Messiah Josiah
Chapter 1
He'd always hated treadmills—running, running, running, like when you get chased in a dream. You never get anywhere, and in a minute or two, your throat's going to be slit and you'll be lying in a pool of blood, but you'll be able to see yourself from above, like an angel, a total out of body experience. And there'd be no pain, like you were a ghost to begin with. Like you'd never been human, just detached from the body. Sometimes he felt that way about being blind, too: detached.
Out of body was the only way to deal with the treadmill, too. Let the body run while the mind escape the interminable boredom by thinking of anything else. Jim had found the treadmill to be one of the best ways to keep in shape lately. Endless, running. Maybe he was getting used to it, because he had to admit, it wasn't as bad anymore—there wasn't anything to see, anyway. He was coming to terms with that. Even if he'd been in Central Park, he'd have had to imagine the scenery. Here, he could imagine whatever he wanted without worrying about ducking trees and dodging dogs. And he didn't need a guide.
Hank was waiting patiently when Jim was done with the treadmill. Hank didn't care for the machines much, either. He preferred chasing a ball in the park—why run if you couldn't chase a ball? Or a rabbit, or a squirrel? Humans didn't make much sense. He sneezed on the treadmill as he passed on the way to his master, just to show it how little he thought of it.
Jim followed Hank back to his gym bag, panting like, well, like Hank did after they'd been playing ball and Frisbee and tug-of-war in the park for an hour. Jim grabbed his towel from his bag and wiped off the dripping sweat. He'd pushed himself harder today than usual. If he could barely breathe, his brain wouldn't be working overtime, thinking of Christie or Marty or cases they were working. Sometimes even cases they'd closed, they wouldn't stay out of his brain. What if…? What if they'd gotten there sooner, what if they'd pieced it together faster?
Jim showered before putting on his suit and heading home to Christie.
Only Christie wasn't there. They weren't much for notes, since Christie didn't care for Braille, and there was no message on the answering machine. The waiting game, see if she was mad at him, see if she had some huge project at work…
Jim got out the racquetball he liked to toss against the wall, bounce it off the floor, practice his special perception. He sat on the arm of the couch and Hank sat by, waiting for Jim to miss.
That was Hank's favorite part. Sometimes, if Jim hadn't missed in a while, Hank couldn't help himself and he would snatch it midair before it reached Jim's outstretched hand, and they'd run around the apartment, spreading dog drool all over, and they'd wrestle and both would end up panting on the floor in some corner of the apartment twenty minutes later, ready for a beer—or a bowl of water.
Jim idly tossed the ball, slow and rhythmic. He'd never been slow, or patient, when he could see. He'd never taken the time. He would have been like Hank, snatching the ball mid-air before it could get to him. He'd always been rushing off, if he managed to come home at all.
An image of Christie flashed through his mind. He would never forget her, even if sometimes he had trouble picturing her as a whole image. Sometimes all he could picture would be an eye, or the sheen of her hair as it fell across the backless velvet dress at the Christmas party two years ago. Sometimes he just heard the echo of her laugh in his mind, her excitement over the most trivial things, the way her voice got when she wanted him to do something she knew he wouldn't want to.
He had to admit, he'd had his own trivial interests before—bowling, playing pool, going to bars with the guys from the squad.
"You don't see enough of them during the day?" Christie'd snapped once.
Just time to unwind…
"Then what am I here for?"
She liked higher class things—fashion shows, jazz clubs, snazzy restaurants. She made lots of contacts with people in high places who had good taste, and she wasn't afraid to call upon those contacts when she wanted to go out.
Jim didn't mind going to see bands, he didn't mind music, but the clubs were never places he felt comfortable. He'd smile as she played her fingers through his hair, but the whole time he'd be thinking, when can we get out of here? He'd bob his head to the music like the other people in the club, but he'd have rather been somewhere louder, more exciting.
Like working a case, where he got to go all sorts of places and found himself in all different situations. He was never bored at work. He'd never felt out of place in a bar with the guys. He just couldn't get Christie to go to a low-class bar full of drunks and enthusiasm.
He had to admit, though, he'd much rather Christie be interested in what she was than going to poetry readings, snapping her fingers, wearing long flowy dresses and a black beret. He smiled, thinking of her as a sort of beatnik, passionate about some deep cause, saving whales. Christie'd never saved an endangered species in her life, though she might have worn one…
She was cute when she got excited—but manipulative. He often let her have her way, concessions for him being a bastard, and it made her more spoiled than ever.
They'd never had that much in common, trophy wife, trophy husband, but prone to fits of jealousy when the other strayed. Not that Christie strayed, but she did look, and she got looked at enough.
Christie kept trying to get him to connect, to talk to her. Jim just had trouble talking to her, spilling his soul. Christie was too close—if she knew he wasn't perfect, wasn't a knight in shining armor… If she knew, would she be able to accept that?
Jim had been shocked when he'd first kissed Anne, couldn't believe he'd do such a thing, had never consciously contemplated having an affair. But now he wondered if it was because Anne had connected with him in a way Christie never had. He'd married Christie because it seemed right—he was a grown-up, past his bachelor prime, and she was beautiful. With Anne—
He shook his head and missed the ball. Anne had been a mistake.
Hank ran after the ball as it bounced across the room, his paws sliding on the hardwood floors. He preferred playing ball outside because of that, but whatever the human wanted, he'd deal with it. Hank padded back over to Jim and set the slobbery ball in his lap, hoping for another toss, not just a pat on the head.
Jim patted Hank on the head.
"Hey, Dunbar, you should ask the chief about getting a badge for your dog," Marty'd said yesterday. "Get him a little holster, he can carry his own gun, too. You know, just in case," Marty'd said snidely.
Jim had figured the conversation would probably turn like that. It always did, though Marty hadn't been quite so bad lately. Comments Jim could deal with, just something to try his patience, penance. Marty was a jerk, but at least he was professional.
"Hey, Dunbar…"
Marty was just a voice. And a scent. And a feeling. Mostly a feeling. Jim always knew when he was around. But as a memory, he was different from Christie, because as a memory he ended up just a voice, not even a vague jumble of body parts.
Tom, Karen, and Lt. Fisk, they were all voices, too. Though Karen also had a size and shape, a lingering smell from working so closely with her. Women tended to smell more pervasively than men, lotions and shampoos and perfumes. They couldn't get enough of the stuff.
"Hey, Dunbar…"
He was really going to have to work to get Marty out of his head, except Marty'd said something the other day that had disturbed him, he couldn't get rid of it. Part of the reason he was so worried about what would happen when Christie finally came home.
"Hey, Dunbar, I know it's a few months away, but… You doing something special for your wife for Valentine's Day?"
Marty'd just been looking for ideas for something to do for his own wife, but it had hit Jim that he didn't know how they were going to spend Valentine's Day. He used to plan ahead, start thinking of ways to surprise Christie as early as possible. He did all of his holiday planning at once, Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day. He liked to keep them coordinated and under control. It was almost Halloween now—
Jim had actually gasped and felt the blood drain from his face. Late October…
He'd missed Christie's birthday almost three weeks ago.
And she'd never even mentioned it.
"Tissue paper?" Marty asked.
It had taken Jim three days since he'd finally remembered Christie's birthday to decide on a present. It wasn't like he could just go browse the shelves like he used to. He'd wanted something that would seem like it had taken ages to pick out and was very personalized. He'd gone out over his lunch hour to buy Christie the best consolation gift he'd thought of. He'd settled on jewelry and a new nightie, one that felt soft and inviting. He'd hoped to get it wrapped before anyone showed back up at the precinct.
"Yeah, Marty, it's tissue paper," Jim said without looking up. He hated folding clothes, but Christie would understand if it wasn't perfect. Oddly shaped things, women's night wear.
Sometimes she was too understanding, he thought. She would go out of her way to do things for him, things he knew he should be able to do on his own. If she would only take the time to help him figure out better ways to do things—
"Tissue paper just, you know, it's like you're trying too hard."
"Since when has tissue—" Jim looked up, annoyed, and cut himself off before he could get into an argument with Marty. Just because Marty liked arguing didn't mean he had to encourage him.
"What'd you do, forget her birthday?" Marty jibed.
Jim was quiet, he quickly turned back to the wrinkled paper and stuffed the whole thing into the gift bag.
Marty forced a laugh. "Come on, Dunbar, even you're not that much of an ass."
Silence.
"Are you?"
Marty's voice was quiet, far away, seeking confirmation, begging him to argue, say he was wrong. With something like that, Marty probably didn't want to be right. He'd rib Jim about the job and life, but not about marriage—that was serious, too close to home.
"Tissue paper?" Karen asked, walking up, bringing a waft of freshly brewed coffee. "Must be a really special occasion."
"Why?" Jim snapped, short tempered, unable to reign it in for once.
"Guys don't usually use tissue paper. You're lucky to get real wrapping paper out of most guys. A gift bag, maybe… Usually newspaper and a bit of duct tape…"
"Come on, Karen, guys are a little more classy than that," Mary said.
"Yeah, Karen," Jim said, not meaning it, just echoing, thinking hard about pulling the tissue paper out of the bag and trashing it.
"For girlfriends, yeah, maybe," Karen agreed. "They always try too hard."
Jim put the bag on the floor under his desk and quickly sat down, determined to ignore them.
"So you're saying you don't want a guy trying to treat you right when you're dating?" Marty asked.
"Sure he has to treat me right," Karen scoffed. "I'm just saying I don't want a guy to go out of his way to pretend he's into that sort of thing at the beginning of a relationship, not if he's going to stop after two months."
"You expect it?"
"You expect him to always act like himself, don't you?"
Marty grunted. Jim busied himself setting up his laptop.
"Marty, you've been married too long, that's your problem."
"That's a problem, is it, Karen?" Marty asked, obviously grinning.
"When you were dating, if a girl suddenly started acting weird, you didn't think, why didn't she act this way at the beginning?"
"Weird?"
"Like suddenly she wasn't interested in the same stuff you were anymore?"
There was a pause. Jim could practically hear them staring each other down. Marty shifted in his chair and played with something on his desk. "Are you saying you're interested in tissue paper?"
"Yeah, Marty," Karen said sarcastically, "I got a tissue paper collection at home. The gift doesn't matter as long as I get some real nice tissue paper."
Something hit Marty's desk and Jim imagined Karen had just shot a rubber band at him.
"All because of a little tissue paper," Jim muttered as he put in his earpiece.
"You and Christie have a fight, Jim?" Karen asked.
"Karen? Jim?" Lt. Fisk asked from across the room.
They both looked up.
"DOA, white male, here's the address."
Jim shut his laptop and stood up to put his overcoat on. He was almost thankful the guy had died, in a perverse way, getting him out of uncomfortable small-talk in the squad. Even if it was a trivial thing to die for.
Jim still had some pride, and Karen must have realized that because she didn't bring up Christie again as they drove to the squalid little apartment building.
"It's hard to tell one season from the next in the city," Karen observed, "what with no trees. The only way to tell is watching the department stores."
Jim grinned. They must have been passing Macy's.
Jim let Hank out the back door when they arrived and followed Karen toward the front door.
"Hmmph," she said. "Building's condemned. It's an old brownstone mansion, converted into apartments."
Jim followed her inside carefully. "Does it need to be condemned?" He was careful as he set each foot in front of the other.
"It's old. Not rotting or anything."
Jim nodded and listened to the bustle of the crime scene, all the uniformed officers milling around, talking and working. They were moving down a narrow hallway from the front entryway and Jim ran his free hand along the wall. His light touch revealed wallpaper so old it was peeling and cracking, probably no longer even sanitary; he pulled his hand back, then felt the hallway open up into a room of sorts where it was less stifling, even if it was crowded with people working the crime scene.
"Right here on the stairs," Karen said. "White male, late twenties. Shorts and a t-shirt, short dark hair…"
Jim stopped next to her.
"Lying on his back, about halfway up," she finished.
"Was he going up or down?" Jim asked.
"I dunno. His head is up, he's not upside down."
"Shot once in the chest," an officer said, coming up to them. "Just once, almost doesn't look fatal."
Jim raised his eyebrows. He'd have to ask Karen to explain that comment later. …doesn't look fatal…
"Hey," Tom said, walking up behind them.
Jim moved closer to the wall to let Tom and Marty pass. Best to let them see what they could.
Jim half listened as Tom spoke with the first officers who had been on the scene. The call had been an anonymous tip—dead body, condemned building, just wanted to let you know. The place had been quiet when the officers arrived.
While he listened he tried to get a feel for the place. The voices of various officers spread around the scene helped put dimensions on the room, more like a small sitting room for an old mansion that was 100 years past its prime. It wasn't much like a hallway, even though there were stairs leading up. There was must and urine in the air, and something indescribable. It wasn't food, exactly, but smelled faintly garlicky, like some cab drivers he'd ridden with recently.
The ceiling here was high, maybe fifteen feet, but it felt dark, even though he couldn't quite explain that feeling without asking Karen if it really was dark. It felt like there were no windows, or like they were covered up with thick blinds. He couldn't feel the sun, and the only fresh air they had was from the front door, twenty or thirty feet back, but it had been closed again.
"A couple families living upstairs," one of the officers was saying.
"Homeless?" Jim broke in.
"Probably. They weren't very talkative, they're out back right now."
Tom and Marty excused themselves a minute later to go talk to the two families.
"Seemed like they were in shock when we showed up and told them about the body."
"Someone they knew?" Karen asked.
Silence. Maybe a shrug. Jim turned toward the officer. "You said this guy's been dead two days. They didn't know he was here?"
"Apparently not. If they left, they could have gone out the back staircase. It leads from upstairs down to the courtyard out back."
"So they didn't see anyone around? Didn't even hear a gun shot?"
"No. But the slug passed clean through the body and got lodged in the stair underneath, so he was definitely shot right here. Didn't come crawling in, and he wasn't brought in."
Jim nodded and turned to where Karen had been standing. "Let's go talk to the families."
"Okay," Karen said.
She'd moved closer to the body. Jim corrected the angle of his head.
"Door's in the kitchen," the officer said, already moving away.
Jim urged Hank to follow Karen and left the officers pouring over the crime scene for any more evidence.
Jim stopped Karen in the kitchen. "Can you see them?"
"If I go over to the window."
"How many? What do they look like?"
"I thought this blind thing was going to give you a new perspective on things," Karen joked. "You know, no preconceived notions."
"I still like to know what things look like. Prepare myself."
"Not much to prepare for. They're just possible witnesses."
Jim smiled. "I'm always prepared."
"Three grown-ups. One male. He's black. So's one of the women. The other's as white as you are. Pale and blonde. The rest are kids. One baby. You wanna take the kids?"
It was no secret that Jim preferred to interview the kids sometimes, mostly because they didn't get so hung up on the fact that he was blind. They could relax, and he didn't always have to have his guard up.
Jim shook his head in answer to Karen's question. "Not yet. We shouldn't scare the kids until after we know better what's going on."
"I don't know about you, but I usually try not to scare the witnesses," Karen said as she opened the back door.
Jim followed her out. He felt Hank turn in the direction of the voices. Marty and Tom were already there. One of the women whimpered. Jim blanched; it didn't seem to be going so well.
"Let's go upstairs first. There's supposed to be a back staircase out here. Let Russo and Selway suffer a bit," Jim said.
"Okay." Karen scanned the backyard and Jim followed her to the stairs. The place had once had apartments upstairs, and a separate entrance had been added outside. Once upstairs, Karen told Jim there was "nothing up here." Nothing. No mattresses, no toys or extra clothes for the four kids. One extra reusable diaper that could only be washed at a service station down the street, since the building had no water or electricity.
"It's really bright. The windows are clean, no curtains. The walls are painted white. The carpet's old, but clean. Nothing much."
"Nothing?" he pressed.
"Well, half the ceiling is on the floor. You can see the beams up there, the plaster's all over the floor."
"Wouldn't you have cleaned that up, if it was you and some kids?" Jim queried.
"Let's go back down," Karen said. "Russo looks like he's about to get violent."
Jim followed, but wished he could have spent more time surveying the rooms. People were living there. There had to more than "nothing."
"Hey," Karen said when they got close to the witnesses.
"Hey," Tom greeted them.
"We thought we could split up, do a little one-on-one."
"No problem. Marty and I are going to take off. We got another call."
"You mean we gotta go through all this sht again?" an unfamiliar voice asked. Jim tried to size him up as the one male who'd been living upstairs. A big fellow with a deep voice.
"All what?" Marty asked. "You've told us nothing. You want to tell them nothing again, you go right ahead." The two other detectives started walking toward Jim, toward the house, their feet crunching on brittle end-of-season grass.
"Good luck," Tom said as he passed.
"Kick his ass, Jim, he needs a little working over," Marty said.
"You're gonna ask us the same crap, and we still don't know nothin'," the guy said.
"You're Rico Artez?" Karen asked quizzically. Jim moved closer and guessed that Tom and Marty had handed over some notes from their interview. He stood next to Karen, feeling oddly protective. He wasn't going to let this guy give crap to Karen; they were just doing their jobs.
"Yeah, I'm Rico Artez."
"You Hispanic?" Karen asked.
"What does it look like?"
"You have any ID?"
"No. I don't got a lot of things. Thought ID was a little worthless, you know? No bread, no running water, no way to protect my family," he said, getting a little worked up.
"And which one is your family."
"That girl, she's my sister. That one, she's my girlfriend. That kid, he's mine, the other three, they're hers."
"You mind if I talk to your sister?" Jim asked. He didn't know where the women were standing, but he didn't want to just stand around while Karen did most of the interviewing.
"Hey, you keep your hands off my sister."
"I'm not going to touch your sister. I'm going to talk to her." Jim beckoned to where he thought the women were standing, motioned for the sister to follow him. Then he signaled to Hank to walk away. He stopped after several yards.
"Yeah?" a small voice asked.
"What's your name?"
"DeLana."
"You Hispanic?"
"I, uh, no, I'm—"
Jim waved her explanation off. "You're Rico's sister?"
"Yeah."
"You been his sister your whole life?"
"Uh, no, I'm older than he is…"
Jim was pleasantly surprised at how quick she was, a nimble wit. "You know we just found a dead body in that building?"
"Yeah."
"You were living in that building?"
"Living?" she asked skeptically. "Staying, yeah."
"With three kids."
"Four if you—"
"But you have three."
"Yeah. I have three."
DeLana had three kids, one was nine, the oldest, a daughter named Tamika. The next was a daughter who was four, named DeWanda, the last a daughter aged two, named Cindy.
"Cindy?"
"I didn't name her."
"Who did?"
"What's this about, Detective?"
"Okay, okay." Jim cocked his head to the side and smiled at her. She had spunk, he admired that. She also had three kids and she was only 26. He hadn't even been married when he was 26, he'd just been getting out of the military then.
"There was a dead guy found in the building you're staying in. Did you know he was there?"
"No."
"He wasn't staying here, too?"
"No."
"You didn't hear any gunshots? You didn't know there was something dead in the building?"
"No. I guess I'm kinda dense, Detective."
"No, I think you should be a detective, DeLana. You're very good at evading questions." He could tell that from her voice. She sounded scared, yet full of fire. He couldn't guess the origins of her nerves, but he had a feeling she was holding back.
"You done?" Rico asked, walking up.
"I'm done with the girlfriend," Karen said.
DeLana shrieked. Jim heard a large thump next to him and jumped. Karen gasped.
"What?" Jim asked, trying to remain calm, trying to remind Karen she couldn't go comatose on him; he needed her.
"He's having a seizure," DeLana said, dropping to her knees.
Jim dropped down beside her to help restrain him so he wouldn't hurt himself, but Rico went limp when Jim touched him. Jim quickly reached up to make sure he was still breathing. DeLana was crying, and so was someone else, probably the girlfriend. Two of the kids were yelling.
"Be quiet!" DeLana yelled over her shoulder. Her hands were moving over Rico's body, loosening clothes, checking his pulse, running into Jim's hands as he tried to do the same.
A moment later Rico was weakly clutching Jim's arm while Karen called for a rescue squad. DeLana rushed over to her.
"No! We can't afford a doctor. He's okay. It was a small one." She continued to argue with Karen.
Rico grabbed a piece of Jim's jacket and pulled him down. "What if I die?" His voice was slurred and soft.
"I don't know," Jim said quietly.
"Look, we got…" he trailed off and Jim was afraid he'd passed out. "Problems."
Jim tried to help him sit up, but he shook him off, keeping hold of Jim's coat to keep him close.
"If you put us somewhere safe…" Rico gasped. "They're gonna think we talked anyway." He gasped for breath again. He wasn't going to stay conscious much longer. "DeLana won't want to tell you. But if you protect us…" His hand slackened and fell to the ground. "Then I'll tell you. If they're safe…"
DeLana screamed again.
"It's okay," Jim said loudly over the crying of children. "He's alive."
DeLana sobbed. Jim wondered what all they knew. It could have been just a clever plan to get room and board in a nice place, or maybe they actually knew something—it was too soon to be sure.
Jim got home late, but Christie wasn't there yet. He set the gift on the table by the door where she'd be sure to see it, then changed his clothes and got a beer. Hank followed him around for a few minutes. He didn't seem to like it when Jim was preoccupied. He settled down by the sofa and Jim eventually stopped pacing and sat by the window, tapping the glass with the knuckle of his index finger.
His first thought was what Christie would say when she found the present. There would probably be a fight. He hadn't even gotten a card, hated picking them out. Besides, there was nothing a card could say that would make the situation any better. They didn't exactly make cards for "sorry I forgot your birthday, honey bunch, please don't hate me."
The case kept popping into his mind even as he tried to think only of the best thing to say when his wife got home. Her reaction, he would have no control over; he could never predict Christie. But the case, he had a chance where the case was concerned.
Except they had no clues. The only thing they had was a promise that the two families would be moved to a safe location and a doctor would look Artez over, for free. They didn't even know who the DOA was; he'd had no identification. They'd just have to wait to see if the fingerprints matched anyone or if a missing-person's report turned out to match.
"Lying on the stairs?" Jim had asked Karen as they went over the crime scene once more before leaving.
"Yeah, lying on the stairs," Karen said.
"And we'll just assume for now, despite whatever Artez wanted to say, that the two families upstairs, none of the seven of them have come downstairs in a couple days."
"Six," Karen argued. "You can't count the baby."
"Okay, okay, none of the six of them. Despite the fact that there's no food and no running water, they never left down that staircase." Jim patted the railing. He wanted to get closer, get a better look. Not that he enjoyed touching dead people, but he found his Hands-on-Homicide-Detecting was sometimes more thorough than anything the sighted detectives would notice. "Describe in detail what he's wearing."
"Khaki shorts, long ones, to the knee. A t-shirt. It's pale orange with green letters."
"What's it say?"
""Owls aren't pussycats." 'Owls' is capitalized."
"'Pussycats' isn't?"
"Nope."
"Bright green, dark green?"
"Like a dark lime."
Jim grimaced. "Stylish."
"And no shoes."
"In New York?" Jim started. "Does he look homeless?"
"He looks in way better shape than the families upstairs."
Jim wanted to make sure he had a thorough understanding of the scene. "Barefoot…" he said again. "Are his feet dirty?"
"What?" Karen asked with a short laugh, caught off-guard by the question. He heard her moving around, leaning against the wall, the railing creaked. "Uhhh, no."
"No. Huh."
It didn't make much sense, even after hours of thinking it over. An almost not fatal wounding with minimal blood, no sign of drugs in the vicinity, no wallet. But that could have been stolen, if it was a robbery. Yet, there was no indication of a robbery besides the lack of a wallet on the DOA.
Jim leaned his forehead against the apartment window and tried to clear his head of the case. He was home; he was supposed to have better things to do with his evenings. Jim tried to picture the street below, the brown brick of the buildings. He could hear the elevated train going by.
Christie still wasn't home.
The new case had come too late in the day for Jim to feel they had a satisfactory feel for it, and it was going to bother him all night.
And where was Christie?
"Hank." Jim stood up. He had to clear his head. With Hank back in harness the two walked down to the park. He needed to concentrate when walking around the city, and that would help clear his mind of the two things he didn't yet have control over.
The sun had set. It was definitely fall. Jim could find every tree in the park just by listening to the loud rustles of dried leaves overhead. He hadn't grabbed a coat and the wind was waging war on the crewneck shirt he wore.
"Come on, Hank," he said and changed their destination. He hadn't seen his wife in two days; a little walk in the park wasn't likely to clear his head.
Morrissey's Bar was right where he'd left it. He hadn't been there in over a year. In fact, he hadn't gone alone to a bar since he'd been shot, he realized as he reached out for the door. His hand touched the door and he considered for a second pulling back, unsure if he was ready for his first solo bar trip—bars were places full of chaos, and he found it difficult to deal with chaos he couldn't see—but he rallied and slid his hand down until he felt the handle. He squeezed it and pushed. He wanted a beer. He wanted a bar to call home again.
He used to spend a lot of time at Morrissey's, unwinding. No one from the 77 had hung out there, but he was there enough it was like having family close by. He knew Morrissey's. He'd stumbled out of there blind drunk once or twice, he thought grimly; just being blind and not drunk should be a piece of cake.
The early evening crowd was already there, he could tell by the level of conversation. Not yet the boisterous party crowd they'd get later that night.
"Jim! Jimmy-boy!"
Jim's head snapped up, his concentration broken. For a second the sounds of people and drinking flooded him and overwhelmed him to the point he couldn't let go of the door. Breathe, Jim. He inhaled cigarette smoke and oxygen.
"Jimmy-boy! Long time no see."
Jim grinned against his will. "Gray!" He'd finally recognized the bartender's gravelly voice. Gray was about thirty-five, younger than Jim, an ex-Navy Seal with a sense of mischief that had almost gotten him booted out of the Seals at least once a week, so he claimed. Jim nudged Hank to the right, toward the bar, hoping for an empty barstool so he wouldn't have to find a table. He'd usually stayed at the bar when he frequented the place before, talking shop and shit with Gray and whoever else was around.
Jim stopped at the bar. "How you been?" he asked before Gray could bring up the past year.
"Can't complain," Gray said.
Jim adjusted his gaze so he was facing the bartender more squarely. "Me either," he said with a grin. He'd kept an ear on the bar, never knowing a silent drunk. He couldn't hear anyone talking or any mugs hitting the counter, so he reached out with his right hand and found a barstool to hoist himself onto. Hank settled in the corner out of the way. Jim was relieved to have a spot at the end of the bar.
"You drinking?" Gray asked.
"Yeah, gimme a beer." Settled, he relaxed, cracked his neck, touched the bar in front of him, claiming his space for the evening. A bottle hit the counter in front of him and he reached out, snagging the beer to situate it where he wanted it. "Thanks." He took a swig, then set it back. "Hey, Gray…" He trailed off in case the bartender had wandered off to help another patron.
"Yeah?" He hadn't moved from in front of Jim.
"What are your thoughts on tissue paper?"
Gray guffawed. "Tissue paper?"
"Yeah, the stuff you put in presents."
"Maybe you put it in your presents; I never use the stuff." He made it sound as foul as any street drug talked about by a nun.
Jim groaned, but he couldn't help but smile at the same time. What the hell, it didn't matter; Christie was already going to be mad about her birthday, it didn't matter if there was tissue paper or not.
Two hours later, when Jim finally left, he realized Gray had never once brought up the fact that he couldn't see. Satisfying, that's what it was. Like he was finally getting his life back.
He could smell her. It smelled like fresh bubble bath permeating the apartment. "I'm home!" he called as he dropped his keys on the table by the door, surreptitiously moving his hand to sweep over the back of the table where he'd set the gift bag. It was gone.
"I'm headed to bed," Christie said lightly. She was in the kitchen.
Jim knelt down and took off Hank's harness. He wanted to say, Well? and get it over with. Well? What about the present? Did you like it? What about me forgetting your birthday? Am I in trouble or are we okay? "Okay. Good night," he said, not sure if she was still in the room or not.