heard him go up the stairs, walk along the floor above. He got up, found the wine jug. It had a nice label-vineyard, wagon piled with grapes, setting sun. Eddie sniffed the wine, raised it to his lips, drank. It disgusted him, as though he was too pure or something. A laughable idea. But he spat the wine on the floor anyway.
Vic returned, saw him standing there with the jug. “Left over from a party,” he said.
“I don’t remember you as a party-giver, Vic.”
“People change.” He thrust an envelope in Eddie’s hands. “Jack writes.”
Eddie opened the envelope, unfolded the letter. The first surprise was the letterhead: J. M. Nye and Associates, Investment Consultants, 222 Park Avenue, Suite 2068, New York. The second was the date. The letter was ten years old.
Dear Uncle Vic:
Sorry to hear things aren’t going so well. Here’s fifty. Hope it tides you over. We wouldn’t want to make this a habit, what with being “family” and all. Keep plugging, as you used to say down at the pool.
Jack
JMM/cb
“I told you,” Vic said.
“Told me what?”
“Jack writes.”
“This letter’s ten years old.”
Vic snatched it out of his hands. “That’s a crock.” He stuffed it in his pocket, behind the remote.
Ten years old and a brush-off besides, Eddie thought. But he left it unsaid because of the expression on Vic’s face: pissed off and crazy at the same time. He’d seen that expression often enough, not on Vic’s face, but on plenty of faces inside.
“Sounds like he’s doing all right,” Eddie said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Two-twenty-two Park Avenue. Investment consultant.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” Vic said.
“Me neither. Maybe not much, or he would have sprung for more than fifty.”
Vic glared up at him, more crazy, more pissed off; with the rooster crest Eddie had raised on his head, he looked like a fighting cock about to do something bloody with his talons.
Shouldn’t have come, Eddie thought. He said, “I wanted to see how you were, that’s all.”
“Broke,” Vic said. “Stony broke.”
“And other than that?”
Vic blinked again. Eddie didn’t remember that blinking. It was a sign of the loser, too slow to keep up. Vic had become a loser.
“Other than that, what?” Vic said.
“Nothing,” Eddie told him. He extended his hand. “Take care of yourself, Vic.” Eddie got his handshake. The old man’s hand was hot and dry. Probably the drinking did that, Eddie thought, although he remembered an inmate whose hand had felt the same way. He’d died of brain cancer a few months later.
“You don’t want any money?” Vic said.
“I answered that.”
“Everyone’s tryin’ to put the touch on these days, with the way this lousy state’s …”
Eddie went to the door, opened it.
“Where are you gonna go?”
“Out.” Eddie stepped into the storm.
Standing behind him, Vic laid his hot, dry hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “You were really something in the pool,” he said.
Eddie walked away. “It’s all psychological, this fuckin’ life,” Vic called after him. Eddie thought he heard the TV snap on just before the door closed.
Eddie walked back, down Turk, left on Mill, right on River, onto the bridge, toward the downtown side. His feet knew the way. It was colder now, snow thicker, blowing harder. Eddie felt the cold, but it no longer bothered him. The ice was spreading, narrowing the black band where the river ran free and fast in the constricted space. The fissure in the ice, bubbling and black, seemed to shrink even as Eddie gazed down into it. He pictured himself falling through the white air into black water, sinking. Why not? He was a free man.
The river was frozen all the way across. Eddie laced on his skates. He could never get them tight enough; they were Jack’s old ones, still too big, and the plastic tips had come off the ends of the laces. He had to lick them, twist them, stick them through the holes, all with bare fingers getting colder.
“Is it safe?” he yelled.
Jack, stickhandling around some beer cans, made chicken noises. He could see Jack’s breath rising in puffs of gray.
“I’m not chicken,” Eddie said, but not loudly, more to himself: let your stick do the talking. If you win, say little, if you lose, say less. And there was another saying the hockey coach had told them, but he couldn’t remember. Eddie tugged hard at the laces, quickly tying a knot, but not quickly enough to keep the laces tight. Then he took his stick, pushed himself off the bank, and skated out. The ice was gray and opaque under his blades, thick and solid. Mrs. Benoit had warned the class, that was all. She was just a worrywart.
“Pass, pass,” he called.
Jack circled in that easy way he had, leaning into the turn, looked right at him, said, “Cluck, cluck,” and fired a slapshot at one of the bridge supports. The puck rang off the steel, bounced back, slid across the ice toward Eddie.
He skated toward it, heard Jack’s blades cutting snick-snick across the ice, skated faster, reached with his stick, lost his balance, touched the puck, tried to pull it into his skates; then Jack came swooping down, lifted Eddie’s stick with his own, stole the puck, and whirled away, fast enough to flutter his Bruins sweater. Eddie saw that fluttering sweater just as he fell, hard, onto his back, losing his stick. He got up, picked up the stick, skated after Jack, out across the river, toward the New Town side.
“Pass, pass.”
Jack slowed down, turned, skated backward, still stickhandling the puck. Eddie caught up to him. Jack smiled, pushed the puck toward him on the outside edge of his blade.
“Here you go, Chicken Little.”
Eddie reached for the puck, but it wasn’t there. It was sliding between his own skates; and before he could get his stick on it, Jack had skated around him, cradled the puck, snick-snicked away. Eddie’s right skate slipped out from under him; he fought for balance like a cartoon character, almost stayed up. He rose, got his stick, skated after Jack.
“Pass, pass.” He loved playing hockey.
Far ahead, Jack wheeled around, leaned into a figure eight, gathered speed, wound up, and passed the puck. Not a pass, really, more like a shot, but in his direction. Eddie took off, trying to intercept it.
He wasn’t fast enough and the puck got by him. He chased it toward the New Town side, skating as fast as he could, expecting the snick-snick of Jack’s blades at any moment, expecting the flash of that billowing Bruins sweater. But there was no snick-snick, no black-and-gold flash. Eddie caught up to the puck, out in the middle of the river, tucked it into the blade of his stick, and wheeled around like a defenseman gathering speed in his own end. His head was up in proper style. He didn’t notice that the ice had changed from gray and opaque to black and translucent. He just heard a crack, and then he was in the water.
Eddie went right under, all the way to the bottom. First came the terror, then the shock of the cold, then the thrashing. One of his thrashing skates touched something. The bottom. Eddie pushed off. He must have, because the next moment he was on the surface. But only for that moment: the weight of his skates, the water saturating his thick clothes, pulled him back down. His eyes were open: he saw black, and silver bubbles, his own silver bubbles, bubbling out of him. He kicked his way up, got his hands on the edge of the ice, kicked, pulled. The ice broke off.
“Jack,” he screamed, went under, swallowed icy water, came up gasping. “Jack.”
He saw Jack. Jack saw him. Jack was standing still, his mouth open, a tiny breath cloud over his head. That
