One Hit Wonder

by Charlie Carillo

  “You tried.”

  “Not hard enough. But it’s funny, isn’t it? After I ran away, he fell down those same cellar steps he’d lied about to the doctors. Got himself paralyzed, and she had to spend all those years wheeling him around, wiping his ass. She wasn’t free until he died, free at last, and look at what happened—she had a stroke, just a few months later.” She made a snorting sound. “I’d say God’s got a little bit of a mean streak, Mickey, wouldn’t you?”

  It was starting to jell. Lynn feared that a man, any man, even me, would one day crush the life out of her. I could understand that. I didn’t like it, but I could understand it. All I had to do was show her I was different, an exceptional, wonderfully wise male. Piece of cake, right?

  Suddenly she narrowed one eye at me, as if she didn’t like what I was thinking.

  “Remember how I asked you to name my brothers the other night? Well, now I’m going to ask you a much tougher question. What’s my mother’s name?”

  I opened my mouth, closed it, gulped like a goldfish.

  “This is embarrassing.”

  “Don’t be embarrassed. It makes perfect sense. How could you remember her name? He took it away from her, along with everything else.”

  “Maybe I never knew it. She’s always been Mrs. Mahoney to me.”

  “You knew it, all right, but you forgot it. My mother’s name is Ruth. Ruth Brady. That was her maiden name.”

  As if in response to the sound of her name, Mrs. Mahoney let out a little moan. Lynn squeezed her hand.

  “You’ll be all right, Ruthie girl.”

  A nurse appeared in the doorway and said we had to leave. I got to my feet but Lynn stayed put, holding her mother’s hand, as if she hadn’t heard a word.

  The nurse came into the room, a wide-nostriled, heavy-breathing young woman with the bullying air so common and necessary to the members of her profession. Her calves were cannonballs, stretching those sections of her white stockings into fishnet patterns.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “You have to leave now.”

  Lynn turned her face to look at the nurse, smiling the same sweetly false smile she used on rude people when we were teenagers.

  “I’ll be staying here the night,” she said, not in challenge or defiance, but as a simple statement of fact, like a science teacher informing schoolchildren that the earth is round.

  The nurse’s eyes widened in disbelief. She wasn’t used to this.

  “Miss. You have to leave.”

  “I have to stay here with my mother.”

  “Sorry, it’s against the rules.”

  “You don’t look sorry.”

  “Lynn,” I began, but she held up a hand to silence me, the other hand still grasping her mother’s. Then she turned to the nurse.

  “Here’s the deal,” Lynn began, calm as a priest doling out penance. “This could be the last night of her life. So if she starts to die and she wakes up and I’m not here to say good-bye…well, that’d be a crummy way to go out, wouldn’t you say?”

  The nurse stood as still as a statue.

  “I don’t want to get you in trouble. Please, feel free to call security and let them know I’m here, refusing to budge. And if they decide I have to go, well, my man here will sling my mother over his shoulder and carry her home. Because the only sure thing is, she can’t be by herself in the homestretch.”

  At last the nurse blinked, folded her arms across her chest and jerked a head in my direction. “Is he staying here, too?”

  She’d won. My baby had won. Lynn shook her head.

  “No. It’ll just be me.”

  The nurse nodded, tilting her head to show Lynn some chin and nostril, a little touch to make it clear she didn’t fear Lynn in any way and was going along with the plan because she wanted to.

  “Well,” the nurse said, eager to claim her little victory, “he’s gotta shove off right now.”

  “He will. I’ll say good night and he’ll go.”

  The nurse lumbered off. I took Lynn’s free hand in both of mine. “What can I do?”

  “Nothing, baby. Go back to my bed.”

  “I’ll come back first thing in the morning. I’ll bring you breakfast.”

  Out in the hallway a night worker pushed a circular floor polisher, nudging it just over the room’s door saddle before retreating to the hall. A sweet odor of wax wafted into the room, oddly reminiscent of church smells. Lynn put her hands over her face as if to rub away a yawn, but when she took them away she was crying.

  “Rough world, ain’t it, Ruth?”

  I got behind the chair and held Lynn from behind, squeezed her, crushed her, tried to melt her body into mine.

  “I love you, Lynn.”

  I wanted her to tell me she loved me. She squeezed my forearms, drew a long breath to speak. Here it comes….

  “Pancakes.”

  “Huh?”

  “My breakfast. You said you were going to bring me my breakfast. I want pancakes from the International House of Pancakes, with banana walnut syrup on the side.”

  “Okay.”

  “On the side, DeFalco. Don’t let them pour it on. By the time you get here they’ll be soaked through.”

  “I heard you.”

  “And black coffee with three sugars.”

  “Jesus, banana walnut syrup and three sugars. Good thing we’re in a place with lots of insulin.”

  “Come here.”

  I came around to face her. She stood and took me in her arms, and then came my first real kiss from Lynn Mahoney since we were kids, a no-bullshit kiss—no shields, no fences, no caution.

  The big nurse reappeared in the doorway and unlike Lynn, I was afraid of her. We kissed again, a peck on the lips this time, and I left the hospital walking on air.

  Not so much because of the kiss. That was part of it, but the main thing was what Lynn had called me during her battle with the nurse.

  My man.

  I phoned my parents to let them know about all that had happened, and that I was sleeping at the Mahoney house. I had to walk about a mile to get there, and as I approached it I was struck by a bizarre sound that grew louder with each step, an urgent, insistent knocking noise high in a maple tree just outside the hedge.

  It was a woodpecker, pounding away on a rotted branch that should have been pruned years before. Here it was, nearly midnight, but on that sleepy street in Little Neck, chances are that the only two creatures still awake were me and a bird whose body clock had gone mad. It was as if the spirit of Captain Walter Mahoney had seized the soul of the bird to hammer out a warning: Stay away from my house, stay away from my house….

  I went to Lynn’s room and got into her big bed, still able to hear that crazy bird’s hammering.

  “Fuck you, Walter,” I said to the bird. It felt good to say it. And I slept.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  At the International House of Pancakes a fat waitress took my takeout order. She brought me a cup of coffee to drink while I waited at the counter, and suddenly my song started playing over the restaurant’s loudspeakers.

  The waitress topped off my coffee cup.

  “Must feel funny for you, huh?”

  For the first time I really did look at the woman who was serving me. She had a moonlike face framed by hair dyed a wild shade of red and pulled back into a tight bun. I peered at the face and mentally peeled away the flesh and the years to realize this was Rosie Gambardello, the first woman I’d ever been with. I could only hope she didn’t sense the shock I felt at the sight of her.

  “Rosie! Jesus! Hello.”

  “Heard you were back, Mick! How ya doin’?”

  I shrugged. “Same stuff.”

  Same stuff? The same as what? The last time I’d said good-bye to her was when I’d tumbled out of her car half dressed, fully loaded and minus a load, and oh so sorry that this precious thing had been shared with her and not Lynn.

  She looked like a circus clown in her powder-blue uniform dress. Ther
e could not have been a worse color for the body she had. Her life had obviously gone horribly, horribly wrong.

  But she was smiling. In a way, that made it even worse.

  “Pretty wild that they’d be playin’ your song while you’re in here, huh?”

  “Pretty wild, yeah.”

  “I’m hearin’ it all the time lately. Maybe ’cause this is an oldies station, huh?”

  “I guess.”

  Obviously she didn’t know about the movie, and I wasn’t about to tell her. My song came to an end, dipping seamlessly into the first few notes of “Chances Are,” the Johnny Mathis classic. Unfortunately for me there were no other customers at the counter, so Rosie was all mine.

  Jesus Christ, how long did it take to make an order of pancakes to go?

  “You got any kids, Mick?”

  “No.”

  “All those women you’ve had, and no kids? I got a kid.”

  Out came her wallet. She flapped it open like a cop showing a badge, revealing a shot of a chubby grinning boy with blond bangs, seated before an ocean-blue backdrop. He wore a white shirt and tie with the letters SAS embroidered on it.

  Somewhere in my mother’s house was a picture of me just like it. It was the official St. Anastasia school photo. Same tie, same backdrop, different face.

  “Tony Saputo.”

  “Who?”

  “My kid. That’s my kid’s name. Remember Petey Saputo?”

  “No…”

  “Well, that’s his father. He was an asshole. Still is.”

  She flapped the wallet shut and pocketed it, then stared at me like a girl you bump into after a one-night stand who wants to know why you haven’t called. Only this was happening twenty years later.

  “So,” I said at last, “you’re sending him to St. A’s, huh?”

  She seemed insulted by the question. “Whuddaya think, I’d send him to public school? It’s all Chinks and Koreans around here now! I send him to P.S. 94, he’ll wind up doin’ his math on a friggin’ abacus!” She sighed, shook her head. “But it ain’t cheap, Mick. Three grand a year now, at St. A’s. Can you believe that? Three grand, for fourth grade. What was it when we went there, a hundred? Two hundred?”

  A bell rang, which meant two things—an angel had earned his wings, and my damn pancakes were finally ready. Rosie brought them to me in a Styrofoam shell, along with the coffee and the banana walnut syrup. I paid her at the register, and when she handed me change she grasped my fingertips and pulled me close.

  “I was your first, wasn’t I?”

  “Yes, you were, Rosie.”

  “The first of thousands.”

  If that’s what she had to believe, I was going to let her. In some weird way, it made her feel important. I was dying for this conversation to come to an end, and there was no end in sight.

  “God.” She giggled. “You were nervous with me.”

  “I was drunk on your father’s wine.”

  I shouldn’t have said that. Her eyes narrowed, as if she’d just felt the flick of a whip. “Not too drunk to remember,” she said bitterly.

  “Rosie. Is there something you want from me?”

  She shook her head, shrugged. Her eyes brightened with angry tears, which she easily blinked back. “I just didn’t want you to forget that it happened.”

  I put a clumsy hand on top of her chubby one. “I remember, Rosie.”

  “I’m thinkin’ that maybe…I dunno…we could get together.”

  I took my hand off hers. “It’s not that time anymore.”

  “All right.”

  “But I’m flattered.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you look flattered.”

  I picked up my bag and turned to leave, wondering if I should have left a tip, wondering if that would have added insult to injury, when suddenly Rosie’s question caught me like a dart between the shoulder blades.

  “Who’re the pancakes for?”

  I hesitated, turned back to face her, felt my face redden. She knew. I was an idiot to think she wouldn’t.

  “Want some advice, Mick? Stay away from her. There’s somethin’ seriously wrong with that girl. I mean, she always thought she was better than everybody, but now…”

  “Now what?”

  Rosie’s lips quivered. “She’ll break your heart all over again.”

  It sounded like both a threat and a warning. I couldn’t let it go at that.

  “Rosie,” I all but whispered, “you don’t know her. I’m the only one who really knows her.”

  She shook her head sadly, grabbed a damp cloth, and wiped the counter between us.

  “You don’t know shit, Mickey DeFalco. Guess you’ll find out the hard way.”

  I didn’t tell Lynn about Rosie. She was delighted to get the pancakes and ate them with ravenous pleasure while her mother slumbered away. The doctor said that Mrs. Mahoney was in stable condition, and should stay in the hospital for a few days for observation.

  Things were looking up. Lynn was willing to come home, at least for a little while.

  We would have the house to ourselves.

  We held hands as we walked back to the Mahoney house. It was a gorgeous day, clear and dry and sunny, and suddenly the world was a big, juicy ripe apple, and I was about to bite into it.

  Except the apple turned around and bit me.

  A cop car pulled up in front of us and parked at a hard angle to the curb. Two young cops, one skinny and the other muscular, jumped out of the car and hurried toward me.

  “Hey,” the skinny one said, “are you Mickey DeFalco?”

  A film of sweat broke out all over my body. It actually made Lynn’s hand feel slippery in mine.

  “Yes, I am,” I said, fearing the worst, both happy and sad that at least I was with the woman I loved when it all came crashing down.

  The cops stood there with their hands on their hips. Then, almost shyly, the skinny cop put out his hand.

  “Just wanted to say that’s a killer song you wrote,” he said. “Been hearin’ it on the radio all the time lately.”

  I shook hands with both of them.

  “They don’t write ’em like that anymore,” said the muscular cop. He thumped himself on the chest. “Real heart, man.”

  “Well, thanks.”

  I introduced them to Lynn without telling them she was the inspiration for the song. They touched the brims of their caps and nodded, then drove away.

  I had to sit down on the curb. I was soaked in sweat. I was hyperventilating. Lynn sat beside me and rubbed my shoulders.

  “Hey, Mickey, what’s this all about?”

  I looked at her. I loved her—God, how I loved her!—even more than when I was a kid. But it had to be perfect, and that meant she had to know everything about me that mattered, and that meant it was time at last for the secret truth that had been burning a hole in my soul ever since my return to Little Neck.

  “Lynn, listen to me,” I began. “You’re the only person in the world who ever knew me inside out. I always liked that, liked that there was one person in the world who really knew me.”

  She couldn’t help chuckling. “Mickey. We’ve been apart for twenty years. There are going to be some gaps in what we know about each other, you know?”

  “I’m not talking about who we slept with, or any of that bullshit. I’m talking about crucial stuff. You and I have to know each other’s crucial stuff if this is going to work.”

  “Mickey. Just tell me.”

  “It could change the way you feel about me.”

  “I doubt that.”

  I took a deep breath, inspected the cloudless sky. Lynn’s hand massaged the back of my neck. It was just the nudge I needed to get the words moving.

  “It happened just before I moved back,” I began. “See, I’d been homeless for about two weeks in Los Angeles, and things were really bad.”

  She stared at me in shock. “Homeless? You mean literally homeless, out on the street?”

  I shrugged. “Actually, I was on
a beach,” I began, and then I told her everything, absolutely everything that mattered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  When you’re homeless the wind has a way of finding you at night, especially in a place like Los Angeles, when the desert breezes come to life after sunset. They persist like bill collectors, nagging, chilling reminders that you are not welcome anywhere indoors, except for places like cafeterias and public libraries, and even then you can’t let your chin fall to your chest and nod off or they throw you out on your ass.

  I’d found a good spot to crash. It was an abandoned shed off the beach in Venice, a place that had once been used to store tools. It was surrounded by tall, thorny weeds and had a splintered wooden door that slid open, and if I got inside and closed it all the way I was fully protected from the wind.

  It was like an oversized coffin but I knew I was lucky to have found it, lucky that another down-and-outer hadn’t claimed it already. I’d recently checked out of the shitty rooming house I’d called home and this crummy little box was going to have to do me for a while. My few worldly goods were in a storage locker at a bus station. There was a public toilet on the beach they unlocked at seven A.M. I could shave and brush my teeth in there and when the sun was high, I could keep relatively clean by swimming in the Pacific.

  The key was to avoid bringing soap to the water’s edge. That’s how they nail you for vagrancy, if they catch you lathering up in the surf.

  I never allowed myself to believe I was actually living in that abandoned shed. I told myself it was where I went to rest, to collect my thoughts, to figure out my next move.

  But a few nights became a week, and then two weeks, and then one morning I slept past dawn and awoke to the persistent nudging of a shoe to my rib cage, a well-shined shoe that was laced on the foot of a tall, pot-bellied man with a cap and a badge.

  “Let’s go, buddy,” he said, not sounding angry or cruel, just bored by this task he’d certainly performed a thousand times before. Cops have that foot nudge down pat. It’s not a kick, so you can’t cry brutality, but they dig in between the ribs and leave marks that bloom into bruises the next day.