Townie_ A Memoir - Andre Dubus [130]
“What?”
“It’s Christmastime, Ben. Peace on earth, right?”
“Fuck you, my brother kicked your ass, and I’ll fuckin’ do it again right now.”
But he wasn’t moving any closer, and now Pop and Theresa were walking across the lot toward us. Pop had both hands in the pockets of his Red Sox jacket, and even with his thick beard and the twenty years he had on us all, there was something boyish about him.
“You’re backing down ’cause you know I’ll fuckin’ kill you, Dubis.”
“You’re right, Ben. Merry Christmas.”
Ben kept swearing at me, and now Sam turned to his hockey friend, a square-faced kid with an Irish name and shoulder-length hair. “Tell your buddy to calm down, Tim.”
But Ben wasn’t calming down. Our lack of reaction seemed to make him angrier, his chin jutting out, spit flying, and his friends seemed no more interested in a brawl than we did. They stood quietly behind him, looking from me to Sam, then at Pop, who stood a few feet back, his hands still in his pockets. He looked happy and relaxed and so awfully out of place. Wallace was threatening to kill me again and how new it was that I didn’t care what he said, that he could go on and on, and it just did not matter. Because I noticed he still wasn’t stepping any closer, and only when he glanced over at Pop and Theresa did my blood thin out a bit; I’d have to do something if he went after them in any way, especially my father who, it was clear now, had come downtown to see more of this part of my life. I opened the passenger door and waited for Sam whose hockey friend was speaking quietly into Ben’s ear.
Ben threatened to kill me once more, but in minutes Sam and I were driving over the Merrimack River, Pop and Theresa ahead of us. My face ached, my neck too. I was looking forward to a bed somewhere, a long night’s sleep. I thought we were heading for Ronnie D’s but Pop steered for the campus. Then we were inside his house again, Pop creeping into his downstairs bedroom to hang his Akubra on its hook, Sam and Theresa and I sitting around the small dining room table. Theresa shook her head and laughed. “Your dad had a gun, you know.”
“What?”
“When those guys ran into the parking lot, he reached right over me and took it out of the glove compartment. He had it in his pocket the whole time.”
Sam looked at me and shook his head. Now I knew why Pop had really gone into his bedroom. It’s where he kept his guns, on his closet shelf, and I pictured him swinging open the six-round chamber of the snub-nose and emptying the bullets into his cupped hand. Or he might be releasing the loaded clip of the semiautomatic, pulling back the slide and eyeing the bore for a straggler round. And I had a flash of him standing in the lot of the 104 Club with his hands in his jacket pockets, his relaxed smile, his right fingers cupped around something so lethal. My chest felt squeezed. “Shit.”
“I asked him if he would’ve really used that. He said he’d just shoot in the air.”
Like that would’ve stopped anyone. Like there was reason involved here. Like we would’ve all paused at the loud noise and cooled down right away and walked off in opposite directions because this had all gotten so obviously out of hand.
Pop was walking up the stairs. “Who wants a nightcap?” He was smiling widely, his cheeks flushed above his beard. His dog Luke followed him up to the lighted kitchen, and Pop opened the fridge and pulled out four bottles of beer. He twisted the cap off Theresa’s first and walked over and handed it to her. She smiled up at him. “Put your gun away?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We all laughed, even me, and it occurred to me I’d gotten so brave in one way but had stayed so cowardly in another. When Pop handed me the bottle, I took it from him and then we four lifted our drinks to that dish best served cold, a revenge I knew I would never seek.
THE NEXT morning my father drove to Mass, and I had coffee with Peggy while she fed my baby sister. She was six months old and her name was Cadence and she