Inside the O'Briens (25 page)

CHAPTER 28

Y
az stopped walking three days ago. Joe didn't have to convince Rosie of anything. She agreed. It's time. Rosie already said her good-bye. She knows this is the right thing to do, but she can't bear to see it happen. Joe thanks God she has baby Joseph to keep her distracted, or she'd be an inconsolable mess.

“Who's driving?” asks Katie.

“You do it,” says Meghan. “I don't wanna go. It's too sad.”

“Gimme the keys,” says Patrick. “I'll drive. You and Katie stay here. Me and Dad'll do the dirty work.”

Katie hands the keys to Patrick, and Joe leads the way to the front door, trying to pretend this conversation about driving had nothing to do with him. But he knows he's the reason for every word, and despite his feigned ignorance, he feels shamed and helpless.

Two weeks ago, Joe was asked to turn in his service-issued weapon. Three days later, upon recommendation of the department physician, Rick informed him that they had to notify the Registry of Motor Vehicles that Joe was no longer medically fit to be behind the wheel. Rick then elaborated. If Joe were ever to get into a car accident and hurt someone, a scenario the physician and Rick apparently deemed imminent and likely, and the injured party were to find out that Joe has Huntington's
and
the Boston Police Department knew about his illness,
they'd be liable. Allowing Joe to drive, even off duty, would be inviting tragedy, a huge lawsuit, and a media shit storm. So, Rick notified the RMV before notifying Joe, and the state revoked his license to drive.

With no service weapon and no driver's license, Joe didn't need an interpreter to read the writing on the wall. He officially and unceremoniously quit his job four days ago. And then, as if in an act of solidarity, Yaz quit walking. It's been a fuckin' awful week.

Joe still has a license to carry and legally owns his personal handgun. But he suspects that this license, too, will go. Somewhere, someone has already yelled out
Timber!
and the tree is on its way down.

So Patrick is driving, and Joe and Yaz are in the passenger seat. It's a short distance to the vet's office in Somerville, but they're in traffic and facing at least a half dozen lights, plenty of time for Joe to have a conversation with his son. Joe notices Patrick's knuckles resting atop the steering wheel, cut up and pink, like raw steak. The intention to speak is there, but Joe still sits in heavy silence, patting Yaz's head. It often takes tremendous internal work for Joe to initiate talking, yet another act in the three-ring circus that is HD. He imagines pushing a granite boulder up Bunker Hill, a grueling, painstaking, sweaty task, and he can only squeeze the first syllable of what he wants to say out his mouth after he's reached the peak and gravity takes over the job. The damn rock is finally rolling downhill.

“What's goin' on with you, Pat?”

“Nothin'.”

“What's with all the fightin'?”

Patrick shrugs. “Bar's been rowdy.”

“Don't you guys have bouncers?”

“Yeah. They've been outnumbered. I'm just givin' 'em a hand.”

“Is that all there is to it?”

“Yeah.”

“We haven't seen you in the mornin' in a while.”

Patrick looks straight ahead and doesn't acknowledge that anything has been said. Katy Perry is singing “Roar” on Kiss 108. The windows are steaming up. Having Huntington's burns a ton of calories, and in doing so emits a lot of heat. Joe now fogs up every car he rides in. Patrick flicks on the wipers and turns the defroster setting to
HIGH
. The sounds of rushing air and Katy Perry fill the car. Joe feels himself sinking back into the cozy bed of silence, the conversation fading to black. He has to resist and keep talking, or else he'll find himself back at the bottom of the hill, tasked with yet another boulder.

“Where you been stayin'?” Joe asks, rephrasing in the form of a direct question.

“Here and there.”

“You got a girlfriend?”

“Not really.”

“Then where you been sleepin'?”

“Mostly at this girl's place.”

“This girl's not your girlfriend.”

Patrick shrugs. “Not really.”

Joe shakes his head. “You using?”

“What?”

“Are you takin' drugs?”

“Jesus, Dad. No.”

“Don't bullshit me, Pat.”

“I'm not. I'm just drinkin' with friends after work. No big deal.”

“Stay away from that shit, Pat. I mean it.”

“I don't need this lecture, Dad. I'm not doin' drugs.”

“Your poor mother has enough to worry about.”

“Don't worry about me. It's all good.”

The wipers and defroster aren't making enough of a differ
ence. Patrick leans forward and wipes the windshield with his hand, creating a complex web of wet finger streaks on the glass amid the fog. Joe watches Patrick drive, trying to figure out whether he believes his son. He can't get a bead on him. Even sitting right next to him, at arm's distance, it feels as if Patrick is miles away. And still running.

Joe can't really blame him. Patrick's a young man with plenty to run from—the impossible truth of what's going to happen to his father, his brother, and Meghan; the 50 percent chance that it could happen to him, Katie, and baby Joseph; feeling anything real with this girl he's sleeping with; pulling her innocent life into this horrific nightmare; feeling anything real with anyone.

“There it is,” says Joe, pointing. “Right there.”

Patrick pulls into the parking lot and gets out. They're here. Patrick is standing in front of the car, hands stuffed inside his coat pockets, appearing blurry through the watery, fogged windshield, waiting. Joe cradles Yaz in his arms and kisses his soft, matted head, wishing there were more to do before going through with this. Joe wraps a green fleece blanket neatly around Yaz's frail body. He takes his index finger to the steamed passenger door window and writes.

Yaz was here.

Then he kisses Yaz again and opens the door.

BACK HOME, JOE
is sitting in his living room chair, drinking his fifth Budweiser, strapping on a comfortable buzz. Yaz's dog bed is empty but for the small discoloration where he used to sleep, and it's surreal that he's no longer here. Gone. Just like that. Joe presses his shirtsleeve against his eyes, mopping up his tears.

He's watching the evening news. They're in the middle of the sports, recounting the Bruins' pitiful loss last night
to the Canucks, when Stacey O'Hara cuts in with breaking news.

An unidentified white male walked into the lobby of Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Charlestown just after five o'clock, carrying a black backpack; it was seized and found to contain a fully loaded semiautomatic weapon. The unidentified male then shot off several rounds with another gun he had hidden in his coat, wounding one Boston police officer before being restrained and taken into custody. The gunman's motives are unclear. The officer was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital. His condition is not yet known. We'll bring you more details as this story unfolds.

An electric jolt shoots through Joe's numb brain. He texts Tommy, then Donny. He stares at his phone, his heart pounding in his tight throat, waiting forever. He runs down the list of everyone else. Rosie and Colleen are upstairs with the baby. But what if Colleen dropped by work today for a visit with her coworkers to show off baby Joseph? He texts Colleen.

Where r u?

He texts Rosie.

Where r u?

The news continues, moving on to the weather. Motherfuckers. It's cold outside. End of story. Go back to Spaulding.
Which officer?
What's his status?

Joe's attention goes back and forth between the blue map of Massachusetts on the TV screen and the screen of his phone, neither communicating a fuckin' useful thing.
Officer in trouble
. Joe can hear the heart-stopping sound of those three radioed words inside his head, but it's an auditory memory from an
other day.
Officer in trouble
. Joe should've been there. He should be out there instead of sitting in his living-room chair, still wearing yesterday's T-shirt and sweatpants, a passive witness to the aftermath on TV. A waste of friggin' oxygen.

Joe's phone dings. A text from Colleen.

We're upstairs. Rosie and Joey are napping.

Joe texts her back.

K. Thx.

Joe's phone dings again. It's Tommy.

I'm OK. Sean shot in stomach. In surgery at the General.

Fuck
. Joe throws his phone across the room, knocking a porcelain angel off the end table. It lies on the floor, beheaded. Joe's eyes then wander to the left of the body, landing on Yaz's empty dog bed. And then it's all too much for him. Rosie's broken angel, their dead dog, his fellow officer shot and fighting for his life, Joe sitting in the living room, unable to do a damn thing about any of it.

He gets up and marches into the kitchen, and he's stopped cold in front of Yaz's dog dishes on the floor, still full of food and water. They need to be emptied and washed, and then what? Thrown away? Joe can't do it.

He turns and faces what remains of the wall that separates the kitchen from the girls' old bedroom. He began the renovation project three days ago, the same day Yaz stopped walking. At first it felt good to replace one job with another, but almost immediately he found he had no enthusiasm for it, and instead he parked himself in his chair in front of the TV, consenting without resistance to the very life he'd dreaded. So the wall is partially demolished, pissing Rosie off every
time she walks in or out of the kitchen, mocking Joe during breakfast and supper.

He stares at the damaged wall, avoiding the TV and the sudden, palpable absence of Yaz, and he feels that familiar, primal rage stretching its long, hairy arms, awakening inside him. The rage clenches its fists, threatening that idiot white male for aiming to kill innocent people, good people who've devoted their lives to the healing of others, people like his daughter-in-law, mother of his grandson. They could've been there.

The rage stands and curses at that idiot white male for shooting Sean. The rage seethes, disgusted with the news reporters who Joe can hear are now talking about Lindsay Lohan instead of giving him an update on the condition of his friend. Sean has to survive. He has a wife, a family.

The rage beats its chest and howls at Joe for quitting his job. It should've been him at Spaulding instead of Sean. He didn't stay in the fight. He gave up. He quit so he could stay home in sweatpants, drink beers, and watch TV. He's not Boston Strong. He's a friggin' coward.

The rage roars deep within him, and an ungodly sound vibrates into every corner of his being, heard by every cell. Joe retrieves the sledgehammer from the broom closet and goes to work on the wall. He winds up.
Slam
. He winds up again.
Slam
. He winds up and falls backward onto the floor. He gets up, swings, and
slam
. The sound of the hammer making contact and the physical experience of each impact are immensely satisfying, better than hitting a baseball with the sweet spot of a bat.

He's breathing in drywall dust, heaving and hacking, swinging and falling, swinging and pounding and falling.
Slam
. Bits of wall crumble onto his dirty white socks.
Slam
. He hears his voice yelling nonsense, his voice grunting, the wall breaking apart.
Bam. Bam. Bam
.

Finally he's exhausted, and Joe drops the sledgehammer to the floor. He rubs his eyes and sits on the bed. The bed? He's
not in the kitchen. The room is dark. He's in his bedroom. The walls. There are bashed-in holes all over the bedroom, pieces of bedroom wall all over the bedroom floor.

He counts. Nine holes. Shit. How did that happen?

He staggers out to the hallway. The entire length from living room to kitchen is littered with hammered holes. He approaches the living room as if investigating a crime scene. The room is intact but for the beheaded angel. He returns to the kitchen. The wall is gutted, destroyed.

Joe rakes his fingers over his sweaty face. What the fuck just happened to him? He was literally out of his mind. What if Rosie or Patrick had been here? Would they have been able to talk sense into him and stop him, or would he have taken a swing at them? Would he have hurt them? Is he capable of that?

Joe walks back into his darkened bedroom and absorbs the senseless destruction before him. He was completely out of control. The thought scares the bejesus out of him. He looks down at his hands. They're shaking.

What if Colleen or JJ had walked in with the baby while Joe was in the middle of his rampage? He can't stand the thought of it. He sits on the edge of the bed, surveys the mess, and cries. Rosie's going to kill him.

Somebody should.