A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [5]
Of the two brothers, Gordon was most like his father, a shy, dull man, a cement worker for years until he injured his back pouring a foundation. When his father went on disability, Teresa’s uncle, Jimmy Pratt, a records clerk at City Hall, spoke to his buddy the mayor. One phone call, and the next day perky Teresa was a secretary at the high school. She couldn’t type, so they put her in charge of the copy machine, on which she printed out exams and study guides, reading them for typos and learning as much as she could about everything, preparing for the day opportunity knocked on her door. Education, she preached constantly—it was the surest road to success. But if their mother’s determination had fueled one son, it had had little effect on Gordon, who was just as awkward around people as their father. Dennis still remembered the time his mother was too sick to attend his basketball banquet. Without her effervescent shield, his father and brother never once left their seats at the farthest table in the corner for fear someone might speak to them.
Dennis clicked on the door locks as he came off the highway. The minute he turned onto Nash Street, bleakness took hold, the gray net slipping over his eyes every time he came back. The neighborhood had never been much, but now it was a slum. Broken windows. Graffiti, the swaybacked, sinuous lettering, words that made no sense, it was everywhere. Here, the word cargo sprayed on the front door of the Langs’ big old Victorian on the corner. Once the nicest house in the neighborhood, it had been chopped up into tiny apartments. Ten mailboxes flanked the door, their ragged strips of masking tape bearing the latest tenants’ names. The house across from the Langs’ had stood empty for years before it caught fire last winter. A homeless man had kept himself and his dog warm by burning papers and wood scraps in a bathtub. Plywood covered the windows, and with the slightest wind the blue tarpaulin on the roof puffed up and down over charred rafters. A man wearing a glittering gold necklace stood on the corner, lighting a cigarette for a skinny girl with pale, frizzy hair.
“Nice,” Dennis said, watching. She was no more than thirteen or fourteen.
“Wait!” Gordon called, and Dennis hit the brake.
The man’s hand slid to his pocket. He stared as the silver BMW slowed. “Go ahead, try it,” Dennis muttered, staring back.
“What’d that sign say?” Gordon was trying to see out the rear window.
“What sign?”
“Back there. In the market.”
“But you’ve got tons of food. For at least two weeks, anyway, Lisa said.” He backed up, stopping in front of the Nash Street Market. Crooked, curling signs in the dingy windows advertised the week’s specials. A square of red-lettered cardboard taped to the front door said HELP WANTED.
“Okay,” Gordon said, turning back.
“No,” Dennis groaned. “Don’t even think of it. You don’t want to do that. C’mon, Gordon. I mean, for chrissakes, it was just one interview. So maybe they did have security sitting in. I mean, what do they know about you? What does she know? You could be some screwball, some raving maniac, some kind of—”
“Killer.” Gordon unknotted his tie.
“But she doesn’t know what happened. The details. So naturally she’s a little tense. But what’re you going to do? You’re never going to go on another interview? Instead, you’re going to go what? Take up where you left off twenty-five years ago? Be a stock boy at the Nash Street again? What’re you gonna do, wrap chickens? Juggle melons? Stack fucking tampon boxes?” he shouted, already knowing by the set of his brother