grammatical.
He inched a little closer, but I stayed focused on Ike.
“Speaking of human beings, after a fashion, how’s Ivor? Still concerned?”
“I can’t speak for the man, but I’d say he’s feeling okay” said Ike. “I’d be interested in telling him there’s nothing about you that oughta be concerning. Not that he’s thinkin’ that much about it, but you know, it’d be nice for me to tell him that you’re off the list of
“Like Joe Sullivan.”
Ike frowned and glanced over at Connie.
“Don’t know the man. You know him?”
“Joe Sullivan? Don’t know him,” said Connie.
“Really. Big blond guy. Southampton Town cop. Recently irrigated with a three-inch blade.”
“Another friend of yours? Like me and Connie?”
“Yeah. He’s not a concern for Ivor, and neither am I. Tell that to Ivor. I’m committed full time to building Melinda McCarthy’s garden furniture. I’m retired from the financial business.”
Ike actually seemed to relax a little at that. Connie took his cue and stepped back a pace, crossing his arms. I went back to messing with my clothesline.
“That’s interesting information,” said Ike. “I’d pass it along to Mr. Fleming if I thought he actually gave half a shit.”
“You gotta make yourself useful somehow. He’s got a Doberman, could probably use a pair of bird dogs.”
That had less of a calming effect. Connie uncrossed his arms and moved almost all the way in. Ike looked really disappointed. He scanned the lumberyard and saw we were well away from general activity and blocked from view by the high stacks of decking timber and the side walls of the cedar shed. Which was a little disappointing to me.
“Maybe I tell him you’re a crazy old fuck who’s nothing but trouble,” said Ike.
“That’d be unconstructive.”
“Unconstructive. What the hell does that mean,” said Connie.
“Unhelpful. Detrimental to achieving a positive outcome. Counterproductive. These are all English words. Not very good words, but useful in big corporations. Maybe not in your line of work. Whatever that is. We covered watch dog and bird dog. How about lap dog?”
“How’d you get to be such an old man with that kind of attitude?” Ike asked me.
“Regular exercise?”
I noticed Ike edge closer with a little shuffle of his feet. Connie had been pretending to look around the lumberyard while we talked as if to cover his own obvious intrusion into my immediate space.
“How bout
“Oh, of course, deconstructionists. That’s what you guys are. Why didn’t you tell me? I gotta tell you, I hate that shit. Sorry, but it’s all such nihilistic, anti-intellectual prattle parading as cultural sensitivity. Or let’s just say it’s stupid and ugly. Like the two of you.”
I don’t think Connie took that commentary in the spirit with which it was expressed, though he did take another step toward me, which is when I stuck a left jab into his Adam’s apple. This is harder to do in the ring because the glove usually won’t fit under the guy’s chin, but a bare knuckle will. It’s a real shock to the system, especially when you have no idea it’s coming. You tend to grab your throat with both hands, which Connie did, leaving me plenty of time to swivel and plant a full-out right hook on the end of his nose, the other vulnerable part of the anatomy above the shoulders. It was a good right, especially for a finesse fighter like me. It took him off his feet and into the reject pile of clear cedar I was planning to lay back on the stacks.
For a wiry guy, Ike didn’t have much in the way of reflexes. Before Connie had settled into the cedar I had him by the throat. By instinct he used both hands to grab my wrist, which allowed me to get my right leg behind his calf and shove him over on his back. A little whoof of air shot out his mouth, choked off when I planted my knee in his solar plexus. I moved my hand from his throat to the collar of his shirt, pulling his head up off the dirt so I could punch it back down again with another quick jab. Blood shot out his nose. He looked terrified.
“Sorry about the temper. I’m not proud of it,” I told him, cinching up my grip on his shirtfront and giving him one more shot in the face. He managed to get a forearm up over his mouth into which he gurgled something that sounded like okay okay, okay.
“Back to Ivor,” I said to him. “When you see him, tell him I have nothing to offer, nothing to sell. Tell him I’m sorry I bothered him at his house. I really am. If I learn he had anything to do with Joe Sullivan, that’s a different story. But for now, let’s just leave each other alone. And that includes all the tough talk. I don’t like it. Never did. If you agree, nod your head.”
He nodded.
“Good. That’s settled.”
I looked over at Connie. He wasn’t moving, but I could see him breathing wetly through his freshly broken nose. I patted around Ike’s pockets and waistband before letting go of his shirt and getting up. He rolled over and pulled himself up onto his hands and knees, watching the blood from his nose drip on the dusty gravel.
Connie had his eyes open by the time I had him frisked, but wasn’t ready to try standing up. While I tied off my load I kept a steady eye on both. Connie lay there gingerly touching his nose and throat and wiping blood and tears off his cheeks. Ike by now was just sitting on the ground, propped up by one arm. Neither said anything or tried to move until I was in my car driving away. I watched Ike in my rearview stand up and help Connie to his feet. I gave the checkout guy at the gate his copy of the receipt and left the yard like all I’d done was load up on a bunch of expensive semi-hardwoods. He might have been tempted to make a wisecrack about my car, like they usually did, but I busied myself lighting a cigarette so I didn’t have to work out a comeback.
I had the rest of the day to set up my outdoor shop using a pair of folding sawhorses and some old luan hollow-core doors. I had a flimsy shed my father built for lawnmowers, rakes and outboard motors, where I could break down and store everything at night. It made for extra steps, but I didn’t mind. It was nice to be out in the sun where the breeze off the Peconic could keep the air clear of sawdust. I had a moment when the aftereffects of excess adrenaline caused a little nausea, but it passed quickly as I applied myself to ripping and cutting a bundle of cedar to the proper dimensions, pre-drilling and coding for assembly according to Frank’s plans.
The work was interesting but simple enough to give me a chance to brood on the preordained nature of cycles, manifest in personal habits, good and bad, forever recurring like the waves and troughs of the sea. And my discussion with Ike and Connie on the interplay between awareness of mortality and the thirst for human connectedness. Is it that one leads to the other, or are they inextricably bound together, each reinforcing the other until you surprise yourself by wanting to stay alive, and wanting to believe in the myths of kinship and love?
I didn’t know, but I was new to the whole concept. Might take some getting used to.
EIGHTEEN
IT WAS DEEP IN JULY, when the air out on the East End hung like hot, wet gauze, and the sun was busy charring the epidermals of investment bankers, administrative assistants and trophy wives, and irrigation systems drew down the aquifer to convert three-acre flower gardens into simulated rain forests and maintain the water level of organically shaped gunite pools surrounded by tumbled marble pavers and teak recliners with built-in cupholders drenched in the condensate of crystal-decanted, lime-choked gin and tonics. Even then, the weather could turn capricious and redirect the jet stream to flood the atmosphere with oceans of cool, sharp, dried-out air delivered directly from the sainted upper latitudes of Canada. I think I was the only one who wasn’t surprised by this. Maybe because I’d made note of the phenomenon in the past, as a bored child searching for a mystery to divine, relishing every time my secret expectation was fulfilled.
That cool morning air rushed across the bay, setting the view of the North Fork in sharp focus and sweeping stale air and insects aside as if with a casual brush of the hand. Eddie really dug it. He took summer stoically, metering his bursts of energy and visiting his water bowl more often, but it wasn’t his favorite time of year. For him, the cool wind was an intoxicant. He busted out of the side door and ran the perimeter of the property like a dog
