Mohawk

worse: the mayhem, the groaning intensified, and think of it, going on, never guessing that it was two lives he was saving, the second his own grandfather’s,as if Mather Grouse had been there in the building beside William Gaffney, the two of them fleeing room to room, just ahead of the massive ball.
    Surely if the boy could do that, Mather Grouse could follow through and say what he should’ve said over fifteen years ago. Rory Gaffney, when you and I are finished with this conversation, you will never speak to me again. If we meet on the street, you will pretend you do not know me. You will never again address a member of my family. You will neither come to my home, nor drive past my house in your car. If you should ever do any of these things, if you should ever acknowledge that we are acquainted by so much as a nod of the head, then by God I will do what I should have done so long ago, and then you will get what you deserve. Yes, deserve.
    Mather Grouse had entered Greenie’s confident that he would deliver just such an ultimatum, and that once this was done he would again be a fully vested member of the human race. But somehow the sight of the man—encircled by his cronies, all of them in turn leaning forward over the bowling machine, nudging it, caressing it, cajoling it—had disheartened him. Between himself and the others there had always been a gulf, and he was never sure that he wanted to bridge it. Was this not an unholy brotherhood founded on ignorance, self-satisfaction, fear and promiscuity. You cover mine, I’ll cover yours. If he stood against Rory Gaffney, he would have to stand against all of them, for Rory Gaffney
was
all of them, magnified, or so he seemed to Mather Grouse. Nor was that the whole story. The effect Rory Gaffney had on Mather Grouse, the very real panic Mather always felt when near him, could not have resulted from anything so abstract. Mather Grouse’sloathing was instinctive, a combination of fear and revulsion that like nausea came over him in waves. Gaffney always seemed obscene, and he often reminded Mather Grouse of an incident early in his childhood when a fat ten-year-old had called him into an alley between houses and exposed himself. What the young Mather Grouse had felt—he still remembered vividly the complex emotion—was anger and revulsion at the sight of the boy’s angry red member, as well as sinking sympathy, for the boy was obese and vile. For this reason, he remembered thinking, God invented hell, not to punish but to separate the clean from the unclean.
    Mather Grouse was snapped from this reverie by the sound of his own name, spoken close-by, and he started visibly. The man who had spoken was not the one he feared, but another, roughly Mather Grouse’s age, dressed shabbily except for a cheap new lemon-yellow windbreaker. The man was no more than five feet tall, and everything he wore appeared at least one size too large. He was very drunk. “It
is
you, Mather Grouse,” the little man said with boozy enthusiasm. “I knew it. Don’t you remember me?”
    Once he studied the man, Mather Grouse was surprised to discover he did. “Why, yes, Mr. Anadio. I do.”
    The little man was greatly pleased. “We was just talking about you,” he said. “Wasn’t that your daughter’s boy out there at the old hospital?”
    “Yes,” Mather Grouse said. “My grandson.”
    The mere mention of the boy instantly restored Mather Grouse. It made the boy real. Both the grandson and the act of heroism had seemed to pale in thedank light of Greenie’s, as if here they might not apply. Rory Gaffney, still hunched over the bowling machine, twirling the puck with doughy fingers, seemed far more tangible. Mather Grouse watched him, forgetful of the man at his elbow. It was the tenth frame and Rory Gaffney calmly rolled a strike to win the game. Money exchanged hands. Even from across the room it was plain that Rory Gaffney had faulted by releasing the puck well over the red line. But no one objected, probably because they all routinely faulted. A strange way to play, it seemed, and Mather Grouse’s heart sank.
    “Of course you heard
my
news.” Mr. Anadio was saying.
    Mather Grouse admitted he hadn’t.
    “Oh,” he said. “I’m dying, Mather.” He said it almost cheerfully, as if delighted to find someone at this late date who hadn’t already heard from somebody else. “Cancer,” Mr. Anadio explained. “Like all the rest. Cancer and leukemia, that’s us,