He had been at the shop, working late just like he always did when I was a kid, unless I had a game. When he came home, Mom met him at the door. But she started crying before she could say anything. By the look he had on his face when I walked out of the kitchen, I think he was assuming the worst. One second he thinks his wife is trying to tell him their son is dead, and the next I’m standing in front of him.
After that there wasn’t much to do except decide what everyone wanted for dinner.
NOW DAD and me come in and sit down at the kitchen table with Mom. She’s sipping a glass of red wine and Dad is drinking some brandy he got from a bottle that was buried at the back of one of the cupboards over the sink. He pours himself another and looks at me.
– Sure you don’t want one?
– No. I had a drinking thing there, Dad. In New York. I was drinking too much, so I had to stop.
– Yeah, we heard something about that.
Mom moves her hand so that it covers mine.
– People said a lot of things, Henry. We didn’t know what to believe. Except about the killing. We knew they were wrong about that, we knew you couldn’t kill anyone.
My left forearm is lying there on the table, the six hash marks exposed. I open my mouth, close it. Dad sets his glass down and covers my hand and Mom’s with his own. He has big hands, nicked and cut and bruised from the shop, a thin rim of grease permanently tattooed under his fingernails.
– Why are you here, Hank?
Someone threatened to kill you and I came home to make sure it doesn’t happen.
– There’s just some more trouble, Dad, and I need to take care of it.
– But why, what did you do?
– I.
I helped a friend. I tried to protect people. I did everything I was supposed to and the only thing that worked was killing the people who were trying to kill me.
And then I took their money.
– Dad, I just tried to do the right thing.
He pours himself another drink. His fifth. I’ve never seen him drink this much before.
– So what now?
– I’m gonna take care of it.
– How?
– I’m gonna give these people what they want.
THEY GO to bed a short while later, and I page Tim. And wait. And then I page him again. And again. And again. And again. I page him ten times and he doesn’t call back, and finally I’m just too tired to care.
AFTER MY leg was shattered and I couldn’t play baseball anymore I took all my old trophies and plaques down, boxed them up, and stuck them in the attic. Sometime in the last three years Mom or Dad must have gotten those boxes down to look through them, because all the old trophies are in my old bedroom. My bed is still in there too. Other than that, it’s a different room. Mom uses it for her sewing and crocheting and the several other crafts she’s thrown herself into since she retired last year.
I lie in the too-small bed in the darkness and watch light from a street lamp glinting off of all the fake gold and silver. Outside, it’s silent except for the occasional bark of a dog, quieter even than my beach in Mexico, where there is at least the sound of the surf.
On the nightstand is a small, framed picture of me. I’m sixteen, my hair is almost white from years under the California sun, my face is golden brown and unlined, and I’m wearing a cap from my high school team, the Tigers. I remember the day the photo was taken. I had pitched a shutout for the varsity squad, hit a homer, and had five RBI. I was six feet tall, a hundred and sixty pounds and still growing, working out every day and eating anything I could get my hands on, trying to build muscle for the inevitable day when I would be a Major League player. To this day, it is the face I expect to see when I look in the mirror.
NORMALLY DAD would take the truck parked in the driveway to work, but today he fires up the tiny MGB in the garage. He hits the automatic opener, the door flips up, and he pulls into the street.
– Where did you park?
– Over on Traina.
There’s been a lot of turnover on Dale Road in three years. A lot of people I used to know moved out during the year of constant attention from media, police, and sightseers that followed my adventures. But even the newcomers know who my parents are, know that they have a mass murderer for a son. I stay squished down in the footwell until we get a couple blocks away.
– A BMW 1600?
– Yeah.
– Oh, Hank, not this piece of crap?
I scoot up into the seat. Dad has stopped where my car is parked.
– Yeah.
– How much did you pay for that?
– Four.
– And you drove it from San Diego?
– Yeah.
– You’re lucky you didn’t kill yourself in that thing.
– It’s not that bad.
– Like hell it isn’t.
He sits behind the wheel of his perfectly restored 1962 British racing green MGB and stares in horror at my wreck.
– Well, let’s get it over to the shop and out of sight.
I get out, start my car, and follow him over to Custom Specialty Motors.
CSM SERVICES and restores classic, exotic, and performance automobiles. Says so right on the sign. This is the business Dad dreamed of owning his whole life, the one he created and built over the last twenty years after he threw in the towel as hotshot mechanic for a series of high-end dealerships. His customers are mostly middle-aged men who finally have the money to buy the toys they craved in their youth, but who lack the mechanical aptitude to keep them running.
He unlocks the big rolling garage door and I drive into the shop. He pulls the MG in behind me, closes and locks the door, and switches on the overheads. Fluorescent light bounces off of some very expensive paint jobs. I get out of my crappy car and go look at a 1953 Corvette Roadster, cream with red interior.
– Wow.
– Look at this mess.
I look over my shoulder. Dad has the hood of the BMW up and is peering into the disordered engine compartment.
– Jeez, Hank, your plugs are filthy, there’s corrosion on the battery cables, the gaskets on the carb are rotting, there’s oil everywhere.
He grabs a socket wrench from one of the big rolling tool cabinets and starts pulling the plugs.
– Dad, you don’t have to do that.
– There is no way you are driving this car anywhere without a complete tune-up.
– Dad.
– No way. Now, you go home and get out of sight.
He’s right. His customers may not know how to change the oil on all this steel candy, but most are retired and they love to come around and get underfoot while Dad is working. He goes into the office and comes back with a CSM cap and windbreaker.
– Here.
