DAVE AND VAL passed through the city and drove over the Mystic River to this dive bar in Chelsea where the beer was cheap and cold and there wasn't much of a crowd, just a few old-timers who looked like they'd worked the waterfront their whole lives and four construction workers who were having an argument about someone named Betty who apparently had great tits but a bad attitude. The bar was tucked under the Tobin Bridge with its back against the Mystic, and it looked like it had been there going back several decades. Everyone knew Val and said their hellos. The owner, a skeletal guy with the blackest hair and the whitest skin, was named Huey. He worked the bar and gave them their first two rounds on the house.
Dave and Val shot pool for a while, and then settled into a booth with a pitcher and two shots. The small square windows fronting the street had turned from gold to indigo, the night having dropped in so quickly, Dave felt almost bullied by it. Val was actually a pretty easygoing guy when you got to know him. He told stories about prison and thefts that had gone awry, and they were all kind of scary, actually, but somehow Val made them funny, too. Dave found himself wondering what it must be like to be a guy like Val, utterly fearless and confident, and yet so damn small.
"This one time, back in the day, right? Jimmy's been sent up and we're still trying to hold our crew together. We haven't figured out yet that the only reason any of us are thieves is because Jimmy planned everything for us. All we had to do was listen to him and follow his orders and we'd be fine. But without him, we were morons. So, this one time, we take off this stamp collector. He's tied up in his office and me and my brother Nick and this kid Carson Leverett, who couldn't tie his own fucking shoes you didn't show him, we're going down in this elevator. And we're cool. We're wearing suits, looking like we fit in. This lady gets on the elevator and she gasps. Loud, too. And we don't know what's going on. We're looking respectable, right? I turn to Nick and he's looking at Carson Leverett because the fucking bonehead's still wearing his mask." Val slapped the table, laughing. "You believe that? He's got a Ronald Reagan mask, the big smiley one they used to sell? And he's wearing it."
"And you guys hadn't noticed?"
"No. That's the point," Val said. "We walked out of the office, and me and Nick took ours off, just assumed Carson did, too. Little shit happens like that on jobs all the time. 'Cause you're jumpy and you're stupid and you just want to get in the clear, and sometimes you miss the most obvious detail. It's staring you in the face, you can't see it." He chuckled again and threw back his shot. "That's why Jimmy was so missed. He thought of every detail. Like the way they say a good quarterback sees the whole field? Jimmy saw the whole field on a job. He saw everything that could possibly go wrong. Guy was a fucking genius."
"But he went straight."
"Sure," Val said, lighting a cigarette. "For Katie. And then for Annabeth. I don't think his heart's ever been in it, between you and me, but there you go. Sometimes, people grow up. My first wife said that was my problem-I couldn't grow up. I like the night too much. Day's just something you sleep through."
"I always thought it would be different," Dave said.
"What's that?"
"Being grown-up. You'd feel different, right? You'd feel grown-up. A man."
"You don't feel that way?"
Dave smiled. "Sometimes maybe. In glimpses. But most of the time I don't feel much different than I did when I was eighteen. I wake up a lot going, 'I got a kid? I got a wife?' How'd that happen?" Dave could feel his tongue thickening with the booze, his head getting that floating feel because he never had gotten that bite to eat. He felt a need to explain. To make Val see the guy he was and to like that guy. "I think I always figured one day it would be permanent. You know? One day you'd just wake up and feel grown-up. Feel like you had a handle on things the way fathers always did in those old TV shows."
"Ward Cleaver, like?" Val said.
"Yeah. Or even like those sheriffs, you know, James Arness, guys like that. They were men. Permanently."
Val nodded and sipped some beer. "Guy in prison says to me once, he says, 'Happiness comes in moments, and then it's gone until the next time. Could be years. But sadness'"-Val winked-"'sadness settles in.'" He stubbed out his cigarette. "I liked that guy. He was always saying cool shit. I'm going to get another shot. You?" Val stood.
Dave shook his head. "Still working on this one."
"Come on," Val said. "Live it up."
Dave looked into his scrunched, smiling face and said, "Okay, fine."
"Good man." Val slapped his shoulder and walked up to the bar.
Dave watched him standing up at the bar, chatting with one of the old dockworkers as he waited for his drinks, Dave thinking the guys in here knew what it was to be men. Men without doubts, men who never questioned the rightness of their own actions, men who weren't confused by the world or what was expected of them in it.
It was fear, he guessed. That's what he'd always had that they didn't. Fear had settled into him at such an early age-permanently, the way Val's prison friend had claimed sadness did. Fear had found a place in Dave and never left, and so he feared doing wrong and he feared fucking up and he feared not being intelligent and he feared not being a good husband or a good father or much of a man. Fear had been in him so long, he wasn't sure he could remember what it had felt like to live without it.
A passing headlight bounced off the front door and flashed white directly in his face as the door opened and Dave blinked several times, caught only the silhouette of the man who came through the door. He had a bulky frame and what could have been a leather jacket on. He looked a bit like Jimmy, actually, but bigger, wider at the shoulders.
In fact it was Jimmy, Dave realized as the door shut again and his eyes began to clear. Jimmy, wearing a black leather jacket over a dark turtleneck and khakis, nodding at Dave as he stepped up to Val at the bar. He said something in Val's ear and Val looked back over his shoulder at Dave and then said something to Jimmy.
Dave started to feel woozy. It was all the booze on an empty stomach, he was sure. But it was also something about Jimmy, something about the way he'd nodded to him, his face blank and yet somehow determined. And why the hell did he look bulked up, as if he'd gained ten pounds since yesterday? And what was he doing over here in Chelsea, the night before his daughter's wake?
Jimmy came over and slid into Val's seat, across from Dave. He said, "How's it going?"
"Little drunk," Dave admitted. "You gain some weight?"
Jimmy gave him a quizzical smile. "No."
"You look bigger."
Jimmy shrugged.
"What're you doing around here?" Dave asked.
"I come here a lot. Me and Val have known Huey for years. I mean, going way back. Why don't you drink that shot, Dave?"
Dave picked up the shot glass. "I'm feeling a bit hammered already."
"Who's it hurt?" Jimmy said, and Dave realized Jimmy held a shot of his own. He raised it and met Dave's glass. "To our children," Jimmy said.
"To our children," Dave managed, really feeling out of sorts now, as if he'd slid out of the day, through the night, and into a dream, a dream in which all the faces were too close, but their voices sounded like they were coming from the bottom of a sewer.
Dave downed the shot, grimacing against the burn, and Val slid into the booth beside him. Val put his arm around him and took a drink of beer directly from the pitcher. "I always liked this place."
"It's a good bar," Jimmy said. "No one bothers you."
"That's important," Val said, "no one bothering you in this life. No one fucking with you or your loved ones or your friends. Right, Dave?"
Dave said, "Absolutely."
"This guy's a hoot," Val said. "He can get you going."
Jimmy said, "Yeah?"
"Oh, yeah," Val said, and squeezed Dave's shoulder. "M' man, Dave."