a fire four years before that left them gutted and black and boarded up. Katie just wanted to get home, crawl into bed, get up in the morning, and be long gone before Bobby or her father ever thought to look for her. She wanted to shed this place the way you’d shed clothes you’d been wearing during a thundershower. Wad it up in her fist and toss it aside, never look back at it.
And she remembered something she hadn’t thought about in years. She remembered walking to the zoo with her mother when she was five years old. She remembered this for no particular reason except that the hanging tendrils of stale pot and booze in her brain must have bumped against the cell where the memory was stored. Her mother had held her hand as they walked down Columbia Road toward the zoo, and Katie could feel the bones in her mother’s hand as small tremors snapped under the skin by her wrist. She looked up at her mother’s thin face and gaunt eyes, her nose gone hawkish with weight loss, her chin a pinched nub. And Katie, five and curious and sad, said, “How come you’re tired all the time?”
Her mother’s hard, brittle face had crumbled like a dry sponge. She’d crouched down by Katie and placed both palms on her cheeks and stared at her with red eyes. Katie thought she was mad, but then her mother smiled, and the smile immediately curled downward and her chin went all jerky and she said, “Oh, baby,” and pulled Katie to her. She tucked her chin into Katie’s shoulder and said, “Oh, baby,” again, and then Katie felt her tears in her hair.
She could feel them now, the soft drizzle of tears in her hair like the soft drizzle against her windshield, and she was trying to remember the color of her mother’s eyes when she saw the body lying in the middle of the street. It lay like a sack just in front of her tires and she swerved hard to the right, feeling something bump under her rear left tire, thinking, Oh Jesus, oh God, no, tell me I didn’t hit it, please, Jesus God no.
She slammed the Toyota into the curb on the right side of the street, and her foot came off the clutch, and the car lurched forward, sputtering, then died.
Someone called to her. “Hey, you okay?”
Katie saw him coming toward her, and she started to relax because he looked familiar and harmless until she noticed the gun in his hand.
A T THREE in the morning, Brendan Harris finally fell asleep.
He did so smiling, Katie floating above him, telling him she loved him, whispering his name, her soft breath like a kiss in his ear.
4
DON’T GET AROUND MUCH ANYMORE
D AVE B OYLE had ended up in McGills that night, sitting with Stanley the Giant at the corner of the bar, watching the Sox play an away game. Pedro Martinez reigned on the mound, so the Sox were beating the holy piss out of the Angels, Pedro throwing so much ungodly heat the ball looked like a goddamn Advil by the time it crossed the plate. By the third inning, the Angel hitters looked scared; by the sixth, they looked like they just wanted to go home, start making dinner plans. When Garret Anderson blooped a dying sigh of a single into shallow right and ended Pedro’s bid for a no-hitter, any excitement that had been left in the 8-0 game floated out past the bleachers, and Dave found himself paying more attention to the lights and the fans and Anaheim Stadium itself than to the actual game.
He watched the faces in the bleachers most—the disgust and defeated fatigue, the fans looking like they were taking the loss more personally than the guys in the dugout. And maybe they were. For some of them, Dave figured, this was the only game they’d attend this year. They’d brought the kids, the wife, walked out of their homes into the early California evening with coolers for the tailgate party and five thirty-dollar tickets so they could sit in the cheap seats and put twenty-five-dollar caps on their kids’ heads, eat six-dollar rat burgers and $4.50 hot dogs, watered-down Pepsi and
And she remembered something she hadn’t thought about in years. She remembered walking to the zoo with her mother when she was five years old. She remembered this for no particular reason except that the hanging tendrils of stale pot and booze in her brain must have bumped against the cell where the memory was stored. Her mother had held her hand as they walked down Columbia Road toward the zoo, and Katie could feel the bones in her mother’s hand as small tremors snapped under the skin by her wrist. She looked up at her mother’s thin face and gaunt eyes, her nose gone hawkish with weight loss, her chin a pinched nub. And Katie, five and curious and sad, said, “How come you’re tired all the time?”
Her mother’s hard, brittle face had crumbled like a dry sponge. She’d crouched down by Katie and placed both palms on her cheeks and stared at her with red eyes. Katie thought she was mad, but then her mother smiled, and the smile immediately curled downward and her chin went all jerky and she said, “Oh, baby,” and pulled Katie to her. She tucked her chin into Katie’s shoulder and said, “Oh, baby,” again, and then Katie felt her tears in her hair.
She could feel them now, the soft drizzle of tears in her hair like the soft drizzle against her windshield, and she was trying to remember the color of her mother’s eyes when she saw the body lying in the middle of the street. It lay like a sack just in front of her tires and she swerved hard to the right, feeling something bump under her rear left tire, thinking, Oh Jesus, oh God, no, tell me I didn’t hit it, please, Jesus God no.
She slammed the Toyota into the curb on the right side of the street, and her foot came off the clutch, and the car lurched forward, sputtering, then died.
Someone called to her. “Hey, you okay?”
Katie saw him coming toward her, and she started to relax because he looked familiar and harmless until she noticed the gun in his hand.
A T THREE in the morning, Brendan Harris finally fell asleep.
He did so smiling, Katie floating above him, telling him she loved him, whispering his name, her soft breath like a kiss in his ear.
4
DON’T GET AROUND MUCH ANYMORE
D AVE B OYLE had ended up in McGills that night, sitting with Stanley the Giant at the corner of the bar, watching the Sox play an away game. Pedro Martinez reigned on the mound, so the Sox were beating the holy piss out of the Angels, Pedro throwing so much ungodly heat the ball looked like a goddamn Advil by the time it crossed the plate. By the third inning, the Angel hitters looked scared; by the sixth, they looked like they just wanted to go home, start making dinner plans. When Garret Anderson blooped a dying sigh of a single into shallow right and ended Pedro’s bid for a no-hitter, any excitement that had been left in the 8-0 game floated out past the bleachers, and Dave found himself paying more attention to the lights and the fans and Anaheim Stadium itself than to the actual game.
He watched the faces in the bleachers most—the disgust and defeated fatigue, the fans looking like they were taking the loss more personally than the guys in the dugout. And maybe they were. For some of them, Dave figured, this was the only game they’d attend this year. They’d brought the kids, the wife, walked out of their homes into the early California evening with coolers for the tailgate party and five thirty-dollar tickets so they could sit in the cheap seats and put twenty-five-dollar caps on their kids’ heads, eat six-dollar rat burgers and $4.50 hot dogs, watered-down Pepsi and
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