Five Boroughs 01 - Sutphin Boulevard (4 page)

The last part came out heavy with sarcasm, but it was no secret that I despised their older brother. The guy was a homophobic douche bag who’d started with the gay jokes as soon as Nunzio jumped out of the closet with a bullhorn after high school. No one in my family knew that I’d been sucking dick longer than my Sicilian best friend.

Raymond followed me when I strode out of the room, cursing under his breath and sounding just as disgusted as I was. I slid my feet back into my flip-flops, relieved when neither my aunt nor my father followed us.

“I’m canceling the trip. I have to go tell Nunzio.”

“For what? I was just fucking with you, man. You should go.”

I pushed the door open and stepped outside. My body was tight with building anger that I wanted to unleash on everything around me. “And trust you to pay the mortgage and the utilities? Right. And even if I did, now that he’s here, he’ll wreck the place and have his lowlife friends over. Maybe a couple of whores he’ll pick up on Sutphin Boulevard. And you’ll get so pissed off that you’ll either try to kill him or spend the whole time getting high in your room while he takes over. Sounds fucking brilliant, Raymond. Do you have any other stunning ideas?”

“Don’t be a dick about it. Ain’t no one telling you to not go on your little trip. Don’t put that shit on me.”

“I have insurance on the ticket.”

A keen urge built in me, making my fingers itch and my hands sweat. I pictured the respectable number of bottles I’d accumulated over time to fashion myself a minibar. Grey Goose, Johnnie Walker, Jack Daniels—one of them would quell the surge of tension and frustration, but I wasn’t about to go back up to my room so Aida could spend hours lecturing me.

“Look, do you want a ride?” Raymond pressed. “I wasn’t trying to come down on you. I’m just stressed.”

I stopped halfway down the driveway. The commute back to Nunzio’s apartment would take me an hour, and I was still hungover enough to flip out on the first person who shoulder checked me too hard on a subway platform.

“C’mon, bro. It’s the least I can do.”

Raymond looked so determined that I acquiesced. He gave me a tight-lipped grin in response.

“It’s for the best, though,” Raymond said as he peeled out of the driveway, tires squealing. “Because you’re right. I’m a fuck-up, and I’ll take that motherfucker out if he says the wrong thing. I hate that dude so much. I’ll never forget the way he acted after she died. You got no idea.”

I had an idea, more of one than he did. Raymond had been too young to remember the details of the explosive arguments between my parents that had finally gone nuclear the day she kicked him out. The memory was burned into my mind, and I saw it every time I saw Joseph.

Him reeking of booze and slurring curses at my mother, and her threatening to take his head off with a cast-iron pan. How I’d feared it would become physical even if it never had. I’d reminded our mother of those things several times in the years that followed, but it had never made a difference. She would just look at me and say I wouldn’t understand until I was older.

Twenty years later, and I still couldn’t figure out what it was about him that she’d loved. All I felt was resentment for being trapped in a promise I never should have made. Deep down, I’d hoped to never see him again so I wouldn’t have to make the attempt.

Raymond was white-knuckling the steering wheel, and the car was void of the music he normally flicked on with a Pavlovian reflex. “You’re all dependable,” he continued, likely trying to reassure himself more than he was trying to compliment me. “And what if that bastard is actually sick? I won’t know what to do. You’re the smart one. You knew what to do for Mami.”

I looked out at the park again.

“Anyway, do you want to make sure Nunzio is home before I drive all the way over there?”

“It doesn’t matter. I have keys.”

Raymond gave me a too-knowing look, and I wondered if he was finally seeing through my permanent-bachelor act. It was only a matter of time. But instead of commenting, Raymond silently guided the car back to the bridge.

I
GOT
out of the car with a muttered good-bye. Raymond cast me a side-eye full of suspicion but didn’t voice any concerns. He never did if he thought he would be rebuffed.

Raymond and I bickered more than 50 percent of the time, but he could read me as well as Nunzio. Even when I thought I was being discreet about my stress level, the kid sniffed it out.

I dragged my feet up to Nunzio’s apartment. The hangover had dulled to a faint source of discomfort, but gritting my teeth for the past hour had initiated another throbbing headache. It worsened with every step I climbed.

Sweaty and aggravated, I used the keys Nunzio had given me when he’d first moved in. Nunzio still wasn’t home—I didn’t know if I was relieved or disappointed. No one could comfort me the way he could, but before the day was over, I would be letting him down.

Less than five minutes later, I had helped myself to an already open bottle of vodka. I sat in an armchair by the window and didn’t move until the burn of the alcohol set all thoughts ablaze. Memories of my mother, frail and sunken in a hospital bed, intensified along with my fear that Joseph would soon share her fate.

I didn’t want to be concerned. I’d cursed him for most of my life. More than once I’d said I wouldn’t even attend his funeral when he died. But now the reality of him being gone was a lot different than me making claims about a future that seemed far away.

Setting down the glass, I tried to shift gears. I turned my thoughts away from my family, away from the hell that would now be my summer, and redirected them to Nunzio.

I got up and paced around, straightening the apartment as I waited for his keys to jingle in the door. I changed the sheets on his bed and threw out empty bottles and a condom wrapper before moving to the living room. I didn’t have much to do, but I was jittery with nerves and couldn’t keep still. If I sat down, I would end up working through Nunzio’s collection of alcohol, leaving myself a mess by the time I had to break the news that he would be flying to Italy on his own.

He’d been excited for months, planning our itinerary and plotting out a road trip down the eastern coast before ending our trip in Palermo. Just picturing the disappointment on his face when I would have to tell him months of planning were down the drain made my stomach churn.

With no other ways to distract myself, my restlessness tripled, and I left his apartment to go to my favorite bar on Tenth Avenue. I shot Nunzio a text message to meet me there, and hoped the public venue would make this conversation less difficult.

I felt grungy in my jeans and an old T-shirt, but the bar was enough of a dive for no one to care. With the exception of the after-work crowd and a few college kids sitting at a table in the corner, it was empty. The place attracted a mixed clientele during the day because of the cheap food and drinks. It was the one spot in the neighborhood that still reminded me of old school Hell’s Kitchen, even if the patrons were now predominately gay yuppies.

I made a beeline for the bar and managed a small grin when I saw a familiar face behind the counter.

“Hey, Miranda.”

“Hey, Rodriguez. I haven’t seen you around in a while.”

I sat at the corner, leaving several stools between me and the small group of guys in suits and ties at the other end. “Yeah, I made the mistake of trying to change my ways because of some asshole’s judgment.”

Miranda grabbed a wide mug. Without having to ask, she filled it from the tap with Shiner Bock. “That boyfriend of yours?”

“You got it.”

“The one that Nunzio bitched about?”

“Maybe. What was the nature of the bitching?”

She set the foam-topped mug in front of me. “A couple of times I asked him where you were and he mentioned how your boy didn’t want you going out anymore. Poor bastard. I suggested maybe it’s time for him to cut the cord.”

I scoffed. “Never.”

“That’s what he said.” She leaned over the counter and clapped my shoulder. “Let me know if you need anything. I’ve been ignoring the suits for a while now.”

Miranda walked to the other side of the bar with a plastered-on smile. I watched her pretend to be interested in their lives without really listening to anything they said. Their voices blended with those of the loud college kids in the corner and the afternoon news playing on the television. The din of noise washed over me, distracting me from my spinning thoughts and the lance of tension that had jabbed at me in the silence of Nunzio’s apartment.

Sighing, I stopped examining my mug and looked up at the news. On the TV, a reporter with a chiseled face and earnest eyes was standing at a busy intersection and gesturing to a cluster of police cars behind him. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I recognized the street. It was only a ten-minute walk from my house.

The banner at the bottom of the screen proclaimed that a teenager had been shot on a city bus. I shook my head. Home sweet home.

I understood why Raymond continued living in South Jamaica, but sometimes I wished he’d let go and move on. He had accepted the crime and neglected public spaces because it meant staying close to our mother, and those family values were ingrained in him deep enough to leave visible marks. She had attempted to instill that same sense of loyalty in me, but her success had been limited. Not wanting to become trapped in the dysfunction of my family in my adulthood, I’d maintained as much distance from them as I could, without going so far that they would implode.

My old neighborhood wasn’t all bad, but even my fondest memories didn’t make me want to stay in a place that gave the broken-windows theory any kind of validity. Jamaica wasn’t the worst, but it was definitely not where I’d pictured living as an adult.

Yet I’d returned and didn’t see a way out in the foreseeable future.

“The guy in the striped shirt wants to buy you a shot.”

Miranda’s voice jerked me out of my reverie. I hadn’t even noticed her approach.

“I already have a drink.”

She nodded at the other end of the bar. “He thinks you look sad.”

I didn’t pick myself up from my slouch against the bar, face still braced in one open palm. I peered past her—the guy in question was giving me an appreciative grin. He was good-looking, but I wasn’t in the mood to hear anything a buttoned-up yuppie had to say, especially not when I was unkempt, unshaved, and sweating in a torn-up T-shirt. Misery might love company, but Rodriguez men historically liked to suffer in silence—preferably with a bottle of rum while listening to Héctor Lavoe.

“He looks like a banker.”

“Close. He’s an accountant.”

“Sounds thrilling.” I turned away again, lifting my mug. “Tell him I’m straight.”

Miranda stifled a laugh and returned to the other end of the bar. I didn’t watch the exchange. I wondered how transparent my unhappiness was to everyone around me. Ever since my mother’s death, I’d had random strangers encourage me to smile. Both men and women liked using the you-look-upset line to spark up a conversation. The logic of harassing a pissed-off or sad person was lost on me. When someone looked like they were in a bad mood, I took that as a sign to leave them the hell alone.

My phone chirped. A message from Nunzio said he was five minutes away.

I made more of an effort to sit up straight and wipe the angst off my face, but the attempt was in vain. He knew something was off as soon as he strode into the bar and took a seat by my side.

“Hey.”

“What’s going on?”

I resumed my slouch. “We’ll talk. Get a drink first.”

“Christ. Is it so bad I need to be plied with alcohol first?” Nunzio nodded at Miranda. “Can I get a beer, sweetheart?”

The use of the endearment earned him a lethal glare, but she snorted when he only smiled in response.

“That guy down there is staring at you.” Nunzio spun on the barstool so he was facing me, his knees brushing my thigh. “He looks mad, though.”

“He tried to buy me a drink. I got Miranda to tell him I’m straight.”

“Maybe that’s why he’s grilling me now. He knows you’re full of shit.”

Nunzio wiggled his fingers at my admirer in a sarcastic wave. I shoved his hand down to the counter.

“Don’t be a dick.”

“You’re the one who turned down a free drink. The poor guy just wanted an excuse to look into those pretty brown eyes of yours.”

“I’m not in the mood. Especially not when his suave way of hooking me was to point out how sad I am.”

“You do look like one miserable fuck.” Nunzio picked up my beer and gulped it. “So what’s going on, Mikey?”

Miranda saved me from answering right away by returning with his beer. They bantered back and forth for a few minutes. To an onlooker, it would have seemed like they were flirting. Nunzio’s smile was infectious, and he couldn’t stop himself from casually touching people when he talked, not that anyone ever minded.

Nunzio had always been the charming one of our duo. The one who could get an allegedly straight frat boy to drop his pants with no more than a suggestive comment and a raised brow. It was a talent that had kept him away from long-term relationships for most of our adult life. I envied him that, but I couldn’t aspire to it, even though all of my attempts at serious dating had failed.

If it wasn’t the jealousy at my closeness with Nunzio causing a problem with men I had been with, it was the fact that I wasn’t out to my family. Apparently after thirty, people were a lot less compassionate about a grown-ass man being in the closet.

I couldn’t deny that continuing to hide it was pathetic, but I didn’t see the point in coming out until I was in it for the long haul with someone. My gayness would only sprinkle hot oil on the fire that already blazed between me and the rest of my family. Especially my father.

Nunzio snapped his fingers in front of my face. “What the hell is going on? Is it about last night?”

My train of thought screeched to a halt. “What? No! Why would I be upset about that?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe the part where I ad-libbed the porn script and shoved my dick in your ass?”