Is There Life After Louie? (A true story from the 75th Precinct, New York Police Department.). **by Frank Hickey*** Near my Coney Island Brooklyn neighborhood, Louie, a grandfather, lives with his kids and grandkids. "We're all close," he says. "Don't we gain strength from our families?" "Maybe some just use their families," his daughter Rachele mutters. "For free room and board." Louie works at being a good family man and grandfather. Except that, three or four times a year, he goes away, gambling, carousing and sucking down anisette until he gets tired. Then he slinks back home, broke, hungover and unshaved. His family walks soft near his room until he feels strong again. Last April, he goes off on the spring season. His family just hears gossip. Louie was here, he was there, andeverything else. But he doesn't slipback, as usual. Nobody knows where Louie is. The cops call the family. They find Louie on a bench at Coney Island, on the boardwalk, especially deceased from a heart attack. No wallet and no cash. The family mourns him, using a two-day wake with an open casket. Coney Island had been Louie's world. He never lived anywhere else. The priest says blessings over him.The whole family weeps. His daughter Rachele misses him. She wishes she had been nicer to him. They plant him in the family plot at Brooklyn's Holy Cross Cemetery. They try to re-adjust their lives without Louie. The next day, the family door opens. Louie sways inside, alive and exhausted. He says that he had gone into Brookdale Hospital for a minor infection. He didn't want to worry his family, so he kept quiet. Everyone asks, how could this happen? To be fair, Louie is an ordinary-looking type guy. A lot of characters look like other guys. Who is the dead stranger? the cops ask. They never find out. He has noidentification when they found hisbody. "We'll leave him in the family plot," Louie decides. "Why dig him up? He got no family claiming him. So, we take him as our own family. We all gain strength from our family.". **Frank Hickey***. Frank became a cop. Somehow. He writes the Dancing Max Royster crime novels about the world's only ballroom dancing detective at frankhickey.net