Bloodbrothers

by Richard Price

  Stony got up, yawned and walked over to a concrete pillbox hot dog stand. Two Puerto Ricans in baggy white shirts were wiping down a grease-caked grill. "Gimme a frank."

  "We're closed, man," one of them said, his back to Stony.

  "You look open to me." Stony didn't give a shit.

  "Register's closed."

  Stony walked off, hands in his pockets, and ambled down the boardwalk. You know, you're killing me. Stony... You know you're killing your father... what a fucking crock. Chubby and Tommy probably got together and rehearsed. He remembered Chubby dueling those guys in the hallway. Albert did a better job in the rec room than himself. I think you're scared, Stony.

  Stony imagined he was in a movie walking alone on the beach into the sun, a sad soundtrack playing in the background.

  A lumpy, gray-haired lady trudged up the beach toward the boardwalk. She wore a dripping one-piece black swimsuit and a white rubber swimming cap—the turned-up flaps jutting out over her ears like airplane wings. She placed a thumb against one nostril and blew out a gob of snot. Stony shuddered, leaning over the rail. He covered his face with his hands and peeked at the sea through his fingers.

  ***

  Tommy came home at two-thirty in the morning. He was shit-faced, beat and sated. Earlier in the evening he'd run into that chick who took on him and Chubby last month, grabbed her and a bottle of Canadian and rented a room for a few hours at the Saw Mill River Motel where he was a regular. She came four times, twice when he went down on her and twice when they fucked. He came in her mouth and he came in her box. Everybody went home happy.

  Tommy sneaked past the kitchen where Marie sat chain-smoking and waiting. Three steps past the kitchen Tommy stopped and backtracked.

  "Whatta you doin' up?" he challenged.

  "Where were you?" she asked flatly.

  "Out."

  "Where?"

  "Out."

  "Where?"

  "Hey look, I was out, that's all you gotta know."

  "Out at that motel?" As she stubbed out her cigarette she knocked the ashtray to the floor. Tommy's eyes narrowed. Then he noticed the half-empty fifth of Heaven Hill bourbon.

  "You're drunk."

  She rose shakily. "You think I'm stupid, don'cha?"

  "I'm goinna sleep." Tommy started toward the bedroom, his mellow head burning away into an early hangover.

  "I'm gonna cheat on you! Ya bastad!"

  "Do whatcha want."

  "Does she give you a good blowjob?" she shouted after him.

  There was dead silence for about thirty seconds before Tommy reappeared in the doorway. "She gobbles it down like it was from the goddamn fountain of youth."

  Marie felt as if she'd been hit full force with a breaker. The red rage drained from her face. She heard the bedroom door slam. She reached for the bourbon, but her hands were shaking so badly that the bottle slipped from her fingers and fell on its side. She watched it roll slowly to the edge of the table, disappear over the edge and crash on the linoleum.

  "Cheat on you! Ya bastad," she mumbled as she cradled her head on her forearms and was swallowed up by a terrifying loneliness.

  27

  MARIE WOKE UP at four-thirty in the morning with a burning headache. She lit a cigarette, took one drag and felt like she was going to vomit. She rose unsteadily, dropped the cigarette in the sink and started down the hallway to the bedroom. She pushed against the walls for support. When she heard Tommy snoring, she clenched her teeth, not knowing what to do. Finally, she wheeled around, staggered back down the hallway, past the kitchen into the living room, and fell face-down on the couch and passed out. She awoke momentarily at seven to the sound of clashing pots and Tommy and Stony arguing in the kitchen. The next time she opened her eyes it was ten-thirty in the morning, the living room was blasted with sunlight. She stumbled to the bathroom and sat on the toilet for half an hour, her head in her hands. Then she took two Excedrin and crawled into bed. She lay there on the rumpled sheets swathed in the odor of Tommy's body. The whole room reeked of his presence, and her rage kept her awake. She ran last night's dialogue over and over in her head.

  "Cheat on you!" she heard herself say out loud to the empty room. She thought she was going crazy. She picked up the phone and dialed her mother's number. A male Spanish voice answered. In horror she slammed down the phone. Her mother had been dead almost a year. The rage subsided, replaced by terror. She started to cry, her hands over her face, giving the sobs a muffled echo. She fell into a fretful sleep. Every time she closed her eyes she had a nightmare, although when she awoke she couldn't remember what it was about. Soon she was in a panic, drenched in sweat, battling to stay awake, but even staying awake felt like part of a nightmare. She couldn't tell if she was awake or sleeping. Then the paralysis set in again, her brain was screaming, her body immobile, her lungs collapsed. She struggled to open her eyes, wiggle her toes. Suddenly she lurched from the bed and found herself standing in a fog of panic. A thick cream of nausea rose inside her, and she made a motion to crawl back into bed. Stopping herself, she backed away, violently shaking her head from side to side in an effort to wake up. In the bathroom she ran cold water over her face. Gradually, as the nightmare dissolved and the panic subsided, the rage began to swell again. Tommy came back into focus. Tommy made her go through this hell. Tommy—arrogant cheating bastard. Tommy. Her rage felt like a heavy rain.

  ***

  In the afternoon Marie pushed a shopping cart with two pillowcases filled with clothes down to the laundry room in the basement. As she wheeled the cart through the cinder-block maze of the basement, she heard the distant drone of the dryers. The minute she had stepped out of the elevator she could tell by the volume of the noise exactly how many of the five big dryers were in use.

  The laundry room was deserted except for a twelve-year-old boy reading The Red Badge of Courage and thirty-year-old Jack Cutler, who sat with his legs crossed and hands in his lap staring across the room at the large salmon pink dryers. He sat on one of a connected row of twenty hard plastic sky blue chairs. In the center of the room stood a rectangle of twenty white enamel washing machines. The walls were beige-painted cinder block covered with taped index cards and fliers advertising everything from baby sitters to a starting karate class for women in the community center. The laundry room always gave Marie the blues.

  She emptied the pillowcases into a machine, threw in two Salvos and fished around in her pocketbook for quarters. All she found were three dimes and a five-dollar bill. She looked around the room angrily, then approached Jack Cutler. "Honey, do you have change of five?"

  Jack jumped up, searched his wallet and his pockets. He had two singles and a fistful of change.

  Marie smiled, shrugged and was about to approach the twelve-year-old.

  "Wait, here, you need quarters?"

  Jack offered her two quarters from his change.

  "But I don't have—"

  "No... no... it's O.K., I insist." He pressed the money into her hand.

  She regarded him curiously. He seemed a little feverish.

  "Thanks," she said haltingly. "I'll catch you next time."

  "My pleasure." He smiled, almost bowing to her.

  Marie used the laundry room on Saturdays and nine times out of ten Jack would be there. At first she thought he was a security guard or a washing machine mechanic, then she figured he was a faggot. Then she decided that he didn't look like a faggot and probably was just some nut who liked to watch women do their laundry, then go upstairs and play with himself or something. Eventually she lost interest in trying to figure out what his game was and regarded him as another washing machine.

  With the wash going, Marie listlessly thumbed through a magazine. She heard the squeaking of a shopping cart approaching the laundry room. A woman Marie knew only by sight came into the room. They nodded vaguely at each other. The other woman was six feet tall with water-bag tits and an ass like the rear of a wagon train. Her angular yet fleshy face was topped w
ith short, stiff black lacquered bangs. Marie watched her unload her laundry. She wore a sleeveless, faded floral print blouse and tight dark orange clam diggers. Marie saw the outline of her panties right through the clam diggers. Marie was disgusted. A woman built like that should wear a chemise. Then Marie looked down at her own clothes. She knew her own dark red slacks showed the outline of her underwear, that her slacks were an advertisement for her own fat ass. Her bra was visible through the armholes of her own sleeveless blouse. Her own hair was as falsely shellacked black. Marie felt like she couldn't stand up. She felt intense embarrassment about herself. Tommy was tall, lean, with a flat cowboy belly, deep chest, long, muscular arms. She pressed her fingers into her flabby paunch and felt nauseated. The other woman walked past her to the dryers. She was chewing something, reminded Marie of a cow. She imagined that woman having sex, grunting and squealing like a pig. A cow. A pig. She thought of that woman having sex with Tommy, moaning and slobbering. Tommy's small ass bouncing and rolling like a pile driver, that woman, gasping and groaning, spreading her treelike legs as far apart as they would go, digging her nails into his broad, smooth back, pulling his hair, grabbing his ass, making him drive into her deeper and deeper, trembling and gushing come.

  Marie stood on shaky legs and in a dazed state headed toward Jack Cutler.

  ***

  Jack Cutler was in heaven, his two favorite women were in the laundry room. First Marie, with her nice fat ass and roly-poly tits, then Helen, his goddess, who had the biggest tits in the whole world and an enormous ass that couldn't help but quiver every time she took a step. His dream fantasy was to have Helen come into the laundry, take off all her clothes, throw them in the machine, then walk around the room naked until they were done. Now that Marie and Helen were down here together he imagined both of them dumping their clothes into machines and both of them walking around naked. First he imagined them walking around the machines in opposite directions, then he imagined them walking around the machines arm in arm, four joggling titties, two jiggling tushies. Just as Jack was about to fall off his chair in a swoon he noticed Marie walking toward him. He looked around him to see if maybe she'd left her cart or her coat nearby. There was nothing around him but him. Maybe she needed another quarter. Her face was flushed, her steps a little unsteady. Maybe she was drunk or had that virus that was going around. He didn't want her to come near, she was disrupting the fantasy.

  "What's your name?" Her voice was husky. He could smell her.

  "Jack Cutler." He gripped the plastic edges of his chair.

  "Do you know what apartment I live in?"

  "Yes." He felt like he was ten years old.

  "Come up in a half-hour." She left the laundry room on unsteady legs.

  Jack felt as if his head were filled with bees. A numb buzz ran through his body. He sat motionless and blank for five minutes, then wandered around the cinder-block labyrinth of the basement checking his wristwatch every thirty seconds, a periodic whimper catching in his throat.

  ***

  Marie's hands were shaking so badly she couldn't separate the door key from the other keys on the ring. Once inside, she bumped around the apartment. Her heart was beating so fast her ears hurt. She ran to the vestibule, locked, chained and bolted the front door. What did she ask him up for? Maybe he was crazy. Dangerous. A lunatic. He hung around laundries all day. She had never slept with another man but Tommy. What if he butchered her? She ran into the kitchen, grabbed up all the knives in the drawer, clutching them to her, and threw them under the living room couch. She roamed around the living room in a daze, then bolted into the kitchen, grabbed up all the forks and dumped them under the couch. Then with a squawk of alarm she kneeled down on all fours, swept all the knives and forks from under the couch and ran with them into Albert and Stony's room and piled them in the closet. Then she raced into her room, tore off her clothes and searched her drawers and closet for a nightgown or a negligee. Nothing. She ran into the bathroom and dumped out the few remaining clothes still in the hamper until she found a wrinkled acetate tangerine shorty nightgown. Slipping it on, she dashed into her bedroom and slapped on some perfume, spritzed her armpits with scented deodorant and ran a slash of lipstick across her lower lip. When the doorbell rang she screamed, collected all the knives and forks and threw them out the window.

  ***

  After fifteen minutes of waiting around the basement. Jack had the panicky thought that his mother was home. He sped up to his apartment. She wasn't there. But maybe she was on the way home. Maybe she got that virus that was going around and was coming home early. To make sure he called the dress factory where she worked just to make sure.

  "'Lo, Pollyanna Dresswear."

  "Is Mrs. Cutler there?"

  "Yes, one minute."

  "Never mind. I just wanted to know if she was there." He hung up.

  No. Shit. That was stupid. What if that woman told her mother a man called for her and then hung up? She might get scared and come home. Or call home. And he wouldn't be there.

  "'Lo, Pollyanna Dresswear."

  "Is Mrs. Cutler there? I'm her son, I called a minute ago. Can I speak to her?" Jack was sweating.

  "Jack?"

  "Hi, Mom, how you doing?"

  "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing, Mom, I just wanted to say hello."

  "So hello. You sure nothing's wrong?"

  "Yeah, I just wanted to say hello."

  "I don't believe you, you don't sound good. Are you sick?"

  Jack was in a panic. "I'm great, Mom, really."

  "So why are you calling me?"

  "What do you want for dinner? I'm gonna go shopping now."

  "Jackie, what's wrong?"

  "Nothing." His voice was cracking. "Can't I call you up to say hello?"

  "Jackie, something's wrong, I'm coming home."

  "No! I'm fine. I'm fine. Don't come home."

  "You sure?"

  "Yeah, Mom, really. I love you."

  There was silence on both ends.

  "I'm going shopping now. Mom. I'll be gone about an hour."

  "Get some fish."

  "Sure, Mom, see you at five." He hung up. Goddamn motherfucking bastard. She was coming home. He knew it. Maybe not. He shouldn't go up to Marie's apartment. She'd know. After five minutes of sitting on the couch he jumped up again, fumbled with all the locks, flung open the door and ran up the stairs to Marie's apartment. Maybe just a quick one.

  ***

  Jack rang the front doorbell a second time.

  "Who is it!" Marie saw Jack through the peephole.

  "Jack Cutler," he whispered into the peephole.

  Marie unlocked the door but kept the chain on, opening it a few inches. "What do you want!"

  "You told me to come up here!" Jack was starting to get hysterical.

  Marie closed the door, took off the chain and let him in. He stared at her figure in the nightgown.

  "I asked you up here to give you back your two quarters."

  Jack didn't hear her. He could see her nipples standing out against the acetate. Her legs were veined and potholed but real woman's legs. Marie got scared. He wasn't listening.

  "I have my period, so just take your money and leave," she said.

  He grasped her arm and immediately let go.

  She gasped, stepping back. Suddenly she imagined Tommy looking in on this scene and laughing his ass off. Pathetic. She was a grown woman of forty-five years. Mother of two children. A nonvirgin of twenty years.

  "I'm sorry." Jack cringed.

  "In the bedroom." She nodded in that direction, leading the way.

  Jack started to undress tentatively.

  Marie sat on the edge of the bed, some of her momentary bravado fading. He had a decent body. Paunchy a little, not very muscular, certainly not like Tommy's, but he was o.k. He hesitated at his underwear, embarrassed to go on. She tried a flirtatious smile to encourage him. She pulled her nightgown over her head. Instantly he got a hard-on, its tip p
eeping up through the elastic of his briefs. Marie started getting excited. She walked over to him, her breasts gently swaying back and forth, and tugged down his underwear. He had a bigger dick than Tommy. She touched it. Jack caught her, throwing her back on the bed. She started kicking and screaming, he was panting like he was brain-damaged. With his dick in his hand he fumbled for a hole. Any hole. Unwittingly he started giving it to Marie up the ass. Marie reached between his legs for his balls, squeezing for all she was worth. He yelled and jumped up, red-faced, gasping for breath.

  "Hold it! Hold it! Ya goddamn animal! Ya goddamn degenerate!" Jack had doubled over, both hands between his legs. Marie wasn't scared anymore. She was boiling. The guy was a slob. An asshole. "Now look, first thing, you bring condoms?"

  "What?" His face was screwed up in pain.

  "Condoms, rubbers, scumbags!"

  "No. Oh, God, ah ... ah..."

  Again Marie thought of Tommy looking in, laughing. "Maybe my husband has some." Nice touch. Tommy'll get the horns with his own bags. Marie opened Tommy's bottom dresser drawer. He kept a twelve-pack of Trojans in a brown bag under his sweaters. She lifted the sweaters. The rubbers were gone. She tossed the sweaters around the room. "Shit!" She turned angrily to Jack. "Shit," she said louder.

  "I can go down and get some," he said a little easier. The pain was subsiding. He started getting dressed.

  "No, wait!" Marie stopped him in his tracks. "Lay down on the bed."

  He obediently lay on his back, watching her. She crouched next to him, perpendicular to his crotch. He reached over to touch her dangling breast, but she pushed his hand away. He lay there spread-eagled and motionless.

  She had never given Tommy a blowjob because she thought it was vile, disgusting and sinful. He had always wanted one. Twenty years of head pushing. Twenty years of "C'mon, just lick it once." She had never given in. But now her hunger for revenge overcame her loathing and fear. This would be the supreme galling fuck you she could throw in his face. She hesitated for a moment, then held his dick. He started to sit up, she pushed him back.