A Matter of Love in da Bronx Read online

  --What do you mean no check? Undershirt, pants, barefeet. Ugly look. Demanding intensity of stare. Even before the first bite.

  --No check, Pa. I forgot.

  --Forgot! You won't amount to shit! How'd I get stuck with such an asshole for a son? You forgot! How could you forget when you know how bad we need it?

  --Sorry.

  --You didn't forget, I betcha that! Kike bastard wouldn't give it to you! You work for the son-of-a-bitch for twenty-years and ask for an early paycheck just once, and he won't give it to you. You should go bang on his door and get it tonight!

  --Pa, I didn't ask him.

  --Don't talk to me in that quiet superior tone! First thing in the morning! And bring it right home! Who's he think he's screwing around with? Rotten bastard.

  --Pa, Sol had nothing to do with it, and stop calling him names...

  --I'll call him any goddamned thing I want! This is my house! Don't tell me what I can and can't do! Getting too big for your britches, I can cut you down to size! Remember that! Nothing but an ingrate!

  --Germano, don't get yourself upset! The return of the ghost.

  --Concetta, you should have reminded him, then I'd have reason to clip him a good one now. Forget! Mah! Only an asshole would forget!

  --Tomorrow he'll get it.

  --We need the money! We need the money! What's he think? Son of a bitch!

  --Sol's wife died today. Sandwall versus typhoon.

  --His wife dies and what are we supposed to live on in the meantime? What's it take? Put her in a plastic trash bag, and have a funeral on the sanitation department. You'd think he'd be a little considerate and take care of his loyal employee. Stepping closer, closer.

  --Shop's closed until he comes back, in about a month, I guess.

  --And did he pay you? Did he? The evil breath attacks as a flamethrower depriving the room of oxygen, the stench searing olfactory senses. This is more than life and death. This is money!

  --No, Pa, I said no.

  --And what do we do for the month? Live on air?

  A Cuban double-wrap for that. --That's right, Pa, his wife had no right to die without first seeing we were taken care of. Sarcasm was far beyond Germano Scopia, but his instinct told him his tail was being tweaked.

  Chair thrown across the room, directed at Sam. -Va fa'n cuolo!

  Some little tailings, but virtually the end of the discussion. And the poor man's super supper special a soggy soak. Sin committed as he chucked it, sick to his stomach as he acknowledged the fact that there had been leftover pasta which was deliberately not left over. So, no food. Instead, the welcome tranquility of the back porch stairs, to become an overseer of dark stirrings in yards, across alleys, streets, sometimes even in windows, none of which ever was anything interesting. All he had left was a guinea stoggie, a twisted rope of a stubby ossified bit of a cigar that burned with a smoke that scoured lungs and felt like one was inhaling shards of glass. Good punishment. Deserved. In the light of the match, he saw the fresh, dime-sized burn on his palm, inspected the hole in his finger, remembered he didn't dress the tack hole in his foot. The three wounds. Three nails. The martyr complete. The pain. The godawfulgoddamned pain. The same as the streetgang initiation where they tied the guy’s hands above his head and had the lastest girlgangmember make him ejaculate. It made the poor jerk scream with pain as his head burst with his blood gushing from his penis. Cut down, laying on the ground the sad bastard could not hold his head hard enough, pain cracking open his brainpan. From then until he almost finished the smoke, he thought only of squaring things with his father for his blatant, gross ignorance and callous venality; and why he didn't make up his mind to be his own man.

  In his mind, there was a portentous price tag--that was why.

  --Sam, that you? I smell your cigar.

  Phyllis, short, heavy, with enormous balloons for jugs, ratty looking hair, big ass, puffy Celtic face just visible in the uneasy glimmerings. Up the wooden stairs until eyes were to eyes, holding on to the railing.

  --You still got the late shift, Phyllis?

  --Yeah. Other checkout girl calls in sick so I had to do for her until they call in somebody. Assistant manager always waiting for when I come back from my day off. First, I tell him I want that he should take me off three-to-eleven. Next I want my Friday and Saturday night to be my day off. Then he say he take me after work to MacDonald's which mean he want something from me, like he do every night. He just using me. I told him not until he fix up my job like I want. So I can be just like a regular person, you know? He say to me that all the other girls got family to look after, but I tell him that a lot of shit cause I know he want me to stay on three-to-eleven so I be available to him. You wanna come to my room? I bring home ginger snap and coke. You never say yes, Sam, always you say some other time.

  --Sure, Phyllis, some other time.

  --I can be nice to you, Sam, better than I be to the assistant manager, always wanting something. You never want nothing from me. Tonight when he said I told him nothing doing. He wanted me to suck on him. No, sir! I told him straight out, nothing doing. He just got to begging me saying like nobody else in the wholeworld could do it like I do, and I do it special. I know that. He say he would miss it like crazy, not able to sleep the whole night through just thinking bout how good I suck on him. He just go on and on like that. Finally, I feel sorry for him, and tell him just this one time more because I don't want him to be hurting all night on account of him thinking about how good I suck him. I tell him I don't believe him no more. This would be the last time I tell him if I don't get like I want for my job. I would do him a hand job I say. Now I tell you, he just got his big sausage of a thing he whip out before I can say another word afraid I change my mind him already hot and stiff like a toast French bread. I didn't jerk him half-dozen time and he shoot all over himself--his pants, his shirt, the car seat; then he grab my hand and make me play with his balls and jerk some more and he shoot all over again, and then he did it one more time. I guess he was telling the truth that if I didn't do him he'd like explode. You know I don't let him fuck me any time he want. I'd let you fuck me, Sam, anytime; I could treat you lot better than the assistant manager. We could fuck, or I could suck on you long and soft and pop you like a cherrybomb all you want. I could never just jerk you unless that was what you really liked. As many times as you like, too. You would better use a safety because sometimes you just can't help yourself, and you can't stop, you know when you fuck hard and pump short and close to shooting? Even so I would let you fuck me even was you not to wear a safety because I wouldn't feel bad if I got pre’nant by you, not like it be the assistant manager, he just not worth another trouble of a bortion. Just the last time before this he broke the safety. I got so mad. Besides, he don't do nothing for me. He like get me all hot and bothered then don't do nothing for me so then I have to do myself while he be driving. He laugh. I shouldn't be telling you this. He say he lose his job if anyone find out. I know why--he be ashamed if anyone know he be ruttin' round me. So he beg me to not say nothing. Worse, he say if anyone think we was doing something they be askin me to leave the job because he be so valuable they don't want to lose him, just me. No way he could save my job. Where would I get another job, Sam? Checkout. That all I know what to do. I'm fast. Fastest checker. I make change so perfect never have a mistake on my register counting out.

  --Why do you put up with him--the assistant manager? It's none of my business, Phyllis, but you could hold your job without him. There, or any other store.

  --Oh! You don't understand, Sam. I don't do nothing like that because I'm afraid for my job or nothing. Fact I sort of let him know first I was available that way. I like to do that stuff. He not be the first. There be others--not a lot--but, you know, he be kind of smart to hold such a portant job. When I do that stuff with him--any of it--it make me feel I'm good as and smart as and just like the rest of everybody. Know what I mean, like I'm not different? That give me a nice feeling. I do something
for somebody and somebody do something for me.

  --Yeah. Goodnight, Phyllis.

  --Sam, please let me suck you just one time. I'll do it real special, you bet. Don't care how big you are I can take you all down deep. I don't make you stop, you shoot right in my mouth. If you like it, you can have me do it again. If you don't, well, then you know you not missing nothing. All I know you a good person maybe needing a woman's touch, `cept you be so bashful, not knowing how to ask. You be making me feel good. A man's just gotta shoot. Come on, what you say? I bet I have you shoot off before you know it. My tongue know the way around a man's shooter. I just love that taste. Bet just my saying all that got you big and hard.

  --No...

  --Let me feel it, Sam. Just feel of it.

  --No.

  --I'll suck you right here. You stand up, and I go down a step and I suck your balls into your belly. She pushed her crotch into his knee. Come on!

  --No. He strained to escape her pressure.

  --You sure you don't want to shoot and moan?

  --No, that's why I'd better go in.

  --Sure, Sam. Next time, maybe...maybe for your birthday. She bumped her box into him.

  --Sure, Phyllis, that would be a terrific birthday present. Next birthday, maybe... Fuck! How I'd love a birthday blowjob, and done by an expert, she says. I Just gotta believe, refusing something is just like having it. Where did I get that?

  Slipping showerdamp nude back into the bed from whence he came that morning, he reconstituted her--the daughter--in his mind as she was that morning. Just as beautiful; just as haughty; just as big a bitch. Twice acockatrice. He'd square things with her, all right. Behind a gate that took a gold key, which he held. She spat. He laughed unlocking. One fast, short rip, and she was nude, too. On the bed, the nipple full in his mouth, the other hard in his hand, her teeth dug into his neck, legs intertwined, starspangled sensations. The savagery, just as he saw on the screen, uncontrollable, demanding, mounting. Holding her away. Vellicating vulva. She, pleading. Gasping. Near tears. His burning, swollen tip touched her. Just a bit, not too much. She strains up to him. Give it! Give it to me! Your big sausage of a steamy French bread! Shove it in! No! No! Don't hurry! Don't hurry! Take your time, make it feel...Oh! ...sooooo...sooo... goooo---oooodddddd...!

  Sam's deaf to the music he creates: Dat-uh-Dat-uh-Dat-uh--Dat-uh. Bedstead against the backboard through the wall, rapping, tapping. Slowly, steadily. From largo to rallentando to prestissimo to vivace. Germano, on the other side of the wall, eyes clamped shut against the insult to his flesh, curses hoarsely: --Fucking fag weakling! Concetta silently shifts her prostrate self to the sacrificial altar of grandmotherhood.

  How's that, you bitch! Take it all! Every lunging inch!

  Harder, harder, my Love!

  Deeper, deeper! Take it!

  To affrettando!

  Detonation.

  Sam walked again out of the theatre, and recollided. He was awake for a long time, thinking, thinking, thinking, then finally falling off to sleep whispering: --Marry me, Louisa Golczek!

  CHAPTER 6

  INJUSTICE WAS AN assault on the beacon of his life overlooking the bay of his doings like The Rio di Janeiro Christ. He was appalled at the callousness of his people, the shallowness of their world. Disappointed, perhaps, but not really surprised at their irremissible posture, their querulous disgratitude to so close the source for their bread of near twenty years. The injustice was not, get it straight, to the man, but to his senses; a spontaneous generation of loyalty bred of substantial crystallization of affection. Oh! That was true! Enigmatical to him at first, nevertheless true! And it sat well with him even after deeper analysis. Sol was no better, no worse than any man; and don't we all do the best we can? The incomprehensible beacon that allows us not to stray, become lost, or do any less, resides firmly in all things of earth, he felt. And, also, Sam knew, bereaved as Sol was, he didn’t leave the envelope pressed with the material-weighting iron on the cutting table through some superhuman effort on his part. It wasn't responsibility, or loyalty, or business that made him does it. Merely, it was the best he could do. Soulstaggered by his burden, one relieved, one unrelieved, inherited with Belaya's death, Sol had come back to the shop at what time? Two, four in the morning? When?

  To leave a month's wages for Sam.

  And what unspoken command of the universe, perhaps delivered through Rio, caused Sam to tuck it neatly into his back pocket hardly recontemplating his precipitous decision to keep it for himself? All of it. No fanfare. The Home Treasury would see none of it. A decision, just, hatched perhaps during the bout with the stoogie. He couldn't explain. An omnipotent prescient wisdom afoot.

  Justice be done.

  And with it came the tranquility of understanding. It was irrelevant; really, of no consequence what he did or didn't do in this regard. No matter how much, or for how long he threw his blood for them, it would never, ever, be enough.

  Crouched just to the umbrage about to come into the light, the rampageous pullulant thought: one must look out for one's own ass. But, yet, a while, and for Sam, that would take some doing.

  For the moment, the most conspicuous manifestation of the judiciousness of his course was the reaffirmation when he answered the question dealing with how Sol knew, even though he told Sam to lock the shop for a month, that he could leave something of importance for Sam right there on the cutting table and know Sam would find it! The capacity to communicate purely through intellectual determination. Mindboggling. Mental super-zip microchip! The next morning in the shop his will not to allow himself to think of Louisa Golczek was so efficacious; he neglected donut, soda and clock. He concentrated unstintingly on his work unaware of any physical need whatsoever.

  Then came the Rap! Rap! Wham! He surfaced, perked up knowing it was Lou Harness, as promised.

  --Ayyyy! Cumba! The door relocked. Gimme a second. Zipper down, strides to the john, door open, thundering saffron waterfall. Have a beer?

  --Why not?

  --Why not? That's a yes? Ma quanto mai? Whenever before did you on the job? Zipper up, attaché case clicked open, thermal inner bagunzipped, Moosehead liberated. Baseball cap set at ease. Oblivious of his surroundings, lost in his own brainpan.

  --Ayyyy, Cumba! Come back to earth, we're splitting my salami sandwich.

  --Is it genuine Genoan salami? A rhetorical question. Shoes afootstool, followed by a long, serious guzzle. --Wet the pipes down, Lads! Wet the pipes down! T'wasn't his first of the day, to be sure, as he sang:

  They were genuine Genoan sailors, From a genuine Genoan crew Aboard a genuine Genoan galley That served a near genuine Genoan stew.

  We're due! We're due! We're due! Said the genuine Genoan crew To be served! To be served! To be served a genuine Genoan stew!

  Now a genuine Genoan Lady Asked the genuine Genoan crew If aboard a genuine Genoan galley She could serve her genuine Genoan stew.

  Please do! Please do! Please do! Said the genuine Genoan crew Do serve us! Do serve us! Do serve us a genuine Genoan stew!

  So with Genuine Genoan salami The whole genuine Genoan crew Serviced her genuine Genoan galley And ate a genuine Genoan stew!

  We were due! We were due! We were due!

  Said the genuine Genoan crew To be served! To be served! To be served a genuine Genoan stew!

  --Bravo! Applause. Lou nods, accepting, seat astride workhorse. You're in fine fettle. He hands over half the sandwich.

  --And sheeted to the wind! as they say.

  --You changed the lyrics. Why'd you change the lyrics? I liked the others best. I still think this is a good time for a musical about Columbus on Broadway, why don't you go peddle it? I think it's good.

  --My dear, naive friend... A lengthy basso profoundo pipe organ blast reverberating from his chest. ...must I tell you finally that I've tried to peddle it for the last three years to every producer of musicals who would listen, and those that did, unerringly, to a man, to a woman! agreed, it `just ain't good enough
.' Drumroll in the distance.

  --Bullshit.

  --Put a million bucks--okay, half a mill--on the line, and its gotta be better than good! For halfa salami sandwich. Catch the sadness? Ready... The love that flags the hidden pain of one who has given his utmost and with ruthless honesty finds himself lacking, retaining, though, a bit the promise of a promise for something better in the future. Ready! Aim!

  How I could but wish to assuage in some simple manner, perhaps to give you anything of mine that would strengthen your force, your resolve, your rekindled desire for success. Empathy, how excruciating, too.

  Fire!

  --First, where's my beer?

  --Ehhh! You're getting streetwise, Paisan! Good for you. He hiccoughed.

  --Lou! Taking the beer. Why do you do it?

  --Sam? Taking the food. Why do I do what? Write lyrics?

  --Booze so much? You're young, beat me by six-seven years, you're good looking, smart...

  --Don't tell anyone, you'll ruin my reputation! Really want to know? Then, I gotta tell you. Everybody sees me with my attache case, right? Everybody knows I use it for beer, right? I earn a living selling, right? So? What's a drunken salesman? Goes with the territory, right? But, Cumba! What am I really? Come on, now. What am I really?

  --Don't get sore at me, I don't know. Big bite, small guzzle.

  --Shit! Your best friend, and you don't know what I do? I'm a writer! And don't you ever forget it!

  --Yeah. But, I've never seen anything you've written. I just hear you singing lyrics to made-up music.