December Boys (Jay Porter Series)

by Joe Clifford

  “What?” Charlie said. “A little patience never killed anyone. Fisher tells me it’s just a matter of time until you get the call up to the big leagues down in Concord.”

  Fisher was Charlie’s friend who’d helped land me the job at NorthEastern. Like Charlie, Fisher had been around last winter when all that shit was happening with my brother. I didn’t blame Fisher for the job turning out so awful. But he wasn’t off the hook either. I’d been sold a bill of goods—namely that I’d be working out of Concord. Instead I got stuck in the outpost of Plasterville, which was actually further north than Ashton—I’d done the math—adding to the sense that I’d somehow taken a step back.

  Charlie cinched the drawstring of his parka, Nanook peeking out the head hole. “Fisher swears it’s gonna happen. Just have to pay your dues.”

  “Yeah. I’ve heard that one, too. And I think I’ve paid enough.”

  We grabbed a couple stools beneath the thatched overhang, icicles jagging down with menace. Rita popped out the back door and set a pair of frothing pints in front of us. She shook her head like we were nuts to be out there in that arctic blast. But if this was where you lived and you wanted a cigarette, what were you supposed to do? I remembered my dad describing the good old days, going to see a movie and people smoking in the lobby, buying popcorn and Jujubes, blazing up right in the goddamn theater. Back then you could smoke on airplanes and in the doctor’s office. Now they stick you outside of a bar where they legally serve cirrhosis, and have you freeze your ass off in minus twenty.

  Charlie pulled out his pack. “Dropping the boy at Grandma’s?”

  I bummed a smoke. Charlie didn’t bust my balls over trying to quit. He understood as well as anybody that sometimes failing can still be your best.

  “Jenny’s mom doesn’t live in Ashton anymore,” I said, borrowing a match from him as well. “Moved to Burlington. About six months ago. Pretty much right after Jenny and I got married.”

  Charlie screwed up his face. I wasn’t sure which part confused him. My mother-in-law Lynne relocating to the scenic shores of Lake Champlain, or the wedding itself? Charlie had been my best man for the ceremony at City Hall. We didn’t have the time or money to plan anything extravagant. Reception for six afterward at the Chicken Shack. My wife deserved better.

  “Lynne earned her certification to be a traveling nurse. Remember? We talked about this the last time I saw you.”

  “Was I drunk?”

  “When aren’t you drunk, Charlie?”

  “Good point.”

  “Besides, it’s ten thirty. Kids have bedtimes. Something you don’t have to worry about.”

  Charlie nipped his beer.

  A gaggle of college girls burst onto the porch, interrupting our suffering with their enthusiasm. Giggling, then shrieking, then laughing hysterically at something that couldn’t possibly be that funny. I’d once bar-backed at a pub over the summer. I decided then that the most annoying sound in the entire world is young, drunk girls having fun.

  My instant hatred of these four, who had done nothing besides dare to exist, made me remember what Jenny said back at the house. When are you ever happy, Jay?

  When did I become such a miserable bastard?

  “What’s going on with you, man?” Charlie said. “You got that mopey, hangdog expression you used to get whenever your brother came around.”

  “Maybe he did,” I muttered.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Okay, Mr. Big Shot Investigator, why are you back in town?”

  “Stop calling me that. And can’t I just meet a buddy for a beer?”

  “An hour’s drive? In the snow and cold? This late?”

  “Jenny and I got in a fight.”

  “What did you do this time?”

  “What makes you think it’s my fault?”

  Charlie laughed.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I bet it is.”

  “Let’s just say nine-to-five doesn’t live up to the fantasy.”

  “You fantasized about having a nine-to-five job?” Charlie pointed in the vague direction of the foothills. “Dude, I got a shoebox in my attic. Feel free to borrow some magazines. You need better fantasies.”

  “No one keeps porn in a shoebox anymore, Charlie.”

  “It’s a metaphor.”

  “No. It’s not. But whatever. That’s not what I mean. Before all this went down, I had a goal, y’know? As long as I was chasing after that payoff, I was okay.”

  “I could’ve told you nine-to-five sucks. Best you can hope for is landing on workman’s comp like my Uncle Jimmy. An insurance office? Gonna need one hell of a paper cut.”

  “I mean, I thought, if I could get regular work with benefits, get Jenny back, get my son back—if I had a chance to be an everyday dad, be reunited with my family—they would make the rest of it worthwhile.”

  “You telling me they don’t?”

  “No. I’m not saying that. Jenny and Aiden are my whole world. I’d be lost without them. It’s just . . .”

  “What?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, man.” I drained my beer. “That fucking job. I hate it. Feel like a monkey in a suit peddling a bicycle. I’m not cut out for corporate.”

  “What are you cut out for?”

  “Beats me. Christ, I feel like I’m sixteen again, throwing punches against the wind. I wasn’t like this before. You ever get that way?”

  “I ain’t the guy to ask. I’m one step from a ditch digger.”

  “How’s that working out?” Last winter, Charlie had gotten himself canned from the phone company and started working for my old boss, Tom Gable, boxing up the remains of old farmers, clearing antiques, peddling merchandise at flea markets along the shore. Lots of freedom. Little room for advancement.

  “You know that game, Jay. If Tom didn’t pay me under the table and cut out the middleman, I couldn’t survive. Once the unemployment runs out, I’ll probably have to crawl back to the phone company.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I’d rather shoot myself first.”

  Charlie banged his pint until Rita returned with two fresh ones, looking pissed she had to set foot outside. “Ah, that’s what I love about this place. Service with a smile.”

  “Doesn’t it get to you?”

  “What?”

  “All of this. The shit we have to do to keep going.” I nodded into the black night, toward the seedy Turnpike south of town. “Maybe those bums and dope fiends have the right idea. Shack up in some fleabag, let the government foot the bill.”

  “Just living is hard enough,” Charlie said. “Then you add the rest of it—bills and jobs, having to sign up for overdraft protection? Dude, I don’t know how people aren’t running out of their houses screaming down the street every morning.”

  “Pisses me off. The scraps we’re left with. While others roll like pigs in shit.”

  “Any pig-fuckers you have in mind?” Charlie snuffed his smoke. “You’re my boy, Jay, and I love you. But do you know that every time I’ve seen you this past year, you’ve brought up Adam, Michael, or Gerry Lombardi?”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Fact. Every time. You’re getting as bad as Fisher.”

  “What’s Fisher got to do with any of this? Besides, that’s not true. I didn’t mention the name ‘Lombardi’ once tonight.”

  “Yeah? Then who are you talking about? I’m not an idiot, man.”

  “I took a wrong turn today. Ended up outside an abandoned Lombardi Construction site.”

  “When? Where?”

  “This afternoon. On the way to a client’s house. For work. Western plains, in the sticks. That’s not the point. Seeing the name, the quarry, the rusted machines and discarded trailer parts—brought back last year. It sucked.”

  “I’m sure it did, but—”

  “Those pictures, Charlie. I can’t get them out of my head. What if it was old man Lombardi? What if we let him get away
with it? Adam and Michael had to know what their father was up to. Remember Adam’s head of security, Bowman? That ’roided-up mutherfucker with the Star of David tattooed on his neck? Adam Lombardi sicced that psychopath on me looking for the hard drive my brother stole—”

  “Jay—”

  “Bowman broke into my apartment. Cold cocked me in the dark. Knocked me out. What if my wife and son had been there? You know, I still get headaches—”

  “Jay!”

  “What?”

  Charlie gestured at the college girls who had now stopped their conversation, gawking at me. I realized how loud I’d been talking.

  “Listen, man,” Charlie said, “for your own good—you need to get past your hatred of that family. Coach Lombardi is dead.”

  “No shit. Doesn’t change the facts. I’m just calling it like I see it.”

  “No, Jay, you’re not. For one, you’re making it sound like Adam and Michael Lombardi were born with silver spoons. I never liked Adam, but the guy worked his ass off to build up that construction company of his. And I don’t know how someone gets into politics, but the Lombardis aren’t the Kennedys. Michael keeps getting reelected for a reason. Gerry Lombardi was a high school math teacher and wrestling coach.”

  “And a pedophile.”

  “Maybe. But you have no evidence of that. Nothing admissible, anyway. His sons had successful careers and your brother was acting crazy, breaking into construction sites, terrorizing that family. High as shit. I mean, how would you expect them to respond?”

  “Since when did you become such a fan of the Lombardis?”

  “I’m not. Come on, man, I was right there with you, chasing after Chris last winter. Nobody’s saying the Lombardis are choirboys. But this jealousy and envy—hating them—it’s not bringing your brother back.” He waited. “And I think it might be pushing your wife and kid away.” He stopped, expression pained. “I mean, I don’t know, man. I’m drunk.”

  “No,” I said. “You’re right.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” I reached out for his shoulder.

  Charlie slapped my hand away. “Need a couch?”

  “Might not be the worst idea.”

  I’d give Jenny the rest of the night off, space best for all parties involved. Everything looks better in the light of a new day.

  * * *

  It had been a while since I’d gotten good and ripped.

  The weekend crowd finally showed toward midnight, place filling up. College girls were replaced by townies and regulars from Charlie’s dart league, everyone congregating on the tiki smoking porch, where Charlie and I had remained rooted, at first freezing our asses off until, soon, we felt nothing at all. I didn’t think about Jenny or my responsibilities. Beer flowed on endless stream from the tap. People kept shoving shots in front of me. Whiskey, bourbon, scotch. Never a good idea to mix and match. I didn’t care. I pounded each back like a challenge.

  Soon the lights began to flicker, signaling closing time. Charlie pulled his wallet, slapped down a few twenties, and then polished off the rest of his beer.

  I could barely stand. “I think I will take you up on the offer of a couch.”

  “No problem, amigo. But don’t you have to work tomorrow?”

  “It’s Friday night, Charlie.”

  We swayed to the sidewalk, a pair of desperados in a border town.

  “Go home, Finn,” someone shouted from a passing car. “You’re drunk.”

  “See you tomorrow?” a girl called out, though whether to Charlie or me or someone else, I had no idea.

  “Shit,” I said. “How we getting back to your place?” No way either of us could drive in this condition. We sure as sin couldn’t walk. It was almost two a.m., and without the smoking porch enclosure to absorb some of the brunt, I felt every negative degree of Lamentation’s subzero assault.

  “I’m fine,” Charlie said, pulling his keys, which I tried snatching. He was too quick. “Fuck you, Porter. I drink like this every night.” He held up the ring, dangling them in front of me. To prove victory, I guess. But he dropped the keys in a snow bank on the sidewalk. We both reached for the keys at the same time, bonking heads, slipping on the ice, falling into a snow mound and wrestling for them on the ground, cracking up, hysterical drunk.

  I didn’t see the flashing lights until they were on top of us. Then came the familiar voice.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “OKAY,” SHERIFF ROB Turley said. “On your feet, you two.”

  Charlie and I stopped wrestling. We both stared up at fat-ass Rob Turley, hitching his trousers and holster, trying to play the heavy in his wide-brimmed lawman’s hat. Which made Charlie and me howl harder.

  Turley made me leave my truck at the Dubliner, and chauffeured us out to Charlie’s house on the plains. Sitting in the back of the cruiser, I didn’t answer any of Turley’s attempts at small talk, questions about the wife, the new job and town, the kid, and soon he gave up trying.

  Charlie was right about one thing. He was used to drinking this hard. I wasn’t. Within minutes of getting dropped off at his place, my best friend was passed out in the bedroom; I spent the next half hour hurling chunks over the railing.

  I didn’t even remember falling asleep. When I woke to take a piss in the middle of the night, I was facedown on the floral-print couch, string of vomit drool connecting head to hand like some degenerate marionette.

  Staggering into the kitchen, I filled a tall glass with tepid tap water at the sink, and sat in the dark rehydrating, staring up at the Lamentation Mountains, waiting for a sun to rise over the peaks.

  I didn’t open my eyes again until ten a.m., cheek glued to the table. Charlie flipped on the coffeemaker. Neither of us spoke, day-after movements excruciating. Spoons clanking off clay walls made my skull hurt. Back when I was nineteen, twenty, I could tie one on till three in the morning, take an hour nap, and still make it to the farm by five. I was grateful today was Saturday. I’d need half the day to recuperate.

  We arranged a ride back to Dubliner to fetch my Chevy and his old Subaru.

  “Be nice to your wife,” Charlie said as I was getting in. “Jenny’s a good woman. You ain’t the easiest guy to be around.”

  On the way back to Plasterville, I stopped at the gas station and filled up. I grabbed a newspaper and another pack of cigarettes, which I stashed for my next emergency. I also bought a dozen roses.

  The heater was off when I got home, my wife out. Grocery shopping, I figured, since Saturday had the best bargains at the Price Chopper. I dropped the flowers on the stove and cranked the thermostat. Then I hopped in the shower, mulling over how I should handle the Brian Olisky situation. After everything that family had been through, I didn’t feel right ratting him out. Even if it was my job. Returning from Libby Brook so late yesterday, I hadn’t bothered stopping off at the office, everyone already gone for the weekend. Which gave me until Monday when I had to turn in my report. The burden weighted my shoulders, and I still felt nauseated from the hard alcohol. I stayed under the hot stream until the room fogged like a sauna and some of the poison washed out of my pores.

  Stepping from the water, skin scrubbed new-baby pink, I slipped on sweats and a tee, and put on some coffee. Waiting for the pot to brew, I sat at the table to read the paper. I skimmed an article about the old TC Truck Stop in Ashton, which had been demolished last summer to make way for new ski condominiums. Looked like they were scrapping that project in favor of a new detention center, advocates citing the need to combat the growing drug epidemic up here. Great. Just what addicts need. More lock-up. Less rehabilitation options. A ballot measure had been proposed in an upcoming special election to circumvent legal hurdles and pave the way. I decided to set the paper aside until I was in a better mood. Anything related to drugs tended to incite my rage, and I needed to remain calm if I hoped to repair my marriage.

  After a couple cups of coffee, my hangover started to clear. I ran over the apology in my head, practicing points
of contrition. Sounded good to me. Heartfelt and sincere with enough self-deprecation to maybe make Jenny laugh. My wife was one of the few people who appreciated my sense of humor.

  That’s when I saw the Dear John letter in the empty fruit bowl on the table.

  * * *

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  “You read the note?” Jenny said.

  “Yeah. I read it. But what the fuck?” I whispered this last part, like Aiden was playing with blocks in the next room. Which of course he wasn’t. My wife had taken him, across state lines, almost three hours away, to her mother’s place in Burlington. “What is this? You’re leaving me?”

  “I needed a break. Aiden needed a break. I think you need a break.”

  “Thanks for telling me what I need.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Play the victim.”

  “When are you coming back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  My heart sank. Everything I wanted, right there in front of me, and somehow I’d managed to screw it all up. The panic returned, washing over me in waves. Jenny could sense my anxiety.

  “Calm down,” she said. “This isn’t me asking for a divorce. My mom’s been bugging me to come up with Aiden, and with everything going on with you, now seemed like a good time to take her up on the offer.”

  “You’re not leaving?”

  “We’re married. I don’t give up that easy.”

  I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or pissed. I wanted to feel some indignation for having been wronged, except I had no right. Jenny didn’t need my permission to visit her mom. That’s all the letter said, “I’m taking Aiden to my mother’s.” I assumed the worst, because, on some level, I knew I deserved it.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  My wife waited for the rest.

  “I know I haven’t been—”

  “What?”

  “Myself lately, I guess. I mean, since my brother died.”

  I didn’t mention any wrong turns or construction sites. Didn’t talk about a wrestling superstar popping too many pills or the painful memories it evoked. These were the excuses I’d used to get myself worked up, feel a sense of self-righteousness. Charlie’s bluntness at the Dubliner had put everything in perspective. I was pushing my family away, and all the evidence I needed of that was on the other end of the line.