The Crossroads

by F. P. Lione

  “Hello,” Grandma picked up on the first ring.

  “Grandma, it’s Tony,” I said without much enthusiasm.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine,” I said. “Who’s coming for dinner?”

  “No one, just you. Can you come?”

  “Okay,” I said. “Can I do a load of my clothes there?” If I didn’t do something soon, I’d be wearing shorts.

  “Sure, I’ll run downstairs with them when you get here,” she said. “About what time?”

  I looked at the clock. It was now 1:30, I wanted to get at least five hours sleep.

  “How about seven?”

  “That’s fine. I’ll see you then.”

  I set my alarm for 6:30 and passed out. I hit snooze once and headed for the shower, grabbing a towel off my doorknob that I’d used twice already.

  I was shaved, dressed, and out the door with my laundry bag by 7:05. I took the back roads over, Todt Hill Road to the express-way, and cut over to Clove Road. I parked in the spot reserved for 4A like I always do and buzzed 1C for my grandmother.

  She was waiting for me in the hall, wearing a cotton shift dress in a floral print, knee-high stockings, and brown slippers. She had a kerchief over her hair to keep her hairdo intact until her weekly trip to the beauty parlor.

  “Give me the clothes and go get a cup of coffee,” she said, trying to take the laundry bag.

  “I’ll go down with you to do the laundry,” I said. That’s all I needed to do, send my eighty-year-old grandmother to get mugged doing my laundry in the basement.

  We walked back out to the lobby and took the elevator down to the basement. The laundry room was across from the elevators. I brought change with me, and we loaded two machines, one for towels, socks, and underwear, and the other for dark clothes.

  We went back inside, where I had a cup of coffee while she put out bowls for soup.

  “I made lentils,” she said. She ladled the soup into the bowls and pulled a loaf of Italian bread out of the oven.

  We sat in silence while we ate our soup. She had the table set with wineglasses for the both of us, and next to her was an opened bottle of Chianti Classico. We finished our soup, and she went over to the stove and turned on a frying pan. She drizzled some olive oil in it and added a pat of butter. She took a plate out of the refrigerator with three breadcrumbencrusted rib eye steaks chilling on it. She cooked the steaks three minutes on each side until the breading was golden brown. She transferred the steaks to a platter and took two dishes out of the oven.

  She brought everything to the table. The vegetables were broccoli, sautéd with garlic and oil-cured black olives, and baked potatoes.

  She poured us each a glass of wine and set mine in front of me. She looked down at her plate and started to eat. I moved the glass of wine away from me, and she said, “Drink the wine, Tony, it’s good for you.”

  “I don’t want any wine. I don’t drink anymore.”

  She looked up at me, her face set in anger, and said, “You are not an alcoholic. Are you trying to tell me if you drink this glass of wine you can’t stop?”

  “No, I can stop.” I knew I could. I had a couple of beers Christmas night, and I was able to stop.

  “Then why don’t you take a drink of wine? Who is filling your head with all this stuff that you can’t drink?”

  “Is this what you want to talk to me about?” I asked. “Tony, you know I love you,” she said, and her face softened. “And you know I only want what’s best for you. But that woman you’re seeing.” She shook her head. “I got a bad feeling about her.”

  “Grandma—” I started.

  She held up her hand. “Let me finish, and then you can talk. She started so much trouble here Christmas Eve.” She held up her hand again when I tried to interrupt. “I said let me finish.”

  I sighed. “Go ahead.”

  “She almost broke up the family. Now Denise and your father aren’t talking. Denise came here today and said your mother was going to Long Island with her to bring the presents to the little boy. I’ll bet she thinks she can get your mother on her side.”

  “Her side of what? Michele didn’t start any trouble here on Christmas. Dad and Denise never talk—how can you blame her for that?” My voice was rising now.

  “She’s a putana!” she spat.

  “What?” My grandmother just called Michele a whore. “Grandma, what is wrong with you? Don’t you ever call her that again!” I said angrily, the closest I’ve ever come to yelling at my grandmother.

  “She has a child out of wedlock, and she’s not Catholic! Now, I don’t know what kind of religion she belongs to that says a woman can have a baby and not be married and act like she’s done nothing wrong. She’s going to hell, and she’ll take you with her if you marry her!” She made the sign of the cross.

  “Grandma, do you know how many women I’ve slept with?” She shrugged. “I could have had kids with any of them. Does that mean I’m going to hell?”

  “It’s different, you’re a man,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “No, it’s not different. And what about Dad? He cheated on his wife. That’s in the top ten of ‘Thou shall nots.’” I couldn’t believe what she was saying.

  “He went to confession and he got an annulment, so in the eyes of the church, that sin of divorce is absolved.” She slapped her hands in a “case closed” gesture.

  “Michele made a mistake. She could have had an abortion, and no one would have known about Stevie. But she didn’t, and I’m glad. He’s a great kid and I love him, and if I marry her, I’m gonna adopt him.” I almost picked up the glass of wine by reflex but stopped myself at the last second, wondering if that’s what Grandma had in mind.

  “He will never be your blood, or our blood,” she said, slamming her hand on the table.

  I didn’t even know how to respond to that, so I got up and walked to the door.

  “Where are you going?” she asked, startled.

  “To put my clothes in the dryer.” I had to get out of there before I exploded on her.

  I took the stairs down instead of the elevator. I put my clothes in the dryer, added enough quarters for a half hour, and sat down on one of the plastic chairs. I sat there praying for a couple of minutes, asking God to help me calm down and asking him what to say to her.

  This was the first time in my life we’ve ever disagreed on anything. I didn’t understand why she didn’t like Michele and Stevie. I mean, if she could accept Marie into her family after everything she’d done, why would she have a problem with Michele? And what about Stevie? He was an innocent kid in all this.

  Michele was right—they’d never see Stevie as their own, and it would matter down the road. She was also right about my family feeling the same way about her. I could see it in their eyes Christmas Eve, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. It was ugly, but it was true.

  I went back upstairs and tried to finish eating. Breaded steak was one of my favorites, but it tasted like cardboard in my mouth. Grandma wasn’t looking at me. She was concentrating on her food. I put my fork down and wiped my mouth with the napkin.

  “I’m not going to hell, and neither is Michele,” I said.

  “She’s not Catholic, you are,” she said.

  “Not only Catholics are going to heaven,” I said, but she didn’t look convinced.

  “Why don’t you go to Mass anymore? Why do you go to her church?”

  “Church or no church isn’t what gets you into heaven. Being Catholic doesn’t matter to me anymore.” She made another sign of the cross. “Knowing Jesus does. For the first time in my life I feel like I know God, and He’s not trying to send me to hell. He died for my sins to keep me out of there.”

  “Don’t do this to your family,” she pleaded. “She’ll ruin us.” I stood up and brought my plate to the kitchen. “Leave that,” she said, taking it before I could scrape the uneaten food into the garbage. She scraped it, then washed and dried it and
put it away.

  “I have cake,” she said and pulled a bakery box out of the refrigerator. She filled two mugs with coffee and placed them on the table along with spoons, forks, and cake plates.

  The cake was a blueberry meltaway. Cheesecake with blueberries and a crumb topping. She cut us each a slice and sat down.

  “So is this how everyone feels about Michele?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Everyone’s worried about you. She’s changed you.”

  “No, the way I’ve changed has nothing to do with her. It was my decision before I met her.”

  “She’s clouded your judgment. That’s how women ruin men—they tempt them until they can’t see straight. That’s what happened to your father. Your mother wasn’t so young anymore, and Marie wouldn’t leave him alone,” she said tiredly. “He wouldn’t have left his family otherwise.”

  “Marie wasn’t Dad’s only thing on the side. He’d done it before.” I could tell by her face that I wasn’t dropping any bombshells here.

  She pointed her finger at me, “But he never left his family, and he always went back to your mother and you kids.”

  “Lucky us,” I mumbled.

  I stayed another ten minutes to finish my coffee and cake. I went back downstairs for my clothes. Grandma came with me, and we folded them together in strained silence and put them back in the now clean laundry bag. We took the elevator back up to the lobby, and I walked her to her apartment. I kissed her cheek and said good night.

  “Wait, let me wrap up some food for you,” she called as I walked down the hallway toward the lobby.

  “Don’t,” I said. “I’m not gonna be home for the next couple of days anyway.”

  She nodded, looking old and tired as she let herself in.

  I went home and put my clothes away. My phone rang at 9:30, when Michele called.

  “Hey, good-looking,” she said cheerfully.

  “Hey yourself, legs. Still alive, huh?”

  She laughed. “Yes, I am. Actually, we had a nice day.”

  “Really?” I said, surprised.

  “Really. I like your mother, and Stevie loved her.”

  “He loves everybody.”

  “I know, but she was very good with him.”

  “What did you do?”

  “We stayed here, and I made us lunch. Then Denise took Stevie to get a movie and took an hour doing it, so I got to talk to your mother by myself.”

  “How was my mother with Denise?” I couldn’t picture it.

  “They seemed fine, very relaxed with each other. Your mom said the blizzard forced them to spend a couple of days together and get things settled.”

  “Good, I’m glad for them,” I said.

  “So what did you do today?” she asked.

  “I got some sleep, then my grandmother called me to come for dinner. She said she wanted to talk to me,” I said casually.

  “Talk to you about me.” Her voice got sharp.

  I didn’t want to get into it now. I still hadn’t told her about going to the bar on Christmas Eve, mostly because I didn’t want to say it over the phone.

  “Yeah, we talked about you. I’ll tell you about it on Monday when I come out there,” I said.

  “Okay. I had a nice day, and I’m sure whatever she said will aggravate me anyway.”

  “Is Stevie up? I want to say hello to him.”

  “He’s unconscious. We were out in the snow for three hours, and he was exhausted,” she laughed. “Your mother was cute. She made cookies with him from scratch and hot chocolate from cocoa, not the instant kind, and she made whipped cream. It was delicious.”

  I remembered that from when I was a kid. Real hot chocolate, then she made her own whipped cream and put a dollop of it in each mug.

  “Let me guess, peanut butter crisscross,” I said about the cookies.

  “That’s the one. Denise told me your mother always made them for you guys when you were little. Stevie rolled the dough into balls and flattened them with a fork to make the design on them,” Michele said.

  “If you dunk them in the hot chocolate, they taste like Reese’s peanut butter cups,” I told her.

  “I know, Denise showed us.”

  We talked for a couple of minutes more about my mother. Apparently they made plans for us to go see her in Pennsylvania. I wasn’t sure how chummy I wanted to get with my mother but didn’t say anything about it. My mother had asked me last fall to come up there with Michele and Stevie. I told her I would but never did. I know my mother has changed; I just want to take it slow before I jump off the bridge with her.

  I packed a couple of days’ worth of clothes and the charger for my cell phone. Chances were I wouldn’t be back until sometime New Year’s Day.

  I left my apartment at 10:00. On my way in to work I saw that security was beefed up at points of entry into the city. I saw a helicopter in the harbor, coming toward the bridge as I went over it. Extra cops were posted at the Verrazzano Bridge and Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Trucks were pulled over, and I saw their cargo being inspected at the Verrazzano. There was a K-9 unit at the tunnel, standing by with his dog while a trunk was being searched.

  There was snow along the curb lines as I made my way up the West Side Highway. Sanitation was everywhere, using an arsenal of payloaders to fill the dump trucks up with all the snow.

  I parked on 36th Street, finding a spot on the corner near Dyer, and sandwiched myself between a mountain of snow and Terri Marks’s Volkswagon Jetta.

  I went downstairs and changed into my uniform, then talked to John Conte in the radio room while I waited for Fiore to get in. I smoked a cigarette until the fall in sounded.

  The ranks were exhausted and roll call was quiet, the usual banter replaced by yawns and scratches. Hanrahan was looking worn as he gave his attention to the roll call order. He gave out the sectors, foot posts, and the color of the day (yellow) before getting down to business.

  “It is now 24 hours before New Year’s Eve,” he said, as if we didn’t know. “There’s gonna be a detail inside Times Square tonight for all the nut jobs camping out. Check all your posts for any suspicious packages. Any calls for suspicious packages found—I want them taken seriously. Follow the guidelines, and don’t use the radio or your cell phones. If you find anything or get a pickup of one, call me on my cell phone, but use a land line. I’ll call Central and the desk to let them know.” He gave us his cell phone, which we wrote in our memo books. “Any jobs in Times Square, I want the foot posts to handle them. I want the sector cars on patrol. If the Times Square detail picks up any jobs or has any collars, I want the foot posts to handle it.”

  The detail in Times Square is made up of cops from other commands. They’re supposed to handle the aided cases and complaints. Since they’re standing on a detail, they don’t have aided cards or complaint reports. If they do get a job, the reports have to go to our precinct. The detail usually calls us anyway to handle it, so if the foot posts took care of it, the sectors could continue patrolling.

  The sarge wrapped it up with, “I need to see Sector Eddie and Sector David after the roll call. Make sure you pick up your jobs, and make sure you’re on your posts—there’s a lot of Brass around tonight.”

  “What’s up, Boss?” I asked as he approached Fiore and me.

  “I have some ‘No Parking’ signs I want you to put up,” he said and handed us a stack of the blue signs that say “No Parking Today” in bold letters and “By order of the New York City Police Department” below it. “You and Joe take 42nd down to 40th between 6th and 8th Avenue. Let Romano help you with it.”

  He handed Rooney a stack and said, “Mike, you and Jimmy take 43rd up to 45th between 6th and 8th Avenue, and let Galotti take some of it.”

  Even with Romano helping us, it was gonna take us a while. Romano was complaining before we even got in the RMP.

  “How am I gonna work twenty hours between tonight and tomorrow? I’m exhausted already,” he griped.

  “Stop crying, ev
eryone’s exhausted,” I said. “Wait till next week when you get your check, then you’ll be happy.”

  “It’s blood money!” he yelled.

  Joe and I laughed at the same time. “You’ve been listening to the old-timers too much,” I said. They always call it blood money because it’s not easy overtime. It’s usually at least a seventeen-hour day. For Romano, between his DOA fixer, this midnight tour, and six hours sleep tomorrow before the New Year’s detail, he did have a legitimate complaint. But I wasn’t gonna tell him that; we all had to do it.

  We stopped at the Sunrise deli on 40th and 7th to get coffee and drove up to the Deuce and parked outside Applebee’s. It was still clear and cold, around twenty degrees.

  A group of sailors passed us. We see them every year in their whites and peacoats with their sailor hats, just asking to get yoked. By the time the week is over, they’ll be robbed, scammed, beat up, and broke.

  We let Romano take a couple of sips of his coffee and threw him out of the car to put up the signs, starting at 8th Avenue and working his way back toward us.

  “How was the overtime detail?” I asked Joe as we drank our coffee.

  “Busy. They cleared the streets, and the only parking is in the garages, so they’re packed,” he said. “It was nonstop all day.”

  “They’re getting serious with these terror threats,” I told Fiore. “They had a lot of cops at the bridge and the tunnel checking the trucks and cars. They even had a dog there.”

  “I know. I read in the paper the Coast Guard is in the harbor, watching the bridges and Liberty and Ellis Islands as possible targets for terrorists,” Fiore said.

  Romano had jumped back in the car and caught the end of the conversation.

  “Do you think they’re gonna blow us up tomorrow night?” he asked, looking worried.

  “Did you finish those signs?” I growled at him.