Bloodbrothers (24 page)

"They'll come as soon as they're better." She gently ushered Albert from the room.

"See you." Albert waved.

Derek and Tyrone waved back.

"Let's go, chief," Stony said. They walked down the corridor toward the entrance. At the door another nurse stopped them. She knelt in front of Albert and smiled. "We going home today?" Confused, Albert looked up at Stony.

"He's not a patient," Stony said.

"He's not?" She straightened up. "Well, what's he doing here?"

Stony sighed. "He's my brother. I brought him in to play with the kids in the day room. I didn't know it was against the rules. I'm
sorry.
I'm takin' him home."

"Can I see his discharge slip?"

"His what?" Stony squawked.

The nurse peered at Stony's name tag. "Mr. De Coco, you can't expect me to believe this child is not a patient."

Stony glared at her. "
Yeah,
I expect you to believe he's not a goddamn patient. He's my goddamn brother. You don't believe me, go check it out with Mrs. Le Pietro. She just kicked him out!"

The nurse stared at Albert, her thumb and index finger caressing her chin. "I'll do that. Please wait here."

"What the fuck?" Stony muttered as the nurse vanished in the shuffling crowd.

"Can you believe that?" he complained to Albert. Albert was busy picking his nose. As they waited for the nurse to return, Stony took some good hard looks at his brother. It hit him that Albert didn't look any different than any kid he'd seen in that day room. He even looked worse than some. If Stony and that nurse were to switch roles, Stony would have acted the same way. In a strange way, although it made him ashamed of himself, Stony found the thought comforting.

***

As much as Stony dreaded working the construction job, he equally dreaded springing the news on Mrs. Pitt that after two weeks in the hospital he had to take a two-week vacation. Every day he found a different excuse for not telling her, but now he had no more days to put it off.

"Mrs. Pitt." Stony sighed. "I got this hassle I gotta work out. Before I took this job, I promised my old man I'd work with him in construction for two weeks this summer. He was breakin' my chops about me wantin' to do hospital work when I could be makin' triple the bread with the electricians." He shrugged. "So like I promised him I would do two weeks here, two weeks with him, and then I could decide what I was gonna do, you follow?" Stony sat sprawled hand over mouth.

Mrs. Pitt frowned. "I follow. Stony, but I also feel like you're exploiting me. I hire you in good faith on a long-term basis. Then you come in here and tell me you want to do something else for two weeks and
maybe
you'll come back. That's pretty damn unfair, don't you think?"

Stony's guts started spinning. His hand moved from his mouth to his forehead. "Lissen." He leaned forward in his seat. "You don' understand my family. It's like ... like..." Stony fretted and fumed, searching for the right words. "Shit. Look, there's this very heavy number goin' down with my father and uncle. They're both electricians, right? An' ever since I was a kid, see, you don't ... oh shit." He rubbed his face, eyes darting around the room. "You don't know what I had to go through to get this hospital gig, like, uh, you know, that Jewish thing, my son the doctor?" Stony slapped himself on the chest. "My son the electrician. An' they got me boxed in, Mrs. Pitt. I'm tellin' you, the whole thing with the job, the union, the men, the House a De Coco, it's like puttin' on a goddamn hard hat, it's like puttin' on the crown a England, you know? An' I'm next in line. My grandfather was in there bustin' heads, settin' up the union in the thirties, the whole thing." Stony studied his hands. "I tell you, sometimes I think it woulda been a lot easier if I was a girl. God forbid. I mean, no offense. I had to run a gamut to do this job like you wouldn't
believe.
I wouldn't be here if I didn't promise my old man I'd do two weeks with him." Stony lowered his voice. "I don' wanna be a goddamn electrician, those guys are nowhere! They get twenty grand a year for luggin' pipes up an' down buildings. I don' care about money, I'll make it some way. I ain't no sap. I get more outta jivin' aroun' with these kids for one hour than I would in
ten years
doin' construction." He bobbed his head in emphasis. "It's my
life
we're talkin' about! I don't wanna be one of those lames that lives for the weekend, you know? I wanna live seven days a week. I wanna go home everyday feelin' like I accomplished somethin'. Look, I was gonna go down to this ditso school in Louisiana in the fall, then I figure, screw that, I come outta there a veterinarian's assistant with a concentration in turkey mange, you know? School doesn't
mean
anything to me, just to go so you can say you went, right?" Stony glanced around the room. "But
now
I'm thinkin', lemme do this for a year see? Then, maybe this time next year I'll apply to some college, study social work, recreation, physical therapy, who knows? Somethin' so I can keep workin' an' get some kinda degree in somethin' that
means
somethin', you know? But look, I gotta pay the devil his due. I gotta give my old man his two weeks, then I got him off my back, he can't say nothin'." Stony signaled finito with his hands. "I fulfilled my end an' that's that, I'm free as a bird." He sat back in the chair, his hands clasped in his lap, a whatta-you-say look in his eyes.

Mrs. Pitt looked out the window to her left for a long moment as she rocked slightly in her swivel chair. "What would you do if I said, 'No, if you don't come back Monday, don't come back at all'?"

Stony felt his guts deflate. "Then I would be out of a job I really dug." He fought back the impulse to cry, staring into his lap, feeling the muscles in his face start to buckle.

"Normally I wouldn't do this"—Mrs. Pitt picked up the photo cube, idly rolling it around in her hands—"but I think I understand the situation better than you think I do. My father wanted me married and pregnant as soon as I graduated high school. I had to run away from home to get on with my life. Never went back." She returned the cube to the desk. "The kids like you very much, Stony, and I sense you like them." She smiled and nodded resolutely. "Two weeks you need, two weeks you got."

A rush of relief like a wave knocked him flat against the chair. He jumped up. "Hey, I can't tell you..." He started choking up again.

"Just be back here in my office three Mondays from now and tell me then."

***

On Friday Stony came into work in the lightheaded mood of a kid on the last day of school. In the morning, he made up three more stories, got into two heavy games of Stratego and taught the kids how to play charades. After lunch he conducted a joke-telling contest in which Derek was disqualified for poor sportsmanship (What's the difference between Tyrone and a elephant? About five pounds) and Tyrone was disqualified for obscenity (Why is Derek's sister like the Alaska pipeline? 'Cause she got laid by six hundred men across the state). Felix got disqualified for grossness (What's burnt, shriveled and hangs from the ceiling? A Polish electrician). Stony declared himself winner by default (Why can't you starve in the desert? Because of all the sand-which-is there). By the time Stony was debating the feasibility of a wheelchair race, the nurses came by to round up the kids.

"Four-thirty already?" He looked at his watch.

"Hey, De Coco, see you Monday."

"Stay cool over the weekend."

"Yeah, don't kiss any girls."

"See you guys." Stony waved. When the day room was empty, Stony remembered that he wasn't coming back Monday. He walked down the long children's ward, entered the twenty-bed room. The nurses were serving dinner. He sat on Derek's bed and spoke to him and Tyrone. "Hey, lissen, I forgot to tell you guys, I ain't comin' back for two weeks."

They stopped eating. "Where you goin'?" Tyrone frowned.

"Oh, I gotta do something with my family."

"How come?"

Stony shrugged. "You guys behave yourselves, don't fight."

They didn't answer. Stony got up, grabbed Tyrone by the ears and kissed him with a loud smack on the top of his head. The kids in the room screamed with laughter. Tyrone, giggling and embarrassed, buried his head under his pillow. Stony turned to Derek. Derek screeched and hid under the covers, waiting for Stony's attack. The kids shouted encouragement. Stony waited silently until Derek got impatient enough to pop his head out of the sheets. Stony kissed him right on the head to Derek's mortified delight. Then he strode from the room, waving to everybody as he left. "See ya in two weeks!"

As Stony changed at his locker, despite feeling sad about leaving, fearful of the next two weeks, the strongest, most disturbing emotion he sensed in himself was an undeniable sense of relief.

B
UTLER LIKED THE STORE
best on Saturday when it got crowded and the ring of the register was music in his ears and coins in his pocket. He still couldn't believe the store was his, and every morning as he drove down and unlocked the door, he felt like a kid going to Candyland.

"Hey, howya doin'?" Butler smiled as Annette walked into the store wearing hot pants, a striped halter and rectangular red-tinted shades.

"Hiya." She cracked gum. "Stony around?"

"Stony? Nah. Anything wrong?"

She raised her eyebrows and shut her eyes. "You tell me." She dropped her bag on the counter.

"Whadya mean?" Butler felt wary. He leaned back on his stool, shaking a cigarette from his pack.

"I dunno, we had a couple a dates, right? Next thing I know he comes over one night insultin' the shit outta me, fuck you, fuck me, fuck us, wham bam out the door, bye-bye. Stony." She shrugged helplessly, slapping her sides on the downstroke.

"That don't sound like him." Butler studied her face, picked his teeth with his thumbnail.

"Well, look, he's your friend. I'm sure you know him better'n me, but, ah, if you want my opinion I think that kid's in trouble."

"Stony?"

"Who else we talkin' about?"

"What kinda trouble?" Butler crushed his cigarette after two puffs.

"Well. I was thinkin' about what happened, you know, like he really did me shit, I mean, he just got...
nasty
all of a sudden. I mean, he just about came out and called me a dirty tramp, and I showed 'im the door. At first I was just pissed, then I felt hurt, but I started thinkin'. I mean I really did some heavy-duty thinkin', and I started puttin' two an' two together. I remember the first night we had this long talk about him and that whole mess about two weeks here, two weeks there, the deals, the this, the that. I mean like he really opened up, right? I told him that he should fuck the deals an' just do what he wants, an' I knew what he wanted was to work with those kids, but he started freakin' out on me. I think he got scared. I guess nobody ever told him straight before. I mean I was workin' mainly onna hunch, but he really wigged, you know? So, what was I supposed to do, take back what I said? But ever since then he acted funny with me, like he was scared a me or somethin', until that night when he made me boot him out, an' he
made
me boot him out,
that
was as plain as the nose on my face. After I figured that out, I didn't feel mad or hurt anymore. I just felt concerned, so like I tried to call him up, but every time he hears my voice he hangs up." She took one of Butler's cigarettes, after folding her gum in a tissue. "Look"—she struck a match—"he don't wanna see me, fine, but somebody better get to that kid before he does himself in."

"Whadya mean 'does himself in'? So he jerks his old man's bird for a few weeks, then he does what he wants."

Annette smiled, her tongue slightly protruding between her teeth, and slowly shook her head.

"What, no." Butler sounded petulant, but he was starting to get worried.

"He's too scared," she whispered. "He'd never go against his old man."

"Don't sound like that to me." Butler felt shaky.

Annette smiled. "You don't think so, hah?"

Butler didn't answer.

"Well"—she grabbed her bag and hitched it over her shoulder—"I gotta go. Tell 'im I'm lookin' for 'im, although I really don't think he's gonna wanna talk to me, but, ah, you're his friend, why don't you check him out?"

"He ain't talkin' to me either."

M
ONDAY MORNING
Stony dressed in new, stiff dungarees and a tight white T-shirt. Tommy peeked in as Stony laced his boots. "You look more like a 'lectrician than me." He had oily chinos and a T-shirt rolled and wrapped in a tool belt under his arm.

When they got into Tommy's car, Tommy reached under his seat for a box. "Here's a present from me an' Chubby."

Stony opened the box. Inside was a white canvas tool belt, pliers, a screwdriver and a pair of channel locks. "Thanks."

Tommy winked and started the car. "That's all you'll prob'ly need today. I was gonna get you some wire clippers but I forgot. How you feel?"

"O.K.," Stony lied. He felt as if he were going to vomit. He couldn't sleep all night, and he had a headache. The tools in his lap weighed a ton. He was afraid of doing something stupid on the job. He was afraid that the guys would think he was a skinny faggot. He was afraid the guys were going to razz him about being Tommy's son. He hadn't felt this nervous since his first game for the Mount three years ago.

Tommy was exploding inside with pride and excitement. He had waited for this day since Stony was a little kid. He was proud of Stony's physique and strength. All the guys knew Stony had been a halfback for the Mount because Tommy had reminded them everyday for the last six months. He was a little worried about the teasing Stony would get the first day on the job, but everybody had to go through that. Last night Tommy lay awake in bed playing out that one moment when he would walk into the electricians' shanty with his arm around Stony and say, "This is my son."

When they arrived at the site, a high-rise luxury apartment going up in Riverdale, they sat in the parked car.

Tommy looked at his watch. "We got a few minutes. How you doin'?"