Authors: Bill Loehfelm
Fresh Kills (6 page)
Maybe this blond guy had been a part of my parents’ nights out. He’d been with them that one night in the photo, at least. More than that was impossible to know. I figured the tux made him for the best man, or maybe an usher. Or maybe I had it wrong and my father was the best man and the blond guy was the groom. As hard as it was to think of my father as a groom, it was even harder to imagine him as anybody’s best man. But there it was, in fading color. I studied the photo, searching for my mother, a blur in white, somewhere in the background, but she wasn’t there. It occurred to me that maybe she had taken the picture.
That I could see, my mother bent at the waist, wearing a wedding dress, long blond hair falling, the camera to her eye, waving at my father to smile for her. I could almost hear the sarcastic cut on my mother that my father whispered to his friend. It was probably what they were laughing at in the photo. Something really witty, like they could see down her dress, or that she better use two hands to work the camera. I found myself hoping that both men had suffered through king-hell hangovers the next morning.
I wondered if my mother had known that blond guy well. What had my father done to drive that guy out of his life? There must’ve been something, because my father eventually did that to everybody. Before I even finished grammar school, not long after the “accidents” started, people stopped coming over, and my folks had stopped going out before that.
Julia wouldn’t know who the guy was, either. That was probably why she’d left the picture out, to remind her to ask me about it. There was nothing for me to tell her. It occurred to me, standing there in that empty kitchen, that there was no one left but me to ask. It was a shame. I didn’t have any answers. I put the photo back into the box, burying it under a pile of the others. I switched off the kitchen light, grabbed my jacket, and headed out the front door.
I decided to forgo the car and its busted taillight and its expired registration. Minus my few pleasant hours passed out next to Molly, I’d pretty much been drinking for twenty-four hours or so and I’d seen enough cops for one day. So I walked, head down, hands in my jacket pockets, the few blocks along Richmond Avenue down to Joyce’s Tavern.
They looked at me, the watery eyes of the old men dark in the dim light of the bar. I stared back at the three of them. Joyce was either trying to recognize me, or already had, and was debating whether or not to throw me out. One of the drunks said, “Sanders’s kid,” to him and he nodded some more. Like it was on the rest of the island, “Sanders’s kid” was a strong indictment at Joyce’s.
For half a year or so my father had been a regular, picking this joint after he’d worn out his welcome somewhere else. I’m surprised it took him so long to get here. It was the bar closest to the house and literally on the way home from the Eltingville train station. My father had walked right past Joyce’s Tavern on his way home from work every weekday for years. It would be his last stop, his last regular bar. His reputation preceded him, but my father paid his tab and didn’t misbehave any more than the other regulars, so Joyce gave him a chance. But my old man had a special talent for getting under someone’s skin, for picking the one thing that drove them craziest and latching on to it like a pit bull. For Joyce, that thing was Northern Ireland.
Born on the Catholic side of Belfast, Joyce finished high school there before joining his older brother on Staten Island, taking over the bar when his brother died years later. All in all, Joyce had adjusted to the island well enough. He lived with the traffic, the frantic pace, the pollution, and the smell of the Dump in summer. All of it was easier to take, I guess, than riots and kneecapping.One thing he always hated, however, was drunken spouting about “the Troubles.” He once smacked a guy right in the mouth for ordering an Irish Car Bomb.
The “barstool Irish” Joyce called them, the Irish-Americans, three or four generations removed from Ireland, who’d never even been to the Republic, never mind the North, but who loved to get shamrock tattoos, shout about getting the Brits out of Ireland, and ask him how to send money to the IRA. Of course, barstool Irish were also the lifeblood of the tavern’s business; Staten Island was loaded with them and my father could’ve been their king. I had the pleasure of being there when, after my mother’s funeral, my father wore out Joyce’s patience and his reign came to an end.
My father was three-sheets and on his soapbox. The early negotiations for what became the Good Friday Accord had already begun, but it wasn’t like my father to learn anything about what he chose to pontificate about. And that day he was eager to make noise about anything other than my mother being dead, to do anything that deflected the accusing stares that followed him.
He stood on the bar rail, waving his wallet in the air, hollering that he would match any donations to the “beloved boyos fighting for the union of the motherland.” I sat two stools away, my face in my hands. Julia stormed out. Joyce had already asked the old man three times to sit down and shut up, only to be told to fuck off. Joyce finally got my father’s attention by walking away with his whiskey.
When my father jumped down from the rail and protested, stumbling over his own feet, Joyce barreled out from behind the bar. He leaned right into my father’s face, demanding to know when the righteous Mr. Sanders would be flying off to Ulster to join the fight.
My father blinked at him, silent for a long moment. “Ulster?” he finally said. “What the fuck’s gotten into you, Joyce? I’m talking about Ireland. Where the fuck is Ulster?”
Joyce went right for his throat. It took me and three other guys to pull them apart. My father was banned for life from Joyce’s Tavern. I started hanging out there more often.
As he studied on me from the far end of the bar, I wondered if Joyce would remember that I’d helped drag my father off him and out the door. From the look on his face, the jury was still out as he headed my way.
“Harp,” I said. He didn’t move. Okay, I thought, be that way. I tossed my cigarettes on the bar, took one out and lit it. I thought about spitting on the floor. If he was gonna eighty-six me, it was gonna be for something
I
did. Joyce didn’t say a word. He set an ashtray on the bar then went off to pour my beer. I laid a twenty on the bar.
I
did. Joyce didn’t say a word. He set an ashtray on the bar then went off to pour my beer. I laid a twenty on the bar.
“Who’s gonna check on a Sunday night?” he said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Won’t catch those two complaining.” He took my money, pouring fresh drafts for the drunks before he made my change.
“I got theirs, too. Keep the change.” He did, dropping two fives into his tip jar. The drunks raised their empties in my direction as Joyce set the full glasses in front of them. There. Now everyone was happy. We could all relax.
“I’m sorry about your father,” one of the drunks said. “It’s a terrible thing.”
I turned my back and looked up at the TV. Inning fifteen. Each team had scored one in the fourteenth. This game might never end. Joyce brought me a full beer when mine was empty.
“How come I hardly see you anymore except when someone dies?” he asked.
“I moved to the North Shore, up by the Boat,” I said, “a while ago.”
“Your old man’s at Scalia’s then?”
“He will be.”
Scalia’s brought Joyce a lot of business. We’d waked my mother there, waked her parents not long before her. It was where we’d waked my friend Mike after he flipped his car, where we waked Molly’s brother, what they found of him, after 9-11.
“How’s Julia doing?” Joyce asked.
“Fine,” I said, surprised he remembered my sister’s name. “You know, as well as she can, considering. She’ll be in this week with me, I’m sure.”
Joyce stared at me, grinding his jaw. “Good. I’m glad she’s doing all right.” He glanced at the drunks, then back at me. “She looked like hell this afternoon.”
“She was in here?”
“Briefly,” Joyce said. “Talking to that big-nosed detective. Purvis. The one you used to know. He bought her a glass or two of wine.”
I turned, looked at the front door, wiped a hand down my face. Well, shit. Halfway between Joyce’s and Scalia’s was the Optimo deli where my father liked to buy his beer and cigars, the place where he’d been shot. I straightened on the stool. That deli was practically next door. Only the pharmacy and the hair salon stood between it and Joyce’s. What was Purvis doing, bringing her to the crime scene? I wanted to strangle him. I thought maybe I would next time I saw him, which explained why Julia hadn’t told me much about it.
“What did she see?” I asked. “What was out there when they came by?”
Joyce hemmed and hawed. “Probably not much. Of course, he was long gone, your father, by then. The meat wag—ambulance— came right away. There was nothin’ left but a bunch of cops, some police tape.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Had she been there? To the corner? Did Purvis take her there?”
“I dunno,” Joyce said. “I didn’t talk to her. I recognized her, you know, of course, but what do you say?” He rubbed some stray ashes into the bar. “They came in and they left together. I poured her drinks. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Fair enough.” I drained the last of my Harp and asked for another, with a shot of Jameson on the side. Joyce hesitated. “Please. I’m not gonna wreck the place. I’m not my old man. I don’t give a shit about Ulster.”
Joyce raised his eyebrows at me.
“What?” I said. “Both sides have been throwing bombs at each other so long, they probably don’t even remember what for. It’s fucking pointless.”
He looked at me for a long time. “Seems they’ve been getting somewhere in the past few years. No one’s thrown any bombs in a while. Sure, there’s been Omagh, the murder, the robbery. But even Paisley finally retired. People are trying.”
“Trust me,” I said. “It’ll never end. Not there, not with the Arabs and the Jews, not with the Sunnis and the Shiites. People love to hate each other. It’s too easy.”
He set the beer down in front of me and next to it an empty rocks glass. “It’ll end. Either they’ll work something out, or they’ll just get tired of fighting.” He tilted the whiskey over the glass, pouring me what was easily a double shot. “One way or another, every fight eventually ends.”
I started to say something else but thought better of it and reached for my wallet. This time, Joyce wouldn’t take my money. He walked over to the drunks. A rerun of
M*A*S*H
played silently on the television over my head. I wondered who had lost the ball game.
M*A*S*H
played silently on the television over my head. I wondered who had lost the ball game.
At closing time, outside the bar, I shoved my hands in my jacket pockets and looked down the street. I shivered. The weather had changed. Heavy clouds blocked the stars and moon. The wind blew hard and steady, and way too cold for May, even at half past midnight. I could smell the rain on it, and a hint of the Dump.
When he turned from locking the door, Joyce caught me staring at the torn yellow police tape that cordoned off the corner. Loose ends snapped in the wind.
“You all right?” he asked, taking my elbow.
I jerked my arm free, my eyes locked on the corner. “Fine. I hadn’t really thought about it being so close.” I turned to him; he had backed a few steps away. “What did you see?”
“Nothing,” he said, his fingertips worrying his beard. “I was still at Mass when it happened. The cops were already here when I came to open up.”
“You see him carted off?”
“Nah. Who wants to watch something like that?”
I thought Joyce might make his escape but he just stood there. “What did you hear?” I asked. He looked away. “C’mon, Joyce. Your bar was full of cops and people from the neighborhood all day. People who knew my father. I wanna know what they’re saying.”
He sighed through his nose. “It happened real fast. Car screeched up to the curb. Guy got out, hit your father twice in the back of the head, drove away. There were people around, but everybody ducked at the shots. Nobody even saw the gun till it was spinnin’ on the sidewalk and your dad was down. The car was long gone.” He held out his hands. “Nobody could’ve done a thing for him.”
“Anybody get a good look at the guy?”
Joyce shook his head. “He was white, big. That was the best anybody could do.”
I tossed my cigarette in the street and stepped up to Joyce. To his credit, he just set his shoulders and tilted his chin up at me. “All night I sit in your bar and you never think to tell me any of this?”
“It’s my job?” Joyce said. “What about the cops? You talked to them. You talked to Julia. I figured they’d told you.”
I backed off. “You know any names? Anybody who saw something?” We stared each other down awhile, then I saw the question move across his eyes. I was asking myself the same thing. Why was I asking? “Because I want to know what happened,” I said. “I’m thinking I might want to talk to people.”
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