Chapter 14
Chapter fourteen
Sully
Achipped plate had been living in the back of my cabinet for at least six months, and I still hadn't decided what to do with it.
I was moving things without a reason. I pulled plates forward and turned mugs sideways. I stood the chipped plate against the back, separating it from the others. It was something to do with my hands on the first Thursday after the anniversary.
My phone buzzed on the counter. It was Cath Baker, Bryan's mom.
"Hi, Sully."
Her voice was careful but warm. She always sounded like she was making room for you. I'd eaten cereal at her kitchen table for half my childhood, and she welcomed me every time without using the specific words.
"Hey," I said. "Hi."
We got through the first part of the conversation cleanly. The Midwest was treating me well. She'd streamed the movie Chicago a few days back and thought about me.
Then she got to the point. "I've been going through his things."
The cabinet door was still open. I placed my hand on the counter.
"Okay," I said. "Yeah."
"It's taken me longer than I expected. The counselor says that's how it goes."
"Sounds like they're smart. It makes sense."
"There was a box in the closet." Her voice was even. "It was records. I think some of them might be yours."
"Yeah," I said. "He borrowed them when I left for school. Said he'd hold them, and I—"
I choked on the words. I'd meant to get the records back for years. Every time I forgot to ask when I was in town, I knew I could get them next year.
"Do you want them?"
I spoke before thinking through the answer. "Yeah. I mean—if that's alright."
"Of course it is. They're yours."
She suggested mailing them, or she thought maybe she'd be through Chicago at some point. She said there was always the option of me stopping by her house the next time I was in Boston.
We said goodbye with warm words delivered in a formal tone. It was like shaking hands when you were unsure whether it should be a hug.
The call ended.
I closed the cabinet and stood there for a moment. I knew what was there that was mine, and I knew the records that were Bryan's. One in particular belonged to both of us—the one signed by Stevie.
***
Carver's blasted me in the face when I arrived.
It was Thursday loud. Tomasz said that Thursday was the new Friday, ever since the pandemic. A table near the back was already past the point of no return.
I tied my apron.
Two beers were ordered at the rail. Then, a gin fizz I built before the order finished printing.
Nora appeared at the service end, already reaching. "Table eleven wants the entire cocktail menu explained."
"Which part?"
"All of it. In depth."
"Tell them the bartender recommends trusting the process."
She took the bottle she had come for. "That's not an answer."
"It's a philosophy."
She was gone.
I moved down the rail. A guy in a fleece vest flagged me with a twenty. He only wanted a beer. Some days we got lucky.
The man three seats down had been watching the hockey highlights on the TV for ten minutes. He focused intently.
"You a hockey guy?" I asked, setting a fresh glass in front of him without being asked.
He looked at it. "My wife says I watch too much."
"What's too much?"
"Every game."
"Every game of what?"
He thought about it. "Every game of everything."
I pulled the tap. "That's not too much. That's commitment. Your wife is confusing a character trait with a problem."
He laughed. It was a big, open sound. "I'm putting that on a t-shirt."
"Royalties," I said, and moved on.
Around ten, a guy at the far end of the rail set his glass down too deliberately. He'd finished his third bourbon, and I'd watched him all evening. He'd gradually migrated six inches closer to the center of the bar.
"Another?" he asked.
"Tell me something," I said. "Are you driving?"
"No."
"Okay. Good." I picked up his glass. "Here's my concern. You've had three excellent bourbons. I'm proud of them. The fourth one—and I say this with genuine affection—is going to be the one you remember as the reason the night went sideways. It always is."
He blinked. "That's a lot of analysis for a bartender."
"It's a service." I set the glass down. "I can pour you the fourth. You're a grown man. Still, I recommend against it the way a mechanic recommends against ignoring the check engine light. Technically optional, but you usually regret it."
There was a long pause as he worked through what I had said.
"What do you recommend instead?"
"Water. Fifteen minutes. Then we reassess."
He looked at me for a second. "You're genuinely trying to talk me out of spending money."
"I'm trying to talk you into going home feeling good about your evening." I set a glass of water in front of him. "Your call."
He took the water, and I moved on.
Nora caught me around ten-thirty. She had her coffee in hand.
I waited for a comment. "Lost it," she said.
That was a hazard of the job. Too many brain cells firing at once, confusing the circuits.
By closing time, the room had thinned to the holdouts. It was three regulars at the rail and a couple in a corner they'd owned all night. The TV was muted above the bar, with Ironhawks highlights cycling through on a loop.
Nora was at the service end in her coat, with her bag on her shoulder. She watched me finish the wipe-down.
"Good shift," she said.
"For a Thursday."
"No." She pulled her coat closed. "You know what I mean."
I looked at her.
"You were running about two inches ahead of yourself all night," she said. "That means you were in excellent form. It also means something happened today before you got here."
I draped my rag over a tap handle.
"You can say no," she said. "I'm just telling you I see it."
"Records of mine are getting mailed from Boston," I said. "Old friend's mom called."
Nora's voice softened. "The friend you lost?"
"Yeah."
She nodded. "You know where I am."
"I know."
"Goodnight, Sullivan."
"Night."
She pushed through the service door.
I finished the trays. They were pristine. I untied my apron and went out into the cold, walking home.
Half a block up, a crowd spilled out of a club, with lots of laughter. Every single one was wearing black, some with painted faces. I thought about going out dancing with Bryan and wondered if any in the crowd had just seen each other for the last time.
There’s always a next time until there isn’t.
I kept walking.
A bus hissed to a stop at the corner, doors opening to nobody. The driver looked straight ahead as if he were already somewhere else. The doors closed, and the bus moved on.
When I entered my building, the lobby was bathed in low light.
Martin was at the desk, tie loosened just enough to say his night was almost over but not quite.
He looked up. “Evening, Sully.”
“Morning,” I said, glancing at the clock behind him. “We’ve crossed a line somewhere.”
He smiled. “That we have.”
I stepped up to the desk for a second instead of heading straight through.
“You staying out of trouble tonight?” Martin asked.
“I tried to talk a man out of his fourth bourbon,” I said. “That’s the level I’m operating at.”
“Did he listen?”
“He did. I consider that a victory.”
Martin nodded. “Small wins.”
The elevator arrived, and the doors waited. I took the stairs.
It was three flights up to the fourth floor. The building got quieter the higher I went. The sounds from outside faded and left just the echo of my steps in the stairwell.
I had my key in my hand when I reached my door. Cath’s voice slipped into the back of my head, clean and careful.
He had a box in the closet.
I could see it. It was more of a crate. Bryan was good at holding onto things.
I looked at my door and then looked at Pratt's. The faint sounds of a TV drifted out from inside.
The choice wasn't difficult. My place was quiet. Pratt's had the lamp in the corner and someone who would sit close and listen to me talk.
I knocked. Two raps, a pause, and then a third. I invented a new pattern on the spot.
He was still fully dressed, and he'd put his coat away, but he wasn't ready for bed. He made one complete pass with his eyes—face, shoulders, fidgety hands.
"Everything okay?"
I leaned against the door frame, trying on casual. "Yeah," I said. "Just got home."
He waited.
"Didn't feel like going in yet."
He stepped back from the door. I followed him inside.
The lamp was on.
It always was now. He'd stopped turning it off, or he'd started leaving it on. It could be either—glass half full or half empty.
I dropped onto his couch. He sat at the other end and turned the TV off.
"How was the shift?" he asked.
"Good. Busy." I picked at a loose thread on the cushion. "Talked a guy out of his fourth bourbon. He thanked me for it, which—that's the whole evening distilled."
He waited for me to continue.
"Nora's cocktail is up to four a night," I said.
"She's insufferable about it. Rightfully.
" I shifted on the cushion. "There's a regular who's been working through the menu alphabetically.
He's on G now. Gimlet. It's not his drink, I can tell, but he ordered it anyway because it was next. I respect the commitment."
Pratt said nothing. He watched.
"The bus driver came in again," I said. "The one who always sits in the corner and stays too long. He asked me once why I thought people became regulars, and I said because the bar remembers them even when nobody else does.
"Sounds like a good night," Pratt said.
"Not bad. I've got some records coming. They'll be in the mail. Old ones, not ones I bought. They were in someone else's place for a while, and now they're coming back."
"What records?"
"Springsteen mostly. Some other stuff." I looked at the lamp. "Nebraska. The River. The kind of thing you listen to at a certain time of night."
"Two in the morning."
"Yeah."
A beat of quiet.
"They were being held for me," I said.
I heard the past tense. Pratt heard it too.
I didn't explain it.
"Anyway," I said.
Neither of us picked up the slack
After a moment, Pratt got up and went to the kitchen. I heard water running. He came back with two glasses and set one in front of me.
I picked it up and drank half of it.
"Did you eat dinner?"
I hadn't. Food hadn't been on my mind earlier.
"No."
He stood. "Come on."
We went out.
He didn't have us go far. It was a place on Randolph that I'd walked past a hundred times without going in. It was a diner that stayed open twenty-four hours.
We got a booth near the back. Menus came, and we ordered fast.
Before the food arrived, I started talking the way I always did when a room got too quiet.
"Boston drivers," I said, "operate on a principle that I have never seen articulated but that everyone there understands.
The road is not a shared resource. It's a series of individual negotiations, and each one has a winner.
The lights are suggestions, and the lanes are too.
The concept of a turn signal is—" I picked up my fork. "Not realistic."
"You miss it," Pratt said.
"The driving?"
"Boston."
I looked at my plate. "Parts of it."
He didn't push.
"The water," I said. "You can't replicate that. Chicago's got the lake, but it's not the same thing. Boston has the ocean, and then inside that a harbor with all that history. Somewhere deep down, those boxes of tea are probably still there."
I turned my fork upside down. "In summers, it's great. The city gets hot, but that ocean breeze is always there at the shore."
The restaurant was mostly empty by the time we were finishing our food.
"We used to spend a lot of time on the water," I said. "Group of us. There was this dock that technically belonged to someone's uncle, which meant it belonged to all of us by—"
I stopped. I didn't want to finish the thought.
I reached for my water glass and took a drink.
"What about you? Do you miss Minnesota?"
Pratt looked at me for a beat. "Have you seen Fargo?"
He delivered the line in such a perfect deadpan I laughed. "Yeah, okay. That's fair."
"I don't miss it being colder," he said.
"Good to know."
I went back to my food. Pratt picked up the slack.
"Guy got traded from St. Louis when we were there," Pratt said. "They said he thought he was settled. He bought a house there. It didn't matter."
I looked up.
His expression was the same as it always was—level, giving nothing away.
"Guess the league's brutal like that," I said.
"Mm."
He picked his fork back up.
I kept eating.
Our server reappeared and refilled my water without asking. Outside, a cab went by.
When we finished, Pratt and I each slapped twenties on the table. We walked back.
When we got back to our doors, it was time to wind everything down. "Thanks for the company," I said.
Pratt looked at me. I had my keys in my hand.
"Sully, the records," he said. "When they come."
I fidgeted.
"When they get here, you don't have to do anything with them."
"Okay," I said.
He reached out for me and pulled me into a hug. We kissed.
"Goodnight, Pratt."
"Goodnight."
He let go and turned toward his door. I watched him go inside.