Thirty-Six

Sal was sitting in his usual spot in Cafe Vittoria when Jael and I popped into his window. I waved. He grimaced and gestured us in. As Jael seated herself, he gave her an appraising top-to-bottom inspection. There was nothing covert in his glance, but there was nothing overtly lascivious. While most men look at a beautiful woman the way they look at a sports car, with acquisitive intensity, Sal looked at Jael as if she were a bottle of fine wine. Something to be appreciated but not opened.

He said, “So, Jael. Long time no see. You look good.”

Jael said, “Thank you.”

I said, “You two know each other?”

Jael said, “I know Sal from my work.”

He waved at the barista to bring us coffee and looked at my stitches. “What the fuck happened to your face?”

“Some guy beat me up in the men’s room at Faneuil Hall.”

“Who?”

After my mother’s encounter with Lee, Jael had driven back to my house and had parked her SUV there. Upstairs, Jael had sipped tea in the living room while I sat next to Click and Clack and inspected my laptop.

Oscar’s picture was there. It had downloaded before I had snapped the laptop shut. I copied the picture, cropped it, and synced the photos to my Droid. Then Jael and I had taken the train to Haymarket to visit with Sal. If I had needed to talk to Sal about Dad’s money, I needed to talk to him about this picture even more.

Sal repeated his question: “Who beat you up?”

In response I took out my Droid and opened the cropped picture and showed it to Sal. It was a picture of Teardrop with his bald head, yellow teeth, and teardrop tattoo bleeding out of one eye. He was laughing.

I said, “This guy.”

Sal glanced away from the picture. “Never saw him before.”

I hadn’t expected it, the bald-faced lie right to my face. I had expected dissembling. I had expected promises to look into it. I had expected an I-told-you-so. A small part of me had even expected a name, the truth. I hadn’t expected this, and because I hadn’t expected it, I did something stupid.

I said, “You’re a fucking liar.”

The air froze. Sal turned, his brow furrowing into a mask of concentrated rage, his hand leaving the tabletop and his fingers extending, his shoulders turning, one dipping down away from me, the other twisting toward me as his arm extended and his big fingers seized my shirt front and yanked me from the chair. Suddenly I was ten years old, and my older cousin was bullying me.

Sal raged, “Don’t you ever call me a liar!”

The bottle of familial rage that I kept in my chest exploded. Black vapors fumed out and spread through me, darkening my vision, focusing me on violence.

I screamed back, “Liar! You’re a big fat fucking liar!”

Sal twisted the T-shirt in his paw and drew back his hand.

I slapped at his grip on my shirt and cried, “Go ahead, you fat fucking liar! Go ahead!”

Sal’s weight shifted as he turned his shoulder into the coming punch.

“Enough!” Jael’s voice cut through the air. She stood, pointing at Sal, violence in her eyes.

Sal grunted. His shoulder relaxed. His fist unclenched. He looked at Jael and said, “What? You gonna shoot me?”

“Let him go,” said Jael. Sal let go of my shirt. I sagged into the chair, covering my face and hiding the shame of my tears. Hiccups broke through as I worked to master myself. I felt Sal’s bulk disappear. Then it was back. Sal nudged my hand away from my face. He was holding a shot glass full of clear liquid.

“Wha—” I took a deep breath. “What’s this?”

Sal rested his hand on my back. “It’s grappa. It’s good. Shoot it down.”

I knocked back the grappa. Its warmth splashed into my belly and filled my head. My breathing slowed.

Sal raised his glass, drank some grappa. “Why would you call me a liar?”

I looked across the floor and saw my Droid sitting in the corner. Its rubber phone-condom had protected it from the fall. I crawled under the table, my arms unsteady from the combination of adrenaline and grappa, grabbed my Droid, and sat next to Sal. The picture of Teardrop was still there.

I said, “This is a cropped picture. I also have the original.”

I flicked the picture to the original and Sal said, “Fuck me.”