Brooklyn 1975

by Robert Moeller

  And while I’m talking to her I’m thinking that maybe it’s better to just forget everything and move on. Kiss it all good-bye like it’s nothing. Not forgetting Junior or anything like that, but just everything bad, everything lately.

  I have plenty of good memories stored up somewhere. I mean, we did plenty before Melo started hitting my sister and Junior decided to drift off with the wise guys. Basically, we had our whole lives together before this… this… Before he was killed. Yeah, killed. Shot dead on the street. And since I was standing right there, I suppose that it was just going to sit on top of everything like a manhole cove for a while, makes sense, right?

  “Are we fucked, or what?” I said to Angela.

  “No.” She said. “Somehow, we’ll get out. You and I -- together like…”

  “Together like what?” I asked.

  “Just together.” She said.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight.

  We were down there for about a week before Little Vito showed up. He drove up to the cottage one night in his little Datsun that was identical to Angela’s and instead of getting out of the car and coming to the door he just sat there leaning on the horn. I looked out the window and saw him and my heart sank. I knew he was coming because we all had called home during the week to talk to our parents and tell them everything was all right. When Angela called, her father said that Little Vito would drive up there when things were squared away.

  I went outside to talk to him and see what was going on.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “You can go home now.” Vito said. He was wearing a Yankee’s hat and the brim was low over his eyes. “Dom the Clip had an accident, he was hit by a car, then he was shot, and then he was shot again. Poor guy needs to be more careful crossing the street.” Vito was laughing.

  “Anyway, things have changed at the Motor Service. It’s under new management, if you get what I’m saying.”

  I shook my head.

  “You want to follow me back tonight?” He asked. “I’m going as far as Rhode Island.”

  “No, we’ll leave tomorrow.” I said.

  “My sister all right? He asked.

  Yup, she’s fine.” I said.

  “Here, give her this.” He said, taking an envelope from the glove compartment. “Some money from my father. Which reminds me… This is for you. My father says you take it, no questions asked. And, oh, he wanted me to tell you that Junior’s funeral was taken care of. It was a first class thing, I’m telling you. I was over there.”

  “Thanks.” I said, clutching the two envelopes.

  “Say hi to my sister for me.” He said.

  “You not staying for a while, that’s a long drive.”

  “No, I’m driving back to Providence. I know a girl there, you know what I’m saying?”

  I nodded.

  “Later.” He said and drove off.

  I went back inside and the girls were watching television. I flipped the envelope onto Angela’s lap and opened the envelope that was mine. Inside were fifty one hundred dollar bills. Big deal, I thought. Big fucking deal. Then I went and found the gun and took it outside. I found a plastic pail and shovel like the kind that kids use at the beach and walked into the woods and buried the gun deep in the sandy ground under a scrub pine. Then, I took the plastic bag with the extra bullets and flung them into the woods.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine.

  We left the next morning. I drove until we were nearly to Hartford. Angela slept on the back seat and Marty sat quietly next to me as I smoked cigarette after cigarette without saying a word. When I pulled into a rest stop, Angela woke up and rubbed her eyes and yawned. We all went inside to us the bathroom and buy some drinks and potato chips.

  Back in the car, Angela drove and Marty stayed up front. I sat in the back just staring out the window looking at nothing in particular. It was like the passing cars, the trees, and the signs were a movie that shot along the highway with us, a drive-with instead of a drive-in.

  In a couple of hours we were in the city curling along the river and heading back to Brooklyn. The first thing I noticed was how heavy the air was. It was a mixture of car exhaust and summer heat. The water in the river looked old and used up. It was dingy and gray and nothing like the water on the Cape, which was cold, crisp, and salty. I was happy to be getting home in some ways but now that I’d been some place else, someplace really clean, I saw things a little differently. Hey, make no mistake about it; this was still the greatest city in the world, bar none, but now I wasn’t so up its ass, if you know what I’m saying.

  Maybe, too, it was because we still looked like we were on vacation, I was wearing my surfer boy bathing suit and a Cape Cod tee shirt and the girls were wearing sunglasses and their bikini tops. Plus, we were all tanned. It was like coming home from a vacation and realizing why you went away in the first place. You went to get away. In my case, that was exactly why I went, to get away.

  It was like Tuesday, or something. I’m not sure. Anyway. We crossed the bridge and were back home. We dropped Marty off first and I got out of the car to hug her. In a way, I felt like we were all competing to see who would make it out. I knew that I needed to help her but at the same time didn’t know if I could. I held her in my arms a long time and when I released her she handed me Junior’s ring. “You take it.” She said. “It’s a guy’s ring anyway.”

  I stood there and watched her climb the stairs up to the front door of her apartment not knowing that I’d never see her again. Turns out she got pregnant over the summer with one of her brother’s friends and never returned to school. I called her a couple of times but she never wanted to get together. What are you going to do? Had I known that, I would have followed her inside and made her promise that whatever happened to us we’d always remain friends – like for forever and ever… Angela said that I probably reminded her of Junior too much. So, maybe that was what it was, I don’t know.

  When we were outside my house I just sat there a minute breathing deeply. I mean, I wasn’t nervous about coming home or anything, hey, I lived there, right? It was just that everything felt different. In a way, I felt more grown up, more adult. But it was something I couldn’t put my finger on, something else that felt weird. Maybe, it was some sort of dread, if that’s a word? Like a feeling or something.

  I kissed Angela and grabbed my bag out of the trunk. Then, I stood by the window of the car talking to her. “Call you later.” I said. “After I get squared away.”

  “Yeah.” She said. “Call me.”

  “What else?” I asked.”

  “What?”

  “What else?” I repeated.

  What? Tell me.”

  “I think we’re falling in love.” I said, afraid to commit just myself.

  “You think so?” She said.

  I nodded my head yes.

  “Good.” She said. “Real good.”

  I kissed her again and stood there watching as she drove off.

  When I turned around, Mrs. Numbers was heading into the building with her shopping cart filled to the top. I ran to catch up with her and took the cart and carried it upstairs. I waited for her to climb the stairs behind me and was standing on the landing when she came up. “You know something.” She said, in a thick European accent. “You’re a good boy.”

  I smiled at her. “No problem.” I said, feeling kind of embarrassed, “Anytime you need something, just let me know.” Then she tried to give me some money but I refused it and headed upstairs. That was the first time she ever spoke to me and for some reason it made me feel really good. Maybe things were actually starting to turn around, I thought.

  I fished around in my bag looking for my keys, opened the door and who the fuck do you think is standing there in the middle of my living room? Baba, that’s who’s there.

  “No work today?” I ask. “A holiday or something?”

  She shakes her head. “You back for good?”

  “I guess.” I said. ”Why, I’m not allowed to c
ome home, or something?”

  Then I noticed that she’s holding an ice pack in her hand. “You sprain something?” I ask.

  She shakes her head again. “Nope.”

  What? Someone get hurt? Trip over something?” I say.

  “Some guy hit Rainie again. A new guy, last night.”

  “You’re shitting me?” I say.

  “No, I’m serious. I mean Rainie hit him first, still…”

  I felt my heart sinking and it was a selfish sinking at that. I was like “What the fuck?” I mean I cared about Rainie, she was my sister and everything but this was ridiculous. This was like a fucking practical joke. “Is she all right?” I managed to ask. Baba is just standing there looking at me.

  “Yeah, just a bruised cheek, nothing serious.” She says. “I thought the guy was nice, I introduced them. Not that this is my fault or anything. You’re sister’s got some temper on her.”

  “Where’s my mother?” I ask.

  “She went out with your father to an afternoon movie. She took him to calm him down. He was heading out after this guy from last night.”

  “What happened? I mean what happened last night?” I asked.

  Guy, Jimmy Bolan, an Irish guy, pinches her ass, didn’t mean anything by it. You know, he was being playful, didn’t mean anything. So, she turns around and punches him in the face. His friends were there, so he hit her back. One of those things, I guess.”

  “One of those things…” I started to say something but instead felt that familiar wave of tiredness coming on. Truth was, it’s like a blessing sometimes how it arrives like a taxi when you’re standing out in the rain. “She’s all right, you said.”

  “Yeah, she’s fine. You want to talk to her, or something?” Baba said.

  I yawned. No, I’ll see her later.” I said. “I’m going to bed.”

  I went in my room and closed the door and lay down on the bed. I was right on the verge of falling asleep when I felt this thing sticking into my hip. There was a little pocket in my bathing suit and I reached into it with my finger and pulled out Junior’s ring. I held it between my fingers and looked at it for a while. It wasn’t a memory but something real. I think I just stared at it for a long time before slipping it on my finger and going to sleep.

  .