Absent Friends

BOYS' OWN BOOK

Chapter 14

Leaving the Cat

September 2, 1979

Jimmy's sitting in the backyard with Markie. The sun's warm on his back, and everything's so quiet he can hear the Addonisios' radio from three houses away. The Addonisios are old, and they sit on their porch and listen to the opera every Sunday in the summer. A lot of the other guys rag on it, they say those wops, they like lady singers who sound like cats with their tails in the door. Jimmy doesn't mind the opera. Vinny down at the firehouse, he puts it on sometimes when they get back from a run. Jimmy likes to hear it then, it sounds kind of the way he feels, all those voices, loud and soft, alone and together. But he doesn't know anything about opera.

Jimmy looks at Markie, wonders why Sally and Kevin and his job at the garage aren't enough for Markie. He thinks about himself, the sizzling that starts deep inside him when the bell's ringing and the guys are all yanking on turnout coats, swinging onto the truck. Is this what Markie feels when he's with Jack?

Ten years old: early Sunday morning, the kids over where the new subdivision is going up, no one knows what subdivision means (someone says it sounds like math, everyone groans), but they all love the outlines of the houses drawn in wood against the sky like skeletons. They like to play here. You can jump down from a porch, or maybe it's a dining room, onto a huge pile of sand; you can hide in the dark, damp space underneath the kitchen, not big enough even for Markie to stand up in, but full of dirt and puddles so when the other army comes to find you, you can ambush them with mudballs. A big yellow machine with a claw in front is standing on top of the hill like a dinosaur. Jack knows what it's called: it's a front loader, you jerks, he says. And he says something else: he says he knows how to drive it.

Tom looks at the thing a minute, then shakes his head, says, Forget it, man. He says, I want to see if I can climb that chimney over there, and he heads that way. Jack looks in that direction, too, maybe he's thinking about going with Tom, but Markie says, Really, Jack? Can you really drive it? And Jack looks back at the dinosaur, and says, Fuckin' A, because you know, Markie, man, I saw it, I saw where the asshole who left it there Friday, I saw where he left the keys.

And Jack and Markie are charging up the hill, kicking up sand, racing each other, of course Jack wins. Tom's shouting, but Jack's already sticking his hand into the doorless cab, feeling under the seat, and then he and Markie are in the cab and the yellow machine growls and roars, like it really is a dinosaur. Jack yanks back on a lever. His face is scrunched up, he's peering through the windshield just like Mr. Molloy trying to decide which bridge to take coming back from the Jersey shore. Markie's beside him laughing his head off. The machine jerks like it's trying to throw them out, then changes its mind; they want to go for a ride, all right, okay, they asked for it.

Jimmy watches as the machine pulls itself forward, lurching over the mud; he thinks hard, the way the hill is, the way the machine's leaning, and he runs in front, around, and yells for them to jump now! out THIS side, now! Markie laughs, slaps Jack on the back, the dinosaur's still roaring, but then Markie sees Jimmy's face, and Markie's face changes, maybe he feels how far over he's leaning, and suddenly he leaps. It's a high fall now, into the dirt, and Markie lies there forever before he gets up. All the kids stare at him and stare at the dinosaur as one side of it starts to sink into the mud. Slowly, still moving downhill, it tilts more and more, the side Markie jumped from is almost straight up in the air. Jimmy and Tom are both yelling for Jack, and then there Jack is, standing on the edge, then flying through the air, his legs pumping like he's running. He hits the ground at the same moment the dinosaur, mad because it lost its balance, roars, starts to fall, and smashes onto the corner of one of the houses. The kids hear wood splintering. Tom hauls Jack out of the mud—Markie's already on his feet—and everyone runs like hell. Jimmy's heart's pounding, Tom looks mad. But Markie's grinning as they run away, and Jack grins at Markie, too, and Jimmy sees that happen, remembers it.

This morning? We were down by the rocks, Tom says later, when the grown-ups ask. We were fishing. Yeah? says Jimmy's dad. Good morning for it, bet the bass were running. Catch anything? Jimmy shakes his head, but he doesn't say anything. Anything he'd say wouldn't be true, and he doesn't want the words to mess him up.

So when Markie looks down at the grass now, in his own backyard, like he needs to check it out, Jimmy knows.

Yeah, says Markie. Yeah, I guess I saw Jack around. How come?

Just wondering, I don't know, says Jimmy. Just, I heard something.

Something like what?

Jimmy drinks some beer. That crew Jack's got, Jimmy says. They fly kind of high.

I don't get you.

Yeah, says Jimmy, shaking his head. Like, Mr. Molloy? He stays pretty much under the radar. You know? Doesn't embarrass anyone.

Embarrass who?

Anyone. You're a mosquito, you sneak up and bite someone, fly away, you could do okay for yourself like that. You buzz around their ear, they're gonna squash you.

Jimmy drinks some beer, thinks that that's not exactly what he means. Still, it's close enough.

I'm gonna tell Big Mike, says Markie. That you said he was like a mosquito.

They both grin, but Markie's is the grin that makes Jimmy worried, the one he's been seeing since they were kids, seeing more of lately, when Markie's got a family and Jimmy thought he ought to be seeing it less. The grin Markie had just before he and Jack climbed into the dinosaur all those years ago.

And Jimmy's saying Mr. Molloy, same as since they were kids. But Markie's saying Big Mike.

But I'm talking about the buzzing, says Jimmy. That's Jack's problem, that's what I heard about.

Markie says again, I don't get you.

The cops, Jimmy says. The cops are getting ready to roll up Jack, his whole crew.