“Hey, Handsome,” Suzanne says. She walks over to the open passenger side window. “Did you come to take me away from all this?”
“Now, now. What would Mr. Darwin say?”
“How would you like to be married to a guy called Ape?” Susan says.
“I wouldn’t. When is Catherine due?”
“Two minutes ago. If she’s not here, we’re both late.”
She slaps her hand a couple of times on the metallic strip on the window slot so her wedding ring makes a clinking noise, turns and disappears through the screen door to the kitchen.
Grayson backs the car into a space from which he could see Adams St. He only waits a couple of minutes before he sees her faded green 1966 LeMans streak into the parking lot and around the other side of the restaurant. He drives over as Catherine is gathering her things from the car. Her face falls when she sees him.
“What? What?” she says. “Please, not now. I’m already late.”
She fools him by going toward the lobby entrance, in the opposite direction. Grayson rolls down the window, puts the transmission in reverse and backs up alongside of her as she walks. Her body is framed by the passenger side window, only visible to him from her hips to her breasts. He throws his arm over the seat and looks behind the car, turning his head every so often in her direction. He could only see her midsection. His heart aches.
“I’ll quit drinking,” he says. “Immediately.”
“For me?” she says.
“Yes. And the baby.”
“Wrong answer. You would just quit until we’re married. Then you’d nip and nip and nip until you’re back at it full blast,” she says.
“Nope. I’ll quit for good.”
“How much have you had today?” she says.
“Oh, come on. Why would I start quitting until you agree to terms?”
“Very funny. How many chances are you going to need? Fifty? Five hundred? A thousand?” she says.
“What if I go to AA?”
“Big whoop. My father had a shoebox full of thirty-day medals from them. He was always quitting. For us.”
“What if I pledge that my kid will never see her father drink,” he asks.
He stops the car as they reach the lobby doors.
She bends down and looks in at him. “I’m way ahead of you.”
She turns and walks inside.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Donny holds the glass lobby door open as Grayson leans on the black button beside Hugh’s name on the brass wall plate anyway, knowing the buzzer annoys Hugh.
“What are you doing?” Donny says. “You know he hates the buzzer.”
Grayson shrugs.
“Real mature,” Donny says.
They trudge up the stairs, down the carpeted hall and Donny pushes Hugh’s door open, and they walk in.
“He’s taking a shower,” Donny says.
Where’s Charlie?” Grayson says, looking around.
“He had to go to a wake. He’s getting a ride over.”
Hugh comes out his bedroom dressed in a starched white shirt and a dark blue pair of chinos, perfectly ironed. He slips his feet into a pair of black, shiny shoes.
Hugh says, “We’re going to review things as soon as Charlie gets here.”
Hugh holds up a jar of instant coffee, but they shake him off, and he makes a cup for himself while the other two wait on the couch. Coffee made, he sits at his table, leans back in the kitchen chair, spreads his fingers and runs his hands back through his wet hair several times, fast, like he is trying to comb the spiders out.
‘Where is Charlie?” Grayson asks.
“He’s coming,” Hugh says. “We need a final review of the plan, and to make sure everybody is in tip-top shape.”
“Why did you bring this biker, this wild card in? We don’t know him,” Grayson says.
Hugh shrugs. “One, it has to be now because of the St. Patrick Day bash, two, you kept saying no. Three, Donny says he’d probably be going to New York for the weekend. I couldn’t go in with just Charlie. So, I asked Amy for help.”
“Yeah, but I said I was only going to see those new World Trade Center buildings. I can do that anytime.” He looks at Grayson. “I was taking Michelle down for the weekend, show her a good time.”
“Which Michelle?” Grayson asks.
“Big Teeth Michelle.”
Hugh looks at Grayson. “You’d said no. I told Amy I might need to find some outside muscle since my guys were doing the fade on me. She talked to her ex-student, the bike club president from Walpole, and he sent his best guy over. He has experience in this type of work and he said yes. So, he’s in.”
“Now, where’s Amy?” Donny asks.
“You’ll meet her. Soon.”
“She’s a revolutionary,” Grayson says.
“A revolutionary what?” Donny asks.
“Toaster oven. Idiot. You know, a Commie.”
“Get out of here,” Donny says. He turns to Hugh. “What’s he talking about?”
“Hey, wait a minute,” Hugh says, pointing at Grayson. “I thought you and her were bosom buddies now. I heard you got ripped on absinthe over there.”
“I’ll tell you what I’m talking about,” Grayson says to Donny. “She’s a fucking nut. She has to stay indoors in the fall when the squirrels are out gathering food.”
“No, she’s not. She’s political,” Hugh says. “She’s hardly alone. You may have noticed, there’s a lot going on in this country, and the world. Donny, just wait until you meet her, decide for yourself.”
“She’s dangerous. For us, not her,” Grayson says. “This Bird? Is he crazy, too? He sure looks it.”
“Crazy like a fox,” Hugh says. The buzzer sounds and Hugh hits the button and Charlie shows up, and they do another review.
Grayson needs a drink. He hopes this activity will take his mind off drinking, and maybe even Catherine. He can use a break.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Grayson is behind the wheel, Donny is in the back seat of the GTO, and Charlie is riding shotgun as they head away from Donny’s place where they’d stopped to get some speed to sharpen their wits, and Donny put on a bowling team shirt.
Charlie says, “I wasn’t going to say anything, but you put on a bowling shirt with the name Maurice on it. Who is Maurice and why do you have his shirt?”
“I don’t know the man personally. I bought this at the Goodwill store. It’s a good disguise, don’t you think? People will say, ‘One of those guys was named Maurice.’”
Grayson is silent and inattentive while the other two are talking through clenched teeth and almost audibly humming, like overworked high-tension wires.
“I think we went too heavy on the bennies,” Donny says. “The pills must have held a bigger dose than I was told.”
“You always administer too much, anyway,” Charlie says. “I like to be sharp, but I never overdo it. You, on the other hand--”
“Oh?” Donny says. “You don’t? How come you’re chewing your shirt collar?”
“That’s not the pills, I always do that,” Charlie says.
They fall into an argument over Charlie’s claim to be compulsive shirt collar chewer.
Meanwhile, Grayson who had taken only one pill, drifts away and back.
Would I be doing this shit if I had a kid? What did she mean that their child would never see him drink? Was she moving away from here, like Franny Walton did when she got pregnant? Or was she thinking of putting the baby out for adoption? Abortion? Maybe she thought it was better that she had an abortion? How the fuck could it be better? Maybe she had asked him to come over so she could read his reaction when she told him she was pregnant. He must have failed the test.
He thought of himself as a stand-up guy. He broke promises to himself all the time; but it was also true he almost always came through on a promise to somebody else. What he committed to do for others almost always got done. Or was that just a line of bullshit he’d sold to himself?
Maybe she thought he unconsciously wants her to have an abortion? Maybe she picked up that vibe. Maybe she knows him better than he knows himself. She’d known him since he was five years old. Or maybe she just knew he wasn’t up to the job of being a decent father, and she thought their child would be better off not having a life.
“Mr. Charlie,” Donny says. “Let me ask you this. You’re a guy who likes words, like in the Reader’s Digest and all. Where does the word ‘car’ come from? What, did old Robert T. Ford look at the Model T and just say, “Let’s call this mother a ‘car.’ ”
The gist of the babble on the TV, radio talk shows and in the paper was that what she chose to do with regard to her pregnancy is none of his business; it had nothing to do with him; but how could this be true?
He loves her and she is carrying a child they’d made together.
“Robert T. Ford?” Charlie says. He laughs and then looks over at Grayson to see if he is going to join in. “Hey, man. Wake up.”
“What?” Grayson says.
“Yeah, I meant Henry T. Ford,” Donny says. His face was in the rear-view mirror and he smiles toward Charlie, and taps him with a light punch on the arm.
“Henry T. Ford must have made up the word, I guess. Where else would it come from? It’s not Latin or anything,” Charlie says.
“What word?” Grayson asks.
“The word ‘car,’ for cripes sake,” Donny says.
They are quiet as they roll down the Dorchester side of the Neponset Bridge.
Grayson moves his left hand to the open vent window and flicks out cigarette ash.
“I think car is short for carriage,” he says. “I saw an old sign one time on the floor in a warehouse that says ‘Columbia Motor Carriage Company.’ I figure motor carriage got shortened to motor car and then just car. But it’s only a theory.”
“And it is a dandy,” Charlie says. He waited for a response of some kind from Grayson. “What’s the matter with you? Something got you down in the dumps?”
“He’s still hung-over, no doubt. You need more go-get-um, boy?” Donny shouts.
“No, I’m alright. Maybe a little nervous.”
“Because Mr. Charlie here is right, you don’t sound too chipper,” Donny says.
“Are you lethargic, sir?” Charlie says.
“No, I’m Catholic,” Grayson says.
“There he is,” Donny says. “There’s old Grayson. Nothing to worry about, Charlie.”
“Let’s go kill some time in the Combat Zone. Go to a strip joint,” Charlie says. “We’re way too early anyhow.”
The plan calls for them to hit the party at midnight and the drug merchants just after 1AM. The thinking is most of the sales would have taken place, everyone at the party would be wasted, the pharmacy boys would likely have begun sampling their own wares and the money would be gathered in one easy-to-rob spot, rather than in the pockets of the party-goers from all around the area.
“No strip joints,” Donny says.
“What are you, goody-two-shoes?” Charlie says.
“No. They suck. Going to a strip club is like going to a cook out, seeing the food, smelling it and not being able to eat. It’s aggravating.”
“Wow,” Charlie says. “You’re a chauvinist pig.”
“I suppose,” Donny says.
Grayson suggests that they turn around and stop in at The Pony Room at Neponset Circle to have a couple of belts and allow time to pass in a civilized manner.
They climb the stairs to the second floor, the only bar above ground level that any of them has ever been in. It is dark and subdued, the lights wore red shades, the floor is a red rug and the bar was painted with a black lacquer and lined with red leather stools. Here in the devil’s waiting room, the customers are smart enough to mind their own business.
They sit at a small table near the front window and the waitress comes to take their orders.
After a couple of shooters apiece, all three shift to beer. They look out the window at the cars traveling over the Neponset River Bridge.
“Hey, look at that chick,” Donny says, pulling Charlie’s arm.
Charlie turns to see. “What chick, the waitress?” he says. “Oh, the bartender? Yeah, she’s hot. Waitress is old. What’s she, almost forty?”
“Jane Fonda’s almost forty,” Donny says. “The traitor.”
“She was wicked hot in Klute,” Charlie says.
“Oh, man, she was,” Donny says. “She was wicked hot. And the space movie a few years ago? Wow.”
Donny looks at the bartender again, and his head lifts as the movement on the shiny TV screen anchored up in the corner captures his attention. The local news is on, and for a while they watch Tom Ellis imitate Ted Baxter, then the weather comes on after a commercial.
“We’re in March and the weatherman is saying warm,” Charlie says, “Warm is good, but I like hot better.”
Donny turns back.
“I like hot better, too. Hot, like Tina Turner,” he says. “Hey, is your sister still living over here in Port Norfolk?” He points to the other side of the wide road.
Port Norfolk is an isolated neighborhood of Neponset, which itself was part of Dorchester. Port Norfolk had an end of the world feel to it, since it was sliced off from the rest of Boston by the Southeast Expressway, and almost scraped into the mouth of the Neponset River.
“She’s married, pal,” Charlie says. “Don’t you be thinking about my sister. You have only one thing on your mind at all times. Don’t be thinking about her.”
“I just asked if she’s still living over here?”
“Yes, but she’s moving. Some biker gang moved in, across the street from them,” Charlie says. “Typical biker antics, choppers roaring around at all hours, bearded fat guys passed out on the street, drunk fights, chucking beer bottles at passing cars. They didn’t want their kids around it. They’re staying at my mother’s, while they find another place. Gave their 30-day notice to the landlord.”
“That’s got to be Bird’s gang, The Dark Lords,” Grayson says.
“The cops weren’t helpful?” Donny asks.
“Cops won’t even come. They’re scared shitless of the bikers,” Charlie says.
Back in the car, Grayson wheels the GTO over to the street where Charlie’s sister Cheryl lived, or used to live. They are curious to see if, in fact, it was The Dark Lords who’d run off Cheryl.
They’d gone by the house but couldn’t really stop to look because there are a number of bikers outside, in the yard. They did spot a piece of plywood nailed to a tree which has written on it, The Dark Lords.
“Look how nice the penmanship is on that sign,” Charlie says, shaking his head. “That is weird.”
The Lords themselves were in the midst of a bottle fight, whipping empty beer bottles at each other, relaxing with a bit of horseplay. One would hide behind a raggedy ass white van parked in the bare yard, then step out and fire a bottle tomahawk style. Another would charge his position and chase him around the van like in the cartoons. A smoldering, badly stained mattress was leaning against a porch railing, and in the side yard the guts of a 1956 Chevy Bel Air are strewn about before it, as if the car has vomited.
Grayson picks up speed as he passes the sagging house, and heads for the expressway.
“Pigs,” Charlie says. “I’m glad my sister got away from those creeps.”
“Hey,” Donny says. Grayson feels his car seat tilt back as Donny pulls himself forward and sticks his big head into the front seat area between Grayson and Charlie. “Hey! Turn that radio up. Hendrix!”
Not willing to wait a half second for the front seat occupants to process and act on his demand, he reaches across for the radio knob. Grayson has to lean away to avoid being jammed against the steering wheel by Donny’s elbow.
“For crying out loud,” Grayson says.
The volume at max, Donny began to scream along with ‘All Along the Watchtower,’ his face filling the rear-view mirror.
“S
it back and shut up,” Grayson says. He turned the radio down. “Or I turn it off.”
“Okay, Dad,” Donny says. Charlie laughs, but Grayson doesn’t think it’s funny.
“Turn it up, I can hardly hear it now,” Donny says. Grayson does and Donny fell back and sings along.
As the song comes toward the end, Donny pulls himself forward again, so their faces were in a row. “And the wind begins to howl!”
Soon they hit the bunched-up traffic near Andrews Square. It usually slowed down a mile or so before the tunnel, where the cars coming from the south and the cars coming from the west off of the Mass Pike and merge at the mouth of the tunnel, amidst a flurry of rude gestures and shouted curses.
“Traffic jams at night. What a city,” Charlie says.
“Yeah, she’s old,” Grayson says. He sits up straight and looked to the left, across the top of the one story pre-fab buildings in the new flower market on Albany St, and at the crumbling, dusky brick structures that lined the other side of Albany. “Been around a long time.”
“Too long,” Charlie says. “It’s a frigging mess. No wonder everyone’s leaving.”
“Maybe it’s because everyone’s leaving,” Grayson says.
“That’s what the BRA is for,” Charlie says, referring to the Boston Redevelopment Authority. “Death and rebirth, man. That’s the whole story in a nutshell.”
“Yeah,” Donny says. “Sweep away the old. Tear it down, haul it off, throw up something new. Speaking of which, let’s go by the new Hancock building.”
“The Plywood Palace,” Charlie says.
Grayson says, “No way. Those windows that fall out weigh fifteen hundred pounds each. One falls out you’d get crushed and minced simultaneously. I’m going Storrow Drive.”
“Well,” Donny says. “I didn’t say, ‘Let’s go there and stand on the sidewalk until we get chopped to bits,’ did I?”
Fifteen minutes later Grayson is driving around the Fenway neighborhood looking for a parking space around the corner from the Peterborough Street address they have, something within running distance.
“Not easy parking,” Charlie says.
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