Bloodbrothers

by Richard Price

  Mrs. Pitt looked out the window to her left for a long moment as she rocked slightly in her swivel chair. "What would you do if I said, 'No, if you don't come back Monday, don't come back at all'?"

  Stony felt his guts deflate. "Then I would be out of a job I really dug." He fought back the impulse to cry, staring into his lap, feeling the muscles in his face start to buckle.

  "Normally I wouldn't do this"—Mrs. Pitt picked up the photo cube, idly rolling it around in her hands—"but I think I understand the situation better than you think I do. My father wanted me married and pregnant as soon as I graduated high school. I had to run away from home to get on with my life. Never went back." She returned the cube to the desk. "The kids like you very much, Stony, and I sense you like them." She smiled and nodded resolutely. "Two weeks you need, two weeks you got."

  A rush of relief like a wave knocked him flat against the chair. He jumped up. "Hey, I can't tell you..." He started choking up again.

  "Just be back here in my office three Mondays from now and tell me then."

  ***

  On Friday Stony came into work in the lightheaded mood of a kid on the last day of school. In the morning, he made up three more stories, got into two heavy games of Stratego and taught the kids how to play charades. After lunch he conducted a joke-telling contest in which Derek was disqualified for poor sportsmanship (What's the difference between Tyrone and a elephant? About five pounds) and Tyrone was disqualified for obscenity (Why is Derek's sister like the Alaska pipeline? 'Cause she got laid by six hundred men across the state). Felix got disqualified for grossness (What's burnt, shriveled and hangs from the ceiling? A Polish electrician). Stony declared himself winner by default (Why can't you starve in the desert? Because of all the sand-which-is there). By the time Stony was debating the feasibility of a wheelchair race, the nurses came by to round up the kids.

  "Four-thirty already?" He looked at his watch.

  "Hey, De Coco, see you Monday."

  "Stay cool over the weekend."

  "Yeah, don't kiss any girls."

  "See you guys." Stony waved. When the day room was empty, Stony remembered that he wasn't coming back Monday. He walked down the long children's ward, entered the twenty-bed room. The nurses were serving dinner. He sat on Derek's bed and spoke to him and Tyrone. "Hey, lissen, I forgot to tell you guys, I ain't comin' back for two weeks."

  They stopped eating. "Where you goin'?" Tyrone frowned.

  "Oh, I gotta do something with my family."

  "How come?"

  Stony shrugged. "You guys behave yourselves, don't fight."

  They didn't answer. Stony got up, grabbed Tyrone by the ears and kissed him with a loud smack on the top of his head. The kids in the room screamed with laughter. Tyrone, giggling and embarrassed, buried his head under his pillow. Stony turned to Derek. Derek screeched and hid under the covers, waiting for Stony's attack. The kids shouted encouragement. Stony waited silently until Derek got impatient enough to pop his head out of the sheets. Stony kissed him right on the head to Derek's mortified delight. Then he strode from the room, waving to everybody as he left. "See ya in two weeks!"

  As Stony changed at his locker, despite feeling sad about leaving, fearful of the next two weeks, the strongest, most disturbing emotion he sensed in himself was an undeniable sense of relief.

  20

  BUTLER LIKED THE STORE best on Saturday when it got crowded and the ring of the register was music in his ears and coins in his pocket. He still couldn't believe the store was his, and every morning as he drove down and unlocked the door, he felt like a kid going to Candyland.

  "Hey, howya doin'?" Butler smiled as Annette walked into the store wearing hot pants, a striped halter and rectangular red-tinted shades.

  "Hiya." She cracked gum. "Stony around?"

  "Stony? Nah. Anything wrong?"

  She raised her eyebrows and shut her eyes. "You tell me." She dropped her bag on the counter.

  "Whadya mean?" Butler felt wary. He leaned back on his stool, shaking a cigarette from his pack.

  "I dunno, we had a couple a dates, right? Next thing I know he comes over one night insultin' the shit outta me, fuck you, fuck me, fuck us, wham bam out the door, bye-bye. Stony." She shrugged helplessly, slapping her sides on the downstroke.

  "That don't sound like him." Butler studied her face, picked his teeth with his thumbnail.

  "Well, look, he's your friend. I'm sure you know him better'n me, but, ah, if you want my opinion I think that kid's in trouble."

  "Stony?"

  "Who else we talkin' about?"

  "What kinda trouble?" Butler crushed his cigarette after two puffs.

  "Well. I was thinkin' about what happened, you know, like he really did me shit, I mean, he just got... nasty all of a sudden. I mean, he just about came out and called me a dirty tramp, and I showed 'im the door. At first I was just pissed, then I felt hurt, but I started thinkin'. I mean I really did some heavy-duty thinkin', and I started puttin' two an' two together. I remember the first night we had this long talk about him and that whole mess about two weeks here, two weeks there, the deals, the this, the that. I mean like he really opened up, right? I told him that he should fuck the deals an' just do what he wants, an' I knew what he wanted was to work with those kids, but he started freakin' out on me. I think he got scared. I guess nobody ever told him straight before. I mean I was workin' mainly onna hunch, but he really wigged, you know? So, what was I supposed to do, take back what I said? But ever since then he acted funny with me, like he was scared a me or somethin', until that night when he made me boot him out, an' he made me boot him out, that was as plain as the nose on my face. After I figured that out, I didn't feel mad or hurt anymore. I just felt concerned, so like I tried to call him up, but every time he hears my voice he hangs up." She took one of Butler's cigarettes, after folding her gum in a tissue. "Look"—she struck a match—"he don't wanna see me, fine, but somebody better get to that kid before he does himself in."

  "Whadya mean 'does himself in'? So he jerks his old man's bird for a few weeks, then he does what he wants."

  Annette smiled, her tongue slightly protruding between her teeth, and slowly shook her head.

  "What, no." Butler sounded petulant, but he was starting to get worried.

  "He's too scared," she whispered. "He'd never go against his old man."

  "Don't sound like that to me." Butler felt shaky.

  Annette smiled. "You don't think so, hah?"

  Butler didn't answer.

  "Well"—she grabbed her bag and hitched it over her shoulder—"I gotta go. Tell 'im I'm lookin' for 'im, although I really don't think he's gonna wanna talk to me, but, ah, you're his friend, why don't you check him out?"

  "He ain't talkin' to me either."

  21

  MONDAY MORNING Stony dressed in new, stiff dungarees and a tight white T-shirt. Tommy peeked in as Stony laced his boots. "You look more like a 'lectrician than me." He had oily chinos and a T-shirt rolled and wrapped in a tool belt under his arm.

  When they got into Tommy's car, Tommy reached under his seat for a box. "Here's a present from me an' Chubby."

  Stony opened the box. Inside was a white canvas tool belt, pliers, a screwdriver and a pair of channel locks. "Thanks."

  Tommy winked and started the car. "That's all you'll prob'ly need today. I was gonna get you some wire clippers but I forgot. How you feel?"

  "O.K.," Stony lied. He felt as if he were going to vomit. He couldn't sleep all night, and he had a headache. The tools in his lap weighed a ton. He was afraid of doing something stupid on the job. He was afraid that the guys would think he was a skinny faggot. He was afraid the guys were going to razz him about being Tommy's son. He hadn't felt this nervous since his first game for the Mount three years ago.

  Tommy was exploding inside with pride and excitement. He had waited for this day since Stony was a little kid. He was proud of Stony's physique and strength. All the guys knew Stony had been a half
back for the Mount because Tommy had reminded them everyday for the last six months. He was a little worried about the teasing Stony would get the first day on the job, but everybody had to go through that. Last night Tommy lay awake in bed playing out that one moment when he would walk into the electricians' shanty with his arm around Stony and say, "This is my son."

  When they arrived at the site, a high-rise luxury apartment going up in Riverdale, they sat in the parked car.

  Tommy looked at his watch. "We got a few minutes. How you doin'?"

  Stony looked through the link fence across the street. The thirty-story skeleton of the high rise towered over everything. He noticed the rows of wooden shanties and men in hard hats walking about. The parched dirt around the site was littered with wooden planks bridging potholes.

  "How you doin', babe?" Tommy asked again.

  "I think I'm gonna puke." Stony had a pained look on his face.

  Tommy laughed and got out of the car. Stony followed him. He couldn't figure out how to strap on the belt so Tommy helped him. "You'll be O.K." Tommy put his arm around Stony, escorting him across the street, through the link fence and up the steps of a trailer converted into an office. A huge fat man in a gray business suit and a red hard hat stood over a white-haired guy sitting at a desk. They were examining blueprints. The fat man looked up when Tommy and Stony walked in.

  "Artie." Tommy put his arm around Stony again. "This is my kid." The white-haired guy ignored them. Artie nodded, said something else about the blueprint to the white-haired guy, then extended his hand to Stony. "Hiya. You gotta fill these out." He handed Stony two work forms. "You got a pen?" Stony said no. He was fucking up already. Artie handed him a Bic pen from his shirt pocket. "Where it says employer write 'Empire Electric.'"

  Stony leaned over a desk and wrote neatly.

  "Stay with it, Stones, an' in ten years you'll be richer'n this fat fuck." Tommy laughed and winked at Artie. Artie scowled at him. Stony couldn't remember his social security number and had to take out his card.

  "You play ball for the Mount?" Artie regarded Stony.

  "Yeah." Stony wrote down the number.

  "All-City Honorable Mention CHSAA," Tommy interjected.

  Artie ignored him. "What was your record?"

  "Six, three and one." Stony handed him the forms.

  Artie nodded his head in mild approval. "I useta play for Cardinal Spellman."

  "Oh yeah?"

  "O.K., your father'll show you what to do. Just remember to be careful an' wear this all the time." He tapped the hard hat.

  "Artie's the contractor," Tommy said as they walked down the trailer steps. "He started out just like you. The guy pulls down forty grand a year, got a house in Pound Ridge, a gold Caddy and two racehorses. An' he's a nice bastard too."

  Stony ducked down to enter the long, dark wooden electricians' shanty. Ten men in various stages of dressing for work sat or stood balancing on one leg, pulling on greasy chinos, lacing orange boots, folding sport shirts and strapping on utility belts. Tommy had his hand on the back of Stony's neck. "Here he is!" They looked up and checked Stony out. He felt embarrassed.

  "This is Eddie, Vinny, Malfie, Blackie, Jimmy O'Day, Jackie, Augie and Carlos." Stony shook hands with some, nodded to others. Most were younger than Tommy, but Blackie and Jimmy O'Day looked close to Tommy's age. Tommy laughed and chattered as he changed into his work clothes, every fifth word out of his mouth "My kid." A splintered bench ran the length of the shanty. Above it, overhead, ran a long ledge with assorted hard hats ranging from shiny new red ones to battered paint-peeled old ones. On the short far wall under a window covered by chicken wire hung a calendar with a split beaver blonde laying on a chaise longue. Two dim light bulbs on the ceiling gave everyone a sickly subterranean tinge. When a shrill whistle blasted, the men filed out. Artie La Russo stood outside the shanty next to a pyramid of cable reels. Each man as he passed Artie bent down, grunted and hoisted a reel on his shoulder.

  "Stony, you work on twenty-two today with Malfie. Vinny, you got the deck with Jimmy."

  Stony stooped down and lifted a cable. Artie stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Sonny, you lift like that you gonna look down an' see your balls on the floor. Never stoop, always bend."

  Stony climbed the temporary wooden stairs up twenty-two flights. There were no banisters and some of the landings were only a broad beam of wood lying diagonally over a five-by-five space that covered a drop of anywhere from one hundred to two hundred feet, depending on the floor. The cable weighed seventy-five pounds and after five flights Stony's shoulder was on fire, but he couldn't rest because he was in the middle of a caravan of men, all carrying the same burden. At fifteen, Tommy and Blackie dropped off to work that floor, at eighteen, two more, at twenty, two more; he and Malfie got off at twenty-two, and Vinny and Jimmy O'Day kept going until they hit the highest level of the building, the deck. Once off the stairs, Stony dropped the spool of cable on its end and used the other round end as a seat. He sat there, head between his knees, trying to catch his breath. When he looked up he could see for miles across the Bronx from this height, a chunky sea of TV antennas, high-rise buildings and housing projects. Stony was awed by the ugliness of it all. Malfie passed Stony, dropped his load about fifty feet away, sat down on the spool and lit a cigarette. As Stony was getting up to roll his cable toward Malfie, Tommy's head appeared. "Hey, kiddo! Howya doin'?"

  Stony groaned. "My back is killin' me."

  "Nothin', you'll get used to it. Hey, lissen, you're the gofer today. You got a pencil and paper?"

  "No."

  "Here." Tommy handed him a scrap of brown paper and a chewed pencil. "Go get all the guys' coffee orders an' go over to the Greek's, that luncheonette where I parked the car, O.K.? An' don't forget the guys on the deck."

  "Right now?" Stony was exhausted.

  "Right now, an' come back fast so the coffee don't get cold. You can put me down for a black no sugar and a cheese Danish, O.K.? An' don't forget nobody—get Artie too down in the trailer." Tommy winked and ran downstairs.

  Stony started with the deck, stopping at all the floors where the electricians worked. Eager to please, he tore ass out of the building to get Artie's order in the trailer. Artie stood on the steps. "Whoa! Whoa! You run like that, you'll knock out an eye. Take it easy, take it easy." Stony made himself slow down.

  "I'm goin' for coffee, you want anything?"

  Artie dug into his pocket and gave Stony a dollar. "Yeah. Get me a black coffee and an English muffin." He ducked his head into the trailer. "Hal, you want anything? The kid's goin' out. Make that two blacks, an' don't run!"

  As Stony raced to the luncheonette, all the electricians except Malfie congregated on the twentieth floor to drink the coffee they had bought and sneaked upstairs before Stony took their orders.

  Stony walked carefully out of the luncheonette. He held a rectangular gray cardboard box bottom containing twelve Styrofoam cups of three blacks no sugar, three blacks with saccharin, two regulars, one cream no sugar, two teas with lemon and a Pepsi. In addition, he had three cheese Danish, one English muffin, one ham and egg on white, one Drake's cake, and a salami and egg on an onion roll. The cups were capped with plastic tops that spurt liquid from the center. Code letters were penciled on top. After dropping off the trailer orders. Stony cautiously climbed the stairs. Coffee and tea dripped from the slightly soggy bottom of the box, soaking his chinos, but he was proud of himself. He got back in ten minutes flat. He was sure it was a new land speed record for gofers. His first stop was fifteen, but Tommy and Blackie weren't there. Eighteen was devoid of electricians too. Nervously he hit twenty where he found all of them.

  "Where the fuck you go. Queens?"

  "The fuckin' kid prob'ly stopped for breakfast."

  "He's holdin' up the whole goddamn show."

  "Stony, this ain't the way to start off here," Tommy said.

  Stony's armpits started to sweat. He was mortified.

  "Whatta yo
u talkin' about! I ran!"

  "He ran. My dead gran'mother woulda had it up here faster."

  "I don' wanna talk about it."

  Griping and bitching they picked out their orders. Stony stepped back, close to tears. He looked pleadingly at Tommy, who only shook his head sadly.

  "This fuckin' coffee's cold!" Augie dashed his cup to the ground.

  "I ast for no sugar, you cocksucker! I got fuckin' diabetes! You wanna see me go into a coma?"

  "I ast for Seven-up, this prick got me Pepsi." One by one they threw their cups to the ground.

  "This fuckin' kid gotta go!"

  Stony spluttered, three notions away from suicide.

  "Hey, kid." Vinny, a fat, gap-toothed thirtyish guy, squinted at him. "When you left the Greek's, you feel a tap on the back a your head?"

  "Huh?"

  "That was your change."

  Stony, open-mouthed, had no idea what the fuck he was talking about. Then Augie cracked up. Tommy stifled a laugh. In seconds, they were all howling. Stony stood there like a schmuck with earflaps, rivers of tea, coffee and soda at his feet.

  "I don't get it."