Black Irish by Stephan Talty Page A

The County was a swamp of repressed emotions that erupted only during epic drinking binges. But in this part of town, single mothers had hugged Abbie when she went door to door on Thanksgiving with cans of cranberry sauce and yams, invited her to sit down and eat. Middle-aged homeless men in the bombed-out buildings on Delaware and Main had thanked her for the sandwiches prepared by the Reverend’s minions in the hotel’s basement. The men’s fingers were often warped by arthritis or cold, and their eyes rheumy with alcohol, but they were grateful. They wept silently and called her “daughter.” In the County, they talked of the East Side as if it was some kind of lawless wasteland, where family had broken down and people preyed on each other inpacks. But she’d found people who could name their fourth cousins and who knew who those cousins were dating, where they worked, what their babies’ names were.
    On her after-school trips down the unfamiliar streets, she’d asked about her mother, over and over, never telling people she was Natasha Minton’s daughter, but casually mentioning the name and waiting for the responses she’d dreamt of for years: “Natasha? Sure, I knew her. Got family over on Delavan.” And then Abbie knocking on a strange door.…
    It had never happened. Natasha Minton had died at thirty-eight, leaving her two-year-old daughter nothing but a hazy memory of a woman in a yellow dress, holding her hand as they walked down Main Street. At the time of her death, Natasha was a recent transplant from the Midwest, by all accounts a secretive and mistrustful woman who barely made a mark on Buffalo. There were times Abbie hated her for it—
Couldn’t you have talked to someone
, she cursed silently,
had a single conversation about your past? Left me one pathetic little trail to follow? And who comes to Buffalo from the Midwest anyway? How desperate to escape your past do you have to be to come
here?
    The Reverend, she believed, had known about these whispered conversations. But he never asked about them, never spoke about her mother at all. She was sure he’d asked around, too, and his inquiries rippled far further than her own. If the Reverend didn’t know you, you weren’t worth knowing. But he’d never come to her pulling along a newly minted cousin, saying, “This is someone you have to meet.” He’d done everything but that.
    Now she was back to ask about Gerald Decatur.
    She pulled the Crown Vic up to the converted hotel on Hertel, parked in front, and climbed the cement stairs covered with chipped green paint. The door was locked. The Reverend was probably on one of his many errands in the neighborhood, but he was never gone for long. She sat on the stoop to wait.
    A little black girl with braided hair flying behind her came ridingalong on a bike, even though it was about two degrees above zero. She stopped to stare at Abbie.
    “Hi there,” Abbie said.
    “Hello,” the girl said in a somber voice.
    “Do you happen to know when the Reverend will be back?”
    The girl tilted her head. “You talk funny.”
    “Yeah, I get that a lot. What about the Reverend?”
    “He’s at the corner store gettin’ some milk, but the mister there wanted to talk to him ’bout some problem with the power company.”
    “Ah. Did he buy you that bike?”
    “Yup.”
    They spoke for a few more moments, and Abbie learned that the girl’s name was Rashida Jackson and she was eight and smart as a thin whip. After Abbie had given her a card with her name on it—proof that she was a real live policewoman—Rashida bicycled off furiously to show it to her friends. Abbie watched her go, then turned to see the Reverend striding up the street, a plastic shopping bags in each hand. She rose.
    His face, set hard as he approached, broke into a smile.
    “Absalom Kearney, I’ll be damned.”
    He swept in for a hug, smelling of Old Spice. He stood back to look at her up and down, shaking his head.
    “Grew up fine.