The Most Dangerous Thing

place very green. It could be anywhere, but she wants to believe it was Ireland. They would speak to Go-Go constructively, then send him back to class, and then talk privately about what a challenge he is. Like Father Andrew, she will find positive, optimistic words. Challenge, situation, incident. She might even tell him about the chronic bed-wetting, ask if he has any insight into why an almost ten-year-old boy would regress this way. Father Andrew probably has all sorts of reassuring insights.

But she is stuck here because they have only one car. No other family in the neighborhood has only one car, except for that chaotic single woman across the street, the one who doesn’t mow her lawn until the neighborhood association insists, tells her it’s a breeding ground for rats. What are they going to do when Tim Junior gets his license? How are they going to afford the extra insurance for having teen drivers on their policy? She cries harder.

“There, there,” Father Andrew says. “I can handle it alone.”

“Does everyone know?” she chokes out.

“I’m afraid it was a little public for my tastes. But he was caught, he confessed, he was punished. I’ll make sure that the children understand there is no point revisiting such things.”

He will, somehow. Father Andrew has that kind of power. The children love him as much as their mothers do. Only the fathers don’t seem to get Father Andrew’s charm. The thick, dark hair, the high color in his face, the bright blue eyes, the broad shoulders. It would be unbearable if he were a regular man, because then he would have a girlfriend or a wife. But as a priest, Father Andrew is available to her.

“Maybe we should still have a meeting one day?” she asks. “About Go-Go’s… situation.”

“Sometimes, the less said, the better. Let it go. He’s learned a valuable lesson.”

She is torn, wanting to tell him about the sheets, the other problems, if only to prolong the conversation, yet feeling it would be a betrayal.

“About Go-Go,” she starts.

“Yes?”

She can’t do it. “What do you think of him? Truly.”

“I think he’s a boy, ma’am, with all the inherent contradictions and conflicting impulses. He wants to be good. He really does. But it’s hard to be good.”

This is such a generous assessment of her son that she yearns to believe it. Yet a part of her mind steps back and hisses like a goose: You’re a fool, Father. He’s a bad, bad boy. He’s an awful boy. And maybe he has every reason in the world to be that way, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep all his secrets.

Chapter Seventeen

T im Halloran starts each weekday by circling job prospects in the morning paper, the Beacon, every red loop an exercise in positive thinking. He has never used the want ads before to find a job, managing to rely on word-of-mouth leads from friends and colleagues. But since he left the seasonal job at Goldenberg’s, there is nothing. Or so people say. Sorry, I don’t know about anything. Sorry, things are god-awful tight . Tim knows what’s going on. His boss at Hutzler’s was a vindictive little prick, and he’s spread the word all over town that Tim has a bad temper. Bad? He simply has a temper, unlike that faggot, who liked to hold forth about film-as opposed to movies, some airy-fairy distinction that the guy insisted on-when he didn’t know shit. Guy went on and on about how John Wayne had died on-screen only once, such complete and utter bullshit that Tim, who loves John Wayne, all but recited most of the titles in one breath. (SANDS-OF-IWO-JIMA- MAN-WHO-SHOT-LIBERTY-VALANCE-THE-COWBOYS-THE-SHOOTIST . And that was off the top of his head, not even complete.) OK, Tim’s fuse is a little short, but it’s never affected his work. Tim’s only failure is not kissing ass. He is good at what he does, probably could have been a true mathematician instead of a bookkeeper if he had the freedom to fart around with that academic bullshit. But he was a husband at twenty-one and a father at twenty-three, which means parking the ego and providing for your dependents.

Only he isn’t exactly providing now. They are running through their savings at an alarming clip. Running through? They have run through the savings and kept on going, like a car with no brakes. After the first of the year, he started dipping into the boys’ college funds to keep them afloat. Luckily, the boys don’t even know they have college funds, although Tim Junior seemed kind of surprised when Tim Senior told him last fall, anticipating the worst, that anything beyond community college was going to be a DIY project. For once, Tim took something seriously. His grades are decent and he even won a prize for something called moot court. He says he wants to be a lawyer. Just what the world needs, another lawyer.

Sean will be OK, that’s a given. He’s got a shot at the National Merit Scholarship, which would be sweet. And maybe the little one will straighten out. He’s a mess, but Tim sees something of himself in Go-Go’s chaos, a too- big-for-itself energy that needs only to be organized and focused. Tim was the same way before the Marines put him together. He volunteered when he was eighteen, knowing he wasn’t going to get a deferment or exemption. But by volunteering, he had been free to choose the branch he wanted. The Marines suited a scrappy little bantam like Tim, who had learned to fight growing up in the Pigtown neighborhood in Southwest Baltimore. He also happened to catch a break, for once in his fucking life, got in after Korea and out before Vietnam started to escalate, then went to UB on the GI Bill. There’s another option for his boys. Volunteer, then let Uncle Sam pay for tuition. What’s the risk? There are no wars. Let those towelheads scream and gibber. They couldn’t organize a panty raid in an underwear factory.

He glances at his wristwatch, at Doris’s back at the sink, where she is moving a dishrag around with few noticeable results. A day is a hard thing to fill, especially in these gray winter months when he can’t throw golf clubs in the trunk, spend the afternoon at the public Forest Park course. Doris has to know he isn’t looking for work the whole day long, but she doesn’t dare question him. She doesn’t dare oppose him in any way. And it’s not like he’s ever raised a hand to her. With Doris, all it takes is getting loud, really loud, and she caves. She can’t stand the sound of a raised voice. She’s weak. The weakness in the boys-and there is weakness, a softness, in all of them, even Sean-that’s pure Doris, her blood and her ways. He should have taken a closer look at that family of hers, picked up on the fact that her prettiness wasn’t so much prettiness as frailty. Doris at eighteen was so thin and so pale she glowed, like one of those catfish in the Ozarks. He mistook that for class, breeding, when it was probably anemia and malnutrition. She can barely stand up straight these days. And that glorious, glorious red hair, which once promised to fulfill Tim’s every The Quiet Man /John Wayne/Maureen O’Hara dream of Ireland-it has faded to a pinky color, and you can see her scalp in spots. When he met Doris, her mother was dead and there weren’t a lot of womenfolk in the family, so he didn’t have anyone to study. He should have looked at the men, the most rabbity, watery, bucktoothed, swaybacked bunch of Irishmen he had ever seen in his life. But, like the song said, he only had eyes for Doris. Doris made him feel tender and protective, where other women just made him want to fuck, fast and dirty. Those aren’t the kind of girls you pick to bear your children.

Then again, a milky white, pink-haired rabbit of a girl whose uterus killed as many babies as it made wasn’t the best choice for motherhood, either.

He stubs out his cigarette and stalks out to the car, not bothering to say good-bye. He tells himself that he’s going to Security Square Mall or maybe Westview, drop off a few applications, see that guy he knows at Gordon’s Booksellers. But no one’s in, not at the first couple of places, and he’s at Monaghan’s when it opens its doors at eleven. Not that Tim is a drunk. He can’t afford to be. He nurses one beer, then two, all the way to happy hour, then asks for one more, knowing that the bartender won’t charge him for the third one. The bartender, Jim, is a good guy. He understands that Tim is looking for a job, and he mentions leads here and there. He even suggested that Tim could work at Monaghan’s. But he can’t do it, can’t squander all he has fought for-a job where you wear a shirt and tie, a desk, regular hours, benefits.

Not that he actually likes bookkeeping. But you aren’t supposed to like your job. It makes him a little crazy,