“All right if I don’t kneel this time, Father?” I asked.
“Certainly, my son,” he said.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I lied three times, I stole sixty cents and…”
I waited a moment.
“And?” the priest said.
There was a loud groaning sound, a yell, and a crash.
“And I just killed my stepfather.”
He didn’t die, he just broke both of his legs and knocked himself out. A policeman showed up, but not because Father O’Brien had told anyone my confession. Turned out my mother had called the police, showed them the candy and finally convinced them they had to hurry to the church and arrest her husband before he harmed her son.
The police talked to me and then went down to South Street and arrested Mackie. At the hospital, a detective went in with me to see Harvey when Harvey woke up. I got to offer Harvey some of the chocolates he had given my mom. Instead of taking any candy, he made another confession that night. Before we left, the detective asked him why he had gone up into the choir loft. He said I had left a light on up there. The detective asked me if that was true, and of course I said, “Yes.”
The next time I was in church, I put Mackie’s silver dollar in the donation box near the candles and lit three candles: one for my father, one for Mary Theresa Mills, and one for the guy who made up the rule that says priests can’t rat on you.
After I lit the candles, I went home and took out my wooden box. I put my father’s pipes on the mantle, next to his photo. My mom saw me staring at the photo and came over and stood next to me. Instead of thinking of him being off in heaven, a long way away, I imagined him being right there with us, looking back at us from that picture. I imagined him knowing that I had tried to save her from Harvey. I thought he would have liked that.
My mom reached out and touched one of the pipes very carefully. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said.
You know what? I believed her.
A Fine Set of Teeth
I saw Frank drop two cotton balls into the front pocket of his denim jacket and I made a face. “Those won’t help, you know.”
He smiled and said, “Better than nothing.”
“Cotton is not effective ear protection.”
He picked up his keys by way of ignoring me and said, “Are you ready?”
“You don’t have to go with me,” I offered again.
“I’m not letting my wife sit alone in a sleazy bar. No more arguments, all right?”
“If I were on a story-”
“You aren’t. Let’s go.”
“Thanks for being such a good sport about it,” I said, which made him laugh.
“Which apartment number?” Frank asked as we pulled up to the curb in front of Buzz Sullivan’s apartment building. The building was about four stories high, probably built in the 1930’s. I don’t think it had felt a paintbrush along its walls within the last decade.
“Buzz didn’t tell me,” I answered. “He just said he lived on the fourth floor.”
Frank sighed with long suffering, but I can ignore someone as easily as he can, and got out of the car.
As we made our way to the old stucco building’s entry, we dodged half a dozen kids who were playing around with a worn soccer ball on the brown crabgrass lawn. The children were laughing and calling to one another in Spanish. A dried sparrow of a woman watched them from the front steps. She seemed wearier than Atlas.
Frank muttered at my back about checking mailboxes for the first of the three flights of stairs, but soon followed in silence. Although Buzz had moved several times since I had last been to one of his apartments, I knew there would be no difficulty in locating the one that was his. We reached the fourth floor and Frank started to grouse, but soon the sound I had been waiting for came to my ears. Not just my ears: I heard the sound under my fingernails, beneath my toes and in places my mother asked me never to mention in mixed company. Three screeching notes strangled from the high end of the long neck of a Fender Stratocaster, a sound not unlike those a pig might make-if it was having its teeth pulled with a pair of pliers.
I turned to look at Frank Harriman and saw something I rarely see on his face: fear. Raw fear.
I smiled. I would have said something comforting, but he wouldn’t have heard me over the next few whammified notes whining from Buzz’s guitar. A deaf man could have told you they were coming from apartment 4E. I waited until the sound subsided, asked, “Should we drop you off back at the house?” and watched my husband stalk over to the door of number 4E and rap on it with the kind of ferocious intensity one usually saves for rousing the occupants of burning buildings.
Q: What’s the difference between a dead trombone player and a dead snake in the middle of a road?
A: The snake was on his way to a gig.
The door opened and a thin young man with a hairdo apparently inspired in color and shape by a sea urchin stood looking at Frank in open puzzlement. He swatted a few purple spikes away from his big blue eyes and finally saw me standing nearby. His face broke into an easy, charming smile.
“Irene!” He looked back at Frank. “Is this your cop?”
“No, Buzz,” I said, “that’s my husband.”
Buzz looked sheepish. “Oh, sorry. I’ve told Irene I’m not like that, and here I am, acting just exactly like that.”
“Like what?” Frank asked.
“I don’t mind that you’re a cop,” Buzz said proudly.
“That’s big of you,” Frank said, “I was worried you wouldn’t accept our help.”
Buzz, who is missing a sarcasm detection gene, just grinned and held out a hand. “Not at all, man, not at all. It’s really good of you to offer to take me to the gig. Guess Irene told you my car broke down. Come on in.”
Buzz’s purple hair was one of two splashes of color in his ensemble; his boots, pants and shirt were black, but a lime green guitar-still attached by a long cable to an amp-and matching strap stood out against this dark backdrop.
There was no question of finding a seat while we waited for Buzz to unhook his guitar and put it in a hard- shell case. The tiny apartment was nearly devoid of furniture. Two empty plastic milk crates and a couple of boards served as a long, low coffee table of sorts. Cluttered with the several abandoned coffee mugs and an empty bowl with a bent spoon in it, the table stood next to a small mattress heaped with twisted sheets and laundry. The mattress apparently served as both bed and couch.
There were two very elegant objects in room, however-a pair of Irish harps. The sun was setting in the windows behind them, and in the last light of day, they stood with stately grace, their fine wooden scrollwork lovingly polished to a high sheen.
“You play these?” Frank asked him in astonishment.
Without looking up from the guitar, which he was carefully wiping down with a cloth, Buzz said, “Didn’t you tell him, Irene?”
“I first met Buzz at an Irish music festival,” I said. “He doesn’t just play the harp.”
“Other instruments, too?” Frank asked.
“Sure,” Buzz said, looking back at us now. “I grew up in a musical family.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” I said. “He doesn’t just play it. He coaxes it to sing.”
“Sure and you’ve an Irish silver tongue now, haven’t ye, me beauty?” Buzz said with an exaggerated brogue.
“Prove my point, Buzz. Play something for us.”
He shook his head. “Haven’t touched them in months except to keep the dust off them,” he said. “That’s the
