At the bowling machine, Danny Costello said, “I just seen Shady over at the A. and J.”
The bartender said, “Havin’ an early supper.”
“Yeah,” Costello said. “He was at the A. and J. He was havin’ an early supper.”
Owney threw the shot down and kept looking at the glass. He threw his head to the side. The bartender poured another.
“How’s it going?” Owney said.
“Same as always. You know what it is,” the bartender said. “We just stay here and give people a service.”
There was a grinding sound and then bells ringing as Danny Costello played the bowling machine. The bartender started to say something and Owney grabbed his money and left before he could hear any more of the place. He walked up to the Old Forest, which had a washed tile floor and a bar filled with men too old for Owney. He knew the bartender, Jimmy Breckenridge, who once had fought for money and now had a face that was a worked-out mine.
Breckenridge gave Owney a shot and a beer and then poured one for himself. The bartender held his shot high in a salute. Eyes rolling, he swallowed the shot. He spun sideways and his fists rose.
“I’m boxin’ Ernie Durando.”
Head bobbing, body snaky, Breckenridge began shadowboxing down the length of the bar. “Aaaahhhh! Left hook to the belly. Boom! Same hand to the head. Oh! Pow! I just got nailed.” He came backward with his arms folded over his face. “I’m hurt.”
He stopped at the bottle of rye and poured himself another drink. Then he hit himself on the chin with his right fist. He fell backward onto the duckboards behind the bar.
“One! … Two! …”
Breckenridge waited to hear Owney laugh, the way the old men in the neighborhood always laugh when he does this. This time he heard Owney push the change into the gutter of the bar as he left.
The third bar was on Cypress Avenue, a wounded old place sitting in a row of empty storefronts. When Owney walked in, the barmaid held out a quarter.
“Go play this song, ‘Yakety Yak.’ It reminds me of myself.”
Owney played the song and sat down in the music and had another shot and beer. Looking at the two empty glasses, Owney decided he did not like the place and that it was time to go home. He could either pick up his change and get out, or he could have another one. He decided to go home. He started to pull himself off the barstool.
“Give us another,” he said to the barmaid.
The barmaid had long, stiff blond hair and a cigarette hanging from a small mouth. First, she poured vodka into a glass of Bitter Lemon for herself. Then she picked up a bottle and filled Owney’s shot glass. Behind her, alongside the cash register, an outsized fish tank, an octagon, bubbled. Inside was a black fish, large enough to live in a bay. The fish had its nose against a corner of the glass.
“Here’s to you,” the barmaid said. She took no money from Owney.
“Good girl,” Owney said. He wanted to think about something that would make him smile. The barmaid stood in front of him and wanted to talk.
“You got a name?” she said.
“Owney.”
“Good. My name’s Patti. You got a Social Security number?”
“Sure.”
“That’s good. Least you’re legitimate.”
The barmaid swallowed half the drink. “Going to be a chop breaker next week.”
“Yeah?”
“You bet. Going to break my chops all next week. My boyfriend got his kid coming. I need this.”
By now the whiskey was warm sugar as it went down. He picked up the full glass of beer and drained it.
“Do something for me,” Patti said. “Feed this fuckin’ fish.”
“Why don’t you?”
“I’m scared of him. He’s a piranha.” She held up some plastic bags of goldfish.
“That’s all he eats. Goldfish. He’s a piranha.”
She tapped a small cutout from a book that was pasted on the tank. The duckboards creaked as Owney stepped behind the bar.
He swayed for a moment and was surprised at the unsteadiness. I used to drink all day and didn’t feel a thing, he said to himself. The fish in the tank was the same as the drawing: stubby, taut, about a pound and a half. Up close, the fish was charcoal. The underlip jutted out. The eyes almost contained a fleck of expression.
The barmaid held out the plastic bags of goldfish. “This is all I ever seen him eat.” She tapped a fingernail on the glass in front of the dozing piranha. Something tiny, a single crystal in one eye, responded to the tapping fingernail. The barmaid moved her finger a couple of inches to the right. The left eye of the fish rolled until it showed white. The underlip bumped along the glass until the mouth of the piranha was even with the finger.
“How do you like this?” she said.
“He’s just a fat tropical fish,” Owney said.
“Eat you alive.”
“Your ass.”
“You say. They brought a guy in here the other day, he owed some money to Buster. You know Buster? Buster grabs the guy by the wrist and says he’s gonna put his hand into the water with the piranha. You should of heard the guy yell. I said to myself, I don’t believe this. I ran into the ladies’ room.”
Owney pushed his fatigue jacket up his arm. He hooked his armpit over the tip of the tank and sent his fingers reaching through warm water for the piranha, which was near the bottom. Lacy gills moved the fish backward. Owney had an index finger crooked and he made a pass at the piranha, trying to get the finger into a gill. The fish slid under the finger and went along the bottom of the tank.
“The piranha is yellow,” Owney said. This time his index finger went into the bony side. The piranha’s tail flicked, left to right, and the fish ran away from the finger and into a corner of the fish tank.
“See?” he said.
“Yeah? You should of heard the guy screaming the other day.”
“I bet he doesn’t even eat the goldfish,” Owney said.
“Oh, no. This I’ve seen. Here you are.” She took the plastic bags, four of them, with two and three goldfish in each bag, and emptied them into the tank. The water splashed as the goldfish went wriggling in.
The piranha’s mouth was open wide enough to be on hinges when it hit the first goldfish from behind.
“See?” Patti shrieked. “Now watch what he does. Watch!”
The piranha worked his mouth around so that the goldfish first was sideways in his mouth, then head first. The piranha began to chew on the goldfish with the mouth motions of a human.
The barmaid said, “He always eats the head first. See? Look at him chew. He eats just like a mailman.”
Laughing, Owney put his arms around the barmaid. She laughed with him and he pulled her body full against his and brought his head down to kiss her. She buried her face in his chest and he could not get at her mouth.
Her hand brushed the pocket of his jacket and she stiffened. She looked up at him with alarmed eyes. “You got two bad habits,” she said. “Molestin’ nice girls. And comin’ in here with a gun. I thought you told me you were legitimate.” She pushed hard and got away.
Owney walked out from behind the bar and reached for his change. “I got to give it back to somebody,” he said.
“Please do,” the barmaid said. “Make sure it don’t go off on the way.”
Just walking along, looking into the windows of the Idle Hour bar, Fresh Pond Chop Suey, and on down past Grande’s bar and the Everglades bar, and then he turned up Grove Street, walking along and looking at the doorways as he passed them, just walking and looking. He did not notice the police car, which was half a block behind him, rolling slowly. He continued up Grove Street, where at the first corner the music was blowing out of the Swallow’s Nest bar and into the start of the night. Ralphie Schmidt suddenly appeared in the doorway with his sweat shirt arms rolled up to show his tattoos. He was smoking a joint.
“I finished the roof,” he said.
“I finished using your machinery,�
� Owney said. “I was just bringing it up to your house.”
“I just come down here an hour ago,” Schmidt said. “I look out the window and here you are.”
Owney put his hand into his fatigue jacket for Ralphie’s gun.
“Is it cleaned?” Schmidt said.
“It didn’t get dirty,” Owney said.
“That’s too bad,” Ralphie said. “Let’s have a beer.” He pulled open the door to a saloon that was a civic disturbance. Young girls shrieked in the music. Young men sat at the bar, on the nod.
“I’ll pass,” Owney said, pushing the door shut.
Schmidt looked at him. “You look cuckoo.”
“I have been all day,” Owney said.
“Then you belong here inside.”
“I don’t need any more,” Owney said. He handed the gun to Schmidt, who stuffed it into his belt. Schmidt brought out two bags of pot and stuck them into Owney’s breast pocket.
“Slow you down,” Schmidt said.
Now the door opened and small bitten fingernails pressed into Schmidt’s arm.
“I need ten dollars, Ralphie.”
Schmidt shook his head. “I gave you before.”
“I need, Ralphie. Oh, Owney, you got ten dollars, Owney?”
“Don’t give it to her,” Schmidt said.
“Oh, Owney.” She said it in a little girl voice. Owney’s hand went into his pocket.
“Here,” Schmidt said quickly. He handed Cindy a ten.
“I’ll give it back to you, Ralphie, you know I will.”
“Cindy, why didn’t you tell me you had a baby?” Ralphie said.
“You had a baby?” Owney said.
Cindy nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Sometimes I forget,” she said. With a twirl she went back into the bar.
“What year are we in?” Schmidt asked Owney.
“Nineteen seventy-one.”
“We won’t make nineteen eighty,” Schmidt said. “Ridgewood doesn’t have a chance. What do we need a bomb for? We got people worse than bombs.” Schmidt started to laugh, but stopped as he saw the patrol car pulling to the curb.
“All right, fellas, everybody stay right there.” A fat cop with eyes like a trout walked across the sidewalk as if it were coated with oil. Owney pushed Schmidt through the doorway and into the bar. He wanted Ralphie, the gun in his belt, out of this.
In the light from the streetlight that touched the cop’s face, Owney could see that the guy had been drinking.
“Where’s he going?” the cop said, waving a hand at the disappearing Ralphie Schmidt.
Owney thought fast and held the two bags of pot out to the cop. “Happy birthday, officer.”
“Look at this,” the cop called out. The other cop, a sergeant, got out of the car.
The fat patrolman took the bags of pot from Owney and held them under a flashlight for the sergeant.
“Let’s go, hump.” The sergeant stepped behind Owney and took Owney’s right hand.
“Hey, it’s nothing, I just did you a favor,” Owney said.
Whiskey stink from the sergeant’s pores was the answer. Now the saloon door opened and Ralphie Schmidt stepped out.
“Officer, could I say something?”
“Say nothing,” the patrolman said.
“This guy is a hero from Vietnam.”
“You say.”
“It’s the truth. Ah, fuck it. You don’t want to listen. Here, let me show you the man’s wallet. He got his discharge papers.”
Ralphie stepped toward them. The sergeant held Owney’s right hand and Owney put the left out to stop Ralphie. The fat patrolman had his nightstick out, however, and he jabbed it. Ralphie Schmidt stepped back and then came forward again. The nightstick jabbed. The tip of it went into Ralphie’s sweat shirt, just above where the gun handle stuck out of the belt and was covered by the sweat shirt. Owney couldn’t believe he’d come back out without stashing the gun. Ralphie blew out breath. Owney’s voice rose, for he was sure that the next jab would hit the gun and then there would be real trouble.
“Ralphie, will you get out of here!”
The urgency reached Schmidt and he went back inside the bar. Owney felt a handcuff close on his right wrist; a loud ZZZZZ into the evening air. The handcuff bit into his wrist. Now that it was real, Owney could not believe that they were doing this to him and he started to turn and talk to the sergeant, but the sergeant had Owney’s left hand now and here was this ugly metallic sound.
“Hey!” Owney said.
“Too tight?” the sergeant said.
“Yeah. Come on now.”
“You’ll remember this the next time, you hump.”
He shoved Owney toward the patrol car. The hands manacled behind him, the stumble as he was shoved, caused him to feel naked. The sergeant pushed Owney up to the patrol car and opened the back door and now that it was being done for sure, now that they were trying to take him away, Owney put his left shoulder against the post between the front and back doors, set his feet, and looked up at the dark sky.
The sergeant put a hand on Owney’s hand and tried to push him into the car. Owney set himself for the second push. He heard the sergeant’s feet shifting and then there was this great sniffing sound as the sergeant, seething, fed his rage with a gulp of air.
Owney never felt the right hand crash against the side of his face.
The precinct, only a few blocks away, had its doors open, with the light streaming through them as Owney was pushed up the two worn cement steps and onto the dusty, cracked cement floor and municipal green walls. Behind the high brown desk, a pinch-faced man with sparse gray hair neatly combed sat in a short-sleeved white shirt with a gold lieutenant’s badge on the breast.
“Two twenty oh three,” the cop said. “And resistin’ arrest. Two oh five thirty.”
The lieutenant picked up a big record book and a pen.
The sergeant stepped behind Owney and unlocked the handcuffs. Owney brought his wrists up to rub them. They were angry red and each had a white line branded into it by the pinching steel.
“On the rail,” the patrolman said.
Owney put his left hand on the rail. He brought the right hand up to feel the side of his face. Fingertips touched a lump that seemed many inches out from his face.
“I said on the rail,” the patrolman said. He grabbed Owney’s hand and slapped it onto the rail.
“I better stay here with this hump for a minute,” the sergeant, behind Owney, said.
“Put your personal belongings up here,” the lieutenant said, patting the top of the desk.
“One hand at a time,” the patrolman said.
Owney reached for the wallet in his back pocket. His fingers slipped off it and he had to make them go back again. When he had the wallet on the desk he went into his right pants pocket and took out the house keys.
“Money,” the patrolman said. When Owney took the silver out of his other pocket, it fumbled out of his hand. He started to stoop down to pick up the change but the patrolman slapped his arm. “Keep your hand up. Let it go.”
The sergeant’s shoe scraped as he kicked the change toward the doorway.
“He said money,” the sergeant said.
“In the wallet,” Owney said.
“All right,” the lieutenant said, taking the money, twenty-seven dollars, out of the wallet.
“Shirt pocket,” the patrolman said.
“My cigarettes,” Owney said.
“Let’s see them,” the lieutenant said.
Owney put the cigarettes and the lighter on top of the desk. The lieutenant looked at the cigarettes, Salems, and said, “We ought to have these looked at too.”
“All right,” the patrolman said.
“They’re cigarettes,” Owney said.
“Shut up,” the patrolman said.
Now the first anger came through the numbness.
“Name,” the lieutenant said.
Owney didn’t answ
er.
“Name!”
The sergeant brought his hand down on top of Owney’s head. Owney saw black for a moment, then pain shot from the right side of his face and made his hair stand up.
“Tell the lieutenant your name.”
Owney stamped back with his right foot. He didn’t get the sergeant cleanly on top of the foot, but he got a piece of it, a good piece, and now Owney came around, with his right elbow trying to get the sergeant’s belly.
With a shout, the fat patrolman fell on Owney with arms that were surprisingly strong. There was shouting and here was another cop, big white teeth and olive skin, who reached in and grabbed Owney by the hair and yanked his head up. Hard and high. “Come on now, you ain’t a fucking nigger.”
Owney felt a handcuff bite into his right wrist. He slipped his left hand inside his shirt so they couldn’t get at that.
“Come on, now,” the olive-skinned cop said.
Fucking guinea, Owney said to himself.
“Take it easy now. We don’t want to treat you like some nigger.”
The Italian cop began leading Owney by the hair to a doorway in the back of the room. The sergeant and the fat cop with him each had Owney by an arm.
The Italian cop pulled Owney into a narrow toilet. “I’m going to stuff you down the shifter,” he said.
“That’s it, Viglietta,” the sergeant said.
Viglietta pushed Owney’s head down. Owney pulled his head away as it was about to go inside the rim of the toilet bowl. His hair came free of the Italian cop’s hands. He was on the floor, on his knees and his hands in the wet piss where the last cop to use the place had missed. A fist thudded against Owney’s back. He folded his arms over his face as fists and feet pounded into his back and shoulders. The three cops, jammed into a narrow area, could not get the leverage they needed to deliver heavy blows. Owney put his right hand into his mouth and took out the bridge. He made a gagging sound. Mouth open, holding his throat, seemingly gagging, he turned his face to the cops.
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