The Streets

by Tom Sheridan

  Eddo, suddenly hard as fuck, strutted over to the gathering like he was Tupac cutting through a courtroom. “Am I gonna need these?” said Eddo of his electrified forceps.

  El Jefe shrugged, perhaps. Refocused on Franco. “Please. Join me in my office.” El Jefe motioned, after you.

  Franco entered the glass encasement. Gave himself worse odds than any trip into the octagon.

  El Jefe folded his legs under his desk. Folded his hands on it. “Do you think you’re the only one with your ear to the street?”

  His guest declined to answer.

  El Jefe clarified, “You and la rana.”

  Franco again stonewalled the (extremely) southern Stonewall Jackson.

  “¿Qué eres tú?” asked Arturo from behind his tidy steel desk.

  Franco tried to settle into his ergo-something chair. “My Spanish ain’t so good.”

  Arturo leaned forward. “What. Are. You.”

  Franco pondered all the ways he could answer as Eddo and the returning CG-67 banger breathed over each of his shoulders. Course Franco could’ve went with how he wasn’t nothin if he wasn’t American. But that line was for T. Fuck this guy before him. Franco searched his brain for some elusive answer that might get him out of this jam. But all that played in his fuckin head was that fuckin Frank Sinatra song. That one his old man would blast out of their project apartment as he got blasted. Dancing around with his goddamn martini. Straight vodka in a rocks glass. Getting rocked off his ass. Singin that tongue-twisting line from “That’s Life.” Fumbling around and fucking it all up like he was Professor Lambeau. Only to rewind the tape and butcher it all over again.

  Arturo slammed his hand down on his stainless-steel table. WHAP. “What! Are! You!”

  Franco responded to the chairman of the board like he was the Chairman of the Board. “I been a puncher, a pawn, a player, a playa, a prince, and a fool.”

  “So you’re Italiano, Sinatra?”

  Franco shrugged, the fuck knows.

  “What kind of man doesn’t know his heritage?”

  “A bastard,” interjected Eddo. Piping in with color commentary like he was John fuckin Madden.

  Arturo leaned back. “Look at you. This is America. You could be anything you want to be. And you chose to work for the fucking Frog?” Arturo flung a fleet of folders off his desk. “¡Una rana babosa!”

  Arturo clasped his hands, collected himself. “But. It is not your fault. Bastardito.”

  Franco clenched his jaw. Cracked his neck. Figured if he could climb over the desk and at least choke this fucker out before getting fed to the pigs.

  El Jefe carried on with charisma. “You see, Franco. Sure, you can go online and see that Woodbridge is fifty-odd percent white. Then you walk around town with your own two eyes. And you see blancos with blanco hair. Pouring out of the retirement homes. Limping out of their houses to hop buses to Atlantic City. Then you walk around the schoolyards. And it’s a bit browner. The Frog? The mafia? La cosa nostra? Dead. Muerto.” El Jefe stared Franco dead in the eye. “Hay una cosa nuestra.” Arturo motioned to himself, Eddo, and the CG. “This is our town now.”

  “It’s a lot of people’s town,” fumed Franco.

  El Jefe opened his arms. “And today is your lucky day. You have an opportunity to join the right team. You think the director of marketing at Facebook is any more talented than the one at MySpace? He—or she—” Arturo noted with a raised finger, “is just on the right team. That is all.”

  “I ain’t much for suits,” said Franco.

  “Of course not. Big fighter. Word on the street is, you might fight The Prince.”

  “The street is fuckin Twitter now?” shot Franco.

  “It’s like Bob Dylan once said—”

  “Said the diplomat—” raised Franco.

  “Mm. Okay. Guess we could go on all night, you and I,” concluded Arturo as he leaned back. “But time is money.” He straightened his posture. “So. Will you. Be fighting. The Prince?”

  “Haven’t decided yet,” bluffed Franco.

  “Well.” Arturo stood up. About as tall as Abe Lincoln. “I’ve decided. You are going to take the fight. It will have a Vegas line. And you are going to take a fall.”

  Franco never had the prestige of a college degree. Of being a full-fledged longshoreman. Of calling himself a full-time fighter. So he had come over the years to value the only things in this world he did have. The same things Scarface had. His word and his balls. Franco stood up. Looked up at Arturo. “Why don’t you try stickin your head up your ass—”

  Eddo and the CG clenched their weapons. But El Jefe only calmed. Reclined in his chair. “Oh, you’re Scarface now? Next, you’re going to be telling me about how all you have is your balls and your word.”

  Franco did everything he could to keep his shoulders from slouching. If his own don had half the intelligence of the jefe before him, he wouldn’t even be in this situation to begin with. “Ya know. Everything you’re saying. It’s startin to make a lot of sense.”

  Arturo and his bangers shared pleased nods.

  “Between us,” began Franco as he shared conspiratorial looks with the three gangsters triangulated around him, “I know a good part of town the three of you should get into.”

  “Oh. And where’s that?” said a most interested El Jefe. He and his guys leaned in for a closer listen.

  Franco let them in on the secret. “Rahway fuckin Prison.”

  Eddo and the CG-67 raised up—

  But El Jefe belly laughed. “That is a good one.” He patted his desk. “Scarface would be proud.” He laughed some more. Wiped a tear from his eye. “But. While you and Al Pacino are both un-fucking-sure if you’re Italian or Latino,” said El Jefe as he motioned to the throat slitter out on the floor, “there is one big difference between you and Scarface.”

  Franco waited for it like a patriot waiting to be hanged.

  “Scarface didn’t have a son.”

  Franco darted to the glass. His eyes darted to the conveyor belt in motion. To the third of the three little piggies strung up by his hind legs.

  “Dad!”

  Even for a fighter, the adrenaline that rocketed through Franco’s body was otherworldly. Franco’s brain told him to skip the formality of trying to overtake the three gangsters with guns and gadgets, but his body turned to turbo mode as he tore a path toward T. Best he remembered, he head-butted the CG, decked Eddo, then convulsed into a seizure.

  Franco came to with electrified forceps around his neck. Held by El Jefe himself.

  “I’ll do it. I’ll fuckin do it,” fired Franco.

  “Like you told The Frog you’d kill me?”

  “I fuckin mean it. I’ll throw the fight. Just get him the fuck down.”

  El Jefe motioned for his butcher across the way to let the third little piggy go.

  The fighter meanwhile slapped the concrete slab he lay on. For the first time in his life, Franco had tapped out.

  TRACK 11. CORRECTIONS

  FRANCO AND TJ stood at the edge of the Sewaren dock. The overnight chill in full effect. They leaned on the low iron gate. Its bars black as the night. Hoodies up as the hoods stared across the river. In the light of day, they could see the Staten Island apartments across the way. Wonder which few were home to the Wu. Not tonight. Nothing but darkness. Save for the red lights that surrounded them. Red lights that ran along the refinery to their right. Red lights planted on the plant to their left. Red lights anchored atop oil tanks across the Arthur Kill. Red lights bestowed upon buoys. And the singular red light that lingered. Way down. The antenna of the Empire State Building. Dimmed to a dot at this distance. A singular red light that Franco and T stared at gazey. Like Gatsby tracking Daisy.

  Franco shook his head. Seven years since 9/11. And still. A fuckin hole where the Twin Towers once stood. Franco freed the first of six Bud Heavys from its plastic noose. Ready to trade in his six-pack for a six-pack.


  “Thought you didn’t drink in training,” stated the uninformed son.

  Franco waved him off. Chugged his first brew. Squeezed the can till it coughed carbonated foam. Flung it at the trash. Cracked another. All in on getting trashed. “You understand now? Why your mother left me?” Franco finished the second. Sentenced it to the same fate as the first. Clang. Franco opened the third. “I’m no good.”

  TJ took his eyes off the remote red light. Looked at his dad. Breaking bad. “The Challenger rolled up. You told me to stay in the car. I got out. I followed them. With no fuck—no plan whatsoever.”

  Franco downshifted to sipping. “I wanna tell you how stupid you are for doing that. But. It’d be bullshit. I’m the stupid one. Teenage son and I’m running around the like the teenage one. Hustling pickups. Chasing dreams. Only lookin out for A number one.”

  TJ pressed on his temples, his body a hungover temple. “Mom took me away from you.”

  Franco cracked his fourth Buddy. Was running out of friends real fast. “Course she did. One week and look what I done to you. Scarred for life.” Franco motioned to T’s stitched cheek then to the great beyond. “Inside and out.”

  “Bullsh—”

  A tugboat belted out a honk.

  “See? Even the tugboat ain’t buyin it,” Franco noted.

  “Or. It’s calling you out on yours,” retorted T.

  “You’ll understand when you’re older.” Franco waved the kid off. Sipped. “I thought my old man was halfway decent once, too.”

  T tore his hood down. “I’d fight Ray all over again. Got me props and my head on proper for that presentation.”

  Franco shook his head as the beer went to it.

  TJ looked to the little waves lapping against the bulkheads below. “As for Yogi and back there, it’s on me. I’m some kind of real adventurous idiot sometimes.” TJ shook his head. “And to be honest, I kinda like having these gangsta stories to tell.”

  Franco shot T a look.

  TJ put his hands up. “No more. Got plenty.”

  Franco shifted into fifth beer. “You think it’s all fun and games now.” Franco sipped. “These memories’ll come back to haunt you.” Franco sipped some more. “And if you don’t believe me, ask Bruce Springsteen.”

  While TJ pondered what the fuck that meant—

  The words to “The River” flowed through Franco’s head like a river as he looked out at the river. The teen pregnancy. The shotgun wedding. The backbreaking job. If omniscience was God. Then Springsteen was Franco’s.

  Franco put the pedal to the metal mouth of his final friend. Then fingered the corner of his right eye. The nick. Of all Franco’s scars. From the slice across his right ankle that he’d looked down at a million times. To the divot on his shin from an opposing player’s cleat. To the one etched in his inner thigh by a fence as he fled a Rottweiler. To the one on his stomach post-spleen rupture. To the one across his left shoulder when the fucker brought a knife. To the one dripping from his lip, it having been split open so many times. To the ones under each eye. Of all of them. It was the nick. At the corner of his right eye. That he’d get removed if God allowed one. The nick from the day after The Slip. When Julie told him she was taking T to her mother’s. What, for like, the day? asked Franco. For like, the rest of his life, informed Julie. For all the killers he’d been in a cage with, it was the first time Franco went into shock. The ensuing argument was a blur. He could barely make sense of his own words let alone Julie’s. All he knew as he stood in front of the door was that he was ready to filibuster like he was a congressman. Lobbying against whatever the lobby paid him to be against. No. Like he was Abe Lincoln. Trying to keep their union together. No. Julie was Abe Lincoln. Making her own emancipation proclamation. On and on the argument went in circles just as confusing. The girl who aced English and Spanish resorted to a language the fighter before the door would understand a little better. She socked him in the eye socket. The engagement rock he bought with his last buck found a new setting. In the corner of his eye.

  Franco rubbed the nick. And sipped. And rubbed. But there was no erasing the reminder of the marriage he killed. No erasing his very own teardrop tattoo.

  While the beer and bad memories mounted in Franco, TJ had mounted a defense. “Memories? I got memories from right here. From this spot alone.”

  Franco paused his sip of number six. “Back in the day?”

  “Back in the day.” TJ turned his attention away from the Arthur Kill and onto the docks. “On one of those summer Saturdays when this place is full of guys fishing. I’d go around and come back and tell you, ‘That guy’s fishing for fluke. And that guy’s fishing for porgies. And that guy’s fishing for snapper.’ And on and on I’d go. Then you’d wave me off. Sum it up in a single sentence. ‘Ah we’re all fishin for the same thing. Power.’ It’s like, it blew my mind. Like I could feel my brain wrinkle. Look past the bullsh— Look deeper. I do that to this day.”

  Franco took a small sip from his sixth. “Wasn’t that like two sentences?”

  T, the up-and-coming attorney, moved right along to exhibit two. “And my intimidating-ass coach from the one year I played Pop Warner. Coach Butch. That I never wanted to see again cuz I sucked so bad. He was fishing right there. Right. There. I never woulda went up to him in a million years. But you made me. Made me shake his hand. Look him in the eye. Ask him how he’s doing. I must’ve manned up a million times since then.”

  Franco stared down into the mouth of his half-empty can. Or was it half full? “A million? I thought you were supposed to be good at math.”

  “Come on. You got much better jokes than that.” T looked across the river. “Like the time you warned me I’d die if I tried to swim to Staten Island. I said, ‘Cuz of the distance?’ You said, ‘Nah.’ I said, ‘Cuz of the current?’ You said, ‘Nah. Cuza the toxic waste.’”

  Franco laughed mid-sip of his final Bud. All thanks to his best bud. His main man.

  Attorney T drove his point home. “I mean, people go around all the time joking about Jersey pollution and all that. But you, like, crafted that joke just so. I find myself doing the same. Like all the times. From jokes to rhymes.”

  “I see what you did there,” said Franco as he again stared into the mouth of his half-empty-or-full can. “Then I had to go and fuck it all up.”

  “About that,” TJ sighed. The night’s deepening chill made his breath visible. He’d never asked. But fuck it. If they were having it out, they were having it out. “Was it…just that one slip?”

  That one slip. The Slip. The Slip being Julie away for a night in The City with Alexis and Mercedes. TJ was dropped off at his grandmother’s. All while The Frog brought the house to Franco’s house. The coffee table was replaced by a craps table. A portable poker cloth was now the dining room tablecloth. The kitchen table was converted to a blackjack table as Franco was dealing like he was Black Jack McDowell. And that’s when trouble came knocking. The Frog and four silicone knockers. He escorted the escorts upstairs despite Franco’s stares. One worked Mom and Dad’s room, while the other one took the room of the 10-year-old boy. The 10-year-old boy as curious as George. The one who had convinced his grandma to drop him back home in a desperate bid to stay with Dad. As it turned out, the move was exactly what separated him from Dad. Mom wasn’t hearing that Franco had no idea there’d be girls. Wasn’t hearing that TJ ran out as soon as the woman went in his room. Wasn’t hearing that Franco got TJ out of the house altogether.

  “That thing was my fault, too!” exclaimed TJ with his arms out.

  Franco shook his head. “Your mother put up with a lot. Couldn’t go off to college. Home with you while I ran around Woodbridge with The Frog. An inebriated idiot comin and goin as I pleased like I was Henry fuckin Hill. Ran around all of Jersey with Joey Yo. Late night runs to AC thinkin we were as money as Mikey n Trent. Ran around all of the USA with MMA. Makin about as much money as an ’80s wrestler doing high school bills.
Barely paying the bills. While your mother’s juggling a job, a household, and an education. She put up with it all. Until it affected you. Then that was it.” Franco ran an index finger across his throat.

  Franco sucked in the Jersey smog like he was trying to suck in the whole situation. Take it all back. Impossible. He exhaled. “I know you think that in the Story of Your Life, Mom’s the bad guy and I’m the good guy.” Franco crushed the half-empty-or-full debate as he crushed number six. “But it’s the exact opposite. Everything she’s ever done. Ever. Has been for you.” Franco tilted the can farther. Took down every last drop. “I can’t say the same.” He crushed the can. Chucked it at the trash. Clang. Couldn’t even get that right. Franco put his hands in his hoodie. Headed to the trash. Cleaned up his cans. Headed to his horse.

  TJ stared at that distant red dot. His brain busy making some of its biggest wrinkles yet. “Dad.” TJ hustled over. “Hold up.”

  Franco opened the door to his Stang. “Don’t worry. I’ve driven these streets a million times.”

  “Not that.”

  Franco crossed his arms on the roof of his car.

  TJ tried to do the same but came up short. Carried on anyway. “Last summer. Mom was reading this book called The Corrections. Have you heard of it?”

  “I hearda the Department of Corrections.”

  The two couldn’t help but grin. Humor their savior from the grim.

  “It had a boy on the cover, so I started reading it. At first, I was like what is this boring-ass book about an old couple in the Midwest? And their three kids who are, like, college-educated and living in big cities and stuff. But I kept reading, cuz I don’t know, it was just…good writing or something. And I kept wondering, who’s the good guy? Who’s the bad guy? And I kept changing my mind. Like, oh, the mom’s the good guy, then she says or does something shitty. Same for the dad. And the son. And the daughter. And the other son. It’s like, the realest shit I ever read. No heroes. No villains. Just people. Really complicated, messed-up people.”