Forsaking All Others

by Jimmy Breslin

  The head of the black and Hispanic caucus stood along the wall with Maximo. Then Feinstein and Wolf came out of the staircase with their faces showing boredom. The head of the black and Hispanic caucus spread his hands to Maximo to indicate that now it surely was over; the vote was lost.

  Maximo walked back and sat with Nicki.

  “What did you just do?” she asked.

  “I told that man what you just told me.”

  “How could you?”

  “What?”

  “You made a stool pigeon out of me. I don’t tell you for someone else to know. I don’t even know what I told you means, but whatever it was, I told it to you. I can’t trust you.”

  “I didn’t say you were the one who told me.”

  “But I know I told.”

  “Well, anyway, nobody knows if it was true or not.”

  “Of course it was. I say the truth.”

  “He doesn’t know that. I was giving him third party hearsay. All he did was tell the guy who’s supposed to be getting paid this year. It didn’t look like anything happened.”

  Two blacks in business suits and an emaciated white woman, hair straggly and arms filled with notebooks and leaflets, pushed past them into the row. The black man nearest Nicki immediately was wracked with a cigarette cough. He dropped his cigarette onto the floor, heaved once more and then, with a strangling sound, spit phlegm into a tissue in his hand. He crumpled the tissue, looked around for someplace to put it, saw none and dropped the tissue on the floor.

  Nicki stood up. “That’s it for me, dear.”

  “We’re going in a minute,” Maximo said.

  “Sooner than that,” she said.

  As he followed her to the back of the room, toward the stairway to the lobby, reaching for her arm, there was a banging sound at the front of the ballroom and an old nasal voice sounded through a loudspeaker whose crackling accompanied each word. Maximo touched Nicki. “This should take only a few minutes,” he said.

  He stood with her in the back and watched the old woman in the front of the room adjust her glasses, then make some comment that caused all the important-looking men around her to laugh uncontrollably; the generals, having pretended to turn the army over to a private, now enjoyed the scene. The woman now began to call out names, and in the seats a delegate would stand and call out his vote. Everyone was bent over keeping tally. She had called about thirty names and the votes were cast without causing any stir and then she called out, “George Feinstein.”

  Feinstein half-rose. He called out a name so softly that it could not be heard in most parts of the room. But those able to hear it turned their heads in sudden interest.

  The old nasal voice in the front of the room said, “Would you please repeat your vote.”

  Feinstein half-rose again. “Goldenberg,” he said in a clear voice.

  Henry McCafferty’s head snapped from Feinstein to Rose Keogh’s husband, who was standing in complete stillness in the doorway of the room where his wife sat.

  McCafferty placed his elbow on the back of his folding chair and dropped his cheek onto it. He stared at Feinstein as the next five names were called, names of people who sat in the same row with Feinstein. Each person who stood called out, “Goldenberg.” McCafferty’s cheek lingered on his fist for several moments after the six votes had been recorded and the entire room broke into excited conversation. Then McCafferty picked up his head, removed his elbow from the back of the chair, returned his body to its normal sitting position and stared at the front of the room, a spectator at an autopsy of his own greed.

  Maximo had a glimpse of the Keogh woman. She was standing in the doorway with her husband, waiting for the room to clear so that they could leave without further mortification. The winner, Goldenberg, had such a crowd of handreachers about him, including several blacks and Hispanics, that there was no way to get past them. Rose Keogh pretended not to be looking, but her eyes slowly ran over the crowd and that was when Maximo saw her, and he thought at first that she was seeing nothing and then he saw her eyes move almost unnoticeably and fall on Ron Seguera’s flag of Puerto Rico.

  In the subway train on the way home, Maximo balanced himself in the middle of the car so he would not have to hold onto anything. He wanted to speak with gestures, for now he saw clearly great possibilities for the life he had chosen, and he was immensely pleased to see that Nicki’s eyes shone with excitement over what he was saying to her. When the powerless organize, he told her, in the eyes of others they become powerful and this immediately makes the powerless powerful. It can be all so simple, he enthused. Merely people with the same problem associating with each other and remaining with each other long enough to attain the power to change their lives and the lives of their children. Think what can be done, he said to Nicki. He exulted in the lighted eyes that acknowledged him.

  Nicki, clinging to a post, not hearing a word Maximo said over the train’s noise, studied his beard and the slope of his neck onto his shoulders. She could not wait to have his body pressed against hers. A fucking movie star! she said to herself. And he’s mine.

  21

  WHEN FRANCISCA ARRIVED FOR work, she was let into Indio’s apartment by his wife, who said he still was out from the night before. Francisca found only twenty bags of heroin under the shirts and half of them were gone after only a few knocks on the door. At 10:30, Indio, his eyes red from the night, walked in. His business sense was offended when Francisca told him there was no merchandise left, but his body was unable to react. He gave Francisca six hundred dollars and instructed her to go to Ana’s Bar, ask for Teenager or Benny, hand them the money and say that Indio was in bed, that he was tired, that he needed forty half los.

  “Buy a loaf of bread at the store that is long, so that it sticks out of the bag and people can see that you were to the store,” Indio told her. “Then put the half los in the bag.”

  Indio, still in his clothes, climbed into bed, stretched his legs under the sheet and yawned. He never felt his eyelids come down.

  The gun poking the right side of Indio’s head woke him up. When he jerked his head away from the gun, his left temple hit the other gun held to his head. He saw his wife standing at the foot of the bed while a short man in a Yankee baseball cap pressed a sawed-off shotgun against her head. Two or three others were in the apartment, and Indio saw one of them start out of the living room with a television set in his arms. One of Indio’s kids jumped off the couch and tried to stop the guy. Someone else, in a black shirt, threw Indio’s kid onto the floor. Indio bolted, and everything became dark pain as a gun came down on his head.

  “You better kill me,” Indio said.

  “That is no trouble for me, man,” one of them next to him said. He wore a brown shirt and a truck driver’s cap. Out of a corner of his eye Indio could see that the man in the brown shirt had a .357 Magnum.

  At the foot of the bed, the one in the Yankee baseball cap said, “Where is the dope?”

  Indio pointed to the dresser. “Under the shirts.”

  The guy with the shotgun pushed Indio’s wife onto the bed, held the gun on her and ran a hand through the dresser, found the decks of heroin, put the shotgun atop the dresser and scooped up the heroin with both hands.

  “This is all?” he said.

  “I have to get more later,” Indio said.

  “You will get more now,” he said.

  He held up the heroin decks for the others in the room to see.

  “This is for you, Jamie,” he called out.

  One of the junkies grinned. “Angel copped!” he called out.

  Jamie, Indio repeated to himself. He would remember that name. Angel, he repeated to himself. He would remember that name too. Indio counted six of them in the room. They didn’t care how much noise they made either.

  Out in the hallway, the junkies struggled with the couch. Francisca was coming up the stairs with a loaf of bread sticking out of the top of the bag of heroin decks. She turned around as if she forgot so
mething and went back down the stairs.

  When the junkies came back into the apartment after taking the couch someplace, they went into the bathroom with Angel. Several minutes later, Angel looked out and motioned. The man still holding the Magnum to Indio’s head used it as a prod and brought Indio into the bathroom. Two of the junkies were sitting on the edge of the bathtub. Burned matches and used syringes were on the sink. Angel ran water in the bathtub until it was nearly full. Then he grabbed Indio by the hair and forced his head down toward the water. Indio gripped the side of the tub and kept his face in the air, but then the junkies grabbed his arms and locked hands on Indio’s neck and Indio’s face splashed into the water and the water covered his ears. For a moment, Indio opened his eyes in the water, but he thought that meant he was accepting what was happening and he closed them and tried to shake his head and fight for his life. The first place it hurt him was in the stomach, then at the bottom of his throat. He screamed inside. Now the pain was everywhere.

  Angel pulled the head out of the water. “You will get Teenager for us or we will drown you in this water,” Angel said. The silence that followed was interrupted by a slight noise that caused Angel to pause in his work.

  “What is this you are doing, giving Indio a bath?” Teenager said. He stood in the bathroom doorway, eyes narrow, mouth in a cold smile.

  Angel jumped up and his hand went straight out so that the sawed-off shotgun was directly in Teenager’s face.

  “That’s all right,” Teenager said.

  “We want your dope or I will blow your face away,” Angel said.

  “That’s all right,” Teenager said.

  He turned and walked out of the bathroom. Angel, embarrassed that someone would walk away from him in such a way, ran behind Teenager and stuck the shotgun barrel against the back of Teenager’s neck. Teenager kept walking, with steps so long that Angel had to put himself out to be able to keep the shotgun against the back of Teenager’s neck.

  The one holding the Magnum pushed Indio after them. When Teenager went out into the hall, the man with the Magnum pushed Indio out, too. The others stayed in the apartment with Indio’s wife and children.

  Teenager climbed the apartment house stairs to the fifth floor, and walked to the apartment at the end of the hall. The staircase leading up to the roof was a couple of paces to the right of the door.

  “All my dope in this apartment,” Teenager said.

  “If you knock on this door and it is the wrong place, then we blow your head right here in this hallway,” Angel said.

  “That’s all right,” Teenager said.

  Teenager knocked sharply on the door. When Indio heard a squeak inside the apartment, he closed his eyes and prepared to die. A stranger would open the door and the guns would go off. Nobody came to the door. Teenager knocked again. When the door still did not open, Teenager banged his fist. He had won his gamble, that the apartment would be empty.

  He stepped past Angel and sat down on the cracked stone staircase leading to the roof.

  “He is just gone for a minute,” Teenager said. “Soon he will come back. He has all my dope in his apartment. You cannot get in there because he has so many locks. Soon he will come back.”

  Teenager went into the pocket of his green silk shirt and took out cigarettes.

  “Indio, you look tired. Sit with me, Indio.”

  Indio was afraid to move. Teenager got up and took Indio by the arm and brought him to the staircase. The one holding the Magnum jumped.

  “That’s all right,” Teenager said.

  He put Indio alongside him on the staircase.

  “Smoke, Indio,” Teenager said. “We must wait.” He gave Indio a cigarette. He held out the pack to Angel and the one with the Magnum, but they were afraid of Teenager’s hand and moved away. Teenager shrugged, put the cigarettes back into his shirt pocket and sat on the staircase and smoked. They were there for nearly fifteen minutes, Teenager and Indio on the staircase and the two gunmen a couple of steps away, in front of the apartment house door at the end of the fifth floor hallway, which exploded.

  The one with the Magnum pitched onto the back of his head. Angel, terrified, faced where the shot had come from, from the top of the staircase leading to the fifth floor from the fourth floor. Teenager boiled off the steps to the roof and his feet kicked out and crashed into the side of Angel’s head. The shotgun went out of Angel’s hands and Angel dropped to his knees. Teenager’s foot came into his face and knocked Angel onto his back. Teenager jumped in the air and his Cuban heels came down on Angel’s face. He danced on Angel’s face until he lost interest.

  Albertito and Benny Velez stood in the hallway. “One shot I take,” Benny said.

  “You can take what your shot did to this guy and throw him in the furnace where he belongs,” Teenager said.

  He reached down and grabbed Angel under the arm and pulled him up. He wrapped an arm around Angel and carried him like a sack of rice. Angel’s feet dragged on the hallway floor.

  “This man is injured and I must help him,” Teenager said. He bent down and kissed Angel on the cheek. “That’s all right,” Teenager said.

  Each time Angel started to fall off the bar stool, Teenager grabbed him under the arm and boosted him.

  “Another drink for Angel!” Teenager called.

  Luisa Maria poured more Bacardi into a glass and Teenager held it to Angel’s mouth.

  “Drink, Angel; this will make you strong again.” He tipped the glass and Angel’s mouth dropped and the tan rum ran off Angel’s bottom lip and dripped onto his polo shirt, which stuck to him, wet and dark, from the blood from his face.

  “A beer for Angel,” Teenager said.

  Luisa Maria opened a nip and handed it to Teenager.

  “Cold beer, Angel!” Teenager said. He put the bottle into Angel’s mouth and when he tipped it, the liquid again ran out of Angel’s mouth. Teenager held the bottle up and emptied it over Angel’s head.

  “Wake up, Angel, you have been drinking too much!”

  Benny sat at the bar clicking a set of pliers.

  “Angel,” Teenager said, “Torres sends you, right?”

  “Yes,” Angel said.

  “These ones with you, who are they?”

  Angel shook his head. “Torres told them,” he mumbled.

  “I know who told them, but their names I want,” Teenager said. “I want to send them invitations to a big party.”

  Angel was silent.

  Teenager waved at the juke box.

  “Give Angel some music!”

  Luisa Maria put a dollar into the machine and punched C—11 four times.

  As she walked back to the bar, the music began.

  Toro mata ahí

  Toro mata …

  Teenager’s hand began to wave. “Louder,” he said.

  Behind the bar, Luisa Maria turned the key that caused the juke box to become louder.

  Toro viejo se murió …

  “Much louder,” Teenager called.

  Luisa Maria turned the key all the way and now the trumpets on the record vibrated in the barroom as loud as a rock band.

  Teenager whispered in Angel’s ear and then cocked his head so that his ear was very close to Angel, so he could hear anything Angel said. Angel said nothing. Teenager gently took Angel’s wrist and brought the hand out.

  When Luisa Maria saw Benny get off the bar stool with the pliers she covered her face with both hands, then spread her fingers so that she could see through them. Benny looked at Angel’s cracked, dirty fingers, selected one nail, on the right middle finger, and put the pliers to it. Angel tried to pull his hand back, but Teenager’s hand remained locked on the wrist. He kept his ear to Angel’s mouth. Luisa Maria yelped as she saw Benny yank the pliers. Angel’s middle fingernail sat in the plier’s jaws. In Teenager’s ear there was a scream that started in Angel’s stomach and rose to a sudden pitch.

  He let go of Angel’s wrist, and Angel stuck the finger into his mouth.
Teenager took the wrist again and forced the finger out of the mouth. He whispered into Angel’s ear. Angel, crying, shook his head no. Teenager forced the hand out again. Benny opened the pliers and let the old nail drop to the floor and then he inspected Angel’s hand again, selected the thumb, gripped it with the pliers and pulled the dirty thumbnail out of the hand.

  On the juke box, the trumpets came to a high pitch to mark the end of the record. Teenager slapped a hand across Angel’s mouth and held it there as the record changed. As the first notes of its second play started, Teenager removed his hand from Angel’s mouth and again put his ear to it.

  Teenager began nodding and yanking on Angel’s wrist as a threat, and then Teenager looked up with a great smile. He motioned to Luisa Maria to cut the juke box down, and she turned the key and made the music so low she could hardly hear the words of the song.

  “Angel has told me who it was that was with him at Indio’s house,” Teenager said. He called it, ticking off a finger at a time as he mentioned a name.

  “This fellow Pedro.”

  Benny nodded. At the door, Albertito said, “Who is this Pedro?”

  “Little Ralph’s brother, Pedro,” Teenager said.

  “Oh,” Albertito said.

  “And Little Ralph,” Teenager said.

  “Aha,” Benny said.

  “NeNe,” Teenager said.

  “I hate NeNe the worst,” Albertito said.

  “Jamie,” Teenager said.

  “How could he do such a thing?” Benny said. “I just give him fifty dollar the other day.”

  “The main one is Torres,” Teenager said. “Torres paid them to get me.” He patted Angel on the shoulder. “I told Angel we would let him leave here if he would tell us. And now I am going to live up to my word.”

  He told Luisa Maria to turn up the juke box. Teenager began singing with it, “Toro mata ahí.”

  He lifted Angel off the stool and half pushed, half carried Angel to the back of the room. As Teenager passed Benny, he held a hand out. Benny went into his waistband and brought out a nickel-plated Colt Detective Special. Luisa Maria sucked in her breath.