Steve wipes the bar down. The after-work rush hasn’t started yet. He has a few minutes before flicking the red neon sign to open. He is chewing on a toothpick and lazily drying a beer mug when his cell buzzes in his pocket.

“Hey Steve, it’s Clay.”

“Clay Roberts?”

“Yeah. From Glebe High!”

“Oh—hi.”

“Hey, you.” Clay pauses. “You talk to your brother recently?”

Steve snaps the toothpick, splintering it into his cheek. “Not really. I sometimes think I see him here and there… But hey, we’re about to get slammed any minute now—”

“I’m calling because I saw Nicky at the liquor shop yesterday while I was stocking up. He was on his knees, kind of rifling around the bottom shelf, looking for the last bottle of sherry or something.”

Clay is talking quickly, eating a few of his words.

“Oh, yeah?” Steve sighs.

“I mean, he didn’t look great. He didn’t look all that bad, either. I just haven’t seen him since that day.”

Calls like these about Nicky have become quite common, but from Clay, not so much. Steve wonders where he’s calling from.

“Yeah, well, I guess it’s good you saw him. Sometimes we lose him for months. But you know, we deal with it. Cross our fingers type of thing.”

“Must be tough for him to still be like that. It’s why I’m reaching out. I don’t know what to fully think of seeing him yesterday. I mean, I’ve known him to tell crazy stories. But nothing like the one he told me yesterday.”

“Sure, Clay, I know the stories. I’ve heard a lot of them over the years. Listen, give me two seconds to grab my smokes, and I’ll be all ears.” Steve’s smokes are already in his back pocket. He needs a moment to decide whether he wants to keep the conversation going. He knows Nicky isn’t doing well lately, but he never really is. He doesn’t feel like hearing more about his brother’s latest run-ins. But he hasn’t had a real call from Clay in years, so he chooses to listen. “I’m back… Go ahead.”

There is a long pause—Clay breathes in.

“Ok. So, your brother sees me and tells me he’s up in those apartments near Bronson and Carling now, and that he has this telescope setup. Said he traded it for an old gaming thing he didn’t want anymore. He tells me he’s been staring at this beautiful brunette in the apartments across the street and how he gets to see her moving all sexy and touching her body and that there’s a man around there, too. An older man, watching her. Just watching her from the couch.”

“Well… that does sound like Nicky.”

“Remember back in high school he used to take us to spy on the senior girls through a little hole he had cut out?”

“I sure do.” Steve smiles to himself, but it fades quickly. He does remember that moment clear as day. How he had prayed for his crush to turn around and when she did, how his throat got hot.

Clay goes on. “Yeah, Nicky was smiling real big—got so excited he almost dropped his booze. But then he got all serious. He was clenching the bottle real hard. He said he went back to the apartment the following day. That’s when I told him I didn’t think he should be doing all that. I’m not sure he heard me. Maybe he did and ignored me. He said that time, he got closer. He scaled up onto the roof of the pho restaurant, the one with that blueish sign, you know?”

Steve crushed out his smoke and immediately lit another. “I think so, yeah.”

“He said he saw the same brunette in the same window. But this time she was hugging herself. Not in a good way though. Nicky started re-enacting her movements. In the middle of the liquor store, balancing the bottle of sherry in his arms. Nicky was hugging himself, swaying, and crying. That’s when I thought of you.”

Steve checks his watch. The rush could be in any moment now. “Clay, I get calls about him a lot. I actually thought he was on the streets still. Sometimes the shit I hear. If I had a nickel—”

“Steve, just let me finish. Your brother snapped. I thought he might get violent again… like that day at the trailer.”

There’s a crack in Clay’s voice. Steve remembers the horror, the screaming, the look of terror on the girl’s face, and how Nicky didn’t understand that what he was doing was so wrong.

“And it was just me in there, and I got really scared. When it gets loud and there’s shouting and all that stuff. I’m not good with that kind of thing. You know this. You think someone with a job like mine could deal with stuff like that… but fuck, I’m just soft, I guess.”

“I know that, Clay.” Steve walks to the front door and locks it, buying himself more time to talk.

Clay starts again, sounding rushed, speaking a mile a minute, stumbling over his words. “That’s when the bottle crashed. Sherry all over the floor, and I said, ‘Nicky, don’t worry about it.’ But he kept going, he kept talking and talking. He was really upset you know. He said he saw the older man and—and the brunette, and that their hands were moving all crazy and that they looked like they were screaming at each other. Your brother yelled, ‘They must’ve been screaming at each other!’ I told him, I said, ‘Nicky, people fight like that sometimes.’ And he shouted back, ‘It’s not right! It’s not right! They love each other! I saw it! I saw it with my own eyes! They were going to be so beautiful, and they were going to be something great.’ He was stepping all over the broken glass and the liquor on the floor. I was worried he would hurt himself.”

“Well… I don’t know what to say, Clay. You call me out of the blue. It’s still not easy hearing this stuff.”

Clay pushes on. “Steve. Nicky tried to get into that woman’s building. That’s what he told me. He said he got stopped by security. And then he got all quiet. He hunched over low and started picking up the glass with his bare hands; he was cutting himself, but he didn’t flinch once. I told him, ‘Nicky, don’t worry, they’ll clean it up, it’s not on you,’ and he said, “Yeah, it is. It’s my responsibility. You break it, you pay for it! When I’m out there! And it’s dark! And it’s cold! And if I cut myself or if I get sick! Or if I’m hurting! There’s no one. Just me.’”

Steve hears Clay’s voice breaking some more.

“Then he really scared me, Steve. Nicky said, just like this: ‘I’m gonna hurt him, gonna find where I put that goddamn knife, and when he leaves her apartment again, I’m going to hurt him.’ Then he bolted to the front of the liquor store and stopped dead in the doorway. He smiled and said, ‘Do you still see my brother Steve? If you do see him, tell him hi for me.’ He waved goodbye like some happy kid and left me there with the blood and broken glass.”

Steve can now really hear the sniffles and chokes. Clay is no longer trying to muffle his sounds. He is trying to say something more, but the words are getting stuck somewhere on the way out.

“Clay, it’s O.K.”

“But no. No, it’s not. I…I didn’t— “

“I’ve made my peace with the Nicky situation. With that day. That was then; I had to move forward.”

“I know. I know…but I still could’ve, I should’ve stuck around—”

“They took him away; what else could you have really done?”

“No, Steve, I mean, for you. I could’ve stuck around after. It must’ve been so hard.”

“It was.”

“I didn’t do my part.”

“Well, look, you’re calling me now, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. You are. And you know where the bar is, Clay. And you know what time I close up. We can look into finding him then. How does that sound?”

Clay choked something inaudible that Steve couldn’t make out. But what Steve could make out was an exhale, long and deep.