Blaze

“Listen, Blaze, let’s go to the ballgame now. What do you say?”

Blaze scratched his head. It was all going too fast for him. “How? We don’t even know how to get there.”

“Every cab in Boston knows how to get to Fenway.”

“Cabs cost money. We ain’t—”

He saw Johnny smiling, and he began to smile, too. Sweet truth dawned in a burst. They did. They did have money. And this was what money was for: to cut through the bullshit.

“But — what if there’s no day game?”

“Blaze, why do you think I picked today to go?”

Blaze began to laugh. Then they were in each other’s arms again, just like in Portland. They pounded each other on the back and laughed into each other’s faces. Blaze never forgot it. He picked John up and twirled him around twice in the air. People turned to look, most of them smiling at the big galoot and his skinny pal.

They went out and got their cab, and when the hackie dropped them on Lansdowne Street, John tipped him a buck. It was quarter to one and the scant daytime crowd was just starting to trickle in. The game was a thriller. Boston beat the Birds in ten, 3-2. Boston fielded a bad team that year, but on that August afternoon they played like champs.

After the game, the boys wandered the downtown area, rubbernecking and trying to avoid cops. The shadows were growing long by then, and Blaze’s belly was rumbling. John had gobbled a couple of dogs at the game, but Blaze had been too enthralled by the spectacle of the ballplayers on the field — real people with sweat on their necks — to eat. He had also been awed by the size of the crowd, thousands of people all in the same place. But now he was hungry.

They went into a dim narrow place called Lindy’s Steak House that smelled of beer and charring beef. A number of couples sat in high booths padded with red leather. To the left was a long bar, scratched and pitted but still glowing like there was light in the wood. There were bowls of salted nuts and pretzels spotted along it every three feet or so. Behind the bar were photos of ballplayers, some signed, and a painting of a barenaked woman. The man presiding over the bar was very large. He bent toward them.

“What’s yours, boys?”

“Uh,” John said. For the first time that day he appeared stymied.

“Steak!” Blaze said. “Two big steaks, n milk to go with.”

The big man grinned, showing formidable teeth. He looked like he could have chewed a phone book to ribbons. “Got money?”

Blaze slapped a twenty on the counter.

The big man picked it up and checked Andy Jackson by the light. He snapped the bill between his fingers. Then he made it disappear. “Okay,” he said.

“No change?” John asked.

The big man said, “No, and you won’t be sorry.”

He turned, opened a freezer, and took out two of the biggest, reddest steaks Blaze had ever seen in his life. There was a deep grill at the end of the bar, and when the big man tossed the steaks on, almost contemptuously, flames leaped up.

“Hicks’ special, comin right up,” he said.

He drew a few beers, put out new dishes of nuts, then made salads and put them on ice. When the salads were taken care of, he flipped the steaks and walked back to John and Blaze. He placed his dishwater-reddened mitts on the bar and said, “You fellas see that gent at the far end of the bar, sittin all by his lonesome?”

Blaze and John looked. The gent at the end of the bar was dressed in a natty blue suit and was morosely sipping a beer.

“That’s Daniel J. Monahan. Detective Daniel J. Monahan, of Boston’s Finest. I don’t suppose you’d like to talk to him about how a couple of hicks such as your fine selves have twenty to put down on prime beef?”

John Cheltzman looked suddenly sick. He reeled a little on his stool. Blaze put a hand out to steady him. Mentally he set his feet. “We got that money fair and square,” he said.

“That right? Who’d you stick up fair and square? Or was it a fair and square muggin?”

“We got that money fair and square. We found it. And if you spoil it for Johnny and me, I’ll bust you one.”

The man behind the bar looked at Blaze with a mixture of surprise, admiration, and contempt. “You’re big, but you’re a fool, boy. Close either fist and I’ll put you on the moon.”

“If you spoil our holiday, I’ll bust you one, mister.”

“Where you from? New Hampshire Correctional? North Windham? Not from Boston, that’s for sure. You boys got hay in your hair.”

“We’re from Hetton House,” Blaze said. “We ain’t crooks.”

The Boston detective at the end of the bar had finished his beer. He gestured with the empty glass for another. The big man saw it and cracked a smile. “Sit tight, the both of you. No need to put on your skates.”

The big man brought Monahan another beer and said something that made Monahan laugh. It was a hard sound, not much humor in it.

The bartender-cook came back. “Where’s this Hetton House place?” Now it was John he was speaking to.

“In Cumberland, Maine,” John said. “They let us go to the movies in Freeport on Friday night. I found a wallet in the men’s bathroom. There was money inside. So we ran away to have a holiday, just like Blaze said.”

“Just happened to find a wallet, huh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And how much was in this fabled wallet?”

“About two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“Baldheaded Jaysus, and I bet you got it all in your pockets, too.”

“Where else?” John looked mystified.

“Baldheaded Jaysus,” the big man said again. He looked up at the scalloped tin ceiling. He rolled his eyes. “And you tell a stranger. Just as easy as kiss your hand.”

The big man leaned forward with his fingers splayed on the bar. His face had been cruelly handled by the years, but it wasn’t cruel.

“I believe you,” he said. “You got too much hay in your hair to be liars. But that cop down there — boys, I could sic him on you like a dog on a rat. You’d be cellbound while him and me was splittin that money.”

“I’d bust you one,” Blaze said. “That’s our money. Me and Johnny found it. Look. We been in that place, and it’s a bad place to be in. A guy like you, maybe you think you know stuff, but — aw, never mind. We earned it!”

“You’re gonna be a bruiser when you get your full growth,” the big man said, almost to himself. Then he looked at John. “Your friend here, he’s a few tools short of a full box. You know that, right?”

John had recovered himself. He didn’t say anything, only returned the big man’s gaze steadily.

“You take care of him,” the big man said, and he smiled suddenly. “Bring him back here when he gets his full growth. I want to see what he looks like then.”

John didn’t smile back — looked more solemn than ever, in fact — but Blaze did. He understood it was all right.

The big man produced the twenty-dollar bill — it seemed to come from nowhere — and shoved it at John. “These steaks are on the house, boys. You take that and go to the baseball tomorrow. If you ain’t had your pockets picked by then.”

“We went today,” John said.

“Was it good?” the big man asked.

And now John did smile. “It was the greatest thing I ever saw.”

“Yeah,” the big man said. “Sure it was. Watch out for your buddy.”

“I will.”

“Because buddies stick together.”