I was half asleep when the phone cut into my half dream of Miss October's half naked body in my passenger seat, half illuminated by the light from the car's dash. Needless to say, I was wholly upset. I blinked into the grimy light of the apartment and dropped my hand to the floor next to the couch, scuttling my fingers over empty beer cans and bags of stale chips to find the cordless phone, buried under the pages of a dirty magazine. Murphy's.
"What?" I grunted, flopping back down on the arm of the dirty couch and rubbing my eyes with my other hand.
"C-c-conner." It could only be one stuttering old man.
"Aye, Doc?" I sighed wearily, pushing myself up and swinging my legs over onto the floor. He explained quickly and I sucked my lower lip into my mouth, listening and nodding slowly. "Aye. Two minutes." I pressed the end button on the phone and dropped it to the floor again, the back popping off and scraping across the concrete floor. My back popped all the way up as I sniffed hard and stood, my eyes sweeping the apartment for a shirt that wasn't too stained or smelled too rank.
I dressed and pulled on my coat, starting outside. I started left instead of right, because I still wasn't used to the new building with an entire apartment with a real bathroom instead of a one room loft with open showers. It was only a street over from our old building, but it seemed to throw my entire sense of navigation off whack. I'd even gotten lost walking to Doc's a time or two.
This time I paid careful attention to my steps on the sidewalk and made it to the bar in record time. It was eleven on a Thursday night so the only patrons were the regulars, scattered around the room drinking their beers and laughing to themselves. Murphy wasn't among them. "Doc?" I asked, approaching the bar carefully. He was wiping out a glass with the dirtiest dishrag I'd ever seen, just like he was every time I walked in. The only thing that had changed about him was the depth of his wrinkles and the weight he put on his cane.
"O-over here," he nodded, setting the glass down no cleaner than it was before and going to open up the bar to me. Murphy was slumped against the wall, his eyes drooped almost closed with a bucket on the floor next to him. "T-t-tried to fight a…a fuckin' monster, g-god-d-dammmit."
"Aye," I nodded, kneeling next to my brother and touching his shoulder. "Murph?"
He groaned and rolled his eyes up to meet mine. "Conn," he mumbled thickly, lifting a hand heavily in a clumsy attempt at a wave. "I…m'drunk."
"I know. Come on, get up," I tried, clamping a hand on his arm and pulling. He barely budged, grunting and jerking back against the wall.
"I don't…I don't wanna go there." Murphy was a bear when he was drunk, argumentative over anything he could possibly argue about. Come to think of it, he was like that sober. Only I could drag him easier. I looked up at Doc, who had the glass in hand again and was watching us with an expression on his face that resembled both pity and disgust.
"You want to stay here, then? Come on, don't be stupid," I pressed, grabbing the edge of the bucket and sliding it away. His hand tightened on it and he shook his head, pushing me away with one arm.
"Stop it," he slurred, closing his eyes and leaning his head back. "M'sleepy."
"You're drunk. Again." My voice had hardened in frustration and Murphy's eyebrows twitched in a frown. "We're going home. Get up."
Tough love worked on Murphy, like any child, and he shoved himself up the wall laboriously. I held onto his arm like I always have and pulled it over my shoulder. "Thanks Doc," I said, straining under the limp weight of my brother. He nodded, watching us go.
In the fresh air, Murphy started to hold his head up a little more and seemed to realize what was happening. " Conner?"
"What?" I snapped, adjusting his arm more securely over my shoulder.
"He's dead, Con."
And just like that, my annoyance melted away. "Aye, Murphy. I know," I said quietly. He moaned, hanging his head again and stumbling slightly. "Easy, man." He stayed quiet the rest of the walk and I was able to drag him into the apartment like I had nearly thirty times in the month since we'd been living back in Boston.
The moment we were in the door he yanked away from me and stumbled to the couch, tripping over a jacket and falling face first into the cushions. "Jesus fuckin' Christ," he muttered.
"Lord's name," I reminded him gently, sliding out of my coat. "Let's get you in bed."
He shifted onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, blinking too rapidly. "I can't stop seeing him, Conner," he murmured. I didn't answer, lowering my eyes and absentmindedly unlacing my boots. "We only knew him for eight fucking years."
"I know," I repeated, kicking off my shoes and leaning against the arm of the couch. Murphy stared blankly, lost in the memory of Da's death. He wasn't in the apartment anymore, with its smoke stained ceilings from our ever increasing chain smoking and its rough carpets. Yeah, they'd set us up real good but it wasn't like our other place.
It wasn't like our other place because we were different men than we had been eight years before. We were different men than we'd been a few months before, and it was due to what we'd created and what had been destroyed along the way. I sighed heavily and cleared my throat, flopping on the couch at Murphy's feet and starting on the laces. "This one's mine," I commented quietly.
"Sorry," he replied automatically. He rubbed a hand over his forehead, coughing lightly. "You think…you think he made it?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, dropping the boots and my brother's legs to the floor. He made a valiant effort to sit up, but failed.
"He killed lots of people," he breathed, closing his eyes and curling his knees into his chest. "Think he's all right?"
"In the name of God," I reminded him. "Da's fine." He choked a laugh and his voice broke, splintering into low mutterings about priests and prayers. "You're drunk, man. Come on." I grabbed his shoulders and hoisted him to a sitting position, balancing him carefully against my arm. "Murphy." His glazed eyes met mine. "Stand up, brother. Can you walk?"
Suddenly his angry blue eyes welled and his face went to my shoulder, his back shuddering and shaking beneath my arm. "It's…."
"Aye," I nodded, pulling him into the embrace he needed. He cried silently and drunkenly into the crook of my neck until the liquor took him under and he was sleeping heavily against me.
I put Murphy in his bed and covered him. He'd slept the same way since we were children one leg stretched to the foot over the bed and the other drawn all the way up, his head tucked so his chin touched his knee. He looked like a child, his brow furrowed in a bad dream and his cheeks pink from crying. He'd always been the more affected of us, refusing to go back to Ireland after we got out of the Hoag. "I just don't want to," he said. But I knew it was because Ireland was tainted by Da's ghost, lingering in our modest sheep shack. He was hardly coping here.
I went to my own bed and stretched out with one arm behind my head, watching him breathe.
I needed him to be okay.