Wise Men and Other Stories by Mike O'Mary

said the words, none of us really wanted Joey to come with us.
    “No,” I said. “I only have enough for me.” I said this knowing that I could have given him two dollars for admission and still have had enough left to pay for myself. I said this also knowing that Joey might simply decide to take my money.
    We then waited for Joey to ask the other guys if any of them would lend him the money. But Joey didn’t ask. He just waited to see if anybody else would speak up. No one did. After a moment, we piled into the car without Joey. As we pulled away, I saw him head back toward his house on Shelby Street, walking right down the middle of the street.
    That was the last time I saw Joey Russo. He didn’t come to our neighborhood any more. Over the years, I heard he was constantly in trouble until finally he ended up in prison. I never heard why, but I assumed it was for stealing. A few years later, I heard he was out and that he had a girlfriend over on Mulberry Street. People said he was trying to straighten out his life.
    Then one day, his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend showed up on Mulberry Street and found Joey there and shot Joey in the chest. Joey died on his girlfriend’s front porch, three blocks from where he grew up, two blocks from St. Elizabeth Elementary. He was twenty-three years old.
    * * *
     
    Sometimes we hear about somebody like Joey and we say, “Well, he was in and out of trouble... he had just gotten out of prison... he was always with the wrong crowd... what did you expect?” And we’re right. All those things were true.
    And yet, at the risk of sounding like his mother, I will say that Joey Russo was not a bad kid. He deserved better. He was no saint—he sometimes pushed people around—but maybe that was the only way he knew. And seeing how reluctant some people (including me) were to do something for him when he asked, it’s a wonder he wasn’t meaner and nastier and more spiteful than he was.
    In the end, living on the fringe must have worn on him. He wanted a nice girl like Kathy Johnson, or nice friends like some of the guys in my neighborhood, or just a nice place to visit like the ice rink or his girlfriend’s house on Mulberry Street. He wanted out of the tough-guy/bully role, out of our dreary, blue-collar neighborhood.
    But he didn’t fit in, so when he came around, we told him, “No.”
    On the night I heard about Joey Russo’s death, I went to the lagoon and skated. And now, when I’m out on clear, crisp nights, I look up at the loose fabric of our universe and think there must be some place in it for people like Joey Russo. Wherever it is, I hope Joey has found it and that it is a nice place.
    Meanwhile, back here on the creaky ice of the lagoon, I realize how lucky I am to have a nice place to visit... a nice life to live. And while I have difficulty remembering much about the skating rink I visited twenty-five years ago, I have no trouble at all bringing Joey Russo to mind, recalling that he was, in fact, not a bad person, and wishing things had been better for him in his short life, wishing I had lent him a few dollars to go ice skating when I had the chance to do so, and thinking if I had the opportunity today, I would bring little Joey Russo to this frozen lagoon and ask him to skate with me.
    And later this year, when the ice melts and the ducks come, I will feed them all.

 
Heaven
     
    It was a spur-of-the-moment thing: “Put on your winter coat and get a warm blanket,” I told my daughter. “We’re going out to look at Christmas lights.”
    When I was a kid, one of the highlights of the holiday season was driving around town looking at everyone’s Christmas decorations. Our family—seven kids and two adults—would pile into the station wagon and off we’d go.
    Normally, my father and a car full of kids was a volatile mixture. But it was different at Christmas. When you put us in our pajamas, wrapped us in our blankets, and took us out for a late-night ride to look