The Risk Pool

start school in January?”
    “Sure.”
    “Do that.”
    “Two nights ago you were advising me to get out.”
    He shrugged, cut a small wedge of pork chop and put it in his mouth. “I wouldn’t let Numb Nuts run me off, is all. She’s a cute little shit, that Ward girl.”
    “That’s not it,” I assured him, not very convincingly, I thought, though it was true.
    “Okay,” he said cheerfully. “You’re sure you don’t want a pork chop?”
    On the way out to the Ward house I stopped at Eileen’s. She’d taken on a job cocktailing at the Holiday Inn, cutting way backat Mike’s, so I didn’t expect her to be home. She was though. By the time I turned off the ignition, she’d come out on the little concrete slab of a back porch where she stood drying her hands on a dish towel. She was wearing an old pair of corduroy slacks and a ratty sweater. Never a pretty woman, she had always possessed an athletic quality, and there was still a little of that left, though she looked more tired now, and in the good evening light I noticed for the first time, even at a distance, that she was coloring her hair.
    “Well, that explains it.” She grinned. “I knew it was Sam Hall’s car coming from a block away, but it didn’t sound like him.”
    “How does he sound?” I said, grinning back at her.
    “Louder,” she said. “Rougher. Faster.”
    I got out. “I’ll work on it,” I promised.
    “Also dumber. Sorry I upset your mother the other night.”
    “She gets over things,” I said. “It’s her specialty, in fact.”
    “I’ve often wondered whether she ever got over your father.”
    I snorted. “Years ago. Decades.”
    “I’m pretty damn near over him myself these days,” she said.
    Somewhere out back of the garage I heard a motorcycle cough to life and rev. I hated to think what that meant. The noise was so deafening we had to wait for the engine to die before we could continue.
    “Don’t ask me where he got the money,” she said, staring at and clean through the garage, as if she could see her son through solid wood.
    “I heard about a job,” I said. “That’s why I dropped by.”
    “You can mention it if you want,” she said, as if she hadn’t much faith that it would do any good. “He says he’s waiting for his ship to come in.”
    I looked around. “We’re a long way from the ocean.” And Drew Littler was a lot farther than the rest of us.
    I didn’t say that last, but Eileen Littler looked like she heard me, think it.
    “Some people got thick skulls,” she said. “As we both know.”
    “How’s the Holiday Inn?” I said.
    “Pretty busy. The flat track opens next week, so we’ll be full. The high rollers all stay in Saratoga though. The ones we get give their money to the track and that’s it.”
    “They don’t have a budget for waitresses?” I said. “Mike would love to give you more shifts.”
    “I might,” she said. “You could mention it to him if you felt like it. I hate to ask after telling him I wanted to cut back.”
    I said I would, though I hated to, knowing perfectly well why she wanted the hours. You didn’t have to be able to see through wood to figure it out, either.
    “So how is he?” she said finally.
    “Dad? I just left him at Harry’s trying to stare down a pork chop. He said he was going home.”
    She nodded unenthusiastically. “Greenie’s is home. And Mike’s. And The Glove. And …”
    “I hate to tell you, but come September I think I’ll be leaving.”
    The motorcycle started up again, then died again.
    “I’m surprised,” she said. “I heard you were in love.”
    “No, not really,” I said. “At least I don’t think so.”
    “You could do worse.”
    “I know,” I said. “Especially around here.”
    I could tell she didn’t care for the sound of that remark, and I had to admit, having said it, I didn’t care for the sound of it all that much myself. “I don’t know,” I concluded, which was far closer to the truth.
    “You’re good for him, is the only thing,” she said.
    “Not really,” I said. “I just get drunk with him. That’s all.”
    She shook her head. “You’re a good influence, believe it or not. He won’t embarrass himself when you’re around, or if he thinks you might show up.”
    “You’re exaggerating,” I said. “Sam Hall does as he pleases. He always has.”
    “Not anymore,” she said with such conviction that I almost believed her. “You just can’t see the change. I’ll tell