The Wanderers

by Richard Price

  No one answered.

  "I'll tell you what I did. I took the fuckin' check, ripped it in pieces, an' threw it right back in his face." He stabbed Richie in the chest with a fat finger. "He ain't payin' his way outta this!"

  Richie absently massaged his chest where Perry stabbed him. Perry walked to the edge of the sidewalk twenty feet away and stared up at the rapidly darkening sky. "She's up there now and she's sayin', Terry, what you wanna fight for? He's your brotha, I forgive, you forgive.'" He stared up at the sky for a moment, a scowl curling on his face. Turning, he stormed back to the stoop. The Wanderers jumped up and scattered in fear. Perry grabbed the doorknob and yanked open the door. He turned to them. "I ain't never! NEVER! forgivin' him." And then he was gone.

  10. The Hustlers

  EVERY FRIDAY NIGHT the Wanderers bowled as house hustlers at Galasso's Paradise Lanes. This meant they would take on any comers from the city or the Island or New Jersey, and Chubby, his six brothers, and other regulars would match any bets on the game against bankrollers who accompanied the visiting hustlers. The Wanderers rarely lost. Chubby and company would clean up to the tune of a thousand dollars or more on Friday nights. In return for this easy money, the Wanderers would get ten dollars a man, plus they could bowl for free any time they wanted. All they had to do was keep winning.

  The week before Buddy and Richie got wiped out by two guys from Long Island. Even though they rolled the best games they had in the last six months they lost by sixty pins. They were scared, because Chubby dropped almost two thousand dollars, and Chubby Galasso was a big fat ball-buster who didn't want to know from best games in the last six years. The Wanderers lost by ridiculous spreads and when they slunk out of the bowling alley, Chubby was spitting fire.

  The Wanderers had a thing about the bowling. Two guys would bowl as a team on Friday night. If they won, two different guys would bowl the next week; but if they lost, the same two guys would have to bowl again. And if they lost a second time they bowled the week after, and they'd bowl week after week until they won. Bowling was serious business, and nobody was coming off those lanes a loser no matter how long it took to win.

  So this Friday, scared as they were, Buddy and Richie were honor-bound to represent the Wanderers again.

  "Richie here?" Buddy stood at Richie's apartment door.

  "Ri-chie!" Randy shouted back along the foyer to the bedroom. "It's Buddy."

  "S'let 'im in, asshole!" Richie shouted.

  "Hey, sewer mout'!" his father's voice echoed from the bathroom.

  Buddy lugged his bowling bag into Richie's room where Richie was sitting on his bed running a rag over his bowling ball—a milky green beauty spangled with gold-metal flakes. "I got the car downstairs." Richie slipped the ball into the bag, took his bowling shoes out of the closet, and they left the apartment. Richie pushed the elevator button and ran his hand over his gut. "I think I'm gonna vomit." He winced.

  Buddy shrugged. "Don't sweat it, we win tonight."

  Richie stood on his toes and peered through the elevator window along the motionless cables. He slammed his hand on the elevator door. "C'mon, you bastads!" He pounded the door. "The fuckin' thing ain't movin'. It's the goddamn niggers on the first floor. You know what they like to do? They like to hold the fuckin' elevator so they can piss in it an' then they send it up to you wit' a little swimmin' pool on the floor so you can track piss into your house so a little baby that's crawlin' on the floor will get piss germs on his hands an' in his mouth and get sick." Richie viciously kicked the bottom of the elevator door. "Move it bastads!"

  Machinery was grinding at the bottom of the shaft, and the elevator slowly glided up to the third floor. Buddy was scared that the boogies heard Richie and were coining up to kick ass. When the door rolled open, Eugene and Joey were in the car. "You guys playin' games?" Richie growled as he and Buddy stepped inside.

  Eugene and Joey looked at each other. "What's wit' you?" Joey asked.

  Richie didn't answer. Buddy shrugged.

  As Buddy pulled up in front of the bowling alley, all conversation stopped. He thought of Chubby's fat puss last week. Buddy felt weak. Richie hadn't said a word since the elevator. Joey and Eugene got tight and sweaty. The reflection of the neon sign washed their faces on alternating seconds.

  "You guys better win tonight." Eugene laughed weakly.

  "Fuck off," Richie said flatly as he got out, almost slamming the car door on Joey's foot.

  Chubby was waiting for them, leaning on the shoe-lined counter, his six brothers standing around the cash register. Mary Wells's "The One Who Really Loves You" played on the juke box at the far end of the alley. Chubby smiled, slapping Richie on the back. Richie cringed. The six brothers moved forward. They were all big boys. Fifteen hundred pounds of mean meat. "You guys feel hot tonight?" Chubby wheezed. He had asthma.

  The alley was deserted, which meant Chubby had kicked people out, which meant a lot of money was going down on the match. Chubby was still smiling, and he started massaging Richie's shoulder. A cigarette hung at an impossible angle from the corner of his mouth.

  "Sure. We're always hot," said Buddy, his voice cracking on the last word.

  "Yeah. Sure." Chubby's face cracked into a wider grin, the cigarette smoke obscuring his features, making his eyes narrow into slits as he nodded in amused agreement. Richie focused his eyes on the big man's nose squatting in the middle of his face like a chubby bear paw. "You know who you guys are rollin' against tonight?" The four of them shook their heads in dumb unison. "The same guys as last week."

  Buddy gasped. Richie's shoulder started to hurt where Chubby's fingers dug in.

  "You know how much we're bettin' tonight?" Chubby kept his grin, but his wheeze became more pronounced as his chest heaved under his short-sleeve, open-necked shirt with pineapples and hula girls on it.

  Joey and Eugene started backing toward the door but Albert, one of the brothers, caught their eye, stopping them in their tracks.

  "A grand?" Richie managed. Albert laughed. Chubby removed his hand from Richie's shoulder and spread his fingers in front of Richie's nose. "Five?" Richie gasped. Buddy felt faint. From his back pocket, Chubby took out a fat roll of hundred-dollar bills wrapped in a rubber band.

  "You know who's gonna win tonight?" No one answered.

  Chubby dug in his pocket again and took out two twenty-dollar bills. He gave one to Buddy, one to Richie, and nodded in the direction of the bar/lounge in the back of the alley. "Getchaselves some Cokes." They dropped their bags, and the four of them walked to the dimly lit amber-glassed lounge that was paneled off from the lanes.

  Eugene nervously spun himself around on a barstool. Joey hunched over the counter and lit a cigarette. "I think Chubby wants you guys to throw the game," said Eugene.

  "No he don't," Peppy Dio cackled. Peppy, an old uncle of the Galasso brothers, ran the bar. He wiped the counter clean in front of the Wanderers. "You guys is gonna win big tonight." Peppy laughed. His teeth looked like a set of broken dishes.

  "Peppy, what's happening? We can't beat those guys. They're good enough to be pros."

  Peppy winked and tapped a finger against a hairless temple. "Now you thinkin'. They is pros."

  "What!" in unison.

  "Yeah. Yeah. Chubby got to thinkin' how good they was last week, and he checked up an' found out they was pros."

  Silence.

  "Yeah. Yeah. They goes aroun' to different lanes an' hustles house bowlers like you guys."

  "Sonovabitch!" Buddy declared.

  "Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, so Chubby got 'em to come back tonight for a rematch."

  "We oughta kick their asses." Eugene rose, tight-lipped.

  Peppy Dio giggled. "You guys got nothin' to worry about."

  "Whada they comin' back for? They cleaned up las' week."

  Peppy rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. "They greedy boys. Want some more a this."

  "Don't they know Chubby knows?"

  "They don't know shit. Chub
by's a smart boy." He winked and tapped his temple again.

  "We still can't beat 'em," said Richie. Peppy only smiled and set a bottle of Canadian and four glasses on the bar.

  A half-hour later Buddy and Richie were rolling practice frames when the two ringers walked in with three other guys who the Wanderers figured for bankrollers. They recognized one guy from last week, the two other bettors probably heard what a sucker Chubby was. They all looked uneasy, as if they didn't think it was a good idea to hit the same place twice in a row, but as Peppy said, they greedy boys. Buddy and Richie stopped bowling, sat down with Eugene and Joey, and watched Chubby come from behind the counter, a shit-eating grin on his face. The brothers were nowhere to be seen. Chubby waved for Richie and Buddy.

  "You guys was lucky last week," Chubby said jovially to the ringers. "Let's give my boys here another chance." Richie and Buddy exchanged hostile stares with the hustlers.

  One of the backers shrugged. "Why not?" Before he could say anything else one of his bowlers put a hand on his shoulder and motioned his group back five paces where they got into a whispered debate. Chubby just kept smiling, sensing that at least one guy smelled a rat. For a split second, when it looked like they were going to balk, Chubby dropped the grin and nodded in the direction of the bar. Richie saw the silhouettes of Chubby's brothers behind the dark glass partition.

  "So what's gonna be?" Chubby wheezed and forced another grin. "You guys bowlin' tonight or what?"

  Last-minute eye contact between the hustlers and their backers. Joey saw Peppy Dio on the street sneak up and lock the front doors from the outside. Chubby saw him too. Peppy Dio vanished.

  "What's it gonna be?" Chubby repeated. Richie saw movement behind the amber glass partition.

  "I dunno," said one of the bowlers, a tall skinny guy with a face made for pushing in.

  Chubby raised his arm as if to scratch the back of his head. Albert Galasso emerged from the lounge.

  "What the hell," the skinny guy said. Chubby casually waved Albert back inside before anyone noticed him.

  "Good ... good." Chubby rubbed his hands.

  "Ah, same as last week?" one of the bankrollers asked.

  "Well, I'll tell you, I had a good week, lotsa tournaments." Chubby dug in his pocket and tossed the five-thousand-dollar roll on the counter. The bankrollers tore off the rubber band and counted the hundred-dollar bills faster than the Wanderers could see the green flash from one hand to another.

  "This is five grand!"

  "I said I had a good week."

  "We don't got that much."

  Chubby shrugged. "Whadya got?"

  Another conference. Hard stares at Chubby, Richie, and Buddy. Chubby winked at the Wanderers.

  "We get to pick the alley."

  Chubby graciously conceded.

  One of the bowlers stared suspiciously at Eugene and Joey. "Who a' they?"

  "They're kids."

  "Whada they doin' here?"

  "They're friends a the kids."

  "I don't like 'em. Tell 'em to take a walk," said the bowler.

  Chubby shrugged and started to tell Joey and Eugene to get lost, but he remembered he had Peppy lock the doors. "Look, they're punk kids." Chubby lifted them both off the ground by their shirts and threw them five feet. They landed on their asses. Trembling and confused, they got up. Richie and Buddy held their breath. Chubby laughed. "If I wanna try somethin', you think I'm gonna need them?" Chubby took another twenty out of his pocket. "Getchaselves Cokes." Joey took the bill and walked on rubber legs to the bar, Eugene close behind. "Enough a this bullshit awready, you gonna play or not?"

  Richie prayed they would say O.K. He silently swore to God he would bowl the best, the most perfect game of his life, shake hands with everyone, and run like hell. But he had to start now. The sooner they began the sooner it would be over. His bladder and his asshole and the nagging terror nibbling on the inside of his forehead with tiny teeth were making him walk in small circles, preventing his eyes from focusing on anything but Buddy's shoes.

  Buddy stared self-consciously at his shoes. What the fuck was Richie looking at? He tried to catch Richie's eye but Richie wouldn't look up. Buddy peered into the bar, but Eugene and Joey were out of sight. Suddenly he sensed that he shouldn't be looking into the bar, that there was something forbidden and dangerously out of bounds behind the smoky gold glass. His eyes snapped straight ahead, and he felt ten points of ice on his legs as his fingertips chilled him through his pants. He balled bis hands and the chill swirled in endless spirals within his tightly curled fists.

  Eye contact. Digging into pockets. "Forty-eight hundred is all we got." A bankroller tossed a stack of bills on the counter. Chubby laid his money on top of it.

  "Good enough. I'll leave the money right here." Chubby slapped bis hand over the pile. "Whynchoo guys take some practice frames?" he offered the ringers. "Richie, whynchoo an' Buddy get some Cokes?"

  "I ain't thirsty."

  Chubby glowered at them, and they took off for the bar.

  "Look a' this!" Buddy held out a trembling hand. "I can't even hold a fuckin' ball."

  Inside the bar Eugene and Joey sat helpless at a corner table. The six Galasso brothers stood flat against the amber glass. Soon the thunder and hollow crashes of the ringers taking practice frames echoed through the building.

  "You kids just sit tight till it's time for the game," said Henry Galasso, who wore a pineapple shirt like his brother Chubby.

  They had no intention of moving. It was as if somebody had shouted "Freeze!" in a game of Red Light, Green Light. Joey stared unblinking at his freshly lit cigarette burned down to a fragile and perfect cylinder of ash before crumbling across his knuckles. Eugene's Banlon shirt stuck to his back like a mustard plaster. He closed bis eyes and fell into a twenty-second sleep waking with a shudder and a circular wetness around his stomach.

  Five minutes later Albert nodded to his brothers, and the six of them filed out of the bar. The Wanderers sat wide-eyed and motionless.

  As soon as Jerry Rosen, the main bankroller, saw the Galasso brothers emerge from the lounge, he bolted for the money, scooped it up, and ran for the door. He pushed, pulled, and banged on the glass. Chubby calmly walked over to him. "Where you goin'?" Jerry turned around wild-eyed and opened bis mouth to say something, but Chubby slammed him in the heart, and he dropped to his knees, the money descending like green snow across his back and shoulders. "We got a match here." Chubby dragged him along the floor by the collar dumping him at his brothers' feet The other two bankrollers stood trapped and terrified. Chubby motioned them to sit in the hard sky-blue plastic chairs at the head of the lane where the ringers were taking their practice frames. "You puvs can keen score. I'm just a dumb guinea." They collaosed in the chairs. A score sheet lay neatly clipped to a white Formica table in front of them.

  The ringers started backing down the alley toward the pins. "Where you guys goin'?" Chubby laughed. They looked around. There was no place to run.

  "You can't bowl over there, that's cheatin'," said Albert. His brothers laughed.

  "C'mere." Chubby motioned. "I wanna get started awready." Unsteadily they walked up the lane to the bankrollers. Jerry moaned and struggled to his feet. Albert and Henry lifted him onto a sky-blue plastic chair next to his colleagues.

  "I wanna fair match tonight" Chubby said. "You guys are very, very good bowlers. You're good enough to be pros." The ringers looked at each other and ran for the door, but Albert, Henry, and Chickie, the two-hundred-pound baby of the family, grabbed them.

  "Look, take the fuckin' money," Jerry sobbed. "Let us get outta here."

  "I wouldn't think of it," said Chubby. "We agreed on a game, so we got a game to roll."

  "We just think that you guys are so good," said Henry, "that it wouldn't be fair unless you bowled wit' a handicap."

  "Fifty pins!" said Jerry.

  "That wasn't what I was thinkin' about," said Chubby. "Seventy-five!" Jerry offered.

  "N
o good," said Chubby, as he nodded to his brothers. Henry took a ball from the rack, and Albert and Chickie threw one of the ringers on the ground. Louie and Jimmy Galasso forced him onto his stomach and sat on his back. Albert yanked his hand out straight and spread his fingers. The other ringer ran for the door again, but Chickie decked him. Henry knelt by the outstretched hand. The ringer screamed and tried to buck Louis and Jimmy off his back, but the two brothers sat tight.

  A sixth brother, Ronnie, watched the three bankrollers for any sudden moves. "Sit tight," he growled, as two of them started to stand up.

  Henry made sure the fingers lay straight on the waxed floor. He raised the bowling ball over his head like a big rock and brought it down hard, crushing three fingers. The ringer let out a horrible womanish scream and passed out. "Chubby, you wanna do the thumb too?"

  Chubby walked over to examine the smashed fingers with the toe of his shoe. They were reddish-purple with deep gashes at the knuckles where bone protruded. Chubby didn't answer. Louie and Jimmy stood up, hoisted the unconscious hustier by his armpits, and dumped him in Jerry's lap. Jerry started to retch and threw him off his legs onto the floor, where he lay in a heap.

  "Do the other prick," said Chubby.

  The first ringer's scream had the Wanderers standing up. Richie knocked over his chair and quickly bent down to pick it up—maybe if the room was very neat when Chubby walked in they could all go home. He smacked his forehead on the corner of the table and saw stars for a moment, but the second scream from the alley straightened him up as if he had been stuck in the ass with a hot poker. They all ran for the bar entrance where they slammed nose first into Chubby Galasso's chest.

  "Those guys are hustlers. They fucked with me, and they fucked with my money. They fucked with you guys too." He motioned for Buddy and Richie to come out. Richie stumbled after him, almost stepping on his heels. Buddy wandered in an erratic tine.