17

Scott Harrington

October 19. Edwin’s birthday. He should be turning thirty-five today. Nineteen years and still I hadn’t done anything that measured up to all Edwin could have been. All that Charles Harrington wanted in a son. My father had been determined that a son of his would attend his alma mater. That dream died with Edwin.

I perused the awards on my shelf, the plaque on my wall. Paltry accomplishments. Edwin was on target to be valedictorian, headed to Yale. I’d never have gotten in even before I turned my back on law school.

All of a sudden, even the coveted Pulitzer seemed insignificant. Perhaps my real accomplishments wouldn’t be quite so visible. Perhaps helping to stop a drug ring and getting a troubled kid off the streets would be enough. I didn’t need external approval from those around me. I only needed it from two people. One would never give it. The other one was dead.

I’d work for the Pulitzer. When the project ended, I might check into a foreign correspondent position. I’d been approached about that in the past but hesitated to abandon visions of a normal life with a wife, kids, and a minivan. That started to feel like a pipedream. I chuckled. What man has a pipedream that included a minivan? I guess it wrapped into a bundle I called normal.

Back to my to-do list: find Sam Pulkowski; get missing info on Pete, including birth name, wife, children; consider D.J.; try to get him talking; stop to see Caroline. No, scratch that last item. She didn’t fit into a bundle anywhere close to normal. Reporting in a foreign land would be more normal than Caroline McMann.

I donned my scrubby clothes, retrieved my backpack, and hopped on a bus into town. I’d get to the parking lot shed early and have Pete and D.J. talking before alcohol stole Pete’s consciousness.

~*~

Once again, the lot attendant paid no attention as I went in. This time, I beat D.J. and Pete. Turning on my flashlight, I studied the dilapidated shed.

Everything lay stacked on top of other things with no semblance of order. An old file cabinet and desk served as the foundation, topped with orange traffic cones, metal chairs, and cardboard boxes wrinkled from the dampness. Bags of road salt appeared to be the only things that didn’t belong in a dumpster. I now expected the scurrying of little feet near the back of the shed.

I retrieved my silenced phone from the zippered compartment of my backpack and snapped pictures, making sure I included Pete’s sleeping mat and D.J.’s cardboard. I had my phone hidden before I heard them arrive.

“Well, lookie here. We got us an early visitor. Ain’t seen you for a few days.”

“Hey, Pete. Yeah, I moved around a little bit. How you doing, D.J.?”

“Me and D.J., we’ve been doin’ the same. Ain’t we Deej?” Pete answered for him.

D.J. nodded without speaking. So much for getting him talking.

Pete eased himself down to his mat, holding tight to the bottle gripped in his hand. D.J. watched Pete, waiting for him to be down and settled before he moved to spread out his own things.

Pete sat on his mat with his back leaning against an oversized box, took a long drink, and let out a contented sigh.

“So, Pete, you said you grew up in Johnstown, PA. How’d you end up in Pittsburgh?”

“The Burgh,” he said it with fondness. “Moved here before the war. That’s where all the jobs was.”

With a deep swig from his bottle, he held it out to share with me. I waved it away, and asked, “What job brought you here?”

A little chortle. “Well, truth be told, it was prob’ly more a lady than a job. But in them days, you needed a job to make the lady pay you any mind.”

Keep him talking. “Yeah, I think most ladies like to see a paycheck these days, too. Who was the lady?”

His eyes sparkled with the memory. “Miss Jewel. Miss Jewel Weston,” he whispered it like a prayer, shifted his eyes to the bottle, and took a long, slow drink.

D.J. glared at me.

“Did you get the girl? Marry her?” Jewel Weston. There had to be some info on her out there.

“Yep. We done got married a’for I headed out to Nam.”

“What’s your game here?” D.J. stepped into the conversation. I’d wanted to get him talking, and now he was. He sat straight up, his eyes drilling me.

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I asked. What’s your game? What’re you doing here probing and questioning? You a cop? A reporter?”

“Hey, I’m here passing the time. I enjoy hearing about people.” I turned his question back to him. “What’s your game, D.J.? You’re not the same as them. You always live here in the ‘burgh?”

“Pass the time on someone else, and leave Pete be. He’s more fragile than you think.”

I glanced at Pete to see his reaction, but he had disappeared into the bottle.

I sat quiet for a moment. “Thanks for watching out for him. You’re a good friend.”

“Just leave him be.” With that, D.J. aimed his flashlight at his Bible and read.

Pete finished the bottle and soon passed out. Then I lay down, remembering Edwin when we were still young and best friends. Friends take care of each other. Only, I didn’t take care of him.

Sometime later, when I began to drift off, strange, raspy breaths brought me back again.

D.J. jumped up and began shaking Pete. “Pete! You OK? Sit up.”

He propped him into a sitting position, but Pete fought for air. He wheezed as he attempted to fill his lungs, eyes growing wide with panic.

He turned toward me. “Get the attendant. Have somebody call 9-1-1.”

I stood up to yell for someone outside, but the lot had emptied, no sign of anyone in the darkness of night.

I did the quickest thing I could—grabbed my silenced cell phone from the bottom of my backpack, dialed 9-1-1, and gave them our location. Even in his state of anxiety, D.J. shot me a knowing look.

Emergency services are efficient in the city, and an ambulance blared its way into the parking lot in minutes. We waited with the door opened. Pete’s pasty, gray pallor made his expressionless eyes appear huge. The paramedics started oxygen and loaded him into the ambulance. D.J. climbed in with him.

“Which hospital? I’ll meet you there.”

“Allegheny General.” And they sped off, leaving me alone in the parking lot. I didn’t look forward to the walk across town and over the bridge in the middle of the night, but buses wouldn’t be running. I took a last gaze around to make sure no live ashes from Pete’s last cigarette remained. I spotted D.J.’s discarded Bible and his backpack. I would take them to him, along with Pete’s grocery bag and panhandling signs.

As I opened the backpack to drop the Bible inside, I saw a wallet. Why does a poor man who won’t panhandle need a wallet? I couldn’t resist looking inside. It was empty of any money, not a dollar, not a coin. But it held a driver’s license with the name Andrew Bassett.

His photo ID showed a cleaned up and younger version of the man, the date two years earlier. That would make him thirty-nine, about six years older than me.

A business card behind the driver’s license said Chaulders and Associates, Andrew Bassett, Senior Accounting Manager. Accounting?

“I play the numbers,” he told me. Is this what he meant? Or did he gamble? Embezzle? What would bring him down this low?

As I returned the wallet to the backpack, I spotted an envelope. It wasn’t sealed, and the flap showed the wear and tear of frequent use. There were pictures inside. A newborn baby with a blue blanket and knitted hat. A little girl with a mass of spiral curls and an impish smile. A professional photo of him, a lady, and the little girl. It would take something significant to make him leave this family. Or had they left him? I remembered his fixation on the little girl that passed on the city street. She also had curls. Had he been thinking of his daughter?

I took out my notebook and wrote as much as I could. I slid each picture from the envelope and read the back. The names Andrew, Claire, and Isabella were etched on the reverse of the family picture. Someone had printed Isabella Bassett on the girl’s picture and Drew James Bassett on the baby. Andrew—D.J.—Drew James.

This was my third bio. I would write the story about Andrew Bassett—D.J. But first, I’d make my way to the hospital to check on Pete.

~*~

I trekked across the Rachel Carson Bridge toward Allegheny General Hospital. Still shivering from my night walk, I passed through hospital security to enter the emergency room. D.J. sat hunched-over in the waiting area, head down and hands folded. Unsure if he was praying or deep in thought, I waited a few moments before placing my hand on his shoulder. He startled, his head jolting up.

“How’s he doing? Any word?”

He shook his head. “No. Nothing much. They told me they stabilized him, but he needs some tests.”

“Pete’ll hate that.”

D.J. offered a slight grin. “He sure will. And all without his bottle.” He ran his hands through his hair before speaking again. “I think he has emphysema, or lung cancer, or something like that. It’s getting worse.”

“Is there anyone we can call? Any family?”

D.J. was quiet for a moment, probably deciding how much to tell. “There’s a daughter. Mary Anne. I don’t know her married name. Maiden name is Simmons. Last Pete knew, she lived in Monroeville.”

I sat across from him. “Does he ever see her? Talk with her? Does she know about him?”

D.J. shook his head. “He doesn’t want her to know how he’s living. He’s convinced she wouldn’t forgive him for the years of alcohol. Her mother died while he binged. Department of Social Services put her in the foster system when she was fifteen. He tried to clean up so he could get her, but he couldn’t do it.”

I had learned more about Pete in these last two minutes than in all the time I spent fishing for information.

“So what are you going to do now? Oh, by the way, here’s your pack. Do you want to keep Pete’s with you?”

For all of D.J.’s mistrust of me, he didn’t question whether I looked at anything inside.

“I’ll take the backpacks. I’ll hang out here ’til morning and see what I can find out.”

I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “What can I do?”

He assessed me for a long minute. “What exactly do you do?”

I almost told him, but we were both too weary.

“That’s a story for another day. Know this—I won’t do anything to hurt him. Or you either. Buses should start running in about a half an hour. I’ll head on out of here and be back tomorrow to see what the doctors say. Can I bring anything for you?”

“You can bring some answers.”

I reached in my wallet and pulled out a twenty.

“I don’t need that.”

“There’s no free breakfast here. Please take it.”

D.J. rubbed the weariness from his eyes, his shoulders slumped. I laid the money on the backpack that had been placed in the chair beside his.

“Tomorrow, come with some answers.”