A Drink Before the War (27 page)

A
S IT TURNED OUT
, Jimmy was wrong.

Dave Boyle returned to the neighborhood four days after he'd disappeared. He came back riding in the front seat of a police car. The two cops who brought him home let him play with the siren and touch the butt of the shotgun locked down beneath the dash. They gave him an honorary badge, and when they delivered him to his mother's house on Rester Street, reporters from the papers and TV were there to capture the moment. One of the cops, an Officer Eugene Kubiaki, lifted Dave out of the cruiser and swung Dave's legs high over the pavement before placing him down in front of his weeping, giggling, shaking mother.

There was a crowd out on Rester Street that day—parents, kids, a mailman, the two roly-poly Pork Chop Brothers who owned the sub shop on the corner of Rester and Sydney, and even Miss Powell, Dave and Jimmy's fifth-grade teacher at the Looey & Dooey. Jimmy stood with his mother. His mother held the back of his head to her midsection and kept a damp palm clamped to his forehead, as if she were checking to make sure he hadn't caught whatever Dave had, and Jimmy felt a twinge of jealousy as Officer Kubiaki swung
Dave above the sidewalk, the two of them laughing like old friends as pretty Miss Powell clapped her hands.

I almost got in that car, too, Jimmy wanted to tell someone. He wanted to tell Miss Powell more than anyone. She was beautiful and so clean, and when she laughed you could see that one of her upper teeth was slightly crooked, and that made her even more beautiful to Jimmy. Jimmy wanted to tell her he'd almost gotten in that car and see if her face would fill with the look she was giving Dave now. He wanted to tell her that he thought about her all the time, and in his thoughts he was older and could drive a car and take her to places where she smiled at him a lot and they ate a picnic lunch and everything he said made her laugh and expose that tooth and touch his face with her palm.

Miss Powell was uncomfortable here, though. Jimmy could tell. After she'd said a few words to Dave and touched his face and kissed his cheek—she kissed him
twice—
other people moved in, and Miss Powell stepped aside and stood on the cracked sidewalk looking up at the leaning three-deckers and their tar paper curling up to expose the wood underneath, and she seemed younger and yet harder to Jimmy at the same time, as if there was something suddenly nunnish about her, touching her hair to feel for her habit, button nose twitching and ready to judge.

Jimmy wanted to go to her, but his mother was still holding him tight, ignoring his squirms, and then Miss Powell walked to the corner of Rester and Sydney and Jimmy watched her wave desperately to someone. A hippie-looking guy pulled up in a hippie-looking yellow convertible with faded purple flower petals painted on the sunbaked doors, and Miss Powell climbed in the car and they drove off, Jimmy thinking, No.

He finally wrenched free of his mother's hold. He stood in the middle of the street, watching the crowd surround Dave, and he wished he'd gotten in that car, if only so he could feel some of the adoration Dave was feeling, see all those eyes looking at him like he was something special.

It turned into a big party on Rester Street, everyone run
ning from camera to camera, hoping they'd get on TV or see themselves in the morning papers—Yeah, I know Dave, he's my best friend, grew up with him, you know, great kid, thank the good Lord he's okay.

Someone opened a hydrant and the water jetted out onto Rester like a sigh of relief, and kids tossed their shoes to the gutter and rolled up their pants and danced in the gushing water. The ice cream truck rolled in, and Dave got to pick whatever he wanted, on the house, and even Mr. Pakinaw, a nasty old widower who fired a BB rifle at squirrels (and kids, too, sometimes, if their parents weren't looking) and screamed all the time for people to just be fucking quiet, will ya—he opened up his windows and put his speakers up against the screens and next thing you know, Dean Martin was singing “Memories Are Made of This” and “Volare” and a lot of other shit Jimmy would normally puke if he heard, but today, it fit. Today the music floated down Rester like bright streams of crepe paper. It mixed with the loud gush of water from the hydrant. Some of the guys who ran the card game in the back of the Pork Chop Brothers' store brought out a folding table and a small grill, and pretty soon someone else carted out some coolers filled with Schlitz and Narragansett, and the air turned fat with the smell of grilled hot dogs and Italian sausage, the wafting, smoky, charred smell and the whiff of open beer cans making Jimmy think of Fenway Park and summer Sundays and that tight joy you got in your chest when the adults kicked back and acted more like kids, everyone laughing, everyone looking younger and lighter and happy to be around each other.

This was what Jimmy, even in the pit of his blackest hates after a beating from the old man or the theft of something he'd cared about
—this
was what he loved about growing up here. It was the way people could suddenly throw off a year of aches and complaints and split lips and job worries and old grudges and just let loose, like nothing bad had ever happened in their lives. On St. Pat's or Buckingham Day, sometimes on the Fourth of July, or when the Sox were playing
well in September, or, like now, when something collectively lost had been found—especially then—this neighborhood could erupt into a kind of furious delirium.

Not like up in the Point. In the Point they had block parties, sure, but they were always planned, the necessary permits obtained, everyone making sure everyone else was careful around the cars, careful on the lawns—Watch it, I just painted that fence.

In the Flats, half the people didn't have lawns, and the fences sagged, so what the fuck. When you wanted to party, you partied, because, shit, you sure as hell deserved it. No bosses here today. No welfare investigators or loan shark muscle. And as for the cops—well, there were the cops now, partying along with everyone else, Officer Kubiaki helping himself to a hot-'n'-spicy sausage spuckie off the grill, and his partner pocketing a beer for later. The reporters had all gone home and the sun was starting to set, giving the street that time-for-dinner glow, but none of the women were cooking, and no one was going inside.

Except for Dave. Dave was gone, Jimmy realized when he stepped out of the hydrant spray and squeezed out his pant cuffs and put his T-shirt back on as he waited in line for a hot dog. Dave's party was in full swing, but Dave must have gone back in his house, his mother, too, and when Jimmy looked at their second-story windows, the shades were drawn and lonely.

Those drawn shades made him think of Miss Powell for some reason, of her climbing in that hippie-looking car, and it made him feel grimy and sad to remember watching her curve her right calf and ankle into the car before she'd closed the door. Where was she going? Was she driving on the highway right now, the wind streaming through her hair like the music streamed down Rester Street? Was the night closing in on them in that hippie car as they drove off to…where? Jimmy wanted to know, but then he didn't want to know. He'd see her in school tomorrow—unless they gave everyone a day off from school, too, to celebrate Dave's return—and he'd want to ask her, but he wouldn't.

Jimmy took his hot dog and sat down on the curb across from Dave's house to eat it. When he was about halfway through the dog, one of the shades rolled up and he saw Dave standing in the window, staring down at him. Jimmy held up his half-eaten hot dog in recognition, but Dave didn't acknowledge him, even when he tried a second time. Dave just stared. He stared at Jimmy, and even though Jimmy couldn't see his eyes, he could sense blankness in them. Blankness, and blame.

During the writing of this novel, the following people provided advice, criticism, encouragement, and enthusiasm for which I'll always be more grateful than they could possibly know:

 

John Dempsey, Mal Ellenburg, Ruth Greenstein, Tupi Konstan, Gerard Lehane, Chris Mullen, Courtnay Pelech, Ann Riley, Ann Rittenberg, Claire Wachtel, and Sterling Watson
.