A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself

by William Boyle

  Instead, here she is.

  The drive over was slow. So much traffic by JFK. Enzio’s Impala floated. People looked at her, an automatic class act in a car like that. She nodded to indicate the car was hers and wasn’t she lucky, her hands tight on the wheel, straining not to break character. It was easy to feel like what had happened back at Enzio’s hadn’t happened at all. The ashtray, the blood, none of that could be real. She was headed, she thought, for reconciliation, for a safe haven. Where else to run if not to family? She’d imagined telling Adrienne about Enzio. What he’d tried to do. What she’d done in response. She’d played it many different ways in her head. Now what?

  When she gets back downstairs, Wolfstein’s sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter, drinking a beer. Rena takes in her outfit. Bra showing under her shirt like that. Jeans that look like something a college girl would wear.

  “Sure you don’t want one?” Wolfstein asks.

  Rena says, “No, thank you.”

  “Feeling a little better?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re torn up. It’s understandable.”

  “You have kids? Grandkids?”

  Wolfstein puts down her mug and belly-laughs, the laugh turning into a cough. “Me? No, no, hell no.” She settles down. “My mother split when I was seven, you know? Off to an artist’s commune or some bullshit. Left me with her whacko sister, who’d paddle me when I used a teaspoon instead of a tablespoon to eat my Corn Flakes, no kidding. I saw all the ways I could fuck up as a mother, and I cut it off at the pass. Plus, you know, my line of work.”

  “Your line of work?”

  “Actress.”

  “Oh, you were an actress. I met Geena Davis once. They were filming Angie in the neighborhood. What were you in?”

  Wolfstein smiles again. “Nothing you would’ve seen, I’d venture to guess.”

  “The soaps?”

  “Something like that. What’d you do for work?”

  “I was home with Adrienne. After my husband died, I thought about getting back into accounting, which is what I went to college for.”

  “You’re a widow?”

  Rena nods. She returns to the sofa. “Vic, my husband’s name was. He shouldn’t have died.”

  “I’m sorry. What happened?”

  Rena ignores the question, something she’s accustomed to. “Adrienne and I had a falling-out at the funeral. It’s been all downhill since.”

  “Your own daughter making a scene at her old man’s funeral? Not nice.” Wolfstein slugs down the last of her beer and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. She continues: “I was watching this talk show the other day. I can’t remember the one exactly, one that’s on in the afternoon, you know, and they were talking about this very thing. Adrienne’s behavior towards you—they were saying this on the show, basically—is a sort of violence. I mean, she’s not punching you, kicking you, throwing things at you, but it’s not that far off. Emotional violence, they were saying. I like those afternoon talk shows. I learn a lot.”

  Emotional violence. Rena thinking that sounds about right. The victim of some unforeseen rage from Adrienne. What’d Rena ever do but try to be kind, be helpful, be a good mom? Adrienne never got dragged into her old man’s affairs. It was a separate world.

  The phone rings in the kitchen.

  Rena’s thoughts start running wild. It’s the cops. They found Enzio, tracked her here, and are calling to tell Wolfstein she’s harboring a dangerous fugitive. It’s Enzio, back from the dead, or maybe never dead at all, on the hunt for his Impala.

  “Now who the hell is this?” Wolfstein says, picking up. An old red rotary on the wall with a cord. Just like Rena’s, except for the color.

  Rena can tell from Wolfstein’s face that there’s silence on the other end.

  “You got two seconds,” Wolfstein says into the phone.

  Rena counts it out. One, two. Wolfstein’s true to her word. She slams down the handset. “Heavy breather,” Wolfstein says. “Haven’t gotten one of those in a long time.”

  The phone rings again.

  Wolfstein’s fast to it. “Listen, pal,” she says.

  This time there’s talking on the other end.

  “How’d you get this number?” she asks.

  Wolfstein has her back to Rena, the cord twisted around her body. She’s holding the handset close to her ear, listening intently, whispering uh-huhs. She takes a deep breath when the person on the other end stops and then starts talking: “Bobby, listen. I know you’re upset. I get it. It was all on the level, I’m telling you. You really helped me out. Saved my skin. I’ll be forever grateful. Bobby, I’m just, you know, I’m really thankful you helped me. I felt that way, too.” She seems to lose track of what she’s saying.

  More from Bobby on the other end. Louder this time.

  “You’re a nice guy, Bobby, I know you are,” Wolfstein says. “Don’t talk like that.”

  The line goes dead.

  Wolfstein hangs up the phone with a gentle touch, setting the handset in its cradle as if it’s something sharp.

  “You okay?” Rena asks.

  “Shit,” Wolfstein says. “Everything’s fine. Just a crazy ex.”

  “He threatened you?”

  “‘I love you, I’m gonna off myself,’ that kind of thing. It’s been a while. No idea how he found me. What’s he gonna do, blow his brains out on my doorstep? I’m not worried. I screwed him over, and he’s just getting some stuff off his chest.”

  “You wanna call the cops or someone?”

  Wolfstein shakes her head. “Bobby’s not a bad guy. Sad sack. I hurt him a little too much, I guess. He’s got the teensiest little pecker; that’s what I mainly remember about him. Like a hazelnut.”

  Rena’s not sure what to make of this. She sits up properly, hands on her knees. She’s no prude, but she’s also got no desire to think about Wolfstein’s ex’s privates. Her mind flashes to the movie that Enzio put on—she can’t help it. Those smooth male parts like something new in a sleek suburban kitchen, like one of those bullet blenders. All she’s known in life is Vic’s rig, which always reminded her of a sock puppet, kind of sad and imperfect and cute. One time, they lost power in the house and she had to go down to the cellar in the dark and fondle along the wall until she thumbed on the light switch; it had reminded her of touching Vic.

  Thinking like this. Disgusting.

  Wolfstein homes in on a bottle of Absolut on the counter and unscrews the cap. “Bobby fucking Murray,” she says, taking a slug and shaking her head. “From Woodlawn, I remember correctly. I knew him in Florida.”

  “You don’t mind me asking, what happened?” Not like Rena to pry, but there’s an easiness, a looseness, to conversation with Wolfstein.

  “Maybe we’re on the road to being good friends, or maybe we’ll never see each other again after today,” Wolfstein says. “Either way, I’m feeling like I can confide in you. You really want to know?”

  “If you want to tell me. No pressure.”

  More vodka for Wolfstein. “You’re not too worn out?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Okay, first things first: the movies I was in were skin flicks. Back in the seventies and eighties. Pre-AIDs. Not like now. The men were all hairy, and the women didn’t have phony knockers, you know? Real-deal stuff. The balling was mostly fun. I was celebrated for my rack.”

  “You were in dirty movies?” Rena says, again thinking of Enzio and what he’d put on. Those bodies and the way they thrusted, the noises that happened, squishings and poundings, the strange dialogue. Used to be a XXX theater in her neighborhood. She can’t remember the real name. Porno Palace, people called it. She remembers passing it on Bath Avenue, the marquee with its red letters, the vibe of the place. Skeevy men in overcoats—a cliché, but a reality—stumbled in and out of the front doors. The floor was probably greased with semen. She remembers seeing ads for the theater in the newspapers with show times, names of movies, and being s
o glad Vic wasn’t the type of guy escaping there for relief with all the old nasties from that home on Cropsey, men who wiggled their hands in their pants when they were just out walking. Forget what probably went on in that theater. Some kind of hell. Rena wonders if Wolfstein’s movies were shown there.

  “You’re judging me,” Wolfstein says.

  “Not at all,” Rena says.

  “I can tell.”

  “It’s just . . . different.”

  “Anyhow, it’s only the beginning of the story. I did movies for a while, into my late thirties. The scene changed. Diseases were becoming more of a thing. I bailed. No one tried to convince me otherwise. After that, I hit a rough patch. Drugs, bad boyfriends, stripping in dives, failed rehab stints, getting mixed up with my folks again, everything generally going down the shitter. I woke up one morning somewhere in Yuma, Arizona. A trailer park. With this guy. He’d overdosed on the toilet. I’d puked in my sleep, miraculously hadn’t choked to death. I made a decision right then. Got the hell out of there and went to Florida to get right.”

  “The guy was dead and you left him?” Rena says.

  “Hell yeah, I left the fucker. I didn’t even know his name. You ever been to Yuma, Arizona? Guy’s probably still there, rotting away. No one gave a shit about him, least of all me.”

  “And you don’t feel bad?”

  “Not about that. I feel bad about the time I stole fifty bucks from a fortune-teller. I feel bad about the time back in Hollywood when I slept with Hunny’s fiancé—Hunny was a good pal of mine back in those days. I feel bad about shoplifting from that health food store on Santa Monica Boulevard for five years straight. Sister, I’ve got a lot of regrets, big and small. That worthless junkie’s not one of them.”

  “Why Florida?”

  “Florida because I had a pal who’d moved there, Mo. We’d been in a few movies together. She helped me straighten out. I owe her everything. No time at all, I was doing this radio show with her. Thriving. Not making much dough, but getting healthy and getting my head clear. Got to where I could go to karaoke night and do ‘Rhiannon’ and get the old guys lining up. Wheels started spinning. Mo’s wheels first; that’s the way she operated.”

  “Spinning how?” Rena says.

  “Thinking how there was an abundance of these rich old bastards down there. In their boat shoes and shitty polo shirts. Widowers, divorcés, whatever, living large. Hunting broads, mostly. They liked me, I liked them. So I took advantage of the situation.”

  Rena tries to process what Wolfstein is saying. She’ll admit she doesn’t quite understand. She’ll admit she’s shocked by some of these revelations. Dirty movies and drugs—she wouldn’t have expected that. Wolfstein’s a little flashier than her, sure, but she’s around the same age, and you wouldn’t know she was different, that she had this dark history, just to look at her.

  But who’s Rena to think about dark histories, anyway? Married to Gentle Vic Ruggiero. She knew some of what he’d done, had heard rumors of other things. She’s wondering if you can just decide what’s good-bad and what’s bad-bad. Why should porno be scuzzier than being a wiseguy? Rena has closed her eyes to certain things, made judgments about the world and other people that aren’t fair. Meanwhile, she’s been subject to judgment herself. Mob wife. Catholic goody-two-shoes. Hypocrite.

  “Maybe I should stop talking,” Wolfstein says.

  “Don’t,” Rena says.

  And so Wolfstein continues. How she hustled men out of dough for going on a decade. Her intricate system. How it never backfired, all those times it was smooth sailing. How she retreated here to the Bronx, to Mo’s old house, when she had enough saved to live on for a long time. But now, she’s confessing, an unexpected wrinkle. Bobby Murray, one of the easiest marks of all, is back. Bobby Murray, he just wants her to love him for real the way she fake-loved him.

  When she’s done, Rena swallows big and asks the most obvious question: “So, what’s gonna happen?”

  “I don’t know,” Wolfstein says. “This only happened one other time. This guy, Christopher, he came back to Fort Myers and found me. Threatened me a little. I gave him his dough back and he left. It was a different situation.”

  “Bobby’s on his way?”

  “He might be here already. Someone was at the bar looking for me earlier.” She pauses. “You think I’m a bad person?”

  “I don’t think bad people think about whether they’re bad or not.”

  “That’s a nice thing to say. Thanks.”

  “I used to tell Vic that, too. He used to worry about his soul. Not often, but sometimes.”

  “Your husband had some skeletons in his closet?”

  “Vic was a gangster.”

  “Holy shit. Really? You seem so on the straight and narrow.”

  “I am. I always was. Maybe I should’ve been crooked myself. He did what he did. That was the world he knew, and he operated well in it. It was easy not to think about, beyond being worried that someone would off him one day.”

  “That’s what happened?”

  Rena nods. “Nine years ago. Shot on our front stoop by Little Sal Lavignani. Vic didn’t cross anyone, didn’t screw up. Little Sal was just making a move. That’s the story.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I did something bad, too,” Rena says, almost choking on the words.

  “You? What’d you do?”

  Silence from Rena.

  “It’s got to do with the car, doesn’t it?” Wolfstein gets that slumber-party look, claps her hands together. She rushes over and sits next to Rena. “Tell me.”

  “I don’t know,” Rena says.

  “I’ve got this book of quotes in my bathroom,” Wolfstein says. “You probably couldn’t see it. Big white book next to the stacks of toilet paper. Thousands of quotes. My favorite is ‘A friend is a gift you give yourself.’ That’s from Robert Louis Stevenson. We’re meant-to-be pals, Rena, I can feel it. You want to talk, I’m here for you.”

  “What I did, it’s really bad.”

  “Worse than all the shit I just told you?”

  Tears rimming Rena’s eyes now. The weight of what she’s done, really done, crashing against her heart. Not some fever-dream fantasy. The dirty old bastard, how he made her react. Pushing and pushing. No should’ve just been no.

  “You want me to guess?” Wolfstein asks.

  Rena blurts it out: “I think I might’ve killed someone.”

  Wolfstein doesn’t look shocked at all. “I bet he deserved it.”

  “How’d you know it was a he?”

  “Sweetie, I’m looking at you. If you killed someone, it was because he was trying to hurt you. He. I don’t suspect it was a woman trying to hurt you. Not the way it goes, generally.”

  “He was so persistent,” Rena says. “My neighbor Enzio. Old guy. Older than me. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. He put his hands on me.” Looking at her lap, crying a little harder. Don’t cry, Rena. “I picked up this glass ashtray he had and thumped him in the head with it. His head hit the table on the way down. God help me, there was so much blood. So, so much.” She pauses. “I just left. Took his car and didn’t look back.”

  Wolfstein laughs. “You’re my goddamn hero,” she says.

  They talk a while longer, Wolfstein making Rena feel as if not only has she not done the wrong thing, but she’s done the exact right thing. Forget stealing the Impala and running away to the Bronx. Those things might look bad, but it’s all understandable. And who’s to say Enzio would even be discovered any time soon? Could be a week, a month, longer. Lonely old bastards die alone in their hovels all the time, Wolfstein was saying, and no one finds them until the stink reaches the street.

  The main thrust of her argument: Don’t feel bad. Be proud. Enzio got what he deserved.

  Rena has calmed down.

  “I think fate brought us together,” Wolfstein says. “We can help each other. You want to go for a little walk?”

  Rena nods. “Sure,” she says.


  They walk up the street, passing Adrienne’s house. No one is watching from the windows that she can see. “I want to try again,” Rena says.

  “Of course you do,” Wolfstein says. “Let’s cool off a little and then you try again on the way back. I’ll come with you, if you want.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sure. You deserve to see your granddaughter.”

  They walk over to Indian Trail. It’s beautiful. Wolfstein tells her about the neighborhood, about Mo Phelan’s roots there. Rena can’t believe it’s the Bronx. A barge passes out on the river. She can see down to a private beach. She notices the wooden street signs. Well-tended lawns. A bike overturned on the path. Squirrels darting in front of them. It feels more like Nantucket or Maine than New York City. Not that Rena’s ever been to those places. She’s seen them in movies. She nods as Wolfstein talks.

  Her mind drifts back to Adrienne. She’s nervous about going back. Look at her, fearing Adrienne. A mother shouldn’t be twisted up about how her daughter’s going to react to seeing her. Just seeing her. Her confidence is fading.

  Rena’s own mother was a saint. Chased her with a broom handle as a kid every now and again, and a bit overprotective, sure, but Rena always helped her when she could, let her know she was loved, went out of her way to please her. That’s what good daughters do. Maybe it’s just time to consider that Adrienne’s not a good daughter and never will be. There’s no plan of action for this kind of thing. No blueprint. Some daughters just turn rotten, Rena guesses. She can try to heal the rift, but if it doesn’t take, then what? Lucia’s most important. She’s got to try to forge some bond with Lucia. Maybe this is her last chance.

  She thinks back to Adrienne at Lucia’s age. String bean legs, baggy sweaters, weirdly into hockey. Rangers this, Rangers that. Hiding in her room. One of their first epic fights on her birthday. A party at the Knights of Columbus, family, a buffet from Russo’s, a DJ, Vic’s associates bringing envelopes stuffed with cash as gifts, Richie Schiavano giving her two large in a shoe box. The wives of the other guys helping with the gravy and meatballs on the stove. She was never very close to any of them. She saw in them what she didn’t want to be. Adrienne sat miserable at a table in the corner, picking apart the ribbon at the end of a balloon hovering up against the cork-paneled ceiling.