Too Quiet in Brooklyn (16 page)

“No,” Ralph yelled that last one. He yelled, even though it was the boss and he liked the boss. He said no one touched Charlie and Ralph grabbed Harry by the neck and said as how he was going to squeeze him good and the boss told him, “No. Ok. No. A mistake. Let him go.”

Ralph wiped his hands on his shirt and told the boss that Charlie stayed with him.

Charlie started crying. “Where’s my gran?”

“Marie!” The boss yelled. “Get in here.”

Marie came into the room. She looked scared.

“My wife. She’s good with little boys. He needs a bath. Christ, you can smell him from here. He needs to sleep. Let him stay with Marie. She’s so sweet, you know Marie, don’t you, Ralph?”

Ralph did. He liked Marie. She smiled at him. Then she smiled at Charlie, and Charlie smiled at her.

“Do you know my gran?” Charlie asked.

Marie nodded.

Ralph could tell Charlie liked Marie. Charlie took Marie’s hand and they left the room. Ralph was glad, not about Charlie leaving the room but about Charlie not going for the ride. Marie would see to that. Ralph liked Marie.

“She raised six boys, she knows how. She’ll treat him good.”

Ralph looked down at his hands and up at the boss. He shook his head. “Charlie stays with me.”

The boss picked up a newspaper and poked it. “Read this, you idiot. It’s for your own good. They’re looking everywhere for this kid. They find him with you and they’ll string you up.”

Ralph didn’t want to tell the boss he didn’t read newspapers, but he looked at the picture of the boy in the paper. It was Charlie. And he wasn’t going to tell him about the woman in the closet.

“The Feds will string you up by your balls if they catch you with the kid. Now do you want that to happen, you goddam thick-skulled pervert?”

Ralph didn’t like the sound of that last word. Not at all. His sister called him that, she shouldn’t have, but the boss smiled at him when he said it, so it was okay. Ralph’s brother told him you can say anything if you smile. So Ralph smiled back at the boss and Ralph told him no, he didn’t want to be strung up, and he let Charlie go with Marie.

Marie was the best thing

Marie was the best thing there was about him. In a quiet moment, he had to admit it, sitting at his desk alone. No one else in the world, just him doing something he knew was dangerous, second guessing himself. He’d built his business, but not by second guessing. Yet here he was, staring at the broken lamp and going soft, thinking maybe he’d listen to Marie and keep the kid. He wouldn’t have Harry get rid of him, not just yet.

He looked around. It was down to Marie, always down to her. They’d been married forty-five years and, yessir, she’d kept her figure. Spent hours on it. Toning, tanning, all that shit. And clothes, what a maniac for clothes. Paris every year. God, what a beauty, his Marie. Made him hard just thinking about her. Had six boys, all strong, no sissies, most of them spoiled, but they’d had one good one, a perfect chip. Some of the years were lean, too. But she never had to work, not outside the house, and when they could afford it, as he moved up in the bank and finally created his own world, they’d had cleaners and a laundress. Never a cook, she insisted on keeping her own kitchen until they moved here. Tan, svelte, he’d loved her body, knew every corner, all the shadows, all the smells. Loved them all. Six boys can go through a load of laundry in a day. That’s what she used to tell him, a curl wet and hanging into her eyes, and he believed it, had carefully tucked the strand back up to where it belonged.

Yessir, Marie was his treasure. No questions asked, no strings—that was his Marie, and he’d given her everything he could. Didn’t lack for anything. And he was always faithful, at least when she was around. Her trips to Europe when she’d be gone six, seven weeks, well, that was different. When Marie was away, he’d get himself a cook, and she’d heat things up plenty. Man’s got to eat.

God, what a sinner he was, but come to think of it, not his fault some malevolent prick poured vinegar into his soul on the day he was born. Not his fault, no sir. Got to have saints and sinners to make the world spin, that’s what his granny used to say, and he was a major sinner. Amassed a fortune the only way, on the backs of others, so why stop now. If a man or a company made it big, it was always that way, on the backs of others, that’s what he’d always told Ken. And don’t preach to him about saving the world and doing goody-good. No, not to him, because he wasn’t buying that load of crap.

Only time he and Marie fought was when he changed his name. She’d loved him, she said, even with his name, couldn’t get used to calling him Winston. Sounds like an English banker. That was the point, he told her, and she’d seen the light.

But Marie he’d kept away from the sordid stuff. He’d done right by Marie. Kept the books locked in a drawer way in the back. Hell, wouldn’t let her near them. All those years, she never guessed. Into her own world of charities and historical society bunko. Sometimes on humid nights when he couldn’t sleep, he wished he was as innocent as her. But innocence didn’t pay the bills, didn’t send the boys to school, buy the cars, the home, the how-do-you-do’s from the politicos, all that crap. It didn’t start the bank. The bank, his crown, built it with his ingenuity and the blindness of others. Got out before the shit hit. Bought himself a nice little farm in the country with horses and all the sides. At first Marie wasn’t keen for the country, so he let her keep her little apartment in the city, why not. He did right by her, his Marie.

Didn’t know squat about the horses, but he’d always wanted to race. Liked to get up in the middle of the night, go to their stalls and sit naked in the barn feeling their warmth on his balls, petting them, the buggers got such soft snouts, softer than a woman’s pussy. Breeding, that’s where the money’s at, that’s what they told him. Got himself a head groom and caretaker and gardeners, loads of gardeners, here one day, gone the next, to do the dirty stuff. Loyal, they had to be loyal or Harry’d take care of them. Harry from the bank, Harry like a son, a manager he could trust, did the dirty work, more a chip off the old block than the others. Except for Ken.

He kept humping Marie until finally they got a good one. Ken saw things, even when he was young. He was a thinker, a doer. He figured things and re-figured them until the numbers were right. Sent him to law school. Ken could figure like a good chess player, always ten steps ahead. So he listened to him. Ken and Harry, helping him tie up the loose ends. That’s what Ken called them, loose ends. He had to admit it, he was smart, Ken was. With Harry and Ken, he’d prosper. But his Marie? Marie was his safe place.

My Giving Tree

It was late when we crawled into bed, too late for a good talk, but not too late for a solid toss in the hay. And together, Denny and I were the best tossers around. He knew all the right spots and I knew his. Afterward we held onto each other, praising the ride and promising never to fight, never again. I told him he could say Heights Federal Bank whenever he wanted and talk about it anytime, all the time, and I wouldn’t react the way I did. And looking back on it, I had no idea what erupted the volcano earlier, maybe just the whole day and finding the body and I was worried about the boy.

And if I was honest, it bothered me that my mother was still suspect in the minds of some. I remembered the times in Key Foods when I’d see the fingers pointing and hear the whispers,
That’s Carmela’s girl
. That was probably it, I’m such a wuss. Or was it that deep down I doubted my mother. No, that could never be, I never doubted her. But sandwiched into her “I did nothing wrong,” sometimes I heard a still, small voice asking “What else could I have done?”

Mom never worked again, except for fits and starts. I watched her become her own shadow and there was nothing I could do.

I was young then, barely sixteen, our final year together. I wish I’d known. I worked after school while she sat at home and combed her records, searched, wrote furious letters to the
Eagle
, tapped into our second mortgage. She’d wait up for me. It would be close to midnight when I got home, tired from cleaning somebody’s shitty bathroom when I should have been hanging out or studying, but I’d listen as she read the letter she’d written to this newspaper, that magazine. She’d go on and on about how she had it all figured out, who was doing what to whom. By the desk light slashing her face, I watched her address the envelope. She’d lick the stamp and say, “Walk with me to the post office,” and we’d head out together on Joralemon across Court and up to the big gray building, squat and silent. For a few days, she’d feel better. She’d wait for her letter to appear. Or she’d type her resume, slick herself up, and subway to Manhattan. Once she got a job as an office manager somewhere in Manhattan, on Canal Street I think she said, but that didn’t last. She was consumed with Heights Federal, talked about it day and night. She’d lay out this theory, that conjecture, walk into banks and ask to speak with a loan officer. She knew who was behind the fraud at Heights Federal, she’d tell him two minutes after she introduced herself, as he straightened his pile of paperwork. She overheard a conversation in the hallway, she’d say. “I never signed off on the loans,” she’d tell him, me, anyone who’d listen. She had the numbers and could prove it. Toward the end, she claimed that all she wanted was her job back, any job, at any bank. And one morning when she didn’t come home, I went out and found her. But you know that part. What you don’t know, what I don’t tell anyone, not even Denny, is how much I ache for just one more walk to the post office with her.

The moon was low and shone in on Denny’s gorgeous face and light brown hair, and I stared at him, not an ounce of fat. How I loved to run my hands over his body and kiss him in the hollow of his neck. I’m such a shit. But I prayed to the saints of whatever to cut out my tongue if I ever said a mean word to him again. Never again. Because he was my giving tree. I pictured myself as some old broken-down broad sitting on the stump he’d become because he’d given me all he had.

“Fina?”

“I thought you were asleep. Feel like another round?”

He kissed me and smoothed the curls from my face and touched the swollen part of my eye.

“I do, but we need to sleep.” I felt his desire hard against my thigh and if I made a move, I knew we’d be at it again, but I resisted. “What’s your question?”

“Nothing. I love you.”

He’d said the L word again. I knew he did, had known it for a long time, but hearing him say it made me go all limp. Some people say it. It’s a casual phrase for them. For them, the word had lost its meaning. But to me, love was a monumental thing, the biggest of the sacred mysteries. Some people, I guess, achieved it. John Donne and Anne, for instance. Cookie told me about them. Theirs was a love to celebrate, to write poetry about. At least on paper. But I found it easier to believe in saints and miracles than to believe in love. I gulped air and felt my stomach pitch and roll. It was such a big word with such bad consequences. I almost thought the L word when I thought of Denny, but wishing for it was no good, either.

“Did you say something?” he asked.

I shook my head not making a sound and held him, hoping he wasn’t expecting me to say anything, but knowing he was. But the word wouldn’t come out. I dared myself to say it, but that was no good, either. I was fooling myself. Love always soured. It did. That was my experience. And I’d heard other stories from my mom and grandmother. Take my family, one breakup after another down the generations. My father’s Ray Bans flashed in my mind, the shard of sun blinding me as he glanced at me and turned away quick without a backward glance. I wanted Denny and me to last forever. If I went into my spiel about love, he might try to contradict, and that would just start it up again. If there was such a thing as love, better let it rest between us, feed it, let it wrap itself around us, take care of us, not make us angry, ever, but don’t ever speak of it, don’t ever succumb to the wish for happy ever after. And don’t get me started on kids, that’s a whole other subject.

A Broken Record

Ralph liked Marie. She was pretty. Old, but pretty, especially when she smiled. She was married to the boss and smelled like the earth and horses. Food, too, sometimes. She liked the boss, Ralph knew that. Once he saw them kiss. Marie liked Arrow, too, but she didn’t like Ralph too much. Ralph could tell because she never looked at him, not for long. Marie was a cook. The boss said she was, and she talked soft to everybody except to Ralph. She looked down when she was around Ralph.

She wore nice clothes all the time, really nice clothes when she was going out. Then she smelled like the department store his sister took him to once in the big city on a crowded street. That’s what Marie called it, she said, “We’re going to the mall, Charlie, want to come along?”

Ralph remembered the mall. It was filled with glass and counters. And escalators. His sister told him to hold on and Ralph did. He always held on and watched the stair starting out small and growing big and rising up. Like he did sometimes, especially when he thought of Charlie.

The boss gave orders, that was his job, and he gave orders to Marie. He’d yell out to her and she’d come. She walked into his office smelling like the kitchen or like the department store but she always wore slippers. She’d walk across the floor almost not touching it. She smiled at Charlie and he let go of Ralph’s hand and looked up at her and told her she had hair like his mom, blonde hair, and asked her if she knew his mom and she said, not yet, but she’d heard nice things about her. He asked when he was going to see his gran. Soon, the boss said, but right now you’re going with Marie. He asked about his gran again and rubbed his eyes and said she hadn’t finished reading the book.

Get him outa here, the boss said, and said he smelled and Marie spoke soft to Charlie and asked him if he’d like to take a bath in the big tub. He didn’t want to take a bath, he said.

“Take the goddam kid, Marie, and get him the hell outa here! He smells like a goddam toilet!”