Flood (13 page)

“To tell the truth, Andy, your father has never been much good at anything, and that's the size of it.”

“You mustn't say that…”

“No… no, it's true. I'm no good to anyone and no good to myself.”

Andy started to put his arms around his father, but Vinny got up and, without another word, went into his room and closed the door.

Andy stared at the door helplessly. Vinny had never done anything like this before; it was totally unusual. He cleaned up the breakfast things. The pancakes had been good, the first real breakfast he'd ever made, but his achievement was spoiled by the thought of having caused his father's sudden depression. It just wasn't like Vinny to be so unhappy; maybe looking for a job was getting him down. Andy threw himself onto the sofa and felt himself sinking into the swamp of his father's misery. He began to see failure and despair worn into the torn, grubby curtains, smeared on the stained walls, ground into the shoddy furniture. Vinny's life was a weight pressing Andy down further into the swamp; even the thought of being with kids his own age, in school, wasn't enough to cheer him up. He would leave the school enrollment idea till tomorrow; today he didn't feel so great.

It was only eleven o'clock in the morning, but he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
When he awoke, Vinny was sitting in his chair reading
The Sporting Life
. “It's late,” he said, “but you were sleeping like a baby. I couldn't wake you up.”

Whether it was because of Vinny's earlier sadness, or because of something else — an atmosphere of hopelessness that Vinny had created in the room, or the heavy gloom of the day, the rain beating on the fire escape outside — Andy had a sense of foreboding, a feeling that something bad was about to happen, a black premonition that clutched his heart.

Vinny, out of cigarettes, got up and went into his room. Andy could hear him ripping at a fresh carton — he never seemed to run out of them — as a knock came on the door, the usual code.

“Vinny,” Andy called in to him, “it's one of your secret agents at the door.”

Vinny opened the door and two men burst in, black trench coats, one man big, the other small. Andy recognized them: the Halifax Mafia — Fingers Agostino and his sidekick.

Vinny was fast: he turned and sprang to the window, throwing it wide open for an emergency escape, but couldn't climb out because the big man, just as fast, had a grip on his shirt and was pulling him back in. Andy ran into the kitchen, grabbed the frying pan, and jumped up, swinging it at the bodyguard's head, catching him on the back of the neck. The bodyguard swore, releasing Vinny, and swatted Andy like a fly, catching him in the chest and catapulting him back against the wall. Andy, the wind
driven out of him, collapsed on the floor in a daze while Vinny escaped out the window.

“After him!” yelled Fingers.

The two men followed Vinny out the window, scrambling onto the fire escape.

Andy struggled to his feet and leaned out the window. He heard a screech of metal and saw part of the fire escape bend away from the wall as the combined weight of the three men caused anchors to rip from the crumbling wall and the structure to buckle under the strain. Someone screamed. Andy saw the two black trench coats flutter to the ground like swooping bats, and then he saw Vinny at the bottom of the fire escape hanging upside down, his head about fifteen feet above the ground, arms hanging loose as if he were dead.

“Vinny!” Andy yelled. He plunged forward, trying to climb out onto the fire escape, but something was holding him back. It felt like Fingers' sidekick dragging him back into the room, but that was impossible: the sidekick was lying dead, or unconscious, on the ground below. “Vinny!” Andy yelled again as he struggled to climb out the window but it was no good; he was held fast. He turned away from the window and was free and ran downstairs.

VINNY WASN'T DEAD. Andy had been quick getting down to the telephone in the manager's office. The police car, fire truck, and ambulance were not long getting to the Mayo.

Firemen climbed up and released Vinny's trapped foot from the twisted metal of the fire escape while Andy stood looking up at them.

Had he found his father after all these years only to lose him again? Vinny, he prayed, don't die on me!

Fingers and his friend were strapped to stretchers and loaded into the ambulance.

Vinny, his face bloody, was on the next stretcher.

“Vinny!” yelled Andy. “Are you okay? Vinny! Speak to me!” But his father's eyes were closed.

“Is he dead?” Andy danced wildly around the medics.

“He's alive,” said one.

“He'll be okay, kid,” said the other. “Don't worry. Get in the ambulance.”

Andy climbed into the ambulance with his father and then spent the next hour waiting anxiously in Emergency,
praying still, watching the medical staff coming and going, walking the floor, sitting, walking the floor again. A nurse asked him questions and wrote down his answers.

When the nurse had gone, he sat biting lip and fingernails. What if his father died and he was left alone? What would he do? There was nobody else, only Aunt Mona, and he didn't want to live with her. Where would he live?

Poor Vinny — was he in pain?

A doctor introduced himself. Dr. Julie. Andy's father would mend. Crutches for a week or two. Head sutures. Nothing too serious. What were sutures? Stitches, that was all. Poor Vinny, head stitched like a soccer ball. But he would be all right. Andy felt the relief surge in his chest.

“What about the other two men?”

Fingers and his sidekick had broken their legs.

It was almost two hours before Vinny appeared, dragging himself along on crutches like a wounded soldier, a nurse at his elbow helping and encouraging. The dressing circling his head covered a gash to his temple. His foot, swollen to the size of a turnip, was heavily bandaged. Obviously in some pain, he smiled wearily when he saw Andy waiting for him.

The nurse offered to call a taxi, but Vinny said he could do it himself. The nurse left. “I'll be only a minute,” he said to Andy.

Andy sat in the waiting room. He could see his father's back at the telephone in the hospital entrance. He seemed to be making not one but several calls.

The taxi took them home. Andy helped his father up the stairs and onto the sofa. His foot had to be kept raised, off the floor.

Andy made him tea.

“Throw in a drop of whiskey,” said Vinny. “I need it to clear my poor head. Then leave the bottle here beside me.”

Andy took the mug back to the kitchen, poured a little of the tea into the sink to make room for the whiskey, and topped up the mug from the whiskey bottle on the counter. Then he put the tea and the bottle on the floor beside the sofa where his father could reach them.

Vinny stirred his tea. He seemed depressed. Or was still in shock from his brush with death. “Thanks for your help, Andy. I don't know what I'd've done without you.” He stared. “You look a bit flushed. Are you all right?”

“I'm fine,” said Andy, but he didn't feel fine. His head felt like it was about to burst; cockroaches and scorpions crawled in his belly.

“I'll not be dancing for a while,” said Vinny. “Wasn't that the madness? On the fire escape? I was fortunate not to break my neck. Upside down I was, my whole life turned upside down, Andy, can you believe that?”

Vinny drank his tea, then balanced himself on his crutches and limped to his room to sleep. Andy lay on the sofa to rest his pounding head and battle with his demons.

The next day Andy still had a headache, and the feeling of doom had not gone away.

He had felt it minutes before the fire escape accident and he felt it still.

It was like a vulture hovering over him.

Something waiting to happen. Waiting to tear out his liver.

Again, Vinny wasn't his usual happy self; he lay on the sofa, foot propped up on the arm, worried and depressed. Andy put it down to pain from the injuries.

Vinny groaned.

“Is it the foot?” asked Andy.

“It's not the foot.”

“Your head, then.”

“It's not the head.”

“Then what?”

“It's my sins. I groan for my sins, God forgive me.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“Andy, anything that happens from now on will be for your own good. Do you understand what I'm saying?”

“No, I don't understand what you're saying, Vinny. But whatever it is, I don't like the sound of it.”

“I only want what's best for you.”

Andy waited for him to go on, but he said no more.

“So spit it out, Vinny. What nasty thing is about to happen for my own good?”

“It will be all for the best, remember that.”

Andy didn't understand. Vinny was up to something for sure. But what? His head throbbed and his eyes ached and the cockroaches crawled in his belly still. All he knew was that something really bad was about to happen.

When it did happen, it took him completely by surprise.

The light was fading and the rain was coming down heavier than ever and Andy's head was throbbing and his legs felt wobbly, when there came a firm, uncoded knock on the door. The first thing Andy thought of was the police and he wondered if Vinny had managed to get rid of the whiskey, because if he hadn't, then it was more trouble.

“See who it is, Andy.”

Andy opened the door.

She was wearing a raincoat, not her long gray coat, but otherwise Aunt Mona looked exactly the same, severe, grim, starchy.

“May I come in?” she said.

“Come in, Mona, come in,” Vinny called. He had been stretched out on the sofa, his injured foot resting on the arm, but now he struggled up and slid the whiskey bottle out of sight behind the arm of the sofa.

Aunt Mona stepped inside. “God save all here,” she said quietly. She looked at Andy. “Are you ready to go?”

Andy stared at her with burning eyes. He understood. His heart buckled. He turned to Vinny. “You asked her to come and take me,” he accused, his voice deadly quiet, head and heart pounding like a pair of drums. “You called her from the hospital!”

Vinny protested, “You don't understand, Andy — “

“You don't want me. That's not hard to understand, Vinny. You're my father, but you don't want me. I hate you!” His father was a traitor. Andy had been betrayed. Stabbed in the back.

“It isn't that I don't want you, Andy, God knows I think the world of you and I'd give anything to keep you, but I can't take care of you here, you know that right well, especially now with these crutches.”

“I thought we'd take care of each other,” said Andy. “You're my
father!”

“I am and proud of it. But a boy needs to be looked after properly. And I'm not up to it. It's beyond me. D'you hear what I'm telling you? I'm not the one to bring you up.”

“You don't need to bring me up. I can bring myself up.”

“You can do no such thing. You're a child. You need a proper home, Andy!”

“I'm your son, Vinny! You're my father! You've
got
to take care of me, not — not
her!
And if you don't think this is a proper home for me, then you've got to find us a proper home, one that is good enough!”

Vinny turned to Aunt Mona for help, but she had her back to them, looking out the window. He limped over to Andy and reached out an arm, but Andy backed away.

“Don't touch me! You don't want me!”

“I do want you. When you're gone, it'll be like I've lost an arm and the use of
both
legs. Your aunt is a good woman. She knows what a boy needs. She can take care of you until I'm back on my feet.”

“You're full of talk, Vinny. You've got no intention — “

“But I do, Andy! Trust me! I'll not let you down, not this time. Just give me another chance. Leave it to me. But for now, till I find a job and the right place for us, go with your aunt.”

“You made promises before.”

“I promise on your mother's grave!”

“She's got no — I don't believe you, Vinny. I just don't believe you!”

“Leave everything to me, darlin', I promise.” “You'll get a job?”

“I will.”

“And find a proper place?”

“I will.”

“You promise?”

“I promise. May God strike me dead if I don't!”

“And you'll send for me right away, as soon as you find

it?”

“I will, I swear. God and Mona are my witnesses.”

Andy felt a throat swell of despair. He didn't believe Vinny, didn't trust him. He had lied before. Vinny, his father, didn't want him: that was all he could think of. His father didn't want him, and worse still, he'd sent for the one person Andy hated most in all the world: Aunt Mona.

He mumbled to his aunt, “I'll just throw my things in a bag.”

They waited for a bus outside the Mayo Rooms. The rain dropped like acid. Andy pulled up the hood of his parka. A nearby garbage can overflowed onto the sidewalk with sodden hamburger cartons, paper cups, cigarette packages, bus tickets, chewing gum wrappers. Someone had thrown up in the gutter. Aunt Mona held an umbrella over them both. They said nothing to each other. Andy stared down
the empty gray road. It was too early for the streetlights to come on, but the gray gloom and drizzling rain made it difficult to see far. His head throbbed; he started to shiver. His new parka was warm enough, but this was a chill that began on the inside, in the marrow of his bones, and spread outward to muscle and tissue.

A sudden frightening gust of wind howled at them from nowhere. It blew Mona's umbrella inside out and blew the garbage can over. The filth from the can flew up into the air and landed in a heap about Aunt Mona's feet.

“Well, I never!” she gasped, backing away and hanging on to her broken umbrella.