Lifeline

by Gerry Boyle

  “Not if you don’t want me to.”

  “No. I’ve got a kid, you know? A four-year-old kid. It’d be like putting her name in the paper, too.”

  “You don’t want this guy to see it?”

  “Oh, Christ, he’ll see it. Screw him. I hope he does see it. I hope he comes right over and I’ll call Lenny and he’ll arrest the son of a bitch. I hope he resists and they have to mace the shit out of him.”

  “Who’s Lenny?” I asked.

  “The policeman,” the sister said. “He does her neighborhood.”

  “Which neighborhood’s that?”

  “The North End,” Donna said. “Peavey Street.”

  “This Lenny a good guy?”

  “Real good,” Donna said. “I’ve known him since I was a little kid. He said he’d break Jeff’s arms if the law’d let him.”

  “The law frowns on things like that,” I said.

  “Yeah. While she gets beaten, over and over,” the sister said. “Where’s the law then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You see the marks on her?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Well, they aren’t pretty. And a man who’d do that to a woman. I mean, she weighs a hundred pounds soaking wet. Jeff’s what? Six one, one-ninety?”

  Donna nodded.

  “A very big bully,” I said.

  “A piece of shit,” the sister said. “I mean, he bit her, the bastard.”

  “How did that happen?” I said, scribbling blindly in my notebook.

  “I was on top of him,” Donna said. “Well, it started with—he had me by the shoulders, you know? And he tried to kind of throw me across the room, but I hung on to him and we both landed on the floor and his head was underneath my stomach and he bit me to get me off of him.”

  “Nice,” I said.

  “Broke the skin and everything. Right at my waist.”

  She started to reach for her blouse, then stopped.

  “Listen, what’d you say your name is?” her sister said.

  “Jack McMorrow,” I said. “What’s yours?”

  “Marcia,” she said. “I’m her older sister. You’re not gonna put her name in the paper, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you better not. When will this be in the paper?”

  “Maybe tomorrow,” I said.

  “Tomorrow?” Marcia said, as if the project should require further research. “Well, listen. I don’t want my name in the paper either, Mr. McMorrow. You live here in town?”

  “Nope. Out in Prosperity.”

  “You got a number where we can get you?”

  I hesitated for a moment, then pictured them picking up the phone in the Observer newsroom. “McMorrow. Never heard of him.”

  I scribbled my home number on a piece of paper and tore it from my notebook. I held it out, and Donna took it.

  “Listen, hon,” Marcia said to her. “I gotta run. Randy is gonna be home. You need anything, you call me. And if that son of a bitch calls, just hang up. If he comes over, call the cops and keep the doors locked.”

  She turned to me.

  “You better treat her right,” Marcia said.

  “I don’t think you have to worry.”

  “You hurt her, you better start worrying,” she said.

  No need for Officer Lenny. She’d break my arms herself.

  Marcia leaned over and gave Donna a hug and, without another word to me, walked to a new maroon Buick with a white top. She started the motor, slammed the car into gear, and spun gravel as she left the lot, headed up the block toward Main Street.

  Donna and I stood there in an awkward silence, like kids on a first date.

  “So you need anything else?” she said, reaching into a small black pocketbook for her keys.

  “Do you have a few more minutes?”

  “I have to pick up my daughter. She’s staying with my neighbor.”

  “But that’s not Jeff’s daughter. He’s not going to try to snatch her or anything, is he?”

  “Snatch her?”

  Donna laughed, and for the first time I noticed that her voice was sort of soft and pretty.

  “Even when things were good between us, he didn’t want her around. The guy never grew up, you know? Thirty-one going on sixteen. All he wanted to do was party, and—”

  She stopped.

  “Anyway, Adrianna was always in the way,” Donna said.

  “That’s a pretty name.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Unusual.”

  “Yeah,” Donna said. “It was this girl on The Young and the Restless. She was only on, like, four shows, and then she got written out. Went on a trip or something. But I always liked the name.”

  I looked at her.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  “Twenty-two.”

  “How long were you married?”

  “Too long,” Donna said.

  “How long’s that?”

  “Three years.”

  “How old were you when you got married?” I asked, still jotting.

  “Not old enough.”

  “How old is that?”

  “Eighteen. I was a kid, and he was this cool older guy. And he seemed to love me. It wore off.”

  “But you hung in there.”

  “Nobody likes to admit they’ve done something that stupid. So you pretend to the outside world that everything’s okay.”

  “But three years is a long time.”

  “Tell me about it,” Donna said, picking at the pavement with the toe of her white flat shoe. “It seemed like twenty-three.”

  “And then you got involved with Jeff?”

  “What can I say? Good-looking guys all turn out to be jerks.”

  She caught herself.

  “No offense,” Donna said.

  “I’m flattered.”

  She blushed. I smiled. There was something naive about her. Something plaintive.

  “Listen,” she said, looking up at me with those dark bruised eyes. “Don’t get me in any more trouble, okay?”

  “That’s not what I want to do,” I said.

  No promises. No guarantees.

  “Well, take it easy,” Donna said.

  “Is there a phone number where I can reach you? If I have a question?”

  Donna looked at my notebook and considered.

  “Yeah, I guess. It’s 879-0909. Don’t give it to anybody else, okay?”

  “No,” I said. “I won’t.”

  “Bye,” she said, and walked to a beat-up blue Chevy Chevette with one primer-black door. She was thin and, in another life, might have been a model or something. In another very different life.

  The car started with a big puff of smoke, like something from a magic act. Donna gave me a little wave and pulled out of the lot. I stood there for a moment, writing in my notebook.

  “The guy never grew up, you know? Thirty-one going on sixteen. All he wanted to do was party and—”

  I heard voices behind me and turned. The older bailiff was standing outside the double doors of the courthouse, jingling his keys. He said, “Have a good night now” in a loud voice, and two of the court clerks came out, teetering on high heels and carrying shopping bags. They went to the right, toward the other side of the lot, where cars were backed against a blank brick wall. The bailiff still stood there and then Miss Tate came out the door, a battered brown leather valise held in front of her.

  “Have a good night now,” the bailiff said again.

  “You, too,” Miss Tate said, and started across the parking lot toward me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that there was one car left in that section of the lot, a sleek black Pontiac parked next to my beat-up mostly red Toyota pickup.

  Miss Tate rode them hard in court, rode home in style.

  She was twenty feet away when she looked up and stopped. Behind her, the bailiff watched.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Who are you?” Miss Tate said, moving closer.
r />   “Jack McMorrow.”

  “You were in court today, but I’ve never seen you before.”

  “First time in your courtroom,” I said, smiling.

  “You screw up, or are you just a peeper?” she said.

  “I’m a reporter,” I said.

  She stopped again, this time four feet in front of my face.

  “For who?”

  “The Observer.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since today.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Covering Fourth District Court,” I said.

  “Well, you should have come and talked to me,” Miss Tate said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because we can set it up so you get the results. That’s the way we do it here. You stop by and get the results. I give you the highlights. God, you don’t have to sit there all day.”

  “I didn’t mind.”

  “The novelty will wear off, I promise you. You ever do this anywhere else?”

  “Some,” I said.

  “Where?” Miss Tate asked, wariness creeping into her voice. The bailiff still watched from the door. It looked as if he had his hand on his gun.

  “Here and there. Different places. I used to work for the weekly in Androscoggin.”

  “Where else?” she said, pressing on the way experienced interrogators do.

  “Other papers out of state.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Hartford Courant. Providence Journal.”

  “You cover criminal courts for those papers?”

  “On occasion,” I said.

  “Where’d you do it last? Before you came here, I mean.”

  “New York Times,” I said.

  “Huh,” Miss Tate said. She paused.

  “And you’re working for our local rag?”

  “I don’t consider it a rag,” I said.

  “It isn’t the New York Times.”

  “People keep telling me that, as if I should be surprised.”

  “So what are you doing here? Was it Jack McMorrow?”

  “Yeah. And I’m covering Fourth District Court,” I said. “I think I’ll enjoy it.”

  “I hope so,” Miss Tate said. “Next session is Thursday. Stop by my office and I’ll have all the results for you.”

  “That’s okay. I can get them myself.”

  She looked at me. I grinned.

  “We’ll see,” Miss Tate said.

  “I guess we will,” I said.

  I held out my hand, and she took it and gave it a squeeze. Her hand was thick and fleshy and cold as dry ice.

  5

  I sat in the truck and ate a tuna submarine sandwich that I’d bought at a pizza shop on Main Street. The shop had video games in which people were kicked and punched and maimed. The machines beeped even when no one was being killed, but other than that the place was dead quiet. The sallow-faced girl behind the counter heard my order, made my sandwich, took my money, and gave me my change, all without looking me in the eye.

  But the sandwich wasn’t bad, with real Greek olives instead of the stuff out of a can. I parked on a side street and ate it in big bites between sips of black coffee. When I was done, I balled up the paper wrapper and flipped it through the open back window into the bed of the truck. When I went to the Prosperity dump, I took a broom and a shovel.

  After I finished the coffee, I got the little laptop out of its vinyl case and flipped it on. The screen was tiny but the batteries seemed good. I turned and put my feet up on the seat and my back against the door. With the computer on my lap, I started to write.

  KENNEBEC—In Fourth District Court Tuesday, a woman bared her torso to show bruises she hoped would convince Judge Marlene Dorsett to issue a protection order against her estranged boyfriend.

  The woman, who is 22 and lives in Kennebec’s North End, claimed the bruises and a bite mark were the results of an altercation Saturday night in which her boyfriend punched her and tried to throw her across a room in her apartment.

  I paused. Scrolled the words up and down. A couple of kids rode by on bikes and looked at me. I pondered. If I didn’t identify Donna, which I could justify because she was alleged to have been the victim of an assault, how should I describe Jeff? I knew the name but not much more. And if the cops couldn’t find him, chances were I wouldn’t be able to contact him for comment. Certainly not before my eight o’clock deadline.

  I flipped the pages of my notebook, trying to decipher my scrawl.

  Dorsett issued the protective order after being told that Kennebec police were seeking the woman’s boyfriend and planned to charge him with domestic assault in connection with the incident.

  The judge warned the woman, who appeared in court without counsel, that she should ask for permission before removing any clothing to show evidence of assault.

  In an interview outside the courthouse after Dorsett’s ruling, the woman said it was the second time she had sought a protection-from-abuse order against her former boyfriend.

  The last order had expired at the time of the alleged assault, she said. In this incident, the boyfriend bit her on the abdomen, leaving teeth marks, the woman said.

  “I was on top of him,” she said. “Well, it started with—he had me by the shoulders, you know? And he tried to kind of throw me across the room, but I hung on to him and we both landed on the floor and his head was underneath my stomach and he bit me to get me off him.”

  Assistant District Attorney—

  I stopped. I hadn’t asked her first name, damn it. Jack McMorrow, go back to Reporting 101 for a refresher. I’d have to look it up in the Observer files. I kept going.

  Tate said her office was unable to have the investigating officer present because the woman did not contact the district attorney’s office prior to coming to court to request the order.

  In other court business, Craig T. Mansett, 34, of 12 Adelard Street, Kennebec, pleaded guilty to a charge of operating under the influence of intoxicating liquor May 3 on Elm Street in Kennebec. Mansett was sentenced to three days in the county jail and fined $1,000.

  Cheryl R. Pooler, 22, of County Road, Kennebec, was fined $400 after pleading guilty to a charge of attempted theft. According to court testimony, the theft occurred at the Kennebec Kmart April 10. Pooler admitted to attempting to steal four cassette tapes and assorted makeup, valued at $79.

  And so on and so forth, a sixteen-inch story, maybe. I finished it up as the light was fading and the old woman on the porch across the street was about to call the police. Man loitering with computer. But, Officer, I can explain.

  As the woman stared I started the truck and drove across town to the Observer building. Once again, there was a parking space right out front. I pulled in, shut off the motor, and scuffed a newspaper over the empty beer cans on the floor. I had a reputation to preserve.

  The advertising and circulation office was closed and dark. I went up the stairs, which weren’t much lighter, and walked out into the newsroom. And the Observer newsroom was jumping. It felt good.

  I walked up the aisle, unnoticed by the reporters and editors who were bent over their terminals. A woman in Sports had her neck crooked against her phone, taking scores. The guy next to her, maybe twenty-five and tall and stooped, with that big-kid look you see in all good sportswriters, was pounding the keyboard like a jazz percussionist. In the news aisle, a fiftyish woman with an unlit cigarette behind her ear let out a howl.

  “Aaaahhh,” she shouted to no one in particular. “This guy doesn’t need an editor. He needs a literacy volunteer. Oh, it is by divine intervention that this newspaper appears every morning.”

  No one seemed to hear her. I smiled.

  For ten years this had been my world. A weekly in Rhode Island, right out of college. Right on to a mediumsize daily and then up the ladder, allowing myself a maximum of two years at each paper. Most places, I stayed a little over one. I was good and I was ambitious. And in the tournament that is the news b
usiness, I made the finals. The New York Times.

  I reached the Times before I hit thirty, starting as a metro reporter. My mother first saw my byline in her nursing-home bed out on Long Island. My father missed it by six years. He’d read the Times most of his life, commuting into the city, and he died before his only son’s name appeared in its venerable print.

  That didn’t seem fair, but life was like that.

  He’d missed the aftermath, too. Jack McMorrow, rising star. Jack McMorrow trying out for an “About New York” metro column and getting passed over for the simple reason that the reporter who got it was better.

  Jack McMorrow asked for assignment to London or Dublin or any place foreign and was turned down.

  “You know the city,” he was told. “You’re steady. You’re reliable.”

  The words that end the climb. The words that tell you to get out of the way because the stars are coming through. And they did: tough, young, smart as hell, confident beyond their years. So I got away, all right. I went to Maine and there was no looking back.

  Or was there?

  The newsroom brought it all back in a rush. The pounding on the keyboards. The faces pressed to the computer screens. The editors whirling from their desks.

  “She says fifteen inches on the council advance,” a guy with gold-rimmed glasses sputtered. “So what does she send? Twenty-three. Where am I supposed to put this?”

  “That’s why computers have kill buttons,” the older woman snapped. “Control. Kill. No more problem.”

  She looked up.

  “Can I help you?” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m Jack McMorrow. I’m covering the court. Mr. Albert said to come in and file with this laptop.”

  “Oh,” the woman said, loud enough to be heard across the room. “You’re the hotshot from the New York Times. What the hell brings you to this dump?”

  Hands froze on keyboards all around me. Eyes rose from screens. One of the sports guys got up and came around the partition for a look. My computer under my arm, I answered the editor’s question.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Place doesn’t look so bad to me.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Yeah, right,” she said, then stood and held out her hand. “Catherine Plante. Like the things that grow. Chief copy editor and bottle scrubber. You know how to send with that antique?”