Page 42 of The Guy in the Alley

“Christ, Ma, it’s just my third molar,” I replied. “I’ll go to a?—”

“I’ll call Joseph tomorrow,” she said abruptly. “I want that extracted as soon as possible.” She wagged a knife my way. “I’ve been telling you for years—and you remember when you had issues with periodontal pockets back there?”

That settled it. I was going to “Garrett’s” tonight. Now she’d found something new to fret over, and it was only gonna get worse. Nothing I said mattered. She muttered to herself as she stirred the stew and added the mushrooms.

“It’s all this going back and forth,” she said, seemingly to herself. “Few months there, couple weeks at Garrett’s, new place, and now the car needs repairing too?”

I sighed and scrubbed my hands over my face.

“And don’t think I haven’t noticed you’ve lost weight,” she told me.

I tried to make light of it. “It’s fine. I had some extra padding to get rid of.”

She scoffed and shook her head. She kept muttering too, and it was only a matter of time before she made the sign of the cross.

Growing up, I’d gone to Mass with my folks during holidays. That was it. Ma had visited a bit more often, but nothing like it was now. She went almost every day. Granted, she had her lady friends there; they had coffee and gossiped. But she’d definitely become more religious in her later years. Suddenly, she covered all the Catholic cultures she came from. She was a heritage cocktail of Ireland, Italy, and Poland.

“Grandma?” Alvin came out of his room, holding up his purple-dyed hands. “Do we have more vinegar?”

I felt my forehead crease. “Are you making the bath bombs in your room, son?”

We’d agreed he should do that in the bathroom.

“Only the color paste,” he promised. “I’ve come up with a new ratio that creates better sounds in the final product.”

Right. Of course he had.

“Come here, love.” Ma ushered him over and turned on the water. Then she found the vinegar and grabbed a sponge. “Nothing on your clothes?”

“Not this time!” Alvin was triumphant.

My mouth twisted. He was too cute.

While he hadn’t been able to graduate from high school, he’d always done well with science. He’d loved chemistry and physics.

“I think you should stay here tonight, Ben,” Ma said. “Don’t you think so too, Alvin? It’s gonna be dark soon, and it’s just not safe out.”

“Ma,” I warned tiredly. She couldn’t fucking keep projecting her fears on to Alvin. He had enough anxiety in his life.

Alvin chewed on his lip and flicked his gaze between us. “I can take out the air bed.”

Fucking hell. No, I shouldn’t. It was better I found a spot over by there on Harlem and Wellington. I knew of at least two apartment buildings where the locks on the front doors were broken. That way, Alvin and Ma didn’t have to rearrange everything. Because the air bed only fit in Alvin’s room, but he couldn’t sleep in the same room as me since he claimed I snored—and if we brought that up, Ma would go on another bullshit rant about how only anxious people snored. I didn’t know where she’d gotten that from, but it was her firm belief that a stress-free person slept peacefully and quietly. That, in turn, posed a new problem because Ma couldn’t get up from the air bed on her own, so that resulted in me on the couch, Alvin in the air bed, and Ma in his bed.

No. Tonight wasn’t an emergency. I would make do. I’d be back here soon enough, when my exhaustion won out, when I hadn’t eaten in twenty-four hours, and if the weather got worse. We’d just survived a snowstorm and a ten-below-zero cold spell with icy winds. Whatever we had today—I guessed around twenty-five or thirty—was practically spring for me.

* * *

A few days later, I scored a job interview that actually made me nervous, because I was qualified. In truth, I was overqualified, but it beat showing up with zero credentials to back up my experience.

Once in the city, I took the L toward River North and texted Angie.

If I dont text within the hour Ive thrown myself into the lake. Otherwise Ill see you outside McDonalds.

She responded pretty fast.

You got this! Btw, I forgot to ask how you found the listing? In the meantime, I’m gonna work on my breakup speech for tomorrow. Pretend you’re surprised.

Shit, again? She seemed to be a magnet for douchebags. After her divorce from Whatshisface almost ten years ago, she’d jumped from one to another in hopes of finding the guy she wanted to retire with. Luckily, she had some time left. She was only forty-five.

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