Orphans of Wonderland (15 page)

But Joel knew the truth all too well. His mother, a secretary at the local elementary school, had been diagnosed with lung cancer just weeks after he graduated college. Five months later she was dead. Although his father, an electrician, lived in the house a couple more years, he eventually sold it and moved to Florida, where he remarried and still lived to this day. Joel's mother missed so much. She never saw him marry Taylor, never really got to know her. She never even got to know him as an accomplished adult. She also avoided his collapse and fall from grace, and for that he was grateful, as it would have devastated her to see her only child ushered into a mental institution. His father, on the other hand, acted as if nothing ever happened. He was already in Florida at the time, and that's where he stayed. They had literally never discussed it. Even these days they only saw each other every few years, and when they did, both pretended all was right with the world and always had been.

My God
, he thought.
This life—my life—really existed. Here, in this place.

Yet it seemed so impossibly far away, a dream he'd had years before and was just now remembering, like the memories of the black car haunting his nightmares.

Before his emotions got the better of him, Joel pulled back out onto the street and continued on until he'd found Trent's old house on the next street. While Sal, Dorsey and Trent all had siblings, Joel and Lonnie were only children. Of their group, Trent was the only one raised in a single-parent home. His mother, a former hippie, worked as an art teacher at a private Catholic high school in nearby Dartmouth, and although she had a series of boyfriends over the years, never lived with any of them and raised Trent and his sister Delilah alone. Joel had no idea who lived there now.

A few doors down, he found Sal's house.

It looked the same, only older and with relatively new vinyl siding, a dull beige. Same big bay window facing the street, same overgrown, weed-infested front yard, same rusty auto parts and crap littering the side yard and small section of woods beyond. The paved driveway, which led to a two-stall garage, housed a pair of cars, including one up on blocks. An American flag mounted just outside the front door flapped in the cold wind.

Joel parked out front.

Even before he'd gotten out of the car, Sal appeared, all six-foot-four-inches of him framed in the doorway to the garage, a can of beer in one hand held down by his hip, a soiled rag clutched in the other. He squinted, stepped out onto the driveway, apparently oblivious to the cold in a sleeveless sweatshirt, a pair of old jeans and work boots. Filthy as any respectable grease monkey, he adjusted the brim of an equally dirty New England Patriots hat, then turned his head and spat on the ground.

Joel walked around the side of the car, heart pounding. He stopped halfway up the driveway and smiled.

“Sonofabitch,” Sal said. His face remained expressionless and weathered, his nose flattened and wide from years of boxing, his complexion red, leathery and loose from years of hard drinking, eyes tired and encircled with black rings from the rest of his vices and stresses and everything else life had dished out. “Joel Walker.”

“Hey, Sal,” Joel said, still smiling.

A smile finally broke, slowly spreading across Sal's otherwise menacing face. “Had a feeling you might be around sooner or later.”

“It's good to see you, man.”

As they closed the gap between them, Joel offered his hand. Sal engulfed it with his big, meaty paw and gave it a firm shake. His body still looked powerful, but he'd acquired a sizable gut that hung over his belt. Once-chiseled arms, while still thick, covered with bulging veins and likely solid, were wrinkled and no longer sculpted as they'd been in his youth. He took a long pull on his beer, killing it, then crushed the can and fired it over into the side yard. “That tasted rather
moreish
. You want a brewski?”

“Little early in the morning for me, but thanks.”

“Don't worry about it. Light beer, pussy shit. You'll be fine.” He belched, gave Joel's shoulder a playful slap that nearly knocked him over, then motioned to the garage. “Come on, let's get out of the cold and talk.”

Inside, the house looked a lot different than it had years before. It hadn't been updated and was cluttered, messy and old. When they were kids, Sal's parents had always kept the house immaculate. Now it looked like it needed a thorough cleaning and straightening.

Feeling as if he were following his old friend back into the past, they entered the house through the side door and walked directly into the kitchen. Sal grabbed a couple beers from the refrigerator, tossed one across the table to Joel, then headed into the living room.

“Need to get somebody in here to clean,” Sal said, pushing some magazines from the couch to the floor before sitting down in a recliner across from it. “Had a chick that used to come in and do it, but she went back to school or some shit.”

“No worries.” Joel sat on the couch, which looked almost as old as he was, and noticed a dusty hutch against the far wall showcasing all of Sal's old amateur boxing trophies and belts, including his Golden Glove trophies, now faded and in serious need of polishing. Much like Sal, they'd lost a good deal of luster with time and age.

“Me and Barbie divorced a few years back,” he announced.

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah, I was banging this cocktail waitress worked over at the dog track in Raynham.” Sal shrugged, and popped open his beer. “Got bagged. Wasn't the first time she caught me with my pants down, if you get my drift, so I knew I was fucked.”

Unsure of what to say, Joel just nodded.

“How about you, still married?”

“Yup. Taylor and I are doing well.”

Sal took a gulp of beer. “Good,” he finally responded. “That's good.”

The eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room watched from the corner as silence fell over the house.

“Kids?” Sal asked a moment later.

“Nope, didn't do the kids thing.”

Sal's right leg bounced nervously like it had when he was a kid. “I got three,” he said. “Two girls and a boy.”

“No kidding? That's great.”

“Ready for this shit? I'm a fucking grandfather, dude.”

“No way.”

“What are you gonna do?” Sal waved at him the way one might at a flying bug. “My boy—Sal Jr.—he's just like his old man. Little bastard can't keep it in his pants for five minutes. Lives with his girlfriend in Warwick, she dances over in Providence. You should see the tits on this kid.
Madone
. Anyway, they had a little girl few months ago. So it's official, I'm old as fuck. The other two, the girls, they're still living at home with Barbie and the dick she married over in Acushnet. They're all living happily ever after in my house, got to love it. Lost it in the divorce.”

“That's rough, but congratulations on the granddaughter.”

“Yeah.” Sal sighed. “My father died in 2000, and we lost Ma a few years ago.”

Joel remembered Sal's father as a gruff and unpleasant man who rarely spoke, and his mother as a sweet, heavyset woman who loved to cook and feed Sal's friends whenever they were at the house. “Jesus, man, sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks. So I'm a fucking orphan now too.” He laughed and powered down more beer. “Ma left us the house and I needed a place to live, so I bought out my brother and sister. Got to live someplace, right? Why not the old neighborhood?”

“Doesn't look like it's changed that much,” Joel said.

“Not much does.” Sal killed his beer, dropped it on a cluttered coffee table between them, then sat back. “Except for you, maybe.”

“I'm still me, Sal.”

“I don't know, with them khakis and that nice button-up shirt, you look like a fucking yuppie over here. One of them little prissy boys from Maine now, huh?”

Joel knew he wasn't serious, it was just Sal's way, and as he'd said, not much had changed. “Listen, I know I lost touch with all you guys and…”

“That's how the cookie crumbles,
paisan
. You got out of college and moved on, had new friends, a different life. We all understood that. But you cut us loose and never came back. People got married, had kids, lived, died, and you were never there for any of it, man. For Christ's sake, you even had a private wedding and didn't invite any of us.”

Now he was serious, and he'd left no room for misunderstanding that. “Sal, it was a small ceremony with just immediate family.”

“Hey, all I'm saying is that we were a band of brothers growing up, right? Figured that meant something.”

“Come on, man, of course it did.”

“Seemed like you washed your hands of us, you know? Like we didn't matter. Same way Trent did. But Trent was a mess. We expected it from him, not from you.”

Joel opened his beer but didn't drink any. “I'm sorry, Sal, for everything. I had a lot of what I thought was success very quickly, and it went to my head. Then when it all came crashing down, it took me with it. I had to run if I wanted to survive it, had to start over somewhere else. I needed to let the past go.
All
of it.”

“That don't forgive everything, but I understand. We all got our problems. You did good, better than any of us. You got your chance and you got your education and you got the hell out of here. Used to piss me off, 'cause I thought you got too good for us, too fancy, and kinda left us in the dust, you know? But when I got a little older, I understood.”

“You could've gotten out if you wanted to. You were a great boxer, could've gone pro. Might've been heavyweight champ one day.”

“Nah,” he laughed, his emotions turning on a dime just as they had when he was younger. “Remember when I got that chance to go to New York City and train at Gleason's with the big boys? That pro trainer and manager were looking at me, seeing if the hype was justified. Turned out it wasn't. I was just a big fish in a little pond, dude. I might've been a badass around here, but out there, I was one more punk barely good enough to spar with those guys. Got my ass kicked from pillar to post, and then I knew: boxing wasn't supposed to be my life. Cars, that's my life. That's what always made me happy, working on cars. I boxed 'cause that's what my old man wanted me to do. All it ever got me was headaches, a bunch of scars, a busted nose and a cabinet full of trophies from a hundred years ago nobody gives a shit about. But being a mechanic? That got me my own place, my own business. I supported my family and put food on the table, toys under the tree at Christmas. I'm my own man. I don't answer to nobody and I do what I love all day. So, fucked up as my life is sometimes, I done okay, you know?” He sat forward. “But you hit the big time.”

“Not really. It just looked that way for a while.”

“I read your book when it came out, saw you on all them shows.”

“You learned how to read?”

“Little bit.” He grinned. “You fuck.”

Joel laughed lightly, hoping it might defuse the awkwardness of the situation.

“Word was it all fell apart though, and you had to go away for a while.” After seeing Joel's discomfort, he added, “Westport's a small town, man, then and now. People talk.”

“I had to get some help,” Joel explained, “but that was years ago. I'm fine now. Been fine for a long time.”

“Glad to hear it, bro.” He cracked his knuckles with a loud pop. “But good as it is to see you and catch up, we both know you're here about Lonnie.”

Joel nodded.

“Me and Dorsey, we figured we'd see you at the funeral.”

“I didn't know, Sal.”

He raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“I had no idea Lonnie was dead until his daughter came to see me,” Joel told him. “Lonnie knew about what I'd gone through, and he told Katelyn to leave me alone if anything ever happened to him. She did, until she had nowhere else to turn and asked me to look into his death.”

Sal nodded. Apparently the response was acceptable. “You still a reporter?”

“More or less.”

“You on the clock then?” With another sigh, Sal removed his hat, tossed it on the coffee table and ran a hand through what was left of his hair.

Joel hadn't expected that. Sal's thick locks were all but gone. He still combed what little remained straight back, but there wasn't even enough hair left to slick it back like he had in his youth. “No, I'm here as a friend.”

“Hard to believe Lonnie's really gone. We were still friends, still hung out every once in a while. Now I wish we spent more time, you know?” He caught Joel looking. “Yeah, lost my lettuce. Nice, huh? I'm fat now too, in case you were wondering. The chicks still dig me, though, who knows why?”

“I'm thinking it's your charm.”

“Could be my giant cock.”

“See? What could be more charming than that?”

Sal smiled but it faded quickly. “So you find anything out or what?”

“Few things. I think Lonnie was into something heavy, Sal.”

“Like what?”

“Not sure yet.”

“Or maybe you just don't want to tell me yet.”

Sal was many things, but stupid wasn't one of them. “You mentioned Trent before,” Joel said, then took a sip of beer. “Katelyn said he's out west somewhere.”

“Last I heard, yeah. I haven't seen or talked to Trent in years, dude.”

“Any of his family still around?”

“His sister lives in the Midwest someplace. His mother got Alzheimer's and they put her in a nursing home few years back.”

“Any idea where?”

“New Bedford. Whaling City Shores, it's in the south end.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Like I said, man, small town.”

“And what about Trent?”

“What about him? He lost his fucking mind. You know how he got all weird right after high school with all that punk rock bullshit and all that paranoid crap about the world going to hell? He got heavier into drugs and drinking, had a lot of problems. Married this real cunt from Swansea, bitch acted like her pussy dripped diamonds. You know the type. He was crazy in love with her, though. It didn't last a year, and when she divorced him, he really went off the fucking rails. I mean, you remember Trent, he was always weird, and I used to bust his balls about his look and all that but I never let anybody else hassle him or any of youse. Shit, like you used to say, we all deal with things different, right? That was Trent's way.”