Part 13 (1/2)

I called MacKay early the next morning, amazed at how quickly they'd s.h.i.+pped him out of the hospital. It showed you how little our insurance covered.

”They got you off the oxygen yet?”

”Doesn't matter,” he answered. He sounded p.i.s.sed off, a feistiness that was rea.s.suring. ”I'm moving to Arizona. You can wheel your oxygen tanks right onto the f.u.c.king plane. I hear they sell extra canisters at the airport in Phoenix. Think of me getting a tan while I soak Medicaid f.u.c.king dry.”

”Can I see you?” I asked. He hesitated. As the silence went on, I figured he was closed for business. No more good times with his favorite subst.i.tute daughter.

When he told me yes, I thanked him in relief and said goodbye. Then I had to call him back and ask where he lived. He called me a sweet little idiot.

I drove to the east side of town. Once Irish, now heavy on Somali and Hmong. The clapboard house reminded me of the one my parents raised me in. I knew there were cubbyholes under the stairs where bowling b.a.l.l.s and vacuum cleaners were stored and where kids could hide. I knew there was a dirt-floor bas.e.m.e.nt loaded with old furniture and rolls of moldy carpet that couldn't be parted with. MacKay and his wife lived like typical working-cla.s.s families with exactly no residual income. It made me ashamed of all my various suspicions over the years.

Shuffling in slippers like a grandfather, he showed me in. The living room had a matching plaid couch and recliner, and a rickety coffee table in between. Ray haunched down slowly into the recliner, so I took the couch. His color was bad, his hands prominently veined. Mrs. MacKay was out, and I wondered if he'd arranged it so. The TV was on, volume muted. I was surprised to see a church service on the screen. It wasn't even Sunday.

Ray killed the TV by pressing his big thumb on the power b.u.t.ton.

”In the kitchen, in the cupboard over the stove, there's a bottle of Kentucky. Get us a couple gla.s.ses.”

”Jesus, Ray,” I protested.

”p.i.s.s on it,” he said. ”I gave up cigarettes. If you won't get it for me, I'll get it myself.”

He started to haul himself forward, so of course I summoned the dependable enabler of my childhood and walked into the kitchen on orders.

The tile floor was torn neat the fridge. A collection of miniature porcelain cats lined the windowsill over the sink. A pair of binoculars hung from a tea towel k.n.o.b next to a calendar of different birds. I found the bourbon and the gla.s.ses and poured. I did not dare to water it down.

”Do you miss it?” I asked when I sat across from him again. I felt guilty showing up in uniform.

A grin, a shake of the head, a whoosh of breath. ”Yes. I miss the G.o.dd.a.m.n place. I should have been a tour guide. All day yesterday I sat here looking at a photo alb.u.m. How are things in there?”

I did not know how to answer him. ”Kind of f.u.c.king weird, Ray, actually,” I said. ”I'm not sure what's what anymore.”

His eyes squinted. ”Like what? You in trouble?”

And with the question, a barrier fell and I could not help but think of my father. Sitting before MacKay, the room devoid of life like an airless museum, I wondered why it had been so hard for my father and me to connect. I remembered the year my mother left him-left us, I suppose, to live with her sister-and how little we had to say to each other while she was gone. Had it been depression that kept him from really connecting with me, even when it was just the two of us together? That possibility seemed obvious suddenly, and something else became clear: the urgency I felt inside to remain busy at all times, under pressure, involved, vigorous, p.i.s.sed off, resistant, and ambitious in futile and self-defeating ways-and the vacuum in my life when I had none of that-was a kind of shadow illness. Was depression my problem, too, dealt with in different ways?

”Maybe I'm about to get in trouble,” I acknowledged. I was more nervous than I wanted to admit.

”What kind of s.h.i.+t are they throwing at you?” he asked.

The fatherly concern I never got.

”I have a sentencing hearing this afternoon,” I said. ”They're saying I whacked Shawn Hadley a little too hard.”

MacKay shook his head. ”Sorry about that. Ask him if he wants his b.a.l.l.s back.”

”It's not really that,” I said. ”I'm trying to find something else out.”

”Like what?” And when I hesitated, he said, ”Jesus, Kali, you interrupt my busy f.u.c.king morning and can't spit it out? What's on your mind?” I took his impatience as a good sign.

”I want you to tell me what you know about the Ditmarsh Social Club.”

He didn't look at me, but there was a thin smile on his face, and he sat back in the recliner and stared at the dead TV screen for a full minute.

”I'm not even going to ask you why you're asking,” he finally said.

”Okay,” I said, and didn't move.

”I'm wondering if there's a way we can not have this conversation.”

”That's up to you,” I said. ”But I'd like to know what you know.”

”You think it will help you somehow? You think it will alleviate whatever s.h.i.+t storm you're facing?”

”I do,” I said, though I didn't believe it. I believed I was walking into the s.h.i.+t storm face-first.

”You're a big girl. You can make your own choices.”

I waited. He shrugged, started rolling the bottom edge of his gla.s.s on the armrest fabric.

”The Ditmarsh Social Club was a choir,” he said. ”About a hundred years ago. Turn of the century.”

”A choir?” It was the last thing in the world I expected.

”Like one of those barbershop quartets. You know. A bunch of well-groomed men singing in harmony, deep voices and high voices all mixed together. They showed up at the state fair. They did some ball games. Sang at the Governor's Mansion, that kind of thing. Swell bunch of choirboys.”

”COs?” I asked. ”Men who worked at Ditmarsh, not inmates?”

He glared at me. ”Of course they weren't f.u.c.king inmates. Yes. Hacks. Turnkeys. Us. The choir was a noted feature of Ditmarsh Penitentiary until World War One. Then I guess people stopped enjoying that kind of singing. Probably because of the f.u.c.king radio.”

He stopped talking. I realized he was trying to catch up on his breathing, get it steady. Too many words coming out in a single flow. I felt like s.h.i.+t for pus.h.i.+ng him.

”So then it went away?”

”Went away. No more social club until the 1950s, except when it came back. When it got revived, let's say, it was different. Kind of an inner circle. A club for the COs who were trusted, who were on the inside of things. There was the Ditmarsh Social Club, and there was everyone else, all the working stiffs.”

”How come I never heard of it?”

”Because it went away again. For good reason.”

”What reason?”

”I started working at Ditmarsh in 1977. Never knew anything about the social club until the early eighties. I got pledged, you could say, in 1985. Seemed like a good thing to me. You got extra duty. You got your back covered if you f.u.c.ked up. Kind of what the union was supposed to do but never actually f.u.c.king did. Then I saw it wasn't all gravy.”