Night Work (7 page)

“Meaning what?” I said. “He can’t come see me?”

“I mean he couldn’t box Friday, on account of his hand.”

“He never has to. We can just talk. He knows that.”

“He said he’d try to catch you this weekend. He promised me.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure he did.”

This was the kid’s MO. Seventeen years old and already an expert at it. He seemed to know exactly how far he could go without me having to ring him up. There was always an excuse for everything. His mother didn’t wake him up in time. He didn’t have a ride. He tried to call me but something was wrong with his phone. I knew that when I finally caught up to him, and I
would
catch up to him, he’d have another story for me. He and the friend were looking for work, trying to get an interview, they stopped at the diner to get some food for his mother. The whole melodrama I’d get, with that little smile on his face the whole time, daring me to bust him on it.

These were the ones who bothered me the most, the kids right on the edge. There was just enough hope for me to think I had an outside chance with them. Not like some of the others, the kids who already seemed on their way into the system no matter what I did.

Wayne was smart. He was a good athlete. He didn’t do any organized sports at school, but if I ever got him in the gym on a regular schedule …

I’ve never lost one kid I got hooked into the gym. Not one.

“Wayne’s trying,” his mother said. “He really is.”

“Claire, I’ll be honest. I think things could go either way with him.”

“He hasn’t been hanging around with any of those guys from Newburgh anymore.”

“That’s good to hear,” I said. Thinking, good to hear if it’s true. “He’ll be out of the house soon. If he
gets into serious trouble again, you know he might not get probation next time.”

“I know that.”

Whoever had been yelling when I was outside at the door was back at it again. His voice was coming right through the common wall now. Something about who were you with last night and why weren’t you here when I got home. Classic stuff to yell at a woman, but with a tone of voice I knew was serious trouble. I didn’t hear anybody answering him.

“Your neighbor sounds like a charming gentleman,” I said. “How often do you have to listen to this?”

“All the time,” she said. “These walls are so thin, it’s like he’s in the room with us. He kept me awake until midnight last night doing that.”

“That’s great.”

“My husband wouldn’t have let it go on, believe me. He would have gone over there and taken that guy’s head off.”

Some more yelling. We both sat there listening to it.

“That’s his wife he’s yelling at, I take it.”

“Wife, girlfriend. I don’t know. They don’t talk to us.”

“You ever hear anything else?”

“Like what?”

“Like him hitting her?”

“I don’t know.” She looked away from me.

Here’s where my Laurel would have done something. She would have gone right over and pounded on their door. She would have demanded to talk to the
man’s wife. If she saw one mark on that woman’s face, then God help the man, no matter who he was or how big. God help him.

That’s what Laurel would have done, and for some reason on this morning after everything that had happened the night before, I felt closer to her than ever. I could practically feel her behind me, pushing me to go do something.

“I’m going to go have a little talk with your neighbors,” I said.

“What?”

“Stay right here. I’ll be right back.”

She looked a little stunned, but I left her there and went outside. As I walked over to the other door, I noticed a faded pinwheel stuck in the ground, the only decoration in the whole damned sorry excuse for a yard. I knocked on the door and a few seconds later heard heavy footsteps on the other side.

“Who is it?”

“Open up,” I said. “I want to talk to you.”

The door opened. The man was big, and he looked familiar. I wondered if I had seen him in court.

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Joe Trumbull.” I took out my wallet and showed him my badge.

“Are you a cop?”

“I’m a probation officer.”

“Then what do you want?” All of a sudden he was standing about three feet taller. If I wasn’t a cop, how much trouble could I be?

“I want to talk to your wife for a minute.”

The man didn’t know my little secret. That badge I showed him wasn’t just a piece of tin. As it turns out, New York State has a little quirk in the law that makes me an official peace officer. Probation officers, parole officers, even corrections officers. All of us. I could carry a weapon if I wanted to, although juvenile POs usually don’t. I can make arrests. In fact, if I witness a felony, the law says I
have
to make an arrest.

Of course, without a gun and without handcuffs, I wasn’t sure what I’d be able to do with this guy. One quick phone call, though, and a lot of help would arrive.

“She’s busy at the moment,” the man said. “Why don’t you come back later.” He started to close the door. “In fact, why don’t you just not come back at all. There’s nobody on probation in this house.”

I put my hand on the door. “I’ll talk to your wife or I’ll have the police here in two minutes. Your choice.”

He stood there looking at me. He clenched his right hand into a fist and started working his thumb against it.

“You know what?” I said. “I train real hard every day just to be ready for moments like this. I think you should know that now before you try something.”

I watched his eyes. If he was going to bring it, his eyes would give him away.

“Sandra,” he said, not moving.

She came to the door and stood next to him. She looked just as tired as Claire, but otherwise there didn’t
seem to be anything wrong with her. No marks, no bruises. She had both arms wrapped tight around her body.

“Can I talk to you outside for a minute?”

She looked at her husband. “If you want to talk to me, you can do it right here.”

“My name is Joe Trumbull.” I took out one of my cards and handed it to her. She waited half a beat before accepting it.

“I’m a probation officer,” I said, “but I can get you help immediately if you ever need it.”

“Why would I need help?”

“My cell phone number is on the card. You can call me anytime.”

She looked down at the card. I wondered how long it would take for her husband to rip it into little pieces.

“The probation office is on Broadway,” I said. “Almost all the way up, on the left. And I live at Anderson’s Gym. You know where that is?”

She didn’t say anything.

“Just remember that,” I said. “If you ever need me.”

I looked at the man one more time.

“Maybe I’ll come back and pay another visit sometime,” I told him. “Have a nice day.”

The man closed the door and we were done.

I went back to Claire’s side and told her to have her son call me the second he got home. “Tell him he’s not missing another appointment with me,” I said. “No matter what part of his body hurts.”

She promised me she’d give him the message. Then she closed her door, too. I stood there a moment looking at both sides of the place, wondering if I could do any good for anybody in this building. Or if they were all beyond me.

As the sun went down, I was paying my Sunday evening visit to the Shamrock, down the street from the gym. It was always quiet then, and the man would pour a lonely shot or two for me without saying more than a few words. I’d resist the urge to have him line them up for me so I could punish myself for being the one who was still alive.

Punish the living. Forgive the dead. Words I had heard somewhere. They made me think about Albert Ayler again, his dead body floating in the East River. He died the same year I was born, this man I had almost nothing in common with, and yet it still bothered the hell out of me. I wasn’t even sure why, beyond the simple fact that he should have lived another forty or fifty years to make music.

My cell phone rang. I took it out of my pocket and saw the number for the Kingston police station again.

“Howie,” I said as I answered it. “You stopping by tonight, or what?”

“I’m trying. Something came up. I gotta go check it out.”

“Something serious?”

“Dunno yet. I’ll let you know. How long you gonna be there?”

“Little while. I can stick around if you want.” I looked out at the streetlamp, at the faint glow as it came to life. Sunday nights, man. Why are they so tough?

“Don’t wait for me,” he said. “If I get a chance I’ll come over. If you’re not at the Shamrock, you’ll be at your place, right?”

“I think you’ll have a good chance of finding me at one of those two locations, yes.”

“Are you okay, JT?”

“Yeah, I’m cool. Go do your thing. I’ll talk to you later.”

“I want the full scoop on your date, remember? You’re not getting out of it.”

“Good-bye, Howie.”

I turned off my cell phone and put it on the bar, next to the shot glass. The last thing I needed was one too many, but something told me I’d be having it anyway. And then maybe one more.

Outside, the streetlamp was glowing a brighter shade of yellow. It was another exciting Sunday night in Kingston, New York.

I
left the Shamrock about an hour later and jaywalked across Broadway. As soon as I got to the gym, I saw the front doors wide open. That wouldn’t have been unusual during the day—Anderson didn’t insist on keeping the place a blast furnace like some
trainers did—but after hours, the doors still open to the street … It didn’t make sense. I went inside and looked around in the dark, finally seeing a faint cone of light on the far side of the ring. As I got closer, I saw three men sitting around a table. Anderson, Maurice, and Rolando.

“Joe!” Anderson said. “Come and sit down!”

“What the hell’s going on?”

“We’re celebrating,” Maurice said, raising his glass. That’s when I saw the bottle of Wild Turkey sitting on the table. With Anderson and his top two boxers sitting here in the dark, and now actual liquor inside the gym … It was officially more than my brain could handle. The only thing missing was a giant pink ostrich dancing on the table.

“Rolando is gonna have a baby,” Anderson said. “Come on, sit down and drink with us.”

“Actually, his wife is,” Maurice said. “Let’s be clear.”

“That’s fantastic.” I shook Rolando’s hand. He smiled but didn’t say anything. The tattoos on his arms looked blue in the dim light.

“She’s due in March,” Anderson said. “Just a few more months before his whole life changes.”

“Yeah, what’s that going to do to your training?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He spoke slowly, like maybe he’d already emptied a little too much of his glass.

“We’ll figure that out,” Anderson said. “Tonight we’re just celebrating, right?”

I sat down and let him pour me one, knowing it would be a mistake to drink it. But what the hell. This was certainly a side of Anderson I’d never seen before. His hands were a little unsteady as he handed me the glass.

“Wild Turkey,” I said. “How old is that bottle?”

“I’ve had it in my desk for ten years,” Anderson said. “In case I ever got the chance to celebrate something.”

“To your wife,” I said to Rolando. “To your first child.”

We all drank to that. Then we drank to Anderson and Maurice and myself and everything else we could think of.

“Your old man,” Anderson said to Rolando. “He’s going to be a grandfather, eh? What’s the Spanish word for grandfather?”

“Abuelo.”

“He’s going to be an
abuelo.
Good for him. You should have brought him along tonight. Give me someone my own age to talk to.”

“He’s working.” Rolando wasn’t looking me in the eye, but I couldn’t help wondering if I was one big reason the old man never came to the gym. I’d had a few of the local Mexican kids as clients, so I knew the general story. If the parents are illegal, they don’t want to have anything to do with me. It doesn’t matter how much I tell them that I’ve got nothing to do with the INS, that I couldn’t care less what their status is as long as they want to help get their kids
straight. I’m still a man with a badge, and that’s all they see.

Before I could say anything about it, Anderson moved on to the next toast. “To the Rock,” he said, lifting his glass to the tattoo on Maurice’s left arm. “Rocky Marciano. That was the real Rocky right there. Never mind that movie.”

“To the Rock,” Maurice said, lifting his glass.

“To your other hero,” Anderson said, putting his hand on Maurice’s right arm. He touched the woman’s face as gently as he would the real thing. She looked ageless with her long blond hair falling over her shoulders. “This lovely woman who means so much to you. What’s her name?”

“I just call her Angel.”

“That’s nice,” Anderson said. “That’s beautiful. She must have really helped you out.”

“I’d be dead by now. Or in jail. She was the one who saved me.”

“Do you still see her?”

“Sure, I try to do stuff for her whenever I can,” Maurice said. “She doesn’t get out much anymore.”

“That’s good,” Anderson said. “You’re giving back to her now that she needs you.”

“I try.”

“It’s always one person, eh?” Anderson turned to me and grabbed me by the shirt. “Rolando’s old man. Maurice’s angel. One person who makes the difference. Am I right, Joe?”

“Sometimes it is, yes.”

“That’s what you try to do. Every day, huh? That’s your job, being that one person who makes the difference. Even now, after what happened to you. Maybe even more now …”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I had never heard him talk this way. Then again, I’d never seen him sitting around drinking Wild Turkey.

“To Joe,” he said. “And to his sweet Laurel. May she rest in peace.” They all raised their glasses to me. I had one swallow left in mine, so I sent it down.

As everything started to get soft around the edges, I looked at Anderson and I said to myself, okay, maybe this isn’t so surprising after all. This is the man who gave me a place to stay, gave me something to occupy my body while my mind healed. No matter how tough his exterior might be, he obviously has a heart as big as this gym. I was about to refill my glass and propose my own toast to exactly that sentiment when I noticed somebody walk in through the front doors, at first just a dark form against the light from outside. Then, as the form stepped closer to us, I could see it was a woman.