Кен Бруен - Tower

“I shot you, they’d be putting you in the cheap box about now.”

Boyle loved that, said

“He’s right, lad. Griffin only needs one shot and they don’t get up but why would you think he’d shoot you? Aren’t you one of our own? You are, aren’t you?”

The threat was implicit and I tried for hard, said

“Mr. Griffin doesn’t like me.”

Boyle was having a high old time. After wiping his eyes, he finally said

“Jaysus, if Frankie shot everyone he didn’t like, there wouldn’t be enough hours in the day.”

So, against my better judgment, I mentioned Jeff. Boyle said to Griffin

“Find out who that cunt is, cut his balls off.”

I raised my hand, asked

“Mr. Boyle, I’d like to take care of this on my own tab. I think you’ll understand that.”

He considered it, then

“Okay, don’t let it become a problem, capisce ?

I capisced.

He told me go home, get some rest and tomorrow, he had a new assignment for me. I was at the door when he asked “Your old man, he take money?” I didn’t like the slur but I was in Judas mood, said “Doesn’t everyone?”

As I walked down the corridor, I could hear Boyle say “That kid, cracks me up.”

Maybe it was the crack from Boyle about my old man, or just feeling a bit lost but what the hell, I decided to go visit my parents.

Our house was quiet. Usually it was suppressed bedlam, a tension you could cut with a knife, even a blunt one. I could hear my mother in the kitchen and announced myself. She came out, wiping flour from her hands, exclaimed

“Are you alright, why aren’t you still in the hospital?”

I was already sorry I came. I asked

“Where’s Dad?”

She involuntarily rubbed her eye and how had I missed it at the hospital? A shiner, fading but still visible. She said

“He’s staying, um, at his buddy’s place for a few days.”

Rage engulfed me and before I could explode she said

“He’s going to AA. The drink got out of hand and when he gets his ninety days, he can come home. He’s trying Nicky. Honest to God, it’s a disease.”

I stared at her, stated

“He hit you. The bastard hit you.”

Now she was wringing her hands, dry washing them, said

“He didn’t mean it. I said prayers and they were answered. He agreed to go to them meetings. Lots of his cop buddies are in it. They said he’ll be fine.”

Not if I could track him down first.

My mother said she’d go fix me some coffee and a bowl of porridge, keeping it Irish. The only way you can eat that shit is to douse it in Jameson. My old man, he had a work station in the garage and I headed out there, expecting to find empty bottles strewn about. Maybe I’d bag the suckers, give my mother a break.

No bottles.

In the center of the floor was a three-foot rendition of the North Tower, made of matchsticks. I moved closer and it was incredible, painstakingly constructed, and so like the real thing that I let out an impressed, “phew”. It must have taken him months. I looked around and sure enough, a book of matches on the shelf. I grabbed them, approached the tower, and fired up the whole book. Let it sit on top of the edifice. The wood and sulfur caught quickly and then with a whoosh, the whole thing went up, like some damn funeral pyre.

I moved back a step and marvelled at how it burned.

Tops, four minutes, it was just a husk, smoking, and a rising smell of burnt ash. I waited a few more minutes and stared at the small mound of what used to be the North Tower then, very deliberately, I lashed out with my right foot, sending embers and ash across the floor.

Back in the kitchen, I sipped my mother’s coffee, left the porridge untouched and she asked

“Is it okay?”

I waited a beat then said

“It burns.”

“There was a gothic quality to the neighborhood and the cast iron colonnettes, stone gargoyles, the Italianate palaces, the ornate metal canopies, the broad-shouldered textile buildings were redolent with a sense of history I could feel and admire. And yet, there were shadows, and broken windows, razor-wire, wide cracks in the pavement, and failure and loss. And there were ghosts...”

The next week, I did errands for Boyle, making drops of various packages, collecting money, and generally getting my body back in some kind of post-bullet shape. I was relying more and more on coke and that shit sneaks up on you. You come to in the morning, you have a fast hit to get you up and mobile. Then after coffee, shower, another hit to get you out the door.

I called Shannon and we had a day in the park with her little boy. I brought my old catcher’s mitt. The lad and me tossed the ball around. Shannon had brought a picnic and when we sat down to have some cold cuts, French bread, a bottle of wine, she watched the boy practice with the bat. I said

“He’s got an arm on him.”

Her face was radiant and she said

“He likes you, likes you a lot. The truth is, I think he’s a little afraid of his own father.”

I was tempted to say

“Well, the guy shoots people.”

But let it slide.

She added

“But you have great patience. You working at that?”

Not exactly a quality you link with a cokehead but odd thing, when I was with the kid, I didn’t feel the same urge to shove the crap up my nose. I said

“No, I like being with him.”

She handed me a pitcher of wine, said

“We might have something going for us.”

I didn’t want to spoil it by sharing my thoughts.

I was thinking of Jeff, and the guy I gave two hundred bucks to to find his address, I’d already learned his full name was Jeff Delaney and he had, as the cops say, some history, a rap sheet, one that sung consistently. Burglary, grand theft auto, robbery, aggravated assault.

A real sweetheart and this prick was walking around.

Shannon was busting my balls about maybe being a wiseguy and she had this guy in her portfolio?

Women, jeez.

We were seeing more and more of each other and it was getting real serious. I caught myself looking in jewelry stores, at engagements rings.

I was on the verge of taking the plunge when my cell rang early one morning. I’d gone to my own place as Shannon was getting Sean ready for a visit with his grandparents and she wanted one night of just the two of them. Did I feel left out? Yeah, a little.

So shoot me.

That song by Tupac, “Thugs Get Lonely Too.”

The cell dragged me from a bourbon dream. I’d had me a few belts before hitting the sack. Heard Griffin go

“You up, lover boy?”

Where was the goddamned candy?

I said

“What do you want?”

He gave a mean chuckle, said

“I’m sitting in my ride outside your new flash apartment. How’s that working for you?”

Fucker wanted to chat?

I found a smoke, cranked it up, still no sign of my freaking coke, snapped

“You rang me up for a chat, that it?”

More chuckling and this was not a guy who ever laughed, unless it was at a dog being tortured or other niceties. He said

“Get your arse down here. I’ve a wee gift for you.”

I dragged on a sweat shirt, managed to brew a fast cup of java. No way I move out on any day without the caffeine hit, need that jolt, that kick start to a wasting system. Pulled on a pair of Levis and slipped my feet into a pair of Converse.

Good to go.

Oh, tousled my hair, keep that casual gig going.

Met one of the tenants on the way down. I tried

“Morning.”

He glared at me. So they hadn’t yet warmed to me. I added

“You have a good one.”

Griffin was sitting in a black Merc, the engine running. I got in and he asked