Grief Street

grandest detective in New York.” Such a fathead I have been in my time. A nun should be thwacking me now. For penance I decided to continue tipping stories to Slattery, to whom I had been such a shitheel only a little while ago because I was disgusted he was still boozing and therefore not as magnificent as myself the nonboozer one day at a time.
    “You ought to see the goddamn herbs on a homecoming day, Neil. They’d drive you barking nuts.” Harry Darcy rolled his eyes. “It’s like they can’t wait to pull on the throw-up green jumpsuit and the Air Patakis, like they’re going to sit around of an evening in the comfort of their own parlor. Jee-zus!”
    “Air Pataki? Governor Pataki’s got a private plane up in Albany?”
    “No, it’s what the inmates call those cheap sneakers the state corrections department issues out.”
    “I see.”
    We stood looking at each other for a long moment. There were shouted threats echoing through the cell block fro® somewhere. A bing-bing, followed by the sound of a falling body, ended it.
    “Neil—if I’d of known, I never would of told your wife what those cops done. She was the one asked me. She tell you that? Jeez, I’m sorry, man.” Darcy was now looking down at his wide feet. “The wreaths, that’s not all I called about. She tell you what else I said?”
    “Something about King Kong Kowalski. He’s a problem, but I’ve got some other troubles, too.”
    “Yeah, I seen in the paper.”
    “Harry, you have something you want to tell me?”
    “Remember that day in gym?”
    “I think about Holy Cross sometimes.”
    “Oh man, I been thinking about it a lot these days. How I went through all that hell with my eyes closed. Brother Earl and all that Holy Cross batshit. And how it’s so nuts I’m as old as I am and reliving it— seeing it, like I’m watching a movie.”
    A picture of Marv flashed in my mind. He was reading Kaddish, and about to die in a vicious shadow. I heard him speak. A journey fraught with pain and disappointment, and hourly hastens on toward the night of his grave... The closed eye is only then satisfied with seeing.
    “Not everything’s clear to us at the time it happens.” I was proud of myself for saying that. It sounded smart, like something Marv would say.
    “How come you went easy on me that day?”
    “I don’t know. It just seemed so unfair. I never thought about it.”
    “No—you don’t have to think about it.”
    “About what?”
    “Working with people who have power over you, even if they shouldn’t have. That’s a real talent. Which somehow comes natural to you, like it’s a blessing.”
    “People with power over you. You’re talking about Brother Earl?”
    “Yeah, I been thinking about that particular bastard, and all the creep bastards I’ve known like him. And how it’s only now I’m learning to hate them the right way. Charm school makes you think, you know?”
    “And teaches how to hate?”
    “Not exactly. Here’s all I’m saying—if you don’t hate violent creeps enough, you wind up being just another violent creep. My own formula from what I get out of charm school, okay?”
    “If you say so.”
    “Another thing. I look around me, I see how us screws and the prisoners, we could change places today—and how tomorrow nobody’d notice anything different. Same with cops and crooks, right?”
    “Different teams, same game.”
    “That’s right. Hell, we’re all nothing but fish swimming around inside of a pet shop aquarium. Us fish are real stupid, you ever notice? We invent this funny idea that we’re big fish and little fish. Which is bullshit. We’re nothing but clowns going around in stupid circles, and the only fish that matter are the guys buying and selling the aquariums. When the lights go out at night, and we’re still turning circles in water inside of a bowl up on somebody’s shelf, guess what?”
    “I don’t like to guess.”
    “Clowns aren’t funny in the dark.”
    “Very illuminating, Harry.”
    “I’m getting mad about it. In fact, I’m hating it real good. That’s what I get out of charm school. I hate the bullshit so bad that guess what?”
    “Harry—”
    “Oh yeah, sorry. I hate bullshit so bad that the last thing I want to do is go crack some herb skulls for relief. Because you know why? That’d make me the same as Brother Earl getting his brand of relief in a boy’s gym class, the creep. See what I mean?”
    “This is like a confession I’m