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Kevin has known for years, almost as long as he’s really known anything, that if he isn’t adopted by the time he is seven or eight, he never will be.

Kevin is living in Lowell in his eighth foster home, and he’s become friends with a dark-haired, pimple-faced boy from down the street named Can-Can.

Can-Can’s real name is Carl Brodsky, a name that does little to instill the type of fear and respect for which many boys yearn. Carl’s father, Walter “The Can” Brodsky, is a former boxer, a huge man with huge arms and a huge gut, the type of gut that is almost perfectly round and deceptively solid.

Two winos once tried to mug Mr. Brodsky in the alley behind the Broadway Street Market Basket when he was fourteen years old. Walter had been toting a bag of groceries with him – hot dogs, ketchup, buns, and a can of baked beans – and when the guys jumped him he instinctively grabbed for the only weapon he had…the beans. Walter knew that an unopened can of beans, an unopened can of anything really, makes a handy weapon if you hit a guy right, and that’s exactly what he did.

A bum lunged out from behind a dumpster. Walter backpedaled, grabbing for the beans (they had some fuckin’ weight to ‘em) and swung blindly at the guy’s face. The rim of the can ripped his forehead open and drenched his face in a sheet of blood. Nothing bleeds like a head wound, and this promptly ended the bum’s attack. A second man grabbed him from behind, they tussled, ended up on the ground with Walter on top, and then Walter went to work on the man’s face until he was howling for help in shrill, animal screams and hugging his face with his arms. The can burst open and baked beans splattered all over the guy’s head, Walter’s chest, the pavement, and the dumpster like larvae in little pools of brown syrup. The cops showed up, arrested the men, and a reporter who happened to be swinging by the store was drawn in by the flashing lights. He snapped a picture of a stunned and wide-eyed Walter Brodsky clutching an armful of groceries. Two days later, the following headline announced, ‘Young Man Defeats Muggers.’

And so “The Can” was born.

Like hundreds of other people clustered in the neighborhoods around Route 3A in Lowell at the time, Walter Brodsky began working in the warehouse at the Prince Spaghetti Factory as a teenager, at first for a little running money, then to support a budding boxing career, and finally to support Carl when his boxing dreams came to an unspectacular end. Alice had run off with his agent and left him to raise Carl alone. And that was the end of that.

Mr. Brodsky is a rough sort, but a loving sort too, and he takes to Kevin immediately. He is real. He tells it how it is and doesn’t care if anyone agrees. Two hundred and sixty pounds and a vicious uppercut gives him that right. He works long shifts hauling crates and then comes home with a case of beer and finishes it in a few hours. Then, like some Dionysian god, he’s up at the crack of dawn yelling for Can-Can to get his lazy ass out of bed and get to school. Can-Can is not going to work in some pissy factory witha’ buncha’ otha’ morons. Can-Can is not going to box because the fuckin’ rats will always get ya fuckin’ paycheck one way or the otha’. Can-Can is going to college.

Kevin envies him.

With “The Can” as a father, Kevin supposes it is natural that Carl Brodsky, upon his first fight in elementary school, is soon nicknamed Can-Can by the guys at the factory. The name sticks and Can-Can maintains, strutting proudly whenever the subject arises, that “only pussies have to make up their own nicknames.” Kevin is inclined to agree and wishes he had one too. Maybe “King Kevin.” Or “Killer Kevin.” Or just plain old “Killer.”

Kevin often imagines how the scene at Mr. Brodsky’s warehouse went down, hears the big man’s deep baritone booming over a labyrinth of dusty warehouse shelving, a voice that can carry to every street in the city if he really has a mind to yell.

“So I come home yestahday and Carl looks like he’s got the shit beat out of ‘em. Black eye, blood in his nostrils, fat lip, the whole shebang. I look him in the eye and Carl looks right back at me. He smiles. Fuck! A smile. That’s my boy! I don’t let on. I can’t. What kind of fuckin’ example would that be? I ask him what happened. He says this other kid, Bobby Somethin’, has been pushin’ him around. So Carl finally gets pissed and whacks the fucka’. They have it out in the hallway until some teacher breaks it up. Did he win? Of course he fuckin’ won, dipshit!” At this point Mr. Brodsky jabs at the air with deceptive quickness, swelling with pride. “Guess he remembered what his old man taught him. Apple don’t fall far from the tree!”

Kevin wishes Walter “The Can” Brodsky is his father. Maybe they can adopt him. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

Kevin is sitting on the front porch with Mr. Brodsky and Can-Can one afternoon – it must be spring because some of the trees are just starting to show green – when two hard-looking men saunter into view. They glance at this duo with little interest and continue their conversation about the Mets and the Red Sox, something about a trade deal. Kevin doesn’t care much for baseball, but since “The Can” loves the game as much as his beer, Kevin pretends that he loves it too.
Enter the skinny guy. He comes walking down the sidewalk toward this shifty dynamic duo, distracted by some inner contemplation and focused on his feet. The duo shares a knowing look and stalk toward the skinny guy like dogs on the hunt.

“Pay attention to this,” Mr. Brodsky whispers.

The boys are suddenly aware of the tension they’ve missed, the way the two men eye the skinny guy, glancing around to see who might be watching. They shoot Walter, Carl and Kevin a contemptuous, challenging look and then promptly forget about them. They’re hardasses and they want the skinny guy. He’s alone, and he’s a target.

“Fuckin’ street punks. Pussies,” Mr. Brodsky whispers with disgust, then guzzles his beer, his Adam’s apple bobbing in time to each audible glug. He finishes it and then suppresses the legendary burp that might spook the show.

By then the skinny guy has realized that something bad is about to happen. The men clash at the end of the Brodsky’s walkway. The boys lean forward, ready to spring off their seats.

“Easy, ladies. Ain’t our fight,” Mr. Brodsky coos.

The skinny guy tries to go around them, but the duo blocks his way. So he starts to back away instead. One of the punks makes a grab for him but the skinny guy socks him hard in the gut. The gush of air that pours out of his lungs carries across the crispy brown lawn as the punk folds, his knees suddenly weak. It’s a sound like air being squeezed out of a plastic bag. The punk stumbles back several feet and sort of crumbles against Mr. Brodsky’s ‘67 AMC Ambassador station wagon. He slips to the pavement.

This enrages the other punk, who tackles the skinny guy. They roll in a tangle of arms and legs, but in a moment the skinny guy is on top. This tickles “The Can’s” memory and he slaps his thigh and brays donkey-like laughter. Skinny Guy is not a softie. Skinny Guy is one mean son of a bitch, as “The Can” immediately suspected through some street-wise intellect that the boys are only just developing. Skinny Guy doesn’t punch, flail or try to strangle the punk, oh no. He grabs his greasy hair and slams his skull on the sidewalk until the punk’s body goes limp. It sounds a bit like a coconut. Kevin wants to vomit, but he holds it down because then the Brodskys might think he’s weak.

Skinny Guy jumps off the thug. The other punk has regained some of his wind and is straightening, one hand still on the station wagon.

“Do you want some more of this, muthafucka?” Skinny Guy rages.

The punk does not want some more of this. The punk suddenly discovers his feet and leaves his buddy bleeding on the sidewalk.

“Fuckin’ pussy!” Mr. Brodsky howls laughter, crushing his empty beer can into a twisted ball of aluminum.

Skinny Guy sees them then, his eyes as big as headlights, and smiles sheepishly, like he’s been caught doing something wrong. Mr. Brodsky nods to him, grabs another beer from the cooler beside his chair, and cracks it. Mr. Brodsky tips the first sip to the skinny guy before he takes off in the opposite direction.

“That, my boys, is an appropriate badass,” Mr. Brodsky says confidently.

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