by Joe Clifford
I’m not sure how long I sat at that table, but long enough for the coffee to go cold. Fuck coffee. If I was going to drink something cold, might as well be a beer. I cracked the day’s first, and headed out to the garage. I reached into the trash bin and dug out the giant scrapbook I’d thrown away, last year’s secret obsession to exonerate my brother that hadn’t been a secret to anyone.
Last year when Chris had gone missing, I’d needed a picture of him to show around the now-demolished truck stop. The one photograph I had, this old, faded yearbook snapshot, had been taken back before he was a skeleton, when he had a regular haircut and looked human. When I saw my aunt and uncle at the wedding, the social event of the season attended by seven people, including the goddamn justice of the peace, money so tight, I’d asked them to bring any old pictures they had of my brother and me, our parents. My history.
I hadn’t taken more than a cursory glance at the gold-embossed wedding gift. I ripped the pages from the three-hole punch and transferred Chris and my folks to the back of the binder. Tossed the album. I didn’t need the constant reminder sitting on a shelf.
Beer in hand, I lit another cigarette and dropped the binder on my workbench, peeling back the cover, skipping the articles I’d compiled on Adam, Michael, and Gerry Lombardi, heading straight to the photos of my family in the back. They were all dead now.
My brother had been ten years older than me, so when he was a teenager, I was a kid. And when Chris was a kid, I wasn’t born. We’re talking ’70s, ’80s. Taking photographs then wasn’t like it is today, the way Jenny documented Aiden’s life digitally on her iPhone, uploading them to the desktop, memories that would never fade or decompose, stored in permanent electronic folders. These photos I had of Chris, Mom, and Dad were Polaroids, snapped on cheap Nokia crap, yellowed, disintegrating with the passage of time.
I ran a finger over the cellophane protector. Little red house. Dirt lawn. Chris in denim outfits, sporting an assortment of butt-chop haircuts. Mom, so young, with too much makeup under her eyes. Dad, shaggy and less serious. There were pics of him goofing around, wearing funny hats, a far cry from the stern and responsible man I’d known as a father.
The three of them at Christmas. The three of them on vacation by the beach. Picnics in the park. They were a family. They all seemed happy. Until I showed up. Once I appeared on the scene, the tone shifted to somber. Then a terrible thought: maybe it all turned to shit when I was born? So long after their first, maybe I was the accident that disrupted the harmony? All I remembered was Chris and our father screaming at each other, my mother silent, off in the distance. I knew my father to be a good man, the kind of man I aspired to be. He was good to me. But there was undoubtedly a distance. My father reacted and battled my brother. My mother seemed broken. Even as a kid, I knew she drank too much. As a child, I attributed these stresses to my brother’s acting out. I’d wonder what if Chris wasn’t here? What if it was just my parents and me? Maybe then things would’ve been better. Maybe then we’d be happy. And when they died, even if I didn’t blame Chris the way the rest of the town did, I’d think if he hadn’t been born, maybe my parents would be alive today. I viewed Chris as the aberration, the mistake. But what it if it was the other way around? What if I was the one who shouldn’t be here?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I’D SUCKED DOWN half a pack of cigarettes and drained another case of beer running through the photographic seasons like a perverted version of The Wonder Years, watching satisfaction erode with each vacant expression.
I opened the garage door and stood at the edge. Still hadn’t put on a shirt, hair damp. Nothing dries in the cold. Probably catch pneumonia. The skies over the mountains threatened storm. I inhaled a deep, icy breath, which hurt my lungs. But the air here was clean, pure; I knew it filled me with something good.
Turning to go back inside, I spotted the car. Several houses down, just sitting there. The last house on the block. Sedan. Brown, black, maybe dark blue. Engine running, taillights glowing. In the day’s dying light, I couldn’t see too well, but I could make out the two shadowy figures inside. I checked up and down the street. I hadn’t met all my neighbors. Had no interest. But this car did not belong here.
My heart started speeding again. How much did I have to drink? Or were the cigarettes making me jumpy? The pills the doctor prescribed weren’t cutting down on the anxiety. I knew whoever was inside that the car had been sent to do me harm. Haul me away, take me in, make me disappear. Even without seeing anyone’s eyes, I could feel intentions of malice. Veins throbbed up my wrists, thrumming inside my biceps, my breathing harsh, hostile, agitated.
When the landline rang, I practically jumped out of my kicks, like I’d grabbed hold of an electric fence.
I closed the garage door and headed inside, snagging a dirty tee off the arm of a chair. The ringing droned, annoying and obnoxious. I should’ve known who was calling before I even put receiver to ear.
“Jay,” Andy DeSouza said. “Why aren’t you picking up your cell?”
I carried the landline, cradle and all, to the window and cracked the shutters. The car down the block began coughing exhaust as it pulled away slowly, taunting me.
“I had to call HR to get this number.”
“Yeah,” I answered, waiting for the car to move faster. “What’s up?” Get the hell out of here and leave me alone.
“Were you out at the North River Institute last night?”
The car drove off up the snow-packed street, creeping around the corner, two taillights blazing red around the bend, a pair of demon eyes casting judgment.
“Your truck was spotted on a road up there.”
I let the blinds fall. “What? You’re having me followed, Andy?”
“So you admit it. You were out there?”
“What do you care what I do in my free time? Which I now have an abundance of, thanks to you. Oh, and I appreciate you telling my wife I’d been suspended.”
“I think I was pretty clear not to look into—”
“What’s your damage, man? I’m sitting in my house, doing squat, because you told me not to come to work. Then you rat me out to my wife? Now you’re calling to bust my balls because someone saw my truck on a road? What the fuck?”
“This isn’t the kind of attitude that’s going to get you to Concord—”
“You know, Andy, you’ve been dangling that bullshit prize since I got here. You’re like one of those rigged fucking games at Chuck E. Cheese I take my kid to in Pittsfield. Slip a buck, try and snare a plush bunny with a metal claw. But you know what? You can never win the bunny. You can never hook any of the good stuff. It’s fixed. A con game.”
“I can’t tell you how disappointed I am, Jay. Y’know, Concord—”
“Andy?” I stopped him. “Do me a favor. Take Concord and stick it up your fucking ass.” I slammed the receiver.
The phone immediately rang back.
“I said fuck off!”
“Whoa, Jay. It’s me. Everything okay, man?”
“What do you want, Charlie?” I peeked back through the curtains. Light snow fell through porch light, fresh powder in the street unblemished by tire tracks. I took a deep breath, feeling for my smokes. “I just lost my job.”
“You got fired?”
“Or I quit.”
“Shit. What’s Jenny going to say?”
I unscrewed my script, toppled a pair of pills, took a swill of warm, flat beer, and lit another cigarette. “Doesn’t matter,” I said through the slow burn. “She packed up her shit earlier. She’s gone.”
He didn’t say anything.
I stared down at my feet when I realized I’d been walking in circles. Literally in circles. Like one of McMurphy’s rejects lobbying to see the World Series in the nut ward.
I forced myself to take a chair. “Why are you calling?”
“To apologize,” he said. “I’m not sure I helped last night. I’m not sure I’ve been helping at all. I mean, last night, you d
idn’t need that.”
“No, Charlie? You condescending prick. And what do I need?”
“A friend.”
That disarmed me. Charlie Finn was my friend. About the only one I had these days. I didn’t need to be reminded he cared. When you fall on black days, bad news is easier to digest; kindness can be cruel.
“Anyway,” he continued, after the brief, uneasy silence. “Fisher wants to see you.”
“Fisher?” I knew he and Charlie still spoke but why would the guy want to see me now? “For what?”
“Are you okay to drive?” Charlie asked.
“I’ve had a few beers. Why?”
“Fisher wants to talk to you.”
“So why didn’t he call me?”
“He asked me to call you. We’re meeting at the Olympic Diner. Tonight.”
What the hell was so pressing? Fisher and I hadn’t spoken since he set me up with the job at NorthEastern last winter . . . Right. My failure reflected badly on him. Nice try. I wasn’t getting read the riot act by Fisher.
“It’s important,” Charlie said.
“Tell Fisher I don’t want to hear it.” He must’ve learned I told Andy DeSouza to fuck himself—what other reason for the urgency? Except I’d told my boss to fuck off less than two minutes ago. How fast can bad news really travel?
“Fisher’s coming from the other direction,” Charlie mumbled, as if to himself. “You shouldn’t be driving if you’re drunk.”
“I’m buzzed. I’m not drunk. But if you think, after the day I’ve had, I’m taking lip from that greasy little fuck—”
“He wants to help,” Charlie said.
“I don’t want my job back.”
“Jay, it’s not about your job. I mean, not directly. You need to see something. You have to trust me. It’ll be worth your while. Promise. Won’t make sense over the phone. I still don’t want you driving, though. We’re getting that storm tonight—”
“What storm?”
“How out of it are you, man? Turned on the news lately? Listened to the radio?”
“Nope.” I’d been cloistered inside a goddamn bubble.
“Supposed to be, like, the worst blizzard since ’78?” He exhaled. “Not gonna hit until well after midnight. We have plenty of time.”
“Time for what?”
“Let me call Fisher. Maybe I can convince him to make a pit stop and pick you up first. But it’s the other direction.” I could hear Charlie’s hamster wheel spinning as he tried to plot a way to collect me from Plasterville. “Or we can both go out there—”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll head to Ashton.” I didn’t feel like sitting around an empty house anyway, peeking out blinds like a basketcase.
“You shouldn’t drive—”
“Relax. I have a friend I can call for a ride. See you at the Olympic in an hour.”
* * *
How many reckless high school nights ended up at the Olympic? After every party, kegger, or concert, we always managed to find our way to the twenty-four hour dinette on the Desmond Turnpike, its long, tin carriage gleaming hopefully in the parking lot. The reservoir ragers and drunken hook-ups of wild-eyed seventeen-year-olds with their whole lives ahead of them had given way to two dudes in their thirties, whose lives hadn’t gone exactly as planned.
Seeing Charlie in the bright light tripped me out. In the washed-out grays of the bar or his bunker, flaws were more easily concealed. Back in the day, my best friend had been lean and handsome, a real lady-killer. Now he was paunchy, a few ham sandwiches short of blowing up like Brando. I could see what Charlie would look like in another five, ten. And the picture wasn’t pretty. The reason was simple: alcohol. Charlie liked to drink, and even beer can take its toll. I tried to add up how much beer I’d downed over these last few days. Counting by twelve and rounding down, I still ended up with a frightening number.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Charlie asked.
The pretty Greek waitress reached around me and refilled his coffee mug.
“Sit down,” he said. “You’re making me nervous.”
Charlie didn’t realize the girl was with me, until Nicki slipped in the booth opposite him. He didn’t say hi, content to gawk like a weirdo. She popped back up.
“I need to use the restroom,” she said to me.
I pointed down the long row of red vinyl stools propped along the counter, past the strudel and Danish hiding under scratched plastic hoods.
When I sat down, Charlie whiplashed, catching Nicki’s ass as she walked away. He spun around, thumbing over his shoulder.
“Are you hitting that?”
“Am I hitting that?” I repeated. “No, Charlie, I’m not ‘hitting that.’ I’m fucking married.”
“I thought you said Jenny left.”
“My wife needs time to think. I needed a ride because you kept bugging me. Nicki is a friend. That’s it.” Truth was, I could drive fine; the heightened, agitated state had left me stone-cold sober. “And if my wife did leave me, I think it’d take longer than half a day to rebound.”
“Sorry, man.” Charlie fiddled with his spoon. “I thought, y’know—”
“What?”
“If you and Jenny are having problems, maybe . . .” He arched his brows, bobbing. “Y’know?”
“No, I don’t know. I don’t do that.”
“What? Have sex?”
“Screw around.” It was true, and one of the better parts of my character, one of the few I had left to feel good about. I didn’t cheat. Never had. I had no intention of starting now.
“What about Gina? In high school?”
“Any girl I’ve been with over the years, Jenny and I were on a break.” There had been a lot of breaks. Before he could chime in, I added, “And other girls were never the cause. Jenny and I are . . . complicated.”
Nicki returned and slid beside me. I realized she’d excused herself so Charlie and I could have a few moments alone. Maybe she wasn’t as unperceptive as I thought.
I also realized I hadn’t gotten around to introducing her. “Nicki interns at the Longmont Courthouse.” I’d already filled Nicki in on Charlie’s backstory. “She’s the one who found out what happened to that kid, Brian.”
“Cool,” Charlie said, still staring without a hint of self-awareness.
He smoothed a hand over what was left of his thinning hair, sucked in his gut, trying to dial up the suave and smooth Charlie from days gone past. The gesture didn’t translate. Vince Vaughn in Swingers is a lot different than Vince Vaughn in, well, anything else.
“Where is Fisher?” I asked.
Charlie ignored me until I snapped my fingers and caught his attention.
“What?”
“What’s going on? Why’s Fisher so hot to see me? I haven’t even talked to the guy since he got me that fucking job—”
“I told you it’s not about the job.”
“Then what’s it about? Start talking, man, or we—” I motioned between Nicki and me like we were a tag team “—are walking out that door.”
“That place we were last night,” Charlie said, accepting he couldn’t hold me off any longer.
“North River. What about it?”
He had been busting my balls so hard over being there I was surprised he recognized the name.
“When I told Fisher about it—”
“Told Fisher about what?”
“North River.”
“When did you tell Fisher about North River? How often do you guys talk?”
“I don’t know. Every day?”
“Every day? Are you in a long-distance relationship now?” I looked at Nicki, who broke into a grin, entertained by the witty banter. “What the fuck?”
“Let’s wait until Fisher gets here,” Charlie said. “You know I’m not good explaining stuff. I start talking it’s not gonna sound right.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“It’s all connected, man.”
“What’
s all connected?”
“North River. Judge Roberts.” He waited. “Last year.”
“What are you talking about?”
Nicki perked up at the mention of Roberts’ name, meeting Charlie’s eye, the two of them nodding in agreement. I felt stuck in an old Twilight Zone episode where everyone’s gone crazy but me. One thing I’d learned about this life: the moment you believe you are the only sane man in an insane world you can rest assured you are truly fucked.
When the front bell dinged, I knew if I turned around I’d see Fisher. I saw Fisher all right.
The last time I’d seen the guy was at my brother’s wake, when I’d asked Charlie and him to drop this whole Lombardi business, forget the hard drive we’d found, the pictures. There wasn’t enough evidence, and given my recent brushes with death, I wasn’t jeopardizing the well-being of my wife and son.
Fisher had always been a goofy-looking little fucker. The greasy ringlets and Dumbo ears, the wisp of porn mustache. But still a regular guy. The man who walked toward us now sported long Jesus hair, a scruffy beard, and John Lennon glasses. He wore a tweed jacket with goddamn patches at the elbows. A full-fledged, card-carrying, New Hampshire hippy. He toted a leather satchel, too, like some professor at a liberal arts college, or maybe, y’know, a poet.
I panned across to Charlie, who seemed unfazed by our friend’s new appearance, which meant he’d seen him recently, further adding to the sensation that everybody was in on the joke but me.
Fisher stopped at the table and dropped the bag, which landed with a thump.
We all turned.
“We got him,” he said.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“YOU SURE SCREWED the pooch, eh, Porter?” Fisher said, sliding into the spot next to Charlie. Despite the radical fringe wardrobe, he was the same smart-ass Fisher. “Involuntary leave? Ouch.”
I didn’t bother correcting him that my temporary break had turned permanent vacation.
For as uncouth and crass as Fisher could be, at least when he saw Nicki he had the decency to act like a civilized human being and not some knuckle-dragging troglodyte looking to club his next conquest.
