Free Gravesend by William Boyle

bar, so when the door got pushed open they all looked up. Five guys came in. Four of them were dressed like Teemo. The other one looked ragged in old jeans and a torn hoodie.
    Teemo came out from behind the bar and just stood in front of the guy who wasn’t dressed like him. “Holy shit,” Teemo said.
    Stephanie leaned across the table and said, “You know who that is, right?”
    Alessandra looked again. She saw something in his face she remembered, but the guy was muscled up and looked half-homeless in those ratty clothes. “Can’t be,” she said.
    The guy wasn’t smiling. Just standing there in front of Teemo.
    “Ray Boy Calabrese,” Stephanie said. “In the flesh. The guy next to him, with the goatee, that’s Andy Tighe.” Stephanie wagged her finger on the sly. “And that’s Bruno Amonte, Iggy Lavignani, and Ernie DiPaola.”
    Teemo looked like he was about to melt down. He bear hugged Ray Boy. “Fucking dude,” he said. “It’s good to see you.”
    Ray Boy wasn’t hugging back.
    The guy Stephanie had pointed out as Andy Tighe stepped into a three-way hug with Ray Boy and Teemo. Alessandra remembered Andy now. How could she forget with those thin sideburns and that sculpted goatee. Fatter now. Puckery nipples visible through his pink Nike shirt. Love handles that pressed against the tightness of the shirt. But he still had those watery blue eyes and that tiny mouth.
    “This fuck didn’t want to come out,” Andy Tighe said to Teemo. “I hear from his aunt he’s home, I’m like what the fuck, you kidding me? This guy’s home, home , back in the neighborhood, and we ain’t his first call? I went over there and dragged him out.” He put a hand on Ray Boy’s shoulder and Ray Boy seemed to shrink at his touch.
    “I’m not back for good,” Ray Boy said. “Just a few days.”
    “Still,” Andy Tighe said.
    Teemo let go and Ray Boy backed out of the hug. “It’s good to see you, man,” Teemo said. “It’s really good.”
    Ray Boy nodded.
    “What do you want to drink?”
    “Nothing, thanks.”
    “Off the sauce, huh?”
    “Long time without it.”
    “Then take a seat.”
    Ray Boy sat at the bar. Every move he made said he didn’t want to be there. Andy, Bruno, Iggy, and Ernie pulled up on stools next to him. Teemo went back behind the bar and started pouring screwdrivers. These guys, this crew, drinking screwdrivers like a bunch of old bags at brunch. Not proper cocktails, not even beer. Alessandra was floored.
    Alessandra and Stephanie just kept staring. The Ray Boy Alessandra remembered was in there somewhere. But he was hardened. Older. He was dressed like a bum but his body hadn’t gone to shit like the other guys. No Sunday dinners in jail, she figured. Probably nothing to do but pump weights and play hoops, dream of fresh mozzarella and warm semolina bread.
    She remembered one time, in high school, just staring at him as he sat on the hood of his car outside Kearney in his mechanic’s jacket, talking to Mary Parente and Jenny Hughes. He was playing with them. Grabbing at them and untucking their blouses. She wanted to be somebody he wanted the way he wanted Mary and Jenny and the rest of the hot juniors and seniors. What she remembered most about Ray Boy was his confidence, the way he sat on the hood of his car like nothing could take him down. He was one of those guys that just exuded don’t-fuck-with-me charm. The world bowed down to him. Mothers cooked for him. Girls spread their legs. His car never broke down. He always had a perfect haircut, smokes, guido cologne that somehow wasn’t too overpowering. Looked something like a young Ray Liotta with a dash of DeNiro mixed in.
    Teemo, Andy Tighe, and the other guys huddled around Ray Boy and caught up. They were talking loud, about jail mostly. Ray Boy wasn’t doing any of the talking. Teemo said if that little fag hadn’t run out into traffic they would have had their twenties to go wild. Ray Boy seemed to tense up. He said,