Broken Angels

38

"I'll be in the city later," Padraig said. "I've got to stop at Macy's."

"What do you need from there?" Byrne asked. He was on his cell phone, not five blocks from the store. He was on call, but his tour had ended at noon. They had gotten the call from CSU on the paint used at the Flat Rock crime scene. Standard marine paint, available everywhere. The graffiti image of the moon-although an important development- had led nowhere. As yet. "I can get whatever you need, Da."

"I'm out of the scruffing lotion."

My God, Byrne thought. Scruffing lotion. His father was in his sixties, tough as oak plank, and was just now entering a phase of unbridled narcissism.

Ever since the previous Christmas, when Byrne's daughter Colleen had purchased her grandfather an array of Clinique facial products, Padraig Byrne had been obsessed with his skin. Then, one day, Colleen had written a note to Padraig saying that his skin looked great. Padraig had beamed, and from that moment, the Clinique ritual had become a mania, an orgy of sexagenarian vanity.

"I can get it for you," Byrne said. "You don't have to drive in."

"I don't mind. I want to see what else they have. I think they have a new M Lotion."

It was hard to believe he was speaking to Padraig Byrne. The same Padraig Byrne who had spent nearly forty years on the docks, a man who had once taken on a half dozen drunken Italian Mummers with only his fists and a gutful of Harp lager.

"Just because you don't care about your skin, doesn't mean that I have to look like a lizard in my autumn years," Padraig added.

Autumn? Byrne thought. He checked his face in the rearview mirror. Maybe he could take better care of his skin at that. On the other hand, he had to admit that the real reason he offered to stop at the store was that he really didn't want his father driving across town in the snow. He was getting overprotective, but he couldn't seem to help it. His silence won the argument. This time.

"Okay, you win," Padraig said. "Pick it up for me. But I want to stop by Killian's later, though. To say good-bye to the boys."

"You're not moving to California," Byrne said. "You can go back anytime."

In Padraig Byrne's eyes, moving to the Northeast was the equivalent of moving out of the country. It had taken the man five years to make the decision, and five more to make the first move.

"So you say."

"Okay. I'll pick you up in an hour," Byrne said.

"Don't forget my scruffing lotion."

Christ, Byrne thought as he clicked off his cell phone.

Scruffing lotion.

Killian's was A rough and tumble bar near Pier 84, in the shadow of the Walt Whitman Bridge, a ninety-year-old institution that had survived a thousand donnybrooks, two fires, and a wrecking ball. Not to mention four generations of dockworkers.

A few hundred feet from the Delaware River, Killian's was a bastion of the ILA, the International Longshoreman's Association. These men lived, ate, and breathed the river.

Kevin and Padraig Byrne entered, turning every head in the bar toward the door and the icy blast of wind it brought with it.

"Paddy!" they seemed to yell in unison. Byrne took a seat at the bar while his father made the rounds. The bar was half full. Padraig was in his element.

Byrne surveyed the gang. He knew most of them. The Murphy brothers-Ciaran and Luke-had worked side by side with Padraig Byrne for nearly forty years. Luke was tall and robust; Ciaran was short and thickset. Next to them were Teddy O'Hara, Dave Doyle, Danny Mc- Manus, Little Tim Reilly. If this hadn't been the unofficial home of ILA Local 1291, it could have been the meetinghouse of the Sons of Hibernia.

Byrne grabbed his beer, made his way over to the long table.

"So, what, you need a passport to go up there?" Luke asked Padraig.

"Yeah," Padraig said. "I hear they have armed checkpoints on Roosevelt. How else we gonna keep out the South Philly riffraff from the Northeast?"

"Funny, we look at it exactly the opposite. Seems to me you did too. Back in the day."

Padraig nodded. They were right. He had no argument for it. The Northeast was a foreign country. Byrne saw that look cross his father's face, a look he had seen a number of times over the past few months, the look that all but screamed Am I doing the right thing?

A few more of the boys showed up. Some brought houseplants with bright red bows on pots covered in bright green foil. This was the tough guy version of a housewarming gift, the greenery undoubtedly purchased by the distaff half of the ILA. It was turning into a Christmas party/going-away party for Padraig Byrne. The juke played "Silent Night: A Christmas in Rome" by the Chieftains. The lager flowed.

An hour later Byrne glanced at his watch, slipped his coat on. As he was saying his good-byes, Danny McManus approached with a young man Byrne didn't know.

"Kevin," Danny said. "Ever meet my youngest son, Paulie?"

Paul McManus was slender, a little birdlike in his demeanor, wore rimless glasses. He was not at all like the mountain that was his father. Still, he looked strong enough.

"Never had the pleasure," Byrne said, extending a hand. "Nice to meet you."

"You too, sir," Paul said.

"So, are you working the docks like your dad?" Byrne asked.

"Yes, sir," Paul said.

Everyone at the nearby table exchanged a glance, a quick inspection of the ceiling, their fingernails, anything but Danny McManus's face.

"Paulie works at Boathouse Row," Danny finally said.

"Ah, okay," Byrne said. "What do you do down there?"

"Always something to do at Boathouse Row," Paulie said. "Scraping, painting, shoring up the docks."

Boathouse Row was a cluster of privately owned boathouses on the eastern bank of the Schuylkill River, in Fairmount Park, right near the art museum. They were home to the sculling clubs, and managed by the Schuylkill Navy, one of the oldest amateur athletic organizations in the country. They were also about the furthest thing imaginable from the Packer Avenue Terminal.

Was it river work? Technically. Was it working the river? Not in this pub.

"Well, you know what da Vinci said," Paulie offered, standing his ground.

More sideways glances. More cleared throats, shuffled feet. He was actually going to quote Leonardo da Vinci. In Killian's. Byrne had to give the kid credit.

"What did he say?" Byrne asked.

"In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed, and the first of that which comes," Paulie said. "Or something like that."

Everybody took a long, slow gulp from their bottles, no one wanting to be the first to say anything. Finally, Danny put an arm around his son. "He's a poet. What can you say?"

Three of the men at the table pushed their shot glasses, brimming with Jameson, over toward Paulie McManus. "Drink up, da Vinci," they said in unison.

They all laughed. Paulie drank.

A few moments later Byrne stood at the door, watching his father throw darts. Padraig Byrne was two games up on Luke Murphy. He was also up three lagers. Byrne wondered if his father should even be drinking at all these days. On the other hand, Byrne had never seen his father tipsy, let alone drunk.

The men formed a line on either side of the dartboard. Byrne imagined them all as young men in their twenties, just starting out with families, the notions of hard work and union loyalty and city pride a bright red pulse in their veins. They'd been coming to this place for more than forty years. Some even longer. Through every Phillies and Eagles and Flyers and Sixers season, through every mayor, through every municipal and private scandal, through all of their marriages and births and divorces and deaths. Killian's was a constant, and the lives and dreams and hopes of its denizens were, too.

His father threw a bull's-eye. Cheers and disbelief erupted around the bar. Another round. And so it went for Paddy Byrne.

Byrne thought about his father's upcoming move. They had the truck scheduled for February 4. This move was the best thing for his father. It was quieter in the Northeast, slower. He knew that this was the beginning of a new life, but he could not shake that other feeling, the distinct and unsettling feeling that it was also the end of something.