The Turnaround

by George Pelecanos

  “I’m not gonna fuckin miss.”

  “Billy,” said Alex. His voice was soft, and neither Billy nor Pete turned his head.

  And now the Torino was there, and the young men were stepping slowly to the car as it pulled alongside them. Billy’s face was stretched tight. He leaned toward the passenger window and yelled, “Eat this, you fuckin niggers!” and Pete backhand-tossed the cherry pie. It glanced off the scar-faced, shirtless young man, and Pete ducked to avoid his punch, thrown through the open window. Billy floored it, cackling with laughter, and the Ford left rubber on the street as it fishtailed and straightened and headed down the road. Alex felt the color drain from his face.

  They heard the angry calls of the young men behind them. They passed more houses and an intersection and then a very old church, and down at the end of the road they saw a striped barrier erected by the county and behind it, beside the railroad tracks, thick woods and vines in full summer green.

  “It’s a turnaround,” said Alex, as if in wonder.

  “The hell it is,” said Billy. “It’s a dead end.”

  Billy put the Ford through a three-point maneuver, slamming the automatic shifter into reverse, then into drive, and headed back up the street. The young men were standing in the road, not moving toward them, not yelling anymore. The shirtless one who had been hit by the pie looked to be smiling.

  Billy tore his bandanna off his head, letting his black hair fall free. He turned left at the intersection, and the tires cried as they passed more houses in disrepair and an old black lady walking a small dog, then they came to a T in the road and all looked right and left. On the right, the road became a circle. On the left, the road ended with another striped barrier bordering woods. All of them pondered their stupidity and bad luck, and no one said a word.

  Billy turned the car around and drove back to the main road. He stopped at the intersection and looked left. Two of the young men were spread out in the middle of the road, spaced so the Ford could not pass through. The other had taken a position on the sidewalk. An older black woman with eyeglasses had appeared and was standing on the porch of the country market.

  Pete touched the handle of the door.

  “Pete,” said Billy.

  “Fuck this,” said Pete. He opened the door, leaped out, closed the door behind him, and took off. He ran toward the woods at the end of the street, the soles of his three-stripes kicking up as he slashed left and hit the railroad tracks without breaking stride.

  Alex felt betrayal and envy churn inside him as he watched Pete vanish behind the tree line. Alex wanted to book, too, but he could not. It wasn’t just loyalty to Billy. It was the suspicion that he would not make it to the woods. He was not as fast as Pete. They’d catch up to him, and the fact that he had run would only make it worse. Maybe Billy could talk them out of this. Billy could just apologize, and the ones in the street would see that what they’d done was nothing more than a stupid prank.

  “I can’t leave my dad’s car,” said Billy very quietly. He hit the gas and went back up the road, the way they’d come in.

  She is my parents’ age, thought Alex, looking at the older woman wearing eyeglasses who stood on the porch in front of the store. She will stop this. His heart dropped as he watched her turn and walk into the market.

  Billy stopped the Torino and locked the shifter into park about fifty feet from the young men. He stepped out of the car, leaving the door open. Alex watched him walk toward the young men, who gathered around him in the street. He heard Billy’s amiable voice say, “Can’t we work this out?” He saw Billy’s hands go up, as if in surrender. A lightning right came forward from one of the shirtless young men, and Billy’s head snapped back. He stumbled and put a hand to his mouth. When he lowered his hand there was blood on it, and Billy spit blood and saliva to the ground.

  “You knocked my teeth out,” said Billy. “You satisfied?”

  Billy turned and pointed at Alex, still seated in the backseat of the Torino.

  “Take off!” shouted Billy, blood and anguish on his face.

  Alex pushed the driver’s seat forward and got out of the car. His feet hit the asphalt lightly, and he turned. He was grabbed from behind and thrown forward, and he tripped and went down on all fours. He heard footsteps behind him and was lifted off his knees by a fierce kick in his groin. The air left his lungs in a rush. When he caught his breath, he puked beer and bile. He panted furiously, watching his vomit steaming on the asphalt before him. He rolled onto his side and closed his eyes.

  When Alex’s eyes opened, he saw a foot rushing toward his face, and it hit him like a hammer.

  “Shoot that motherfucker!”

  “Nah.”

  “Shoot him!”

  “Nah, man, nah . . .”

  “Do it!”

  Another blow came down on Alex, and something was crushed. It felt as if one of his eyes had been loosened and sprung.

  My face is broken. Dad . . .

  A shot echoed out into the streets of Heathrow Heights.

  PART TWO

  Five

  IT WAS still called Pappas and Sons Coffee Shop, as it had been for over forty years. The sign had been replaced by a new one that was exactly like the original, the words in block letters, a drawing of a cup and saucer, the letter P elegantly displayed in script on the cup’s side, steam rising off its surface. “Pappas” twice the size of “and Sons.” A refurbishment of the old one had been attempted, but the sign could not be saved. Its black lettering had faded, its pearl gray background irreversibly yellowed by time.

  Inside, a man stood behind the counter, a pen lodged behind his ear. He was of medium height and build, with barber-cut hair, graying temples swept back, black and curly on top. His stomach was flat, and he had a good chest. Both of these things he maintained by watching his diet and through regular visits to the YMCA. For a man his age, he looked good.

  Handsome, some would say, but only in profile. What ruined him was the eye. The right one, which drooped severely at its outer corner, bordered by a wormy scar, the best the doctors could do after two reconstructive surgeries. It could have been worse, considering that the socket had been crushed. The vision in that eye was blurry at best, but he had gotten used to it, refusing to wear glasses or contacts except when he was under the wheel of a car. His penance, was how he thought of it. And the physical part of it, his mark.

  He doubled a clean apron over and tied it around his waist. He noted with satisfaction that the urns were full and hot. He looked up at the Coca-Cola clock on the wall. All the deliveries had arrived, and he was ready to open with a half hour to spare. The help would be dribbling in shortly, well in advance of seven, this crew being responsible and dependable, almost always on time.

  Beneath the clock was a two-top that had replaced the cigarette machine. No ashtrays on the counter, no cigarettes for sale, no Daily News or Washington Stars stacked atop the D.C. Vending machine. Other than that, the coffee shop looked pretty much the same as it had when his father had opened it in the ’60s. The original equipment had been repaired rather than replaced. The Motorola radio, now inoperable, still sat on the shelf. The cylindrical lamps, which John Pappas had installed with his older son one Saturday afternoon long ago, still hung over the counter.

  Not that the store looked old. New tiles were installed in the drop ceiling whenever they became stained. Alex insisted that the floors and countertops be spick-and-span come closing time, and he applied a fresh coat of paint to the walls every year. Blue and white, like the colors of the Greek flag. So it looked, basically, as it had always looked. Most important, it stayed clean, the hallmark of a good eating establishment. If his father were to walk in now, he would take note of the reflection off the stainless-steel ice machine, the shine of the freshly wiped counter, the spotless sandwich board, the clear glass of the pie case, the grill bricked free of grease. He would nod his head with contentment, his deep brown eyes readable only to his son, and say, “Bravo. Eeneh kat
haraw.”

  Alex Pappas had changed the menu many times over the years, but this was something his father would have done as well. He would have adapted. The Asians and college-educated Greeks had opened pay-by-the-ounce salad bar establishments, which had worked for several years and then largely faded away, victimized by bland product, overpricing, and overexpansion. When those places had been popular, Alex retreated from his burger-and-fries, steak-and-cheese staples and added chicken filet sandwiches, lean-cut corned beef and pastrami, salads, and hearty soups. He served diner-quality breakfasts: eggs prepared to order, center-cut bacon, link sausages, scrapple, and grits and half smokes for the true locals. He held his coffee charge at fifty cents a cup, with free refills if consumed in house, and this became his signature. Served the coffee in cups with the custom P on the side, just like the one on the sign. Human contact, the personal touch. This was what kept him in business. Try to get that at Starbucks, or the Lunch Stop, or from any of the Keenezee-owned establishments. The Asians knew how to run an efficient operation, and they were workhorses, but they couldn’t make meaningful eye contact with their customers to save their lives. Alex knew most of his customers’ names and their tastes. With many of them, he had their orders written on the guest check pad before the words came out of their mouths.

  It was the chains and their patrons that were killing him. The young people were like robots; they only walked into eating establishments whose names they recognized from the suburbs and town centers where they’d grown up. Panera. Potbelly. Chipotle. And those weren’t nearly as wretched as the McDonald’s and Taco Bells of the world, which Alex could not even bring himself to discuss. They served dogshit. No wonder America was fat. Et cetera.

  So the clientele of Pappas and Sons was on the middle-aged side, which was not a desirable scenario for a forward-looking business. Alex had done all right up to this point and had managed to provide a decent and comfortable living for his family, but the future was not promising. The rent, though it had kept pace with inflation, had remained reasonable until now, due to the kindness of Mr. Leonard Steinberg, who had given Alex’s father his original lease and liked him, as they were both veterans of the war. But Mr. Steinberg had passed away, and the new landlord, a loud young man with dull eyes in a property management office of young men just like him, had served notice that the rent would increase significantly in the coming year. Alex wasn’t going to raise the prices on his product, which would drive away customers. He would not cut the pay of his help. They had kept up their end of the bargain, and so would he. That rent increase was going to come right out of his profits.

  Thank God for the death insurance money, passed through his mother, distributed equally to him and his brother, Matt. Alex had not touched a penny of it, and it had grown to a sizable amount. Also, he had some commercial property on the east side of Montgomery County. He was never going to starve.

  His father had suffered a heart attack in July of 1975, a month before Alex was to enter his second year at Montgomery Junior College, known then in the county as Harvard on the Pike. Alex’s plan had been to ease into school, perhaps transfer to the University of Maryland once he got his grades up, but he had floundered at MJC, doing well only in English. His social life had deteriorated, and he found refuge in music, watching films, and reading paperback novels, things he could do on his own.

  He had started with the usual stoner lit, Heinlein, Tolkien, Hermann Hesse, and the like, and moved on to mystery and pulp. He became infatuated with the Travis McGee books by John D. MacDonald, though even at the age of nineteen he recognized them as the ultimate male fantasy, writ large. No job, no family ties, life on a houseboat, the freedom to kill your enemies, the convenient death of lovers, allowing you to move on to the next Playboy quality piece of ass . . . But the writing was clean and addictive. He began to think, Maybe this is something I can do someday. See my name on the spine of a book. A good profession, one to practice in solitude.

  After “the incident” he had stayed in close proximity to his family. His parents had been good to him. They did not react with histrionics to the event or, in his presence at least, obsess about his injuries. It was something that had happened to him, not something that he had initiated. Callie, in keeping with her personality, took charge and managed the aftermath. She dealt with the press, the school, the insurance company, the police, and the prosecutors, keeping Alex’s contact with them to a minimum. His father became more introspective, simply choosing to hold his emotions in check. Matthew, Alex’s younger brother, did not seem affected at all.

  With outsiders, it was different. Alex became increasingly uncomfortable around people who were not family. He could see their reaction, even if they were polite and tried to conceal it, when they got a look at his face. It just felt better to be alone. He found it easier, not having to explain himself or repeat the story, which he couldn’t help but rewrite, slightly, in his favor. None of them meant for anyone to get hurt. He was only a passenger. Billy and Pete were just horsing around. Looking to “raise a little hell” is what the prosecuting attorney said.

  If Alex had thought about it logically, he would have admitted that becoming an author, or anything of that nature, was a rather foolish and unrealistic ambition given his background. In any case, his father’s condition had derailed Alex’s dreams. He did not reenter college that semester. In fact, he never returned to school.

  Before his heart attack, John Pappas had never missed a day of work. Blizzards couldn’t stop him from getting downtown. To him, illness, no matter how severe, was only a distraction. “If I can be sick at home, I can be sick at work,” he said. But it went deeper than a stubborn work ethic. He had no sick leave to collect, and neither did his help. If the store was locked and dark, no one got paid, neither John nor the help nor the vendors. Consequently, the Pappas family rarely took vacations, and they never took one with their father. He said, “If a magazi like mine closes its doors, even for a week, it’s likely that those doors gonna be closed forever.” And: “What, I’m gonna sit on some goddamn beach while my customers are eatin across the street at that other guy’s place? How am I gonna relax, huh? By makin sand castles?”

  The doctor called it a myocardial infarction and said that it was “significant.” John Pappas would be off his feet and off work for several months. From his bed in the intensive care unit, with clouded tubes going up his nose, his father had looked up at Alex and spoken softly and with effort. “We’re gonna lose everything unless you do it, boy. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry, Dad,” said Alex, hating himself for the tears that had come to his eyes. “Just get well.”

  “Take care of the help,” said his father. “They prop the place up. Don’t ever shortchange them, hear?”

  “I hear you, Pop.”

  That night, Alex and his mother talked, sitting at the table in their kitchen. There was a cigarette going in her hand, the pack of Silva Thins neatly placed beside the blue green ashtray with the notches in its lip, which had always made Alex think of a castle when he was a boy. His mother was not wearing makeup.

  “You can do it, honey,” said Calliope Pappas.

  “I know I can, Ma.”

  “You’re the only one who can. I don’t know the business like you do. Your brother’s too young.”

  Alex had been working at the coffee shop for eight summers now, and through osmosis he had learned. He’d get the place set up before dawn, make the caffe, receive the deliveries, and turn on the grill. The crew knew their jobs. They would do the rest. He could run the register, and there was a paper history with the vendors, receipts and so on, so the ordering procedures would be learned quickly. He wasn’t afraid. There wasn’t time to be afraid.

  “What do I do with the money?” said Alex.

  “Tear off the register tape at three,” said his mother. “The last two hours are for us, not the tax man. Put about fifty dollars, bills and coins, in the metal cash box and lock it in the freezer before
you leave at closing time. Bring the rest of the cash home and give it to me. And leave the register drawer open at night.” Calliope tapped her cigarette off into the ashtray. “Your father says it tells burglars that the register is empty. They look through the window and see that open drawer, they figure why bother breaking in.”

  “Okay, Ma,” said Alex.

  The house was quiet without their father in it. They had one of those kitchen wall clocks with the thing coming out of it, a rod and a ball that rocked back and forth and actually made a tick-tock sound. They were listening to it now.

  Calliope ground out her cigarette in the ashtray and exhaled the last of her smoke. “I’m going to give these up. They made your father sick, you know. That and his mother’s cooking. All that grease.”

  “I better get some sleep.”

  “Go on. Don’t forget to set your alarm.”

  Alex went upstairs, going by the dark bathroom where at this hour his father would normally be soaking in the tub, smoking, and passing gas. Alex entered his room and got on the bed, lying on his back with his forearm across his eyes. He could hear the music coming from Matthew’s room.

  Matthew had never worked in the coffee shop. He played sports year-round, got excellent grades, and had recently scored high on his SATs. Matthew was bound for an out-of-state college, his path unblocked by his father’s situation. As for Alex, he sensed correctly that his world had forever changed.

  The next day he woke in the dark and went to work. The faith that his mother and father had put in him had not been misplaced. Initially, he made mistakes, mostly in the psychology of leadership, but as the weeks went by he felt more self-assured and began to think of himself as the guy in charge. He felt like a man. He was where he was supposed to be. Maybe that fat-assed attorney had been right: “As a writer, your son makes a good counterman.” Alex took the music lyrics off the register where they had been taped. It seemed foolish to have them on display now.