“See you in the funny papers.” That’s that. Pat mimed the raising of a fedora and stumbled back toward Times Square. Fine then, time to stop drinking. Time to head to the Marriott for a few hours of shut-eye before the flight back. He looked down at his Timex. Eleven twenty-five! He’d forgotten to call Anne. Shit. Where did the time go? Time indefinite. Have a disease. A chronic sclerosis of the body. Have to be up soon. Such an idiot. Sleep it off on the plane. Then shave and a coffee and ready for the lion’s den.

Pat walked as straight a line as possible across Times Square. With a half-lidded eye he registered the statue of Father Duffy, the chaplain to his father’s regiment in World War I. All Jack Malone would ever say: The hero priest. Busy converting the heathens before the army buried them. A good man for the cloth. He kept up hope when there should have been none.

Pat then swiveled around to give his regards to George Cohan. So here Pat was, at the crossroads—the pulsing, sclerotic heart of the city. And here were these two statues, monuments to his father’s generation. The priest and the patsy, fitting tributes to the Irish American. Sure, boyo, we likes to fight and pray and warble out a tune for our spuds. Pat felt sick—hungry but too tired, too nauseous, to eat. This is sloppy and stupid, just like fucking Jack Malone. Forget him, forget all your troubles come on get happy. Get ready for the judgment day. Calm down, stop spinning. Remember Father Arnall at Hayes: “Cease to be whirled about.” Marcus Aurelius. Don’t puke. Reel it in. Don’t get sick.

And so, utterly exhausted, Pat crossed Broadway muttering to himself, “My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, and I thank you.” He reached the revolving door for the Marriott, poured himself into his hotel bed, arose before dawn still drunk, grabbed a fetid taxi, and hurtled toward the dark wheel of the terminal at LGA.

Broken, battered, and headed back toward Dallas, now home.

September 26

[ SEPTEMBER 26 ]

Anne Malone looked up from her copy of The Thorn Birds as Courtney McDermott coughed in her sleep; stirred, then settled; and returned to slow, uneasy snoring. Sitting beside her in the girl’s bedroom, Anne studied Courtney for a brief moment—her blond hair combed and curled like out of a fairy tale. Outside the window, a mockingbird trilled and flitted along the branches of a mimosa tree. It was late afternoon, and Courtney’s cheek, then her forehead, twitched. She was deep in dreams.