Bloodbrothers

by Richard Price

  "He didn't say, he just wanted to know if you were home. He sounded nuts."

  Suddenly Chubby remembered last night. He moaned, throwing an arm across his face.

  "Whassamatter!" Phyllis got scared and leaned across him. "Ya back?" She reached out gingerly, afraid to touch him, tentatively bringing her fingers to her lips. "Ya back?"

  With his forearm across his eyes, Chubby exhaled from his mouth long and low.

  "Phyll? Do you love me?"

  "Is it ya back?"

  "Do you love me, Phyll?"

  "A course I love you, what hurts, Chubby?"

  "Get under the covers." His face still hidden, he pulled back the covers on Phyllis' side of the bed.

  "Chubby, stop foolin' aroun'. I got a lotta things to do today. Tell me what hurts."

  "Everything hurts. Will you get under the goddamn covers?"

  Confused, Phyllis crawled into bed, pulling the blankets around her. Chubby hugged her to him. She folded her arms in front of her, her hands between her chest and Chubby's.

  "You're my wife, Phyllis, and I love you." Phyllis blinked nervously. Her hands were curled toward her.

  "Chub, does anything hurt?"

  "Nothin', nothin' hurts."

  23

  TOMMY STAYED home to comfort his brother, so Friday Stony went in alone. At lunch, instead of sitting on the traffic island, the guys decided to do lunch in Tooky's Tavern and have a few. Stony sat at the bar with Eddie, Vinny and Jimmy O'Day in a crowd of construction workers and businessmen.

  "I heard that creep got another kid over in Parkchester." Jimmy O'Day tapped his cigarette on his wrist before hanging it from the corner of his mouth.

  "I can't understand somebody like that," Vinny said, tapping his money on the bar to catch Tooky's eye. "A guy like that ... a guy like that ain't human."

  "He's a fuckin' animal," offered Eddie. Tooky brought another bourbon and water to Vinny and picked up the dollar. "I tell you somethin', that guy should have his dick cut off an' then they should make him walk down the street an' give all the mothers guns and knives."

  "That's what I figure they shoulda done to Eichmann, just let 'im walk down the street in Israel."

  "Screw the Jews. Eichmann didn't fuck no six-year-old kids up the ass," said Vinny.

  "I don't understand how he could get it up there." Jimmy O'Day finally lit his cigarette.

  "I'll tell you somethin' else," said Tooky. "I told Patrick if he ever leaves the house without me or his mother I'll beat his ass black and blue."

  "I tol' my kid the same," said Eddie. "I don't care if he sits there watchin' TV for the rest of his life, long as that bastard's on the loose he ain't goin' nowhere without me or Ginny."

  "Fuck that. Ain't lettin' my kid out even with my wife. Anybody'd do that to a kid, God knows what he'd do to a full-grown woman," said Vinny.

  "No offense, Vinny, but I don't think your wife got nothing to worry about," said Jimmy O'Day.

  Eddie and Tooky laughed.

  "Lissen, douchebag..." Vinny pointed a finger at Jimmy O'Day.

  "I'm only kiddin'." Jimmy O'Day laughed, laying a hand on Vinny's arm. "Tooky, giv'im another." Jimmy O'Day took a dollar from his own pile and dropped it a few inches toward the inside edge of the bar.

  Tooky poured two fingers of Wild Turkey into Vinny's glass and rung up'Jimmy O'Day's dollar.

  "I think they should string that guy up by the thumbs and give sticks with nails and razors to all the kids," said Eddie.

  "You're fuckin' sicker than him," said Vinny. "Hey, Tooky, bring over that picture." Tooky took a police pencil sketch off the window and laid it down on the bar.

  "Hey, Jimmy, it looks like you," Vinny said.

  "It looks like your mother," said Jimmy O'Day.

  "It does a little at that."

  "Not even on a joke," admonished Tooky.

  "Lissen here." Eddie squinted at the sketch. "Has bad acne scars. That's it, the guy's had a rotten childhood, he had acne."

  "Big fuckin' deal," said Tooky. "When I was a kid I had a face like a pizza pie. I don't go around molestin' little kids."

  Eddie didn't pursue it.

  "All you guys live in Parkchester?" They turned to Stony.

  "Aroun' there." Jimmy O'Day smiled.

  "You hear about this guy?" Eddie said.

  "The Parkchester Pervert?" Stony used the name coined in the Daily News.

  They laughed. "Looka' this fuckin' kid," Vinny said. "He looks like he's been here ten years."

  Stony's skintight T-shirt was smeared with lubricating oil. His biceps glistened dully in the bar light. He took a cigarette from Eddie's pack on the bar. Feelin' good.

  "How they treatin' ya, Stony?" Jimmy O'Day offered him a light.

  "Can't complain." He nodded graciously.

  "You like workin' here?"

  "Can't complain."

  "Whada you think a this creep?"

  Stony took a plunge. "Who ya mean, Vinny?" They all laughed except Vinny.

  "The other creep."

  "He's a sick man." Stony tensed his muscles. Strike one. A chorus of groans.

  "So was Hitler," Tooky said.

  "So was Nixon," Stony replied. Strike two.

  "Aw Christ, another one a these college liberals." Vinny smirked.

  "Nah, I mean..."

  "Hey look, Stony, I don' wanna give you no lectures." Eddie grabbed his wrist. "Forget that crack about college liberals, I'm talkin' to you man to man. Now I'm not sayin' you ain't smart or anything. Look, for all I know you're smarter than all a us here put together, but one thing that you don't got is—"

  "Experience," Stony finished for Eddie.

  Eddie bobbed his head in confirmation.

  "Now you talkin'." Vinny winked.

  "You see, Stony"—Eddie shook Stony's wrist every few words for emphasis—"when we talk about this degenerate that's goin' around, we're talkin' as fathers, as husbands, you know what I mean?"

  They nodded in unison. Stony nodded too.

  "You know? An' when you go equatin' Nixon and Hitler..." He shook his head sadly. "Look, Nixon mighta been a prick, I dunno, but... O.K., look at it this way. You always read about the hard hats did this an' the hard hats did that, beatin' up war protestors an' that shit, but how many a those kids ever put their lives on the line for their country? I was at the invasion a Sicily. Those fuckin' Germans had that whole goddamn beach cross-coordinated, you know what that means? That means any time those fuckin' Krauts saw a cluster of men on the beach all they had to do was fix the coordinates on their guns and wham! Six a your best friends crawling up the beach, ten yards to your right, vanished—not even a goddamn corpse ... But we kept comin' an' we took that motherfuckin' beach."

  Vinny interjected. "You know Artie? Fat Artie? Artie saw his own brother jump on a grenade in Korea, so four other guys wouldn't get killed." Eddie grabbed Stony's wrist again. "Now what's a guy like Artie, or me, or any of us, whatta we supposed to think, whatta we supposed to do when we see some long-haired eighteen-year-old prick come marchin' down the street with a North Vietnamese flag? I'm askin' you serious, what a' we supposed to do?"

  Stony felt moved but confused. He didn't give two shits about Vietnam either way, and he didn't understand what that had to do with the Parkchester Pervert. But the story about Artie La Russo's brother made him want to cry. He imagined himself jumping on a live grenade to save Albert. Then he pictured Albert molested by some forty-year-old sex maniac in the stairway outside the apartment. His mother's face. Albert crying. Derek and Tyrone in their wheelchairs terrified of him. Albert with tears on his face. Derek and Tyrone. Marie. Albert. Derek. Tyrone. Stony. Him. Thomas De Coco Jr. Junior.

  "...I'm askin' you, Stony, whatta we supposed to do when some kid comes marchin' down the street with a Vietnamese flag?"

  Stony looked at Eddie, at Vinny, at Tooky and Jimmy O'Day.

  "Well, it's plain as the nose on your face. You take the goddamn flag, break it in two, then you s
hove one part down his throat and the other part up his ass. Right? I mean, really, whatta you gonna do, salute? Teach him a fuckin' lesson he'll never forget. I guarantee you, someday he'll be grateful, right? You know how kids are, right?"

  Stony smiled. He disengaged his wrist from Eddie's fingers and dug into his pockets for money. "Sure"—he started walking out of the bar—"makes sense to me, right?"

  ***

  Chubby bucked and heaved on top of his wife like a rutting sea lion. The words came from somewhere else. "You comin'? You comin'?" Like a third frantic presence in the steaming room. Chubby pumped for his life, Phyllis' legs twitching under his bulk. The bed gasped for air beneath his panic. Phyllis held on for dear life, grasping his hair like a lifeline. "Yes!" She screamed, half pleading, half tribute. Chubby slammed her bones, rattled her teeth. As if he could bring her back. Bring her back. Coming, coming, coming. He arched his back in a last thrust, ramming her into the headboard. Her legs trembled. Phyllis was so scared by the changes in her body she started laughing. But she didn't come. Chubby bucked once more.

  Chubby lay on top, gasping, hurting. "Oh... Phyllis." He'd almost said Sooky as Phyllis wrapped her shaking arms around his fat neck. "Oh, baby," he cried. "Do you love me?"

  "Yes!"

  "Do you love me?" gripping the nape of her neck.

  "Yeah! Oh you know I do!"

  "Then say it!"

  "Yes. I love you! I love you!"

  Chubby was grateful for a clear-lunged fuck. Fifty. That was a pretty good hump for fifty. Phyllis was his wife. No more hookers. No more booze. Play it close to the vest. She was his wife. Fifty.

  ***

  For the next few days he followed her around the house. He brought flowers home. They went for walks in the park, rides in the country. Her bedtime was his bedtime. They laughed at Johnny Carson together. He stopped hanging out at Banion's. He took her for Chinks every night. They even got back into fucking. Phyllis was scared shit.

  "Marie, I'm worried about Chubby." She picked at the crusty corners of her well-done hamburger with long nails.

  "Whadya mean?" Marie wriggled on the revolving stool at the crowded Woolworth's lunch counter.

  "All of a sudden he's gettin' romantic with me. I think maybe he's sick or somethin'." Phyllis pushed away the thick white plate.

  "You don't want that?" Marie gathered the discarded hamburger with a sweeping motion of her hand. "It's a sin to waste food. Whadya mean, romantic?" She lifted the hamburger to her mouth with both hands.

  "I dunno, he follows me around the house like a big dog all the time. He didn't go inta work this week because a his back an' all he does is be nice to me, takes me out every day, brings me presents. I mean, I'm not complainin'." She quickly frowned. "Yes I am... there's somethin' wrong. He's actin' crazy."

  Marie raised an eyebrow. "I wish Tommy was so crazy."

  "Look, I'm not a hard person to please, Marie." A tall, thin pimply girl in a pantsuit slipped a check under Marie's plate. "You know that"—they both looked at the tab—"I just like a little attention now and then."

  "Miss." Marie caught the waitress' eye with a fluttering hand. "Miss, what was one sixty-four?"

  The girl blinked vacantly. "Hamburger."

  "Hamburger's a dollar-fifty." Marie pointed to the cardboard hamburger poster hanging over the coffee machine.

  "Tax." The girl fidgeted.

  "Then you should have a dollar sixty-four up there. What if I only came in here with a dollar-fifty?"

  The girl looked away. "I'm very busy, ma'am, you want to talk to the manager?"

  "Forget it." Marie dismissed her, turning to Phyllis. "Snotty bitch, I'm not comin' in here anymore."

  "You know, we had sex five times since Wednesday?" Phyllis whispered.

  "You braggin' or complainin'?" Marie dug into her purse.

  "Something feels really weird about it. After we're finished, he keeps askin' me if I came, if I came, if I came. He's always askin' me if I love him."

  Marie looked up but didn't say anything.

  24

  STONY WAS in a good mood. Wednesday. Two days to go. Monday, back to Cresthaven.

  "You know, you got a really good voice." Stony smiled curiously at Malfie, who was busy feeding cable into the mouth of a pipe. Malfie made like he didn't hear Stony and kept singing in a high, yet throaty tremolo.

  Stony bent down and continued pulling cable from a similar pipe. Malfie was the best-looking guy Stony had ever seen. He had a tight and smooth profile that seemed almost manicured with high cheekbones, a small, slightly upturned nose, thin, perfectly defined lips and glittering blue eyes. He combed his dirty blond hair high and straight back. When he was finished feeding cable he stood up. Tall and thin. A real killer.

  "You ever hear a the Convoys?" he asked Stony. Stony stopped working and turned to Malfie.

  "Yeah, they did what...'Rock 'n' Roll Serenade.'"

  Malfie nodded slightly. "Yeah, I used to sing with them."

  Stony stopped working. "You shittin' me?"

  Malfie casually threw out a couple of powerful ooh-wahs that echoed throughout the cavernous level where he, Stony and about ten other electricians were circuiting wire through a field of pipes.

  "Goddamn! Whatta you doin' here?"

  "I quit two years ago." He moved to another pipe five feet away, knelt down and started shoving the braided multicolored strands down its mouth. "It's comin' out up there." Malfie tilted his head at a short pipe protruding from the poured concrete ceiling. The head of the cable peeked out where Malfie indicated, and he waited for Stony to climb a stepladder and pull out the wires before he continued feeding his end of the pipe.

  "Wha'd you quit for?" Stony grunted. The wires were snagged somewhere in the invisible network of conduit. He teased and tugged the cable until it came loose.

  "Lucy," Malfie sang something in husky Spanish.

  "You know Spanish?"

  "Si, por supuesto."

  "You're fuckin' amazin'." Stony stopped for a second to adjust his work gloves, flexing his fingers for a tighter fit.

  "My father knew seven tongues." Kneeling, Malfie bounced Tightly on the balls of his feet to keep his circulation going. He tied the end of the cable with a few deft movements.

  "French, Italian, Spanish, German, Dutch, Portuguese and English. He met my mother in Cuba."

  "Your mother Spanish?" The wire pulled taut on Stony's end and Malfie tied it off for him.

  "From Havana, we lived there until Castro came in." For the first time Stony noticed a slight staccato clip in Malfie's speech. "Had maids an' everything. My father was head croupier in one a the biggest casinos down there. El Gato Negro." Malfie finished tying the wires, stepped back and extracted a pack of unfiltered Kools.from the chest pocket of his beige workshirt. Stony declined the offered pack, taking out one of his own Marlboros. Malfie held out a red see-through butane lighter under Stony's cigarette. None of the brickwork had yet been started on the exterior walls, even though the small octagonal concrete foundations for the terraces jutted out over the edge of the building. They stood twenty stories high between two layers of concrete overlooking the Hudson. The vast floor was a maze of chalk lines and markings noting the outlines of walls and apartment partitions yet to be installed. Every thirty feet or so sat a bathtub and a toilet bowl—which wouldn't fit through the narrow doorways once the walls were built. It was a gray day and the somber light lent the place the mood of a deserted underground garage. Augie ambled over to one of the protruding borderless terraces, stood spread-legged, whipped out his dick and pissed into the Hudson.

  Malfie sneered. "Animal."

  Stony looked over the field of toilets and shrugged.

  "My father knew Batista." Malfie spat neatly. "We had everything, man. I even had my own fuckin' horse, until that scumbag with the beard came in." He picked his front teeth.

  Stony leaned against the ladder enjoying his smoke.

  "You know, my father was French." Malfie de
licately scratched a raised eyebrow. "So I got French blood. That's why I'm light and that's why I'm tall." Then he added almost as an afterthought, "It's good to be tall, because in a fight you can't get to my face. Look, I don't give a flying fuck what a guy does or says to me but nobody touches my face. He makes one move to hit my face, I'll kill him. The only time I hit Lucy was once she went to slap me. I don't take that from nobody, even her. The only person I let hit me like that was my mother, and she only did it once." Malfie spoke calmly and earnestly. Stony made a mental note never to bash in Malfie's face.

  "I hit your face and take the back a your head off." Augie walked over to the ladder, rested a boot on the second rung, his elbow on his knee. He looked like Fred Flintstone—big, lumpy and hairy.

  "Then I come after you with a gun." Malfie didn't blink. Augie laughed, winking at Stony. "I ain't kiddin'. I'll blow you apart." Malfie's voice kept rising. He took a step toward Augie.

  "Relax, hah?" Augie examined a chunk of snot on his pinky.

  "I ain't fuckin' around wit' you, you guinea prick." Malfie lightly touched his high cheekbones. His face was getting red. He took another step toward Augie. "You touch me, I'll tear your heart out."

  Augie affected a yawn. He knew he could break Malfie in two, but he was an easygoing guy who enjoyed razzing excitable people. Malfie was crazy and had no sense of humor. "See ya, Malfie." Augie flicked the snot off his finger and strolled away.

  "I'll kill that motherfucker." Malfie's eyes were buzzing with rage as he pointed a quivering finger at Stony.

  Malfie had Stony pulling wire at a furious pace the rest of the morning. There was no more conversation. Malfie stormed around the pipes muttering incoherently, occasionally barking orders at Stony.

  At noon, the electricians returned to the shanty to pick up their lunches. Stony got ready to go to the traffic island with his father and some of the other guys.

  "Malfie, you comin'?" he forced a friendly tone.

  Malfie ignored him, roughly shouldering his way through a half-dozen electricians loitering around the shanty door. He walked rapidly to a beat-up old pink Cadillac parked by the entrance to the site. A young Puerto Rican girl sat in the passenger seat. Malfie got in on the driver's side, slammed the door and screeched onto the Parkway.