December Boys Part 2

"'Emotionally unavailable'? Where do you come up with this s.h.i.+t? What's that even mean? Emotionally unavailable."

"It means when you are married to someone, you don't get to hoist burdens on your shoulders and act like carrying them around alone is heroic. Needing help doesn't make you weak-"

"Actually, that's the very definition of-"

"It makes you human."

"You sound like one of those posters DeSouza has hanging in the office. f.u.c.king Teamwork. f.u.c.king Inspiration. f.u.c.king birds flying together because they believe in themselves and not because flight is the result of millions of years of evolution-"

"If you hate it so much-leave!"

"Just the job?"

That was the big blow I had in my bag, the one I'd been waiting to use. Leveling it now was a cheap shot, but I'd take it. Let the possibility serve as warning to back the f.u.c.k off. I never intended to leave, and, Christ, I felt like an a.s.shole when I saw Jenny's eyes tear up. I knew I had gone too far. Even as I'd been throwing my tie to the ground, pitching a fit like a toddler who wasn't getting his way, I felt ridiculous. But I couldn't stop.

And that remorse only grew worse when I looked over and saw Aiden standing there in his PJ bottoms, little boy potbelly, wide-eyed and terrified. He ran to his mother's side, like his father was some monster. My son didn't even look at me. Neither would my wife. I couldn't talk my way out of this now.

CHAPTER THREE.

WHEN I LANDED the job at NEI, I got health insurance for the first time in my adult life. Which included mental health visits. I didn't go for that touchy-feely c.r.a.p, but I'd been having these fits, shortness of breath, vertigo, like my heart was about to seize up. I went to the clinic for a checkup, but everything checked out. The doctor said they were panic attacks, even though I'd never been accused of that before. Jenny urged me to see a psychiatrist. Even without her prodding, I knew Chris' death had messed me up enough that I could use professional help. So I signed on. Three trips to a shrink. That's all our HMO covered. Who the h.e.l.l can sort out the s.h.i.+t I'd endured with my brother in three fifty-minute sessions?

Chris' death last winter had officially been ruled "suicide by cop" after he ran out of an old farmhouse, waving a gun around, leaving the police no other choice. But everyone knew the real reason he died: drugs. My brother had been an addict most of his life. His reason for living. And, in the end, his reason for dying.

Last spring I'd met with Dr. Louise Shapiro-Weiss over in Longmont. For three weeks, I spilled my guts in that tiny office, serenaded by gurgling waterfalls and raindrops dribbling over smooth stones, the calming, tranquil soundtrack designed to quell my looney tunes. The longer I listened to myself drone on, the more I wanted to rip that babbling brook from the socket and smash it against the wall.

I knew I sounded as nutty as my brother, outlining secret backroom meetings, collusion to conceal true agendas. When I got to the part about the hit man pretending to be a detective in order to bury my brother beneath the ice of Echo Lake, our time was up. And not a moment too soon. I was surprised the doctor didn't recommend I be committed. Instead, she wrote me a script for a sedative and wished me luck.

Some secrets are better left undisturbed. After Chris died, old man Lombardi kicked it. Heart attack fetching the morning paper. So what difference did it make now? Maybe my wife was right and I needed to suck it up, pay out of pocket, and see the doctor again. Desperate times and measures. I had to try something because what I was doing sure wasn't working.

I needed a drink. I didn't feel like driving in circles or sitting at a roadside bar alone. My buddy Charlie still lived in Ashton. Outside of Charlie, I didn't have many friends. I knew where I'd find him. Same place he was every night. Glued to a stool, getting soused at the Dubliner. My old hometown pub was over an hour away because of the long detour around Lamentation Mountain, which wasn't actually a single mountain but an entire range of them. What else could I do? A man without a country, I hit the 135 and headed east.

Couples fight, I told myself. She'll put Aiden back to bed, make herself some tea. We'll both take time to calm down. I'll call her later and apologize for being a jerk. Wouldn't be the first time. Sure as h.e.l.l wouldn't be the last.

I felt for my cell, cursing when I realized I'd forgotten it. Again.

"Look what the canary dragged in," Charlie said, sizing up the target on the dartboard.

"You mean cat, you stupid f.u.c.k." The man standing beside him drained the dregs of a beer and set the empty pint gla.s.s down on a half wall.

A group huddled around my friend, anxiously awaiting the outcome of the next throw.

"Cat. Canary," Charlie said. "Who gives a s.h.i.+t? When I nail this bullseye, Danny Boy, you are going to owe me a beer."

On the television set above the bar, a newscaster reported on the Sox down in Fort Myers. Winter ball wrapping up, spring training around the corner, hope springs eternal.

Charlie lobbed a wobbly dart. A brief cheer erupted, drowned out by a chorus of boos when the fluttering shot missed its mark by six inches. Charlie dropped his head in exaggerated defeat. Another buddy clapped his back, whispering condolence, as someone else plucked the trio of darts from the board.

"I'm out," Charlie said, fetching his empty pint off the half wall. He slung an arm around my shoulder, pulling me across the floor toward the tiki smoking porch outside.

Liam, the owner of the Dubliner, was setting up his guitar and mic stand at the dark end of the bar. Liam's band, The January Men, used to play here on weekends. They'd broken up. Now he took the stage to sing his sad Irish songs alone, brus.h.i.+ng strings, whispering lyrics. No one seemed to notice. I'd always thought his band sucked-they were too loud, never in sync, and you couldn't hear what anyone was saying when they were bleating away-but it still beat this sad b.a.s.t.a.r.d music. At least when the band was together, everyone bas.h.i.+ng on his instrument, it could be a good time. By the end of the night, the crowd would join in, whole bar screaming along, wasted. Sometimes a girl would take her s.h.i.+rt off. There's comfort in numbers. Or maybe being with a group of other maniacs just hides the crazy.

"Hey!" Danny Boy called after Charlie. "Where's my beer?"

"Put it on my tab," Charlie hollered back. "Rita!" He held up his empty gla.s.s and pointed outside. "And one for my good friend, Jay Porter, hotshot investigator up from the big city."

Rita, the barmaid and Liam's wife, rolled her eyes.

"Don't be an a.s.shole," I said.

"What?" Charlie said. "A little patience never killed anyone. Fisher tells me it's just a matter of time until you get the call up to the big leagues down in Concord."

Fisher was Charlie's friend who'd helped land me the job at NorthEastern. Like Charlie, Fisher had been around last winter when all that s.h.i.+t was happening with my brother. I didn't blame Fisher for the job turning out so awful. But he wasn't off the hook either. I'd been sold a bill of goods-namely that I'd be working out of Concord. Instead I got stuck in the outpost of Plasterville, which was actually further north than Ashton-I'd done the math-adding to the sense that I'd somehow taken a step back.

Charlie cinched the drawstring of his parka, Nanook peeking out the head hole. "Fisher swears it's gonna happen. Just have to pay your dues."

"Yeah. I've heard that one, too. And I think I've paid enough."

We grabbed a couple stools beneath the thatched overhang, icicles jagging down with menace. Rita popped out the back door and set a pair of frothing pints in front of us. She shook her head like we were nuts to be out there in that arctic blast. But if this was where you lived and you wanted a cigarette, what were you supposed to do? I remembered my dad describing the good old days, going to see a movie and people smoking in the lobby, buying popcorn and Jujubes, blazing up right in the G.o.dd.a.m.n theater. Back then you could smoke on airplanes and in the doctor's office. Now they stick you outside of a bar where they legally serve cirrhosis, and have you freeze your a.s.s off in minus twenty.

Charlie pulled out his pack. "Dropping the boy at Grandma's?"

I b.u.mmed a smoke. Charlie didn't bust my b.a.l.l.s over trying to quit. He understood as well as anybody that sometimes failing can still be your best.

"Jenny's mom doesn't live in Ashton anymore," I said, borrowing a match from him as well. "Moved to Burlington. About six months ago. Pretty much right after Jenny and I got married."

Charlie screwed up his face. I wasn't sure which part confused him. My mother-in-law Lynne relocating to the scenic sh.o.r.es of Lake Champlain, or the wedding itself? Charlie had been my best man for the ceremony at City Hall. We didn't have the time or money to plan anything extravagant. Reception for six afterward at the Chicken Shack. My wife deserved better.

"Lynne earned her certification to be a traveling nurse. Remember? We talked about this the last time I saw you."

"Was I drunk?"

"When aren't you drunk, Charlie?"

"Good point."

"Besides, it's ten thirty. Kids have bedtimes. Something you don't have to worry about."

Charlie nipped his beer.

A gaggle of college girls burst onto the porch, interrupting our suffering with their enthusiasm. Giggling, then shrieking, then laughing hysterically at something that couldn't possibly be that funny. I'd once bar-backed at a pub over the summer. I decided then that the most annoying sound in the entire world is young, drunk girls having fun.

My instant hatred of these four, who had done nothing besides dare to exist, made me remember what Jenny said back at the house. When are you ever happy, Jay?

When did I become such a miserable b.a.s.t.a.r.d?

"What's going on with you, man?" Charlie said. "You got that mopey, hangdog expression you used to get whenever your brother came around."

"Maybe he did," I muttered.

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

"Okay, Mr. Big Shot Investigator, why are you back in town?"

"Stop calling me that. And can't I just meet a buddy for a beer?"

"An hour's drive? In the snow and cold? This late?"

"Jenny and I got in a fight."

"What did you do this time?"

"What makes you think it's my fault?"

Charlie laughed.

"It's complicated."

"I bet it is."

"Let's just say nine-to-five doesn't live up to the fantasy."

"You fantasized about having a nine-to-five job?" Charlie pointed in the vague direction of the foothills. "Dude, I got a s...o...b..x in my attic. Feel free to borrow some magazines. You need better fantasies."

"No one keeps p.o.r.n in a s...o...b..x anymore, Charlie."

"It's a metaphor."

"No. It's not. But whatever. That's not what I mean. Before all this went down, I had a goal, y'know? As long as I was chasing after that payoff, I was okay."

"I could've told you nine-to-five sucks. Best you can hope for is landing on workman's comp like my Uncle Jimmy. An insurance office? Gonna need one h.e.l.l of a paper cut."

"I mean, I thought, if I could get regular work with benefits, get Jenny back, get my son back-if I had a chance to be an everyday dad, be reunited with my family-they would make the rest of it worthwhile."

"You telling me they don't?"

"No. I'm not saying that. Jenny and Aiden are my whole world. I'd be lost without them. It's just . . ."

"What?"

I shook my head. "I don't know, man." I drained my beer. "That f.u.c.king job. I hate it. Feel like a monkey in a suit peddling a bicycle. I'm not cut out for corporate."

"What are you cut out for?"

"Beats me. Christ, I feel like I'm sixteen again, throwing punches against the wind. I wasn't like this before. You ever get that way?"

"I ain't the guy to ask. I'm one step from a ditch digger."

"How's that working out?" Last winter, Charlie had gotten himself canned from the phone company and started working for my old boss, Tom Gable, boxing up the remains of old farmers, clearing antiques, peddling merchandise at flea markets along the sh.o.r.e. Lots of freedom. Little room for advancement.

"You know that game, Jay. If Tom didn't pay me under the table and cut out the middleman, I couldn't survive. Once the unemployment runs out, I'll probably have to crawl back to the phone company."

"Seriously?"

"I'd rather shoot myself first."

Charlie banged his pint until Rita returned with two fresh ones, looking p.i.s.sed she had to set foot outside. "Ah, that's what I love about this place. Service with a smile."

"Doesn't it get to you?"

"What?"

"All of this. The s.h.i.+t we have to do to keep going." I nodded into the black night, toward the seedy Turnpike south of town. "Maybe those b.u.ms and dope fiends have the right idea. Shack up in some fleabag, let the government foot the bill."

"Just living is hard enough," Charlie said. "Then you add the rest of it-bills and jobs, having to sign up for overdraft protection? Dude, I don't know how people aren't running out of their houses screaming down the street every morning."

"p.i.s.ses me off. The sc.r.a.ps we're left with. While others roll like pigs in s.h.i.+t."

"Any pig-f.u.c.kers you have in mind?" Charlie snuffed his smoke. "You're my boy, Jay, and I love you. But do you know that every time I've seen you this past year, you've brought up Adam, Michael, or Gerry Lombardi?"

"Bulls.h.i.+t."

"Fact. Every time. You're getting as bad as Fisher."

"What's Fisher got to do with any of this? Besides, that's not true. I didn't mention the name 'Lombardi' once tonight."

"Yeah? Then who are you talking about? I'm not an idiot, man."

"I took a wrong turn today. Ended up outside an abandoned Lombardi Construction site."

"When? Where?"

"This afternoon. On the way to a client's house. For work. Western plains, in the sticks. That's not the point. Seeing the name, the quarry, the rusted machines and discarded trailer parts-brought back last year. It sucked."

"I'm sure it did, but-"

"Those pictures, Charlie. I can't get them out of my head. What if it was old man Lombardi? What if we let him get away with it? Adam and Michael had to know what their father was up to. Remember Adam's head of security, Bowman? That 'roided-up m.u.t.h.e.rf.u.c.ker with the Star of David tattooed on his neck? Adam Lombardi sicced that psychopath on me looking for the hard drive my brother stole-"