Part 20 (1/2)

I moved away fromlike a drea In thewell in one way or another, so noanted to pound on so to oing well in one way or another, so noanted to pound on so toHeadlights swept across it in a flash, and it was like getting punched in the head The light that shot into your brain, how it made you want to do the sa halfway house in the lot behind the Haverhill police station and town hall, and I worked the overnight shi+ft there two or three ti houses, and sometimes Sam Dolan's father, still the health inspector, would payperk holes for hih to payI wrote

Most of the residents of Phoenix East were recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, and hteen and twenty-five They were the kids of broken fale h Some of the residents drank too arette after another Others were heavy or obese and s, working a day job in a fast food restaurant or for a cleaning co rides to and froned their checks over to their counselor who then deposited it into the account that went to their court-ordered restitution, the payback for their cri bad checks, and there were always people on the other end who'd beenwo panic attacks and would carry a folded paper bag in her back pocket in case she hyperventilated On the third floor, in a converted attic that smelled like horsehair plaster and old socks, lived three schizophrenics who rarely left the house They were older, in their thirties and forties, and one of thelasses Every few hours, the day counselors would cli stairs and hand each of thes they washed doith a Dixie cup of water or weak Kool-Aid There was a TV up there that never see the knee wall beneath the rafters were stacked dozens of paperbacks beside azines and newspapers and notebooks one of theht We called the afteron the steps of Phoenix East when I saw Crazy Jack walking across the lot fro the streets, walking up and down the sidewalks talking to hi brown hair and a beard and wore dark T-shi+rts and old jeans In the winter I'd sometimes see hied hunting jacket, the sleeves too long, and all four seasons he wore a navy wool cap on his head

One afternoon years before, I alking through the parking lot of DeMoulas grocery It was a weekend andinto the place or leaving it, pushi+ng their loaded carts ahead of the on it, and Crazy Jack stood in an e space, his dark eyes on me ”How's it feel to be a chickenshi+t chickenshi+t!? Huh?! How's it fuckin' feel feel?!”

I kept walking That was the only way to deal with Crazy Jack, to ignore hi

MY NIGHT shi+ft started at eleven when all the residents were in bed and it was lights-out The second-shi+ft counselor would briefI needed to know, if one of them had ”acted out” that day, or if there were any new issues in the air The counselors I relieved were college-educated, well- and shut the front door behind the it twice, I felt between two planes: theirs, which I shared, and the youngin the dark upstairs

Donny C enty-two, clean and sober, and living by court order in Phoenix East With his olive skin and thick black hair, he would've been handsoarette after cigarette and called people stinkburown up in South Boston and knew his father only from sporadic visits to the state prison in Walpole His mother didn't have a car so Donny didn't see much of him He said to a counselor once that it was his brother who raised hi brother Francis whom everybody called Frankie C

When Donny was little, Frankie C read hiht Walked hiht hiarette and drink a few beers, though that's where he drew the line Nothing harder was allowed No liquor No dope But then Frankie C got busted and sent to the same prison their old man had been paroled from

Donny C was thirteen and lived alone with his overnment checks and hardly ever left their apart in place Donny C fell in with the gangs, started dealing, starting drinking liquor and snorting lines He stopped going to school and was high all the time Someti up for days he'd crash on somebody's couch in the projects, or in a car or van parked on Mission Hill where he woke up worried about getting shot for being white His mother never called the cops because she knehat he was doing and couldn't bear hi taken away from her, too, but when he'd finally stumble into their apartment she'd yell at him, tell him hoorried she was and what if you die out there and nobody ever tells tells me?up his life, and that he better fly right soon because Frankie was up for parole Frankie would be co home, and Donny didn't want to let hiranted parole, he called home to tell his ized to Frankie for not being at the hearing, said she couldn't find a ride out there and her breathing hadn't been too good lately Donny got on the phone He told his counselor how Frankie's voice was ”like God” to him, the way He always knohat you're up to He said to Donny, ”I want to shoot hoops with you soon as I get ho up and kissed his mother and went out and partied one last time He found his boys and drank vodka shots and cold forties They smoked blunts and snorted lines and washed it doith more vodka and beer They did this in an e But that night, Donny told his counselor, he knehen to stop That night he was going ho to clean up From the inside out For Frankie C For their mother For himself hi on the sofa Her hands were over her face, and the phone receiver was still in her lap The TV was on Donny turned it off ”What, Ma? What? What Ma? What? What happened happened?”

And it was like your whole life laughing at you, Donny said ”Like I had no right to be happy for one one fuckin' night, just one fuckin' night, just one night night”

She told hi over the bookcase of her knickknacks, kicking the on them He kicked the TV, the stereo, ripped it off its stand and threw it across the room Her screams were in the air with his now and so was the recliner he heaved onto its side and began kicking till its legs broke off, and he picked one up and whipped it at the glasshis brother would never stand at ever again; he wouldn't sit here with hi a show; he wouldn't sleep in the back roo hoops with his little brother for God had been shanked, and now Donny'sher palainst her chest, and she was dead before Donny was even finished breaking all he needed to break She was gone and he'd done it to her, and ouldn't he live in the streets after that? Sleeping under bridges and in du in whatever could be dealt Getting drunk or high whenever he possibly could

The night I found Donny C, I was sitting in the front rooht was kept on twenty-four hours a day and it shone on donated furniture and a linoleum parquet floor that was dusty and needed to be swept and mopped I'd just made a round of the rooms upstairs and everyone was asleep, the boys and irls and woht counselor see off, and to keep theay A week earlier, one of theirl froay but after all that had happened to her, well, she was now

There were no shades or curtains over the s in the front room Across the empty asphalt lot was the back of the police station, a security laht a book withfor a place to sit when I heard out in the kitchen the tink of metal on metal I put down my book and coffee and listened There was the sound of a stifled giggle, like awith two hands pressed over his mouth So food froe or cabinet, maybe one of the three wise men, and that's what I expected to see when I stepped into the kitchen

Donny C stood shi+rtless in boxer shorts crying as quietly as he could, his eyes squeezed shut, a butcher knife pressed to his throat just beneath his Adam's Apple

”Donny?”

He shook his head, didn't look over at , lanced at ht that shone from under the stove's vent I could see where a tattoo had been burned off his shoulder His face was streaked with tears and he was shaking his head ”I've had it I've fuckin' had it”

”Come talk to me, Donny”

He shook his head, the blade still pressed to his throat ”No, I can't do nothin' nothe knife with you if you want” I backed into the front roo at me over his shoulder, his biceps tensed, ready to drive in the blade In Colorado, the kitchen and everything in it had been locked, and asn't this one? The phone was out in the hallway I was thinking 911 911 If he does it, I'll punch those numbers, then stuff a dish towel into the wound

But now Donny was sniffling and walking toward me, the knife at his side like a tool he carried with hie of the couch, didn't letaway fro to soot you all fucked up, Donny?”

He looked down atthe sternuut protruded over his boxers I could feel the blade there between us but tried not to look at it Donny sat slowly, carefully, like ainto a bath of hot water He rested the knife across his bare knee ”You just swore If I swear like that they write me up Two more a theonna write ht”

”I', Donny”

He looked down at the blade, the floor, the wall ”I can't breathe no more They don't let me do nothin' I kno to fuckin' do”

”Who?”

”The counselors counselors They don't like how I talk, they don't let otta use words without swearin' and without fuckin' yelling They tell ht anymore You knoould've happened to et pissed off, and if I do I gotta use words without swearin' and without fuckin' yelling They tell ht anyht fight? Take these things away and I should just be dead 'cause I'm not fuckin' me anymore” His voice broke and he shook his head like as rising up in hi at his face He wiped the back of his ar dully He looked over atat all

The day counselors were doing what they could; they were trying to turn a pit bull into a collie, and they were probably doing it for him No one in the safe, clean, and appropriate world wanted a pit bull around But what happens to the streets that made Donny Donny? The ones that are still inside hi body in boxer shorts he noanted to be free of?

”No disrespect to the”

He turned his face to me His back was slumped like an old man's, and I wondered if he looked like his dead ht I'ood either”

I didn't tell him any stories aboutthe trained people in this house, the good lady who hired es were coan to speak, Donny with a good job ood money, all dressed up and out on a date with a beautiful woht when a ive them shi+t and Donny takes care of business before the an to nod his head at this; I was talking about punching first and punching hard, no talk, no foreplay

”That's right That's fuckin' right right” He was tapping his foot, the flat of the blade bouncing on his knee I began to iine the wooden toolbox Jeb built once for his block planes and chisels, his handsaws and hammers I told Donny he had tools he should never lose: the street talk, not taking shi+t fro else that had to be done But noas time to learn how to use so he knew, just add add to what he knew to what he knew

”You're learning how to be around other kinds of people, Donny To be in other kinds of places But don't ever lose the old Donny He got you this far, didn't he? You can't leave him behind now”

Donny's eyes were onhis head Then he shook it once ”How come they never said that?”

”Different people carry different toolboxes, I guess”

He looked at hed ”Where'd you fuckin' come from?”