Free Heroes by Ray Robertson Page A

poor innocent sister locked away in suburbia and so painfully naive in the ways of the world. Pretty please?”
    â€œSorry,” Bayle said, Patty’s sugary plea surprisingly easily resisted through simple exhaustion. “Only one pretty please per every twenty-four hour period and you’ve already used up today’s quota in getting us to waste our evening here. C’mon, pick up your bag and let’s go,” he said, starting in the direction of the subway stop. “I might get to bed before three o’clock yet.”
    Patty dropped her arm from his. Hurled the mustardemitting veggie dog off into the night and scattered the plastic bag full of library books into the street with a perfectly placed soccer kick mastered during her British Thing.
    â€œI haven’t been out of that
fucking
house in three
fucking
months and I’m going to an after-hours bar with you or without you,” she said. She shot up her hand for an approaching cab that immediately stopped.
    â€œAre you coming or not?” she said, already in the back seat, hand on the inside door handle and ready to slam it shut, Bayle could tell, if he answered No.
    By the idling taxi’s headlights Bayle picked up each of the booted library books one at a time, handing them over in a neat pile to his sister when he finally got in beside her.
    When they reached the Dundas Street address the frat boys had given her, Patty forgot the books in the backseat of the cab, Bayle luckily spotting and retrieving them when he got out to pay, reminding her as they headed for the Chinese restaurant that a negligent library record can haunt you your entire life. Patty said she’d try to keep that in mind.
    After the special tea was ordered and produced — lukewarm beer in a small tin pot, two tiny white Chinese teacups to complete the Spartan service — and the fraternity boys summarily dismissed — “I’m sorry,” Patty had said, looking directly at the tallest and best-looking one, all three of them spotting and happily tramping over to her and Bayle’s table, “you’ve obviously mistaken me for someone who would wasteher time talking to someone like you” — Bayle and his sister settled into pretty much a mirror of their Brunswick House routine, Bayle waiting for the dam to burst, Patty content, it seemed, to simply watch the river flow.
    Much tepid beer under the bridge later, indeterminable hour somewhere between very late and very early, like Bayle’s, Patty’s teacup seemed a permanent part of her hand by now, even if for the last long while rarely to lips lifted. A cowboybooted and sideburned Queen Street hipster sitting with a tall black-haired beauty excepted, the customer constitution of the restaurant had changed several times over since Bayle and Patty sat down hours earlier, leaving brother and sister Bayle the sole teacup-tipping constants.
    â€œGod, drinking is stupid,” Patty said, pushing away her cup.
    Bayle sat up in his seat, chair scraping. He forced his eyes painfully wide, Patty’s words stirring him from what, before tonight/this morning, he would have thought virtually impossible, open-eyed sleep.
    â€œI guess it makes sense, though, doesn’t it?” she said. “Anything that makes you feel even the tiniest bit not bad for ten minutes now has just got to make you feel like absolute shit for ten times longer than that later.”
    Bayle really didn’t have any thoughts on the subject. Bayle was still trying to wake up. He blinked both eyes violently and repeatedly in an attempt to lubricate his eyeballsticking, dried-up contact lenses.
    â€œMaybe we should eat,” Patty said. “That’s supposed to help, right?”
    â€œI was thinking vegetable fried rice and hot-and-sour soup about an hour ago,” Bayle said, “but figured the food would put us to sleep.”
    â€œYou mean put
you
to sleep.” Slight