Another Broken Wizard Read online

  “Okay, Broadway Joe, enough societal commentary, so what did you do to your face?”

  She smiled and listened. And I was already a yuppie to her. So I told her the whole story, from Sully’s beat down to my meeting with Volpe.

  “Jesus. That makes my mom’s uncomfortable flirtation with the cardiologist almost look dull. What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I keep trying to talk Joe down. I’m still trying to figure out what I can do.”

  Jemma brought us another round and said cheers.

  “To bizarre dramas,” Olive said, the words almost rhyming.

  “Yeah. May they only kill strangers.”

  We toasted, drank and then kissed, then kissed some more. We looked at each other affectionately. I think it made us both uncomfortable. We looked away, back to our drinks.

  “So, you got the railings all set up?” Olive asked flatly, changing the subject.

  “Yeah. It wasn’t too much of a hassle.”

  “My mom’s taking care of all that. When’s your dad going back home?”

  “You mean, to the apartment?”

  “No, to heaven,” she said.

  “You must be a joy to have around the ICU.”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “It depends on what the doctors say. He has to go to a rehab facility first. How about yours?”

  “They don’t know yet. His scar didn’t heal right and they had to reopen it and drain it and all kinds of other terrifically arousing things that you should talk about while you’re on a date.”

  “You’re funny, you know that?” I said, a little drunk.

  I kissed her again. She pulled back and looked at me with her eyes wide. Her cheeks flushed through their usual pallor. She licked her lips a little.

  “What about that thing you were going to show me in your car?” she asked.

  “What thing?”

  “The thing in your car,” she said through her teeth, rolling her eyes.

  The bartender said we owed her nothing. I left a five just to be decent. The snow banks by Route 9 still looked like snow. The cold pressed us to follow through. In Dad’s SUV, I turned the heat up high. Before the heat could fill the space, we were mostly nude in the far back seat, humping strenuously among Dad’s golf balls, brochures, Diet Coke cans and other detritus left back there. She was an aggressive girl, and I needed her more than I thought. When my eyes met themselves in the rearview, they liked what they saw. After, we lay back there, covered haphazardly by our own clothes

  “Finger in the butt, huh?” Olive said.

  “I don’t know, it seemed like the thing to do. Was it too much?”

  “No. It was just a surprise. It must be a New York thing.”

  “Must be.”

  Then we got quiet. We both refrained from more talk of our futures or our fathers or the terrible dread that inhabited our daily lives. So we had nothing to talk about. We lay there, waiting for the other one to prove that premise wrong. Finally, I kissed her and started putting my pants on.

  “So what do you want to do?” she asked, while we dressed in the back seat.

  “We can cruise around and get drinks somewhere else. Whatever you want to do. I do need to get up early tomorrow. The nurse is coming by to look at the apartment in the morning.”

  “Yeah. I have to get up early to see my dad before work. My mom is pissed that I didn’t go today.”

  “Call it a night?”

  “Sure. If you want to,” Olive said.

  Her face was a darkened mystery, only half illuminated by the cheap orange parking lot lights through the tinted back windows of Dad’s SUV. Too much grief, too much anxiety and too much sex. We were separated by what had joined us. The sensation of distance and waste stirred in my abdomen.

  “Yeah.”

  We made plans to talk and to meet and so on. She went to her heavily bumper-stickered old Volvo and drove off. I waited in the parking lot for her to drive away. It seemed like the proper thing to do. I sat a little longer and called Joe, but got his voicemail. I tossed the condom in the snow and pulled out of the parking lot.

  Circling back onto Route 9, I headed west once more, past Mom’s apartment complex, past the shut down trolley tracks, past the Clean Machine car wash, past Walter Dyer is Leather, past the Ford dealership between the Ford dealership and the Ford dealership, past all the car dealerships like bone marrow cleaning the highway’s blood, past the McDonald’s playground that promises a home in the trees, past the office park with its hundred small-time employers, past the Super Discount Liquors that rises up from the dissonant grid of an older town plan, past the motorist in the shabby car and the cop who pulled him over, past hills restrained by concrete walls, past Temple Plaza with its learning center and Chinese restaurant, past the Stop N Shops and Super Stop N Shops, past two dozen businesses hanging on by a thread, past the lakes with names and the lakes without names, past the Friendly’s and the unfriendly people on the road, past the interchanges with state and interstate highways, past streetlights strung up like the highway was a party, past all of it.

  38.

  Tuesday, January 6

  “Glad you decided to stop by,” Dad said, muting the TV, which showed a mug shot of bedraggled man in half a Santa costume. Dad’s voice was full of hiss and gravel, but obviously not so painful to use anymore.

  “It’s only noon. I was waiting for the nurse to come by. But I got the day wrong.”

  “What time did you figure that out?”

  “You’re pretty feisty today. How do you feel?”

  “A lot of pain. At least I have some of my wits back,” Dad said.

  I could see him fight back a wince. He’d pronounced that final k a little too hard for his own comfort.

  “They’re still giving you medication for the pain, right?”

  Dad showed a button in his hand that was hooked up to his drip of painkiller. He took a slow breath and started talking more calmly. If he wanted to start an argument, he’d have to wait until his stitches and his throat were less raw. That much was a relief.

  “I’m trying to go easy on the meds. It’s just one more thing I have to deal with later. You hear of these people who go in for surgery, what have you, and they come out with full-blown drug problems.”

  “That’s good. But go easy on yourself. Anyway, when did you wake up?”

  “Early. It was still dark. I never really noticed how bad TV is in the morning.”

  “Well, at least they opened the curtains.”

  “It’s great. I can see the fucking clouds. It’s riveting stuff.”

  “What do you want me to say? You do know you just got your chest ripped open the other day. You can either be patient or go crazy. I’m hoping for patient, but if it’s crazy, then that’s fine. But remember, I get power of attorney.”

  Dad laughed gently as he could manage. It still hurt, but he still laughed.

  “Dear God no,” he sputtered.

  “That’s right. I’ll give you a little allowance.”

  He laughed a little more, restraining himself because of the pain. I laughed too.

  “Trust me, I’ll be holding onto my sanity with my fingernails.”

  Dad and I swapped conversation, watched TV and flipped through the magazines. Even when he drifted into a nap, it was good to know he was lucid and alive. How much his surgery weighed on me only became clear when the weight began to lift.

  “Listen, don’t get defensive, but I want to talk to you about that fight you got in,” he said, apropos of nothing.

  “Like I said, it was just a scuffle at a party.”

  “Still, you have to be careful with bar fights, anything like that. You never know who you’re dealing with. You never know what they are capable of. When I was in the army, we were training down in Biloxi. Well, we had the night off, so we went to this honky-tonk not too far from the base. And this friend of mine, I’ll never forget, this guy Reed starts chatting up this little Southe
rn Belle. Well, one of the rednecks at the bar comes over and they get into it, and the redneck gets thrown out. So we leave a few hours later and this redneck is waiting in his truck with a shotgun. He doesn’t say anything, just shoots Reid with a shotgun full of birdshot, which would usually just hurt like hell. But he hit him in the neck, and Reed bled to death in the parking lot.”

  Dad had a way of underlining his points boldly, especially when he drew examples from his own youth.

  “I know. I’m careful.”

  “Well, be more careful. You really don’t know who you’re getting involved with. They could be friends of Joe, but that doesn’t mean they’re your friends too. It’s better to just walk away. You have nothing to gain.”

  “I know.”

  The nurse came by to check on Dad, who announced to her that he had farted again. She seemed pleased and amused by this.

  “They say to tell them. They’re not supposed to feed you unless your bowels are moving,” he said.

  “You actually don’t need to keep telling me,” the nurse said, and left.

  Dad’s roommate stirred. His wife whispered something. Then he half-groaned something back. We paused to give their thin, sibilant exchange room to pass.

  “So how are things with Serena?” Dad asked when the whispering stopped.

  “They’re okay. I mean, I haven’t seen her in almost two weeks, so it’s all over the phone, which I dislike. But it’s one of those things. She gets a little pouty and I get annoyed and then we make up.”

  “Over the phone.”

  “Exactly. You see what I’m saying. She might come up next weekend.”

  “To the apartment?”

  “No, I said I’d get her a hotel.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just there isn’t any room. I think I’ll be at the rehab place next weekend. But the apartment is probably a mess.”

  “I know. It’s no big deal.”

  Then Dad, who had been awake for around five hours, started squeezing the button that released the painkiller into his veins. He had held the pain at bay as long as he could, for me, or just for some of the trappings of the thing called being alive. He got drowsy quickly and didn’t hear me when I said good night. I paid Whiskeynose for the parking and hit the road, eager to go anywhere except Dad’s apartment.

  39.

  Once on the road, I called Joe and we agreed to meet at the Wonder Bar, an Italian restaurant on Shrewsbury Street.

  The Wonder Bar in Worcester was mercifully old and dark. The wood of the booths was darkened with the cigarette smoke and fingerprints of two generations. Brown soundproof tiles made the room feel dark and close. A silent old jukebox glowed by the bar like a neon hearth. Joe already had the gunfighter’s seat in the back, facing the door. He raised his Budweiser when I entered. Our booth had a tableside jukebox. But it was out of order, with a wine list taped over where the songs would have displayed themselves.

  Joe was wearing khakis and a plaid button-down shirt and his hair was back in a tight pony tail. The bruises under his eyes from the fight were clearing up more quickly than my black eye.

  “Good call on this place. The beers are only two bucks,” he said.

  “So what’s going on?”

  “Just work. It’s supposed to be pretty mellow until school starts. But my supervisor came up with all these new, useless jobs for me to do. And he’s going to give me and some of the other guys in the office a new bullshit ‘code of conduct’ that we have to sign. How about you?”

  “Dad’s doing better. He’s talking. We hung out today. So what’s this about needing money?”

  “Well, I ran into some problems. I need to pay off the guy I bought the coke from to get more so I can pay you back and some other stuff. I sort of screwed up.”

  “This whole thing is a screw up. If you’re worried about paying me back, don’t worry. If you cut your losses at this, you can pay me back in ten years. ”

  “I still think I have a good idea with this. I just need to iron out some parts. And I am going to need cash on hand if this thing with Sully keeps escalating. But thanks for the offer.”

  “So what the hell happened?”

  “This last part was pretty ridiculous, actually. I was out with Vietnam. He said he knew some guys in Leominster who wanted coke, and who would trade me a gun for some coke.”

  “Of course. What could go wrong?” I said.

  A heavyset Italian woman came by and took our orders for beers and a pizza.

  “Right? So, we have guys in Leominster, who also want to buy coke, who I’ve never met, and who trade guns. It sounds like the best idea since the Marshall Plan,” Joe said, laughing at himself.

  “Flawlessly conceived, as always.”

  “So, Vee and I drive out to Leominster and meet these guys at a bar. They have us follow them to this boarded-up shopping center. Now I’m scared because there’s no one around, and we also look suspicious as hell. And the guys we’re dealing with are these huge Irish guys with neck tattoos. What is up with neck tattoos, by the way?”

  “It’s a way of saying you never want to work indoors, I think.”

  “Right? So they sample some coke, and then they say they want to take the coke with them when they go to get the gun. I say no and they say, okay, forget about it then. So we go back and forth and I let them take half of what I was going to give them, which is like a little more than an eight ball.”

  “Which they just got from a stranger for free.”

  The waitress came back with my beer.

  “See, I thought that. But I’m counting on Vietnam being good friends with these guys. But then I noticed that he reintroduced himself when we met them. So I asked, before I gave them the coke, and Vee said again that he was tight with them. So after twenty minutes sitting in this abandoned parking lot in God-forsaken Leominster, he says he actually only partied with them a few times, but they seemed like good guys. A half hour in, he says he actually only got drunk with them once, but they stayed out all night. After almost an hour, he says that there were a bunch of people out that night too, and that he might not know these guys that well.”

  “So many things don’t make sense. But let’s start with the gun. Why do you want a gun?”

  “It was partially Vietnam’s idea. Someone slashed his tires last week and he thinks it has to do with Sully. It’s just for protection, like for the other night. If I was alone walking into that house, I would have been fucked. But there’s a reason they call it an equalizer.”

  “Do they?”

  “I think. Wasn’t there a show called The Equalizer? Didn’t he have a gun?”

  “I think that the guy was The Equalizer. I’m sure there was more to it than just him having a gun.”

  “True. A guy with a gun isn’t a great premise for a show. Not on its own.”

  “Anyway, what the hell happened to just laying low?”

  “I’m trying to lay low. But look what happened. I mean, I really didn’t expect that Rory would pull that kind of bullshit. I’ve known him for a long time. I guess, in hindsight, that he was a little scummy.”

  “Did he hang out at the YMCA back when we were in junior high?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “I thought he looked familiar. He was a little prick back then. I remember giving him a bite of my candy bar once. So he licked the whole thing and then asked if I wanted it back.”

  “He always used to do things like that. Whatever. He’ll get his.”

  The waitress came back with our pizza and we ordered more beer.

  “So you want to borrow another three hundred to get a gun?”

  “Well, first I want to get you your six hundred back, then I want to make some extra, then I may get a gun.”

  “By selling … by doing what you were doing?” I asked. Again, my awkward impulse toward clandestine discussion made Joe smile.

  “I know. It sounds like when we used to get a football caught in a tree, so we’d throw a baseball bat at it until tha
t got caught in the tree too, so we’d throw a shoe and so on. But it’s not. I just have to be cautious and disciplined and not try to make all my money back at once.”

  “What happened to getting out of town?”

  “Well, now I owe money on the last batch I bought to sell. And the guy I bought it from is a friend who I don’t want to let down. And except for a few places and a few incidents, I feel pretty safe.”

  “I don’t know. I’m all for Joe Rousseau jumping Snake River Canyon on a head full of acid. But it seems like you’re in a situation with Sully and them where it’s just a matter of time before you get hurt.”

  “Maybe it’s just a matter of time until Sully and his crowd gets hurt,” Joe said and chugged at his beer.

  “Well, by a certain way of thinking, it’s just a matter of time before the mountains and the sea get theirs. That’s not what I mean. By staying here, you risk being caught unaware or outnumbered. By getting a gun, you risk doing something you really don’t want to do, no matter what you say. By keeping on like you’re keeping on, you risk going to jail.”

  “Okay, here’s where you’re wrong. One, I think the Rory thing taught me to be careful and always go to non-public places with a group of people. Two, the gun would probably just be for protection. Three, I know what I’m doing and the cops won’t be a problem.”

  Ira Volpe flashed in my mind so vividly that it took an effort not to speak his name. Joe and I argued until the pizza was half gone. The argument persisted for a while, without covering any new ground. I finally gave up, wondering whether I was trying to convince Joe to let up or to convince myself I had done all I could.

  “So, can I borrow the three hundred?”