A change of gravity

by George V. Higgins

  "I think it's because we don't have any moving parts, like machinery does. Planes and cars and boats and guns. No pieces that you can take apart and look at carefully, clean and oil, and then put back together, or maybe modify. See if they wont run a little better now, faster, smoother, quieter. Guys like things you can adjust. "Now, we fit 'er back together, snick-snick, click-click, snap, like that, right. Okay now, starter up. See how much better she runs now? Told you that'd do it."

  "And she slapped her hands together, like she was dusting them off.

  "You can't do that with us. Women aren't adjustable. Well, okay, you understand that; you're resigned to it. There's nothing you can do to improve performance. It's okay; this's something you can live with.

  The standard way we work is pretty good. It just doesn't take a lot of attention, so you don't see any need to give us any more than absolutely necessary. Like: "dinner and drinks oughta do it." Low maintenance. Once you've used us there's nothing that needs doing for a while. "Might's well have a beer and catch a little of the ballgame." That's why you irritate us so much. You start out interested, sure, very interested, but then when it's all over, boom, on to something else."

  "Maybe she was right," Merrion said. "Cars: she's got me here, I guess. Golf: keep my clubs clean, of course. Not much else I can do to make them work better; the punk results I get're my fault. I dunno dogshit about guns. Never paid any attention to them. I don't hunt. I don't shoot at targets. I was never inna service and I'm not a cop.

  I've never any reason to become interested in guns. But now I'm fascinated by what Fisher's telling me about this fuckin' pistol and how people use their guns.

  '"Saturday-night special: for non-professionals. We're not talkin' robbers here, drug enforcers, nut bags here; guys who shoot up grade schools, fast-food joints, disgruntled postal workers. They want something heavier, more capacity. This item's made for your impulsive casual shooter, doesn't expect to use it very often; perfect for important family occasions. Although it is kind of unusual to hold the celebration at the courthouse, in the morning.

  '"Non-profit shootings're generally night-work. Daytimes most people work, haven't got time to shoot people. Nights and weekends're when the amateurs take care of that stuff that's when they've got the time.

  Passion-shootings, spousal matter like this, most people prefer the privacy of the home, they can relax and be themselves. Those who want an audience, though, maybe the third party to a three' Cornered romance, like bars and the parking lots outside them much more popular'n government buildings.

  '"But hey, there're no flies on this little lady I'm not sayin' that.

  Wherever you happen to be when your fuse finally burns all the way down, this cheap handgun is a perfectly proper utensil. Most women use knives; shooters're generally men. But that's okay; nothing in the rules says women can't shoot people too.

  "And contrary to what you may've heard, shooting isn't difficult, doesn't require great physical strength. Women can easily do it.

  You're a woman with a point to make, all you got to do is point one of these things at the person you're mad at, in this case your husband but could be your boyfriend, or your husband's girlfriend or boyfriend any number of possible combinations. And you make the choice, you cute little dickens, because you are the one with the sidearm. Simple to use. Load it and point it and pull the trigger; that's all there is to it. If it's your lucky day, or night, and it isn't his, or hers, the gun goes off like it's supposed to and then there's this loud noise, like in the movies, and the bullet comes out the front of the barrel.

  '"This is good news when that happens, good news for you anyway. Bad news for the guy in front of you, unless you didn't aim right. But good news for you because it means the weapon didn't jam. When you get a jam it gives the guy you aimed at time to express his feelings, how he felt when he saw you point a firearm at him and then pull the trigger. A lot of people take this sort of thing very personally, and quite often if the gun misfires they will take the opportunity to share their feelings with the person with the gun. If they don't have their own gun with them, they do this by taking his away from him and then beating the shit out of him. As the lady now leaving with the officers can tell you, this also applies when the shooter is a woman.

  '"So if the gun went off and you're the guy holding it, that is good news. And if the bullet hits the guy you're angry at, well, that's even better news. It means the gun didn't blow up in your hand, which these cheapies sometimes do. That could spoil your plans for the rest of the evening. But it's bad news for the person you're mad at because he has a hole in him, probably not exactly what he had in mind when he set out for his night on the town. But what the hell, life's full of disappointments.

  '"You now get the hell out of wherever it is that you both were when you shot him and dump the gun down the first stor-drain you come across. Then you start praying either that you killed the bastard, clean, so he doesn't get himself patched up through some goddamn miracle of modern medicine, and then get his own gun and start looking for you; or else that you didn't kill him, even though you did your best to, because now you are filled with remorse. Because that way you may've lost yourself a friend but you wont be facing a murder charge."

  "Anyway," Merrion said, "I said to him that even though everybody who was in that room heard that sound the shot made, I doubt very much that any one of us could've said for sure afterwards that it was a shot wed heard, unless someone told us or we saw the gun. I think we've all seen and heard so many shots on television, movies, we've reached the point now when we see someone with a gun, we expect it to go off and someone to get shot. Not really get hurt, of course; it's only TV, and we know that. And if the gun doesn't go off, we're kind of disappointed.

  "But as a result, the opposite is also true. When we haven't seen a gun, then when we hear something that sounds like a gunshot we don't think it is. We think it's just "a loud noise" we can't identify. Or maybe "it's a backfire." We explain it away. But cars don't backfire anymore, but we still say they do. That way what we heard wasn't a shot, we've said it was something else. For us to know for a fact there was a shot, someone has to show us a gun.

  "And Dave said to me that he thought that's very likely, may explain a lot of things that he's run into that sort of puzzle you at first, taking witness statements. "They're not telling you what they actually heard. They're telling you what they think they must've heard."

  "So the two of us're having this fine philosophical discussion there about the gun that the two uniform Statics took away from our Sheila, and that's when I remember old Lennie's hunkered down out in back.

  "Excuse me," I say to Dave, my new friend, j.

  "I better go see how the judge is doin' here. Handlin' all this excitement."

  "So," Merrion said, "I went in there and I told him all the things that'd been happening out front while he's been in his hiding place and everybody else who was there except Sheila Ryan and her husband was touching themselves all over to make sure they didn't have any holes in them spurting blood or anything. He looked me right in the eye and said to me that he thought "it would be best if we didn't try to go back out there today and try to pick up where we left off before all of this happened and disrupted everything.

  '"Just go back out there and make a general announcement," this's what he said to me, patient and serene as he could be, as though I'm the one who panicked out there, ran for his fucking life, and he's the one who's calming me down now, in the sanctuary. "Just tell them that everything that was on the calendar for today, for Monday's continued until tomorrow. Tomorrow at ten A.M. Tuesday." In case I might've gotten the idea that because of all the uproar Tuesday might've been moved, not come after Monday this week. Maybe after Friday instead.

  "I felt like saying: "Judge, you jumped clear into Tuesday a while ago, you're already there. We'd better tell people to 'come back on Wednesday." Give them time to catch up to you. You to fall back to the rest of us."

 
; "But I didn't. I said: "Judge, does that mean you want me to call up Sammy Paradise and cancel that meeting, too, what I was telling you about out there before the gun went off?" Because now I don't know what the hell the man wants. I don't think he's too sure of it either.

  "He looks at me like I have lost my mind. "Of course not, Amby, for God's sake. What gave you that idea? But what you can do, after you've gone out and told everybody court'll be suspended for the rest of the day here, you can use the time we'll have before this Federal Probation, Paradisio guy arrives to fill me in on him. So I'll have some idea of what I should expect from him." '"That I can do," I said," Merrion said. "What the hell kind ah grapes're these? They made of iron or something? Fuckin' things look like they're rusty."

  "They're Furmint grapes," Hilliard said. "They originally came from Tokay, in Hungary. Years ago, I'm on the Hill, we had some hearings on a health bill to declare alcoholism a disease, make insurers pay to treat it. We had the usual parade of experts come in, and one of them got all wound up on what the stew-bums like to drink. They just love white Tokay wine, it's so sweet and strong. And cheap. I'd never had the wine and I made up my mind to avoid it. Don't want people thinkin'

  I'm a wino, too, along with my other hobby. I find the grapes cloying, don't eat them."

  "Jesus H. Christ," Merrion said, 'is there anything you don't know?"

  "Well, twenty years ago," Hilliard said, "I would've said: "No, not a hell of a lot." But more recent events've made me question my confidence on that point. I'd have to say now: "Quite a lot. Much more than I ever thought. And I didn't like learning it at all."

  TWENTY-TWO

  "It's a very common tendency," Sammy Paradise said earnestly over the submarine sandwiches from the Canterbury Village Sub Shop. "Many of them do it." Merrion had asked the court officer to get two Cokes, two Pepsis and two ginger ales as well. Paradisio when he saw the beverage selection said he 'should've asked for a can of canned iced tea, but it's probably too late for that now."

  Merrion had predicted it. "Sammy's very serious about what he eats," he told Cavanaugh. "Whatever we get will have something slightly wrong with it. He will mention it. He wont want anything to be actually done about it; he just likes to keep the record straight. Sammy's very serious about everything, keeps close tabs on everything at all times.

  He lives as though he's been warned that his life's being taken down and may be used in evidence against him at a trial in a court of law.

  Basically a very nice guy, but for him everything in life is business.

  So life becomes business for everyone else who gets involved with him, like it or not.

  "He looks ten years older'n he is. At least. He's got a few years left now before he retires, three or four, I think. But he looks like he's seventy right now. I doubt he ever looked like a kid, even when he was one."

  Cavanaugh did not react. "I do have to give Lennie that," Merrion often said. "He isn't one of those silly bastards who're sensitive about their age. Maybe he got so much shit for bein' young when he was appointed 'fore he's thirty, must be his Confirmation picture inna paper, he thinks he must still look young. He doesn't, but that may not be what he thinks. He looks as young as most people do when they aren't, anymore."

  Paradisio was five-eight or five-nine; a soft, unassertive, hundred-fifty pounds or so. "His idea of a good strenuous workout's making sure it's all right with the wife if he takes the car Wednesday night. Sammy will not use "my OGV," Official Government Vehicle, on personal business. She wont mind; she's known for months he's going to want the car that night, ever since he got the tickets in December. He put the dates on this year's calendar before he hung it up in the kitchen.

  "He picks up their son, Jeff, and takes the turnpike to Boston. The daughters aren't interested in baseball. He thinks it's probably because they think they weren't supposed to. "They never really tried to play baseball, gave it half a chance. Naturally now they don't like it."

  "Sammy doesn't have that much to say about the girls. I get the impression he thinks how they're doing now is their husbands' business.

  If they're doing okay, their husbands get the credit. If they're not doing okay then their husbands're to blame. Jeff is different.

  Apparently sons, married or not, remain their fathers' responsibility.

  Sam's very pleased with the way that Jeff turned out. I think this means he thinks he gets the credit. "Jeffs all right," Sam says,

  "Jeffs doing very good. He's a hard-working kid and a good family man and I'm very proud of him. He started in fish and he did his job and worked hard and proved he was reliable, and so now he's in meat. That's a solid job to have and it's a good strong company he's got it with, too, the Big Y. In that business you're not gonna wake up some fine morning and find out you lost your job; people stopped buying what you sell. All a sudden what you were trained to do and've been doing all your life, for years and years, is now obsolete. You're outta work; there's nothing you can do. Terrifying, but it wont happen to Jeff; it can't. People'll always have to eat so they're always gonna need food.

  What he's in is secure.

  '"But Jeffs also got a growing family, four kids, and you know what that means: Gotta be thinking now about tuitions down the line, all that kind of thing. And I'm through that; I don't anymore. And I'm one of the few guys I know who when the time came, didn't get hit as hard as I expected we was gonna. I actually made out a little.

  '"See, Jeff got outta Cathedral, he went the Navy. Now you did have tuition, Cathedral. It's a parochial school. But his mother wanted it, thought it was better, and so what the hell, I went along. This's something that she wants for the kid, might as well let him do it." But it wasn't very much, couple grand or so a year back then. Nothing compared to college, which'd been what I was getting ready for. But then he ended up not going. When he came out the service he said he was too old, go back to school, and besides, him and Carol wanted to get married. Start a family.

  '"His mother was kind of disappointed, thought he should get his degree, but I supported him in that decision. Couldn't've done much else, said anything much against it not and been consistent, dropping out of AIC like I did. But also I agreed with him. I didn't think he needed it. I thought he could get along without it and if he didn't want to do it then he probably shouldn't he wouldn't get nothin' out of it. And on the basis of the way that things seem to've worked out, I think you'd have to say that both of us were right.

  '"And then his two sisters. Well, Deb just did the two years to get her nurse's thing there; the associate degree. The bachelor's which was two more years, she didn't do 'til later and she paid for that herself. So it was just Marie Louise that actually went and stayed the whole entire four years. Not that that was not expensive, having her down New Rochelle there — Jesus, checks I used to write. But still, it wasn't that bad. Her being the only one of the three of them that really went, the whole four years. The way it worked out, me and Lois hadda pay for just the six years of college, not the twelve like wed been planning.

  '"So okay, now I buy the tickets, Jeff and I go to the ballgame, and that's sort of my present to him. His coming to the games with me, that's his present to me."

  "It's like it's some kind of a sacrament," Merrion said to Cavanaugh, 'going to the fucking ballgames. He exaggerates the meaning out of all proportion. Once he said to me that I must know what he was talking about, how much he gets out of it, because I probably did the same thing with my father, and I said Not really we only went once. Why, I couldn't tell you; it just wasn't a big deal for us. Sammy didn't know what to say. I hadda try to help him out.

  '"Look," I said, "Pat was just never that much of a sports fan, is all.

  He could talk sports with the customers and sound like he liked sports; he didn't mind them. He'd watch a game, TV. But going to the games, all that kind of thing? Didn't interest him. He was a nice guy and a good father and he took us fishing, me and Chris, the Connecticut shore, Long Island Sound. But only
once or twice. I don't know what made him do it. He must've gotten the idea from someone at work, so when he got a day off, he took us and we rented the equipment and we fished. Caught something too, I remember. I forget exactly what. It was okay, but no regular thing. It was a pretty long drive.

  '"We never had things that we did on a regular basis with him. But it was all right, you know? It really was. He worked hard, six days a week, and when he got a day off he worked around the house, cut the lawn, I dunno painted the hallway. He's been dead forty years. I don't recall now exactly what he did with his spare time. But I know he didn't collar me and Chris and tell us that we couldn't play baseball with our friends over Curtis School field, or go swimming up the pond, because he had a day off and we hadda spend it with him. Pat just wasn't like that, and I guess neither was I. So it was really okay."

  "Sammy looked very confused. Flustered. Like he'd said something that he shouldn't've. He said: "And of course, you couldn't after that. You never had a son." And then he got even more upset and looked at me and said: "Amby, you know, I didn't mean to say that. I'm sorry. It came out."

  "And I said to him: "Didn't mean to say what, Sam? That I never had any kids? Well, so far's I know, at least. But I knew that. And yeah, sure, now I sort of envy you, all my friends with grown-up kids.

  Envy you now I didn't used to, when you've got the heartache of bringing them up. Naturally, you do that; you get to be my age and you think it must be nice to have the kids. After it's too late for it: that's when it crosses your mind, like lots of things, everything else you missed out on. "I should've gone to Rio. Would've been nice, to see Rio. Should've done that, I was younger." '"It's just cheap regret, tinsel. Fact is, I didn't. And it wasn't that the right girl never came along, so I never hadda chance. Even back when I was going around with this woman I thought I was probably gonna marry, kids were not on my mind. I don't think they were on hers, either. I don't think she ever mentioned the subject. I think I could've been a father; far's I know I wasn't shooting blanks. One time, kind ah scary, I was still in school, it looked as though I might gonna be one, but it turned out she was just late. After that I always took the precautions.