Rude Boy USA (27 page)

“I am too,” Celia replied.

The burial took place the next day. John had ensured that everything would be handled correctly. Jerome’s grieving parents, wife, and baby left after the preacher had said a few words and they lowered the casket. John and Celia stayed and were the last to go. When the gravediggers began throwing dirt on top of the casket, John stopped them. He wanted to do something before they continued. He asked them to lift the casket back up. Despite their reservations, they did so. John took out a pocketknife and began to scratch words on the side of the wood casket: “Once a rude boy, always a rude boy.” This was Jerome’s favorite pep chant for the group. Celia did not know what was happening, and she thought that John was having a breakdown.

“John, stop! Why are you doing this?” she asked him frantically.

John looked up at her and said, “Sometimes, funeral places, they bury you, and when they think the family is gone, they come back and dig you up. They take you out of the casket, dump you in the hole, and resell the casket. I won’t let them do that to him. I won’t let him be dumped again.” He handed Celia the pocketknife. She wiped the tear from her eye and took it from him. She knelt and began to scrape a heart in the casket. She wrote
Chimera
in the heart. When they were done, John motioned the gravediggers to lower him into the ground. John and Celia stood next to each other and held hands. “What now?” he said.

Mariana returned to her parents’ home in Harlem with the baby, and John took Celia with him to the safe house in Yonkers. During the week leading to Jerome’s funeral, John promised that he would help financially take care of Mariana and Jerome Jr. as long as they needed. He felt this was his duty as godfather, and he gave her a generous sum of money to help her get on her feet. Celia also offered to help. She apologized for not keeping in touch and for missing everything. Celia and Mariana patched things up; they were still family.

Celia moved from the hotel to stay with John for the time being while she took care of affairs locally. He did not think that a hotel would be safe for her, so he had her check out to go with him instead. He also did not want her to lead a trail to her mother’s apartment. John did not know how volatile the situation remained, and he wanted to keep her close to him. John and Celia struggled with guilt together. Celia had not spoken to Jerome since she left, and she had regrets about not keeping in touch. The stress of the situation had got to her. John took to heart some of what Ben had said to him and knew that the threat of total failure was looming over him. If Celia had not shown up, John would not have been here either. He thought back to what Mariana had told him—that Celia would be here and right on time. When they made it to the house, they settled in the living room. Both of them sat down after Celia turned on the television.

“It’s just us,” John said as he looked at her. “I messed it up. I messed it all up.” He began to cry. Celia held him. He
put his arms around her as they both sat. She placed his head on her chest as he cried. “Bernie picked me, Jerome trusted me, and I let them down. I let us all down. I am not good at this. This is new to me,” he added.

“You tried,” Celia said. “You had no time to mourn like the rest of us. It wasn’t fair to you,” she added as she rubbed his back. “I should not have left for so long. I needed a break because I was angry. I should have come back sooner. I should have been here for all of us,” she said. “We are not perfect, and I’ve made some mistakes too, but I am here now, and we will fix this. We will make it.” The two of them sat quietly for a moment. Celia felt the need to reveal something. “I was feeling guilty,” she said.

“Guilty about what?” John asked.

“Before Bernie passed, I was going over the accounting and paperwork. We had a sit-down meeting, and I told him that during my audits, I found things that were wrong. All of the numbers were wrong. Money was missing, and I could not account for any of it. The paperwork was a mess; everything was wrong,” she said.

John sat up. “How much?” he asked her.

“Almost five hundred thousand. Ben wrote all of the checks to himself, John,” she said. “I don’t think Bernie realized what was happening until I told him, and he covered for him. I sat there and watched Bernie cover for him. It had to be hard to save face, even in front of me.”

“Fuck. Bernie always saved his ass, and this is how he repays him,” John replied. “That wasn’t your fault; you did your job.”

“I hated him after that, and I hated myself for letting him get close to me,” Bunny said.

“I didn’t like him touching you at all. He was not fit to breathe the same air as you.” John paused. “Why didn’t you let me shoot him?” he asked her.

“He is as good as done already. No need to throw away your life shooting at a dead horse,” Bunny answered. “He didn’t want to stay; let him go his way.” They continued to talk.

“We were here the whole time. Me, Jerome, and Mariana. I felt like the third wheel, but they were patient with me the whole time. They made me feel like part of the family. All we had left was lots of money. I never thought I would say that. I could have left, but I didn’t know where you were, and I didn’t want to leave you here. I thought you were hurt or dead. We were mourning,” John said. Bunny began to tear up. “When I was young, all I wanted to do was grow up and be rich, because my brother and I had nothing and my mother worked like a dog to support us. All I could think of then was if I were rich, I would be happy,” he said. “I wanted to come here and make money, and I did. Why didn’t it make me happy?” he asked her.

Bunny wiped her eye. “I don’t know. The money will buy you things; that’s it. That’s what it is supposed to do. You cannot buy emotions. Those are things you feel on the inside. You do not buy happy; you feel happy. You have to find yourself to be happy,” Bunny said.

“Is that what you did when you were gone?” he asked her. “Yeah, it is. I know exactly how you feel,” she said.

John was quiet for ten seconds. “Bunny, I don’t want you to leave me again,” he said. “I love you, and I won’t mess up anymore, I promise.”

“That’s not realistic, John. I know you are not perfect, and I am not expecting that from you. I realize that you just may be an ass. I accept that. I can handle it. I’m even turned on sometimes. I just want you to respect me as a woman. Right now, I am your equal and not just a trophy to be won. Times are different. I am different, and I think I have earned the right. I won’t emasculate you in any way, but I need you to do the same for me. I need to see it,” she said.

“I understand, and you will. I am not the same person you left before,” John said.

“If I stay, it’s my choice to do so and not because you asked. That doesn’t mean that you can do whatever you want to me. No more hiding, no more dishonesty. No more chauvinistic stuff. I know that’s what you guys do. All of you do it,” Bunny said, and she paused for a second. “Oh, and I don’t live in New York anymore. I have a home in Jamaica.”

“You live here, too,” John said.

“I am just visiting here. In Kingston, there is a lot of work to do. This is a time when people are fleeing, and I want to be one of those who build there. I feel there is a future. I have a place now, and I can make a difference there. I am returning to school; I’ll have a job. I’m settled. Here, it’s hopeless. Look what ‘here’ did to Jerome; he’s lying in a box. Look at Ben. He’s a shell of himself. Why in the hell does he look like that? Look what ‘here’ has done to you.
Something in you is missing. I never thought I would ever see you in that state,” she said.

“I had no one. I thought I lost you forever. I miss them, Bunny. This is new for me,” John responded, referring to Jerome and Bernie.

“I know you do. I need you to go back to the fiery John that I knew. That is the John I fell for…I’m visiting here because I need to make sure that you are OK. Sometimes, I wish I did not love you. I could make a clean break,” Bunny said.

John stayed quiet for a couple of moments. “Can I go to your place in Jamaica with you? I’ve never been there before,” he asked.

“Are you serious?” Celia and John laughed. It was the first time she had smiled since she came back to New York. “Fine, if you behave. You haven’t changed all that much; you know that, right?”

John was taken aback but refreshed by her newfound confidence. They were tired from the day, as it had been emotionally draining. They fell asleep the way they were, sitting up with their arms wrapped around each other.

The next day, John woke up early. He started thinking about the future. Bunny was with him, and he felt that if they were going to make it as a couple or have any future, he had to start planning their comeback. He could not remain in
hiding forever. Too much had happened. Chimera as a company was gone, but the name was more important to John. Chimera was Bernie’s legacy, and he felt the least he could do would be to take the name and rebuild it into something better, something legit. John felt that he owed it to him. Bernie had taught him always to have a plan B.

John knew that to get the name back, he would have to face finally the Ambrosino family. It had been a year since Edina’s death, and he hoped that cooler heads had prevailed. He figured that they would be busy worrying about other things. Congress had passed a new law, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, intended to combat organized crime and its leaders. The Ambrosino family’s ownership of the company relieved John from any association and criminal charges, as he was no longer a leader. That position now belonged to Enzo Ambrosino. John’s tenure and the passing of Jerome meant that his trail remained clean. John was going to buy the name back from them, and he was willing to return their four million dollars for the rights.

John ran this by Celia, who did not agree. She had a fit when he told her. “What if they hurt you? You’ve been away all this time, and now you want to see them. Let the name go. No one will hate you,” she said.

“I think I can make this work. The one thing that I know about these people, like all of us in the game, is that it is just business. I give them their money back; they give me the name, and we break ties. There is nothing else for them to
do but take the cash. It’s all good for them. It’s necessary. They got their revenge already. Killing me will gain them nothing,” John told her, referring to the death of Edina. The one positive twist to Edina selling them out was that in the end, it had protected them from future prosecution.

“John, I’m scared, and I don’t agree. They just may kill you. They are sickos. They are not going to play nice and just let you go. That’s not fair to me. You just made me promise not to leave, and you do this. I cannot continue to run in these circles. No more death. I can’t take it,” Celia said in a panic as a tear rolled down.

“Trust me. We will win; together; this will work. If I don’t come back, then I want you to know I did this for us,” he said as he put his hands on her cheeks, leaned in, and kissed her.

Chapter 13

B
en returned home to the South Bronx. He put his issues about John on the backburner and decided to let his feelings for Celia go. He knew that she would not go for him, not now. He had changed dramatically since the last time she had seen him, and he still had to compete for her attention with John. He was a mess emotionally, and his drug habit was spinning out of control. He finally let his past with Chimera go. He thought that it would be easy to do this, but it upset him. He felt the loss of the group just as much as John, Jerome, and Celia did, but his pride would never let him show this. If Bernie were still alive, things would be much different right now, he thought.