Bridge of Sighs

neither one of them had raised his voice. Had the boy been listening at the door?
    “It’s okay, Will,” Noonan’s father said. “Everything’s all right.”
    The boy didn’t move. He studied Noonan’s father, then Noonan himself, still visibly trembling.
    “He doesn’t like for people to be angry, do you, Will?”
    The boy shook his head violently. His mother came down the bar, put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Shhhh.”
    His father looked at Noonan. “Tell him everything’s fine.”
    “Everything’s fine,” he said.
    “Try meaning it,” his father suggested, the boy still staring at Noonan.
    “Everything’s okay,” he said, sincerely this time, and sure enough, the kid stopped trembling, gave them all a big smile and returned to the kitchen.
    “Don’t ask,” his father said once Maxine was again out of earshot. “I have no idea how he knows, but he does. If you made a fist right now, he’d be back out here before it landed.”
    “Maybe we should go someplace else.”
    His father shrugged. “The beer’s free here, unless you don’t think you can control yourself.”
    “I guess I was thinking more about you.”
    He ignored this, signaling to Maxine for two more drafts. “So, you know all about being a man now?”
    “How would I? All I’ve ever known is you.”
    “But you
haven’t
known me.”
    When Maxine came down the bar, Noonan waved away the beer.
    “Leave it,” his father told her. “He can drink it or not, his choice. He’s a man.” When she was gone again, his father changed the subject. “So, tell me about this Beverly girl.”
    “Why?” Noonan said, setting his beer down, realizing as he did so that he’d taken a swig without meaning to. He’d never mentioned Nan to his father—or mother, for that matter—but somehow he knew.
    “She’s cute. Marry her and you’re set for life,” his father said.
    “Maybe, but that’s not the plan.”
    “What is?”
    Sex, Noonan thought, though she hadn’t yet surrendered to him, mostly because he hadn’t pressed. And why was that? Sarah, probably. Now that they were all hanging out together, she and Nan had become confidantes, and for some reason she seemed to have concluded that Nan was vulnerable and needed protecting. “She really likes you, you know,” Sarah kept telling him, as if affection
caused
vulnerability. To Noonan it just meant they’d eventually have sex. That Sarah should consider it the reason they shouldn’t seemed beyond perverse.
    “College, maybe,” Noonan said, a trial balloon more than anything, curious to see what the old man would think.
    “Why not?” his father said, a surprise. Noonan had expected him to recommend the army. “I could maybe help, if that’s what you decide.”
    “Thanks.”
    His father noticed the tone. “Thanks, but no thanks? Is that what you’re saying? Thanks, but I’m not hungry? Thanks, but I’m not thirsty?” He nodded at Noonan’s glass, which somehow was empty now.
    “So what’s this about? We’re supposed to be friends, all of a sudden?”
    His father shrugged. “Any reason we shouldn’t be?”
    “Only the last seventeen years.”
    “We could start the next seventeen tonight.”
    Could he be serious? “I’ll think about it.”
    “But you don’t like the idea.”
    “Well, it’s the timing. Now that you don’t scare me anymore, you want to be friends.”
    “That’s one way to look at it.”
    “What’s the other way?”
    “Maybe it’s not all of a sudden. Maybe you haven’t been paying attention. Maybe you’re not as smart as you think. Maybe you just prefer what you’re used to. Maybe you’re afraid something new will throw you off kilter.”
    “You’re saying you’ve changed.”
    “I’m saying if you decide to go to college, maybe I can help a little. I’m saying the next time I offer to buy you dinner, you should take me up on it. There’s one more thing I’m saying, too, but it’ll have to wait, because right now I’ve got to pee. You must have to take a leak yourself.”
    “No, I’m fine,” he lied.
    His father just grinned at him. “Hard to do things different, isn’t it.”
    Once he was gone, Maxine came down the bar. “So how’s tending bar down in the Gut?”
    “Not bad,” Noonan said. And was it any of her business, he’d have liked to ask.
    “Murdick’s can get a little rough.”
    “It’s pretty quiet on Sundays,” Noonan said. “I’ve only had to eighty-six one guy. He called me a name,