The Most Dangerous Thing

listening to Tim Junior and Sean talking about what they want to do. Not when they were little, still in the astronaut-firemen phase. Heck, he wished they’d go back to the firemen phase. With overtime, those guys make out like bandits. No, it was all this current talk of fulfillment, of what would be meaningful to them, that makes him crazy. Sean wants to be a doctor, and while Tim knows he would burst with pride if that happened, he resents it, too. Same with Tim Junior, with his half-assed dream of being a lawyer. As for Go-Go-the last vocational desire he expressed was being a garbageman. Sincere as anything. He thought it would be fun, he said, picking up other people’s trash. Two kids aiming too high, one aiming too low.

He blames their mother’s blood. He wonders about the children lost, what they might have been. All daughters, Doris claims, but she has no way of knowing. Tim believes a son, his real son, the boy most like him, was one of the lost children.

The bar grows dimmer as the day grows brighter. About 4 P.M., as he’s getting ready to ask for his last beer, he sees a vaguely familiar woman enter the place, a real slinky piece even in her nylon waitress uniform. She feeds the cigarette machine, yanks the knob hard, curses, and slaps the side. She’s overdoing it, making a spectacle of herself. She likes having everyone’s eyes on her.

“Can you make good on the money I lost?” she asks Jim.

“Didn’t you read the sign?”

“What sign?”

“The one plastered on the front of it that says ‘Out of Order, do not use, no refunds.’ ” Jim’s smiling, though. She’s too cute to ignore.

She glances back over her shoulder. “Oh, that sign.” It’s droll, the way she says it. “I was in such a goddamn hurry to get to work I didn’t even look. Can’t you cut me a break?”

“Best I can do is take your name and the amount lost and the boss will fish it out for you when the repairman comes by.”

“Aw, c’mon.” She doesn’t put much oomph into it. She might have gotten what she wanted if she had. She is a good-looking woman. Maybe that’s her problem. Too proud to use charm, thinks her looks alone should carry her. Where has Tim seen her before, or is that wishful thinking? Then he remembers.

“You’re-that girl’s mother. Mickey. We’ve met.”

“Have we?” She extends a hand so limp that the fingers curl like cocktail shrimp.

“Halloran. Father of Tim, Sean, and Gordon.”

“Rita.” She studies him. “Oh yeah, the night of the storm. Mickey went out looking for your boy-”

Is that how she remembers it? Is that all she knows? The men told the children never to speak of Go-Go’s secret, not even to their mothers. Tim didn’t want everyone knowing his son had been touched by that queer. A story like that could ruin a boy’s life. He had to tell Doris, but he didn’t tell her much. He’s pretty sure that faggoty Dr. Robison has kept his mouth shut. Rita’s boyfriend, Rick, shouldn’t have had any problem not telling Rita. It’s Mickey and Gwen that Tim wonders about, though. Do girls tell their mothers stuff? How many people know?

He says: “Funny how the kids used to be together all the time and now they’re not. I guess Tim and Sean are too old to be playing with girls.”

“You don’t think boys and girls can play together?” Her mouth curves, not quite a smile. Something else. Something better.

“Not into high school. It’s not natural. They were right to segregate kid by sexes in school. They learn more when they’re apart. At least the Catholic high schools are still all-boy.”

“You know what? I kinda agree.” She sticks out her lower lip and blows upward, ruffling her bangs. She wears her hair in an upsweep. Not quite a beehive, but something with some height to it. It’s not fashionable, but he likes it. Better than those crazy hippie curls women are wearing now. He also likes her liquid eyeliner, laid on thick.

“Where’d you go to school?”

“I’m not from here, not originally. We moved here my last year of high school and I didn’t bother going anywhere.” Her tone borders on rude.

“Well, I still might be interested in the answer, did you ever think of that?”

“No. People here, they only ask that so they can play ‘Do you know.’ I’ve never lived in a place where people were less interested in people not from here.”

“I’m sure lots of people are interested in you,” he says, trying to stick up for his hometown and flatter her at the same time.

“If by people you mean men and if by interested you mean want to fuck me, yeah, then some are.”

He hates women who use that kind of language. He also has a hard-on. Which she notices, and tries not to.

“Doesn’t it seem like spring’s never going to come?” she asks the room in general. “I grew up in Florida. I cannot deal with these winters much longer.” Softer, to him. “I got a guy. He’s a good guy. You know that.”

She’s being kind, the most insulting thing she could ever be. And just because she has a good guy-what did she mean, “You know that”-doesn’t mean she’s happy with him. She would definitely fuck someone else. Just not him. Not that he asked, by the way. She shouldn’t be so full of herself. Popping a boner was a reflex, nothing more. His stomach had been known to growl when he couldn’t be less interested in food. Fuck her. No- don’t fuck her . He won’t even whack off to her, although he was thinking about doing that a little later.

She glances at her watch. “I’m going to be late. And now I gotta make it through a six-hour shift with no cigarettes.”

He takes out his pack and offers it to her.

“Marlboros?”

“You were expecting maybe Virginia Slims?”

She laughs, selects two, as if picking chocolates from a box, as if one might be better than another. “You’re a nice guy, Hank.”

“Tim.”

“Right.”

He is a nice guy. Having a temper doesn’t mean you are a bad guy, just that you were born with a shorter fuse, less tolerance for bullshit. No one blames short-legged people for not being able to walk with longer strides. How can people hold him accountable for his temper? Plus, he gets mad only when people fuck up. He always has a reason for what he does. He’s not a bully. True, sometimes he yells at his kids or Doris, but he has his reasons. He’s trying to explain things to them. What the light bill is every month. Why they can’t have a dog or a cat. He’s trying to get everyone else to join him here on Planet Earth.

“You know, maybe the adults should get together, have dinner sometime.”

“The four of us, or do we have to invite the good doctor and the grand lady?”

He misunderstands this for a second, thinks she said grandbaby. “Oh, the Robisons.”

She makes a face. “I don’t really know him. Her-”

This is the kind of woman talk he usually disdains, pure gossip, petty hurts over who said what or wore what, the kind of bullshit that Doris brings home from the altar guild, the unending chatter about so-and-so trying to get in good with Father Whosis. But there is something intriguing about Rita’s dislike of Tally Robison. Something earned.

“Just the four of us,” he says, knowing he can’t afford a night out until he finds work again, knowing Doris has no desire to go out, knowing he would be ashamed to be seen with her, the way she looks now. She would seem even more washed out and dried up alongside juicy, vivid Rita.

“Maybe,” she says. “If that no-good daughter of mine could be trusted to watch her younger brother for even an evening.”

He watches her go. She has a sweet ass, an upside-down heart in that tight skirt. He hasn’t been rejected, exactly. You can’t be rejected if you never enter the race. He’s a married guy, their kids are friends, or were. Of course they’ll never go out as couples. Too dangerous.

O ver the next few weeks, it seems the most natural thing to take the back way home, along Purnell Drive,