Page 109 of On the Ropes
Dean
Later that night, I rounded the corner onto Tenth Street going much too fast for the end of a six-mile run. Though the six miles had been fueled by feelings more powerful than adrenaline.
I reluctantly slowed to a stop, breath labored, head pounding with the beginnings of a tension headache. Those didn’t affect me as badly as my migraines did, but working my body too hard less than a day after getting one was the reason why my temples throbbed now. Dropping my hands onto my head, I took giant breaths as I walked past the park on tired legs. The feeling that had fueled my run—regret—ripped through me at the sight of it, chased by a hollow sadness that had me scrubbing a hand down my face.
I was a bastard, telling Eddie and Tabitha this morning that I didn’t have hope we could win this fight when I’d dragged us into it in the first place. When I’d told Rowan that if no one was coming to help us out here, we needed to do it ourselves. Now a kind of help was coming, but it wasn’t the kind this street needed. I was too in my head earlier to offer real ideas, but I’d let my brain churn through every possible solution on my run and I’d still come up with nothing.
As the sun started to set on this shitty day, I was gripped by memories of this place—Tabitha singing in the sunshine next to my neighbors as they cleared the trash. Her cheeky smile every time she brought me food. The way she’d looked behind the camera, telling me I was part of the story too.
Tabitha standing in the street beneath the moonlight with wet hair, pressing her cheek to my chest and holding me tight.
I hadn’t been this low, this angry since that first week after my concussion, when I realized how pissed off my fans and the industry had been at my retirement. Like that same week, I felt backed into a corner now, on the defensive and unable to think clearly. Somewhere around mile three I realized that Tabitha’s advice to me about the Game Time job had been eerily on point. She’d said my tendency to overthink was probably the best way to decide given how dramatically it would change my life.
I’d done the exact fucking opposite. Had shown up to the meeting hot under the collar and impulsive. I hadn’t even stopped by to give Mom and Midge the news in the afternoon. I was too twisted up in knots, too aware of the voice in my head telling me the choice I’d made was a mistake.
Hands on my hips, I walked to my house, casting a sideways glance at Linda’s door the way I had every day since Tabitha had moved in. The lights were off. The house was quiet.
So we’re good, then, right? Tabitha Tyler had me on the ropes, as always, and I’d fought back by throwing up every wall I had.
“Yo, Dean, how ya doin’?” Eddie said, shuffling up the sidewalk with a glass container I recognized. “Just the man I was looking for.”
“What’s up?” I said, still out of breath. “You all right?”
“Me? I’m swell. I’m on my way to Edna’s house, bringing some of the leftovers Midge dropped off last night.”
“Edna Kozlowski?” I asked.
“The one and only.” He indicated I should follow him down the block. I did, too out of it to ask where we were going. “I saw her sister at the Acme, and she mentioned Edna was feeling a little under the weather. So thought I’d share some of this delicious spaghetti and meatballs with her.”
“Do you want me to carry it for you?” I asked.
He waved his hand. “Nah, I got it.”
I shoved my hands into my pockets and studied the profile of a man I had known my entire life. He and Alice had always been my family, not only my neighbors. One of the mornings when I was still in the hospital, I’d woken up to Eddie scowling at the paper he was reading while slurping coffee from a Styrofoam cup. He didn’t say anything, just let me rest while patting my hand every few minutes as if he knew I needed the reassurance. He didn’t have much—if any—to share, but the little he did went to feed a feral cat and other neighbors who needed cheering up.
“That’s nice of you to stop by,” I said. “Do you know if there are other times she needs help?”
He frowned. “Things probably get tight for her at the end of the month like it does for most of us, I’m guessing. I hear about it from her sister ’cause she works the deli at the Acme. And I hear about if her sister needs help from seeing Edna at church. Now, if they were both not at church, you’d know somethin’s up with the Kozlowski sisters. But they’re about as tough as your parents are, so they ain’t going nowhere.”
I smiled down at my feet. “Folks keep an eye on each other around here.”
He scoffed. “Growing up, wasn’t like we had—what is it that Tabitha did, a GoFundMe page? You just had to go around and ask people if they needed help and then believe their answer.”
“Like when you helped me,” I said. “When I was kicking around after retirement, not sure who I was, you let me take over your handyman clients.”
“Of course I did,” he said, like being that generous wasn’t negotiable. “Hell, when you love a person, you do anything for them to be happy. I always wanted you to know that I never cared one bit what those assholes in the paper said about you quittin’. Having a parade is nice every once in a while, and I’ll never forget that night you won the Golden Gloves for as long as I live. But I think all of this”—he waved his hand at the city around us—“is about more than just winning or losing things. Your life is more than that, Dean.”
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“Look, we’re almost where I’m supposed to take you,” Eddie said. “Rowan called Alice about an hour ago. Said you weren’t picking up your phone and he needed to see ya at the center.”
I saw the lights of the basketball court and a few offices still occupied. My stomach rolled with anxiety. But then I dragged my gaze back to Eddie, bobbing his head as we got closer, and I knew what I had to ask. We had reached the short pathway that led up to the rec center, but I touched Eddie on the shoulder, stilling him.
“Has, uh…has Rowan told you about the new program he’s working on in there?” I asked, inclining my head to the front door.
Eddie fidgeted. “No. Why?”
You just had to go around and ask people if they needed help and then believe their answer.
