go of the bar and made his way step by step to the dim hallway, then pushed his way into the men’s room and forced the wonky door shut behind him.
“I was the one they wanted,” Danny said. “That’s all that’s ever mattered to anyone.”
Jeff said nothing to that. They sat staring at each other. So many years to their friendship. All the years up to that night ten years ago—years of play, of school, of hockey on the frozen lake, summer camp. Of secret hideouts and talk of girls and then the girls themselves. And then all the years after when they said nothing more about it and did not see each other or even talk on the phone but just got on with their strange, separate, suddenly adult lives.
“What,” said Danny. “You think I’d come back here to say something now I never said back then? That I’d just suddenly start telling some other story?”
“Maybe you figured enough time has passed nobody’d do nothin about it now anyhow. Statue of limitations or some such shit.”
“There ain’t no statute of limitations for that, Jeff.”
“Well, that’s a fuckin relief.” He drank his beer and looked at the TV, and Danny looked too but the game had ended and the news was on. The bartender had gone somewhere out of view. The remaining man at the bar appeared to be asleep on his forearms. In all the time they’d been in the tavern no one else had come in or left. As if the world outside had stopped for that time. As if the last of the world were right here in this dark and random place.
“What I told them was the truth, Jeff. I was out there chasing down that goddam dog and I didn’t see anything else. Not a God damn thing. End of story.”
Jeff took a breath and let it out and all the fight seemed to go out of him with the breath.
“Shit, Dan. It coulda been either one of us. They had us at the bar and they had me as the old boyfriend but they had you in the park. But it coulda just as easily been me.”
“You weren’t the old boyfriend. You didn’t even date her, technically.”
“She didn’t date anyone technically.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
Jeff ran his thumb down the curve of his beer glass. “I had a thing for her, though. You know I did.”
“A lot of guys had a thing for her.”
“You knew I did, though. And you knew how drunk I was. Shit. I’d be sitting in jail right now. And my Ma would be in the state hospital in a paper gown with all the crazies. Or dead. Which would be preferable, actually.”
“They had no case, Jeff.”
Jeff shook his head. “That sheriff, Sutter, and that deputy, what was his name?”
“Moran.”
“Moran. With those bug eyes of his. They sure didn’t like nothing about either one of us, did they.”
“No, they did not.”
Danny looked into his beer. Jeff sat pulling at the whiskers on his chin. Then he said, “Tell you one thing I never could figure.”
“What’s that.”
“Why old Gordo stuck up for me with Wabash, after all that. I never would of got that job otherwise.”
“He knew about your ma. He knew you needed the work.”
“Maybe. But I think it was about Big Man, mostly. I think he had a soft spot there.”
“Maybe,” said Danny. “But I’ll tell you something.”
Jeff waited.
“Marky never would’ve got that job without you there with him. You’ve watched out for him, Jeff, and I won’t ever forget that. None of us will.”
Jeff rolled his eyes. “Don’t be thanking me, for Christ’s sake.” He shook his head dismally. “All these years. All that time away from your family.”
Danny looked down at the floor, at his boots. “How about this,” he said. “How about we just give the whole subject a rest. That work for you?”
“That works for me. You just watch your ass, Danny-boy, all right? There’s no telling what some folks might do.”
“I’ll watch my ass.”
Danny raised his glass and after a moment Jeff raised his too and as they did so the men’s room door rattled open and the drunk man emerged and came toward them on a wandering course. He reached their table and stood balancing himself. Wet pink eyes disappearing in long, slow blinks.
“A word of caution, boys, if you will allow it,” he said, and swung his face from one of them to the other. Danny looked to Jeff, and Jeff looked to