“Yeah, I’m done,” Liam says.
“I’m not.”
“Well, maybe you should be,” Liam says. “Get out, get a nice new house down by the shore, sit out on the patio, play with your grandkids.”
John points at Danny. “He’s taking my only grandchild to California.”
“So go with him,” Liam says.
Thanks, Liam, Danny thinks.
“Spend winters out there,” Liam says. “Or down in Florida. Or both. Whatever. You’ll have the money to be wherever you want. Mom would love it, not worrying about slipping on the ice, breaking a hip.”
“And the docks, the unions?”
“Let the Morettis have them,” Liam says.
“We just fought a war—”
“For what?” Liam asks. “A dying business? Fewer ships come in here every day. The factories are all in North Carolina or somewhere. Even if we hold on to it, it’s going to go away.”
“Your brother gave his life protecting Dogtown.”
“Dogtown doesn’t exist!” Liam says. “Jesus, old man, look around you, what do you see? Irish families walking to church Sunday mornings? Céilís, hurley games in the park? That’s in the past. It’s over. And my brother is dead.”
John goes into a sulk.
Liam turns back to Danny. “You do what you want with yours. I’m putting my dope out on the fucking street.”
“It’s a mistake, Liam,” Danny says.
Bobby Bangs pokes his head through the door. “Danny—”
“The fuck you want?” Liam asks. “Can’t you see we’re having a meeting in here?”
“It’s Cassie on the phone,” Bobby says. “She’s taking Terri to the hospital. She says it’s bad, Danny.”
Thirty-Two
Danny sloshes through the long walk from the back of the hospital lot, like he’s been doing the last three weeks. Seems like the lot is always full, day or night, it’s always hard to find a spot.
He’s tired as hell. Only left here a few hours ago to check on Ian and try to grab a little sleep.
Ned drove him back and waited in the car.
Catherine was at the apartment, the doting grandmother. “How is she?”
“Not good,” Danny said.
He looked in on Ian, sleeping peacefully, then went into his and Terri’s bedroom and lay down. He mostly tossed and turned, and when he did sleep his dreams were troubled and strange. The doctors said there was nothing more they could do for her except try to make her comfortable. He thanked them in that way you always thank doctors, even when they tell you they’re giving up.
Now Danny’s work boots sink into the slush. Ned slogs dutifully beside him. Dirty piles of snow, topped with soot left from car exhaust, have been stacked at the corners of the parking lot.
He passes other people walking back to their cars. He can tell from their faces what news they got. Some are smiling, even laughing—maybe a baby was born or tests came back benign. Other faces are set in worry or grief, grim resignation relieved only by belief in the Virgin Mary or a special saint. Hospital parking lots are tough places—people go to their cars to cry, punch the steering wheel, just sit in stunned silence.
Like he did after he got the word.
Young mother with a son not two years old.
The old catechism question: Why did God make us? He made us to love him and share the kingdom of heaven. In short, he made us to die. We live to die, that’s the whole point. Receive last rites, say a perfect Act of Contrition, go straight to heaven to live at his side for eternity.
When the nuns talked about eternity they usually meant hell. Imagine living in a fire, burning your skin, forever and ever without end. The fire never goes out and it never stops burning you, and that’s for eternity. Hold a match up to your finger, boys, and feel how it hurts. Now imagine that times a thousand thousand and you have a thousandth idea of the pains of hell. They never talked about sharing the peace and glory of heaven without end. It was always about hell.
If God made us to die, he should be pretty happy with Dogtown the past few years. Forty-eight souls sent to heaven or hell since the “New England Crime War,” as the newspapers like to call it, started. A body count to make God and the papers happy.
And now God wants Terri, too.
Going in through the revolving door, Danny smells that hospital smell. It’s warm in there, but the air is stale and cloying. There’s no way around it, a hospital smells like sickness and death.
The Christmas lights, the brightly decorated artificial tree with fake presents underneath seem almost mocking.