Mick (6 page)

“Sure. A-course,” Bob said as he headed off in that direction, scratching, scratching, picking, as if he were just trying to lift a postage stamp off an envelope. “I love you, Terry, man. I love you,” he muttered, then, as he passed me, “Hi, Mickey.”

“Hi, Bob.”

“I ain’t no racist,” Marion said as he shook Terry’s hand. Marion, with his mother behind him, nodding. Marion lived with his mother and not with his father, who went out for a quick cold one twenty years ago and never came back. Marion Junior was named after his father and not after his mother, who was named Marian by some freak of luck that they just made worse by dumping the name on the kid and giving him probably the full set of nervous acne he still has at age twenty-five. “I ain’t no racist, Terry,” Marion Junior said.

“He ain’t,” Marian said, and the two passed along to me, shaking
my
hand in what had become a sort of receiving line.

“I’m workin’ for the Edison now, y’know,” Marion said. “Anything you need, you just let me know.”

“They
had
it coming though, didn’t they?” Marian said to me. I thought to answer, couldn’t, shrugged instead. “Ah but you understand that, I know, after all what you said the other night.”

“What did I
say
?” I begged, taking her hand in mine.

“Oh you’re a divil, just like my Marion. And you know what else, you’re a throwback. I ain’t heard words like you used in decades. Nobody says
jungle bunny
no more. Nobody says
jigga-boo
or
chinky
—”

“I
fuckin
’ did not say—” I snapped.

“Y’know, boy,” she prattled on, “it was just the way we talked in them days, so everyone knew who everyone was. Now, with them all breathin’ right over our shoulders instead of stayin’ where they belong, we can’t say the words we want. But you—”

“Me, nothin’, all right. That wasn’t me. You know, you drink a little too much, and your memory’s a little screwed.”

This made Marian chuckle. She pulled her hand out of mine and threw me a wink. “Don’t you worry, now,” she said. “We know how to take care of our own.”

Marian’s words shoved me further into sickness, the vile taste coming back up out of my belly again. Did I need taking care of now? I was not one of their own, goddamn it.

And there was no way, even drunk, even in that atmosphere, that I could have said those things.

I was pretty sure.

“Go have a drink, Marian,” I spat, wanting her and her words out of my space.

She took my words as encouragement, and went off to find that drink.

A cheer rose up as the local entry in the upcoming mayor’s race bought a round for everybody in the place. Not one of the once-a-year bums, this man was in the Bloody four or five nights a week. The difference was that he was buying, this one time. He knew how many miles he could get for his beer buck, guaranteeing the votes of the sloppy, soggy clientele for a one dollar draft on the one day it would work. The man stood across the room and raised his glass slyly to Terry, not risking the political jeopardy of sitting with him.

Another priest—where do they all come from, and why do they all want to sing?—stood on the stage. Slyly, again slyly, always slyly, he nodded and winked at Terry before revving up a ferocious, dissonant “Wild Colonial Boy.” Augie ran up to Terry and they exchanged warm, excited head butts. Terry drank my drinks, Augie’s drink, everybody’s drink, held both fists high in the air, and roared. He was king, and he knew it.

“Where are the Cormacs?” Terry asked.

“Workin’. Holidays they gotta go in second shift, so they took off already to pick up their truck.” The Cormacs work for the phone company. “Said they’d be back in a while.”

The chunky Maguffin sisters mounted the stage, blocking out the musicians behind them. Singing to their combined families of thirteen kids, they squawked a “McNamara’s Band” so aggressive the people up close—people who can stand quite a lot of abuse or they wouldn’t be sitting there—scootched their chairs backward, and Brendan yelled “You suck, get off the stage!” Their children, all of them blond as new baseballs, laughed their little devil laughs, munched onion rings and buffalo wings in their too-small, mismatched polyester sweat suits. The sisters didn’t hear, sang blithely on with the same conviction and confidence as everybody else.

“Where’s Baba?” Terry asked.

“Cormacs carried him home,” Angie said, “dropped him on his porch.”

The two laughed and butted each other again, as hard as they could. Blood rolled down from the middle of Terry’s forehead, between his eyes, over the crooked nose, turned, ran out along the deep crease beside his lip and chin, lined them like the mouth of a ventriloquist’s dummy. He never noticed.

I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t look at anybody else in the place either. I turned my face once more to the mirror behind the bar. To myself. I couldn’t look at him either. I took the latest of the beers Brendan was pushing on me, and I drank it.

I watched in the mirror as the one woman in the place nobody was talking to stood, ambled stiffly to the stage, patted her bouffant, sucked her brown cigarette, and sang “My Wild Irish Rose.” Had she not heard it earlier? All three times? Did she not care? Why should she, since nobody else seemed to. Tears fell, bodies swayed. She got a rousing ovation. I was about to heave.

“Hey champ,” Augie said low into my bit ear. “Havin’ a good time? Bein’ the big man? Feels good, don’t it? We’ll turn you inta somethin’ useful yet.”

“Get away from me, Augie,” I said.

“Sure I will, little boy. You had a big day, I understand. But listen, you tell that little Sullivan ratty friend a yours that I’m lookin’ ta have a little chat with his ass.” As he backed away, Augie pinged my ear.

“Hey brother, what happened to your ear?” It wasn’t my actual brother who asked, but Danny. Terry and the boys like to call each other
brother
, especially at sloppy times like this.

“An animal bit me,” I said.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” he said, genuinely concerned, but not stimulated enough to inquire any further.

“Y’know, I’m not prejudiced, but...” I heard a deep voice say to Terry.

“Nah, neither am I,” Terry could barely choke the words out through the laughter, his own, then the other man’s. I heard the slapping of palms.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, everybody shut up!” Brendan yelled. He flicked a switch and killed the power to the microphone into which Augie’s grandmother was squealing “Take Me Home to Mayo,” while Augie yelled “We love ya, Grammy.” A few bars later, she stopped. Brendan aimed the remote at the TV and cranked the volume. The reporter, the same one from the night before, was describing the “chaos” and “savagery” of the parade. The bar patrons, most of whom had only heard about it until now, watched the videotape.

Again, for the camera, Terry charged into the Gay Pride group. Again, the Cormacs threw eggs. Again, Terry yelled obscenities. Then, in the background, out of the anonymity of the crowd, again I threw an egg. Then another, as Augie seemed to merely hover behind me.

And again, in close-up, Terry hammered away at the Cambodian man who had charged for no apparent reason into the fray.

Like a heavyweight championship fight that would be playing on that very same bar screen, the crowd went berserk, punching the air, ducking, duking, cheering the video Terry on to victory.

By the time it ended I had my face deep in my hands, my elbows propped on the bar. The pounding on Terry’s back sounded like timpani.

“Hey,” he said when it subsided. I parted my hands enough to peek out at the ocean of beer before us. There had to be forty full pints. Gifts. I took one. I didn’t feel like accepting it, I didn’t feel like drinking it, but I sure as hell felt like having it stroking my brain.

“What happened to your ear?” Terry said, finally noticing.

“Sonofabitch clipped me,” I said.

“Ay,” he said, and clinked my glass with his. He was thrilled.

“Ay,” I said dead, and drank lively.

“And what happened to
me
?” Terry laughed, seeing the head butt blood in the mirror. I figured it was a rhetorical question, so I didn’t bother telling him. I just stared at the two of us in the marbly mirror—Terry scarred and bloody and ugly and drinking and smiling at the same time so that the beer ran out of the corners of his mouth, me scarred and bloody and drinking and not smiling. I didn’t look like him, goddamn it, him with his orange hair and me with my red. I looked out beyond us, at these people, my people, as they say. I could have done something right there. I could have done something to my brother. I stared and stared at his stupid reflection, and a little at mine, but mostly his, and I could have done something to him. The more I stared, the more I was going to do it. All it would take now was one tiny push, like if somebody got up and sang “If You’re Irish, Come into the Parlor,” that would do it. First I’d puke, then I’d strangle my brother.

Good thing I never had to. When the cops tromped in, the place went silent. The sea of bodies—very much like a body of liquid by this time—parted reluctantly. Everybody knew where the boys were headed. Everybody but Terry, who was so gone by the time they tapped him on the shoulder he kept drinking even though he could see them in the mirror.

“Boooo,” came the first lone voice. Then everyone else. “Boooooo.” Everyone booed the cops, who laughed, covered their ears, waved it off.

“Come on, Terry,” the lead cop said. “We have to take you. You’re on video, for god’s sake.”

“Can I finish my drink first?” Terry said.

“Of course. We’re not inhuman.”

Terry leaned way over to one side, to show them the mother lode he was working on. “I’ll be with ya in about six hours,” he said.

The cop smiled, took Terry by the arm, and they went peacefully. The booing slurred into one sound like a barn full of cows.

“Jesus, you people,” the cop said. “It ain’t like we never arrested him before. We’ll try to have him back before closing time.” The booing and mooing stopped.

Terry’s crooked grin widened, his legend growing with every unsteady stride. Somewhere deep in the crowd, somebody started whistling the song from
The Great Escape
, from the scene when the Nazi guards were leading Steve McQueen back to solitary confinement and another prisoner threw him his baseball glove.

When they were gone, the tin whistle rose up slowly, serenely, and the snare drum rolled. Marion Junior climbed the stage and started singing with Marian at his feet. Could it be? “Wild Colonial Boy”? Again? Only this time it was like a dirge instead of the usual romp. In tribute to Terry.

Danny leaned into me. “I guess you’re in charge now, bro,” he said.

I got off my stool and started digging my way through the room. Somebody spoke to me, I didn’t even know who because I didn’t look.

“Brother, y’know, I’m no racist, but—”

“It’s a good thing there are no racists around here,” I said, “or things could’ve gotten ugly today, huh.”

The guy thought it was a joke, and a pretty good one as he turned and repeated it to the group behind him. I pushed on past.

When I reached the stage, I tapped Marian on the shoulder, asking her to excuse me. Then I grabbed her son by the ankles and shook him, nearly taking the legs out from under him.

“Shut up!” I yelled. “Would you stop already? Just shut the hell up. Stop singing the same stupid damn songs over and over. Move on, for chrissake.”

He stopped singing. Everybody stared like there was something terribly wrong with
me
as I walked out and “Wild Irish Rose” started up again.

“YO, MEN.”

Funny how life doesn’t change for Baba. He could kill a person on a Saturday and still he’d be waiting on his porch Monday morning to say “Yo, men,” and catch the bus to school with Sully and me. Then, while we waited for the bus he would still do his stupid trick of the day or tell his disgusting joke of the day, before mentioning that oh by the way I offed a guy over the weekend, if he thought to mention it at all.

“Yo, watch this,” he said as he leaned against the bus stop sign, hung his head, and let a long, clingy spit hang down.

“Ugh, god,” I said and started to turn away. But he made that urgent grunting noise the way people do in movies when they’re tied and gagged and are trying to say something important. So, I looked, fool that I am.

The spit dropped lower, and lower, somehow still holding together, until it hung six inches from the pavement. He paused for a second, let it swing a bit, then he snapped it up, sucking the whole thing all the way back into his mouth like a great string of spaghetti.

Sully just stared at him blankly. He was kind of shocky this morning. We all were kind of shocky, except for Baba, who was kind of Baba this morning.

I started to say something, choked, tried again. “You’re an animal, Baba,” I said. “Not just because you can do stuff like that, but because you actually spend
time
, thinking
up
stuff like that.”

“Oh ya? What kind of animal am I?”

“A pig, I guess. Ya, like a big giant razorback warthog pig, only with an even smaller brain.”

“Hey, Bones, you got a feelin’ like you wanna be dead this mornin’ or somethin’?”

“No, I got a feelin’ like maybe I wanna start associating with a better class of creature, that’s the kind of feeling I got.”

“Oh what, you a better class a creature than me now?”

I hesitated, but only to make it look good. It didn’t take a lot of thought. “Hell yes.”

“Gargle my balls, pal,” Baba said, grabbing his crotch and yanking it in my direction.

“Well, I stand corrected then, don’t I?” I said, warming up pretty quickly to the superiority idea.

“Well, Bones, y’know you standin’ here makin’ y’self out somethin’ better than me, like you’re so different than me, when my old man got a videotape at home from the news that says you ain’t nothin’ like that at all.”

“Screw, Baba. All right? I ain’t nothing like you, you ain’t nothing like me, and that’s all there is to it.” I turned my back to him, watched down the street for the bus.