We Were Beautiful Once (2 page)

He had poured his fifth shot of the 25-year-old scotch by the time he thought back to the blindfolded chess tournament his father had taken him to in Brooklyn in the fifties. He remembered the frisson of excitement surrounding the Hungarian mastermind, which had stemmed as much from his ability to keep straight the moves of a dozen ongoing matches, as his being the latest prize in Cold War defections.  Nick was thinking through the possible permutations the trial could take when the phone rang.  With an unsteady hand he grabbed it before the second ring could wake up Diane.  

“Nick, Walter here, from WNVS.  Did I wake you?”

“No, it's okay.”

“I just thought you might like to know we've had several calls tonight.”

“Oh?” Nick sat up, alert.

“Lots of the usual stuff, support and thanks for remembering the vets, but you know there's always a couple of 'em out there with too much time on their hands, real sticklers for getting the details right.”

“Yes?”

“Yeah, this guy must have been out there, too.  I've got a name. Hold on.”

Nick could hear papers rustling.

“Here it is—name, name, oh yeah, name: Johnny Fitzgerald. Let's see, he complained about it being the 24th Army Division and not Regiment, he said that O'Conner was on the left, not the right in the photo and goes by the name of Prado, not O'Conner, and, let's see, that Pyoktong, Korea was 57 kilometers, not—”  

“Wait! What?”

“That it was the 24th?”

“No, the O'Conner bit.”

“Oh, that O'Conner was on the lef— ”

“Yeah, yeah—”  

“...  and goes by the name of Prado and that... ”

Now Nick was fully awake.

“That's it, Walter.  Walter, thank you very much. I owe you one.”

 

By Tuesday morning  Mitch had located a “Jack Prado” on Willa Street, but all attempts at calling him proved fruitless.  Later in the week Nick drove over, rang the bell, knocked and peered through the dirty front window.  He would have been more surprised had someone answered.  Because the trial was about to start, Nick did not have time for cat and mouse games, so he asked Mitch to prepare a subpoena and his secretary Sophie to find a sheriff to park in front of the house to serve him, if he showed-up.  All Nick needed was to talk to O'Conner, aka Prado, to see if he had anything useful to say.   

 

***

 

It was nearly 9:30 when Jack took his last swig from his usual one cup of coffee at the Silver Streak Diner. As he turned the page in the
Bridgeport Post
, the heavyset waitress whom he had known since high school poured cup number four. “Ya want some breakfast Jack?”

Without taking his eyes off the sports page he answered, “Nah, not today, Mol.”

“Jack, if you get any thinner, you're gonna blow away.”

“Yeah, just ain't much hungry these days.” He reached for his cigarettes, pulled one out, put it between his lips.

“It's not my business, but ya need a good woman.”

Jack grinned, the cigarette butt dangling from the side of his mouth.  “Yeah, that's it, Mol, a good woman.  Ya ready?”

“Huh! I wouldn't have ya...  too moody.”

Jack lit the butt, rolled up the half-pack into his tee-shirt sleeve, paid his bill and started back to the house, hearing in the distance the dog across from where he lived barking up a storm.  Within fifty feet of his door he saw an older model, black, four-door Ford parked in front.  It looked like a retired state police car, the kind people picked up at auctions.  On his porch stood a giant of a man in a brown suit.  Jack slowed down, put his hands in the back pockets of his Levis, kept his eyes on the man, and within a few feet of the porch, yelled, “Yo, Mack, can I help ya?”

The man turned.  He had a flat mug with jowls that made Jack think: St. Bernard.     “Yeah, lookin' for Jack Prado O'Conner, you him?”

“Who wants to know?”

The man stepped toward Jack.  “I'm here to hand him something.”

As the man got closer, Jack backed up.  He had to be 6'5”, three hundred pounds, probably a football player, he thought.

“You O'Conner?”

“Whatcha got?”

“You O'Conner?” he insisted, stopping within an arm's length of Jack; too close for comfort.

Jack surveyed the hulk top to bottom.  “Yeah, so who wants ta know?”

The man stretched out his arm.  “It's a subpoena. Appear in court tomorrow at ten.”

“What's this about?” Jack asked, pulling in the envelope.

“It's all there, much as I know.”

Before he opened it, Jack grumbled, “My goddamn wife again, what the hell's she want now?”  He tore open the envelope, letting it fall to the ground, and read the document, top to bottom.  Reflexively he gulped, “Can you tell me why they want me?”

“Can't tell you much, Mister.”

“Well who wants to talk to me?”

“Can't say for sure, but probably the lawyer that hired me.”

“What's his name?”

“Nick, Nick Castalano, over on Main and West.”

The man looked on for a few seconds.  “Here's a buck to make sure you've got enough to get ya there,” he said matter-of-fact.  He got into his car, drove away, noise from his faulty exhaust swamping-out the dog's bark.  Jack, taken aback by what he had in his hand, ambled to the house in a stupor.

 

 

 

LATER THAT DAY AN ORANGE BUS APPROACHED the corner of Willa Street and Barnum Avenue, on the same side of the street as the Silver Streak.  Julie stepped off the bus and squinted at the slice of pinkish sun about to set into the warm July night.  While she waited for the light to turn green, a breeze blowing off the sound flapped her full skirt.  With one hand she held the hem against her knees, so it would not work its way up her thighs, and when she stooped over, the wide patent leather belt around her waist dug into a midriff thickened with middle age.  She had bought the beige silky rayon outfit from Goodwill, where the saleslady, in a nearly identical dress, had told Julie it accentuated her small bust line.  In the fitting room's full-length mirror, her eyes were drawn to the shadow beginning to form beneath her jaw line, so she missed how the dress flared out at the hips.  She ran her hands over her cheeks.  She was still pretty, but because of her age, more times than not, only annoying men with large bellies asked her to dinner.  She always refused.

It normally took five minutes to walk from the bus stop to Jack's house, but Julie's bad leg forced her to walk slowly.  On a dare she'd once walked blindfolded and backward from St. Patrick's on the corner, landing right at her front door.  Blindfolded or not, Willa Street constantly drew Julie back.  Here, her grandparents had raised her mom.  Here, her mom had returned when pregnant with Julie's older brother Jack, and again a dozen years later, after she'd divorced their dad.

Julie climbed the stairs to a warped stoop, faced a wooden storm door with half its screen in tatters and knocked lightly.  The door creaked open, and she pushed it wide, a spider's silk snagging her face and the stench of rotting garbage and stale cigarette smoke making her gag.

“Jack, you home?”

Julie peered into a small darkened hallway.  Straight ahead, an open door showed the kitchen, its sixty-watt bulb reflecting off a pile of dirty dishes.  To the right, a short landing led to a flight of stairs.

“Jack?  Where are you?”  Julie ventured the two steps to the landing, and with a diffuse shaft of light piercing the small, stained-glass window behind her, she cautiously followed the varnished hand rail until the shape of a body sitting on the top stair stopped her.  Tremulously, she whispered, “Jack, that you?”

In jockey shorts, his bearded chin resting on his bare chest, Jack sat with his arms folded across his thin, naked thighs.

“Jack, you okay?” she asked gently.

“Julie?”

“Yeah, what're you doin',” she asked, her voice tentative.

“Go 'way, don't bother me!”

In the shadowed stairwell his face appeared like a dark gray blot, but she knew her brother's throaty voice.  

“Get outta here.  Don't come any closer!” Jack barked, as Julie put her foot on the next step.

“Jack, what's the matter?”

“Nothin'.  I got business to do.”

“Business?  What business?”  Jack hadn't worked in months. Not since Anna had left with their daughter.  

 “Sheriff came.  Couple days ago.  Tacked papers to the door. Did you know that Anna wants a divorce?  Irreconcilable differences.  All I did was call her to say three solitary words:  ‘Will is dead!'  Julie, he ain't never coming back.”

“I know, Jack, let him go.  It's been ten years. Jack, she's a good woman, she loves you.”

“Just go away, I gotta take care of business.”

The stairwell was quiet. Julie looked it up and down like a mouse looking for a place to hide. She broke the silence.  “So why are you sittin' in the dark?”

Jack ran his hands through his graying hair.  “Dark's natural. It's always dark, otherwise ya wouldn't need light.  Anyway it helps me think things out.”

“Jack, you're not making sense.  What's the matter? What things?”  Slowly moving closer, Julie was hit by the stench of whiskey.

“Nobody's business, for Christ's sake.”

“How can I help?”

“Can't, unless you want to pull the trigger!”

Julie saw a flash of silver as Jack quickly lifted a small revolver pressing the barrel hard into his temple.  Julie clutched the handrail, fell a step back, and struggled to catch her breath.  

“What the Christ you goin' to do with that?”  

Jack's thumb rubbed the treads on the hammer pulled halfway back.  “I'm squeezin' it and...  Whammo!”

 

 

WHEN JACK DRANK ENOUGH HE INEVITABLY went from ranting to babbling and back again, mostly about how Anna, his soon-to-be ex-wife, was making a record for the divorce, broadcasting her disappointment that he never rose above middle management despite his relationship with the company president.  Julie had heard it countless times.  “Jack's turning points” she'd labeled it: Korean War, marrying after Korea, raising his wife's son William, their daughter Mona's arrival after he thought they could not have kids.  William's death.  But, this was different, he had never pointed a gun to his head.  And, she was not so sure he would not pull the trigger; Jack was definitely capable of that.

 

“Jack, wait. Let's talk!  Why you want 'a go an' do that?”

Julie saw the gun shaking in Jack's hand.

“Because I'm fucked up, that's why; can't get out of it.”

“Get out of what?  Tell me what's goin' on, what's buggin' you?”

“I'm spinnin', woman, spinnin'.  Can't face it no more.”

“I don't understand.  What do you mean—spinning?”

The hammer half-cocked, Jack began sobbing, his shoulders shaking.  “I been drunk too long.  Forget what's real.  Lost it.  Other day I heard Dad's footsteps doubling up the back stairs.  Then I was standin' at the head of his grave.  I don't even pass out no more.  My eyes stay open.  A bad dream?”  Still clutching the gun, he rubbed his eyes with his knuckles.

“Jack...  Jack.”

“Ah, ah, murderin' bastard, a fool—drunk—freakin' freak, man, I'm floatin' away  from everybody—and everything.”

“What do you mean, murderin'?  What're you talkin' about?”

“I'm bringing the man down, ya hear?”

“What man?”  She wondered if Anna had been having an affair.

“Yes, sir, I'm bringing the bastard down.”

Julie took two steps up.  “Jack, put down the gun; let me help—promise I can, know I can!”

“You can't, no one can.  I'm unstuck from everything, mother fuckin' earth and mother fuckin' god—everything is—out of control!  Do ya hear? Ev...  everything.  My mind goes in one direction, my body's stuck here.  I know one thing.  Hamilton's going down.”

“Hamilton?  What are you talking about?  Trent Hamilton?  What does he have to do with anything?  You haven't worked for him in over ten years.”  She begged in an unsteady voice, “Put the goddamn gun down.  Please.  Please, Jack, please!”

She took another step closer.  “Come on, now, let me help.  You're not well.  I'm calling the VA.  You can get some sleep, some coffee, something decent to eat.”

Julie tried looking in his eyes, but he bowed his head, dropping the gun to his side.  He grunted, “I lost it.  Lost it.  Can't get my timin' right, no how.  I'm fuckin' slippin' deep.  Ain't got no options.  Gotta remember, but gotta forget, man, day by day.  Ain't got no choice, but to blow it all away—puff.”

Julie wrapped her arm around his bent shoulders, took a deep breath and gently took hold of the gun barrel.  Jack slumped his head between his knees and wept quietly, seemingly resigned to his survival.  

For the moment, all that had to be said had been said — dust motes twirled lazily in the yellow, red and green shafts of light shining through the stained glass window.  As Julie shifted, her brother slumped back onto the top landing.

“What happened, Jack?  What brought this on?  Today, I mean,” Julie enquired softly.

“Life takes on its own rhythm, doesn't it?”

“What's that, Jack?”

“I still need to find my place.  I can tell you it's not on this fuckin' earth.”

Julie reached back and stroked Jack's head.  “It'll be all right.  I'll help you.  It'll be better tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, I gotta go to court.  Got subpoenaed.”