Bridge of Sighs

shrugged. “What the fuck, right?” He grinned at me, clearly hoping he’d found someone who shared his personal philosophy, and then he recalled my father’s injunction. “What the heck, right?” he corrected himself, pleased to have erased the bad word so completely.
    “You gotta sign,” my father said when he started out the door with the six-pack.
    Buddy Nurt cautiously signed his name on the slip my father provided, as if this were the part that might trail unpleasant repercussions. “Got a…?” he said, making a bottle-opener gesture.
    My father handed him one from underneath the counter and he popped the cap off deftly, noticing that the opener was on a string only when he tried to slip it into his pocket. “Whoops,” he said, putting it back on the counter. Then he drained off half the bottle right there in front of us, and this seemed to provide the courage necessary to brave the climb upstairs. We listened to his slow, heavy steps up to the apartment, heard him tap on the door and call, “Hey, babe?”
    It was now safe, my father decided, to go eat his supper, but he hadn’t even made it to the door, when we heard rapidly descending footsteps, and Nancy Salvatore burst inside and slammed the six-pack—well, the five-pack now—down on the counter. “Buddy Nurt doesn’t sign for anything on my ticket, Mr. Lynch,” she said, looking first at him and then at me, as if she suspected I might be the one who’d have to enforce this rule. “Not ever. He’s the reason I had to leave all my friends and move here. He’s why my life’s a crock of shit.”
    My father looked scared, the way he always did around angry women. “Okay. It’s just that he said—”
    “Don’t listen to him,” she said, again fixing the two of us to make sure we understood. “He’s a liar. You believe a word that man says, you deserve what you get.” This statement seemed derived from experience both deep and profound. “Even if I change my mind later and tell you it’s okay? It’s not okay. It’s not
ever
okay. I’m gonna hold you to that, Mr. Lynch.”
    My father nodded, confused but agreeable.
    “How much for the one beer?”
    When he told her, she took the coins from her purse and handed them over.
    “My advice would be don’t even let him in the store,” she added. “On top of being a liar he’s also a thief.” I thought about pointing out that he’d already tried to pocket our bottle opener, but held my tongue. “In fact, have as little to do with Buddy Nurt as humanly possible.”
    “Okay,” my father agreed. And when she looked over at me, I said okay, too.
    She now calmed down a little. “I ought to have my damn head examined,” she said, massaging her brow. “I don’t know what comes over me with him. He’s up there now, looking all hangdog. By tonight I’ll be feeding him, by tomorrow I’ll be loaning him money, and by tomorrow night….” She studied me thoughtfully and apparently decided not to say what she’d be doing for Buddy Nurt then. “I had any sense, I’d shoot him. In ten years, I’d be out of prison, a free woman. Whereas now I’m looking at life with Buddy Nurt, no chance of parole.”
    More tramping down the stairs now. Nancy massaged her forehead even more ferociously, though it was already red from her previous exertions. “Here comes the other light of my life.”
    And sure enough, Karen came in and slammed the door shut so hard the glass rattled. You could see how furious she was, but I was still surprised when she pointed an index finger at Nancy and screamed, “This is
bullshit,
Ma!” I don’t think I’d ever heard anyone my age yell at a grownup before, certainly not in front of other people. In Karen’s defense, I’m not sure she even knew we were there. That’s how beside herself she was. Mother and daughter stood facing each other, a few feet apart, and Ikey Lubin’s might as well have been a stage set. Karen’s hands were clenched tightly into fists. Her mother’s shoulders had slumped, most of her previous energy having leaked away, leaving her unequal to the task of waging this particular battle. “You
promised,
Ma!” Karen screamed. “You
said
never again. Don’t pretend you didn’t.”
    “Quit shouting at me, Karen,” she said. “You make my head hurt. He only turned up this minute. I haven’t made my mind up what to do yet.”
    “Then make it up now,” Karen said.
    “Karen—”
    “Right
now,
Ma. I’m not going to