Mercy Street(46)

“That’s all you’ll tell her,” Sean Barry said with a raised eyebrow, as if the entire family didn’t already know he was a smokehound. Except for Timmy’s parents—who instead drank like fish—all the Flynns and Barrys smoked, but there were unspoken rules about who knew what and who would smoke with whom. Timmy’s sister, Maureen, would smoke with him, but not with their older brother. Sean Barry would smoke with his niece and nephews, but not with his own kids. Sean Barry’s kids would smoke with their Flynn cousins, but not with the other Barrys. Timmy would smoke with anyone, anytime, anywhere.

“You got any more of that Bay One?” said Sean Barry.

“Sold out.”

“You were sold out last time. You have a supply problem.”

“I’m aware,” Timmy said.

Sean Barry took rolling papers from his pocket. “How about some of those gummy bears?”

“You’re kidding me. You ate them all?”

“I got half of one left. I already bit the fucker’s head off.”

“All right. Hang on.” Timmy hoisted himself out of the chair and stepped into the bedroom. His inventory was stored in a fireproof, coffin-sized strongbox beneath the bed.

When he came back, Sean Barry was trying to roll a joint. “I can’t see a fuckin thing. Turn on a light, will you? It’s like a cave in here.”

Timmy did.

“Seasonal affective disorder,” said Sean Barry. “It’s a problem in the northern latitudes, which we are a part of. It affects your serotonin, your melatonin. All the tonins are affected.” He ticked off the symptoms: low energy, oversleeping, overeating. “Not to mention,” he added.

“What?” said Timmy

“When’s the last time you got laid?”

“None of your fuckin business,” Timmy said.

Sean Barry seemed pleased with this answer.

“This is my point. Low libido is a notorious symptom. Get yourself a light box. Full spectrum, to get the longer wavelengths.” He took a drag off the joint, which was burning too fast on one side. He evened it out with a wet fingertip and passed it to Timmy, who eyed it with distaste.

Since Tess there’d been no one important, and almost no one unimportant. A year ago he made a mistake with a customer. She arrived on a bicycle—a skinny little thing, wide-eyed like a girl in a Japanese cartoon, a ripped T-shirt over black spandex, a metal stud in her nostril that made him wonder where else she was pierced. They started on the couch and finished in his bed. When he woke several hours later, the girl was gone. She hadn’t paid him for the weed. He figured he’d never see her again, but a few weeks later she knocked at his door.

I can’t give you any more free product, he said. I don’t work that way.

The bike girl said, It wasn’t free.

For months afterward, Timmy was haunted by this vision of himself: a clueless participant in prostitution, dumbly taking what was offered, believing, foolishly, that her motives were the same as his: simple desire, aching need. He’d failed to understand the terms of the transaction, the girl paying for her purchase with something of equivalent value. He was disgusted by her but mostly by himself, a middle-aged guy with a receding hairline, going soft around the middle.

Of course she didn’t want him. She only wanted his weed.

So no customers. He needed another way to meet women. He made himself a profile on a dating site, with a ten-year-old photo and a career he invented on the spot—driver’s ed teacher, something he’d always thought he’d be good at. He went on one date with a woman named Sharynn and heard the stupid spelling every time he said her name. She asked him about teaching driver’s ed, and Timmy made up answers he would never remember. They made a second date he later canceled. It was all too much fucking effort.

He needed a woman who understood what he did for a living, the one advantage of dating a customer. He didn’t have the energy to pretend to be something he wasn’t. The problem was that he’d never be able to break up with her. A pissed-off ex-girlfriend could call the law on him.

Before he’d even met her he was planning their breakup. That was how his mind worked.

He could date a customer only if she had no vindictive impulses whatsoever. Timmy had never met such a woman.

He took a long drag on the joint. “How’s it going with the Stagehands?”

“Slow. It’ll pick up in the spring.”

Timmy said, “I need to get back on the list.” He didn’t say, I’m a forty-year-old man without a bank account. I do not exist in the world.

“The list,” Sean Barry repeated. “What for?”

“You don’t need to know what for.”

“This is how you ask a favor.” Sean Barry reached for the joint.

“My kid is coming. Not to visit. He’s coming to live with me.” Timmy said it just to say it, to hear it in his own voice.

Sean Barry looked flabbergasted. “Does Tess know?”

“Of course she knows.” In that moment it seemed entirely true. “She doesn’t know, it’s an Amber Alert.”

Again the eyebrow. “And she’s happy about this?”

Well, no. Tess wasn’t happy. It wasn’t, in general, a word you’d associate with Tess.

“She’s fine with it,” said Timmy. “She’s fine, I’m fine, everybody’s fine. I am fuckin thrilled, you want to know the truth. He lives with me, and I’m done giving her money every month. I never have to deal with her again.”