“You’re working now, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “Little get-well jobs. Sweeping out a couple of joints after closing, Dan Kelly’s and Pete’s All-American. You know the All-American?”
“Talk about a bucket of blood. I would duck in there for a quick one, but I never stayed any length of time.”
“Like making a pit stop. I used to love that, walk into a bar, have a quick pop, then out again to face the world. Anyway, I go into those two joints late at night or early in the morning, sweep the place out, take out the empties, put the chairs back around the tables. And there’s a moving company down in the Village gives me a day’s work now and then. Everything’s off the books, you don’t need no Social Security card for those jobs. I get by.”
“Sure.”
“My rent’s cheap, and I don’t eat much, I never ate much, and what am I gonna spend my dough on? Night-clubs? Fancy clothes? Fuel for my yacht?”
“Sounds as though you’re doing all right.”
He stopped walking, turned to face me. “Yeah, but I’m just shooting the shit, Matt.” He put his hands in his pockets and stood looking down at the pavement. “The point is I done stuff I don’t know if I want to tell anybody about. Admitting it to myself, all right, like I already know it, right? So it’s just a matter of getting honest and facing up to it. And admitting it to God, well, man, if there’s no God it don’t make no difference, and if there is a God He already knows everything you done, so that part’s easy. But coming clean with another person, shit, I don’t know, Matt. I done certain things that you could go away for, and in some cases there’s other people involved, and I just don’t know how I feel about all that.”
“A lot of people take the step with a priest.”
“You mean like confession?”
“I think it’s a little different. You’re not seeking formal absolution as much as you’re attempting to unburden yourself. You don’t have to be a Catholic, and you don’t have to go through it in a church. You can even find a priest who’s sober in AA and understands what the program’s all about. But even if he’s not he’d be bound by the seal of the confessional, so you wouldn’t have to worry about him saying anything to anybody.”
“I couldn’t tell you the last time I was in a church. Wait a minute, did you hear what I just said? Christ, I was in a church an hour ago. I been going into church basements once or twice a day for months. But the last time I went to mass, well, I went to a couple weddings over the years, Catholic weddings, but I didn’t take communion. I’m sure it’s more than twenty years since I made confession.”
“It doesn’t have to be with a priest. But if you’re worried about confidentiality—”
“Is that how you did it? With a priest?”
“I took it with another person from the program. You know him. Jim Faber.”
“I don’t think I know him.”
“Sure you do. He comes to St. Paul’s all the time, he was there tonight. He’s a few years older than I am. Hair’s mostly gray, wears a beat-up army jacket most of the time. You’d know him if you saw him.”
“He wasn’t at the Flame, was he?”
“Not tonight.”
“What is he, a cop or a detective or something?”
“No, he’s a printer, he’s got his own shop over on Eleventh Avenue.”
“Oh, Jim the Printer,” he said. “Been sober a long time.”
“He’s coming up on nine years.”
“Yeah, well, that’s a long time.”
“He would tell you he just did it a day at a time.”
“Yeah, that’s what they all tell you. It’s still nine fucking years, isn’t it? No matter how you slice it, divide it into hours and minutes if you want, it still comes to nine years.”
“That’s the truth.”
He took out another cigarette, changed his mind, returned it to the pack. “Is he your sponsor?”
“Not formally. I’ve never had a sponsor in any formal way. I’ve never been very good at doing things the way you’re supposed to. Jim’s the person I call when I want to talk about something. If I call anybody.”
“I got a sponsor when I was about two days out of detox. I got his number next to my phone. The phone doesn’t work and I’ve never called him anyway. We go to different meetings, so I never see him, either.”
“What’s his name?”
“Dave. I don’t know his last name, and I have to say I’m beginning to forget what he looks like, it’s so long since I saw him. But I’ve never yet thrown his number away, so I guess he’s still my sponsor. I mean, I could call him if I had to, right?”
“Sure.”
“I could even take the step with him.”
“If you felt comfortable with him.”
“I don’t even know him. Do you have anybody that you sponsor, Matt?”
“No.”
“You ever hear anybody’s fifth step?”
“No.”
There was a bottle cap on the sidewalk and he kicked at it. “Because I guess that’s what I’m leading up to. I can’t believe it, a crook looking to confess to a cop. Of course you’re not with the department no more, but would you still, you know, be bound to report anything I said?”
“No. I wouldn’t have the legal right to withhold information, the way a priest or a lawyer might, but that’s how I’d treat it. As privileged information.”
“Would you be willing? It’d be a whole load of shit once I got started, you might not want to sit through it.”
“I’ll force myself.”
“I feel funny asking.”
“I know. I felt the same way.”
“If it was just me involved,” he began, then broke off the sentence. He said, “What I want to do, I want to take a couple of days, sort things out in my mind, think some things through. Then if you’re still willing we can get together and I can talk some. If that’s all right with you.”
“There’s no hurry,” I told him. “Wait until you’re ready.”
He shook his head. “If I wait till I’m ready I’ll never do it. Gimme the weekend to sort it out and then we’ll sit down and do it.”
“Sorting it out is part of it. Take all the time you need.”
“I been doing that,” he said. He grinned, put a hand on my shoulder. “Thanks, Matt. That’s my block coming up and I think I’ll say good night.”
“ ‘Night, Eddie.”
“Have a good weekend.”
“You too. Maybe I’ll run into you at a meeting.”
“St. Paul’s is just Monday through Friday, right? I’ll probably get there Monday night, anyway. Matt? Thanks again.”
He headed for his building. I walked up a block on Tenth, walked east on one of the cross streets. A few doors from the corner of Ninth Avenue, three young men in a doorway went silent at my approach. Their eyes followed me all the way to the corner, and I could feel their stares like darts between my shoulder blades.
Halfway home a hooker asked me if I felt like partying. She looked young and fresh, but they mostly do these days; drugs and viruses keep them from lasting long enough to fade.
I told her we’d have to make it some other time. Her smile, at least as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s, stayed with me all the way home. At Fifty-sixth Street a black man, bare to the waist, asked me for spare change. Half a block farther, a woman stepped out of the shadows and made the same request. She had lank blond hair and the face of an Okie out of one of those Depression photographs. They each got a dollar from me.