A Walk Among the Tombstones (13 page)

One woman had recently started work as an alcoholism counselor, and she talked about how it was difficult for her to retain her enthusiasm for meetings after spending eight hours dealing with the same issues at her job. "It's hard to keep it separate," she said. A man talked about the fact that he had just been diagnosed as HIV-positive, and how he was dealing with that. I talked about the cyclical nature of my work, and how I grew restless when I went too long between jobs and put myself under too much pressure when a job did come along. "It was easy to balance things out when I drank," I said, "but I can't do that anymore. Meetings help."

Pete talked when it was his turn, mostly commenting on some points other people had made. He didn't say much about himself.

At ten o'clock we stood in a big circle and held hands and said the prayer. Outside, the rain had softened some. We walked to the Camry and he asked if I was hungry. I realized that I was. I hadn't had dinner, just a slice of pizza on the way home from the library.

"You like Middle Eastern food, Matt? I don't mean your hole-in-the-wall falafel stand, I mean the real thing. Because there's a place in the Village that's really good." I said it sounded fine. "Or you know what we could do, we could take a run out to the old neighborhood. Unless you spent so much time on Atlantic Avenue lately that you're sick of it."

"It's out of the way, isn't it?"

"Hey, we got a car, right? We got it, we might as well get some use out of it."

He took the Brooklyn Bridge. I was thinking that it was beautiful in the rain, and he said, "I love this bridge. I was reading the other day how all the bridges are deteriorating. You can't just leave a bridge alone, you got to maintain it, and the city does, but not sufficiently."

"There's no money."

"How did that happen? For years the city could afford to do whatever it had to do, and now all the time there's no money. Why is that, do you happen to know?"

I shook my head. "I don't think it's just New York. It's the same story everywhere."

"Is it? Because all I see is New York, and it's like the city is crumbling. The whadayacallit, the infrastructure? Is that the word I want?"

"I guess."

"The infrastructure's falling apart. There was another water main break last month. What it is, the system is old and everything's wearing out. Who ever heard of water mains bursting ten, twenty years ago? Do you remember that sort of thing happening?"

"No, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Lots of things happened that I didn't notice."

"Yeah, well, you got a point. That would go for me, too. Lots of things still happen that I don't notice."

The restaurant he chose was on Court half a block from Atlantic.

At his suggestion I had the spinach pie appetizer, which he assured me would be entirely different from the spanakopita they served in Greek coffee shops. He was right. The main course, a casserole of cracked wheat and sauteed chopped meat and onions, was also excellent, but too much for me to finish.

"So you can take it home," he said. "You like this place? Nothing fancy, but you can't beat the food."

"I'm surprised they're open this late."

"Saturday night? They'll be serving until midnight, probably later."

He leaned back in his chair. "Now the way to cap off the meal, if you were to do it right. You ever had something called arak?"

"Is that anything like ouzo?"

"Sort of like ouzo. There's a difference, but yeah, it's sort of like it.

You like ouzo?"

"I wouldn't say I liked it. There used to be a bar on the corner of Fifty-seventh and Ninth called Antares and Spiro's, a Greek joint--"

"No kidding, with that name."

"-- and sometimes I'd drop in after a long night drinking bourbon at Jimmy Armstrong's and have a glass or two of ouzo for a nightcap."

"Ouzo on top of bourbon, huh?"

"As a digestive," I said. "To settle the stomach."

"Settle it once and for all, from the sound of it." He caught the waiter's eye, signaled for more coffee. "I really wanted to drink the other day," he said.

"But you didn't."

"No."

"That's the important thing, Pete. Wanting to is normal. This isn't the first time you wanted to drink since you got sober, is it?"

"No," he said. The waiter came and filled our cups. When he'd walked away Pete said, "But it's the first time I considered it."

"Seriously considered it?"

"Yeah, I would say seriously. I would say so."

"But you didn't do it."

"No," he said. He was looking down into his coffee cup. "What I almost did, I almost copped."

"Drugs?"

He nodded. "Smack," he said. "You ever have any experience with heroin?"

"None."

"Never even tried it?"

"Never even considered the possibility. Never even knew anybody who used it, not in the days when I was drinking. Except for the kind of people I had occasion to arrest."

"Smack was strictly for lowlife types, then."

"That's how I always saw it."

He smiled gently. "You probably knew some people who used it.

They just didn't let you know it."

"That's possible."

"I always liked it," he said. "I never shot it, I only snorted. I was afraid of needles, which was lucky, because otherwise I'd probably be dead of AIDS by now. You know, you don't have to shoot to develop a jones."

"So I understand."

"I got dopesick a couple of times and it scared me. I kicked it with the help of booze, and then, well, you know the rest of the story. I kicked junk on my own, but I had to go to a rehab to stop drinking. So it was alcohol that really kicked my ass, but in my heart I'm a junkie as much as I'm a drunk."

He took a sip of coffee. "And the thing is," he said, "it's a different city out there when you can see it through a junkie's eyes. I mean, you were a cop and all, and you've got street smarts, but if the two of us walk down the street together I'm going to see more dealers than you are. I'm gonna see them and they're gonna see me and we're gonna recognize each other. I go anywhere in this city and it wouldn't take me more than five minutes to find somebody happy to sell me a bag of dope."

"So? I walk past bars all day, and so do you. It's the same thing, isn't it?"

"I guess. Heroin's been looking real good lately."

"Nobody ever said it was going to be easy, Pete."

"It was easy for a while. It's harder now."

In the car he took up the theme again. "I think, why bother? Or I go to a meeting and I'm like, who are these people? Where are they coming from? All this shit about turning everything over to a Higher Power and then life's a piece of cake. You believe in that?"

"That life's a piece of cake? Not quite."

"More like a shit sandwich. No, do you believe in God?"

"It depends when you ask me."

"Well, today. That's when I'm asking you. Do you believe in God?" I didn't say anything at first, and he said, "Never mind, I got no right to pry. Sorry."

"No, I was just trying to come up with an answer. I guess the reason I'm having trouble is I don't think the question's important."

"It's not important whether there's a God or not?"

"Well, what difference does it make? Either way I've got the day to get through. God or no God, I'm an alcoholic who can't drink safely.

What's the difference?"

"The program's all about a Higher Power."

"Yes, but it works the same whether He exists or not, and whether I believe in Him or not."

"How can you turn over your will to something you don't believe in?"

"By letting go. By not trying to control things. By taking appropriate action and letting things work out the way God wants them to."

"Whether He exists or not."

"Right."

He thought about it for a moment. "I don't know," he said. "I grew up believing in God. I went to parochial school, I learned what they teach you. I never questioned it. I got sober, they said get a Higher Power, okay, no problem. Then when those fuckers send Francey back in pieces, man, what kind of a God lets something like that happen?"

"Shit happens."

"You never knew her, man. She was a really good woman. Sweet, decent, innocent. A beautiful human being. Being around her made you want to be a better human being yourself. More than that. It made you feel like you could." He braked at a red light, looked both ways, went on through it. "Got a ticket like that once. Middle of the night, I stop, there's no one for miles in either direction, so what kind of idiot stands there waiting for the light to change? Fucking cop's lying doggo halfway down the block with his lights out, gives me a ticket."

"I think we got away with it this time."

"Looks like it. Kenan uses smack now and then. I don't know if you knew that."

"How would I know it?"

"I didn't figure you did. Maybe once a month he'll snort up a bag.

Maybe less than that. It's recreational with him, he'll go to a jazz club and do up a bag in the john so that he can get into the music better. The thing is, he didn't let Francey know. He was sure she wouldn't approve, and he didn't want to do anything that would lower him in her eyes."

"Did she know he trafficked in it?"

"That was different. That was business, that was what he did. And he wasn't going to stay in it forever. A few years and out, that's his plan."

"That's everybody's plan."

"I see what you're saying. Anyway, she was cool about it. It was something he did, it was his business, it was off to one side in a separate world. But he didn't want her to know he used sometimes." He was silent for a beat. Then he said, "He was stoned the other day. I called him on it and he denied it. I mean, fuck, man, he's gonna deceive a junkie on the subject of dope? Man's obviously high and swears he's not.

I guess it's because I'm clean and sober, he don't want to put temptation in front of me, but give me credit for some basic intelligence, huh?"

"Does it bother you that he can get high and you can't?"

"Does it bother me? Of course it fucking bothers me. He's going to Europe tomorrow."

"He told me."

"Like he's got to do a deal right away, build up the cash. That's a good way to get arrested, rushing into deals. Or worse than arrested."

"Are you worried about him?"

"Jesus," he said. "I'm worried about all of us."

ON the bridge back to Manhattan he said, "When I was a kid I loved bridges. I collected pictures of them. My old man got it into his head that I should be an architect."

"You still could, you know."

He laughed. "What, go back to school? No, see, I never wanted that for myself. I didn't have an inclination to build bridges. I just liked to look at 'em. I ever get the urge to pack it in, maybe I'll do a Brodie off the Brooklyn Bridge. Be something to change your mind halfway down, wouldn't it?"

"I heard a guy qualify once. He came out of a blackout on one of the bridges, I think it was this one, on the other side of the railing and with one foot in space."

"Seriously?"

"He sounded pretty serious to me. No memory of having gone there, just whammo, there he is with one hand on the rail and one foot in the air. He climbed back and went home."

"And had a drink, probably."

"I would think so. But imagine if he came to five seconds later."

"You mean after he took another step? Be a horrible feeling, wouldn't it? Only good thing about it is it wouldn't last long. Oh, shit, I should have got in the other lane. That's all right, we'll go a few blocks out of our way. I like it down here, anyway. You get down here much, Matt?"

We were driving around the South Street Seaport, a restored area around the Fulton Street fish market.

"Last summer," I said, "my girlfriend and I spent the afternoon, walked around the shops, ate at one of the restaurants."

"It's a little yuppied up, but I like it. Not in the summer, though.

You know when it's nicest? On a night like this when it's cold and empty and you've got a light rain falling. That's when it's really beautiful down here." He laughed. "Now that," he said, "is a stone junkie talking, man.

Show him the Garden of Eden and he'll say he wants it dark and cold and miserable. An' he wants to be the only one there."

IN front of my hotel he said, "Thanks, Matt."

"For what? I was planning on going to a meeting. I should be thanking you for the ride."

"Yeah, well, thanks for the company. Before you go, one thing I've been meaning to ask you all night.

This job you're doing for Kenan. You think you got much of a chance of getting anyplace with it?"

"I'm not just going through the motions."

"No, I realize you're giving it your best shot. I just wondered if you figured there was much chance it would pay off."

"There's a chance," I said. "I don't know how good it is. I didn't start out with a lot to work with."

"I realize that. You started with next to nothing, the way it looked to me. Of course you're looking at it from a professional standpoint, you're going to see it differently."

"A lot depends on whether some of the actions I'm taking lead anywhere, Pete. And their actions in the future are a factor, too, and they're impossible to foresee. Am I optimistic? It depends when you ask me."

"Same as your Higher Power, huh? The thing is, if you come to the conclusion that it's hopeless, don't be in a rush to tell my brother, huh?

Stay on it an extra week or two. So he'll think he did everything he can."

I didn't say anything.

"What I mean--"

"I know what you mean," I said. "The thing is, it's not something I have to be told. I've always been a stubborn son of a bitch. When I start something I have a hell of a time letting go of it. I think that's the main way I solve things, to tell you the truth. I don't do it by being brilliant. I just hang on like a bulldog until something shakes loose."