“Get the registration legal,” he said, “and move along, please.” He walked back to his car, switched off the lights, and drove away.
I stood there, aggravated that he’d hassled me, relieved he’d not said a word about my recent adventures, or even written me a ticket. I was grateful that after two straight days of driving drunk, the only time I’d run into a cop I was stone-cold sober. Once again I was reminded that I attracted much less attention than I liked to believe. I did what he asked; I moved along.
A couple of blocks later, where Bay Terrace turned into Bay Street, I pulled over at a gas station that had a pay phone. I needed to call Julia and let her know I wasn’t going to be back until late, very late, in fact. Even though I knew it was the better idea, there was no way I was going back across the island to sit in that empty house with my failures.
After leaving Julia a message, I tooled down Bay Street, looking for somewhere to fuse my ass to a bar stool. I’d done my time for the day, faced up to enough. There would be more to deal with in the morning, and I would face it then. I’d spent all day keeping my composure. All I wanted with the night was to blow off some steam and disappear.
On Bay Street, I had my choice of watering holes. Among them was the Cargo Café, where I worked, but that didn’t seem like too good a place to be a stranger. I felt like drinking, not talking. I’d talked enough to last me the rest of my life. I kept driving past the Cargo and hooked a left onto Cross Street where I parked across the street from the Choir Loft.
It was a popular bar; I’d spent a lot of time there in my late teens and early twenties. It had a good happy hour that attracted a boisterous after-work crowd. It was early enough that I could get a seat at the bar, but enough people would eventually materialize for me to fade into the background. I praised my choice as I crossed the street. Only it wasn’t the Choir Loft anymore, as the sign above the door told me. Now it was the Crossroads Tavern.
The place was nearly empty. The dartboards by the front door were gone, replaced by pen-and-ink sketches of sailing ships. There were now flat-screen televisions in every corner of the ceiling. The old Mets jerseys, Koosman and Seaver from ’69, Wilson and Knight from ’86, no longer hung behind the bar. Now it was blasphemous pinstripes: Jeter and Williams and O’Neill. They hung among fake sailing artifacts: drift nets and telescopes and captains’ wheels. I was willing to wager number 4407 on the jukebox wasn’t “The Fly” anymore. My old watering hole looked like some bizarre sailors’ sports bar. Well, I thought, settling on a bar stool, any port in a storm.
I drank my beers, scratching at the labels with my thumb, trying to look like a guy waiting on his friends and not like a guy who didn’t have any. I stepped outside and chain-smoked three cigarettes. I backed up my fourth Brooklyn Lager with a shot of Jack Daniel’s. I thought of the night Jimmy and I shot JD from his shoe at a New Year’s Eve party. I thought about calling him, but decided against it. He’d have to come all the way across the island on a school night. It seemed a lot to ask. I’d see him at the wake.
I ordered a second shot, dropped a big tip when it arrived, and tried to make small talk with the bartender. I asked about the old bartenders I’d known, when the place was still the Choir Loft. None of their names rang any bells for him. I asked him who was playing at the Dock of the Bay, a blues and R&B club a few blocks away. Jimmy and I, Virginia and I, we’d spent hundreds of hours in that place. Darker and louder than the Crossroads, the Dock seemed a better place to be shit-faced, which I would certainly be by showtime. I knew the exact corner table in the back where I would sit. Live music suddenly sounded like a great idea; the noise would be that much more for me to hide behind. But the bartender just looked at me funny.
“Nobody plays there anymore,” he said. “Place changed hands. It’s some late-night hip-hop club now.” I felt like somebody had told me an old friend had died. The bartender just walked off down the bar.
BY NINE O’CLOCK the bartender had moved the Jack Daniel’s bottle to my end of the bar. I drained another Brooklyn and tried to figure out how I could make a bathroom run without losing my seat. I was dying for a smoke. The place had filled up around me, suddenly it seemed, and I’d chased a couple of vultures away already. I hunched over my drinks, crowded on all sides by backs and shoulders. Name change or not, this was my bar. We had a history. I’d logged more hours there than these kids surrounding me had put into college. They figure you can’t last forever. But I can. I can hold a bar stool till it rots out from underneath me. But, then again, as territorial as I was feeling, I didn’t feel like pissing on the floor. Leaving my cigarettes was an option but I couldn’t trust any of these motherfuckers not to rip them off while I was gone. Same with my money. Then I remembered another rule of drinking alone—it makes people afraid of you.
I made a big production of standing and stretching. Anyone with an eye on my seat had seen the shot glasses and beer bottles come and go. I tucked a cigarette behind my ear and left the pack and two twenties on the bar. I peeled off my leather and hung it on the back of the stool. Fuck all you motherfuckers. A fight wasn’t on the agenda, but there was always room in my game plan for improvisation.
When I got back from the bathroom, the jacket, the money, and the cigarettes were where I had left them. And Carlo Purvis was sitting in my seat.
I pushed my way up to him. “Purvis, ya mind?”
He swayed as he stood. I wasn’t the only one who’d started hitting it hard early.
“Just keepin’ it warm for ya,” he said. “I knew it was you. I recognized the jacket.” He tipped his beer bottle at my empty bottle and glass. “Getting a start on the old-fashioned Irish wake?” I noticed he was alone.
I raised an eyebrow at him. He conformed well to the standard for a slick Staten Island guinea—hair gel, fog of Drakkar cologne, open collar, gold chain with Christ’s head adangle. Not quite seventies mafioso, but attire as subtle as, say, a kilt, or yarmulkes and a black hat. I always figured he overdid it to compensate for his mom marrying a Polack, the only one of six daughters not to marry another Italian. Hard-core as he was about proclaiming his Italian heritage, Purvis had been fascinated by my “Irishness” since we were kids.
“I wouldn’t drink to the old man,” I said, sitting, “if you were buying. Thanks for holding my seat.” I turned to him. “See you around.”
“C’mon,” he said. “Lighten up.” He slapped his palm on the bar and waved his empty beer bottle at the bartender.
“I’ve had a long couple days,” I said. “I’d rather be alone.”
“We’ve known each other for years, least I can do is buy you a drink. One drink. Let’s do a shot. I’m buying.” He breathed cheap light beer in my face. “We used to hang out all the time, right? And I’m sorry about the other day at your folks’ house. C’mon. We’re both men now. It’s about time we had a drink together.”
He stared at me, his face way too close to mine, waiting for an answer, for permission. His drunken brain had locked on to buying me a drink. I knew there was nothing in the world more important to him at the moment. There’d be no shutting him up about it, no getting rid of him until it happened.
I figured I could tolerate one drink, one shot, with him. Maybe it could be a start toward making my peace with things, like Jimmy had said. Spending five cordial minutes with Purvis would show some kind of progress. When the bartender came over, he ignored Purvis, looking at me.
“Two Jamesons,” I said. Purvis grinned at me stupidly. Let’s see what he’s really made of, I thought. “Make ’em doubles. And a Brooklyn for me. Coors Light for him, I guess.”
“On me,” Purvis blurted, leaning way over the bar.
Purvis made a weak move for his wallet when the drinks arrived, but the bartender waved him off. Despite the freebie, Purvis didn’t tip. I slid a ten across the bar.
“So much for you buying,” I said. “That’s twenty-five dollars’ worth of drinks. When’d you get that kind of weight around here?”
/>
Purvis pulled from his bottle of Coors Light, glancing nervously at his shot. “September twelfth. I can’t pay for a drink anywhere anyone knows I’m a cop since the Trade Center.”
And I’m sure, I thought, they know you’re a cop everywhere you go. And then I winced, glad I hadn’t said that aloud. I was trying to make progress here. Besides, it was a hell of a thing to accuse even Purvis of, capitalizing on something like the Trade Center. At the Cargo, we never charged the guys from the firehouse around the corner. Sure, I told myself, Purvis was a prick, and we had our differences, but this was 9-11 we were talking about.
“Know anyone?” I asked.
“A few. You?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not in touch, but I checked the lists.”
We drank our beers in silence.
“You down there?” I finally asked.
“When the second tower came down,” he said, looking at his feet. “Never seen nothing like it. Nowhere. Ever. The fucking sound of it, you wouldn’t believe.”
Suddenly, I got the feeling he was lying to me. His eyes worked the edges of my face, flitting to my forehead, my chin, over my shoulder, looking everywhere but right at me. I didn’t believe he’d been there. The little prick was lying. My mouth fell open. He hadn’t set one leather-clad toe on Ground Zero that day and was desperate for everyone not to know it, still. Wrapping himself in stolen, bastardized bravery. Using the deaths of his brothers and fellow citizens as a pass for free drinks. I didn’t know what stunned me more, that he was lying or that I had actually believed him for even a few seconds.
I was angry, but more than that, I thought he was pathetic. Like it was a crime not to have been there, to have been doing some other normal thing on what started as so normal a morning. I would’ve slept through the whole disaster if Julia hadn’t called after the second plane hit. Maybe it was a cop thing for him. He couldn’t say he was lucky enough to be home in bed while so many others, like Molly’s brother, took the ultimate loss for their city. It was Purvis but I wanted to give him credit for something. I wanted his lie to have noble roots. I wanted him to be capable, somewhere inside himself, of shame. If he had that capability, I wouldn’t have to feel sick and hateful. I had come down here to relax, not to wallow in yet another filthy little secret. I couldn’t stand it. I needed a way to break the moment, to change the subject. I pulled my smoke out from behind my ear.
“I need a cigarette,” I said.
Purvis looked at the shots, still sitting on the bar.
“You’re right,” I said. “We better knock those off first.”
I picked up mine and handed him his. He was terrified, but he lifted his glass.
“To Julia,” he said. “And Molly.”
I let it go and touched my glass to his. “To Eddie Francis. Sláinte.” I threw back my shot.
Purvis looked at his glass, up at me, then back at his drink. I waved the cigarette before his eyes. Suddenly, I was enjoying myself. Purvis swallowed most of the whiskey. His face contorted, and one leg jerked up at the knee. He drank the rest and gagged, turning red and then a light shade of green. I patted him on the shoulder and, grabbing my jacket, headed for the door. I thought he’d make a break for the men’s room, but he followed me outside.
As I lit up, Purvis bent over with his hands on his knees, taking slow, deep breaths. I waited for him to recover. Wounded as he was, he kept the whiskey down. He straightened, exhaled long and loud, rubbed his palms on his shirt, and asked me for a cigarette.
“You don’t smoke,” I said. “You never did.”
“I do sometimes, lately,” he said. “It’s the job.”
I pulled one from the pack and held it out to him. “You better smoke the whole fucking thing. I hate wasting cigarettes on social smokers.”
“Relax,” he said, his badge and booze-induced bravado returning. “I finished the whiskey, didn’t I?”
“It almost finished you,” I said, but I lit his smoke.
He laughed, resting his elbow in the opposite palm, holding the cigarette inches from his lips. “True.” He sighed. “Man, you drink that shit all the time?” I nodded. He shook his head. “You learned something from your pop.” He took a tiny puff. “Don’t tell me Julia drinks like you and your father.”
“Not at all.”
“Roger that,” he said.
His eyes narrowed in thought. Don’t, I thought. Don’t stay on the subject of my sister. But a grin tickled the corners of his mouth. The booze had settled in him heavy. He was hitting the next stage, where he wouldn’t stumble or slur but his mouth would get way too bold. I’d seen it happen at work thousands of times. It never ended well.
“How is that hottie sister of yours?” he asked. He glanced at me, still grinning, like he was scoring points with me by declaring her hot. “She seeing anyone? She ever moves back from Boston, I’m way available. Cops are at a premium these days.”
I studied my cigarette. What did it take to get through to this guy? Maybe he thought, mistakenly, that we’d cleared the air somehow on my parents’ lawn, or that we’d bonded during our brief 9-11 conversation. I decided there were two ways to handle him. One was to smack the grin off his face. I’d threatened him so many times, not hitting him would be like breaking a promise. But he was a cop. I decided to at least start down the high road, and let him decide how far along it I’d get. I thought of a way I could bring some truth into Detective Purvis’s life and have some fun doing it, without punching him in the mouth.
“What is it you do again, Purvis?” I asked.
He frowned at me. “I’m a detective. You know that. I’m on your dad’s case, for chrissakes.” He dropped his jaw and wiggled his head. “Duh.”
“So let me see if I have this right,” I said. “Not to get too Scooby-Doo, but your job is to assemble clues and solve mysteries. You gotta be logical, perceptive, observant.”
“Well put,” he said, nodding, puffing again on the very end of his cigarette.
How did he learn to smoke? Watching the starving model channel?
“We have to be all those things,” he said. “Much more than your average guy in the street. But it’s not just a job, not just my job; it’s my life. You live for it. Always thinking, searching, always looking for the way things fit together.” He actually sighed. “Keeps me up at night sometimes.”
I wanted to laugh. I was getting his pussy-hunting speech, the same routine he ran on every fake-tittied, empty-headed girl he came across.
“Well, Sherlock,” I said, “I don’t know how you missed it, doing what it is you do, but my sister’s gay.”
Purvis gagged on his cigarette, covering his mouth with the back of his hand as he coughed. He looked around the street and over his shoulder, as if to make sure that not only no one saw him but that no one had heard me. He leaned close to me, as if we were suddenly exchanging secrets.
“What is it about art school that turns everyone queer?” he said with a weak laugh. He dropped his smoke in the street and slapped me on the back like I was the one who’d been choking. “Don’t worry, John. It’s a phase, I’m sure. She’s finding herself.”
“I’m not worried,” I said with a genuine smile, “and it’s not new and it’s not a phase.”
He bumped me with his shoulder. Hard. “Hah, you almost had me there, you crazy mick. You sure can sling the blarney. Look, you don’t want me to date her, fine. You got your reasons. But you don’t hafta go spreading lies about her.” He cocked his head at me, eyebrows high, looking at me like he’d caught me stealing hubcaps. “This gets back to her, she’s gonna be pissed. Not that I’d ever tell her, but, you know . . .”
“If I remember correctly,” I said, my voice rising, “you were the one who got in trouble, got his ass kicked, in fact, by me, for spreading lies about my sister.” I poked my finger in his chest. “She came out to me when she was in high school. She’s a bona fide lesbian, through and through.”
Fresh Kills Page 25