When he didn’t hear anything, he pressed the bell, but maybe he shouldn’t have, because right then he heard somebody say, I’m coming.
The door was answered by a giant young woman in black, a head taller than he was.
There was an instant mood of cold dislike between them and they averted their eyes from each other. She did not greet him. All she said was, My mother’s in the kitchen, and turned her back on him, becoming nearly invisible in the dark doorway in her huge black shirt. She was there and then she wasn’t.
He heard thump-thump-thump and saw her cold bare white feet running up three steps, as if she were escaping from him, escaping to her apartment door with an outline of light around it. She pushed through it, giving him a glimpse of the interior before it swung shut: a yellow lamp, a wooden table. In his boots, he tramped up the stairs after her and followed her inside.
Sitting at the wooden table, there was a woman with a cigarette in her mouth.
That wasn’t the most polite thing in the world, that’s all I’m saying.
He’s fine, the giant girl said, not looking at Skinner.
You shut the door in his face.
No, I didn’t, the daughter said, skirting the big wooden table and the circle of yellow lamplight and disappearing down a hallway with old dark pictures on the walls, and, when she was no longer visible, uttering something else in that indifferent voice of hers, but it was impossible to hear what she said and was she even talking to them.
Yeah, right. The woman rolled her eyes. Come in, she told Skinner. Don’t be shy. Come in, come in.
She was enormous. He figured three hundred easy. She was wearing a purple velvet housedress and she had beefy shoulders and puffy hands, and from all the way across the kitchen, he could hear the air going into her lungs and coming out as cigarette smoke. Her skin had been sand-blasted. It was pitted, gray, and rough. Her hair was styled close to the sides and rose above her head in a kind of pompadour which rotated like the keel of a ship when she turned, her eye half-shut against the smoke from a cigarette, watching him as he approached.
Uh, hey, he said.
Hey, she said. Then she gestured with her eyes. She was directing him to the place across from her where she wanted him to sit at her table.
He drew the chair out and dropped into it, slouching with his knees spread. He looked across the table at her.
She stared back at him.
How’s it goin? he asked.
It’s goin. She was holding her cigarette up by her cheek, resting her thick elbow on the table. You made it here okay then?
You mean like finding the house?
Coming here and finding the address, yes.
Yeah, obviously, he said. That was nothing.
Well, I ask because it sounded like it was going to be a problem. It’s a long way for some people.
Not that long.
Well, good. You’re here.
As long as I know where something is, I know eventually I can get there.
Well, like I said, you made it.
Not a problem.
Good.
Once you’ve humped twenty miles a few times, getting to Queens isn’t so hard.
Once what?
Humped. Humped a pack on your back for twenty miles. Army infantry?
Is that what you do?
That’s what I did, yeah.
You were in the army?
Yeah, I just got out of the army I want to say like three weeks ago.
You just got out.
Yeah, I just got out.
I saw the garb, your coat — I thought you were military, but I wasn’t sure if it was you or someone else I spoke with.
No, it was me.
Well, she said. Well, we owe you. That’s my belief.
I just came back from three tours in Iraq, he said.
Three tours?
Not one. Not two. Three.
She shook her head. Goodness. My word. She looked over her shoulder in the direction of the refrigerator. I’d give you a beer if I had one. If I was still tending bar.
They stop-lossed me.
Where they don’t let you go.
Yeah, they don’t let you go, even though you’re supposed to.
We’ve heard about that. It’s been on the news.
You might have a doctor saying you need to get out, a med board or whatever, or a baby on the way or some shit, and they don’t let you go even though, on your contract, they’re supposed to. Legally, they’re screwing you over. Legally, they’re just saying screw this piece of paper, you’re going back in.
They don’t have people for the war.
I was supposed to be out a hell of a lot sooner, but they kept putting me back in. I had to do thirty-six months of combat duty.
Well—
That’s supposed to be okay.
Well, you’re out, thank God.
He shook his head.
You’re out and in one piece, she said.
Yeah.
You served, thank God, and you’re in one piece, and now you’re out. She reached out and tapped her cigarette in the ashtray in the center of her table.
The woman said, We have a friend, a friend of my daughter’s, the Gambias — down the block — they have a son in the army — the army or the marines, one of the two — and he’s going over, over to Iraq. He’s there already, come to think of it. It’s the 82nd wing, the 82nd something.
Airborne.
That could be it. They’re an elite, I know that much. It’s a special platoon that they only take the top. I couldn’t believe what these men do, when she told me. They have running and pushups and the usual, bad enough, but then she says they put rocks in the backpacks until the men start throwing up. The highest number of battles or wins, she was saying.
I wouldn’t know.
They’re famous outside the army, but I can’t remember the name. They have a saying. His mother wears the t-shirt when she comes. Barbara. In her glory. I guess you wouldn’t happen to know the saying? I wish I remembered it. She was telling me. I’d tell her to get me a shirt, but I don’t think it’d fit me.
He didn’t say anything.
Like I said, I’d offer you a beer. She raised her head to project her voice down the hallway and called out, Erin! and when there was no answer, she twisted her head around over the other shoulder, trying to turn herself towards the refrigerator. She pushed the table, which jolted on its legs, but her chair didn’t move. He heard her take a breath and prepare to turn her body. Her foot slid on the linoleum.
You wanna do me a favor? Check the fridge, I should have a beer in there, at least one.
He got up and went to her refrigerator, which had the look of when a lot of people share it. It smelled like mayo turning hard. There was a cardboard case of Michelob, a twenty-four pack, dominating an entire shelf. He stuck his hand in the ragged hole in the cardboard and felt nothing in there until he had his arm all the way in and felt a single cold can all the way on the inside.
He cracked the can open, fell into his chair, mumbled thank you, slung his head back and drank off half of it. Wiped his chin. A belch snuck up on him — a loud one.
Better?
Whoops.
Don’t mention it. I’ve raised two sons and a husband. You’d think it was prehistoric times.
Yeah, he said.
Believe me, they think it’s Conan the Barbarian.
She grinned. A missing canine tooth.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re good Irish men, she said gravely.
He lifted his beer can six inches off the table and set it down. I hear ya.
Anyway! she said and stubbed her cigarette out. You’re here for the room. She began to describe it in her strong, hoarse voice. It was clean, she told him. The paint was new. The neighborhood used to be Irish. Now it was take-your-pick.
He swallowed the rest of the beer, which mixed with the medication in his bloodstream, creating a tightening effect at the base of his skull.