Bloodbrothers (28 page)

Chubby refused to collect his thoughts. He concentrated on each puff, listening to the soft crackle of tobacco and paper. He tried to say her name, but all that came out of his mouth was a stuttering hiss. Leaning over the tub, he peered through the partially open tiny frosted window at a vast field of buildings and a scattered grid of lit windows. Elbows on the window ledge, he watched as the constellation of lights randomly diminished by ones and twos. He was reminded of the logo for "Million Dollar Movie," the shot of the clapboard superimposed over the nighttime New York skyline, the theme from
Gone With the Wind
playing in the background. Jackie Gleason came to mind. Many years ago, some of his friends called him Ralph because he looked like Ralph Kramden. He absently hummed "Melancholy Serenade," the theme song from "The Honeymooners." "To the
moon,
Alice!" he muttered, then chuckled. His back started aching. He pushed himself erect, away from the window, slowly rubbed his hand across his expansive belly, and ran tap water to wash the ashes down the drain. He squeezed an inch of toothpaste into his mouth and ran his tongue across his teeth, spitting the toothpaste out under the thin stream. He sucked air through his tingling mouth, spat again and turned off the water. Chubby felt his way down the foyer to the bedroom, running his palm against the cool wallpaper, making a smooth sliding sound until he got to the doorway. As he sat on his side of the bed, Phyllis moved under the blankets.

"Whachoo makin? harden oranges sit down," she mumbled, then turned on her side and was silent again. Through the wide window over the bed he saw a grid of fluorescently lit parkways with occasional speeding headlights. Far in the distance he could see an elliptical string of lights, the curved contours of the cables of the George Washington Bridge. He reached for another cigarette in his chest pocket, decided against it, achingly slipped his shirt from his shoulders, stood up to drop his pants, quietly slid under the warm covers and fell into a mercifully dreamless sleep.

***

"Chub!"

Chubby bolted upright in bed.

"Chub, it's nine o'clock. You're late."

Phyllis' warm hand lay on his naked shoulder. Chubby swallowed. His throat felt like sandpaper. He rubbed his fingers briefly and fell back down on his pillow.

"I'm not goin' in today, hon. Do me a favor an' call for me."

"Whassamatter?" She frowned. Her scent drifted over to him as she rearranged her bathrobe. A familiar smell.

"My back hurts."

"Ya back?"

"Yeah, I pulled somethin'."

"Tommy called last night."

"What for?" Chubby reached for his cigarettes in the pile of clothing on the floor.

"He didn't say, he just wanted to know if you were home. He sounded nuts."

Suddenly Chubby remembered last night. He moaned, throwing an arm across his face.

"Whassamatter!" Phyllis got scared and leaned across him. "Ya back?" She reached out gingerly, afraid to touch him, tentatively bringing her fingers to her lips. "Ya back?"

With his forearm across his eyes, Chubby exhaled from his mouth long and low.

"Phyll? Do you love me?"

"Is it ya back?"

"Do you love me, Phyll?"

"A course I love you, what hurts, Chubby?"

"Get under the covers." His face still hidden, he pulled back the covers on Phyllis' side of the bed.

"Chubby, stop foolin' aroun'. I got a lotta things to do today. Tell me what hurts."

"
Everything
hurts. Will you get under the goddamn covers?"

Confused, Phyllis crawled into bed, pulling the blankets around her. Chubby hugged her to him. She folded her arms in front of her, her hands between her chest and Chubby's.

"You're my wife, Phyllis, and I love you." Phyllis blinked nervously. Her hands were curled toward her.

"Chub, does anything hurt?"

"Nothin', nothin' hurts."

T
OMMY STAYED
home to comfort his brother, so Friday Stony went in alone. At lunch, instead of sitting on the traffic island, the guys decided to do lunch in Tooky's Tavern and have a few. Stony sat at the bar with Eddie, Vinny and Jimmy O'Day in a crowd of construction workers and businessmen.

"I heard that creep got another kid over in Parkchester." Jimmy O'Day tapped his cigarette on his wrist before hanging it from the corner of his mouth.

"I can't understand somebody like that," Vinny said, tapping his money on the bar to catch Tooky's eye. "A guy like that ... a guy like that ain't human."

"He's a fuckin' animal," offered Eddie. Tooky brought another bourbon and water to Vinny and picked up the dollar. "I tell you somethin', that guy should have his dick cut off an' then they should make him walk down the street an' give all the mothers guns and knives."

"That's what I figure they shoulda done to Eichmann, just let 'im walk down the street in Israel."

"Screw the Jews. Eichmann didn't fuck no six-year-old kids up the ass," said Vinny.

"I don't understand how he could get it up there." Jimmy O'Day finally lit his cigarette.

"I'll tell you somethin' else," said Tooky. "I told Patrick if he ever leaves the house without me or his mother I'll beat his ass black and blue."

"I tol' my kid the same," said Eddie. "I don't care if he sits there watchin' TV for the rest of his life, long as that bastard's on the loose he ain't goin' nowhere without me or Ginny."

"Fuck that. Ain't lettin' my kid out even
with
my wife. Anybody'd do that to a kid, God knows what he'd do to a full-grown woman," said Vinny.

"No offense, Vinny, but I don't think your wife got nothing to worry about," said Jimmy O'Day.

Eddie and Tooky laughed.

"Lissen, douchebag..." Vinny pointed a finger at Jimmy O'Day.

"I'm only kiddin'." Jimmy O'Day laughed, laying a hand on Vinny's arm. "Tooky, giv'im another." Jimmy O'Day took a dollar from his own pile and dropped it a few inches toward the inside edge of the bar.

Tooky poured two fingers of Wild Turkey into Vinny's glass and rung up'Jimmy O'Day's dollar.

"I think they should string that guy up by the thumbs and give sticks with nails and razors to all the kids," said Eddie.

"You're fuckin' sicker than him," said Vinny. "Hey, Tooky, bring over that picture." Tooky took a police pencil sketch off the window and laid it down on the bar.

"Hey, Jimmy, it looks like you," Vinny said.

"It looks like your mother," said Jimmy O'Day.

"It does a little at that."

"Not even on a joke," admonished Tooky.

"Lissen here." Eddie squinted at the sketch. "Has bad acne scars. That's it, the guy's had a rotten childhood, he had acne."

"Big fuckin' deal," said Tooky. "When I was a kid I had a face like a pizza pie. I don't go around molestin' little kids."

Eddie didn't pursue it.

"All you guys live in Parkchester?" They turned to Stony.

"Aroun' there." Jimmy O'Day smiled.

"You hear about this guy?" Eddie said.

"The Parkchester Pervert?" Stony used the name coined in the
Daily News.

They laughed. "Looka' this fuckin' kid," Vinny said. "He looks like he's been here ten years."

Stony's skintight T-shirt was smeared with lubricating oil. His biceps glistened dully in the bar light. He took a cigarette from Eddie's pack on the bar. Feelin' good.

"How they treatin' ya, Stony?" Jimmy O'Day offered him a light.

"Can't complain." He nodded graciously.

"You like workin' here?"

"Can't complain."

"Whada
you
think a this creep?"

Stony took a plunge. "Who ya mean, Vinny?" They all laughed except Vinny.

"The other creep."

"He's a sick man." Stony tensed his muscles. Strike one. A chorus of groans.

"So was Hitler," Tooky said.

"So was Nixon," Stony replied. Strike two.

"Aw Christ, another one a these college liberals." Vinny smirked.

"Nah, I mean..."

"Hey look, Stony, I don' wanna give you no lectures." Eddie grabbed his wrist. "Forget that crack about college liberals, I'm talkin' to you man to man. Now I'm not sayin' you ain't smart or anything. Look, for all I know you're smarter than all a us here put together, but one thing that you don't got is—"

"Experience," Stony finished for Eddie.

Eddie bobbed his head in confirmation.

"Now you talkin'." Vinny winked.

"You see, Stony"—Eddie shook Stony's wrist every few words for emphasis—"when we talk about this degenerate that's goin' around, we're talkin' as fathers, as husbands, you know what I mean?"

They nodded in unison. Stony nodded too.

"You know? An' when you go equatin' Nixon and Hitler..." He shook his head sadly. "Look, Nixon mighta been a prick, I dunno, but... O.K., look at it this way. You always read about the hard hats did this an' the hard hats did that, beatin' up war protestors an' that shit, but how many a those kids ever put their lives on the line for their country? I was at the invasion a Sicily. Those fuckin' Germans had that whole goddamn beach cross-coordinated, you know what that means? That means any time those fuckin' Krauts saw a cluster of men on the beach all they had to do was fix the coordinates on their guns and wham! Six a your best friends crawling up the beach, ten yards to your right, vanished—not even a goddamn corpse ... But we kept comin' an' we took that motherfuckin' beach."

Vinny interjected. "You know Artie? Fat Artie? Artie saw his own brother jump on a grenade in Korea, so four other guys wouldn't get killed." Eddie grabbed Stony's wrist again. "Now what's a guy like Artie, or me, or any of us, whatta we supposed to think, whatta we supposed to do when we see some long-haired eighteen-year-old prick come marchin' down the street with a North Vietnamese flag? I'm askin' you serious, what a' we supposed to do?"

Stony felt moved but confused. He didn't give two shits about Vietnam either way, and he didn't understand what that had to do with the Parkchester Pervert. But the story about Artie La Russo's brother made him want to cry. He imagined himself jumping on a live grenade to save Albert. Then he pictured Albert molested by some forty-year-old sex maniac in the stairway outside the apartment. His mother's face. Albert crying. Derek and Tyrone in their wheelchairs terrified of him. Albert with tears on his face. Derek and Tyrone. Marie. Albert. Derek. Tyrone. Stony. Him. Thomas De Coco Jr. Junior.

"...I'm askin' you, Stony, whatta we supposed to do when some kid comes marchin' down the street with a Vietnamese flag?"

Stony looked at Eddie, at Vinny, at Tooky and Jimmy O'Day.

"Well, it's plain as the nose on your face. You take the goddamn flag, break it in two, then you shove one part down his throat and the other part up his ass. Right? I mean, really, whatta you gonna do, salute? Teach him a fuckin' lesson he'll never forget. I guarantee you, someday he'll be grateful, right? You know how kids are, right?"

Stony smiled. He disengaged his wrist from Eddie's fingers and dug into his pockets for money. "Sure"—he started walking out of the bar—"makes sense to me, right?"

***

Chubby bucked and heaved on top of his wife like a rutting sea lion. The words came from somewhere else. "You comin'? You comin'?" Like a third frantic presence in the steaming room. Chubby pumped for his life, Phyllis' legs twitching under his bulk. The bed gasped for air beneath his panic. Phyllis held on for dear life, grasping his hair like a lifeline. "Yes!" She screamed, half pleading, half tribute. Chubby slammed her bones, rattled her teeth. As if he could bring her back. Bring her back. Coming, coming, coming. He arched his back in a last thrust, ramming her into the headboard. Her legs trembled. Phyllis was so scared by the changes in her body she started laughing. But she didn't come. Chubby bucked once more.

Chubby lay on top, gasping, hurting. "Oh... Phyllis." He'd almost said Sooky as Phyllis wrapped her shaking arms around his fat neck. "Oh, baby," he cried. "Do you love me?"

"Yes!"

"Do you love me?" gripping the nape of her neck.

"Yeah! Oh you know I do!"

"Then say it!"

"Yes. I love you! I love you!"

Chubby was grateful for a clear-lunged fuck. Fifty. That was a pretty good hump for fifty. Phyllis was his wife. No more hookers. No more booze. Play it close to the vest. She was his wife. Fifty.

***

For the next few days he followed her around the house. He brought flowers home. They went for walks in the park, rides in the country. Her bedtime was his bedtime. They laughed at Johnny Carson together. He stopped hanging out at Banion's. He took her for Chinks every night. They even got back into fucking. Phyllis was scared shit.

"Marie, I'm worried about Chubby." She picked at the crusty corners of her well-done hamburger with long nails.

"Whadya mean?" Marie wriggled on the revolving stool at the crowded Woolworth's lunch counter.

"All of a sudden he's gettin' romantic with me. I think maybe he's sick or somethin'." Phyllis pushed away the thick white plate.

"You don't want that?" Marie gathered the discarded hamburger with a sweeping motion of her hand. "It's a sin to waste food. Whadya mean, romantic?" She lifted the hamburger to her mouth with both hands.

"I dunno, he follows me around the house like a big dog all the time. He didn't go inta work this week because a his back an' all he does is be nice to me, takes me out every day, brings me presents. I mean, I'm not complainin'." She quickly frowned. "Yes I am... there's somethin' wrong. He's actin' crazy."

Marie raised an eyebrow. "I wish Tommy was so crazy."

"Look, I'm not a hard person to please, Marie." A tall, thin pimply girl in a pantsuit slipped a check under Marie's plate. "You know that"—they both looked at the tab—"I just like a little attention now and then."

"Miss." Marie caught the waitress' eye with a fluttering hand. "Miss, what was one sixty-four?"

The girl blinked vacantly. "Hamburger."

"Hamburger's a dollar-fifty." Marie pointed to the cardboard hamburger poster hanging over the coffee machine.

"Tax." The girl fidgeted.