Ask Again, Yes

by Mary Beth Keane

  When he returned it was obvious she’d been crying but she assured him it was fine, they were fine, it would all be fine. After that, listening to Kate’s end of phone conversations with her sisters, he could tell that they asked about him, but Kate always kept it light.

  Peter, for his part, was not all that eager to see Natalie and Sara, but if Kate wanted him to spend time with them then he would, and it would be okay. The person he most dreaded seeing was Francis Gleeson, and he’d surely have to if they moved in together.

  When he discovered that Kate was looking into renting a U-Haul van, Peter offered up George’s truck, which he was sure he could borrow for a few hours on a Saturday. George didn’t mind Peter borrowing the truck, but he did mind Peter driving it. Peter had gotten his driver’s license in his senior year of college, and only then because his buddy on the track team had a little hatchback he kept at school and said Peter could borrow once in a while if he wanted to see Kate in New York without dealing with the bus.

  “For who, did you say? You need the truck to help who?” George asked. He’d promised Rosaleen a set of shelves above the television and he’d just returned from the hardware store with two long pieces of oak, a pair of brackets. When Peter said Kate’s name, he could see the astonishment in George’s face.

  “Of all the fish in the sea, Peter? Weren’t there pretty girls at that college?” He put the wood down, dropped the plastic hardware store bag on top. He screwed up his face like it was a physical process, a painful process, making sense of something that came as a surprise.

  “Yes,” Peter said simply.

  George nodded, gave the information a moment to breathe. He walked to the kitchen sink, and keeping his back to Peter, he poured a glass of water, drank it.

  “I don’t like it. Something about it.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s just trouble. For no reason, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “This girl, that girl, literally any other girl, and it wouldn’t matter. There’s just one girl in the world who seems like a bad idea and it’s this one.”

  “But why is it a bad idea?” There, he said it. His father had left. His mother was gone. And so, who would object? Her parents, probably, but that was for her to handle. And if he had a chance to speak to them, he felt certain he could convince them to come around. And if they didn’t come around, well, that was their problem. He and Kate had never done anything wrong. He was very sorry about what his mother had done, but surely Mr. Gleeson couldn’t really think any of it was Peter’s fault.

  “Because . . .” George struggled but was determined. “Because it means that all that stuff, from years ago, it didn’t end back then. It’s still happening.”

  Well, no, Peter thought, but he didn’t want to argue. Everything that happened had happened to their parents. Or at least, their parents were the agents of all that had happened. Or at least, their parents were the ones who could have stopped it from happening. Or . . . He got that choked-off feeling he always got whenever he thought about that night. If he’d never suggested to Kate that they should sneak out. If they hadn’t been caught. One thing leads to another which leads to another, yes, but who could have predicted that last fallen domino would skid so far from the neatly toppled row? Not the pair of teenagers, that was for sure. When he and Kate started seeing each other again, they decided that they’d leave all that baggage behind and start fresh. He was old enough now to know what sustained him, and so was Kate. They were apart long enough to know the shape of each other’s absence.

  “Well, all I know is this is the girl. I love her.”

  George flipped the faucet on again with a flick of his wrist, refilled his glass. He gulped the water down like he’d been in the desert for weeks.

  “You’re stubborn, Peter. You’re a great kid, but you’re stubborn.”

  “I’m not a kid,” Peter said, though saying so made him feel like a kid.

  “You love her. Okay. It’s a strong feeling, but think about it all the way through. What’s next? You’re going to marry this girl? Have kids with her? Your mother and Francis Gleeson are going to have the same grandbabies? They’re going to sit at the same table at the christening?”

  “Huh?” Peter said. No one had said anything about babies, for God’s sake. He dreamed of sharing an apartment with Kate someday, coming home to her each evening and telling her about his day, hearing about hers, going to bed naked with the covers pulled up to their chins, feeling her warm skin next to his when he woke up every morning. But that could only happen after he decided what to do with his life.

  George sighed. “I’ll drive,” he said. “I’m sure she could use another set of hands. And I guess I should meet her, right?”

  * * *

  Peter was nervous when they pulled up to Kate’s dorm, jittery all the way down to his bones, like he was in the track van, heading to states. Kate was wearing cutoffs, sneakers, clothes to lift and haul in. Her hair was piled at the top of her head, but he could see that she’d already sweat through the back of her T-shirt, a straight line down her spine. It was hot, and she’d schlepped a dozen boxes down from her dorm room even though he told her to wait until he got there.

  “That her?” George said as they pulled up.

  “Remember, she’s not expecting you,” Peter said. He could tell she hadn’t spotted him yet, didn’t know what kind of truck to look for.

  George was wearing black shorts, a tight black tank top that pulled at his belly, bright white sneakers. He checked his teeth in the mirror and then winked at Peter. “How does my hair look?” he asked.

  Peter watched Kate notice the man walking beside him. “George!” she said when they got close enough. “I’m so glad to meet you,” she said. She thanked him for coming, for lending both his truck and his muscle. George took her thanks in stride, and was more reserved than usual, though Kate wouldn’t know that. She asked if Peter had told him the details of the move they were about to embark on.

  George glanced at Peter. “East Seventy-Ninth, right? At Second?”

  “Did he mention anything else? No? Great. Let’s get going.”

  It was a sixth floor walk-up, was the thing neither of them had mentioned to George. “Jesus H. Christ,” George said after the very first trip up the stairs, setting the first box down inside the apartment. “You couldn’t find a twelfth floor walk-up?”

  “You’re fine,” Kate said. “Think of the powerful quads you’ll have when we’re through.”

  George grinned and Peter felt the low-grade dread he’d been feeling since that morning begin to melt away.

  Every trip they made up those stairs, the closer George and Kate seemed to get. Up and down they went, and the stairwell rang out with Kate’s voice chattering away, asking George questions about himself, what he thought about things: Monica Lewinsky, the Catholic Church, the euro. They took a break when they were more than halfway through, and George told Kate the meaning of each of his tattoos. He told her about Rosaleen, that he’d liked her for a long time before he asked her out.

  When they were finally finished moving up all the stuff, the three of them sprawled across Kate’s new kitchen floor in exhausted silence. The apartment air felt stale. Already, Peter hated the idea of visiting Kate’s life and having her visit his.

  “Who wants a beer?” Kate asked, without making a move to stand up. George said he’d pass, he had sodas in his truck. Peter got up, opened the door of the fridge, and let the cold air wrap around him for a moment before removing the six-pack Kate’s roommates had left for them. He took one and downed it in two long sips before offering one to the others.

  “Jeez,” Kate said, “leave some for the rest of us.”

  “Yeah, really,” George said.

  * * *

  When Peter and George returned to the truck, they found a cop hassling a delivery boy who had someone’s takeout order dangling from the handlebar of his bike. The cop was huge, with arms so thick they strained
the material of his uniform shirt. “Excuse us,” George said, stepping around them. He’d double-parked, left the hazards on, and the cop looked over at George as if to let him know that he’d noticed and could do something about it if he wanted to.

  Once they were driving, George said that the problem with the cops today was that the job attracted a different kind of person than it used to. They still had great guys signing on—“and women,” he added—and one thing they did better than the old days was now they got people of every stripe and color, but there were too many young cops nowadays who were just after the power trip, carrying a gun. Maybe that’s why they didn’t get as much respect as they used to. In a just world, becoming a cop would be as prestigious a pursuit as becoming an investment banker. Or a doctor, even. Was there anything more important than keeping people safe? Being the one people turn to at their most desperate? And yet.

  “You know what I saw the other day? On Broadway, by the Bowling Green station? There were like thirty City College students protesting. One girl had a sign that said ‘Fuck the Police.’ Did you see that? It was the Monday of the week we were down at the Standard and Poor’s building for that job. A white girl. A woman, I mean. Probably came from New Canaan on the train that morning. Now you tell me what beef she might have with the police. You tell me who she’s going to call if some man pulls out his junk on the crosstown bus.”

  Peter had seen the protesters, but hadn’t really thought about them. He wasn’t paying close enough attention, but George’s point seemed both solid and completely flawed.

  “But the history of policing is also a history of protest,” Peter said. “I’m sure they were reacting to that cop who roughed up the kid in Bed-Stuy over the weekend. What was he? Thirteen? They could have killed him.”

  “Thirteen. But he looked older.”

  “And if he were older? He wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

  “Peter.” George looked at him. “I’m not denying that some cops are racist assholes. I’m saying now that girl from New Canaan decides that every cop is a racist asshole. Just because some meathead in the Seven-Nine beat up a kid. He never should have gotten near a shield and a gun, that guy.”

  Peter laughed. “Isn’t that what every minority in this city has to deal with every single day? Whole groups being judged based on the actions of a few?” But Peter was only half debating since he was still thinking about Kate, and the overcrowded apartment he was about to move into. The thought of four guys sharing the same small bathroom made him wonder why he’d agreed.

  George said he was willing to bet most of those protesters had never personally met and spoken to a cop.

  “A big problem is the job doesn’t pay enough,” George said. “You listening? Not for the danger. And then another problem is first chance a good city cop gets, he or she heads to the suburbs. I read an article about it.”

  “About what?”

  “About the police. Hello? Earth to Peter. Young people have to see it as a place where they can use their brains.”

  In the passenger seat, Peter sat up straight, felt a tug of such force it seemed impossible that it had come from within.

  “It’s an important job.”

  George glanced at him. “That’s what I’m saying.”

  * * *

  That night, Kate no doubt long asleep in her new apartment, Peter lay awake and felt a world older than he had when he imagined college as a road that would bring him somewhere far away. Around midnight he gave up on sleep, slid his feet into his weathered sneakers, slipped out of the apartment and then outside into the drizzly dark.

  At the Banner he acted as if he were new to the neighborhood. After his second drink he asked the bartender if he remembered a guy from a few years ago, a tall guy, wavy hair. A cop. Used to be a regular, before he moved down south.

  “You’re describing everyone,” the bartender said. “Narrow it down.”

  “Nah, it’s nothing,” Peter said, and waved him off.

  An hour later, when Peter set his glass down on the bar and reached for his wallet to fish out a few bills, he felt his hands tremble. Outside again, the drizzle now a downpour, he felt himself swimming toward the lure of the familiar, a path he could make his own and make right. He wondered if recruits got paid through academy. He wondered if the health insurance started immediately or only after several months’ delay.

  * * *

  He’d tell Kate as soon as he took the written exam. Then he told himself he’d tell her as soon as he found out whether he passed. He kept shaping for the ironworkers, kept getting per diem work. He tried to go for a run every day, after work, because it made him feel like he was still a student and it kept him out of the apartment for an extra hour. Autumn came and went. Christmas. The evening news was in a lather over Y2K. The world had just a few more months to organize itself before the century changed and all files were lost. The subways would stop running. Planes would drop from the sky. All because programmers in the 1960s had not prepared for an existence beyond 1999.

  The new millennium arrived, and the world kept turning.

  In February, he heard from the Applicant Processing Division that he passed the written test and that there was additional paperwork to be filled out. Among this paperwork was a form that consented to a background check. An investigator was assigned to his application. He sat for a character screening, a psychological screening, an oral test, the medical test. They checked his vision, hearing, blood pressure, his heart. When the doctor took his resting pulse, he said either Peter was a runner or he was dead.

  After all that came the formal interview, scheduled with the same investigator who had completed his background check.

  George figured it out when he saw the envelopes arriving. He told Peter it didn’t feel like all that long ago that he’d brought in the mail and noticed similar envelopes for Brian. He asked Peter if he was sure, how far along he was in the process, how he’d done on the formal interview. If he’d met with anyone since the background check.

  “That’s the last step. Next week.”

  “Ah. Okay,” George said, but seemed concerned.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  * * *

  The investigator introduced himself as a member of the detective bureau. He seemed jolly enough and Peter could tell he was trying to put him at ease. He told Peter about the car trouble he’d had that morning, how his wife was a nag but was always right. Peter had shaved carefully, was wearing a sport coat and tie. All the other tests had taken place in LeFrak City, but this one was held on East Twentieth Street in Manhattan. Peter had a folder with him that contained every document they’d asked for, from his social security card to his transcript from Elliott. His backpack was too scuffed for him to use and he didn’t have a briefcase, so he clutched the folder in his hand on the subway, and all morning he was paranoid that something had slipped out and fluttered away without his noticing. He checked and rechecked.

  When he got to the building, a young woman directed him to the interview room and brought him a glass of water. When the investigator came in, he sat across from Peter at a beat-up wood table. The older man began with the questions Peter expected, the ones he’d practiced answering in his head on his evening runs: why Peter wanted to join and how he envisioned the job. He framed everything like a casual chat, like they were simply getting to know each other at a barbeque or a baseball game, though Peter could tell he was ticking through the items on his list. Finally, he asked about Peter’s parents, and Peter gave the answer he’d rehearsed, the answer he’d been giving for years. His mother lived upstate. His father lived down south. They’d separated a decade ago and Peter didn’t have a relationship with either of them. He nodded quickly to indicate that was the extent of his answer, but the investigator tilted his head, leaned forward.

  “Your father. He was on the job, no?”

  “Yes. Yes he was.”

  “Nineteen years. Did he get injured? Something happen?
” He flipped through his notes, and Peter felt his pulse firing in the palms of his hands. He knew it was possible that the man knew everything already, but he also knew it was possible the department was so vast, with so many moving parts, that it might have gotten missed. Nothing that happened in Gillam had happened on the job for Brian.

  “There was a personal matter that prompted an early retirement.”

  “Oh? What was that?”

  He’d been warned that there was no limit to the scope of their questions. In the psychological exam they asked him if he was seeing anyone, if that person was a man or a woman, how he would feel if his eventual partner were a woman. How about a gay man or a gay woman? How about Black, Hispanic, Asian? He’d assumed those questions were illegal.

  “We’re not close. We don’t have a relationship.”

  “That wasn’t the question.”

  “He retired early, because he wanted a change. At least I believe that’s why. But you’d have to ask him, honestly. He moved down south when I was fifteen. I lived with my uncle after he left.”

  “Your uncle George Stanhope,” the investigator said, and Peter felt his stomach drop.

  “Yes.”

  “And your mother, she lives on Sixth Street in Saratoga now?”

  “I don’t know,” Peter said. This, at least, was the truth.