City on Fire (Danny Ryan, #1)(70)

“I told you I’m not hungry.”

“We need to take you to the doctor?”

“I hate doctors.”

They hate you, too, Danny thinks. You cuss them out and eye-fuck the nurses. “You bust my balls about your Hormels and then you won’t eat it.”

“I’ll eat it later.”

Which Danny knows is his cue to get out. I’ve brought him his groceries and his lotto cards, I’ve listened to his gossip, so I’ve served my purpose, Danny thinks. He’s in a hurry to get back to being lonely and miserable.

“I’ll come back down Thursday,” Danny says.

“If you want.”

Danny kisses him on the forehead and turns for the door.

“Danny.”

“Yeah?”

“Take care of yourself.”





Twenty-Nine


The boy is beautiful.

Well, he’s not a boy—that would be too fucked up—he’s a man, but he’s a young man and he’s beautiful.

Sal knows this is the last place in the world he should be right now, what with the rumors running around about him, but he took the precaution of driving all the way down to Westerly, the whole drive telling himself that he wasn’t going to go down there, the whole time parking telling himself that he wasn’t going to go in, the whole time walking into the bar telling himself he wasn’t going to stay.

The fight with Judy had been brutal.

When he got home earlier that day, she was sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of red and looked up at him like he pissed on her shoes.

“What?” Sal asked.

She was already half in the bag. “I went to get my hair done today.”

“So?”

“So I’m sitting there in the chair,” she said, “and these two chiacchieronas next to me are talking and guess what they’re talking about.”

Sal was tired. “I don’t know, Judy. What?”

“You.”

Sal felt his stomach flip.

Judy looked at him like she wanted to kill him. “I had to sit there and listen to them laugh and giggle about my Sal Antonucci getting caught sucking cock in the men’s room of a gay bar.”

“That’s not true.”

“You know, Sal, somehow I always knew it,” Judy said. “There was something about you. And then you and Tony . . .”

“He was my friend.”

“He was more than your fucking friend,” Judy said. “So to speak. I put up with it when you were inside, you had your needs, but—”

“Shut your fucking mouth.”

“Or what?” Judy asked. “You going to hit me? Go ahead. Or do you want to fuck me in the ass, that’s what you like, right? Go ahead, you can fuck me in the ass, Sal. At least that way I’d get fucked every once in a while.”

“I gave you two kids.”

“Or maybe I got it wrong, Sally. Maybe you’re not the fucker, you’re the fuckee. Is that what you want, you want me to fuck you up the ass?”

He hit her.

Open hand across the cheek, knocked her out of the chair.

She put her hand to her cheek and glared up at him. “Get out. Go find yourself a boy, you fag.”

He walked out of the house and got in the car. Pulled out onto 95 and drove south, never meaning to come here.

But here he is, two drinks in, and the boy is beautiful. Tall, lithe, dirty-blond hair, cut a little long. Silk print shirt, tight jeans, nice pair of shoes. Sal’s never seen him here before. Sal’s been here at least a couple of dozen times, and this boy is new.

He sees Sal looking and looks back.

Smiles.

Sal walks over. “What’s your name?”

“Alex.”

“Can I buy you a drink, Alex?”

“Maybe if you tell me your name.”

“Chuckie.”

Alex laughs. “Bullshit. You just made that up.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Well, okay, Maybe Chuckie,” Alex says, “I guess you can buy me a dirty martini.”

Thirty minutes later they’re out in the alley, Sal with his back to the wall and his fly open, Alex on his knees, sucking him off.

Sal wraps his fingers in Alex’s thick hair.

This is the last place in the world he should be, but it feels so good and the boy is beautiful.



Danny cradles Ian in his arms and rocks him gently back and forth, softly singing “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.”

They’ve had a hard time getting him down tonight. Terri tried everything, bundling him up tighter because maybe he was cold, loosening the blankets because maybe he was too hot, rocking him in his chair, laying him down on the floor in front of the television, but the boy kept crying and squirming and kicking.

Even the usually reliable “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” failed, which Ian usually falls asleep to before Willie gets through the first chorus. Not tonight, and Danny said he’d take over so the exhausted Terri could go in and take a long, hot shower.

Danny hits replay on the song for about the thirty-seventh time and starts singing again and rocking and finally feels Ian get heavy, and his breathing gets soft and rhythmic, and Danny just enjoys holding his child for a little while before he carries him into the bedroom and oh-so-gently sets him down in the crib and tiptoes out.