At the City's Edge Read Online Free PDF Page A

ridiculous that
     he had to spend the rest of the day pouring boilermakers for municipal workers and
construction guys, but at least he’d taken care of business down here. All he had to do was get through today, then tomorrow
     he could do some real work. ‘Now.’
    Billy emerged smiling, something clutched in his hand. ‘Check it out, Dad! Was this yours?’ He held up a laser gun.
    Michael squinted, recognized it as a Transformer, a toy robot that origami’ed into a purple pistol. ‘Would you look at that.’
     He reached for it. The plastic felt oddly familiar, comfortable, like some part of him had been yearning to hold the toy again.
     ‘I used to
love
this thing.’ He turned it over. ‘See, I even carved my name on it.’
    ‘It’s crossed out.’
    ‘I know. Uncle Jason won it from me on a dare.’
    ‘What did you dare him to do?’
    Michael remembered just fine, but no way was he planting ideas about sprinting across the El tracks, so he just shook his
     head and handed the toy back. His son took it, stared at like there was a message written in invisible ink. ‘Dad?’
    ‘Hmm?’
    ‘What’s wrong with Uncle Jason?’
    The question brought him up short. ‘How do you mean?’
    ‘He doesn’t seem like when he used to visit.’ Billy stared at his fingers tapping the pistol grip. ‘He’s sad, and you guys
     fight more.’
    Michael opened his mouth, then closed it. Truth was, he didn’t know what had happened to his brother.
The week he returned he’d stayed with them, sleeping on the sofa, drinking most of a case of beer during the day and bringing
     home a different girl most every night. When Michael had broached the subject, Jason had said he was fine. The next week he’d
     moved out.
    Michael looked at Billy waiting for an answer, his eyes the same brown his mother’s had been. The truth seemed to best way.
     Never could lie to those eyes. ‘You know your uncle was a soldier.’
    ‘Uh-huh.’
    ‘Well, sometimes when soldiers go to war, they get hurt. Wounded. Sometimes it’s on the outside, like –’
    ‘Getting shot?’
    ‘Sure, like that. But sometimes it’s not that simple. Sometimes they’re hurt on the inside.’ He paused. ‘Sort of like getting
     sick.’
    ‘And that’s what happened to Uncle Jason?’
    ‘Yeah. He got sick, and so they sent him home.’ Not perfect, maybe, but not bad.
    ‘Will he get better?’
    ‘Of course.’ Michael smiled softly, and set his hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘Of course he will. But it might take a little
     while, and we have to be here for him.’
    Billy nodded thoughtfully. ‘Okay.’
    ‘Okay. Now,’ Michael gestured for the stairs, ‘what say we get out of here?’
    ‘Can I bring this?’ Billy held up the Transformer.
    ‘My friend, you can have it.’
    They climbed back to the world. Billy immediately sat at the scarred desk in ‘his’ corner of the stockroom
and began playing with the Transformer, figuring out how the thing bent, which parts twisted to convert it back to a robot.
     Michael watched the boy work with that familiar feeling in his chest, a sort of liquid bursting.
That’s my son.
Like always, the thought seemed both novel and ancient, a profound thing that could be taught only by the wet-lipped intensity
     of an eight-year-old boy.
    Funny. The toy had been his, then Jason’s, and now Billy’s. Just plastic and metal, and yet it bound them all together, tied
     the present to the past. Michael found himself remembering another trip to the basement, years ago, he and Jason clearing
     space, hauling loads of sweating junk up the narrow stairs. When they were finished, they’d dropped into folding chairs, and
     Michael had opened the safe, taken out the Black Label he’d stashed. He could still remember the smile on Jason’s face.
    He smiled himself, then ruffled his son’s hair and left him at work. Behind the bar, he finished washing glasses, then checked
     the supplies of Beam and Jack. As he did, his eyes