The Turnaround (7 page)

“The Hole must wear a halter top down there, too,” said Billy. “ ’Cause she likes to allow that easy access.”

“For real,” said Pete.

Billy and Pete were still talking about Jenny Maloney. Alex wondered how long they had been discussing her. He wondered if he had blacked out.

“I know you had your fingers in it,” said Billy, setting Pete up.

“I had my
arm
in it, man,” said Pete. “In the stairwell up at the HoJo hotel? Her parents were giving her a sweet sixteen party and shit. While they were passing out party favors, me and Jenny were up there on the landing, making out, and she put one foot up on this step and took my hand and kinda guided it up there. I didn’t need no petroleum jelly, either, no lie. . . .”

As Pete went on, Alex Pappas tuned him out. Billy and Pete always sat together up front, and at some point when they were partying, they forgot he was in the car. He didn’t mind. The things they said when they were high, he had heard them all before. Pete, elbow deep in Jenny Maloney’s pussy at her sweet sixteen party, in the stairwell of the HoJo hotel up in Wheaton while her parents passed out birthday hats in the rented room . . . no shit, he knew it by heart.

Alex looked out the window. The world outside was tilted a bit and moving, and he blinked to stop the spin. He could feel the sweat dripping down his chest under his T. They were at the red light at the Boulevard. They were in the middle lane, which meant straight only. He had never been “over there” to Heathrow Heights, and as far as he knew, neither had his friends. He vaguely wondered why Billy was in this lane. He remembered the conversation between Billy and Pete the night before, and he thought:
Now Billy is going to show us that he is not afraid.

PGC was playing “Rocket Man.” The song reminded Alex of his girlfriend, Karen. Karen lived on a street called Lovejoy. Billy called the street “Lovejew” because the neighborhood was heavy with the Tribe. In the spring, Alex and Karen had cut school and gone out to Great Falls in Karen’s eggplant-colored Valiant. They swam in a natural pool and drank warm Buds, sunning themselves on the rocks. On the way home, Karen let Alex drive her car. “Rocket Man” was on the radio, and Karen sat beside him smoking a cigarette, shivering in her bikini top and damp jeans, tapping ash into the tray as she sang along to the song and sometimes smiled at him with strands of black hair stuck to her face. Karen’s cold father and hateful stepmother made him want to protect her. He pondered if this was what it meant to love someone and he guessed that he did love Karen. He thought,
I should be with her right now.

“What are we gonna do when we get in there?” said Pete.

“Just fuck with ’em,” said Billy. “Raise a little hell.”

Alex wanted to say, “Let me out here.” But his friends would call him a pussy and a faggot if he did.

Alex looked through the windshield as Billy caught the green.

They were crossing the Boulevard and then they were across it, going down an incline along the railroad tracks and past a bridge that spanned the tracks and then down into a neighborhood of ramshackle homes and cars that said poor. There were three young black guys grouped on the sidewalk ahead, in front of what looked like a country store. Two of the guys were shirtless and one of them wore a white T-shirt that had numbers written on it in Magic Marker. Alex noticed that one of the shirtless ones had a scar on his face. Pete and Billy were rolling down their windows.

“You ever been back here, for real?” said Pete. Alex could hear excitement and a catch in Pete’s voice. Pete was rooting through the paper bag at his feet and coming up with one of the Hostess cherry pies in his hand. He tore the wrapper off the pie.

“Nah,” said Billy, who was looking at the group of black guys, now eye-fucking them as they approached. They were thin, flat of chest and stomach, broad shouldered, and muscled out in the arms.

“You know how to get out of here, right?” said Pete.

“
Drive
outta here,” said Billy, switching off the radio. “I got the wheel. You just do your thing.”

“Why you goin so slow?”

“So you don’t miss.”

“I’m not gonna fuckin miss.”

“Billy,” said Alex. His voice was soft, and neither Billy nor Pete turned his head.

And now the Torino was
there,
and the young men were stepping slowly to the car as it pulled alongside them. Billy’s face was stretched tight. He leaned toward the passenger window and yelled, “Eat this, you fuckin niggers!” and Pete backhand-tossed the cherry pie. It glanced off the scar-faced, shirtless young man, and Pete ducked to avoid his punch, thrown through the open window. Billy floored it, cackling with laughter, and the Ford left rubber on the street as it fishtailed and straightened and headed down the road. Alex felt the color drain from his face.

They heard the angry calls of the young men behind them. They passed more houses and an intersection and then a very old church, and down at the end of the road they saw a striped barrier erected by the county and behind it, beside the railroad tracks, thick woods and vines in full summer green.

“It’s a turnaround,” said Alex, as if in wonder.

“The hell it is,” said Billy. “It’s a dead end.”

Billy put the Ford through a three-point maneuver, slamming the automatic shifter into reverse, then into drive, and headed back up the street. The young men were standing in the road, not moving toward them, not yelling anymore. The shirtless one who had been hit by the pie looked to be smiling.

Billy tore his bandanna off his head, letting his black hair fall free. He turned left at the intersection, and the tires cried as they passed more houses in disrepair and an old black lady walking a small dog, then they came to a T in the road and all looked right and left. On the right, the road became a circle. On the left, the road ended with another striped barrier bordering woods. All of them pondered their stupidity and bad luck, and no one said a word.

Billy turned the car around and drove back to the main road. He stopped at the intersection and looked left. Two of the young men were spread out in the middle of the road, spaced so the Ford could not pass through. The other had taken a position on the sidewalk. An older black woman with eyeglasses had appeared and was standing on the porch of the country market.

Pete touched the handle of the door.

“Pete,” said Billy.

“
Fuck
this,” said Pete. He opened the door, leaped out, closed the door behind him, and took off. He ran toward the woods at the end of the street, the soles of his three-stripes kicking up as he slashed left and hit the railroad tracks without breaking stride.

Alex felt betrayal and envy churn inside him as he watched Pete vanish behind the tree line. Alex wanted to book, too, but he could not. It wasn’t just loyalty to Billy. It was the suspicion that he would not make it to the woods. He was not as fast as Pete. They’d catch up to him, and the fact that he had run would only make it worse. Maybe Billy could talk them out of this. Billy could just apologize, and the ones in the street would see that what they’d done was nothing more than a stupid prank.

“I can’t leave my dad’s car,” said Billy very quietly. He hit the gas and went back up the road, the way they’d come in.

She is my parents’ age,
thought Alex, looking at the older woman wearing eyeglasses who stood on the porch in front of the store.
She will stop this.
His heart dropped as he watched her turn and walk into the market.

Billy stopped the Torino and locked the shifter into park about fifty feet from the young men. He stepped out of the car, leaving the door open. Alex watched him walk toward the young men, who gathered around him in the street. He heard Billy’s amiable voice say, “Can’t we work this out?” He saw Billy’s hands go up, as if in surrender. A lightning right came forward from one of the shirtless young men, and Billy’s head snapped back. He stumbled and put a hand to his mouth. When he lowered his hand there was blood on it, and Billy spit blood and saliva to the ground.

“You knocked my teeth out,” said Billy. “You satisfied?”

Billy turned and pointed at Alex, still seated in the backseat of the Torino.

“Take off!” shouted Billy, blood and anguish on his face.

Alex pushed the driver’s seat forward and got out of the car. His feet hit the asphalt lightly, and he turned. He was grabbed from behind and thrown forward, and he tripped and went down on all fours. He heard footsteps behind him and was lifted off his knees by a fierce kick in his groin. The air left his lungs in a rush. When he caught his breath, he puked beer and bile. He panted furiously, watching his vomit steaming on the asphalt before him. He rolled onto his side and closed his eyes.

When Alex’s eyes opened, he saw a foot rushing toward his face, and it hit him like a hammer.

“Shoot that motherfucker!”

“Nah.”

“Shoot him!”

“Nah, man, nah . . .”

“Do it!”

Another blow came down on Alex, and something was crushed. It felt as if one of his eyes had been loosened and sprung.

My face is broken. Dad . . .

A shot echoed out into the streets of Heathrow Heights.

PART TWO

Five

I
T WAS still called Pappas and Sons Coffee Shop, as it had been for over forty years. The sign had been replaced by a new one that was exactly like the original, the words in block letters, a drawing of a cup and saucer, the letter
P
elegantly displayed in script on the cup’s side, steam rising off its surface. “Pappas” twice the size of “and Sons.” A refurbishment of the old one had been attempted, but the sign could not be saved. Its black lettering had faded, its pearl gray background irreversibly yellowed by time.

Inside, a man stood behind the counter, a pen lodged behind his ear. He was of medium height and build, with barber-cut hair, graying temples swept back, black and curly on top. His stomach was flat, and he had a good chest. Both of these things he maintained by watching his diet and through regular visits to the YMCA. For a man his age, he looked good.

Handsome, some would say, but only in profile. What ruined him was the eye. The right one, which drooped severely at its outer corner, bordered by a wormy scar, the best the doctors could do after two reconstructive surgeries. It could have been worse, considering that the socket had been crushed. The vision in that eye was blurry at best, but he had gotten used to it, refusing to wear glasses or contacts except when he was under the wheel of a car. His penance, was how he thought of it. And the physical part of it, his mark.

He doubled a clean apron over and tied it around his waist. He noted with satisfaction that the urns were full and hot. He looked up at the Coca-Cola clock on the wall. All the deliveries had arrived, and he was ready to open with a half hour to spare. The help would be dribbling in shortly, well in advance of seven, this crew being responsible and dependable, almost always on time.

Beneath the clock was a two-top that had replaced the cigarette machine. No ashtrays on the counter, no cigarettes for sale, no
Daily News
or
Washington Star
s stacked atop the D.C. Vending machine. Other than that, the coffee shop looked pretty much the same as it had when his father had opened it in the ’60s. The original equipment had been repaired rather than replaced. The Motorola radio, now inoperable, still sat on the shelf. The cylindrical lamps, which John Pappas had installed with his older son one Saturday afternoon long ago, still hung over the counter.

Not that the store looked old. New tiles were installed in the drop ceiling whenever they became stained. Alex insisted that the floors and countertops be spick-and-span come closing time, and he applied a fresh coat of paint to the walls every year. Blue and white, like the colors of the Greek flag. So it looked, basically, as it had always looked. Most important, it stayed clean, the hallmark of a good eating establishment. If his father were to walk in now, he would take note of the reflection off the stainless-steel ice machine, the shine of the freshly wiped counter, the spotless sandwich board, the clear glass of the pie case, the grill bricked free of grease. He would nod his head with contentment, his deep brown eyes readable only to his son, and say, “Bravo.
Eeneh katharaw.
”

Alex Pappas had changed the menu many times over the years, but this was something his father would have done as well. He would have adapted. The Asians and college-educated Greeks had opened pay-by-the-ounce salad bar establishments, which had worked for several years and then largely faded away, victimized by bland product, overpricing, and overexpansion. When those places had been popular, Alex retreated from his burger-and-fries, steak-and-cheese staples and added chicken filet sandwiches, lean-cut corned beef and pastrami, salads, and hearty soups. He served diner-quality breakfasts: eggs prepared to order, center-cut bacon, link sausages, scrapple, and grits and half smokes for the true locals. He held his coffee charge at fifty cents a cup, with free refills if consumed in house, and this became his signature. Served the coffee in cups with the custom
P
on the side, just like the one on the sign. Human contact, the personal touch. This was what kept him in business. Try to get that at Starbucks, or the Lunch Stop, or from any of the
Keenezee-
owned establishments. The Asians knew how to run an efficient operation, and they were workhorses, but they couldn’t make meaningful eye contact with their customers to save their lives. Alex knew most of his customers’ names and their tastes. With many of them, he had their orders written on the guest check pad before the words came out of their mouths.

It was the chains and their patrons that were killing him. The young people were like robots; they only walked into eating establishments whose names they recognized from the suburbs and town centers where they’d grown up. Panera. Potbelly. Chipotle. And those weren’t nearly as wretched as the McDonald’s and Taco Bells of the world, which Alex could not even bring himself to discuss. They served dogshit. No wonder America was fat. Et cetera.