Section VI
2022
Favors: A Novel (an excerpt) d av i d r . s u r e t t e
Palm Sunday 1981 1 The black Trans Am idled at the curb, gray exhaust, the tip of a cigarette glowing, “More Than a Feeling” soaring out the car stereo. Georgie Dolan lit a cigarette, opened the front door, and stood behind the screen door, waiting. The engine rattled to a stop, a last cough, stopping Brad Delp at “I see my Marianne.” A large man leaned out. A familiar silhouette to Georgie. He stepped into the sun; in color, he was untamed red hair and freckles. A nose like a curved hockey stick. He opened the chain link gate, closed it behind him, a squeak and a click, and skipped up the steps, surprisingly graceful. He pulled the screen door open and shoved a palm branch into Georgie’s chest, Georgie’s back smacking into the door. He stepped past Georgie into the hallway. “Got that for you in case you didn’t get to mass. Not that you earned it. That’s one long mass. Crowded too. Me and my mom almost had to stand. The Guineas love the big holy days. Just wait until Easter. Damn. No seat for us Micks. Nice place, Georgie.” Does he ever shut up? thought Georgie, and it wasn’t a nice place. It was a museum. His grandparents’ shit all still here. Family photos going back to people he had never heard of, crucifixes everywhere, seemed like at least five Sacred Hearts of Jesus, a couple JFK’s: the one on his boat and the presidential portrait. Some paint by numbers of ocean scenes. A map of Ireland. Cardinal Cushing (not Medeiros) and Pope John II. Prayer cards and cheap rosaries stuck behind and hung from every picture frame. Hummels standing in dust on multiple shelves. Were they holy figures too? Could he just smash them? Some nun was supposed to have made them, so he didn’t know. Bulky furniture, antimacassars yellowing atop them, the rug filthy over hardwood floors he meant to expose and stain but hadn’t. The wallpaper curled at their seams, yellowed by the decades of smoke, which killed the both of them: gran, lung cancer; pop, a coronary, probably would kill him too. In the corner, some toys, puzzles, picture books, a corner for Georgie’s daughter when he could get her away from the mother and her mother. “How about a beer, Georgie boy?” “George. We’re not twelve anymore.’ “No, we aren’t, Georgie boy. This place smells like old people.” “My grandparents . . . ” “Okay, dead people.” “C’mon.” The Lowell Review
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