He couldn’t say yes. She might ask to see the bottle. “She gave me a prescription. I just haven’t filled it yet.”
“Well, you better do that soon. The drugstore will be closing—at least the pharmacy counter will.” She pulled a fresh pack of menthols from the pocket of her jacket and began to tap out a cigarette, then paused, looking at him. “Oh,” she said with a disappointed tone and a little frown. “Aren’t you going to the garage?”
“Actually, I’m meeting Warren. Just came home to get my coat. It’s getting cold.”
“Well, if you take any pills, look at the bottle before you start drinking.”
Ellis grabbed Peggy’s keys off the hall table as quietly as he could, but instead of heading out the kitchen door he climbed the stairs to their bedroom, and once inside, locked the door. His heart was pounding so loud he hoped Peggy couldn’t hear it. Taking this first step made it real for him.
Jesus, I’m actually going to do it.
He crept to the closet, put on his coat, then began excavating. The left side of the walk-in had always been Peggy’s territory. Stacked on the floor were old shoes, the wedding photos, and God knew what else she had stuffed back there in an assortment of cardboard and plastic containers. Ellis knew what he was looking for, and after carefully disassembling a tower of shoe boxes, he uncovered the treasure-chest-shaped jewelry case. She kept it locked. The key was on her ring along with a bottle opener, flip-out nail file, coin purse, rape whistle, penlight, laminated photo of Isley, silver medallion of a camel or llama, another of a soccer ball, and a big plastic plaque that read: PEGGY. The ridiculous thing was that the Nissan had a keyless entry system and a push button start.
The jewelry box opened like a cash register with the top popping up and the drawers pushing out in tiers. The thing was packed with memorabilia. He spotted a Mother’s Day card Isley had made when he was around six. Just a bit of folded poster board with the word MOM scrawled in crayon. There were a bunch of letters, a few photos of Isley, ticket stubs to a play called No Parking that he didn’t remember, and a bunch of poems Peggy had written before they got married, back when she was learning to play the guitar and planned on being the next Carole King.
And, of course, there was jewelry.
Old clip-on earrings, and the newer pierced ones, some dangled like Christmas tree tinsel, others were just studs. She had two strings of pearls, a choker with what looked like an ivory medallion, and a host of rings. Most of it was costume. Four pieces were not.
Peggy’s engagement ring and wedding band were there, but he wouldn’t touch those. Ellis was only interested in a pair of diamond earrings he had inherited from his grandmother. The jewelry was at the bottom, buried under the memorabilia.
Downstairs he heard Peggy move. Her footsteps crossed the living room, heading toward the stairs. He froze.
Ellis imagined her coming up and reaching for the door.
Why is the door locked? What are you doing in there, Ellis?
What would he say?
What are you doing with my keys?
He paused, listening. She had stopped.
What the hell is she doing? Just standing in the middle of the hall? Screw it.
Ellis reached in and grabbed everything in the way. He stuffed the pile in his coat pocket, then felt for the earrings.
He heard Peggy starting up the steps, and scooped up the jewelry on the bottom. He closed the closet and raced his wife to the bedroom door, opening it just before she touched the knob.
“Still here?” she asked.
He smiled. “Just heading out.”
His heart was pounding as he went down the steps. He gingerly set her key ring back on the little table near the coat rack and walked out. On the porch he put his hand in his pants pocket and felt for the jewelry. Ellis sighed. He’d accidentally grabbed Peggy’s rings along with his grandmother’s diamonds. He’d leave them on the kitchen counter when he got back from the bar, although they obviously didn’t mean anything to her anymore. She’d worn them for eighteen years but stopped about the time she started taking the real-estate seminars. Peggy mentioned that an article had said women Realtors without wedding bands consistently outperformed those who wore them regardless of whether or not they were actually married. Ellis never argued, never put up a fuss because he knew the real reason. She had put away her rings and started her career the same summer that Isley had hung himself in the garage with one of his father’s belts.
Brady’s was a nearly invisible bar on Eight Mile Road. Sandwiched between a video-rental store and a Chinese restaurant in a neighborhood of liquor stores and bump shops, it was the only building without bars on the windows. Brady’s didn’t have windows. The place was just a brick front with a white-painted steel door that clanged on a tight spring.
Ellis stood outside the bar, coughing. He always had trouble going out in the cold, not that it was all that cold yet. November in Detroit, with the moisture coming off the Great Lakes, was just the prelude to six months of bone-chilling misery. Still, his lungs didn’t like the change in the air. These days his lungs didn’t like much of anything, and the coughing came in fits of chest-ripping waves that left him feeling battered. He waited until the wheezing stopped before heading inside.
The interior of Brady’s was about what the exterior suggested: a no-frills bar that smelled like fried food and still reeked of cigarette smoke years after the state ban went into effect. The floor was sticky, the tables wobbled, and the corner-mounted television showed muted football highlights while hidden speakers played vintage Johnny Cash. Without windows, the only light came from the television and a few old-fashioned ceiling lamps, leaving the place a flickering cave of silhouettes.
Warren Eckard sat at the bar, looking up at the television screen and swirling what was left of a Budweiser. Supported by his elbows, he was hunched over the bottle, one foot bouncing to the rhythm of Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.” Warren was wearing a T-shirt that read: I LOVE MY COUNTRY. IT’S THE GOVERNMENT I HATE. The 2XL shirt was still too small, leaving an exposed band of pale skin muffining out of his jeans. Ellis was just thankful Warren wasn’t letting his waistband droop any more than it already was.
“Warren,” Ellis said, clapping him on the back and taking a seat alongside him.
“Hey! Hey!” Warren turned, grinning at him with an overacted look of surprise. “Well, if it ain’t Mr. Rogers. Wonderful day in the neighborhood to ya, old man. How ya been?”
Warren held out his hand, and Ellis took it, his own disappearing inside that big mitt. It had been decades since the accident, but he couldn’t help noticing Warren’s missing fourth and fifth fingers.
“Who’s the kid behind the bar?” Ellis asked, trying to catch the eye of the bartender—some young fella in a black T-shirt with a toothpick in his mouth.
“Freddy,” Warren said. “He’s Italian. So don’t make any dago jokes, or we’ll both be swimming wit da fishes.”
“Where’s Marty?”
Warren shrugged. “Day off, maybe. Laid-off likely. Who knows?”
“Freddy?” Ellis called to the kid, who was leaning back on his elbows, fiddling with the toothpick between his teeth. “Can I get a Bud?”
The kid nodded and popped the top off a tall, brown bottle frosted from the cooler. He slapped a square napkin on the bar in front of Ellis, set the bottle on it, and then went back to his elbows and his toothpick.
“Lions playing tonight?” Ellis asked, nodding at the television as he peeled off his coat.
“Against the Redskins,” Warren replied. “Gonna get creamed.”
“Way to support the home team.”
“Well, it’d help if they had any decent players.” He drained his bottle and clapped it on the bar loud enough for Freddy to take notice and pull him a new one.