Debasements of Brooklyn

by Ira Gold

  I nod and peer east. What does she want? She’s lonely as Gilgamesh after Enkidu’s death, cut loose from the everyday, not knowing if she should go here or there, wondering about the point of life in a death-filled cosmos.

  I turn back from the brink. Would it kill our budding relationship if I spoke more than one syllable at a time? As far as I know, she’s fallen in love with my inarticulateness.

  “Are you getting hungry? I know a luncheonette on Eighty-Third Street that makes the best BLT sandwich in the city. The best.”

  Every time I look at Ariel, she appears prettier. This phenomenon has happened with only a few of the girls whom I dated. These are the women who end up hating me the most.

  I should get out now. Today of all days is not the time to start something. A single need dominates: disappear. Go to the Port Authority and get the bus to Atlantic City. Stay with my friend Johnny Nickels who works the tables at the Taj. Or go to Grand Central and take the train to Nyack where my father’s old track buddy, Milton Buchsbaum, is living out his widowerhood in a one-bedroom overlooking the Tappan Zee. He knows the score. Before he died, my dad warned him that trouble would follow me like a grateful mutt. At my father’s funeral, he told me that if I ever needed a place I should come up.

  “So. Food?”

  I shrug. “Sure.”

  14

  Baked Fries

  On the way to this diner, Ariel tells me more of her life story. The great shock, one that “sent her on a spiral” as she put it, has been her mother’s recent revelation that Ariel’s father might not be her father. Rather, some hippie who moved to Colorado could have impregnated the young Mrs. Hirsch with what became her eldest daughter. I listen with half an ear, keeping alert for dangers popping out of doorways or screeching to a halt in black cars. But it’s unlikely the Russians would mount a manhunt outside of Sheepshead Bay. They’d pick off low-hanging fruit, killing those in the neighborhood who do something really stupid like go to the fruit store.

  “Here it is.”

  Yes, Ariel has led us to a throwback. The place still has the original green Formica counter and old signs with line drawings of frothy glasses of egg creams.

  We take a booth. Ariel says, “You really remind me of this guy I used to date.”

  I pay even less attention. Meeting Frankie Hog truly worries me. Why would that pile of blubber with feet find sanctuary in the loveliest spot in the city? He spends most of his time in Bensonhurst bakeries, hooked up to a cannoli drip. South Brooklynites rarely come to this part of town. Maybe he suspects I’m a rat, that I’d wear a wire. More. What if he now thinks that Ariel is my handler? She could easily pass for a Fed. And why else would I squirrel away in some stupid museum with a lady I’m not banging? What is he going to tell Vinnie?

  Is Vinnie hesitating out of loyalty to my dead father?

  “My other boyfriend,” Ariel continues in her melancholy nasalness, “also said little. What is it with you guys? You must be thinking something when we talk, when we converse. Aren’t you? Or do guys not even articulate in their heads?”

  I would speak more freely, but it would certainly change the dynamic, and perhaps not for the better. “It’s the war.”

  Ariel bends her head toward me and lowers her voice. “So why can’t you talk about it? I won’t think less of you. We all have our fears.”

  What can I make of this? Is being caught in a battle between two homicidal gangs a topic to take up in couples’ therapy? Does she think that if I admit my fears Crazy Bo and Vlad would disappear into the ether like a grudge over a raised toilet seat? Would she chalk up their butcheries to my intimacy issues?

  The waiter comes over and, before he says a word, Ariel orders a Heineken. I get one too.

  Ariel then apologizes. “How can I even talk to you like this? We met, what, an hour ago?”

  Half the girls I slept with I knew for less time.

  I look at the menu, printed on cardboard. Even the font is old-fashioned. Only the prices (eighteen dollars for a tuna-fish sandwich) add a contemporary touch.

  “Everything here is made on premises. The shrimp salad sandwich, by the way, is fabulous.”

  I drop the menu on the table. “Sounds good.”

  “They bake the french fries.”

  Everyone loves an oxymoron, especially one that sums up the main dilemma of life: how do you get what you want without destroying yourself? Ariel drinks her beer, which instantly reignites the flames in her cheeks. She’s enjoying herself. More. She’s excited, almost happy.

  But by the time the waiter takes our order, Ariel regrets building up my hopes. She tries to manage expectations. “The food here is good but simple. Everything is fresh, they use fine ingredients. It’s better than your average diner.”

  “I like this place,” I assure Ariel, “no matter what the food tastes like.”

  Ariel laughs. “I get nervous whenever I suggest a restaurant because my old boyfriend was such a snob. To him, the salt needed a pedigree or he wouldn’t touch the meal.” She pursed her lips and turned snooty, “This is the same salt that Julius Caesar used to pay the Roman Legion. He’d think a place like this as boring as a prison cell.”

  “Your man never spent a second in a cell,” I say.

  “No. Have you?” Her face turns ever redder.

  At that second my phone rings. Unknown Number pops onto my screen. It’s Vinnie Five-Five. I debate picking up. It could only be bad news. But if I ignore his calls, he’ll kill me.

  “I should take this,” I apologize to Ariel. I’m already moving out of the booth and into the street. This conversation is for nobody’s ears, not even mine.

  “Where the fuck are you, you fucking punk?” Vinnie starts out calmly. “Get your ass over to the club. We have a situation.”

  My next sentence could be my death sentence. “I’m not in town. I have some business.”

  “I’m your fucking business! You jump ship when I need you and I swear you won’t see tomorrow if I have to come back from the grave to rip your balls off.”

  This speech is the longest I heard Vinnie Five-Five make in a long time. He breathes deeply from his efforts. Me, I can take a hint.

  “Ninety minutes, Vinnie. I need ninety minutes . . .”

  He hangs up without another word.

  By the time I get back to the luncheonette, the sandwiches and the baked fries have come. Also, a fresh bottle of beer stands in front of Ariel.

  Yes, Ariel is hammered. That continual flush, the reckless intimacy has happened not because she is at loose ends or is a victim of love at first sight. She’s been drinking. She had a few before she came to Stamm Tisch. And watching her take a healthy swig explains much since.

  Her BLT remains untouched in front of her. “More trouble?”

  “I got to go.” I stay standing.

  “Now?” She can’t hide her disappointment. “But your lunch . . .” Then she lifts her sandwich to her mouth but puts it down before biting into it. “What’s going on, Howard?”

  That is the first time Ariel calls me by my name.

  “Business in Brooklyn.” I look at my sandwich as if it is my bitter enemy. After a second, I plop down and chomp large bites into it. I might never eat again. Tasting not a thing, I say, “That was delicious.” I throw some money on the table.

  “That’s too much,” Ariel protests. She pushes one of the twenties back in my direction.

  We stare across at each other.

  Finally, Ariel speaks for the both of us. “This is so weird.” She chugs her beer.

  We should never have spent an idyllic day of park, museum, restaurant. Each luminous moment now sticks us with pointed regret.

  Ariel says, “I have a really bad feeling about you going back to Brooklyn.”

  This feeling is not difficult to understand considering that she has seen Ivan and the picture of the garbage bags containing Garlic.

  “Yeah,” I murmur.

  Ariel chokes with alcoholic emotion. �
��You’re not a killer. You’re not a real gangster, even if you have the verbal wherewithal of an orangutan.”

  She has me down after just two hours. I sell pot and do some chores for the guys in the neighborhood. My main goal has always been to avoid nine-to-forever work. And while this ambivalence makes me lovable to Ariel, Vinnie will clip me if he thinks I’m too weak a link. A soldier must be ready and eager to do the captain’s bidding.

  Melting into the wide world is a legitimate tactic in times of trouble. Only when the negotiating stops and the shooting starts does melting turn into running and running into a death sentence.

  Ariel walks me outside. I hail a cab because a subway delay will get me killed.

  She holds onto my left arm. The heightened color which paints her face transforms into a deathly pallor. She asks, “Am I going to see you again?”

  I shrug. Do I want to see her again? My God! In her nude body I envision my own redemption. My brain steams with desire to protect her, to get naked with her, to make her happy. Strange. Inexplicable.

  Our lips touch and I slide into the cab. She raps on the window. The cabdriver presses it down and she gives me her phone number. “Call me when . . . anytime. Just tell me you’re safe.”

  I hope she sees me nod as the cab speeds me to the war.

  15

  Signifying Nothing

  No traffic. I get to Vinnie’s club in under an hour.

  It used to be a popular spot called Shorty’s, with music, dancing, and a decent southern Italian kitchen. But Vinnie closed it down because it had attracted too many Mafiosos. The place became a liability. The Feds bugged it. The health department wouldn’t leave it alone. So now he plots an occasional crime there. Today, for example, it’s conspiracy to commit mass murder.

  The metal grates cover the front. A goon named Joseph O’Neal, whom we call “IRA” because of his extraordinary talent in pointless slaughter, guards the front door. A bulky, stringy-haired maniac, IRA is a mischling, a mixed-race mongrel like I am, but he’s much more tightly connected to Vinnie’s inner crew. At times he calls himself “Joey Spoleto,” as in Vinnie “Five-Five” Spoleto. IRA pretends to be Vinnie’s third son and gladly does the dirty work. He loves planning hits and is Vinnie’s principal strategist. Unfortunately, he’s also something of an idiot, and his elaborate plans often backfire, with both comic and tragic results. Yet having graduated top of his class in psychopathy school, IRA is a good man to have at a time like this.

  “You fucking made it,” he sneers.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that we don’t kill your sister.” He leers. “We would let her two little angels go even though they’re almost ripe.” At times like these, IRA affects a brogue. He seems to think that an Irish accent makes him sound more unhinged. A glimpse into his dead blue eyes, however, tells the whole story—from his animal-mutilating childhood to his recent purchase of an extra freezer to keep human body parts fresh.

  Besides, Vinnie is old school. He doesn’t go after the family. Sisters, wives, kids have nothing to do with this, other than the assets are kept in their names. I just wish the Russians had the same attitude. But for them, killing whole families is the heart of their business model.

  I could have replied sharply to IRA’s instigation. But that would have meant one of our deaths. So I walk into the club and would have seen, if not for a cloud of smoke as thick as those blanketing Asian cities, Vinnie, Frankie Hog (of course), Pauli Bones, and Vinnie’s two fireplug sons, Julius and Gus. I’m also introduced to two men I don’t know. One, whose tiny features look marooned on his giant round face, Vinnie calls Jack the Jew. The other, a hulking linebacker in sunglasses and a baseball cap, does not mind being introduced as Moron. I can tell little about him other than he is smart enough to rip the head off your neck at the slightest provocation.

  On the table are three innocuous-looking M16s and two placid mini Uzis that Vinnie Five-Five keeps in the club’s basement and only breaks out for the most festive occasions. Vinnie sits at the head of the rectangular table covered with a dirty white tablecloth. Julius and Gus sit on each side. The others all stand, almost at attention.

  When he sees me, Vinnie taunts, “Such loyalty touches my fucking heart.”

  Anything touching his fucking heart would be instantly poisoned.

  To respond out loud to Vinnie’s sarcasm would simply reveal overwhelming anxiety and net serious trouble. So I just square my shoulders in a way that indicates I can take it.

  The group pulls itself closer toward Vinnie.

  “Windows, get IRA.”

  As soon as the half-Irishman sees me, he glances down the street in both directions and slips inside, bolting the door behind him. He stands to the right of Vinnie’s chair.

  “So here’s the story,” General Five-Five begins. “We make the fucking gooks and those Russkie bastards think that a war with us is a war with Dellacroce and Tony D. We take the fight to their kitchens and whorehouses. Surprise them.” He looks to IRA, the idiot mastermind. “Joey will give you your assignments.”

  Though Vinnie Five-Five is as violent and vicious as any gangster, he lacks imagination, the vision, so necessary to keep a thriving underworld empire going. He has struggled ever since he inherited the position of captain from his brother Gregory, who died of a heart attack induced by the stress of being shot in the eye. We never found out who ordered the hit. In truth, Greggy Boy’s diabetes would have killed him just as dead. Being a wise guy does not protect one from the ravages of obesity. Vinnie himself has gone on countless diets, which he announces loudly. He once rubbed a pear tart into Frankie Hog’s face as Frankie ate a third one in the presence of the dieting Don. After that, all sweets were off-limits at the club until pastry returned to Vinnie’s good graces.

  IRA takes over and describes his plan, simple yet brutal.

  “We got two cars outside. You,” he points to Frankie Hog, “drive one. Me and Pauli goes with you. And Gus.”

  Julius, Vinnie’s favorite and heir apparent, nods. Like his father, Julius has turned into a man broader than he is tall, with a pug nose and raisin eyes glinting with the same anarchy and puzzled stupidity as Sarah Palin’s. But compared to his brother, Augustus, he’s another da Vinci. Gus, the tallest of the Five-Fives at five foot six, appears to be of normal intelligence. But his entire vocabulary consists of only a few words: “I,” “fuck” (and variations such as “motherfucker”), “shit,” “cunt,” “whore,” and “money” along with a few articles and linking verbs. (“I fucked the cunt,” or “Fuck the cunt,” being sentences he uses in all sorts of situations.) Certainly, he keeps whatever IQ he may possess under tight wrap. He defers to both his father and his brother. At everyone else, he just barks obscenities. Both of Vinnie’s sons are close childhood friends of mine, though as I’ve become disenchanted with the life, we’ve grown apart.

  “You,” IRA glares at me and uses his thickest Irish lilt, “drive one car. Jew, Moron, take the other two big guns, and Julius gets the Uzi. At five o’clock,” again he points to me, “you will pull up in front of 559 Brighton Fifth. That’s where Vlad has his most profitable house. It’s full of whores from Moldova, supposedly the best skanks in all of Europe. There will be three men downstairs. Blow them away. I don’t care what you do to the whores. Scare them. Shoot up their rooms. Break their legs if it don’t take too long. Collateral damage. Shock and awe. Then you get out of there. Don’t take a fucking thing, no matter what’s lying around. This is not about money. It’s about respect. You don’t chop my soldiers into five pieces and think that’s fucking okay. And you guys,” he speaks to those who will go in Frankie Hog’s car, “are going to 2022 Fifty-Third Street between Third and Fourth Avenue. Same deal, except the Chinks, because labor is so cheap in their neighborhood, have five assholes downstairs. Just blow them away and run. Don’t even go near the whores, who are all from Guangdon Province and are the toughest birds in the coop. They might be packing themselves and no
one is more dangerous than a whore with a gun.”

  Vinnie examines his crew, checking mostly for indecision, reluctance, but maybe for signs of intelligent life. I see a glimmer of disappointment, even of despair, shadow his gaze.

  Me, I feel sick. I dislike murder and I hate driving. Both Vinnie and IRA know it. I’ve been peacefully working criminal enterprises my whole life, getting into fewer violent situations than a frat boy at a state college. Even Vinnie knows my limitations. He uses me to watch his gambling rooms and to intimidate degenerates into paying what they owe. And he takes 50 percent of my marijuana profits. For now, he tolerates my ambivalence. But he’d whack me in a second if he decides that I might buy my way out of the rackets by cutting a deal with the Feds. Double crosses are common. Everyone in the life exists under a constant veil of suspicion. Vinnie plays no games with potential rats. And I’m now positive that Frankie Hog has been whispering sweet nothings into his ear about me.

  So another thing. By including me in this slaughter, he makes a deal nearly impossible. The authorities hesitate to let killers walk.

  I then try to put things in perspective. We’re attacking other killers, revenging the gruesome murders of Garlic and Double-Down.

  This helps only a little. While I am not one to grant the state a monopoly on violence, this is further than I want to go. Maybe I’m more sensitive than others in my position. I recognize that among my potential victims are men who find themselves in situations in which there is no way out. Like in any high-stress situation, one wonders how things have become so aggravating and unsustainable.

  Vinnie must have noticed something. “Windows!”

  He wiggles his finger, leading me to the far corner of the club. “You have a problem?”

  “No. I’m cool.”