Brighton (8 page)

“Let’s go. Infield.” Jimmy Fitz wandered out from the shadow of the batting cage, a ball in one hand and a fungo bat on his shoulder. “Tarpey, first base. Doucette, second.” Their coach waved at the empty diamond. “You all know where you’re going. Get out there.”

Kevin slapped his glove against his leg as he ran out to short. Fitz stood at the plate, Brighton’s catcher, Gerry Sullivan, beside him.

“Once around,” Fitz said and lashed a ball down the third-base line. Joey Nagle backhanded it and fired a strike to first.

“Nice,” Kevin yelled, even as a second ball rocketed toward him. Kevin took three steps to his right, angling back as he ran. He caught the ball deep in the hole, planted his right foot, and threw in one motion. Their first baseman, Brian Tarpey, dug out the ball on a short hop, pointed his glove at Kevin, and fired the ball back to Sully.

“Get two,” Fitz grumbled, tossing another ball in the air and
driving it between first and second. Kevin knew his coach’s infield routine and was already on the move. Tommy Doucette caught the ball on what should have been the outfield grass (if Tar Park had any grass) and pivoted. The second baseman knew not to wait on Kevin and fired a strike to the bag. For an instant, it looked like the ball was headed to left field. Then Kevin glided across, catching it with a backhanded sweep of his glove and rifling a throw to first. The ball ping-ponged back to Sully, who threw down to Kevin at second. Kevin turned and fired the ball to third, over to first and back to home. Jimmy Fitz had another ball in his hand and tapped out a grounder to first. And so it went. The ballet of baseball. Kevin followed with hands, feet, and mind—his world reduced to the breath in his ears, the blur of a batted ball, and five kids in an infield, sharing one heartbeat.

Kevin stepped out of the box and stared at the ghosts manning his empty infield. To grow up in Brighton was to be tethered to the past. Some tethers swung tight and fast, a vicious, self-destructive arc that took the measure of anyone who got in the way. Others wheeled far and wide, sweeping up new friends and family, money, power, even infamy. But all held this place at their center. A tangled, grasping place. A place of dark and light. Kevin walked back down the first base line, took a seat on the bench, and cracked a beer. Maybe he thought he’d broken his tether, maybe he was a goddamn fool.

A couple drifted into the park, a pair of bulldogs on leash. They let the dogs ramble and settled in the outfield grass, bundled close together, bodies mingling one into the other. Kevin’s eyes crossed the street and found the darkened windows of his great-uncle’s old apartment. Shuks had driven Kevin to New York that after
noon, then kept tabs on him growing up, all the way through college and even when he’d moved back to Boston. They’d meet up here and there over the years, a beer, coffee, the newspaper—just like their mornings at the cab office when Kevin was a kid except now his grandmother hung over every word in every conversation and they never laughed when they were together. Not once. Kevin had noticed the weight loss and graying, first around Shuks’s eyes then the touches in his cheeks. At the end, the boxer’s hands shook as he sipped his coffee and made scratch marks in his racing form, Kevin at his elbow, always and forever the acolyte-in-training. The call came a year after Kevin’s parents passed. Shuks had gone to the doctor in the morning about an x-ray. It was a hot summer day and the Sox were playing a rare double-header against the Indians. After his appointment, Shuks packed up a ham and cheese sandwich and Salinger’s
Catcher in the Rye
. He sat on the bank of the Charles and smoked a Lucky. Then he took off his socks and shoes, filled up his pockets with rocks, and walked into the water. On the day of his funeral, Kevin sat alone at the back of a church in Newton and watched McNamara’s boys wheel the coffin past. He cried that day for the first time since his grandmother. He cried because he’d loved the old man in a simple, spare way that was impossible to measure in the fashion people liked to measure such things. He cried at the passing of a generation and because already he couldn’t hardly remember what Shuks looked like. And he always thought he would.

A car door slammed in the lot behind him. Kevin glanced over as a black man pulled a bat and bag of balls out of the trunk. His kid, maybe ten and wearing a Red Sox warm-up jacket, was already running toward the diamond in loose, loping strides. The dad set up his kid on the mound. The two of them talked for a
while, dad showing the kid all the good stuff—how to grip the ball, push off the rubber, arm angle. Dad trotted back behind home plate and crouched. The kid tugged at his hat, pounded the ball twice in his glove, and leaned in for an imaginary sign. Kevin leaned in with him, watching quietly. The kid wound up and threw, the ball skipping in on two hops, dad fielding it cleanly. Kevin smiled softly without hardly realizing it.

“Am I fucking dreaming?”

Kevin jumped in his skin and turned. He hadn’t seen Finn McDermott since that Saturday morning behind the Jeff. As is usually the case with guys, decades didn’t seem to matter.

“Finn, what’s up?”

“Kevin Pearce, as I live and fucking breathe. You thinking about pulling out the glove?”

“Sox could use it.”

“Tell me about it.” Finn took a seat on the bench. “What in Christ brings you back here?” The kid who used to worry about love handles now had a full bay window hanging out over his belt. Too many draft beers and bowls of chowder thick with pepper and cream. Too many cheap cigars. Too many nights on the couch. Too many fucking doughnuts.

“I was in the area. Figured I’d stop by the park.”

“Memories, right?” Finn crossed his legs at the ankle and leaned back, folding his hands over his swollen belly like it was an unborn child. “Somebody told me you work for the
Globe
?”

Kevin was surprised Finn knew what he did for a living. Hell, Kevin was surprised Finn was still alive. “Yeah.”

“You cover sports?”

“Nah, I do mostly investigative stuff.”

“No shit. Anything I heard of?”

“I won the Pulitzer Prize for a story I did in Brighton. That’s why I’m back.” Kevin felt his cheeks flush as he mentioned the prize. Finn took no notice.

“I scalp tickets and sell T-shirts down at Fenway. Had to put my time in, but I got a primo spot in front of the Cask. Right next to the sausage and peppers guy.”

“Nice.”

Finn uncrossed and recrossed his feet. “Yeah, it’s pretty sweet.”

Kevin picked up the six-pack by an empty plastic ring. “Beer?”

Finn waved him off, then took one anyway, draining half of it in one go and finishing with a wet belch. “You seen Bobby?”

“Is he around?”

“Bobby’s always around.” Finn stuck out his lower lip and creased his eyes into twin folds of fat. “Why you asking?”

“Asking what?”

“’Bout Bobby?”

“I don’t know. Like to see him, I guess.”

“Bobby and I are tight, you know.”

“Sure.”

“He runs Fingers’s book. I help him out.”

Bobby the bookie. Kevin knew about it. Still, it was a hard thing to hear. When they were kids, Bobby was the guy who held the world in his hands. And Kevin never thought it could be any other way. The black kid was done with the mound. Now he was at the plate, a bat on his shoulder. Dad was tossing balls in the air and the kid was whacking them into the backstop.

“Fucking hey.” Finn shook his head. “Never see that back in the day. Not at Tar Park.” He waited for a grunt of assent, but none was forthcoming so he finished his beer, tossed the can,
and climbed to his feet. “Well, I gotta hit it. Swing by my spot. Give you a deal on a jersey.”

“By the Cask?”

“Right.”

“Tell Bobby I said ‘hey.’”

“You know it’s funny I saw you.”

“Why’s that?”

“I was going through some old shit last night and came across something.” Finn pulled out a wrinkled photo. It was a picture of Finn, Bobby, and Kevin in the bleachers at Fenway.

“Yankees,” Kevin said. “We sat three rows off the bullpen.”

“Bobby almost got a ball.”

“Yeah.” Kevin went to give back the picture. Finn refused.

“Keep it. I got a ton of them old shots.”

“You sure?”

“Why not? You don’t get back much.” Finn leaned in and touched Kevin lightly on the shoulder. “And, hey, I’m sorry about your grandmother.”

“Long time ago, Finn.”

“Still, I never got to see you or nothing.” He produced a business card from another pocket, turning it over once or twice in his hands before passing it along. “Bobby works construction during the days. Call ’em and they can usually tell you what job he’s on. And congratulations on that prize.”

“Thanks. I’ll catch you later.”

Finn nodded, both men acting as if they saw each other every day, instead of every other decade. Kevin watched him shamble across the park, then sipped at his beer and studied the old photo, wondering what he was doing here and why Brighton still held him in its grip.

BOBBY SCALES
parked across the street and stared at the church, gray stone washed white in the flecked and fading light. Inside, the air was heavy and still, like someone was holding his breath and hoping for the best. Bobby walked past a cold row of votive candles and knelt in the last pew. He prayed for three people—a decade of the rosary for each—then made the sign of the cross and sat back. Bobby had a small Bible in his pocket and opened it to a random page. He believed in the power of the unknown—fate, instinct, Jesus, Buddha, karma—he bought it all, thought it wove together into a seamless garment that wrapped you up head to toe and cradle to grave. Some people understood what they wore . . . and who they were. Most never had a clue.

Scratches on stone, footsteps. Bobby watched as Father Lenihan came out of the sacristy and began to light candles behind the altar. The old priest performed the same ritual every afternoon at quarter to five. And never knew about the solemn watchman who sat in the shadows. Bobby waited until the priest had finished and the altar was empty. In a city full of Catholics, no one went to mass anymore. Instead, there was talk of churches being shuttered and sold—the money earmarked to pay off the
ones who’d been ruined. Bobby had read all the stories in the
Globe
. Fifty, sixty, seventy priests. Unlike the rest of Brighton, Bobby wasn’t surprised. Not a fucking bit. What he did wonder about were the ones who’d never touched a kid but were branded pedophiles all the same. Did the collar ever burn their throat? Or was it just part of the gig? Cross to bear and all that? Bobby closed up his Bible and walked to the back of the church where he lit a candle, slipped a twenty in the box, and left.

By the time Father Lenihan welcomed the four people who showed up for five o’clock mass, Bobby was back in his Jeep. He parked in front of Brighton Hardware, where they kept faded pictures of old Little League teams in the front window, including one of Bobby’s team when he was eleven. First baseman and pitcher for the Brighton Yankees. Bobby had never seen the picture, but people told him it was there so he took it on faith. Next to the hardware store was the Palace Spa. A long stretch of a man walked out of the Palace, an old dog shuffling behind. The man had a thick shock of black hair with a white streak that ran parallel to the part in his scalp. Bobby knew the face, a miserable strand of Irishman who laid bricks for a living and did his drinking in the Corrib. He loved to get starched on Bushmills and talk about how America was full of cunts and how fucking wonderful it was back in Galway. Of course, he was a Golden Gloves champion back in the old sod . . . weren’t they all . . . until one day when a kid from Allston knocked out three of his teeth and used the toe of his boot to turn the Irishman’s left eye into jelly. Seamus something or other turned his head away from Bobby as he ducked into a parking lot. Bobby
smiled at the eye patch. Golden Gloves, my ass. The fucker owed Bobby fifteen hundred from a Man U soccer match. At least another three K from the week before.

The Irishman drove a pickup with a tricolor plastered across the bumper. He opened the door and booted the dog in the ribs just for the hell of it as he jumped in. Bobby watched from across the street as the pickup rolled out of the lot, then slammed his Jeep into gear and followed.

They climbed out of Brighton Center and navigated up and over a humpbacked street called Mount Vernon. The Irishman pulled down a cramped driveway to a cluster of single-story shacks backed up to a fence and a vacant lot. Bobby came up fast, boxing in the pickup. Irish climbed out with a string of oaths. Bobby hit him with a short left and heavy right. The Irishman had his fists up now on either side of his face. There was a small wedged cut breathing at his temple that was a perfect replica of the thick ring Bobby wore on his finger. The Irishman threw a jab or two, for the old sod no doubt, but there was nothing in them. Bobby cracked him once more with a left, then ran his head into the driver’s-side window. Irish grabbed at a mirror and broke it off. Otherwise, the driveway was quiet.

“Fucking cunt,” the Irishman breathed.

“You owe me money.”

“I paid your man three thousand last week.”

Bobby still held a handful of black hair and pulled the Irishman’s face close. “You think I got time for this shit?”

A head peeked from behind a shade in a house to Bobby’s right. The Irishman smiled, a rope of red saliva linking two gray nuggets of teeth. The patch had slipped, and Bobby could see a piece of scarred and scaled flesh underneath. He drove his thumb
into the pink pulp at the corner of the Irishman’s good eye. The pupil bulged in its socket.

“How about I take the other one, Seamus O’Toole, or whatever the fuck your name is?”

The Irishman whimpered back in his throat, but otherwise kept his yap shut. Not easy for that breed of folk, but when you’re already down an eye . . . Bobby spied a nail gun in the back of the pickup and pulled it out, kneeling on the Irishman’s arm and forcing his hand flat on the pavement.

“You ain’t got the stones for it,” the Irishman said in that half-proud, half-scared-shit voice the paddies had perfected over the centuries.

Bobby punched two nails through the back of his hand and watched him scream as he rolled down the driveway. Bobby followed to the gutter and pulled his wallet, thick and green, from a back pocket. He took out five hundred dollars, leaving fifty behind.

The Irishman struggled to his knees, hand held close to his chest, pinkie finger bent at an odd angle and quivering. “Take the whole fucking thing . . .” The rest of the sentence dissolved into curses delivered between frothy bursts of spittle. Bobby walked back up the incline and swung open the door to the pickup. The old dog jumped out and rubbed up against Bobby’s legs, looking for food. Bobby nudged him away and watched as he picked his way across the driveway, past his owner, and down the street. He went about ten yards, pissed on a telephone pole, then retraced his steps and jumped back into the pickup.

“You need to smarten up.”

The dog just looked at him, and Bobby realized what he already knew—some things were just born to get beat the fuck over the head. He slammed the door shut and cranked down the win
dow, just in case the dog came to his senses. Then he walked back down to the Irishman.

“Don’t bet with me again. And if I see you touch that dog, the next nail goes through your fucking eye.”

“Piss off.”

Bobby walked back to his Jeep and backed out of the driveway. The last thing he saw in his rearview mirror was the Irishman flipping him off with his crippled hand and wiping blood off his face with the other. Bobby smiled. His pulse had never risen above sixty.

He drove back down Washington and parked across from the Palace Spa. The owner, a Jew named Max, was behind the counter, selling scratch tickets to a ferret-faced old lady in a red cloth coat with long bags under her eyes.

“Bobby, what’s up?”

“The
Herald
and a pack of Marlboros,” the lady said. “Soft pack.”

Max had already pulled the smokes from a slot above his head. The old lady shoved across some bills and a pile of coins. Max threw the money in the register without counting it. The lady grabbed her paper from a stack and slammed the door on her way out.

“Orders the same thing three times a week. Two scratch tickets, a
Herald,
and the cigs. Thirteen dollars and twenty-seven cents, exact change, right down to the penny.” Max pushed his stomach up against the register and screamed at the closed door. “Fucking bitch.”

“Jesus, Max.”

“Sorry, Bobby. It’s the job. The pressure, you know?”

Bobby took a look around. Three aisles jammed with staples such as coffee, tea, bread, cereal. Another aisle with pharmacy items—toothpaste, shaving cream, shampoo, soap, a rack of condoms. A cooler with milk, eggs, butter, and cheese. A couple of lonely-looking potatoes beside a bunch of brown bananas and three dried-up tomatoes. A coffee machine. And, of course, the lottery in all its varied forms. No one did the lottery like Massachusetts. A hundred thousand ways to lose your money on scratch tickets and if that wasn’t enough, there was Keno going off every twelve minutes. Fucking assholes might as well put slot machines in the statehouse.

“You want a coffee?” Max had the pot in his hand, a ribbon of steam curling out of the top. Bobby nodded. Max poured him one with cream and a half teaspoon of sugar. Then Max poured one for himself, cream and five sugars.

“How’s business?”

“Ragheads opened up down the street.”

“They taking your customers?”

“Fuck, no. You ever go in there?”

“Didn’t even know it existed.”

“Place smells like camel shit.” Max took a sip from his coffee and added two more sugars. “They gotta bring in a fucking goat just to use as an air freshener. You want a doughnut or something?”

“Nah. Is he here?”

Max smiled, revealing a row of teeth stained anywhere from pack-a-day yellow to lung-cancer brown. “What do you think? Been waiting ten minutes.”

Bobby walked toward the back of the store. Finn was stalking back and forth in front of a Keno screen hanging from the ceiling. Yellow balls were tumbling, and numbers were dropping into place.

“Give me an eighty. Give me a
fucking
eighty.”

A sixty-four popped up, followed by a seven, a twelve, and a forty-three. Finn welcomed each number with its very own expletive. Then the game was done.

“Cock
SUCKER
.” He tore up his ticket and threw it on the floor with the rest of the Keno confetti.

“What are you playing?”

Finn’s head whipped around. “Hey, B. I didn’t see you there. Same four numbers all week. First three come in, but I can’t hit the fucking eighty.”

“Go with a different number.”

“Yeah, then the eighty comes in all day long. Fucking ballbreaker, right?” Finn slipped onto a stool. Bobby sat on a long wooden table that ran the length of one wall and let his legs dangle.

“Was reading an article in
SI
about Michael Jordan,” Finn said. “Did you know he has a brother?”

Bobby shook his head.

“Dude’s five eight. Imagine that. You’re Michael Jordan’s brother and you’re five fucking eight.”

“You think it bothers him?”

“Sure as shit would bother me.” Finn had a folded
Herald
in front of him and a white paper bag. Bobby ignored the newspaper and opened the bag. He took out a blueberry muffin and broke off a piece.

“Thanks.”

Finn nodded at the
Herald
. Bobby sighed and pulled it across. Inside the fold was a stack of twenties.

“Three forty. All paid up.”

“You don’t have to do it this way, Finn.”

“It’s smart.”

“It’s fucking stupid. Who’s watching us? Max?”

“You want to go in the bathroom and count it.”

“Shut up.” Bobby took out the money and stuffed it in his pocket. It had been their ritual for the last five years. Once a week, they’d meet at the Palace. They saw each other every day, but this meeting always took place at the Palace. Finn would bring a blueberry muffin and a
Herald
. If he owed money (the usual case), he’d stick it in the paper. If Bobby owed him (the unusual case), Finn would wait while Bobby tucked his winnings in the paper. Bat-shit crazy? Sure. But it was Finn.

“You work today?” he said.

Bobby hung drywall most mornings starting around six until two in the afternoon. He didn’t need the cash, not with the book operation and everything, but Bobby liked the physical labor. In fact, it was one of the best things in his life.

“Yeah.” Bobby tossed the remains of his muffin in the trash. “I just saw the Irishman outside. The tall one with the white streak and eye patch.”

“Slattery?”

“Is that his name? What’s he owe us?”

“I don’t know. Four, maybe five K.”

“He said he paid in three thousand last week.”

“He’s a liar. Check with Bridget. She’ll tell you.”

“Fuck it. I just went Wayne Cashman on his ass.”

“So what’s he still owe us?”

“Get what you can out of him. Then tell him to take his business elsewhere. If he gives you any trouble . . .”