On the Nickel by John Shannon Page A

mat. He usually went pretty far under when he slept these days, either still recovering from the last of the chemo – or dying. Damn, he’d thought it.
    ARGH! HAVE TO PROTECT MV.
    ‘And we will, Jack. I promise. But your love is kind of a one-note fortune-teller of loss, it’s so gloomy. You know that?’
    There was an outcry from the bleachers, but it didn’t seem serious, and when they looked over, nothing seemed amiss.
    IS THAT THE GREENWOOD KLIKA?
    Greenwood was the gang Maeve had been involved with.
    ‘Jack, Jack, use your eyes, not your fears. The oldest kid over there is about fourteen. They’re taggers, wannabes. Bangers don’t sit out here in the afternoon.’ She knew he was thinking of Beto, the Greenwoods’ leader and Maeve’s Svengali.
    I’M SORRY, IT’S LIKE ALL THE AIR’S BEEN SUCKED OUT OF MY BRAIN.
    He wrote fast.
    ‘It can’t be easy to lose your voice, I know. Right now, you’ve got to learn to lean on me,’ Gloria said. ‘Lean as hard as you have to.’ All she could see in his face was shadings of desperation, and it made her sad. ‘I don’t have your expertise with your daughter, but I’m off shift today and tomorrow, and I’ll track her for you, wherever she goes. I’m good at that.’
    GOD BLESS YOU. I BLESS YOU, GL.
    ‘In my mind, you and that god guy are just about equally doofus. Maybe equally demanding. But there ain’t no philosophers going around claiming Jack is dead.’ She laughed. ‘Just don’t impose any of those giant losses on me.’
    He thought he saw her touch the pistol in its waistband holster at her skirt, just a brush as if for reassurance. ‘Jack, I can deal with the real world. It’s my profession. I think I can even change your goddam luck for you. But don’t make me deal with you losing heart. The way your fading dad does. It’s too much like my own relatives.’
    I HAVEN’T GOT ANY GODS FOR YOU – DARK OR LIGHT.
    ‘I know that. But I got a few Paiute gods left over and I may call on them. You’re too fragile now to call on anybody. That’s why I’m here for you.’
    He almost smiled.
    ONCE IN A GREAT WHILE I STILL BUY THE CATHOLIC LIBERATION NEWSPAPER. JUST TO SEE IF I CAN STILL BE TOUCHED BY PEOPLE SO DEVOTED TO THE POOR.
    ‘Don’t do it. Leave all that touching of shit to me.’
    He tried to enjoy being out in the park with Gloria in the afternoon – the wind, the noises of the kids across the way, traffic, passersby, sensations of life going on willy-nilly to punctuate his involuntary silence. It had been a strong bright day and should have filled him with self-awareness, the way that clarity tended to do, but he found he was watching what was happening around him as if it was all on TV, most of the feeling missing, his participation totally missing, except a faint rasp that he could sense now and then as air rushed through his airways. He tried to remember if tomorrow was the day the physical therapist came to give his legs and feet their range-of-motion exercises, a humiliating series of twists and tugs punctuated by such expressions as, ‘Now let’s do our best to flex that pinkie – oink, oink, oink, on the way to market.’ He desperately wanted his voice back, if only to bellow an insult.
    Yet Gloria was a nourishing presence, he never doubted it, and after watching the physiotherapist once, she reproduced many of the same exercises, with a lot less of the boiled twaddle. Gloria was certainly trying hard for him. He wished he could turn a page and recover some sense of hope in himself. Turn to challenge that dark ogre that he felt pushing him down deep into his own body, away from the surface, away from life. He knew he needed to do something about the rage that had taken him over so completely.
    A bird cried joyously overhead, and he took it for a sign. But a sign for what? Give life another try? He put everything he had into the will to move his right leg, and he may have managed a millimeter of a twitch, maybe not. He knew