“Everyone’s got a tough childhood.” Big Mack said behind his beer. “Mama didn’t hug me enough. Uncle Chester touched my wee-wee. I didn’t feel valley-dated.”
He paused to take a mammoth swig.
Whatthefuckevah.” he scoffed.
I nodded. I didn’t do much talking around Big Mack. Talking could lead to misinterpretation. Misinterpretation could lead to broken body parts. Being as I liked the shape and position of all my appendages just fine, Iwe rarely spoke. Or more honestly, I rarely spoke. But I did a lot of listening. I had never even worked up the courage to ask Big Mack why he was called Big Mack. Was it because he was a large man of Irish descent? Did he eat at McDonalds a lot? None of my business. Around guys like him, and me, questions weren’t appreciated too much. Certainly neither of us would want questions about where we’d been earlier that night, or what had happened to a certain Labor Rep who had asked the wrong group of associates for a handout.
“Me?” He asked, apparently, to his beer mug, “If I had a shit childhood it’s because I was a shit child. Never gave a fuck abouts no ones or nutthin’ or schoolin’ or shit else. Liked getting fucked up, nailing cunt. Sure, I went to St. Paddys on Sunday long wit’ da rest of ‘em.”

He wasn’t even looking at me. Something had caught his eye on the dark, dirty table we were at. Something that had been there a long time.
He looked up.
“But whatevah” He said with a dangerous smile. Did he know how to smile any other way? I didn’t think so. I could imagine him at home, watching some bullshit sitcom, and smiling dangerously at whatever stupid stand up was on the screen.
He looked past me. He’d claimed the seat looking at the entrance, much as a lion would’ve claimed the best piece of meat. I craned my neck, instantly concerned, but it was just some skirt walking in. I gave Big Mack a knowing smile.
He ordered us some more beer. Some faggot band started singing on the overhead radio about whatever it is faggots sing about and I asked the waitress to change the station.
“That’s more like it.” Said Big Mack.
I took a another sip. Had we been here long enough? Enough people would state we’d been here all night? Better to put some more time in, though in truth I was tired.
A few more minutes passed in silence.
“Now my mom was a fucking Saint.” Big Mack said. Apparently our discussion about his childhood wasn’t over. “But my dad?”
He looked down at the table again. Traced some pattern or word I couldn’t make out with spilled suds.
“I used to take a lot of shit over my dad.”
I nodded. I didn’t know fuck all about his dad. Didn’t want to . Like I had a choice.
“Back then I heard, and I don’t know if this is truth or just bullshit or what, but I heard that the Surgeon General told people to smoke and you saw it on the TV and cigs were given away as prizes in cereal boxes and all that shit. I dunno. But like a lot of them old timers my dad was a fucking chimney. Didn’t help that he worked on the docks around all these fucked-up crazy materials and asbestos and shit.”
He took another drink. I forcefully resisted the urge to look at my watch.
“Anyhows, in addition to all that stuff he’s working a coal barge one day, I musta been about 10 or so when this happened, and some knuckle-head flips the wrong switch or somethin’ and he gets locked in the holding bin for like two hours before they notice he’s missing. Fucked him up real bad, almost died.”
I shook my head in what I hoped looked like sympathy.
“The rest of his days he’s on one of them air tank things. Ya know, they got the tubing and the mouthpiece like what they got on airplanes? Anyhow, all my friends started calling him Gimp, or Wheezy, shit like that.”
“Kids can be cruel.” I said.
“Can I finish what I’m fucking talking about here?” Asked Big Mack.
I went back to the land of nod.
“Sos after a while I don’t have any more friends due to the fact that I’d beaten the shit outta all of ‘em for cracking wise and the like. And it stayed that way pretty much growing up. Oh sure, I’d occasionally bring over some new pal I’d made, but they’d get one look at my old man rotting away in his fucking Lazy Boy, watching a ballgame or something, gasping for every breath like a fucking beached fish while that fucking tank just went hummin’ along like the little train that could. It’d freak ‘em out and that’d be that.”
He finished off his beer in one swallow and signaled for more.
Once restocked, he continued. “I eventually just quit bringing anyone over. I mean, fuck it man, a guy needs pals, ya know? What was I supposed to do? Sit in my room and read? Shit, my old man couldn’t even do that. Had to go to work at age 3 or whatthefuckevah ’cause his pops had died. I didn’t appreciate that kinda work ethic then, but I do now. He was a tough son of a bitch, my dad.”
“To your dad.” I said in toast.
Big Mack acknowledged silently.
“And ya know, “he continued, “high school came along and when I’m not getting’ high I’m actually playing sports, only thing I was good at, and I started dating girls. Normal guy, that was me. Normal guy, no fucked up, wheezing rotter of a father back home. Just one o’ the boys.”
He tilted his head slightly “So flash forward a few years and for the first time I’m actually ‘in love’ with this chick. Miranda Erin. And of course I ain’t home but for meals and sleep, most of the time I’m cruising with Miranda or tappin’ her ass or hanging out at the pool hall. Getting’ some minor hustles on, ya know? ‘Cause my folks ain’t got shit to give me anyhow and I wanted stuff the way all people do and I was gonna have it. And I was slick Willie Shit like all young cons are and never gonna get caught and I actually believed my own bullshit like a young guy will.”
He paused to drink.
“It was a pretty good time in my life.”
He lifted a knowing finger.
“But then my mom tries to fuck things up, though she didn’t know it.” He winked at me in drunken conspiracy. “I’m at Miranda’s house and she calls over, asking me to bring home some fish for dinner that night.”
“But can’t it wait, Ma?” I asked her. “Oh no, it couldn’t wait! Had to have that fucking fish right then post haste. And so’s Miranda sees her opportunity to actually meet my folks, something girls like to do I guess for whatever reasons they gots. And since I’m fucking her, what am I gonna say?”
I shrugged.
“Nah, you can’t come meet my folks ya sloppy cunt? You think I shoulda said that?”
He paused. Was he really expecting an answer?
“No?” I ventured.
“Of course the fuck not! So we go by Bailey’s and get a few pounds of fish, Miranda in tow of course, all excited like we’re going to a fucking prom or something, then swing to my folks.”
He stared intently behind me again.
“Is that Little Joey? The prick that owes?”
I looked over.
“Nah. Kinda looks like him. Not him. I think our Little Joey caught a rap and is on vacation for a bit.”
Big Mack’s face grew stoic as he processed the info.
A little more time went by. Some more songs started and ended. I’d forgotten all about whatever Big Mack had been rambling about, then he had to go and fuck up some pleasant silence and remind me. He was really pretty wasted by now, the bar was going to be closing in an hour or so.
“It took forever to walk up the steps of my folk’s brownstone.” He was looking at the table again. “I kept hoping someone or something would save me from having to go in. I think I would ‘ave even been happy to see Johnny Law come and hand me an invitation. But those fish weren’t getting any fresher, and Miranda was all but kicking me in the ass to hurry up. And I’m thinkin’ to myself ‘Well, it was a nice run Miranda, thanks for the pussy’ only that was bullshit because I really liked this girl even if I wouldn’t admit it to myself. You ever had one?”
It took a moment before I realized he’d asked me something. I replayed what I remembered in my head.
“A fish?”
Wrong answer.
“A fucking girl you really liked! You fucking listening to me or I’m just pushing air here?”
I calmed him down. The only thing crueler than Big Mack was a drunk Big Mack.
I had seen him do things.
“Whoa pal, I’m listening. Miranda. Your folks…”
He gave me the stink eye over his beer.
He mumbled in menacing incoherence but the lion was back in the cage for now.
“So we walk in and my mom makes a big deal over Miranda telling her how much she’s heard about her and Miranda is lying and tellin’ my mom what a cute house our crumbling piece of crap is, and I’m sweating thinking maybe, just maybe, we can get out before Miranda meets my pops, and then mom takes her by the hand and says ‘Come meet Mack’s father, I’d know he’s dying to meet you!’ and that’s that, our fate is sealed.”
He slapped the waitress on the ass as she passed by. Rather too hard, I thought, but then again she’ll definitely remember we were here now.
“Two more.” Mack said, hoisting up a dead glass solider.”
“Watch your damn hands, Mack. My family knows your people.” The waitress warned. Bluff?
Mack put up his hands in mock surrender and laughed. “C’mon Kerry, no offense, eh?”
He turned to me “We both got our first communion together. Been knowing this sweety pie all my life, ain’t that right Kerry?”
“Two more, then you twos need to get going, we’re closing up, knowing you all my life or not. And next time you’ll pull back a bloody stub.”
Mollified, she left with a smile and came back with some beers.
“And what then?” I asked. I didn’t want him to think I hadn’t been paying attention again.
He gave a slight nod, like he’d been testing me. He smiled an actual little smile, one of the few times I ever saw any inkling of real humanity in his vicious, giant face. Most never saw that in him. I’ve known men who died crying, begging, wishing they could bring that out in him. None ever did.
“So’s we walks into the den, and there’s my pops all right. But the air tank ain’t in sight. No tubes running up to his nose. He’s just sitting in his recliner with a book on his lap. Staring at it real intently the way egg heads do. Then he looks up and smiles at Miranda and bounds out of his cloth casket like he’s 20 again and shakes her hand and says ‘how you do’ and it’s so nice to meet her and he’s joking like I ain’t seen him joking since I was 10 and he’s saying ‘is yer mother as pretty as you?’ and asking about her dad’s line of work…”
I waited.
“And they sit down and they’re yacking about this and that and politics, and all this time I’m watching him, my old man. And even though his voice is loud and healthy I’m seeing the sweat on his forehead building up and his foot shaking a little even though he’s trying to will it to stop, and he just keep talking and laughing and talking and he won’t let me or my moms leave with Miranda no matters what we says, what ever fucking excuse we make …”
Big Mack’s empty beer bottle exploded on a far wall.
“Asshole!” Shouted Kerry as she stormed over. Looking at me she said “That’s it, you two are cut off. Get him out of here before Danny over there has to get involved.”
I looked at Danny, the owner and bartender. He looked back at me sternly. He knew who we were and he knew how we made a living. And it’s not that he didn’t give a shit, but a man has to be a man, ya know? So he’s looking at me like ‘don’t make pull this bat out, we go back too far. But you know I will.’
I got up. Big Mack tried to, but he’d been drinking at least four times as much. He listed, threatening to crush Kerry’s tiny frame beneath a mountain of intoxication. I got on one side of him and helped him get to the street, all the while Kerry is swearing at him and saying she’s gonna have a good talk with Father O’Conner about a certain drunken parishioner and then we’d see who’d be getting a fine ass chewing this Sunday.
The night outside was muggy and humid, as if there are any other kind in this city. Danny had called a cousin of his who owned his own cab, knowing no cabbie in his right mind would be caught in this section of town this late, and with some effort I got Big Mack home. Of course he was wasted, and of course he couldn’t find his keys until he finally fucking did, and of course he wanted to go to a strip club until he suddenly passed out on his couch.
I left his keys on a table and turned to go out.
Right by the door were some pictures. In one of them, a little boy stood by his dad. They were both holding fishing poles, a lake behind them. The photographer had caught them mid laugh, the two sharing an eternal joke.
They looked happy.
I closed the door and went back to the cab.