trying to scare the kid so he’s easier to handle.
The kid starts shaking his head and backing away. “You can’t tell my folks. You can’t tell my dad. It would kill him.”
“Everyone’s going to know, kid. It’s going to be in the papers, so you might as well come clean.”
Then he turns and really starts to run.
“Where you think you’re going, kid? I got the whole fleet I can send after you. A deserter. A queer traitor and deserter.”
“Friends of Dorothy,” he wails. His face is melting into a big glob of snot and tears.
“Yeah, Friends of fucking Dorothy, traitor. Let’s go, Boedeker.”
The he just starts wailing, crying it, “But Friends of Dorothy! Friends of Dorothy!” and then, again with the running, but this time for the rail, and before I can get close to him, he’s over, headfirst. Hit the water like a gunshot. I bet they could hear it all the way to Fort Mason.
I look down and he’s just all bent up, like a broken scarecrow, floating dead in the waves.
“That’s the saddest story I’ve ever heard,” said Mike Sullivan.
“Yeah, it was the war. Tough times.”
“So, you, did you, I mean, did you jump, too?” asked Mike.
“Nah, I went back to Chicago. Heart attack in ’58.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Smoked a lot, ate a lot of bratwurst, we didn’t know stuff in those days.”
“No, why are you on the bridge?”
“No idea. Guess that’s why the Spanish broad wanted me to tell you my story. You want I should fetch her?”
“Maybe that would be good,” Mike said. The ghost’s story had made him a little woozy. He couldn’t figure out if it was nausea or anxiety, but neither were to be taken lightly when you were up on the bridge.
“So long, bridge painter,” said the ghost. “And by the way, you can tell the dame that you have not been helpful in the least. I feel like I’m the only one did any talking here. No offense.”
“You’ll want to fuck off, now,” said Mike, who despite being a nice guy, had his limits, which he was very close to reaching with this particular spirit.
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” said the ghost.
In an instant he had rolled into the beam he was sitting on and Concepción materialized on the beam next to Mike, so close she could have sat on one of his safety lines.
“Thank you,” she said. “My brave champion.”
“Why?” asked Mike. He felt better just seeing her, in fact his emotions had swung from morose and anxious to elated and nearly giddy as soon as she appeared.
“I think you can understand now that we need you,” she said. “He is just one of many.”
“You need me for what?”
“To join us, of course,” she said.
9
Coffee with Lily
W hen she arrived, he was already in the coffee shop, sitting in one of the conversation areas in a wingback chair, his long legs stretched out before him like a fun slide.
She said, “Just because the forces of darkness are rising and the end of the world is nigh, don’t think I’m going to play Armageddon bone monkeys with you, M. This is just coffee.”
She called him “M,” because she refused to call him Minty, it being, in her mind, entirely too cheerful and perky and kind of stupid, and because he told her once that when he had worked security for a casino in Vegas he said they referred to him as M.F., which everyone thought stood for motherfucker . So “M” for short.
“A double espresso for me, then,” he said with a smile.
She put her enormous spike-studded purse on the chair to the side of him. “How about two singles?”
He nodded. “That would be perfect, Darque.”
She turned to conceal her own smile and headed off to the counter to get their coffee. She knew he’d conceded to having two single espressos because he knew that watching him drink from the teeny-tiny cups made her laugh, so she’d won coffee already. But he had called her Darque, which she loved, so maybe he’d won. Fucksox!
When she returned with their
The kid starts shaking his head and backing away. “You can’t tell my folks. You can’t tell my dad. It would kill him.”
“Everyone’s going to know, kid. It’s going to be in the papers, so you might as well come clean.”
Then he turns and really starts to run.
“Where you think you’re going, kid? I got the whole fleet I can send after you. A deserter. A queer traitor and deserter.”
“Friends of Dorothy,” he wails. His face is melting into a big glob of snot and tears.
“Yeah, Friends of fucking Dorothy, traitor. Let’s go, Boedeker.”
The he just starts wailing, crying it, “But Friends of Dorothy! Friends of Dorothy!” and then, again with the running, but this time for the rail, and before I can get close to him, he’s over, headfirst. Hit the water like a gunshot. I bet they could hear it all the way to Fort Mason.
I look down and he’s just all bent up, like a broken scarecrow, floating dead in the waves.
“That’s the saddest story I’ve ever heard,” said Mike Sullivan.
“Yeah, it was the war. Tough times.”
“So, you, did you, I mean, did you jump, too?” asked Mike.
“Nah, I went back to Chicago. Heart attack in ’58.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Smoked a lot, ate a lot of bratwurst, we didn’t know stuff in those days.”
“No, why are you on the bridge?”
“No idea. Guess that’s why the Spanish broad wanted me to tell you my story. You want I should fetch her?”
“Maybe that would be good,” Mike said. The ghost’s story had made him a little woozy. He couldn’t figure out if it was nausea or anxiety, but neither were to be taken lightly when you were up on the bridge.
“So long, bridge painter,” said the ghost. “And by the way, you can tell the dame that you have not been helpful in the least. I feel like I’m the only one did any talking here. No offense.”
“You’ll want to fuck off, now,” said Mike, who despite being a nice guy, had his limits, which he was very close to reaching with this particular spirit.
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” said the ghost.
In an instant he had rolled into the beam he was sitting on and Concepción materialized on the beam next to Mike, so close she could have sat on one of his safety lines.
“Thank you,” she said. “My brave champion.”
“Why?” asked Mike. He felt better just seeing her, in fact his emotions had swung from morose and anxious to elated and nearly giddy as soon as she appeared.
“I think you can understand now that we need you,” she said. “He is just one of many.”
“You need me for what?”
“To join us, of course,” she said.
9
Coffee with Lily
W hen she arrived, he was already in the coffee shop, sitting in one of the conversation areas in a wingback chair, his long legs stretched out before him like a fun slide.
She said, “Just because the forces of darkness are rising and the end of the world is nigh, don’t think I’m going to play Armageddon bone monkeys with you, M. This is just coffee.”
She called him “M,” because she refused to call him Minty, it being, in her mind, entirely too cheerful and perky and kind of stupid, and because he told her once that when he had worked security for a casino in Vegas he said they referred to him as M.F., which everyone thought stood for motherfucker . So “M” for short.
“A double espresso for me, then,” he said with a smile.
She put her enormous spike-studded purse on the chair to the side of him. “How about two singles?”
He nodded. “That would be perfect, Darque.”
She turned to conceal her own smile and headed off to the counter to get their coffee. She knew he’d conceded to having two single espressos because he knew that watching him drink from the teeny-tiny cups made her laugh, so she’d won coffee already. But he had called her Darque, which she loved, so maybe he’d won. Fucksox!
When she returned with their
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