The Devil's Only Friend by Mitchell Bartoy Page B

and she seemed uncomfortable with the weight. With her free hand she tugged down her jacket and smoothed the skirt.
    â€œYou can stay at the house while you heal up. I’m working now but I can cook—”
    â€œI heard you got a fella.”
    â€œWell, Pete.”
    â€œIt’s all right. He’s a good guy?”
    â€œWe’ve been out to the show a few times.”
    â€œIt’s good for you,” I said.
    â€œDoes it make you jealous?”
    Maybe it was the first time I had tried to smile in a while. “Sure,” I said.
    â€œIt’s a shame how things work out.”
    â€œListen now. It’s for the best if you just keep away from me. For a girl like you I’m nothing but hard times. I don’t mean to be that way. Go on with your fella and—”
    â€œDon’t be overdramatic, Pete.”
    â€œI’m trying to say I care what happens to you.”
    â€œI know you do.”
    She sat back down in the chair and crossed her ankles. Her hands picked at the kerchief in her lap. Gradually the lines of worry eased from her face, and she looked at me seriously for a long time.
    â€œWhat do the doctors say?”
    â€œMy shoulders are torn up. Probably I won’t play baseball anymore. My back is funny. My feet are tingly. You wouldn’t want to see how they stitched me up.”
    â€œDo you want to tell me about it?”
    â€œI’ll tell you someday. When we’re old, it’ll seem funny.”
    She glanced around the room for a clock.
    â€œI’d better go,” she said. “I told them I’d be back before lunch.”
    â€œGo on,” I said, now with a bone of regret in my throat. “Again I have to tell you how sorry I am. I’m a sorry bastard.”
    She got up quickly and leaned as well as she could over the rail to get close to me, close enough so that her familiar sweet smell brought a rush of emotion. I pressed my lips together and soon enough tears welled up in my eye. I blinked them away.
    â€œHow did you find out I was here?”
    She stood up and tugged her jacket down again. “Somebody called. They left a note for me at work,” she said.
    â€œWho called?”
    â€œPete, I couldn’t say.”
    I pressed my eye shut and took in as big a breath as I could. It was like a tendril of malice that could reach out to brush her cheek. Had I told anybody to call her? Were the four goons putting another touch on me? My hands were too swollen to squeeze into fists.
    â€œDon’t come back here,” I said.
    â€œI won’t.”
    â€œI’ll come to see you after a while.”
    â€œJust let yourself get better, Pete. Please, please.”
    She came down again to put a kiss to my hot forehead, and then she had to push off me a little with one hand on my chest to get back upright. It feels just like tearing wet paper when your stitches rip.
    â€œI’m so sorry, Pete. I have to go.”
    She grabbed her bag and skipped out. I listened to her heels clicking down the hall and began to think about how to drop the rail on my bed.

CHAPTER 10
    Eileen was the only one I cared about, the only one who could get me worked up. I cared about her son Alex, but it wasn’t the same. The boy had gone off on his own, and it gnawed at me to think that the blame fell to me, but I had no worry that Alex could hurt me like Eileen could. She was like a gate right into my gut. I suppose the sentimental guys would say heart.
    It’s the sort of thing that comes to you in a dream, and so I was not sure that I had actually ever been on Estelle Hardiman’s lawn. Nobody was talking about any of it at the hospital, least of all me. Certainly in my dreams I’ve had to answer to the ghosts of my guilty past many times. I wake up and doze off so many times on a regular night that it’s like cream swirling into black coffee; I can’t always keep straight what’s real and what’s just