Bloodlines

substitute a glass or two of red wine for the beer or milk he usually drank with his meals, he’d be doing his coronary arteries a big favor and, at the same time, reducing his emotional stress.
    “Hey, hey!” he’d said. “Hold that Bud! Bring forth the Chateau le Classy!”
    But, to my amazement, he had apparently taken her suggestion seriously. At any rate, that Monday evening, instead of showing up with his usual ground beef and Bud, he’d brought a package of chicken thighs and a half-gallon jug of Gallo red burgundy.
    “Distressed grapes,” Kevin said, quoting Rita. He picked up a glass tumbler that Rowdy had won at a match, took a gulp, and swallowed the wine. Then he upended the package of chicken on the blackened onions. Steam hissed and smoke rose. Rowdy and Kimi, stationed on either side of Kevin, lifted their noses as if to heaven. “Distressed grapes,” Kevin repeated. “Make ’em suffer, and then when they hit your gut, they’re mad as hell. Start out with all this fat clogging everything up, and you pour these little guys in, and they blast it out.” His beefy hand brought the glass to his lips. He drank, gave a satisfied smile, and added, “Just like Drano.”
    The wine in my mouth began to burn my tongue. “Your stomach must be feeling better,” I said.
    “Could’ve happened to anyone.” He vigorously forked the chicken thighs. “Spoor’ll do that to you, you know. It’s physical. You can’t help it. You know, I was thinking about that today, you know, trying not to put my foot in it, and suddenly it comes to me that Rita’s idea of how you clear out the old system... Well, it struck me...”
    “Rita didn’t mean... She didn’t even mean the tracking course. She meant, uh, relaxation, deep breathing, that kind of thing. Your job is stressful, Kevin. That’s all she meant. I mean, take today.”
    “I’m all right,” he insisted, flipping the chicken black side up.
    “No one says you aren’t! The point is that you can’t do what you do without feeling the strain. That’s all. Rita wasn’t blaming you.”
    Once the chicken thighs had an ebony crust on both sides, Kevin dished out equal portions for himself and for me. With the dogs following his every move, he picked up both plates, lumbered to the table, and added the final fillip: He stuck one massive thumb over the top of the Gallo jug, raised and tipped it, and dashed liberal splashes of wine over the half-raw chicken and cremated onions.
    A huge grin filled the most Irish-looking face in Cambridge. If red hair can smile, Kevin’s did. “Frog food. Coq au vin,” he declared proudly as he sank to his seat. Kevin’s accent is quite good. His high school French teacher was a woman from Paris. I wished that she’d taught home ec. Kevin lifted his fork, held it Poised, and gallantly commanded: “Apres vous. ”
    Rowdy and Kimi eyed me hopefully. Kimi will steal toast right out of the toaster—if you aren’t vigilant, she’ll take half-chewed food out of your mouth—and Rowdy’s not much better. Some pretext to get up and leave my plate unguarded? Damn the splintery chicken bones. You do know about that, don’t you? Chicken bones can puncture a dog’s intestines. And undercooked —yuck, let’s face it—uncooked chicken? Swarming with salmonella. I dug in. Better me than my dogs. Dog saliva splattered to the floor. Kevin and I discussed the murder of Diane Sweet.
    “She was a very hard worker,” Kevin said. “The idea was that the husband, John, did the business part, and Diane did the dogs and helped the customers. But the long and the short of it is—this isn’t what John Sweet’ll tell you, but it’s not hard to figure out—is that she’s good at everything, and he’s good for nothing. The fact of it is, what he did, when you come down to it, was he lived off his wife, and now all’s he does is ask when we’ll be out of there so’s he can open the shop up again. Guys like that make me sick.” Kevin took a forkful of onion cinders, chewed pensively, and, studying my face, said, “Now, Holly, I want you to tell me the honest-to-God’s truth. Is this the best chicken you ever ate?”
    “Amazing.” Time to change the subject. “Kevin, look. If Diane Sweet was working hard—”
    “Eight A.M. every day, before the place was open, nights, weekends. Open seven days a week, and she worked eight. She stayed there after it was closed, paid the bills, cleaned up, washed the