Brooklyn 1975

by Robert Moeller

  I look over there and notice Junior crouching behind a car right across the street from us. The guy runs up to him and says, “What, you can’t mind your own business or something. What do we look like the circus?” Then, he grabs Junior by the scruff of the neck and sort of frog-marches him across the street. I’m watching and notice that the guy standing next to Vito has pulled a gun out and it was dangling from his hand.

  “Hey, leave him alone. I know him.” I shouted as loud as I could. The men all looked at me, and then Vito walked up to me and said, “Stop yelling, would you.”

  Anyway they were standing around asking him questions and instead of answering them he was talking to me. “Rainie called me, said some guys were at your house, so I came running over here.”

  “You know this guy?” Vito said, looking at me.

  “Yeah, he’s my best friend.”

  “We’re like brothers.” Junior says. “Like this.” He was holding two fingers in the air.

  “This is Vito.” I said and pointed to him. “And these are his friends.”

  “Holy shit.” Junior said. “This is amazing, truly fucking amazing. I know all about you.”

  “What do you know, kid?” Vito’s face was sort of pulsing like a brightly lit blinker on a car.

  “What?” Junior said.” You know what I mean. This is like an honor, is all I’m saying. This is special.”

  Vito’s friends were laughing. One of them clapped his hand on Vito’s back and said, “Get a load of this kid, would you. Kid is cracking me up already.” Vito’s face seemed to soften. ”So you know the score too, then. Is that right. You know why we’re here.”

  “I don’t know nothing but if this about Melo, I’ll shoot that fuck myself. And I’m not fucking kidding.”

  “Oh the language, please. Easy with that shit, would you.” Vito said.

  “Sorry, I’m just excited, I got knocked around by Melo’s friends last time we tried to jump him. I’d just like another shot at him. You know what I’m saying. Be different this time.”

  “Last time we tried something, he was carry a piece.” I said. “The prick shot at me, hit a mailbox right next to me.”

  Vito and his friends looked at each other without saying anything. Then Vito says to me to get in the car. “And they tried to whack us too, took some shots at us.” Junior said.

  “What are you going to do, stand there holding your dick? Or are you coming with us?” Vito said, wiggling his fingers in Junior’s direction. I think Junior almost saluted Vito before piling into the car next to me. “Oh, trust me, I’m game.” Junior said.

  Vito was up in the front seat and he turned to talk to us, ”Now, listen up. I’m going home for obvious reasons. The guys in the other car, and never mind their names, are going with you. Whatever happens, and that’s up to them, whatever happens, you don’t say shit. That’s before and after, you understand? Nothing. This is their call because they know what they’re doing. Again, you’re just along for the ride. You pick the guy out and that’s it. You do exactly what they say. If you don’t, I’ll hear about it. Oh, and another thing, you say a word about this to anyone you get taken down, no ifs, ands or buts.”

  And then he turned and looked me right in the eye.” And that means you, you understand? I don’t care if you are the love of Angela’s life, you’re being judged here, understand.”

  I nodded my head, not saying anything before turning to look at Junior.”

  “Hey, Vito. No disrespect here but I just want to say that we are stand-up guys. You don’t have to worry about a thing with us. In fact, if you would consider it, I’d really want to do some things for you, whatever, right? Anything you need. I mean, you were there for us. It only seems right. You know, a tic for a tic.”

  I was cringing inside. Like, there is a time and a place for everything.

  The guy driving was laughing. “A tic for a tic? What are you talking about?” He turned to Vito, “This kid is too funny.” Vito wasn’t laughing. “One thing at a time, one thing at a time. Now, we’re pulling over, so go get in the other car.”

  Junior reached over the seat and tried to shake Vito’s hand. “Go!” Vito yelled, displaying some of his legendary temper. Go, before I change my mind about this.”

  They pulled the car over and as I looked back after jumping out I could see that Vito had his arm handing out the window and his thumb in the air for the other guys to see. Jesus Christ, this was really happening, and then it dawned on me, if I got in the car, I’d be on the hook for killing someone, even if was just Melo. Even if I didn’t pull the trigger, it still would be on me. I was thinking so hard, I mean, I wasn’t doing anything, it was more like my brain was speeding down the street dragging me behind it. It was kind of like how they say that when you’re dieing your life flashes before your eyes.

  Junior on the other hand wasn’t thinking about anything, as usual. He was just talking.

  “I lost my gun today, some stupid thing but if you guys got something extra here, I’ll shoot this fuck myself.”

  “Didn’t Vito talk to you?” One of the guys said. He was in the back with Junior and I and was about the same size as Betty and smelled like a mixture of red wine and garlic.

  “Let them handle it, will you.” I said, jabbing Junior in the ribs with my elbow. “They know what they’re doing.”

  “What? I’m just trying to be helpful here. I’m ready to step up is all I’m saying. I’ll be eighteen in a couple of months, if you can join the army than why can’t you shoot some prick that deserves it.”

  The big man turned to Junior and said, “Who said anything about anybody shooting anybody.”

  Junior looked back at him like one of them was confused. “Guy has already been shot by Big Mike and his friends and he still is keeping on keeping on. What, you think a beating is going to do? Fix that? Come on, this guy has to go, he needs to leave, goodbye… I mean, he’s still shooting at us for Christ-Sakes.”

  “The big guy was laughing. “What are you, the little general here? You going to sit there and tell us our business?”

  “No, I just saying.” Junior said, looking somehow deflated. “Maybe, I’d handle it differently is what I’m saying. Maybe, I’d whack the guy, which is what I was planning to do anyway, that way he’s not going to keep coming back at us. He’s dead, unless he’s the fucking Creature Feature, which maybe this guy is, and no mess, no fuss.”

  “The man took a length of rope from his coat that had two wooden handles on it. “What if he just choked on his dinner?” The man asked, smiling like the joke was actually funny. I took a deep breath that didn’t go anywhere. This shit was getting worse by the second. “Maybe, another beating would straighten him out.” I sputtered.

  “Yeah, and maybe you can trust a Spic with the keys to your car.” Junior said. “And my girlfriend is one of them, so I know, it’s in the blood sometimes, you just can’t help it. This guy Melo is fucking de-fucking-mented. A real fucking kook.”

  Everyone in the car was laughing, except me. Now Junior was smiling and all full of himself. So I gave him the elbow again. “Why don’t you just cool it?” I said. “Suddenly you’re such a big man, going around killing people?”

  “What’s you problem?” He asked. “This is your sister we’re talking about here. You every think about that?” He said.

  “Well, then, maybe you need to mind your business then.”

  The big man ended our conversation by putting his arm, which was like a telephone pole across both our chests at the same time and saying, “Cool it, ladies or it will be your heads that get tied together.”

  “There.” Junior said. “There it is, The Pump.” He was pointing and flicking his finger at the same time. “That’s where he hangs out.”

  Chapter Ten

  The Pump looked like just about every other bar in Brooklyn. The outside was lined with something that looked like fake chrome and there were long, rectangular window with beer signs blinking in them. Old men spent t
heir days with their saddles tossed over the high stools and most of them left around dinnertime to go home. At night, the crowd changed and mostly it was younger people that sat drinking thirty-cent beers with the forth one on the house. A shuffle- board was the only form of entertainment and sometimes it beat listening to the crap that someone was sitting there telling you about.

  We drove by the bar and parked about half way up the block. “Go peek in the window and see if he’s in there, will you. We’ll wait here.”

  I’ll go with you.” Junior said.

  “No, you stay here with us. The two of you will draw attention to us. Just peek in there, make like you’re waiting for the bus or something.”

  I did exactly what he told me and crept up to the window and looked into the bar. Melo was standing right there and I turned my head away as quickly as I could. I trotted back to the car and got in the back seat. “I think he saw me.” I said. “I mean I’m not sure or nothing, but he might of.”

  “If he saw you, he’d be outside by now, right? The big guy was gesturing at the rear view mirror. “Nobody came out.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, he couldn’t have seen me.” I said, not really sure if he did or not.

  “What’s this guy wearing tonight?” The big guy asked.

  “A whiter tee-shirt. He looks like a weight-lifter and he should be using a cane to get around.” I said.

  Junior shook his head. “The fucking gimp.”

  “Stay in the car, don’t move. You understand?” The big guy said. Then he pointed at Junior and asked him if he could drive. Junior nodded yes and the guy told him to hop in the driver’s seat and to take off when they came back. Then the three of them got out of the car and walked up the street to the bar.

  “I hope he didn’t see me.” I said to Junior.

  “No way, he’d of come roaring out of there after you, like a fucking three-legged rhino.”

  “Very funny, but that kinds of describes him, doesn’t it?” I said, sort of breathing normally again.

  Anyway, if you could match sound to the letters in a word as you’re saying it, it was about right where the “n” is in “doesn’t” that I heard the first shot. I remember it because the rest of the shots came so fast and close together that you couldn’t tell them apart. Then, there was a big blast from a shotgun that sounded like a hand grenade going off and then there were some shouts and it was quiet. I got out of the car and about thirty feet away Vito’s men were all laying on the sidewalk and pools of blood were running off the edge of the curb the same way the water flies off the top of a water fall. The big guy, who did all the talking, his head looked flat, like it was run over by a truck.

  “Junior jumped out of the car and ran to them, he grabbed two pistols off the ground and ran back to the car. He tossed one to me and when I held it by the grip, I noticed it was covered in blood. “Let’s get out of here before we’re next.” I said and Junior pulled away slowly.

  “Nice and easy.” I said. “Nothing to draw attention to us. Just go slow.”

  “Where?” Junior said.

  “I don’t know but just get out of here.” I said, while wiping the blood off of my hand onto the back seat.

  “I think we’re in the middle of something else, something that’s got nothing to do with us.” I said. “First Big Mike, now these guys. Something else is going on. They were waiting for us and if we had been out there, I don’t even want to think about it.”

  Junior aimed a finger at me. “Blam. Blam.” He said. “Bye, bye, cruel world.”

  “Don’t joke about this. Those guys just got wasted.”

  “I was thinking.” Junior said, “Why would Vito like all of a sudden, I mean, he doesn’t even know us, why would he do this, because his daughter asked him. Like what did she say, “Oh, please daddy, please” Come on, that’s bullshit. I’m telling you. What guy, I mean, any guy, is going to whack someone like that? Don’t make sense if you’re asking me.”

  Who’s asking?” I said.

  But the truth of it was that what he said made sense. I guess I was just so overwhelmed by everything that I wasn’t thinking. “You think Angela had anything to do with this?”

  “Nah, all she did was talk to her father about the problem you were having. She doesn’t know shit, I’m telling you. She probably thought that Melo would be issued a stern beating and that would let him see the bright light of day, you know what I’m saying?”

  “I think Vito set up his own guys, let them walk into something that looked like something else. I mean, here they are thinking they have the drop but instead, they end up getting dropped. See what I’m saying? Why, I don’t know. I mean, how the fuck could we anyway.

  “What about Big Mike?” I asked. “How’s he fit into this?”

  “Other than getting whacked, I don’t know.”

  “But every time, the two times anyway, that I ask people to help me, everyone gets dead except Melo. And he has no way of knowing who I’m talking to or what’s being said, right?” I said.

  “That’s very true.” Junior said, dropping his voice down and trying to sound like a schoolteacher, or something. “But what sucks is this, and here I’m thinking like the wise guys, we’re left standing in the middle of four bodies. We end up looking like the opposite of that guy who turned straw into gold, see what I’m saying. They got to be wondering about that.”

  “What if they are just two different things? You know, Big Mike got it for one thing and Vito, well Vito did whatever he did.”

  As we talked without realizing it I had tucked the gun into my belt. “This is turning into one of those Alfred Hitchcock movies, what the fuck.”

  “I think.” Junior said, “That we’re getting played. I’m not eliminating the dots here but something smells fishy, like how the old ladies always say.”

  “Connecting.” I corrected him.

  “What? What are you saying, connecting?”

  “Connecting the dots, not eliminating them. What’s your brain, a fucking rental?”

  But the thing was that he made sense. Not the way he said it but the way he figured it out. I admit, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to think that way but everything that he said fit together. I mean, it was like the inside of a television, I couldn’t figure out how it worked but it did. We were getting scammed or were pretty unlucky and that doesn’t include getting stuck up by a naked girl. The thing that bothered me was that whoever it was one step ahead of us. And now that I think about it, Melo just seemed to be standing there, waiting for us. It was like he knew that we were coming. But come to think about it, it didn’t seem like there was enough time for them to come out of the bar and blast Vito’s guys. It all happened too fast. I mean, I don’t know, I didn’t see anything, but it seemed like it happened pretty quickly.

  We got to call Vito.” I said. “Tell him what happened.”

  “Fuck that.” Junior replied. “He already knows.”

  “Yeah, but if we don’t he’ll know we know something, or at least suspect something, right?”

  Junior didn’t say anything for a minute. “Alright, let’s lose this car and find a phone. You call him and tell him what happened. See what he says. Then, at least he’s not going to think anything is wrong with us.”

  “That’s what I just said.”

  “Yeah, I know, I’m just saying we’re on the same page. Great minds think alike.”

  “You crack me up.” I said, not laughing.