"Previously:" "This is what you are about." "Your marriage was only worth something to you when it was falling apart." "You're being intimate with Janet and Sheila again?" "Maybe I am." "These are women, Tom." "Women got more strings than a goddamn baseball." "Sheila's Red Sox." "I'm the Yankees." "I have a hell of a lot more to offer." "How do you figure that?" "I come with your children." "It's time to stop." "We're all here because we love you, Tommy." "If not for you, think about your children." "What about Katy and Colleen?" "What are they feeling?" "I'm glad you're not drinking." "It used scare me sometimes, like you were somebody else." "Come on, Tom." "Think about it." "It's a prison with ways out, sobriety or the graveyard." "Anyone else?" "Yeah." "Give me one." "Yeah." "You know what?" "Me too." "Just a tall one." "Okay." "Family that drinks together." "Sinks together." "Mm." "Where the hell did Ellie go to?" "To Ellie." "May God kiss and rest her soul." "Amen to that." "You took the best thing I ever had away from me, asshole." "We're gonna sit here for the next few hours and watch Tom slowly fade away." "Tom." "Tommy." "Tom!" " Wanna see my new trick?" " When you get here." " You used to scare me." " You're not mad?" "We should renew our vows." "I'm your best bet." "Welcome, brother." "Come on." "So happy to see you, coz, it seemed like forever." "Sully from Hell House is up there." "Joey the Beast from 71 Truck." "Bobby Clams." "Bobby the Bagel." "One Nut Nicky." "Slow Steve." "Wait up, Steve-o." "Shit." "No." "Help!" "Shit." "Why couldn't you save us, Tommy?" "Why not?" "You said you'd come back to get me on 9/11." "You never came back to get me." "Tommy!" "Tommy!" "* On another day C'mon, c'mon *" "* With these ropes tied tight Can we do no wrong?" "*" "* Now we grieve 'Cause now it's gone *" "* Things were good When we were young *" "* When my teeth bite down I can see the blood *" "* Of a thousand men Who have come and gone *" "* Now we grieve 'Cause now it's gone *" "* Things were good When we were young *" "* Is it safe to stay?" "C'mon, c'mon *" "* Was it right to leave?" "C'mon, c'mon *" "* Will I ever learn?" "C'mon, c'mon *" "* C'mon, c'mon C'mon, c'mon *" "Four decades I been on this job." "Forty goddamn years." "I can smell trouble coming at a great distance." "Thank God Tommy's brother, uh..." "Johnny." "Johnny's old partner has covered your asses in terms of the shooting." "As far as the law is concerned, it's a bunch of drunken assholes and a couple of stray bullets." "But the fire department, this city, is in a goddamn recession." "The Mayor's gonna have to close a couple of firehouses." "The word I hear is that this house is number one on the list." "Shut up." "Shut up." "Whoa!" "I said shut up." "Renegades, renegade house." "Those are the terms I'm hearing being thrown around down at headquarters." "And the boozing and the broads and now the hero, the rebel, this anti-authority fireman, the one who survived 9/11, is left bleeding on the floor of a bar full, full of his compatriots." "Guess what." "He wasn't bulletproof, and neither are any one of you assholes." "Now listen to me." "I didn't spend 40 years getting to this position so I could end up with a dishonorable discharge." "Didn't happen in Vietnam, and it's not gonna happen here." "And if they close this house, it's gonna be with my full cooperation." "Whoa, whoa." "What are you saying?" "You're gonna be like a...?" "Like a snitch?" "You know, you got blood on your hands, pal." "You were a commanding officer in an off-duty situation, and you did not step up." "Hey, you know what?" "You were in that bar drinking too." "Not when they pulled the gun, shithead." "You wanna run with these guys?" "You wanna be one of them?" "Guess what." "From now on, you are permanently one of the guys." "All bets are off." "You wanna keep that bar, you better make sure that somebody else's name is legally in charge of that place." "We already took care of that, sir." "Yeah, we basically just work there now." "Good." "Another thing." "I would suggest you start looking around for another house, because this house is on its last goddamn legs." "Go on." "Go, go, go." "What's wrong with you?" "So how's the shoulder, huh?" "It's fine, you know." "It's a little sore." "It'll be fine." "Mm-hm." "Ooh, man." "Maggie said you weren't due out for another week." "They wanted me to do that bullshit physical therapy." "I was going nuts." "I'm like, "I'm not..." "Yeah, what's in the bag?" "What?" "My, uh, clothes." "Really?" "Yeah." "You know, I..." "The clothes I had on when I got shot." "It's my stuff." "Oh, yeah." "Yeah." "Like prison, right?" "What you check in with, they give you when you leave." "Yeah, like the joint, only shittier food." "What are you doing?" "Jesus, Mick." "I tell you, must have been tough not drinking that whole time?" "A month in the hospital without booze." "Must have been on the verge of the DTs." "No." "Morphine, asshole." "I had a morphine drip." "Hmm." "Morphine drip." "Right." "Right, right." "Yeah, but don't they gradually ease you off of that shit?" "Oh!" "Jesus!" "Fuck off!" "Whoo!" "Oh!" "Open the bag." "Jesus." "This is crazy!" "I said open the bag, asshole." "Jesus Christ, Mick." "Jesus Christ." "Jesus." "Remember when we were kids and our parents would say don't do something?" "You were the guy to say, "Let's do it now."" "Whenever the nuns said, "Hey, don't laugh,"" "you were always the first one cackling." "She doesn't see us." "Shit." "Shit." "Shit." "Goddamn it!" "Whenever the priest said such and such was sin, you were the first guy to say, "Hey, let's give it a go."" "Booze, weed, jerking off..." "Turn the car around." "Fighting fires." "You didn't care." "You were the first man in and last man standing, the rebel, the rebel with a cause," "Mr. Break-All-The-Rules." "Mr. Go-Against-The-Grain." "You're going against the grain." "How does it feel?" "Watch the road!" "Ha!" "Hey, man." "What are you doing?" "Fun, huh?" "Oh, yeah." "What the hell is your problem?" "I got a sick man in the car." "He better be sick!" "What?" "No." "Oh, boy." "Was Maggie on to you?" "She knew you would have been begging for a bottle if you didn't already have drugs to satisfy your jones." "That's why you had to run out of that place this morning?" "Because you knocked over the medicine room on the way out." "You wanna know something?" "I knew it as soon as you called me." "Where do you think you're going?" "I'm not getting in the car with a drunk driver." "Huh!" "So I'm a drunk driver?" "Yeah, that's right." "You just fill them full of booze and send them on their way." "But look what you found, though." "That's right." "Why don't you take a nice pop?" "I will." "Yeah." "Tsk, bottoms up, brother." "It's water." "An old trick of yours used against you." "That feeling you had at the pit at the bottom of your ball sack when that traffic was on us, that's just one iota of the fear that's stuck in your daughter Katy's throat and Colleen's throat and Janet's throat." "Hell, in my throat the night you died in the back of the ambulance." "I got news for you, asshole." "You ain't no rebel." "All rebels die young." "James Dean, 25 when he ate it." "Thurman Munson was 32." "Belushi, same age." "You're just too old to be a goddamn rebel." "All you are is another goddamn drunk." "It's over, shithead." "I haven't had a drop since that second bullet hit you in the arm." "I'm done." "And so are you." "Get in." "I'm taking you over to see Teddy." "He's in the back of Dempsey's." "He wants to have a sit down with you." "I'm not going to sit down with Teddy." "Oh, you're not, huh?" "No." "What are you gonna do?" "Got any cash on you?" "No cash." "Oh, well." "There's the bus over there." "I know what you could do." "You could sell all the morphine." "There's two junkie looking mutts over there." "Yo!" "This guy here, he's got a bag full of morphine bag full of morphine, for free." "No, no." "Big bag." "How much you want for the bag?" "Those guys are coming over, asshole." "This is what we're reduced to." "I mean, this is what we gained from 9/11, pay scale that barely keeps a married probie with kids above the poverty level, and now they wanna close more." "Biggest rescue in the history of fire service and ten years later, we're getting it right up the ass." "But let's be honest." "We haven't exactly done ourselves any favors." "We have the second-quickest response time and we average nine calls a shift." "That's gotta count for something." "The houses threatened with a shutdown that survived, as far as I know and there ain't been a lot of them, have had huge community protests going on to support them." "Like from the neighborhood?" "Yeah." "This neighborhood's scary." "You know what?" "They're being invited to our cookout." "Wait." "What cookout?" "We are having a cookout, and everybody is coming in, and we are gonna stuff them all full of free food." "You know, hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza." "Cheap eats, great public relations even Feinberg's gotta get behind us." "Yeah." "Yeah." "I like that." "Get them in here." "Load them up." "Then have them call the Mayor." "Yo, I found this on the telephone pole out front." "What is it?" "West Side Wildmen, eight blocks over, listen to this:" "The Mayor's thinking about shutting down their house, so they're having a pig roast and the entire neighborhood is invited." "Check it out." "They got, uh, peppered corn on the cob, broccoli slaw, mm, and some homemade sweet rolls." "What else?" "Oh!" "Lavender limeade." "What?" "You all don't like pig?" "I wanna tell you I'm sorry for what I've done." "Well, it's certainly good to hear that, uh..." "But I ain't." "I figure the only reason I let you live was because of Ellie." "I sat there, and I thought," ""She wouldn't dig this."" "I mean, she drunk all the drinks herself." "You poured them down, but you didn't pour them down her throat." "She did." "So I stood up, and I walked out, and the rest, the rest I left in God's hands." "So..." "So what?" "So go to hell." "Go to heaven." "However you want it to play out, it's up to you." "Here." "I got you a little something." "Go ahead." "Open it." "Ain't gonna bite." "I got you these as a reminder." "I was at the hospital after." "Immediate family." "Just for the record, that night, the night you died and came back, immediate family was me, the Mick, your sister, and the guys in the crew." "No Janet." "No Sheila." "Just the guys." "Even the Jew chief came down." "Anyways, I asked them for the bullets inside you." "That's what you're looking at right there." "Us Gavins, we're so dysfunctional, we make the Jackson family look like the goddamn Osmonds." "Well, I'll guarantee you this." "From here on in, different story." "You ain't gonna hurt anybody in this family no more." "Jesus, Mickey." "He's got a gun." "I know." "Actually he's got two." "Relax." "Calm down." "If I wanted to shoot your ass again, you'd already be dead." "You got a second chance." "You can do good, or you can do shit, which is mostly what you've done so far." "But this time around, you do shit," "I'm gonna hunt you down and kill you a second time." "From this moment on, you drink, I drive." "Now screw." "Don't forget your cuff links." "So all that time I was laid up," "Janet never came by the hospital, huh?" "No." "I can't blame her." "I mean, she was pissed." "Plus she didn't want the kids to see you laid up like that." "It was the right thing to do." "Yeah, I guess." "Turn the TV off and start your homework now." "And, Colleen, turn the music down." "Hi." "Hey." "Hey." "Uh, just..." "Just a second." "Daddy." "Hey." "What's going on?" "I thought you weren't supposed to be home for another week." "Well, I was, but I got a special, you know, thing from the doctor, so yeah." "I missed you." "I missed you too." "Good." "Uh, go tell your sister." "Right." "Colleen." "Uh, which is the bad shoulder?" "This one." "This one." "Oh!" "Honey." "Listen hard and listen fast." "Jesus, honey." "I am here until you decide to stop." "Okay, the kids don't like it, but I don't give a shit." "Okay, you wanna drink, you're gonna drink here on my watch." "You wanna drink till you puke or pass out or start a fire," "I will be here to protect my kids." "I've been on my own this whole goddamn time." "Well, except for the guys, thank God for them." "Lou fixed the sink, and, Sean, well, he didn't really do a lot, but he was pleasant." "But Franco, he was a godsend." "He fixed the car." "He fixed the stove." "Did you know that he cooks?" "No." "He was amazing." "He baby-sat for me." "He helped Katy with her homework." "You know, you name it, he did it." "Hmm." "I'll bet he did." "How's your shoulder?" "Sore." "Oh!" "Honey." "Is that all you think about?" "You wanna know, if a guy as hot as Franco actually came on to me, I would jump at the chance, but there ain't a lot of hunks looking for soon-to-be-divorced, 45-year-old mom stinking very much like baby puke." "Hmm." "Be happy." "What?" "Hi." "Hi." "Hi." "This one's allowed to drink in the house now." "What?" "Yeah." "She, uh..." "She said she'd rather have me doing it here than out in some bar somewhere." "That's right." "Is she even old enough to drink?" "Yeah." "I, um, I turned 21, actually." "But you weren't here to celebrate because..." "Oh, right, you were dead." "But don't worry." "You got me an amazing pair of Jeffrey Campbell boots, so happy birthday to me." "Hm." "Who's Jeffrey Campbell?" "I don't know, but I know that he's wealthy, with the price of those boots." "Don't worry." "I don't have a drinking problem." "It is genetic." "So is being a bitch, bitch." "Hey." "I'll just be a minute." "Here, Daddy." "Ooh." "What's that, honey?" "Whiskey neat." "Or would you rather have vodka?" "No, no." "That's..." "That's fine." "Go ahead." "It's okay." "I know you want it." "We have gin too, but that's what Colleen drinks." "It tastes like gasoline." "I, uh..." "I just remembered I gotta..." "Ahem, I told the guys I'd drop down to the firehouse." "So I'm..." "I'll just have that later." "Okay?" "Mm-hmm." "Curfew's 11:30." "Got it." "Hey, Lou, you ever get the 411 from Tommy about what went down you know, when he died?" "Like did he see shit or whatever?" "Well, according to him, nothing." "He said it was kind of like taking a nap, and when he woke up, he felt like shit, which of course, in the world of Tommy is just another day." "Hey, ask me if I believe him?" "You believe him?" "No." "Hey, you know, I read a book once about people who died." "Yah?" "The whole book?" "Yeah." "Wow." "Read a whole book." "Well, most of it." "Like the first eight chapters." "Wait a second." "Is this that book about crossing over to the other side?" "You read that?" "Yeah." "You gave it to me, asshole, remember, after chapter two, because it was keeping you up." "It's scary." "You can't deny that." "Uh-huh." "So, I read the whole thing, and then, every time I try to tell you about it, you end up covering your ears and humming like a 12-year-old girl." "That's not true." "It is true." "What about the lady trapped underneath the bus?" "Don't do that." "She suffocating because her crushed rips are puncturing..." "La-la-la-la-la." "You see?" "Now listen." "But my point is it's about, you know, dying." "The people in that book, they said they saw a great white light, and they all had to walk towards it." "You know, that whole thing." "It's a very common theme." "A lot of people have that." "That means there's a heaven?" "Yes." "Yes, I do." "There's gotta be a hell, right?" "Sure." "Can't have one without the other." "And in my heaven, every man that's ever done this job and laid down his life in the line of duty, like the 343 from 9/11, they get the best seats in the house." "Damn right." "Mikey, you're with me." "You got it." "Hey, Lou." "Yes." "You believe in heaven?" "Yes, I do." "What's heaven like for you?" "Free hot doughnuts on floating trays." "Heh." "Hmm." "What about hell?" "Barbra Streisand." "Is she singing?" "No, she's not singing." "She's alone." "She's just there." "She's loitering, I'm burning up with flames." "They're licking my body, and she's standing there." "A couple yards away, looking at me with that weird, go-funny eye of hers, just glaring at me." "For Hitler, she'd be singing." "I get it because she's Jewish." "Hey." "That is funny." "Hey, man." "Hey!" "Hey!" "What's going on?" "What's up?" "How you doing?" "Look at you." "You look good." "Let's watch that shoulder." "Tommy." "Hey." "How you doing?" "What's going on?" "They let you out early for good behavior, heh?" "No." "I was just doing the physical therapy bullshit." "Did I hear correctly?" "Did you go by my house a couple time while..." "I was laid up?" "Couple of times." "I was there almost every day." "Spent the night a couple times too." "Slept over?" "Jeez." "I was gonna too, but since I got hospitalized," "I gotta be in my own bed." "I been sleep-dancing." "Anyway, don't sweat it." "You would've done the same thing for me." "Well, yeah, especially if, you know..." "Hey, how you doing?" "Hi." "If you were married to a really hot chick." "I appreciate it." "It's just that if something happens to me again, just don't go by the house, okay?" "Does that go for me too?" "No, you can go by the house." "I don't have a problem with you." "Wait a second, so a sleepwalker can go..." "No, it was sleep-dancing." "But Puerto Ricans, not allowed." "No, no." "It's not a Puerto Rican thing." "It's a Puerto Rican hunk thing." "It's more about her than it is about you." "You know..." "Okay?" "Okay." "Somebody's back up to speed." "First day out, he's already in a jealous rage." "What rage?" "I'm having a conversation." "What was that supposed to mean?" "When you said that about the hunk thing?" "I'm not?" "You're not..." "Well, I..." "Don't..." "If he's a hunk, I'm a hunk." "You're both hunks when the dead walk the Earth." "Hey, can I go?" "Why would you do that?" "It's only girls over there." "I like chicks, and besides," "I happen to find Tommy's wife extremely attractive." "Oh." "Ooh." "You're not going." "All right?" "Happy now?" "I can go." "Why can he go?" "It's ridiculous." "Because he's banging my cousin." "Ahh!" "That's it." "Nobody's ever going." "All right?" "There it is." "See, that's the Tommy we know and love." "Hurry up and get back in the saddle, because we may not be here that long." "What do you mean?" "That shooting left us a little vulnerable." "Yeah." "Mayor's closing down houses." "We got a big target on our back." "So do the West Side Wildmen, and only one of us is gonna be shut down." "And none of their guys have got bullet holes in them." "Oh." "All right." "Let me take the beating on this one, guys." "Let me stand up and, you know, take the blame." "All right?" "Step up and sacrifice myself for the sake of the house." "It's the right thing to do." "Really?" "Yeah." "It's perfect." "Yeah." "All right, come on." "We'll go to my office and call headquarters right now." "You're a stand-up guy, Tommy." "Ah, that's a load off my back." "Did, um..." "Did you..." "No, it's done." "That was really nice of you, Tom." "Big time." "That was big." "It was very generous." "Yeah." "Don't mention it." "Well, I'm gonna go now." "Okay." "Thanks again." "Thanks, buddy." "Thank you, Tommy." "Respect, brother." "Dah!" "Not funny." "Let's go." "Jeez." "Ahh!" "Oh." "Sorry." "See you, Tommy." "What?" "We still got a couple of bottles tucked away?" "Dry as a bone, brother." "Feinberg did a sweep." "Booze, porn, all gone." "That miniature Stanley Cup we had over the, uh, bunk room..." "Convinced it was a bong." "Think it was at one point." "And you tell me now." "You know, I, um..." "I don't believe your story, Tom, about what happened when you died, how you didn't see nothing." "You're lying to me." "I was in there." "I saw you go." "There was something that you saw that scared you, and I wanna know what that was." "Did you go to hell?" "I'm gonna take that as a yes." "Come down to the bar tonight." "I wanna hear all about it." "Ah, boy." "Where'd you go, T.?" "What?" "In the rink." "When we were all walking out, I had you right behind me." "Next thing I knew, I turned around, you were gone." "Got all dressed up for your welcome and everything." "I brought all the guys down, which was..." "It was no easy production, by the way, but, yeah, we got all geared up, 343 of us." "We were all pumped." "What happened?" "Uh, something exploded." "You guys didn't hear that, uh..." "What?" "Where did you end up?" "Uh, it was like the thing explodes, like one of them crazy dreams." "Where did you end up?" "Hey, uh, watch the shoulder, man." "Jesus, relax." "It was, uh, you know, it was a hallway somewhere full of fire and shit." "You know, the fire was rolling." "How did it stop, Tom?" "Who...?" "What made it stop?" "Why are you making that face?" "How did it stop?" "I woke up." "You came back to life." "Yeah, technically." "I gotta go." "What?" "Go where?" "What?" "You gotta do something to turn this around, brother." "If I was you, I'd, uh..." "I'd stock up on some prayer." "Uh, what...?" "Hey." "Ji..." "Hey." "What do you mean?" "You love me?" "I mean..." "Of course." "Yeah." "I went to see you the night after you got shot, when you were still touch-and-go." "Nobody knew, because everybody had already left for the night, except for Mickey, who had fallen asleep in the hallway, so I knew that I had, like, 15 or 20 minutes." "Mm-hmm." "And..." "You know..." "Ahh." "Ohh!" "I just..." "I sat and I stared, you know..." "That machine, that really scary breathing thing." "Yeah." "I figured... two seconds to pull the plug, two seconds to get out, five minutes later, I'd be in the car on the way home." "And you, you would've gotten your death wish all out of the way." "I was this close to doing it." "I was in a very calm, even state." "And I sat there for a couple of minutes." "Well, it was eight actually, because I did check my watch, and I wondered why I hadn't done it yet." "And then I remembered." "You were gonna be my second life." "After 9/11, after all the grief and the big, empty hole in my heart that Jimmy left behind, you know, when he cheated on me and then he died." "Um, you were never gonna fill that." "I mean, no one was, but I thought that, um, heh..." "And you led me to believe that I was gonna have another life." "I..." "I never said anything." "Yes, you did." "No, I didn't." "Yes, you did." "No, I did not." "Look, I never, ever made any kind of a promise about..." "What?" "I didn't." "You said it in the way that you kissed me." "Oh." "You said it in the way that you tore me apart." "Honey, our parts fit." "I love you." "And I hate you." "And I want you." "I hope you die." "Ow!" "Shit." "Goddamn it." "What the hell?" "I want one thing from you, one last thing." "I want Damian out." "Out of what?" "This." "The job." "The calling." "Are you nuts?" "What about his father's legacy?" "His father ain't here, is he?" "His father only shows up in old home movies and your goddamn fever dreams." "Screw his father's legacy." "I am interested in my legacy, and I want him out now." "Okay." "Well, how would you propose that I or anybody would go about that particular..." "Couldn't care less how you do it." "Just make it happen." "It is the least you could do for me." "Where do you get your balls big enough to think that I owe you that?" "Hmm." "Well, you're still breathing, ain't you?" "Tommy Gavin, welcome back." "Hi." "Thank you." "My pleasure." "What is this?" "Water." "Jesus Christ." "Why?" "You're on the no-fly list." "What?" "Hey, coz." "How you feeling?" "Good." "What's going on?" "Hey, check this out." "What do you think?" "It's unbelievable." "Customers love it." "It's insane." "They take pictures." "We got this drink." "Called the Bloodshot Mary." "Two shots of vodka, one of tomato juice and an empty shell casing dropped in the bottom." "Twelve bucks." "It's unbelievable." " Hey!" " Give me four Bloodshot Marys!" "Ch-Ching." "Give me a vodka." "Make it a double." "Yeah." "But I'm gonna have to charge you first." "Wha...?" "Hey, hey, hey." "I built this place, remember?" "And I own this place literally." "I took it over from you guys to cover your ass, and in my bar, nobody drinks for free, and that means you and your entire crew." "Give me a goddamn drink, Eddie." "Your job is to sit here, tell stories about that night, and pose for pictures." "If you can lay down inside the chalk outline," "I could get 5 bucks a pop." "Hey, listen." "I need that goddamn drink, all right?" "So just..." "You lay down in the outline, I'll split the profits with you, and then you can buy your own drink." "Otherwise, water's on the house." "I'm not laying in the goddamn outline, Eddie." "Start posing, pappy." "Ladies and gentlemen, excuse me." "This is the guy that died." " This guy right here." " Awesome." "Deal?" "Deal." "Hey." "Ha, ha." "Yeah." "There you go." "Can we get a picture?" "Yeah." "Just a second." "Ladies and gentlemen, the shooter." "Oh." "Did you really shoot him?" "Yep." "Twice." "Why?" "He killed my wife." "Hey, Eddie." "Where the hell did he go?" "I don't know." "Ah." "Ah." "* The moon shines On the autumn sky *" "* Growing cold The leaves all die *" "* I'm more alone Than I've ever been *" "* Help me out The shape I'm in *" "* After the fires Before the flood *" "* My sweet baby I need fresh blood *" "* Whoo!" "*" "* Oww!" "*"