Tony Partly Cloudy (11 page)

Within two bites, Tony was permanently inoculated against ever again ordering a pizza outside of New York City. Ever.

“
Madonn
’!” he said, reaching for his Coke to wash the foul taste from his mouth. “How the hell do you screw up a pizza?”

Tony realized that he had spoken louder than he had intended when the clerk behind the counter, a wispy man with a ring in his left nostril and a perpetual sneer on his lips, said, “I’m assuming that’s a rhetorical question?”

Tony said, “Yeah, whatever,” and got up to leave. He turned to the clerk and said, “Hey, where can a guy get a beer around here?”

The clerk’s snide expression miraculously melted into a smile. “Right next door,” he said, gesturing to the left.

“Thanks,” Tony said, dropping the remainder of his meal in a garbage can by the door.

“Glad to help,” the clerk said, with a slight giggle.

Sure enough, next door was a bar called Minnelli’s. Great, Tony thought, an Italian joint. He walked in and found a seat at the bar, his eyes slowly adjusting to the gloom.

“What can I do you for?” asked the bartender, a thin man with a shaved head and half a dozen earrings in each ear. He wore tight black jeans, combat boots, a black leather vest, and nothing else.

“A beer,” Tony said. “No wait – how about something more, you know, tropical?”

“Take your pick,” the bartender said. “How about a piña colada? A rum runner? Or maybe a margarita?”

“Yeah!” said Tony. “A margarita – that sounds great.”

“Frozen or on the rocks?”

“Man, as hot as it is, I think frozen.”

As the bartender worked on his drink, Tony began to look around, his eyes finally acclimating to the dim lighting. The first thing he noticed was that there were no women in the bar. Then he noticed that the men in the bar didn’t seem to mind. Particularly the two men who were slow dancing next to a pool table. Whirling around, Tony saw that the two men seated next to him were holding hands.

“Whoa,” he said involuntarily.

Just then the bartender returned, carrying a huge goblet filled with a pale green slushy fluid. The bartender smiled, comprehending. “Are you thinking you might like that drink in a to-go cup?”

Attempting to regain his composure, Tony grabbed the drink and took a healthy swallow. Then his eyes grew wide.

He put the glass back down and said, “This is freakin’ great. I mean, seriously, this is probably the best drink I ever had.”

The bartender beamed. “It’s my own private recipe. I’d tell you, but then—”

“Then you’d have to kill me?” Tony said. They both laughed. Then Tony’s face grew serious.

The bartender said, “So, about that to-go cup?”

Tony looked at him, then at the drink, then around the room. “This to-go cup,” he said, “it wouldn’t have the nice salt around the rim like this glass does, would it?”

The bartender shook his head.

Tony said, “I’m not kidding you – this is one amazing drink. I mean, it’s freakin’ perfect. And it’s really hitting the spot, you know?”

The bartended nodded.

“So I’m wondering,” Tony said, “if I was to stay here, you know, just to finish the drink – would that be a problem for anybody here?”

“It’s not a problem for us,” the bartender said. “But is it a problem for you?”

“No,” Tony said quickly. “I mean, as long as it’s no big deal to anybody, and nobody tries to bust my ba— ... I mean, nobody gives me any grief or nothing.”

“This is a grief-free establishment,” the bartender said. “You’re welcome to stay.”

“Okay then,” Tony said, reaching for his drink. “If it’s cool, I’ll stay and finish this.”

“Super. Let me know if you need a refill.” The bartender went off to serve his other customers, leaving Tony at peace with his margarita. Several minutes later, the bartender came back to check on him. Already feeling the effects of the drink, Tony fell into a pleasant conversation with the man. At one point, Tony started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” the bartender asked, smiling.

“Aw, nothing,” Tony said, staring into his drink. “This whole situation is funny. I mean – here I am, my first day in Key West, and the very first bar I walk into is a gay bar!” Tony looked up, quickly adding, “No offense.”

“None taken.”

Tony laughed again. “I mean, what are the odds?”

At this the bartender laughed too, much louder than Tony had expected.

Later, Tony resisted the temptation to order another margarita. He said goodnight to the bartender, who was named Teddy. “Thanks for everything,” Tony said. “I appreciate the hospitality. I mean, no offense, but so far some of the people I’ve met down here have been a little weird.”

Teddy chuckled. “Honey, you don’t know the half of it.”

Tony smiled and left, and was halfway up the street before he realized he had let a grown man call him
honey
. Good thing nobody in the Partly Cloudy Poker Club had been there to see that happen, he thought – they’d never let me live it down.

THE NEXT DAY TONY HANDED AN ADDRESS scrawled on a slip of paper to a cab driver, and was surprised when the cabbie drove him back to the tiny airport where Tony had landed the day before.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Tony asked the cabbie.

“It’s what you’ve got written on that paper,” the man said. “Would’ve been simpler to just say
dude, take me to the airport
, but hey, what do I care?” Although this wasn’t the same man who had driven Tony the day before, he seemed to share his vocabulary and IQ.

“But I’m looking for the NWS,” Tony said. “I mean, the National Weather Service. I’d figure it would be some huge building, probably real modern-looking.”

The cabbie shrugged. “I don’t know, man. This is the address you gave me. You might try upstairs in the terminal.”

Sure enough, the Key West Forecast Office of the National Weather Service was in the airport, on the second floor of the terminal building. Once he located its entrance, Tony found a men’s room and stepped inside, to check his appearance one last time. Eager to make a good impression, he had ironed his suit that morning and retied his necktie four times to get it just right.

Briefcase in hand, he walked into the NWS office at nine o’clock on the nose, taking a lesson in punctuality from Jimmy Carbone.

The first person he saw was a skinny bespectacled man in his late twenties, wearing baggy shorts, a Nirvana t-shirt, and what Tony thought of as shower thongs, which he soon learned were locally called flip-flops.

The man broke into a grin and walked toward him, saying, “Jake! My man! Where’s Elwood?”

Tony stared at him, baffled.

The man slapped him on the upper arm. “You know – the Blues Brothers? Come on – you must get that a lot, right? I mean, you’re a dead ringer for Jake in that suit. Or is it Elwood? I don’t know – whichever one Belushi played.”

Tony started to say something, but the man interrupted. “But you’d need a hat to really nail the look, you know? Yeah, one of those fedoras, like what Bogart used to wear. Oh, and definitely some sunglasses.”

Recovering from the initial shock of his reception, Tony regained his composure, waiting for the man to stop talking long enough for Tony to say something. Sensing an opening, he said, “Excuse me, maybe you can help me. I’m looking for Mr. Culbertson.”

Seeing that his Blues Brothers riff was running dry, the man said, “Ryan? Oh, okay, I’ll go get him.” With that he turned and walked away. He stopped at a doorway and looked over his shoulder. “Oh – who are you? You know, so I can tell Ryan who’s here to see him.”

“My name is Tony Bartolicotti – I think he’s expecting me. At least, I hope he is.”

“Get out of here!” The man walked toward Tony, extending his hand. “You’re the new guy? You’re Tony, from what – New York?” He shook Tony’s hand, laughing. “Hell, I thought you were FBI or something.”

At this, Tony laughed. It would mark the one time in recorded history that anybody would mistake a member of Tony’s family for a Fed.

“I’m Travis,” the man said. “I’ll be working with you. I’ll take you to Ryan.” Travis took off toward the doorway again, beckoning for Tony to follow.

“So, what’s with the suit?” Travis asked.

“Oh, you know – first day on the job, trying to make a good impression and all.”

Travis laughed. “Well, this will probably be the last time you’ll wear that suit for a while. Unless there’s a funeral or something.”

Leading Tony down a hallway, Travis stopped in front of a door with the name
Thad MacGregor
etched on the upper glass panel. “This is Ryan’s office,” Travis said. Seeing Tony eyeing the name on the door, Travis said, “Oh, MacGregor was the last guy who ran this place. He’s been gone five or six years – way before my time. One of these days we’ll get around to changing the name on the door.”

Without knocking, Travis pulled the door open. Inside the tiny office, a middle-aged man with thick glasses and unruly gray hair sat behind a battered desk. The desk was entirely covered by a map of the Atlantic coastline, held in place by a large antique brass barometer.

“Ryan,” Travis said, “this is the new guy, er, Tony whatchamacallit, from New York. Check out the suit.” Travis was all smiles, but the man he called Ryan looked as if he’d just been diagnosed with something terminal.

“Tony Bartolicotti?” the man asked.

“Uh, yes sir, I—”

“Where the hell have you been?”

Surprised by the first words Tony had heard spoken in Key West that weren’t drenched in Jimmy Buffett mellowness, Tony stammered, “Well, I – I mean, you said to be here first thing in the morning. So I figured that meant nine—”

“You think weather doesn’t start happening until nine o’clock?” the man asked. “Is that how weather works in New York City?”

“Well, no, but—”

“The first thing you’ll learn working for the NWS,
Mister Bartolicotti
, is that morning starts at sunrise. Is that understood?”

“Uh, yes. Yes,
sir
. I’m really sorry. If I had known—”

But the man was waving his hand dismissively, spinning around in his chair until his back was to them. Tony watched in amazement as the man bent over in his chair, his body beginning to shake. Jesus, was the guy having a stroke or something?

Abruptly the man spun back around, laughing so hard his eyes were watering. “I’m sorry, Trav,” he said. “I couldn’t keep it up any longer.” Tony whirled to find Travis behind him, laughing just as hard.

Tony turned to face Ryan. “What the—”

“Tony, I’m just joking,” Ryan said. “I saw the suit and just couldn’t resist the temptation to wind up the new guy.” He stood, holding out his hand. “I’m Ryan Culbertson. Call me
sir
again and you’re fired.”

Tony shook his hand, laughing. “God, that’s a relief. I thought I totally screwed up, before I even got started.”

Ryan laughed. “Nah, you’re cool. But lose the suit, okay? I mean, we’ve got an image to maintain here, you know? I don’t know what the hell that image is, but it sure as hell isn’t the undertaker look.”

Tony blushed. So far today he’d been a Blues Brother, a Fed, and an undertaker. Oh well, at least nobody had called him a hit man. Yet.

Tony said, “I can go home, er, back to the motel to change if you want.”

Ryan shook his head. “It’s no big deal – don’t worry about it. But don’t be surprised if you get some ribbing.”

“That’s not a problem,” Tony said, reflecting that three years of the Partly Cloudy Poker Club had given him a pretty thick skin. Relaxing a bit, he leaned one hand on the wooden door frame.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Ryan said. “Particularly a guy your size.”

Tony’s eyebrows narrowed, suspecting yet another joke. Then Travis tapped his hand, trying to brush it away from the door frame.

“Termites,” Travis said. “We got ‘em bad here. I wouldn’t lean your weight against anything here if I were you – you might go straight through the wall.”

Tony looked at Ryan, waiting for the punch line. But Ryan just nodded and said, “No joke, Tony. Welcome to the glamorous world of publicly funded meteorology.” Ryan stood up. “Now let me show you our humble operation.” Tony followed Ryan as he stepped into the hallway, trailed by Travis.

Without warning, Ryan stopped and bellowed, “Listen up!” Several heads poked out of doorways on either side.

Trimming his volume by a few decibels, Ryan said, “Everybody, this is Tony Bartolicotti.” Turning to Tony with a mischievous look, Ryan continued, “Or, as I’ve learned his meteorology classmates at Kean University liked to call him, Tony Partly Cloudy.”

Tony scanned Ryan’s face for malice, but saw none, and he soon joined in with the laughter that greeted his introduction.

Tony spent the next few hours meeting his coworkers and getting acclimated. The facility was nothing like he’d expected: it was cramped and shabby, with buckets strategically placed on the floor for when the roof leaked. Apparently the resident termites considered NWS roofing materials a delicacy.

Still, it was the National Freaking Weather Service. Sure, the carpet was threadbare, the chairs cheap and rickety, and the furniture was all due for a trip to the thrift store. But the
toys
... Machines, monitors, instruments he’d only read about were set up everywhere, loaded into racks, crowded onto tables and desks. It was wonderful.

“I’ve died and gone to heaven,” was all Tony could say.

“Yeah, that’s what most newbies say,” Ryan said, chuckling. “And hey, some of this stuff actually
works
!”

After a brief lunch break, Ryan handed Tony a list of several apartments and rooms available to rent, and told him to spend the rest of the day looking for a place to stay. “All of these are places you can probably afford, and most of them are owned by people that somebody here has dealt with before. That should save you some time. Some of the rents here can get pretty outrageous, unless you know where to look. But having a steady job like this will help you get into a place. Most of these landlords have been burned in the past, so they’ll be glad to see somebody with this kind of job. They know we don’t hire flakes.”

Looking at Travis, who had been hovering near Tony all day, Ryan said, “Present company excluded.” If Travis was offended, he didn’t show it. Like Tony’s cab driver from the day before, Travis seemed the sort who didn’t know
how
to get angry. Maybe it was a Key West thing.

Tony rented a car, and began his hunt for a place to live. The first apartment on the list was no longer available, it turned out. The second, which was just a cramped bedroom in a large old house, was crawling with what looked like cockroaches on steroids. The things were three inches long on the average, and looked like they must feed on dogs and small cattle.

“Oh, those,” the owner of the property said. “Those are palmetto bugs. They’re everywhere. You’re not going to find a place that doesn’t have them.” Tony thought back to the NWS office, and to his hotel room, neither of which were similarly infested, and thanked the landlord, preparing to leave.

At the doorstep, a particularly menacing palmetto bug strolled defiantly across Tony’s path. Tony raised his foot to squash the intruder, but the landlord hastily touched his arm to stop him. “Oh, you don’t want to step on them,” the man said. “It only makes them mad.”

Duly warned, Tony stepped gingerly over the six-legged mutant, and thanked the landlord again for his time.

The third prospect was another room in a larger old house, but this one was furnished, and had a private entrance and bathroom. And even better, it seemed to be free of roaches or palmettos or whatever they called those Volkswagens with legs. The two men who gave Tony what they called “the grand tour” were both middle aged, thin, and dressed similarly in Hawaiian shirts and extremely short pants.

“Love the suit,” one of them said, reaching out to feel Tony’s lapel. “It’s so nice to see a young man eschewing polyester, don’t you think, Martin?”

Tony wasn’t sure what eschewing was, but the way these two were carrying on, he didn’t think he wanted to know.

“Utterly refreshing, Donny,” said the one called Martin. “And the tie is perfect.” Martin pointed at Tony’s tie, saying, “I mean, really – anybody who says they can’t tell real silk from synthetic probably thinks margarine tastes just like butter,
n’est-ce pas
?”

This drew a titter from Donny, and an uncomfortable smile from Tony, who tried to steer the conversation back on track.

“So anyways, I just started today at the NWS – I mean, the National Weather Service. So that means I got steady employment, so I won’t have a problem coming up with the rent or nothin’.”

“That’s wonderful,” Donny said. “Now, I want you to understand that we respect your privacy and expect the same in return. And we like to have a fairly quiet house, so we’re not much for loud music or wild parties.”

“Except during Fantasy Fest, of course,” Martin added.

“Martin, you silly goose. This is young Tony’s first day here – he may not know what Fantasy Fest is,” Donny said. To Tony he added, “It’s during Halloween week – you’ll love it. We always have a big house party, and you’re welcome to bring any lady friend...” Donny paused, looking Tony up and down. “Or perhaps any gentleman friend...”

Martin giggled, slapping Donny’s shoulder. “Donny, you’re so bad!” The two men stood, smiling at Tony.

Tony said, “Uh, that’s great. But it definitely wouldn’t be a gentleman friend, if you know what I’m saying. I mean, that’s
definitely
not gonna happen. Is that okay with you guys, or are you maybe looking for a... somebody else who’s maybe more into... you know...”

“Tony, you don’t need to be gay to live here,” Martin said. “We just want somebody who won’t be noisy or inconsiderate. And we offer the same courtesy in return.” Martin was smiling, but Tony also saw the honesty in his eyes.

Tony thought for a moment, then said, “What the hell? In that case, I think I’d like to live here. Is that good with you guys?”

Donny giggled again. “
Iz dat
g
ood witchoo guys
– I love the way this boy talks. It’s so New York; so Goodfellas.”