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Poor Box

William Boyle

The poor box was pretty well-secured to the floor and it took a good push to get it loose. Everyone turned around in their pews to look at me. Monsignor Ciardi was receiving the gifts from two balding fat women. Even he stopped what he was doing and shot me a dirty look. I was pretty sure he’d throw something. I half-expected the bread, wine and candles to come flying at my head.

The usher, an old man in a purple jacket, put his hand on my shoulder.

“I dropped my keys in there,” I said, and I reached into the box. I had no idea that there were metal teeth in a poor box, and I got scraped up pretty good.

Purple Jacket didn’t buy my story of course, and he was a lot more powerful than he looked. He grabbed me from behind and dragged me out the front doors, dropping me in the street. I dusted my jacket and pants off, and I walked away from the place, figuring that my take from the poor box wouldn’t have been so hot anyway.

I walked over to Maloney’s on West Twelfth Street, figuring I’d try to talk some twist into buying me a beer. I had fantasies about finding dames like Faye Dunaway in Barfly at places like Maloney’s. It wasn’t goddamn bloody likely. But I always kept my fingers crossed.

On the walk over I tried not to think about what I’d done in St. Mary’s. It was a rotten thing to do, and my mother would have cried in her black coffee if she’d seen it. Not the way I raised you, Angelo, she’d say. Shit, Ma, I’d say, give me a goddamn break. Anyhow, she’d hear about it from Ciardi. They were tight. She’d go in for confession or something, and Ciardi would chew her ear off about what a drunken bum I was. I was forty and she was seventy and she was still getting reports from priests about me.

I got to Maloney’s, and it was empty. Tommy the Shit was bartending. “What can I get you, Ang?” Tommy asked, as I took my stool.

“Nothing, Tom. I’m broke. Just gonna wait here until some fancy dame walks in, buys me a beer.”

Tommy shook his head, said nothing.

Next thing I knew a guy walked in, a tall dude with dark hair and sunglasses. He didn’t look like the type came from Gravesend. He looked more like Park Slope or Williamsburgh. Kind of like a hipster with grease in his hair, blue jeans that looked like he bought them worn out, and a tight blue T-shirt that said “Mordecai Mouse.” He had lips like a woman. He sat down at the bar and ordered a pint of Iron City. Iron City was on special, and I’d put back a ton of it in the past few weeks. Drank all my mother’s social security money away. Tommy served the guy, and I watched as he took out his wallet and put a five on the bar. Tommy collected it and brought the guy his change. The guy lifted the beer and took a long slug, and then he turned to me and said, “Something I can help you with?”

“No,” I said. “Just admiring your beer.”

“You hitting me up for a beer, man?”

Showing him my empty pockets, I said, “I’m busted. Payday’s tomorrow. How about it? A little charity.”

The guy nodded at Tommy, and Tommy pulled me a pint of Iron City. He put it on a coaster in front of me, and it looked like the best goddamn beer in history. The pint glowed, and I wrapped my hands around it just to feel how cold it was. I should’ve taken it slow, sipped at it and savored it, but instead I gunned it and let a loud belch rip when I was done.

“Nice, Ang,” Tommy said.

“Thanks,” I said to the guy, ignoring Tommy. “My name’s Angelo.” I held out my hand.

“Kevin,” he said, and he shook. He had a real sissy handshake and for a second I thought about taking him out in the alley behind Maloney’s and rolling him, snagging that wallet out of his tight fifty-dollar jeans.

“Thanks again for the beer, Kevin,” I said.

“No problem.”

We sat there for a while. Kevin got up and put a song on the jukebox. It was Merle Haggard’s “Carolyn.” I thought that it was a strange pick for a little hipster shithead. “Good choice, Kevin,” I said, trying to draw something out of him.

“Yeah,” he said.

The door swung open and three guys walked in. They were greasy gangster-types. They all wore matching maroon sweat-suits and gold crosses on heavy gold chains. The biggest guy had a face that had been hammered flat as elephant shit. He was the one who spoke first. “Kevin,” he said. “Kevin, Kevin, Kevin.”

Kevin looked down into his beer.

“You just walk away from us?”

Kevin took a sip of beer.

The guys approached Kevin. They looked over at me like I was a big pile of nothing. I noticed that they all had their names sewn onto the right breast pockets of their sweat-suit jackets in white curlicue script. The one who had spoken to Kevin was called Vito. The other two were called Giovanni and Antonio. Vito was the ringleader. The other two just sat there and looked tough. They had toothpicks in their mouths.

Tommy the Shit came over and asked, “Can I get you fellas something?”

Vito took the stool next to Kevin and put his arm around his shoulder. “What’s our boy here drinking?” he asked.

“Iron City. The special.”

“Make it four Iron Cities.”

I said, “How about five, Vito?”

Vito looked at me like I’d just fingered his cat’s asshole. “And who are you?” he asked.

“Angelo,” I said. I figured he’d buy it. That he would guess he knew me and just buy the extra beer for the hell of it.

“I know you?”

“Yeah. Big time.”

“Big time, huh? Where from?”

I had to come up with something. “School. Grade school. Way back.”

“St. Mary’s?”

“Yeah. Big time.” I had gone to St. Mary’s elementary school, but there was no way I had been there the same time as Vito. He had to be about ten years younger than me.

“You look old,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said.

He turned to Tommy the Shit. “All right, get this bum a beer too,” he said.

Tommy pulled five beers and set one in front of me and the others in front of Kevin and Vito and his two henchmen. I gunned mine like a champ.

Vito looked at me again. “Disgusting,” he said.

“Thanks, Vito,” I said. “Old time’s sake. All that.”

He ignored me and turned back to Kevin. “So, Kevin, why did you run?”

Kevin just sat there. He took a long slug of Iron City.

“Kid’s quiet,” I said.

“Sure is,” Vito said. “You got nothing to say, Kevin?”

Kevin’s lip was twitching a little.

“You’re after him, huh?” I asked. “Something he did–”

“Or didn’t do.”

“Whatever. It’s like that Hemingway story ‘The Killers.’ You ever read it?”

“You calling us killers?”

“No.”

“You think we’re killers?”

“No. Vito–”

“You’re a big reader, huh? I read, too. Last thing I read was the obituary page this morning. Read it every day.”

“I was just saying it’s like that story. Where they come into the diner for Ole Andreson. But it’s different because Ole’s not there. Kevin’s here. So I guess it’s not as good a story.”

“It’ll get more interesting, I think,” Vito said. “Won’t it, Kevin?” He messed up Kevin’s hair. He drew back and looked at Kevin’s T-shirt. “Mordecai Mouse? What’s that, a band? I meant to ask you.”

Kevin said nothing.

“They got any hits?”

Still nothing.

“Come on, Kevin. You wear the shirt, you gotta know the songs. They got any big hits?”

Finally, Kevin said, “No. Nothing you would know.”

“Nothing I would know, huh?”

“No. They’re on an indie label.”

“An indie label, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s fucking great.”

Kevin lifted his pint and emptied it. “Carolyn” had stopped playing a few minutes before. Kevin got up, went over to the jukebox, and punched in some numbers. A record dropped. It was Johnny and June Carter Cash doing “Far Side Banks of Jordan.” Another good choice by the kid. “One last song,” Kevin said.

“‘One last song,’” Vito said. “I like that.”

The song played and it was a real heartbreaker. I thought about my mother again. How she would feel when she found out about how I’d tried to tip over the poor box.

Vito, Antonio, and Giovanni drank their beers slowly. There was no way they were going to finish them. As the song played, they seemed to get uncomfortable. I could smell their cologne as they worked up good sweats in the stuffy bar.

The song ended. Kevin looked pretty composed.

Vito said, “Antonio, Giovanni, take Kevin out to the car.”

Antonio and Giovanni grabbed Kevin by the back of his neck and dragged him out the door.

Tommy the Shit pretended that he hadn’t seen anything.

I looked at the three half-full beers the mobsters had left on the bar. In my mind’s eye, I saw myself gunning them.  

Vito stood up. He walked over to me. “Big smart-ass,” he said. “Big smart guy.”

I smiled.

“I really know you, smart guy?”

“Maybe,” I said. “I went to St. Mary’s.”

“But you’re older, right?”

“Yeah. A few years.”

“A few years? How old are you?”

“Forty.”

“Jesus. Forty? You look a hundred.”

“I been told.”

“I’m twenty-nine. That’s eleven years difference.”

“Never was good at Math.”

“No, I bet. But you’re good at being a smart-ass. You’re real good at that. You’re real good at sticking your goddamn nose in where it don’t belong.”

“Been told that, too.”

Vito drew back. “You sure mouth off a lot for a goddamn bum.” He closed in, grabbed my shoulder, turned me away from the bar and slapped me. It was embarrassing. He didn’t even punch me. Just slapped me like I was a whore who had disappointed him.

I looked over to where Tommy had been sitting. He had disappeared back into the kitchen.

Vito said, “You like getting slapped like a bitch? Huh? You mouth off like one, you get slapped like one.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry. You’re a real goddamn prize. A real sissy bum. Don’t have enough booze in you to be brave, do you? Couple of more beers I bet you’d be swinging at me.”

“No.”

“What’s your name?”

“Angelo.”

“Angelo what?”

“Angelo Murphy.”

“Angelo Murphy? What the fuck kind of name is that?”

“Named after my grandfather on my mother’s side, but my father’s an Irishman.”

“Your mother’s a nice old little Italian lady, and your father’s a worthless drunken Irish prick, huh? I see where you get it from.”

“No need to say that.”

Vito laughed. “You’re a goddamn prize. A real goddamn prize. What’d you see in here tonight, Angelo Murphy?”

“Not a thing. All I see right now are three leftover beers need finishing.”

“That’s your Irish blood screaming. You’re in deep shit and all you can do is daydream about booze. You got a problem there, Angelo.”

“Yeah.”

“You want our goddamn beers?” He went over to the beers and spit into them. Then he pushed them in front of me. “Drink up.”

I didn’t have to think twice. I sucked them down. The Iron City still tasted good.

“You’re a sorry goddamn case, Angelo.”

“Yeah.”

“A little part of me feels bad for you. Something that got stuck in my gut in St. Mary’s. Whatever you call it. A little part of me really feels bad about what kind of bum you are. But you shouldn’t stick your goddamn bum nose where it doesn’t belong. That’s the goddamn mick in you. Makes you nosy. Now I got to take you out to the car.”

“No. I didn’t see anything.”

“You’re brave, too. Graceful. You’re gonna cry now, I bet. I seen it a million times. A million bums like you I’ve seen. Drink up to get brave in your blood. That’s all. Not enough booze and you turn fag. Whimper for your life.”

“No.”

“Come with me, Angelo. Don’t make me drag you out there.”                      

I got up. I felt unsteady.

“You got big guts now, huh?”

He led me by the arm outside. There was a white Nissan Altima waiting at the bus stop across the street. It was running. Kevin and Giovanni were in the backseat. Antonio was in the driver’s seat. Vito stuck me in the back and got in the passenger side. Giovanni was holding a gun on Kevin and now he showed it to me. “Don’t say nothing,” he said. Kevin had his eyes closed. He wouldn’t even look at me.    

“Smart guy doesn’t have such a big goddamn mouth now,” Vito said, and he laughed.

“No,” Antonio said. “He ain’t cracking jokes now, the piece of shit.”

“What about the bartender?” Giovanni asked. I could feel his hot breath in my face across the backseat. It stunk like garlic.

“He’s cool,” Vito said. “He’s on Joe Gaspipe’s payroll.”    

Tommy, I thought. You son of a bitch, Tommy.

“You don’t think he even gives a shit about his buddy here?” Giovanni asked.

“Nobody cares about this bum.”

Antonio and Giovanni laughed.

“Vito,” I said. “I won’t say anything.”

Vito said, “Oh, the smart guy speaks.” He turned around in his seat. “Giovanni, show the smart guy what happens when he shoots his trap off now.”

Giovanni reached across Kevin and hit me in the jaw with the butt-end of his gun.

“You see what happens,” Vito said. “The bum talks and the bum gets hit. Lesson in this: Shut up, bum.”

I nodded. Felt hot blood running out of my mouth.

Antonio pulled away from the curb.

Vito turned on the radio. He put on an awful station that played dance music. I wanted to say something about it, but I knew I’d get another crack in the face.

We drove in silence down Bay Parkway. Stopped at a light, Vito turned around and looked at me. He said nothing. Antonio made a left under the El on Eighty-sixth Street, and we drove on until we came to Stillwell Avenue. We passed the projects and drove into Coney Island. Across from the Villa Borghese was a salvage yard. A sign on the fence said “One Stop Sal age.” Antonio parked the car on the curb outside. Vito got out, closing the door behind him, and stood out under the sign. He put a key in the padlock on the fence, opened it, took off the lock, and swung the gates open. Antonio backed the car into the yard. Vito closed the gates behind him, fastening the lock.

I looked at Kevin. His eyes were still closed.

Vito came over to the car and rapped on the window. “Take em out, G,” he said.

Giovanni waved the gun at me and Kevin. “Get out,” he said.

Kevin didn’t move.

Giovanni nudged him. “Open your eyes, kid.”

Kevin finally opened his eyes.

I got out first. Vito grabbed me and led me over to where there were a few rundown cars parked side by side. Giovanni and Antonio, with Kevin in tow, were close behind. They pushed Kevin down to the ground. “Kneel in front of the Chrysler, Kevin,” Vito said.

It was hard to tell which of the cars was a Chrysler. Kevin just took a guess, and he kneeled in front of a gray car with a cracked windshield.

“And you kneel in front of the Chevy, bum,” Vito said to me.

I kneeled in front of a blue car with the front end smashed in.

“That look like a Chevy to you, smart guy?”

I looked at the car. It looked everything like a Chevy and nothing like a Chevy all at once. “No,” I said.

“Good answer.”

I moved over, on my knees, to the next car. It was red and the trunk was open and it had no hood.

“Better,” Vito said.

I was one car over from Kevin.

“Hey, bum,” Vito said. “I got something to show you, you’re such a smart guy. I’m gonna show you what happens to guys don’t come through. Guys that like money so they can buy two-hundred dollar pre-worn designer jeans, but they don’t like consequences. Guys that go pussy when it counts. Guys that betray you.”

I looked over at Kevin. Vito stepped up behind him, a gun in his hand. He pressed the gun against the back of Kevin’s head. Vito said, “Hope somebody’s waiting on the far side banks of Jordan for you, Kevin.” He pulled the trigger and the back of Kevin’s head disappeared in a spray of blood. I was hit with some of it, and I turned away. I collapsed to my hands and puked.

“Looks like the bum doesn’t like bloodshed,” Vito said.

“Looks like it,” Antonio said.

“That’s the Irish in him, too.”

Antonio and Giovanni laughed. “Yeah,” they said.

Vito said, “What have an Irishman and Jesus Christ got in common?”

“I don’t know,” Antonio said.

“I don’t know, V. What? ” Giovanni asked.

“They both lived at home with their mothers until they were thirty-three and neither had a job.”

Antonio and Giovanni let loose laughing. “Good one,” Antonio said.

“Except this bum’s forty. Still lives at home with his mother, I bet. Don’t you, Angelo?”

I nodded.

“What’s that? You nodding your head down there? Watch out you don’t get puke all over yourself. So, that’s true, Angelo? You live at home with your mother?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah. I do.”

“No job, right?”

“No.”

“You just drink. You take whatever money your mother gives you and you drink.”

“Yeah.”

“Probably don’t even do anything nice for her, do you?”

“No.”

“Probably don’t even go to church with her anymore.”

I said nothing.

“She probably wants you to go to church with her and you don’t go. Right? Come on, Angelo. It’s like confession. You confess your sins before you go face down the Man upstairs.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Looks like I hit a sore spot.”

“Looks like it,” Giovanni said.

“You go to church with your nice old mother or not?” Vito asked. He came up behind me and pointed the gun at me.

“No. Not usually,” I said.

“Didn’t think so.”

“But I go sometimes alone.”

“I don’t care.”

“Tonight I was there alone. I was at St. Mary’s.”

“I don’t care, Angelo.”

“I tried to steal money out of the poor box.”

Vito laughed. “You’re taking this confession thing seriously?”

“In the middle of Mass.”

“Jesus. You’re pathetic. Almost too pathetic to shoot.”

“I got thrown out of church.”

“He’s got a lot of sins to confess,” Giovanni said.

“No shit,” Vito said. “What else did you do?”

“Sometimes I steal my mother’s social security money.”

“She must notice that.”

“She does, but she doesn’t do anything.” I puked again.

“What else?”

“I pawned her engagement ring.”

“Probably wasn’t worth much, your father being a drunken paddy.”

“It was nice.”

“Anything else to confess, son?”

“So much.”

“I ain’t got all night. Say a million Our Fathers and a hundred million Hail Marys. Maybe God’ll forgive you since you’re such a sorry sack of shit.” Vito reached down and put the gun against the back of my head. It was still hot from when he blew Kevin’s brains out.

“Wait,” I said, squirming under the weight of the gun. “Don’t do it, Vito. Please.”

“Beg, bum. Beg.”

Giovanni said, “Come on, Vito. I got to make it home to give my father his medicine.”

“Patience,” Vito said.

“Wait,” I said again.

“Say your prayers, Angelo.”

I flailed, turned over on my back, and kicked Vito in the gut before he had a chance to fire. The gun jumped out of his hand. He fell backwards, and I got to my feet. Antonio and Giovanni, guns drawn, charged. I dove behind the Chevy. They both fired and missed, hitting the car. I looked behind me and saw high piles of junked car parts. Beyond that was another tall fence with barbed wire trim that separated the yard from Coney Island Creek.

I took off and got lost in the maze formed by the piles of rusty parts. I could hear Vito screaming off in the distance. He was telling Angelo and Giovanni to follow me.

After a while, I could hear them close behind me. All of them.

Vito said, “That goddamn bum. Kicks like a goddamn mule.”

“Don’t worry,” Antonio said. “We’ll find him. Where’s he gonna go?”

“Not the point. I got kicked by a bum. Made me drop my gun. He’s got to die.”

Giovanni said, “But, V, I got to get my father his medicine.”

“Shut the fuck up, would you?”

I finally made it out of the maze and got to the fence. The fence was high. There was the barbed wire at the top. I didn’t have time to think. I started to climb. I got to the top, and the barbed wire hooked into my arm and drew blood. I managed to get my jacket off and throw it over the snare of wire. Then I climbed over it and came down the other side of the fence. I was on the banks of Coney Island Creek now. I could hear Vito, Antonio, and Giovanni on the other side of the fence.

“Where is he?” Vito asked.

“He couldn’t have gotten far. He must still be in here. No way that bum climbed the fence.”

“Bums get superpowers when they’re running away, you never heard that?”

“That his jacket up there?” Giovanni asked.

“Yeah.”

“He got over,” Antonio said.

Without pause, they fired a few shots at the fence. I ducked and took off up the east bank of the creek. The creek made a sharp turn up ahead, and I left it behind, crawling up a hill and coming out through a dark thicket of bushes onto Stillwell Avenue. I knew Vito, Antonio, and Giovanni wouldn’t climb the fence and that they’d be getting into their car to look for me. I didn’t know what to do. I figured it would be easier to find me on Stillwell than on the side streets. I ran parallel to Stillwell on Benson Avenue. It was dark and quiet. At Twenty-fourth Avenue, I made a right and headed for the El.

The station was dead. The guy in the booth was sleeping. I hopped the turnstile. I went up to the platform, sat down on a bench, and waited for a train heading to Manhattan. I tried to catch my breath. Instead, I puked again. A Chinese lady across the tracks, waiting for a train to Coney, looked at me and made a twisted face.

The train came, and I got on. The car was empty.

I looked out the window as we passed over my neighborhood.

I could see the steeple of St. Mary’s. I thought that maybe everything that had happened to me had been a sort of punishment for trying to take money out of the poor box.

I could also see my house. My mother was there sleeping. I wondered if Vito, Antonio, and Giovanni would find out where I lived. All they had to do was go see Tommy the Shit. He’d tell them. Surely, they wouldn’t kill my mother. She’d probably invite them in for coffee and canolis, and they’d get along swell. Anyhow, I couldn’t go back to warn her. They’d kill me. When I got to the city, I figured I would call her.     

The train kept on. I fell asleep.

I woke up as we crossed the East River. I could feel something hardening up in my gut.

I got off the train at the Radio City station. I walked upstairs, and I was out on Sixth Avenue. The streets were alive. Not like my neighborhood. I didn’t know where I was going. I thought about going to Grand Central and catching a train to Poughkeepsie. I had a cousin who lived up there. He wouldn’t be happy to see me, but he would take me in for a few days. Let me crash on his couch. Buy me a few meals. But I didn’t have money for the train. I could board, no problem, but the conductor would come around to collect tickets or money and I’d have nothing for him. I’d get booted off the train in Harlem.

I wondered where else I could go. Then it hit me. St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

I crossed over to Madison and walked up to Fiftieth. The cathedral was there. It was glowing in the night. The big bronze doors were closed. I curled up on the steps and tried to sleep. It was cold without my jacket.

I didn’t sleep well. At about six a.m., I sat up. I wanted a cup of coffee.

People started to show up for the seven o’clock Mass at about six-thirty. The doors opened, and I went inside with them. It was warm inside the cathedral. I sat at a pew in the back. I looked at the baldachin over the main altar. It was really something.

I got up and went over to light a candle. There was a place where you were supposed to put the money after you lit the candle. It looked impossible to get into. It was a metal box with a slot.

There were other poor boxes, though. They were scattered throughout the place. I found one back by the door. I stuck my hand in. This one had teeth, too. Just like the one at St. Mary’s. Whoever was making these poor boxes was designing them so it was awfully hard for a poor guy to stick his hand in.

People looked at me. They thought I was joking. It probably looked like some kind of stunt: A tramp dips his hand into a poor box, gets stuck, and flails around. Charlie Chaplin stuff. Harold Lloyd stuff. It was probably very funny to look at.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around. It was a priest. He was dressed in black and wearing his collar. “Son,” he said, “you can’t get your hand in there. I don’t think it’s possible.”

“I’m sorry, Father,” I said.

“Are you stuck?”

“I think so, Father.”

He took me by the arm and pulled. I was free. He looked at the part of my arm that had been cut up by the barbed wire. It was dark and bloody.

“You should go to a hospital,” he said.

“No,” I said. “I’ll be okay.”

“Son, Mass is going to begin in twenty minutes. Will you stay? Afterwards, we can talk. I’ll buy you a coffee.”

“Thank you, Father.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“I think so, Father.”

“I’ll pray for you.”

“Thank you, Father. I’ve done a lot wrong. I have a lot to confess.”

“We’re all sinners.”

“Yeah, I know.”

He extended his hand. “I’m Father Timothy.”

“Angelo Murphy,” I said, and I shook on it.

“I’ll meet you on the front steps at eight-thirty, Angelo.” Father Timothy walked away. I sat down in a nearby pew.

The Mass was very nice. Father Timothy said it. He was wearing his big robes now. I remembered how, when I was a kid, I used to wish that you could know who was saying a Mass like you could know who was pitching a ballgame. That way, you could always catch the priest you wanted to hear. Father Timothy was good. He would have been my number one starter.

After Mass, at a little after eight-thirty, true to his word, Father Timothy met me on the front steps. He was wearing a Navy pea coat. I could still see his collar peeking out.

We walked over to a deli on Fifty-first Street. He bought us both coffees, and we sat down at a booth up front by the counter. Father Timothy took off his coat.

“You’re having problems, I take it?” Father Timothy said.

“Big time,” I said.

“What is it?”

“First, I need to call my mother. Make sure she’s okay.”

“Go ahead. I think there’s a payphone by the restroom.”

“Do you have fifty cents I can borrow?”

Father Timothy dug into his pockets and gave me a quarter, two dimes, and a nickel. I went over to the phone, which was nestled in a small nook at the back of the deli, and I dialed my mother’s number. There was no answer. I was very worried. She could be at Mass herself, but she usually went to the ten o’clock Mass in Italian. She had no answering machine. The phone just rang and rang. After a while, I hung up.

I went back to the table and gave Father Timothy back his fifty cents.

“Not there,” I said. “I’m very worried.”

“What’s happened?”

“I don’t know. I witnessed something last night, and some men are after me. I ran. Now I think they’re after my mother.”

“Have you called the police?”

“No. More than that, though, I’ve been a bad son. A bad guy all around. A bum. And I can’t stop being one. I tried to rob the poor box this morning, and I tried last night at my church in Brooklyn.”

“We have free will, son. You need to decide that you’re not going to do the wrong things. It’s very hard sometimes, but that’s what it is to be human. But these men–”

“Father, I was almost killed last night. I confessed my sins to the man who was going to kill me. Inside, I felt like I had changed. I haven’t changed.”

“Son, you’re going through some dark times. These men, though. I think you should think about these men who are after you. I think you should call the police.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Do you want me to call them for you?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Okay.” Father Timothy got up and went over to the payphone.

I reached across the table and grabbed his jacket. I went through the pockets. I found a pack of cigarettes and his wallet. I opened the wallet. There was forty bucks inside. I put the wallet and the cigarettes back in the pocket, and then I stood up. I slipped into the jacket. It was a perfect fit. I bolted from the place. I looked back only once, as I rounded the corner, and I saw Father Timothy start out the front door, looking to see where I had gone.

I went straight to Grand Central and bought a one-way ticket to Poughkeepsie.  My cousin wouldn’t be happy to see me, but he was too nice of a guy not to let me stay. I would call my mother again when I got there.

The train didn’t leave for a half-hour. I still had twenty-five bucks left over, and I bought a bottle of whiskey at a liquor store next door to Grand Central. I went back and waited for the train. The cars on Metro North trains all had names. I boarded one called the “Thomas Wolfe” and sat at a seat in the front of the car. The train left on schedule. The conductor took my ticket at the first stop. By then, I had opened the whiskey and taken a couple of slugs, and I felt pretty good.   

Copyright(c) 2006 by William Boyle

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