It was Rufus who finally drove him out. Rufus, that rangy, bowlegged mutt who suffered the animal equivalent of a panic attack every time the firefighters left on a run. Mike couldn’t sleep when the firefighters were in quarters and Rufus couldn’t sleep when they were out. A walk would do them both good.
So he tied a length of rope around Rufus’s collar late that night and off they went, the dog—part retriever, part Sherman tank—gleeful at their escape. Rufus plowed along the boulevard with the determined gusto of an evangelist. He liked everyone—toddlers in soggy underwear dancing under the sprays of uncapped fire hydrants; fat old women in housedresses drinking beer on tenement stoops; drunks slugging it out for the right to bed down under an overpass. None of it tired him out. Or Mike, for that matter. But it did give him an odd feeling of liberation to be crisscrossing housing projects at 2 a.m., sidestepping the hulking young men with looks as sharp as razor wire.
He called Gina when he got back. Woke her up. At least she was there. He felt giddy and a little breathless from his walk.
“You had no idea who I was, did you?”
“Who else would call me at this hour?”
“I mean when I first asked you out.”
“I don’t remember.”
“You’d met me twice. Through your cousin Maria. And you still didn’t know who I was when I asked you out.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Four and a half years is not a long time ago.” He found himself gulping for air. He hadn’t walked that hard. Maybe it was panic. He had the same sensation when he crawled down a smoke-charged hallway. He was heading into something he couldn’t see that would only do him harm. “You know when you remembered me? When I told you I was Mike the firefighter.”
“So?”
“Like I said, it was about the coat. It was always about the coat.”
“Mike?” Her voice was hoarse and tentative. “I’ve met someone.”
He hung up. He’d bailed out of enough windows to know something about outrunning flames. No point in standing there, letting yourself get burned. Maybe she would call back and tell him it was all a mistake. Maybe she would be tearful and apologetic. For the first time in nearly seven weeks he longed for noise, and that damn phone never made a sound. He was shadow-boxing with himself.
* * *
“Hey, Mikey,” Chuck growled the next morning, “you want to be target practice for the natives, go ahead. But Rufus doesn’t need any shell-casings as souvenirs.”
“I thought a walk would help me sleep.”
“They put a bullet through you, brother, you’ll sleep. Trust me.”
Tig got him alone in the locker room the next day—they were on the same shift—and handed him a gym bag. “If you’re gonna walk around this neighborhood all hours, least you should do is take this.” Inside was Tig’s old NYPD windbreaker and an authentic-looking replica of his badge. All the guys had replicas made so they could keep the real ones at home. That way, if you lost it, you wouldn’t face departmental charges.
“Thanks,” said Mike, stuffing the bag in his locker. He felt guilty he wasn’t more appreciative of Tig’s generosity, then angry that Tig never seemed to notice. The man was awash in admiration, the sun in all its glory. What difference was the light of one more star?
“I figured most people will think twice before messing with a cop,” said Tig. “Just don’t let it get out that I did this, okay? I shouldn’t have a copy of my badge when I don’t have the real one anymore. The PD might get sore at me.”
“I’m good,” said Mike. Whatever that meant. It was all he could manage of conversation these days. Lately, he’d begun to confuse words, calling Bones’s decision to become a Jesus groupie his “salivation,” and Chuck’s worldviews, somewhere to the right of the Michigan Militia, his “egotistical theory.” Not that those interpretations were entirely incorrect. Still, it irked him the way his thoughts seemed to fly around like mosquitoes these days, tormenting and annoying him, without the sweet reprieve of sleep.
Mike continued his walks alone at night. Of course, in Tremont
No one bothered Mike. The NYPD jacket and badge probably helped. But he suspected he inhabited the jacket the same way he inhabited his turnout coat. He wasn’t a cop any more than he was a firefighter. Not in his marrow—not like some of the guys. Not like Tig. He knew this when he saw Tig lower himself unflinchingly into a fire-charged room or push forward when his alarm told him he had just minutes of air left in his tank. Never a minute of self-doubt or hesitation. Three fucking years in the FDNY and the guy was more of a firefighter than Mike, with his ten, would ever be. And the goddamn prick slept well too.
Was there a connection here? Mike wondered. Lose the fear of death and you lose the fear of sleep? For what was death, really, but a longer, richer cousin?
He needed a place to test his hypothesis. He didn’t have to look far: Jerome Avenue, a test of nerves if ever there was one. One wide lane of traffic in each direction. Double-parked cars that made pedestrians nearly impossible to notice. Badly timed lights. Third World gypsy cab drivers who thought stopping on red was merely a suggestion. Four people had died in the past six months crossing near his firehouse. The guys had taken to tying Rufus up on nice nights so he wouldn’t decide to follow the rigs and end up as roadkill.
* * *
Two nights later, at dusk, when traffic was at its peak, Mike crossed against the light. His heart thumped, his bowels turned to jelly, but it did not help him sleep. The next night he was off, he hopped onto the Jerome Avenue
