THE UKRAINIAN

A story by

Dennis O'Rourke

     Even after the beer and a shot of Stoli he was still a little rattled. He sat at the bar of O’Malley’s snapping his finger against the empty stein and pondering the odds of his coming out of that porno store just as Ashley and that new waiter would be headed into the mini market beside it; and then a near smash-up with another car. His fingernail clicked on the glass. He heard the music behind him and the crowd clapping along, but he ignored their timing and kept his own.

     Okay, he didn’t want the whole world to know that he occasionally went to a porno shop – certainly not the staff in his restaurant. He’d have to put up with some initial bullshit, a lot of lame jokes, and that would be a pain for a while. But in the end, what was the big deal? Porno was everywhere. The Internet alone was loaded with sites, although he never visited them. He preferred the tactile vibe of a magazine. And somewhere he had read that the industry –that’s what the article called it- as a whole, the industry garnered some ten billion dollars a year. I spend a few bucks on the stuff, he thought, but ten billion?

     Charlie Russell sighed and stared up at the smoke-stained ceiling. He was the assistant manager of The Peach Table restaurant, a couple of miles down the road from O’Malley’s. He was fifty-two years old, with sandy-brown hair that was just beginning to show slivers of gray; a round face, blue eyes and an unassuming nose under which was a mustache he kept carefully trimmed. He had taken good care of his teeth over the years, and when he smiled he gave film buffs the impression of a Thirty’s movie star - urbane, witty. William Powell, they would say.

     He had divorced his wife three years earlier, when their daughter had left for college; set himself up in a new two bedroom apartment, and turned his attention to eating and drinking, and to bedding women. He believed he was enjoying the good life again, until one morning last winter when he awoke beside a small, pretty but bony woman; a forty year old librarian he had picked up the night before at his restaurant. He’d been lying on his back, and she had placed her hand on his stomach and was gently rocking it into a jiggle. Buddha-belly, she had said. After she had left, he looked at himself in the mirror and was alarmed to see that he had indeed let himself go. That week he had joined a health club, and in seven months he had driven away nearly twenty pounds.

     Some of the zeal he had applied to good food and booze, he now redirected into the pursuit of women. His few nights off were spent trolling at O’Malley’s. His approach was easy, disarming, and laced with a quiet, sometimes self effacing humor. He knew if he could get a woman to laugh he was halfway home. He focused his thoughts then on Ashley and he endeavored to look at the problem - if that’s what it was - logically.    

     He knew his unease stemmed not so much from the near-accident, but from the chance encounter with her. Hell, that was the reason he wasn’t paying attention to traffic when he had pulled out of the parking lot. What the hell was she doing way out there in Randolph? What was she going to say? Charlie had reason to believe he had a good shot at making it with her. She was a honey; mid-twenties, killer body. Decent waitress, to boot. He’d been laying the groundwork, and she seemed to be responding, telling him she had always been interested in hooking up with an older guy.

     But just one week ago he had invited a few of his staff to O’Malley’s for a drink after a lunch shift. The conversation had settled on the videos being offered on television; drunken college girls baring their breasts. Then it turned to adult sex movies. Ashley had said that the only men who bought porno movies were the ones who never got laid. They were pitiful. Then she had pointed at Charlie. “Now here’s a guy after the real thing. No fantasy for him. I’ll bet you wouldn’t find a single porno movie in Charlie’s house. Would they, Charlie?” And Charlie had responded, “Couple of old Playboy’s, maybe.” The three shelves of magazines and graphic novels, and the four boxes of movies came into his mind, and he’d thought, When I get her over there I’m gonna have to hide all that stuff.

     Truth was, Charlie Russell was obsessed with women and sex, and he wanted both the fantasy and the real thing. And what was wrong with that? They went hand in hand. That’s how he had explained it to his wife right before their marriage. Reluctantly she accepted his argument, and he had even coaxed her into occasionally watching the movies with him. But after their baby girl was born she quickly grew intolerant, insisting that now that he was a father he should put aside this frat boy fascination with glossy magazines and explicit sex films. Charlie did not see it this way at all, and the marriage began to tear. He did his bit with the infant, his share of getting up in the middle of the night to quiet the bawling, to walk the floor. As a father he felt he was acquitting himself well, and since his wife no longer seemed to be as eager to romp in bed, Charlie decided he was free to have an affair with a waitress he worked with. When she learned of it his wife responded by throwing his entire porn collection into a dumpster. When Charlie came home there was a screaming argument that roused the neighbors and brought the police. This frightened them both into seeking out a marriage counselor. For the sake of the baby they agreed to work it out. Charlie even consented to go to a sex therapist for his addiction. He went through two of them, both women, and had an affair with each. Charlie couldn’t believe his luck. When she asked, he would tell his wife that he was making good progress.

      Ancient history. Now Ashley had seen him coming out of an X-rated video store. Her face had grown wide with surprise. She had mouthed an exaggerated, Oh, my God, grabbed her companion’s arm, spun him around and pointed right at Charlie. He was as taken aback as she, but he had stopped to say, Hello, only to watch them both run into the market giggling like kids. It made him suddenly embarrassed, like he had been caught doing something criminal. It annoyed him, and he had stood there a moment wondering if he should wait, or even follow them into the market. He peered in through the wide windows. Ashley was easy to spot. Her short-cropped hair was dyed like a purple flower. She turned slowly to look over her shoulder, as if she knew he was there. He gave her a big wave. She wiggled a disapproving finger at him, but she was smiling. He’d decided that was good enough. He’d let her have time to think it over.

     He had tossed the magazines and the video down on the seat, and driven out of the parking lot without looking to his left. A car squeal-braked in front of him. He slammed his own car to a violent halt and cursed. He held up his hand apologetically to the other driver, who looked for an instant as though he was about to get out and accost Charlie. He settled for flipping Charlie a middle finger, and then sped off. Charlie said out loud, “Now there’s a guy who doesn’t get laid enough,” and then he headed for O’Malley’s.

     Behind him the little Monday night audience in front of the stage was singing along with Johnny Slattery. Charlie liked Irish music, especially this song with the synchronized clapping that accompanied the chorus. He turned around and watched them. Trained seals, he thought, Johnny’s fans. And he liked Slattery, enjoyed watching him work a crowd. Slattery caught his eye and gave him a big grin, and Charlie waved at him before turning back to the bar. That prick is almost as old as I am, and he gets more poon than God. Young poon, too.

     “Job got you talking to yourself, Charlie?” Dan the bartender stood in front of him with that habitual happy-go-lucky expression that bemused Charlie. “You got the night off?”

     “Well, now, Dan. I’m here. I haven’t been fired, at least not yet.”

     Dan laughed. Charlie reflected on being fired and then dismissed it. What he did on his own time was his business. No, the problem would be Ashley’s reaction. He hoped he hadn’t blown it. 

     A lilting female voice turned both men’s attention to the wait-station.

     “Pilot to Moon-base. Pilot to Moon-base.”

     Dan’s face turned mock serious. “Moon-base to Pilot,” he answered, and then he strode toward the walk-up at the end of the bar and stood facing the wait station. In front of him a slim, dark-haired girl placed her tray on the counter and a check on a wooden board. Dan bent to read it aloud.

     “Two Guinness, a gin and tonic with lime and a vodka rocks.”

     “That’s a firm, Moon-base,” the girl said, and she shifted happily from one foot to the other while she lit a cigarette. 

     Charlie’s thoughts immediately centered on the girl. Delia was Dan’s daughter, and they often engaged in this space banter. She was just twenty-one years old, and Charlie’s belly knotted whenever he saw her. He let his eyes run up and down her figure; the small breasts, the slim waist and the legs, and that beautiful, round bum. To his delight she put her arms up on the bar and leaned over to give her father a peck on the cheek he had offered up. She stood on tip-toe, her derriere thrust out. Charlie had screwed a few girls over a bar in his restaurant career; a waitress, a couple of customers he had allowed to stay for a drink after closing. Now he imagined sliding Delia’s pants down to her knees, then slowly pulling down the panties. He could feel himself standing behind her, dropping his own pants, laying hold of her ass with both hands and entering her.

     Pilot to Moon-base, he thought. I’d give her Pilot to Moon-Base, all right. Here’s the Pilot, Baby. Now let’s see those half-moons.

     Delia picked up her tray of drinks and walked past him. She smiled and said, “Hey, Charlie.”

     “Looking good, Delia,” he said. “Looking good.”

     She colored, shyly. He turned in his chair and watched her move into the main room. He could not take his eyes from her until she had disappeared into the back corner; then he motioned with a finger for Dan to set him up again. Dan placed a draft in front of him. He pulled the bottle of Stoli down from the shelf and leaned to fill Charlie’s shot glass. Their eyes met. Charlie’s tumult made him adventurous and he decided to have a little fun with Dan.

     “How old are you, Dan? You aren’t old enough to be her father. Who are you kidding? She’s really your girlfriend, isn’t she? C’mon now. ‘Fess up.”

     “Oh, no, no. That’s definitely my daughter, my little girl.” He quickly grew flustered. Charlie knew Dan worried about Delia; despite the body, she was just a child. He knew Dan especially worried about her when she was working the nights that he was not. And it wasn’t just Charlie - he worried about every guy.

     “Forty-one. I’m forty-one,” Dan said. “Got married young.” He replaced the bottle and folded his arms across his chest. “Still married, too,” he said. He was a slight, thin man with a kind face; a gentle, simple man with an easy smile. He was gullible in many ways – easy to kid.

     “Well, I’m fifty-two, Dan. D’ya think I’m too old for her? I don’t.” Charlie immediately regretted the words. He had said exactly what he believed.

     Dan’s smile imploded. His eyes grew soft like a suddenly bewildered child. Charlie realized it was time to pull out of this. He had gone too far. He laughed a big laugh. “Hey, Dan. I’m kidding, for Christ’s sake. Don’t you know when you’re being kidded? Jesus.”

     Dan uncrossed his arms and leaned back against the wood liquor cabinets, his hands clasped behind him, “Oh, sure. I know. I know you’re a kidder.” He looked around him as if hoping there was something that would require his attention somewhere else, and he found it. A man at the end of the bar was signaling him, and Dan hurried away without a word.

     Charlie Russell rebuked himself. Just calm down, Jerk-off. Delia’s out of the question. She’s eye-candy. Concentrate on Ashley. He knocked back the shot, took a long pull on the beer and glanced at Dan at the far register ringing up a tab. The man who had beckoned to him was standing, waiting for his change and looking up at the television. He appeared to be about Charlie’s age, tall with big shoulders, and he was dressed in an expensive suit. His hair was black and his face was sharp, angular, with a strong, pronounced nose. He was a striking character, no doubt about it.

     Charlie straightened in his barstool and focused. The man looked familiar, and Charlie was stirred into something more than idle curiosity. He felt certain he knew the guy from somewhere. The man turned his head back from the television and briefly met Charlie’s stare. His expression was impassive and his eyes continued on and swept the room around him. Charlie continued to watch as Dan put the man’s change down in front of him. The man handed a bill back to Dan - a tip - and Dan did that thing, yet another childish thing that amused Charlie. He took the bill, stepped back and saluted. The stranger  grinned and stuck out his hand. They shook, and Charlie strained to catch him saying something about being in town for a week and that he’d be back.

     Dan said, “Good enough. Glad to have you with us.”

     The man strode around the bar. He had the air of an executive about him, someone with power. As he passed by, some five feet away, Charlie had the urge to call out to him, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to hear himself say, Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere, and have the guy give him a look and say, I don’t think so, and then walk away leaving Charlie feeling foolish. 

     Charlie waved at Dan, and the bartender’s smile faded as he approached. Charlie snapped his thumb over his shoulder like a baseball umpire calling a runner out.

     “Who was that guy?”

     Dan’s face brightened when he realized Delia was not still on Charlie’s mind. “I don’t know. Never saw him before. His first name is Joe. Nice guy. I think he said he’s from California somewhere. Here on business, I guess.”

     “Pilot to Moon-base,” Delia called, and her father hurried over.             Charlie Russell turned the stranger over in his mind. Maybe he knew him in high school or college. The army? Could be he was just a guy that had come into his restaurant.

     He sipped his beer and turned a side glance to Delia. She reminded him of the new movie and magazines in his car, and where he had bought them. He had always been uncomfortable, years ago, going into those shops. They smelled bad. He didn’t like being one of a group of customers who moved around the store, never looking into each other’s eyes, as if they were ashamed to be there. And queers hung out in them.

     All that had changed. Now women went in them. Couples. It was cool. Accepted. But that had made Charlie just as uncomfortable. He didn’t want to appear to them as the lonely guy, the pitiful guy, who as Ashley had said, never got laid. Now he did most of his shopping for erotic material through catalogues. He rarely went into the stores anymore, except on a whim. He’d catch sight of one from the road, and if it was far enough away from home and work, he would pull in. That’s what had happened tonight. And Ashley had seen him. What was she going to say? Jesus, I wish I knew, he thought. The stranger slipped from his mind.

*          *          *

     He reported for his shift the next day at four in the afternoon. A couple of booths were occupied by customers having a late lunch or an early dinner. The bar was empty, and the kid behind it was sitting on the beer cooler talking to a waitress. He didn’t see Charlie approaching, but the waitress did. She whispered a warning to him and moved hurriedly away. The kid got up quickly.

     “If you can’t find something to do, Phil, I’ll be glad to come back there and help you.” Charlie said it casually, without a trace of sarcasm. It was his style – smooth and confident.

     “Yes, sir. Sorry.” He was suppressing a smile that told Charlie the kid had heard the news. He headed through the kitchen to the office. Moss glanced up from his desk and nodded. Charlie closed the door and sat down in a chair. The room was small, cramped and filled with office and restaurant clutter. A row of clipboards hung on the wall behind Moss, and the computer took up most of the desk.

     Steve Moss was a large man, several years younger than Charlie, but he looked much older. He had a comb-over that a few of the waiters made fun of, sometimes standing right behind his back to do it. Charlie would glare dramatically when he caught them at it, but he never reprimanded them and he didn’t tell Moss what they were doing. He had to have something going with the staff - a harmless joke to share with them, to show them that he was not a prick of a boss. He was a regular guy.

     Moss gave Charlie his full attention at last and shook his head.

     “An X-rated bookstore?”

     “Look, Steve. What I do on my own time is my own business.”

     “Hey, no need to be so defensive. I don’t give a damn what you do on your own time, like you say. But thanks to our Miss Ashley - who you insisted on hiring, by the way - the entire staff knows you were in a porno shop yesterday. Be prepared for some bullshit.”

     “Don’t worry about that. I can handle these kids. As for Ashley, she’s a good server and you know it.”

     Moss stretched back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. Sweat stains marked his shirt under the armpits. “I hope you’re not planning on hittin’ on her.”

     “C’mon, Steve. Give me a break.”

     “Okay. Okay. I’ve got to warn you, that’s all. She files a harassment complaint, she’d have some leverage with this porno store thing.”

     “She’s not gonna file any harassment complaint, I assure you.”

     Moss sighed, dropped his arms and looked Charlie in the eye. “You’re the best assistant manager I’ve ever had, Charlie. Bar none. But you better be careful now with that girl. She’s a schemer. Don’t do anything that’s gonna get you fired. This is a small corporation but a good one. Good benefits, retirement package. Don’t throw it away.”

     “I know, I know. But look, this is still the restaurant and bar business. Flirting, pats on the ass, double-entendres; it goes on all the time, Steve, and you know it.”

     “That was the old days, Charlie. It’s different now. You can’t get away with that kind of shit anymore.”    

     “Yeah, well. Don’t forget; some of these girls have been screwing since they were fourteen.”

     Moss was silent. Charlie suddenly remembered that the man was the father of two teenage girls. He hoped Steve wasn’t making a connection. But if he had, he didn’t let on.

     “Charlie, you’re in your early fifties. Jesus. You might want to think about slowing down a little.”

     “ ‘Slowing down?’ Hell, I’m hornier than ever. ‘Slowing down?’ Let me tell you a little story. My ex-wife’s father was a pretty cool old dude. I liked him a lot. We got along well. I remember one time he was in the car with us one day. The Ex got out to get something at a Seven-Eleven. While we’re waiting for her this car pulls up beside us, and out steps this beautiful red-head, skirt up to here. Big tits, beautiful ass. We both watched her walk into the store. Pops was about seventy-two at the time. I asked him, ‘Pops, how old do you have to be before you start losing interest?’ Do you know what he said? He said, ‘You’re gonna have to ask somebody older than me.’ ”

     The sound of angry voices came from the kitchen. A pot hit the floor. Moss groaned and pushed his bulk up from the desk. “Let me see what the hell is going on with those guys. It was a goddamned circus in there today.” He paused at the door. “But at least keep in mind the old adage about dipping the pen in company ink, will you?”

     Charlie nodded. Moss left the door open and began to holler at the cooks. Charlie decided he might as well start confronting the bullshit now; first with Phil behind the bar. In ten minutes Charlie had the young man laughing, had him confessing to an erotic book collection of his own on the Fifties model Betty Page. “Nah,” Charlie told him. “I never been into that ‘Babes in Bondage’ thing.” Then Charlie talked to him about the artists Milo Manara and Paulor Serpierie, and Phil wrote their names down.

*          *          *

     Two nights later, at O’Malley’s, he was sitting with Johnny Slattery, who was in his usual high spirits. He was one of those guys that were a marvel to Charlie. He seemed always to have a broad smile on his wide face, as if every moment of his life brought nothing but fresh joy. He was still athletic in his late forties; played basketball and baseball. He was a good entertainer, a lot of fun onstage, and this earned him a great deal of attention from women. One night he had happily pointed out to Charlie six different women scattered throughout the audience, all of whom he had slept with. They were unaware of each other’s shared experience. Charlie thought this dangerous. Slattery loved it. Nothing bothered him, except when someone would ask about his wife, or point out the little bald patch on the back of his head; but these comments would only cause him to frown slightly before he dismissed them. Charlie was telling him about Ashley and the porno shop when the stranger walked in accompanied by two men also in suits. They sat at a table in the raised level of the room, and Delia sped off to take their order. Charlie called Slattery’s attention to the man.

     “Yeah. I met him last night,” Slattery said. “He sent up a couple of requests with a very nice tip. I sat with him on my break. Name’s Joe something or other. Polish last name, I think. Nice guy. Why?”

     “I can’t get it out of my head that I know him from somewhere.”

     Connie Mac, the big bartender walked up and cleared his throat. Slattery jumped off the stool. “I’m going, I’m going.”

     “Breaks are only twenty minutes, Johnny,” he said, sternly. “I’m getting a little weary of reminding you.” But then he smiled as he watched Johnny walk to the stage.

     Charlie Russell asked for another beer, and was surprised when Connie Mac put his arms down on the bar and leaned in close to his face. He was the bar manager, and Charlie had long ago struck up a kinship with him. They were brothers-in-arms in the business. They got along well. And Charlie tipped big, the way most restaurant people did when they went out to bars. But Connie had a troubled look, the kind a person gets when they’re about to say something they don’t want to. Charlie immediately thought, I’ll bet this is about what I said to Dan. Ah, shit.

     “Dan told me what you said about him and his daughter the other night, about how you thought you weren’t too old for her.” Connie Mac held up a hand when Charlie started to protest. “Just listen a minute, Charlie. You can hit on any of the women that come in here. That’s perfectly acceptable. You’re pretty good at it, too, I gotta give you credit. You know which ones to approach, what to say, what not to say and when to back off. I’ll give you that. But I don’t want you messing with my waitresses, Charlie. Or Dan. He’s a nice guy, and more than that he loves his daughter. His daughter, Charlie. C’mon, man. You know how naive she is. She doesn’t have a clue about what she’s got. He worries about her. You have a daughter, right? Would you want the same thing for her? Some older guy bent on what he thinks is easy nookie hitting on your daughter?”

     Charlie put his head down and said, “No. You’re right.”

     “Don’t do that kind of shit, Charlie. You know better. You’re a nice enough guy. It’s beneath you. Cut it out. Don’t mess with Dan and leave Delia alone. Okay?”

     Charlie sat at the bar for the next half-hour in a gloom. There was no denying that he had pushed the wrong button on Dan. And there was no getting away from the fact that what he had hinted at - about wanting Delia - was not a joke. It was the truth, and Dan had seen that.

     When Charlie looked up he saw the two men who had accompanied the stranger take their leave of him. And then the man waved to Delia and motioned for his check. Charlie was anxious to put his conversation with Connie Mac and the bad feeling behind him. Besides, he had to find out who this guy was.

     Charlie and Delia arrived at the same time. Charlie stepped back politely while Delia gave the man his change and gratefully accepted a ten dollar bill in return. The man stood up and clasped Charlie’s outstretched hand.

     “Charlie Russell.”

     “Joe Malinowski. Pleased to meet you, Charlie.”

     The name did not stir anything in Charlie’s memory.

     “Hey, listen,” he said. “I’ve seen you here a couple of times, and, well, this is going to sound stupid, but, I feel like I know you, well, not exactly know you, but that we’ve met before.”

     He smiled. “You know, I was thinking the same thing when I saw you.”

     “Sonofabitch. So we must have met. Where are you from?”

     “Well, I was born here, but my parents moved to Inglewood, California when I was a kid. I live in Van Nuys now. I’m here on a little business for a few days. I’m going back on Saturday.”

     “Well, where’d you go to school?”

     “Cal-Tech. Graduated in ’69.”

     “Well, that ain’t it. I went to BC, dropped out and got drafted. Were you in the service, the army?”

     “Nope. Went on to Grad school. Vietnam was winding down by the time I got out.”

     “I never went to Vietnam either, thank Christ. I was stationed in Okinawa for a while though. Wasn’t so bad. It had it’s good points.” Charlie was thinking of the bar girls. “So it wasn’t college and it wasn’t the Army.”

     “Apparently not.”    

     Charlie suddenly felt awkward. “Well, hell. If you’re gonna be here another couple of days, maybe it will come to one of us.”

     “Maybe so. Anyway, it was nice to meet you Charlie. I’ll see you later.”

     Charlie went back to his barstool, certain now that he had known the man somewhere. And he had the suspicion that the man knew where they had met but was not saying.

*          *          *

     He awoke the next morning tired and a bit hungover. He dressed and went to his health club, jogged the treadmill for an hour and tried to get a conversation going with the attractive woman on the machine beside him. He had looked for a wedding or engagement ring and found none. Married women were not for Charlie. Too risky. She was polite at first, but soon put the headphones to her Walkman back on. It didn’t bother Charlie that much. He had never gotten lucky with the women in the club. He simply had to talk to pretty women whenever the opportunity arose.

     He thought about his ex-wife, how she had ballooned in the last few years of their marriage, after their daughter had gone off to college in Illinois. Sadly, Charlie reflected on how relieved the girl seemed to be, leaving her unhappy parents behind. One night he had watched his wife replenish her dinner plate with more chicken and potato salad. He had tried to make it sound offhand when he asked her how she was doing on her diet.

    “I’m not on the diet anymore, Charlie,” she had said. “I’m not doing it as a favor to you. This will make it easier for you to divorce me, cause we both know that’s what you’re going to do. This way you won’t feel so guilty.”

     But Charlie Russell didn’t have much guilt in him about anything. What he had was regrets and the four o’clock in the morning feeling of emptiness and despair. His life was more than half over, and he had nothing to show for it. He hadn’t picked the restaurant business; he had simply fallen into it. Even so, he should have had his own place by now. He had been too scared of failure the few times an opportunity arose, turning down prospective partners, and holding onto the corporate blanket.

     He sat in the sauna for twenty minutes and then got on the scale. He’d lost another three pounds. He looked at himself, naked, sideways in the mirror. The Buddha-belly was gone; just a little roll remained, and he knew that more sit-ups would get rid of that; and he’d cut back a little more on the booze if he had to. He went back to his apartment and dressed for work. He decided to have lunch at O’Malley’s.

     He got there just after one. A group of customers was seated around the bar, where it right angled. Malinowski was one of them. Charlie knew the rest by sight if not by name; a short, chubby woman who owned a dry cleaning shop next door; Fallon, the red-bearded Irishman, who was always angry about something or other; and the burly, high school history teacher, puffing on his pipe, listening but not taking part. A middle-aged man, Irish as well, in carpenters coveralls sat on Slattery’s right; Joe Malinowski on his left.

     A spirited conversation was in progress, and Charlie began to pick up on it after he asked the barmaid for a menu and an unsweetened iced tea. Two radio disc jockeys had been fired that week for a broadcast that had included a live feed from a Catholic church in New York, where a couple had been sent to have a sexual encounter inside. Charlie had thought the stunt way over the top when he had read about it. He’d been raised a Catholic, and even though he hadn’t been to church since he got married, some of the old feelings remained. The disc jockeys’ joke was offensive and just plain stupid. Charlie had figured that the two men had wanted to get fired, wanted the publicity. Someone else would hire them down the road, and they would get even more money. That’s the way things went nowadays.

     “I don’t know what you guys see in that crap anyway,” the dry cleaner said. “Shock jocks. It’s boorish, men’s locker room giggling. And it’s not just demeaning to women, it’s demeaning to everything. I can’t believe what they get away with.”

     “Oh, so you do listen to it,” Slattery said.

     The woman’s protest was drowned in friendly catcalls and laughter.

     “I don’t see what the big fuss is all about,” Fallon said. “For Jaysus sake, look at all these priests they’re rounding up now for fondling little boys, sodomizing them. And just where was it they were doing that? Right there in the church, in the sacristy. And they’d known about these guys all along, hadn’t they? There’s the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church for you. Listen. We’d a bishop in Ireland caught paying a woman he’d been keeping for years, for years, mind.” He paused and looked around him. “Well, the Church kept the Irish down for a couple of hundred years. Now they’re getting their arse kicked, getting what they deserve. And there you have it.”

     “Well, you can’t put the blame on those two fellas entirely,” the carpenter said. “They’re feeding the public appetite, aren’t they, giving people what they want? And now it’s a race to see who can be the most outrageous and get away with it.”

     “Hey, I was an altar boy for a few years when I was a kid. I never had any problem with a priest,” Slattery said. “Maybe Fallon here did.”

     “Ah, fuck off you, Slattery. I was never an altar boy, thank Jaysus.”    

     “Well, we’re at a low point in American popular culture, that’s for sure,” Malinowski said. “There have been others. But the media is so omnipresent now; there’s more room than ever to be vulgar in bigger ways. But you’ve got to keep in mind that it was our generation, mine anyway, the Baby Boomer generation that opened the door to a lot of this, and made it possible. Remember ‘Free speech?’ ‘Free love’?” And the iconoclasts have all been idealized by my generation - Lenny Bruce and the rest; praised for pushing the envelope. Well, the envelope is being torn up now. Sex in a church, broadcast live. Public lewd behavior, certainly. But does the broadcast fall under ‘free speech’? Technically, it probably does.”

     Charlie Russell raised his head from the menu. Slattery had lifted his eyebrows, impressed. The history teacher was nodding in agreement. The little group was silent a moment. Then Fallon lifted his beer. “Well, there’s no such thing as free love, but here’s to free speech, anyway.”

     Malinowski laid a few bills down over his tab and stood up. He wished them all a good day, waved at Charlie, shook hands with Slattery and headed for the door. Charlie watched him go. A memory had risen up in him, a powerful memory, and Charlie knew at once who Joe Malinowski was.

     Slattery moved to the stool beside Charlie. He saw the expression on Charlie’s face. “I take it you just remembered how you know this guy.”

     “The Ukrainian. He’s the Ukrainian.”

     “Malinowski sounds Polish to me, Charlie.”

     Charlie nodded. “Yeah, but that’s what we called him in school. I don’t know why.”

     “So you knew him in college?”

     “Nope. It was in the eighth grade.”

     “The eighth grade? Shit, I couldn’t remember anyone from the eighth grade if they sat on my face.”

     “Maybe. But I remember this guy. The Ukrainian. Well, I’ll be damned.”

*          *          *

     Charlie said good night to the last of the staff at two-thirty in the morning. He watched the two cooks get into a car and drive away. The thump and boom of the radio in the old Cutlass began almost immediately. Charlie shook his head. If he could hear it from twenty yards away, what must the volume be like inside the car? Drums and chanting, he thought. He didn’t understand it, but then his parents hadn’t grasped his passion for the Kinks, even after Charlie had read some of Ray Davies’ lyrics aloud to them.

     He went back into the silent and semi-darkened restaurant, and stood at the bar, hands flat down on the wood, his head bent. After a moment he walked back and poured himself a Stoli. He sat on the beer cooler. It had been a busy night, but he had gotten into his rhythm and been everywhere at once. His passes through the dining room inquiring about the food and the service had been gratifying. There had been only compliments. He toasted himself, knocked it back and then poured another.

     Now he was free to loose the memories that had been pulling at him all night; the names and the faces of over forty years ago; a world of black-robed nuns who brought rulers down on little hands and the backs of young necks; of priests who inspired silence and fear when they walked into a room. Sister Margaret. Father Meehan. Recess in the school-yard, running wild. The shouts of children filling his ears.

     The Ukrainian and Sally Hogan.

     When Johnny Slattery had pumped Charlie at O’Malley’s bar to tell the story, Charlie had waved him off. He’d tell him later, he promised. He had to get it straight in his own mind first.

     He thought it ironic - that he and the Ukrainian should have been there at the bar when that conversation had taken place. It wasn’t a coincidence. Charlie Russell did not believe in coincidence. Sex in a church, broadcast live. A low point in American popular culture, Joe Malinowski had said.

     Charlie had been trying to remember who had given that name to the gangly, shy boy who arrived at Saint Mary’s school midway through the year in the eighth grade. Now he decided that it had probably been that kid Mitchell; a little guy, an elf clown who liked to come up behind you during recess and slap his hands against your ears, leaving them ringing while he ran away, disappearing into the crowd. He was so short and skinny that most everyone let him get away with it. Everyone except Jensen. Charlie stood up and barked a short laugh when that name entered his head. He spoke it aloud, and kept on talking as he made his way out from behind the bar, back to a stool. Here was territory he had not visited in a very long time, and he continued speaking, so that he could slow the memories down. They were bursting in quick pictures, flashes of color, sunlight and sound; and it was all a jumble. He wanted it to unfold like a reel of film.

     “Jensen. Jensen knocked Mitchell right on his ass one day. Punched him right in the nose. Mitchell was trying to sneak up on him to do his little ear slap. Some kid standing in front of Jensen warned him, and Jensen turned around just as Mitchell made his leap. Mitchell ran right into a fist and went down with a bloody nose. Jesus.”

     Then Charlie turned to the empty booths and shouted triumphantly, “And it was Mitchell that gave Sally Hogan the name the Milk Truck. That big Hood’s truck made a wrong turn through the schoolyard one day after making a delivery to the cafeteria, and we all ran to get out of it’s way. The driver was a little confused. He backed up and made his way out all right, but then Mitchell yelled out, ‘There goes Sally Hogan! “The Milk Truck!” All because poor Sally got tits before any of the other girls. Big ones, too.”

     Sally Hogan and the Ukrainian.

     Now that he had the set-up straight in his mind, he fell silent, and the film shook itself loose. He let it run.

     Joe Malinowski kept to himself, the way any new kid would in a strange school. Charlie couldn’t remember ever talking to him, or even where he had sat in the classroom. The back, probably. He was an odd looking boy; tall and skinny, black hair and a big nose.

     And then that warm spring morning; all of them at recess, and suddenly, excited whispers. Sister Margaret had caught the Ukrainian and Sally Hogan in the back of the chapel that buttressed the school-yard. The crowd of children parted as she hauled the two toward the rectory. Sally was in tears. Malinowski’s face was red and stricken with panic. The old nun had found them making out, caught Malinowski feeling up Sally in the chapel. The kids were horrified and excited. Over the next few days the story was retold and it grew as it spread. When Charlie heard it later, Sally Hogan’s blouse was off and the Ukrainian’s pants were down; Sally was “loving his thing with her mouth.”

     Jensen and his buddies were filled with a self righteous wrath. They hadn’t liked the Ukrainian to begin with, and now he had touched one of their girls. And worse still; he had done it in a chapel, in a church. It didn’t matter that Sally was famous for letting boys feel her up. They glared at Malinowski, who now more than ever kept his distance from the rest of his class, and was in turn shunned by them. There was whispering, a circle of boys around Jensen. Charlie learned there was a plan to get Malinowski after basketball practice on Tuesday night. Jensen and his buddies were going to beat him up. Charlie wasn’t a part of Jensen’s crowd, but he was a member of the team. He would be there. He would see it.

     They played fiercely, but left Malinowski alone. Charlie had thought they would bump him, trip him on the court, but they didn’t. The coach misread the source of their intensity. “You guys play like this next week and we’re gonna beat the heck out of Saint John’s. Way to go.”

     They weren’t allowed to use the showers, and so, with the sweat drying on them they dressed in silence in the locker room, smiling to each other and then looking at Malinowski. Charlie could tell that the Ukrainian knew that something was up. He was dressing slowly, trying to be the last to leave. But they waited for him, Jensen and two others standing right by the exit; and seeing this, Malinowski finally slipped his jacket on quickly and picked up his gym bag. He went toward the knot of boys at the door. They stepped back just enough to let him pass, and then the whole gang of them followed him out into the April night.

     Charlie was excited. He knew he would have no part in it - he didn’t want any part of it, but he had to see it. The Ukrainian walked ahead of them, away from the gym and down into the quiet of Tyler Street. Eight or nine boys trailed him. When they were out of sight of the school gym and in a darkened corner of the street, they moved on him. Jensen began it; handing his bag to the boy beside him, and suddenly springing forward and pushing the Ukrainian into some hedges. He staggered but kept his balance, and began to walk again. Jensen and another boy pushed him back, deeper into the hedges. The Ukrainian struggled to disentangle himself while still clutching his bag. Jensen stood over him and threw a wild punch, the blow glancing off the side of Malinowski’s head. But he stood up and continued to walk. They were close to Main Street. The traffic was light; and now that they were away from the quiet of the residential area they began to jeer him, to curse him. They called him a queer, a faggot. The Ukrainian kept walking. The pack moved around him, trotting on either side of him, behind him. Jensen ran a few paces in front and turned around, back-pedaling, taunting Malinowski. Chicken-shit. Faggot, chicken-shit. Malinowski walked on. Charlie kept up with the others, although he stayed outside the pack.

     At last Malinowski’s stoic silence and brisk, steady walk ignited the pursuing boys. Four or five of them moved in at once with fists, and Malinowski covered his face with his gym bag. Then he went down. Charlie pushed his way in so that he could see better. They began to kick Malinowski. Charlie heard Jensen cry out, “Not in the face, not in the face! Kick his balls in!” Legs and feet responded. Then as suddenly as they had jumped him they pulled back and stopped and stared at the figure on the ground, assessing the damage they had inflicted. Malinowski looked around him and then stood up yet again. His hair was tangled, his face red, his nose bleeding. He resumed his silent march, though now his pace was quicker. The pack picked up on this immediately; they sensed the fear and closed in around him. Jensen walked right beside him hurling more invective into the boy’s face. Charlie grew more excited. He ran around to the front and back-pedaled as Jensen had done, so that he could see better. Their eyes met briefly, and then Malinowski looked away. Jensen slapped him on the back of his head, again and again. The Ukrainian kept walking. Jensen stepped out in front, elbowed Charlie out of the way and shoved Malinowski back. The pack closed round once more and they began to push him in the middle of the circle, back and forth as if he were a ball, a large ball. Laughter rippled through the shouts and jeers. One of the boys managed to pull off one sleeve of Malinowski’s jacket.

     And right there, Charlie remembered, was when the Ukrainian began to fight back. He struggled to keep his other arm in the jacket, but it was ripped from him and hurled onto a lawn. Two boys tried to tear the gym bag from his grasp and the Ukrainian swung wildly at them. A strangled, wrenching sob burst from him. The pack grew suddenly still, momentarily surprised, and Charlie could clearly see the hunted boy, now crouched low, bent over at the waist, holding the gym bag with both hands. No one moved. Charlie could hear Malinowski’s breathing and see his shoulders heaving.

     Then the Ukrainian let out a wild shout, and holding the bag to his stomach like a football, he made a run for it. He barreled through the two boys in front of him, knocking one aside. The pack whooped and began the chase. They ran some fifty yards before Jensen caught up with him by the corner drugstore and pushed him into the brick wall. Malinowski spun around, regained his footing and continued to run. He ran across the street, through the intersection where a passing car braked suddenly to avoid hitting him. The driver sounded the horn. None of the pack hesitated to follow into the street. They ran in front of the stalled car without breaking stride. Another car blew its horn, but they paid no heed to any of it. The world around them ceased to exist. All the rules were gone now. Charlie felt an exhilaration. He was no longer running outside the pack, no, he was with them, and he, too, let out a shout and increased his speed.

     The headlights of two cars stopped at the opposite red light illuminated the fleeing Ukrainian. When he reached the sidewalk he ran as far as the lawn of the second house on the street, jumped the little white fence and disappeared around the right side. The pack howled, thinking they had lost him. But the Ukrainian had trapped himself. A six foot high fence surrounded the yard, and they found him, standing with his back against it. They were upon him in seconds. Jensen ran into him and threw his arms around the Ukrainian’s neck in a headlock. They struggled and went down. A light went on over the back porch of the house and a door opened. A man stood there silhouetted in kitchen light. He called out angrily, “What the hell is going on out there? You kids get off my property before I call the cops.” Jensen let the Ukrainian go and stood up. Malinowski got quickly to his feet and again burst out of the circle and ran around the other side of the house, back over the fence and down the little street. But his pace was slowing now. He was tiring.

    Then he suddenly stopped and turned around to face them. He dropped the gym bag and raised his arms and clenched his fists. His chest was heaving. They hemmed him in again. There was silence except for everyone’s heavy breathing. They were all winded now. A sweet smell filled Charlie’s nostrils. He looked up and saw the branches of a tree, heavy with lilacs, hanging just above Malinowski’s head. The Ukrainian’s arms began drooping with exhaustion. Jensen walked up and swung. Malinowski was struck in the jaw. He went down again, on his back. He rolled over, curled himself up on his side, and lay there sobbing, his body shaking. A boy stepped in and kicked his legs. Another reached down and punched his back. And then Charlie Russell stepped in close, lifted his leg and brought the heel of his shoe hard into the Ukranian’s back.

     With this image in his mind, Charlie stood up at the bar. “Ah, Jesus, no,” he said aloud.

     The film continued, and he saw Jensen leap up and grab a branch, stripping it of its lilac bloom. He threw the flowers down at the motionless Ukrainian. “There’s some flowers for you, faggot.”

     It was over. They moved away, laughing, full of themselves; they drifted apart and returned to their homes.

     Charlie became aware of the quiet around him, broken only by the sounds a restaurant, a bar makes at night - a creak, a groan; and he sat down numb and silent until the beer cooler kicked on, startling him.

     Charlie had forgotten that at the end of it all he had kicked the Ukrainian. He picked up the glass of Stoli and drank it down. Then he went behind the bar and poured another.

     Three hours later he was awakened by the sound of keys and the front door opening. He lifted his head from the bar. Two black men in jeans and t-shirts ambled toward him - the morning clean-up crew. Charlie stood up, tucked in his shirt and ran his fingers through his hair. He said, “Morning.” The older man nodded, the younger one ignored him. Charlie put the bottle of Stoli back and placed the empty glass on the sink. He made a pass over the counter with a towel, and then he picked up his keys and left the restaurant. The sun hit him full in the face, and he squinted and blinked, looking for his car.

*     *     *

     Ashley crossed her legs and swiveled the barstool around to face Charlie. It was Friday night, and O’Malley’s was crowded. There was a trio onstage, in the middle of a set of Irish reels. Slattery had invited a couple of his friends - a fiddler and a mandolin player to join him. The audience was clapping along, pounding their beer steins on the tables, and whooping. Charlie leaned in to Ashley to ask her what she thought of this music. She was wearing a low cut, pink tank-top and tight, white pants. Earlier she had turned around and lifted her shirt so that Charlie might view the tatoo on the small of her back – an eagle in flight. Charlie had thought how it would look when she was down in front of him, on all fours, and he was holding onto her bare ass. And the indicators were it was finally going to happen tonight. But she wanted something in return.

     She wrinkled her nose. “I like all kinds of music, but I have my limits with this stuff. It’s all right for a while, yeah, sure, it’s fun, but I wouldn’t want to be forced to listen to it for a whole night. Anyway, don’t change the subject.”

     “Sorry. Well, like I was saying, what I buy is eroticism. It’s art. I’m not talking about Hustler or Playboy even, and especially not any kind of cheap magazine with sad, beat-up models. They’re vulgar. The art of eroticism is what I’m talking about. Listen. There’s a guy named Milo Manara. He draws beautiful women. Women in erotic situations. Women who look just like you, Ashley. Tall, slim, beautiful figures.”

     “You lied, Charlie.”

     Charlie sighed. “It just didn’t seem to be the time for me to talk about what I was into; not in front of a bunch of people who work for me.”

     “What about porno movies? Is that what you bought at that store?”

     “Hell, no,” he said. He didn’t like having to lie, but sometimes in the pursuit it was necessary. “But I have a couple. I’m not a big fan of them, but the few that I have are filmed really well. The women, the people in them are beautiful.”

     “You find the guys in them beautiful, too, Charlie?”

     “Ah, you know what I mean, Ashley.”

     She laughed. “I’ve seen some porno. When two women are making love, they play acoustic guitar music on the soundtrack. When it’s a guy and a girl, two guys and a girl, or whatever, then it’s a jazzy saxophone or an electric guitar. Anyway, Charlie, when it comes to eroticism, as you keep wanting to call it, men are visual, women are mental. We’d rather read a sexy book with a good story line then watch some strangers we don’t have any connection with just fucking.”     

     She lifted her bottle of beer to her lips, and Charlie fixed on her smooth, white neck and then the outline of her breasts. He took a breath. “So, are you coming over tonight?”

     She put the bottle down and burped delicately. They both laughed. “Sure,” she shrugged. “I like you. You’re a nice guy, an attractive man, and like I say, older men interest me. I’ll stay the night. You gonna cook me breakfast?”

     “Yes, and I’ll serve it to you in bed.”    

     Ashley laughed again. Then she leaned in, breasts falling away, and said, “But you are going to help me out with the schedule, Charlie? I don’t want anymore shitty Saturday lunch shifts. And most of all, I want to learn how to tend bar. You can make that happen, right?”

     “I told you I would.” He boldly put his hands on her thighs, squeezed them, and was delighted when her response was to grip his arms. “But Ashley, honey. You’re gonna have to do something about the purple hair. Moss complained about it when I hired you as a waitress. I can tell you right now he’s not gonna let me put you behind the bar unless you rinse it out. Bartender’s are high-profile.”

     “How about a high-profile blond? Will that work?”

     “Nicely.”

     Charlie excused himself and went downstairs to the men’s room on the first floor, adjacent to the restaurant. He stood in front of the mirror, a big smile on his face as he combed his hair. Moss had been right about Ashley. She wanted to be a bartender and she was willing to sleep with him to get it. He would rather have had her come to his bed just for him, and without conditions or demands. He felt she had been disposed in that direction anyway, but must have decided to get something else out of the tryst. For what he was about to get in return, Charlie saw no problem. His anticipation heightened when he reached into his pocket and felt for the aluminum foil pack that contained the two Viagra pills Slattery had given him.

     He walked out of the men’s room and glanced into the restaurant. It was empty except for a solitary figure sitting at a back table. It was Joe Malinowski. The memory of the chase and the beating had eaten at Charlie for two nights. At first, he was ashamed of his small part in it, judged himself a coward, and made up his mind that he would tell Malinowski what he had done and apologize. Then he began to think how awkward that would be. How would Malinowski react? He certainly wouldn’t throw a punch, would he? Of course not. We were just kids then. I was just a kid.

     And then Charlie had begun to focus on that – being a kid. Why should he embarrass himself by admitting to a foolish –okay- terrible thing he had done when he was just a twelve year old boy? What good would come of it? Malinowski was returning to California in the morning. He didn’t need to know. What would it matter after all these years? But Charlie also felt certain that the Ukrainian knew he had been there but didn’t know who had kicked him at the end. Charlie had made up his mind to tell a half-truth, and let it go at that. And if he was going to do it, it had to be now and it had to be quick. He didn’t want to leave Ashley up there by herself for too long. He strode into the restaurant, resolved to talk it over, but not to admit to what he had done. A waitress unfamiliar to Charlie turned to him and said, “Kitchen’s closed, Sir.”

     “I don’t want anything.” He pointed at Malinowski. “Just want to say hello here. May I join you?”

     Malinowski held his hand out indicating the chair across from him. He said, “So you remembered?”

     Charlie nodded. “I did. But you recognized me right away, didn’t you? Why didn’t you say so?”

     “First off, I didn’t recognize you right away. It was a long time ago. But I saw you staring at me, and so I asked Johnny your name. That, I recognized. And, well, if you were in my place, would you have offered up that kind of information? ‘Yeah, I’m that guy from the eighth grade that was caught in the chapel kissing a girl. Then a few days later a bunch of guys followed me home and beat me up along the way.’ ”

     “But what you said there the other day at the bar, about sex in a church, a low point in American pop culture; I never would have made the connection if you hadn’t said that. You must have known it would make me remember.”

     “I didn’t really think about it. I said what I had to say. The rest was up to you. I figured, If he remembers, then so be it. If he doesn’t, then I’m not going to enlighten him.” He paused and looked up at the ceiling. “Did you tell them about it? Did you tell Johnny?”

     “No. No, I didn’t. And I don’t intend too. Why would I?” Charlie said it proudly, and waited for the Ukrainian to thank him. He was disappointed when Malinowski just nodded his head and continued.

     “I’ve never forgotten it. It still bothers me from time to time. Sometimes more than I care to admit. And then those guys on the radio.” He sat back in the chair but kept his long right arm on the table and drummed his fingers. “My Father went nuts - enraged is more like it. He didn’t dare hit me, though, not even once, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop. I knew it, too. He’d survived Poland and the Second World War. He was hard as nails. And he was a good Catholic. My Mother just cried. But you know, it made me remember something else about that year. When I first came to Saint Mary’s I pretty much kept to myself, you know, the way new kids do till they feel comfortable, till some of the other kids accept them? Remember that kid Mitchell?”

     “I sure do. And I’m pretty sure he was the one that named you the Ukrainian. I’ve been thinking about him since yesterday. Remember how he used to jump up behind the kids in the school-yard and slap our ears?”

     Malinowski smiled grimly. “Yeah. Him. The Ukrainian, for heaven’s sake. What was that supposed to mean? Just to mark me as different? Mysterious and threatening? But do you know the real reason I stayed to myself? Because this kid Mitchell came up to me one day –a while before the chapel thing with Sally - and told me that there was a story going around that my Mother and Father had had sex in front of me and my sisters. That’s what foreigners did. To give us a lesson in the facts of life. I was thunderstruck and ashamed. It wasn’t true, of course. It was absurd and it was cruel. But what could I do about it?”

     “I’d forgotten about that. But you’re right, I heard it, too. And it was probably Mitchell who started it. He was a little rat-bastard.”

     Malinowski looked off to his left as if he were seeing the scene he was describing. “We found ourselves outside the chapel door during recess. She reached up and kissed me. I was surprised. Not one girl had ever shown an interest in me. But I kissed her right back. We looked around us. We knew we had another ten minutes of recess so we went inside the chapel and sat in the back pew. I don’t know. Neither one us led the other. We just made the decision and went in together. I remember being scared about being in a church. Sally said, ‘God won’t see us here in the dark.’ That was a good one, huh?”

     He paused and repeated the sentence in a low voice, shook his head and continued. “We were just a couple of kids battling our hormones, wanting to know what it was all about. What was the secret?” He lowered his voice. He looked back at Charlie. The fingers continued the drumming. “Yes, I did have my hand inside her blouse, but that business about my pants being off, oral sex – that was all bullshit. As a matter of fact we were only at it a few minutes when Sister Margaret walked in. I had two or three of Sally’s buttons open on her blouse. That nun scared the hell out of us. She slapped me in the face and then hit Sally. Then she grabbed each of us by an ear and hauled us out into the school yard. I was terrified, humiliated. Can you imagine a teacher today, grabbing a couple of kids by their ears and dragging them to the principal’s office? In our case, to the rectory. And Father Meehan.”

     The waitress pushed through the swinging doors of the kitchen and approached with a dish of ice-cream. “Took me a while to find it,” she said. “Not too many customers ask for orange sherbet. But for you, I looked. You been real nice to me this week. I’m gonna be sorry to see you go. Anything else I can get you?”

     “Would you like a drink, Charlie?”

     “No thanks. I got one upstairs.”

     “Then the check will be fine, Miss. I don’t want to hold you up.”

     “You ain’t holding me up, Honey,” she said. “I got some cleaning to do yet. Take your time. But I’m gonna turn these lights down a little. I don’t want anyone coming in and thinking we’re still serving.”

     They watched her return to the kitchen. Malinowski took out his wallet, put some bills down over the check, and said, “I looked upstairs before I came down here for dinner. That’s quite a striking young woman you were sitting with.” His fingers started up again.

      “Ain’t she? She works for me. A waitress, but she’s gonna be a bartender. We both worked the dinner shift tonight, and got off early. Decided to have a drink.”

     The restaurant lights dimmed and the candle on the table threw shadows over their faces.

     “I spent a lot of years hoping, praying that I’d meet up with one of those guys. Kind of like that Clint Eastwood movie. Every time I thought of it I would get so angry it scared me a little. I turned the scene over and over in my mind; what I would do if I caught up with one of them. One punch, then another and another.”

     Charlie felt a chill go through him. “Jensen? The guy who beat you up?”

     Malinowski fingers stopped the drumming.

    “It wasn’t just Jensen beat me up. There was a crowd of them. You should know, Charlie. You were there.”

     Charlie tried to ignore the stir in his belly and the thump of his heart. “Oh, yeah, I was there. But I didn’t have any part in it. I was just a kid following the crowd. I wasn’t part of Jensen’s gang of buddies. I followed because, well, like I say, I was just a kid. It was... I don’t know. I’m not explaining it right. But I didn’t take part in it, Joe. I just watched.” The lie did not come out easily. He sat back and looked down at his hands. “I couldn’t’ve done much to help you anyway.”

    They could hear the music upstairs and the feet pounding on the floor. They sat and listened for a minute. The candle flickered and spit. Malinowski cleared his throat.

     “You know, I was surprised how much of it I still remember. The detail. Which streets I ran down. Losing my jacket. I never did get it back. Running into that yard with the fence.”

     “Nobody ever bothered you again after that though, did they? I never saw or heard anything about if they did.”

     “No. They left me alone. Two months later, after graduation, my parents moved us out to California. The neighbors had heard all about it –the chapel thing, the beating. My parents were ashamed enough to move. Three thousand miles. It was a different time back then. The Old Man never did really forgive me; didn’t have time. He died two years later. Stroke, heart attack. That made it all the worse for me.”

     The waitress returned and picked up the bills and the check. “No change,” Malinowski said. “Thanks.”

     She looked at the money in her hand and shook her head. “Oh, Honey, I’m really gonna miss you.” Then she leaned over and kissed Malinowski’s head. He grinned, and seemed embarrassed. When she was gone, they sat in silence again. There was nothing else Charlie could think of to say. The lie had dammed up the flow of his thoughts and emotions. He had to get out of there.  

     “Well, I got to get back up to Ashley,” he said. “Before she decides she wants to be with someone else.”

     “Better keep her away from Johnny Slattery, Charlie.”

     “Don’t I know it.” They stood and shook hands across the table.

     “I’ll say good-bye to you then, Joe. And I wish you all the best of luck.”

     “And good luck to you, Charlie.”

     Charlie turned around and walked to the door. Malinowski called out his name, and Charlie peered back at the figure in the dark and the solitary candle.

     “I was wondering. At the end of it, at the end of the chase, the last time I went down, I was on my side. Someone kicked me in the back right before Jensen threw those flowers down at me and called me a faggot.”

     “Lilacs,” Charlie said. He tried to make his voice breezy, the way he talked to an irate customer. “There was a lilac tree right there.”

     “That’s right. There was. But when I was thinking about this in the hotel room the other night, like I say, I was wondering who that was that got that last kick in before it was over. Do you know? Did you see who it was?”

     “No. No, I didn’t,” Charlie said, his throat dry. He really had to get out of there. “I had started to walk away by then. I did turn around in time to see Jensen throw the flowers. But I didn’t see who it was kicked you.”

     “Just thought I’d ask. It’s not important. Good-bye, Charlie.”

     Charlie took the steps two at a time. The jukebox was blaring now. Slattery and his friends were on a break. When Charlie entered the room he saw Slattery standing beside Ashley, and Ashley was laughing. He hurried over.

     “Where the hell have you been?” Ashley said.

     “I’m sorry. I was saying good-bye to a friend of mine in the restaurant downstairs.”

     “Malinowski?” Slattery said. “Nice guy. I’m gonna miss him.”

     “Seems a lot of people are gonna miss him.” Charlie insides were in an uproar. His heart and head were on fire. It was all wrong. He felt himself a man walking on stilts that were breaking beneath him. He should have told Malinowski that it had been him. He should have told him and apologized; explained himself; asked the Ukrainian to forgive him. Wipe the slate clean. I was just a kid, Joe.

      He didn’t want this on his mind with Ashley in his bed.

     Charlie leaned over and squeezed Ashley’s arm. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Don’t go anywhere. There’s something I gotta do.” When she started to protest, Charlie pointed at Slattery. “And watch out for this guy.”

     He went to the top of the stairs and waited impatiently for a threesome of young men to ascend. They were drunk; wedged together between the walls; laughing and elbowing each other for position, to see who would be the first to reach the top. Charlie moved down the stairs, and as politely as he could, squeezed his way between them. When he was clear he took the remaining steps two at a time, turned down the hall and into the restaurant. Malinowski was gone. The waitress was clearing the table.

     “He just left,” she said. “Two minutes ago.”

     Charlie strode quickly to the front door. He jogged around the building into the big parking lot that O’Malley’s shared with a strip of shops. It was nearly full. There were a few people getting in or out of their cars and two couples walking toward him on their way into the bar. He looked around for the tall figure, the black hair and the strong, pronounced nose. At the end of the lot he saw tail lights braking at the exit, and he began to run. He had to jump to his left to avoid being hit by a car that had suddenly swung out in front of him. When he looked again, the tail lights were moving slowly onto the access road. Charlie hit open space and ran now as fast as he could. A long cry rose out of his chest when he saw that he was not going to catch up. The car accelerated and was quickly out in traffic. Charlie came to a halt at the street and watched it go; watched the tail lights merge with others and then disappear. He bent low and put his hands on his knees, and stayed that way for several moments, until a car horn sounded behind him. He raised himself up and moved off to the side to let it pass.

     He put his hands in his pockets. He took a big breath of the warm summer air and it came out as a long sigh.

     “It was me, Joe,” he whispered. “It was me that kicked you when you were down on the ground. I don’t know why I did it. I honest to God don’t know why I did it. And I don’t know why I lied to you just now. I’m sorry, Joe. I’m sorry.”

     He pulled his hands from his pockets. In his right he clutched the packet with the two Viagra pills. He’d used them once before, and the results had been so gratifying that he worried he might grow dependent on them. But he’d need them tonight, he was sure. And a few more Stoli’s. Then he began to think, Fuck it, why am I making myself crazy? It was a long time ago. I was a kid. Fuck it. I’ll never see that guy again, anyway. And I tried to tell him. I was going to tell him just now. I did my best. It’s okay. Now, forget it.

     He turned and walked briskly back to O’Malley’s. He was thinking of Ashley’s pink tank-top as he approached the entrance when he heard a voice that made him stop short and hunch his shoulders.

     “Looking for me, Charlie?”

     He turned around and stared up into the face of Joe Malinowski. The Ukrainian’s head was bent down and although he was smiling, his eyes bored into Charlie’s. And Charlie was suddenly overwhelmed and frightened by the size of the man. Panic thundered through him like a runaway train. Then he heard another voice from behind him and saw a blur of purple. Ashley pushed through the door.

     “What the hell are you doing, Charlie? I feel like a fool sitting up there.” 

     “It was you, Charlie, wasn’t it?” the Ukrainian said, ignoring the girl. “When I was down. You were that last guy. That’s why you’re out here. You finally got a little courage up. You’re gonna come clean.”

     The fright swallowed Charlie’s bowels. “No...  I... It wasn’t me. I told you...”

     “Yes, it was.”

     Charlie tried to make a quick turn, a lunge for the door, but the Ukrainian took one step forward, and his long arm reached out and his big hand engulfed the collar of Charlie’s shirt. He yanked Charlie around and brought his right hand sharply across Charlie’s face. The sound of it exploded in Charlie’s ears and the stinging pain caused his eyes to water. He tried to lower his head and twist away but Malinowski easily pulled him back up and delivered another open-hand blow, this time across Charlie’s ear. It was like a great bell had rung, and the inside of his head filled with the sound of rushing water. He stopped struggling even as he began to tremble, and the Ukrainian released him. Charlie raised himself up, stepped back and faced Malinowski. He tried to speak but could manage only a stuttering blather. He saw a horrified Ashley with her hands over her mouth.

     Malinowski shook his head. “I know it was you, Charlie. I’ve always known it was you. And you had a chance to right an old wrong, but you didn’t take it. This could have ended better for you. But you’re still the little coward you were back then. Like the rest of them.”

     Ashley stood beside Charlie and angrily faced the Ukrainian.

     “What the fuck is this all about? What’d you hit him for?”

     “Charlie might tell you, but I doubt it. It’s just one of those things, Miss. Life has its surprises, as I’m sure you know, or, as you’ll soon find out. And sometimes the surprise is a good one, a blessing. In this case, for me, it was a chance encounter. Thanks to a couple of dirty disc jockeys and our boy Charlie here, I just buried a piece of my past I’ve been trying to shake for a long time.”

     And he walked away.

     Ashley put her arm around Charlie’s waist as he tried to get his trembling fingers to put his collar right. She touched his cheek. Charlie pushed her hand away.

     Ashley’s eyes narrowed with exasperation. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on, Charlie?”

     “It was... It’s nothing. Let’s go back in.”

     “Nothing? Nothing? Charlie, I know a bitch-slap when I see one, and you’ve just been bitch-slapped. Twice.”

     “It was a... a misunderstanding about something... He got it all wrong. He was wrong. That’s all I can say. Please. Let’s go back to the bar.”   

     She went up the stairs ahead of him. He watched the roll of her bum, but took no pleasure from it. He drank and resisted her efforts to draw him out. He drank and watched Slattery sitting beside her on his breaks. He drank until the music stopped. He heard Connie Mac say, “I’m taking your keys, Charlie.” He heard Dan say, “I’ll take you home, Charlie. C’mon. Let’s go.” He let Dan help him out of the stool. His eyes fell on the door just before Johnny Slattery and Ashley disappeared down the stairs. Ashley was carrying Slattery’s guitar.

*          *          *          *

Copyright: Dennis O’Rourke 2008

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