Debasements of Brooklyn

by Ira Gold

  After I snip the cords, another toxic cloud releases into the atmosphere. Both Mrs. Five-Five and I cough out the particles.

  “Terrible,” she says.

  Mrs. Spoleto goes to the bed. “Get the sheet from that side and we’ll wrap Vinnie in it. There’ll be bloodstains so we’ll have to flip the mattress. Eventually, you’ll help me get rid of the bed. I won’t be needing it anyway.”

  I grab the inert torso. “One . . . two . . . three!”

  Mrs. Five-Five pushes the legs off the bed. The corpse lands with a thud on the carpet.

  It’s not that hard to roll it up with Vinnie inside. Then Mrs. Spoleto gives me some duct tape to bind the carpet. Vinnie will not escape.

  “Now we have to get him to the car,” she says. “We can just push him down the stairs. But getting him into the tunnel and then up into the garage won’t be easy.”

  She can’t lift the carpet an inch off the ground. Sweat drips off me just going ten feet.

  “This is not working,” I say as we reach the top of the steps. “We need help.”

  Mrs. Five Five’s face is red. I worry that she is overstraining.

  She regains her breath. “And who do you think you can call at this moment?”

  “I have a girlfriend. Another pair of hands.”

  “She’ll be an accessory. Do you want that? How long do you know her?”

  “A couple of days.”

  “Howie. Don’t be an idiot. Not all your life.”

  “She’ll do whatever I want.”

  “Hardly the point.” Mrs. Five-Five sniffles. “Did you know that Julius was seeing a nice girl? Studying to be a nurse at Kingsborough. She could have saved him.” Saying this sets off Mrs. Five-Five. So cool up until this point, she collapses now into hiccupping weeping. “I told her not to come to the viewing. I didn’t want her to see all the . . . Vlad could have hit . . .”

  It takes a few minutes before Mrs. Five-Five gets hold of herself. So I sit on top of the carpet before I remember that Vinnie is rolled up inside. I jump up, but then I sit right back down. The old lady has curled into a ball on the floor and sobs uncontrollably. I put my hand on her shoulder and her bony fingers grip my hand.

  I say nothing. At the end of the Illiad, Priam, the king of Troy, travels to the Greek encampment to beg Achilles for the body of Hector, whom Achilles has killed. In a poem that spends most of the time glorifying the heroic deeds that can only be accomplished by soldiers gutting one another, Achilles and Priam weep over their wasted lives, the wasted lives of their families, and the pointlessness of their murderous endeavors. Then they immediately go back to the Trojan War, where they finish the job of annihilating each other.

  I don’t know how long Mrs. Five-Five cries for the waste of her life. But her grip on my fingers loosens and soon her uncontrolled weeping changes into a soft animal whimper. I dare to glance at her. It is not a pleasant sight to see an older woman in a nightgown lying in a fetal position on the floor. Here is a picture of unrelieved and inconsolable misery. Her life, indeed, has gone up in smoke, her transcendent purpose discarded in a dumpster.

  I help her up. I lead her back into the bedroom where she can cry with dignity. She only protests when I put her into the bed.

  “I’ll take care of everything. You’re in shock and you have to be strong not just for yourself, but for . . . Gus.”

  She looks at me with dry-eyed sternness. “Howie, you can’t take care of things yourself. If you could . . . This is a two-person job. And if this is shock, I’ve been in it all my life.”

  I have no idea if she’s bullshitting. Her older son is dead, her husband has been murdered in front of her, and all that’s left to keep her out of the pits of hell is an inarticulate goon who popped out of her as an addendum to the primary event and a junkie daughter on the West Coast.

  “Where’s Vinnie?”

  “Where we left him. At the top of the stairs.”

  “We’re going to do this. And we’re going to do this now and we’re going to do this right. I can’t have Gus finding out that you capped his dad.”

  She leads me out of the bedroom and goes directly to the carpet where she picks up the part with the legs. “Just push it onto the steps.”

  It gets stuck a few times, but we’re able to kick the body to the first floor.

  There, a reinvigorated Mrs. Five-Five helps me get the carpet down to the basement and to the mouth of the tunnel, where I get my shoes. The next challenge is pushing a 300-pound stuffed carpet through the tunnel and then lifting it into the trunk of the car.

  But nothing now daunts Mrs. Five-Five. “On three,” she says.

  By lifting, dragging, pushing, pulling, and yanking for the next forty minutes, we get the carpeted corpse to a point right below the door leading into the garage.

  But now a sheen of sweat covers Mrs. Five Five too. A trickle dribbles down her cheeks. “I told Vinnie that he should lose weight. Wait here. I’ll get Julius’s keys.”

  So she trudges back into the house. While she’s gone, I’m tempted to just leave Vinnie in the tunnel until he rots.

  Actually, I conclude, not a bad idea. Why take him all the way to the lake when we could get some quick lime to mask the smell? No one remembers the tunnel is here except for Gus, who wouldn’t think for a second that it’s being used as his father’s grave.

  I hope that Mrs. Five-Five cannot find the key.

  But she returns with one dangling off a Taj Mahal key chain. I remember going to Atlantic City with Julius when he got that key chain, a promotional item given out to whoever got an ace of spades blackjack. Julius hit one right away, and this then became his lucky talisman no matter how many thousands he subsequently lost. My God, memories can annoy you as much as the stupidest person.

  “Let’s go,” Mrs. Five-Five says.

  Mrs. Five-Five stands in the garage while I get down on my knees and put the carpet on my shoulder and climb the ladder with it. Atlas must feel like this, supporting the world on his back. The old woman helps me maneuver her dead bastard of a husband in a way she never could during his life.

  Finally, Vinnie is in the trunk. I get behind the wheel and wait for Mrs. Spoleto to say something, some last words like, He wasn’t much, but he was my husband.

  She can’t even say the first half of it.

  34

  The Diving Board and the Mothballs

  I stare out the windshield as if trying to pierce through the garage’s wall. What a woman this Mrs. Five-Five turned out to be. I had no idea what strength the deepest loathing can engender. Powerful. Far more powerful than love, its sickly sibling.

  And what the fuck did I do? The crime flashes before me. The pillow, the blood on the sheet. I gasp. His face, Vinnie’s face, floats before me. The jowls quiver. I smell his putrid breath. The vision fades with a scowl.

  I’ve known Vinnie since I was a kid, since before he wanted to kill me. He gave me my first job, a hijacking of a tractor-trailer full of toys. For my sixteenth birthday he took me to his whorehouse. True, he got half of everything (except for the clap) which over the years added up to a lot more than I got from him.

  I only began to dislike this gig because I cultivated other interests. And I became allergic to violence. At least, like a lot of people, I thought I was allergic. What did I know? I whacked the bastard totally on my own initiative. He would have whacked me, sure, eventually, but that’s no excuse.

  Suddenly, something explodes at my window and I leap out of my skin and crash my head on the roof of the car. I duck onto the floor and pull my gun. I’m about to fire through the glass when I see the vague outline of Mrs. Spoleto.

  She’s yelling, “Howie, Howie, roll down the window.”

  “Why?”

  “I have to tell you something.”

  She spooks me so that I think I need to kill her.

  “Clean up.”

  “What?”

  “Take a shower. Change your clothes. Before you go upstate.”
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  I step out of the car.

  Mrs. Five-Five continues, “What happens if the cops stop you? You look like a chimney sweeper. You can’t drive one hundred miles with a dead body in your trunk while in black face.”

  “I really want to get this over with.”

  “You can’t. Ever.”

  She’s right.

  “I’ll find clean clothes for you. I’ll see if Julius has something.”

  I am six inches taller than Julius had been. But it’s the only option.

  I follow Mrs. Five-Five back through the tunnel. By the time I get back into her house, I’m looking forward to this shower, and not just for metaphorical purposes.

  “Go inside. I’ll get you towels.”

  My clothes stick to me as if glued. The grime streaks my chest, dick, and legs. I turn on the shower and appreciate Vinnie’s connections with the plumbing union. For such an inconspicuous house on such a dead street in such a marginal neighborhood, he has water pressure fit for a mogul. The showerhead is one of those gigantic, bristly ovals that shoots needles of hot water that hit my body like a purifying scourge.

  The world narrows to the breadth of the bathtub. My eyes are open but I see nothing. Then my hand brushes something hard. I look around. Nothing. Then another touch of iron. Suddenly, my penis floats into view, stretching from one end of the shower to the other.

  I examine it with interest. You think if you know one thing, it is your own body. But even this surprises again and again. Usually, the surprises are unpleasant, as you become ever more aware of your slow disintegration. For no reason a limb aches. Your eyes weaken. Your digestive tract goes to hell. You eat less but gain weight. You can’t run as fast or punch as hard. You are in a constant state of mourning for the passing of your powers. But occasionally, unexpectedly, you are surprised by joy. The life force must be circulating heavily for my penis to pulse so. I push the shaft down and it springs back like an Olympic diving board.

  My mind casts back, though it need not cast back that far, to Ariel. Her body appears before me, especially her own dark and juicy genitals. I bet she wishes she were here. I envision the water dripping off her engorged nipples. Rubbing soap on my hand, I begin stroking my prick.

  This relaxes me further, until the thought that I just killed someone assails me. I should not be masturbating in his shower. I was never this crazy. I have always viewed myself as cautious and prudent. I told myself never to do something that is utterly irreversible. And I have violated this. I will be hunted by both the lawful and the lawless. Every day will bring new threats of exposure. I will not have, nor will I deserve, a moment’s peace.

  Ariel returns to the shower as soon as I close my eyes. She’s wet and sticky with desire. I pump my soapy penis gently, no rush, I will stay here; my testicles tingle in anticipation—

  “Shut the water, shut the water.”

  My eyes pop open. Mrs. Spoleto has yanked open the fiberglass shower door and she takes in the scene. She stops her urgent shouting and whispers, “What are you doing, Howie?”

  “What does it look like? Showering. The dirt caked into my skin . . . do you mind?”

  The old woman doesn’t take her eyes off my erection. “Gus just pulled up.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Put this on.” She hangs a black tracksuit on the towel rack. “And wait for me in my bedroom closet.” With that she picks my dirty clothes off the floor and rushes out of the bathroom. From outside the door she calls, “You have ten seconds before he’s in the house.”

  Gus. I played pool with him for hours. I encouraged his solitary talent as if it mattered. In some ways I had been closer with second banana Gus than I had with Julius. Of course either would blow me and his mother away for what we’ve done.

  Besides the tracksuit, Mrs. Five-Five leaves a pair of underpants that I imagine are an old pair of Julius’s. I try not to think of the grossness of the situation. I just take everything and duck into the bedroom as the front door opens.

  As much as I want to hear what Gus tells his mother, I take her advice and hide in the closet. I must fight my way through three rows of pantsuits before I hunker down in the farthest corner where the smell of camphor assaults me. She must keep her woolens back here.

  I gag. My maternal grandmother smelled like this but no one else I ever knew. Mrs. Five-Five struck me as traditional and old-fashioned, but she never stunk of mothballs.

  What is Gus doing here at four in the morning? Sitting on the floor of the closet, I grip my gun and think of Molière, his play Tartuffe. Hidden in a classic French farce with slammed doors and lecherous groping is a powerful challenge to doltish authority, a call for a revolution against stale ideas that keep happiness at bay for no sensible reason. One particular fool is told to wait quietly, not to jump out of the closet too soon. But of course he does, for he wouldn’t be an idiot if he could contain himself. And he nearly ruins everything.

  This comes to me because I am being pulled out of my own closet by unseen cords. What I need to do is whack Gus. Because after Gus, no one would care about avenging Vinnie Five-Five. Tony D in New Jersey might make some desultory inquiries, but he’d be happy to let the dead bury the dead. Why look for war against the Chinese or the Russians? He’d probably make a deal with them for a piece of Vinnie’s old action. Why not? The Russians and the Jersey Italians do plenty of business together. Like businessmen everywhere, gangsters make goodwill gestures if it will ultimately profit them.

  But if I hit Gus, I’d also need to hit Mrs. Spoleto. For her reasoning behind helping me with Vinnie is to save Gus. Now Gus would not have been the first one in the lifeboat, if Mrs. Five-Five had her choice. Maybe Mrs. Five-Five believes Gus will one day overcome his powerful tendencies toward dimwittedness.

  I hear footsteps approaching and I click my piece’s safety. The closet door opens and Mrs. Five-Five whispers, “Howard?”

  I crawl out from behind her dresses. “Is he gone?’

  “Come on. I have to talk to you.”

  Even outside the closet I still feel immersed in a dream. First, the new clothes bother me. The T-shirt Mrs. Five-Five has given me barely reaches my waist. The tracksuit bags around my middle. The socks fit.

  Mrs. Five-Five leads me to her kitchen and sits at the table. I’ve always liked the Spoletos’ kitchen. The walls are painted a sunny yellow. The black granite countertops are mirror shiny and contrast nicely with the cabinets’ deep mahogany. Looking at this kitchen one would never get the impression that the people who live here are forces of darkness, sociopaths who pride themselves on their deep immersion in the pieties of the striving middle class.

  “Gus came here to tell us that they found IRA’s head and legs by the bus stop on Coney Island Avenue and Z. In trash cans catty-corner to each other.”

  I lower the gun. Finally, some good news. Wonderful news. “Just now? At this hour?”

  “Gus got a call. So he and Pauli Bones drove over. And now I told them that Vinnie never came home. Gus left thinking that they got Vinnie. I told him to do nothing stupid until the morning.”

  “That’s a long time for him.”

  “Gus is a good boy.” Mrs. Spoleto wipes her eyes. “He idolized his brother and father. Maybe he’ll blossom without them. He may not be the idiot everyone thinks.”

  “He is as tough as anyone,” I say for I can tell that Mrs. Spoleto is trying to convince herself that her surviving son is not hopeless.

  “He could be something,” Mrs. Spoleto is crying openly. “We have to convince him that Vinnie is in hiding somewhere so he doesn’t go after Vlad. You could do that. Just tell him you got a call from Vinnie, from an undisclosed location and he said to lie low—”

  “Why would Vinnie call me to say this? He’d call Gus. Or you.”

  “Me?” Mrs. Five-Five wipes her cheeks and chugs a beer. “Would Vinnie call me? We stopped talking years ago . . . but I can tell Gus . . .” Mrs. Five-Five’s face now lights with pleasure. “Yes. I’ll say t
hat Vinnie ordered Gus to get out of harm’s way. You know Gus loves the Southwest. New Mexico. Santa Fe. Taos.”

  “I know. Julius kept trying to get Vinnie to expand into the Sun Belt.”

  “That wasn’t Julius’s idea. It was all Gus.”

  “It was?”

  “He went out there to . . . on business. He painted such a beautiful portrait of the climate and landscape that Julius fell in love with it just from Gus’s description.”

  “Gus painted a verbal portrait? Just using the words fuck, shit, cunt—”

  “Howie. Please. Haven’t you heard of hidden depth? Aren’t you a little smarter than you let on?”

  “No. Actually, I’m stupider. If you just knew what I think about—”

  “Get rid of Vinnie’s body. Now. Then we’ll worry about stopping the attack on Vlad.”

  “What about Gus? If he comes back and notices the car missing—”

  “He won’t be back. He and Pauli are going to a motel to get some sleep.”

  Of course, Aeschylus’s Oresteia immediately pops into my mind. I try to stop these uselessly cascading thoughts, but the story rolls out with the uncontainable fury of cognition itself. Gus Spoleto would play Orestes and Mrs. Spoleto Clytemnestra. I’d be Aegisthus, even though I’ve never been Mrs. Five-Five’s lover. Vinnie is the doomed Agamemnon. In the original, Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon, her husband, for sacrificing their daughter Iphigenia. Orestes, their son, then kills his mother and her lover. The Furies hunt Orestes down. But Apollo decides to save him by setting up a trial. He gets the goddess Athena to be the judge, and, ultimately, Orestes is exonerated. Mercy prevails. In our case, the ending would be different for pity does not exist 3,000 years later in a society as primitive and bloodthirsty as ours.

  “Howie, are you still with me? What’s the matter? Why are you . . .”

  Why can’t I stop my mind from spinning in these endlessly useless circles?

  “Can you do what you have to? Can you drive upstate?”