transformedia

The pallor had set in. The nutrients necessary for hair follicles to maintain health were no longer being delivered, and my head was covered by a thatch of dry, whitening straw. Having become subtly taut and powdery, my skin bore witness to the march of the disease, ever onward, conquering all of the body’s systems. Frequent unexplained weariness, and simple colds that just hung on became the norm. Mucus like day-glo snails and coughing fits, day after day.

 Simply waking up and getting moving took twice as long and four times the Coffee. Lots of sugar, thanks. A couple of errands and back to bed for a 3 hour nap. In the evening I took food out of habit. Nothing tasted good. Nothing tasted like anything. This was the bulk of what my life had become. 

There was an old insurance policy that I cashed out. After many years of contributions, it had grown fat and the children didn’t need it, or so I decided, and it provided a surfeit of funds for the trip my son and I had agreed to take. Enough to book you along on the same flights, into the same hotels. I had not wanted to meet you when I did, however, fate deigned it, and who was I to disagree?  It was not too late for me to have a happy life. The boy didn’t know of you. The secrecy was a relish, heavily laden on a late-arriving and deeply craved delicacy.

Istanbul was uplifting, and Sam, my boy, searching band-width, and obsessively trying to play an on-line video game, only payed attention to what he saw when it was forced upon him. He did enjoy all he saw and has since mentioned how he enjoyed Turkey, but one would never know it from the his attitude when we were there. He therefore took no notice when my afternoon walks took longer each day. 

 I had begun on the long and terminal trudge to the ending all things share. Many times I wished to die, but this was when I was strong and young and had the world by the ass. Now I was older and weaker and in a secret place I would not admit existed, there was a wish to live. I played off the doctors’ concerns and the sincerity of my few friends as if I was not worried and felt that everyone had to go sometime, so now it was my turn. I did feel this way, but knowing that death was ordained, I secretly wanted to live. Ain’t that the way? I would not live, of course, and this made your appearance particularly fortuitous.

 You had made this trudge before with another. Rather than being soured up and embittered, or selfish and self-protective, you behaved lovingly and understandingly to one just engaging in the downhill march. I mused wether you had a convoluted martyr complex, were inexplicably desperate for love to the point of taking another hostage, and had bloated the feminine nurture instinct into some benign monster. An ” I’ll love you to death” fetish. After going through all these mental gymnastics within the first few days of our meeting, I concluded that it did not matter. It was what it was, and that was it. I needed companionship and attention and needed also to give it, to prove that my dying would matter, that I could do something outside myself and get a fair payoff. Do something good after all the years of selfishness.

 Never having had children, your body had not been forced into the anthropological distortions so often required of the woman of our species. Skin smooth, hips narrow, breasts still flaccid, stomach bearing some belly, but not nearly approaching my own. We never asked each other our ages. Odd in America. I learned from you what I had been missing for all those years since divorcing. The simple touch of another person. Not the licking, thrusting, sweating, rubbing or deep kissing, though all those were certainly longed for. I was just the simple loving touch, the miracle of communication that comes from plain skin-on-skin.   

I took Noreen down the scrapyard to meet NuNu just before she went. We walked into the shed and Nu ’bout busted. I could tell, but Noreen didn’t know him enough to pick up the tell. I had a bag of chicken cutlet sanwiches and beers.

” Gimme kiss paulie” sez he. Fuck sez I to myself, but I go over to his chair for the old wet an sloppy. After, as I’m walking away from him wiping, I catch Noreen and she looks like she is gonna cry like a little baby but she catches herself up when she notices me looking. I know. Nobody ever really loved her enough. I decide I’m just the guy to change that.

“This is Noreen, Nu.”

“You no haf to tell me, you talk about this girl I know this the girl. No woory pretty girl, I no ask you for kiss……..YET.” The three of us just laughed and laughed.

Can’t teach these old farts a thing, I’m thinkin’. I never said a word to him about Noreen or any other girl.

” You come itsie-bitsie Noreen. Paulie and we show you the tree applauds at the river. We planted the Cottawoot tree when Paulie was born, me and his Daddy and Momma.” NuNu is hauling his heft out of the chair as Scuffle comes in.

“Who this Nu who?”

“You know my grannababy Paulie, Scuffa, don be inyoranda you know since he’s a little baby.”

This not Paulie, Nu, I know Paulie this not Paulie!” All my life, Scuffle, poor dumb-ass scuffle he never remembers anyone but NuNu.  

There was still a lock on a lock on the chain on the gate. Stead of just the lock on the chain there was always the lock on a lock.  I put the Crown Vic in park and while going to the gate a hairy head with an eyeball in it peeked through the chain-hole. I shit a little. I unlocked the lock on the lock with some caution, let the mess clang down on the tin covered gate noisily and pushed. As the gate clanked and scraped inward across the cinders I saw what the hairy headed eyeball holder was attached to. Fucking horror-show thing all dirty and floppy scootched sideways but not completely away. “What you doin here why you here youre not coming in here why you here??” Standing and looking at me and shaking and holding a wrench and a rock he says this. I says ” NuNu know you’re here. He’s gonna be pissed off you here an he don’t know.” “He knows you little stroonz, he knows everthing. How you know Nu?” “Its my Grampa NuNu…how you know ‘im?” “I know him” says the bag of rags with the rock and the wrench,” I know him a long time and you ain’t Paulie.” The hairy eyeball is now telling me who I am.  

 The bridge I had crossed on all my life was closed for repairs is what the sign said but it didn’t look like it needed repairs to me. Same arched steel beams with fat rivets and plate sides and grating to drive on. I could see it from the new-looking concrete thing I crossed on, over to the other side where NuNu’s yard sat all alone. The lots that had once held a rivers life were peppered with for sale signs and flimsy temporary fences. “NEW RIVERSIDE DEVELOPMENTS ON THE WAY” said one sign. I looked both directions and the road was empty. Not a fuckin thing coming that I could see. I was there right then, I was there and nothing coming but me and I was headed for NuNu’s. That old crushed-coke driveway had pot-holes to swallow a sedan, half full of nasty-ass water and the gate was made of old corrugated, eight foot high, and the fence around the front of the yard was the same, all rusty in spots, but standing tall like the walls of a scrapyard castle is how it was to me that day. Front of the gate was painted the old advert, ‘All types of metal bought and sold, ton weight and assorted. engine blocks, cars partial and whole accepted. Certified scale on premises’ . My gramps turned no one away. Come give NuNu a big kiss. 

Drivin over was weird. I had not been behind the wheel in a while and this boat of Pops’ plus the thruway and that it was 4 when I went ,none of it helped, but people in cars are just fuckin weird. They cry, they eat, they yell at shit I can’t see, and the kids lap dance in the drivers seat to music that is not hearable or decipherable which shows that all music is more alike then different . And they talk on a phone. Fuck me, the fuckin phone…….might as well be watchin TV these assholes some of em. I got over closer to the yard and there was nothing standing. All the old houses, the warehouses and storefronts and cafes had been scraped off, but I could see the yard all by itself, stickin out like the lone tooth in a meth heads mouth, hard against the greasy river. And the Cottonwood tree NuNu and I had put along the fence was still there and it had got pretty tall. Made me laugh already.

Had got to wondering about NuNu’s scrapyard and if Pops had done anything with it or even had it still. Went on into the Frontroom and there he was, one burnin between his fingers while he held the papers and one still burnin in the ashtray on the side table. Somebody lives in a place for a good while and it becomes who they are and their odor and mood gets into the carpets and furniture. There’s no getting it out even after they die sometimes. Throw out the dead ones’ goods, pull up the rugs, paint the joint, that does it sometimes. Pops’ place was no different. The funk slapped you in the mug upon entering wherever he was. The Frontroom was that place right now, it was like a thorny caress. Real familiar and welcoming, but repulsive too in a way. Like I’ve gone into some people’s places and the stank just don’t sit good in the nostrils cuz they are not of my blood….then it’s just funk…not love-funk. ” Whats up with NuNus yard Pops ? ”   “Still got it….you wanna go down?” ” You wanna?”  ”No, fuck no. They been tryin to get it from me but I ain’t interested to sell yet.”  ”Yeah, I’d like to do down.”  Pops finally pulled down the paper and shot me a look. It was one of Pops’ ‘I ain’t askin’ but I’m askin’  looks.  So I answered him.  ” If I’m goin away, I want to have some stuff fresh in my mind, like waterin a plant half-dead, right?”  ” A boxin’ poet I got now?”  He smiles at his own joke and says “Yeah I know what you’re getting at. Heating up the memories like toppin off a cup o coffee.  ’Member how to go?”  ” Yeah yeah” I sez.  He sez “Take the new River exit off the Skyway and you can’t miss it between the bridges cuz they flattened everything else. You’ll see.” He raises back up the paper after stubbin’ out the butt. “Keys to the Crown Vic are on the visor.” 

I think I was 17 when it all happened. No, had to be 18, cause they tried me as an adult, but I fell into the minor category cause Pops got me a good lawyer who hooked it to a minor offense from a driving thing the year before. Whatever but I only did 18 months, no drugs, no priors. As I say, Pops got me a good lawyer. Good they didn’t take blood back then or check my arms. I might still be under the jail somewhere. I had gone to Mrs Matthews to pick up Noreen like any other friday night to go eat and go the movies or something and she wasn’t there. “Paul, she went with some young fellow I haven’t seen before, but between us, this is not the first time Noreen has gone off with some one else.” “No…..” I could feel my mouth sitting open. “Yes, Paul. You need to know” She is a good girl as far as that goes, but you’re not the only one who comes by to pick her up.” The kid started to heat up and get red. Mrs. Matthews saw that right off. “She is using drugs Paul”. Fuck me, like I didn’t? Like everyone we knew didn’t ? Poor Mrs. Matthews. She shoulda been. 

Few days of loafing and snivelling and I was ready. Pops says take a vacation, go someplace you know no one, and take a wad of dough, get laid, you know.  ” This set-up is over for you, kid, time to look around and smell some flowers.”  ” We ever find out where Lois is?”  The old pug, he does not even look at me.  ”No. You?”  Not a good question, I see. Never had asked him much about Lois after she took off, where she was, what she was up to. He was mad and had his feelings hurt when she run away. I thought of Lois and remembered things. Pops had caught her fuckin with Vinnie on the cellar floor, she smoked too young and didn’t care if they knew, she yelled back at Ma. Both our questions about Lois laid on the rug like turds. I let ‘em. I was doin homework at the kitchen table this one time and Ma was beating the crap out of a piece of round steak on the cutting board with a Nehi bottle. Lois sailed in smelling like a pack of Pall Mall straights with her clothes on wrong. Ma could smell alcohol breath and the cum in her panties the second she shambled through the back, slammin the screen door. ” Hey Ma, Lois says, all smarty-pants,” that piece of horse ain’t gonna turn to rib-eye if you smack it till kingdom come”. Moms stopped pounding and turned to look at Lois, breathin’ fire out her ears. “Who the fuck are you?” she spit out ” I don’t know where you come from just now, but I’m  gettin’ a good idea where you are going right quick, you nasty gutter-slut.” My pencil-point popped. Ma moved towards Lois, liftin’ up the Nehi bottle, moving steady and slow. Lois did not move, her tight fists white as hosts in a Chalice. There was an ugly cat fight coming and I did not want blood on my Geography book. I got up fast, ran at Lois, took her at the waist and pulled her out of the kitchen on the double. Out in the hall I hear Mom. “Thats a good boy Paulie, a good, good boy. Saved your Mommie one more time.” 

When she finally come down I could see even in that dusky light that Noreen was pinned. Wasn’t like her to not at least offer me a taste, ‘cept she knew I had a fight in a couple months and was weaning off. That must have been it. Hard to say how long she had been loaded but at least now I knew why it took her so long to get ready. That exact second Miss Matthews turned on the porch light and I could really see how fucked up she was. Holdin a burned out butt and saggy face muscles, my Irish baby was a fuckin mess. Was right then I knew I cared about her a lot. More than the others, no matter how good a fuckin I got or how much money they had. Also I knew the truth that maybe I was kinda responsible for lettin her get this far by not being stronger to her and lettin her get close to Stewie. I almost hated Al for even introducing me to her at Blowhard’s Bar just cause I asked about her. But Godammit, look at her. That porch light dancing off her jet black hair and the skin like a piece of flawless white china and the deep blue eyes. Even fucked up to the max and standin on the gritty stoop, I woulda dropped to my knees and kissed her Converse if she asked.  ” What the fuck ya starin’ at Pooch….lets’ split.” is what she said. Fuck it man, I was in love and didn’t even know. 

So I’m sittin’ on the edge of the foldout in Pops’ TV room in my skivvies with my head in my hands, rubbin’ my mug, just wakin’ up. I got scratches from my skidding across the floor at the Boss’ place, my hands are raw and my knees are bruised from who knows what and I’m very afraid that my eyes are gonna leak any second. Way deep inside the Kid is very sad and upset. Pops booms in the back door.  ”Paul, its all square. I seen who I needed to and talked to the guy that hires the guys”.It had started to rain last night right on cue. Never need to worry about the weather, it is always on time. He took off his jacket and shook it and the drops flew on my face and snapped me to. I looked up at the face that never changed.” Thanks Pop.” I started crying a bit, but if you didn’t know me you wouldn’t know it.” I love ya Pop….thanks”" Paulie, I told ya long time ago that I would love you whatever happened” He looked away for a cigarette in his jacket ” I ain’t always loved some shit you done, but you kid, always…always” Turning back he put the cigarette in his mouth and he smiled at me from his toes through his heart and on out the eyes. Then the old pug put that jaw-breakin’ right hand on the top of my head, felt like a fuckin’ warm blanket with fingers. Slowly he pulled my sorry blubberin’ head against his outside thigh and gently held it there while his baby son gushed out his grief and disappointment and humiliation, puttin a vertical puddle on the old guys trousers. The soul of good fortune was I right then with him next to me.

Spotlights meant for the beauty of the ancient Mosque lit a tunnel of Gulls, circling in the updraft. Hundreds of them, floating like a stream of cigarette smoke, lazing circularly and upwards. It was the call to prayer and the Muezzin chanted out his verses. His voice was hypnotic and unbroken; he seemed never to breathe. His verses were amplified by an ear - offending Public address system, penetratingly booming, sounding as if it went everywhere in this world. These two things created an effect so foreign that I became the one extraneous. I was now where they lived.

  I spotted the birds accidentally on the way back to my Hotel, returning from the Coffee bar that had a decent Internet connection and westernized Cakes. I paused to marvel at this sight and muse about what kept these spirits aloft and in that spot. I knew the physical principles of aviary floating.  Was it the presence of the deity? Maybe it was the streaming millennium of prayer, rising upwards to the place where I supposed a Deity would reside. My Christian instincts at this moment, were superfluous. These sights and sounds were enough to set off thoughts of things I had discarded as so much trash, time wasting and pointless introspection. What is, is, and that was enough.

 Prayers flowing from this place were from Muslims, and therefore aimed to the east. Another theory shot.

    Prayer goes where it goes, not where it is aimed. Mostly, it seems to go to somewhere to soothe some patch of ruffled spiritual feathers. One hopes it goes ultimately to somewhere other than to the penitents themselves.

 Still, on hovered the gulls, induced by the proximity of Bosporus and Marmara to live in this place and forced by necessity to survive on scraps and offal.

  My son was with me on the trip and in the haste of youth, only noticed the chanting Gull phenomenon when I had slowed him and pointed it out. He was not impressed. After 5 days of watching his ancient father embarrass himself and find wonder in what a young man considers  insignificant, He only wished to get back to his music and Turkish TV.  

It was a small spot on my ear. Nothing very big, I scratched it intermittently and once it broke open, yet soon covered over. But it never completely went away either. A summer later, bubbly looking growths appeared on my shoulder. These and the ear thing were on the same side of my body; the car window side. Old sawbones cut and burned and stitched, and I knew for certain. The tests confirmed it.

  Having been through all phases of the plague with both parents and assorted friends, my feeling was that once you had it and were diagnosed, it never went away. It was busily moving around through the body and mind of the afflicted until it achieved ultimate victory. The plague always wins.

  I witnessed the battles and self-help groups and restorative surgeries all with the same gimlet eye. The proud herbs and defiant trips out of country, and prayers all resulted in the long dirt nap. Wasted insurance money, ignored prayers, lit candles and bedside vigils, the stuff of blind idiots, dancing to the skeleton music of the long foregone conclusion that you’re dead meat, sucker, read ’em and weep.

  All this feels differently knowing it’s me that’s on the short end. Yet now it is just a matter of years, (that’s what they all say), it does not feel so bad. Finally there is a finish line of sorts and the guessing has gone out of the game. Am I moved to right past errors or somehow attempt to make up for lost time? No. Am I spending hours musing over a life that could have been lived differently, or somehow better? No. By what measure would better be better? Am I foundering in an ocean of self-pity, blame, rage or frustration? Somewhat, I suppose, but a taste of these normal human reactions are certainly to be expected. I am not down and wallowing uselessly in the mire of defeat or tearing my garmet over the unkind lack of fairness of lifes’ caprice. Pay your nickel and take your chance.

  There are a few things I mean to do, but they are not out of the ordinary, nor anything I would not do anyway. I have no affairs to set right, and the day for settling old scores has long past. Nothing is not the way it should be. Do I have regrets ? Of course, yet who does not and what difference does it make, since loss and regret are as much a part of life as happy memories and fond by-gones. I did not want to meet you now, though, as pleasant as it is .

Anne-Marie and I slowed down a little getting close to the corner where the alley let onto the street, and a gimped up fucker appeared from nowhere. By the time I realized it was Rudy he had shot Anne and was swinging towards me, him all bunched up and squinty and definitely hurtin. Something suddenly took him right off his feet and landed him in a lump and the pistol slid away, popping along the bricks. It stopped in one of those reflecting light-puddles near my feet, the barrel facing back at Rudy, who was deader than Kelseys’ nuts. Was then I seen how bloody my shoes were.  Fuckin shoes were ruined like my jacket. Lost half a cow in one afternoon.

  Looking over to Anne-Marie was something I came later to wish I had never done at all. Little Slats was a fucking mess. Skirt somehow bunched up around her waist like a Shriners’ sash, scarlet panties torn, and a round hole without a bottom square in the middle of her solar plexus. No blood in front, all of it running out, a red river in the sunset, fast between the bricks and water and shitty stuff on the alley floor. The cop came round the corner, riot gun first

 “ Hands, man, now !”

The business end of his weapon faced me and I raised my hands in the air, but not too fast. The cop was shaking so bad his shotgun was dancing, and if he popped me by accident I would have been SO fuckin pissed off, mainly because the record would have shown that I was at fault in some way, and fuck that. I had not done one thing wrong all day except show up at the Bosses place on time like a good soldier.

Noreen’s little room was hot as hell in that summer we were hanging out. Was only a few months but tightly packed with stuff a guy never forgets. Not that I never had it better, but up to then I never had it so good. We would screw desperately and the sweat made a slick spot on our stomachs, us, riding up and back. The windows faced the afternoon sun and in the night you saw the harbor and lights and got the smells and breeze when it happened. She rented from a lady a couple avenues over from Pops. Her landlady and I shared some beer on her stoop once. I asked how long she lived in the house. 
” Awhile….I’m old now. I was young when I got it from my sister, and I have held on to it”. She watched me flick my butt out into the street. I felt how hard she was staring at me and my face got red as I remember. Kid on a bike ran the butt over and red-orange sparks swirled and scattered. Night was almost completely arrived and I was ready to eat.
” Noreen is a sweet girl, isn’t she”? sez she and finishes her cup.
“What I seen so far is pretty damn sweet. I hope it holds out”. I knew she was chuckling quiet cause her chest and belly were jumping up and down.
“Too sweet a flower to live long in this world, I’m sorry to say”. I did not like this, hearing this.
“Think so”? The kid was a bit put out.
“Know so. You don’t live to get old being sweet…or stupid”. 
“Noreen ain’t stupid”.
“No, she is by no means stupid, she is clever young girl, but maybe just too….clean. It’s a dirty old world and we have to get down and dirty some ways to stay in it.” She had taken out a toothpick and was fishing a scrap out of her back teeth. I’m sulky.
” I do not think Noreen has down and dirty in her.” Scrap got spit out. “She is too sweet”.
“Maybe I can teach her some things”, sez I. Miss Matthews, which was what she called herself, laughed out loud at this one, swept her lap clean, and got up grabbing, our cups.
” You’re already trying it sounds like, sometimes twice a day…God, I do miss my sex”. All the way standing now she looked down on me and smiled. Looked like a Mary statue or corny ceiling painting from St Cecilias.
“Paul, that meanness in you is what’s going to keep you alive. Give me an angry one every time…they try to knock the bottom out. You can’t teach her that mean, nor how to lie or punch or any of it”.
Miss Matthews turned and went in calling ” Noreen, your Man’s been waiting fifteen minutes”!

But I realize also at this moment that the back of my jacket feels heavy, saggy like.
” Jeez, Marie” sez I as I turn, reaching up to my shoulder at the same moment. Some fuckin thing is sticking out of my trapezius muscle, and while I turn, stringy wads of goopy stuff are dropping off me, doing plop-plops on the tile. I grab the thing sticking out and it just falls out of me. A piece of wood which I toss. By now I have turned all the way and there is little Slats, a halo of light around her from the sun coming through the windows at the front of Boss’ place. Now she is Anne-Marie, holding a smoking gun. Boss is a load of dirty shirts at my feet, his back is blown out and its’ contents are splattered on the jacket I’m already taking off. Good leather, shot to shit.
” He got up and stabbed you with part of the table, Paulie. I had to. I had to do it”.
” Moved quick for a half-dead guy, huh? ” This I said while looking closely at the face of a killer. Distorted and stretched tight her skin was, lost like an old work glove I saw in a gutter uptown.
” Wipe the gun, Annie, we gotta go.”
The alley was stinking as many of them do. Small puddles standing around held water that reflected sweet light snuck down from between the buldings. We half trotted to the cross street at the top. Annie wiped the blood and stuff off my neck and out of my hair. She did the spit on her thumb thing to get a speck off my cheek. The most natural thing of love to do, it was. Oh, man.

She is not Anne-Marie now, she is Slats. Same one shot dope with Joey, stole his money, and dissed his Ma. Same one gave me puss in a filthy basement and wiped her snatch dry with another womans’ underwear. Same one just cracked my old partners back while he’s half passed out on a tile floor, and told him he couldn’t even fuck right, as if there’s a right way. One in the same as Rudy had called Slats for so long. Risin up on those shapely pins, smoothin out the little skirt and adjusting her shiney top, she hits me with the sideways grin, the one that always got me. She turns and I turn the other way. I’ll be beatin feet the opposite direction, on out the back and into the alley, thanks. I had not done anything illegal so far, so I am out. Couldn’t have been four, five minutes since the Boss grabbed the pistol off the table and all the shit went down….Time enough for the world to turn. I’m walkin fast and I feel a burn in my shoulder then a loud boom. Felt it before I heard it. Bitch shot me.

” Lets go, Pooch…I’m hungry”.
And like that she turns for the door headed out. I wipe any possible prints off the .380 using the Boss’s suit coat, drop said gun in the blood puddle and walk. Not like I’m goin cause she says to go, it’s TIME to go. Fuck, this place is a shit-storm. Anne-Marie is waiting with her back to me. Boss has quieted down, probably comatose from blood loss and pain by now, but Rude is starting to wiggle. I look down. Anne-marie turns and moves over to him and kneels down on his spine, gatherin up that little skirt she’s wearin, and leaning in right above his ear. I hear the wind rush out of his chest when she leans. I see her panties and her inner thighs. No way she planned this - this is who she is - all live, all real. This ain’t no showboat.
” Rudy, you’re a bum fuck”, she says, “I think you need to go somewhere and practice. Wait for my call so you can take another shot at hittin the spot, know what I mean?” She begins to get up, her hand pushing down on the back of his melon. Then there’s the rush of air noise again. A crack in his backbone happens somewhere as she re-kneels. More panties, they’re red. Oh, man. She was nicer on the shit, now she’s plain tough.
“Don’t call us, we’ll call you. By the way, if you happen to scrape together a quarter and call and bother me again, I’m gonna have somebody fuck you up. Don’t worry, it won’t be Paul here, he’ll be busy givin’ me plenty of the good thang”. Thang….I’m havin a really tough time not getting goo-goo on the woman. Thang. Fuckin’ great.

Sez I, ” So now what, Anne-Marie”?
” I got self-pride, Paulie, which I doubt you believe. The look you gave me out front woulda etched a line in a windowpane”. I don’t deserve that shit”.
” You looked happy as hell out there with Rudy beside you, and him yammering away”. I said this as I was getting to my feet, dusting off the shit. She put down what was left of the chair very carefully since I had not taken my eyes off her and I stlll held the pistol. Not stupid, little Slats, been around. Joey taught her some tricks. Now she says ;
“There’s a reason Rudy held his tongue most the time then obviously. When he opens his mouth he gets himself and everybody around him into shit”. I’d marry that doofus?…in Pigs’ eye”. She was moving closer, giving out with the grin. Pops flashed in my mind. I moved the gun slightly and she stopped right away. I got it right then, and I knew I got it.
” I didn’t hear you arguing when he said it”. I sez. From her, nothing, no reaction at all.
Boss gave out with another mewl of discomfort, which I myself would have done. The fat fuck was now leakin from two holes and building up what would no doubt turn out to be a very slippery puddle. Nothin life threatening if somebody patched him up soon.
” So what about your uncle ding-dong here”?
” That guy is NOT my uncle…” NOW she’s upset, I see.

Spittin’ splinters and finishing my skid, I get the pistol. I look up and there by the door is Anne-marie, and she is giving me that sideways grin, and the remains of a chair are in her hands and that lyin fuck asshole Rudy is face down on the checkerboard tile. He is out like a light I’m thinkin. Life is beautiful. This girl is all of a sudden getting very close to an A plus for the day. Over a peroid of time she just keeps seeming to know exactly not only how to keep me guessing, but how to do the right thing at the most neccessary moment. Like Moms used to say sometimes, be still my fuckin’ heart. She said it once, I was layin on the floor under the ironing board with my little trucks and what not. She was slappin the Iron down, making it hiss from the starch-water she was sprinkling on Pops’ dress shirts. Another World War two movie was on and some soldier started kissin on a Nurse in a tunnel on the Phillipines, talking about ‘no matter what blah, blah, blah’, and Moms let fly. Be still my fuckin’ heart. I probably didn’t laugh, but I should’ve. I mean, I got it but I didn’t know I got it. BUT, at THIS moment I had the .380 and all Anne-Marie had was what’s left of a chair, and I knew that things could maybe go sideways anytime. Just to break the spell, Boss now went kiester up and started howling like a cat mashed under your Aunties’ garden gate. What an absolute asshole he turned out to be.

Noreen was from Boston and all about little perky cup-cake titties and blue eyes and thick jet-black hair. Pale skin. I had not spent very much time at all with tough little girls like this. Lots of other tough little girls; high-haired greyhounds from the neighborhood, smooth brown babies that lived across the tracks, green-eyed generous Jewish girls, dying for a tough-fuck with a goy-boy from the Golden Gloves. A Mom once, and then her red-headed daughter about a month later. They both knew. They were tough, both of them, like little animals. Noreen. Neat, clean, outspoken, rounded flawless ass, just the right size, just a little too big. Lots of spirit and even more soul, but flawed. When I got close to her, after I decided to ride for a while, I saw it; a thing in her character, a hate-myself-I ain’t good enough thing. A how-dare-you-treat-me that-way thing. And I was steady, always, treating her better than she treated herself. She had a tight, flat belly and just a little bit of navel. She sat on me in her rented room, with the slivered light of the venetian blinds making us into a Zebra, I put my big hands across that plane of her body and I had never gone to that place before. I remember the sensation now, right out loud, after almost thirty years.

I’m still crouched behind the Boss, there’s smoke and stench all around, I’m waitin’ for the next cap to pop when I see the .380 on the floor amidst the bloody splinters. I gotta see what’s happening by the door before I reach at the gun, but before I peek around this fat fuck and his tree-trunk legs, Boss starts to totter and let out little kitty-cat mews of pain and surprise. Took long enough. He’s givin out at the knees and my head is the most likely candidate for cushioning the drop. I see a guillotine of ass-cheeks and I am Marie Antoinette. No, Baby, not the pooch, not today. At this exact moment I hear a crash near the door. I figure fuck it….either I’m gettin’ shot or I’m gettin’ crushed….I go for shot…It’ll make for better stories in jail. I let him go and heave myself towards the pistol, sliding for home face-first.

Being concerned about the Boss’ reaction to my question, I reach down, very even, no rush, to the Pistol on the table. I’m looking at him, he’s looking at me. I’m solid, I’m crystal, the Boss is old and afraid. He blinks. He is raising the gun at me after grabbing it first and I simply push his hand down and away. Hand speed. The gun goes off and destroys the top of the table and pieces go all over the fuckin’ place. The dumb fat fuck who blew it is clutching the gun in his right hand, with the left underneath it and they are both on his right eye. There is a little blood leakin’ down. Something got him good because usually the blood will not come so quick. I reach for the gun again and he turned away just as Rude comes in all concerned with Slats right behind. Now THIS dumb fuck pulls his gat and aims for me. My old pal is gonna plug me. Fuck that. I crouch a bit while grabbing Boss’ waist and spinning him in front. Mind you, this piece of shit has started whining about his cut or whatever it is and has become a Man with Pussy. Rude squeezes one off and I can feel it wiggle the fat mans’ flesh as it goes through and smell it smoke right past me.

The Boss looks up at me slowly. The prick is on fire. Seeing my eyes, and reading the message in there, all the stuff I know that he didn’t know I knew, the whole shit-a-ree, he chills.
” You don’t want the gift, Paulie”? I’m deciding which way to go with this, but I do not wish to hesitate too long, so…
” You been good to me, and I been good to you, all respect….I don’t mind the gift, but I wonder if there is something attached to it. Like something you would like done with this…tool. It is a tool, and to be used in a particular way, I think, no” ?
” You are very much like your Grandfather. Very much like the old man, NuNu. You remember him, Pooch”?
Now different names, and this meant that he was now talking to someone else? A baby, one of the grandchildren….no one significant…..just a child.
But I am not a child. I put away the things of a child long, long ago. Why does he put me at the kids’ table? He knows I am a Man. He tries to get me even more pissed. He is succeeding.
” I remember him well……do you? Or do you just remember the funny name? Like Poochie, or the Junkyard Dog”?

The joint was empty. The Boss was sitting at his regular table, had his back to me, his back to the door. Asking for it I thought, or just cocky enough to believe he was safe. A guy like him with as much out there as he did was never safe. I started wondering if he wasn’t ready to go and wanted me to do the job. But my old pal Rudy wouid love that as an opportune event, so as to trigger his taking over the business. All he would need to do was move me over, and He would not hesitate. I was not giving anybody satisfaction that day but myself, so fuck rubbin’ the Boss.
” That you Paulie”?
” It is, Boss, it is.”?
” Sit, I got something for you”.
So around I go to face the big man. He reaches out to shake and of course I comply. Big meaty claws he has with fat fingers, but strong and hard, and they feel like they could do damage.
In front of him on the table is a pistol. It looks new, probably a .380, and has a molded plastic grip. By now I’v already glommed it and am looking square at the Boss, right in his muddy eyes.
” This is for you, Paul, as a gift for all the outstanding service you have delivered for all this long, long time. And without complaint, I would like to add”.
“Hmmm…”. Sez I.
Better it should have been a knife, because that was what would have been needed to slice the mood in the joint right then. A little while went by. Finally the Boss pipes up.
” Would you like to take my gift, Paul. I’m sure you don’t want to be offensive”.
” Boss, no offense intended, but, it is common knowledge that you and yours have been more than overly genrous to me and mine for many years now. Our families have been involved business wise for at least thirty years…that is, if my Pops’ calculations are right. How could I accept any more of your generosity and still keep my dignity”?
My delivery of this is pointed and I know he gets it. You ain’t turning me into your gunsel. And my family is done with you. And me, too.
Boss looks down now and I see the brow-lines start to gather. I’m thinkin I may have to kill this fucker after all. And I will, if he doesn’t mind his manners. The pooch is pissed and its’ Katy-bar-the-door. I am recalling that Pop said to take no gifts from this guy……my heart is doing its job now, and it is not sparing the horses, if you know what I mean.

I’m miffed. Thats what Moms said if it wasn’t enough to yell about, but enough to clench her jaw, she was miffed. So I’m fuckin’ miffed. Not the kind of term I would regularly employ, but here, it is definitely on time. Rude says he ain’t coming but here he is, and with Slats, the girl he called every dirty bitch you could think of sitting next to him like He’s fuckin’ heir to the Throne. And she’s his Fiance now? Fuck me runnin. I had to admit she was looking pretty fine with her hair all brushed and shiny, with something on her bones and a little paint on the mug. It is not like I am in love with this skank, but she did ring my bell, and plus we had some laughs, which, in a tough life, is hard to come by sometimes. I mean we really chuckled, and laughed together, which is something. It does not happen every day. Fuck it.
Then theres my buddy Rudy. Would not say shit if he had a mouthful, and now I’m getting that there is maybe more than one side to this tight-lipped thing. I see it is more like a strategy than a personality trait. This fucker has an agenda like they say.
So here I am, miffed, in front of the Bosses place and I gotta go inside wearing the game face, but I’ll be fucked before I try to make that fuck laugh. I am really mifffed and in almost every way you can think of. Ain’t this some shit? Slats is this fat bastards’ neice. I am rapidly moving from miffed to flat out pissed off. It is not good when the kid gets pissed.

Rudys’ Buick is parked down the street around the corner, and I would never have seen it except for taking a slightly different route on this particular day. I have become a small-time gambler since giving up the shit, and I still appreciate the rushes I get from illicit behaviours. Obviously. When I win, I get somethin for nothin and this I like. When I am losing I hide the losses and get to lie and tell stories about the one that got away and this I like. Whats not to like. I am a sick fuck, but I like it. Anyway, I have become superstitious, and since this is a weird day, I take a different route
So here is Rudy, sitting in a folding chair outside the Bosses’ place, and there is a girl sitting in another chair on his other side. I know it is a girl, because I smell her a half a block away. It smells good.
” Rude, what the fuck”, I ask casually.
Then I see that it is Slats sitting there, smelling good.
” Pooch, how you doin? You know my Fiance, Ann-Marie”? He says this like that fuckin’ cat we all heard about.
” Hello. Paul”, she says. I see she is all cleaned up and got a little meat on her and color in her face. Now I’m shitting on myself.
” Hey…its Ann-Marie…..How you doin…..You two look very comfy-cosy out here”?
” I haven’t been to visit my Uncle in some time….Right, Honey”? That sideways grin, but it is aimed right in Rudys’ direction.

Takin the short walk to the bosses place, Al pops into my head for no good reason, except he was the one hooked me up with Noreen. She and I stuck for awhile…we were good for a long stretch. Then I thinks of Stewie, and I remember I’m the only one of the four of us still alive. Stewie would bring the shit, Al would prep, Noreen would fit us up, and save herself the bomb, which we never bitched about cause Noreen was clean and nice and could put it anywhere. All that I put out of my mind so long ago, but sometimes came back like the smell of good hash seeping out from under a hotel room door. If the wrong person got a whiff there could be a pinch. Fuck me, I’m lucky.

I see the wall clock over Pops’ shoulder and its 11:30. I’m still fifteen minutes from the Boss’ place, so it is time to move it along.” Pop, I gotta go…you stayin’ ’till later on”?” I gotta head back out before the dark or traffic…I hate this fuckin’ drivin’ shit, kid. Whats your rush”.” The Boss wants to see me….says be there in the afternoon”. Pop gets a little up on this one.” You do good by him mostly”?” All the time Pop, its’ my living”. He watches me get up and sweep the crumbs off my clothes, dab at leftover oil on my lips and chin. He is watching me close, he’s got narrow eyes.” Does he like you, ya think…….he smile when you come in the place”?” Sometimes he smiles….He smiles when I give up the earnings’ of the week. He laughs when I make wise….and I’m always early”.Pop put down the cig slow. He rubs a finger under his nose so hard I hear the whiskers’ lament. He scratches the back of his noggin with the other hand. He does all this all at the same time. He is movin’ his brain around.” I hear things…..I’ll ask around”.” Ask what Pop”? Pops’ waiting, sitting stock-still, like a cat on the pounce.” Paul….don’t try to get a laugh out of that cocksucker…let him make you laugh”?” Just tryin’ to get his good side, Daddy” I hadn’t called him Daddy since I’m in Highschool. It just slopped out of me. I was embarrassed, and felt childish. I maybe felt like, in a way, I had disappointed him, or pissed him off.” Better you let him be the comedian…that money is a lock…he don’t get it from you, he gets it from some other guy…you don’t need to be the mamaluke on top of doin’ his dirty work. No Paul, let him be the funny guy…makes him stay thinkin’ he’s smarter than you. Which we both know is not the fuckin truth”.I saw the truth then. He hated the Boss….hated him for making me into a second generation of muscle, and for not having respect. Pop was forgetting that we both muscled willingly….or I did, anyway.” Be careful if he tries to give you something…..You’ll be swallowing the hook…Something for nothing is always expensive, Paulie”.” Okay, Pop. I’ll let you know how it goes”.” You just tell me what happens. I’ll tell you how it went. “.Then He gives me those eyes, and everything else.

” I’m good, pop, everything’s good”
” Thats good Paul..still goin’ to the gym? Gotta keep your hands fast, that’s what goes first I tell ya, the hand speed”.
” I go once a week at least “.
” You’re living the same spot, yeah”?
” She tried raising the rent couple months ago. I talked her out of it. I do little things for her, keeps her quiet”.
Pop took a drink of wine, stared at the peppers in oil and got the teary look. He looked down to pick up his cigarette and said:
” I still miss her, that fuckin’ bitch”. He started laughing while he was tearing up. We called her that sometimes, near the end, when she didn’t care who she yelled at, she just yelled in a low whiney rant. Curlique puffs back-lit by dappled beams, seeping through the musted dusty drapes. The smoke and the time.
My Mom: Jelly and butter sanwiches in my lunch with an orange, cut in half, wrapped in waxed paper. Ponds cream, Shinola, too much blood red lipstick, hairspray, Pinesol, the whole deal. Tight skirts bragging about her Old Man, the Boxer. A real Man that fucked a real Woman real good.
” Yeah, Pop, the fuckin’ bitch”. Now I started getting blubbery, reached over to the old man with both arms. Now it was my turn to give out with the bone crushing hug. The ones Mom gave me before school, going to the dentist, feeling sick, that same kind was what I gave to the stubbly-faced pug now. I tried to mash him into me, through me, give him a dose of the youth I had left. Maybe stop him feeling bad. Maybe remind him of Mom while it was good. She was good, my Mom.

” Paulie, come, sit, sit down, have a sangwidge wit me…I know you’re hungry”. Pop was smiling as he put his python arm around me to drag me closer for the kiss.” What is it Sam, three o clock or some shit… this kid gotta have a beak on”?” Yeah Pop, I am hungry….whattya got Sammy”?, says I looking at Goose and winking. Goose was drooling and smiling, just popping his lips. Fuckin’ happy to be there. I was jealous for a second. Lucky man, the Goosie. No fighting, scuffling and lying about shit, no Mass on the freezing mornings of Lent or the fake happiness at the good fortune of some dope you can’t stand when the Boss is watching. I get the bliss-ignorance deal..and the fat, dumb and happy thing.But then again, Goose would never know a good fuck with a soft warm babe who had you convinced that she gave a shit. Or laughing so hard you couldn’t breathe when you see that dope you despise get what he had coming…in spades. Or a perfect Chivas - rocks with a twist or a Cappacol with peppers and provalon on fresh bread from the corner.”For you, Mr. Stroonz”, booms Sam, ” I got cappacol and provalon, and fresh bread your Pop just brought from the corner”.” Your Aunt Ruth sent some peppers in oil….put these on, Paul, she makes the good peppers”, Pop says, and shoved an uncovered tupperware at me, across the stained doily. It caught on the edge and spilled dark olive oil onto the cloth. Pop didn’t notice the slosh, just continued shoving. He was getting kinda bad…..not really seeing things, or noticing things, forgetting the time and a burning cigarette. I knew it was just a little while and He’d have to go to a “Place” somewhere to be looked after. He for sure should not be driving.The long, slow slide was well underway, and I had been ignoring it for too long. The missed spots when he shaved and the corners of his mouth that most of the time were crusted with dried sauce or whitened-up spit had been telling me, just like the weights in his eyes.A little bit of me died every time I saw him, and he was dying too. We both knew. He knew he was gonna have to go, and he knew I was gonna have to take him somewhere down a fuckin’ Primrose lane.Deeply involved in making the sandwich, I missed Sammy silently taking Goose to the other room and when I looked up it was just me and Pop.” Paulie…how you getting along….you got money, feeling good… how you”? With the wave of the hand, just like his Dad, NuNu, in the back of the old shed at the scrapyard.