Page 53 of We Could Be So Good
“You’re a cop. You could go to their house.”
“Christ, Nicky. Sal would never live it down.”
Nick hates that this is probably true. “You could give him a choice of whether he’d rather have his father embarrass him or his classmates hurt him. You could act like you don’t think those kids are doing him a favor by beating him up.”
“He needs to learn how to act.”
A chill goes down Nick’s spine. “What does that mean?”
“You know what it means.”
“Humor me.”
Michael leans in and lowers his voice. “He acts like such a limp-wristed little fairy. He has to quit it. If this is a lesson he needs to learn the hard way, so be it.” He actually shrugs. “You of all people know that I’m right.”
Nick ignores these last words. He can’t—not now, he just can’t deal with that. But the rest of it is almost verbatim what Michael used to tell him back when Nick was the one getting beaten up, except back then he hadn’t saidfairy. Nice to know Michael at least has some standards where his son is concerned.
He hates to see Sal go through what Nick went through himself—other kids trying to hurt him, the adults in his life unwilling or unable to help, and the sense that it’s all somehow his own fault.
“Nicky! Telephone!” his mother calls.
“Me?” he asks stupidly, already getting to his feet. There’s only one person who would be calling him at his mother’s house. He makes it into the kitchen in two strides, not giving a fuck what Michael thinks about it.
“Nick?” asks Andy. Wherever he is, it sounds like a wind tunnel.
“Where are you?”
“Well. About that.”
Nick closes his eyes. “You didn’t get on the train that saidFourth Avenue, did you?”
“Perhaps not,” Andy says, and Nick can picture the crooked half smile on Andy’s face, the same expression he always gets when Nick tries to be stern.
“Where are you? I’ll come get you.”
“I seem to be at Coney Island.”
Nick snorts. He’s pretty sure he knows what Andy did: he managed to get to the right station, even managed to find the correct platform, but then got on the first Brooklyn-bound train that pulled up.
“Are you at the Stillwell Avenue station?”
“Maybe?” A pause, during which Nick bets Andy is leaning halfway out of the phone booth in search of signage. “Yes, that’s right. Stillwell Avenue.”
“I’ll find you. I’ll be there in twenty minutes, maybe half an hour.”
“Ma,” he says when he hangs up the phone. “Can I borrow the car?” His mother has an ancient Ford station wagon that she uses almost exclusively to go to church and the grocery store in the winter, but last he heard it’s still running.
“Michael’s parked behind me and I don’t want to move the car. Ask Michael if you can borrow his.”
Nick sighs, not wanting to ask a favor of his brother. But if Andy needs him, then that’s that, so he steps back outside. “Can I use your car for an hour?” He doesn’t add apleaseor try to sound polite, because he’s fully reverted to being the petulant little brother.
“What for?”
“I have to pick up Andy.”
Michael looks at him for a long moment, but finally reaches into his pocket and tosses him the keys.
***
