"This day we shut out Nothing!"

"Pause," says a low voice. "Nothing? Think!"

"On Christmas Day, we will shut out from our fireside, Nothing."

"Not the shadow of a vast City where the withered leaves are lying deep?" the voice replies. "Not the shadow that darkens the whole globe? Not the shadow of the City of the Dead?"

Not even that …

—Charles Dickens, "What Christmas Is as We Grow Older"

Tony was the one who called him.

"Brendan, man. I got some bad news."

Brendan felt a slight hitch in his stomach. He leaned back in his chair, nudging his office door closed so his secretary wouldn't hear. "Oh yes?"

"Chip Crockett died."

"Chip Crockett?" Brendan frowned, staring at his computer screen as though he was afraid Tony might materialize there. "You mean, like, The Chip Crockett Show?"

"Yeah, man." Tony sighed deeply. "My brother Jake, he just faxed me the obituary from the Daily News. He died over the weekend but they just announced it today."

There was a clunk through the phone receiver, a background clatter of shouting voices and footsteps. Tony was working as a substitute teacher at Saint Ignatius High School. Brendan was amazed he'd been able to hang onto the job at all, but he gathered that being a substitute at Saint Ignatius was way below being sanitation engineer in terms of salary, benefits, and respect. He heard a crackle of static as Tony ran into the corridor, shouting.

"Whoa! Nelson Crane, man! Slow down, okay? Okay. Yeah, I guess it was lung cancer. Did you know he smoked?"

"You're talking about Chip Crockett the kiddie show host. Right?" Brendan rubbed his forehead, feeling the beginning of a headache. "No, Tony, I didn't know he smoked, because I don't actually know Chip Crockett. Do you?"

"No. Remember Ogden Orff? That time he got the milk jug stuck on his nose? 'That's my boy, Ogden Orff!' " Tony intoned, then giggled. "And that puppet? Ooga Booga? The one with the nose?"

"Ogden Orff." Brendan leaned back in his chair. Despite himself, he smiled. "God, yeah, I remember. And the other one—that puppet who sang? He did 'Mister Bassman' and that witch doctor song. I loved him.…"

"That wasn't a puppet. That was Captain Dingbat—you know, the D.J. character."

"Are you sure? I thought it was a puppet."

"No way, man. I mean, yes! I am ab-so-lute-ly sure—"

An earsplitting whistle echoed over the line. Brendan winced and held the phone at arm's-length, drew it back in time to hear Tony's voice fading.

"Hey man, that's the bell, I gotta go. I'll fax this to you before I leave, okay? Oh, and hey, we're still on for Thursday, right?"

Brendan nodded. "Right," he said, but Tony was already gone.

Late that afternoon the fax arrived. Brendan's secretary gave it to him, the curling cover sheet covered with Tony's nearly illegible scrawl.

OGDEN ORFF LIVES! SEE YA THURS. AT CHILDE ROLAND.

TONY

Brendan tossed this and turned to the Daily News obituary, two long columns complete with photo. The faxed image was fragmented but still recognizable—a boyishly handsome man in suit and skinny tie, grinning at a puppet with a huge nose. Above him was the headline:

AU REVOIR, OOGA BOOGA

Brendan shook his head. "Poor Ooga Booga," he murmured, then smoothed the paper on his desk.

Iconic kiddie show host Chip Crockett died yesterday at his home in Manhasset, after a long and valiant battle with lung cancer. While never achieving the recognition accorded peers like Soupy Sales or Captain Kangaroo's Bob Keeshan, Chip Crockett's legend may be greater, because it lives solely in the memories of viewers. Like other shows from the late 1950s and early 1960s, The Chip Crockett Show was either performed live or videotaped; if the latter, the tapes were immediately erased so they could be reused. And, as though Fate conspired to leave no trace of Crockett's comic genius, a 1966 warehouse fire destroyed the few remaining traces of his work.

For years, rumors of "lost" episodes raced among baby boomer fans, but alas, none have ever been found. The show's final episode, the last of the popular Chip Crockett Christmas specials, aired on December 23rd, 1965.

The gentle Crockett was noted for a surreal sense of humor that rivaled Ernie Kovacs'. His cast consisted of a dozen puppets—all created by Crockett—and a rogue's gallery of over-the-top human characters, also given life by the versatile performer. Every weekday morning and again in the afternoon, Chip Crockett's jouncy theme would sound and the fun began, as potato-nosed Ooga Booga, sly Ratty Mouse, and the lovable knucklehead Ogden Orff appeared on WNEW-TV, reaching a broadcast audience of millions of children—and, occasionally, their unsuspecting parents.

Chip Crockett was born in 1923 in Birdsboro, Pennsylvania. His broadcast career began in 1949 with a radio show …

Brendan sighed and looked up. Outside a sky the color of scorched nickel hung above Pennsylvania Avenue. In the very corner of his window, you could just make out the scaffolding that covered the Capitol building, a steel trellis overgrown with plywood and poured-concrete forms. When he and Robert Flaherty, his law partner, had first taken this office, Brendan had proudly pointed out the view to everyone, including the Capitol police officers who dropped in with paperwork and Congressional gossip during their breaks. Now Rob was dead, killed four years ago this Christmas Eve by a drunk driver, though Brendan still hadn't taken his name from the brass plate by the front door. The Capitol looked like an image from war-torn Sarajevo, and the officers Brendan had once known were unrecognizable behind bulletproof jackets and wraparound sunglasses.

"Mr. Keegan?" His secretary poked her head around the door. "Okay if I leave a little early today? It's Parent Conference week at Jessie's school—"

"Sure, sure, Ashley. You get that Labor Department stuff over to Phil Lancaster?"

"I did." Ashley already had her coat on, rummaging in a pocket for her farecard. "How's Peter these days?"

Peter was Brendan's son. "Oh, he's great, just great," he said, nodding. "Doing very well. Very, very well."

This wasn't true and, in fact, never really had been. Shortly after his second birthday, Peter Keegan had been diagnosed as having Pervasive Developmental Disorder, which as far as Brendan could figure was just a more socially acceptable term for his son's being (in the medical parlance) "somewhere within the autism continuum." Batteries of tests had followed—CAT scans, MRIs and PETs—and the upshot of it all was yet another string of letters: PDDNOS, or Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. In other words, Peter Xavier Keegan, now four, had never spoken a word to anyone. If you touched him he moved away, deliberately but casually, with no more emotion than if he'd brushed up against a thorny hedge. If you tried to look him in the eye, he looked away; if anyone tried to hold him, however gently, he would scream, and hit, and bite, and eventually fall screaming to the floor.

He had not always been like that. Brendan had to remind himself every day, lest the fragmentary images of eighteen-month-old Peter smiling in his lap disappear forever. Once upon a time, Peter had been okay. Brendan had to believe that, despite the doctors who told him otherwise. That his son had been born with this condition; that Peter's neural wiring was defective; that the chances for reclaiming that other child—the one who clung to his father and babbled wordlessly but cheerfully, the one who gazed at Brendan with clear blue eyes and held his finger as he fell asleep—were slim or nil. Just last week Brendan's ex-wife, Teri, had begun a new regime of vitamin therapy for their son, the latest in an endless series of efforts to reclaim the toddler they had lost.

They were still waiting to see the results. And Brendan's secretary Ashley would have known all this because Teri had told her, during one of her daily phone calls to Brendan to discuss the million details of shared custody arrangements—pickup times, doctors' appointments, changes in Peter's medication, nightmares, biting incidents, bills for the expensive Birchwood School, missing shoes, and loose teeth. To his recollection, Brendan had never volunteered a single word about his son or his divorce to Ashley, but he had no doubt but that, if called upon, his secretary could testify in District Court about everything from his prior sexual relationship with his ex-wife (satisfactory if unremarkable) to his current attendance at AA meetings (occasional).

"Peter's very well," he repeated one last time. He made a tube of Tony's fax and eyed his secretary through one end. "Good luck at school, Ashley."

He walked home that evening, his briefcase nudging his leg as he made his way up Pennsylvania Avenue, keeping his bare head down against the chill night wind. Tony's fax stuck up out of his overcoat pocket, still curled into a tube. He ducked into the gourmet kitchen shop and bought some coffee beans, then headed down Fourth Street towards his apartment. He was thinking about the old Chip Crockett Show, and how his secretary was born a good ten years after it had gone off the air.

How did I get to be so old? he marveled, kicking at the pile of sodden leaves banked against his building's outer door. "Mr. Keegan." When the hell did that happen? And he went inside, to silence and The Washington Post still unread on the kitchen counter, the unblinking red eye of the answering machine signaling that no one had called.

Now, years later, all three were veterans of Alcoholics Anonymous, although Kevin was the only one who still attended meetings regularly. But they still met once a week at the Childe Roland, sitting at a table in the shabby downstairs room with its brick walls and fading posters for Root Boy Slim and Tommy Keene and the Dale Williams Band. They'd eat hamburgers and drink coffee or Evian water, feed quarters to the vintage Wurlitzer jukeboxes, and argue politics and football over "96 Tears" and "Bastards of Young" and "Pretty Vacant."

Tonight Brendan was the first to arrive, as usual. He'd been divorced for nearly a year but still couldn't quite get the hang of being single. He didn't date, he didn't cook. He worked late when he could, but Flaherty, Keegan & Associates didn't generate enough of a caseload to merit more than two or three nights a week. He had Peter on alternate weekends and Tuesdays, but that still left a lot of downtime. He hated to admit it, but when Tony or Kevin had to cancel Thursdays at Childe Roland, Brendan was depressed—depressed enough that he'd come to Childe Roland by himself and sit at their usual place and feed the jukebox, playing the songs Kevin or Tony would have played, even the ones he hated.

But he wouldn't be alone tonight. He heard Tony before he saw him. Or rather, he heard everyone else seeing him—

"Tony, my man! What's shakin'?"

"Tony Maroni! 'Hooray, hello, whoa whoa whoa!' "

"Tony!"

"It's the Tonester!"

Brendan watched as his friend grinned and waved, crossing the room in that bizarre way he had, half-glide and half-slouch, resplendent in his ancient black leather jacket and decrepit Converse hightops, his long black hair streaked with grey but otherwise pretty much unchanged from the lanky, goofy-faced nineteen-year-old who once upon a time had been the Great White Hope of Rock and Roll. On the Bowery, anyway, for a few years in the mid-1970s, which (according to Tony) was the last time rock had mattered.

That was when Tony founded The Maronis, the proto-punk band whose first, self-titled record had recently been cited by The New York Times as one of the ten most influential rock albums of the century. (The follow-up, Maronis Get Detention, came in at number 79.) The band's formula, equal parts three-chord rock and Three Stooges, won them a record contract with EMI, a national tour, and all the attendant problems as Tony, Mony, Pony, and Tesla (né Tony Kemper, Marty Berenstein, Paul Schippa, and Dickie Stanton) played, fought, drank, dropped acid, shot up, and eventually OD'd.

Not all at the same time, of course, but that was it as far as EMI was concerned. The Maronis lost their only contract with a major label. Worse, they lost their catalog—they hadn't bothered with an attorney when they signed—and the ensuing decades had seen one failed lawsuit after another brought by band members, whenever one was flush enough to hire a lawyer.

Still, the band continued to tour and record, on the small New Jersey-based Millstone label. When Mony died of a heroin overdose, he was replaced, first by Joni, the band's first female guitarist, and then by Sony, a Japanese fan who attached himself to the Maronis after their disastrous 1984 Tokyo appearance. That was when Tony left the band. Despite the rumors, he'd never gotten into heroin. Even as a kid in Yonkers he'd been terrified of needles; Kevin used to steal hypos from his doctor father and hide them in Tony's Deputy Dawg lunchbox, something Brendan would never have forgiven his cousin for, but Tony was incapable of anything resembling anger. Whatever demons he encountered, he fought them down with beer—preferably Budweiser, even when he (briefly) could have afforded Heineken. He'd finally lost it in Japan when, jet-lagged and suffering from food poisoning, he'd gotten the DTs and started screaming about Gojiro in the lobby of the Tokyo Hilton. Millstone had no money for an emergency medical evacuation, and so Brendan and Kevin arranged to have their childhood friend flown back to the States. Kevin had gone over to escort Tony—Kevin was raking it in at Merrill Lynch—and on their return he and Brendan checked their friend into detox.

He'd been sober ever since. Although, because he was Tony Maroni, this wasn't always readily apparent.

"Hey, Brenda Starr! How's it goin'?"

Brendan looked up, making a face at the boyhood nickname. "Tony. Good to see you—"

He reached across the table to shake his hand. Tony leaned forward and grabbed him in a hug. "Yeah, man, great to see you, too!" As though it had been a year instead of a week; as though they hadn't just talked on the phone, oh, about two hours ago. "Where's Kevo?"

Brendan shrugged. "He should be here soon."

"Right, right. The Family Man. Family matters. Family matters," Tony repeated, cocking his head and scrunching his face up. "Hey, get it? Like, it matters—"

"I get it, Tony."

"I never did. Not until just now."

Brendan sighed, glanced up to see a young woman in torn fishnets and polyester skirt, Mandelbrot tattoos and enough surgical steel piercings to arm an emerging nation. "Oh good. Here's the Bionic Waitress."

Tony whirled to grin at her. "Bethie! Hi! Hey, you look nice in that outfit—"

"It's my uniform, Tony," the waitress said, but smiled, displaying more gleaming metal and a tongue stud. "Where's your other partner in crime?"

"Kevo? He'll be here. He's got kids, you know—" Tony suddenly looked across the table, stricken. "Oh hey, man, I didn't mean—I mean, he's got kids too," he said, pointing at Brendan. "It's just—"

"Tony. It's okay," said Brendan.

"—just, uh, Kevin's got a lot of 'em. Well, two, anyway."

"Really?" The waitress looked down at Brendan curiously. "I never knew you were married."

"He's not," said Tony. "He's—"

"I'm divorced," Brendan broke in. He gave Tony an icy look. "I have a little boy."

"Yeah? You ought to bring him in some night. Okay, you want something now or you want to wait for your friend?'

They ordered, coffee for Brendan, club soda with lemon for Tony. When she brought the drinks back, Tony took the straw and blew its paper wrapper across the table at Brendan. "No offense, man," he said. "About—"

"None taken, Tony." Brendan lifted his coffee mug and smiled.

"Cheers."

"Cheers." Tony took a sip of his drink, then slid from his chair. "Gotta feed the jukebox, man. Right back."

Brendan watched as his friend sidled over to one of the club's vintage jukeboxes, spangled man-sized bijoux that glittered and bubbled and glowed along the brick walls. There was a Seeburg, a Rockola, and the Childe Roland's crown jewel: a 1946 Wurlitzer Model 1015, special edition "Rites of Spring" in mint condition, down to the 45s stacked on their glittering turntable spindle. Tony hunched over this now, drumming his fingers on the glass surface. The green-and-gold Bakelite pilasters and ruby lights made him look like one of his own adolescent daydreams, long hair touched with crimson, his Silly Putty face given a momentary semblance of gravity, as though he were gazing into some piece of sophisticated medical machinery instead of an old jukebox.

"Hey." Tony frowned. "What happened to 'Moulty?' And who the fuck put the Eagles on this thing?"

Brendan shook his head, marveling as he always did at how long it took Tony to make his selections. "You know," he said as Tony slouched back to the table, the opening drumbeats of "Be My Baby" echoing around them, "it took Phil Spector less time to record that than it did for you to punch it in."

Tony slid back into his seat. "Hey, you know what that is? That's the Big Bang, man! Bum, bum-bum! Bum, bum-bum! That's the noise God made when He made the universe! When I die, make sure they play that, okay?" He clapped a hand to his forehead. "Geez, I almost forgot! Check this out—"

He fumbled in a pocket of his leather jacket, withdrew a wad of folded-up paper. "There's, like, a Chip Crockett Web page. Listen—"

Tony smoothed out the paper, then cleared his throat. " 'Like a lot of other people, I grew up in the early 1960s watching The Chip Crockett Show,' " he read. " 'I was still pretty young when I watched it, though, and I don't really remember much, except that the puppets were sort of scary. But since starting this Web page I have had many other people write to me about their memories of the show, and I have come to realize that Chip Crockett has actually influenced me in ways that I am only beginning to understand.' "

Brendan shook his head. "Wow. That's some testimony."

"Yeah, man, but he's right. I mean, Chip Crockett had an amazing impact on me—"

"Yeah, but you're Tony Maroni. Chip Crockett could have invented you. Here, give me that --"

Brendan took the page and glanced down it. No pictures, just a web address, a brief introduction and listing of contents.

BROADCAST HISTORY

ARTICLES & OBITUARIES (NEW)

THEME SONG

THE GREAT FIRE OF 1966

CHIP CROCKETT'S CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

"I didn't have time to print out the whole thing," Tony said apologetically. "I had duty in the computer lab but then there was a fire drill …"

"I remember the Christmas Special." Brendan looked thoughtful. "It was A Christmas Carol, but with all the puppets playing the parts. Ooga Booga was Scrooge—"

"Scrooga Booga," Tony corrected him. "And Ogden Orff was Bob Cratchit—"

"Brendan." A gigantic hand suddenly descended to grip Brendan's shoulder. "Tony. Sorry I'm late." Kevin Donnelly's shadow fell across the table—a big shadow. "Eileen had to work late and I had to get the girls from dance and then dinner—"

Tony clasped Kevin's hand, moving his chair over to make room. Kevin sat and waved at their waitress.

"An O'Douls, please," he said, then turned to his cousin. "Brendan. How you doing?"

"Good, very good." Brendan smiled. "What's new with you?"

"Not much. What you got there?"

"The Chip Crockett Web page. Listen—" Brendan held the page up and gestured dramatically. " 'I have come to realize that Chip Crockett has actually influenced me in ways that I am only beginning to understand.' You know, I think Tony could start a religion based on this."

"Mmm. Eileen wouldn't like that. Let me see—"

In Kevin's hand the page looked insubstantial as tissue. He was a big man who in the course of two decades of steadfast bodybuilding had become absolutely huge, red-haired and ruddy-faced, his arms and shoulders so powerful they always looked as though they were about to burst through his hand-tailored suit jackets, like some demented Capitol Hill version of The Incredible Hulk. As a boy he'd terrorized not just Brendan and Tony but everyone within a five-block radius of Tuckahoe Road, and started dipping into the altar wine before his twelfth birthday. At Notre Dame on a football scholarship, he'd brought the team to the Nationals, then gone on to get an MBA from the Wharton School. He'd made his first million before he was thirty, gotten sober, bailed out of Merrill Lynch exactly one month before Black Monday, and taken a job as a lobbyist for Standard Oil.

"You read this, Brendan?" Kevin scowled. "Did you read this?"

"Yup. What do you think?"

Kevin continued to scan the printout, while Brendan flagged their waitress for more coffee. Whenever he saw his cousin, Brendan felt as though he were glimpsing himself in some alternate universe. Kevin looked like Brendan on steroids, Brendan's sandy hair turned to flame, Brendan's body pumped full of Vitamin B-12 and Proteinex. His cousin's career and domestic life were shiny perverse reflections of Brendan's own—immense financial success, gorgeous ex-model spouse, perfect children, perfect Potomac home, perfect perfect perfect. Whereas Brendan felt as though he were channeling his ex-wife through his secretary, and his only child seemed to live in that other universe as well, gazing into Brendan's world as though it were an empty expanse of sky.

"I think it's a capital offense if my taxes are paying Tony to print out this kind of stuff on school time." Kevin shook his head and handed the page back to Tony. "Tell me, Tony, how the hell do you keep that job? I mean, what do you tell those kids, as a teacher?"

"You know. Follow your bliss. Stay out of jail. I tell them to be really, really careful, otherwise they'll end up like me."

Brendan and Kevin laughed, but Tony only shrugged. "Well, it's true," he said. "The way I figure, I'm saving the school system thousands of dollars a year in anti-drug programs and stuff like that."

"But you never did drugs, Tony," said Kevin.

"Yeah, but they don't know that. I tell 'em: Stay in school, go to the college of your choice, learn a viable trade. Otherwise you'll spend the rest of your life giving practice SATs to dimbulbs like Nelson Crane."

The Bionic Waitress reappeared and refilled Brendan's coffee cup. As he moved the papers aside she glanced down at them curiously.

"Who died?"

"Chip Crockett," said Tony.

She wrinkled her nose. "Who's Chip Crockett?"

Tony rubbed his chin. "Well, he was this kiddie show host a long time ago. Kind of like Chuck McCann."

"Or Paul Winchell," said Kevin.

"Who're they?"

"Do you remember Uncle Floyd Vivino?" asked Brendan.

"Uh, no."

Tony frowned, thinking. Finally he brightened. "What about PeeWee Herman?"

The waitress scrunched her face up. "Mmm, maybe a little."

"Mister Rogers?"

"Sure!" She looked more closely at the obituary.

"Well, Chip Crockett was sort of like a cross between Mister Rogers and PeeWee Herman," explained Brendan.

"Or Adam Sandler," said Kevin. "Actually, he was more like a cross between Mister Rogers and Tony here."

The waitress laughed. "Wow. Sorry I missed out on that one."

She turned and headed back to the kitchen. Tony stared after her admiringly, then shoved his chair back. " 'Scuse me, gotta hit the head."

His friends watched him go. "So," said Kevin, easing himself into the chair next to Brendan. "Tony's taking the news about Chip Crockett pretty hard. How 'bout you?"

"Aw, don't give him a hard time, Kev," said Brendan. He sometimes felt as though he'd spent his entire life defending Tony against Big Tough Guys like Kevin. "He gets on these kicks, he'll get over it."

Kevin looked hurt. "I wasn't giving him a hard time. I actually feel kind of bad about it myself."

"About Chip Crockett?"

"Sure. I liked Chip Crockett. Especially Ogden Orff …" Kevin rapped his knuckles again his forehead and cried, " 'No, Ogden, noooo!' " Then, in fonder tones, " 'That's my boy—Ogden Orff!' "

Brendan smiled. "Good old Ogden Orff. But gee, Kev. I never figured you'd be all broken up about Chip Crockett."

"I dunno. I was thinking about how that fire just, like, wiped any evidence of him off the planet. Like if you're not on TV somewhere, or on the net, you just don't exist anymore. Freaks me out, all that stuff. You know, getting old. People dying. That kind of thing."

Brendan eyed his cousin suspiciously. "Is something wrong?" he asked, fighting the faintest, cruelest spasm of glee at the thought.

"No. That's the problem. Everything's perfect. Too perfect. I mean, the girls are gonna need braces in a year or two, and Eileen's a screaming banshee because of this remodeling job she's doing out in Warrenton, but—well, don't you ever feel like that? Like everything's just going too well?"

Brendan stared at his cousin. Kevin stared back, his bright blue eyes completely guileless. "No," Brendan said at last. He turned to grab his coffee from the waitress. "You know, I got to get going—I've got a case coming up, I need to go over some stuff before the weekend."

He took a gulp of coffee, pulled out a ten-dollar bill and slid it under the mug. Behind him Tony reappeared, grinning and singing along with the jukebox in that immediately recognizable, nasal just-north-of-the-Bronx voice. Brendan pulled on his overcoat, watching him. It was always disconcerting to him, the difference between Tony Kemper and Tony Maroni. The latter's now-famous stage persona, a gangly stoop-shouldered goofus doing his trademarked knock-kneed dance—practically immobile from the waist up and looking as though he were swallowing the mike, his face hidden behind a curtain of lank black hair as he blurted out his customary greeting—"Hooray hello, whoa whoa whoa!"—followed by three-chord anthems like "ECT" and "Gonna Have a Bad Trip" and "Tibbets Park," the FM radio hit he'd dedicated to Brendan and Kevin—

Come with me tonight

Playin' in the dark

We can have a great time

Down at Tibbets Park …

Tony Maroni was a goofball, a knucklehead, a refugee from all those kiddie shows they'd lived on back in Yonkers—Soupy Sales doing The Mouse, Chuck McCann sticking pennies on his eyes and pretending to be Little Orphan Annie, ventriloquist Paul Winchell arguing with his dummy sidekick Jerry Mahoney. Whereas the real Tony Kemper moved with an unconscious but intensely sexy, almost feminine grace: he was like someone feigning drunkenness, catching you off guard by catching himself just when you thought he was going to walk into the wall. And he was a great dancer. Back at Sacred Heart High School, Tony was the guy all the girls wanted to slow-dance with, while teenage guitarists struggled through the solos in "Southern Man" and "Nights in White Satin."

Now Tony blinked, staring at Brendan in dismay. "Brenda! You're not leaving already?"

"Sorry, Tony. I've got this case, we'd like to try and get a settlement before Christmas—"

"Wait." Kevin whistled and held a hand up, as though officiating a fight. "Before I forget: Eileen wants you both to come for Thanksgiving." He pointed at Brendan. "Do you have Peter that weekend? 'Cause the girls would love it if—"

"I think I do. I'm pretty sure Teri has him for Christmas."

"Great. What about you, Tony?"

Tony rubbed his chin. "Yeah, I think I can swing it. There's this girl I've been sort of seeing, but—"

"Well, bring her. Or dump her. Whatever. Just let Eileen know, okay?"

Tony nodded. He swung around to throw an arm over Brendan's shoulder. "See you here next week, then?"

"Righto." Brendan headed for the stairs, pausing to give his friends a salute. "Very, very good to see you guys."

"Call Eileen, okay? Let her know if you can come," Kevin called after him. "And hey, I really hope Peter can make it."

"I'll let you know," Brendan said with a wave. " 'Night—"

Kevin watched thoughtfully as his cousin disappeared up the steps. Beside him Tony sipped his club soda, tapping the table in counterpoint to the jukebox.

"You know," Tony said after a minute, "Peter's sort of like Tommy, isn't he?"

"Tommy?" Kevin started, shook his head. "Tommy who?"

"You know, Tommy—'that deaf, dumb and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball.' "

Kevin swiveled to stare at him. His eyes narrowed as he drew his breath in. "You know what? You're an idiot, Tony," he said softly. "A total fucking idiot."

Tony put down his club soda. "I just meant—"

"And you ever say something like that to Brendan, I'll put your fucking lights out." He tossed a handful of bills on the table. "I'll see you at Thanksgiving."

"Yeah, sure." Tony waved meekly as Kevin left. "Thanksgiving. My favorite holiday. Damn, that's not what I meant, you know that's not what I meant." He ran a hand through his hair, fumbled around for a fistful of change and added it to the money on the table. Then he stood, rocking anxiously back and forth on his heels until he saw the waitress approaching. "Thanks Bethie," he said, grabbing the printout from Chip Crockett's Web page. "See you soon."

"Goodbye hello, Tony."

"Whoa whoa whoa," he said ruefully, and left.