Start Shooting (14 page)

The ghost fumbles for her purse but is having trouble keeping her feet. “So are you.”

My Stratocaster and I lean against the stairwell wall, hoping for stability. “No, really, you’re dead.”

The ghost doesn’t move or agree. We’re too close for me to be wrong … even after twenty-nine years. My first girlfriend, my first heart-to-heart partner in hopes and dreams, a girl I would’ve fought every Irish boy in the Four Corners just to walk home. Coleen Brennan is grown up, not dead, and standing five feet from me. And she’s shaking.

I start to stand—Behind her jeans, Coleen’s hands fumble fast for the doorknob.

“Wait.” I sit back down. “Wait. It’s okay.”

Coleen’s hand stays on the knob. She swallows or tries to, then lowers her chin. “Bobby?”

“Uh-huh. Twenty-nine years later, but it’s me.” I’m talking to a ghost, losing my mind from no sleep and tabloid fantasies.

“They said … I asked … they said you died in a car accident, in Milwaukee.”

“Never been to Milwaukee.” Blink. I’ve been confused before, but not like this. “You died in an alley. I … I saw your body … Your dad wouldn’t let me come to your funeral. I stood outside at St. Dom’s. It … was snowing.”

Coleen stares, trying to decide if I’m real. She squints at my guitar, then back to me. “The flowers every February?”

I nod again. Flowers on her grave—me and Joe DiMaggio; bluebonnets and pixie dust and a promise I couldn’t keep.
Her grave
, Bobby. As in dead person. Who they want to exhume. My hands are shaking, too.

Her mouth trembles into a smile that doesn’t happen. She stammers “Tinker Bell,” and waits, eyes on mine, her hand trying to turn the knob. The first book we traded was
Peter Pan
, a book that became her Bible. We promised each other we’d fly away from the Four Corners
together;
take her sister along, too. Flying away was so important to Coleen she said we had to hold hands every day we could, close our eyes, and promise that Neverland was only one tomorrow away. But the Four Corners killed her before we could make it happen.

Talking to apparitions leads to pilgrimages and straitjackets but I can’t help myself. “But you’re dead, Coleen.”

She stares—the eyes so green, the soft freckles—and doesn’t have to answer. It
is
her, impossible but true, not a no-sleep, tabloid fantasy, and I am, literally, without words or breath.

Coleen exhales, scared, confused. “It … wasn’t you, the accident in Milwaukee?”

“No. But … you’re a ghost, right?”

Headshake. Finally she says: “I’m Arleen.”

“No, you’re not. Your eyes, the freckles, the alley, our books. You’re Coleen.”

She shows me her hand without bringing it closer, the little warm, electric one that held mine, the long scar on the palm. “My da … we weren’t allowed … Coleen was braver, wanted you and I to be together. She’d be me at school or after when I was with you … in case our da … we were kids, foolish, somehow we thought it would work … if—”

“
You
were my girlfriend?”

She nods. “And you were my boyfriend. Coleen and I would’ve told you before we all flew away.”

Well, holy shit
.

As I lean back, my shoulders land soft on the banister and it’s the only reason the rest of me isn’t on the floor. A really long time passes, or not. My heart keeps beating; my mouth says, “But after your sister died … Why didn’t you tell me? We could’ve … Something.”

Her hand regrips the knob behind her.

“Wait. Did, ah, you come here to see me?”

Arleen has trouble with that, too.

I point at the
Herald
in her hand. “Are you back in town for … because of the article?”

Her head shakes slow and only an inch. “Been back two years.” She stares, forming words that tremble her lips. “Why are you here?”

I point at my guitar, then the wall separating us from the rugby party. “I’m in the band, weekends around town.” Still nothing. “The L7 every six weeks or so—Julie’s rugby parties?” I point at the wall again. “ ‘YMCA’? ‘Margaritaville’? Once the girls get cranked up?” Still nothing; obviously not a regular or a rugby player.

“Julie and I usually meet downtown … not in this neighborhood so much.”

My hands pat the electric air separating us. “Are you okay?”

Arleen licks her lips then bites the lower one between her teeth. “Surprised. It’s just—I don’t know, you’re a shock after … twenty-nine years. Peter Pan returns from the grave and on a day I’m … trying to fly away. Wasn’t ready.”

She sounds like she means it. It hasn’t fully hit me that she may be here on purpose and for bad reasons. She is, quite simply, happy ever after, strawberry blond hair, and freckles in blue jeans that fit really well. If my fingers worked I’d play her a song; self-protection has left the building. “So you live here, in Chicago?”

She nods. “West Side.” A hint of little girl creeps into the posture that she quickly erases. “And you? Your, ah, family still around?”

“I live north. Up by Evanston. Ruben’s downtown living large. You remember Ruben.”

She hesitates at Ruben’s name, or maybe it’s “downtown,” or maybe
I can’t see through the fog in my head. Yesterday I shot a guy who had a machine gun and the U.S. attorney wants to put me in prison. Today I’m a thirteen-year-old playing with ghosts. “What do you do? Are you … with Julie?”

“Am I gay?”

“No. Yes, I mean, ah, I don’t know what I mean.”

A grin materializes. “Julie’s my friend.” Pause. “I’m an actress. And waitress at Hugo’s.”

“Really? An actress?” My hands need someplace to be. “I saw
Forrest Gump
ten, fifteen years ago at the Pickwick, and big as life, there you were, Jenny on that dirt road with Forrest. For real. Dropped my popcorn and the Pepsi; hit me all of a sudden that you might come back somehow, grown up, running across Grant Park instead of the Lincoln Memorial.” My hands are flippers; I cannot believe I just told her that.

The green eyes soften but not all the way. “I auditioned for Jenny. They were casting right after the riots. I made the callback, thought I had a shot, almost.”

“Bet you’d have been good.”

“I knew her life, but I guess so did Robin Wright.”

“That where you went when you left?”

Nod. “Golden California. Kinda rough at first.”

“You were just gone—we were freshmen, first day at Benito Juarez—no one other than the kids at St. Dom’s had really seen you since … Coleen. High school was starting. Nobody knew where you went. Your mom had just died; lots of rumors …”

Arleen shifts her purse. “She died on Saturday night. Sunday was bad. Monday morning I put on the school clothes I’d worked all summer to buy and snuck out of the apartment before my da and his friends came to.” Her eyes cut away. “Anything was better than staying home. I walked toward B.J., had my enrollment money, all the worries any kid would have …” Arleen shifts her purse again. “Made it to the bus stop at Twenty-fifth Street and a carload of older black kids yelled at me. They knew who I was; Coleen was gone but the murder and rape trials were about to start again. Beat my ma down until all the racial stuff killed her, and Da was … what he was, a long way from being safe harbor.” She exhales and pulls herself straighter. “Caught that bus and
decided not to get off until no one knew me. Caught several others and stayed on them until one stopped in Venice Beach, California. Coleen and I talked the whole way. We agreed, she and I would be movie stars in the sunshine.”

“You had family out there?”

Headshake.

“You were a
kid
. We were fourteen, fifteen—”

“Fourteen.”

I search the green eyes for things I’ve seen in other kids’ eyes, things cops know and see that changes them forever. Maybe she got lucky; it can happen—

The door bumps Arleen out of the way. She jerks backward, hands up like she’s being attacked. Julie McCoy, proprietor, pops in with bar noise following her, yells “Blanche!” and bear hugs Arleen, then sees me, and grins. Then stops. “Damn—the crap in the
Herald
—are you two … okay?”

Arleen and I are deer in the headlights, anything but okay.

Julie unhugs Arleen and back-steps toward her door. “Should I—”

“No, we’re fine.” Arleen drops her hands. “Just catching up. Kind of a shock.”

Julie says, “No kidding. I called you yesterday after one of the girls read me the
Herald
—meant to call you back, but got tied up with the crazies.” Julie nods at the post-tournament party, then shakes her head. “Damn, Bobby. Tracy’s good, but she’s lost her mind on this one.”

I fidget my guitar, no idea what to say.

Julie notices. “Bobby’s nice,
especially
for a guitar player. Can sing the blues, too, if you don’t listen too close.” Julie hugs Arleen again. “Blanche can’t sing, but
man
can she dance.”

My eyes cut to her jeans before I can stop. “Blanche?”

“Ms. Movie Star didn’t tell you? Tomorrow morning she’s up for the lead in
A Streetcar Named Desire. The lead.
” Julie hugs Arleen again, this time with one arm. “Hard to be as famous as we’re about to be. I’ll be a size four, bo-dacious tatas, living that big blond Hollywood life.”

Arleen’s eyes roll. There’s a distinct possibility that if I speak I will say something stupid, again. Arleen pushes Julie away. Julie frowns at her, then chins at me. “Ask for a man, I brought you a good one.”

I blush and haven’t done that in twenty years. Arleen just seems jumpy, edgy with me and not enough space. Or maybe all actresses are like that. Or maybe it’s the obvious, the
Herald
in her hand.

Julie shows me her watch. “Your pal Rita isn’t answering her phone. You’re going on without them.”

“No, thank you.”

Frown. “Are we scared?”

“Yes.”

“Without Rita to protect you, big bad Bobby Vargas is scared of a roomful of girls.”

“Yes.”

Arleen is not smiling as much as I’d hoped. Julie says, “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. No Steve and Rita, then you’re on your own, but you’re
on.
”

I turn to Arleen. “How bad a singer are you?”

Arleen’s watching me more than she’s thinking about it. “How loud can you play?”

I grin, but hers is posed, more protection than playful, someone marking time until they can run, like a bank robber at the glass door … or a tough girl but with a very bad vibe on a very dark street. But she’s forty-two years old, piña-coladas-under-the-palm-tree breathtaking no matter how you clock it.

My cell vibrates again. Jason Cowin’s name on the screen.

“Make it fast, Jason, our set starts in a couple minutes.”

“At the L7?”

“Yeah. What’s up?”

“Just finished my OPS. Fuckin’ commander acts like we staged a gunfight just to tank her shot at Olympic poetry judge.”

“She’ll get over it.”

“I don’t know. News Affairs is barely done making our statement for the reporters and somebody shoots Robbie Steffen and two Korean gangsters three blocks from the office.”

“Dead?” I cringe
sorry
at Arleen and Julie.

“Koreans are. Robbie’s in ICU at Mercy.”

“1269 okay?”

“Everybody but you.”

“What?”

“We gotta talk, man, and it ain’t about Steffen or last night. Don’t go onstage. I’ll be there in thirty.”

Steve and Rita choose that moment to barge through Julie’s office. I climb two stairs to get out of the way, still talking to Jason. “What do you mean?” But Jason’s already disconnected.

Julie says, “Rucks and kisses,” and grabs Arleen to make room for Steve and Rita.

“Wait. Coleen, I mean
Arleen
—”

Julie hurries Arleen past Rita, who does not appear happy, and
happy
is Ms. Longhofer’s trademark. At a svelte five foot five, Rita has that flower-child ’60s vibe, so pure and joyful you think you’re at Woodstock. But today she’s wearing denim lederhosen over a T-shirt, sort of Debbie Harry does Dallas. Today there’s something seriously wrong in Rita’s land of sunshine.

Band meeting lasts three minutes, all business, no chance to say the love of my life just walked in and made me a teenager—and it’s
showtime
.

The L7 crowd is way past civilized behavior—the
new
Rita’s fault—and has been since we took the stage. Rita can belt or ballad Bette Midler so pitch-perfect Barry Manilow couldn’t tell the difference, but so far she won’t sing any Divine Miss M songs. After way too many beaming requests and room keys, from way too many beer-and-sweat-drenched Bette Midler fans, one hundred rugby girls threaten to kill Rita. We do “Delta Dawn” three times.

Julie and Arleen are barricaded behind the far end of the bar. Every time I peek at Arleen I miss my strings with both hands. Man, is she something or not? A voice from the mosh screams, “ ‘Freebird’!”

We have one guitar, but need three.

“ ‘YMCA’!”

We
can
do the Village People. “YMCA” goes over dance-on-the-tables big. Steve goes topless behind his drum kit and twenty of the rugby girls match him. The stage shakes my feet sideways. A bruised and busty topless fan shimmies her shoulders and shoves a bottle of
Jack Daniel’s at Rita, demanding: “Anastacia! Anastacia!” The Rita I know and love does fine with
other diva
requests. The
new
Rita growls and grabs the bottle, swigs more than I’ve seen her drink in an entire evening, then exits our set list for a trip to “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”

The L7 levitates with my first seven notes. I check Arleen; she’s still behind the bar, safe from the riot, but arguing with a flaming redhead—exposé writer, Tracy Moens.

We finish “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” Rita steps in front of me, drops the Jack Daniel’s on my foot to put my attention where it’s supposed to be, then fires Steve the look no cornered animal wants to see. I refocus on the new Rita and whatever she wants. Rita pivots to face her audience who loves other girl singers better and yells,
“SO, YOU BITCHES WANNA PARTY?”

All of the drunk, muddy, violent women in Chicago scream incomprehensible rock-concert affirmation. Over her shoulder at Steve and me, Rita yells, “Kenny Herbert, ‘Mornin’ Ain’t Comin’’!”