Absent Friends

And back in Flanagan's, this is what Mike the Bear says to Jimmy: Trouble's coming. The cops're fed up, they're ready to jump on Jack and his crew. If Jack doesn't back off, he's going down.

Jimmy frowns. You sure? he asks Mike the Bear. I mean, maybe it's not true. You know, rumors, you hear stuff.

From where I heard it, Mike says, it's a safe bet.

Jimmy doesn't ask where that is. Firemen and cops, there's no love lost. A cop would rather bust on you than help you, rather knock you down than pick you up, because he figures probably you deserve it, anything bad you didn't do you just didn't get a chance yet.

That's what the firehouse says, and Jimmy knows some cops like that. But still, mostly they're straight. Mostly they want to fight crime and stop the bad guys, and mostly they want to be Superman just like he does. He thinks what happens, after a year or two on the street, they still want the same thing, but they forget how to tell who they're for and who they're against.

Bent cops, cops on the take—that's something else. They're against everybody, even their brother cops. Everything's for themselves, and thinking about them makes Jimmy feel like he did when the kids found a dead dog once down under the bridge, its skinny legs tied together, someone threw it in the water and made it drown on purpose. Jimmy remembers how mad he was, how he didn't know who to be mad at, how he wanted to do something and the dog was already dead and there was nothing he could do. So when Mike the Bear says what he hears about Jack, where he hears it from it's a safe bet, Jimmy just drinks some beer and waits.

I can't just tell Jack, Big Mike says. Sure, yeah, I can, but it's what I've been telling him all his life. Jimmy, you know him, he's always been like this.

Jimmy nods. He knows.

I can't say, kid, this time it's real, this time you have to back off, because I can't do anything about it, this time. He won't believe me, Jimmy. He'll think I can fix it, like I always have.

Mike the Bear's talking to Jimmy, but he isn't looking at him, he's looking across the room at the pictures on the walls, racing pictures, trotters winning and losing. Jimmy wonders how many guys have ever heard Big Mike Molloy say this, that there's something he can't do anything about.

Big Mike says, Jimmy, if your father, he worries about you, he worries about your mother worrying about you, he told you to stay out of burning buildings, what would you do?

Jimmy's thinking about Mrs. Molloy's eyes; but when Mike the Bear asks him this, he has to laugh, because his father almost did say exactly this, Jimmy's first week at the Academy. He said, It's not me, son, it's your mother, she's thinking she'll be worried every day when you go to work.

He tells Big Mike, and Mike asks, And what did you do?

I took my mom to the firehouse, Jimmy says. I showed her the salamanders over the door. They always come back after a fire, I told her. Then I gave her flowers, chocolates, too, a really big box, shaped like a heart. I told her she was lucky. I told her, Not every pretty woman gets presents from a fireman.

Big Mikes smiles. Tom's right about you, he says.

Jimmy smiles, too. He's thinking about his mom, how the day after he gave her the flowers she gave him a present, too, a St. Florian medal, said, Jimmy, keep this with you, I'll feel better if you keep this with you. It's in his pocket now.

Big Mike says, And you kept going to fires.

Yes, sir, says Jimmy.

Yes. Because Jimmy, this is you. And what Jack was like, since he was a kid, he's still like that, too. That's why I've been digging Jack out of holes all his life. Because it's not his fault he gets in them. You know what I mean?

Yes, says Jimmy.

But this one, it's too deep, says Mike the Bear. Jack's gonna have to climb out himself. But he'll never do it, he won't believe it, if it's me who tells him.

Jimmy sips his beer. He's thinking two things. One is, if Jack were just some guy, maybe the cops rolling him up wouldn't be a bad thing, maybe Jimmy'd just stand back and watch.

But the other thing he's thinking is, it's Jack.

And it's Big Mike, asking him for help, saying somebody needs to tell Jack.

But even if somebody does: just Jimmy, just like that?

Uh-uh, no.

If Jimmy tries, Jack's not going to listen.

If Jimmy tries, it'll go like this: First, Jack'll laugh. Jimmy, man, you're a worrier, you always were. I got it covered. Have a brew, man.

And if Jimmy keeps on? If he says, No, Jack, it's true, I heard it?

Then Jack will mutter, Jimmy, what the fuck? This something Tom told you? I don't need this, I don't need my little brother looking out for me, you can tell Tom that, you're such good buddies. I'm cool, Jimmy, and my guys are cool, no way I'm crapping out on them. Tom and you, get off my back.

Because this is something Jimmy hasn't told Mike the Bear, but he knows: He's been getting on the wrong side of Jack lately.