Eddie turns aside. “And nothing. People should be more careful, that’s all.”
Noel shovels a forkful of sausage into his mouth. “You’re a barrel of laughs. You always this much fun on your birthday?”
Eddie doesn’t answer. The old darkness has taken a seat alongside him. He is used to it by now, making room for it the way you make room for a commuter on a crowded bus.
He thinks about the maintenance load today. Broken mirror in the Fun House. New fenders for the bumper cars. Glue, he reminds himself, gotta order more glue. He thinks about those poor people in Brighton. He wonders who’s in charge up there.
“What time you finish today?” Noel asks.
Eddie exhales. “It’s gonna be busy. Summer. Saturday. You know.”
Noel lifts an eyebrow. “We can make the track by six.”
Eddie thinks about Marguerite. He always thinks about Marguerite when Noel mentions the horse track.
“Come on. It’s your birthday,” Noel says.
Eddie pokes a fork at his eggs, now too cold to bother with.
‘“All right,” he says.
“Was the pier so bad?” the old woman asked.
“It wasn’t my choice,” Eddie said, sighing. “My mother needed help. One thing led to another. “Years passed. I never left. I never lived nowhere else. Never made any real money. “You know how it is—you get used to something, people rely on you, one day you wake up and you can’t tell Tuesday from Thursday. You’re doing the same boring stuff, you’re a ‘ride man,’ just like …”
“Your father?”
Eddie said nothing.
“He was hard on you,” the old woman said.
Eddie lowered his eyes. “Yeah. So?”
“Perhaps you were hard on him, too.”
“I doubt it. You know the last time he talked to me?”
“The last time he tried to strike you.”
Eddie shot her a look.
“And you know the last thing he said to me? ‘Get a job.’ Some father, huh?”
The old woman pursed her lips. “You began to work after that. You picked yourself up.”
Eddie felt a rumbling of anger. “Look,” he snapped. “You didn’t know the guy.”
“That’s true.” She rose. “But I know something you don’t. And it is time to show you.”
Ruby pointed with the tip of her parasol and drew a circle in the snow. When Eddie looked into the circle, he felt as if his eyes were falling from their sockets and traveling on their own, down a hole and into another moment. The images sharpened. It was years ago, in the old apartment. He could see front and back, above and below.
This is what he saw:
He saw his mother, looking concerned, sitting at the kitchen table. He saw Mickey Shea, sitting across from her. Mickey looked awful. He was soaking wet, and he kept rubbing his hands over his forehead and down his nose. He began to sob. Eddie’s mother brought him a glass of water. She motioned for him to wait, and walked to the bedroom and shut the door. She took off her shoes and her house-dress. She reached for a blouse and skirt.
Eddie could see all the rooms, but he could not hear what the two of them were saying, it was just blurred noise. He saw Mickey, in the kitchen, ignoring the glass of water, pulling a flask from his jacket and swigging from it. Then, slowly, he got up and staggered to the bedroom. He opened the door.
Eddie saw his mother, half dressed, turn in surprise. Mickey was wobbling. She pulled a robe around her. Mickey came closer. Her hand went out instinctively to block him. Mickey froze, just for an instant, then grabbed that hand and grabbed Eddie’s mother and backed her into the wall, leaning against her, grabbing her waist. She squirmed, then yelled, and pushed on Mickey’s chest while still gripping her robe. He was bigger and stronger, and he buried his unshaven face below her cheek, smearing tears on her neck.
Then the front door opened and Eddie’s father stood there, wet from rain, a ball peen hammer hanging from his belt. He ran into the bedroom and saw Mickey grabbing his wife. Eddie’s father hollered. He raised the hammer. Mickey put his hands over his head and charged to the door, knocking Eddie’s father sideways. Eddie’s mother was crying, her chest heaving, her face streamed with tears. Her husband grabbed her shoulders. He shook her violently. Her robe fell. They were both screaming. Then Eddie’s father left the apartment, smashing a lamp with the hammer on his way out. He thumped down the steps and ran off into the rainy night.
“What was that?” Eddie yelled in disbelief. “What the hell was THAT?”
The old woman held her tongue. She stepped to the side of the snowy circle and drew another one. Eddie tried not to look down. He couldn’t help it. He was falling again, becoming eyes at a scene.
This is what he saw:
He saw a rainstorm at the farthest edge of Ruby Pier—the “north point,” they called it—a narrow jetty that stretched far out into the ocean. The sky was a bluish black. The rain was falling in sheets. Mickey Shea came stumbling toward the edge of the jetty. He fell to the ground, his stomach heaving in and out. He lay there for a moment, face to the darkened sky, then rolled on his side, under the wood railing. He dropped into the sea.
Eddie’s father appeared moments later, scrambling back and forth, the hammer still in his hand. He grabbed the railing, searching the waters. The wind blew the rain in sideways. His clothes were drenched and his leather tool belt was nearly black from the soaking. He saw something in the waves. He stopped, pulled off the belt, yanked off one shoe, tried to undo the other, gave up, squatted under the railing and jumped, splashing clumsily in the churning ocean.
Mickey was bobbing in the insistent roll of seawater, half unconscious, a foamy yellow fluid coming from his mouth. Eddie’s father swam to him, yelling into the wind.
He grabbed Mickey. Mickey swung. Eddie’s father swung back. The skies clapped with thunder as the rainwater pelted them. They grabbed and flailed in the violent chop.
Mickey coughed hard as Eddie’s father grabbed his arm and hooked it over his shoulder. He went under, came up again, then braced his weight against Mickey’s body, pointing them toward shore. He kicked. They moved forward. A wave swept them back. Then forward again. The ocean thumped and crashed, but Eddie’s father remained wedged under Mickey’s armpit, pumping his legs, blinking wildly to clear his vision.
They caught the crest of a wave and made sudden progress shoreward. Mickey moaned and gasped. Eddie’s father spit out seawater. It seemed to take forever, the rain popping, the white foam smacking their faces, the two men grunting, thrashing their arms. Finally, a high, curling wave lifted them up and dumped them onto the sand, and Eddie’s father rolled out from under Mickey and was able to hook his hands under Mickey’s arms and hold him from being swept into the surf. When the waves receded, he yanked Mickey forward with a final surge, then collapsed on the shore, his mouth open, filling with wet sand.
Eddie’s vision returned to his body. He felt exhausted, spent, as if he had been in that ocean himself. His head was heavy. Everything he thought he’d known about his father, he didn’t seem to know anymore.
“What was he doing?” Eddie whispered.
“Saving a friend,” Ruby said.
Eddie glared at her. “Some friend. If I’d have known what he did, I’d have let his drunken hide drown.”
“Your father thought about that, too,” the old woman said. “He had chased after Mickey to hurt him, perhaps even to kill him. But in the end, he couldn’t. He knew who Mickey was. He knew his shortcomings. He knew he drank. He knew his judgment faltered.
“But many years earlier, when your father was looking for work, it was Mickey who went to the pier owner and vouched for him. And when you were born, it was Mickey who lent your parents what little money he had, to help pay for the extra mouth to feed.Your father took old friendships seriously—“
“Hold on, lady,” Eddie snapped. “Did you see what that bastard was doing with my mother?”
“I did,” the old woman said sadly. “It was wrong. But things are not always what they seem.
“Mickey had been fired that afternoon. He’d slept through another shift, too drunk to wake up, and his employers told him that was enough. He handled the news as he handled all bad news, by drinking more, and he was thick with whiskey by the time he reached your mother. He was begging for help. He wanted his job back. Your father was working late. Your mother was going to take Mickey to him.