Spiral

be somehow related to each other. I watched reporters in California cover the funeral for then-congressman Sonny Bono, who had joined one of our own Commonwealth’s premier political clan in dying on a ski slope. I watched different reporters in Florida cover the homicide-by-drowning of the young daughter of another former rock star, still-shots of the JonBenet Ramsey tragedy from Colorado apparently being used for comparison. Broadening my horizons, I watched footage of massacres in Bosnia and Rwanda. Graphs of the Hong Kong stock market starting to rise while the South Korean one continued to slide. Even a nearly incomprehensible piece on the renaming of countries over the last twenty-five years.
    I sobered up—briefly—for Nancy’s memorial service, arranged by the D.A.’s office. Collectively, we who had known her nearly filled Gate of Heaven church in Southie. There were classmates of hers from New England School of Law and coworkers from the courtroom, even a number of opposing attorneys from Nancy’s trials. I sat in a pew near her landlords, the Lynch family, as good and accurate things were recounted by a priest I’d never met. He then asked if anyone wished to come forward and offer their thoughts as well. Everybody waited for me to go first. When I didn’t, others went up to the altar rail, and then everybody waited for me to go last. When I didn’t do that, either, there was a final, short hymn, and the service was over.
    Walking out, I saw people who’d come more for me than because they’d known Nancy well. Robert Murphy, a black lieutenant commanding the Homicide Unit; Mo Katzen, a crotchety reporter for the Boston Herald ; Elie Honein, a Nautilus club manager; and even Primo Zuppone, a mob enforcer. Each tried to talk with me or get me to agree on a date to talk. I fended off all of them.
    I’d gone through all this before, you see. I ”knew” how to grieve. Or at least how I grieved.
    Once I’d driven myself home, I went back to hitting the watering holes. On bitterly cold nights, understanding bartenders poured me into cabs if they were concerned their self-absorbed patron might die from exposure.
    And, frankly, that’s probably a little bit of what I was doing. Trying to die in a way that wasn’t exactly suicide, because I wasn’t putting a gun to my head or diving off a bridge. But I would have been deliriously happy if something beyond my control had conveniently, mercifully taken me off the board.
    For what it’s worth, the capper came exactly eleven days after the crash of Flight #133. I was in a nearly empty bar late on a Sunday night, even more hammered than I’d gotten the previous ten. I remember thinking, I can’t talk to Nancy anymore, because she’s gone. Then, ordering what I was firmly told would be my last round, I had a brainstorm.
    I could call her apartment in Southie and get the outgoing tape message.
    Hear her voice.
    I remember leaving my fresh drink on the bar top and stumbling into most of the few people in the bar as I weaved my way back to the pay phone. I even remember putting in the quarter—Jesus, the feel of it leaving my fingers—and how warm the metal buttons were on the keypad, I guessed because somebody else had just made a call. After punching in Nancy’s home number, I counted the rings—three—before her machine kicked in. And then her cheery but no-nonsense announcement started, and I could feel the dam break behind my eyes. I tried twice to hang up the receiver but couldn’t quite manage it.
    I did manage to stagger out of the place and back home to my empty condo.

    The next night, from just inside the front door of his three-decker, Drew Lynch said, ”John?”
    I watched the young police officer relax his right arm, the revolver in that hand now visible against his sweatpants and hanging down loosely at his thigh. ”Sorry to bother you, Drew, but there’re some things I’d like to get from the third floor.”
    ”Sure.” He stepped aside to let me come in. ”How’re you doing?”
    ”Not great, but I’m functioning.”
    It was almost twenty-four hours since the dam had broken in that last bar. I’d spent the morning and afternoon working through the accumulated paperwork at my office and drinking lots of water chased by aspirin for the hangover. As Drew stared at me, though, I realized I wasn’t quite functioning on the amenities level.
    ”How’s your family doing?” I said.
    ”Okay. Mom’s still taking it pretty