Gravesend

by Boyle, William

  Eugene stopped on Twentieth Avenue to get a bagel and coffee. He was starting to feel sorry that he’d run out on Uncle Ray Boy the day before. It wasn’t that he didn’t think Uncle Ray Boy would’ve turned him over to his mother. He would have. But if Eugene had just taken a few more minutes, talked to him, made him see, if he wasn’t so stressed from the Bonangelo and Aherne bullshit, who knew what might’ve happened? Uncle Ray Boy might’ve said, “You know what? You’re right. Enough with this act.” And then they might’ve driven off, and Uncle Ray Boy might’ve shown him the ropes, all the good old ways.

  Leaving the bagel shop, Eugene saw a Russian guy in a black tracksuit leaning against a telephone pole. He had a goldfishy face. The guy looked at him and smiled and then he started limping around, making fun of Eugene. “You have a very funny walk,” the Russian said.

  “Fuck you, yo,” Eugene said, feeling his face go red.

  “Fuck me! Fuck me!” The Russian came over and petted Eugene’s head like he was a mangled stray.

  Eugene swatted his hand away. “What the fuck?”

  “You are very tough. Why aren’t you in school?”

  “I’m off.”

  “You’re playing hooky, yes?”

  “I’m off. Who are you?”

  The Russian leaned in and whispered. “I have a job for you. You interested?”

  “A job?”

  “I give you something, you take it somewhere. I pay you fifty dollars. Yes?”

  “You’re going to give me fifty bucks to bring something somewhere?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “What is it?”

  “No questions. And you don’t look.”

  “Why me?”

  “You have a very good face. I trust you, yes? But you also look like you’re not afraid of the danger.”

  “The danger?”

  “A little risk, huh?”

  “You’re just standing there, you say, ‘I’m gonna give this kid a job?’”

  “Exactly.”

  Eugene shook his head, confused.

  “Very simple offer,” the Russian said. “Give a very simple answer. Yes. No.”

  Fifty bucks would help. Maybe the Russian was legit. Shit like that had to happen. Eugene had seen it in the movies. Guys like this, they got kids to carry shit because if kids got collared it wasn’t a big deal. They got a slap on the wrist. They didn’t know what was in the package. They were doing a job for this guy who offered them fifty bucks and said don’t peek. What kid was gonna turn down fifty bucks? Fifty bucks meant armloads of candy, Gatorade, baseball cards, cigs, porn mags. For Eugene, it meant surviving on the lam for a couple more days. “I guess,” Eugene said.

  The package was small, a manila envelope sealed with duct tape. Eugene turned it over in his hands looking for a sign of what it might be. He’d decided not to open it and take off with whatever was inside. Could’ve been drugs, cash, anything. But it was more trouble than it was worth to get these guys, whoever they were, after him. It was a much better option to go through with the job and get in their good graces. If they kept wanting him to do stuff, the dough would pile up and he could buy whatever he wanted. The Russian had given him a ten dollar down payment and he was getting the remaining forty on the other end. Going through with it would make him a little saint to these guys.

  He looked down at the address the Russian had written on a torn piece of brown paper bag. Over on Cropsey by the Shell. The Wrong Number would have to wait. But he’d go there afterward with his fifty bucks and maybe Teemo would serve him.

  Eugene was back in his neighborhood now so he had to be especially careful. If his mother had called the cops, Six-Two might’ve been out in numbers looking out for an on-the-loose kid.

  He walked with his head down, stayed close to buildings, hugged corners, ducked low when he saw blue-and-whites.

  On Cropsey, Eugene stopped at a deli and got an Arizona Grapeade and then continued to the address. The place was next to a crouchy church, a ramshackle little house converted into an old man’s club. Alkie-nosed dudes with hairy ears sat outside on folding chairs. They played rummy on metal tables and whistled. A thousand year old boombox at their feet blasted WCBS.

  One of them, smoking a cigarillo, with a mole that looked like bloody birdshit on his cheek, said, “Help you, kid?”

  Eugene held up the package. “I’m supposed to drop this off.” He was starting to think he knew who this place belonged to. Mr. Natale. The guy was a legend—he’d smoked Eddie Russo, stood by Gotti, done hard time, made his sauce in jail like Goodfellas with the razor-sliced garlic, had been the basis for a character in Donnie Brasco, was old school mobster royalty—but Eugene never knew where his base of operations was.

  “Inside,” Bloody Birdshit Cheek said, nodding his head in the direction of a propped-open door.

  Eugene walked in, package under his arm. The front room was a small kitchen. A fat guy, four hundred pounds at least, in a wife-beater with swirly discs of hair on his shoulders, stood in front of a stove, rolling braciole on a cutting board with one hand and stirring gravy with the other. Eugene held up the package. The guy, breathing heavily, waved him in the direction of a back room.

  A long, dark corridor that smelled like the VFW hall where Grandpa Tony used to take him led Eugene to a no-windows room where Mr. Natale and five others, double-thumb cigars poking out of all their mouths, were engaged in a poker game. Eugene only recognized two of the other guys: Hyun the Numbers Runner, who he saw on the bus home from school three, four times a week, and Mike Hickey from Eighty-Third Street, who was Philip Benvenuto’s cousin—People called him Hockey Head. A cloud of smoke hung ribbony over the table. Two guys sat on stools behind Mr. Natale with their arms crossed. A cash drawer filled with hundreds and fifties rested on a scattered pile of red and black chips in the middle of the table. Had to be nine, ten grand there. Maybe more.

  Eugene couldn’t get anyone’s attention. He stood there and took it all in. Mr. Natale was wearing a DiMaggio jersey, the top two buttons undone, and dark glasses. He looked like an actor playing a mobster. Swollen cheeks. Dark eyes. Serious mouth. Chomping on his cigar until it was a spitty stump.

  The guy next to Mr. Natale, hooded eyes, drooping mouth, dealt a new hand.

  Mr. Natale said, “I fucking lose again, I’m going apeshit.”

  Everyone around the table laughed. “You won’t lose,” Hooded Eyes said. “I’m dealing here. I’m on your side.”

  “You better deal me a good fucking hand, I’m telling you.”

  “Here comes a winning hand, Mr. Natale.”

  Mr. Natale noticed Eugene then. “You got something for me?” he said.

  Eugene went over and handed him the package.

  “Ilya sent you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “‘Yeah?’”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re Ray Boy Calabrese’s nephew, huh? I hear your uncle’s back around.”

  “He’s back.”

  “He used to do some jobs for me, too. Before his misfortunate occurrence.”

  Eugene had never heard that, but he wasn’t surprised.

  Mr. Natale reached into the cash drawer and grabbed a fifty. He handed it to Eugene. “Extra ten for being expeditious. You got what, a bad limp?”

  Eugene tucked the fifty into his jeans. “I got shot when I was a kid.”

  “Even more impressive you were so expeditious.” Mr. Natale paused, took the cigar out of his mouth. “You know what expeditious is?”

  “I don’t.”

  “See, I’m a fan of words. These ten dollar words especially. I read the dictionary. For fun. Ten words a day. I got one of those word-of-the-day calendars, too. I’m learning new words constantly. Expeditious is like speedy. I guess it’s hard for a gimp like you to be speedy, but you were. You dealt with your job in a manner that was efficient.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Natale.”

  “You know of me then?”

  “Who do
esn’t? You’re famous.”

  “Famous? Famous?” He patted Eugene on the shoulder. Hard. “I love this kid. Famous.” It was a scene from Goodfellas. Eugene was Henry Hill. “You believe this kid? I’m famous. You write? You want to write my life story?”

  “I don’t write.”

  “Okay, kid. Good job. Get out of here. Come back here tomorrow you want to do something else for us.”

  Eugene nodded and limped back down the corridor. He passed the Gravy Stirrer. Then he went outside, the clammy gray sky seeming a stupid kind of bright after being in the smoked-out back room, and he nodded at Bloody Birdshit Cheek and the Folding Chair Crew. They all nodded back. He felt electric.

  Sixty dollars made him a king. He’d never had so much money in his pockets. He’d made some decent dough for his confirmation, but his mother had snagged it and opened an account for him at HSBC that she claimed was his but she was the only one who could make any transactions. He wanted to blow it all on Lutz or Quincy or Knee Socks.

  Instead he went to The Wrong Number and bellied up to the rail like an old pro alkie. Teemo was behind the bar, watching a rerun of Center Stage on YES. Eugene said, “Can I have a screwdriver?” Screwdriver: the word was gristly in his mouth. Booze screwed into juice, that sounded good. Eugene also wanted to order a kamikaze, whatever that was.

  “A screwdriver, huh?” Teemo said, his eyes laughing.

  “A big one.”

  “How about just the juice part?” Teemo poured orange juice from a can with a peel-off label into a pint glass flowered with fingerprints. He brought it over to Eugene and set it on the bar.

  Eugene tried to pay with a ten.

  “On the house, Eugene,” Teemo said.

  “You seen my Uncle Ray Boy in here? I’m looking for him.”

  “I haven’t seen him since the other night.”

  Eugene suddenly realized that Teemo could maybe know his mother was looking for him, but then he stopped worrying because nobody would guess he’d be at The Wrong Number. “I need to talk to him,” Eugene said.

  “Your uncle’s different now, you know that?”

  “I know.”

  “That guy everybody loved is dead.”

  “I’m gonna help him.”

  “You’re gonna help how?”

  “I’m gonna make him be like that again.”

  Teemo, leaning over to Eugene, said, “You got heart, kid. That’s cool. ‘I’m gonna make him be like that again.’ You do that.”

  Eugene said, “I’m working for Mr. Natale now.”

  “Your mom know that?”

  “No. I just started. I was at his card game today. I brought something to him.”

  “Ray Boy used to do some stuff for him, too.”

  Eugene nodded.

  Teemo said, “On the sly. Your grandparents didn’t know. But Mr. Natale screwed him over. Forget it—I shouldn’t tell you. It wasn’t anything big.”

  “Tell me. Please.”

  “It was nothing. He had Eugene knock off this doctor’s office. Heard the guy, this doc who owed him on gambling losses, had a safe with fifty grand. Lady at the office told Mr. Natale. She was on his jock, one of his goomars, and the doc didn’t know. So Ray Boy went in, no experience with safes, cracks the thing, gets the code, I don’t know. That was your Uncle Ray Boy back then. Talent. He’s sixteen, seventeen. Cracking safes. At this point, he’s been working for Mr. Natale almost two years. Small fries to start out, dropping things off, picking things up, getting food, surveillance. And then some strong-arm stuff. Breaking legs. Threats. Like Rocky at the beginning of Rocky. Then Mr. Natale has him do this, says he’ll give him ten percent of the dough, if it’s there. He brings it back to Mr. Natale, honest, could’ve maybe run off, said there was less in there than there was, but he brings back the full amount. And Mr. Natale says five hundred’s what he’s getting for his work. Five grand’s what he was promised. Ray Boy’s going crazy on the inside, but he can’t let it show. He’s gonna what, complain to Mr. Natale? He’ll wind up face down in the fucking Gowanus Canal.”

  Eugene took it all in. Maybe this was the way to get Uncle Ray Boy back. The promise of revenge. It was crazy to think about, way over the top to imagine taking on Mr. Natale, but why not? Eugene was already on the lam, and maybe Uncle Ray Boy—in the right frame of mind and given the right circumstances—would really hit the road with him. Live motel to motel, crime to crime. Sounded like heaven. He thought about the pile of money at Mr. Natale’s card game—nine, ten grand, however much it was—and thought about going after it with Uncle Ray Boy, guns blazing, like that episode of The Sopranos when Jackie Jr. robbed Eugene Pontecorvo’s card game, except they’d do it right.

  “Looks like your little brain’s working in there,” Teemo said.

  Eugene said, “I really need to find my uncle.”

  “I see him, how can I tell him to touch base?”

  “I don’t know. Not my phone. I’m avoiding my mom.”

  “Trouble at the house?”

  “School.”

  “Fucking OLN. I don’t miss that place at all. Aherne still a douche?”

  “Big time.”

  “I always hated Brother Dennis the worst. That guy was definitely a kid-fucker. Always giving us the once-over like he was imagining twiddling our dongs. Place was full of fruits. Should’ve gone to Ford, Lafayette. But then you gotta deal with an army of tizzuns.”

  “Fuck Brother Dennis. And Bonangelo.”

  “Bonangelo, that fucking gimp.”

  Eugene looked down.

  “Kid, I’m sorry,” Teemo said.

  “I don’t give a shit,” Eugene said. He backed away from the bar.

  “I’ll let Ray Boy know when I see him.” Teemo turned around and went back to watching YES.

  Eugene walked outside. Fucking Teemo had to go and say that. Gimp. He was talking about Bonangelo, sure, but later when he was telling Andy Tighe or whoever that Ray Boy’s nephew had come in, he’d probably say, You know, the gimp.

  A corner store up the block from The Wrong Number was piping out Middle Eastern music. Eugene walked there and bought a forty of O.E. and some Swedish Fish. The guy behind the counter had a beard that almost connected to his eyebrows and was wearing a pit-stained white shirt. The hair on his arms was like used Brillo. He didn’t even look up at Eugene.

  Eugene left and sat on the curb outside. He tilted the forty back, taking a long slug, elbow raised, crinkling the brown bag between his fingers. When he held up Mr. Natale’s card game, when he fixed his Uncle Ray Boy, maybe then people would stop thinking of him as a gimp.

  Eleven

  Stephanie pulled up at the bus stop across from the Cavallaro schoolyard on Bath Avenue, about a block from Conway’s house. Conway told her he needed to stop and pick up a few things at the grocery store. “You okay?” he said.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m good. You?”

  He nodded. “I’m not coming back to work. I can’t.”

  “I figured that.”

  “Listen, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

  “I wanted you to.”

  Conway said goodbye, took what booze was left, and got out of the car, figuring it was better just to end the weirdness. He watched Stephanie pull away. He was sorry for how things had gone down between them, but he wasn’t in his right mind with all that was going on. Ray Boy. Pop. She had to know that, some of it at least. He thought more about how it would be to leave all of this behind, finally kill Ray Boy, burn the house, go to Nova Scotia. Fuck was in Nova Scotia anyhow? He saw land. Lots of it. Wind blowing tall grasses. Cliffs. Gray water. Gray skies. No one else around. He saw miles and miles of peace.

  It was almost dark. Not wanting to go back to the house just yet, he sat on a bench in the schoolyard and stared across at the Allstate office where a girl named Ludmilla used to work. He wasn’t sure who worked there now, but he knew Ludmilla had been transferred to a Br
ighton Beach branch six years ago. He’d been obsessed with her, used to stare at her through the window, sit on this bench with a cup of steaming coffee from Augie’s or Jimmy’s and just watch her. Her desk was closest to the window. Depending on the light and the time of day, it was easy to see through the window from a distance, harder up close. Ludmilla always had a pencil behind her ear. She seemed to be constantly on the phone. Her hair was blonde like the cocktail waitresses in Atlantic City, down to her shoulders, and he imagined that it was feathery. He could draw her face from memory. Dropkick blue eyes. Button nose. Purplish birthmark over her mouth. Skin the color of lemon ice. Lips to end the world. For hours Conway would stare at her. She’d push her hair back behind her ears. Take the pencil out and write something down on a lined yellow pad. She’d put her hair up in a pony-tail with a tie. She’d type on the computer. Tender pecks. Posture perfect. Three buttons open on her blouse. She’d scratch her throat. Blow her nose. Sip from a bottle of water with Russian writing on the label. Eat salads from tinfoil trays, slurping up greens as if they were noodles. Conway had wanted to change his insurance just so he could go in there.