“… man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.”
The funeral for Frank Hedras was held at Christ Church in Cambridge, across from Cambridge Common. It was a dim, rainy day around Boston; the church’s interior, filled with light when the sun shone, was a somber gray this day, befitting the solemn occasion.
Chris Hedras sat with his now widowed mother in a front pew. To his other side was his older sister, Pauline, who worked part-time as a graphic artist, and her husband and two children. Chris knew that had his father died ten years ago, the church would have been filled. But this was ten years later, ten years in which his once prominent father had not only slipped into obscurity, but a disgraced one at that.
Following the service, they stood together on the sidewalk in front of the church, black umbrellas raised, awkward expressions of sorrow exchanged, mundane questions asked of those who owed their presence to a death.
“How is Washington?” Chris Hedras was asked by an uncle.
“Fine. Very busy.”
“I hear you’re the president’s right-hand man.”
“Well, not really. I’m on loan to the vice president for his campaign.”
“I suppose he’ll run,” an aunt said, her tone mirroring her lack of interest in whether he did or not.
“I suppose so,” Chris replied.
“Coming back to the house?” his sister asked.
“I don’t know,” Chris said. “I have to catch a plane.”
“Your mother will be disappointed,” said the uncle.
“Maybe for a few minutes.”
“I have deli,” said his sister.
“Uh-huh.”
Chris looked to where his mother stood just inside the church’s open doors, out of the drizzle. He hadn’t seen her in more than a year, had forgotten how diminutive and frail she was. She’d borne the brunt of Frank Hedras’s fall from grace, had been at his side when the front pages of the Globe and Herald and the six o’clock news reported his indictment on bribery and fraud charges, and had been at his bedside to nurse him through two heart attacks. Her quiet, staunch defense of her husband—his father—had, at once, impressed their only son, and caused a concomitant feeling of loathing.
Until his father’s indictment, conviction, and one-year suspended sentence with five years’ probation, the Hedras name in Boston was one of which to be proud. It opened myriad doors for Chris Hedras, and he was quick to walk through them to reap the rewards once inside. Frank Hedras had been president of the city’s most powerful labor union, a man to be reckoned with. You went to Frank Hedras the way you went to your clergyman, or neighborhood mob leader, when you needed help. Politicians counted on him to keep the labor peace, to keep the city working, the workers happy, the political machine greased and moving, the union members’ tithings to the Democratic Party flowing without interruption. To be the son of such a man was an honor.
But then came the investigation, the sting, the secretly recorded meetings between his father and political leaders during which money changed hands, the arrest, and this man, who owed his son a future, was rendered impotent.
Chris Hedras had silently hated his father from that day forward.
Still, while most turned their backs on the senior Hedras, there were those who stood tall (and who still had something to gain by remaining in the Hedras fold), who helped the son with the bright future, the sterling academic record at Harvard, the good looks and ready smile, the developing political acumen, the understanding of why rubbing backs and greasing occasional useful palms and demonstrating loyalty to those who’d been loyal to you was the way it was done, the way things got done. There hadn’t been many of his father’s legion of friends who stayed the course once the disgraced labor leader sunk into an ever-deeper closed, bitter world, but those who did reached out to the son. It was the least they could do, was the way Chris viewed it.
“He wanted cremation,” Pauline Hedras-Brady said.
“It was the scandal that killed him,” a family friend said. “The heart attacks. How many? Three? Four?”
“It was the politicians that did it,” the uncle said. “The Republicans. They set him up. He’d be alive today if …”
Chris said nothing, simply wondered at this need to rehash the past. It was so typically Boston; sports and politics, not necessarily in that order, dominating thought and conversation.
“You agree, Chris?” the uncle asked.
“What?”
“The Republicans. They were behind what happened to your father.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
Chris hadn’t seen Johnny Harrigan and his wife in the church. Now they came from it and stood on the steps, holding hands. The young man waved. Chris jerked his head in friendly response.
“Come with us,” Pauline said. “We have the van. Plenty of room.”
“We’ll bring Mother,” the aunt said. “She’ll be so happy you’re there.”
The gloomy atmosphere at the church gave way, as it usually does, to more of a celebration of the deceased’s life. Everyone soon had beer, wine, and sandwiches in hand at Pauline Hedras-Brady’s unassuming house in Newton, a few miles outside Boston. A large urn dispensed coffee into Styrofoam cups. Cold cuts and cheese were rolled and arranged on two large plastic platters. Rock ‘n’ roll music from WHDH came softly from a boom box on the kitchen counter. Pauline had made a sheet cake for dessert.
“Man, it’s great to see you again. Wish it was under more pleasant circumstances, but I guess that’s the way it goes. That’s life, I guess.”
Harrigan, the young man Hedras had seen on the church steps, was his best friend in high school. His wife, who’d immediately started helping Pauline in the kitchen, was named Mary.
“How’ve you been, Johnny?” Chris asked.
“Real good. Yeah, very good. I got married, you know. We sent you an invitation.”
“Right. I wanted to come but I was out of town or something.”
“Yeah, man, I know. You must be racking up those frequent flier miles, huh?”
“I do a lot of traveling. You, ah, still working for that company? What is it, ah—?”
“Hopkins. Sure. Been there ever since we got out of high school. Doin’ real good. I’m a supervisor now.”
“That’s great, Johnny. They must treat you good.”
“They do. Nothing like you, though. The White House!” He rapidly shook his open hand up and down to indicate he was impressed. “What’s this guy like?”
“Who?”
“The president.”
“He’s, ah—he’s good. Terrific.”
Harrigan looked around as though about to spill a state secret. He lowered his voice: “To me, he really sold us out. You know what I’m saying? This NAFTA thing. Man, that was a dumb move. All those jobs goin’ south. Good-paying jobs. What ’a those spicks get down there? A buck a day? No wonder we can’t compete. Know what I’m saying? Know what I’d like to see?”
“I’d like to see Joe Aprile get in the White House. He gave the union a talk a couple ’a months ago. I was there. Shook his hand. I think he feels about NAFTA the way we do. The union guys. I think if he was president he’d shove NAFTA down the spicks’ throats. Right?”
“Well, maybe. It was great seeing you, Johnny. Nice of you to come.”
“Hey, your father was good to me. Got me the job at Hopkins. Bailed me out when I had that—” He giggled. “When we had that hassle, huh?”
“Right. We’ll catch up soon.”
Chris started to walk away but Johnny grabbed his arm, used his conspiratorial tone again. “You still smoke a little?”
“Huh?”
“Mary and me still have a joint now and then.” A whisper now. “Some coke, too. Nothing heavy duty. But you know, on the weekend. Only when the kid’s asleep, though. To relax. I’ve got a great dealer at the plant. Only the best stuff. Says he gets it from some Mexican guy. Pure Colombian. You want some while you’re in town? I got it out in the car.”
“No, I—”
Harrigan pulled him close. “Man, remember that broad … what was her name? The one you banged in the car? Barbara—yeah, that’s it. Man, she was hot stuff, huh? Rape! Bull … Man, your old man could fix anything. I’m sorry he died, Chris. I really am.”
Chris managed to avoid Harrigan for the next half hour, until he and Mary left.
“I have to go, Pauline,” Chris told his sister.
“I know. Momma’s laying down in the bedroom.”
“I don’t want to wake her. I talked to her before. She looks old.”
“She is. You really should try to get up to see her once in a while, Chris. How much longer will she be around?”
Chris felt a familiar anger well up at being chided by his sister.
She read his face. “I know how busy you must be in Washington. Thanks for coming.”
The bedroom door opened and Hedras’s mother emerged, slowly, sleep-induced confusion on her lined face.
“Chris was just leaving, Momma,” Pauline said.
The old woman nodded.
“I have to get back,” Chris said. “Business.”
“I know,” his mother said.
“Can’t you stay another half hour?” Pauline asked. Her husband called for her from the kitchen. “Be right back,” she said.
Hedras awkwardly shifted from one foot to the other.
“Go, Christopher,” his mother said.
“Momma, I—”
“Catch your plane. I understand.”
He was sure she didn’t understand. No one did. This house, this city, these people were what he’d worked so hard to escape. His father’s fall from grace—how stupid could the old man have been, taking petty graft?—had transformed Boston into a depressing, odorous sewer for Chris. He’d watched his father wither away, sitting in his worn chair, Daddy’s chair, and being waited on hand and foot by his mother in their modest row house in South Boston, “Southie.” Before the sting, there had been a steady stream of visitors to the house, his father’s cronies sucking up to him for favors, politicians seeking his union’s blessing, union officials huddling with him late at night in the finished basement. The few who bothered to keep coming were pathetic in Chris’s eyes, symbols of smallness of mind and even smaller ambitions.
He winced as he looked into his mother’s tired eyes, shifted his gaze to the floor. He was, at once, ashamed at the revulsion he felt, yet justified in feeling it.
Pauline rejoined them. He kissed her cheek. “Come down to Washington. Bring the kids. There’s lots to see there. I can arrange something.”
Pauline said to her mother, “We could all go. Wouldn’t that be fun, to see Washington? With an insider, no less.” She laughed.
Mrs. Hedras managed a small smile. “Very nice.”
“Maybe we will,” Pauline said brightly, “if Jack can get some time off. Maybe some weekend. You’re flying back to Washington?”
“Mexico. I’ll be there until the elections.”
“Elections? In Mexico?”
“Yes. They have them.”
She returned the kiss. “Take care.”
“You, too, Pauline. It was great seeing you.”
He turned to say good-bye to his mother, but she’d retreated into the bedroom, slowly closing the door behind her.
He used his frequent flier miles to upgrade to first class. After a layover in Chicago, he boarded another plane for Mexico City. Before boarding, he placed a call on his cell phone to San Miguel de Allende.
“Hello, Chris,” Elfie Dorrance said. “Where are you?”
“Chicago. Boarding a plane for Mexico City.”
“Give me the flight number. I’ll send Maynard.”
“No. I have to stay in Mexico City a day or two. I’ll call when I’m free.”
“All right. How was the funeral?”
“How is any funeral? Grim.”
He slept most of the way to Mexico City, eschewing the meal service. It was a fitful sleep, and he awoke in a sweat an hour before landing. He asked the flight attendant for a beer. As he sipped it, he thought of the day, of his father and mother, his sister’s house, what the priest had said during the funeral, his conversation with Johnny Harrigan.
He knew that had he stayed overnight in Boston, he would have taken his high school buddy up on his offer. He didn’t use coke nearly as frequently since coming to Washington as he had in Boston, but there were times when its kick, its ability to alter thought, its magical quality to bury bad karma in a haze of euphoria were needed, and welcomed.
This was one of them. Lately, there seemed to be more and more.