Eggplant Alley (9781593731410) (7 page)

During the bus ride to the dentist's office and in the unbearable tension of the waiting room, Nicky worked to forget all about the Becky Hubbard incident. He wondered how many days, how many years, had to pass before he would no longer see the disgust in her eyes or hear the slashing hate in her voice. He was too young to know he could awake in the middle of the night thirty years later, wincing, seeing her and hearing her.

Nicky vowed to be careful, starting right then and there. The world was divided into Us and Them. Nicky should have known Becky Hubbard was one of Them. He would not get fooled again.

As he tasted Dr. Rosenbaum's fingers in his mouth, Nicky wondered where this dentist stood. With Us or with Them?

And the nurse who handed over those frightful silver pliers. Us? Them?

When Mom paid the bill, Dr. Rosenbaum's receptionist advised them to avoid Columbus Circle if they were walking.

“There's a major demonstration going on over there now and traffic isn't moving at all,” the receptionist said. She was young and pretty. Her hair was long and straight and blond. She wore
blue eye shadow and a bright yellow dress with a crazy geometric pattern.

Nicky guessed, “Them.”

Gums throbbing, Nicky studied the old, shaky man in the waiting room. The man had a fedora in his lap. Nicky thought, “For sure, one of Us.”

Mom and Nicky walked toward the bus down quiet back streets. Mom looped her arm across Nicky's shoulder.

“I hate to see you in pain,” Mom said.

Nicky thought, “And you only know about the yanked tooth.”

Mom and Nicky passed three construction workers pouring concrete for a new stretch of sidewalk. Nicky was nuts about fresh concrete. It reminded him of cake batter. As they walked by, he watched the creamy stuff ripple out and he didn't feel a thing. Oozing concrete had lost its charm on this day. Nicky blamed Becky Hubbard for stealing his innocence.

Nicky turned away from the fresh concrete and saw two young men walking in their direction. The boys were about Roy's age. They made a lot of noise. Mom tightened her grip on Nicky's shoulder.

One of the boys was tall and slim, with bushy muttonchop sideburns. The latest hippie style. He was neatly dressed in a buttondown shirt, clean jeans, and white sneakers. He carried a sign attached to a two-by-four. A peace symbol the size of a large pizza was spray-painted, in a fuzzy purple design, onto the sign. The boy leaned the sign on his shoulder like a rifle as he walked.

The other boy was short and skinny. His wild mane of hair hung past his shoulders. This boy wore a sloppy red bandanna
around his forehead, a tie-dyed T-shirt, tattered blue jeans, and leather sandals. The two young men bounced along, grinning, talking loudly, gesturing with their hands. They acted like two boys on their way to a party.

“Them,” Nicky thought with disgust.

The young men reached Mom and Nicky. Mom clutched Nicky tighter.

The tall, neat boy waved his sign at them. The short, sloppy boy pumped his fist at them. The two boys chanted in harmony, “One, two, three, four—we don't want your goddamn war!”

“My, God,” Mom said as the boys laughed and hooted and slapped hands. Bubbling with energy, they continued on their way.

“Don't look at them,” Mom said, hurrying Nicky along.

Tools clattered, husky voices swore, and Nicky and Mom turned toward the commotion. The construction workers had seen the whole thing, and they dropped their shovels and hoes and were headed toward the two young men. The construction men, known around New York in those days as hard hats, did not look friendly.

“HEY! Hey, Tiny Tim!” one of the hard hats hollered.

The tall boy and the short boy heard the noises, saw what was happening, and tried to get going, walking faster and faster, just short of running. The hard hats swarmed down on them like linebackers.

“What do you want?” the short boy said, trying to be challenging. But the boys knew they were in trouble. You could see it in their eyes. The construction workers were twice their age. But they were thick, muscled men who labored all day outdoors, lifting heavy things. And these muscular hard hats were ticked off.

They went straight to work, “You got some goddamn fresh mouth,” one of the construction men said. Another said, “You need to learn some respect,” and he slapped the tall boy's peace sign to the sidewalk.

The boy did not think before he blurted, “Asshole.”

The construction man leered and skillfully feinted with his right fist; the boy flinched; the construction man's left fist jabbed squarely into the boy's lips. The punch was just like in the movies, except for the wet, meaty sound of the blow, the cracking of teeth, the spurt of blood, the wail of the tall young man as he crumpled to his knees, the construction worker shaking his cut knuckles.

“Let's get out of here,” Mom said. “This is terrible.”

“Yeah,” said Nicky, who in truth desperately wanted to stay and watch the two hippies get beaten by the hard hats—Them pummeled by Us.

“Mom, please walk slow. Because of my tooth.”

Two other hard hats surrounded the short, long-haired boy. The boy blubbered, “Wait, now wait …”

One construction man said, “So, get him, Bill.”

Bill clasped a large hand around the short boy's skinny throat. A sandal slipped off. The boy's long hair swung wildly. Bill growled through clenched teeth, “Hey, Tiny Tim, what do you call this? What's this supposed to mean?”

Nicky saw what was eating the hard hats. It was the boy's jeans. Sewn onto the seat of the jeans was an American flag. The flag was affixed squarely in the center of the boy's bony butt. As if the implication of this weren't enough, the American flag was upside down.

“I fought under this flag. I saw good buddies die for this flag,” Bill said in a low, angry voice.

Bill folded the boy onto the pavement. He tried to tear the flag from the pants, but the flag was sewn on tight. It didn't budge. Bill yanked hard on the flag. This merely lifted the short boy, flag still attached to his pants, off the pavement. Bill tried to shake the flag loose. His construction hat fell off and clattered on the street.

Before Mom led him around the corner, Nicky looked back. Bill had a boot planted on the boy's back and was pulling on the flag with two hands. Nicky heard a ripping sound.

“Mom,” Nicky said as they walked toward the bus. “Mrs. Furbish really scares me.”

N
icky awoke with a premonition, or maybe it was a lingering dream. Something big was coming today. He just knew it. It was more than a hunch. It was a certainty. You know the tickle you get in your nose just before a big sneeze? Nicky woke up with that kind of tickle in his soul. He sensed it.

Something big.

A change.

For the better.

“So this is what it's like to be Mrs. Furbish,” Nicky thought, dropping out of bed to face this historic Saturday.

The idea stuck in his brain like a catchy tune. At breakfast Nicky pestered Mom to turn on the radio news. She had switched off the news for good after Roy went away. Nicky thought the major development might make the radio. Maybe North Vietnam surrendered. Maybe the boiler at St. Peter's Elementary exploded and blew the place sky-high. Maybe the Yankees traded for Willie Mays.

Mom turned on the radio to the all-news station. Typewriters clacked in the background while a man read the latest bulletins. Nicky was fairly sure the typewriter noise came from a sound effects tape. The radio guy told a story about a pig that thwarted
a bank robbery in Missouri. Then came the story of an actress with a new husband, her eighth. Then came the tally of the week's Vietnam War casualties. The numbers were 217 Americans killed, 1,271 wounded, and Mom shivered in the warm kitchen. It was like hearing of a plane crash, when your loved one is up in a plane. Nicky knew Mom was thinking of 217 Roys and 217 mothers. That's the kind of person Mom was.

Mom cracked five eggs into the frying pan when she needed two. The announcer went on to say that the North Vietnamese and Vietcong dead totaled 1,566.

Nicky said, “Hey, Mom, not bad, right? We won, fifteen hundred and sixty-six to two hundred seventeen. I wish the Yankees would win like that.”

Mom switched off the radio.

“Mom, don't worry,” Nicky said. “He's a file clerk.”

Nicky gobbled two of the eggs and mashed up the other three. He was happy. He had a promise to carry into the day. A sweet little treasure in the back pocket of his brain. Something to look forward to. It was like having a Yum-E-Cakes cream pie tucked into your lunch bag, only better.

Dad walked into the kitchen, wearing his nylon jacket, jangling his keys, on his way to make Saturday deliveries.

“Got enough eggs there?” Dad said to Nicky. Then to Mom, “I'll be back around two.” He walked across the linoleum, then stopped and turned, as if an idea had popped into his head, out of nowhere.

Dad said, “Hey. Nicola—you want to come with me?”

“Who?” Nicky said, eyes wide. “Me?”

“Is there anybody else here named Nicola?”

“I'll get my coat,” Nicky said, bolting from the chair.

Nicky was going with Dad on a delivery run. This was a major development. Roy used to go with Dad in the good old days, and when Roy lost interest, Dad was hurt by the loss, and the subject of ride-along with Dad never came up again. Until today.

To tell the truth, as far as Nicky was concerned, this was better than Willie Mays joining the Yankees.

Nicky sat high, legs dangling, on the saggy passenger seat as Dad expertly steered the Yum-E-Cakes van through the narrow streets. Dad weaved around double-parked cars, dodged a jaywalking pigeon, sped up in order to catch a green light, and coasted nicely through a yellow light. Nicky proudly thought Dad would have made a fine fighter pilot, if given the chance.

“Slide open the door for some air,” Dad suggested.

“Are you sure?” Nicky said. “I might fall out.”

“Don't worry about it. Roy never fell out.”

Nicky grunted as he slid back the rusting door and was hit by a rushing blast of warm air, exhaust fumes, and the sounds of passing car radios. The sensation was thrilling.

Their first stop was the DeSerpico Bros. distribution warehouse in the South Bronx. When they passed the bright white hulk of Yankee Stadium, Nicky gawked and felt a surge of longing and excitement.

“Dad, think we could go to a game this year?”

“Maybe,” Dad said without enthusiasm. “Or maybe next year, when Roy is back. The three of us. Like the old days, huh?”

Now they were rolling along narrow, potholed streets bordered by junkyards, barbed-wire fences, weedy lots, and abandoned factories with punched-out windows. Nicky was enthralled by a magnificent mountain of crushed cars, tailfins glittery in the sun. Nicky's teeth chattered and he was nearly bucked out of his seat when the van rattled over a stretch of broken railroad tracks. He grinned wildly and held on tight as the van rocked along the muddy dirt road leading to the DeSerpico warehouse, hard by the banks of the green, smelly Harlem River.

Dad braked sharply, toppling an empty coffee cup from the dashboard.

“How was that, squirt?” Dad said.

“Better than a ride at Playland.”

“I'll be right back.”

Dad yanked a dolly from the rear of the truck. Nicky watched his father in the side-view mirror. A man stacking boxes on a loading dock called, “Hey, Sal, howzit going?”

“Hardly working. I mean, working hard,” Dad said.

“Yuh,” the man said, grinning.

Nicky wondered if he would ever grow up to be as witty and quick as Dad.

Dad and Nicky worked their way north, delivering Yum-E-Cakes on a route that ran through the Bronx and looped into Yonkers. Dad told inside stories about each stop. Adolph of Adolph's Luncheonette once appeared on the television prank show
Candid Camera
. He was victimized by a talking mailbox. They bleeped out his swear words. Bob Hope once dropped into O'Brien's Sundries
for an egg cream. “They had the best egg creams in the Bronx while O'Brien was alive,” Dad noted. “Now—not so good.”

Dad said Moe's Deli used a rigged scale. Ching's Grocery had a rat problem. Scungilli's Meats did a thriving business illegally selling pig intestines.

And so forth. Nicky ate up every morsel of juicy, inside information, because it made him feel in-the-know, grown-up, savvy, and best of all he felt like a confidant of Dad's. The way Roy used to be.

Dad double-parked in front of J&M Variety in Yonkers and said, “After this, what do you say we swing over to the Nathan's and get a couple hot dogs? How does that sound?”

“That's sounds great,” Nicky said, amazed that this great day kept getting better and better.

“Keep your eyes open out here,” Dad said over his shoulder. “This ain't the best neighborhood anymore.”

Nicky kept his eyes open. The street was quiet, except for a handful of black teenage boys up the block, one boy sitting on the hood of a car, two standing in the street. Nicky wasn't sure, but he thought one of the boys gestured toward the Yum-E-Cakes van. He wished Dad had not turned on the van's blinkers, which surely drew attention. Nicky wished Dad would hurry up.

Dad stumbled out of J&M Variety, doubled over, clutching his stomach, holding on to the door. At once, Nicky knew what must have happened—Dad had interrupted a holdup and was shot or stabbed. Nicky opened his mouth to shout, but the scene was too horrible, too unbelievable for his brain to grasp. The words stuck in his throat.

Still doubled over, Dad leaned against the truck and worked his way to the driver's side. With great effort he climbed behind the wheel.

Nicky said in a small, terrified voice, “Dad, were you shot? Knifed?”

“Worse,” Dad said numbly, staring at the windshield. “Nicky …”