Since he was a kid, Vinny heard the stories about the devil worshippers at the Lakes. His mom always kept it vague, alluding to “weirdos, crazies and kooks.” But her younger sister, Aunt Lisa, who was a junior at Goretti when Vinny was in sixth grade at Holy Spirit and a real dick, even today, would layer on the details like icing on a poison birthday cake: The Satanists gathered at night to sacrifice small animals and sometimes, if you were out riding your bike or skateboarding after dark, small children. Vinny would press the tiny gold crucifix tucked beneath his shirt till it made a Jesus-shaped imprint in his thumb.
Vinny stayed out of the Lakes at night. When his friends wanted to hang out past dark, he would make an excuse and scurry home. None of his friends became Satanic sacrifices. They always showed up in school the next day, ready to break his balls about being a little bitch, and eventually Vinny came to regard Aunt Lisa’s stories as just that—stories—until the year he turned 16, when he snuck out late at the Lakes one night, and knew they weren’t.
Twenty years was enough time to fade those memories, and when Vinny had moved back to South Philly a few months ago, he started running every morning in the Lakes. On a very early morning in mid-March, about the time the collective public began to realize the Covid pandemic might be more than a minor inconvenience, Vinny turned into the Lakes at the South 20th Street entrance by the American Swedish Historical Museum.
Vinny stretched and broke into a sprint, starting the two-mile loop around Edgewater Lake, the larger of two actual lakes in the Lakes. Exercise was critical to his sobriety. Mayor Kenney’s last press conference said people shouldn’t leave the house except for groceries, medical reasons and—thank God—outdoor recreation. The enforced closure of gyms coupled with the sudden, unseasonably gorgeous weather sent locals to the Lakes in droves. It irked Vinny when the trail got crowded, but he understood. South Philly’s densely packed grid of rowhomes leaves little room for greenspace. Even Packer Park, the sheltered faux-suburban neighborhood he grew up in and adjacent to the Lakes, made few allowances for nature. Generations of South Philadelphians filled that void at the Lakes.
It was best, he found, to go early, as soon as the Lakes opened at six. He rounded the stone bridge, its asphalt crumbling into a still lagoon as the sun rose over I-95, the park’s eastern border, and made the tips of the just bloomed Eastern Redbud trees look like thousands of flaming matches. Running cleared Vinny’s head, kept him lucid and held him accountable. Five laps, ten miles. Everyday.
The trail was uneven, ancient root systems causing the path to pitch and buckle, but his feet knew the neglected parts by heart, and each soft thud of his Nikes shook a little dust off his brain. He passed the Richie Ashburn ballfield where he played little league and the skatepark under the highway, a necropolis of concrete and rebar lit up in neon graffiti. Shrouded in swamp oaks and gingko trees, a sliver of the smaller Meadow Lake flashed in the distance as he came up along the Broad Street side of the loop, the Phillies stadium like a nearby castle between the trees. The Lakes were empty. It was just Vinny, the squirrels, the birds.
After the tennis courts and playground were the park’s two most famous structures, the Gazebo and the Boathouse. Both were both designed by John Charles Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmstead, Jr., sons of the famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., designer of New York’s Central Park, as part of the 1926 Sesquicentennial Exposition, which was held in Philadelphia to mark the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Back then the park was called League Island Park. In the 1940s, the city changed the name from to Franklin D. Roosevelt Park. Everyone in South Philly just called it the Lakes.
Vinny passed the Gazebo first, an elevated rotunda of Tuscan columns capped with a conical terracotta roof. Rising against the backdrop of Edgewater Lake like a giant chess piece, the site was a favorite location for South Philly couples to take their wedding photos. Vinny refused to make eye contact with it. He passed the small, stony beach sliding into Edgewater Lake and came up on the Boathouse, a long, covered arcade opened to the air by 16 symmetrical brick archways. Vinny shot up the Boathouse steps, ran through the structure, and back down the steps, closing the loop. One down, four to go.
He wasn’t a competitive runner by any means but averaged a respectable nine and a half-minute mile, making each loop about 20 minutes. Vinny usually finished his last lap around eight in the morning, enough time to run home, shower, change and get to work early. He was ahead of schedule at the end of his fourth lap and took a minute to stretch on the lawn between the Boathouse and the Swedish Museum. That’s when he saw it. Not the mitten—that wouldn’t be for another four days, when all this shit would come to a horrific boil—but the turtle. Vinny didn’t realize it was a turtle at first; it looked… like a broken piece of pottery. Its shell was crushed in the center, the point of impact, with thick cracks spidering out and lined in dark red. His stomach twisted, but he felt gravity dragging him down to examine the creature. He didn’t see a head—maybe the turtle was tucked safely inside? Turtles can survive in a damaged shell, he heard somewhere. When he got close enough, he did, however, see a neck. A clean-cut stump, pink and red.
“Vinny?”
Vinny jumped up and stumbled backwards. Brendan faced him in sweat-shorts and a Villanova hoodie, holding a yellow tulip in one hand and a leash attached to a fluffy white Maltese in the other. “Man, I heard you were home. How the hell are you?”
Vinny gained his balance and extended his hand toward his old friend. Brendan stared at it, and the dog barked. “Dude, social distancing.”
“Shit, right, sorry.” Vinny put his hand in his pocket. “I’m OK, Bren. I’m good.” When you’re an addict and you say you’re good, the person on the other end of the conversation will begin searching your face for clues to see if you’re telling the truth.
“Actually good?”
There it was.
“Yes, Jesus, Bren, actually good. I mean, I’m living with my parents right now, not the most ideal situation, but you know… two years clean.”
“That’s awesome, Vin. I’m really proud of you,” Brendan said, and Vinny thought it sounded genuine. “Listen… I’m sorry I never… I haven’t called or texted. I heard you were home and I was meaning to—”
Vinny brushed him off, “Don’t worry about it.” He’d had a hundred conversations like this before and learned not to take them personally. “Bren, really. It’s OK.”
Brendan looked down at his feet—even when he was a kid he did that when he felt embarrassed—and a beat paused between them. “So, how ‘bout this virus?”
“It’s crazy, man. Running every morning is the only thing keeping me sane.”
“Every morning?”
“Every morning.”
“I’m jealous of your discipline. All Jen’s baked rigatoni right here,” Brendan said, patting an invisible gut; the guy was built like a Twizzler. “Work is so nuts I wish I had time to exercise—hey, maybe I can run with you one morning?”
“Sure, that would be cool,” Vinny said. “Can you guys go to work right now?”
“Not really. Any sales in progress can close virtually, but we can’t show houses so it’s pretty much at a standstill. And things were hot right before this. You know Maria and Tommy, two doors down from your parents? I got them half a mil.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah, Packer Park is crazy. You’ve seen all the development on the other side of 20th, right? That’s what keeping me so busy, Positano Court, all expanding out toward the refinery. Starting in the low eights, next to a fucking refinery. And people will pay it. Between you and me, they’re morons—but they’ll pay it. What about you?”
“I’m at work. Since we’re in the medical field, we’re considered an essential business, open as usual.”
“That’s with the... the halfway house?”
“Actually a three-quarter house.” After getting treatment in South Florida at Hope House Crisis and Recovery Center three years ago, Vinny got his Certified Addiction Counselor certification and became a Recovery Coach in in their program. So many of Hope’s patients were from the Philly area and after recovery want to transition back home, which is dangerous without the proper support. To bridge that gap and create continuity of care, Vinny relocated back home to help Hope open an advanced transitional housing center and treatment annex, in an old nursing home on the outskirts of Packer Park and the Lakes.
“Is that… better?”
“It’s for people more advanced in their recovery. There’s still mandatory therapy and testing, but residents can pretty much come and go as they please. They have jobs and go to school. Their kids can come and stay.”
“That’s awesome. Is it going well?”
“Pretty smoothly. First residents moved in about a month ago. Hey—I never thanked you for that donation.” When Vinny set up a crowdfunding campaign for the renovation of the frumpy 48-room nursing home, Brendan made a four-figure contribution. “Really, Bren, it was very generous.”
Brendan waved the arm not attached to the dog. “Stop, Vin. You know this is important to me.” He held up the tulip.
Vinny smiled and remembered the night Glori, Brendan’s older sister, went to her senior prom. Brendan’s parents had the whole family over to see her off, and of course Vinny was there, too; he and Brendan were 16 and inseparable. Glori made her boyfriend buy her a bouquet of yellow tulips bigger than her head.
Brendan stared into the bloom. “Crazy, it’s been 20 years. I leave one of these every month at the dock,” he said, pointing the Boathouse. “It’s stupid, I guess, but…” His voice trailed off. Glori had been a star softball player with a full ride to ‘Nova. She injured her knee the fall of her freshman year, got prescribed Oxies, and you know the rest. By spring semester, she’d lost her scholarship, dropped out and moved back home. That summer, a jogger found her body tangled up in in the thicket of spindly reeds and water grasses along Edgewater Lake, a lethal dose of heroin in her system.
Brendan mashed the back of his hand against his eyes and cleared his throat. “So, yeah, anyway, Jen and I are happy to support.” He leaned in with a conspiratorial grin, “Plus, watching all the MAGA fuckers get bent out of shape about it is a bonus.”
Vinny laughed and pointed to the dog. “What’s his… her name?”
Brendan rolled his eyes. “Colette. Jen’s dog. She wanted it, meanwhile I have to walk it.” Colette stretched her leash to sniff around Vinny’s sneakers.
“What the hell is that?” Brendan asked, staring past Vinny’s feet, where Colette was now sniffing.
Vinny had completely forgotten about the turtle. “I just found it. Dead turtle.”
Brendan yanked the dog away and bent down for a closer look. “Shit. What animal in the Lakes hunts turtles? This ain’t exactly the Serengeti.”
“An animal didn’t do that. Its head was cut off.”
“Probably some creepy fucking kids.” He shuddered for effect. “Anyway, I gotta go. Vinny, it was great seeing you. I mean it, man. You look great, you seem great. I’m so happy you’re back. When all this social distancing bullshit dies down, let’s catch up more.”
“It was good to see you too,” Vinny said and watched his friend trot toward the Boathouse.
Brendan stopped halfway, turned around and called back to him. “You gonna be at the community meeting Thursday?”
“Is that still happening? I thought we’re not supposed to be in groups of more than 50 people?”
Brendan shrugged, “Boomers. They won’t cancel it. Facebook tells them the virus is a hoax, and half of them are too nosy about finding out who’s trying to put on a third story on their house. You should come. Free hand sanitizer.”
“I’ll try to make it,” Vinny lied. Brendan dashed off, Colette like a giant cottonball rolling alongside him. Vinny started on his final lap. By the time he looped back around, Brendan was gone. He was about to head out when he thought of the turtle. Just leave it, he told himself. It’s a dead turtle. But he couldn’t. What if a little kid came across it? It would take two seconds to drop it in the lake, the most dignified burial he could manage given that talking with Brendan put him behind schedule. But when he got back to the scene of the crime, the turtle, too, was gone.