Boulevard by Bill Guttentag Page A

for anyone to swim, and Jimmy and Erin sat at the edge on green iron chairs. Over a tall hedge, there was a model photo shoot in the hotel driveway and one flash after another heated up the night sky, like they were next to a war—too far to hear the exploding bombs, but close enough to see the flashes. Every so often faint voices of drunken laughter could be heard going into cottages on the hill behind them—but mostly it was quiet. In front of them, past the pool, was the Sunset Strip and the lights of the city.
    Jimmy glanced over at Erin and wondered what to say. He had to say something—or did he? He could avoid it altogether. That’s what most of the guys were doing, and he was tempted to do it himself—but he thought it would be crummy, and it was exactly what the guys did to him about Rancher. On the other hand, what if she didn’t want to talk about it?
    â€œI heard you were off for awhile?” he said.
    â€œYou know what happened?”
    â€œKind of. I’m sorry.”
    This was tough for him. Then he got mad at himself. Tough for him? How about her?
    â€œHow long? … Sorry, bad question.”
    â€œIt’s okay. He lived for four months.”
    â€œSorry.”
    â€œThey were a good four months. I tried to make them good anyway. You want to see a picture?”
    â€œSure.”
    Erin passed him a small photo of her baby from her date book. He was beautiful, with a sweet round face and wisps of light blonde hair. Erin was cradling him in her arms as she sat in a rocking chair in the infant ICU. As Jimmy held the picture he could sense Erin’s sad eyes looking over at the photo too.
    â€œHe looks just like you.”
    â€œYeah. I always thought so. His name was Timmy.” She smiled a little.
    â€œYou got any more pictures?”
    â€œReally?”
    She reached into her date book and seemed to freeze up for a moment.
    â€œYou okay?” Jimmy said.
    â€œIt’s nothing.”
    â€œSure?” He noticed a bit of white paint on her right thumb which she was subtly rubbing off with the other hand.
    â€œNo. Not really. But you don’t wanna hear it, right?”
    â€œNo. Tell me.”
    â€œIt’s just … you know … It’s with you all the time … He was the most wanted baby ever. And before he was born, I painted his room with pictures of farm animals—friendly faces of sheep, ducks and cows to wake up and go to sleep to. But he was born with these big problems. And instead of us taking him home, we were meeting with heart surgeons, a lung expert, kidney doctors. Two days after he was born he was operated on, for six hours. And three weeks later they did it again. For even longer. It’s the worst feeling in the world, waiting while your child is in the operating room. But he was a tough guy and hung in there until he couldn’t hang on any longer. I just about lived at the hospital, holding him all day while he slept, as I fed him, as the nurses changed his IV’s. He didn’t have a long life, but it was filled with love, and in his own way I think he loved us back. Well, today, since I was coming back on, I went into my baby’s room, which he never saw, and I took down the crib and painted over the pictures of the animals.”
    They sat in silence for a moment. She turned back to him, her face lit by a gently moving blue light, reflected from the pool.
    â€œYou have kids?”
    â€œA boy. Sixteen.”
    He looked back down at the baby’s picture. Jimmy didn’t know why—he never knew the baby, and this was his first conversation with Erin longer than two minutes in the stationhouse hallway—but he felt his eyes becoming moist, and he was glad it was too dark out here for her to tell.
    She took out her pack of smokes, but then put it away. “Trying to stop,” she said.
    â€œBeen there.”
    â€œBut you did it. Not like me. How long did you