Her mother came home on the afternoon of the third day. Bridget was on the roof of their building as the car slalomed down the hill, a freshly washed Caddy with gleaming chrome bumpers winking in the sunlight as it pulled to the curb. There was a man behind the wheel. Bridget watched them fall into a clinch by the side of the car, her mother pressing against him, then hanging on even as he tried to pull away. Bridget hated her for that last bit as much as anything. She trudged up Champney, her clothes still on hangers but all wrinkled now and stuffed under an arm. Bridget scrambled off the roof and sat alone in the kitchen, listening as her mother shuffled down the hall and closed the door to the bedroom. The old man cracked the seal on a fresh bottle of whiskey that night and drank most of it, still chain-smoking cigars and never moving from the living room. The next morning Bridget’s mother was back in the kitchen, making breakfast. And he was at the table, eating whatever she put in front of him. No one ever spoke about any of it. What was there to say? Until there was.
“Apple didn’t fall far from the tree, did it?” He twisted a curl of Colleen’s satin locks around one of his fingers.
“Keep them out of it, Jack.”
He grabbed a fistful of his daughter’s hair and buried his nose in it. “She even smells like you.”
Colleen let out a tiny whimper. Bridget rose up from her chair, kicking at the book bag she’d stashed by her feet. “Leave her alone.”
His eyes swept across the table. “Who the Christ was talking to you?”
“Bridget . . .”
“Shut up, Ma. Just leave her alone.”
Colleen suddenly found some spine, struggling in vain to work herself free.
“Relax,” Bridget said. “He’s not gonna hurt you.”
“Hurt her? Why would I hurt her?” He turned Colleen around and studied her like she was a doll he’d won at a carnival. “Who would hurt something like this?” He traced the fine bones of her face, running a thumb along a cheek until he found the hollow spot beneath her eye, then pressing in until Colleen squealed and her knees buckled.
Bridget leaned forward. Her father narrowed the gap between them with his eyes, pink tongue shooting between his lips.
“You gonna stick me with that, little pup?”
She looked down at the black-handled kitchen knife gripped in her fist, then back up at his face flushed with a complex of emotions. Anger, fear, anticipation? Maybe all three.
“Let her go,” Bridget said, the words even and thick and solid in her mouth. She’d do what it took, even at the breakfast table on a Saturday morning. And so there it was, fully conceived and freshly birthed, ugly in all its wrinkles and all its greed, licking its lips and gnashing its teeth, squalling and looking to feed. And everything else crumbled before it and raised itself up again, except it wasn’t the same in that house and never would be. Her father could see that, plain as day. So he let Colleen go, his face spasming with some private pain as she ran from the room. Then he tucked back into breakfast, salting his eggs a third time and asking his wife if it wasn’t too much trouble for him to get a look at the goddamn, fucking Globe. She shuffled off to puzzle together whatever pieces she could find. Bridget slung her bag over her shoulder and followed her baby sister out.
They snuck up the back stairs and climbed a wooden ladder onto the roof. Bridget led the way—scrambling over a loose pile of bricks and ducking underneath a forked TV antenna. At the front of the building they perched like a couple of skinned birds, staring down at Oak Square and the tangled web of streets spinning off it. The wind had turned raw and raked across the roof in cold, clean sheets. Bridget still had the book bag with her and held it against her chest. Colleen shivered.
“I’m freezing.”
“Come on.”
The back of the roof looked out over their yard and offered shelter in the form of a sooted chimney. Bridget sat cross-legged. Colleen huddled against a wall of rough brick, stick arms wrapped around her ribs, hands tucked under her armpits.
“Thanks.” Her voice rode just under the wind, but Bridget heard it well enough.
“He wasn’t gonna hurt you.”
“He scares me.”
“Everything scares you. That’s why you’re a target.”
“I don’t want to be a target.”
“Then you need to toughen up.”
Colleen wrinkled her nose and blinked. They looked alike, she and Colleen, except Colleen was a more finished product—features sanded and chiseled to finer proportions. Bridget, on the other hand, looked like she’d been taken out of the oven a half hour early. Dull, muddy, a little lopsided, not quite done.
“Why do you come up here so much?” Colleen said.
“It’s called privacy. You wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“I know more than you think.”
Bridget cut her eyes to her sister, who trembled under the weight of her secret.
“You don’t know nothing,” Bridget said.
“I know you’ve got a crush on Bobby.”
“Who?”
“Bobby who lives above the cab office. I saw you watching him.”
“I wasn’t watching him.”
“Yes, you were. Right here from the roof.”
Bridget pulled her bag onto her lap and opened it. “No wonder they hate you.”
“No one hates me.”
“Everyone hates you. Mom, Dad. Everyone.”
“You’re wrong.”
“They hate me, too. Think I care? I can look after myself.”
“Dad used to give me his Communion water.”
Before Colleen made her First Communion, their father would come home from church every Sunday and wordlessly fill a glass with water. He’d take a sip and then let Colleen have some. Their mom said it was his way of giving her the body of Christ.
“Big deal.”
“It is.”
Bridget could read the desperation in her little sister’s voice and brushed at her cheek. The outline of his thumbprint was tattooed there in tiny threads of purple and red.
“You bruise too easy, Col.”
A fat tear trickled down Colleen’s nose and dripped off the curl of her lip. Bridget opened her arms and let her sister snuggle in, burying herself in the sleeve of Bridget’s coat. The sun moved out from behind the clouds and walked shadows across the roof.
“You were a beautiful baby,” Bridget whispered. “Mom said you could be in commercials.”
Colleen’s head popped up. “You’re lying.”
Bridget shooed away the notion.
“Mom really said that?”
“Of course she did.”
Colleen sat up against the wall again, sniffling and wiping her nose, still upset but unavoidably pleased.
“Feeling better?” Bridget said.
Colleen nodded. “I’m glad you’re my sister.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re tough and you take care of me. Are you glad you’re my sister?”
“Do I have a choice? Sure, I’m glad.”
“I’m sorry I teased you about Bobby.”
“Forget it. You wanna see something?”
“What?”
Bridget pulled a big, blue medical dictionary out of her bag.
“Why do you carry that thing around?”
“I like it.” Bridget loved all things flesh and blood. The walls inside her head were covered with maps of arteries and organs, coils of intestinal tract, cross sections of bowels and brains. She was fascinated with the idea of a heart and wondered why it beat at all.
“You won’t start crying?” she said, flipping open the dictionary to a page she’d marked.
“No.”
“You sure?”
Colleen nodded, all bright and eager. Bridget pointed to an entry. “You know what this word means?”
Colleen leaned over the word and squinted. “‘Pre’ something.”
“Preeclampsia. It’s another name for high blood pressure. It happens sometimes when
women have babies.”
“Babies?”
Something primal flickered in the deepest black of Bridget’s eyes. “Yes, babies. You know what they are.”
Colleen scooched closer, like they were around a campfire or in the library or something.
“Preeclampsia.” Bridget pointed at the entry again. Colleen repeated the word.
“Good. Now, you know why it’s important?”
Colleen shook her curls, not so much to say no but just because they were rich and full and everyone loved the sound of them. And because Bridget hated every shake.
“It’s important cuz Mom had it.”
A shadow crossed Colleen’s brow. A wrinkle creased her smooth forehead. “Mom?”
“She got it when she had you. Preeclampsia.” Bridget stretched out each syllable. “You didn’t you know any of this?”
“No.”
Bridget flipped the dictionary shut. “It’s what made her go blind. For six months after you were born, Mom couldn’t see a thing.”
“Mom wasn’t blind.”
“That’s why she never held you when you were a baby.”
“She held me.” An eyebrow jerked, followed by another tremor in Colleen’s perfect upper lip.
“You promised you wouldn’t cry.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Come here.” Bridget opened her arms a second time and Colleen fell into them, coiling into the embrace of her older sister, who kissed the top of her forehead, cooing and fussing, explaining and apologizing until Colleen grew calm again. And then they sat together, huddled against the morning chill, staring out over flat rooftops and empty streets. Colleen had gotten all the looks and loved to play her games, but she didn’t understand pain. Not like she needed to. She’d learn. They’d all have to learn. Even at twelve, Bridget could feel that certainty bleaching her bones and knew there couldn’t be any other way.
7
THEY TOOK cab number four, Bobby behind the wheel, adjusting the radio, lighting a cigarette, and downshifting as they bumped down a long, potholed driveway. They turned onto Hunnewell Avenue, climbed up Burton Street, then coasted back down Washington, past Sammy’s corner store and the cobbler, a Greek pizza joint, Patty’s Donuts, and the Catholic grammar school Kevin’s sisters attended. After that came the march of bars: the Irish Village, the Last Drop, Castlebar, Jimmy’s Nineteenth Hole, and the Oak Square Grill. They drove around the Circle, three locals on full display, rolled up in the grass and sleeping off Friday night. A fourth lay across one of the benches, vomit on his clothes, more puddled at his feet.
The bell inside Saint Andrew’s Church had just struck seven when Bobby goosed the car up a broken runt of a street called Nonantum. About halfway up sat the Thomas Jefferson Middle School. The “Jeff” was a public school and offered the usual city education, which was to say crap. It did, however, have a large back lot. When Kevin was in grammar school, he and his buddies would spray-paint a strike zone on one of the brick walls and play baseball all day in the flat, summer heat. Kevin would pretend he was Sonny Siebert or Luis Tiant. It didn’t matter what anyone else pretended, because in Kevin’s head he was playing the entire game before a packed house at Fenway. When they hit thirteen or so, the neighborhood found other uses for the back of the Jeff—nighttime uses, like drinking beer and smoking dope. Kevin did enough of both so as not to be an outcast, but never enough that he forgot the best thing about the Jeff—throwing a Ray Culp screwball and watching someone swing and miss. Sure there were no seams to grip on a sponge ball, but who gave a shit? He swung and missed, didn’t he?
Bobby hit the turn signal with a flick of his finger, navigating a narrow path that emptied into the Jeff’s back lot. Kevin felt the wheels bump and watched the flag on the cab’s meter bounce with every lurch in the road. Bobby pushed on the brakes as the cab creaked to a stop and settled into a rough idle. Kevin rolled down the window. A couple of kids were sitting on a low wall. One was wearing a long, black leather coat, the other a satin green Celtics jacket. They were drinking tall cans of early morning Bud and passing around what was left of a joint pinched in a roach clip.
“Coreys,” Kevin said.
“Go on out.”
“Where you going?”
“Gotta gas up. I’ll be right back.”
Kevin climbed out and watched Bobby head back down the alley, tailpipe hanging a few inches off the ground and trailing gray smoke. Kevin scuffed his sneakers as he made his way across the lot. “DIE NIGGA DIE” was spray-painted in black letters on one of the school’s brick walls—three words reflecting the crudest understanding of a conflict that feasted on fear and swept like a plague through the narrow neighborhoods of Boston. Kevin barely registered the message as he walked past.
“Kevin boy, what’s up?” David Corey was a year older than Kevin. He’d dropped out of Brighton High after his freshman year and got hired as an apprentice electrician, making sixteen bucks an hour, six days a week, on one of the high-rises going up downtown. He was too young to be an apprentice, but David looked old for his age and paid off some guy at the union hall to get the gig. He took a sip of beer and banged his boots against the wall in pointless, nervous energy.
Sitting beside him was his older brother, Paul. His specialty had always been huffing airplane glue and stealing cars. One night when he was thirteen, he boosted a half dozen and lined them up behind the Jeff with their headlights on and engines running. Then he and his pals burned rubber around the lot until dawn. Just for the fuck of it. These days he made a living selling drugs out of the basement of his uncle’s building. Dope, speed, blotter acid, angel dust—you name it and Paulie C. could hook you up. He pried what was left of the joint out of the roach clip and brought it to his lips, one eye stuck on Kevin the whole time.
“What’s up, shithead?” Paulie spoke with the smoke still down in his lungs so the words came out in gasps of air.
“Fuck you.”
Paulie reared up from his perch and cuffed Kevin across the side of the head. Kevin countered with a sneaky fast right that surprised the older boy almost as much as Kevin when it grazed his chin.
“Motherfucker.” Paulie tossed the roach and came at Kevin with both hands, bouncing him off a brick wall and doubling him over with a knee to the stomach. He got Kevin in a headlock and flipped him to the ground. Kevin could smell weed and beer and the leather of Paulie’s coat in his nose and reached up to claw at whatever he could find. Paulie snickered and squeezed down with his biceps, the muscle flexing and crushing Kevin’s windpipe. He could hear himself gurgling, hungry for a sip of air. Threads of darkness crowded the edges of his vision. His hand slipped, scratching feebly at the older boy’s shoulder. Then the hold was broken. Kevin fell forward, retching and coughing. Bobby stood over him, holding Paulie by a twist of his jacket.
“You all right?”
Kevin spit on the hardtop and rubbed his throat. “I’m good.”
Paul Corey wasn’t the kind of guy you could really take a lot of shit from. Some guys you could. Let them mess around because they didn’t really mean anything by it. Not Paulie. He was always jabbing with the needle, testing to see who might be a bit of a pussy. If he found one, then he’d just keep pushing. Better to push back and be done with it. Or be like Bobby. He threw Paulie onto the wall beside his brother. “Take a fucking seat.”
“Kid needs to learn some manners,” Paulie said, eyes already scouting the ground for the scrap of dope he’d dropped. His brother pulled a tallboy off a plastic ring and offered it to Bobby, who shook his head.
“I’m driving.”
“You still wasting your time with that? Look at the cake I’m making.” Paulie gestured to his ride, a Camaro, shiny and blue and looking pretty nice sitting beside Old Towne Taxi’s beat-to-hell-and-back cab number four.
“It’s a fucking car,” Bobby said. “Besides, I’m not interested in dealing.”
Paulie crushed an empty beer can and tossed it toward a crooked tangle of weed
s that grew out of a seam where the wall met the blacktop.
“You hear about the break-in over on Brackett?” David said.
“When?”
“Couple days ago. Some smoke broke in and cleaned out an old lady’s house while she was shopping.”
“How do you know it was a black kid?” Kevin said.
“Brendan Higgins lives next door.” Paulie popped another tallboy and took a sip. “His sister saw the bonehead leaving. Said he was from Fidelis.”
“She tell the police?” Bobby said.
“Cops don’t give a fuck. We gotta take care of this shit ourselves.” Paulie glanced at his younger brother, who nodded his support.
“You just gonna grab any black kid you see, then?”
Paulie furrowed his brow and dropped his voice a notch. “You some kind of nigger lover, Bobby?”
“Piss off.”
Paulie eyed Bobby, but thought better of it. Bobby stayed with both brothers until he was sure they understood how things were. Then he turned to Kevin.
“Come on. We gotta go.”
They were halfway to the cab when David hopped off the wall and pointed. Thirty yards away, outlined in quick charcoal strokes, was a skinny black kid, twelve, thirteen years old, perched atop a fence that separated the Jeff from the houses behind it. The Coreys took off at a silent run. The kid on the fence slipped down the other side, and was gone.
“No chance,” Kevin said as one of the Coreys shinnied up and over the fence.
“No shit,” Bobby said and they started to walk again.
“What would they do if they caught him?” Kevin said.
Brighton Page 4
