Forsaking All Others

by Jimmy Breslin

  “Aha!”

  Teenager swaggered into the park with Fernando Lebron and Benny. Double-parked in the street was Teenager’s Mercedes car. Somebody was at the wheel.

  “I told you he would be here,” Rivera said to Chita Gonzalez.

  “You didn’t tell me who it was that would be here,” she said.

  “I am the surprise man,” Teenager said.

  “I don’t see you, where have you been?” Chita said.

  “Busy,” Teenager said.

  Chita dropped the cigarette as Teenager took her hands and brought her to her feet and then drew her body flat against him. Immediately, he began humming a tune and dancing with Chita.

  “We have just been married,” Teenager said.

  “This is a wedding,” Fernando Lebron called out.

  “Toast the bride and groom.”

  “My wife is beautiful,” Teenager said.

  Laughing, they stopped dancing.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I love you more if you give me some business to do,” Chita said.

  “Business, lots of business,” Teenager said.

  “When?” Chita said.

  “First I wanted to ask you,” Teenager said.

  “Yes?”

  “Remember the night I saw you in the Myruggia?”

  “I never saw you in the Myruggia in a long time, since before you went to jail.” Chita was remembering how she opened a button on her red blouse the night she had seen Teenager in the Myruggia.

  “You’re sure?”

  “How could I see you in the Myruggia when I have not been in this place in months and months?”

  “You were in there with me tonight,” Rivera said.

  “But that was with you. I haven’t been there by myself in months and months.”

  Teenager watched her without reacting to what she was saying. Once, his eyes moved to show skepticism.

  “Has anyone come to you and asked you if you saw me in this bar on that night?”

  “Who?”

  “Some cop.”

  “I don’t speak to cop,” Chita said.

  “You sure?”

  “Why do you ask me all this?”

  “Because I ask,” Teenager said.

  “Then ask yourself before you ask me. I don’t speak to no cop. I wish some bad girl gives all the cops syphilis.”

  Teenager’s eyes squinted and he began to chuckle. He ended the tension. Maybe she is all right, Teenager thought.

  “Aha!” he said. He put his arms around Chita and began to dance with her again. “We are married!” he called out.

  The ones with him, Rivera, Lebron and Benny, lost some of the grimness in their faces. Rivera even smiled.

  “Where do I go for my honeymoon?” Chita said.

  “No honeymoon tonight,” Teenager said. “Tonight your new husband has big business.”

  “If I don’t have a honeymoon with you, then you must give me money to have fun with,” Chita said.

  “There will be plenty of money for you,” Teenager said.

  “I do a business for you,” Chita said.

  “I will pay you plenty of money for it,” Teenager said. He smiled, then let her go. “I will see you soon. We all must go someplace on business now.”

  “Are you taking me home?” Chita said to Santos.

  “You cannot come with Santos. Santos must come with us,” Teenager said.

  “Santos, you said you would drive me tonight. What about my cab money?”

  Santos took out money and Chita, dancing with Teenager, took her hand off his shoulder and reached for the money.

  A car door slammed and two patrolmen walked into the park. In Teenager’s arms, Chita stiffened. She suddenly buried her face into his chest. Her feet did not move. By pushing her, Teenager got her dancing again as the cops walked up to them. Chita’s face pressed harder against Teenager’s chest. Her body trembled. He looked at her hair as he danced with her. His sleepy eyes were open.

  “Oh, man,” Johnny Benitez’ voice called out.

  “Don’t try and run or you’ll get hurt,” one of the cops called to Benitez. His hand was on the gun.

  The patrolmen went past Teenager’s group and fell on Johnny Benitez. They handcuffed him behind the back and, each holding an arm, led him out of the park.

  As the patrolmen brought Benitez past Teenager, Chita’s face remained pressed into Teenager’s chest. Her body shook even more. Why does this female get so scared of police, Teenager thought. The patrolmen walked Benitez out of the park. At the curb, a crowd had collected and an old woman began to shout at the patrolmen for arresting such a young man. One patrolman pushed Benitez’ head down so it wouldn’t bump as Benitez got into the back seat of the car. The patrolman said over his shoulder, “I’m sorry, lady, but this kid is under arrest for killing an old woman just like you.”

  Teenager pushed Chita’s chin up. “What’s the matter with you? They gone.”

  “I don’t like them,” she said.

  “Come on, I think now that I take you home myself.”

  “I have cab money to get home. Santos gave me.”

  “I take you home myself,” Teenager repeated.

  She saw a strange face at the driver’s wheel. Chita and Teenager got in the back. As the car got to the corner, she asked them to stop.

  “I want to call up and tell them I’m coming home,” she said.

  “Don’t tell them who you’re with,” Teenager said.

  She glared at him. “I never say anything to nobody.”

  Chita went to the outdoor booth and Teenager walked with her. He stood alongside her as she made the call. Then he walked her back to the car. Chita put her head back and relaxed as the driver sent the Mercedes off with a squeal. She loved big cars.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “That’s all right,” Teenager said.

  Occurrence

  Time: 0355 Date: 9/30/76 Location: 135th Street and Exterior Avenue

  Name: Unidentified F/H/20

  Crime: Homicide: At T/P/O one female was found lying face up in street with two bullet wounds in back. Pronounced DOA by attendant White at Lincoln Hospital. Description of Perpetrators: Unknown.

  At time and date mentioned above the deceased described below was found lying in the gutter, face up, shot approximately three times.

  Female/Hispanic Apx 20, 5’3”, 100 lbs, black hair, brown eyes, light skin, green velvet pants and jacket, yellow T-shirt with red rose picture on it, brown shoes, knee-high stockings, 2 yellow metal rings on right hand, three thin yellow metal bracelets on right wrist, wedding type band on left hand, two l½ inch earrings, one on her left ear, one found at scene.

  Evidence: 9M/M shell casing voucher #865013/29th Homicide.

  The following evidence was recovered and tagged and brought to this Headquarters:

  1 pair of hose

  1 panties

  1 shirt

  1 pair of shoes

  1 pack of Winston cigarettes

  1 pack of matches with the name King Edward written on it

  1 pack of Wrigley’s chewing gum Autopsy: 9/31/76 by Dr. Frank Picco

  Evidence: Three (3) .38 caliber bullets. To be picked up by Ballistics.

  Cause of Death: Multiple bullet wounds (7) of head, back, neck, mouth, subclavian artery: Internal hemorrhage: homicide.

  Ptl. M. Crofton, 29th Horn.

  13

  AT THE RED LIGHT at Greenside, six miles from his house, Myles let his bladder direct him to a tavern that sat between gas stations on the opposite side of the road. For a moment, he couldn’t understand why he had to use the bathroom again; this was his second stop on the way home. As he walked through the bar to the men’s room, he thought the yogurt was to blame. His wife had given it to him for lunch. Can’t take yogurt and expect to drink like a regular man. Stuff must be like a strainer. If you’re going to drink, Myles reminded himself, you need tuna fish and mayonnaise, greas
y enough to seal the bottom of a boat. But as Myles stood at the urinal, he knew what was the matter with his insides. In shock. When Myles came out of the men’s room, he could not walk past the taps and slid onto a stool and first ordered a beer, then a Scotch. Then another right away. He thought of Chita Gonzalez getting out of the car on Westchester Avenue. The whisky could not drown the anguish inside: You got the broad killed, he told himself again.

  When Myles had walked into the precinct that morning and had seen the new file with the block lettering, “GONZALEZ, CHITA,” a deadness had spread through his body. There had been no nervousness, nor had he felt sick to his stomach. Only a listlessness that prevented him even from sitting down.

  He took Hansen into a small office and told him what had happened.

  “You drove her to exactly where?” Hansen asked.

  “Westchester Avenue.”

  “She got out of your car there?”

  “That’s right.”

  Hansen took out his pipe and looked out the window as he filled it.

  “A broad like this, it could have come from anywhere,” Myles said.

  “Maybe,” Hansen said.

  “I mean, who knows who kills who up here?”

  “You got a point,” Hansen said.

  “Should I tell Martin?”

  “Why would you do that?” Hansen said.

  “Because I tell the truth.”

  “That’s fine. But I don’t know why you’re even telling me,” Hansen said.

  “You think so?” Myles said.

  “All I said is, I don’t know why you’re even telling me.”

  Myles was clinging to the approbation in Hansen’s tone. In so many words, Myles assured himself, Hansen was telling him that it was all right, that he was making too much of it. Yes, Chita Gonzalez probably had been shot by some boyfriend, and it had nothing to do with the day Myles let her out of the car.

  “However,” Hansen said.

  “What?”

  “That wasn’t what you call a competent way to handle a witness.”

  Hansen began lighting his pipe and Myles, insides wincing, walked back to his desk and sat down.

  Now, sitting in the bar on the way home, he glanced at the clock and noticed that it was 7:00 P.M. already. He swallowed the last of the beer and left. Outside the bar, he took a deep breath and let the alcohol in him speak. You get the broad killed, then you go out and get the guy killed her. “Fuck you, now it’s personal,” he said out loud.

  He rushed the car home, dropped his jacket on the dining room table and walked into the kitchen, where his wife and three children were eating dinner.

  “Nobody waits for me?” he said.

  “What’d you do today?” he said to the sixteen-year-old son, Eddie.

  “Went to school.”

  “What’d you do after it?”

  “Came home, hung out.”

  “Dad, can I go to the movies tonight?” the fifteen-year-old daughter, Tara, said.

  “What’s your mother say?”

  “She said it was all right.”

  “So then go.”

  “I need money.”

  “How much money?”

  “Five dollars.”

  “Where’s the movie, in Cincinnati?”

  “Nope. The Suffolk Quartet. Right in the mall.”

  “And it costs five dollars?”

  “Three fifty. Then fifty for a slice of pizza. A Coke costs a quarter. I’ll bring you the change.”

  He looked at Eddie, the sixteen-year-old boy. “You’re going out too?”

  “It’s Friday night.”

  “So you’ll do what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No idea?”

  “Nope.”

  “If a movie costs five dollars, then what will something unplanned cost me, a hundred?”

  “Not yet.”

  Myles’ wife sighed. “It will someday. You ought to see what I did on my way home from Alice’s house this afternoon. I stopped in the store and bought nothing and it cost sixteen dollars. Nothing. Dried lima beans, two large yogurts, cottage cheese, a box of pastina. Myles, I mean nothing. Sixteen dollars. You see old people buying one can of soup. They check all the shelves to see which can of soup is the cheapest.”

  Myles took his money, eighteen dollars in crumpled bills and some change, and placed it on the table.

  “Oh, thanks,” the daughter said. She took five.

  “Best I can do for you,” Myles said to his son Eddie.

  “We’re probably just going to one of the fellas’ houses,” the son said. He took five.

  “I’m staying home,” the youngest, the eleven-year-old boy said.

  “You said it,” Myles said.

  Myles picked up a pork chop.

  “I gave you a knife and fork,” his wife said.

  Myles sank his teeth into the pork chop. He was alone at the table now and the phone rang. He heard his daughter, with a whoop, run into the playroom to answer it.

  “Who is it?” Myles called out.

  His daughter yelled up. “It’s for me.” The playroom door slammed shut. Immediately, Myles picked up the extension on the kitchen wall.

  On the phone, his daughter’s voice said, “Is somebody on the phone?”

  Myles said, “Oh, I thought it was for me.”

  The daughter said, “I’ve got it.”

  Myles said, “All right.”

  His daughter said to the caller, “Laura, what time are we meeting?”

  Laura said, “Whatever time you wan—”

  “—Daddy, I said I’ve got the phone.”

  Myles said, “You’ve got it all right?”

  His daughter said, “I told you. I’ve got it.”

  Myles hung up the phone, unscrewed the mouthpiece and picked up the phone again. He bit his tongue and listened to his daughter talk to her friend.

  “Billy’s supposed to meet us.”

  “Tara, is somebody on the phone again?”

  “I think so, Laura.”

  “There must be. I heard another click. For once, it isn’t in my house, either.”

  At the kitchen table, Myles’ wife whispered to him, “I think this is despicable.”

  Myles closed his eyes and shook his head. He was concentrating on the voices on the phone, one of which, his daughter’s, suddenly lost its innocent tone.

  “Laura, I got the greatest place to go tonight.”

  “Where?”

  “To this place where we were last night. It’s a place all by itself at the end of the mall. It actually isn’t in the mall. It’s the next thing from the mall. The name of the place is the Mona Lisa and it’s the greatest, Laura. They don’t proof you. Last night we stayed with the bartender and he said he wouldn’t proof us if we came in again tonight. He says as long as kids look eighteen, he doesn’t proof them. He’s a good guy and boy, did I get wrecked with him last night.”

  “Last night?”

  “Yup. Drinking beers.”

  “Wow.”

  “That isn’t all, Laura.”

  “What?”

  “I was with Billy Monks.”

  “Tara!”

  “Every time he’d give me a joint, I’d go to the back door of the bar with him and we’d stand outside and smoke the joints.”

  “How many?”

  “You won’t believe it, Laura.”

  “Tell me how many.”

  “Guess. Guess how many joints I smoked last night.”

  “Two.”

  “I wish that’s all.”

  “More than that?”

  “Nine joints. I smoked nine joints and had beers.”

  “Tara!”

  “Boy, did I get wrecked. And that’s nothing compared to what we’re doing tonight, Laura.”

  “I thought you told me we were going to the movies,” Laura said.

  “Laura, say you’re going to the movies and when you get out of the house put on eye makeup and meet me by the
Mona Lisa. Laura, you’ll have the best time. We’ll get loose joints from Billy Monks and have beers at the bar.”

  “I don’t have enough money, Tara.”

  “You only need money for the joints. Then you go to the bar and all these men buy you beers.”

  “Are they all old men with dark beards on their faces? I hate that. Every time they put their face up to mine, I get all scratched.”

  “Laura, we’ll get so wrecked you won’t feel anything. I mean, really wrecked. Then you know what we’ll do, we’ll get Billy Monks and we’ll go out in the park and have outdoor sex.”

  In the kitchen, Myles’ stomach collapsed.

  On the phone, Myles’ daughter giggled. “I’m a little high now from smoking joints with Billy Monks in his garage after school.”

  “You were with Billy Monks today?”

  “I just told you. Smoking joints in the garage.”

  “Is that all?”

  “That’s for tonight, Laura. We’ll get stoned out of our minds, get really wrecked like, and then we’ll have the greatest outdoor sex with Billy Monks. We’ll get so stoned we won’t even know if it’s summer or winter out.”

  “Tara, you’re crazy.”

  “I’m leaving right this minute. Later for you, Laura.”

  The phone hung up, the playroom door opened, Tara shouted “See ya!” and was at the back door before Myles could react, could leap down the stairs into the playroom and prevent her leaving.

  Myles’ wife called out calmly, “Have fun, dear.”

  The back door closed. Myles shuddered.

  “How could you listen to her like that?” his wife said.

  “I don’t even want to talk about it,” Myles said.

  “You deserve what you get, you listen in on the phone,” his wife said.

  Myles squirmed in the house for a half hour and then drove to the shopping mall. Swirls of young people were under the marquee of the Suffolk Quartet theater. The anxiety in Myles subsided quickly as he saw a girl he was certain was his daughter, but upon a second look was just another of the masses of young girls who resemble their surroundings. Myles drove to the end of the mall, where the Mona Lisa bar sat by itself, a one-story cement hut, with the charm of a dry cleaning store, separated by an alley from the darkened Suffolk drive-in bank.

  Inside, three men in their thirties, wearing jackets from the Long Island Edison Light Company, played shuffleboard under the bored gaze of the bartender, an immense man with sparse gray hair, thick eyeglasses, a chin that hung like a sack and a beltline of at least sixty inches. A juke box played country music and a game show was on television.