Greenwich Read Online Free PDF Page A

that civilization, or at least a great deal of it, would come to an end without his ministrations.
    Unlike so many of his neighbors in the Chickahominy section of Greenwich, Frank never took out his frustrations on those he loved, nor did he leave the church to his wife and children. He was unhappily aware of his own lack of education, having left school to go to work at age sixteen, and he tried to get to every lecture at St. Matthew’s that dealt with any kind of behavioral knowledge. In particular, he took to heart an evening where Monsignor Donovan dealt with rage and the habit of inflicting rage and anger on those we love—the point being that inflicted elsewhere it would not be tolerated. He thought about that now as he lay in a tub of hot water, letting his tight muscles relax. He had all the bodily pains of a heavily muscled middle-aged man, each part of his body knotting up as he twisted into the variety of positions his work required.
    He heard the door open, and Constance asking softly, “Want me to rub your back, Frank?”
    â€œYeah—thanks.”
    She loved her husband and never stopped thanking God for him, and she was proud of his large tight body, not a bit of fat anywhere, no beer belly, just hard muscle under the white skin. She soaped and rubbed his back.
    â€œNot a good day, Frank?”
    â€œA lousy day. I spent three hours in a crawl space forty-eight inches high. The house sold for a million two, from what the agent told me, and they put the water connections in a crawl space, or built over them, or whatever. In this demented town, they buy a shack and turn it into a million plus. It must have been a hundred and ten degrees in there, in Belle Haven, about a mile from here, and then I had to drive to the other end of the Back Country, where this stupid bitch, Castle’s wife, had a powder room full of wet shit because she didn’t know what a toilet plunger was—”
    â€œFrank!”
    â€œYeah. I’m sorry. I hate the word, too, but I live with it.”
    â€œFrankie, think of Mr. Lombardy, who has to drive his truck around and suck out the septic tanks.”
    â€œI don’t want to think about it—not before dinner. And then that piece of—all right, crap—she’s married to drives up in his seventy-five-thousand Mercedes convertible, and he shoves two fifty-dollar bills at me. Not that the job wasn’t worth a hundred dollars—just the stupidity of the whole idiot thing was worth a hundred—but when I say, No, I’ll send him a bill, he won’t take that but shoves the two fifties at me, grinning, because he thinks I’m a lousy Italian mafioso or something and just as crooked as he is, and I can take this off the books and cheat the feds the way he does with his millions—that lousy little bastard! I don’t grudge him his stinking millions but it’s calling me a goddamn thief—I swear, I could have decked him on the spot—”
    â€œFrank!”
    â€œI didn’t. I just drove off.”
    â€œI’ll send him a bill and mark it paid, Frank, and that will tell him where we stand, and I’ll deposit the money.”
    â€œAnd he’ll put me down as a shmuck.”
    â€œFrankie, Frankie, you got more sense in your little finger than he has in his whole head. I’ll put your clothes in the washer—”
    â€œThe money’s in my pocket.”
    â€œâ€”I’ll take it out. It’s a warm evening—how about shorts and a T-shirt?”
    â€œYou read my mind.”
    â€œI’ll bring them. We have orzo and greens and sausage for dinner.”
    â€œGreat.”
    â€œChristina won’t be here for dinner. She has a date.”
    â€œCome on, she’s too young for dates.”
    â€œFrank, she’s fifteen and she’ll be sixteen when school starts in the fall. This is nothing. They’re going to have pizza and then see Godzilla , and