The Risk Pool (73 page)

This was the way it must have happened, or so it seemed to me that afternoon of my own father’s send-off. I watched Eileen as she gathered glasses efficiently, putting right the mess, and thought it a shame that a lifetime of falling to didn’t get you more, though it had apparently gotten her Ben, who now, instead of facing me, had turned so as to stand shoulder to shoulder with me, flexing at the knees, as if to suggest that he’d decided in my favor. If a fight broke out, he’d be with me, I could count on it. “Ned …” he said thoughtfully. “And what kind of name would that be?”

“Portuguese,” I told him, and he nodded, having apparently received precisely the sort of explanation he’d expected, no more bizarre than necessary to explain the facts.

By ten the party had gained considerable momentum. Nobody knew how long Mike was going to give away beer, and so everybody drank as if last call had been announced. Wussy had said goodbye twice and twice returned. Several in-town bars had closed when it became known that Mike was giving beer away, and the cars now lined both sides of the road all the way back into Mohawk, according to Wussy, who deeply regretted having given up his spot in the parking lot only to be relegated to East Jesus upon his return. The crowd had swelled sufficiently to jam not only the entryway and lounge and dining room, but also the large kitchen where Irma had been hiding out until even this inner sanctum was violated. I discovered her sitting puffy-eyed on a tall stool like the one she’d always perched on at the end of the bar in Mike’s other place on Main Street. There were about thirty
other people in the kitchen too, and one couple had gone into the walk-in cooler, the only place left where they could argue in private. Several others were going through the refrigerator and passing out to their friends whatever looked good. Prime rib bones seemed to be a favorite. “Assholes,” Irma said, but made no move to prevent the looting. “What’d he have to go and die for,” she asked me. “He’s the only man I ever met I couldn’t stay mad at.” She had her own bottle of bourbon between her knees and she wasn’t sharing it either. She looked as if she’d have liked to offer me a belt, but saw the danger of such precedent.

Outside in the bar, somebody had discovered a way to turn up the jukebox, which now pounded out bass guitar and drums maniacally, while leaving every note above middle C entirely to the imagination. A woman it took me a minute to recognize as Marion asked me to dance to Fleetwood Mac and her breasts had the same slow, hypnotic motion that had put me to sleep that night in the Big Bend Hunting Lodge.

“I guess your old boyfriend never tracked you down,” I shouted above the music, remembering the reason she’d given me for coming to Mohawk in the first place.

“Nope,” she said happily. “His trackin’ days are done.”

Then she added, by way of explanation, just in case I hadn’t put two and two together, “They gave him the chair.”

I nodded, as if to suggest that I had been hip to her meaning all along, though I hadn’t.

“I guess you heard about Drew Littler,” she said.

I said I had.

“He left me a present, the rat. Not that I should complain. A child’s about the most meanin’ful thing there is in life. His mother, I swear she loves the little birdbrain even more than me. You know Drew’s momma? She’s around here someplace. I asked her to babysit so I could come, and tonight’s the first time she’s ever said no.”

I said I knew Eileen.

“Sometimes she even gives me money to help out,” she went on, studying me as she spoke, as if she was trying to remember whether I owed her from the night at the Big Bend.

I got away from Marion as soon as I decently could. By putting the best possible face on things, she had driven my spirits into another slough. I found Wussy behind the bar with Mike washing glasses. Mike stopped to survey the damages already sustained along with those projected, and looked surprisingly satisfied, as if
he’d have been disappointed to get off easily. When no one was looking he pulled out a dusty bottle of Napoleon brandy from under the sink, and poured shots for Wussy and himself and me. We drank a silent toast.

“You better hit the road, Sam’s Kid,” Wussy said. “Last I heard Roy Heinz was looking for you. Him and Tree are rounding up a posse to go rescue your old man’s remains out of the hospital. They’d like you to go along.”

“Somebody ought to tell them that’s not such a great idea,” I said.

“They’ll never make Albany,” Wussy said. “I saw the crew they got signed on and I doubt a one of them’s ever
been
to Albany.”

Mike looked more worried. “Anybody can find Albany,” he said.

Wussy shook his head. “Not in the dark.”

Then he added, “What they need is Sammy. If he was here to lead the troops, they’d end up in Montreal. I don’t know who’ll lead us astray now.”

On the way out I stopped to look at the snapshots that people had been putting up with thumbtacks on the bulletin board. About half of them I’d’ve liked to swipe, but I took only the one that had been published in the
Mohawk Republican
in 1960, that first winter I’d lived with my father, where I appeared to be holding the white convertible about a foot and a half off the snowy pavement with one finger. In the newspaper the photograph had been grainy, but here the original was clear and I saw in it now what hadn’t been clear before. My father had instructed me to mug for the camera, which I did, but not Sam Hall. He had one hand on my shoulder and was looking down at me proudly, as if he believed me to be truly capable of wondrous things.

I had intended to stay the night in Mohawk, but decided against the idea, preferring to spend the night in the Albany Airport if I had to. But luck was with me. There was a red-eye flight to the city and I walked right on. A message in my wife’s small hand awaited me on the refrigerator door when I arrived. I went directly to the hospital where I found Leigh, looking tired but beautiful, the kind of girl who could flat-out corner the pussy market. She had the baby on her breast, and she turned it over so I could see my son’s little stem. It was a touching moment.

R
ICHARD
R
USSO
lives with his wife in Camden, Maine, and in Boston. In 2002 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for
Empire Falls
.

He is available for lectures and readings. For information regarding his availability, please visit www.knopfspeakersbureau.com or call 212-572-2013.

New from

Richard Russo

That Old Cape Magic

It’s the end of what seems like a perfectly lovely wedding weekend on the Cape, but for Griffin, the middle-aged father of the bride, it marks the beginning of his descent into a failed marriage, a confrontation with his parents’ deaths, and the realization that the life he has does not measure up to the life he thought he wanted. With moments of great comedy alternating with others of rueful understanding,
That Old Cape Magic
is unlike anything Richard Russo has ever written.

Available August 2009 in hardcover from Knopf
$25.95 • 272 pages • 978-0-375-41496-1

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www.aaknopf.com