Chapter One: Who you lookin' at?
Joseph looked up. Moon, sharp and white, perched in a sycamore at the crest of the hill. Joseph waited for owl to complain, but heard only trucks on the harbor parkway and a train across the river.
He looked back at the bottle.
His mother told him trees embrace the moon. His father told him trees snare the moon.
Maybe they were wrong. Maybe the moon invades trees.
Maybe he needed another drink.
He tipped the bottle.
Nothing.
“Bottle empty.”
“Been empty five minutes.”
Next to Joseph on the flat rock was Uncle Jake. He was no one’s uncle, and his name was not Jacob.
No matter.
“Whyn’t you tell me?”
“You the one holdin’ it.”
They had started at eight o'clock, thinking, maybe, it would last all night. But it didn’t. It never did. Joseph looked at the bottle again, tipped it again. He set it down in soft grass beside the stone, gave it a shove, watched it slide, dots of moonlight jumping on its edge, until it clinked against the next stone down the hill.
“How you know five minutes?”
“Tower clock.”
At the bottom of the hill, another moon, this one round and yellow, hung in the steeple of Old St. Anselm’s Church. Brown numbers, with lines across its face.
Almost ten.
“Probly need another.”
“Your turn.”
Joseph pulled his blanket tighter across his shoulders. October sun was too weak to warm a granite slab. Cool evening air turning cold.
“No, your turn.”
“Fuck is. I got this one.”
Owl woke and droned her mood. Not a complaint. A warning. Joseph felt her soar down the slope past them.
“No, me.”
“Didn’t.”
Another figure was moving down the slope toward them, black shape framed by mist and moonlight. Thirty feet away, it stopped, looking like one of the stones.
Joseph knew it was staring at him.
No one said anything. After a moment, it turned and moved away.
“You see that?”
“What?”
“Somebody.”
“No doubt.”
“Funeral guy?”
“Doubt it.”
The tower clock struck ten, ancient bell solemn and clear in the October air.
“He had money.”
“Who?”
“That guy.”
“What guy?”
“You seen him.”
“Doubt it.”
Joseph put his hand out for the bottle, then remembered it had slipped downhill. No matter. It was empty. He turned to watch the black figure.
It had vanished into the dark.
“You seen him.”
“Your turn.”
“That guy.”
“New bottle.”
“Your turn.”
“Not.”
They argued. Joseph lost. Pressure was rising in his gut. He could piss by the gate and not desecrate the stones. He unwrapped his blanket, got up, and walked out to the gravel road and down toward the street. At the gate, he stopped next to a stone pillar, unzipped, and relieved the pressure. When he was done, he saw a dark figure moving toward him. Same one.
Joseph zipped up. The figure stopped.
“What the fuck you want?” Joseph spit toward the black shape. “Who you lookin’ at?”
“Sorry, thought you were....” The voice faded and stopped, the figure turned and moved away. Joseph spat again in its direction, and marched out onto Fleet Street.
In twenty minutes he hustled enough for a bottle. He took a quick drink to get warm, and walked back through the gate. His eyes, weakened by street light and store light, could not locate Uncle Jake in the dark. Joseph walked up the hill until he found the stone, but Uncle Jake was not sitting on it. He had dropped his blanket, and had fallen off the stone, and was curled up on the ground.
Joseph shook him. Uncle Jake did not answer. Joseph shook him again, and felt soft wetness, something spilled on the denim jacket. It didn’t feel like whiskey. Joseph knew, even in the darkness, that it didn’t look like whiskey.
He ran back out to the street, crying.
