Romeo of the Streets (7 page)

I stopped by with Gino on the way back home and told him my decision. I was surprised at just how surprised he
wasn’t
. Maybe he knew more about me than I knew myself. Regardless, I was just happy to have the weight of it off my shoulders again so that I could move on to the other challenges ahead. Things were going to be tough, but at least we had the support of each other to rely on. We were a strange little family, but I guess we were a family nonetheless.

Lou and Lisa were due to arrive at eight pm that night with Lisa’s things and I sat on the couch, curled up in my cuddly lamb onesie watching TV while I waited for them. I must have drifted off because the next thing I knew the doorbell was ringing and I hadn’t had a chance to change into something that was less likely to invite Lou’s absolute and unrelenting mockery once he saw me.

“One second,” I called, rushing into the hallway towards my bedroom. Ok—there were clothes strewn all over the floor (I’m usually much more tidy, I swear, but since Gino’s accident I’d reverted into full-on floordrobe mode), where to begin, I wondered? The bell rang again three or four times in rapid succession and I knew only Lisa could be that impatient. I sighed and stepped out into the hallway.

“Ok, ok,” I called, opening the door.

“Jeez, about time,” Romeo Mancini smiled as the door opened and then, when he looked me up and down, his eyes widened and he let out a gruff burst of immediate, delighted laughter. “Oh man,” he grinned, “Sandy had a little lamb? Amazing.”

I couldn't believe it. What was
he
doing here? And he chooses now of all times to show he has a sense of humor? Great, just great…

I scowled back at him. “What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded.

Romeo shrugged. “Lou asked me to help him and Lisa move in. They told me to go on up and surprise you while they unloaded the car.”

I blinked. “Lisa, you mean,” I said, “only Lisa is moving in.”

“Oh,” Romeo said, “right.”

Well I didn’t like the sound of that, but I was too embarrassed to press him on it. His face lit up with a smile again as he stared at me standing there before him in the hallway covered in my lamb onesie, from my wooly little toes to my fuzzy little head. With a hiss, the laughter erupted from his lips again and I turned and ran into my bedroom, leaving the front door open for him to enter the apartment behind me.

“It’s been a hectic few days!” I called, “don’t you dare judge me!”

“Hey,” Romeo called back, “I feel you. There’s nothing I like more myself than to snuggle up in my body suit when I get home after a long, hard day out busting balls. My one’s a dairy cow.”

I smiled, despite myself. I should have known he’d show up here with Lou sooner or later once Lisa moved in. I just couldn’t have imagined it would be this soon. I undressed quickly and scoured the clothes-strewn floor and bed for something that was both casual and laid-back and yet also stylish and sexy. Who was I kidding, I didn’t have anything like that available to me. My best outfits were in the laundry basket and had been for days. I pulled on a grey CCU t-shirt and a stylish(-ish) pair of jeans, then slipped my feet into a pair of bright red converse. I stopped on the way out to look at myself in the mirror and quickly tried to fix up my hair. Ok, just about acceptable. I stepped back into the hallway, all of a sudden feeling a whole lot more excited about helping my buddy move in than I should have been.

Lou and Lisa were standing in the hall now and Lisa let out a wolf-whistle when she saw me. “Wow,” she grinned, “looking good babe.”

“You should have seen her a minute ago,” Romeo said, stepping back into the hall from the living room.

My cheeks burned at the tease and I shot him a look of warning. Romeo shrugged.

“Her hair was a bit messed up, that’s all,” he said. “This is a nice place you got here Sandy.”

“God,” Lisa frowned, “some men are so hard to please. Why don’t you two make yourselves useful and carry my stuff up from the car. Sandy, you still got that cocktail-making kit I got you for Christmas?”

Our eyes met and suddenly I had a feeling that my quiet night in was going to turn out a little less quiet than I’d initially expected.

The guys carried Lisa’s stuff up in shifts while me and Lisa unpacked and sorted through it, all while drinking delicious home-made mojitos (ok, so I had to use mint essence instead of fresh leaf, but still, at least the limes were real).

“This seems like a real imbalance in work-load here,” Lou protested, after carrying a particularly heavy suitcase up the stairs. “Where’s my drink?”

“Oh, you’ll get one baby,” Lisa soothed, in a girly voice, “just as soon as you carry up the rest of my stuff.”

“Man,” Lou groaned, turning back to the stairs, “what ever happened to third-wave feminism?”

Me and Lisa exchanged glances. “He’s been spending
way
too much time in that campus bar,” I laughed, “God knows what kind of hip conversations he’s been listening in on. It can’t be good for his primitive brain.”

After the guys finished bringing up the stuff, Lou took over with the cocktails and me and Lisa put the last of her belongings away. After that, we decided to microwave some popcorn and watch a movie while drinking the last of the mojito mix. And naturally, settling on which movie to watch turned out to be an issue of far greater contention than it really had any right to be. Straight away Lou opted for “
Goodfellas
” (typical) and then, when Lisa and I chastised him for being so unoriginal, the ass suggested “
The Departed
” instead, because “the gangsters in that one aren’t even Italian”. This time Romeo protested, saying that he hated that movie (Lou actually looked hurt, I was amused to see) and wanted something else. While Lou and Romeo argued over the merits of “
The Departed
”, me and Lisa put the foot down and gave them a final pick between “
Legally Blonde
” and “
Miss Congeniality
”, which we had both of already downloaded and ready to watch.

“
Legally Blonde
,” Romeo said immediately and Lou gave him a funny look.

“What?” Romeo shrugged, “I watched the other one before with my ex, I don’t want to sit through it again.”

“
Legally Blonde
it is,” I laughed. “Sorry boys, outsmarted by the girls once more.”

Lou groaned and Lisa gave him a dig in the ribs, hissing at him to shut up.

The movie started and we settled back on the couch, me sitting in between Romeo and Lisa. As the film progressed I found myself distracted by the warm and muscular masculine body beside me. I found his presence so close to me somehow comforting—and yet also paradoxically unnerving—and when Romeo shifted slightly on the seat, I don’t know why but I felt almost certain that he was feeling the exact same way.

A light appeared somewhere down the deep, dark tunnel and with a deafening roar that sounded for all the world like the vengeance of God himself, another train hurtled at top speed into the chamber, rumbling to a standstill with a crunch and a hiss. This one neither was theirs and so they continued to wait.

Ferret bobbed his scrawny head forward like his namesake rodent and spat a thick wad of saliva at the bright-blue line between him and the train.

“Oh
Marone
!” he called, throwing up his hand, “when is this damn train going to get here?”

Slightly behind him, casually leaning against a pillar in such a way that he could not be seen from any but one of all four directions around them, Eyeball smiled at his friend. “Patience,” he said, “don’t you know it’s the very best virtue?”

“Yeah,” Ferret snorted, “virtue. What the hell do you know about virtue?”

Eyeball simply shrugged, the strange, thin smile still curling his pale lips.

An old man stepped off the train and kept his eyes firmly to the ground so as to avoid the aggressive and threatening glare of the young hoodlum in front of him. Eyeball could say all he wanted about patience but Ferret was getting antsy now—he didn’t like having to wait for
anything
—and when Ferret got antsy, trouble was never far behind.

The only other passenger to dismount the train was a young Asian woman dressed in a studded denim skirt and punk-rocker tank top and Ferret’s expression changed from dumb anger to dumb lust in an instant—probably even faster than he could have consciously registered for himself.

“Oh!” he barked, “where you going dressed up like that? You some kind of whore or something?”

“Get lost asshole,” the girl muttered.

She furrowed her brow and quickened her pace towards the big sprawling staircases that would lead—eventually—back up to the main hall of the archaic building above, the main thoroughfare of the station that was, with its turrets, arches and general gothic architecture more like a vast and ancient cathedral than a modern train station. To the hoodlums below though, it was just another haunt to dominate and control.

“Hey, is this asshole bothering you sweetie?” Eyeball called to her, stepping forward from his perch and surprising his prey, “you want me to break his nut for you?”

The girl frowned as she glanced quickly at his face and then quickly away again. She didn’t know what to think or who to trust, which was, Eyeball had to admit, probably the smart move for her to make in this situation.

“I’ll show her my nut, if she wants it?” Ferret sneered, bobbing after her and gesturing with his crotch.

“You hear that honey?” Eyeball asked, “You hear what he say to you? How do you let him talk to you like that?”

“Leave me alone,” the girl warned, speeding up as she approached the stairs and more obviously frightened now, though still trying to hide it. “Dumb assholes.”

Ferret began to move after her, his grin dropping off immediately in place of a far more predatory, vicious expression. But Eyeball reached out with his hand and softly stilled him as he passed.

“No,” he said, “not this time. We got work to do.”

Ferret nodded silently, his eyes still on the girl’s back as she hurried upstairs and to eventual safety. Watching him, Eyeball smiled.

“Ok honey,” he shouted after the girl, “here I go then, I’m about to bust his nut! You asked for it!”

Ferret started to smile and laugh now too and Eyeball let his hand rest on his friend’s shoulder for a further moment before releasing his partner in crime.

Not long after that their train arrived and Eyeball, nodding “here’s the L”, led his friend on-board. They strutted through the carriages, occasionally stopping to pull faces or jeer at the other passengers—making sure to let everybody know that they were the biggest boys on the train—and then they settled down in a quiet carriage with only one other passenger far up the other end. They’d be able to speak in private here without having to worry if anybody was listening in on their talk of criminal activity.

“So what you call these guys again?” Ferret asked.

Eyeball smiled. “The
Wild Cats
.”

“The Wild Cats? Get the fuck out of here…”

“No, I’m serious,” Eyeball said, that strange thin smile still on his lips.

“The pussies more like,” Ferret sneered, “what kind of a name is that for a crew, the Wild Cats? Sounds like a high school football team or something.”

“Exactly,” Eyeball nodded, “the gang are all members of the college football team, you believe that? The CCU Cats, and so: the Wild Cats.”

Ferret shook his head in amazement. “The Wild Cats… unbelievable, sound like a bunch of frat boys. Wait till they get a load of us, eh, Eyeball? Fuggedabout it!”

Eyeball shrugged. “Should be easy business. We just got to remind these
fenooks
that their balls belong on the football field and nowhere else. Hell we’ll even cheer em on once they get back there. After all, we’re part of the same university institution now, ain’t we? Maybe we’ll even start our
own
Frat-House, move in on the Greeks too.”

“It’s funny,” Ferret said, peering thoughtfully out at the subterranean darkness through the windows around them, “I always figured getting into college would be harder than this…”

They dismounted the train at the campus station near CCU and stepped out into the ivy darkness of the night. The surroundings were more suburban and well-to-do than either of them were used to, but rather than being intimidated by the unfamiliar landscape they only became more aggressive and unruly in their demeanor.

“Would you look at this place?” Ferret breathed, “Man, something strange about the whole scene. It’s like a movie or something, “
Animal House
” or some shit, you ever see that one?”

“It’s a university area Ferret,” Eyeball said, “this is what they look like.”

“Well I could get used to it is all I’m saying, you know what I mean? Get me one of these little bungalows, bunk up with a couple of sorority chicks. Hell, you and Sal can even come visit sometime if you bring a little ziti from the Grove with you.”

“Sure,” Eyeball snorted, “you get the chicks and I’ll get the ziti, we’ll see which one happens first.”