Night Work (3 page)

Yeah, right, Joe. That’s gonna happen. I checked my watch. Twenty minutes until Zero Hour. I walked around the block again. I walked slowly so I wouldn’t sweat. Last thing I needed. I checked my hair in a storefront window, straightened my tie. I didn’t look myself in the eye this time.

It was seven fifty, time to head over to Fair Street. I rounded the corner, past the Senate House. I didn’t stop to read the historic landmark signs. I could have recited them, I’d been in this town so long. All my life. I kept my head high, taking deep breaths, walking straight ahead to my final destination.

This is something you need to do, I thought. You know this. You set this up yourself and now it’s time to go through with it.

It was seven fifty-seven when I got there. In the past, it would have been a welcome sight. The brick walls, the red awnings, the gold letters stenciled on the windows. Le Canard Enchaîné. A real French place,
run by a couple from Paris. I could see they were doing good business tonight. It was a perfect Saturday night, and I could hear people talking, laughing, enjoying themselves.

This will be easy, I told myself. It’s just a blind date, right? You’ve faced a lot worse. You sparred with Maurice and it only took nine stitches to sew up your eyebrow.

And on the job, hell. You’re a probation officer. You’ve had guns pointed at you. Knives. Two-by-fours. Garden hoses.

And then Laurel.

If you can face what they did to Laurel and still be standing here today … you can face anything.

Anything.

Even a blind date.

I closed my eyes for a moment, took one more deep breath, and then opened the door.

After two long years, it was time to start my life again.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the sudden bright light. All the old photographs from Paris, the whole mood of the place, it made you feel like you really were stepping into another country, and another time. It was one of a hundred little surprises this town could spring on you at any moment, that you’d find a place like this on one of its sleepy back streets. Jacques, the owner, came over in his apron and asked me if he could get me a table. I told him I was there to meet somebody. He gave me a sly little smile, and maybe that was my first good break of the evening.

“I think I know who you’re looking for,” he said. His Parisian accent was as genuine as the cuisine. “She’s sitting at the bar.”

“Can you point her out to me?”

“You’ve never seen her?”

“No, I haven’t.” I didn’t want to have to explain.

“I think you’ll know her.” He lifted one hand toward the bar. I thanked him and walked over alone.

There were five people at the bar. Two obvious couples, and then one woman on the end. The bartender was setting her up with a glass of white wine.

I cleared my throat. “Marlene?”

She looked up at me, cataloguing all the little things you notice the first second you meet somebody— eyes, mouth, hair, weight, clothes, all going into the computer for instant processing. I was doing the same thing, of course—in my case making inevitable comparisons to Laurel, something I’d probably do with every woman I meet for the rest of my life. Marlene’s hair was so much darker, absolutely jet black. She had brown eyes to Laurel’s green. Marlene had more curves. Definitely more curves. She was wearing a blue summer dress.

“Joe,” she said, standing up. “Glad to meet you.”

We did the awkward blind date thing for a moment. Do I give her a quick hug? Kiss her on the cheek? I settled for the safe handshake.

“Jacques tells me you just got here.”

“Yes,” she said. “You want to sit down here or get a table now?”

It looked kind of tight at the bar. I’d end up squeezed next to her and I’d have to try to talk to her like we were both standing on the same milk crate. “Why don’t we sit down?”

She took her glass of wine with her. I found Jacques again, and he showed us to our table. It was the one right by the front window with the white lace café curtains. I pulled out her chair for her, and then just about knocked the whole table over when I tried to sit down myself.

“As you can see,” I said, “I’m poetry in motion.”

She smiled politely. I got in the chair without further incident and straightened my tie. We both looked at the menus. There were seven hundred things to talk about, but I couldn’t begin to think of one.

“Have you been here before?” she said.

“A few times. It’s a nice place. Have you?”

“No, I’m kinda new in town.”

“That right? Where are you from?”

“I had a place in Manhattan,” she said. “I was teaching at Parsons for a while, but … Well, it’s a great place to live, but things got a little crazy.”

“How was it crazy?”

“I just needed a change in scenery. I took a year off, to see if I could get a business started up here.”

“What kind of business?”

“I was teaching jewelry design,” she said. “I’ve got some pieces at one of the stores on Wall Street. I was thinking maybe I could even open up a place of my own.”

“Okay,” I said. “Good.” I nodded my head like an idiot for a few seconds, having no idea what to say to that. Jewelry design. Almost any other subject, I’d have a chance.

The waitress saved me. We both ordered the beef bourguignon, with a bottle of red wine. Neither of us was up for the escargot appetizer.

“Okay, we have that much in common,” I said. “We don’t eat snails.”

She smiled again. She had a great smile. This was what they meant by “raven-haired beauty,” I thought,
her hair so black but with every other color shimmering as the light hit it. Purple, red, blue, the exact blue of her dress. I straightened my tie again. It felt like it was strangling me.

“So tell me about you,” she said. “No, wait, let me guess.”

She leaned back in her chair and looked at me.

“You look like you’re in really good shape,” she said. “So I’m going to say you’re a personal trainer.”

“Nope. I do help out at the gym sometimes. I don’t think that counts, though.”

“Which gym?”

“Anderson’s. Down on Broadway, by the YMCA. It used to be the Kingston bus station. Now it’s just a place for boxers to work out and spar, that kind of stuff.”

“You’re a boxer?”

“Kind of. I mean, not really. It’s just something I’m doing these days.”

“What, just for fun?”

“No, I wouldn’t say for fun. It’s usually not fun.”

“Okay,” she said. I could tell she wasn’t quite getting it. “That scar over your eye? Was that part of you not having fun boxing?”

“Oh yeah,” I said, rubbing my left eyebrow. “That was just a couple months ago.”

“You don’t seem to have any brain damage.”

“I hide it well.”

“That’s the whole point, isn’t it? To hit the other guy in the head until he loses consciousness?”

I waited a moment to see if she was joking. Apparently she wasn’t. I cleared my throat and waded right in.

“You’re right,” I said. “And believe me, I’ve met a few retired boxers who can’t even speak straight.”

“Because of too many concussions.”

“Uh … Yes. I guess you’re right. But if you do it the right way …”

“What, you mean never get hit?”

“If you wear the right kind of headgear …” I said, “and you wear twelve-ounce gloves …” I knew I wasn’t going to win this one. I should have just done a Roberto Duran right there, taken out the mouthpiece and said, “
No más.
”

The waitress brought over the salads and saved me yet again. It was like getting a long standing eight count. She even did the whole routine with the giant pepper shaker.

“I’m sorry,” Marlene said when the waitress was gone. “I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot. I just never really understood boxing.”

I had to smile at that one. That’s exactly what Laurel used to say.

“It’s a great way to stay in shape,” I said. “That’s really all I’m doing now. All training and no fighting. Story of my life.”

“Okay, I’ll buy that.”

“And you can’t beat the ambience of an old bus station. It’s so great I even live there.”

“Hmm.” She took a bite of lettuce and nodded.
That was a good move on my part, telling her I live in a bus station. Like money in the bank.

“Best thing is, it gives me something to offer my clients,” I said. “It’s something to keep them off the streets—you know, give ‘em something positive to focus on.”

“Your clients?”

“I’m a probation officer.”

“Yeah?”

“Kids mostly. My knuckleheads.”

“Is that the technical term?”

“They’re juvenile delinquents until they hit sixteen. Then they’re PINS until they’re eighteen. Persons in need of supervision. But I call them knuckleheads. It sounds more positive, like it’s just a phase they’re going through.”

“I guess I can see that.” She took another bite of her salad. “So probation, you say … Is that the same thing as parole?”

I put my fork down. I knew I was about to launch into my speech, but there was no power on earth that could stop me. So many people had no idea what I really did for a living.

“Okay,” I said. “The main thing about a parole officer is that he’s really working inside the prison system. Sometimes, right in the prison facility itself. When you get out on parole, he’s the guy watching you, ready to put you back inside if you slip up.”

“Right…”

“As a probation officer, I work for the court. As
soon as you’re arrested, I’m already gathering information about you.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m the one who’s going to write up the recommendation for what your sentence should be.”

“The judge doesn’t do that?”

“Well, he can follow my recommendation or not. He usually does, but ultimately it’s up to him. If you end up getting a term of probation, then I’m the guy who helps you live up to it.”

“So that’s totally different from what a parole officer does…”

“A parole officer puts you back in prison. He’s your worst enemy.”

“But you make sure they don’t go to prison in the first place,” she said. “So you’re like their best friend.”

“Exactly. Sometimes their last and only friend.”

“But what if somebody’s on probation and can’t stay straight?”

“Well, then he violates the terms of his probation. So I probably have to file a report.”

“What happens then?”

“That depends. There’ll be another hearing. He might get a stricter schedule, have to come see me twice a week instead of once a week. Or I’ll make a point of going to
his
house. Really get in his face. He might even have to wear an ankle bracelet so we can keep track of him.”

“Kids are wearing these?”

“If that’s what it takes,” I said. “We don’t want to
put a kid into the system these days. Because once they get locked up … We just know …”

“They’re not going to come out?”

“They might come out, but odds are they’ll be going right back in.”

“But some people … I mean, no matter what you do …”

“Yeah, I used to think anybody could be turned around,” I said. “If you got to them the right way. At the right time.”

“You don’t think that anymore?”

“No,” I said, picking up my fork again. “I guess I don’t.”

“Well, I bet you do a good job. You must help out a lot of people.”

“I try.”

“Sorry about the boxing thing. I wasn’t trying to give you a hard time.”

“It’s okay,” I said. I smiled, and maybe I even started to relax a little bit. Then she asked the question I had been dreading all day long.

“So how come you’re still single?”

J
ust like that, it’s two years ago. To be exact, two years plus twenty-five days. In one second I can go back and feel it like it’s still happening, like that night lives in its own parallel universe where time stands still. A part of me is there always, living in that single span of darkness, the sun on the other side of the earth. I’m afraid this will be the only thing left when
I die. The one part of me that continues will go back there like I’m finally going home.

A bachelor party—what a hateful name for a night out making yourself sick. The guys dragging me from one bar to another, until finally we’re at that strip club in New Paltz. I’ve never had so much alcohol in my body as that night. Certainly not again since then. As much as I might crave the oblivion it would bring, I couldn’t stand the thought of feeling that way again, the same way I felt when I heard that knocking on my door in those miserable hours before dawn. Stumbling out of bed, feeling the room spin, opening the door to those two men with blanks where their faces should be. Telling me to prepare myself for what I was about to be told.

Laurel.

They say I got away from both of them and actually made it to my car. How the hell I could do that, I can’t even imagine. I certainly don’t remember trying. Maybe they couldn’t bring themselves to overpower me, given the circumstances. Whatever the hell, I got in the car and drove about five miles with the two of them in pursuit before I glanced off a guardrail in what must have been a spray of sparks, barely missed a truck in the other lane, knocked over two trees, hit the third one. Then everything stopped.

The next thing I see is a bright light shining in my eyes. A doctor looking down at me. I say three words to him.

“Is it true?”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t seem to hear me at all.

The night is gone. But the night is not gone, and never will be. It is with me always. The night is burned into my flesh forever.

I
’m sorry,” she said. She could see it in my face, I’m sure. Hell, everyone in the restaurant could see it. “Were you married before?”

“No. I was, um …” How did I think I could do this? How did I not know that this moment would come? And that I would have no idea how to handle it.

She waited for me to continue.

“I was engaged once,” I said. “A little over two years ago. Her name was Laurel.”

“What happened? Did you break it off?”

“She died.”

“I’m sorry, Joe. I shouldn’t have asked.”