Absent Friends

and you have to beat them back and you do, you do, and you win and it's over. And then he wants another call, and another one, because while you're battling the dragon, you have to do it, you have no time to think, and that's what he wants, because if he thinks, all he can think is: Markie's dead.

That was yesterday. Now, today, Jimmy leaves Marian at Sally's, early in the morning before the people start to come. He gives the girls time to be alone, and he goes out to the rocks under the bridge.

It's a cold day, windy, no sun, the sky's gray and the water's gray, too, just darker. Jimmy watches the ships crawl by as though he's looking for a special one, but the ships he sees, they're all black freighters, they're all the same. The gulls circle, screeching and diving. The gulls, the cold steel of the bridge, the rocks Jimmy's sitting on, everything's gray, like the water and the sky. Jimmy thinks, Goddamn you all.

Jim?

Jimmy snaps his head around.

It's Tom.

Tom stands there on the edge of the rock behind Jimmy, like he's not going to come any closer unless Jimmy says it's okay.

Jimmy doesn't say that. He doesn't say anything. He just turns back to watching the water.

For a long time there's nothing but the ships and the crying gulls. It's so long that Jimmy thinks Tom left, or maybe he was never there at all.

Then a pebble clicks along the rock, tumbles off the edge and into the water. Jimmy hears footsteps crunch, and Tom's standing beside him.

Tom unslings the canvas backpack he's carrying and he sits. Brought some coffee, he says. He takes out a Thermos, a couple of Styrofoam cups. The coffee steams as he pours. He hands a cup to Jimmy. Jimmy wraps both hands around it; he's never been this cold before.

Jim, says Tom.

At first that's all Tom says. He drinks his coffee. It's black, the way Jimmy and Tom both like it.

Jim, if you want to come clean, I won't try to stop you.

A yacht plows out under the bridge, throwing up a white trail. Who the hell's that asshole? Jimmy wonders. It's February, what's he thinking, he can just go out and have a good time on a day like this?

I'll go with you, Tom says. I'll tell the truth, everything.

Jimmy drinks his coffee.

That what you want? says Tom. I'll do it.

What I want, Jimmy says, I want Markie not to be dead.

Tom nods. Yeah, he says. Yeah, no shit, man. So do I.

A fireboat steams by, the John J. Harvey maybe, Jimmy was on the Harvey once, doing some training. Jimmy thinks, Good for them, good for those guys, on their way to a job. He thinks about the fire under his skin that he feels at a job, not feeling it now, now he's too cold, now he can't feel anything.

I have an idea, says Tom.

Jimmy turns to stare. You have an idea? You have a fucking idea?

Tom says, Jim, listen. Please, just listen.

Fuck, says Jimmy. But he doesn't get up, he doesn't stand and go climbing over the rocks and leave Tom there alone.

It's all my fault, says Tom, I know that, but I can't change what happened. No way I can bring Markie back. Jack, either.

Jimmy doesn't know, he really doesn't know, how much is Tom's fault, but he knows “all” is wrong. It was Tom who shot Jack. But Jack wasn't shooting at Tom, he was shooting at Markie and at him. It was Tom who went along with Markie's unbelievably stupid idea, to say he shot Jack. But Jimmy didn't stop them. Could he have? That's another thing he doesn't know. But this is a thing he does know: it wasn't Tom's idea for Markie to go to Jack, to tell him about the cops, the story that turned out to be bullshit, the story that made Big Mike decide not to send Jack to Atlanta, the story that made Jack so mad.

That wasn't Tom's idea. It was Jimmy's.

Tom says, My fault, Jim. But all I can do, man, all I can do now, I can think about what's going to happen. How I can make it up.

Jimmy doesn't see any way, how to do that, but he sips his coffee and listens.

You know Markie didn't have any kind of insurance, Tom says, any of that shit. Since Kevin came along, Sally's been staying home, that was what her and Markie wanted. If she'd worked, they could've lived someplace nicer, but they wanted her home. Now she's gonna get a job, not be home with Kevin, he has no dad and no mom at home either?

Yeah? says Jimmy. So?

What was Markie making, Tom asks, down at the garage? Ten thousand? I can do that. A little more, even. Thousand a month, so she can stay home.

Tom's not looking at Jimmy, he's staring out over the water, maybe looking for the same ship Jimmy can't find.

No, says Jimmy.