Debasements of Brooklyn

by Ira Gold

  It will only take one punch to knock her unconscious. But that might also attract negative attention. So I keep my voice level. “It’s better if you don’t know.”

  “Tell me,” she spits. “I don’t give a fuck. You know I stopped drinking.”

  “When.”

  “Just now. I’ve been sober since you woke up.”

  I calculate. It has been about fifteen minutes.

  “And I don’t plan on drinking anymore. Not if we can be together.” Her voice regains its normal pitch. “Those books. Did you really read them?”

  “Not now.” I don’t want to reexcite her.

  “Is that all you can say? I’m risking my life for you, Howie. So I can be with you.”

  It all becomes very touching and very silly. “Go home, Ariel. Please.”

  She looks down at her stocking feet. “I have no shoes.”

  “You got here fine.”

  “I stepped on something.” With that, her knees fold and she collapses onto the ground. There, cross-legged, she pulls off her sock.

  “It’s a piece of glass.” And she wrestles a shard the size of a large thorn from her foot. This unstops the puncture and blood trickles down her sole. Maybe it started hurting suddenly or maybe the sight of blood freaks her, but Ariel begins moaning. “I can’t walk. Please, Howie.”

  I don’t have time for this. “You might need stitches. I’ll call an ambulance and they’ll sew you up in the emergency room.”

  In a soft voice, she begs, “Can you help me home?”

  How do I get sidetracked like this? These ludicrous subplots will cost me my life.

  “For God’s sake, Howie, say something already.” On the ground, she sways back and forth as if in terrible pain. “Now that I can’t get drunk, we must talk to each other. Converse. What else will replace alcohol in making things bearable?”

  I regret Ariel’s teetotaling. “The booze certainly let you make the sex interesting.”

  “Thank you for saying something.” She grimaces. “I expect articulation, if nothing else.”

  Gangsters could be as punctual as garden-variety neurotics if the situation calls for it. I can’t stand here arguing for or against sobriety. “If I don’t get to where I need to go, I’m dead no matter where we run to.”

  Ariel picks herself off the ground. “You know, if you really read all those books, you should be able to think of something clever.”

  “Call the ambulance. A doctor has to check you out.”

  Ariel hops away like a bunny. “Go,” she calls without turning around. “I’ll take care of myself.”

  “At least disinfect the cut as soon as you get home,” I yell to her back.

  Now twenty feet away, she screams, “I’ll hate you forever if you get yourself murdered.”

  So now I can head toward my fate. About time.

  38

  National Massacre Day

  From the outside, the funeral parlor appears empty. The heavy wooden doors are locked tight. No light emanates from the two small windows facing the street.

  But I go around to the back and knock on an industrial steel door. It’s yanked open by the skeleton of Pauli Bones. He holds a sawed-off shotgun, barrel up.

  “Don’t stand there like a dickhead,” the emaciated ghoul grunts. But his voice is almost gentle as he examines me, as he weighs the cost of letting me live.

  Inside, ten people are crowded into Vinnie’s office. Of course, neither Vinnie nor IRA show up, nor will they ever again.

  Of those I recognize, only Frankie Hog comes over to me, and without his usual hostility.

  “You heard?”

  “Fucking tragedy. We’ll take care of him today.” I make as if checking the room. “Where’s Vinnie?”

  “Not here yet.”

  I say nothing more. The situation must develop.

  The office fills. Moron and the Jew nod at me. Gus hasn’t come yet. I circle the room, trying to find the best spot to make my stand. In the process, I accidentally kick someone’s leg.

  “Sit down, bro,” says a smooth-faced, gel-haired kid, nineteen or twenty but one who glows with the aura of an up-and-coming maniac. He rouses himself from leaning against the wall. He’s nearly as tall as I, and his muscles stretch the fabric of his black Lycra shirt.

  I worry that my nerves show. So I look at the guy and try to formulate an appropriate apology. I begin by giving him one of my patented shoves that sends him flying across the room.

  I stand my ground confident that others would grab him before he reaches me.

  And that’s exactly what happens. In fact, it’s Pauli Bones and Moron who hold his arms. I straighten my shoulders and stand with my hands clasped in front of me. “Let the punk go.”

  The kid’s smooth visage changes into its natural dark volcanic fury. He doesn’t strain against the people holding him, but if left unchecked, he’d beat me to death.

  “Fuck you, cunts.” Gus enters the room pushing a dolly with an open wooden crate. Inside are Uzi machine pistols and other automatic weapons. “Save it for fucking later.”

  We all crowd around the box. The kid glares at me but the sight of heavy weaponry distracts him in the way a box of colored blocks does a three-year-old.

  “Don’t grab, you fucks,” Gus admonishes. “There’s enough for everyone.”

  I take an M-16 assault rifle.

  “Hey, Windows,” Pauli Bones demands, “you know how to use that?”

  “I’ve fired it at the range.”

  Both Gus and Pauli give me hard looks.

  “Friendly fire can do a lot of fucking damage,” Bones says.

  “Where are the night vision goggles?” I ask.

  Gus answers, “IRA was supposed to bring them.”

  At IRA’s name everyone stops moving. He may not have been popular, but his death brings home one’s vulnerability. If they could detach the head and feet of a hypervigilant psychopath like IRA, a man who craved human flesh and thirsted for human blood, not one of us is invulnerable.

  “So how are we going to see in the dark?” the Jew asks.

  “We’ll tape flashlights to the barrels. Shine the light into the Russians’ eyes. Avoid blinding each other.”

  Silence takes over as we digest this. Though using the night vision shit had struck none of us as an intelligent solution, it now seems as elegant as E=MC2, compared with the jerry-rigged flashlight idea.

  Finally, someone realizes we are captainless. “Where’s Vinnie?”

  Gus rises to the occasion with a bravado display of mindless contempt and arrogance. “None of your fucking business,” he shouts at the guy, an older gangster with wavy white hair halfway up his skull. “If Vinnie wanted you to know, he would have fucking told you.”

  This question lingers unasked: who’s going to lead the attack?

  Because Gus has lived for so long in the shadow of his father and brother, and because of his reputation as a fool, the experienced hands cannot imagine Gus in command. Yet the chain of command leaves Gus in charge. We have to follow.

  I must admit, Gus looks less stupid than usual. He has just put together a few coherent sentences that move beyond his exclusively obscenity-filled vocabulary. Henry V comes to mind. Could this cement-brained thug become a leader of men? Would he be able to fuse this motley group of freelance assholes into a single cohesive anus? Could he deliver a speech to rival the Saint Crispin’s Day oratory and, like Henry V, inspire his army to take on the superior forces lying in wait in the cellar of The National?

  Everyone’s checking their weapons, grabbing extra clips. Though we lack formal military training, we’ve been soldiers our whole lives. We’ve all handled automatic weaponry. We follow orders. And most of all, we feel justified, indeed righteous, blowing people to hell. We tell ourselves we are protecting our friends, our culture, our territory. Few people risk everything. We are the heroic few.

  Gus clears his throat. He’s going to do it. I already hear echoes of Henry’s powerful
rallying cry. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, for he today that sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother, be he never so vile, this day shall gentle his condition. On and on it goes, more bloody nonsense than I can ever remember.

  Meanwhile, Gus says nothing.

  Like dolts, we stand around looking at each other. I am not the only one who expects a monumental power shift.

  Gus peers back at us. He clears his throat again. Finally, he begins and with enormous self-possession states, “We’ll order some fucking pizza.”

  “What?”

  “Might as well eat while we wait for Vinnie. We can’t do this without Vinnie.”

  A great relief spreads through the crowd. No one, not even Gus himself, wants an idiot to lead us despite Henry V’s unexpected victory at Agincourt in October 1415.

  I conclude, however, that Gus gave the best speech he possibly could. He follows up by confidently ordering a pie with anchovies and two with onions and sausage.

  Frankie Hog stands next to me and mutters between gritted teeth, “I don’t like this.”

  At first I think he means the toppings. But I realize that Frankie would eat anything including the cardboard box. He means the situation. So I respond, “You don’t like anything unless it’s covered in cheese and tomato sauce.”

  “Shut the fuck up. Vinnie would not be late for this if he were . . . able to come.”

  This comment loosens my intestines, but I stay on the offensive. “You worried about hitting The National?”

  “Fuck you,” Frankie says. “Vinnie should be here.” He shakes his head but brightens when the pizza arrives. Grabbing slices from both boxes, he alternately bites giant chunks. My stomach is knotted but I eat just to show people I’m fine.

  Frankie Hog comes back to me and barks, “You know something.”

  “You have no idea, big boy.”

  “Where’s Vinnie?”

  “Fuck off.”

  Frankie examines what remains. He lifts the lone slice out of the box. “The smelliness of the fish does not complement the mozzarella.”

  I see his point and go to the bathroom to discreetly puke.

  In the office, the thugs are milling about dangling their weapons. A few have red sauce staining the corners of their mouths, except for Frankie Hog, whose whole face is schmeered with a layer of oil. He’s licking his lips.

  I think of Ariel and her secret weapon in life. How can I do this without being drunk or high? Long ago I decided not to say much, and never anything in public. Going on the record invites trouble. But I need to go on the record now. “Gentlemen, I don’t think we can wait any longer. The shape-up at The National will be over and we’ll lose the opportunity.”

  The milling stops. People who have been hopping from foot to foot freeze in midhop. Those stretching now slacken their muscles, and those who have been whispering shut up.

  My voice shakes as I announce, “Cry ‘havoc!’ and let slip the—”

  “What are you talking about,” Frankie Hog interrupts, “you fucking dick?”

  “Shut up, Frankie,” Gus orders. He turns to me, “What the fuck are you talking about, you fucking dick?”

  “Did anyone ask you a fucking thing?” Frankie Hog continues.

  “Shut up, Frankie. And you,” Gus points. “I don’t want to hear another word from you, especially not what . . . you were just fucking saying. It’s so fucking stupid that, that . . . you fucking cunt.”

  So everyone returns to form. Nerves and fright become immediately obvious when you start quoting Shakespeare on war or death. It’s an ugly tic I have. Still, I have expressed myself publicly for the first time. That’s something. I modulate my voice but even now don’t totally retreat into goon-speak: “I just mean that we can’t lose the element of surprise. After today, Vlad will whack us one by one.”

  Frankie Hog sums up his faction’s position. “We need to wait for Vinnie.”

  Gus, I can see, is momentarily confused. Maybe this epiphany excites his few working neurons: I am unprepared for the burden of leadership.

  Frankie growls, “Vinnie’s not here for a reason. Maybe he’s at a sit-down with Vlad.”

  “Wouldn’t he fucking tell me?” Gus asks rhetorically, though we all know Vinnie would not necessarily tell Gus a thing.

  “Windows is right,” Pauli Bones says.

  This shuts everyone up. I may lack the heft to convince a mosquito to bite a juicy ass, but Pauli Bones is a killer and a bona fide madman. His word is respected. I see Armageddon unfolding, hell opening. Bones will carry the day.

  “Pauli,” Gus says, “Vinnie will kill us if we act without his go-ahead.”

  “He gave us the go-ahead. This is his plan.”

  “So where is he?” Gus shouts.

  “Where do you think?”

  Gus deflates. His small power of command deserts him and he says softly, “Motherfucker.” His complexion turns ashy as he admits to himself that his father is dead.

  Bones looks around the room. No one has a thing to add.

  Through the fog of nightmare I hear Bones make reasonable points. “Vinnie is not at a sit-down with Vlad. Not after Julius and IRA got snuffed. Besides, everyone he would bring to the sit-down is in this room.”

  There is no more debate. Instead people begin taping flashlights to the ends of their guns.

  The irresistible current of events pulls me along. But I don’t panic. Because of my own reckless and irretrievable actions, I’m benumbed, dead inside. Outside, my gun is ready to go.

  By the time we leave, the desire for revenge awakens Gus and he asserts himself more strongly than at any other time in his life. “We have three cars outside,” he says. “Four men to a car. Guns under the seats. No speeding. Nothing stupid between here and The National. We pull up together, we get out together. We go inside like all we want is borscht. Blow away anyone who tries to stop you. It’s Tuesday, the slowest night. But they’ll be there, We’re in and out. Empty your clips. Do damage.”

  Bones adds, “Shoot the lights and bust down doors. Anyone with a flashlight is one of us.”

  People nod, each convinced that he will be the sole survivor.

  We put the guns in our coats as we make our way to the cars, which have been stolen for the occasion. I’m with Pauli Bones, Gus, and Frankie Hog. Pauli drives.

  We are attacking our neighbors so the drive is short. In five minutes we pull up in front of The National.

  Getting out of the car, not a single literary allusion comes to mind. A few film clichés flash by—the final scene in the Godfather, something with actors playing Luciano and Lansky—but these only annoy me.

  I need to focus on the moment. No matter how rich my inner life, no matter my hesitation about this work, I can no longer pretend I’m only half a gangster. No, I am a vicious outcast, a Nietzschean jerk. Killing Vinnie seals me into this identity whatever my motives. Death and destruction continue unabated and I’m part of this. I should just let myself be killed.

  So I find myself on point, first into the club. But it is Pauli Bones who opens fire and hits two surprised crew cuts standing in the foyer. I see them fall and I hear screams coming from the dining room.

  We charge downstairs. In the dank low-ceilinged basement Pauli Bones hits the lights. Flashlights beam here and there, creating monstrous shadows on the wall that dance and fall. I hear the thuds as bodies hit the ground. The Russians can’t see. Lights shine in the heavy faces of gangsters armed just with handguns. Chaos. Something socks me in the ribs. I don’t know if it is a bullet or a fist. But I keep moving forward.

  In the same second I realize I’m in the room where I got that beating. Vlad, here too, stands to his full six foot seven. And while his underlings are emptying .22s and .38s, he’s blazing away with an AK-47.

  Lying prone, I feel the whoosh of bullets flying over my body. I open up on Vlad. He shoots back, but another burst sends him diving behind his pillar. My gun clicks. I have emptied my clip. The light now s
erves as a beacon for my death. Vlad shouts Russian obscenities and I’m frozen as much as any animal who knows the game is up. But right before I die Pauli Bones and Gus burst into the room and catch Vlad in the chest. The monster is wearing a bulletproof vest so he’s merely knocked backward. He raises his gun just as a headshot blows his skull into a thousand fragments.

  The first thing I do is feel my urine. Lovely. The dead smell nothing.

  Gus and Pauli Bones are laughing as I sneak out of the room. No point in publicizing my little accident. In the hallway there’s no more shooting. We have killed every Russian. This should go down in the annals of mobdom. But then I hear a burst of fire. I lunge back into Vlad’s office. There, Gus lies in a pool of his own blood.

  Pauli Bones swings the gun, and the flashlight at the end of it blinds me. “Vlad got him.”

  “I need to use the bathroom.”

  “You saw Vlad get him.”

  “I’m not blind, Pauli. Gus died a hero.”

  Pauli Bones lowers his weapon. “Change your diaper. Clean up. Then get out of here.”

  For a moment, I freeze, shocked. Pauli Bones is letting me go. I know what happened, yet he’s not going to shoot me. Our friendship? Is that what Pauli and I have? Or . . . no explanation fits, but for the second time I leave Vlad’s charnel house still breathing. That must be a record. But Gus. Vlad, my ass. I saw Vlad’s brains drip down the palace walls while Gus and Pauli high-fived each other. Pauli Bones took out Gus. He would not have done that to Vinnie or even Julius, but Pauli Bones was never going to serve under Gus Five-Five Spoleto.

  For some reason, calm overtakes me in the toilet. I remove my underwear, wash my thighs, dry my pants the best I can. Pauli Bones. He’s a good earner, a decent manager, a stone killer. But I never thought him a boss with the vision to run a wide-ranging business. Again, it is I who lack vision.

  I try not to leave any DNA behind. In the trash can is a plastic bag which I use for my soiled underpants. I have no choice but to slip this mess into my pocket.

  By the time I leave the bathroom only dead bodies litter the floor. I drop my guns near one and head up the stairs. The stolen cars are still in front of the club, but my people have scattered. No one is in the restaurant or the lobby. I hear sirens. The cops will be here in a minute. I take one more quick look. We did something here. We, including me, smashed a gang that had been bigger and stronger than we were using a ruthless guile that I never believed existed outside of books.