Free Hothouse by Chris Lynch Page A

something this time. But he doesn’t look like he’s going to burst into flames, either. Which is encouraging.
    â€œBut we’re done now,” Jim says, and suddenly his big smooth smiling face pulls in on itself like closing curtains. He reaches out and plucks awkwardly at the strings of Russell’s banjo. “And so now, you take this, you take it all, you take your feelings for your dads and your memories, take them home and keep them nice. Do that for yourselves, okay?”
    He doesn’t get an answer. He does, but it’s not loud. DJ clutches that banjo and I clutch this fiddle and we stare at big Jim and Jim stares back. He puts that great smile back on, and it is still a great thing but it is great and beautiful the way a three-legged dog is even though it’s not what it could be, not what it’s supposed to be, not what it was before.

UNDER THE BRIDGE
    â€œAre ya winnin’?”
    â€œJeez, Dad,” I say, springing up in the bed so fast that our foreheads clunk like coconuts and I fall right back again.
    He laughs, rubbing his head. He laughs.
    I squint at my clock in the darkness. It is neither late enough nor early enough to be seeing him.
    â€œIs it breakfast time? How did I not wake up if you were coming home? How did I not know—”
    â€œShush,” he says, reaching out and patting me on the chest. His big paw is radiating heat. “Shush, shush. You’re all right. I’m home early. Boss sent me home early. You want a baklava?”
    â€œNo. Why did he send you home? Are you all right?”
    â€œOh, I’m fine. It’s just this knee of mine. You know how I hurt it. It’s fine. It’s just acting up a little, swelling up a little. Big Jim thought I should take it home to rest. That’s all.”
    That’s a relief to me. Relief that I have not lost my sense of when Dad’s shift is ending and breakfast time is coming. And in the firefighter game, a gimpy knee is a pretty benign thing to get you sent home.
    â€œOh,” I say. “That’s good. But … he sent you home with a bad knee? You worked a whole four-day shift one time with a broken wrist before going to the hospital. Why would he send you home for this? And why would you go?”
    He’s still got his hand on my chest. Reminds me of the hot water bottle my folks would always put on me for colds. It is heating up, like a fever, as he speaks.
    â€œGuess I’m getting too old to act like that anymore. Guess the boss knows when I should be home. Nothing to worry about, though.”
    â€œOh,” I say, though I had stopped worrying there until he told me not to.
    â€œThe important thing,” he says, “is, are ya winnin’, son?”
    â€œI am, Dad. I’m winnin’. Are you winnin’?”
    He takes a long time to answer. The heat off his hand increases more in the time.
    â€œI am, son,” he says. “Of course I’m winnin’. Listen, you go to sleep now. I shouldn’t have gotten you up.”
    â€œIt’s okay,” I say. “I only have the crap classes in the morning. I can catch up then.”
    â€œAh,” he says, laughing. He pushes down on my chest, sinking me back into the mattress and back in the direction of sleepland.
    He closes my bedroom door very gently, like trying not to wake the baby.
    A minute further into sleep, I believe I hear him go back out into the night.
    Old Mr. Kotsopolis had run a Greek coffee shop in the neighborhood forever. He ran it in the days when his wife was teaching and ringing that brass bell, and he ran it for years after she retired. Sometimes she would be behind the counter, but mostly he ran it on his own. My dad told me the primary business of the place was all the older Greek guys playing cards for money at the back, but he personally spent so much of his own cash gathering up dewy fresh baklava and powerful coffee for the Hothouse that no other