“That’s a stupid thing to say, Daddy.”
He turned his back again and started to walk back the way they’d come.
Alessandra stared at Duncan’s grave. She remembered not believing it when she heard that he’d died. How it happened was the worst. It’d been a year since she’d been in school with his brother Conway at Most Precious Blood and she just remembered feeling sorry for him. Conway always sat behind her in homeroom because his name came after hers. And she knew Ray Boy, too. He was four years older, and she used to see him around the neighborhood. He had these glassy blue eyes and wore a gray mechanic’s jacket with red stitching and she crushed out on him like the kid she was. Those eyes. She knew he’d picked on Duncan for a long time, a lot of guys did, but he was the worst and back then it didn’t bother her. You were a fruit, you got picked on, that was just the way of it. Now she knew somebody should’ve stepped in. Poor Duncan, always having to avoid guys, making it to senior year and thinking he was in the clear. But Ray Boy wasn’t grown up enough to let it be. He had to get Duncan one last time. She bet Ray Boy grew up pretty fast in jail.
She walked away from the grave and back to the car. Her father was sitting behind the wheel, smoking a cigarette. He had the radio on WABC and was listening to the news. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“You don’t need to be sorry,” she said.
“I am,” he said.
“Don’t worry, Daddy,” she said, and she bummed one last cigarette.
Back at the house now, Alessandra and her father ate dinner. Pasta with gravy he’d defrosted that afternoon and braciole from her Aunt Cecilia. She’d forgotten how good it was to eat like this. In L.A. it had been all hummus and avocados and smoothies, quick and healthy stuff on the run, and she didn’t miss it. This gravy tasted silky and sweet with a garlicky bite and the parmesan from Pastosa was unlike anything she could get out west. They shared a bottle of red wine, something dark and bitter and unlabeled from a neighbor’s basement, and she could barely drink it, the taste was so off, but she forced herself because she wanted to be drunk.
After dinner, her father sat down in his recliner and watched the Yankees. She went upstairs and changed clothes and redid her makeup and decided she was going to go out and see who was still around. She thought about Bay Ridge but didn’t want to deal with car service. There weren’t many bars in the neighborhood, not that she could remember. A dive called The Wrong Number with graffiti on the sign. And Ralphie’s, a clammy sports bar full of fat cops and smooth Italian boys stinking of cologne. Those were the options back when. She went downstairs, dolled to the nines, and asked her father if any new places had opened up. He understood her needing a drink out and he said yeah those places were still there and there were a couple of new joints too, a Russian supper club and another sports bar called Murphy’s Irish. Alessandra thought that Russian supper clubs must have been all sweat and vodka and getting hoisted up on men’s shoulders, and she wanted to steer clear of sports bars, so she decided to slum it at The Wrong Number. She wished she had girlfriends from the neighborhood she was still in contact with, someone she could call and coax into hanging out, but part of what had been appealing about going to L.A. was leaving behind the kids she had grown up with. Anyhow, she was never that close with any of them. She’d had some laughs with the two Melissas, out in Bay Ridge or Canarsie, and she spent a lot of time with Joanne Galbo and Mary DiMaggio in the Kearney days, but that was it. Stephanie Dirello, who used to live right up the block with her family and maybe still did, was the one girl she’d gone to school with for twelve years, at Most Precious Blood and at Kearney, and she used to see her in church every Saturday night, and sometimes they’d do homework together after school on the bus, but they’d never really been close friends, just two girls who lived a few houses apart. But she was nice, Stephanie. Always wore a too-big Mark Messier jersey. Maybe she’d go knock on Stephanie’s door, see if she was still in the neighborhood.
Alessandra took a front door key and kissed her father on the head and walked up the block to what she hoped was where Stephanie still lived. Chances were she’d moved out years ago, but you never knew around here. People lived with their parents forever. Scary thought. Alessandra had only been back for a few hours and she was already itching to find her own place.
Alessandra walked into the yard and knocked on the front door. The mailbox still said Dirello.
“You’re who?” Stephanie’s mother said, opening up, right on top of it, as if she’d been waiting for a knock.
Alessandra said, “Hey, Mrs. Dirello, I’m Alessandra Biagini. You remember me? From up the block? I went to school with Stephanie.”
“It’s late.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just eight. I got home today and I thought I’d see if Stephanie still lived here.”
“Of course she lives here. She’s gonna go where?”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Dirello. Can I talk to her?”
Mrs. Dirello looked at her through slitty eyes. She was wearing a housecoat, and Alessandra noticed liver spots on her arms and all of these little brown moles that drooped from her skin like withered worms and networks of varicose veins that tattooed her calves. “You’re who?”
“Alessandra from the block. You don’t remember me?”
“Stephanie!” Mrs. Dirello said over her shoulder. Then to Alessandra: “You stay out there.”
“Okay,” Alessandra said. “Thanks so much.”
“You trying to sell us something? I don’t need those chocolate bars. I buy chocolate from Chinese Mary’s son.”
“I’m not selling chocolate.”
Stephanie appeared behind her mother. She was wearing an over-sized sweatshirt and jean shorts. She looked pretty much the same except she didn’t have braces. Her hair was frizzed out and she wore cheapo glasses probably from the Eyeglass Factory on West Twelfth. She still had a thin mustache too, had never taken the time to wax it or pluck it. Maybe Alessandra could help her out, give her a makeover. The possibilities. “Hi, Steph,” Alessandra said. “Been a long time.”
“Alessandra?” Stephanie said. “Wow. What’re you doing here?”
“Trying to sell us something, I think,” Mrs. Dirello said.
Stephanie pushed past her mother. “Give us a second here, Ma,” she said. Mrs. Dirello huffed back into the house, and Stephanie opened the door. “You look great, Alessandra. Wow. You really look like an actress.”
“Thanks. You look great, too. Haven’t changed.”
Stephanie rolled her eyes. “Guys are knocking down the door, trying to get under my big sweatshirt.”
Alessandra laughed. She’d forgotten Stephanie could be really funny. And that accent. Man, Alessandra was happy she’d lost hers. Stephanie’s was thick, cruddy. “I just got home today. Haven’t been here in a long time.”
“Your mother,” Stephanie said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“She used to talk about you all the time. I’d see her where I work, she’d be picking up your dad’s blood pressure pills, and she’d talk about you. ‘Alessandra’s starring in this movie, she’s doing this commercial.’ She was really proud of you. And she was such a character. She’d go around with her shopping cart, just pushing people out of the way.”
“I miss her, yeah. I didn’t get home, but we talked a lot.”
Stephanie lowered her voice. “My mother’s half-a-psycho. She doesn’t leave the house. It’s making her crazy.”
Alessandra shrugged. “You want to come out, get a drink?”
“I don’t really drink.”
“Just for the company then. I need a drink out, I want to catch up.”
“Where?”
“Not many options. Wrong Number?”
Stephanie said, “Heck. Let me go up, change clothes. Come in and sit down.”
“I’ll wait out here,” Alessandra said.
Stephanie disappeared up a back staircase and Mrs. Dirello followed fast on her heels. Alessand
ra could hear her, saying she better not think she was going out, what did she think she was doing, this girl out front was all whored up and looking for trouble.
Girl was twenty-nine. Imagine. Living like she was still fourteen. Alessandra couldn’t get over it.
Stephanie came out a few minutes later, wearing jeans that rode high above her waist and a pink blouse with ruffled shoulders. She’d put some rouge on her cheeks, with a spray gun it looked like, and her lipstick squiggled out at the corners. “I’m ready,” she said. “Voila. Watch them line up.” She curtsied.
Alessandra laughed again.
“Never could figure out how to make myself look nice,” Stephanie said.
“You do look nice,” Alessandra said.
“So acting and lying are pretty much the same thing, right?”
The Wrong Number wasn’t as much of a dive as she remembered. Or maybe they’d cleaned it up. It wasn’t a big glossy sports bar by any stretch, but it also wasn’t an end-of-the-world shithole. Alessandra ordered a gin-and-tonic from the bartender with the aped-out chest and waxy chin and Stephanie got a ginger ale with a lime wedge. They sat at a booth in the back by a jukebox and talked over a Budweiser bottle corked with a low-burning pumpkin-scented candle. “It’s just crazy to be back,” Alessandra said. “So crazy.”
“I can’t imagine,” Stephanie said.
“So, you’re what? A pharmacist?”
“At Rite Aid over on Twenty-Fifth Avenue. Conway D’Innocenzio works there. You remember him?”
“Sat behind me in homeroom for nine years.”
“He’s a stock boy. Works the register sometimes.”
“We were out at the cemetery today, visiting my mother, and we saw Duncan’s grave. Made me remember the whole thing. Hadn’t thought of it in years.”
Stephanie said, “Family never got over that. Conway lived in the Bronx for a few years but he got into drugs pretty bad and wound up coming home. Frankie’s just a shell. Mother’s gone, just whoosh, disappeared one day.” She looked over at the bartender and nodded in his direction. He was pulling a draft for a hook-nosed old timer in a Yankees cap with a flat brim. “You know who that is?”
“The bartender?” Alessandra said.
“Teemo. Ran with Ray Boy Calabrese. He got out years ago. You remember the trial and everything?”
“I could forget?” Alessandra paused. “You got any cigarettes?”
“I don’t,” Stephanie said.
“Christ, it’s weird to be home.”
Teemo came over to the table with a dishrag over his shoulder. “You ladies okay?” he said, only looking at Alessandra.
“Fine,” Stephanie said.
He smelled like ten different kinds of shitty cologne and wore designer jeans with pre-ripped holes and a frayed waistband and had a fake tan that had left orange run marks on his neck and arms. His white sneakers were spotless. “Just checking in,” he said, getting closer to Alessandra. “Don’t want you ladies to be thirsty.”
Alessandra said nothing, ignored him.
“I know you?” he said to her.
“No,” Alessandra said, though they’d been at the same parties hanging out a dozen times in high school. She didn’t really know him, hadn’t hooked up with him or anything, because he was a few years older, but they’d been around each other a lot. She was glad he didn’t totally recognize her, didn’t remember her name.
“You look real familiar.”
“I don’t know you,” she said. “Let it go.”
“End of the night, you’ll be begging for my number,” Teemo said, shrugging. He walked back to the bar slowly, showing Alessandra his ass in the tight jeans and laughing. “Begging!”
Alessandra lifted her drink. “This guy,” she said to Stephanie. “You believe him?”
Stephanie said, “He’s always been awful.”
They finished their drinks and left, reluctant to order another round from Teemo. They walked around the neighborhood instead, and Stephanie told Alessandra what had become of everyone. Joanne Galbo was living in Bay Ridge, teaching Biology at Our Lady of the Narrows. Mary DiMaggio worked for a urologist in Dyker Heights. Melissa Sanchez was a cop, you believe that? And Melissa Murphy died on 9/11, worked at Cantor Fitzgerald on the 101st floor of Tower One. Adrienne Marra and Vinny Sorrento were married and had boinked six snot-nosed kids into existence. Andy Pascione worked construction, hurt his back on a site, and was hooked on pain meds—his wife and daughter had left him and moved to Florida and he just rented pornos from the last video store in the neighborhood and stayed inside with a box of tissues and the shades drawn.
Alessandra felt exhausted.
Back by Stephanie’s house now, they stopped outside the front gate and Alessandra could see Mrs. Dirello framed in an upstairs window, watching them.
“I’m glad you came by to see me,” Stephanie said. “I’m happy you’re back.”
“Your mom’s watching us,” Alessandra said.
“She’s got nothing better to do. Forget it.”
“It’s creepy.”
“Sorry,” Stephanie said, and she reached out to hug Alessandra.
Alessandra took the hug, patting Stephanie on the back. “Okay, sweetie,” she said.
Stephanie ran inside, opening and closing the door gently, and Mrs. Dirello disappeared from the upstairs window. Alessandra walked home, wishing she had her father’s smokes, wishing she’d been born in another place.
Three
Conway was on 17B headed back toward Monticello. There was no noise coming from the trunk. Ray Boy seemed peaceful. Conway held the wheel with his hands at ten and two, going just under the speed limit. He knew the only ones who drove this way were eighty year olds and people who had something to hide. He got pulled over, maybe he could explain it to the cop: This guy’s responsible for my brother being dead. Let it slide this time.
None of it made sense. He should’ve just brought Ray Boy into the house. But the tattoo and the crying jag had thrown him off and he’d gotten the idea that he should take Ray Boy back to Brooklyn, to Plumb Beach, and that nothing could stand in his way there, not in the place that Duncan had been killed, and that it would mean more there anyway.
Seemed like the guy wanted to be put out of his misery. It almost made things harder. Conway had always envisioned a fight.
But it was going to have to be an execution.
The movie of the next couple hours played out in Conway’s mind: Ray Boy on his knees at Plumb Beach, eyes closed, the headlights of cars from the Belt flickering over them, Conway pressing the gun up to Ray Boy’s head, pulling the trigger, the fucker’s brains going splash in the dark. Roll credits.
Guts up, Conway thought. It’s all been leading to this. Probably this is the way it’s supposed to happen.
He passed an abandoned Hasidic children’s camp and then a strip club called Searchlights that was just a rundown house with a trailer attached to it. He considered, honestly, stopping to get a lap dance. Why not? Ray Boy resting in the trunk, not going anywhere, Conway just letting off a little steam. He thought better of it, though. He was also scared shitless of what he’d find in a trailer trash strip club on a dark-as-hell road between Monticello and Hawk’s Nest. Toothless amputees probably. Obscenely fat women who had to be brought on stage in wheelbarrows and emptied onto the pole. Imagine.
Once he was back on 17, signs called it the Quickway, not a back road anymore but the four-lane that would bring him back to some kind of civilization, he felt better. Lights. Other cars. Town names he remembered from the way up. Wurtsboro. Middletown. Middletown—Fuck kind of name was that? Middle of where?
Conway put the radio on because he wanted to hear something. The Yankees were coming in fuzzy and distant, but he listened anyway. The bad reception was full of sizzles and pops. The clawing sound filled the car. He hoped it was loudest in the trunk. Quiet, forgive-me-please Ray Boy getting his ears blown out.
The world outside shot by like a flip book i
n reverse. Dog name towns. Getting back on 6 over the mountain. That traffic circle like it was Grand Army Plaza or some shit. The narrow Palisades hugged the Civic in the dark. No shoulder. People did seventy-five in a fifty. Deer eyes glowed in the trees. Conway was paranoid of stupid deer and stupid Troopers. At the George Washington, the sign of almost being home, he thanked Christ he had an EZ Pass. All the while, Ray Boy didn’t move. The radio was on loud, getting clearer as they got closer to the city and then all the way clear and booming, the Yankees getting routed by the Blue Jays, Cano hitting two homers and it not being enough, the pitching just not there.
On the West Side Highway, he finally got to jerk the car around a little, no chance of getting pulled over unless he broke a hundred or blasted through a light. He moved from lane to lane, took bumps without braking, and he could hear Ray Boy finally, rattling around, groaning through the tape over his mouth, being lifted into the trunk hatch and then plopped back down.
He took the Battery to the Gowanus and then cut left onto the Belt, the gas light on now, no time for detours to gas up in Dyker Heights, no stopping until Plumb Beach. The Belt was electric, thrumming with zipfast cars, and Conway rolled the window down to let the cold in. He saw his breath in front of him on the windshield.
At Plumb Beach, out of the car and stretching, Conway looked around. No action. He went to the Dumpster, squatted, and scratched a line with a jagged twist of wire he found in a groove of cracked pavement. Then he put an X through his entire tally of visits. This would be his last time coming out here.
He went back to the Civic and got the .22 from the glovebox. He held it at his side. He went around to the trunk and beat on it with his fist. He said, “I’m opening up. You do anything, I’ll just start firing into the trunk.”
Nothing.
He wondered, for a second, if maybe Ray Boy had suffocated.
He opened the trunk, poking the gun in first. Ray Boy was just curled up there with his eyes open, shivering.
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