“Must be. Yesterday.”
“So. A new life then.”
“I hope so.”
“At mass, were you?”
“Yeah. Don’t believe much, now, but it couldn’t hurt.”
“No. But.”
He meant the memories. Even in a changing neighborhood, some things are remembered. The scene of the crime. It had actually been part of a long scene, that had begun at the check-cashing place where my sister once worked.
The lump of a drunk down the bar turned from his drink and looked over at me, sensing something. I assumed my prison face, and he shifted his glassy eyes down again. I’d spent several unremembered years here, in various stages of blackout and fury, seething over something petty, something my brother said, something my mother did, something my sister wanted.
“So you’re off the sauce.”
“Yeah. Best thing for me. Ruined my life.”
“It can.”
“You must see a lot of that.”
“Sometimes. But it’s an old crowd here.”
“So…how’s business?”
“We manage.”
“And your ma?”
“Back over. For a while now, with her sister, near Ards. Rural ass of backwards. It’d drive me batty. We manage here.”
“We.”
“My wife’s a lawyer now. You remember Sheila. Sheila Corrigan, from seventh grade?”
“Of course.” Bouncy and becurled and just a little shiftyeyed. I was surprised she’d made it through the LSATs, let alone passed the bar. “That’s great. Good for you.”
“We live over in Riverdale, near her mom now, but we own this building, so it’s an investment. I’m a landlord now too.”
“And it’s all starting to come back.”
“We were lucky.”
“Location.”
“It’s coming back. Near the church is good. And the church isn’t going anywhere. So then. So.”
His unasked question: my plans. Practice for me for Ma, perhaps, and for Danny something to tell later to wee Sheila, as we used to call her, the cute curly-haired little minx. Jimmy had a thing for her back then. Before we were old enough to fail, which wasn’t too old at all.
“Weighing options. Such as they are. Open to suggestions.”
Danny nodded.
“I taught a bit up there, English to some of the cons, reading too, and the library. I worked there. Maybe, I don’t know. Something. I don’t know.” They don’t hire cons in the school system. And I’d never seriously considered it anyway. “Social work, maybe.” A lot of us end up there, facing what we laughingly called our demons. “I see White Castle is hiring.”
“You’ll find something. You always were the smart one,” Danny said. “Good you’re on track again.” Such forgiveness. Well, we hadn’t hurt him. At least, not that time, not directly. God knows I’d been thrown out of Patsy’s enough before that night.
The tough little man from the back booth came up for a refill. He looked at me. I looked at him, the rough-hewn snake tattoo on his wiry forearm. We knew where we’d been. We were marked, tattooed or not. We nodded barely, and he turned back to his girlfriend, or moll. Nah. That would be me. Top o’ the world, Ma.
“Say hi to Sheila for me. Thanks.” I headed out, and over to the Oxford.
I ambled along University Avenue, and turned left at Webb. They didn’t know I was out, let alone in the neighborhood. I was taking a chance here—they could be away themselves. But Ma never went anywhere, or at least she hadn’t when I’d roamed the neighborhood spreading unhappiness, and Bella wouldn’t be far from her. Apart from a Catskills hiking trip or some such with one of her other chubby spinster girlfriends, she didn’t do much except judge harshly. I had no idea how she spent her time. I did know she was a nurse, and probably had become one so she could talk back to our mother with the impunity of the health care industry and treat her patients with the contempt she always showed me, seeing as I had been unavailable for quite some time.
The building looked the same, a little older, but cared for. Pachysandra thrived on the ground behind the iron fence, and window boxes flourished above. I pushed open the fingerprinted glass door to our old lobby and saw her name there on the buzzer in the vestibule. I hesitated a second, then put my finger on the button and buzzed. There was a crackle on the other end. I buzzed again.
“Who is it?” Creaky and old.
“Davey.”
