Gravesend (10 page)

Amy came over and said, “Fuck my life.” She backed Alessandra up with another on-the-house gin-and-tonic. “We’ll do shots, me and you, when things calm down.”

Alessandra grinned dumbly, gin hazy. She was just sitting there, drinking, watching Amy, the action of the bar swirling around her like some ribbony dream. Her phone rang a few times and she silenced it. Her old man. Stephanie. Ugh.

At midnight the bar was packed, sweaty guys shoving up behind her, ordering over her shoulders. She had to pee a few times and tipped her stool forward to show it was taken. If someone snagged it in the time she was gone, Amy made sure to kick them off.

She was going home with Amy when the bar closed, that was clear, taking the subway to Queens. Or maybe they’d stay in the bar, dance to the jukebox, get cozy on the pool table. Alessandra let her mind wander.

Amy’s alarm clock sat on top of a stack of magazines next to a bookcase. It was just past noon. Alessandra, guessing they hadn’t actually gone to sleep until about eight, was still tired. They were lying in a curl of blankets, both naked, a record player at the foot of the bed skipping against the middle ring of
Rain Dogs
. The mattress was on the floor. Alessandra sat up, put her head in her hands, the gin still twisting in her temples. She looked over at Amy, sleeping belly down, tats all down her back and thighs, lots of ink, hundreds and hundreds of dollars’ worth of work. Her breasts were pressed against the bed. Her breaths were short and sweet, the tats rising and falling. Alessandra thought about waking her up by kissing her neck and ears, but decided against it. Amy probably had to go back to work in a few hours.

She got up and walked through a maze of vinyl-filled egg crates to the kitchen. The refrigerator was close to empty. Black bean veggie burgers, pickles, leftover to-go Indian food, a bottle of Kombucha, Seven Stars yogurt. She opened the freezer: two bottles of Smirnoff, ice trays, cans of Trader Joe’s coffee. She popped an ice cube out of one of the trays and sucked on it. She looked through the cabinets for Tylenol, found none, drank two glasses of tap water.

It felt good to be walking around Amy’s apartment naked.

She went over and thumbed through a crate of records.
Wrecking Ball
,
Soul Journey
,
Phases and Stages
, lots of other great stuff.

Framed sketches filled the walls. Rough drafts for some of Amy’s tats. Alessandra wondered if Amy had drawn them herself or had someone else do them.

She went back to the bed and sat down, checked around for her phone. She picked it up and saw she had ten more missed calls. All from her father. Christ.

No movement from Amy.

She got up, got dressed, and found the pack of American Spirits in her coat. She went up the small flight of steps at the front of the apartment, opened the door, and was out in a little courtyard. She smoked and felt totally relaxed. Opening her phone again, she decided to call Stephanie, see if she could get a ride home. It was a bitch taking the subway from Queens. Especially where she was on Kissena Boulevard. Probably take two hours easy.

Stephanie picked up. “Alessandra?”

“Hi, Steph.” Her throat felt glassy. “Sorry I missed your call yesterday.”

“It’s okay. I was just looking at some apartments online.”

“Nice,” Alessandra said, trying to lay on the charm. “You working now?”

“No, I go in later.”

“I was wondering, if it’s not too much trouble, only if it’s not too much trouble, if you could come pick me up in Queens. It’s a pain to get the subway from here. Car service’ll cost me God knows how much. You got a car, right? You mind?”

“I got my mother’s car. I don’t really drive it much.”

“She’ll let you take it?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Let me give you the address.” Alessandra told her where she was on Kissena. Couldn’t give her solid directions on how to get there. “Just look it up on Google Maps.” Alessandra said thanks so much, really, finished her smoke, and went back in to Amy.

Amy was up, still naked, putting a new record on the turntable.
Wonderful Wanda
. “Almost thought you cut out on me,” she said.

“I’m getting a ride soon.”

Amy put on a T-shirt and boxers. “I had a good time last night. Really.”

Alessandra sat on the edge of the bed. “Me too. I’m glad I walked into your bar.”

Amy came over and kissed her. “This is sweet. We’re talking so sweet to each other.”

“I mean it,” Alessandra laughing now, tucking her hair behind her ears.

“So come back tonight. I’m working again. Shift starts at seven.”

“I just might do that. Got to see how things are with my dad.”

“How long until your ride gets here?”

“I don’t know. She’s looking up directions. Forty-five minutes maybe. An hour.”

Amy sat in her lap. “Can I make you some breakfast?” She started to kiss her neck.

Alessandra put a hand between her legs.

“I’ve got yogurt. Probably some granola.”

They went back to the bed, kissing. Amy stripped off Alessandra’s clothes as they tumbled backward. They hit the sheets in a headachey swirl, all limbs and kissing. Amy tasted like gin and the morning. Alessandra rubbed between Amy’s legs, caught her breath in the hollow of her neck, heard it building up inside of her, felt her body bucking.

Stephanie showed up a little more than an hour later. Amy had made a French press, and they were sitting at the table, sharing a cigarette and drinking coffee. Alessandra left when Stephanie called her, kissing Amy one last time, thinking maybe she would go back to Seven Bar, exchanging numbers, e-mails.

Stephanie was double-parked. She looked moronic behind the wheel, not quite sure how to grip it, sitting up straight, way too perky for Alessandra in hangover, just-got-laid mode.

“Hey,” Stephanie said, “you have a friend that lives here?”

“A new friend, yeah,” Alessandra said, getting in, lighting another cigarette.

“My mother wouldn’t like you smoking in here.”

“I’ll keep the window down. She won’t know.”

Stephanie drove like she was in an old movie, hardly looking at the road, her hands at twelve and seven, the whole thing feeling like it had disaster written all over it.

“You get here okay?” Alessandra said.

“Mostly.” Pause. “So, who’s your friend?”

“Just someone I met last night.”

“A girl?”

“Yeah.” Alessandra laughed. “A girl.”

“You’re a,” Stephanie’s mouth having trouble making the word, “lesbian?”

Alessandra, deciding to have some fun with her, thinking—seriously—that this might save her from having to live with Stephanie, said, “Oh yeah. Big time. You didn’t know?”

“You don’t look like one?”

“Don’t look like a lesbian? What do lesbians look like, sweetie?”

Stephanie’s eyes were off the road for a good ten seconds as she gave Alessandra a once-over. “You know, butch, tough, manly.”

“Keep your eyes on the road, Steph, will you?”

Stephanie focused on the traffic in front of her, intensified her grip.

“Will this get in the way of us living together?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never met a lesbian.”

“You’ve never met a lesbian?”

“I don’t think so.”

Alessandra said, “What about Ms. Berry, tenth grade chemistry.”

“Ms. Berry?”

“Sure.”

“And Nurse Loretta.”

“No.”

“Absolutely. And, you ask me, Sister Clare.”

Stephanie let out a breath. “I thought for sure you were trying to get with Ray Boy Calabrese the other night.” She stopped. “You like it, being a lesbian?”

“It’s peachy.” Almost making herself crack up now. “You ever consider it as a life choice?”

“Oh no, I’ve never—” She stopped and pulled the car over into a bus stop. “Can I tell you something?”

“Sure,” Alessandra said.

“I’ve never even,” her voice falling to a whisper, “I’ve never even kissed anyone. Probably never will.”

Alessandra felt bad now. Stephanie had turned this into something serious. “Oh, sweetie.”

“I’ve always liked Conway, but he’s never liked me like that. I’d love to get married, but it won’t happen. I’m already old.”

“You’re so young.”

“Look at me.”

Alessandra said, “I’m not a lesbian, Steph. I was just kidding with you. Sometimes I’m just, you know, open to different experiences.”

“Oh. I thought we were being honest with each other. I thought we were having, like, one of those moments.”

“I’m sorry.”

Stephanie pulled back out into traffic and headed for the BQE. They were quiet the rest of the way.

Alessandra’s father was sitting in his recliner reading a book called
Chicken Soup for the Widow’s Soul
when she got home, dollar store reading glasses—taped where they’d broken in three places—crooked low on his nose.

“You were out all night,” he said.

“I just spent the night with some friends.”

“I called.”

“I know. I’m sorry. My phone was off.” She went over and kissed him on the head.

“Your stuff got here.” He pointed to the two large boxes over by the staircase. “You got bricks in there?”

“Mostly clothes.” She went over and looked at the boxes. “I’ll just take the stuff out little by little, if that’s okay.”

“Maybe you’ll just leave it all in there if you’re so anxious to get a new apartment.”

Alessandra wasn’t in the mood for this. She ignored him. “I need to take a shower. I’ll be back down in a little while.”

She went straight to the bathroom, turned the water on hot, the water pressure so good here if nothing else, and got out of her clothes. She looked at herself in the mirror, a faint blushy patch where Amy had kissed below her belly button, and then got into the shower.

Nine

Conway did some more time at the range. McKenna had brought along his piece, the thing rubbery and clean. Conway’s aim was still off. McKenna stood next to him drinking coffee spiked with gin from a Styrofoam cup. He was less interested now in how Conway was shooting and more interested in procuring another pint of gin. He wondered aloud if it was possible to brew coffee with gin instead of water and determined that it was, that it might even be good for a drip coffeemaker to be run through with booze. Conway was taking sips from McKenna’s cup and feeling warm and loose. When they decided to leave the shooting range and go to The Wicked Monk, which McKenna was pretty sure opened at ten, it seemed like it had been the plan all along.

McKenna ordered gin, straight, a pint glass of it. The bartender, an Irish girl who was all hips and wore her black hair piled on top of her head, her gleaming neck fantastic to look at in the morning, acted like a couple of homeless guys had just shuffled into the bar.

“You just off the boat?” McKenna said. “I want gin, plenty of it.”

“I’m sorry for my friend,” Conway said, knowing things with Marylou must have gotten even worse. McKenna had snuck away when they were at the range, talked to her on the phone, and had come back pounding gin.

“I don’t care you’re sorry,” the bartender said. “One more word out of line and you’re done.”

“Let us buy you a drink.”

She poured the gin, bottom rack stuff, and pushed it in front of McKenna. No coaster, no napkin. “I don’t need you to buy me a drink in my bar. What do you want?”

“Bloody Mary, thanks.”

She made a Bloody Mary, not a good one, from mix with the same shitty gin she’d given McKenna, canned olives spiked through with a plastic spear floating in the black-flecked film on top.

“I wanted vodka,” Conway said.

“You got gin,” she said, turning away. She cleaned up behind the bar now, doing all the routine early morning things they were interrupting. She punched a few songs into the Internet jukebox, turned the overhead TV on with no sound, collected stray bottles, wiped down tables, swept the floor.

Conway wanted to ask McKenna about Marylou but held back. He’d been like this once before, senior year of high school, obsessing over Tanya Voloktin, who’d dumped him for Jimmy O’Halloran. Tanya was different though, a high school thing, and out of his league with her pouty Russian lips and knock-you-on-your-ass body. This was his wife. They’d been together a long time, ten years, had a kid, and Marylou wasn’t Tanya. Instead, Conway tried to steer the conversation back to Ray Boy.

“You know,” McKenna said. “I got heartburn. A fucking headache. Let me just drink my gin for a sec.”

He was right. It was getting old. Do it or don’t and get on with your life.

Conway’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He flipped it open and looked at it. Stephanie again. She’d been calling and calling. He decided to pick up finally. Stepping away from McKenna, he went back over by the bathrooms, the Irish bartender sneering at him as he passed.

“So, did you quit this morning?” Stephanie said. “Is that what happened?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“You don’t know?”

“What I said.”

“You’re scheduled to come in on Wednesday.”

“You’re the manager now?”

“I just don’t want you to get fired if you’re not gonna quit.”

He let out a breath. “Thanks, Steph. I’ll probably be in Wednesday.”

“‘Probably.’ Are you okay? I just wanted to make sure you were okay, that’s why I’m really calling. I wanted to see if you were feeling better.”

“I’m okay, Steph. I mean, the world’s shit and I’m a piece of shit, but I’m okay.”

“I think you should take some time off. Maybe get some help.”

“Some help.”

“Why don’t you talk to Father Villani? He’s a good person to talk to. Confess. Start over.”

“Confess?” Conway said.

“Maybe get involved in the church. Volunteering, you know? Bring Communion around to old people in the neighborhood, the way they bring it to your dad sometimes when he can’t make it to church.”

He closed the phone and went back over to McKenna, who had ordered another tall gin and was slurping on it. “This bartender,” McKenna said, the Irish girl out of earshot now, “is a fucking class A cunt.”

“Take it easy,” Conway said.

“You want to fix your problem? Put Ray Boy in a car with this pretty bitch for a few hours. She’ll be like a praying mantis, eat his face off, or his head, or whatever the fuck.”

Conway laughed.

McKenna said, “Marylou left me, went to her mother’s in Staten Island.”

“I hope it wasn’t because of this shit.”

“It’s been a long time coming.” McKenna’s voice was gin slurry. “A looooong time. Ever since the shooting. I had the shrink and then desk duty and then they made me leave the force. Everything just fell to shit. Haven’t been a good dad to Nicky. Marylou, she just keeps getting colder, it’s hard.”

“I didn’t know, man. Not all of it.”

“You got a one track mind, that’s it. It’s why you work at a fucking Rite Aid, why you stopped playing guitar, why you don’t know what’s happening in my life.”

“Dude.”

“It’s understandable. Understandishable.” McKenna smiled, eyes glossy, mouth bent drunkenly. “I don’t know what I’d be like if my brother got killed like that. Fucks you up. You’re fucked up in your way, I’m fucked up in my way. Me shooting that guy, that was bad. I mean, it won’t be like that for you with Ray Boy I hope, but it might be, maybe that’s why it’s so hard for you to go through with it, because you know deep down that taking a life takes something out of you no matter what.”

“That guy you shot was a bad guy. He charged you with a knife.” Conway paused. “Ray Boy’s a bad guy.”

“True. Ray Boy’s bad, he ran your brother out into fucking traffic, no amount of prison’s gonna make up for that. And that guy charged me, yeah, he did. In that hallway with the bike rack and the piss yellow light and the old lady next door watching out her peephole. That fucker charged me, wanted to slam that knife into my chest. I couldn’t get my gun down, couldn’t take out his legs, fired into his chest when he was this close,” McKenna demonstrating a body length with his arms, “and he went flying back, just dead. But it takes something out of you, whether it’s right or wrong.”

Conway’s phone rang again. He looked at the screen. Stephanie. He silenced it. He wasn’t sure what to say to McKenna, so he kept quiet and hoped McKenna would just keep going. It was a relief to hear him talk.

“I don’t know what I’m saying. I already said, ‘Don’t do this,’” putting on a school marmish voice, “I already said, ‘It’s not worth it.’ I already said all that bullshit. Truth is, of course I understand why you need to do this. But I’m telling you, you’re gonna live with Hell inside of you. It’s gonna crawl up in you. Not purgatory. Hell with a capital H.”

Conway didn’t know what to say. He’d been determined and that was starting to fade. A couple of days ago, he would’ve said, “It doesn’t matter. I’ve got to do it.” But now, now he felt like there was a reason he wasn’t able to go through with it. Like it was Duncan trying to warn him that everything McKenna was saying was true.

McKenna ordered another gin and Conway got another Bloody Mary and they sat there in silence, staring with empty eyes at the TV.

Finally, McKenna broke the silence. He said, “You’re lucky you don’t have kids, Con. It’s a whole other business when you have kids. I’m happy you don’t.”

“I’m happy, too. I wouldn’t be a good dad.”

“No, you wouldn’t. I’m not a good dad. Good dads are hard to come by. Pop’s okay, but he’s a disaster. My old man beat me with a belt, fucked his secretary, ate veal cutlets five days a week. Veal, that’s a baby cow, man. A calf. You know what they do to those fucking things? They raise them in a box. What kind of example is that?” McKenna paused. “I’m no better. I make Nicky watch TV while I do fantasy football, fantasy baseball, whatever on the computer. Used to be
World of Warcraft
but I got banned. I mean, I should take the kid outside, go up to schoolyard and play stickball, something. I remember growing up, you remember Dino Randazzo and his old man? Giannozzo his name was. Every night they were in the P.S. 101 schoolyard having a catch. Until it got dark. Dino had this nice new glove and Giannozzo had this old beat-up thing, looked like he’d made it in the middle of bad weather back in Italy. And they’d just throw the ball back and forth, back and forth. Sometimes Giannozzo would tell Dino how to do stuff, but it wasn’t really about that. All that practice, Dino never even got that good at little league. His father was at every game though, cheering him whether he fucked up or did okay. ”

Conway said, “I can’t even remember what Pop was like before Duncan died. I remember he smoked cigars. I remember he sat out on that lawn chair in the yard. I remember he went over and had beers with Polack Steve, who worked for Sanitation, on Friday nights.”

“Let me tell you something. The day Nicky was born, I should’ve been overjoyed. I should’ve been there at Marylou’s bedside. I wasn’t, man. I was at a fucking bar. Her mother kept calling me, saying, ‘Get to the hospital.’ One more, I kept telling myself. Then the guys found out my kid was on the way and they kept buying me rounds. I was so drunk I didn’t even go to the hospital. Woke up in the back of my car. It all started right there. That was before I shot the guy, too. It’s just in me.”

“Pop hasn’t been great, but I’ve been a bad son.”

“You do for him.”

“I do, yeah. But I don’t want to. Everything’s pulling teeth. And now, these last couple of days, I’m lucky I didn’t kill him the way I spoke.”

They were quiet again. It wasn’t even noon. On a Monday. Pretty much every self-respecting person was out in the world working. Hauling trash, conducting trains, butchering meat, fighting fires, teaching, doing construction, whatever. And here they were. Fucked. People to pity. Not even noon on a fucking Monday. No wonder the Irish girl gave them that Spaghetti Western death stare.

Conway let his mind wander. The other day, on the way to Hawk’s Nest, he’d thought about running away to Nova Scotia if things went well. He had always wanted to go there. He’d seen a spread on it in
National Geographic
one time in the OLN library and he thought it looked like the end of the world, peaceful desolation, and he started dreaming of it as some sort of paradise. He started thinking again that, however this went down, maybe that should still be his goal. Get there and get right. Try to live.

Conway took the bus home, a little wobbly. He’d left McKenna at The Wicked Monk, where the bartender, sensing that he was mostly harmless, took a shine to him and started to bust his balls. McKenna probably had some far-flung notions that Irish would let him fuck her, but Conway knew there was no chance for that. The girl had simply adjusted and was starting to treat McKenna like a regular.

Hyun was on the bus again. Running numbers. Always running numbers. Whatever that meant. Conway thought it sounded like something people did in the Twenties and Thirties but not now. And Conway wanted to know, if it was illegal, why did he ride the bus? He also had questions about Mr. Natale. A legend in the neighborhood, Mr. Natale had to be at least seventy now. He always wore a vintage DiMaggio or Mantle jersey and track pants, a gold chain dangling in the cottony tufts of his chest hair. He had ties to Gotti and Gaspipe Casso and the Genovese family. The rumor was that he’d been the one, back in the Seventies, who’d shot Eddie Russo outside the Loew’s on Eighteenth Avenue.

But Conway said nothing. Drunk but not drunk enough.

Another call came from Stephanie and he ignored it.

He got off the bus and walked home. Readying an apology for Pop. He could see the way it would play out otherwise. He’d say he was sorry because he didn’t want it to be like everything McKenna had described.

Maybe it’d be different, though. Maybe some shit would be healed between them. It was worth a shot.

To Conway home didn’t feel like home anymore. It felt like a subway station at four in the morning. Sketchy. Uninviting. He opened the door and took off his shoes. The house alarm was set, thank God he noticed, and he shut it off, punching the password, 71239, Pop’s birthdate. He went into the kitchen, guessing Pop had wanted him to trip the alarm as some sort of punishment or something, figuring he wouldn’t remember the password.

The TV was on in the living room. Conway could hear it, some early afternoon game show with its buzzes and blips, Pop probably only half-watching, in and out of sleep, rocking in his recliner.

Conway started a pot of coffee, thinking he’d bring a cup in to Pop as a peace offering. As he spooned Folgers into the percolator, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that the bathroom door was closed. He guessed Pop was in there. He turned the flame on under the percolator, rust-brown from ages of burnt coffee and too-hot gas.

In the living room, Conway waited for his father and the coffee. The TV was blaring, so loud Conway hunted for the channel changer to turn it down. No luck. He remained in noise.

The coffee was boiling, bubbling up at a rapid pace. Conway shut the gas and took the percolator off the stove and put it on a wood block. He poured two cups, non-dairy creamer and sugar for Pop, black for him. He went over and knocked on the bathroom door. He had been in there a long time now. “Pop,” he said, “I made coffee. You coming out?”