Brooklyn Story (13 page)

“I don' like the kinda guy that'll keep ya out all hours.” Maybe she had heard me come in late the night I went to Platinum, I thought. “I know the type,” Mom droned, “drinkin', whorin', and pickin' fights with everybody, especially his girlfriend.” I bit my lip and thought about my father, and about the constant arguments and sometimes fights Mom had with her transient male suitors. And about the fights she herself picked all the time with the married man with three kids she had dated on and off since I was four years old. I'm headed for a different life, I said to myself. “Tony's not that kind of guy, Mom. He's real considerate.”

“Says you,” Mom said. “I won' have ya latchin' onta jus' any man who comes along.”

“We just started goin' out, for Chrissakes.”

“Watch your mouth!” Mom chastised. I said nothing, and Mom kept up her diatribe. “Before ya know it, ya won' know which end is up.” The voice of experience, I thought. Mom met my father at eighteen, was pregnant with me by nineteen, and was divorced a year later. That was her experience; it wouldn't be mine, I vowed. Tony was different. She'd see, I was sure. And I wouldn't throw it in her face when the happiness that had eluded her was mine. “You don't know him, Mom,” I said.

“And you do?”

“Yes.”

“After one week.”

“I just know,” I said. Mom didn't respond, and I just knew something else. She'd be reaching for her wineglass. I decided to take my time preparing dinner.

Half an hour later, the pasta and broccoli with oil and garlic were just about done. “Dinner's ready,” I called out as I emptied the pot into a strainer, but Mom didn't acknowledge my announcement and there was no sound from the living room. I mixed all the ingredients in a large, hand-painted serving bowl that we had gotten from Dominick's Italian import store on
Eighteenth Avenue. I set it on the table and then went to the doorway.

Mom was slumped on the couch, her head tilted all the way back on the rear cushion, and her breaths were low and irregular. Mom's arms were splayed beside her and the stem of the empty wineglass rested on an open palm.

It's not just the wine, I said to myself as I turned around and slipped into the kitchen. I filled a serving bowl and brought it to my room, where I would think about Tony and write while I waited for his call.

It never came that night.

I hadn't heard from him by Wednesday, so I decided to accept an invitation from a few of my classmates to go to Outer Skates after school. I was never interested in the silliness that was often exhibited by the girls who were my age and the clumsy attentions of the boys who followed them around like puppies. But I didn't have a lot of homework that day and was grateful to have something to do that would keep me away from home and away from my thoughts about Tony for a while.

It turned out that I had a better time than I had anticipated. The girls didn't engage in any petty gossip and the boys sprang for our skate rentals as usual and behaved themselves. We were having harmless fun and I felt a little guilty about the way I often thought about my contemporaries. Maybe I should give them more of a chance, I thought.

Nick, who had gotten skates for me, was a perfect gentleman who seemed to enjoy my company. We skated side by side in our group, which circled the polished wood floor, and talked casually across the railing when I took a break on the carpet that surrounded the rink. He appeared to be a nice guy. We skated to the Bee Gees. It was so thrilling.

I felt like a real girl and I could tell Nick was being extra nice to me.

We shared some innocent opinions and observations and I was pleasantly surprised by his honesty and intelligence. I giggled when he made fun of how Brooklyn Boys, himself included, behaved, preening themselves and strutting like cocks of the walk. Perhaps he deserved more of my time, I thought, and lost myself in our interplay for half an hour.

That was until Tony came.

“Who the fuck da ya think ya are?” Tony roared as he bumped me and grabbed Nick's shirt with both hands, raising him on the toes of his skates. “What the fuck are ya doin' with my girl?” he asked, eyes opened wide and saliva collecting at the corners of his mouth. My eyes were wide open, too, as was my mouth. But it was bone dry. I couldn't speak.

“Nuh … nuh … nu … thin',” Nick panted. Tony tightened his grip and pulled Nick closer.

“Duzzin't look like nuttin' ta me,” Tony growled. Skaters slowed their pace around the rink and glided erect, with hands lightly clasped behind their backs, while keeping an eye on the scene. Patrons on benches nearby stopped whatever it was they were doing. Nick trembled.

“We wuz just talkin', Tone,” I managed to say. Tony glared at me and then leaned toward Nick. “I see ya with her again, I'll break your face.”

“I … swear … I didn't … know,” Nick said.

“Now ya do,” Tony said, and he thrust his arms forward, sending Nick flying. His legs pumped frantically to and fro as he tried to gain his balance, but it was futile. His skates came out from under him and he crashed on his back to the wood floor. No one moved as he moaned and rolled onto an elbow, head down.

Tony flexed his shoulders, put his hands on his hips, and smirked while eyeing the scene beneath him. “Get those fuckin' skates off and wait for me outside,” he said without looking at me, and then headed toward the manager's office.

I made my way to a bench, changed my shoes in a hurry, and headed to the exit without making eye contact with anyone. I glanced back and saw Nick's buddies escorting him off the rink.

Tony's bike was on the sidewalk right outside the door. I considered leaving but stood next to it with my hands below my waist, holding the straps of my bag, and my head lowered. I didn't know what to think.

Tony strode out of the rink a couple of minutes later and lifted my chin with a finger. “I told ya not ta go hangin' around with friends,” he said, and then gave me a peck on my lips.

I looked away. “Jeez, Tone, it was only skating,” I said.

“That's how trouble starts.”

I faced him. “There wasn't any trouble until you showed up.”

He placed his hands on my shoulders and looked at me. “Are ya my girl, or ain't ya?” I hesitated, captivated once more by those damned azure eyes.

“I guess,” I said as I looked down.

“What's that supposed ta mean?”

“I didn't hear from you for days, so I went out.”

Tony crossed his arms. “Are ya or ain't ya? I gotta know.”

I looked into his eyes again for a long moment. “Yes.”

“Okay then,” he said. “I want ya home soze I know where ta find ya.”

“You didn't seem to have any trouble locating me.”

“I told ya, I know people.” He didn't have to tell me. I had seen it everywhere we had been together, at the feast, at Platinum, and at the movies, where an usher waved us in without our paying. Tony smiled and put an arm around my waist. “Now hop on. I'm takin' ya shoppin'.” He swung a leg over the seat and I climbed behind him. “But I gotta make a quick stop first,” Tony said as the bike roared to life.

Having been initiated previously, I was more comfortable on the motorcycle as Tony sped along the streets. I was
also glad that we couldn't talk for a while; I wanted to put the incident behind me and collect myself. I felt real bad about what had happened to Nick and vowed that I wouldn't give any other guy an opening that would lead to harm. After a few minutes, the cool, stiff wind in my face blew my thoughts away and I was able to just enjoy the exhilarating ride until Tony pulled up in front of Café Sicily and shut the engine off. “Wait here,” he said as he got off the bike. “I gotta see someone about sumthin'.”

I remained straddled on the bike and crossed my arms. There was nothing else to do while I waited except think, and my vacant mind was soon filled with thoughts. Everyone knew Café Sicily was Tino Priganti's place, so it wasn't a stretch to figure Tony was meeting him or his son Vin there. That took care of the “someone” part of Tony's statement. The “sumthin'” part was another matter. It could be legitimate, I thought. Maybe it had to do with the construction union that Tony and his pals were part of. A moment later, when I took note of the two rotund men in black suits and slicked-black hair who were leaning against the tan stucco wall fifteen feet away, smoking cigarettes and taking turns talking into each other's ear, I started to think otherwise. When two more dark-suited, swarthy men with weathered, pockmarked faces got out of a Cadillac and entered the restaurant through its smoked-glass doors, I concluded Tony's meeting must have had something to do with the radio “business” he talked about at Platinum. And I thought about that next.

I figured if I were to go on with Tony, I would have to reconcile that with what he and his cohorts did that was outside of the law. His “business” probably included more than radios whose origin was suspect. I wrestled with what that meant—about Tony and about us. I didn't get a thrill like a lot of Bensonhurst girls did from being around hot merchandise and the men who trafficked in it. And I didn't necessarily approve of
such low-level crime. But I came down on the side that Tony was just a product of his environment and of an upbringing that might have been more deficient than my own. At least I had Grandma to keep me motivated in the right direction, I thought. Neither of his parents had struck me as a winner and maybe Tony had no one. I felt that as long as he kept his “business” on the lower end of the crime spectrum, limited to the kinds of vices that almost everyone in Bensonhurst either ignored or participated in in some way, then I guessed I could live with it. And maybe when I got across that bridge I would, indeed, show Tony another way to rise above the Brooklyn streets.

To me, it always came back to the struggle to make something of oneself, and I was sure Tony felt the same. It was just that he was going about it another way, and who was I to judge? He was young, strong—not to mention gorgeous—and deserved a better life, too, and he was entitled to make his own decisions about how to get it. He had his faults, his rough edges, such as I witnessed that day, but upon reflection, I felt those would be overcome when he achieved the success he sought. Just as Nick would overcome his hurt pride, the only real injury he had suffered.

The two overweight men in dark suits had shot me a look once or twice as I sat atop the Harley but otherwise ignored me. I felt safe with them around. Protecting women and staying away from another Brooklyn Boy's girl was part of the Italian code that governed Bensonhurst. It might've been overdone at times, but the territoriality that such men exhibited struck me as quaint. A girl, particularly one with not much to her name, couldn't help being flattered by it, even though it might shock her from time to time.

I glanced at the smoked-glass doors that reflected the late-afternoon sunlight. I couldn't help thinking that all of us in Bensonhurst were a reflection of the neighborhood in one way
or another. The nerds symbolized the buildings and social fabric that had been the same for generations; the wannabes stood for the striving that every immigrant group brought with them to America; the mobsters, despite their ways, represented the independent attitude that was required if one refused to be under someone else's thumb.

And what about me? I wondered then. What did I reflect? A little bit of everything, I concluded. Grandma had instilled tradition and propriety in me that I still respected, I strove to belong—not to the local crowd, but to another group that lived in the real world in Manhattan—and I sure as hell was independent, albeit in a different way than the mobsters were. So maybe I hadn't given Bensonhurst enough credit, I thought, just as I had thought earlier that I hadn't given my classmates enough of a chance. Maybe it's all part of growing up, I reasoned, just as having a real relationship was.

I glanced again at the restaurant doors. I couldn't wait for Tony to come out. The truth was, after I hadn't seen him for three days, my body tingled at the prospect of spending the rest of the evening with him. My heart skipped a beat when I saw him burst through the entrance.

I frowned when Tony neared and I saw his narrowed eyes and tight lips. He mounted the Harley without saying a word and I saw his biceps tense as he squeezed the handles with his powerful hands. He hesitated a moment. “Fuckin' bullshit,” he said as he slammed a fist on the handlebars. The two men outside who had watched Tony when he came out smiled before turning away. Tony flexed his shoulders a couple of times before he turned the ignition key. The engine roared to life. I wrapped my arms around his waist and rested my chin on his shoulder.

“You all right?” I asked. Tony turned his head toward me.

“Yeah. I just didn't get everything I came for and then they stuck me with some more shit.” I squeezed his midsection. “Let's get the hell outta here,” he said, and we sped off.

My eyes widened and my heart raced when Tony pulled up to Sugar, took my hand, and led me to the door of the shoe store that I had never dared to enter. The prices on the imported Italian shoes were so exorbitant that I knew I couldn't afford even the least expensive pair. And I knew that if I went into the place I would have to try on a few pairs, would fall in love with all of them, and then would suffer the disappointment and embarrassment of walking out without buying anything. So why bother? I had resigned myself to the vicarious enjoyment, accompanied by a touch of envy, of seeing the kick-ass heels on Janice and the other girls whose boyfriends or parents favored them with such an extravagance.

“Summer Breeze” by Seals and Crofts played in the background as we entered, and Stella Mangioni, the striking woman who owned the store, came over to Tony. Her straight, thick, black hair with a cut that angled back from below her chin framed her face. There wasn't a strand out of place. Stella's lilac jumpsuit clung to her body as if it had been painted on, it was unzipped far enough to expose her ample cleavage, and its tight belt accentuated her nonexistent waist. She didn't need the heavy makeup she had on her face, I thought. She wore the four-inch black pumps with thin straps that were featured in the display window as the newest arrival.