The Family Hightower by Brian Francis Slattery Read Free Book Online

come to salvage the copper. But he doesn’t see any of that. To him, Ohio City—the neighborhood all around them, from the edge of the Cuyahoga past the West Side Market and down Lorain Avenue to the highway exit, its low clapboard houses and its tight alleyways—are his world. It’s where he’s from, and he’s proud of it, though not of what he’s done. Petey, from Edgewater Avenue near the bluffs overlooking Lake Erie, doesn’t know a damn thing about Ohio City. But each of them recognizes something of himself in the other, the same toughness and vulnerability. The marks of a strong, volatile family, of not quite finishing high school. The same sense of shame, that their parents raised them better than this, that their grandparents would be so disappointed; the same anger that they should be forced to rise to their families’ expectations. The unsettling feeling hasn’t kicked in yet that they’re still showing themselves to be more like their own people than they know. Curly is there to buy crack, gets a shake of the head from Petey. Come here. Petey’s buying cocaine.
    By then, Petey’s already what you’d call a small-time crook. That beautiful boy in the crisp suit at Sylvie’s wedding is gone, or hiding. Even now, Muriel’s not sure just when it happens. He’s so sweet for the first few years of his life that it takes her years to realize that what she thought was just a streak of mischief in him is a lot more than that. He gets suspended from school twice by the time he’s twelve, both times for stealing other kids’ stuff. Then he takes his social studies teacher’s wallet, spends all the money in it in an afternoon. The school calls a meeting. Muriel repays the teacher on the spot, tries to apologize. The teacher takes the money, isn’t interested in the apology. Don’t you know what your son is really like? she says. Don’t you see the things he does? Muriel doesn’t say anything, and when the teacher realizes Muriel has no idea what she’s talking about—always trying to see the good in everyone has made her maybe a little too blind to the bad—a look comes over her face, a mix of pity and scorn, that almost makes Muriel cry. The principal sees that and takes a more diplomatic angle. It’s the same message, just trying to avoid tears. Look, I’m not telling you what to do with your son, he says. But I’m not sure this school is the best place for him. I’m not sure we can give him what he needs.
    And what is it that you think he needs? Muriel says. That’s in 1980 .
    In 1983 , Petey’s fifteen and away at a boarding school outside of Cleveland that says it’s all about discipline. That’s where he teaches himself how to forge driver’s licenses in the school’s printmaking studio, first for his friends, just to see if they work, then for himself, when he knows better what not to do. He learns fast that, as far as his circle of friends is concerned, because they’re all underage, it’s still the Prohibition era, and they’re willing to pay—a lot—for alcohol, and not very good alcohol. The difference between alcohol and small amounts of mild drugs, then harder drugs, isn’t important to him. He’s getting more self-aware, understands that he has a knack that goes beyond teenage bravado in cutting deals with drug traffickers: his willingness to meet them, in cars parked in empty parking lots, in the back rooms of clubs nobody goes in. He can talk straight about the big game he’s chasing, meaning the kind of customer he wants. He wants to hook some future bankers and insurance executives on some pretty expensive stuff, and he wants to be the guy they keep coming back to, because they trust him not to sell them out, turn them in just because the police want to know. He argues straight for a better cut of the deal when the plan starts to