by Thomas Pluck
Dante grinned at Jay while he stuffed Frank in the back of his angry-looking black Cadillac. He mock-kicked the old man in and shut the door. The Cadillac rumbled away with a throaty chuckle.
Jay rode back in silence.
“Have fun playing garbage man,” Cheetah said, loosening his tie. He turned the air conditioning to max. “Least he didn’t invite you over for a barbecue.”
Chapter 18
Jay brought Taylor Ham sandwiches to the garage next morning, but Tony waved him off, sucking down one of his shakes. Before business rolled in, Jay installed baffles in the Challenger’s mufflers to quiet the beast’s roar.
His phone went off as he tightened the clamps.
Louisiana number.
Jay nearly dropped the phone answering.
“Hell-hello?”
“Jay dawlin’? It’s Miss Cindy. Where y’at?”
“Doing just fine, good to hear your voice, ma’am. Good morning.”
“Wish it was better, baby. I axed around for your Angeline and Andre, came up dry.”
“Well, thank you for looking.”
She cut him off before he went further. “I put a bug in everybody’s ear at the cochon du lait, we’ll see what shakes out. Even told my hairdresser, One-Eyed Evie. She knows everybody.”
“I’d be worried she’d cut my ear off,” Jay said.
“Yeah, you right. But she ain’t nicked me yet. Makes a good gumbo, too.”
Jay could smell the heady scent of a roux. The scars on his back tingled. “You’re killing me, Miss Cindy. Could you air mail me a bowl?”
She laughed. “Ya need to come on down where you belong,” she said. “I got to open the post office now, but I’ll ring you soon as I hear a peep, all right?”
“Thank you, Miss Cindy.”
Jay snapped the phone shut, and went to see if Tony’s mood had improved.
“How’s Ramona doing,” Tony said, moping over his black coffee.
“Just fine.” Jay poured himself a cup, took a sip, and winced. “What do you put in here? Cockroach turds?”
“Go to Dunkin Donuts, you don’t like it.”
“Maybe I will. You want me to get you some Raid?”
Tony sighed. “For the roaches in the coffee?”
“No, for the bug up your ass.”
Tony rolled his eyes. “You come and go as you please, you run up a big bill. And now you’re gonna be gone for two weeks. You want me to dance the tarantella?”
Jay dumped sugar and creamer into his cup until he could choke the coffee down, and sat on the edge of the desk. “Seems like something else is bothering you.”
“You a psychic, now?” Tony swiveled his chair away.
“Tone…”
“Did she ask about me?”
“She asked how you were, and I said you were good.”
“How’s she look.”
“Damn fine,” Jay laughed. “I’m not gonna lie.”
Tony looked into his cup.
“She told me about my folks some, that’s all. She’s a lawyer, now. Environmental law. Makes me want to take a shit on an endangered species, so she can defend me in court.”
Tony sniggered. “You asshole.”
After Tony left for Sunday supper at his mother’s, Jay installed a panhard bar beneath the Challenger and a strut brace on top to tighten the turns. Gave it a test drive and yanked the wheel on a curve. The rear gripped better and the nose went where he pointed it.
Jay found a deli across the river and had the gray-haired woman behind the slicer make him a Yankee approximation of a roast beef po’boy. He ate it in a park on the Passaic where the trees upriver masked the Jersey sprawl of little houses and old industry, and for a brief moment you could believe you were in a wild place.
His phone buzzed. Maybe Miss Cindy wanted to chat.
“You want me to show you how to handle that old clunker of yours?” Ramona said.
“We can’t all have James Bond cars,” Jay said. “But I’ll take a lesson if you’re offering.”
He met her at the Upper Montclair train station. Across the lot, the elite huddled at cafe tables to brunch and complain. Ramona leaned on her Aston Martin, sipping a barista’s large iced concoction. She wore a liquid blue skirt and sleeveless top, aviator shades, and wedge sandals. Her legs flexed definition beneath the plush as she strutted to where Jay waited in jeans and a white athletic undershirt.
“Put a shirt on. You look like an extra from Grease.”
“Got no air conditioning,” Jay said.
“Scooch over. I need to get a feel for this thing.”
Jay obliged.
The vinyl seat squeaked beneath her behind, and she smirked at the safety harness. She lifted the center strap between her knees. “Doesn’t this crush your nuts?” She left the strap hanging over the seat, like a dog’s tongue.
“They’re doing just fine, since you asked.”
“Well, hang onto them.”
She broke the tires loose. Brunching heads snapped up and glared as they squealed away with a burbling growl.
She took the rolling hills of the interstate that cut through the Watchung mountains. “You accelerate into a turn, but don’t let the rear end get away from you,” she shouted over the wind, her bangs whipped back. “You feel it low in the seat when you take a turn too hard. Drive with your butt.”
She downshifted, feeling out the gears and shift points. Tony had built the car for drag racing, and the suspension kit Jay added could only tame it so much. They took a rise and passed a cluster of traffic hogging the left lane. Ramona smashed the horn with her palm. “Bear right, fuckers!”
She took the exit to Newark, into Branch Brook Park. The Hammerhead disappeared into the canopy of old oaks and twisted cherry trees, the intestinal curves of roads looping around the lake.
“This heap’s pretty tight,” Ramona said, and pulled over. “Drives like Dad’s old GNX.” Her father had caused a minor scandal by parking a gloss black Buick Grand National among the Audis and Volvos of Alexander Avenue.
“Switch,” she said, unbuckling the lap belt and squeezing over his lap.
Jay stirred deep down as her soft body brushed past his. He buckled in and left the center strap hanging. He doubted he could buckle it tight at the moment.
“Take it slow,” Ramona said. “Feel it out.”
Jay took off easy and built speed. The park bustled by the water, but the woods remained empty. He let himself become attuned to the feedback through the seat. She corrected his hands on the wheel, pressing close. He doubled, tripled back through the park, slaloming through the double-S curve at growing speed.
“I think you’re ready to hit the highway,” she said, and squeezed his hand around the pistol shifter. “Still can’t believe you drive a car with an idiot stick.”
Jay grinned and gave the Hammerhead more pedal around the lake. As they came over a rise, a little maroon sedan drifted into their lane.
Ramona yelled and Jay swerved around with a squeal of rubber. Behind them, the other car hit the water.
Jay pinned the brakes. Ramona braced her palms on the dash.
“Go,” she said. “I’ll call nine-one-one.”
Out the back window, the maroon sedan bobbed ass-up in the lake like an old turtle seeking deeper water.
“Get moving,” she said, thumbing her phone.
Jay knuckled the wheel and watched the car spin lazily in an undercurrent. He could hear Okie telling him to stay cool and roll on out of the park, but wilted under Papa Andre’s disappointed gaze.
“Jay, I can’t be involved in this—”
He thunked the shifter into reverse and smoked the tires back the way they came.
Two teen boys had dropped their fishing poles and pointed at the fraught young face pressed to the rear passenger window.
“Mister, we can’t swim.”
Jay kicked off his work boots and trotted toward the water.
“Jay!” Ramona called.
“Open the door!”
The woman inside answered with shouts of hoarse panic. The water lapped over the front windows. Jay tried to clamber on the trunk and slipped. He raised the rock and punched through the driver’s window.
Water rushed in and he followed it. The woman kicked away from the water, eyes white with terror. A second after Jay saw the child seat in the back, the green water swallowed them and the baby whole.
The woman kicked at his face as he tugged her out by the feet, wrapped an arm around her hips and pushed her to the surface. She gripped his neck for dear life. He took a gulp of air and shoved her away thrashing, and dived through the weeds back to the car.
The sun gave the water a dull jade haze. Strips of water grass gripped his throat as he went in the open window. He made out black shapes in the murk and groped his way into the back. Felt something squirmy soft and tugged it. The baby was strapped in.
He reached for his boot, and knew Andre’s combat knife lay useless on the Hammerhead’s floorboard.
Jay wriggled his fingers beneath the straps and braced, pulling hard, lungs beginning to burn. His heart throbbed, a cruel fist crushing the back of his throat demanding air. He could endure this for minutes. The baby could not.
The car seat strap popped and his head hit the roof, bubbles bursting from his lips. He clenched his chin to his chest to keep from breathing, clutched the child, and kicked his way out blind. Shoulders got caught on the window frame. His drowning body jerked of its own accord. The sun was a dim green spot in a black jade murk.
He burst to the surface with both hands thrust high, wheezing a breath and thrashing toward shore. Ramona hooked an arm under Jay’s shoulders and kicked back in a lifeguard stroke.
“Take the baby,” Jay gasped. “I’m good, I’m good.”
Ramona swam with the baby held high.
Jay sucked air, struggled to shore. “We got her, we got her.”
The mother sat spitting water and clutched for her squalling child. The little fists shivered as the boy gurgled water. The woman squeezed her baby tight, moaning relief, before she knocked Jay back in a crushing embrace. The baby’s cry was a triumphant wail.
Jay patted the woman on the back, his face lit with camera-flashes as he stumbled sopping from the scene, teens following him with their phones. Ramona smoothed her dress and wrung out her hair on the way to the car.
Jay kicked out of his jeans and collapsed in the passenger seat.
“We should get moving, Blackbird.”
Ramona peeled away as emergency sirens echoed through the trees. She looped to an empty field and slid the car onto the grass. They stared at each other across the seat, breathless.
The water pearled her chest with a mild sheen. She gripped Jay through his boxers and kneaded him, leaping into a kiss. He clutched her with a groan and peeled her shirt over her head.
She yanked his boxers, and his erection bobbed free. “This is still mine,” she snarled, ducked to wet him. Jay gripped her nape and kissed her hard. Tugged off her panties and pulled her atop him. She winced deep as they joined.
He buried his face in her breasts as she pinned him with short, fierce jabs until he roared with half a lifetime of pent energy. Clutched her against him, eyes screwed tight.
“That’s my Bluejay,” she panted.
Jay carried her to the back seat without a pause. She reached to brush the hair from his eyes as he slid under her skirt a second time, her smile feral.
Chapter 19
In middle school, the boys and girls shuffled into pecking orders they didn’t understand. Jay’s denim jacket got looks from Ramona’s preppy friends and her designer clothes got sneers from his. They held hands in the hall and kissed in secret.
Her parents thought boys were a distraction and held the threat of Catholic prep school over her head. In study hall, she palmed Jay a hand-drawn map directing him through the park, from his backyard to her bedroom window.
After dark they met on her porch and walked the tracks of the Erie line, where moonlight bathed a hideaway nestled in the trees. She glossed his lips with strawberry kisses while their sneakers dangled off the railroad trestle, legs tingling from the height. Jay kneaded her shoulders, thumbs circling. She moaned into the kiss, pressing her chest to his. Her warmth seeped into to him and Jay felt safe in the world. He weaseled his thumbs under her bra straps, soothing the red-lined skin. He rubbed his lips over her throat, her pulse hot.
He closed his eyes, feeling real for once. Not the demon boy who still woke some nights screaming. Mama Angeline would stroke his hair and smoke a cigarette, swirling orange squiggles in the dark with its ember. After the Witch, she’d had to chase him down some nights, crush him to her chest until he stopped thrashing.
Ramona pushed him from her breasts.
“Sorry,” he said, his mind fuzzy.
“You want to see them?” She adjusted her straps. Eyes sharp.
“No,” Jay lied.
“I know you do. I felt it in your jeans.”
His face flushed red.
She pulled her shirt over her head. Brassiere glowing in the starlight.
Baby fat softened her grown-woman curves. Her grin twisted wry, the left side screwed into her cheek. She sank to hands and knees and prowled closer, eyes bright.
Jay swallowed as gravity wrestled with her brassiere.
She knelt beside him, her breasts level with his trembling face. She ran her hands through his locks and thrust out her chest.
Jay shivered as he saw himself throwing her belly-down on the dirt, taking her like he’d watched the Witch be taken. Gator claws tickled his neck, and sulfur tinged the air.
He scooted back wide-eyed.
A tremor played across her face. She hugged her knees and rocked behind them. “I’m a freak, aren’t I?”
“I’m the freak,” Jay said. He crawled to her side. “You deserve better than me. I’m broken.”
“I’m the one who’s broken,” she said through the shield of her knees. “Mother wants me to cut them off. A birthday present, she says. Fix my nose, and make these pert.” She weighed her breasts in her hands.
They were nearly as large as Mama Angeline’s, and garnered the same hungry stares from men and envious sneers from other women.
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Blackbird.”
“You’ll say anything,” Ramona said, letting them drop. “They make you do it. Maybe Mother’s right.”
Jay furrowed his brow at the prospect of the proud diver beauty wanting to cut herself. Other girls in school had acne, gangly limbs, breasts out of place with their chicken legs. Ramona reminded him of the paintings in art class that made other boys snicker.
“Lisa had it done,” she said. Her older sister Lisa went to college in New York. “With her shirt off, she looks like a burn victim.”
Jay looked away. His scars flushed hot.
“I’m sorry,” Ramona said, her brow perked with tender regard. Stroked his puckered back under his shirt.
“It’s all right.” He could barely feel her touch beneath the thickened skin.
The two of them looked over the trestle-edge at the empty road below.
“You knew me before I got these,” she said, looping an arm around his neck. “You liked me, right?”
“You know I did.”
“Well? Is Mother right? Was I prettier before they ballooned?”
“I like ’em just fine,” Jay said. She locked eyes until he shrugged. “They’re part of you.”
Her mouth became a thin line. “Take your shirt off.”
He obeyed, shielding the pink-edged flames scarred across his back. A shotgun spread of cigarette burns glinted on his chest and belly. He told the other kids they were chicken pockmarks. Behind the pool clubhouse, R
amona had showed him the scar she got on her thigh from falling off a horse, and he showed her his. And they had kissed each scar.
“Hands behind your back.”
Jay sat on his palms.
Ramona stood and twirled, glowing in the starlight, shoulder blades speckled with beauty marks. Her smooth skin rose in goosebumps beneath the breeze’s tickle.
She straddled his lap and kissed him, eyes open and locked on his own. Pushed him onto his back with her breasts. In her games he wasn’t allowed to budge, and that suited him fine. Behind the poolhouse they studied each other through barter, but only she was allowed to touch. She would guide his hands.
She slid out of her garment and spilled warm over his chest and face, enveloping him.
Jay imagined swimming with her in an endless pool of blue. They could breathe it, and knew each other’s thoughts. The water was cold but they were warm. She touched him and it never hurt. The familiar swelling betrayed his excitement but his lips never wandered from her heart.
She tugged his hands free and put them to good use.
Chapter 20
Ramona’s scent lingered in the Challenger as Jay wended the maze of streets at the port. They had unleashed the desperate ferocity their younger selves had discovered, and it still radiated from deep inside him. Leaving her a second time was not in the cards.
Staying meant giving Frankie Dell satisfaction.
Weaving among trucks while jets roared overhead, he passed a snowy mountain of rock salt and the Seaman’s Church before he found Ironbound Carting on a concrete spit that jutted into Newark bay. The office trailer floated in a mire of asphalt amidst a Lego skyline of shipping containers. He parked next to a black Benz.
The truck depot stank of rot, and a low buzz of chemicals stuck in his throat. Jay practiced drawing Andre’s combat knife from his boot, reverse grip like a shank. He tucked it under the hem of his jeans and headed to the trailer.
Men in dirty jumpsuits lined outside the trailer’s single window. Rickety steel steps led to a beat-up aluminum door on the other. The door was unlocked.