Levesque
He’d followed her one Sunday that September, after the miscarriage. She was headed out for another group project. He’d told her he had an errand to run. He’d driven parked around the block, where he’d have a view of her whenever she left.
He’d followed her down Irving Street to where it met Main Street. He’d remained a couple of car lengths behind as she crossed the Memorial Bridge to the other half of the city. She pulled off Main Street and turned into the parking lot of the Hilton.
He’d sat back from the entrance, waiting. He had an idea of whom she preferred to him but he needed confirmation. He hadn’t felt the type of rage that was gripping his stomach since his mother had passed away. He waited all afternoon.
She emerged late in the afternoon with a tall, wiry man with a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. As Levesque strained his eyes to look closer, he thought the man’s shape looked familiar. Even from the distance, he could tell the man had a square jaw and a deep tan. Under the hat Levesque knew he would find a shock of sandy blonde hair and an arrogant grin.
It was Davis, his father’s gemologist. He’d worked for his father for as long as Levesque could remember. He had a youthful face, which masked his age, somewhere in the mid-thirties.
He’d just shown up one day and talked his way into an apprenticeship with his father. That apprenticeship had turned into a full-time career, sponsored by Levesque’s father, who had grown to treat him like a son. The son he always wanted.
Davis had been good to Levesque; treating him like a kid brother. Levesque had looked up to him, wanting to possess the same confidence that rolled off Davis in waves. Now he wanted to kill him.
He reached under the seat of his truck and felt for the Walther he kept there. He held it in his lap as he watched Beth give Davis a long kiss. His fingers tapped the gun’s grip, danced over the trigger guard.
As he watched Beth’s Civic pull out of the parking lot, he could feel his teeth grind as his jaw clenched in a vicious spasm. The anger was red in him. He slid the gun back beneath the seat of his F-150. He’d driven out of the parking lot and gone to the Chanti.
“Levesque,” said the squat, solid man behind the bar.
“Tommy,” replied Levesque.
The light in the Chanti was low despite the bright crispness of the Fall afternoon. The light in the Chanti was always low. It helped to hide the simple grunginess of the place. It was even darker today with the overcast skies. The place was empty except for two regulars curled around a pitcher of PBR at a booth in the back watching the Patriots game.
“Usual?” asked Tommy.
“Not today. Give me a Stoli on the rocks.”
“No Bud Light?”
“No.”
“Nothing to mix it with?”
“No.”
“Wow, someone grew a pair. It’s about time. I know you been out for six, seven months now, but did something happen with all those preppies at the college? I ask, because I haven’t seen you.”
“Fuck you, prick.”
“Next thing you’ll be telling me you and Beth are moving to Kennebunkport, next to the Bush’s.”
“Listen you circus midget, I’m not in the fucking mood.”
“Jesus guy. Calm down. Just having a bit of fun. It’s not like your 6’3” or something. Welcome back by the way.”
“Not today, okay, Tommy.”
“Tell me about it. What’s the major malfunction?”
“It’s Beth.”
“Women. It’s always women.”
“No. She’s pregnant. Was pregnant.”
“So there’s a kid? And you haven’t been in to tell me? Fuck it. Let me buy you a shot. Tequila?”
“Sure.”
As he poured the drinks, Tommy couldn’t shut up, “man, that’s great news. Fantastic news. I couldn’t be happier for you,” said Levesque’s oldest friend.
The two had known each other since they were ten; right after Levesque’s mother had died. Tommy Foster had moved to town right after.
They’d been drawn together by their diminutive height, a love of baseball, and the shared pain of having lost their mothers. Tommy’s mother had passed away giving birth to a younger brother.
His parents had never married. His father was in Thomaston serving a life sentence for armed robbery, so Tommy had been sent to live with his mother’s sister in Central Falls.
The boys had bonded on the baseball fields of the Falls. Levesque had been Tommy’s personal catcher. The only guy he’d throw to. When they were younger, J.D. had been the bigger star of the two, flashing a lot of power for a 13-year-old. That had been his peak. Tommy’d been the true star.
By the time they were in high school, his fastball was touching the low 90s with a wipeout slider that was death to right-handed hitters. Senior year professional scouts were making the trip to Maine in droves. The chain-link backstop was lined with serious looking men with radar guns every time he pitched.
There was talk of his being one of the top picks in that June’s draft. There hadn’t been a first round pick, let alone a pick in the first ten rounds, from Maine in twenty years.
The only problem was Tommy. He had a temper that was at best uncontrollable. He’d also had a couple of run-ins with the law over underage drinking and drug trafficking. Most scouts were willing to look past those transgressions, even more so if he was willing to develop a change-up.
Late in the year during their senior season a couple of guys from Memorial, the Catholic school in town, were riding Tommy hard. Levesque had been in his familiar place behind the plate when a fastball from Tommy had just about killed Pat Lemieux, Memorial’s clean-up hitter.
Levesque had called for a fastball up and in, wanting to set Lemieux up for the slider. He knew all about Tommy’s short fuse, and he’d heard all the chirping. He’d wanted to stay away from the fastball, worried Tommy might let the chatter get to him.
Lemieux had dropped like a sack. Scouts in attendance said the pitch had registered 102 mph. Levesque hadn’t been sure Lemieux was still breathing, as he saw the dark pool of blood forming in the batter’s box. It wasn’t until Lemieux rolled onto his side Levesque was able to take a breath.
Tommy stood on the mound with a blank look. A small smile of satisfaction flicking at the corners of his mouth as he turned and stared into the Memorial dugout.
There was no doubt in Levesque’s mind Tommy had hit Lemieux on purpose. Rare was the game Levesque had to move his glove to catch a delivery from Tommy.
There wasn’t much doubt in anyone’s mind. Despite his immense potential, Tommy fell off everyone’s draft board. It didn’t help that he was from Maine. There just weren’t a lot of Mainers who panned out, so someone with a homicidal anger problem wasn’t going to be worth the trouble.
Any talk of a future outside of Maine dried up. Tommy seemed to have a weight lifted off his shoulders, as the thought of moving out of Maine became just a dream.
Tommy had shown enough interest in school to stay eligible for baseball. After graduation he found a job at the local lumberyard loading trucks early in the mornings. He had the job until he decided he didn’t like the yard supervisor’s tone one morning. He punched him in the face, then proceeded to crack four of his ribs and collapse a lung while kicking him into a bloody heap before heading home.
He’d done two-years of a six-year sentence. When he’d been released, he’d found employment at the Chanticleer, a place known for its cheap beer and the violent tendencies of its patrons. A place perfect for Tommy.
He put the two shots of tequila on the bar in front of Levesque.
“To your kid, and the end of what little social life you had left,” toasted Tommy.
“To the kid’s actual fucking father,” said Levesque throwing back his shot, stopping Tommy’s in mid-flight.
“What do you mean?”
“It wasn’t mine.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s simple. She’d been sleeping with someone else.”
“Okay, what do you mean ‘wasn’t?’”
“She had a miscarriage over the summer. She’d thought she was safe, outside of 12 weeks, when most miscarriages occur, but week 19, something went wrong,” he picked up the shot Tommy had put down, and threw it back.
“Jesus man. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, I was too. Sorry it wasn’t mine.”
“And that. How do you know it wasn’t yours?”
“We hadn’t been sleeping together during the time she would have needed to get pregnant to have been as far along as she was. I was working all those hours for my father. I’d get home and pass out, or work on my thesis.
“Any-fucking-way, I followed her to the Hilton today- to a fucking ‘study group’. I sat in the god-damned lot for hours until she came out with Davis.”
“Davis?”
“Yeah, Davis, the fucking gemologist, stone setter, jack of all fucking trades, son my father always wanted who works in the store.”
“The old dude?”
“He’s not that old. Mid-thirties.”
“She went for him? She could have come to me.”
“You’re not helping, prick. Give me another one of these,” he waved his empty rocks glass.
Tommy walked to the other end of the bar. He put the rocks glass in the dishwasher and pulled out a pint glass. He poured the Stoli over ice. He walked back and placed it in front of Levesque, “so what are you going to do? Want me to fuck the guy up?”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Man, this were me, I’d fuck someone up.”
“Yeah, I know Tommy, but I’m not you.”
“No you aren’t. You’re worse. You’ll wait, let it eat a hole in you, and then do something we’ll all regret.”
He’d stayed late at the Chanti brooding. He’d sat at a corner of the bar drinking pint after pint of vodka under the watchful eye of Tommy. When Tommy cut him off, he’d insisted on driving home. He’d parked his truck on the sidewalk and stumbled up the stairs to their apartment.
She was waiting for him in the low light at the kitchen table.
“Where have you been?” she’d asked.
“I could ask you the same,” he slurred.
“I’ve been worried. You haven’t answered your phone. Did you see I’d texted and called?”
“I won’t divorce you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I was at the Hilton today. I know about you and Davis. I will not give my father the satisfaction.”
“Wha-“
“Stop it. Don’t. Just don’t.”
“I –“
“There’s no study group, unless your taking an anatomy class I’m unaware of. I don’t care. My father said this is what would happen. I refused to believe him. I’m not giving him the satisfaction of a divorce.
“Tell Davis I’m not going to fire him either. His job is safe. I’d much rather live with it at work and at home. I will not give him the satisfaction.”
“You –“
“No, you. You need to understand, nothing is going to change. You two can carry on all you like. I don’t want to see it. That’s all I ask. Do you think you could do that for me?
“I refuse to grant that pious son-of-a-bitch the pleasure of seeing me divorced. The eternal ‘I told you so.’ I couldn’t live with it.
“If you try to run away, or try to alter this arrangement in some way shape or form, you will not be happy.”
She stared at him, mouth hanging open.
“What would we have named his child?”
Tears began to glisten at the corners of her eyes. He couldn’t tell if she started to answer. He left the room before she could answer.
