by TG Wolff
“Take it easy. Come on, man, you’re talkin’ about the woman I love.”
“She cheats on you all the time, you fuckin’ retarded bastard.”
“Hey, not for nothin’, Ally, but you cheat on Candy all the time, too.”
Aldo peeled his leather gloves off and threw them at him. “That’s different. I’m a guy. It’s not the same thing when a guy does it. Especially one as sexy as me. What can I do? I don’t wanna cheat, but they just keep throwin’ all that fine pussy at me. Who am I to say no? It’s a public service I’m performin’ over here.”
“Christ on the cross, Ally,” Dino moaned, “you got more bullshit than a fertilizer franchise.”
“Yeah,” Petie laughed, throwing the gloves back at him. “What Ma said.”
“Whatever.” Aldo rolled his eyes and faced front. “Don’t matter how you slice it. Tammy’s a punchboard. And you’re a moron.”
“Aw, give him a break,” Dino laughed. “Petie’s just so happy he found a chick that’ll fuck his ugly ass he don’t want to lose her. Dude with a thimble dick like his can’t be all choosy and shit, right, Petie?”
“Do me a favor, Ma. Don’t help me out on this one, okay?”
“Ohhh Petie-pie!” he said in a cartoonish falsetto. “I love your teeny weeny peeny!”
“Well,” Fritz said evenly, “I was hungry.”
“Seriously, though, thanks for helping me out, you guys,” Petie said with his usual awkwardness, squirming around uncomfortably between Fritz and me. “I appreciate it, fellas.”
Aldo reached back, palm open. Petie slapped it.
Nothing more needed to be said.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute.” Dino held everyone up at the curb, just outside the restaurant. “You pissed on him?”
“All over the prick.”
“Goddamn, Petie, that’s fuckin’ sick as shit. Good job.”
Petie puffed his chest up, proud of himself and loving the acceptance Ma was showing him. “Drank water all day. Tons of it. Had to go like a racehorse, too, but I held it. Saved it up for the bastard. Didn’t want to whip it out and have nothin’ but my dick in my hand, you know?”
“Yeah,” Fritz said, slinking by and heading for the door. “Nothin’ worse than comin’ up dry when you’ve been waitin’ all day to piss on a guy.”
Everyone laughed then hesitated at the door. Aldo looked up at the lighted sign, which featured a fat cartoon caricature of an Italian chef with a bushy mustache holding a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. Behind him were the flags of Italy and America, the words Family Restaurant beneath them. “Uncle Tony’s,” he mumbled. “Original.”
“Hey, you’re the one wanted to come here,” Dino reminded him.
“Come on,” I said, slapping him on the back. “It’s an Italian restaurant in a fuckin’ strip mall. Probably sucks, but I’m starvin’.”
Inside, we found a sea of tables beneath bright fluorescent lights. From the tacky stock photographs of Italy in cheap frames to the paper red-checkered tablecloths, it looked like someone had converted a convenience store into a restaurant when no one was looking.
But for an older couple in the far corner, we were the only people there.
A young waitress about our age who looked vaguely familiar hurried past with a tray holding a couple salads. “Welcome to Uncle Tony’s. Feel free to sit wherever you’d like, guys.”
“How about in another restaurant?” Dino chuckled.
“Nobody here,” I said. “That can’t be a good sign.”
“Just means we’ll get our food faster, that’s all.” Petie led the way and we all followed him to a large table in the center of the dining area. The chairs were black metal jobs with cheap padding.
We sat there a few minutes, taking the place in.
I lit a cigarette. Fritz bummed one, and the other guys, none of whom were smokers, just sat there, waiting on what appeared to be the only waitress working to get to us.
She arrived a few minutes later, looking harried but with a smile on her otherwise pretty face. A skinny but athletic-looking brunette with big blue eyes and hair piled high on her head, her makeup was heavy, especially around her eyes, and her perfume showed up a good ten to fifteen seconds before she did. “Hi, I’m Ashley,” she said pleasantly. “I’ll be your waitress tonight.”
“Your last name Witherspoon?” Dino asked.
“Yeah.”
“You got a brother Todd?”
“Yeah, I do, actually.”
“Little older than you, right? Cock-eyed motherfucker, wears big thick glasses. Real good at math. Huge fuckin’ nerd.”
She blushed and nodded.
“I know that guy,” Dino said. “Used to do my Algebra homework for me.”
Fritz cleared his throat. “Voluntarily I bet.”
Ashley feigned laughter. “Anyway, can I get you guys something?”
“Menus would be nice,” Aldo said.
“Oh my God!” She hurried away and came back quickly with a stack of enormous laminated menus. “Here you go. Sorry about that.”
Nobody said anything so I told her it was all right and to give us a minute. When she moved away, I flipped through the menu, which seemed to have an endless number of pages. “Quite the selection, huh?”
“Cheap enough,” Petie grunted. “No pizza, though. Figures.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Dino said, “that lasagna don’t look half bad.”
“Don’t go by the pictures,” I told him.
“Motherfucker can’t read,” Aldo said with a straight face, “how you expect him to pick something out if he don’t go by the pictures?”
Everyone laughed, Dino harder than anyone, and Ashley returned with glasses of water for everyone. Once she’d put them down she pulled a pen and pad from the apron of her uniform.
“I’m gonna get that lasagna,” Dino told her. “And a Coke.”
“Okay.” She scribbled on the pad then turned to Petie. “And you?”
“Wait a minute,” Dino said. “That’s it?”
She cocked her head. “I’m sorry?”
“Nothing comes with it? No soup or salad or nothin’?”
“No, just the lasagna. We have soup and salad, but it’s extra.”
Dino made a face and looked away.
“Don’t worry about him,” Petie said with a smile. “I’m having the cheese ravioli, and let me get some iced tea with it.”
“Manicotti and a Dr Pepper,” Fritz said evenly.
I ordered spaghetti carbonara and a Coke.
“Okay, thanks, guys. It’ll be out in a few minutes.”
“Hey,” I said, stopping her, “could we get some bread, too?”
“Bread?”
“Yeah, some bread, maybe a little butter.”
Ashley seemed thoroughly confused. “You mean like garlic sticks?”
“What the hell’s a garlic stick?”
“It’s a breadstick with garlic on it.”
“No thanks, just some bread’s good.”
“I don’t think we have bread.”
“You don’t have bread?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What the hell kind of Italian restaurant don’t have bread?”
She shrugged.
“Well, could you go find out for me?”
“Yeah but…like…what do you want exactly?”
I looked to the others, all of whom looked as perplexed as I was. “Bread.”
“No, I know you want bread, but like, you mean a slice of it?”
“A slice?”
“Is that what you want? Like a slice of bread with butter on it?”
“Are you serious?”
“Sorry, I’m trying my best, I—I’m new, we just opened.”
I sipped my water. “Okay, no problem. I’m just asking if we could get some bread for the table. It’s what happens in Italian restaurants, they give you bread. On the table. Sometimes it’s even hot.”
“Hot?�
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Fritz puffed his cigarette, a huge smile on his face. “This is the best conversation of all fuckin’ time right here.”
“Richie, I don’t think they do bread,” Aldo said.
“What are you talkin’ about? All Italian restaurants do bread.”
“From the sounds, this one don’t.”
“We’re Italians. In an Italian restaurant. Bread’s part of the meal.”
“Yeah, you and me know that, I’m just sayin’, she obviously don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ about, so they probably don’t have it.”
“What kind of Italian restaurant don’t have bread, though?”
“It sound to you like they got bread, Richie?”
I turned back to Ashley. “Just, if we could get a loaf a bread, that’d be good, okay?”
“You want a whole loaf of bread?”
I stared at her, dumbfounded.
“I’m going to have to go ask, okay? I’ll be right back.”
As Ashley hurried away, I took a hard drag on what was left of my cigarette and crushed it in the plastic ashtray in the center of the table. “You believe this shit? She looked at me like I asked for cotton candy or somethin’.”
“When she comes back,” Fritz said, “if you ask her for cotton candy, I’ll buy you dinner.”
“Hilarious. Bread’s not that important to you, wiseass.”
“No, Richie, it’s not.” Fritz butted his cigarette, leaned his head back, and exhaled a stream of smoke at the ceiling. Dressed entirely in black like the rest of us, he wore black wayfarer sunglasses all the time, too. Indoors, outdoors, sunny, when it rained, night and day. The only blond in our group, he wore his hair in a buzzed flattop and sported inverted dangle cross earrings in both ears because he knew it got a rise out of people.
“He’s a kraut,” Aldo said, giving him a playful push. “What do you expect? You got to talk to him about sauerkraut and bratwursts and shit or he don’t care.”
We were still hassling each other when a thirtysomething guy showed up at our table. In slacks and a silky shirt that looked inspired by something a cavalry officer might’ve worn in one of those old westerns the cable channels showed in the middle of the night, he looked like some yuppie real estate salesman from Connecticut. “Hiya, fellas!” he said with a blindingly white smile. “I’m Randy, the owner and general manager here at Uncle Tony’s. Ashley said you had some questions about the menu, so I thought I’d stop by and see if I can be of some assistance, help answer any questions or concerns you might have.”
“I just wanted some bread,” I told him. “That’s all.”
“Okay, well we do have garlic sticks and—”
“Jesus Christ,” I said, my patience gone at this point. “I don’t want fuckin’ breadsticks.”
Aldo held a hand up. “Richie, let it go, huh?”
“I want to help make your dining experience here as pleasant as possible,” Randy said, “but I really need you to do me a favor and watch your language. Think you can you do that for me?”
“Do you know what Italian bread is?” I asked him.
“Of course.”
“Do you have any?”
“We have a two-slice garlic bread option that’s available with entrees, but there is an additional cost. It’s listed on the menu under Extras.”
“Okay, well I want a loaf of the bread you make the garlic bread with. On the table. With some butter. Think you can do that for me?”
“We don’t offer free bread. I’m sorry.”
“Fine. I’ll pay for it. I just want some bread with my meal. Not garlic bread, not garlic sticks, just a plain sliced loaf of Italian bread and some butter.”
“I’m afraid we don’t offer that option.”
“In an Italian restaurant.”
Randy smiled, but it was as forced as his customer service.
“Is your chef Italian?” Dino asked suddenly. “What’s his name?”
“I really don’t see how that’s relevant.”
“Reason I ask is, the only Italians I see in here are me and my friends.”
“Don’t forget the fat fuck on the sign,” Petie said.
“Look, fellas, I don’t want any trouble here, okay? Why don’t we all—”
Dino stood up. Hard and fast, nearly knocking the table over as he did so. “I asked you a question. You fuckin’ deaf?”
“Dino,” I said, “it’s cool, forget about it. It’s just some bread.”
“Nah, fuck this guy, Richie. Answer the question, pussy.”
“All right, you all need to leave. Right now. Or I’ll call the cops, got it?”
“You won’t make it to the phone.”
“Look what you done now, with your bread bullshit,” Aldo said, shooting me an annoyed look as he gently took hold of Dino’s arm. “Ma, it’s cool. Sit down.”
“No. I asked this piece of shit a question and he’s gonna answer it or I’ll beat it out of his ass.”
Randy’s cheeks flushed and his hands began to shake. “What is it,” he said, clearing his throat nervously. “What is it you’d like to know?”
“What’s your chef’s name?”
“Albert.”
“What’s his last name?”
“Costa.”
Dino shook his head and let out a small laugh, but there wasn’t anything funny about it. “So let me get this straight, Randy, you got a Portagee cookin’ in an Italian restaurant owned by a…a…”
“If he calls this guy white bread,” Fritz said softly, “I swear to God I’ll be on the floor laughin’.”
“…a whatever the hell you are.”
Randy stared at him, saying nothing.
“No wonder they don’t got any bread.” Dino motioned to me. “You want me to smash this snooty fuck, Richie?”
“I want you punks out of here,” Randy snapped, his voice shaking worse than his hands. “I’m warning you, you need to leave right now!”
“You’re warnin’ me?” Dino started around the table.
“No, he’s not, that’s not what he meant.” Aldo caught his arm. “We’re leavin’, let’s go.”
“Get out!”
“Hey!” Aldo said, slamming a hand down on the table so hard two glasses of water fell to the floor. “Shut your mouth. Go in the back and play with your napkins or whatever the hell you do, all right? Before he gets so mad I can’t stop him from doin’ all kinds of fucked up shit to you. We’re leavin’, all right? Just fuck off, before you get hurt.”
Randy backed away but remained in the dining room, trembling while glaring at us from behind a nearby empty table.
Aldo and Petie got Ma out of the place and back into the night, leaving Fritz and me behind. I stared down Randy a minute, pissed at him, pissed at myself, pissed at Dino for taking it to places it didn’t need to go.
What else was new?
As I turned and walked out, I heard Fritz say, “On second thought, Randy, looks like we’re gonna need that loaf of Italian bread to go.”
Click here to learn more about Dangerous Boys by Greg F. Gifune.
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Here is a preview from Second Story Man by Charles Salzberg…
Francis Hoyt
“Where’s my fucking money?”
“Francis, these things take time, man.”
I pounded on the table. Ice clattered against the sides of glasses.
“It’s been three fucking weeks, Artie. Are you running a business, or what? I want my fucking money and I want it now.”
I moved my chair around until I was sitting right next to him and then I got all up in his face, so close I could smell his cheap after-shave. Old Spice. I hadn’t smelled that since I was a kid and my old man used to pour it on to cover his nauseating stink of alcohol and cigarettes.
“Listen,” I whispered, “you do not want to fuck with me. I can be nice and I can be not so nice. Trust me, you do not want to deal with the not so nice Francis Hoyt. That would be a very big mistake
, my friend.”
We’re sitting at a table by the pool at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami. Artie’s wearing one of those obscene-looking, loud Hawaiian shirts and a bathing suit to match. He looks like he’s some fucking fat tourist from Iowa on vacation for the first time. I’m dressed like a human being: khakis and a pale blue polo, Gucci loafers. One of us looks like a complete asshole and it’s not me.
I’m not registered at the hotel and I doubt Artie is either. I’m the one who can afford it. He’s not. But this is where he hangs out and this is where he likes to act like a big shot by conducting business by the pool surrounded by a bunch of old, overweight, greased-up Jews spread out on chaise lounges, staring up at the sun while they bake. Guys like Artie don’t have offices. They just exist somewhere in time and space. But they wouldn’t exist at all if it wasn’t for guys like me.
Artie is a fence. I’m a thief. Not just a run-of-the-mill, knock-you-over-the-head-and-steal-your-wallet thief, but the best damn thief in the whole goddamn world. Artie owes me money for goods delivered. The good stuff. Only the good stuff. Antique silver. Three heists’ worth. I figure I should clear at least a couple hundred grand after Artie takes his cut. That sounds like a lot but it’s only a fraction of its real value.
“Francis,” he whines, “I don’t think you understand how my business works. You bring me high-end items like what you give me and I have to find unique buyers. And it ain’t here in the States. It’s much too risky to dispose of that kind of stuff here. I have to reach out to my European contacts. That takes time. You want me to get the best price, don’t you?”
“Listen to me, Artie,” I raised my voice a little, just enough to raise the stakes slightly. Just enough to let him know I meant business. “Because I’m not going to say it again. I’m leaving town soon and I need that money. I’m not interested in your business problems. You’re a fucking fence. Do your fucking job. If you can’t, I’ll find someone who can.”
Artie loves to look like a big man so he’s ordered lunch for us. Pastrami sandwiches on rye. I don’t want lunch, I especially don’t want a pastrami sandwich because I don’t eat meat. Artie would have known that if he’d bothered to ask, but he didn’t. He just wanted to look like a fucking big shot. I don’t care about his fucking lunch. I just want my fucking money. Besides, it’s hot, so hot I’m starting to sweat through my shirt, even though I hardly ever sweat. As it gets closer to one, it’s getting hotter. I look up and see why. There’s not a fucking cloud in the sky. Just the sun. A big, yellow ball in the sky, suspended in an ocean of blue. That’s why people come down here. For the sun and the heat. So, they can jump in the pool to cool off. Makes no sense to me. You want to cool off stay the fuck where you were up north. Or stay in your air-conditioned room.
