"A Cadillac necklace? He have a tattoo on his arm, some letters?"
The muscles in Jason's back knit tight. "You're kidding me."
"What?"
"He didn't have the wrong guy. You do know him."
"I know him."
"Who is he?"
Michael shrugged. Jason stared at his brother. "What are you mixed up in?"
"What're you, Jimmy Cagney? What am I 'mixed up' in? Gee willikers, little bro."
"Fuck you."
Michael laughed. He glanced at the briefcase, picked it up, then put it back down in front of his legs. With a worn rag he began wiping the bar. "Listen, it's nothing to worry about."
"Yeah, well, you weren't the one had a gun pointed at him."
The cloth stopped. "He pulled a gun?"
Jason nodded. "Said he wanted to talk about what you're doing."
For a moment, there was a flash of something that could've been fear in Michael's eyes. It went fast, and then he was back to wiping the bar. But he kept running the rag in the same circle over and over. "What else did he say?"
"Not much." Jason leaned back. "He and a buddy of his, short guy looks like he's auditioning for the WWE, tried to muscle me into their car." He ran Michael through the whole story, enjoying telling it, the way he'd once enjoyed telling war stories. "You shoulda seen it, bro. The two of them standing there trying to murder me with their glares. The short one's nose is broken, and Soul Patch, he looked like his head was about to explode."
"You call the police?"
"Nah. After my heroic escape, I figured it made more sense to see if my big brother needed any protecting."
Michael smiled. "Next time I hear this story, there are going to be four guys, right?"
"Only if my audience is cuter than you. Want to tell me what's going on?"
His brother shrugged. "You know the neighborhood."
"Not really. Not anymore." When Dad had lost his job, they'd moved from Bridgeport to Canaryville; when he'd started drinking at breakfast, they'd moved from Canaryville to Crenwood. When he'd run off with the waitress from his off-track betting house, Mom had taken a third job, but never made enough to climb back up the ladder. It'd been an interesting place to grow up, white in a black and Latino neighborhood with a high school dropout rate of fifty percent.
"Things are getting out of hand," Michael said. "You remember, it used to be manageable – the gangs drew up lines and mostly respected them. Did a lot more posturing than killing." He shook his head. "These days, though, if somebody gets killed on Monday, Tuesday his boys ride around till they find somebody from the other side to shoot. Wednesday, it's the reverse."
"So?"
"So, this my neighborhood, man. I'm trying to raise my son here. Right now, I can't even let him play in the front yard."
Jason groaned. "I get it."
"What?"
"You're at it again, aren't you?"
"At what?"
"You're running some kind of crusade."
"I got involved." Michael shrugged. "After Lisa died."
Jason softened. "That was an accident. This is different."
"Is it? My wife was killed by a thirteen-year-old in a stolen car. He was running from the police. That sound like the sign of a healthy neighborhood to you? And things get worse every day. Why shouldn't regular people fight back?"
"Because…" Jason held his hands open, all the reasons in the world between them. "These guys are dangerous, for Christ's sake." Behind him he heard a faint rumbling, something rhythmic. He spun to look past Billy out the window, where a shiny drop-top with four men drove by, music trailing behind them like a bad smell. "What exactly are you doing?"
Michael shrugged. "Everything I can. I work with Washington Matthew's gang recovery program. I talk to local business people. I organize community-watch groups. I even met with the cops, not that it did much good."
"You talked to the cops?"
"Sure."
"You mean you informed on a gang?"
"Don't be so melodramatic. I just talked to the police."
Jason stared across the bar, his mouth open. Growing up here, you learned certain things. The cops were good guys. They fought for the real people, the ones with jobs and homes and children. Some innocent kid got killed for his sneakers, they rolled in hard. But sooner or later they rolled out again.
The gangs lived here. They were eternal.
"Why haven't you told me any of this?"
"I don't know." Michael sipped his beer, looked out the window. "I didn't want to burden you with it. I mean, I know you're dealing with your own baggage. From whatever happened in – over there."
"You can say it. Iraq."
"Okay, tough guy, Iraq. After everything there, I know it's been bad for you. Besides," Michael shrugged, "you've made it pretty clear how you feel about taking responsibility." He said it in the older-brother tone of voice he reserved for Jason, like he was a puppy that might piss the rug.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Let it slide."
"No." Jason set down his glass. "You got something you want to say?"
Michael sighed. "Brother, you were always the smart one. You could make something of yourself. Put down roots. Fight for something."
"Like you?" The anger was quickening in Jason's chest. "Pretending you're Charles Bronson?"
"Keep it down." Michael nodded to where Billy sat.
Jason lowered his voice. "And that's another thing. It's not just you. You're putting him at risk, too. Do you know what you're doing?"
Michael hardened. "I'm trying to make a better place for him to grow up."
"Bullshit." He shook his head. "I've tried to save the world, okay? It doesn't work." The Worm looped another knotted segment around his ribs. Jason looked at his hands, the wrinkles that lined the flesh between thumb and forefinger. He could almost see his pulse jumping there.
"Bro," Michael spoke softly, "I know something happened, and I know you blame yourself for whatever it was. But this is different."
"You don't know shit, bro."
Michael ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, making the cheek bulge. He just stared at Jason. "I know you could have been the first of us to get a degree, until you blew your scholarship. I know your longest relationship lasted three months, and that you got busted for stealing televisions when you were twenty." Michael snorted. "I know that if it weren't for Washington, your ass would be in jail."
"That was kid stuff. And ancient fucking history."
"Kid stuff? You haven't changed."
"I was in the Army for seven years," Jason hissed.
Michael shrugged. "Sure."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Never mind."
"No," Jason said, feeling sweat in his palms, "what does that mean?"
"You really want to know? It means you're twenty-seven years old and only qualified to flip burgers or carry an assault rifle. It means you're willing to fight for something, you just don't want to decide what, or have to stick to it. I think you enlisted so other people would do that for you. And when that didn't work out, you fell back into what you knew. Drinking at noon and trying to get laid."
Jason stood up, his stool scraping across the floor. "Fuck you, man."
"Yeah, fuck you too."
Their voices had risen, and Jason saw Billy staring at them from the front table, his mouth wide. He felt bad about that, his nephew seeing them this way, but it wasn't his fault. It was the old dynamic, Michael pushing that same old button, and Jason blowing up over it. Shaking his head, Jason hip-checked the stool and headed for the front door. Behind him, he could hear Michael sigh, and he knew if he stood there for three seconds his brother would apologize, but he didn't have it in him.