I paid for the espressos and followed Joey two blocks east to a place with a big sign that said SPINA’S CLAM BAR. I watched through the front glass as he took a stool at the end of the bar and said something to the bartender. The bartender put a glass of draft beer in front of him, then set up an iced tray and started opening clams. Four other guys sat at the bar, but no one seemed to know anyone else and no one seemed particularly talkative. Another half-dozen people sat in little booths. It was the kind of place you could go in your work clothes.

When the tray was filled with clams, the bartender put it in front of Joey and then walked away to see about the other guys. Joey was slurping a clam off its shell when I walked up behind him and said, “Say, Joey.”

Joey turned and looked at me and I thumbed him in the throat.

His face went red and his eyes got big and he grabbed at his throat and started to cough. Most of a clam popped out and fell on the floor.

I said, “You oughtta not eat so fast, you’re going to choke.”

The bartender came down. “Is he okay?”

I said sure. I said I knew how to do the Heimlich. A couple of the people at the other end of the bar looked over, but when they saw the bits of clam all over the place they turned away. The bartender went back to his other customers.

Joey sort of half fell and half slid off his stool and pushed a slow right hand at me. I pushed it past with an open hand then thumbed him in the right eye. He went white this time and stumbled backward and fell over his stool into the bar and down to the floor.

The bartender and the other four guys at the bar looked at me. I said, “Think I did the Heimlich a little too hard.”

The nearest guy said, “You want I should call an ambulance?”

“Maybe in a bit.”

Joey was scrambling around on the floor, holding his face with one hand and trying to get up. He screamed, “You poked out my fuckin’ eye! I’m gonna be blind!”

I pulled him up and led him farther back into the bar. The bartender and the other guys were making a big deal out of not seeing it. I said, “Nah. I took it easy. Let me see.”

He let me see. I thumbed him in the other eye.

Joey made a sort of gasping sound and grabbed at the other eye and tried to turn away but he was against the wall and there was no place to go. The eyes were red and tearing but he would be fine.

He said, “You sonofabitch, you’re supposed to be gone. We got rid of you.”