Fresh Kills by Bill Loehfelm Read Free Book Online Page A

could’ve been their king. I had the pleasure of being there when, after my mother’s funeral, my father wore out Joyce’s patience and his reign came to an end.

    My father was three-sheets and on his soapbox. The early negotiations for what became the Good Friday Accord had already begun, but it wasn’t like my father to learn anything about what he chose to pontificate about. And that day he was eager to make noise about anything other than my mother being dead, to do anything that deflected the accusing stares that followed him.

    He stood on the bar rail, waving his wallet in the air, hollering that he would match any donations to the “beloved boyos fighting for the union of the motherland.” I sat two stools away, my face in my hands. Julia stormed out. Joyce had already asked the old man three times to sit down and shut up, only to be told to fuck off. Joyce finally got my father’s attention by walking away with his whiskey.

    When my father jumped down from the rail and protested, stumbling over his own feet, Joyce barreled out from behind the bar. He leaned right into my father’s face, demanding to know when the righteous Mr. Sanders would be flying off to Ulster to join the fight.

    My father blinked at him, silent for a long moment. “Ulster?” he finally said. “What the fuck’s gotten into you, Joyce? I’m talking about Ireland. Where the fuck is Ulster?”

    Joyce went right for his throat. It took me and three other guys to pull them apart. My father was banned for life from Joyce’s Tavern. I started hanging out there more often.

    As he studied on me from the far end of the bar, I wondered if Joyce would remember that I’d helped drag my father off him and out the door. From the look on his face, the jury was still out as he headed my way.

    “Harp,” I said. He didn’t move. Okay, I thought, be that way. I tossed my cigarettes on the bar, took one out and lit it. I thought about spitting on the floor. If he was gonna eighty-six me, it was gonna be for something I did. Joyce didn’t say a word. He set an ashtray on the bar then went off to pour my beer. I laid a twenty on the bar.

    “Who’s gonna check on a Sunday night?” he said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Won’t catch those two complaining.” He took my money, pouring fresh drafts for the drunks before he made my change.

    “I got theirs, too. Keep the change.” He did, dropping two fives into his tip jar. The drunks raised their empties in my direction as Joyce set the full glasses in front of them. There. Now everyone was happy. We could all relax.

    “I’m sorry about your father,” one of the drunks said. “It’s a terrible thing.”

    I turned my back and looked up at the TV. Inning fifteen. Each team had scored one in the fourteenth. This game might never end. Joyce brought me a full beer when mine was empty.

    “How come I hardly see you anymore except when someone dies?” he asked.

    “I moved to the North Shore, up by the Boat,” I said, “a while ago.”

    “Your old man’s at Scalia’s then?”

    “He will be.”

    Scalia’s brought Joyce a lot of business. We’d waked my mother there, waked her parents not long before her. It was where we’d waked my friend Mike after he flipped his car, where we waked Molly’s brother, what they found of him, after 9-11.

    “How’s Julia doing?” Joyce asked.

    “Fine,” I said, surprised he remembered my sister’s name. “You know, as well as she can, considering. She’ll be in this week with me, I’m sure.”

    Joyce stared at me, grinding his jaw. “Good. I’m glad she’s doing all right.” He glanced at the drunks, then back at me. “She looked like hell this afternoon.”

    “She was in here?”

    “Briefly,” Joyce said. “Talking to that big-nosed detective. Purvis. The one you used to know. He bought her a glass or two of wine.”

    I turned, looked at the front door, wiped a hand down my face. Well, shit. Halfway between