Through the Fire (17 page)

“Yeah.”

“Go right ahead.”

She tilted her head and looked at the ceiling. “There is a history there.”

“A history with . . .”

“Between.”

“Between who? You and him?”

She nodded. “We were dating for a time.”

A memory awakened. “You’re Julie?”

“Some friends call me that. Did he talk about me?”

“Was this like . . . six years ago?”

“Yeah.”

“He mentioned going out with a girl named Julie, that it didn’t work out. That was about it. I never made the connection.”

“ ‘It didn’t work out’? That’s rich.” She angled her lower jaw and shook her head. “We’d been dating for a few months. Things were getting more serious. But he’d just been telling me everything I wanted to hear.” A ripple traced over her eyes. “He’s your friend. I shouldn’t be saying this.”

I narrowed the space between us. “It’s all right. Believe me. It’s okay.”

She brought her lips together, looked to the side and back. “I had to work late one night waitressing. When I left it was dark and as I sat at a light on Fourth Street I looked over and saw Blake walking out the back door of a strip club with two women clawing at either side. They all got into his car, his Fire Department vehicle, and took off.” She shook her head. “Aidan, I feel so awkward telling you this—”

“No. It’s fine. I didn’t know that about him. Thank you for telling—”

“I’m not done.”

“Go on.”

“This one is a much, much bigger jump. I hardly know you, so what do I have to lose, right?” She mumbled, “Except maybe my job.” She folded her arms. “If you look at the circumstances . . . I mean, if you really examine the current situation. There is a possibility . . . And this is just conjecture, really . . .”

“Julianne please, again, just say it.”

She shifted her weight. “All right. I just found out that Blake had been passed over for the promotion to division chief in Prevention. And this wasn’t the first time. It was the third. That’s got to sound like a death knell for his hopes of climbing the ladder. Something like that is bound to stir up resentment.” She straightened her jacket. “That’s all. Infer what you’d like. I just needed to tell someone. It’s hard to know who you can trust right now.”

I didn't know what to think. I shook my head. “Why, after what you’ve been through with him, would you even consider taking a job where he works?”

“I know. But I’m all my father has left. The opportunity presented itself, so I took it to get back here.” She took a deep breath. “You should also know—” She pressed her lips together.

“I should also know what?”

“You should also know that I, personally, can’t—” She stopped, tracing fingers over a jacket button. “Aidan, I want you to have the closure you need with your father’s death. But how can you expect that finding the arsonist will really change anything for you?”

“It will bring justice.”

“Yes. But in your heart. Your fight is with more than just a murderer. I think you can’t accept death.”

“He shouldn’t have died.”

“But people do. Of anyone, you should know that.”

“Doesn’t make it right.”

“And will catching an arsonist change that?”

Anger blended in my gut. “I don’t have to listen to this.”

“Why, Aidan? What are you so afraid of?”

“Who said I was afraid?”

“Are you? Where is your peace?”

“We make order out of chaos. That’s the job.”

“So you’re always the hero and never the victim?”

“We stop loss.”

“Enough with the slogans. Some things are beyond your control.”

“And what if I can’t accept that?”

“You can.”

“What if I won’t?”

She breathed deeply. “You’ll have to.” Her eyes locked with mine. “You need to. Or life will move on. It will. And you will miss out.”

I looked away. “I don't need this.”

I turned and strode down the hall, out into stark daylight and the chill city air. I blinked against the brightness, seeing a red-hued vision of Christine’s car with Blake sitting in the front.

“Hard to know who you can trust right now . . .”

I glanced back at the building.

That it was.

CHAPTER
31

I
took a long walk down Wells, strolling for at least an hour, maybe more. My feet led me to Patty’s. I looked at the thick weathered-wood door and leaned on the sidewalk pay phone. Something twisted in my stomach.

Why am I here?

Going in was neither a healthy nor wise choice. I wouldn’t find any answers in there. No healing. No rest.

I turned and faced the pay phone. Tagged with black marker, torn white sticker residue covered the tarnished and keyed up chrome. If I dialed Christine from it, her caller ID wouldn’t indicate me. I fingered a couple quarters in my pocket and put a palm on the handset. I held the coins by the slot.

Who will answer?

I dropped in the quarters and dialed her number.

It rang three times.

Four.

Five.

Six.

I pulled the receiver from my ear.

“Hello?” A man’s voice.

He repeated. “Hello?” A woman asked a question in the background. It sounded like Christine. I heard chafing sounds like a hand over the receiver, then a muted, “I don’t know, babe.” A ruffling sound was followed by a clear “Hello?”

The voice was unmistakable. I wished it hadn’t been.

I slammed down the handset. My quarters jingled deep in the machine.

Patty’s beckoned.

My dim-lit sanctuary. Where the passage of time either slowed or sped, the metered course of mortality bending to the will of the imbiber. Eleven fifteen on a midweek morning, but to no surprise, there stood Lowell beside a stool, monologuing with arms outstretched, the messiah of malt liquor. Chris Waits sat two stools down, his grin broad between his handlebar moustache, eyes angled with the aged understanding of a Japanese elder. A couple other bodies at the bar laughed and grinned. I scooted up to the rail.

Patty wiped his hands on a towel hanging from his waist.

“Well, if it isn’t the estranged O’Neill boy.”

I folded my hands on the counter. “Estranged?”

“It’s been nearly two months, lad.”

I pulled back. “No way. A couple weeks, maybe.”

“Don’t you lecture me on the passage of time.” He wagged his finger in the air. “You’re not going to win that fight, Aidan-boy. So ya might just as soon—”

“All right, all right.” I raised my hands in surrender. “Man, Patty. Go easy on me.”

“Go easy on ya?” His motor was started.

Here we go.

He whipped the towel from his apron and held it in the air. Then he cracked a smile at the corner of his mouth, and crinkled his eyes in acceptance. He placed the towel on the counter and leaned forward. Reaching up with one hand he grabbed the back of my head and brought my forehead to his. “Good to see ya, lad.” His breath exhausted the thick stench of whiskey. He straightened. “Have you been eating enough? Are you hungry?” He pointed his towel at me. “Remember when you were a boy and you asked why I always drank Guinness?”

“I remember your face looked like I’d just spit in the holy water.”

“And what did I tell you?”

I licked my lips and looked up to recite. “ ‘Cuz it’s a meal in a glass.’ ”

He slapped his thigh and cackled. “That’s right, and don’t you forget it, Aidan-boy.”

Lowell seemed to just notice my presence. “Aidan.” He placed a hand on my shoulder, his eyes already glazed by a couple pints too many.

I wondered what deception lay hidden in his gesture. What truths lay behind that veil?

Waits waved from down the bar. He asked Patty to pour me a pint. I nodded. “Thanks, Chris.”

Lowell continued with his stories. I nursed my stout, running my thumb along the sweating glass sides. Down the bar, the lines of age drew on flushed faces, quivering lips looking for nurture at the rim of a glass. I took back a mouthful, letting it sit on my palate before swallowing its slow mind-numbing medicine.

The pint stood like a silent cone-shaped monolith, my own personal idol. This place . . . my own dark sepulcher.

Was it Thoreau who said the tavern will compare favorably with the church? I’d let this brass-railed bar become my altar, a murky draught my living water. Repetition and ritual.

Ancient.

Revered.

And powerless to change a hardened heart.

All were accepted. None were healed.

I opened my eyes to see streetlight edging through the window blinds. It diffused into the dark of my room. I rolled off the bed, a dull throbbing in my head arguing against uprightness. Separating the shades with my fingers I saw the Land Cruiser parked out in front, straight and proper by the curb. I felt my front pocket for the keys but found only flat denim. The cranial pounding moved to my forehead. I pressed my palm against it.

Green digital numbers glowed from the nightstand: 6:37 p.m.

I stumbled to the kitchen, found a glass, and filled it with tap water. I forced myself to drink it all and ate a piece of bread. Back in the bathroom, my fumbling hands found an aspirin bottle. I threw back three and swallowed, sipping from the tap to wash away the chalky residue. Leaning back against the doorframe, I stared at my vacant bed. A gaping emptiness gnawed at me.

My stomach churned. I dropped to my knees and vomited in the toilet. The cool porcelain felt firm under my palms, the tile hard on my patellas, my heaving stale breath putrid and humiliating.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and pushed aside the shower curtain. I crawled into the tub and lay my head back—sinking into a deep, hollow, dark slumber.

CHAPTER
32

L
ook, Aidan. See Daddy?” Steam lifted from the iron resting on the end of the board.

I held a smooth wood block over my building. It was as tall as the table, as tall as I was. I threw a quick glance at the television. A long ladder stretched into a smoky sky. A fireman carrying an axe climbed it. I peeked at my swaying tower.

“Look, Aidan.”

I squeezed the carpet with sock-covered toes. “Is that Daddy?”

“It sure is. See him on the ladder?”

“Is he in the sky?”

The iron exhaled a hot vaporous sigh. My mom turned over a chalk-blue collared shirt, one Dad wore at work. “He is very high up.”

“As high as the mountains?”

“No, not that high. About a quarter of the height of Circus Circus.”

When we went there I got lots of quarters. They had these heavy brown balls that when you rolled them and they went up in the holes, then you got lots of tickets. “The quarters of the game place?”

“That’s right. Good memory.”

I set the block on top of my building. It fit perfectly on the phone-shaped one. The building leaned a little, so I shifted the block and it balanced. I let go, and the tower swayed slightly. I measured with a flat hand from my head to it.

“As tall as me, Mom.”

“The building?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think so, dear. That building is hundreds of feet tall.”

My chest swelled with pride. “I know. Look.”

“Oh. Right. Very nice work, Aidan.”

“It’s hundreds of feet tall.”

“Maybe in pretend feet.” She turned the shirt over again. She didn’t have the white basket with all the pants and shirts. Just that one.

“That’s a special shirt.”

She stared at the TV.

“That’s a special shirt, Mom.”

“What, dear?” She looked over and smiled.

“That one takes a lot of ironing.” I smiled back.

The iron breathed out. She stopped smiling. A sad look filled her eyes.

“Mom, you’re squeezing the shirt!”

She looked at her fist and set the iron down. She draped the shirt on the board and turned away into the kitchen. “Aidan, don’t touch that. It’s hot.” Her voice sounded warbly.

I itched my nose and stared at the ironing board.

She loved to iron blue shirts.

I’d almost forgot about my building. I sidestepped around it, then ambled down the hallway, finding the creaky boards. I could make it to my bedroom in five creaks.

Warm sunshine shone through the high window in my room. It made a rectangle on the floor that half covered my circle carpet with all the colors and half covered the wood part of the floor. I laid down in it. The sun made rainbow circles when I squinted my eyelashes. Sometimes if I looked long enough I could see invisible things floating around like little hairs or worms or bubbles. When I lifted my hand and shielded the sun, I saw some different dark clouds that were only in one part of the sky. They were black like the wax paper you can write on with toothpicks.

Under the window sat my mud-colored toy box. He-Man was in there, probably on the bottom in the corner next to the rubber turtle and my disc guns. I lifted the lid and dug my arm in.

Nope . . . Nope . . . There he is.

I ran from my room and skidded down the hallway all the way from the bathroom to the living room, jumping on the carpet where the wood floor ended.

I landed, and my building swayed. I stood perfectly still, holding He-Man by the waist. When it settled, I stretched out on my belly, looking up at the tower the way He-Man saw it.

I brought him up to one of the blocks at the bottom and cocked back his fist.

“Oh, dear Jesus!” my mom cried out.

She cupped her hands over her mouth, standing at the edge of the kitchen. She stared at the TV.

I didn’t like it when she was so loud. The TV picture was smoky and orange and shaky. “Where’s the ladder, Mom?”

She said something so quiet I couldn’t hear.

“What?”

She shook her head.

“Mom, I can’t hear you. Take your hands down.”

But she just stood there.

“Mom, what did you say?” I looked at the TV. The ladder appeared, and a fireman with an axe climbed down through the smoke. “Look, Mom. Is that Daddy?”

Her hands moved to her chest. “Oh, Lord. Thank you. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, thank you.”

“Are you praying for the food?”

She came over and knelt in front of Dad’s chair, her arms held open. “Come here, baby.”