dinner and staring down at the boy crying into his shirt. Before he could shake away the first unwelcomed message, the thought completed itself with You Care About Him. The past several weeks of distracting busyness hadn’t killed the part of his brain that sent out explanations for what he was feeling. He’d only delayed the telegram. Finally, his subconscious had beaten him to the draw. He had to recognize what he didn’t want to.
“Hey, man, you want some more food? I’ll get you more. It’s no problem,” Gabe offered. “I mean,” he fumbled for words with a laugh, “there’s no use crying over spilled milk. Or, in this case, spilled beef, right?”
His attempt to lighten the mood wasn’t working. He shut his eyes, put a spread hand across his furrowed brow, and shook his head violently to shake away the message Hug Him Back Dumbass!!! shining in mental fluorescents so bright that the words in his head could practically be seen on the TV he’d been watching. He didn’t want to do it. He couldn’t remember the last time that he’d hugged someone.
Except. Yes, he could. He could remember the last time he’d hugged someone. He and his mom had just come back from the grocery store…
She dropped both armloads of sacked groceries on the table.
“I got us a couple of pizzas here. They were bogo!” Debby laughed, using their phrase for Buy One Get One.
“Bogo!” Gabe yelled back.
“Bogo like a pogo!” they said in unison jumping up and down, laughing.
“Make the sausage pizza tonight!” Gabe shouted.
“Alright, my little man. Sausage pizza it is.”
And then, without another word, she bent over
and hugged him tight. She held him for several seconds, letting the warmth of her love flow through him. She kissed him on his right cheek and then on his head, running her fingers through his hair. He felt like he could burst with joy. His mom loved him. She took care of him. And tonight she was cooking him sausage pizza, his favorite. There was nothing unusual about this moment. She often hugged him, and she always made dinner. But, for some unknown reason, this hug and the anticipation of tonight’s sausage pizza carved itself into his permanent memory. He’d be able to recall this moment for the rest of his life and sometimes be forced to recall it.
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Gabe knew that if he could ever be fingered for his crimes, he’d be up shit creek without a paddle. Looking at the kid sleeping on his couch and snuggling with a stuffed zebra, he no longer cared if he went up that creek. He thought about how August’s life would turn out with Bruce and Martha, especially with Bruce. He’ll probably make a lawyer out of him. Like father like son I suppose. Sipping coffee, he remembered being told by his associates that Bruce was a Red Sox fan, that Bruce liked to golf and fish, that Bruce had many pals on the force, that Bruce was a regular at Rocky’s on Boylston Street where he shot the shit with the bar’s regulars, and that Bruce had been faithful to his wife of thirty years. His goons had done their homework on Boston’s D.A. during his trial. There weren’t any skeletons in Bruce’s closet. No bribes, no whores, no substance abuse problems. The guy’ll probably make a swell dad. As much as he wanted to hate Bruce, as much as his mobster reflexes told him emphatically that he should hate Bruce, he hadn’t been able to hate the guy. Not after he’d learned about Bruce and Martha’s attempt at adopting August. Not after he’d learned about August not having parents.
Gabe remembered his trial. Police had been paid to tamper with evidence, jurors had been threatened, and the judge had been on the receiving end of both the carrot and the stick at various times. Gabe sipped his coffee, and he was relieved August slept. He didn’t want to look into August’s deep, wondering eyes. They bothered him. August had eyes that asked questions just by looking at you. Eyes that asked Can I trust you? Eyes that wondered What are you really like? Gabe didn’t like the power behind August’s eyes. There was too much God in them.
Gabe got up to make more coffee, and he remembered life before his trial. He remembered the look of fear on Mulberry’s face the first time they’d met, the gun he’d held to Mulberry’s throat, and his associates clipping the landline at Mulberry’s dry cleaning. He recalled bragging to his uncles about how easily he’d convinced Mulberry to pay for mob protection. Pouring more coffee, he also remembered hitting up Bronston’s Chinese dig for cash, by literally hitting Bronston. With an aluminum bat. Bronston had made an ungodly wail that could still be heard through the duct tape wrapped around his face, as Gabe had struck his right knee hard enough to shatter its cap. Bronston immediately paid for protection after that, and Gabe had once more bragged about his increased clientele.
August shifted his weight on the couch as he slept, and Gabe, once more sipping coffee in a nearby recliner, then thought about Victor’s effort at getting him off the hook. One juror, a working class soccer mom in her mid-thirties, had received an envelope under her door with a picture of her husband. Her husband’s equally aged and flabby body was naked, handcuffed to a bed like a kinky fetishist, and his face was splotched with dark, dried blood. She voted to acquit. Victor had sent other jurors similar photos of their loved ones. They voted to acquit, too. Gabe supposed that he should be grateful to Victor for his acquittal. But Victor had been an asshole of a father. To toughen him. To harden him. To make a man out of him, and, eventually, to make a made man out of him. Near the bottom of his cup, Gabe looked into the last of his coffee and remembered being close to August’s age. He’d just been grabbed from his mom the week before. Victor, who’d already insisted on being called “Father,” had promised to teach him to play baseball. Victor put a bat in Gabe’s small hands and wrapped his larger, older hands around Gabe’s to steady the swing. Gabe cried. He didn’t want to play baseball with this strange man, and he didn’t want to call him father. He wanted to go home. He wanted his mom. “Bend your knees,” Gabe remembered Victor telling him. Gabe sipped more coffee and recalled getting into proper batting stance for the first time, after Victor had slapped him hard enough to give his young neck a sample of whiplash. “Bend your knees,” Victor repeated, and then added, “stop crying, and keep your eye on the ball.” The ball was a crudely drawn lopsided circle on a middle-aged black man’s forehead, a tire shop owner who owed Victor protection premiums that he couldn’t pay, a man who was now tied to a chair and begging Gabe and Victor not to take aim at the sharpie drawn target on him. Gabe had screamed when the swinging began. He wanted to let go of the bat. He didn’t want to feel the contact it made with the man’s head, the subsequent thudding and cracking sensations as cranial bone gave way to blow after blow, but Victor’s hands held his young hands in place on the bat’s grip. “There. Did you like that? Did you like baseball?” Victor laughed. The tire shop owner’s open head oozed wet, meaty wads of gray matter as the guy lay on the floor unmoving, still tied to the overturned chair. It was an image that Gabe would never forget.
Finished with his coffee and still watching August sleep, Gabe no longer wanted to remember being seven, but he didn’t want to remember his adult life either (which had tragically begun too soon when, in his teens, he’d killed the gas station clerk to be initiated). These many years later, Victor was still an asshole who cared nothing for him, and he knew that Victor had only worked for his acquittal because the Family needed a son, a future Kingpin to convince the Family’s current employees that their jobs were secure for the long haul and keep them loyal in the present. Victor knew that Gabe hated him: he’d always known that Gabe hated him. When Gabe was grown, Victor (fearing Gabe would do something stupid, though what he didn’t know) had tried to compensate, but the Mercedes GL, the four Rolexes, the three apartments, the two townhouses, and one restored stately four-story Victorian dig in Back Bay couldn’t propel the stars in Gabe’s universe into orbiting Victor’s paternal mass. Not after baseball. No, Gabe decided, setting his empty coffee mug down. No, he wasn’t grateful that Victor had pulled strings to get him off the hook for racketeering charges.
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Bruce was in his office, still fuming over the Adelaide case, even though the verdict was two weeks old at this point (ancient history in the minds of the minute-by-minute coverage of the 24-hour news cycle). He’d spent the past five years toiling away to lock Gabe up, only to fall short for reasons he couldn’t explain. Now, he had to face the disturbing possibility that Gabe, a free man, was seeking some sort of revenge. And taking it out on a kid that Bruce cared about no less. I’ll get you your boy?
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Gabe wasn’t taking anything out on August, but he was taking August out. Particularly, to the zoo. He’d noticed that August had an interest in animals, since he’d seen how attached the kid was to his zebra, and Luke had told him that he’d wanted a stuffed lion. Gabe thought August might enjoy seeing a real zebra and a real lion up close, so he drove them to the New England Zoo in upstate Massachusetts.
Gabe walked towards the zoo’s entrance with the confidence of a real estate agent who was about to show a discriminating client a home with both style and location. He was going to wow August. If he thinks stuffed animals are cool, wait until he sees the real deal. He was so pleased with his idea to show the real world to August that he forgot to pace his stride so that the boy could keep up. Eventually, he heard a voice that seemed to be directed at him.
“Hey, man! Hey!”
Turning around, Gabe surprised a prematurely balding young guy who instantly recognized the mobster. The guy stopped shouting and looked apologetic for interrupting him, saying nothing.
“Well, what
did you want?” Gabe asked.
“I was just going to say that you were walking so quickly that your son was falling behind,” the guy said in a pleading tone.
Gabe, looking away from the man, saw August hustling to catching up, some thirty feet behind him. They’d both heard the guy mistake them for father and son, and a strange kind of eye contact passed between them at that moment. Neither corrected the guy. Gabe just stood looking at August, indicating that he was willing to wait for August to catch up and then walk slower.
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“Found in the Saharan region of Africa and parts of Asia, lions are now listed as an endangered species. With weight averaging between 350 to 500 pounds,” Gabe read, “the lion is a fierce carnivore, eating up to 15 pounds of meat a day.”
Gabe didn’t know what to say once they arrived at the lion exhibit. At first, he and August stood there silently, watching three lions sleep in the sunny afternoon. Gabe wasn’t sure what kind of reaction he’d expected from August, but the kid’s shyness made Gabe feel like he’d taken them on a field trip rather than on an adventure. He felt the need to say something, to discuss the lions that they were looking at. So, he read the elevated plaque hanging on the lions’ cage:
“The lion is categorized in the genus Panthera and is considered one of the world’s four big cats.”