Another Broken Wizard

by Dodds, Colin

  “Have a drink,” I said when he had circled back from a far corner of the room.

  “We have to go. I think I know where to find these guys.”

  “Okay then, have a shot,” I said, hoping to induce him back to the less dangerous pleasures of civilization.

  We did a shot of well whiskey, then went back outside. Joe nodded to the cops parked on Green Street. We pulled out of the parking lot in a choppy eleven-point turn. We crossed under the railroad and highway bridges, around the vast failed downtown mall, and then downtown, past the big high-rise apartment that looked like it had been flown in from Houston.

  Past Chandler Street, the storefronts and apartment houses were run down. The lights flickered unevenly behind the convenience-store signage. We were in Main South, a rough part of town. The cold that night was unyielding. But people were out, walking down the street or just standing around, looking furtively over their shoulders or just eyeing the traffic. Joe turned off Main Street, and down a narrow street lined with three-deckers in disrepair.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’m looking for Sully’s car.”

  “That’s it? That’s what we’re doing—looking for a car?”

  “Yep. It’s a black Toyota,” Joe said.

  “Toyota what?”

  “I don’t know. It’s one of the smaller ones. But it has silver rims, the spinning ones on it.”

  “Okay, I’ll look out for it on my side.”

  We cruised the narrow streets between Chandler Street and Webster Square and saw a lot of cars. At one point, I did see a small black car with garish, shiny wheels parked on my side of the street. I stiffened in my seat and waited until we were a few streets away before I said anything at all.

  “So what’s up with Escalita?” I asked.

  “She’s been my girlfriend for about two months. She’s pretty sexy, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah, not too shabby. What’s her story?”

  “She goes to Worcester State at night and cleans houses during the day,” Joe said.

  Slowing down by a black Honda, I saw Joe hoping that it was Sully’s car and then relieved that it wasn’t.

  “How long have you been with her?”

  “Since October about.”

  “I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to her. She seemed to have your tongue in her mouth all night. So what’s the story? Is there a future there?” I asked, trying to nudge the conversation away from the savagery we supposedly sought.

  “It’s tough. I mean, I really like her and she turns me on. But she can be really annoying sometimes. And when I confront her about it or lose my temper, she just says I wouldn’t understand because I grew up white and lived in a house.”

  “Why? What’s her story?”

  “To be fair, her story sucks more than most. She’s her own aunt.”

  Joe let that one hang in the stale Buick air. When something so awful is so close at hand, you’d better be able to laugh, or it might get hard to breathe. We laughed. We felt bad about it. But we laughed, and picked the bones of that tragedy for every shred of laughter it had on it.

  “I don’t care what you’re arguing about. That’s a hell of a trump card,” I said.

  “I know. It even works when we’re arguing about what to watch on TV. She just has to hint at it.”

  “That’s a hell of a hint.”

  “I think I’d need to get cancer, or survive a concentration camp, just to step up to the same card game,” Joe said.

  We laughed some more. It deflated our sense of mission. Joe didn’t eye the cars lined up against the snow banks on the narrow, crummy streets so closely. We passed a few big apartment buildings and hung a right past the Pickle Barrel.

  “You think you’re ever going to settle down?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. But I don’t think I’ve ever been with a girl who didn’t get annoying after a few weeks. I mean, they only have so much to say. Even the smart ones start repeating themselves after a few weeks. And then there are just so many of them, always a new one to make you look past the one you’re with. I can’t imagine a girl I’d want to be with for life. She may be out there, but I haven’t met her. As long as I’m getting laid, it doesn’t really matter.”

  “What about Theresa? You were with her for a few years.”

  “She was probably the closest I ever came. But I didn’t really know about women back then. She didn’t talk much, so I always imagined that she had all these great thoughts, so I didn’t get bored as fast. But I still cheated, so there’s that.”

  Joe lit a cigarette with his still-swollen hand. I rolled down the window partway and the cold picked at my face.

  “How about you—you going to marry Serena?”

  “I don’t know. If I ever get back to New York I might.”

  “What?”

  “You hungry?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I guess this can wait.”

  25.

  The Lincoln Street Denny’s was packed. The cop assigned, Officer Dowd, was the son of the Officer Dowd who’d stood by the Denny’s register late into the night when we were teenagers. I’d seen his brother take Joe off to jail once. The sons both had their father’s drooping, weak jaw and blank blue-eyed stare.

  Joe knew the hostess, an energetic Italian girl with boils the size of a rat’s eyes on her cheeks. She yelled out his name as soon as she saw him and hugged him close. Dowd seemed to wince, as if he nursed a crush on the hostess. She took us straight to a table. The crowd waiting on the concrete bench by the Grab-A-Prize game murmured, uncertain if they were the proper ones to be outraged by us cutting the line. We sat down at a corner booth in the far part of the restaurant.

  “Man, it’s weird, I never thought I’d be glad to see a Dowd,” Joe said.

  “I don’t get it. Is Denny’s like some medieval fiefdom, passed down through the male line of the Dowd clan? After a few generations in the department, you’d think they’d want something higher up, more glamorous.”

  “I guess it’s good overtime,” Joe said.

  Joe examined the color photos of the many options the night still offered, combinations of meat, eggs and cheese. Joe sat up and looked to his left, right, then twisted around to see if there was a window behind him.

  “Oh, before I forget. Even with all this bullshit tonight, I can pay you back.”

  The wad of bills was disorderly in every way. But it was all there.

  “Thanks,” I said, putting the money into my pocket.

  We gave our order to a harried looking waitress and talked about old times at Denny’s.

  “Remember that? The cop said ‘I don’t care what you do, just don’t shoot me.’ And then Dowd told Smitty he’d put a boot so far up his ass that he’d be tasting shoe leather for a week. That was a little too vivid for me at the time,” Joe said.

  “Was it just because we were tripping, or were the cops acting weird that night?”

  “I don’t know. But they definitely should have arrested me and Nick. I remember Nick running and knowing I had to run too. The cops were chasing us around the parking lot in a van. And we were running in figure eights to get away.

  “But they were like, very cool after they caught you. It was so laid back, like we were just some guys on acid, hanging out with our friends, the police.”

  The food came, and then, the trouble. There were only a handful of places to get food after closing time, and Denny’s was one of the most popular. Joe perked up in his seat, then ducked down and looked me in the eye.

  “Shit. It’s Ki. Don’t turn around. And, yeah, shit, he saw me. We have to get out of here.”

  “Ki?”

  “I know him. He’s tight with Sully and them. And he definitely saw me. He’s going outside now, probably to call them up.”

  “What should we do?”

  “We could grab him and beat the shit out of him until he tells us where Sully is.”

  “I think you’ve seen too many movies. How about we j
ust get out of here?”

  “Let’s.”

  Joe started eating his food in cartoonishly huge bites, chewing as little as possible. The vein in his forehead bulged from the effort and the lack of oxygen. I calculated the cost of the meal, and how much worse it is to be punched in a full stomach than an empty one. I left my food alone. Getting up, I put down thirty-five dollars, just to be safe. We got our stuff and headed out. The hostess was too busy to stop us with a good-bye.

  But Dowd was not too busy for us. I won’t recount the whole exchange. The problem, it seems, is that we left the money on the table rather than paying at the register. The acne-scarred hostess came by to say it was alright and the waitress even chimed in, saying we’d left a generous tip. But the Dowd insisted that we’d violated the way things were done. It was the kind of pointless exercise in petty authority I’d seen ten million times growing up—from daycare overseers, school teachers, crossing guards, little league umpires, nuns, state troopers, especially state troopers, convenience store clerks standing sweaty and nervous in front of the rack of porno mags, toll booth collectors, nuns, people whose lawn you walked across, liquor store clerks—the whole damned breed who take as their purpose in life the transformation of every moment into a prison. They are not a breed exclusive to Massachusetts, but the Bay State sure has a talent for producing them.

  Like savages forced to adhere to the rites of the Catholic Mass, we paid at the register. Dowd could not understand our hurry, nor could we explain it. We left Denny’s watching Lincoln Street for cars driving too fast, turning too hard up the slope into the parking lot. But it was quiet. The streetlights shone down cheap orange light on the parking lot. The wind whipped from the interstate, just beyond Lincoln Plaza shopping center. We walked around the corner, and there was Ki. He was a pale black guy with a thin mustache, in a big winter coat and baggy jeans. His face was screwed up like he smelled something foul. He was about an inch shorter than Joe.

  “Joe Rooooossoe. What’s up, Joe,” he said, pronouncing Joe like it was a vicious slur.

  Joe said nothing, just watched Ki and walked toward his car. I saw Joe’s hands clench. Ki got in his way and then jumped back as Joe approached. I stayed on Joe’s elbow. From how he was moving, it didn’t seem like Ki would try anything on his own, but you could never tell. With another fifty feet of insults between us and the car, we walked past the fenced-in area where Denny’s kept its dumpsters. The cheap orange light was twice as bright in there, reflecting off the frozen garbage-water puddles. It seemed exactly the kind of place where you might get beaten into some state it wouldn’t be easy to return from. I quickened my pace at Joe’s elbow, coming up even with him.

  “What’s this Joe? Your boyfriend? You Joe’s boyfriend?” Ki said, jumping back and away from me.

  “Fuck you, bitch,” I said, my mind blank with fear and anger and offering no better words.

  I stepped past Joe. Ki skipped back several steps until he was at the bumper of the car next to the Buick.

  “Ki, kid, what are you going to do?” Joe said, emboldened, spreading out his arms.

  “You made a bad mistake, Joe. You’re going to have to pay and pay big time. Smitty wasn’t nothing compared to what’s going to happen to you,” Ki said, jumping farther from us after he said Smitty’s name.

  Joe stared at him with big eyes and a shit-eating grin on his face. Ki kept his distance. Joe took a few quick steps at Ki, raising his hands. Ki skipped away. Joe unlocked the car and we climbed inside. That’s when Ki ran at the car, hoping to hit Joe before he got the door shut. But Joe closed the door too quickly. We started driving off. Then Ki started really yelling, calling us all sorts of things, safe in the parking lot.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” I said.

  “I feel sick,” Joe said. “I shouldn’t have eaten that stuff so fast”.

  Sloppily cruising down Lincoln Street, I imagined a night of poor sleep on Joe’s couch, of listening for footsteps at the door, or for tires on the street as a hangover glazed my eyes and crowded my head. But that was still better than what I’d imagined in the fenced-in area by the Denny’s dumpsters. I decided to be grateful for it.

  “Well, this year is off to one hell of a start.”

  “Happy New Years, Jim.”

  26.

  I know it was unmarked, but I should have seen the cop car parked by Joe’s house. I blame the whiskey, the adrenalin and the moons over my hammy that I never got to eat. They met us at Joe’s porch and took out their badges. The taller one of them looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him in the dark.

  “Joe Rousseau?” said the shorter one, who had a thick head of white hair and deeply squinted eyes.

  “Who’s asking?” Joe said. He always gave cops a hard time, and they usually returned the favor.

  “I’m Detective Johansson, and this is Detective Volpe.”

  “Ira Volpe?” I asked.

  He paused a moment, then recognized me. Ira and I played high school football together at St. Johns. He was a stocky Greek-Italian kid, a natural defensive tackle, who got a scholarship to BU. We’d been friends on the team, but otherwise ran in different circles.

  “Jim Monaghan?” he said. “What the hell are you doing here? I’d heard you were in New York.”

  “Can we come inside?” Johansson interrupted.

  “I don’t think so,” Joe said.

  “Well, would you like to come to headquarters?” Johansson said.

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then we can talk right here,” Joe said, as if it wasn’t one degree outside. It was weather that made the snow banks granite-hard.

  “Jim, let’s talk in the car,” Volpe said to me, gesturing.

  Volpe gestured. I followed. Joe pursed his lips, seeing that this would take longer than a simple brush-off. The unmarked car was warm inside. Volpe started it up and turned on the heat. It was a big American car and the heat smelled faintly of warm plastic.

  “Jesus, Jim, it’s been forever, what are you up to?”

  I gave him the recap—sick dad, between jobs in New York, knew Joe from grammar school, just got dinner at Denny’s. I looked out the window and saw Joe smoking on the porch, talking to Johansson, giving his big, defiant smile while the cold stung them both. Ira gave his recap—finished BU, sold mutual funds for a few years, hated working in an office, took a pay cut and moved home to join the WPD and got promoted to detective last year.

  “So, to get to the point, why the hell are we sitting here at three in the morning, having this conversation?”

  “Like I said, I’ve known Joe forever. I just wanted to get out of the hospital and my dad’s apartment for the night.”

  “Jim, you’ve never been a good bullshitter. Don’t start now. What were you guys out doing just now?”

  I guess I shame easily. It’s one reason I was never much of a criminal. I couldn’t find a lie, so I told the truth.

  “Some guys from down in Main South attacked one of Joe’s friends and I guess they really did a number on him. Joe wanted to find them. I went along mostly to try to keep him from getting hurt.”

  The radio blurted numbers, comments, beeps and static.

  “Okay. That’s more or less what we heard.”

  “Jesus. You guys really have your ear to the streets. It all just happened.”

  “Let’s just say that you’re not the only friend of Joe’s who was looking out for him tonight.”

  Outside, Joe was leaning against the banister on the porch, smoking a cigarette with the same taunting grin he gave Ki. Johansson was patting him down. But the cuffs weren’t on. Joe was smiling and I could see his mouth forming wisecracks.

  “Did Joe say how all this started? Drugs? A girl? I’m really just looking to get this thing squashed before it gets serious.”

  “I think it just started over nothing, really. From what I heard, Joe just thought that Sully was ‘disrespecting his house,’ he s
aid.”

  “This kind of shit usually starts over nothing. I got a sixteen-year-old kid with serious brain injuries, probably stupid for life, all because some girl in his math class told her boyfriend she had a dream about him. Some of it is enough to make you think mankind is just a fucking joke.” Ira paused and looked out the windshield. His eyes were vacant for a moment. He collected himself quickly and continued: “Do you have a full name for Sully?”

  “No, do you?”

  “We’re narrowing it down,” Volpe said.

  From the window, I could see Johansson making his way with hurried, precise steps down the walkway back to the car. Joe was standing on the porch as if he had just won a fight, smoking a cigarette and smiling big. Johansson knocked on Volpe’s window. Volpe opened it a crack.

  “You done with him?” he asked Volpe.

  “Yeah. Jim, it was good to see you again. I want you to steer clear of this whole business. Spend time with your dad. And if you hear anything, just call me.”

  He handed me the card I realized he’d had in his hand for the last five minutes. Johansson put his hand on my shoulder and grunted. I got out of the car and went back to the house. Joe was still on the porch.

  “Jesus, let’s get inside,” I said.

  “One second,” Joe said.

  He took off his coat and stood in his short-sleeved, button-down tiger shirt. He smoked his cigarette defiantly, waiting for them to pull away. I went inside. It sounded like a sizable group had moved from the living room to behind Marissa’s closed bedroom door. They had grown raucous, from the sound of it. Russ and some people I didn’t recognize were playing a sleepy game of cards in the kitchen. The gun was still on the table and Russ had gotten himself a beer. The clock on the oven said it was three. I was sober and my eyes hurt.

  “How’d it go?” Russ asked.