Gravesend by William Boyle

get coffee? He’s a nice guy now? That it?” Conway was moving toward her as she back-pedaled, wanting to get right in her face, hoping his beery breath blinded her, hoping she would let down her guard and hug him and beg for forgiveness.
    “I don’t know what you’re saying.”
    “Don’t lie.”
    Stephanie said, “He’s just drunk. Forget it. Don’t pay any attention.”
    “Yeah, I’m drunk,” Conway said.
    Alessandra turned around. “I’ll come back later, Steph.” She tried to walk out the wrong set of doors, the ones that whooshed in, and had to hop over a small chain to get to the exit.
    “I won’t forget I saw that,” Conway said.
    The doors opened out, and Alessandra was gone, crossing under the El and turning the corner behind McDonald’s.
    “Real nice,” Stephanie said. “Welcome back, Alessandra.”
    Conway took off his red apron and flung it down on the ground. “Who needs this shit anyway?” he said.
    “Don’t you go out there and follow her,” Stephanie said.
    Conway said nothing and walked out into the blazing glare, a D passing overhead on the El, cars honking out in front of the fire station as a fireman tried to guide a truck back into the garage. Conway looked over at where Alessandra had just been. Follow her? Fuck would he do that for anyway? Let her go. It was time to wake up McKenna and practice shooting.
     

 

    Seven
     
    Eugene hated mornings most. Especially Monday mornings. He hated waking up to the alarm clock buzz, five-thirty, the little clock vibrating on his dresser, and he hated sitting up in the dark and stretching. He hated his breath in the morning, the way he tasted it on his tongue and teeth. He hated limping to the bathroom, little squiggles of dust caught between the pink hallway rug and the wall, the rug threaded down to bare spots in the places where his feet fell.
    He hated the bathroom: pink tiles and moldy grout and the sick glow of the light over the sink that hurt his first-thing-in-the-morning eyes. He hated showers this early, the most depressing thing ever, scrubbing himself with Irish Spring in the dark stall, the water pressure so hard that it felt like sandpaper against his skin, closing his eyes, the water sounding like bad weather.
    He hated his body. He hated his body covered in soap. He hated getting out of the shower, stepping on the rose-colored mat, and drying off over the toilet. He hated the way the towels felt. His mother sprayed them with starch before washing them and line-dried them in the backyard over the fig trees and they were stiff like ironing boards, raw against his skin, full of holes with almost-serrated edges, nothing like the soft towels in Sweat’s house.
    He hated walking back to his room, getting dressed, crumpled boxers first, wife-beater, shitty uniform, clip-on OLN tie. He hated trying to do something with his hair. Other guys had fades and used gels. His hair was kinky, impossible to spike, and there was nothing to do except shave it or to plaster it down in a Caesar.
    He hated breakfast with his mom, coffee and cereal and fruit, her reading the Daily News , trying to talk about the weather, WINS on in the background. He hated the smell of his mother in the morning, Jergen’s lotion and Listerine breath. He hated the way she filed her nails without paying attention, doing everything at once: talking, listening, reading, eating, filing. He hated the clock his mother had up on the wall in the kitchen, some Disney bullshit that played movie theme songs every hour. At six, it was always Beauty and the Beast , Eugene wanting to rip the thing off the wall and stomp it to death. He hated how his mother handed him his lunch, still wrote EUGENE on it in black Sharpie with a flowery design underneath like he was in third grade. He hated the way his mother said goodbye, patting him on the head and kissing his cheek, him taking it, feeling retarded, her practically saying, “I hope my special little man has a special