“I live here ten years with no lease.”
“That was with Norma’s mother. But Margarita died, and now Norma can do whatever she wants because you didn’t sign a lease.”
“Margarita was my friend. She no raise my rent for eight years.”
“I know, Ma. When would the new lease start?”
“No sé. She said maybe August.”
“You know,” he said, “you could move in with Jerry.” Tony’s brother Geraldo—who insisted on being called “Jerry”—was a successful stockbroker who left the neighborhood the first chance he got. He lived in six-bedroom McMansion in Montclair. “You’d have to babysit his four kids.”
“They nice kids.”
“You called them dirty brats. And you hate his wife.”
Tony’s mother shrugged. “She’s nice.”
“First of all, you called her a two-face and a drunk.”
“A little.”
“Second, they have two cats.”
“Ai, gatos!”
“The brats and the wife are fine,” said Tony. “But it’s the cats that upset you.”
“We see,” she said, patting his hand. “I love this apartment. This is my home.”
“I know, Ma, but it’s not a horrible idea to move to Jerry’s. I have no room at my place.”
“Ai, but you could move back here. You eat good every night. Your room is there ready.”
Tony’s mother had moved here from the apartment where he had been born (literally, in the kitchen) and raised in Los Sures (the Southside), after the landlord had hiked her rent. Somehow she had kept his old bedroom intact, like a museum exhibit, all those years.
Moving back home made financial sense, but it had taken him years after college to save enough to move out, and there was no way he was coming back, not for all the spaghetti and chicken and beer in the world. “Not happening, Ma.”
After dinner, she watched her favorite novela while Tony read through the news on his laptop.
First, the Daily News. Groping teacher’s aide. Shooting at a concert. Owner of hipster BBQ spot stole overtime pay. Nothing on the slasher attacks. The Post, same. Gothamist, New York Times, nada. He worked on the Times crossword.
When Tony got up to leave, his mother said, “Already?”
“Yep.”
At the door, she said, “You have to be careful. Somebody cut those people on the news. Two people got stabbed.”
“Technically, they were slashed. But, Ma, those happened late at night, way on the other side of the neighborhood. You don’t have to worry.”
“That girl they got was by the big bank, right over here.”
“That’s a mile away. And it’s not the Williamsburgh Savings Bank anymore. It’s a gallery. Or a CVS. Or a TD Bank. Something like that.”
“They said it was a guy on a bicycle.”
“I also heard it was ten guys on motorcycles. I don’t know which one is true. Maybe they used hoverboards.”
“You have to be watching. Remember what happened to my friend Rosa.”
“That was a year ago and completely unrelated.”
“You should find out what happened. You could do it.”
“Not my job, Ma. Not anymore. I’ve got smaller fish to fry.”
“You want some ice cream before you leave?”
Without waiting for an answer, Tony’s mother served him a bowl of ice cream, and when he finished it he asked her if she was okay for rent. She said she was fine. He kissed her goodnight and took his last ten bucks and handed it to her.
“You keep it,” his mother said, gently pushing it back to him.
“Ridiculous. Take it.”
“I’m not ridiculous. You’re ridiculous,” she said. “You need it more than me.”
She was right, of course. He said, “About your rent—”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I find a way.”
On his way home from the L, Tony stopped at a corner to change his music. Too much Tom Waits and your brain turns to cigarette tar. The night air was dense with humidity, and Tony pinched and pulled the front of his T-shirt to unstick it from his skin.
The traffic light was against him, and like any New Yorker he would have crossed anyway, but there was a car service car, a couple of Titanic-sized SUVs, then a Mini Cooper, and so he waited. He felt the weight of the pétanque balls, the laptop in his bag, the thick sweat on his face.
Directly across the street, some dude, wearing huge headphones and texting away, walked straight into the traffic. A car screeched around him.
“Just asking to get killed,” Tony said to himself. As the oblivious dude walked past, Tony gave the dirtiest look he could muster.
So Tony didn’t see the cyclist rocketing down the sidewalk behind him until he zipped by, inches in front of him. The spokes of the bicycle wheels ticked madly away.
“Sesquiculus,” Tony swore. Asshole and a half!
He remembered then what Gary had said and what his mother had said. Tony liked to think of himself as brutally logical, but he couldn’t stop the goosepimples rising along his arms and the hair standing up on the back of his neck. Ridiculous.
Click here to learn more about Hipster Death Rattle by Richie Narvaez.
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