reasonable.
9. Get a dog.
He took a left at the train tracks and saw the lights of the 7-Eleven ahead, thinking the trip down seemed twice as long as the trip back, and how it was weird that it usually worked like that, and then he thought: Nadia.
I wonder what she’s up to these days.
CHAPTER 9
Stay
T HEY HADN ’ T SEEN RARDY since the robbery. He’d been discharged from the hospital the next day, they knew that much, but from there he’d gone ghost. They talked it over in the empty bar one morning, half the chairs still up on the tables and the bar top.
Cousin Marv said, “It ain’t like him.”
Bob had the paper spread on the bar before him. It was official—the archdiocese had announced the closing of Saint Dominic’s Church in East Buckingham, a closing the cardinal had described as “imminent.”
Bob said, “He’s missed days before.”
Cousin Marv said, “Not in a row, not without calling.”
THERE WERE TWO PICTURES of Saint Dom’s in the paper, one taken recently, the other a hundred years ago. Same sky above. But no one who’d been under the first sky was still alive for the second. And maybe they were glad not to have had to stick around in a world so unrecognizable from the one they entered. When Bob had been a kid, your parish was your country. Everything you needed and needed to know was contained within it. Now that the archdiocese had shuttered half the parishes to pay for the crimes of the kid-diddler priests, Bob couldn’t escape the fact that those days of parish dominion, long dwindling, were gone. He was a certain type of guy, of a certain half-generation, an almost generation, and while there were still plenty of them left, they were older, grayer, they had smoker’s coughs, they went in for checkups and never checked back out.
“I dunno,” Marv was saying. “This Rardy thing’s got me keyed up, I don’t mind telling you. I mean, I got guys after me and—”
Bob said, “You don’t have guys after you .”
Cousin Marv said, “What’d I tell you about the guy in the car?”
Bob said, “He asked you directions.”
Cousin Marv said, “But it was the way he did it, the look he was giving me. And what about this guy with the umbrella?”
Bob said, “That’s about the dog.”
Cousin Marv said, “‘The dog.’ How do you know?”
Bob stared into the unlit sections of the barroom and felt death all around him, a side effect, he believed, of the robbery and that poor guy in the back of the van. The shadows became hospital beds, stooped old men shopping for sympathy cards, empty wheelchairs.
“Rardy’s just sick,” Bob said eventually. “He’ll turn up.”
BUT A COUPLE OF hours later, with Marv holding down the bar for the hard-core day drinkers, Bob walked over to Rardy’s place, a second-floor apartment sandwiched between two others in a weary three-decker on Perceval.
Bob sat in the living room with Moira, Rardy’s wife. She’d been a really pretty girl once, Moira, but life with Rardy and a kid with some kind of learning disabilities sucked the pretty out of her like sugar up a straw.
Moira said, “I ain’t seen him in days.”
Bob said, “Days, uh?”
She nodded. “He drinks a lot more than he lets on.”
Bob sat forward, the surprise showing on his face.
“I know, right?” she said. “He hides it pretty good but he’s maintenance nipping from the time he’s up in the AM .”
Bob said, “I’ve seen him take a drink .”
“The little airplane bottles?” Moira said. “He keeps them in his coat. So, I dunno, he could be with his brothers or some of his old friends from Tuttle Park.”
“When’s the last time?” Bob asked.
“I saw him? Couple days. Prick’s done this to me before, though.”
“You try calling him?”
Moira sighed. “He don’t answer his cell.”
The kid appeared in the doorway, still wearing pajamas at three in the afternoon. Patrick Dugan, nine or ten, couldn’t remember which. He gave Bob a blank
9. Get a dog.
He took a left at the train tracks and saw the lights of the 7-Eleven ahead, thinking the trip down seemed twice as long as the trip back, and how it was weird that it usually worked like that, and then he thought: Nadia.
I wonder what she’s up to these days.
CHAPTER 9
Stay
T HEY HADN ’ T SEEN RARDY since the robbery. He’d been discharged from the hospital the next day, they knew that much, but from there he’d gone ghost. They talked it over in the empty bar one morning, half the chairs still up on the tables and the bar top.
Cousin Marv said, “It ain’t like him.”
Bob had the paper spread on the bar before him. It was official—the archdiocese had announced the closing of Saint Dominic’s Church in East Buckingham, a closing the cardinal had described as “imminent.”
Bob said, “He’s missed days before.”
Cousin Marv said, “Not in a row, not without calling.”
THERE WERE TWO PICTURES of Saint Dom’s in the paper, one taken recently, the other a hundred years ago. Same sky above. But no one who’d been under the first sky was still alive for the second. And maybe they were glad not to have had to stick around in a world so unrecognizable from the one they entered. When Bob had been a kid, your parish was your country. Everything you needed and needed to know was contained within it. Now that the archdiocese had shuttered half the parishes to pay for the crimes of the kid-diddler priests, Bob couldn’t escape the fact that those days of parish dominion, long dwindling, were gone. He was a certain type of guy, of a certain half-generation, an almost generation, and while there were still plenty of them left, they were older, grayer, they had smoker’s coughs, they went in for checkups and never checked back out.
“I dunno,” Marv was saying. “This Rardy thing’s got me keyed up, I don’t mind telling you. I mean, I got guys after me and—”
Bob said, “You don’t have guys after you .”
Cousin Marv said, “What’d I tell you about the guy in the car?”
Bob said, “He asked you directions.”
Cousin Marv said, “But it was the way he did it, the look he was giving me. And what about this guy with the umbrella?”
Bob said, “That’s about the dog.”
Cousin Marv said, “‘The dog.’ How do you know?”
Bob stared into the unlit sections of the barroom and felt death all around him, a side effect, he believed, of the robbery and that poor guy in the back of the van. The shadows became hospital beds, stooped old men shopping for sympathy cards, empty wheelchairs.
“Rardy’s just sick,” Bob said eventually. “He’ll turn up.”
BUT A COUPLE OF hours later, with Marv holding down the bar for the hard-core day drinkers, Bob walked over to Rardy’s place, a second-floor apartment sandwiched between two others in a weary three-decker on Perceval.
Bob sat in the living room with Moira, Rardy’s wife. She’d been a really pretty girl once, Moira, but life with Rardy and a kid with some kind of learning disabilities sucked the pretty out of her like sugar up a straw.
Moira said, “I ain’t seen him in days.”
Bob said, “Days, uh?”
She nodded. “He drinks a lot more than he lets on.”
Bob sat forward, the surprise showing on his face.
“I know, right?” she said. “He hides it pretty good but he’s maintenance nipping from the time he’s up in the AM .”
Bob said, “I’ve seen him take a drink .”
“The little airplane bottles?” Moira said. “He keeps them in his coat. So, I dunno, he could be with his brothers or some of his old friends from Tuttle Park.”
“When’s the last time?” Bob asked.
“I saw him? Couple days. Prick’s done this to me before, though.”
“You try calling him?”
Moira sighed. “He don’t answer his cell.”
The kid appeared in the doorway, still wearing pajamas at three in the afternoon. Patrick Dugan, nine or ten, couldn’t remember which. He gave Bob a blank
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