Another Broken Wizard (16 page)

“When do you think you can come back, maybe just for a weekend?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the week after next. I have to see how much help Dad needs after he gets out of the hospital. He’s got the rehab facility after this. Then there’s a nurse. But I think he’s going to have a hard time with really basic stuff at first.”

“It’s really good that you’re doing this,” she said, because that was what you were supposed to say, especially when you’re about to start complaining.

“Yeah.”

“I miss you,” Serena said in a voice full of childish, pouty emotion. It pissed me off.

“I miss you too.”

“I wish you were here.”

“Well. Me too.”

Then there was a long pause, which was her gathering the courage to say something unpleasant, or just withholding speech in the hopes that I’d make some kind of gesture. It pissed me off.

“Listen, if I could be down there with you, I would, believe me. I don’t like being up here, if that means anything. It just sucks, going to and from the hospital every day. I don’t know. Some of Dad’s friends were there today. Maybe they can look in for a day or two and I can come down next week. But I don’t really know right now. My dad is still fucking unconscious.”

The outburst pacified her enough that we could get back to mundane chatter—her hangover from New Years, her friend Davida who was cheating on her boyfriend, drama at her office and some guy in the office I’d never heard of, who she went out of her way to say was annoying her. I said the yeahs and the ohs.

“You going out tonight?”

“I’m still hungover, but I think Davida wants to get a drink. She’s trying to figure out what to do.”

“If it helps, I vote that she go to a convent.”

“She can’t do that, she’s Jewish.”

“That’s even better. They’re always looking for converts, especially from the Chosen People.”

“I’ll tell her. How about you? It’s a Friday night after all—even in Massachusetts.”

“I don’t know. I think I might just work out and watch some TV.”

“Well, don’t get into a serious depression up there.”

“Okay.”

On Route 9, a cluster of apartment buildings gave way to a terraced hill full of Toyotas, which gave way to an empty showroom. The faded rags of a
Halloween Outlet
banner flapped by its big windows. By the Sheraton castle, Route 9 filled with traffic from the Mass Pike. We all drove west together, a headless snake of red taillights. I was two red lights from the Fountainhead when Joe called.

“Jim, hey man, what are you up to?”

“Just driving back from the hospital. What’s up?”

“Do you want to hang out tonight?”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty beat.”

“Tell me about it. I kept going after you left. I woke up in the back of Irish Times yesterday. Then I started all over again. I was all kinds of fucked up when I rolled into work today. But I figure a little hair of the dog should fix me up. You down?”

“I don’t know. What’s going on tonight?”

“There’s a party up on Burncoat. I was just going to have some beers and then head over there. It’s a small party, but I’m sure I can bring a few people. You down?”

“I guess so,” I said, imagining the darkened apartment ahead.

“Oh, and Jim, do you think I could re-borrow that three hundred? It’ll just be like I took longer than planned to pay it back. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Let’s get some dinner first though.”

“How about Coney Island Hot Dogs?”

30.

A glowing pink fist clutches a ten-foot hot dog tight enough that yellow neon mustard drips in steady, sequential drops down one whole story of the building. In the winter night, the sixty-foot neon sign shone like a revelation. The sign flashed old America—the burst of money and optimism grimed by decades of disregard—elevator buttons burned by cigarettes, the steel bar and padlock improvised across a vending machine, futuristic cars from ten years ago with their paint jobs faded, curse words etched into the plastic of a pay-TV in a bus station, grandiose pride losing out to weariness.

Coney Island Hot Dogs was just past downtown, by a railroad bridge and a car rental place that used to be the Greyhound station. The place was dark and spacious inside. Joe waved from a wooden booth in the back. I ordered a few hotdogs and a soda. The dogs came on steamed soft buns, with onions, mustard, relish and chili.

“Jim, what’s up?” Joe said, enthused in a way that seemed plain impossible after eight hours hungover in the security office of a state college.

“Just hospitals and helplessness—not a ton to report, really.”

“I don’t envy you one bit. Should I come by the hospital and say hi?”

“I don’t think so. He’ll be out of it for a while longer.”

“Well, he never liked me.”

“I think he blamed you for me fucking up in high school. And then there was that fight with your mother, when she called him a fascist.”

“To be fair, I think she called his opinions fascistic. It was the first Gulf War—they were times that tried men’s souls.”

We laughed into our hotdogs. The seat in the booth was hard and smooth as a pew. The table had been haphazardly carved with initials joined by plus signs, old rock bands and stray obscenities.

“I still get chills thinking of it, the green skies on CNN, and the baggy pants,” Joe blurted between guffaws.

“It truly was
Hammer Time
for a whole generation.”

The vein bulged in Joe’s forehead as he struggled to laugh around the bite of hot dog. He swallowed it peaceably and then broke into his machine-gun laugh, drawing a look from the old men at the counter.

“What was it that started the fight?” I asked, once the laughter had subsided.

“My mom drove me down town to break the window on the army recruiting center after the war started. But it was already broken when we got there.”

“My dad wouldn’t just overhear that without saying something.”

Then we talked about Dad, how he was doing, how he was misdiagnosed and how the incredibly invasive and destructive surgery had proven unnecessary, how the recovery would likely progress, what Joe hoped the visiting nurse would look like (Spanish with big cans). I told him about Olive.

“No fucking way. Well, I’m going to buy candles and watch the skies. Because if you’re cheating on your girlfriend, then forty days of darkness and a rain of frogs can’t be far behind.”

“It just happened, well, I mean, that’s not it. It’s like each thing that’s happened in the last few months took one more option off the table. I saw an option, an opportunity, a choice and I took it.”

“Man, I’m the last person in the known world who’s going to give you a hard time about cheating. I’m just surprised.”

“Me too. I’m trying not to think too much about it. It doesn’t have to be anything other than what it was, a blip on the radar, an anomaly. I’m surprised I did it. It’s just that everything seemed to be going so well. That’s what I kept telling myself. But …”

Joe opened his mouth as if to say more, then looked down at his empty paper plate, then at me. He nodded and we got up for another round of dogs. The Greek guy at the counter was talking to the oldsters there about the virtues of salt versus sand for snow removal. On the other side of the wall was a darker room, housing the Coney Island Hot Dogs bar in which rustled the even older men, sipping away the long night.

“So, before I forget, here’s the three hundred,” I said back at the booth. I took the money out of my wallet, holding it close. “But, what happened to the money you were supposed to make?”

“So New Year’s Eve, I covered most of my costs in like the first two hours. I made your part of the money back before you even got there. And I’m doing like I planned, only selling to good friends. The whole thing is going like gangbusters. And I’m hardly even touching the stuff myself.”

“So far so good.”

“I actually blame you a little.”

“Oh yeah, of course. After that shit I pulled, any self-respecting, small-time drug-dealing operation would have to go right off the rails.”

“Yeah, be a smartass. I mean that you left that bottle of whiskey at my house. So there I am, the party is still going on in Marissa’s room. I’m still jacked up from Smitty and the thing with Ki, and then the cops, so I have a few drinks to mellow out. Perfectly reasonable plan, time-tested and everything. But the other half of the bottle later, I’m Santa Claus on shore leave and I start cutting people deals on the coke I have. Then I start letting people have it on credit. And I’m like, ‘don’t worry, I’ll remember,’ so I don’t write down who I’m giving it to or how much they owe me. So instead of making a profit, I actually lost fifty bucks on the package that I bought.”

“You remember any of it?”

“I mostly kind of remember who was there. So I called around and asked for the money they owed me. Only Gino even admitted to owing the money, and he said he’d get it to me next week. I know I sold some to Kyle on credit. But he says it was a trade, and he probably paid for whatever he did, in spades, actually.”

“Kyle?”

“Yeah, Kyle McGinn.”

“Oh quiet Kyle, from way back.”

“Yeah, him. Anyway, he’s a great guy. I think he’s coming by in a bit. He seems mild mannered, but he’s an utter madman. He snuck us into the back of Irish Times at like five in the morning. All I remember is what he told me later. He said we drank until about seven. Then I just said ‘that’s it,’ and curled up under the bar. He’s a part owner, so he told the morning crew just to clean around me.”

“Sounds like a good guy.”

“It gets even better. The note he leaves for the bartender says I can drink free all day. So they wake me up at noon, and the bartender has two shots waiting for me. What the fuck—it’s a day off, so I drink them and start flirting with the bartender who is hot with a capital
ot
and she finds me a toothbrush and some toothpaste, so I don’t have to go home.”

“Or because of your breath.”

“True. True. So the place is quiet until about seven. By that time, Joe Rousseau International Man of Barbarism is in full effect. And I’m talking to everyone, drinking and playing pool. I win a few games and I’m feeling pretty invincible. It must have been around nine and I get into a discussion about the Olympics with these total losers who go to WPI. And they say I can’t jump over the pool table. Now, you have to realize that at this point in the evening, I am God’s own action figure. We decide to bet ten dollars on it.”

“Sounds reasonable enough, for you, for that blood-alcohol level.”

“I guess Kyle is back at the bar at this point, but I don’t see him. So anyway, I go for it, not taking into my calculations the lamp hanging just above the pool table. I get a running start, leap, slam my head into the lamp and hit the pool table hard. That’s when the powers that govern Irish Times decided I’d had enough and sent me on my merry way. But Kyle made my exit more ceremonious than it otherwise might have been.”

“He sounds like a good guy so far.”

“That’s not even a third of it. So I pull out of the parking lot and stop at the first intersection. Now, this is right in the middle of downtown Worcester. At the red light, I apparently I decide that a nap is in order. Luckily, Kyle comes out of the bar for some unknown reason and finds me there passed out at the wheel. Next thing I know, I’m on my couch, and it’s time to go to work.”

We laughed and ate the hot dogs. An old guy got up from the counter and put some coins into the jukebox, which began playing Frank Sinatra’s
Very Good Year
.

“What’s going on with Smitty?”

“He’s okay, conscious and all that. His jaw is wired up and they broke his collarbone and a few ribs. He lost a lot of blood. I feel like shit that I didn’t visit. I guess it’s too late tonight. I’ll go by tomorrow.”

From there, our conversation drifted to Joe’s quote-unquote plan to get Sully back for Smitty, with the help of some people I’d never met, including a guy named Fitzie.

The names took me back—names systematically mangled through laziness and misplaced enthusiasm. I remember those times more in images—cigarette ends dancing in the darkness of a keg party in the woods, drunk girls, their lips leering and their pants wet from a fall or worse, awkward teenagers high on stolen cigarettes and afternoons AWOL from high school, walking down train tracks to where kids from another part of town waited under a highway bridge for a fight. There were stories galore—drugs taken, punches thrown, insults and jokes traded, arrests made. But it’s the images that stuck.

“… but Vietnam says that the bouncer said he will definitely call him when Sully comes by,” Joe concluded.

As he spoke, it became clear that his plan for revenge was pretty vague. It depended on luck more than anything. Worcester is a small city, but not so small as to make a reckoning inevitable. The whole thing would blow over, if not for the anger that defined so many in that town. Gypped by the seasons, trapped by the long memories of neighbors, teased by the productions of television, stuck and cut off by only half-articulable obstacles, the anger animates screaming hardcore bands and sneering cashiers the same. It is as set and jagged as the granite curbstones. It doesn’t have anything better to do. It is just waiting for an excuse. It sits above everything like smog and bends the sunlight. It makes the people in Worcester funnier and more intense than any I had met elsewhere. And it makes them dangerous.

And Joe, telling me why he wouldn’t leave town, wouldn’t avoid Sully, was just as angry and just as obstinate.

I wish I could say I talked him out of it—the part-time drug dealing, the vendetta. I wish I could say I talked him into skipping town. I wish I could say I found it all more worrisome than amusing.