Nick Shay, Staatsburg, New York, 1952

Dr. Lindblad tried to work my soul. She believed in my salvation. She probed all the forces in my history and she gave me books to read, and I read them, and she advanced ideas about what happened, andI thought about them. But I didn't know if I accepted the idea that I had a history. She used that word a lot and it was hard for me to imagine that all the scuffle and boredom of those years, the crisscross boredom and good times and flareups and sameshit nights--I didn't understand how the streaky blur in my nighttime mind could have some sort of form and coherence...

Myron Lounsbury

In Chapter Six, we are again introduced to Jimmy and the role he played in his family, as well as, in Nick's life. Rosemary Shay seems to believe that Jimmy was more important in his absence, then when he was actually living with the family. As she puts it, "the thing was he was not the center of the family when he was here. She was the center, the still center, the strength. Now that he was gone, she could no longer make herself feel still, or central. Jimmy was the central now. That was the trick, the strange thing. Jimmy was the heartbeat, the missing heartbeat." After Jimmy disappeared, Rosemary, with the help of a lawyer friend, hired a private investigator to find him. This was Rosemary Shay's biggest secret.

When he was younger, many saw Nick as a carbon copy of his father. Nick, like his father, was obsessed with numbers. Jimmy was a bookie. He did not need to write down the bets, he could remember the numbers in his head. Nick say the symbolism in numbers; Branca's jersey number- thirteen, the month and day of the Dodgers-Giants game was ten and three-thirteen, and the phone number people called for inning-by-inning scores ME 7-1212 add the digits, thirteen. Nick reminded a lot of people of his father. As Mike the Book told a young Nick after he stole a car and then had the nerve to drive it around town, you're a "wise guy·you're like your father. You're father liked to put himself in a corner and then edge himself out. He was always on the edge."

The similarities between Nick and Jimmy continued as Nick progressed towards adulthood. While Nick did not abandon his family, he did not connect with them either. As he recalled in 1965, "marriage remote·fatherhood a vague regret." Rather then bond with his children, Nick does not seem to have a well-developed relationship with his son or daughter. Now that they are older, he knows even less about them. In a way, Nick distanced himself from his wife and children, just as Jimmy left his family. The only difference, was Nick was actually present. Is that actually better then not being around at all?

Sarah Doran