Pat was the de facto landlord, took a minimal rent, listened to no complaints, carried a gun. We told him that we were in Denver for only a couple of days until we could change our ticket and fly back to Ireland. He said we should stay longer, that the neighborhood wasn’t as bad as it looked and they had finally dealt with the roach and rat problem with a sonic vermin device. Comforting to know, but our minds were made up.
Pat had a phone in his apartment. We could use it.
I called British Airways. To change our departure flight would cost only a hundred dollars. I changed the tickets. I hung up. That was that. Our American adventure was done. Ending in shambles and disaster. Finito. We were all set to go and we would have gone, flying Denver to London, London to Belfast, and Victoria’s murderer would never have been found and I would have been assassinated by a secret cadre inside the RUC within twenty-four hours of landing on Irish soil, had not Patrick, at that precise moment, said:
“Boys, listen, make any call you like, I get ten cents a minute to Ireland.”
“Any call?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Well, I could call up my dad and let him know we’re coming back,” I said after a pause.
“Go ahead,” Pat said.
I dialed the number for home. Dad picked up after a minute.
“Noel, is that you?” he said.
“No, Dad, it’s me.”
“Alex,” he said, “it’s good to hear from you. I thought it was Noel with the new flyers. The Green Party in Dublin gave me a hundred pounds and—”
“Dad, I’m coming home,” I said, ignoring him.
“Did you find anything out?”
“Yeah, the man who sent the note is just a local nut, nothing to do with anything. But as a matter of fact, I think the police have arrested the wrong man. I’m pretty sure they’ll release him soon. He’s got a good lawyer and I think I’ve helped him a bit. They’ll be opening the case again, it’s the cops’ job now, nothing more I can do. Coming home.”
“There’s nothing else you can do?” Dad asked, sounding disappointed.
“No. Will you tell Mr. Patawasti? I’ll be home in a couple of days, see him myself, but I’d like you to fill him in, if you can.”
“I’m very busy, but I’ll make a point of going to see him. Actually, I want to talk to him, I think he might want to come on the campaign trail with me, take his mind off things,” Dad said.
“Dad, for God’s sake, don’t ask him to campaign with you, give the man some peace, just tell him I found the guy who sent the note and it was unimportant, ok?”
“I will.”
“Ok, look, this is someone else’s phone, I better hang—” I began.
“Oh, Alex, wait a minute, your friend Ivan called three times yesterday, he was looking for you. I got him on the third call.”
“Facey called you up?”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“He said that it was urgent that he speak to you. I told him you were still in America and he said that it was good that you were away. I thought that was a bit odd.”
“That is odd.”
“He said, wherever you are, you should call him, reverse the charges, if necessary, he said it was very, very important.”
“Shit.”
“I know, he didn’t sound like himself at all.”
“What did he sound like?”
“He sounded, I don’t know, worried, frightened. You’re not in any trouble, are you?”
“No. Did he leave a number?”
“He did, let me see, six-seven-oh-nine-three, got that?”
“Yeah.”
“Ok, Alex.”
“Ok, Dad, tell Mr. Patawasti, ok?”
“Ok.”
I hung up, called Facey, he wasn’t home.
Pat brought me some milk.
“Alex, do you want milk in your coffee? I take mine black, but I always forget how other people like theirs.”
“No, thanks. Look, uh, can I use your phone later? I’ve an important call to make.”
Pat looked at John and myself wistfully. He cleared his throat, wiped his skinny hand over his forehead. He had something to say:
“Of course, use the phone anytime, and listen, um, the building gets quite lonely, no one wants to visit me, they’re prejudiced against coming out here, even though we’re only a few blocks from East High School, which is a lovely building, uh, anyway. Look, so I was thinking, you boys can stay as long as you like. Rent-free until you get jobs. How does that sound? You don’t get an offer like that every day.”
“Uh, no. Thanks for the offer but, sorry, we, we have to go back home. I’ve already changed our flight to Sunday,” I said.
Pat’s face fell.
“Ok. Well, it’s nice to have you even for a few days,” he said cheerfully, “and if you want to reconsider, there’s no bugs anymore and no rent.”
I thanked him and went back to the apartment. I took a shower, and when I came out, John was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. He was going out.
“Where the hell you think you’re going?” I asked.
“I’ve got to get out of here, I’m going nuts, just a walk up and down the street.”
“John, are you fucking out of your mind? Half the cops in Denver are looking for us, you think a haircut and a beard cut are going to fool them forever?”
“Listen, I can’t be cooped up in here, it’s too damn hot, I want out, I want to go to the cinema or something. I’ll wear my baseball cap, change my shirt, you said yourself they’re searching for Spanish guys.”
I looked at John, he did seem a bit jittery, but I was insistent.
“First of all, that baseball cap goes in the garbage. Second of all, not today, not today at least, maybe tomorrow when the heat’s cooled down, but for today, we are staying put, ok?”
“Ok,” John said reluctantly.
About an hour later, Pat saw that we weren’t leaving and came by with martinis. For someone in the throes of a major life-threatening health crisis, after a few drinks, Pat became quite the chatterbox. When he got a wind, he became an entertaining, angry son of a bitch, and we both found ourselves liking him. He particularly had it in for Colorado’s white Christian population, whom he blamed for the infamous antigay referendum that had changed the state’s constitution, allowing organizations such as the Denver Fire Department to fire gay people because of their lifestyle, never mind their HIV status. Odd, though, for with Pat’s red hair and ghostly complexion, he was the whitest person I’d ever seen and, technically, he was a Christian.
“Yeah, boys, they fucked the constitution. It’s going to the Supreme Court next year. Hope I live to see it overturned. Wipe the smile off their fat white faces. This is the only state in the country that did that. Colorado. The hate state. White, bourgeois scum,” Pat said bitterly while we sipped his martinis on the fire escape.
“And no blacks voted for it?” John asked mischievously, sucking on his olive and giving me a wink. I was glad to see that he was making himself forget about yesterday in a haze of alcohol.
“I’m sure some did, but it’s the goddamn Anglos. They’re all Fundamentalist Christian out here. Hate gays, hate non-Christians. They hate Catholics, Latins. Don’t believe me? Drive out on Federal sometime, ask those Mexican guys how they’re treated. While you’re at it, look at the cars, Jesus fish all over them or, occasionally, a Jesus fish eating a fish that says ‘Darwin,’ I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said ‘Warning. This car will become driverless in the event of the Rapture.’”
Neither John nor I got what he was talking about, so Pat explained that Fundamentalist Christians believe they will all be spirited up to heaven during the Rapture, an event that will precede the Apocalypse and the Second Coming.