Bloodbrothers (14 page)

"Hey look," Banion snapped across the room, "if you know anything about anything you'll lay off me about that."

"I only meant—"

"I said you'll lay off."

"Hey c'mon, Mikey."

"You'll lay off."

Chubby opened his mouth to speak, but his words subsided in a sigh. "
O.K.
"

Banion wheeled back to Chubby's end of the bar. "Chubby, how come you never had kids?"

"I dunno." Chubby shrugged. "I guess I was afraid they'd all be fat and ugly like me."

"Cut the crap, Chubby, I'm asking you serious." Banion poured himself another milk.

"I'll tell you something, I never felt like I needed a kid. I got Stony, Tommy's boy. He's the best goddamn kid in the world. A goddamn kid-and-a-half." Chubby popped his knuckles. "You know, when we talk, me an' Stony, when we talk we're just like two guys, like two buddies. None of this Uncle Chubby garbage. An' I'll tell you somethin' else, that goddamn kid loves my ass. Jus' between you and me, I think the kid digs me even more than he does Tommy, but don't ever tell Tommy that." Chubby laughed.

"How about your old lady? Is Stony like a son to her too?"

Chubby looked pained. "Sometimes."

"Whatta you mean sometimes?"

"I dunno, sometimes yeah, sometimes no, what the hell's the difference?"

"Whatta you gettin' so mad about, Chubby? I just wanna know how come you don't have kids."

"I
told
you goddamnit, Stony's—"

"But he
ain't
yours."

"Hey, look, what the fuck you want from me? You want me to say I can't have kids? You want me to say Phyllis can't have kids? Well I won't cause I can! Phyllis can! She gave me a goddamn
son
, the most beautiful fat baby boy in the whole fucking world..." Chubby stared at his drink, his face burning, his hands clasped in a bloodless knot of fingers. Banion started to say something, but Chubby cut him short. "He's dead and buried so goddamn long it seems like he was never here, like the whole thing was a dream."

Banion stared at Chubby's hands.

"Louis De Coco, Jr." Chubby smiled as he looked up at Banion. "He weighed in at thirteen pounds, four ounces.
Thirteen pounds and four ounces,
can you imagine that? The goddamn doctor said Louie was the biggest friggin' baby he ever delivered." Chubby laughed. "Everybody came over the house, you know, when Louie and Phyllis came back from the hospital. I used to love to watch their eyes pop when they got their first look-see." Chubby bulged his eyes and shook his head in reverie. "That seems like a million years ago. A goddamn different world. I weighed seventy-five pounds less, and Phyll weighed thirty pounds more."

"What happened. Chubby?" Banion asked softly.

"What happened," Chubby repeated. He rubbed his eyes. "Two weeks after they came home from the hospital I'm working for Delta Electric on this housing project that was going up at that time; I'm puttin' in navigation lights on some buildings, you know, just pullin' cable all fuckin' day. We were livin' over by Yankee Stadium then. I come home that day, I remember it was a really crazy cold day for April. First thing I notice I don't smell no dinner or nothin'. I figure, well, maybe she's busy with Louie so I call out, 'Phyll? Hey, Phyll?' No answer, nothin', an' I figure now that's weird ... I know she don't go out and leave the kid or anything. So I walk into the bedroom." Chubby ran his finger around the rim of his glass. "I walk into the bedroom, and it's almost dark. Phyllis sitting up in bed with Louie in her arms, neither of them is movin'. I can't see so good so I go to turn on the lamp, and Phyllis says,
'Don't!'
...She don't even look at me, she just says,
'Don't!'
like really sharp. I felt scared shit when she said that. I don't know why I did it but I reach over and touch Louie's face. His face is cold, really cold ... an' the room is hot. The steam's hissing from the radiator, and the pipes are clanking like crazy. An' his face ... I could almost feel the color blue through my fingers when I touched his face. After that I felt like I was sleepwalking. I never turned the lights on. I fished around the room until I found a newspaper. I took Louie out of Phyll's arms, an' I wrapped him head to toe in that paper. I walked right out of the apartment with him in my arms, down the stairs, into the street, got into my car, laid him next to me on the seat, drove over to Ciccio Funeral Home, walked into the director's office, laid him down on the guy's desk, emptied out my wallet—thirty-two dollars—dumped
that
on his desk and said, 'Bury him.' Then I got into my car, drove home, got undressed, got in bed with Phyllis and cried my heart out."

Chubby sighed. "I dunno. That night the cops came, doctors came, relatives came, it was like a fucking nightmare. It was unreal, like I was underwater or something, an' poor Phyllis. What had happened was that she was laying in bed with Louie, fell asleep and rolled over on him. He suffocated. When she woke up he was dead. That happens from time to time. I dunno, I don't blame her, she feels punished enough, you know?"

Banion poured him a Scotch.

"Ach, it ain't worth moanin' about." He accepted the drink from Banion with a nod. "That night was the last time I ever cried. I felt like that kid just sucked up all the hurt and heartache I was ever gonna let myself feel. The doctor said we should have another baby right away. I just said no day, no way. No more hurt. The next year Stony was born. I said to myself, 'I'll love my brother's kid, I'll treat him like I would've Louie, I'll play with him, I'll be the best goddamn uncle a nephew could have.' Uncle, not father, nephew, not son. And that's the way I want it. I got no room for nothin' else." Then Chubby added as a postscript, "You know, one thing I remember from that night just like it was yesterday, an' I don't know why this should stick in my head of all the fuckin' shit from that night, but I remember the sports headlines on one of the papers that I wrapped Louie in. 'Mays Grand-Slams Spahn, 4-3,' New York
Mirror
, April tenth, nineteen fifty-six." Chubby hunched over the bar, cradling his drink in both hands. "You know, I always was a Giants fan, even when they moved to San Francisco, but I never
did
like that black bastard."

***

"Albert, eat your string beans." Marie glared at him.

Albert hastily jammed two forkfuls in his mouth.

Stony lunged across the table in Marie's direction. Marie gasped, almost tipping her chair backward. Stony grabbed the salt by her plate and fell back into his seat, lightly salting his roast beef.

The blood drained from Marie's face. Stony busied himself with his food.

Tommy frowned. "What the hell's goin' on here?"

"Whatta you mean?" Stony looked at his father, fighting down a slight smile forming at the corners of his mouth.

***

"Hey, Stones?" Tommy popped his head into Stony's bedroom after dinner. Stony was doing James Brown splits in front of the closet door mirror. He jumped when he heard his father's voice.

"Yeah?" He quickly picked up a comb and, blushing, started doing his hair. Tommy sat on Stony's bed, squinting, a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.

"I got some good news, babe, I swung it so you can work up in Riverdale with me."

Stony sighed, pocketed his comb and swung the closet door closed.

"Hey, don't go droolin' all over me with gratitude. A simple thanks is enough, you know?" Tommy leaned his elbows on his knees.

Stony balanced against his desk, arms folded across his chest. He stared at his father's shoes. "Hey, Pop? I thought we went through this deal awready. I don' wanna do construction this summer."

"So whattaya gonna do, drive around Harlem in a Good Humor truck again?" Tommy walked over to the window and flicked the butt into a spin fifteen stories to the street.

"It was Carvel," Stony said.

"Oh, excuse me." Tommy returned to the bed, lying back on the pillow.

"Hey look, I jus' don' wanna do construction, O.K.?" Stony twiddled a pencil between his fingers in a seesaw motion.

Father and son glared at each other across the room. Tommy suddenly bolted from the bed and headed for Stony. Scared, Stony sidestepped to the closet. Tommy charged past him to the desk and began pulling out drawers and rifling through the crap until he found a blank piece of loose-leaf paper. With his other hand he picked up a chair and banged it down in front of the desk. "
Siddown,
" he barked at Stony.

Stony hesitated for a second, then cautiously sat, Tommy towering over him. Tommy slapped the sheet of paper. "Gimme that pencil." Tommy grabbed it from Stony's fingers, leaned over the desk and numbered the paper. "Here." He jammed the pencil into Stony's hand and closed Stony's fingers around it. "Now, I want you to write me three things you wanna be."

Stony held the pencil upside down and stared puzzled at Tommy.

"G'head. Write!"

"What?"

"Write down three things you wanna do witcha life."

Stony bent slowly over the paper, frowning like he was doing a surprise quiz.

"You got two minutes." Tommy stood over him, arms folded across his chest like a proctor.

Stony turned and twisted his head, looking up at Tommy. "You wanna get outta my light?"

Tommy walked out of the bedroom. "You got two minutes." Stony heard the bathroom door lock and a second later a glissando of piss. He stood up and gave the bedroom door crossed forearms before plopping back down to his task. He stared out the window and chewed his pencil. He held his head in his hands. He drew a big prick and labeled it, "Thomas De Coco, Sr." He bit off half the eraser and spit it out the window. He wrote down, "Work with kids." He picked his nose with his pinky, examined it and wiped his finger on the underside of the desk.

"You got one minute," Tommy warned from the doorway, lighting another cigarette.

Stony jumped up and saluted, "Sieg Heil!"

"Faggot fascist hard hat" was number two. He eliminated the prick and Tommy's name with what was left of the eraser. He stared at the paper, the number three, noticed an old James Brown album, "Mister Dynamite," lying under the TV, chuckled and wrote, "Mister Dynamite."

Tommy grabbed the paper from Stony's hands. "Whadda you, a smart-ass or somethin'?"

Stony smiled meekly, a fuck you in his eyes.

"You wanna be a nursery school teacher and you're callin'
me
a faggot?"

"Who wants to be a nursery school teacher?"

Tommy picked up the paper and read out loud: "Work with kids." He dropped the paper. It floated into Stony's lap.

"So?" Stony tossed the paper on the desk.

"So what's that mean? Kindergarten? 'Romper Room'? Milk and cookies? Whatta they gonna call you. Miss De Coco?"

"No! I can get a gig in a hospital workin' with kids. A friend a mine got me a deal if I want at Cresthaven."

"A hospital! Ugh! That's the pits! What'll they pay ya? A hundred?"

"I dunno, what's the difference!" Stony glared.

"The difference is, you come with me you be makin' more bread in two weeks than you'll make candy stripin' for two months."

"I ain't
candy
stripin'. I'll be a goddamn recreational assistant."

"What makes you think you can handle hospital work? I seen you go green at a nosebleed." Tommy lit another cigarette.

"I ain't doin' brain surgery, I'm just playin' with the kids."

"Ah, grow up, Stony. That's woman's work."

"Oh yeah, right, sorry, you're right. I should be runnin' aroun' in my T-shirt with a screwdriver and a red hat on. Yeah, then I'd be a real man. Right, sure!"

"Hey look!" Tommy pointed a finger an inch from Stony's nose. "I can still kick your ass all over this fuckin' room!"

Stony's face was composed. "I don't suggest you try it." His legs were trembling, but he wouldn't crack.

Tommy stood motionless, red-faced, his finger like a gun in Stony's face. Stony tried not to even blink. Tommy flung his cigarette toward the open window and stalked out of the room. The cigarette hit the window in a splash of embers and lay smoking on the windowsill. Stony flicked the cigarette out the window. "Candy-ass," he muttered, not too loud, and collapsed in his seat. He sat there, not moving, until Tommy came back into the room.

"Hey lissen." He tentatively laid a hand on Stony's shoulder. "I'm sorry. You do what you want this summer. You wanna be a candy striper or whatever, it's on you. It's none a my business." No reaction from Stony. "But if you want my opinion, you're a jerk if you don't go into the union."

Stony sighed, shaking his head sadly.

"O.K., look." Tommy sat on the desk. "I'll make a deal with you. You wanna do hospital work? Fine! Do two weeks hospital, then do two weeks with me, you know, like a test." Stony started to protest, but Tommy cut him short with a raised hand. "You do those two weeks with me, after that you can clean sewers for all I care." Stony walked around the room, his hands in his pockets.

"Stony, God as my witness." Tommy stood, one hand on his heart, one hand raised palm toward Stony like a saint. "God as my witness, Stones, gimme those two weeks and I won't say another word about nothin' until I'm dead. I swear."

"Awright, awright." Stony threw in the towel.

Tommy put an arm around Stony's ribs. "Stony, I'm your
father.
I don't want
nothin'
but the
best
for you." On every other word he squeezed Stony's side like an accordion. Stony felt relieved that Tommy had backed down from kicking his ass. "Do the hospital first so you can compare, but just do yourself a favor and lissen to yer old man."

Stony nodded. Fair enough.

"Oh, an lissen"—Tommy threw over his shoulder on his way out—"forget the Mister Dynamite number. Demolition's good bucks but someday you'll wind up wit' your ass blown halfway to China."

C
HUBBY TOOK OFF
from work at noon the next day. He told the contractor he felt sick, but instead of going home he headed for midtown Manhattan. He had special shopping to do. Chubby stood on the periphery of a gaggle of smartly dressed women surrounding a young man demonstrating a juicerator in the kitchenwares section of Bloomingdale's. The man made juice from celery, carrots, radishes and spinach. For the entire twenty-minute show, Chubby never took his eyes from the demonstrator's face. The man passed out small, clear plastic cups of the exotic juices among his audience. Amid the oohs, ahs, hmms and sounds of disgust, Chubby was silent, tasting none of the samples. And after the man quoted the price of the juicerator, Chubby stood alone in front of the demonstration table. He took out his wallet and laid down five twenties. "Can you gift-wrap that thing?"