Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics (18 page)

Tralala yanked her arm away and went back to the bar and leaned against the seaman and rubbed her tits against his arm. He laughed and told her to drinkup. Ruthy told Annie not ta botha witha, Fredll be here soon and we/ll go, and they talked with Jack and Tralala leaned over and interrupted their conversation and snarled at Annie hoping she burns like hell when Jack left with
her
and Jack laughed at everything and pounded the bar and bought drinks and Tralala smiled and drank and the jukebox blared hillbilly songs and an occasional blues song, and the red and blue neon lights around the mirror behind the bar sputtered and winked and the soldiers seamen and whores in the booths and hanging on the bar yelled and laughed and Tralala lifted her drink and said chugalug and banged her glass on the bar and she rubbed her tits against Jacks arm and he looked at her wondering how many blackheads she had on her face and if that large pimple on her cheek would burst and ooze and he said something to Annie then roared and slapped her leg and Annie smiled and wrote Tralala off and the cash register kachanged and the smoke just hung and Fred came and joined the party and Tralala yelled for another drink and asked Fred how he liked her tits and he poked them with a finger and said I guess theyre real and Jack pounded the bar and laughed and Annie cursed Tralala and tried to get them to leave and they said lets stay for a while, we/re having fun and Fred winked and someone rapped a table and roared and a glass fell to the floor and the smoke fell when it reached the door and Tralala opened Jacks fly and smiled and he closed it 5 6 7 times laughing and stared at the pimple and the lights blinked and the cashregister crooned kachang kachang and Tralala told Jack she had big tits and he pounded the bar and laughed and Fred winked and laughed and Ruthy and Annie wanted to leave before something screwed up their deal and wondered how much money they had and hating to see them spend it on Tralala and Tralala gulped her drinks and yelled for more and Fred and Jack laughed and winked and pounded the bar and another glass fell to the floor and someone bemoaned the loss of a beer and two hands fought their way up a skirt under a table and she blew smoke in their faces and someone passedout and his head fell on the table and a beer was grabbed before it fell and Tralala glowed she had it made and she/d shove it up Annies ass or anybody elses and she gulped another drink and it spilled down her chin and she hung on Jacks neck and rubbed her chest against his cheek and he reached up and turned them like knobs and roared and Tralala smiled and O she had it made now and piss on all those mothafuckas and someone walked a mile for a smile and someone pulled the drunk out of the booth and dropped him out the back door and Tralala pulled her sweater up and bounced her tits on the palms of her hands and grinned and grinned and grinned and Jack and Fred whooped and roared and the bartender told her to put those goddamn things away and get thehelloutahere and Ruthy and Annie winked and Tralala slowly turned around bouncing them hard on her hands exhibiting her pride to the bar and she smiled and bounced the biggest most beautiful pair of tits in the world on her hands and someone yelled is that for real and Tralala shoved them in his face and everyone laughed and another glass fell from a table and guys stood and looked and the hands came out from under the skirt and beer was poured on Tralalas tits and someone yelled that she had been christened and the beer ran down her stomach and dripped from her nipples and she slapped his face with her tits and someone yelled youll smotherim ta death—what a way to die—hey, whats for desert—I said taput those goddamn things away ya fuckin hippopotamus and Tralala told him she had the prettiest tits in the world and she fell against the jukebox and the needle scraped along the record sounding like a long belch and someone yelled all tits and no cunt and Tralala told him to comeon and find out and a drunken soldier banged out of a booth and said comeon and glasses fell and Jack knocked over his stool and fell on Fred and they hung over the bar nearing hysteria and Ruthy hoped she wouldnt get fired because this was a good deal and Annie closed her eyes and laughed relieved that they wouldnt have to worry about Tralala and they didnt spend too much money and Tralala still bounced her tits on the palms of her hands turning to everyone as she was dragged out the door by the arm by 2 or 3 and she yelled to Jack to comeon and she/d fuckim blind not like that fuckin douchebag he was with and someone yelled we/re coming and she was dragged down the steps tripping over someones feet and scraping her ankles on the stone steps and yelling but the mob not slowing their pace dragged her by an arm and Jack and Fred still hung on the bar roaring and Ruthy took off her apron getting ready to leave before something happened to louse up their deal and the 10 or 15 drunks dragged Tralala to a wrecked car in the lot on the corner of 57th street and yanked her clothes off and pushed her inside and a few guys fought to see who would be first and finally a sort of line was formed everyone yelling and laughing and someone yelled to the guys on the end to go get some beer and they left and came back with cans of beer which were passed around the daisychain and the guys from the Greeks cameover and some of the other kids from the neighborhood stood around watching and waiting and Tralala yelled and shoved her tits into the faces as they occurred before her and beers were passed around and the empties dropped or thrown and guys left the car and went back on line and had a few beers and waited their turn again and more guys came from Willies and a phone call to the Armybase brought more seamen and doggies and more beer was brought from Willies and Tralala drank beer while being laid and someone asked if anyone was keeping score and someone yelled who can count that far and Tralalas back was streaked with dirt and sweat and her ankles stung from the sweat and dirt in the scrapes from the steps and sweat and beer dripped from the faces onto hers but she kept yelling she had the biggest goddamn pair of tits in the world and someone answered ya bet ya sweet ass yado and more came 40 maybe 50 and they screwed her and went back on line and had a beer and yelled and laughed and someone yelled that the car stunk of cunt so Tralala and the seat were taken out of the car and laid in the lot and she lay there naked on the seat and their shadows hid her pimples and scabs and she drank flipping her tits with the other hand and somebody shoved the beer can against her mouth and they all laughed and Tralala cursed and spit out a piece of tooth and someone shoved it again and they laughed and yelled and the next one mounted her and her lips were split this time and the blood trickled to her chin and someone mopped her brow with a beer soaked handkerchief and another can of beer was handed to her and she drank and yelled about her tits and another tooth was chipped and the split in her lips was widened and everyone laughed and she laughed and she drank more and more and soon she passedout and they slapped her a few times and she mumbled and turned her head but they couldnt revive her so they continued to fuck her as she lay unconscious on the seat in the lot and soon they tired of the dead piece and the daisychain brokeup and they went back to Willies the Greeks and the base and the kids who were watching and waiting to take a turn took out their disappointment on Tralala and tore her clothes to small scraps put out a few cigarettes on her nipples pissed on her jerkedoff on her jammed a broomstick up her snatch then bored they left her lying amongst the broken bottles rusty cans and rubble of the lot and Jack and Fred and Ruthy and Annie stumbled into a cab still laughing and they leaned toward the window as they passed the lot and got a good look at Tralala lying naked covered with blood urine and semen and a small blot forming on the seat between her legs as blood seeped from her crotch and Ruthy and Annie happy and completely relaxed now that they were on their way downtown and their deal wasnt lousedup and they would have plenty of money and Fred looking through the rear window and Jack pounding his leg and roaring with laughter … .

THE BOYS OF BENSONHURST

BY
S
ALVATORE
L
A
P
UMA
Bensonhurst
(Originally published in 1987)

1942

The angel whispering in Frankie’s ear warned him to be careful going to New Jersey, but he said, “Scram,” to the pest, which the other guys thought might be a fly, and they all went up from the BMT subway to Times Square, where lights on billboards, movie houses, restaurants, and shops blinked nervously, and where even the scrounging pigeons were hemmed in. Mobs of people drifted out of step but mostly in two-way lanes, and nearly everyone, including the legless beggar man squatting and rolling along the sidewalk, seemed to know exactly where he belonged, and cars looked packed in the streets as in lots at Yankee games.

They went west on 42nd Street: Frankie, the oldest at seventeen; Nick, the altar boy; Rocco, the killer in the ring and with dames; and Gene, wild on the drums and the youngest at fifteen.

“I love this place,” said Rocco, shadowboxing in the street.

“Lots of dames around,” said Frankie.

Cardboard dames in underpants and bras were posted by the lurid movie houses, and live dames in split skirts and open blouses were in doorways, all looking for customers. Bells were ringing in arcades for pinball, miniature bowling, and peep shows. Greasy smoke blew from narrow shops grilling hot dogs, hamburgers, and knishes, shops which would be closed for a few hours before dawn with see-through steel gates. White-hat hawkers urged the guys to buy beers, orange drinks, cotton candy, caramel popcorn, and homemade fudge. Almost anything a guy could want was for sale.

The pedestrians were all sizes, ages, colors, sexes, rich and poor. They gawked at the hustlers and pimps who gawked back. Horns and tail pipes played flat, while loudspeakers from record shops played the hits so far in 1942. In a bookstore window the nudist magazine
Sunbathers
had on its cover naked dames with pubic hair. So the guys went inside. Frankie Primo often read magazines and books, rode on an old Harley, was secretly in love with an older dame, and didn’t want to go in the Army. Of Sicilian blood, he was a little ashamed that he wasn’t eager to kill Japs and Nazis. Every other Sicilian guy he knew of couldn’t wait.

“You ever read this?” said Frankie.

“It must be about screwing,” said Nick Consoli, who wanted to be one of the boys, and often went along, but at the crucial moment he could hold back, remembering what sin was, as he was doing now, shaking his head. “Screwing’s bad for the soul.”

“Everything’s about screwing,” said Frankie, acting the man of the world.

The man in charge crooked his finger at them, so Frankie and his friends moved to the shadowy back of the store. There the man dealt out cards face-down on the glass showcase like hands of poker. When he flipped them over, they weren’t aces and kings; they were snapshots of naked dames turning themselves inside out to show how they were made. The guys got frog eyes.

“How much?” said Frankie.

“A fin,” said the man.

“Five bucks for pictures?” said Frankie. “You’re kidding?”

“Get
out,”
said the man.
“Out.
Before I kick asses. Scummy kids.”

Farther down 42nd was the bus terminal with snaking lines at ticket windows, with sitters on suitcases and hard benches, and blind-looking people hurrying somewhere, and others dragging, unhappy to go where they were going. Not knowing which line to get in, the boys went to Information.

“You don’t want the Greyhound,” said the colored guy. “It don’t stop in Union City. You want the Madison line. It’s red and white. It goes to Jersey by the Skyway.”

At the first and only stop in Union City everybody got off, as if the only reason to go there was to see the show. It was almost June and the light was still out, and they all went up the hilly street, passing old brick buildings with boarded-up windows, dark warehouses where nothing useful could be kept, scurrying rats, and drunks nursing like babies from bottles in paper bags.

“Poor bastards. We ought to help them out. But we ain’t got time,” said Frankie, and his angel whispered her agreement.

The boys kept their eyes peeled in case a derelict should pounce from a doorway with a filthy proposition. They were a little scared, except for Rocco Marino. He threw a left jab at an invisible opponent to dare trouble to come out. But then, without being asked, Rocco gave a dollar to the old man with a balding beard and one-tooth grin.

“I got dough from my fights,” Rocco said to his friends, who didn’t have as much. He didn’t want them to think he was a show-off.

When the crowd turned the corner, the street was in the glaring spotlight of thousands of burning white bulbs on the Hudson Theater’s marquee, reading in capital letters:

BURLESQUE

“We have half an hour still,” said Frankie.

“How about a beer?” said Gene Dragoni, hoping the bar next to the theater wouldn’t find him too young.

“First, let’s get tickets,” said Nick. “If they sold out while we’re sipping suds, it would be a waste. After that trip.”

They got in line. But the seats weren’t reserved. So instead of drinking their beers in Little Lil’s Bar, bought from Lil herself, who was built like a wrestler and who winked at Gene although she knew they were all underage, they took their bottles to seats in the third row of the balcony.

The orchestra’s lower half was already mostly filled, though not entirely by servicemen and other men. Dames too were in the audience, with dates, or in groups of dames together. That girls were there at all seemed to the guys a little odd. But at the back of their minds they knew things existed that they couldn’t explain yet. They hoped that later on, when they weren’t boys any longer, they would understand such minor mysteries.

Two rows down and over to the side in the balcony were two dames by themselves not much older than Frankie and his friends, and one had rusting blonde hair. The guys couldn’t take their eyes off the dames, and the dames, not taking their eyes off the guys either, even waved first. The guys elbowed each other and thought they were easily recognizable as Romeos. They talked about moving their seats next to the dames, or asking them up to seats in their row. But they were filled up on each other’s friendship and were anticipating the pleasure of other dames showing off their legs, breasts, and behinds, so for now they just didn’t need these dames.