Beyond Nostalgia (19 page)

Looking back at Theresa as they dragged me to the door, I hollered, "C'MON OUTSIDE, THERESA! GODDDAMMIT, C'MON!"

But she didn't. She just stood there, hands on her hips, in a scolding pose, watching me get thrown out. But, I could swear that, along with the anger in her eyes, there was also sympathy, that familiar softness. It was as if her angry expression was on the verge of changing. 

But then, just as I was being heaved out the door, she turned her back on me.

Outside, Donny and Jimmy sat on a parked car and smoked as I paced the sidewalk, giving Theresa time, hoping desperately she'd come to me. Still breathing hard, my hands trembling by their own free will, I stopped intermittently, stealing looks inside the bar's front window. All that was there were faceless people. 

Theresa was not coming out. 

Everything we'd shared was over now. Done and gone. Love, hope, trust and lust, dreams and plans. I'd negated all of it. Sure I'd screwed up but, still, the punishment seemed too stiff for the crime. Hell, I thought as I resumed my pacing, I'm a horny SOB just like every other guy my age. Shit, I didn't kill anyone. She's gonna just ditch me after all we supposedly meant to each other? Commme on! I'm sick of feeling like some pervert, like some twisted, dirty criminal. I was drunk that night!

And, now I was drunk again, crazier than a shithouse rat, capable of anything.   

What went through my head next was something like '
Dose Guinea bastids throw me out, when my girl's in dere, wit anotha guy!   Ah'll show dem!'

When I first went to the curb, Jimmy and Donny had no idea what I was up to. But when I straightened up and they saw in my hand the wine bottle I'd left there earlier, they knew exactly what was going down. Like Tom Seaver (rumor had it that he actually lived in Bayside around this time), I reared back and heaved the bottle at the face of the building. It was a strike, right square in the middle of the neon 'Ungy's'. The whole thing exploded, a loud POP and glass flying everywhere.              

"That'll fix them!"

"C'MON. LET'S GET OUTTA' HEEAH!" Donny yelled, grabbing my elbow, dragging me as close to reality as was possible in my condition. While he pulled me down the street, I looked back at the mess one last time, still hoping that Theresa would come out of that door. But she didn't. All you could see was broken glass all over the sidewalk and neon dust floating like fine green snow. 

"C'MON. WE GOTTA' BOOK!" Donny yelled in my ear again, tightening his grip, pulling me with two hands now. Though I barely heard him, I was beginning to realize the severity of my actions and I started beating heels into the darkness with my friends. Heading down a side street that paralleled Bell Boulevard, all you could see was asses and elbows as we made our tear beneath the rows of street lights. Our feet pounding, we raced past five blocks of tidy houses until we eventually came upon the bright shower of light on Northern Boulevard where we slowed to a brisk walk. Breathing hard, hands on our hips, the three of us hunched slightly forward as we checked down the street we'd just come from--nobody in sight. We were safe. Or so we thought.

Heading up the boulevard, talking excitedly about what had just happened, we suddenly heard what sounded like a whole stampede of pissed off Pamplona bulls gaining on us fast. The heavy footsteps had come out of nowhere. As quick as we'd turned to see what the deal was, they were upon us.

"HOLD ON MUTHAFUCKERS," came a deep, winded, resonate roar.

Ironically we were but a block away from that same supermarket where Theresa's father had been killed when we turned to face these guys. I thought for sure we'd die now, just a hundred yards from where he did. What would Theresa think of that, my intoxicated mind mused, but only for a millisecond? 

There was no running now. The four rough-looking Italians had their three-o'clock-shadows right in our faces. They threw their olive-skinned jaws out at us along with four nasty-smile snarls, that mean-ass New York upside-down smile where the lips are pulled tight and the corners of your mouth dip, yet there's still a hint of a sinister smile there. Let me tell you, these guys were no kids. They were solidly-built men in their late twenties and thirties. All of their shirts were opened to their bellies, exposing black pelted chests and the gaudy gold-ropes half buried inside them. Hate and anger flew from their black eyes like a barrage of electrically-charged stilettos. I could feel the heat as we stood face-to-face with these men. It burned my skin. That they had run all the way from Ungy's did nothing to smooth their foul dispositions. All of them were breathing like marathoners on the twenty-sixth mile. With all that hot Latin adrenaline speeding through their meaty limbs, it was obvious these guys were ready to kick some serious ass.

We didn't have a prayer. Even if this had been even-up, these men were TOO BIG! Even the two short ones had shoulders wider than most doorways, chests thick as sides of beef. 

"OK, you hippy pieces of shit," growled the biggest one, the one who first grabbed me inside Ungy's. He was right in my face, reeking of salami or garlic or something. In his tough guy, staccato style of cutting words, he made his point reasonably clear, "Weeah gonna beat yaw asses!" With that out of the way, he shoved me in the chest, hard. Back-peddling a few stutter steps on the  sidewalk, I fought to keep my balance until I slammed, and I mean slammed, back-first, into a parked car. Shit, that really hurt.
This bastard's gonna kill me.
My hands on the small of my back, quick dashes of biting pain shooting through a network of nerves, I lost it. I blurted, "Big fuckin' man! You got a hundred pounds on me. Gonna make you feel good to beat my ass? Bring it on, tough guy." As I said all that, I was thinking, '
Go head man, put me out of my misery.'
I didn't give two shits about anything at this point.

Then like a lion about to finish off his prey, the guy moved in on me, his impossibly powerful fists balled like two rocks at his sides. The wise guy was waddling toward me, very slowly, for affect. He and I both knew what he was doing. Taking his time, giving my fear a chance to regroup, drag out the experience as long as possible, adding another dimension to my fear, allowing me plenty of time to contemplate the worst before it actually came.  

By now the other three tough guys were shoving Donny and Jimmy around too.Out on the boulevard headlights were flying by like high-speed white fireflies. You know that dream you have where you're trapped in some horrible predicament and there's no way out? Well this was it. 

But an idea came to me. I thought, '
Freak it man, I'm dead anyway. Might as well go for it!'
and, in one single motion, I lunged for the car's antenna and ripped it off the fender. I had the steel rod cocked when the sound of skidding rubber grabbed my attention. A passing car had stopped short, fishtailing in the street, right behind me.  

Who the hell is THIS?
I asked myself without moving my lips, if you don't count the tremble in them.

When an arm jutted from an open window of the stripped-down Plymouth and plunked a flashing red light on the roof, we all knew who it was. 

"Awright, break it up. Wuss goin' on heah?"

Shit man, there is a god!

I couldn't believe it, here I was seconds from the beating of my life, and out of nowhere comes these plain-clothes cops. I would have surely been dead meat once this monster wrestled the antenna away from me, especially since I had every intention of swiping him with it a few times first. But all that wouldn't be necessary now and, as you can imagine, I was relieved as hell. 

As the cops piled out of the Plymouth, I dropped the antenna, kicked it underneath the car that was holding me up.   

After the wise guys told the cops what I'd done and it was my turn to speak, I of course lied. 

"I did not. Some other guys did it. We saw `em. When they split and we were standin' out there, we knew these guys would blame me `cause I just had a fight in their place, so we took off."

It was obvious the cops didn't like the odds, four grown men against us kids. The cop who seemed to be in charge asked them if they saw me do it.

The Sicilians, Neapolitans, whatever they were, admitted they hadn't actually seen me do it. The top-cop then told them they could press charges against us but that it would be pretty much a waste of time since they didn't see me do it. He said that even if they did, it would be their word against mine. In his next breath, he told us we could file assault charges against them. Well, these guys sure as hell didn't want any police reports bringing attention to themselves or their money-cranking club, and we just wanted the hell out of there, so it was a trade-off, so long as they never laid eyes on us again. 

When it was just about settled, I coaxed one of the plain clothesmen aside, told him we didn't have a ride out of there. If we had to wait for a bus, these guys would surely do a number on us. I copped a plea, whispering urgently to the balding cop with the sympathetic face, "Please, man, you gotta give us a lift outta here!" And, they did.

That, thank God, was the last we'd ever see of those hoods. And, I thought, surely it would be the last I'd ever see of Theresa Wayman also, though countless times over the next twenty-nine years I would wonder if it was she who had saved my skin that night. Had she called the police from Ungy's after the bouncers took after us. I'd always wonder if, despite all her anger and resentment, she still cared at the end. And, had I remained in her
heart, like she had in mine?          

Chapter 17

Just like that moldy old cliché threatens, life did go on. I went into the army on Monday, April 2nd, 1968. I did basic at Fort Dix, New Jersey, where I endured my fair share of harassment and more. For, you see, the drill instructors right away picked up on my New York accent. My speech, devoid of any rolling r's, was a dead giveaway. Every time I answered a question or spoke for any reason, I'd be stereotyped as one of those trouble-making New Yorkers. Rubber-stamped by mindless redneck sergeants from provincial-thinking little podunk towns where the only way out is through the doors of the military recruitment offices. 

It seemed like every time I opened my mouth, the same tired Southernese dialogue always followed. "Where you from, boy?"

"New Yawk, suh. New Yawk CITY, suh!"

I soon learned that that response invited harassment. I found out right away that everybody west, south, and north of the G.W. Bridge hates New Yorkers. But, by emphasizing the CITY at the end of my hometown's name, I was giving the instructors a little zinger they could do nothing about. A perpetually pissed-off lot, my reminder to the DIs that 'the city' was still part of these 'United States' always seemed to further darken their foul demeanors. And I loved it. Whether their constant state of anger was a charade or for real, didn't matter to me. Every time I said "New Yawk CITY, suh!" it was like saying, "up yours, sarge" and getting away with it. It got to the point where I welcomed any such confrontations. What could they do? Put me in a trash can, slam the lid, beat on it for hours with a stick, drive me insane? I don't think so.

All in all, for a New Yorker, even with my little zingers, I managed to keep my nose reasonably clean throughout basic training. Smart enough to realize that was the way to go; I did whatever I was told and did my best to (as they say in the military) "get my shit together”.

Believe it or not, it turned out that basic training was the best thing that could have happened to me so soon after losing Theresa. Up at 0500, back to bed at 2100 hours, every minute of every day filled with military nonsense, war games that required almost constant concentration. And, this was good. For it left only the few minutes between lights out and deep sleep for my personal anguish to gnaw at my soul. 

It was only during those few minutes at day's end when dog-tired, lying in my top bunk inside those ancient barracks, that my troubled mind became my own again. For fifteen or so minutes, before I'd succumb to an exhausted sleep, I'd relive and cry over the lovely year-long dance Theresa and I had together. The fonder the memory, the deeper the pain cut into me. And, of all my painful recollections, the one that tore at my heart most was the remembrance of the second time we made love; that 'morning after' at her house, when I thought she might have resented giving me her virginity in that stairwell the night before, but instead called me into her room and offered herself to me all over again. I thought of the night she gave me the ID bracelet too and those wonderful memories of prom night, and all the other good times we'd shared. Lying in the darkness with fifty other young men, I'd try to visualize the picture I had in my wallet, the one we'd taken in the booth at Woolworth's. I thought about all those times Theresa and I watched TV in my living room, stealing kisses, and more, when we could. But always I'd have to relive the bad part too when it all ended. That was when I'd suffer most, tasting the saltiness of my own quiet tears until drifting off to sleep.