Don Dimaio of La Plata

by Robert Arellano

  “Eggs,” Cantare says.

  “Eggs. Other guys get Italian, Chinese, Spanish, French, Caribbean. You smell how good it all is. You’re licking your lips. You want to try a little of everything yourself, but you’re always forced to pick the same dish. Eggs. You try them prepared different styles for a while and sauce it up a little every now and then—Benedict one day, ranchero the next—but after a time even that goes dry and all that’s left is scrambled and it’s not even fresh: powdered eggs.”

  “I know, boss, I know.”

  “It’s not over yet. One day you show up for the smorgasbord and where your platter of eggs used to be there’s something floating in a glass jar full of murky brine like some kind of abortion. You’re like, ‘Where’s my eggs?’ And the waiter says, ‘In there.’ Now it’s pickled eggs. For the rest of your goddamn life. You’re hungry as hell and they’ve still got all that good stuff laid out to either side. Tortellini, roast duck, beef with broccoli.”

  “I hear you, boss.”

  “You sit and watch while all around you other guys are dipping their fingers straight in the gravy or diving right into dessert—chocolate-chip blondies à la mode! oh!—but all you get is eggs. Pickled eggs. That’s what it’s like having a wife.”

  “Only my Stella’s not eggs, Pally. Stella is like…she’s like…sushi!”

  “Sushi? Uncooked fish?”

  “Yeah! Rice and vegies too. All the food groups, nutritionally complete. You could eat it every night.”

  “Maybe a Jap.” I snuff up the last of my five lines. “Not me.”

  IN SHORT, our ’gina man became so perverse in his viewings that he spent whole nights from sundown to sunup and his days from dawn to dusk in pouring over his flicks, until, finally, from so little sleeping and so much beating, his vein dried up and he went completely out of his mind.

  MACNAMARA PLAZA, SUNDAY, 1:15 PM

  Sanchez swings by to pick me up for breakfast. Quiche at Inferno, where my table is always waiting. After my cognac I head to City Hall and duck in the private entrance to my office, heading straight for the mahogany bar bought on campaign funds to entertain visiting ding-dongs. I pour myself a glass from my bottle of press-conference water (vodka over rocks), settle into the big leather chair, and press the button on the intercom. “Dotty?”

  “Good afternoon, Mayor.”

  Good old Dot, the perfect executive assistant: always at her desk, doesn’t know what Sunday is, doesn’t have a life. Too bad she’s a wrinkled old dog, but if Dotty was sexy she’d also be stupid and I’d never get any work done. Fortunately, most days I don’t even have to look at her thanks to the intercom.

  “What we got?”

  “Members luncheon at the Cap ’n’ Gown.”

  “Tell those fuckers to fuck off.”

  “I’ll send them your regrets. Then there’s Mr. Cantare’s wedding reception.”

  “Get me something ready for that.”

  “I’ll leave an envelope with Sanchez. By the way, Mayor, today’s your sister’s anniversary.”

  “What’d I get her?”

  “A scarf, a necklace, and some earrings.”

  “How much?”

  “Two hundred on her and three hundred on your brother-in-law for infrared golf binoculars.”

  “Take it out of the campaign. Anything else?”

  “Just your one o’clock meeting, Mayor.”

  “One o’clock? What the fuck?”

  “Tommy Fritos.”

  “Who the fuck scheduled this?”

  “He said Mr. Cantare asked him to set it up.”

  “Fuck Mr. Cantare! Hank knows I don’t do Sunday meetings. Cancel it!”

  “Mr. Fritos is out in the hall, Mayor.”

  “Tell him I’m not here. I’ll go out my private door.”

  “He was just commenting to me how Officer Sanchez almost knocked him down when he opened your door a minute ago.”

  “Motherfucker!” I’m considering bolting out the back when I remember what I’ve got in my desk. “All right, Dotty. Wait five minutes, then send the asshole in.”

  “Yes, Mayor.”

  Right-side drawer, underneath the note cards with the seal of the city, inside the Bible, carved out of Corinthians, there’s a compact mirror with four lines already laid out where I left them yesterday afternoon. Pinch left, right, left, right. Fsst! fsst! fsst! fsssst! I put the Bible away and there’s a knock at the door. “Come in!” you little shit. Fritos enters the second I’m hit between the eyes by the icy spike.

  “Goo moaning, Mayor. I love you spich last night.”

  “What can I do for you, Tommy?”

  “Nuthin’, Mayor. I wondering what I do for you.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Sure. Brautway grow so much this year I wanna put a little back inda city.”

  “Ha! You already do, Tommy. It’s built-in, in fact. Or don’t you pay your business tax?”

  “Evy munt. But I thought I maybe put it somewhere else. Maybe right in you funraise.”

  I don’t like the sound of this. Fritos is speaking the right language but it’s coming out all wrong. Too cocky. Too cool. I level crosshairs on him. “Is that all you came in to talk about?”

  “I bring you a connibyooshun.”

  “You know you’re supposed to take this stuff up with Hank.”

  “I know, I know. I just wonder if you want a connibyooshun straight from me sometime.” Sneaky Portaguee opens his coat and pulls out an envelope right there.

  There’s something I’ve known as far back as I can remember: There are people who are friends and there are people who are not. A great arc like a stormfront on the weather chart envelops the loyal ones, while outside the curve we quarantine the disloyal: the ones who don’t give and take, the ones who question and talk, and the ones who—a word that, even with its barnyard associations, doesn’t begin to approximate the despicable nature of their behavior—squeal.

  “No thanks, Tommy. Put that thing away.” I stand up so Fritos knows it’s time to go and he puts the envelope back in his pocket. He passes me one of those gross stogies instead.

  “Okay, Mayor, but lemme remind you I put inna low bid onna schools department lease. My building’s good building. Just what they ask for inna RFP.”

  “I’ll try to see that you get a good rating, Tommy.” I let that hang in the air and walk Fritos to the door. I don’t have to complete the instructions by naming the condition: Pay Hank, pagare Cantare. It’s understood in any lingo.

  La Plata is a town on the take. You want to be a cop? Five will get you into the academy. If my mother knew your mother, maybe three. You got tax problems? I’ll have the examiner fix it. A hundred-thousand in back payments magically becomes ten for a friend, twenty if you’re a regular guy, and even if you’re just a prick Jew we can probably pull it down to fifty. Whatever kind of business you do there’s always tickets for campaign events. Or, as mush-mouth Tommy Fritos puts it: funraise. One-twenty-five five times a year. Or if you own a shop of some kind, a yard and a quarter for ten. Every time a Pals of Pally dinner comes around Hank stops by and hands you a booklet. You say, “I don’t know what to do with all these.” He says, “Take ’em. I don’t care what you do with ’em. Sell ’em to your mechanics. Give ’em away to your friends. Light your cigars with ’em. But give me fucking twelve-fifty.” Money is respect, the purest form. Everyone could be happy if they’d just look at money for what it is, a token of loyalty. It’s not so much that money is required to play. More like the absence of money is an insult. Someone who doesn’t realize this doesn’t even deserve a setting-straight. Just let him go away. So pay up on time and don’t get on our bad side. It could cost you a lot more.

  Take the Cap ’n’ Gown Club, wedged between the La Plata School of Technical Crafts and Beige University, though this ivory-league rip-off society doesn’t have anything to do with either. It’s just a bunch of cravat-and-spats fags who like to prance around and pretend they never let
go of their good ol’ fraternity days. Chug a brew or two, sing “Boola Boola,” circle-jerk on a chocolate-chip cookie—Last one eats it! Lunches suck and even state reps have to pay the check, something any respectable politician shouldn’t do in this town. I fucked them over and took the membership but I don’t ever go there. I can eat a much classier meal for free across the river at Crapuloso. But you don’t go to Cap ’n’ Gown Club for the food. You can run the city forever and miss out on a piece of some of the biggest contracts if every now and then you don’t rub shoulders with the Beige brothers and the great-great-grandson of William Rogers and a hundred-something inbred heirs of the original pilgrims. Certain deals can be brokered only in their Mayflowery mist. But the main reason I applied is I knew there were some old blue-blood fuckers trying to keep me out. They didn’t want any names that end in vowels on their roll. Whenever I called, the membership director milked mine for four or more syllables. “No decision yet on your application, Mr. Dim-ay-i-o.” Made me sound like chickenfucking Old McDonald! They thought they could shit on me. Behind closed doors they called me guido. They called me wop and I-ti. They called me dago and Guinea. The stupider Aryans couldn’t even discriminate properly and called me nigger or spic. Fuck ’em. Nobody keeps me out of the club. I sent inspectors to slap violations all over their lily-white asses. They lost building permits like I did hair in my thirties. If they wanted more than a gravel lot to dine on I was going to make them swallow every last one of those epithets. The membership director ate “spic” on a stick. The Beige brothers nibbled “nigger” like spray cheese on endive. Billy Rogers III slurped cold “I-ti” on the half shell, swished it around with some sauvignon blanc, and gulped it whole. It didn’t take long to starve them out. In a few weeks I got my apology and a free lifetime membership. The hand you slam the door on today is connected to the dick you lick tomorrow.

  Being mayor is kind of like one big wedding party. I’m the groom and La Plata is my wife. Welcome to my wedding! You’re invited to kiss the bride, but don’t forget the time-honored tradition of stuffing the sack. I’ll take you right up her inner thigh, but you better be ready to stick the envelope in or it’s out on your ass in the Rawbucket River. I’m the groom and the city is my wife. Or I’m the motherfucking bride and Cantare is the sack. Either way, she’s holding it open to you. Well? What are you going to do? That’s right, money in an envelope: Here comes the bribe, all dressed in white!

  With Fritos out of the way I decide it’s time for a change. I go over to the bar and press the button to open the secret compartment. What’s it going to be today? The Flattop? Nah. Too tame. The Brushcut? Better save it for the parade. I haven’t worn the Pachuco since I got saddled with Sanchez. How about the Boogie? The Butch? The Ducktail, a.k.a. DA?

  All those natural bastards grandmaternally gifted with a great tuft on top never stop and think about the hard choices a guy like me has to make every day. The fundamental difference between their fleece and my piece: Real hair is alive and responds to its environment like petals on a stem. With me it’s like an artificial plant. I’ve got to be on top of the day’s perils and possibilities or my mane will look woefully out of place. There’s nothing more damaging to a political image than arriving at an eight-alarm fire wearing a slick codfish like you just showed up for a supermarket grand opening.

  Here’s the one I call the Jesus, not so much longer but a little shaggier than the rest, strictly for first communions. When I stride up to the front pew, all those meaty Italian mothers, moist under their best dresses, pick up subliminally what was on Christ’s mind same as mine: Eat me. This one, John the Baptist, bristly like on a guy who’s just had the surprise of his life, I reserve mostly for christenings. At funerals I wear the Peter, a monkish down that in the mellow light of the mortuary creates a slight halo effect, which, in combination with the prescriptionless smart-guy glasses I use for art openings and theater premiers, gives me the grave, contemplative aura of a saint standing over the casket and trying to decide whether to admit the deceased through the pearly gates. I usually let the poor fucker in, unless he owes me money.

  Today’s a wedding day, so I remove my morning Fuzzcut and put on the Cupid with its cherubic wisps. The Cupid makes me look cute, and wedding receptions are where I used to get the best flying fucks. The bride-groom-aisle spectacle causes your overripe thirty-something bird to freak out. She worries she’s never going to find Mr. Right, some live-in drunk to beat her up for the rest of her life, so she drowns her warts in champagne and an extra slice of three-tier cake and submits to a slow, standing screw inside a banquet hall broom closet. I swear, just the memory of it is enough to sustain me through the gag-amateur toasts and all that maddening polka music.

  HE HAD filled his imagination with every sling that he had viewed, with enhancements, nightly end-chowders, bottles, phalanges, wands, with tails of love and tits’ torrents, and all sorts of imp-awful slings, and as a result had come to relieve that all these dick-lick-us strappings were chewed; they were more rear to him than any sling-elf in the hurl.

  CRAMPTON, SUNDAY, 4:20 PM

  Sanchez drops me off at the entrance to Two Elms. People are already drunk and dirty. There has been booze, plenty of it, beginning before the ceremony. There’s so much free liquor in my profession it’s sick. At Italian weddings I’m supposed to get good and drunk. It would be an insult to the father of the bride if I didn’t. Parents seriously believe I’ll bring the marriage good luck when I arrive. I show up and suddenly all the guests know they’re in the right place. Let’s have another drink! Even the ones who minutes ago were thinking, God, what an awful party! are suddenly all, The Mayor’s here! What a blowout!

  You can hardly hear yourself speak over the accordion player’s hysterics. In the receiving line, I shout at the father, “You must feel like a very lucky man!”

  “I have a toss at Sodom, I’ve chained a bun.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I haven’t lost a daughter, I’ve gained a son.”

  “Oh, yeah, congratulations.”

  “Hello,” the mother moos. She’s big, nylons bulging. Lines pushing through the sheer fabric of her dress show a barrelshaped butt puckering out of parachute bloomers.

  “The bride sure cried, ma’am. How ’bout you?”

  “I’m twice as reary and a lot fatter.”

  “What was that?”

  “I’m twice as teary and a lot sadder.”

  “Well, uh, congrats.” I’ve got to move on. I must be pretty fucked-up. I spot Cantare with the bandage on his face at the bar. “Hey, Hank!” I reach with the right. “Happy ball-andchain!”

  “Thanks, boss!” I cover our shake with my left hand and crush Cantare’s hand, drilling my law school class ring into his knuckle. “Ouch!”

  I pull Cantare close and press mouth to ear. I’m licking my teeth and gnawing on my lower lip. “What the fuck were you thinking sending Fritos straight to me?”

  “What are you talking about, Pally?”

  “And on a Sunday, goddamnit!”

  “But boss—”

  “But fuck. He tried to pass me a thank-you right in my fucking office. He’s got his briefcase, Virgin Mary cufflinks, a tiepin with the Portaguee flag, and a half-dozen more places to hide a camera or wire. What are the fucking odds he wasn’t trying to fuck me?”

  “I swear, Pally—”

  “Swear all you want on your dead mother’s hairy ass. From now on, nothing ever comes to me except through you, capisce? I don’t care if it’s my fucking granddaughter who wants to give me her piggy bank. Nobody ever connects a payment straight to me.” A couple of drunk cops come over to buffet Cantare with backslaps so I decide to drop it. Hank got the message. I let go of his hand and go for the wife.

  Stella isn’t young. She doesn’t have big tits. She’s not even particularly beautiful. But she wears tight, nude-colored stockings under an ass-hugging mini-gown, and she’s got a crooked grin that reminds me of my favorite porn star. “Hell
o, Mrs. Cantare.” Of course she knows who I am when I walk over and pucker up. “I’m here to collect.”

  Stella plants a sweet, sticky kiss on my lips. “Me too,” she says, holding her sack open to me. My left hand slips in a business envelope full of fifties. No name on the front, but they’ll know who it came from. The envelope is embossed with the seal of the city. I reach around with my right hand and pull Stella close. Her mom was wrong: Stella is nearly as big in the rear.

  “You know your new husband works for me, but sometimes he makes me wonder whether it’s really the other way around. You might feel that way too, but always remember who’s really boss.”

  “Oh, I don’t claim to wear the pants,” says Stella. She’s got this sleepy, squeezed expression that makes her look kind of doped-up and Chinese. Dunaway-in-Chinatown Chinese. “But when he gets home I make sure he keeps them down around his ankles.”

  I go out to the car to snort some coke. Stella makes me think. I say to myself, ‘Keeps them down around his ankles!’ She says this to me one-on-one, with Cantare just out of earshot. What are the chances she wants to fuck me?

  HE WOULD remark that Marilyn Chambers had been a very good night erotic, but there was no comparison between her and Debbie Does Dallas, who with a single backward choke had cut in half two fierce and monstrous ’ginas.

  DONNY DOES COLONICS

  King Lorne lives in Wichita, a vast empire with every species you can imagine, all of the animals hunting and mating (whatever that means) under a fiery sun embossed with the feather-dressed profile of an Indian chief. This much I can make out between all the big words and dazzling pictures. It’s the world’s wildest zoo without the cages, and I visit one night a week. I can’t wait for dark and each next episode. I don’t know what to do with my afternoons.