people at the home had made Cain’s history and limitations abundantly clear. The kid had always been polite and respectful around him and Joe, maybe a little less so with the other drivers. Then again, they’d been a little less respectful of him. That seemed a pretty normal response to Frank’s way of thinking. Yet Frank knew Cain had a history of sometimes striking out in anger and for going AWOL. But the kid’s goofy enthusiasm was contagious and King Kong did good work. After his latest no-show, however, maybe the time had come to admit defeat and put the kid back in the yard.
Then in the stillness of the snow and night, Frank heard the comforting low rumble of the tugboat turning onto Union. A moment later, headlights flashed through the office windows.
Frank’s words rang in Cain’s head: “When a man fucks up, he gotta take what’s comin’. A real man steps up. He don’t wait to get found out.”
Cain knew he was wrong for not showing up today without telling Frank. It killed him to disappoint Frank. He liked Joe Serpe a lot, but he loved Frank. Frank treated him like he wished his own father could. Frank taught him things. Joe taught him things, too, like how Serpe meant snake in Italian, but the things Frank taught him were life things, man things. Frank treated him special. His parents, the people at the homes, they all treated him like a dead end street. He didn’t have the right words for it the way Frank would. The people who worked with him at the homes, even the really nice ones, were sort of doing what they had to, but like in front of a brick wall, almost like he wasn’t there. The thing about Frank was that he treated Cain like he could learn anything.
That’s why he knew he had to come talk to Frank. It was what a man did. And Cain Cohen was a man in spite of his being M.R., slow, delayed, challenged, handicapped or any of those other stupid words that meant he was different. The problem was he’d hidden himself in a secret place where no one would be able to find him and now he was frozen stiff, starving and tired. At first, the chill made some of the hurt go away. Now it made it worse. Finally, he’d gotten the courage up to apologize to Frank for being bad, but just as he started crawling out of his secret place, he heard a truck pulling into the yard. He would have to wait a little while longer. For Frank, he would wait as long as it took.
Joe nosed in, swung around and backed up between the blue and red Macks. The constant beep, beep, beep of the reverse warning horn cut through him like fork tines scraping on an empty plate. There wasn’t much clearance and it was dark and there was ice on his mirrors, but he didn’t figure his night could get much worse. The tugboat slid in neatly between the trucks on either side. Joe remembered a time when he was afraid to even put the damned truck in reverse. Then there was the time he got cocky about his ability to squeeze through tight spaces and creased the side of the tugboat’s tank. Frank was less than pleased about that.
He pulled out the yellow parking brake on the dash. A loud pssst filled the night as the air brakes spit out excess pressure, kicking up a spray of snow and dust. He turned off the ignition key and choked the engine silent. Gathering up his paperwork, cell phone and map, Joe jumped down off the metal grate for the last time that day.
“A face from the past,” Frank teased. “I was gonna organize a fuckin’ search party.”
“Here.” Joe threw down his paperwork, map and phone in front of Frank.
“Hey, I’m sorry about that last stop.”
“Not as sorry as me.”
“I’m throwing you an extra twenty,” Frank said, figuring to lift Joe’s spirits.
“Keep it.”
“What the fuck’s eatin’ you?”
“You wanna know?”
“No, Joe, I asked cause I enjoy the sound of my own voice. Yeah, I wanna know.”
“Healy,” Joe barked, “the last stop in Kings Park.”
“What about it?”
“Bob Healy was the lead detective on my case.”
“Fuck! He was the-”
“That’s right,” Joe said, a sad smile spreading across his face. “Detective Robert Healy, Internal Affairs’ best and brightest. He was the guy that made the case against me and Ralphy.”
Even after four years, it hurt like a son of a bitch; the old disgrace rained over him like a shower of bee stings. It’s how far you let yourself fall, Father John had once told him, that’s the measure of a man. And Joe Serpe had fallen quite a long ways.
He thought about Vinny every day, but Joe had good stretches now, sometimes whole months, without revisiting his own fall. Now it was all back-the hearings, the testimony, the loss of his family, his shield, his pension, his self-respect, Ralphy’s suicide. And all because Ma had misplaced a delivery ticket. God just couldn’t resist fucking with him.
“C’mon,” Frank snapped. “Drinks are on me. Lugo’s, here we come.”
Joe Serpe didn’t have it in him to protest. He would have preferred to drink alone, but he had the rest of the weekend for that.
Frank shut down his PC, clicked off the lights and locked the door. Joe went ahead of him to check the trucks and make sure all the tank valves were in the closed position and that all the keys had been removed from the cabs. There had been a lot troubles in the neighborhood recently, minor stuff, mostly. The vandalism hadn’t turned serious yet, just a few broken windows and some artful graffiti. But a misplaced ignition key and one opened valve could lead to a few thousand gallons of fuel oil on the ground. As he inspected the trucks, Joe thought he heard something moving in the yard. He whipped the flashlight around, cutting broad gashes in the darkness. He saw nothing. Seeing Healy again had really spooked him. The sooner he got to Lugo’s the better.
Cain didn’t pick his head up until Frank and Joe had locked the yard gates behind them. He listened to their cars pulling away. His heart was still racing from when Joe had heard him slip. Joe had shined the flashlight right over his head. That Joe hadn’t seen him filled Cain with a kind of pride. His special hiding spot was so good that not even a real detective could find him. When the swell of pride vanished, Cain began to panic.
He knew Frank wouldn’t fire him if he could just talk to him. Frank understood better than anybody the way it was with Cain, how he acted bad sometimes. The thing was, he hadn’t wanted to talk in front of Joe Serpe. He thought Joe was still mad at him from when he had Frank take him off the tugboat. Frank swore up and down that Joe wasn’t mad at him, that he had problems of his own. But Cain was smart enough to know people didn’t tell the truth sometimes when they didn’t want to hurt your feelings. He also knew that like his parents, people got rid of you when they were mad at you. Or, like Mr. French, they just hit you.
Now what was he going to do? He was getting so cold and hungry and everybody was going to be mad at him. Cain knew what would happen if he didn’t get back to the group home soon. They would call his parents and they would get real mad. The people at the home were probably already mad, because they got in trouble when the tards ran away. Sometimes, no matter why you ran, they sent you to a new place. They couldn’t do that to him, not this time. He had a real job, one he loved. He had Frank.
Cain noticed that tears were pouring out of his eyes and his nose was so stuffed he could hardly breathe right. He was shaking, his chest heaving. The thought of losing everything he had worked so hard for was too much to take. He had finally found a place where he belonged, where his being slow didn’t mean so much. Cain knew there was only one thing to do. He had to get back to the home. That’s what Frank would want him to do, to be a man.
Then, just as he began to crawl out from his special hiding place, he heard a rattling from the big padlock and thick chain that held the gate shut. He heard voices. He scooted back in his secret niche and listened. Now he knew what to do to set things right. No one would be mad at him anymore.
It was near 11:00 when Frank and Joe shook hands goodnight.
“Shit,” Frank said, trying to focus on his watch. “It’s Valentine’s Day. My wife’s gonna kill me. I hope those roses I sent her will do the trick.”
“Good luck.”
“You’re pretty fucked up, Joe. You gonna be okay to drive?”
“It’s only a few blocks. I’ll be fine.”
“Famous last words.”
“God wouldn’t let me off that easy, Frank.”
“See ya Monday morning.”
“Monday,” Joe repeated, beginning to walk to his car. “Hey,” he stopped, calling to Frank. “You ever hear
