Accidents Never Happen Read online

  “Ya got something warm to drink, Shelley?” Albert asked.

  “That depends,” she answered. Her words were flat, like her voice had been bulldozed smooth, ready for concrete to be poured over it. “What did you bring me?”

  Albert shook his head, rubbed his palms together, and blew hot breath into his cupped hands. “I’m not working today.”

  Shelley shook her head. “Fresh flowers, you dirty bastard. That’s all I ask for.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll bring you some tomorrow, toad face.”

  Her eyes went to Joey. “Who’s this?”

  Albert cleared his throat, and cracked his knuckles. “He’s with me.”

  Shelley’s eyes danced back and forth between the two men. She narrowed in on Joey, and Albert wondered if she had the ability to read the kid’s mind. “I see that,” she said, looking him over from head to toe. Shelley pulled the pipe away from her mouth. She pointed its once ivory tip at Joey. “What do you read?”

  Joey stepped forward furtively. His voice seemed small, absorbed by the spines of paperbacks surrounding him from every angle of the overcrowded room. Albert suspected the kid was overwhelmed, not just by Shelley and her abrasive manner, but also by the way the book store felt like it expanded in every direction possible. It was never-ending. Joey looked like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz the first time she met the great wizard. He was certain the kid’s knees were shaking. “Do you have any books on architecture?” he asked.

  Shelley gave him an odd look, raising one eyebrow. “Architecture?” she repeated. “What do you know about architecture?”

  Joey cleared his throat before speaking. “I’m studying to become one. An architect, I mean.”

  Her eyes narrowed even more. She squinted, searching for something microscopic on his body. “You’re in school?”

  “I’m a sophomore in college.” Joey lifted up his brown paper bag of purchases from the drug store. “I like to build things.”

  “Hmmm.” She took a puff from her pipe. “You don’t say.”

  Albert stepped into Shelley’s line of vision, interrupting her inquisition. He stood in front of Joey, spurred by the instinctual need to protect. “We just came by to warm up a lil’,” he said. “It’s pretty rough out there, Shelley.”

  A swirl of smoke seeped out of her mouth. “Why do you think I never leave this place?”

  Joey’s voice suddenly filled the room, louder and braver than Albert had thought possible. “Never?” he asked. He stepped out from behind Albert, moving closer to the counter.

  Shelley raised her head a little bit and gave Joey a half nod of approval. She locked eyes with him, mildly impressed he was making it a point to prove he wasn’t intimidated by her. Albert felt flustered, and this irritated him.

  “What’s the point?” she asked Joey. “Anything I need, I can have delivered. Most of my family members don’t do nothing but irritate me, so why should I get on a plane or a bus to visit them? This is where I belong.” Her eyes moved back and forth between Albert and Joey again. Albert wondered if she was trying to pass along a secret message to him. He repeated her words in his head, quickly tried to decode them, dissect them for hidden meaning, innuendo, a double entendre. This is where I belong. Shelley’s words untangled in Albert’s mind and their meaning became as clear as the hot pink letters in the title of a romance novel in Albert’s peripheral vision.

  Albert glanced over at Joey, at the beauty and temptation of him. He swallowed, accepted Shelley’s silent blessing of him and Joey—and whatever they were becoming to each other.

  Joey asked, “Are all of these books yours?”

  Shelley didn’t smile back, but her eyes softened and her steady grip on her pipe lessened as the hand holding it relaxed. There was a slight change in her tone, but Joey didn’t know her well enough to realize this was as friendly as Shelley could be. It was as if a hidden laugh—not so much as a laugh as it was a chuckle—darted from behind her words and circled around the sentence, floating in the air between them like an invisible hug. “I own the store, don’t I?”

  Albert felt a connection between Joey and Shelley. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, or why it made him feel strange. It was like too many worlds were colliding in one day. He slapped his hands together to make a sound. Their eyes moved to him, acknowledging his demand for attention. “Ya got something back there to kill the cold in my bones?” he asked Shelley.

  Shelley

  Shelley brought the tip of the pipe to her lips, breathing in. It was what she loved about Albert the most: his ability to command a room with his intense energy, the powerful hostility and rage oozing from his pores like a pheromone. He was so uncomfortable in his own skin that he could detonate at any moment and beat the shit out of everyone in the room. His hurricane could annihilate anything in its path, if it were ever to be unleashed. She reached for her leather pouch of tobacco, grabbed a pinch and packed her pipe with it, and said to Albert, “I’m all outta gin, you dirty bastard, so will you settle for some oolong tea?”

  “Shit,” he said, with a strange smile revealing his crooked front teeth, the slight overbite that made his mouth like that of a teenager in desperate need of braces. The focus was back on Albert, which is where he liked it. “I can’t pronounce it but I love to drink it.”

  Joey’s shoulders rose. Shelley started to admire him, even though he bore a striking resemblance to her dead son. “I’ll take some tea,” he decided.

  “Yeah,” Shelley said to Joey, her eyes growing heavy. Albert had finally met his future. “I figured you would.” She struck a match and inhaled the tobacco, careful to blow out the flame before her fingers were burned.

  Albert

  Moments later, Albert and Joey were sitting in dusty loveseats opposite each other. Between them a wooden trunk served as a makeshift table. They were surrounded by open antique curio cabinets and china hutches spilling books out onto the bare floor. Shelley delivered a tray containing a cracked porcelain pot of lukewarm tea and mismatched cups and saucers. Albert poured the tea and offered Joey a cup.

  “I’ve never had tea before,” Joey admitted. The kid reached down and tied his Adidas before taking the cup and saucer from Albert. He placed them down on the splintered surface of the old trunk, next to the bag of items he had purchased from the pharmacy just minutes before they had arrived.

  “I drink it all the time,” Albert confessed.

  “Flowers and tea,” Joey said.

  “You making fun of me, kid?”

  Joey shook his head. “No…you just don’t seem the type,” he said. “Why do you bring Shelley flowers?”

  “Because it’s my job.”

  “You own a flower shop?”

  “No…but maybe someday,” Albert replied. “An old friend of mine named Francine hired me as a delivery driver. I help her out, ya know.”

  Joey slid his fingers through the handle of his pink and blue cup. “How long have you been a delivery driver, Albert?”

  Albert swallowed and spoke. “Over twenty years now.”

  “You never thought of doing anything else?”

  Albert leaned back in his chair. He felt small in it, like he was shrinking, as if the cushions were devouring him whole. He dug his fingernails into the ripped arms, holding on for dear life, and asked Joey, “Why do you wanna be an architect?”

  Instinctively, Joey reached into the bag. He pulled out a glue stick and a box of tongue depressors. “I don’t know…I just like to build stuff.” Joey went to work with the masterful skill of an artist. He connected tongue depressors with quick swipes of glue. Within moments the skeleton frame of a house emerged.

  Albert watched Joey’s hands, amazed. He said, “I’ve always wanted to be a boxer.”

  The four walls were already up. Joey started on the roof. “How long have you been boxing?”

  “Only a year,” said Albert. “My wife didn’t like the idea.”

  “She was worried you would get hurt?”
r />   Albert shook his head. “No. She was worried about the cost. She doesn’t let me spend much. Then again, I don’t make much.”

  “Maybe you could go to school.”

  “What, college?”

  “Yeah,” said Joey.

  “No way. I never even finished high school.”

  “You dropped out?”

  Albert’s hands curled into semi-closed fists. “My dad died. I had to take care of my mom.”

  “How old were you?”

  Albert drained his cup and reached for the porcelain pot to pour himself some more tea. “Fifteen,” he answered.

  “How old are you now?”

  “How old do ya think I am?”

  “Thirty, maybe.”

  “Yeah—close enough.”

  “How did your dad die?”

  The cup in Albert’s hand froze midair, inches from his mouth. “He drowned.”

  “An accident?”

  “No,” Albert said, “I don’t believe in accidents.”

  “Do you think it was fate?”

  “My dad dying in Lake Michigan?”

  “Yeah…and you and me.”

  Albert shrugged. “Who knows why shit happens the way it does?”

  Joey snapped a few tongue depressors into smaller pieces and started building a chimney. “I think there’s a reason for everything. Like…the only college that accepted me was in Chicago. If I hadn’t gone home to Maine yesterday, I wouldn’t have missed all of my classes today. I wouldn’t have been looking for a mailbox. I wouldn’t have found you.”

  Albert grinned, wondering what Joey would build next since the house was almost done. “You make me sound like something you were missing.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What’s it like in Maine?”

  “You’ve never been there?”

  “I’ve never been anywhere…except we went to New York once to visit my cousin. It was right after my dad died.”

  “I have nothing against Maine, but if I never go back there again…”

  They fell silent. Albert glanced around at the books. A few covers caught his eye, held his attention for a moment. He watched Joey put finishing touches on his design.

  Albert’s gaze shifted, resting on Joey. He looked at the boy’s hands, his forearms, the rolled-up sleeves of the oversized sweatshirt, the two beads of sweat forming just above his lip, the fingertips layered with traces of glue. Joey’s passion for building was frightening. He resembled a madman, a wire-haired scientist bent over a secret formula in an underground lab. But his intensity was also seductive. The way he blocked out the world around him, slipping inside the corner of a universe where only his imagination ruled—it made Albert want to sneak off to this utopian place with him, to land smack dab in the middle of Joey’s fantasy world of wooden houses. Albert knew he would be safe there.

  He wasn’t sure if what he was feeling was an attraction for Joey. Albert just knew that he liked being with him.

  As he watched Joey work, Albert felt the impulse to touch him. He wanted the kid to be as devoted to him as he was to his tongue depressors and glue.

  Albert said, “My wife thinks I’m cheating on her.”

  Joey’s hands stopped. He looked up. “Are you?”

  “No…but she gets real jealous of Francine.” Albert silently scolded himself for bringing up Francine again, for saying her name a second time.

  Joey wiped his sticky hands on the thighs of his jeans. “Is she pretty?”

  “My wife?”

  “No. Francine.”

  Albert looked away as if he could see a younger version of Francine, standing in a dim corner of the store. “She used to be.”

  “You’ve known her a long time?”

  “We’re from the same neighborhood. She used to be beautiful.”

  Joey reached for his tea cup. It was empty. “What happened to her?”

  “She got her heart broken and I guess she ain’t ever been the same since.”

  “May I have some more tea?”

  “It’s good stuff, huh?” Albert poured the last few drops into Joey’s cup.

  “It’s got a nice taste. Makes me feel good inside.”

  “I figured we needed to warm up.”

  Joey finished his tea in two gulps. “You probably have to go home soon,” he said. He wiped his mouth with a sleeve. “For dinner. To your wife.”

  The thought of home caused Albert’s elation to fade. “Bonnie doesn’t cook dinner no more,” he said. “I usually just heat up a can of soup. Clam chowder. A coupla pieces of bread. Have a few beers. Call it a night.”

  “What do you do on the weekends?”

  “Spend most of my time at the gym. Or help out Shelley.”

  Joey leaned forward and his knees pressed against the side of the trunk. “Albert, do you have a lot of friends?”

  Albert felt the back of his neck stiffen. “What do I need friends for?”

  “I only have one friend. Her name is Molly. But she lives in Portland.”

  “I had a friend for a while. His name was Jackson. He liked to go to strip clubs a lot.”

  “What happened to him?” Joey asked.

  “He moved to St. Louis. Got married.”

  “Have you had a lot of women?”

  Albert grinned. “What, you mean sex?”

  “Sex. Love.”

  “No…not really.”

  Joey’s arms moved to his sides. He braced his palms against the edge of his chair. His fingertips curled against the sagging fabric. He looked at Albert and playfully asked, “You don’t like sex?”

  Albert blushed a little, and it surprised them both. “Yeah, of course I do. Just…me and Bonnie…we haven’t had sex in a few years.”

  Joey crossed his ankles. “I’ve never had sex.”

  “Never?”

  “Once. Almost.”

  “What happened?”

  “My mother caught us.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Fifteen. My sister was crazy about the guy,” Joey said. “It destroyed her.”

  “You make it sound like a good thing.”

  Joey smiled. “No…I feel bad about it now. But, at the time…”

  Albert shook his head. “Joey, I’ve never met someone who had it out for their family as much as you do.”

  Joey stood up. He carefully picked up the house he had just built. “You didn’t know my mother,” he said. “If you had, you’d understand everything.”

  Albert reached up and touched Joey’s arm. He left his hand there. It covered the kid’s skin. It was an impulse, and the spontaneity ignited a hot buzz of lust that rolled through Albert. “You’re happy she’s gone,” Albert said, looking up.

  Joey stared down at him and whispered, “You don’t know the half of it.”

  Albert’s gaze lowered to the front pockets of Joey’s sweatshirt, to the front of Joey’s jeans. How could he explain how badly he wanted to be as close to Joey as physically possible? He couldn’t understand it himself, couldn’t find a name for the pang he felt in the center of his heart. He wanted nothing more than for Joey to reach out with both arms, and pull Albert to him. He wanted to be told that everything would be okay. He wanted to feel that euphoric belief that anything was possible—a feeling that had sunk to the bottom of Lake Michigan along with the drowned body of his father when he was fifteen. Albert had given up then.

  On everything.

  Albert long ago accepted the fact that life was a merciless joke, particularly cruel to those who dared to dream. His own dream, for as long as he could remember, included the roar of an adoring crowd chanting his name religiously as he battered an opponent in the ring. Joey made him feel, somehow, like this wasn’t just possible—but it was Albert’s destiny.

  He was surprised when Joey walked toward the front of the store.

  “Where are you going?” Albert asked. He sounded afraid.

  Joey offered a reassuring grin. “Since you didn’t bring her any flowe
rs today, maybe Shelley will settle for a house.”

  Albert swallowed his fear as he watched Joey move away with the wooden house balanced in his delicate hands.

  Joey

  “I was an accident,” Joey explained a few hours later. “My mother wasn’t supposed to have me.”

  They were sitting on the edge of Joey’s bed, shoulder to shoulder. Albert raised an eyebrow. Joey fought the impulse to reach up and touch his crescent-shaped scar. “Oh yeah?” Albert asked.

  “Yeah,” Joey said. “She was almost forty when I was born.”

  After successfully sneaking Albert in to his third-story dorm room (a feat including an illegal ride in a freight elevator and Albert almost punching out a nosy resident advisor named Buddy), they were now sitting on a thin twin mattress. They shared a paper cup of instant cocoa Joey had purchased from a vending machine at the end of the hall. The powdery liquid coated Joey’s teeth and burned his throat. He sat at the head of the bed, ankles crossed, near the only window in the room. It looked out over Sheffield Avenue. Fresh flakes of snow tapped against the glass like hungry ghosts. Across the street shone the familiar glare of a Blockbuster Video store. Neon spilled through the window, soaking everything in an artificial glow that resembled pale candlelight. The asthmatic radiator creaked and hissed below the windowsill and swelled the walls of the room. Joey felt trapped inside of a steam iron.