by John Florio
Still damp from the shower, he had a thin towel wrapped around his waist. His mitts, cut, ragged, and sweaty, lay on the floor next to his bare feet. He’d hung his street clothes—a well-worn navy blue jacket, matching vest, and creased, cuffed white pants—on a hanger in the second of three wooden lockers. He’d put his polished brown leather shoes, which would get fresh soles once he picked up his prize money, below them. On the shoes, he’d placed his straw hat, careful not to dirty the red ribbon circling its crown.
Willie swung open the door and told him he had a visitor. When Ernie saw it was Dorothy, he moved the ice bag to cover his swollen right eye.
“You were here?” he said, wishing he’d had a chance to change into his suit. “I thought you don’t go for this stuff.”
“Don’t you need a doctor?” Dorothy said, wincing as she took a closer look at the dressing taped to his forehead. She seemed nervous and Ernie knew it wasn’t because of his wound. He was antsy for the same reason: Edward Albright had no idea she was here.
“Willie patched it up,” Ernie said. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“It looked awful from where I was sitting.”
Dorothy ran her finger over the white gauze, touching it delicately, as if it were wet paint. The feel of her finger lightly crossing his stitched-up bruise made Ernie’s ears go hot.
“What are we doing?” he asked, afraid he already knew the answer.
“What we’ve wanted to do for a long time now.” She slipped her left hand under the towel and looked into his eyes as her cool fingers met his hot flesh.
He didn’t want to give in, but his reaction was as automatic as shifting his weight when throwing a jab.
“This is trouble,” he said, wanting her to stop as badly as he wanted her not to.
“So?” Dorothy said.
“I’m not lookin’ to . . .”
Before Ernie could finish, Dorothy leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth. He pulled his head away.
“Dorothy, I’m afraid of what we’re doin’.”
Dorothy slid her hand up his leg until it reached the knot in his towel. With one quick tug she opened his towel and continued to toy with the only part of him that wasn’t resisting. She stared into his eyes and called him a champion; then she hiked her skirt ruffles up to her waist and climbed onto the table. With one knee on either side of him, she untied her undergarments and eased herself down upon him. Her weight burned his sore thighs, but the pain melted when his hardness reached deep inside her. He planted his hand on the back of her head, his fingers raking her soft black hair, and he kissed her, his passion coursing from his belly into his tongue. She responded, hungrily licking his lips and his neck. Then, in a hoarse, husky, voice, she let out a string of words he’d heard in locker rooms but never from the mouth of a woman.
Ernie gave in to his desire to swallow Dorothy’s wholesome whiteness, and as she bounced on his aching thighs and bit into the top of his shoulder, he pushed himself even farther into her. And shut Edward Albright from his mind.
It’s eight o’clock at night and the wind is whipping so hard I hear it inside Mona’s Diner. Everything in the place—the booths, the counter, even the soda jerk and the wait staff—is covered by a thin coat of grease. My father doesn’t care. He loves the place because it’s only three blocks from the site where he and thousands of other hardhats are putting up the Empire State Building. And because it serves colored folk any time of day.
I found him on the job a few hours ago, working on Sunday, lugging bricks from the front of the building to masons stationed throughout the site. Tracking him down hadn’t been easy. I figured he’d be there but workers blanketed the grounds; some were even walking along the skeletal steel bones of the building, so high up in the sky they looked like ants on ice-cream sticks. I sifted through hundreds of ground workers—all dressed in grimy duds and bathed in sweat despite the frigid December wind—before spotting my father in beat-up dungarees and black work boots stacking bricks onto a railroad car. I’ve rarely seen him in anything but a suit, so I wasn’t surprised when, after punching out, he stopped in his boss’s trailer to sponge the sweat from his body and throw on a brown pinstriped three-piece. Its lapels were so wide, I couldn’t help but realize he hadn’t seen a men’s shop since well before the market crashed last year.
“I gotta look professional,” he said as he threw on his vest. I guess nobody told him that he’s a professional brick carrier.
Now, he’s munching away at a drumstick, his plump lower lip dancing as he chews. He’s heavy, but he doesn’t have the paunch you’d expect on a retired boxer. His is a fleshy blanket of dark brown skin, still sculpted by the sledgehammer of muscle that slammed its way to the New Jersey title twenty-four years ago.
He told me he was glad I showed up and I believe him, even though we haven’t been as tight as we once were. We used to see each other every day, watching movies at the Victoria or taking the train up to the Polo Grounds. He was proud to be my father, but he sure wasn’t happy when I left school to work for Jimmy McCullough.
The last time I saw him was on his birthday back in September, when Pearl and I had gone by his place on 128th Street. I’d bought him a necktie—red, with little white dots—and even had it gift-wrapped. He thanked us, but slipped the box back to me after dinner, saying he didn’t want anything that was bought with dirty money. I left the tie on the table before I left but I’m sure he’s never worn it.
“So how’s Pearl?” he asks me, spearing four string beans with his fork.
I’ve got a bowl of chicken soup sitting in front of me but I’m not hungry. “Why do you ask?”
He chomps on the beans, his right cheek bulging. “She seems like a nice gal.”
I notice he didn’t say she was a beauty, but it doesn’t matter because she’s not mine to defend. Besides, the truth is that Pearl’s not a looker. She’s too heavy, has a doughy neck and her ears are too small for her head. But hearing her say my name was always enough for me.
“She’s swell,” I say, which isn’t a lie as much as a distortion of the truth. “But I’m here for something else, Champ. I need your help.”
I’m not sure what he can do for me, but he’s strong as a bullwhip and has a list of friends as long as the Manhattan phone book. It’s like he’s an albino in reverse—everybody loves him the minute they meet him. When we lived in Hoboken, strangers used to stop him on Washington Street just to shake his hand and talk about the night he beat Higgins. Years later, when we moved to Harlem, our neighbors boycotted the local white businesses, even their favorite stores, because he spent a few nights handing out flyers for the Colored Merchants Association. I’ve been pretty popular myself at times—I pour drinks in a speakeasy—but I’d have to flash my brass knuckles to get people to follow me around town like I was the pied piper.
My father knows where I work, so I don’t pull any punches. I spill the whole story, including the part about Jimmy being ready to drop the hammer on me.
He listens to every word; he even stops chewing. When I finish he tells me, “You don’t got one problem. You got two problems.” He holds up one finger and says, “Gazzara.” Then he holds up a second finger and says, “Hector.”
“Yeah, I thought of that,” I say, shaking it off. “But I’m not buying it, Champ. Gazzara set me up. It all leads back to him.”
“Maybe so,” he says. “But I never heard of no boss sending a bone collector to do his dirty work. A hood like Gazzara, from what you say, he’d send one guy. Not with a cleaver. With a roscoe.” He pushes his plate toward the center of the table. He’s done eating.
The waitress is short, skinny, and about ten years older than my father. She drops the check on the table, eyeing my chapped skin as she does so. My father reaches for the tab and slides it next to his plate. Money is hard to come by lately and I know he’s proud he can spring for dinner. I don’t tell him that I could take him out for two-inch steaks every night of the week.
> “Thanks,” I say and nod toward the check.
He waves it off with a brush of his hand before reaching into his jacket pocket, the edge of which is frayed. He puts a couple of bucks on the table and leaves some change for the waitress.
“So can you help me out with Gazzara?”
“I won’t help you with the sugar pop stuff. That’d be like workin’ for McCullough.” He shakes his head in disgust. “But yeah, I’ll help you with Hector. I’ll do some diggin’.”
I was hoping for more, but what can I expect? He isn’t about to run down to Philly and beat Gazzara to a pulp—although I’d pay to see it.
“You think you can find something out about Hector? Here in New York?”
“I’m tight with loads of guys at work. Johalis, Florencio, they’re both from Philly. Somebody’s gotta know two Spanish kids out to chop up an albino.”
“You think they wanted to chop me up because of the way I look?”
“Everything happens because of the way people look,” he says. I sense the anger inside of him—it doesn’t crackle often, but once it’s lit it blazes like a crumbling tenement. I’m glad I never had to get in the ring with him.
“In your case,” he says, “you’re an albino.”
“What if you’re wrong and Gazzara’s pulling Hector’s strings?” I understand he doesn’t want to help Jimmy, but I’d love to hear him say he’d help me.
“Then we got a different situation,” he says. “For now, let’s see what I can dig up on this Hector. If he’s on his own, he’s gonna be sorry he ran into us.”
He gets up to leave and I follow behind him, a smile forcing its way across my colorless cheeks.
I’ve been back at the Pour House for ten minutes. The bogus booze sitting in the ratacombs has got me feeling like Denny Gazzara’s patsy. Still, there’s not much I can do tonight except watch over the place and make sure nothing else goes wrong. Diego did an okay job running the joint over the weekend—no fights, no raids, no major purchases of counterfeit moon. That’s a hell of a lot better than I did, and he had no support other than a hodgepodge staff of busboys. I taught him well.
Tonight, Diego is working the door. He isn’t big enough to play the heavy—he’s barely Santi’s height and can’t weigh more than a buck-forty soaking wet. But Diego’s beady black eyes don’t miss much, and he makes up for that slight frame with the Colt he keeps strapped to his ankle.
Santi is tending bar and I’m sitting on a barstool across from him. I’m keeping an eye on the door but I’m not afraid of getting raided; we’re only serving eleven customers and they’re all locals. Street cops rarely bust a speakeasy unless they think they’re going to land a big fish.
Santi is filling a shaker for two newlyweds sharing a single barstool. The room looks good, but I still want to add some bottles on the shelf behind the bar to mimic the mirrored setup at that drugstore down in Philly.
“But Not For Me” comes on the radio and I think of how easily Pearl was able to walk out of my life. I shake myself loose of her memory and ask Santi to fill me in on what I missed since this morning. He joins me at the end of the bar.
“It’s a good thing I got back,” he says. “Diego nearly ran out of moon. I brought up ten cases, but the rest is skunk. It’s a dwindling situation.”
“Seventy cases,” I say, shaking my head.
“Of pure piss,” Santi says.
I can’t help but wonder if I could pawn the cases off on some other unsuspecting sucker. “How hard would they be to sell?” I ask, keeping my voice low.
“Are you nuts?” he whispers. “Things are bad enough now. You want somebody coming back here, chasing you the way you’re chasing Gazzara? What’ll you tell Jimmy then?”
I’m only half-listening. “I won’t have to tell him anything, because I could replace the money. Or we can use it to buy some decent liquor. Either way, it’d straighten things out.”
“And where do you think you can unload all of this bad booze?”
I see Larch at the bar sipping a Rob Roy. I like him, but I don’t feel the same way about all of his comrades. Maybe the precinct would buy seventy cases of shine? Doubtful. Cops expect their drinks for free, and if I tried to charge them they’d simply raid us and make off with the booze. Still, the thought of selling Gazzara’s cow piss is worming its way through my brain like a double-shot of bathtub gin.
Santi sees that I’m looking at Larch.
“Absolutely not,” he says. “I know what you’re thinking, and it would be sweet, but it would turn bitter once the sugar is gone.”
Once again, Santi didn’t make any sense, but I got the general idea.
“Okay, but we’ve got to think of something to do with that turpentine,” I tell him. “I’ve only got seventy-two hours.”
“Maybe we should just dump it,” Santi says. “We could replace it with money from the till and tell Jimmy we had a slow week.”
“We couldn’t skim enough to cover seventy cases,” I tell Santi. “We need forty-eight hundred bucks. I’d have to leave the register empty.”
“You’re right. But we can’t pawn that stuff off on somebody else. That’s just asking for trouble.”
“Fine. Just help me figure something out.”
The door opens and in walks a tall character with a thick black woolen overcoat and dark brown fedora. He’s got a long face with a hooked nose and his eyebrows are bushy, like hairy slugs. He could be trouble, so I walk over as Diego pats him down.
“Welcome to the Pour House,” I say.
“You Snowball?”
“Depends on who’s asking,” I say, as if anybody else in the room is pale enough to carry that nickname.
“Denny Gazzara,” he says.
I wanted this but I’m shocked as shit that I’m getting it. I nod to Diego to let him pass. Diego shoots me a concerned look, but it doesn’t matter because the hood isn’t waiting for an invitation. He walks into the dining room, well beyond earshot of Diego.
“I hear you made a bit of noise in Philly,” he says.
“What can I say? It’s a quiet town.”
“We want to keep it that way,” he says.
He’s not smiling, but neither am I.
“I’ve got a problem with Gazzara,” I say.
“That’s obvious. You’ve also got a big mouth.”
“Let me guess. A bartender with nuts the size of cranberries went running to Gazzara screaming, ‘Daddy, a weird-looking man was bothering me.’”
“Something like that, yeah.”
I try steering him toward the bar, closer to Santi and Larch, but he doesn’t budge.
“That bartender was right,” I say. “I really rode him. You want to know why? Because I knew a thug like you would show up and start asking questions. So now I’ve got some questions of my own.”
Before I can spit them out, Larch walks over, a full Rob Roy in his hand. I’ve never been happier that we pour the guy for free.
“Things okay here, Snowball?” Larch asks.
“Yep,” I say. “This gentleman and I were just coming to get a drink.”
“Oh, good,” Larch says. He takes a hard look at the hood before heading back to the bar. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
The hood doesn’t say anything. He walks past the empty tables and stands beside the pocket doors, next to the fireplace. I wonder if Larch will notice we never made it to the barroom.
“What’s your problem exactly?” the hood says. He’s smiling and nodding at me, trying his best to make us look like two old buddies reminiscing about the joys of grade school.
“Why don’t I piss into a bottle of shine and show you?”
The smile leaves his face. “I’ll ask again,” he says. He’s agitated, but I’m starting not to give a shit. “What’s your problem—”
I cut him off. “Save your energy. Gazzara sold me eighty cases of sugar pop moon. You ever hear of it?”
“Keep going,” he says.
“Seven
ty are as drinkable as furniture oil.”
“You got your facts wrong,” he tells me. “Gazzara doesn’t sell his sugar pop moon by the case. His regular moon? Yeah. His sugar pop moon? Never. You want it, you gotta buy it by the glass, like one of those Rob Roys that tin badge was drinking before. Sugar pop moon is his, his alone, and he ain’t selling it to the likes of you.”
“If that’s the story, why don’t you buy back the seventy cases of sugar pop piss he already sold me.”
“You don’t get it, pal. If Gazzara wanted to take you, you’d know it.”
“He did take me and I do know it. What are you trying to say here? I should just drink his swill and thank him?”
Santi walks over from the bar. He’s carrying two drinks on a metal tray. The hood stops talking.
“Sidecars,” Santi announces, smiling. I can tell Santi’s up to something but I’m not sure if Denny’s boy realizes it. Maybe he’s like Larch and thinks drinks are free at the Pour House.
Santi takes two more steps and trips over a dining room chair. He regains his balance, but he’s not able to stop the two cocktails from flying off of his tray and crashing to the floor at the thug’s feet. The scent of cognac wraps itself around my nose as Santi takes a bar rag from his apron and gets on his knees to wipe the floor.
“You sprayed my cuffs,” the hood says.
“Many apologetics.”
The hood bends down to wipe the side of his shoe.
“Sorry, I dampened your wool, too,” Santi says, wiping the side of the hood’s overcoat.
Santi’s going to pick the guy’s pocket, I’m sure of it. He doesn’t need my help, he’s the best dip in Harlem, but I focus my eyes on the shining light fixture until they start shaking—and then use them to distract the thug.
“What’s your point?” I ask him, staring him down.
“Simple,” he says, a confused look on his face. “Stop shooting off that mouth of yours. Next time I won’t be this nice.”
He doesn’t wait for a response. He walks to the door as Santi wipes the last traces of cognac off the fireplace hearth. I trail the hood to the front of the room.