Page 98 of We Could Be So Good
Sal sighs with the put-upon weariness of a teenager. “Yeah, same as the last seven times you asked.”
It’s late Sunday afternoon and the neighborhood is quiet. From the top of the hill, Nick can almost catch a glimpse of the water and Staten Island beyond. A whole stretch of Seventh Avenue has been condemned to build the bridge that will span the Narrows, and God knows how many people will have to leave the neighborhood. This part of Brooklyn has never been Nick’s home, but it is home for a lot of people—for generations of families. He thinks he’ll pitch a piece to Jorgensen tomorrow, maybe interview some of the Norwegians who have lived here since their sailor ancestors settled in Brooklyn.
Or maybe he’ll pitch it to a magazine. MaybeThe New Yorker? They’ve printed stranger things in the past year, God knows. He’ll talk to Andy about it later.
Sal knocks on the door, which is opened almost immediately byBeverly, who must have been waiting at the door for Sal to arrive. She thanks Nick as if he’s rescued her firstborn child from a volcano rather than just fed him about six pounds of carbohydrates over the course of the weekend and taken him to a ball game.
“Ma’s on the phone,” Bev tells Nick. “Want me to get her?”
“Don’t bother. But is Michael around?”
Bev raises her eyebrows. “Yeah, come on in. He’s in the backyard.”
Nick goes through the kitchen, where he finds his mother on the phone. “You’re not going to find escarole at the A&P,” she’s saying. “Use spinach.” He kisses her cheek but gestures for her not to bother putting the phone down, then grabs the bottle opener and a pair of beers from the icebox and goes out the back door.
Michael is on his hands and knees, pulling weeds from a garden bed. When he sees Nick, he sits back on his haunches and wipes sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, streaking dirt across his face.
“I forgot how much teenage boys can eat,” Nick says. He opens one of the bottles and holds it out to Michael, who takes it. “I watched him put away three pork chops and a loaf of bread without so much as breathing.”
“I swear he eats twenty dollars’ worth of food a week,” Michael says. “I’m gonna need a second job.”
Nick sits on the step. “Thanks for letting Sal stay with me. It was fun to have him around. He’s welcome anytime, you know.” It’s funny, but now that he knows Michael is a halfway decent—or at least not actively violent, let’s not get carried away—parent, Nick can almost stop caring about him. He doesn’t want to be having this conversation, but he can do it for Sal’s sake.
“He’s a pain in the ass, is what he is. But I guess all teenagers are.”
Nick forces himself to drain a good part of his bottle before speaking. “Well, if you and Bev ever need a break, I have a spare room.”
Michael makes a noncommittal sound and shrugs. Nick thinks about what Michael hasn’t said: he hasn’t said that his son can’t visit his queer uncle. Nick is grateful for this bare minimum, but then feels something deep within him revolt at the gratitude.
“There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.” Nick remembers the words he rehearsed all afternoon. “I want to thank you for what you did at the police station that time.”
Michael becomes very interested in a weed. “I wasn’t gonna let Ma find out you’d been— Jesus, Nick, what’s the point of being a cop if you can’t do that much?”
Nick decides not to answer that, and instead finishes his beer. “But do you think you can not mention it anymore?”
“When have I ever mentioned it?”
“I’m talking about the insinuations.”
Michael sighs. “You always were too sensitive.” Nick can’t tell whether this means he’ll agree to Nick’s request or not. Nick supposes he’ll find out. If Michael doesn’t knock it off, Nick will stop coming around or he’ll time his visits for when Michael’s on duty. Maybe he can convince his mother to come into the city. But at least he’s tried.
“While you’re at it,” Michael goes on, still not looking at Nick, “you can thank me for clearing up that mess with Jimmy Walsh.”
Nick goes still at the name of the cop who arrested him, the cop he had seen at the Gowanus fire. “What mess?”
“His partner was one of the cops involved in that story you keep writing about. He and Jimmy followed you around, took a bunch of pictures. I thought they sent them to you?”
“Yeah,” Nick says, his mouth dry. “They did.”
“They’ll stop now. Christ, what a fucking mess. I’m going to have to find another poker game. I don’t have the negatives, though, so you’re on your own there.”
“There wasn’t—” Nick starts, meaning to say that there wasn’t anything incriminating, that it was just a couple of pictures of him living his life.
“I don’t want to hear about it!” Michael protests, holding up his hands. “And before you ask, I don’t have enough favors to fix this kind of thing another time. Can you try not to piss off cops who are connected, Nicky? Jesus. Or at least try not to do things that make it easy to blackmail you? One or the other? It ain’t healthy to do both.”
Nick isn’t sure there’s any kind of blow to the pride worse than when your least favorite person is right about something. Andy had said the same thing a few days earlier, but Nick had been too frightened and angry to think straight.
And he never wants to have to thank his brother for getting him out of trouble ever again.
