Brooklyn 1975

by Robert Moeller

  Oh, and our families were fucked up, people in jail. I mean, look at my mother. But I think if we were submarines, my periscope reached a little higher, you know what I’m saying? Not by much, but I could see a little more. Sounds stupid, I know. But that extra something, like being just a few feet higher, really added something. Yeah, it wasn’t much, but it counted for something. And the more I thought about it the more I realized that Junior didn’t care what was outside the submarine. Whatever was out there didn’t exist for him. He was wrapped up in whatever he was wrapped up in and fuck the rest of it, it didn’t matter to him. I guess his world was big enough for him. And if you think about it, Brooklyn was a big place and at times it could seem like the center of the universe, you know what I’m saying. Sometimes, it was just bursting at the seams.

  Millions of people lived here and a lot of them never saw each other each day. It was like they lived in different countries, or something. In Brooklyn, you were crowded but alone, no one gave a shit what you did unless you were interfering with what they were doing, you know, got in there way somehow. It was chaotic but soothing too. You could lose yourself in it, just get dragged along, ushered onto trains and carried all over the fucking place, even Far Rockaway, which was like being on the moon. Sometimes, you were like the trash being blown around, and that’s some random shit.

  Erica used to say that you could control your own destiny. She had basic rules. You do well in school, go to college, and then get a good job. She said it wasn’t a recipe for perfect happiness but it was a start. Oh, and you needed to stay out of trouble. Well, one out of three isn’t bad. I mean, I made more than a lot of guys that went to work everyday and basically helped support my family. At least our rent was paid and we had enough to eat. But I guess Erica was right, and in some respect, so was Junior. This wouldn’t last. Like he said, we can’t be selling weed at school forever.

  “I’m going home to take a nap.” I said. “All this shit is giving me a headache.”

  “Yeah, you need your beauty sleep. You’re looking, uh, like shit.” Junior said. “Not for nothing, I mean…”

  “Thanks. What are you up to, or should I ask?”

  “This and that.” He said, looking away from me.”

  “Oh, really. What kind of this and that?” I said, seeming like I only halfway cared.

  “You know, the usual shit. Oh, and I’ve got to go to the store for my mother, pick up some veal for dinner. She’s making the veal cutlets you like. You want to come over later, have something to eat?”

  “Let me take a nap, think about it.” I said. “You never know”

  “Come on, the veal cutlets, some cheese and gravy.”

  “Tempting.” I said.

  “Tempting? Tempting? She’s making them, hands down the best food in Brooklyn. You know that.”

  “I know, I know. I’m still woozy, or something. I’ll call you when I wake up.” I said.

  Then he put his arm around me while he stood next to me. “You know, we can’t break up. It’s not like with girls -- they come and go, right? We’re like brothers; we have that bond, that something. You hear what I’m saying. Look, I know you think I’m fucking up here, and maybe I’m am but it’s the exact way I want to fuck up.” He took his arm off me and poked his thumb into his chest when he said “I”.

  “And, I’m telling you, I don’t think I’m fucking up, not if I do it right, I’m just built for the life, you know that. And if everything falls the way I think it will, I’m set up. None of this running for coffee, entry level bullshit. I’m set. I’m telling you.”

  “Whatever you say. It sounds like someone has filled your head with bullshit.” I said. “Who is it? Vito? Little Vito?”

  “Fine, be that way.” He said. “You’ll see. But no matter what, we’re best friends, right?” He was smiling and at the same time looking at me strange.

  “That’s not what we’re talking about here. The fact that we’re friends doesn’t mean shit.” I said.

  “Best friends?” He asked.

  I nodded and headed home.

  It took just about all the energy I had to drag myself up the stairs to my apartment. When I got inside my mother was standing there in a robe with a towel on her head. Water was dripping from beneath the towel onto her shoulders and her arms were folded across her chest and, get this, she wasn’t smoking. I said hello to her and went into the kitchen to get some water. When I came back she was still standing there. “Your father is coming home from jail.” She said. “Might be home next week.”

  Can your knee skip a beat like your heart because mine did? I almost toppled over.

  “What did you say?” I asked her.

  “I said your father is getting let out, coming home from jail.” She was smiling.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Yeah, so I guess I mentioned him. He’s been locked up since I was ten. At first, my mother told us that he was away on business, must have given her some time to think about things, figure out a way to tell us. When she did, I remember crying and not understanding, mostly, because she didn’t say much. It was like, your father got in trouble and has to go to jail and it was all a big mistake, and blah, blah, blah…

  I mean, how do you understand ten years when you’re just ten years old? It seemed like a lifetime, which it was for me, not that I exactly put the numbers together, if you know what I’m saying. Turns out the big mistake was putting a shotgun under the chin of an armored car guard and threatening to blow off his head if he didn’t open the door of his truck. That’s usually a big mistake, and when the guard is a moonlighting city cop, that just makes it worse. And like any mistake in Brooklyn, it wasn’t complete until it was shared. I mean, you can’t be fucking up alone, not here. There are too many people willing to go along for the ride, right? In this case, it was the Clatto brothers, Joey and Eddie.

  Joey must have been a real dink because he was driving the getaway car and ended up shooting himself in the balls. This wasn’t some wild shoot-out that everyone laughs about later, no way; this was shooting yourself in the balls while you’re sitting alone in a car. I mean, it must have been like “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.” Or something. More likely, “The Gang That Shot Itself In The Balls.”

  Anyway, the cop won’t open the door of the truck and Joey sterilized himself and before you know it they’re all in cuffs. Since nobody got hurt, except Joey, my father caught a ten-year sentence upstate. The last time I saw him, which was in a courthouse in lower Manhattan, all he said was, “Stay here, I’ll be home soon.”

  I guess he meant go home and wait and not like, wait here in the courthouse.

  We did go home and that’s when my mother began to shut down. It didn’t happen overnight but gradually. The first sign that things were going to shit was that she started smoking. I mean, before that, she never smoked. Then suddenly, she’s like a Con-Ed plant, or something. Then, she pretty much stopped talking. Luckily for me, Rainie was around and became like my second mother even though she wasn’t that much older than me. I mean, she was a natural, even as a kid.

  Let me tell you, times were tough there for a while. The thing was, being a kid and all, I really never understood what was happening and basically went to school and stayed outside playing with my friends. What was tough wasn’t always tough for me. And besides, everyone I hung out with had something fucked up going on. I mean, it was Brooklyn, right?

  I was old enough to know that money was tight and soon enough I had a paper route. The Daily News in all its inky early morning glory. I delivered to fifty or sixty houses every day and collected on Friday nights when people were home from work and had just got paid. Then, some guy, the guy that brought the papers to my house in the morning would collect from me. What with everyone taking his or her cut the newspaper business reminded me of the mafia.

  I did that until high school started and me and Junior, and with Betty as the muscle, took over the school. It was pretty simple, we found out who was se
lling weed and then told them they had to stop. A couple of older guys were like what the fuck but we settled that pretty quickly. We had to beat one guy up twice but he was a senior and that didn’t last long. In no time, we were earning, not learning.

  So anyway, I’m like not used to having a father or at least not being heartbroken about him being gone or anything. Basically, I acted like I didn’t give a shit but the truth was that now that he was coming home, a lot of stuff was bubbling up in me. Mostly, it was resentment, like what was he thinking? He had two kids at home and he’s out robbing an armored car? And maybe with the two dumbest guys in Brooklyn. I mean, what the fuck? Maybe, I was just angry with him for getting caught. I mean, here, crime was how you kept score. It was like grades in some other places.

  “I thought he wasn’t getting out for another couple of years?” I said, thinking maybe my mother was making a mistake.

  “Good behavior.” She said. “He’s getting out early because of good behavior.”

  “How do you misbehave in jail? I asked. “I mean, you’re in jail.”

  “Don’t be a smartass with me.” She said. “And anyway, how would I know? I got a letter this morning in the mail. Say’s he’s getting out next Tuesday, early in the morning.”

  Are we going to go up there?” I asked.

  “No, I’m not. I’ll stay here and wait where I’ve been waiting. Maybe, you and Junior can go up there, get a car from someone.”

  “I’ll ask him. Don’t seem like it will be a problem.”

  It wasn’t a problem if you think having another fuck-up in my life wasn’t a problem. Jesus, things weren’t perfect at home but at least they were stable. And yeah, maybe they were getting worse, but you could barely tell, it was like watching it snow. I mean, yeah, the snow piled up after a while but if you just sat there and watched it, nothing much seemed to be happening. My mother was in like suspended animation, or something. I never thought it had much to do with my father but seeing some of these little sparks of life now, I began to wonder.

  “You miss him?” I asked.

  She looked at me for a long time before answering. “I don’t know but I miss something. Whether it’s him or not, I guess we’ll see. Funny but I got that letter and parts of me started to wake up. I mean, I haven’t been sitting here waiting for Frank Sinatra all these years, not even Tom Jones. I don’t know what happened. One minute I’m sitting here with the usual problems a woman my age has and the next I’m just sitting here. It was like I disappeared on myself, or something.”

  I go, “Ah, Ma.” Not knowing what else to say. I mean, it wasn’t everyday that my mother was standing there talking to me. I mean, she wasn’t a deaf mute, or anything, but this was fucking amazing.

  “I think I just fell into thinking about all the things I didn’t have, you know what I’m saying. And then, I just became one of the things I didn’t have. Me, actually.“

  “Maybe it was like a vacation?” I wagered.

  She glared at me.

  “A vacation, I’ll smack you, you say that again. What kind of vacation are you talking about?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I mean, you, like, were just away, traveling, you know.” I said.

  “I was here every minute of every day.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. And then I thought about how there were all these extra minutes for people who were unhappy, or whatever. Each day must have dragged like time sort of stands still when you’re in church, or school. I’m surprised I never noticed that but I suppose it’s hard to notice another person’s boredom, or worse. Then, it sort of occurred to me, my mother was doing the same thing my father was doing. It was like they were in jail together. Not like they were sharing the same cell or anything, but you see what I’m saying. It was like my father stole her life from her. He didn’t get the money he was after but he sure ripped her off completely. “What an asshole”, I thought.

  “Why’s he even coming back here?” I said. “It’s not like he belongs here. I mean, I don’t even remember what he looks like, for Christ Sake.”

  “He’s your father, he made a mistake.” She said. “This is his house.”

  “My ass it is. He’s hasn’t been here in a long time and last I checked he isn’t the one putting food on the table, taking care of us. What shit.” That’s when I counted out two hundred dollars, keeping fifty for myself, and handed it to her. That was like blood money, so it was better that it was out of my hands.

  She didn’t say anything.

  What a raw deal, the two of them. Fucking cellmates in some make-believe hell and I mean what a raw deal for Rainie and I. I mean, they’re our parents but on some level, fuck them. We didn’t ask to be here, we didn’t have much of a choice last time I checked. You look at it like that and they seem like such incompetents, such fuck-ups, really. I pictured Erica’s parents for a second and felt jealous.

  What chance did I have? The more I thought about it, it seemed like Junior was making a rational choice. I mean, what chance did he have otherwise. He looked at the world and the hand he was dealt and said, “Why not?” I’m not sure what was stopping me, probably just the fact that I didn’t have the stomach for it all. Not that I was afraid, or anything like that, no, not me. I think it was the constant worrying, the constant looking over you’re shoulder. I liked to relax sometimes; you know, sleep and take things easy. You get in with the wise guys, say goodbye to all that. It was like a job, plain and simple. You were playing tag with the cops and other wise guys twenty-four hours a day.

  “Anyway, compared to me, at least Junior knew where he stood, and maybe more importantly, what he wanted. Maybe, I was the asshole for just kidding myself about the possibilities out there for a kid like me.

  “Where you getting all this money?” My mother asked.

  Oh, now that her head is sticking out of the fog a little she’s going to start breaking my balls.

  “What, now all of a sudden you’re asking questions about the money I bring home?”

  “I’m just asking you a question. Don’t get an attitude with me, mister.” She said, shaking the fistful of twenties at me.

  “I’m telling you, you can’t win around here.” I said. “Junior and I did some work for a guy, like building a wall, or something. You know, helping him.”

  She looked at me with a sort of dead-eyed disbelief, like I was full of shit, or something. Jesus, she was actually paying attention to me. “That’s a lot of bricks you hauled.” She said.

  “Yeah, we hauled them and then helped put up the wall.”

  “Who was this guy?” She asked.

  What’s this suddenly with the questions, I thought. “Some guy, friend of Junior’s, some grease ball, couldn’t speak English.” I said, trying to not look at the floor while I spoke.

  “I’ll put some of this away. We’ll go out and get something to eat when your father gets home. Something nice, like he likes. Maybe, get on the train and go to Peter Lugar, get some steak.”

  Already now she’s going out again? What the fuck? One minute it’s like she’s sound asleep, the next, she’s out on the town. Before you know it, she’s going to be riding the Cyclone. I’m starting to think that this holiday that I’ve been on from any sort of supervision might be ending.

  “Maybe, you should start out taking things slow, you know what I’m saying.” And what I was saying was what I was hoping. Trust me.

  “What are you talking about, take things slow?” She said. “What am I, an invalid, or something?”