City of Margins

by William Boyle

  “I can’t remember the last time I was so happy,” Donna says now, and then she claps her hand against her forehead.

  He watches the way her body resonates from the vibration of the touch.

  “I shouldn’t say that,” she continues.

  “Why?” Mikey asks.

  “It’s too much pressure. On you. On me.”

  “I’m really happy, too. Just so you know.”

  He can’t see her face, but he feels her smile. “Life still has some surprises up its sleeve, I guess,” she says.

  It strikes Mikey as such an innocent, beautiful thing to say. He’s thinking, People aren’t impulsive enough. They don’t open themselves up to times like this enough. That’s one thing New Paltz taught him. Be open. Go where you’re guided. “You’ll come with me, right?” he says.

  “Where?” Donna says.

  “My birthday dinner.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Please.”

  “I’d need to take a quick shower and get dressed. I can’t meet your mother looking like this.” She pauses. “Do you think she’ll be able to tell? Maybe it’s a bad idea.”

  Mikey doesn’t really give too much of a fuck what his mother thinks. In fact, he knows she will not be happy about it, and he doesn’t mind the thought of seeing her sweat, wondering what the hell he’s doing with a woman twice his age. He knows where his mother’s mind will go: Donna’s taking advantage of him, using him. He doesn’t want to put Donna in a bad spot, but he likes—and has always liked—the idea of challenging his mother into new ways of being. The reckless son’s refrain: Deal with it.

  The first side of the record ends. Donna gets up, one arm hugging her chest. He watches as she tenderly places the tonearm back in its cradle, flips the record, drops the needle carefully. Standing there over the turntable, she’s a painting. It’s a moment Mikey will hold on to.

  Donna disappears into her bedroom first, closing the door behind her, and then the bathroom within the bedroom. He hears her turn on the shower, the clanging pipes, the full thrust of the water. He pictures her in the shower. He wonders what she’s thinking. He wonders if she’s worried he didn’t use a condom. Do women worry about that at thirty-nine? Maybe she’s on the pill from before or maybe she had her tubes tied. It wasn’t smart, but it’s nothing to stress about right now. He’s always been lucky before. He imagines having a child with her. When their child is twenty-one, he’d be forty-two and she’d be sixty.

  He goes into the kitchen and grabs some paper towels, wiping himself off. He finds his clothes and gets dressed, even putting his father’s jacket back on. He sits and listens to Garland Jeffreys sing about being wild in the streets. The shower runs for a while.

  When Donna comes back out, her hair wet, she’s wearing a floral dress. It’s tan and cream with brown patterns and brown buttons down the front. It’s got two slits on the bottom. The back is cinched with ties. She’s wearing brown flats on her feet that match the dress. “I’m sorry I took so long,” she says. “I had to shave my legs.”

  “It’s okay,” he says. “I like your dress.”

  “I got it a few years ago, before Gabe died. I’ve never even worn it. It’s just been sitting in my closet.”

  “Maybe you bought it for today without even knowing it.”

  She smiles, going over to the record player, shutting it, and putting the Garland Jeffreys album back in its sleeve. “Maybe. I like thinking things like that. I like thinking I was doing something for a day I didn’t even know—couldn’t possibly have known—was coming.”

  The walk back to Mikey’s house is slow. They walk the way people walk when they’ve been intimate but they’re still getting to know each other. Each step is measured. Mikey’s considering things he’s never looked at before. Iron gates with red, rusty points. Drooping mailboxes. Skinny sidewalk trees. Old cars under tarps. Cats in windows. Ads for manicure joints and car service joints. Toppled tin garbage cans. Signs for new Chinese places. Tags thrown up on bus stops and telephone poles. Donna seems to be doing the same thing, running her hand against whatever they pass. Chain link fences. The bristly branches of front yard bushes. The red brick of an apartment building.

  They count Virgin Mary statues. On one block alone, there are twenty in varying states of weather-beaten decay. A couple are behind glass, protected from the elements.

  On his block finally, Mikey points to his house, the house where he grew up, the house he left a few years ago and is back living in now.

  Donna stops in her tracks. “This is a bad idea,” she says.

  “It’s fine,” Mikey says, but he knows she’s right. He’s instigating his mother. Maybe he’s looking to give her a reason to challenge him.

  “I don’t know your mother from school or anything, do I?”

  “She went to Lafayette.”

  A look of concern passes across Donna’s face. “So did I. How old is she?”

  “Forty-six. Rosemarie Baldini.”

  “What’s her maiden name?”

  “Russo.”

  “I don’t know her, I don’t think. Maybe I’ll recognize her. Maybe she’ll recognize me.”

  “Come on,” Mikey says, taking her by the hand. Her hand is soft, like she’s just rubbed it with lotion. The red polish on her nails is chipped. There’s a blue vein that pulses from her middle knuckle to the edge of her wrist. “Don’t be scared.”

  Walking up the steps to the porch, Mikey can sense that his mother’s in the hallway, waiting for him to appear at the front door. He lets go of Donna’s hand. As he goes to ring the bell, the door opens, and his mother’s standing there, harried. She comes out onto the porch, letting the door close behind her. She’s wearing a black blouse with gold sequins and the slacks she usually wears to church, dressed for his birthday dinner.

  “Where have you been?” his mother asks, her eyes not even seeming to acknowledge Donna’s presence yet.

  “I’m not that late,” Mikey says. “Uncle Alberto’s not here?”

  “He couldn’t stay.” Now his mother’s eyes move to Donna. She takes in the floral print dress, the brown flats, the dark hair streaked with gray. “Who the hell are you?”

  Donna puts out her hand. “I’m Donna Rotante.”

  “I know you?” His mother doesn’t stick her hand out to shake.

  “No, I don’t think so. I’m a friend of Mikey’s.”

  “‘A friend of Mikey’s’?”

  “Ma, Donna’s my guest,” Mikey says.

  His mother is agitated, her neck bulging. “This is her, the girl you got all dressed up for this morning? She’s no girl. She must be close to my age. What’s this about?”

  “Let’s just go inside. It’s my birthday. She’s my guest.” He takes Donna’s hand again. He can feel that she’s shaking.

  His mother’s eyes zoom in on the hand-holding. “This is a joke, right?” she says. “Uncle Alberto put you up to this? She’s one of his girlfriends. You’re having fun with me.”

  “This was a terrible idea,” Donna says.

  The way she says it, something registers in his mother’s face. She knows now it’s not fake, that Donna’s with him. “Did you sleep with my son?” his mother asks. “How fucking old are you?”

  Mikey can’t think of a time he’s heard his mother curse like that, except maybe once or twice in the heat of battle with his old man. “Ma,” he says. “Don’t be like that.”

  “‘Don’t be like that,’ he says. My son’s got it all figured out, let me tell you.” She pauses, gives Donna the once-over again, keeps her eyes on her as she addresses Mikey: “Where’d you find this washed-up puttana, some street corner?”

  Mikey was expecting trouble from his mother, discomfort and disappointment mostly, but not such cruelty. “Ma, what the fuck?” he says.

  “Watch your mouth,” she snaps back.

  Mikey looks at Donna. He can tell she’s about to cry. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t think she’d be like th
is.”

  “It’s okay,” Donna says. “I told you it wasn’t a good idea. I’m gonna go.”

  His mother does something he could never in a million years have anticipated her doing. She spits on the ground in front of Donna and says, “Good riddance.” Not fake-spits. Really does it. An act of total and utter disgust.

  Donna shakes her hand loose of Mikey’s and runs down the steps and out of the front yard. Mikey doesn’t chase her. He knows she’s going home. He knows he’ll follow her there eventually. He’s so angry he’s almost calm.

  “I can’t believe you,” he says to his mother.

  “You can’t believe me? You show up late, with a woman twice your age? I don’t know where you come from, I really don’t, you think you can act like that. How long’s this been going on? Look at her. She’s desperate. She’s taking advantage of you. Use your head for once. You’re twenty-one now.”

  “I’m so sick of you,” Mikey says. He storms past her into the house.

  “Come eat,” she says.

  He ignores her and heads straight for his room. He gets an old hiking backpack he bought in New Paltz out of his closet and fills it with underwear, socks, jeans, and T-shirts. He stuffs Gabe’s paperbacks—which his mother had placed neatly on his bed—in there on top of the clothes.

  He looks around and considers what else he needs, really needs. He’s leaving. Not for a few nights. For good. That was the last straw. He doesn’t need much else, he decides. Maybe just his toothbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant, which he finds stashed in his dresser drawer and zips away in the front pocket of his pack. He’s going to go to Donna’s, try to make amends, and then take it from there.

  His mother comes into the room. “Where you think you’re going now?” she asks.

  “I’m leaving, and I’m not coming back this time,” he says.

  “Don’t say that.” His mother sits on his bed, thumbing the threadbare comforter. “Please don’t say that.”

  “You need to have your own life.” He slings the backpack over his shoulder and leaves the room, the house, and his mother without looking back. He can hear her behind him some of the way until, out of the yard, her cries fade, and she’s the past. The sidewalk that he’s on is the present. Donna’s the future.

  He walks with his head down, floating on his anger, feeling real purpose. He’s going to go to Big Time Tommy. He’s going to work off his father’s debt for Big Time Tommy so he doesn’t have the burden over him of leaving his mother with it. He doesn’t want to see her again, but he also doesn’t want her to wind up shot at her kitchen table. His plan is he’s going to work until he makes more dough and then he’s going to leave. Go someplace different. California, Canada, Mexico, who knows? He’s going to, hopefully, stay with Donna until then. He’s going to, hopefully, talk her into coming with him.

  When he gets back to Donna’s, he knocks gently, and she answers the door, mascara stitching her cheeks. She’s been crying hard. “You’re back?” she says.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “It was my fault for putting you in that position. It made me realize that I can’t stay there anymore. I can’t stay here, in this fucking neighborhood, much longer either. You want to run away with me?”

  She laughs the way a woman laughs after she’s been crying. “Run away?”

  “I don’t know where yet. I need to square this debt my mother and I inherited—I won’t get into that now. I need to make some money, and I know a way. But then I want to leave forever. I figure it’ll take a few weeks, maybe longer. Maybe by fall, I can hit the road. Can I stay with you for a while? And, if you still like being with me, maybe you’ll want to come along when I leave?”

  Donna smiles, wipes her cheeks with the heels of her hands. “Come in,” she says, her voice crumbly. “It was only a few minutes, but I missed you. I really did.”

  AVA BIFULCO

  Ava pulls out of Flash Auto behind the wheel of the Olds Cutlass Ciera. It’s clean on the inside. A piece of Palm Sunday palm is wrapped around the mount on the rearview mirror, and a St. Christopher medal is clipped to the visor on the passenger side. There’s what looks like a cigarette burn in the fabric right under her thigh. It’s the only thing wrong she can see.

  She felt moved and surprised when Frankie just dangled the keys in front of her, no strings attached. He said that “Donnie P.” was an okay guy in his book. He said it was a good thing too, because the part for her Nova was gonna take a couple of days longer than expected and he was glad that she wouldn’t be stuck without a vehicle.

  Ava grips the wheel tightly, turns carefully out of the lot onto Bath Avenue. She feels like she won something in a casino. Like she yanked a lever and coins poured out at her feet. She feels that low electric hum that comes with winning.

  Where Don lives, it’s not too far from here. She knows it’s right across from P.S. 101, which is only a couple of blocks away.

  She makes a U-turn at the corner and pulls back into the driveway at Flash, facing an open garage dock where a red Caddy is up on a lift. She leaves the engine on and runs back in to ask Frankie for Don’s address.

  “You don’t know his address?” Frankie says, thumbing some grease from his hands onto the midsection of his blue jumpsuit.

  “I told you,” Ava says, “he’s not my boyfriend.”

  “He must really like you.” Frankie smiles, showing a smear of grease on his teeth. “Understandable.”

  “He’s just trying to do a nice thing, I guess.”

  “Sure. You’re gonna go say thanks, huh? Maybe show up in your birthday suit?”

  Ava ignores the comment. She asks again for the address.

  Frankie writes it down with a stubby golf pencil on the back of one of their business cards. “He’s not far,” Frankie says.

  Ava nods and thanks him and goes back to her new car. She puts the business card in the ashtray.

  Her thought is she’ll go to Angelo’s on Twenty-Fifth Avenue and get a box of pastries and cookies as a small way of saying thanks, and then come back to Don’s and just ring the bell. He likes to drink. Maybe she should get him a bottle of something, too. Or maybe that’s encouraging the wrong kind of behavior.

  The car drives like a dream. It’s not nearly as rickety as the Nova. It’s been well-maintained. She wonders if it belonged to an old lady who hardly drove it and kept it in her driveway under a tarp and got the oil changed more than she needed to. Ava looks down at the mileage and confirms it. Barely fifty thousand miles.

  She finds a spot at a meter on the corner of Twenty-Fifth Avenue off Eighty-Sixth Street. A B train headed back to Coney Island thunders by on the El, drowning the neighborhood in noise. She looks across the street at some kids playing basketball. They’re sweating and running and yelling, but the yells are lost in the rumble. When the train finally passes, she hears the foul language the kids are using.

  She ducks into Angelo’s, and the girl behind the counter greets her. She picks out a nice assortment. Sfogliatelle, cannoli, sfinge, S cookies, a few rainbows and pignolis. The girl sprinkles some sugar on top, weighs the box, and ties it with baker’s twine.

  The sight of the baker’s twine launches Ava into a new reverie. Anthony coming home with a box of sesame biscuits and savoiardi, her two favorites. She didn’t have the girl put any in Don’s box because she doesn’t want to be tempted to eat any if he invites her in to join him for coffee or something. She loves that baker’s twine. She used to love to watch Anthony cut it with his little yellow paring knife and then unravel it carefully. She liked to tie the twine around the tip of her finger until it became plump and red and she’d start wondering about the names for the lines on her hands and what they all meant. She’d loosen the string right when she felt like her circulation was about to be cut off, and Anthony would shake his head and say she could be a real whackjob sometimes. To her, that twine is one of the most beautiful things in the world.

  She goes back out and gets in the car, placing the box from Angelo
’s on the passenger seat. She watches the boys playing basketball. One of the boys dunks and hangs from the rim. She pulls away from the curb and makes a left under the El. She picks up the business card and scans Don’s address, memorizing it: 116 Bay Thirty-Fifth. She says it over and over in her head. She imagines herself knocking on the door with the box, Don surprised and thankful, telling her to come on in. Birthday suit. Frankie had some nerve.

  ANTONINA DIVINO

  Antonina is on her fire escape, feeling pretty drunk after the shots at Spanky’s. She’d enjoyed fucking with Nick Bifulco—what a loser. She’s not sure what to do now. Weird encounters with Mikey’s mother and Nick are enough to derail her whole day. Her mom’s still not home. She hopes Lizzie will call soon, though it’s pretty early for Lizzie. Maybe they can go into the city. It’d be nice to go now, half-drunk, and head straight to the Keyhole Cocktail Lounge or Seven Bar, other places where she’ll be gladly served, and just keep drinking. Or she hopes Mikey calls. She’d invite him over to talk about Nick. She wonders if he’d actually come. Probably not. Her bet is he doesn’t even call. Maybe his mother won’t even give him the note.

  The phone in her room rings, and it surprises her. She goes to it, hoping for Mikey or Lizzie, unsure who else might be calling her. No way Nick got her number from somewhere.

  She picks up after six rings. “Hello,” she says, trying to sound mysterious, picturing her own lips close to the receiver like in a movie.

  “It’s me,” Ralph says in a low, deep voice.

  He’s never called so early in the day. “What’s up?”

  “I just saw you out on your fire escape.”

  “You what?”

  He talks in a whisper, his hand over the mouthpiece: “I’m at Donnie’s. We lucked into something good. I’ve got a gift for you. For your future.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Just meet me at our usual spot in an hour. I can’t talk. I’ve gotta square things here—there’s some drama right now—but I’ll be there, and I’ll give you what I’ve got for you. Okay?”