Extracurricular Activities by Maggie Barbieri Page B

sorry for her. I looked at her. My expression said “tell me your story.” And she did.
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    Crawford did the paperwork on the hump who had attacked Carmen and got him through the system before logging out. It was close to six at night and he had been at work since a little before six in the morning. He was bone tired and more than a little cranky. He wanted a shower, a beer, and his bed. Nothing more.
    He lived on the top floor of a brownstone on West Ninety-seventh Street, with his mother’s sister-in-law, Bea McDonald, below him in the small, one-bedroom unit. Bea and her husband, Bobby, had owned the house since the late ’50s and had raised their six kids in the upstairs unit where he now lived. When Bobby died after a long battle with lung cancer some twenty years earlier, Bea had offered Crawford (“little Bobby” to her despite the fact that he was almost a foot and a half taller than the five-foot-tall Bea) the apartment for him and his growing family. He moved in and never left. Which is more than he could say for the rest of his family.
    He tried to let himself into the ground floor of the house as quietly as possible. Bea was a great housemate, but sometimes, especially late on a Saturday night, she liked to visit with him. He had barely planted his size-fourteen feet on the long staircase up to his apartment when he heard stirring in the first-floor apartment. The door opened and Bea’s round face peered out. “Bobby?” she called.
    He stopped, midstep. “Hiya, Bea.”
    â€œHow was work?” she asked, opening the door all the way. She got up on her tiptoes and tried to kiss him; he bent at the waist and met her halfway.
    There was no polite answer to that question, so he went with a grunt and a shoulder shrug.
    â€œThat good, huh?” she responded. “I’ve got some leftover pot roast in the kitchen. Some dinner?”
    He thought back to his last meal: some peanuts and a cold cup of coffee in the Crown Vic. He could muster up a little conversation for Bea; her pot roast was the best. He didn’t know too many people who prepared pot roast on a hot September night, but he was glad she had. He nodded and told her he would be back after “washing up,” which euphemistically meant “putting my guns where nobody will find them.” He didn’t enjoy eating with a Glock on his hip or the smaller gun on his ankle.
    â€œI’ve got a few bottles of that Canadian beer that you like, too,” she said.
    â€œI’ll be right back,” he said, returning to her apartment within five minutes of her invitation. He walked through her living room and into her kitchen, where she had set a place for him. The apartment was cool, thanks to a large wall unit in the living room that cooled the living room and kitchen. An ice-cold bottle of Labatt’s sat on a place mat alongside a fork, knife, spoon, and napkin. He took a seat at the table and a long drink from the Labatt’s bottle, finishing half of it. “Thanks, Bea. This is nice.”
    She stood at the stove piling oven-browned potatoes, carrots, peas, and pot roast onto his plate. “You look tired. I heard you leave a little after five this morning.”
    He stretched his long legs out under the maple table. “Fred and I had to ghost a decoy on Riverdale Avenue. Mugger. Beats and robs wealthy women in the neighborhood.” Bobby McDonald had been a beat cop in the Four-six Precinct, so Bea was well acquainted with all of the cop lingo.
    She set the plate down in front of him. The pot roast smelled so good that he almost started crying. “Did you get the bastard?” she asked, her language at odds with her sweet, round face. She took a seat across from him.
    â€œGot him,” he said, and forked a piece of meat into his mouth.
    â€œGood job!” she said, and offered the palm of her hand for a high five.
    He reciprocated with a hand slap. “Got the