Brooklyn Story

by Suzanne Corso

  “What are ya doin’, Tone?” I asked. “I gotta get home.”

  “In a minute. But right now, you listen to me. I wantya ta be my girl.”

  “Yeah, Tony,” I said, taking his hand. “I want that, too.”

  “You’re different from those other sluts,” he said, squeezing my fingers. “You’re innocent and pure and I don’ want anybody else touching ya. The thought of it makes me so mad, I swear I’ll kill anyone who comes near ya. All ya have to do is tell me. That’s how much I care about ya.”

  I was speechless and my body tingled. Tony sounded like he meant what he was saying. He’d never looked more serious and I had seen his stone face at the feast and in the movie theater. He kissed me again as his hand slid under my skirt. I pushed him away.

  “Jus’ a little bit,” he pleaded. “Please, baby. I just need to touch ya down there. I won’ do it for long, I promise.” His finger slipped into my underpants and I slumped against the seatback.

  I was the last holdout among my girlfriends. I knew most of them had lost their virginity in cars and trucks and that Dara had lost hers at fourteen in a smoky basement when a friend of her father’s lured her there, gave her wine, and took advantage of her. I had always imagined making love for the first time on a king-sized bed with lots of pillows in a luxurious place like the Pierre Hotel in New York City, with room service, a view of Central Park, and beautiful music piped in.

  “Tony,” I said, catching my breath. “Please, not like this.” His hand lingered for a few moments before he slid it away. “You’re right, Sam,” he said. “You’re much too special to do this in a car. But you’re driving me crazy!”

  I was relieved, and again pleased that he hadn’t forced himself on me. Tony wanted me, I wanted him, but he obviously felt like I did—that it was definitely not the place or the time. I reached over and took his hand but he pulled it away. “Listen,” he said. “I got somethin’ really important to tell ya and I need ya to concentrate.”

  “Sure.”

  “Ya wanna be my girl?”

  “Aw, Tony,” I said. “I know I’m young and all, but I want that more than anything.”

  “Good. But I want ya to know there are certain rules ya hafta follow if we’re gonna go out.” He looked so serious it made me feel nervous. “First, I want ya home every night. School is the most important thing for you.”

  “’Cause I’m gonna be a writer.”

  “Don’t interrupt,” Tony said. “The thing is, I don’ want ya hangin’ out with your friends at night. They might steer you in the wrong direction and now ya got my family to hang out with.

  “Number two, I need respect—for my friends and family and me—all the time, no matter what. Ya gotta problem, ya work it out with me privately. Ya never mouth off like Dara or discuss our stuff in front of our friends like that Janice did, and ya never tell your girlfriends what goes on between us. Ever. Got it?”

  I didn’t think that there had to be strict rules that went along with a relationship. I felt doubt, and I didn’t want to feel doubt, but that’s what was overshadowing me at this very moment. So what did I do? For the first time in my life, I ignored it and just passed it off as the way it was in Bensonhurst, and if that was the way it had to be with Tony, so be it, as long as I was with him. So I said, “Sure, Tone.”

  “Finally, most important, Sam, don’ cheat on me. Ever. You unnerstan’? ’Cause that would be the worst mistake of your entire life.” I knew that was a guy thing, that he needed to be sure I wouldn’t make him look small in front of his friends. Grandma had told me the Brooklyn Boys were a pretty insecure bunch. Maybe Tony would grow out of it. Regardless, he didn’t have to worry. I wouldn’t cheat on any boyfriend I had. Tony exhaled slowly.

  “You look like you’re glad to get that talk over with,” I said. “Was it scary?”

  He laughed. “Yeah,” he said, “real scary!” He growled and curled his fingers into monster hands. I pushed away from him toward the door on my side, pretending an attempt to escape. He pulled me by the hem of my skirt and stroked my bare leg.

  I pushed him away. “Tony,” I said, “I thought we decided to …”

  “Just one touch. I need to feel your skin again.” He bent his head down to the area on my thigh where he was stroking and inhaled deeply. I felt the heat between my legs once more. “Ya smell so sweet, Sam. Jus’ like baby powder.” Tony sat up and started the engine. “I mean it, Sam. You’re killin’ me,” he said. “I swear to God if another guy comes close to ya, he’s a dead man.” I shivered, but couldn’t help feeling flattered as I had before. “That’s how much I care about ya.”

  The ride home was silent. When we pulled up in front of my apartment house, Tony stopped the car and reached over to kiss me. His hand inched back up my skirt and he slid two fingers inside my panties. I tried to pull away but he stopped me with his soothing voice. “C’mon, Sam. Just a good-bye touch.” He adjusted his crotch with his other hand. “You don’t know how I get.”

  “I gotta go in, Tone,” I said.

  “I know,” he said, accepting his frustration. He reached over and opened my door. “Ya better go now, Samantha Bonti, ’cause if you don’, I might never let ya go.”

  I got out of the car and started toward the entrance but turned around when I thought of something else to say. I leaned forward and looked into the car. “Why don’t ya call me when you get home?”

  “I gotta go out and you’re gonna be fast asleep, right?”

  “Where ya goin’?” I asked.

  “Never mind. Just remember, you’re my girl now. Anythin’ happens, you come to me. You’re my girl.”

  Tony’s girl watched as Tony drove away.

  On Monday, I had a hard time concentrating on my school-work all day because the excitement of the previous week hadn’t worn off. The anticipation of seeing Tony again heightened as I left the school when classes had ended.

  My head swiveled from side to side as I made my way to the curb. There was no telltale roar of a motorcycle that I half expected to hear and Tony was nowhere in sight. I took one last slow look around before hopping onto the bus that took me home.

  “Did I get any messages?” I asked Mom before I dropped my schoolbag and took off my sweater. She sat in shadow on the frayed couch as the light from the window behind silhouetted her frail upper body. An empty wine bottle and almost empty wineglass stood on the scuffed side table. A cigarette with a long ash dangled from her lips.

  “Yeah,” Mom muttered as she scanned the open newspaper in her lap. My eyes widened and my heart skipped a beat. “Janice called,” Mom deadpanned as she raised her head to look at me. My face went blank and my shoulders slumped. “Whatsa matter?” Mom asked with a smirk. “Ya was expectin’ someone else?”

  “No,” I lied, and collected myself. “What’d she want?”

  “She said she was going out and she’d call back.”

  I poked my head into the kitchen. “Where’s Gram?”

  “At bingo with Mabel,” Mom said, her head lowering again. “It’s just you and me tonight.”

  That prospect didn’t thrill me. It was hard enough being around Mom when Grandma was there to keep the peace. Lord only knew what would transpire when she wasn’t. Maybe Mom would just go to bed early, I hoped, and I wouldn’t have to deal with her mercurial moods and her meddling. The last thing I wanted was to have her close by when Tony called. Regardless, I decided I’d make the best of it. “What’s for dinner?” I asked.

  “Whatever you make.”

  The way she said it didn’t sound like a promising start to the evening. It seemed I would have to carry the load if we were to have a civil time together. I reminded myself that my mother was too far gone from her Woodstock days, from her glue-sniffing and drug use with her friends, from her sleeping around. I steeled my resolve. “No problem,” I said as I went into the kitchen.

  “So,” Mom called out from the couch, “ya waitin’ for a call from that boyfriend of yours?�
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  Maybe it would be better to talk from a distance, I thought. “Not really,” I lied again over my shoulder as I put a pot of water on the stove. Pasta with broccoli instead of the grilled cheese that Mom would no doubt have made was just the thing to keep me in a positive frame of mind.

  “Yeah, right,” Mom said. “You’re not foolin’ anyone.”

  I hadn’t been able to conceal how I felt about Tony over the last week. Not because of anything I had said—I hadn’t mentioned a word to either Mom or Grandma. There was just a little more bounce to my step, I knew, and a perpetual positive attitude about everything in the face of the usual carping Mom threw at me. Hell, right then I was still tingling from Tony’s kisses two nights before. I was sure it had been obvious to Mom even in her haze. “So what if I am?” I shouted.

  “I don’ like the kinda guy that’ll keep ya out all hours.” Maybe she had heard me come in late the night I went to Platinum, I thought. “I know the type,” Mom droned, “drinkin’, whorin’, and pickin’ fights with everybody, especially his girlfriend.” I bit my lip and thought about my father, and about the constant arguments and sometimes fights Mom had with her transient male suitors. And about the fights she herself picked all the time with the married man with three kids she had dated on and off since I was four years old. I’m headed for a different life, I said to myself. “Tony’s not that kind of guy, Mom. He’s real considerate.”

  “Says you,” Mom said. “I won’ have ya latchin’ onta jus’ any man who comes along.”

  “We just started goin’ out, for Chrissakes.”

  “Watch your mouth!” Mom chastised. I said nothing, and Mom kept up her diatribe. “Before ya know it, ya won’ know which end is up.” The voice of experience, I thought. Mom met my father at eighteen, was pregnant with me by nineteen, and was divorced a year later. That was her experience; it wouldn’t be mine, I vowed. Tony was different. She’d see, I was sure. And I wouldn’t throw it in her face when the happiness that had eluded her was mine. “You don’t know him, Mom,” I said.

  “And you do?”

  “Yes.”

  “After one week.”

  “I just know,” I said. Mom didn’t respond, and I just knew something else. She’d be reaching for her wineglass. I decided to take my time preparing dinner.

  Half an hour later, the pasta and broccoli with oil and garlic were just about done. “Dinner’s ready,” I called out as I emptied the pot into a strainer, but Mom didn’t acknowledge my announcement and there was no sound from the living room. I mixed all the ingredients in a large, hand-painted serving bowl that we had gotten from Dominick’s Italian import store on Eighteenth Avenue. I set it on the table and then went to the doorway.

  Mom was slumped on the couch, her head tilted all the way back on the rear cushion, and her breaths were low and irregular. Mom’s arms were splayed beside her and the stem of the empty wineglass rested on an open palm.

  It’s not just the wine, I said to myself as I turned around and slipped into the kitchen. I filled a serving bowl and brought it to my room, where I would think about Tony and write while I waited for his call.

  It never came that night.

  I hadn’t heard from him by Wednesday, so I decided to accept an invitation from a few of my classmates to go to Outer Skates after school. I was never interested in the silliness that was often exhibited by the girls who were my age and the clumsy attentions of the boys who followed them around like puppies. But I didn’t have a lot of homework that day and was grateful to have something to do that would keep me away from home and away from my thoughts about Tony for a while.

  It turned out that I had a better time than I had anticipated. The girls didn’t engage in any petty gossip and the boys sprang for our skate rentals as usual and behaved themselves. We were having harmless fun and I felt a little guilty about the way I often thought about my contemporaries. Maybe I should give them more of a chance, I thought.

  Nick, who had gotten skates for me, was a perfect gentleman who seemed to enjoy my company. We skated side by side in our group, which circled the polished wood floor, and talked casually across the railing when I took a break on the carpet that surrounded the rink. He appeared to be a nice guy. We skated to the Bee Gees. It was so thrilling.

  I felt like a real girl and I could tell Nick was being extra nice to me.

  We shared some innocent opinions and observations and I was pleasantly surprised by his honesty and intelligence. I giggled when he made fun of how Brooklyn Boys, himself included, behaved, preening themselves and strutting like cocks of the walk. Perhaps he deserved more of my time, I thought, and lost myself in our interplay for half an hour.

  That was until Tony came.

  “Who the fuck da ya think ya are?” Tony roared as he bumped me and grabbed Nick’s shirt with both hands, raising him on the toes of his skates. “What the fuck are ya doin’ with my girl?” he asked, eyes opened wide and saliva collecting at the corners of his mouth. My eyes were wide open, too, as was my mouth. But it was bone dry. I couldn’t speak.

  “Nuh … nuh … nu … thin’,” Nick panted. Tony tightened his grip and pulled Nick closer.

  “Duzzin’t look like nuttin’ ta me,” Tony growled. Skaters slowed their pace around the rink and glided erect, with hands lightly clasped behind their backs, while keeping an eye on the scene. Patrons on benches nearby stopped whatever it was they were doing. Nick trembled.

  “We wuz just talkin’, Tone,” I managed to say. Tony glared at me and then leaned toward Nick. “I see ya with her again, I’ll break your face.”

  “I … swear … I didn’t … know,” Nick said.

  “Now ya do,” Tony said, and he thrust his arms forward, sending Nick flying. His legs pumped frantically to and fro as he tried to gain his balance, but it was futile. His skates came out from under him and he crashed on his back to the wood floor. No one moved as he moaned and rolled onto an elbow, head down.

  Tony flexed his shoulders, put his hands on his hips, and smirked while eyeing the scene beneath him. “Get those fuckin’ skates off and wait for me outside,” he said without looking at me, and then headed toward the manager’s office.

  I made my way to a bench, changed my shoes in a hurry, and headed to the exit without making eye contact with anyone. I glanced back and saw Nick’s buddies escorting him off the rink.

  Tony’s bike was on the sidewalk right outside the door. I considered leaving but stood next to it with my hands below my waist, holding the straps of my bag, and my head lowered. I didn’t know what to think.

  Tony strode out of the rink a couple of minutes later and lifted my chin with a finger. “I told ya not ta go hangin’ around with friends,” he said, and then gave me a peck on my lips.

  I looked away. “Jeez, Tone, it was only skating,” I said.

  “That’s how trouble starts.”

  I faced him. “There wasn’t any trouble until you showed up.”

  He placed his hands on my shoulders and looked at me. “Are ya my girl, or ain’t ya?” I hesitated, captivated once more by those damned azure eyes.

  “I guess,” I said as I looked down.

  “What’s that supposed ta mean?”

  “I didn’t hear from you for days, so I went out.”

  Tony crossed his arms. “Are ya or ain’t ya? I gotta know.”

  I looked into his eyes again for a long moment. “Yes.”

  “Okay then,” he said. “I want ya home soze I know where ta find ya.”

  “You didn’t seem to have any trouble locating me.”

  “I told ya, I know people.” He didn’t have to tell me. I had seen it everywhere we had been together, at the feast, at Platinum, and at the movies, where an usher waved us in without our paying. Tony smiled and put an arm around my waist. “Now hop on. I’m takin’ ya shoppin’.” He swung a leg over the seat and I climbed behind him. “But I gotta make a quick stop first,” Tony said as the bike roared to life.

  Having
been initiated previously, I was more comfortable on the motorcycle as Tony sped along the streets. I was also glad that we couldn’t talk for a while; I wanted to put the incident behind me and collect myself. I felt real bad about what had happened to Nick and vowed that I wouldn’t give any other guy an opening that would lead to harm. After a few minutes, the cool, stiff wind in my face blew my thoughts away and I was able to just enjoy the exhilarating ride until Tony pulled up in front of Café Sicily and shut the engine off. “Wait here,” he said as he got off the bike. “I gotta see someone about sumthin’.”

  I remained straddled on the bike and crossed my arms. There was nothing else to do while I waited except think, and my vacant mind was soon filled with thoughts. Everyone knew Café Sicily was Tino Priganti’s place, so it wasn’t a stretch to figure Tony was meeting him or his son Vin there. That took care of the “someone” part of Tony’s statement. The “sumthin’” part was another matter. It could be legitimate, I thought. Maybe it had to do with the construction union that Tony and his pals were part of. A moment later, when I took note of the two rotund men in black suits and slicked-black hair who were leaning against the tan stucco wall fifteen feet away, smoking cigarettes and taking turns talking into each other’s ear, I started to think otherwise. When two more dark-suited, swarthy men with weathered, pockmarked faces got out of a Cadillac and entered the restaurant through its smoked-glass doors, I concluded Tony’s meeting must have had something to do with the radio “business” he talked about at Platinum. And I thought about that next.

  I figured if I were to go on with Tony, I would have to reconcile that with what he and his cohorts did that was outside of the law. His “business” probably included more than radios whose origin was suspect. I wrestled with what that meant—about Tony and about us. I didn’t get a thrill like a lot of Bensonhurst girls did from being around hot merchandise and the men who trafficked in it. And I didn’t necessarily approve of such low-level crime. But I came down on the side that Tony was just a product of his environment and of an upbringing that might have been more deficient than my own. At least I had Grandma to keep me motivated in the right direction, I thought. Neither of his parents had struck me as a winner and maybe Tony had no one. I felt that as long as he kept his “business” on the lower end of the crime spectrum, limited to the kinds of vices that almost everyone in Bensonhurst either ignored or participated in in some way, then I guessed I could live with it. And maybe when I got across that bridge I would, indeed, show Tony another way to rise above the Brooklyn streets.