GO TELL MESSIAH by Jason Manganaro
If there was one day that cold-cocked your life – that turned down to up and up to East Bellevue – it was that Saturday at Cipriano’s Sub Shop. You were standing by the counter, waiting on a sandwich, wondering if your two wastoid buddies, Eddie Mueller and Darren Fitzpatrick, were doing any work at all while you were away. Outside was textbook January in New England, frigid but sunny. Inside was toasty warm, with the smell of baking bread and sizzling meat. And you – I remember it like this morning – you were the old you, all neat tucks and crisp corners. Latin Club member, cross-country track captain, never-been-laid (former) altar boy. Partial to coasting, sure, but marked by your teachers and neighbors as hardworking – which, in Hale, Massachusetts circa 1987, meant more than any grade point average or SAT score.
The door opened, announced by a tinkling bell, and you glanced towards it. As you turned back to the counter, you spotted – on a café table by the plate glass window – an abandoned pocketbook. Maroon, cheap leather, worn beyond repair. Something your mother would’ve thrown out, or handed down to your kid sister Lindsey.
You made a quick scan of the place. No likely owner in sight. You considered picking it up, bringing it to the guy working the counter. Despite the Italian name, Cipriano’s was run by Greeks – Macedonians, actually, though at the time, you didn’t know the difference. You’d been getting food there every Saturday for weeks – ever since you were hired on at the Globe’s Sunday circulation office – but they still treated you like a stranger.
You didn’t trust them. You decided to keep quiet. Maybe the pocketbook’s owner would come back for it. This, so far, had been your experience of the world: if you let things alone, they typically played out as they should.
A few months earlier, by this same logic, you’d been named the de facto manager of the circ. office, just down the street from the Globe’s main Hale branch. The old crew had been fired all at once in a fit of sobriety. Willie Darwin, the branch manager, a drinking buddy of your cousin, had brought you in and trained you for about an hour – how best to arrange the inserts, stack the bundles. How to unfold, tuck and move on. Afterwards, Willie had handed over the keys.
“Delivery truck drops the circulars on Wednesday and Thursday nights. Variety sections come on Saturday mornings, everything except the regular news. Hire two of your friends to help out and I’ll pay you each six bucks an hour. Don’t miss the delivery truck – the driver is union, he gets triple-time to unload. Come whenever else you like. So long as all the papers are ready by four AM on Sundays, I don’t really give a shit. Got it?”
Sure, you got it.
“Good,” Willy had said. “I’m going to the pub.”
And just like that, you were loaded. Barely sixteen and hauling in nearly a hundred a week. Double what your friends made bussing tables or bagging groceries. Enough to save for a car. Enough to get yourself a nice, hot sub whenever you felt like.
The Greek working the counter called out an order. “Step-on,” he seemed to say.
“Steven?” you asked.
“No, no,” the guy said, without a hint of humor or patience. “Stephanie.” He didn’t want some lousy teenager feeling too comfortable in the place, you figured. It might attract more of them.
“Step-on,” he called out again. No one came forward. He pushed the order aside.
You glanced at the pocketbook, then at the clock on the wall. When you got back, you’d need to buckle down until suppertime. Before your friends’ friends started wandering in, six-packs or forties tucked under their coats. You didn’t mind them drinking in the place – that, you could explain to Willie. So long as they stayed in back, couldn’t be seen from the street. So long as they didn’t pop pills or light up, not around all that newspaper. Most Saturday nights, you were the only sober guy in the place. Come to think of it, Mueller and Fitzpatrick were probably getting wasted right then. You checked the clock again. Time to get back.
“Did I leave my goddamn bag in here?” a voice behind you said.
The voice seemed to precede its owner through the door, elbowing past the tinkling bell. It belonged to Anita Halloran, a lady who worked with your mother. She was broad-shouldered for a woman, sporting a mop of frizzy hair dyed an unnatural shade of auburn. In short, everything about her packed a wallop.
“Whuzza problem?” the guy behind the counter asked, throwing up his hands – assuming, probably, that her order had been wrong.
“My bag,” she said. “Bag. I know you speak English. I’ve heard you.”
“Is this it?” you asked. You said it softly, gesturing towards the pocketbook with your hand. Probably, you should’ve picked it up and brought it to her. But you were afraid to touch it.
“Yeah,” she said, suspiciously. “Yeah, that’s the one.”
Mrs. Halloran squinted in your direction, like she couldn’t quite place you. As she stepped towards the table to retrieve her pocketbook, you realized she hadn’t come in alone. Her daughter Sharon, a freshman, trailed behind, a girl you wouldn’t have recognized without her mother. At school, Sharon wore skimpy clothes, too much makeup, the favorite subject of sex rumors that outsized her tiny body. Half her head was buzzed close, with bleached tips that slashed in front of her face. Today, hair pulled back, hidden under an oversized sweatshirt, she looked like a regular girl. A girl you could talk to. A girl you might one day be fool enough to marry.
“I know you,” her mother said. “You’re Cookie Menino’s boy.” She looked you up and down. “You go to school with my son.” She said it like she’d caught you in a lie.
Her son, also Steven – Steven H. to your Steven M. – ran with the same crew as Mueller and Fitzpatrick. He’d come by the circ. office once or twice, the one guy you hated to see. Steven H. had a screw loose. Sophomore year, he’d taken to calling himself The Messiah. In woodshop, he’d refashioned a jewelry box lid into a sign with the word MESSIAH etched into it, complete with a lightweight chain. He kept it in his locker, periodically roamed the halls with it slung around his neck, until some teacher caught sight of it and told him to put it away.
Mrs. Halloran stared a second, then whipped her head around to find her daughter – like if she didn’t keep a close watch, Sharon might climb on the nearest boy and start humping. For her part, Sharon just stood there, bored as a cat.
Turning back to you, she extended a finger to scratch the side of her nose. Though she was a few feet away, when she raised her hand, you flinched. You couldn’t help it.
When you and Steven H. were younger and your mothers were still friendly, you’d had a few forced get-togethers. One time, at the Hallorans’, Steven had made up dirty lyrics to “Beat It” and “Down Under.” The two of you had sung heroically until Mrs. Halloran had burst in. There’d been no warning – she’d just come in swinging, slapping Steven repeatedly across the face until he’d crumpled into the corner, giggling. Then she’d turned on you, palm cocked, eyes ablaze. You’d flinched then, too, and she’d stayed her hand. But to this day, you thought of it as a warning, an omen. Not now, her eyes had seemed to say, but just you wait. You’ll get yours.
Mrs. Halloran was finished scratching. Sharon fiddled with the sleeve of her sweatshirt, feet pointed so they formed a right angle, like the first letter in Levo – the Latin for raise up, or diminish.
“How’s your mother?” Mrs. Halloran asked, smirking a little. “I don’t see much of her since they moved her to the office. I guess she don’t have time no more for us pee-ons.”
“She’s fine, thank you,” you said, a reflex.
Your mother and Mrs. Halloran had started together as cashiers at Heartland, the biggest grocery store around at the time. After a while, your mother had moved up – to shift supervisor, then the lottery counter, then to a secretarial job in the back office. Meanwhile, Mrs. Halloran’s hours had been cut for badmouthing store management in front of the customers.
“Tell her I said hello,” Mrs. Halloran said. “Tell her I hope that lump of hers turns out to be nothing.”
You had no idea what she was talking about. The confusion, the alarm must’ve shown all over your face. But Mrs. Halloran seemed to take it as an insult, like your real reaction was: how could somebody like you know about that.
“Oh, I hear things,” she said, laying her pocketbook on a different table, freeing her hands. “I may stand behind a register, but I got ears. And unlike some people,” she added, taking a step closer, “I remember who my friends are. You and my son, for instance. You used to be friends.”
You kept quiet, still hung up on your mother, on the mysterious lump.
“Yeah, you remember. But when they hired you at the Globe, you brought in those two morons without giving my Steven a thought.” She took another step. “Like we couldn’t use a little extra cash coming in.”
Mrs. Halloran was about arm’s length away – literally within striking distance. Behind her, Sharon snapped to, staring right at you. The guy behind the counter also looked on, adding to the sense that something significant, maybe violent, was about to go down.
This time, you didn’t flinch. You didn’t breath, didn’t even blink. The specifics were still a mystery to you. You didn’t yet know that the lump would turn out to be Stage III breast cancer. That, after several rounds of treatment and supposed remission, it would come back with a vengeance. That, after losing your mother, your father would remarry quickly, alienating you and Lindsey. That in the wake of everything, you would drift, anesthetically, from your sister, leaving your in‑laws as your primary family. But aside from the unknowable, you already had a sense of this: hard times were coming. You were also in the midst of a physical reaction, brought on by Mrs. Halloran. It was not unlike the last leg of a road race – dry mouth, cold sweats – before you kicked into a final, desperate sprint. It was the sensation of being borne down on, and in that moment, against your better nature, you burned to strike back.
Only now that Mrs. Halloran had said her piece, the conversation seemed to be over. She turned her back on you.
“Let’s go, Sharon,” she said. Sharon rolled her eyes, looking jilted, then moved to follow.
“Mrs. Halloran,” you said, “wait.” She stopped in her tracks.
“You forgot your bag again.”
This time, you grabbed it firmly by the straps and walked it over to her. The pocketbook was heavier than it looked. You couldn’t help wondering what was inside, what weighed it down. Couldn’t help holding the straps a second too long before turning it over.
“Thank you,” she said, as if uttering a curse.
You gave her a big, toothy smile, like an actor in a silent movie. “My pleasure.”
Mrs. Halloran scowled. She was many things, you would come to learn – a meddler, a dime store prophet, a fierce protector. But what defined her, above all else, was what she refused to be – an object of ridicule.
“Oh, I see,” she said. “You’re a little wiseass, aren’t you?” A faint glow caught under her skin. Here it comes, you thought – the beating promised all those years ago. You wouldn’t have hit back, wouldn’t even have put up your hands to defend yourself. You would’ve taken it, in silence, something Mrs. Halloran must’ve sensed.
“Yeah,” she said, backing off a bit. “Little wiseass. Mister high class. Don’t you worry, I got your number.”
For a second time, she turned to go. In retrospect, you should’ve let her, just let her. But somehow, being cast as a wiseass had turned you into one, and you couldn’t help proving it.
“Mrs. Halloran?” you said. “Please tell The Messiah I said hello.”
She snapped around, almost stumbling. That one had wounded her. You could see her mouth at work, struggling to form a real zinger.
“Go tell him yourself,” she finally said, charging for the door. The little bell tinkled. “Sharon,” she said over her shoulder.
But Sharon didn’t move. For the first time since they’d come in – maybe the first time all day, the first time in weeks – Sharon’s flat line of a mouth curled into a smile. It was nothing glamorous – a sideways smirk, really, reminiscent of her mother. But somehow, the look spoke to you, like you’d just put into words what she herself felt, what she sometimes let slip. Only you’d gotten away with it. It wasn’t a look of admiration, or gratitude, or respect. It was more like recognition, like catching sight of a kindred spirit. Yet to you, who had next to no experience with such things, it was the look of love. A look that said, forget how I dress, what other people say; I’m the one for you. A look that said, we could be in this together, you and me against the world. A look that would taunt you, tease you, and finally, embolden you the next time you ran across her at school. A look that became the start of something. Something no man, or series of men, could put asunder.
“Sharon!” Mrs. Halloran said, still standing in the open doorway.
Sharon held her smile a second longer. Your heart thumped so hard, you thought it might shatter your breastbone. Then she twirled on her heels and strutted out the door.
* * *
Just this morning, I got sideswiped by a coincidence – one with odds so long, if it hadn’t happened to me personally, I’d dismiss it as utter bullshit. I had snuck off from the Globe branch office, from the manager’s job I inherited from Willie Darwin, to grab a draft or three at the pub. The pub of choice these days is Grunty’s Bar, near Saint Thomas Hospital. It was an early start, even for me, but in line with the past couple of weeks, while my father-in‑law, Gene, has been laid up in the ICU. Most days, after drowning what ails me, I pop over and visit him – a man I genuinely care about, despite his complete lack of respect for me.
Today I landed on a stool next to a nurse fresh off her shift, sipping a Bloody Mary. She must’ve been in her late twenties, with pink streaks threaded through her bleached blonde hair. And though she was heavy-set and pleasant and innocent-looking, she reminded me of my wife in bygone days.
Between Salvi, the daytime bartender, and myself, we got this nurse to talking, and the topic soon turned to why she needed a drink at eleven in the morning.
“I lost one,” she said, without a hint of grief or sentiment.
Salvi and I leaned in closer, expecting a story that would break our hearts – the death of a child, a first responder, a pregnant woman. A story that, at least for a few minutes, would make us feel more fortunate about our own miserable existence. Instead, her patient had been an old-timer, admitted over two weeks ago with chest pains. He’d suffered two heart attacks at the hospital, but finally seemed to be turning the corner.
“Last night,” the nurse said, “during 2 AM rounds, I found him sitting up in bed, staring at his monitors. I asked if he needed help getting to the bathroom, but he said no.”
“I’m dying,” the man had told her.
“I told him not to talk that way. I told him he was improving, like the doctor himself had said. I told him, ‘Think of everything you’ve got to live for,’ which – well, I should know better. But he had a wife and daughter who visited him.”
The nurse drank from her Bloody Mary, then did a sort of breathing exercise – in through the nose, out slowly through the mouth.
After hearing everything you’ve got to live for, the old man had turned to her like she’d just stepped into the room.
“Like what?” he’d said. “I hate my work. My wife thinks I got sick just to aggravate her. My son thinks he’s the second coming. And my daughter refuses to give me grandkids. She’s too busy running around on my sap son-in‑law.”
His eyes returned to the monitors. “I got nothing. Not even my health.” I could almost see him, almost hear it.
“I should’ve said something,” the nurse told us, “told him a joke, anything. But what do you say after that? I just about backed out of the room. And the next time I went in, he was lying on his side, facing the window. Then, towards the end of my shift, he went into sudden cardiac arrest.”
She took another drink.
“Did he die?” I asked.
The nurse nodded.
“How long ago?”
She and Salvi stared at me a second, then glanced at each other.
“Thirty or forty minutes,” she said, more like a question than an answer.
I took a drink of my own, long and unsteady, then excused myself for the lav. On the way, I banged a sudden right and walked straight out the door, leaving behind an open tab and a half-full pilsner. But I didn’t care. I needed to get home.
As I stumbled through the door, my brother-in‑law howled out “Steve-M.” He was camped out on the couch as usual, playing Xbox. “Steven M,” he said. “The other Steven.” Everything in threes, three different ways, like he’s testing out material for a shot on Late Night.
“Any phone calls?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said, thumbs all aflutter. After his father took sick, he unofficially moved in with Sharon and me. Couldn’t stand being home alone with his mother.
“Did you answer it?” I asked – a question that, cut with anxiety and alcohol, must’ve come out like a confrontation.
My brother-in‑law paused, still focused on his game. “What am I, a secretary?”
Casually as I could, I made a beeline for the phone. Three missed calls, all from Saint Thomas Hospital. I closed my eyes, trying to mimic the nurse’s breathing exercise – in through the mouth, out through the ears, through the eyes.
“Am I a secretary to you?”
Most afternoons are like this: just me and Steven H., while Sharon is off at work, or visiting her dad, or doing Lord-knows-who. Nobody else remembers me as Steven M. – somehow, as an adult, I’ve morphed into Stevie, a nickname my mother would never have allowed. Sometimes, Steven H. calls me roomie, goes on and on about us being childhood pals, long-lost buddies, reunited. Every day, he takes massive amounts of drugs, prescription and otherwise, more varieties and dosages than either of us can keep track of. Sometimes I join in – kick back, grab the second controller, and enter his game – Assassin’s Creed, Mass Effect, Final Fantasy – the more violent and engrossing, the better. Sometimes, without warning, Steven H. lays into me, recounting all the times I’ve “denied him” or “forsaken him.”
“What do I look like,” he said, his voice quiet now, cautious as a child’s, “a secretary?”
I opened my eyes and he was standing right there, a bloated, misshapen version of the skinny kid with the sign around his neck.
My first Latin class, I was surrounded by kids who’d been forced to take it by their parents, or who fantasized about boosting the Verbal scores on their SATs. I don’t remember much Latin. But I remember what I liked best about it: that it was a dead language. An echo from a golden age that – for a little while, with words – we could still pretend to be part of.
“Are you crying?” Steven H. asked me. “Are those real tears?”
They were, as it turned out, though I wished they weren’t. I wished Sharon was there. I wished Gene was still living. And, top of the list, I wished the glimpse I’d gotten of Gene’s last hour on Earth didn’t feel so much like a preview of my own.
Tell The Messiah I said hello, I’d told Anita all those years ago.
Go tell him yourself, she’d said right back.
Jason Manganaro’s stories have appeared in Washington Square, The Journal, Red Rock Review, and River Oak Review.