I Was There the Night He Died Read Online Free Page B

over my frozen joints and shivering skin. I decide to give my new furnace a test ride—rise and go to the refrigerator and get a can of Mountain Dew, as cozy as could be.
    I pop the tab, take a bubbly slurp. Okay. Tonight’s topic: Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Let’s get down to work.
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    â€œWell, I’ll be a sonofagun,” Steady Eddie says, nearly scooping me off my feet with a short but rib-bending bear hug. “What’s going on, man?”
    Before I have a chance to answer, a photograph is whipped from his wallet to my hand. Before I have time to do more than register that it’s a picture of a baby, “Check it out, man. What do you think?”
    It’s a baby all right: bald, pasty, bored-looking. The same as every other baby I’ve ever seen. But it must be Eddie’s latest—he’s the same age as me, forty-four, and a father four (or is it five?) times over already—so I reel off the expected bromides: Wow . Good looking kid . It looks like you . Congratulations .
    Steady Eddie takes back the picture, shakes his head while returning it to his wallet. “Gavin says him and Cheryl might get back together someday. Jimmy—that’s the kid’s name—wasn’t six months old when she told Gavin she didn’t want to be tied down anymore, she needed some space. Space, shit. She just wants to party every night like she did before they started shacking up.” He’s still shaking his head while getting a couple bottles of Labatt Blue from the beer fridge in the garage where we’re standing. “I just feel bad for the baby, that’s all. Gavin’s a good kid, don’t get me wrong, but useless as tits on a nun. Kid couldn’t spell cat if you spotted him the c and the t .” He cracks open our beers with an opener attached to the symphony of keys and mini-screwdrivers and pocket knives clanking from his belt.
    I take my beer. “That’s rough for Gavin,” I say, “but what does his love life have to do with your new son?”
    Steady Eddie giggles, tips his bottle, giggles some more. “Jimmy’s not my son, man, he’s Gavin’s. Jimmy’s my grandson.”
    I do the math because it’s impossible—impossible that I went to school with someone who’s a grandfather—but the numbers, unfortunately, add up. Gavin was born the day before our high-school band, The Tyrants, was supposed to play the Christmas assembly, and I was sure we’d have to cancel because our drummer, Steady Eddie, would be an all-of-a-sudden eighteen-year-old father. When I’d called his house, though, the Steady One himself had answered. “No sweat, man, Pam won’t be going home with the baby until Saturday. I’ll see you tomorrow. I gotta go. Tammy’s here.” Tammy was Eddie’s newest girlfriend, the one who hadn’t just borne him a son.
    I do what’s expected of me, raise my bottle and toast Eddie’s good news. He clinks me back and it’s official, we’re both old farts.
    â€œHow’s your dad doing?” he says.
    I haven’t seen or even talked to Eddie since my mother’s funeral—Eddie was steady with the 4/4 backbeat, not so much with cracking the books, so after I left for university and Eddie stayed behind to work the assembly line and make more babies, ours became a Chatham friendship, alive when I’m here, dead when I’m in T.O.
    â€œHe’s all right,” I say. “Considering.”
    Eddie nods, drinks his beer. He knows about my dad’s disease just like I know about his dad dying of colon cancer. People from Chatham may not subscribe to Harper’s or listen to BBC World News, but they know what’s important, like who’s sick, dead, or dying in Chatham. Or at least have an uncle who’s sure to keep them up to date.
    â€œHey, check this out,” Eddie says, going to the wall to admire the