That night a loud boom jolted Nicky from a deep sleep. Nicky wondered if he had dreamed the noise or if the noise really happened. Either way, he was awake.
Nicky hated feeling alone in the dark. He tried to go back to sleep. He wondered if the boom was an atomic blast. It’s the kind of thought that makes perfect sense in the first hours past midnight. He was sure an atomic bomb would hit New York one of these days. Atomic bombs always hit New York or Washington in the movies, so it added up. Every day at noon, the air raid siren went off. They tested it seven days a week. It was a sickening sound. A howl of terror. Now in the dark Nicky wondered what would happen if the Russians happened to attack at noon. Every citizen would think it was just a test, and go on eating their Velveeta sandwiches as enemy bombers closed in. Nicky wondered if anybody besides him thought about this.
Only small sounds came from the courtyard. Cutlery hit a plate softly; someone home from the night shift, snacking. The fans were humming. A child coughed. Probably one of the hard-luck Sweeney boys.
From the kitchen came a raspy belch. One of Dad’s. His signature burp. What was Dad doing awake? Now what? A heart attack? A burglar? A fire? Atomic bombs tumbling toward Eggplant Alley?
There was no good reason for Dad to be awake at this hour. Nicky hit the floor with bare feet, gritty with Jones Beach sand, and hurried to the kitchen.
Dad jumped when he saw Nicky. Dad said, “What is it? What’s the matter?”
Nicky said, “Nothing. What is it? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. My stomach. I think there was something bad with Orzo’s lasagna. I wish I could burp. Go to bed.”
On the kitchen table were a glass of fizzy water, a pen, a pad of paper, and the monkey statue. It was a porcelain rendition of a leering chimp. The monkey wore a blue suit, a green shirt, a red tie, and a beret at a jaunty angle. In the corner of the monkey’s mouth was a tidy hole the diameter of a cigarette.
Nicky slid into a kitchen chair and lifted the porcelain monkey.
“Don’t touch the monkey,” Dad said.
Nicky carefully placed the monkey on the table. He noticed writing on the paper in front of Dad.
“What are you writing?” Nicky said.
“My Christmas list. Go to bed, Nicky. Don’t touch the monkey. Don’t give me any more agita.”
Dad was not the kind to scribble on a notepad. He didn’t write much. Mom handled absence notes to school; lists for the milkman; letters to Roy; Christmas cards.
“Are you writing a letter?”
“What, are you writing a book? Nicky, do me a favor, go back to sleep, will you please? Don’t be a scooch. I wish I could burp.”
“You’re not having a heart attack or anything, are you?”
“You’re gonna give me one, I swear. Go to bed.”
Nicky placed his fingertips on the porcelain monkey.
“Don’t touch the monkey,” Dad said.
“I want you to tell me the story.”
“Ain’t you a little old for bedtime stories?”
“I want you to tell me the story about this monkey. I’m sick of being the only one who doesn’t know the stories.”
“Not now, Nicky. Geez, can’t I get any peace, even in the middle of the night?”
“Why won’t you tell me the story?”
“Not now.”
“Please?”
“Not now.”
“Please?”
“Not now.”
“Please. Please. Please.”
Dad dropped the pen onto the pad and rubbed his fingers into his temples. He sighed.
Dad said, “If I tell you the story, will you go to bed?”
“I swear.”
“Get me a beer. It will help my stomach.”
Nicky pulled a can of Ballantine from the refrigerator. He punched two holes in the can with an opener and handed the can to Dad.
“Thanks, pal,” Dad said, taking a sip. “That’s good coffee. So you wanna hear the big story? Okay.”
And Nicky and Dad had the longest talk they would ever have.
“You know I was in Europe during the war, right?” Dad said. “Of course you know. I was in the Third Army. Patton’s army. I was with the Hundred and Fiftieth Ordnance Battalion. Bomb disposal squadron. You know what that means? When they found a bomb that didn’t blow up, it was our job to disarm it. Take it apart. Make it safe. We were good. The best. Tough work, lemme tell you. The kind of job for the young and stupid.”
Nicky had heard all this before.
Dad sipped and continued. “Because when you’re young, you think you’re gonna live forever. You get old, you know better. Anyway, we were in this town in Czechoslovakia. This was after the war. The war was all over. But they were still coming across bombs that didn’t go off. We had plenty of jobs.
“One day, my squad was on duty. One squad would be on, the other squad off. We took turns. Just sitting around. We would go days without nothing. Just sat around.
“On this day we were sitting around. We were going to pull out of the town that night. Got it? There was this little shop down the block. It had this porcelain monkey in the window. There was this girl back home. I guess you could say I was sweet on her. A Cherry Street girl. This was before I knew your mother. This girl’s name was Gina. She was crazy about monkeys. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. But I wanna get her this monkey. Bring it home as a present. So I asked the lieutenant if he minds if I go down to the shop and buy this monkey. Because I don’t want the shop to close and then we move out and I can’t buy it. I mean, Gina. She was a real doll. You following this?”
Nicky nodded eagerly.
“Anyhow, the lieutenant says sure. Just hurry up, he says. Go ahead. There’s nothing going on. So I go.
“I’m gone maybe fifteen minutes. It took a little longer, because I haggled about the price. I get back—my squad is gone. I ask the other guys where did they go? They got a goddamn job. A thousand-pound bomb in a basement. They took off without me. But they needed a fuse man, because I wasn’t there. So my pal Grabowski, the fuse man from the other squad, he goes in my place. Grabowski goes on the job. He was a ballplayer. From Cleveland.”
Dad stopped and took a long gulp of beer. He licked his lips.
Dad said, “And so.”
“So what?” Nicky said.
Dad took a deep breath and said, “So something went wrong.” He shrugged.
“Wrong?”
“Yeah. The bomb went off and everybody got hurt and one guy gets killed. And of course that guy was Grabowski, the fella who went in my place.”
Dad shrugged.
Nicky didn’t say anything.
“Everyone says I was lucky because I didn’t go on the day something went wrong. The other guys, they even started to call me Mr. Lucky. My new nickname. Mr. Lucky. Except I didn’t feel so lucky.”
Dad drained his beer. He belched. He put his hand on the porcelain monkey. He tilted the statue and examined it. He shook his head and smiled a sad smile.
“Roy Nicholas Grabowski. Two days don’t go by when I don’t think about him. I didn’t go. He went and got killed. That kind of stuff stays with you for the rest of your days.”
Nicky didn’t say anything.
“And that’s that,” Dad said with a shrug. He picked up the pen. “That’s the story. Glad we had this talk, kiddo. Now go to bed.”
Nicky slid off the kitchen chair.
He said, “I’m happy you didn’t get killed, Dad.”
“Hey, me too.”