The Highway Kind(38)

“It’s me, Pop. Rick.”

“You,” he said. “You. Why did this happen to Ted and not you?”

My heart sank. But he needed my help.

“Dad, you’re sick.”

“What?”

“I’m going to help you,” I said. “I’m going to fix it.”

My father stared at me and shook his head. He knew me well.

I drove over to the local pub. I needed a beer. The fact is, I’d been drinking heavily for some time too.

After a few I settled up and drove over the county line. It wasn’t but five miles from our neighborhood. The area had been largely white and blue collar up until the late sixties, but minorities had moved in, and in less than ten years the whites had bolted and left it to the blacks and the Spanish.

I parked in the lot of the Gardens building, which, despite its name, was neither a low-rise structure nor one surrounded by greenery. It was an eight-story concrete box with balconies holding bicycles and rusty chairs and tables. Walter’s AMX was not in the lot. I decided to wait.

He pulled up late that night, locked his car, and walked to the glass-doored entrance of the building. He was heavier and his hair was long and looked unwashed. He walked unsteadily, with a slight sway. It didn’t occur to me then that he had been broken by Ted’s death too.

I got out of my car, trailed him to the entrance, and looked inside the lobby. Walter pushed on a door near a single elevator and stepped inside. I followed.

The lobby had no desk or security. The door Walter had entered led to the stairwell. A sign on the elevator said that it was temporarily out of service due to repairs. On the mailbox slots on the opposite wall I saw the name Mahoney. Walter lived on the fourth floor.

I drove home, checked on Pop, and went to bed. I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking of my father and how I could help him find some kind of peace.


For the next three nights I sat outside the Gardens and watched Walter Mahoney come home from whatever watering hole he frequented. The pattern was the same. He’d return intoxicated after our county’s last call, park and lock the AMX, and stagger-walk into his building, where he’d take the stairs to the fourth floor.

On the third night I gave him a ten-minute lead, then followed his route. The stairwell, at that hour, was deserted. Its steps were concrete. There were blind corners on each landing where a man could hide and wait. If I could surprise Walter, come up behind him and move fast, I’d throw him down the stairs. Maybe that would break his neck. If it didn’t, he’d still be too hurt to retaliate. I could crush his skull with a heavy-duty wrench or a ballpeen hammer. That would finish him.

The elevator wouldn’t be under repair for much longer. If I was going to do it, I had to do it the following night.


My father came by the gas station the next morning. I was in the bay, gunning the lug nuts off an Olds 88 that was up on the lift, when he walked in.

“Rick,” he said. “Can I speak to you a minute?”

“Sure.” I wiped my hands off on a shop rag and went to him.

“I’m sorry about the other night,” my father said. “What I said to you. I was disoriented. I didn’t mean it. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”

“It’s okay, Pop.”

“I haven’t been the best father to you, I know.”

“It’s okay.”

“There’s something else.”

“What?”

“You can’t fix this, Rick. You can’t.” He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. “I know what you’re capable of. And I want you to forget it. I want you to stop. Walter Mahoney’s parents love him too. I don’t want them to go through what I’m going through now. Do you understand me, Rick?”

“Dad.”

“Do you?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Okay.” My father nodded at the 88. “What are you doing to that Oldsmobile?”

“Pads and rotors.”

“Better get to it, then. I’ll see you tonight.”

I hadn’t thought about Mr. and Mrs. Mahoney. I hadn’t thought any of it through, not really. I was still a kid.


Pop was right about one thing. I couldn’t fix him.

One day I came home from work and Ted’s Barracuda was no longer in the driveway. My father had gotten rid of it. When I walked into the house, he was dead drunk in his recliner. A cigarette was still in his fingers, burned down to the filter.

My father passed in 1979, and I sold the house shortly thereafter.


You wake up one day, and you’re old.

Recently, I went back to the old neighborhood and drove its streets. Today, many of the homes are owned by Hispanics, Ethiopians, Arabs, Indians, and Pakis. The new immigrants. Same kinds of folks I grew up with, only with darker skin. It’s a cycle.

The parents of the Mahoney brothers are gone now, the home long since sold. Back in the ’80s, Jason Mahoney, fried on PCP, dropped his Harley on the highway and got run over by an eighteen-wheeler. Near his mangled corpse, on the median strip, was a spiked Prussian Army helmet that he wore when he rode his bike. Jason was stupid till the end.

Mike Mahoney, the quiet brother, moved to the country, where he raised a family and worked as an electrician. I looked him up on Facebook. In his photos, he’s smiling, surrounded by his wife, grown children, and dogs. He did all right.