Grayson's Knife

by Russell H Aborn

  “Hello?” His sister’s voice calls out from behind the closed bathroom door.

  “Just me,” Grayson says.

  “Michael,” his mother rasps. She’s in there, too.

  “Yeah, Ma. I’ll wait in the girl’s room.”

  Grayson goes into the girl’s room and sits in the recliner.

  A toilet flushes, water ran in the sink, the bathroom door opens and Emma pushed the wheelchair into the girl’s room, and positions it beside the recliner.

  Grayson stands and kisses his mother and sister.

  “What a good surprise,” Ma says.

  “Okay, while you two visit,” Emma says, “I’m going to make Dad some American chop suey and cook a chicken he can stick in the fridge.”

  “Mind the onions,” Ma says. “He gets gassy.”

  “Was Hugh here?” he asks.

  “Today? No,” his sister says. “Our young executive is on the way up, I hear!” There was not an ironic fiber in Emma’s being.

  “God love him,” Ma says.

  Emma went off to cook up some gas-free food for The Old Man.

  “How’re you feeling?” Grayson asks.

  “Catherine came to see me,” Ma says.

  “Again?”

  “Oh,” Ma says. “Did I already tell you?”

  “Yeah, you mentioned it on Saturday.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “A little bit, yeah.”

  “Anything new?” Ma says.

  “No, not really. Where’re Old Matt and the girls? Didn’t they come over with Emma?”

  “Matt took his mother up to the Square. Liz and Caroline went with him, I think to buy a record, or a magazine.”

  “It seems funny they’re at that age already,” Grayson says.

  “Are you too young to remember Donny’s father? He was Donald, too. Donald Joseph Gates. He was even more handsome than Donny is, but he was a son of a gun. He owned a record store at one time.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m thinking about a lot of dead people lately, and I can’t stop thinking about Paul, too. Mostly Paul, though. And my mother.” She put her chin on her chest and wept silently. From the side she looked like a sleeping swan.

  “I miss Paul,” she says. “I miss my little boy. I miss all my little ones.” She cries without passion; she cries in utter defeat. Grayson has never before seen her surrender so fully, not to anyone or anything.

  “What about the grandkids?” Grayson says. “They’re not gone.”

  “I haven’t even died yet and I miss them already.” She laughs and cries at the same time. “I’m always missing somebody, I guess.”

  “It’s okay, Ma,” he says.

  “I was happy when you kids were little. I could keep you safe. Because you trusted me. You’d listen to me. When I think how happy I was it makes me sad.”

  “I still hear you. I listen.”

  She tugs out a handkerchief that is tucked in her dead left fist and wipes her eyes. Her upper body shudders as she tries to compose herself.

  “No,” she says. “You don’t.” She sighs. “When I’m gone, you will both just disappear. I see it. I see it.”

  “Who?” he says.

  She shakes her head.

  “Who do you mean?”

  She looked at him with eyes walled in by tears. “The girls will be fine, they have their families, and each other. They’ll look after your father, too.”

  “I know. Don’t worry about him,” Grayson says.

  She takes a deep breath, exhales and closes her eyes.

  “You and your brother have to stick together. Be good to each other. Stop this fussing you’re always doing with each other.”

  “Ma. Ma. What are you talking about?”

  “Hugh, Michael. Hugh. You lost one brother, and you boys will drift apart if you don’t fix what’s broken between you. Hugh needs you. Talk to your father’s AA friend, John. Just talk to him. He got your father to accept help.”

  He looks down and nods. “Okay, I will.”

  “When? When will you talk to him?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Don’t say tomorrow,” she says. “That’s a trick to always say tomorrow. Say the day. When will you go to see him?”

  “Tuesday.”

  She nods and neither of them speak, as if silence sealed the deal. She takes out her white handkerchief again and flutters it open, then wipes her eyes. They sit together, Grayson without the words to express what he felt.

  “Good,” she says. “Now. Go eat your supper.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Go downstairs and tell your sister to make you something to eat. Turn on the TV before you go, it has to warm up. Put it on the Gunsmoke channel.”

  Grayson turned on the set, chunked the channel selector over and kissed his mother good-bye.

  “See you soon.”

  Downstairs, Emma is listening to the radio as she cooks dinners for the future.

  “I’m listening for news on the State Trooper,” she says.

  He shakes his head. “What happened to him?”

  “He got shot on duty the other night.”

  “Oh, jeez. Dead?”

  “No, but it doesn’t sound good,” she says. “Not the way they’re talking.”

  Emma’s sister-in-law, Matt’s sister, is married to a state cop.

  “He must have pulled over the wrong guy,” Grayson says.

  A shot cop would explain why the shot drug kid isn’t big in the news. All the media attention is on the cop. Hell, maybe the kid is all right? In all the hullabaloo of a state cop getting shot the kid means nothing. Just thinking that fills him with relief. Hugh might know more.

  “Did Hugh say where he was going?” he asks.

  “No.” She turns up the volume, in case the monosyllable didn’t clue him in.

  The announcer says, “In ten minutes we will be going live to State Police barracks in Framingham for a news conference. Trooper William James Hawthorne was shot in the line of duty earlier today and is in critical condition. More after we hear from our sponsors.”

  Emma turns it back down. “So much crazy stuff happening, it’s awful. Did you have something to eat after work?”

  He nods. “All set. She was crying.”

  “Her emotions are all over the place,” Emma says. “She keeps asking me what’s going on with Catherine.”

  “I saw her,” Grayson says. “Catherine.”

  “Oh? Did she call you?”

  “What’s the story on the dentist? Do you know?” Grayson says.

  “Matt and I bumped into them in the North End. They were coming in The European as we were leaving. He seems like a nice guy. He’s cute.”

  “Cute like a puppy? He has floppy ears? Scratches his neck with his feet? Cute like that?”

  She laughs. “No. Cute like curly hair, well built, compact, like a gymnast.”

  “Is he still in school, or out? He’s already gripping and ripping?”

  “Now, you want to know?” She shook her head. “He’s a dental student at Tufts in town. His name is …. oh, what is it… Philip Carey, I think. His father and brother own the dental clinic in Braintree, down past the Plaza and Five Corners.”

  “Falling into Daddy’s business. Must be nice.”

  “Actually, he says he was going to move to Southern California and open his own practice,” she says.

  “He knows he can’t make it around here.”

  “Well, what did Catherine say? Anything good?” Emma says.

  “She wants me to be someone else altogether, is what she wants. She says she loves me but wishes I would change. I love her, and I don’t want her to ever change.”

  “You’re both going to be disappointed,” Emma says. “My guess is she wants you to not drink.”

  “She says that won’t do it. It’s too late.”

  “You’d give her up rather than try? You definitely have a problem.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Grayson says
. “Now you, too? Is The Old Man feeding you lines? I’m a young guy who gets loaded once in a while. I just turned twenty-two! I’m mostly a social drinker. So, I have an occasional psychotic episode. Big deal.”

  “Mike, it’s not funny. You have no idea what social drinking is. How could you? Watching Dad? Hanging down at that barroom?”

  “I got to go.”

  “You can’t run away, not forever.

  “Listen, I know. I’m a screw up.”

  Emma grabs his chin with her hand and shook it. “Stop that. It’s not true. Don’t say it. You’re still learning how to be a man.”

  “Paul was a man, and he was dead at my age,” he says. “Do you know how many guys I know, guys younger than me, are dead in that war? And I’m moping around, wasting my life like an… fool.”

  “You should thank God they wouldn’t take you. It’s not your fault.”

  “I know, I know, but all those kids are dead and I’m pissing my life away. It’s a damn disgrace.”

  “You’re a late bloomer.”

  He laughs, and shakes his head.

  “Just don’t feel sorry for yourself,” she says. “You know what’s right. Do it.”

  “Sorry for myself? That’s the last thing I am,” he says. “I keep thinking how good I had it, and how I screwed it up so bad.”

  “You can still straighten everything out,” she says.

  “No, not now.”

  “Mike, everything will be fine. Just don’t drink.”

  “I haven’t been drinking, but--”

  Emma says, “Not yet. Not this minute. But where are you going from here?”

  “Who knows? To bed, most likely.”

  Grayson says good-bye and hugs Emma. Outside his nephews are playing catch in the middle of the street.

  “We were playing Pickle with those kids,” Alex says. “But they went in.”

  “Pickle? Oh, you mean Run Down,” Grayson says. “Good. Hey, I have to go, fellas.”

  He starts the car, and Matthew hollers, “C-A-R,” and the boys back up on the sidewalk. Grayson waves and drives away.

  Alone, he is ashamed of himself again, now more than ever. On hearing that a cop had been shot, his first thought was that it was bad news for the cop, but good news for Grayson and the others. It would definitely take the heat off the shooting of a drug dealer. But it’s pretty twisted, and shows him just how far gone he is.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Grayson trudges up the front stairs at Newbury Ave. He’d walked by David’s parked car, but did not see Kerr’s. The night air is getting more humid by the minute and clouds are gathering just above the tree.

  He waves hello to Mrs. Rook who is looking out her first-floor window, and climbs the stairs to the apartment. It’s quiet, the living room and kitchen empty, the doors to the three bedrooms closed.

  There were two notes taped on Grayson’s bedroom door. He peels them off the door, and read them.

  Grayson-Charlie called. -DB

  He crumples that one and reads the second.

  Grayson – Your foolish fuck of a cousin was in here roaming around when I got back home. I threw him out. Did you give him a key? Also, someone ate some unauthorized Chinese leftovers and I believe it may of been him. See me please. – Ron Kerr

  In the kitchen he opens the refrigerator and looks for the ice water. There is a masking tape line of separation that ran top to bottom in the refrigerator with Ronald Kerr’s sundry food items crowded into the left half and David’s cheese, cold cuts and salad stuff strewn around on the other side.

  Ron Kerr apparently gotten his hands on a label maker and has punched RK into red strips of plastic and stuck them on all his food items, including six or seven white cartons of Chinese food pressed up against the back. Grayson wants to throw all of the RK stuff out the window into the swampy woods at the back of the house. Kerr is a cheap bastard who thought nothing about grubbing a beer off Grayson, but when it came to his old dried out fried rice, it was hands off, son. Grayson wouldn’t eat leftover Chinese food under any condition, but Kerr marking it up was an affront. He stands with the refrigerator door open, glaring. The refrigerator belongs to Kerr; his mother bought it for him. His mother did things like that for him because she was a nice lady and she knew he was a half-wit. Grayson thought about dragging the frigging fridge out to the back porch and pushing the son of a bitch right off.

  Instead he slams the door and goes back to the note Kerr had hung on the door. Grayson scratches out the ‘of’ in the note and put in ‘have.’ And then wrote, Curly, go shit in your hat and pull it down over your ears. If you ever leave me a snotty note again, I will set fire to all your stuff including your Celtics memorabilia.

  Your Pal,

  Grayson

  xx oo

  He slips the note under Kerr’s bedroom door.

  He takes a shower to cool down and has just stepped out when there’s knock on the bathroom door.

  “Hey, Grayson,” Dave Barry says, “Donald is on the phone.”

  David Barry and Donald Gately had first met in kindergarten and still referred to each other by their formal first names.

  “Ask him where he is. I’ll call right back. Thanks, Dave.”

  Grayson dried off the best he could, but it is too humid in the bathroom after a shower. He puts on his flannel robe, steps down the hall and into his bedroom. He closes the door, and with the towel, mops himself off. He opens the one window in his bedroom which faced the marshy field that was thickly wooded with skinny trees. When it rained the field took a long time to drain and a festering smell would force him to close the window no matter how warm it was outside. It has not rained for a while, but it would tonight; the sodden air couldn’t hang on much longer in this condition. Maybe he’d survive long enough to see it, because right now he’s suffocating. He felt like he’s wearing long johns that have been pulled from a sink full of hot water.

  He puts on a pair of running shorts and a maroon tee shirt.

  Dave is sitting at the kitchen table reading and spooning soup into his mouth.

  “What is with the weather?” Grayson says. “It’s the middle of March, for crying out loud.”

  “This warm weather can’t get here too soon for me. I spend all winter waiting for it,” Dave says. “Donald is at his apartment.”

  Grayson turns to the wall phone and dials Donny. He picks up after a couple of rings.

  “What?” Grayson says.

  “Are you going to be home?”

  “Yup,” Grayson says.

  “I’ll be over in a little while. Stay there.”

  Donny hangs up first.

  Dave is up and washing his dishes in the sink. He stops and turns around, drying his hands.

  Dave says, “I’m driving out to the Berkshires tonight for at least a few days. A girl from school has a family place.” He takes out his wallet and gives Grayson two twenties. “Here’s my third for the rent, in case I decide to stay out there longer. Give it to Curly for me, will you? I don’t see him anymore.”

  “Lucky you. When did he tape the fridge up?”

  “Who knows?” Dave says. “You know how he gets. He’ll forget all about it in a couple of days. Don’t tell him, but I ate the chicken wings.”

  Later, after Dave left the apartment toting a brown Stop & Shop bag with his clothes for the trip, Grayson’s blatantly sprawled in a chair Ron Kerr had designated off-limits. Grayson half-watched The Rookies, waiting for Kerr to come home. The vinyl chair had been donated by Kerr’s mother and he had insisted that no one sit in it, even when he wasn’t home. The ‘See me please’ in the note on the bedroom door pissed Grayson off no end, so he wouldn’t move from the chair when Kerr came in. When he hears the downstairs front door slam, he hopes it’s Kerr but when he felt the whole house begin to shimmy, he knew it was Donny. Grayson grabs his smokes and fires one up.

  A few seconds later Donny burst in.

  “Is David or Kerr here?” Donny says.

&nbs
p; “No.”

  “Okay,” Donny says. “It’s a good thing that oddball Kerr isn’t home. That guy is crazy. Next time he gets smart with me, I’ll put him through the wall.”

  “I know how you feel. But it’s probably best not to try it. He’s skinny but he’s as strong as an orangutan,” Grayson says. “You want some Chinese food?”

  “I’m not hungry,” Donny says.

  “Have you talked to Hugh? Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. I called, no answer. Listen, have you seen the paper?”

  Grayson says, “Which one?”

  “The Ledger?” Donny asks. The Ledger is the local afternoon paper, primarily focused on the South Shore.

  “It’s in the Ledger?”

  Donny held his fingers an inch apart and sat on the couch. “Small, tiny little square, page four. ‘One dead, after falling out a window, student critical, shot at bash, police theorize drug crazed youths run amok.’ The usual.”

  “Is Bird named in the story? Is Bird his last name?” Grayson says.

  “No, he’s not named. It just says six floors.”

  Bird could end up buried in a pauper’s grave.

  “Five floors. You said six.”

  Donny says, “The building sits at the top of a slope. In the front, the ground floor is the first floor, and in the back, the cellar is at ground level, it was like a bonus floor for Bird.”

  Grayson shakes his head. “I didn’t know.”

  “Yeah, the one extra may have made a difference. Anyway, fuck him.”

  “I’m one hundred percent sure he was going to kill the kid he already shot, and most likely the others, too, so I see it as saving lives, I didn’t mean for him to go out the window.”

  “That’s the right attitude,” Donny says.

  Grayson says, “I just wanted to knock him into the wall so he’d drop his gun.”

  “Probably did when he started flapping his arms.”

  “The cops will find the gun and know he shot the kid, right?”

  “No. I picked up the gun and put it in my pocket,” Donny says.

  “Why? Why would you do that? If you left it, the cops would say here’s the guy who shot the kid, and here’s the gun.”

  “Because my fingerprints may have been on it. Remember when he handed it to me? My prints may still be on it. I can’t take that chance.”