by Matt Burgess
“You start praying before or after you took some of that Ecstasy I gave you?”
“After,” Tariq says. His face beams. “You are a terrific noticer, Dito. You are, excluding myself, the third-best noticer I know. Allah, of course, is the first. I took the drugs and then I prayed. Yes. Correct.” He wraps a hand around the dog’s mouth, and with only the German shepherd barking now, it becomes much easier for Alfredo to hear his brother. “It’s against the rules. Drugs. It is strictly forbidden. The Book calls them intoxicants. The Book says they are a loathsome evil of Satan’s doing.”
“I bet,” Alfredo says. “Did anyone outside see you come in here?”
“I used the alleyways to get to the back of the store. Just as you commanded. I found the key in the same spot Papi used to leave it in. Taped to the bottom of that potted plant. So his whores could sneak themselves in. You were probably too young for all that.” He wears a faraway smile, as if recalling a party Alfredo hadn’t been invited to. “Now let me ask you a question, Dito. How come you ain’t wearing a shirt?”
Alfredo looks down at his chest, sees himself as his brother must see him. His ribs protrude as if he’d recently swallowed an open umbrella. His nipples are pink and embarrassingly small, set too close together on a chest that would belong more rightly to a prepubescent boy. There is no hair save for a thin trail that leads out of his boxer shorts and up to his belly button, an innie, unlike Isabel’s, whom he desperately wants to ask about—Is she okay? Was she asleep when you left?—but he’s afraid to say her name aloud. It’d give Tariq permission to say it, and the name would curdle in his mouth. Alfredo crosses his arms over his chest, to cover his exposed nipples, and maybe the dog interprets this as a sign of aggression, or maybe the dog’s just mean, but either way, he throws Tariq off his back and flies at Alfredo’s waist. Tariq pulls on the leash. The dog’s teeth click against Alfredo’s belt buckle.
“Look at how strong he is,” Tariq says as he reels the dog in. “You gotta crouch down,” he tells Alfredo. “You gotta get on his level. Show him your palms.” Tariq cups his hands together, as if he were accepting communion. Whole inches of the leash slacken. “Show a dog you’ve got no way to defend yourself and he’ll love you forever.”
“How much X did you take?”
“I been praying all night. Know what I figured out? Only Allah is perfect. Me? It’s like I’m fighting on a crooked path, trying to get better, purer, but I just don’t know … It’s hard to explain.” The leash bites into his hand, cutting off blood flow. His fingertips whiten. “It’s like I’m either a work in progress, or it’s already over for me. Like not in this lifetime. You know? Like maybe I’m broken. Maybe there’s something wrong with me that can’t get fixed. Maybe I can’t get better.”
“What did you do?”
“Crouch down,” Tariq says. “Show this pup your palms and let’s see how he reacts.”
Baka approaches the brothers hunched over, legs splayed apart, fingers twitching above his hips as if he were a Wild West gunfighter. “Put ’em up,” he orders Tariq. “Put ’em up, put ’em up—you dirty, dirty rat.”
“You bring the Russian with you?” Tariq says.
“See?” Baka says. “This is what I’m talking about. No, ‘Hey, Baka, my man! How’s it hanging? How’s tricks? That a real nice outfit you got on. Where I get me one of those?’ Pleasantries, Jose, Tariq—whatever the fuck your name is. Pleasantries keep the world spinning. Separates us from animals.” He pinches the nylon sleeve of his tracksuit. “Sports Authority, by the way. I buy them in bulk. Let me know if you want one. Hey, speaking of animals, and correct me if I’m wrong here, but I thought Muslims weren’t allowed to keep dogs as pets.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Tariq says quickly. He seizes the dog’s collar, as if to keep his hands from shaking to pieces. “I follow the Book, and the Book doesn’t say anything about that.”
“Whatever,” Baka says. He turns to Alfredo. “Your clown posse is getting restless. They want to lay down some bets.”
“There’s nothing in the Book forbidding dogs,” Tariq says. He runs his hands down the pit bull’s front legs. “You think you know, but you don’t know. I know. There’s nothing about that at all.”
“I’m not talking to you anymore,” Baka says. “Books? Who gives a shit about books?” He pulls a money clip out of his pocket and waves it under Alfredo’s nose. “I’m talking about bets, Fredo. I’ve got some gambling to do. But if you delay this shit any further, people are either gonna leave or burn this place to the ground.”
Alfredo can go to the police right now. Stay right here, he could tell everyone. Be back in a hot minute. He’ll go up the stairs Tariq just came down. He’ll take a deep breath, push through the front door, and run, head down, fists pumping like a good leadoff hitter, intent on beating the throw. In these lighter red and tan bowling shoes, he might get to the Impala before Mike Shifrin gets to him. If Shifrin is even out there. If the fucking cops are still out there! And if they are, if they haven’t given up on him yet, then he’ll stick his head through the Impala’s open window and deliver the news. The dog’s here and he’s all yours. Godspeed. Don’t forget to make your arrests. Maybe he’ll ask one of the cops, the Hispanic one probably, to escort him back home. And then—if the cop wouldn’t mind—to come back tomorrow and make sure he’s okay. Hey, why stop there? Why not hire the cop as a twenty-four-hour bodyguard? He’ll run alongside Alfredo’s cabs, jump in front of the occasional bullet. While Alfredo can’t actually pay this cop a salary, he’ll at least buy him some official-looking sunglasses, some dark suits from the Salvation Army, maybe even one of those earpieces with the fusilli wiring. If they’re not too expensive. Oh man, if he only had money. He wouldn’t owe Winston anything, he wouldn’t owe Baka anything, he wouldn’t live with his parents, he wouldn’t have stolen fifty-two pills of Ecstasy because he would’ve just gone out and bought fifty-two pills of Ecstasy. If he only had money, he wouldn’t have kicked anyone in the throat. Curtis would be alive. And Alfredo would be home, in bed with Isabel, playing I Wish. It isn’t fair. He brought out two hundred dollars tonight, but after all the marked-up Dutches and beers and candy bars and Drake’s cakes and Little Debbies and plantain chips, he’s only got a hundo left. And it’s still more than he ever has on his person. And it’s still less than what everyone else has got. In the pockets of the fuckers around him, Alfredo can see some fat-ass wallets. Where he can’t see wallets, he assumes they’ve got money clips like Baka’s, overburdened with bills. How is that fair? The cash in this basement could buy Christian Louis a birthday cake every year of his life, with enough left over for one big blowout bash: a rented-out movie theater, a rented-out roller skating rink, a party with a magician, a party with a clown, a party at McDonald’s with their big-ass ball pit, a trip to a petting zoo where a soft-tongued llama would lick grains out of Christian Louis’s delighted little hand. Now we’re talking. Worse comes to worst, at least there’d be that. Something happens to Alfredo, at least the little man would have cakes to tear into on his birthday.
Baka snaps his fingers in Alfredo’s face. “Where’d you go?” he says. “Who am I supposed to talk to when you check out like that?” He tilts his head toward Tariq. “Him?”
Tariq smiles peacefully, and Alfredo knows that if Baka says one more word, Tariq will let go of the leash and that’ll be it: pandemonium. Marc and Billy pushing each other over spilled beer and scuffed sneakers is one thing, but if Baka and Tariq go at each other? Forget about it. Alfredo needs to keep this place under some measure of control. If shit blows up, everyone will spill out of here, Tariq will never get arrested, the Mike Shifrin problem will go unsolved, and Alfredo will be right where he started. No way, man. Can’t happen. He leads Baka away from his brother. They walk over to the card table with the shoebox on it, where Alfredo goes up on his tiptoes and sticks his hand into the haze.
“Single file, everybody. Let’s get this shit started. Singl
e file, please. Single file. Break out that cash mo, people. Make your wagers. Place your bets.”
AIDS, the first man in line, bets twenty on the pit bull. When Alfredo tries to bully him into betting some real money, AIDS spreads open his wallet: ragged, empty, not even a cartoon moth. Because he never knows when to quit, he turns the wallet over and gives it a shake, and all his plastic cards—his Visa card, his Blockbuster card, his Queensboro Public Library card—slip out of their sleeves and fall to the floor. Alfredo places the poor kid’s twenty in the shoebox. Next in line, Rick Sprinkle and Timmy P. step over AIDS to bet seventy-five dollars each on the pit bull. Rhino lays down a hundred.
“Ain’t you gonna write that down?” he says.
“I don’t have to,” Alfredo says.
Max hovers behind him, his urge to kibitz stifled for way too long. “Write it down,” he says.
“I got it all up here,” Alfredo says, tapping his temple. “Locked away in the vault.”
“Write it down,” Max says.
While Winston goes upstairs to fetch paper and pen, Billy Fitzgerald bets this month’s allowance ($140) on the pit bull. Marc bets $145 on Diana. Billy ups his bet to $150. Like an auctioneer, Alfredo points a finger at Marc, but that’s all the money he’s willing to wager. Billy puffs out his chest, already victorious. Paulie Guns bets last night’s drug dealing profits ($64, most of that in five-dollar bills) on the Batistas’ dog. Gotta go with pit bulls, he explains. Those with legal jobs—David, Foot Locker employee; Jossie, RadioShack employee; Virgin Light, barback at a gay nightclub in Manhattan; and Jonas, men’s room attendant at Carnegie Hall—bet chunks of their paycheck, or, in Jonas’s case, the $40 in tips dropped into his wicker basket last night. No one knows what Jeff Hernandez does for a living—he claims to be a theater actor, of all things—but he puts $200 on the pit bull. Alex and Bam-Bam bet $300 on their own dog. Wowser! Alfredo makes a show of counting out their money. K-Lo throws a fifty-dollar bill into the shoebox and then runs back to his perch by the ladder. Tariq doesn’t bet. Neither does Max. But Baka does. Last on line, he puts $150 on the Batista brothers’ dog.
“I thought for sure you’d bet against us,” Alfredo says.
“So did I,” Baka says.
Winston has yet to return with a pad of paper. Not that Alfredo needs it. Working from memory, he recites each wager aloud and receives head nods and uh-huhs and that’s rights in return. When he’s finished, he kicks off his bowling shoe and removes $100 from the bottom of his sock. He drops the money in the box. Purely for the sake of appearances. It’s gotta seem like he’s betting, right? Also for the sake of appearances—since he already knows the total—he counts up all the cash.
The men down in this basement bet $1,784. That’s all together. They bet $1,064 on the pit bull, $720 on Diana. As per gambling custom, the house keeps 10 percent. Alfredo counts out $178 and lays it in Max Marshmallow’s palm. (You’re kidding me, Max says.) Alfredo tells the crowd there will be no handicapping, no odds. Wagers are straight up. If you put $100 into the shoebox and your dog wins, you win $190. There’s your 10 percent. Here’s the irony, which Alfredo keeps to himself: if Diana, the nominative underdog, wins the fight, then the house makes $310, the difference between what was bet (minus 10 percent) on Diana vs. what was bet (minus 10 percent) on the pit bull. If the pit bull, the nominative favorite, wins the fight, then the house loses $310 because they won’t have enough cash in the box to pay out the winners. The money in Max’s palm will get taken away. And that still won’t cover it all. They’ll be $132 short, but really they’ll be only $42 short because it’s not like Alfredo would collect on his winnings. But still: they’ll have to go into Max’s old-fashioned cash register and pull out a couple of twenties, essentially taxing the guy for the pleasure of watching people hock up loogies on his basement floor. Like so much else, it doesn’t seem fair. But then again, it ain’t gonna happen. Diana can’t win this dogfight because Alfredo has no intention of ever letting it begin.
“I’m going upstairs,” he announces. With the shoebox tucked under his arm, he gives Max what is meant to be a reassuring nod. “I gotta lock up the cash.”
Even though AIDS has the least amount of money in the box, he is, of course, the first to object. “Hold on,” he says. “Where you going?”
“For the duration of the dogfight,” Alfredo says, as if reading off a rule book no one else has access to, “the wagered money is supposed to be locked up in a safe place. This is procedure.”
“Yeah,” AIDS says, stroking his theoretical goatee. “But why?”
“Why the fuck you think people lock up money?” Alfredo says. He hopes that if he punishes AIDS enough, then no one else will question him. “I know you don’t know shit about nothing, AIDS, but this is procedure. This ain’t no dogfighting video game, okay? We lock up the money so we can all enjoy the fight without worrying about somebody sneaking off with the cash.”
“Come on,” Rick Sprinkle says. “You think someone down here would steal the money?”
Max says, “I’d be surprised if someone didn’t try to steal the money.”
“Is that supposed to be directed at me?” David asks.
Alfredo turns to Max. “You got a safe up there I can use?”
“You know I don’t have a safe,” Max says.
“Okay. I’ll lock it up in the cash register.”
“This is ridiculous,” Bam-Bam says. “Nobody’s gonna steal the money.”
“Spoken like a true criminal,” Alfredo says.
Baka laughs. He’s been watching all this with a smile on his face, as if he were eager to see how it’ll all play out. In a gesture halfway between admiration and affection, he wags his finger at Alfredo.
“I’m tired,” Alfredo says, and it feels like the first true thing to come out of his mouth in hours. “I’m going up now. Any of you badasses and tough guys wanna keep an eye on me, then please—follow me up. Be my fucking guest.” And with that, he heads for the stairs.
He finds Winston in an aisle stocked full of disposable goods: paper plates, plastic cups, paper towels, paper napkins, rolls of toilet paper individually priced. Winston is shaking his head, as if overwhelmed by the number of choices. He holds a can of beer in his hand. A small blue pencil—the kind used to fill out Lotto cards—hangs from his lips. He looks lost, an oversized child trapped in the dark. When he sees Alfredo, he opens his mouth to speak and the pencil falls to the floor.
“I can’t find a pad of paper anywhere,” he cries.
He stoops over to pick up the pencil, and Alfredo grabs him, pulls him toward the front of the store. Winston doesn’t protest. As always, he’s along for the ride. The two of them move quickly down the darkened aisles. Alfredo knows he’s pushing his luck here—he could get Tariq arrested right now—but there is almost eighteen hundred dollars in this shoebox and that is too much cash to ignore. He carries it cradled like a baby. As he runs, the bills bounce off the sides of the box, in tune with the thumping in his chest. Cold fingers of sweat tighten across his scalp. His lungs shrivel like fists. As if he’s been submerged underwater and is just now breaking the surface, air jumps down his throat, quicker and quicker. He’s got to get rid of this shoebox. He puts it up on the counter, next to Max’s cash register, and wouldn’t you know: his chest unclenches. Able to breathe normally, unburdened of all that cash, he glides to the front door, where, under the eaves of his hands, he peers out into the street, looking for Russian gangsters and Chevy Impalas. The rain falls sideways like flashing needles of light.
“Unbelievable,” Winston says, breathing heavily. The top of his beer can has been pushed into itself, making the hole much wider, a mouth caught in mid-yawn. Into this hole, Winston spits a ribbon of brown goo. “A big store like this, and not one goddamned pad of paper.”
“What are you doing?”
“You mean this?” He pulls down his lower lip to reveal, tucked into the fold, a black-brown knot of chewing tobacco. His teeth are alre
ady stained. “It’s called dipping.”
“I know what it’s called,” Alfredo says, although, in truth, he did not. “You play the ukulele now, too?”
“I like it,” he says. “It makes me feel mad dizzy.”
Alfredo watches Winston drop another ribbon into the can, amazed that they’ve been here long enough for his best friend to cultivate brand-new addictions.
“Can I borrow your phone?” Alfredo asks. “Mine’s dead.”
“Seriously,” Winston says. “What would you do without me?”
He tosses Alfredo his phone, and because Alfredo is worried about other things—because he’s not thinking about catching it—he catches it. He flips it open and sees that Winston’s usual background image, an orange-duned desert, has been replaced by a generic picture of an open highway. This annoys Alfredo. He doesn’t give a shit about highways or deserts, but he finds it unbelievable that while he was plotting to keep them alive, Winston was sucking down pharmaceutical cocktails, experimenting with this dipping garbage, fiddling with his cell phone’s preset wallpaper images. Seriously? Does anyone out there have any fucking idea of the pressure I’m under? With his jaw clenched, he scrolls through Winston’s phone, past Contacts, past Settings and Tools until he gets to Messaging. He selects Compose New Message, and his thumbs go to work on the keypad.
my phone’s out of service.
alfredo got bit by a dog. he’ll
be coming out the back of
the store. hurry! xo, baka
The xo might be too much—hugs and kisses? really?—but Alfredo can think of no other way to approximate Baka’s verbal flamboyance. He closes his eyes, sees the black backdrop of his lids. Summoned, the untagged numbers in Baka’s call history float down. Green sevens locking into place next to orange fours. Alfredo enters all the numbers in the text message’s address book. In a moment, in pockets scattered around New York City, phones are going to start ringing and beeping and vibrating. Baka’s business associates—people Alfredo’s never met—are going to read a message he wrote, a message they won’t understand from a number they don’t recognize. That’s okay. Alfredo is tossing a fistful of darts and needs only one bull’s-eye. The odds seem decent to good. But those tireless fucks in the Department of Worry want to know what if Mike Shifrin’s phone doesn’t have text messaging capabilities. Oh please. Alfredo tears that particular thought down the middle and feeds both halves to the shredder. What kind of twenty-first-century drug dealer can’t receive texts? He hits Send.