by Paul Lyons
The tops of spreading trees rustle like jelly beans for smiling dinosaurs. The leaves hold the glow from the street lamps, whose yellow light glistens off car windows with No Radio signs. The moon climbing over its Hudson, a clear sky now. Sammy would give him a couple of days and then he’d have to turn the keys over to Harold. It would go something like that. Sammy wouldn’t tell the rest of the gang what had happened, but they would know that Hawk had violated the old man’s code, broken trust somehow, loyalty being everything to Sammy, and maybe the gang was overdue to go its own way anyway. And as Hawk enters the loft, the thrill rising again in his guts at how he’ll handle what remains of the Ginsu, he thinks of Armand splitting that COD with him and has to smile.
If that wasn’t a sign that his luck was ready to turn, what was?
29
WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS
Nothing, not a sound. No blank drained face before a QVC hostess. No one in the loft. No body. The TV has been turned off and the remote’s on top. The kitchen’s cleaner than it was the day he moved in. Clean enough to satisfy Carla. Clean enough to satisfy Sammy on the day Hawk checks out. There’s nothing on the kitchen table, its surface just shiny. No pizza box or grease stains, no napkins, no gun.
No blood on the table or the chair or even the linoleum. Just a spooky stillness.
Hawk calls Seymour’s place and the same kid answers sleepily.
No, Seymour ain’t back yet. Mikey neither. They’ve been gone all night. The kid doesn’t know where either of them are at.
“They took your car. After the lady put in the sign, like I said. What they call it?”
“The Blue Elephant.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Couple of the boys went with them, too. I’ll tell Seymour you called. He got your number?”
Hawk phones Carla but there’s no answer. He puts down his Daffy Duck phone, sees the hopeful blinking glow of his answering machine. One message. But remembers, sure. The call Armand told him he didn’t need to answer. Probably Harold with button business. And sure enough, it’s Harold, telling Hawk how Sammy’s condition is so much improved he’s been cleared to go home on his own. Tonight or early tomorrow.
“Sammy said he was feeling lonely,” Harold adds, chuckling. “Flo thinks they kicked him out of the hospital because the Oriental nurses got sick of him asking them to sit on his bed or trying to grab their asses.”
Harold says he finished early in New Orleans. Once the delegates left town the police just gave all the vendors back their stock. He says he’s getting some of the gang together to welcome Sammy home around lunchtime. Let him rest a bit, then surprise him. Hawk can just show up if he’s not taking out the cart. No big deal one way or the other. Sammy would understand if Hawk was out with the cart working. Otherwise it’d be special. The old man would appreciate it.
Harold just thought Hawk would want to know.
Harold. So thoughtful. So everything.
Maybe it was the rare cell for decency that he had. No matter what Durocher said about nice guys, you had to hope there was something good in the store for Harold at the checkout counter.
Hawk spots the Con Ed bill, stained but folded neatly now under the phone, and has an evictee’s thought: “Thank God I didn’t pay that bill.”
Now he walks to the window and cranks it open, paint flaking off, and leans out into the early morning breeze, listening for that old Mister Softee truck melody. He always has to be careful about leaving the window open when he’s not around because pigeons will fly in and shit all over everything.
Hawk looks at his Rolex: almost 4:00 A.M.
Soon tongues of orange flame will lick the sooty buildings and the streets will fill with honks and boom boxes and sirens and cab drivers cursing in assorted languages. Hawk gazes down the street and across the Hudson at the dull swell of the Jersey coast, buildings spilling down in cascades, a few suits scurrying for the subway. He looks for this kid who hawks newspapers liberated from a dispenser, but he’s not out yet. The kid always acts like he’s in a black-and-white movie, calling EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT along with the day’s headlines. Hawk always roots for people to stop and buy from him and strains to hear the morning line.
Hawk pictures Carla standing by the kitchen table in her black sweatshirt and bomber jacket and reaching for Armand’s Arturo Fuente with its fired tip, the viscous mark on Ginsu’s forearm like she’d set down a wine glass.
Her cold eyes said “no dice” to the whole scene when she left.
Is that how he’ll remember her from now on?
The bottom line is that if she wanted to talk with him or check on how he was doing she would have called or left a message. She’ll have things to sort out herself, what with Zoey. Maybe she’ll call him in a few days.
Hawk walks light-headed with loss to the spotless kitchen.
It’s warm and he takes off the shirt No-Way loaned him and folds it carefully and puts it on the counter. The thought of Carla maybe clean out of his life crushes him. Couples not making it is an everyday occurrence. But that she could be so vivid in his head, boots tucked under her jeans like that first day he saw her on the street, her and the life he imagined for them together, and that he’d just cease to factor in her life, it’s almost too much for him.
The shine of his linoleum really is amazing.
He picks up No-Way’s shirt and looks at it and says, “Oh, dear Christ.”
Then he takes a half-filled JD bottle from the fridge and shakes his head at the picture of Sammy and Yankee Stadium. He takes a plastic cup from on top of the fridge and sits at the table.
There aren’t even any tape marks on the chair where Ginsu had been. How’s it possible? When he spills a drop of whiskey he wipes the table clean with No-Way’s shirt.
It was terrible Zoey seeing what she saw. That was maybe the worst of the whole unbelievable evening. She’d remember it her whole life, whatever became of her. If she got to be an old lady she’d remember it. Her Daddy, blood and money on the table. If you got to choose one part of any night you ever lived that you could edit out he thinks that Zoey being there would be his choice. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, Hawk thinks. How I wish you’ll never dream about this night.
He’ll call Carla in a few days if he hasn’t heard from her. It’s best to know the deal before you shuffle. The thought of her now goes through him in electric surges and his mind starts picking back over every dumb way he ever acted around her, and he sits there trick-fucking with his own brain at 5:00 A.M. with nowhere to go. He’ll call Carla—guarantee her the moon, whether it’s trying to hold a steamship with a rope or whatever. He’ll catch up with Seymour and Mikey and take out Witold’s cart in a few hours if it’s as nice a day as it looks to be, sleep being out of the question.
Beyond that he doesn’t have a single plan for the rest of his life.
Hawk takes out the remainder of the batch of NYC lottery tickets he bought for the Atlanta celebration at Cannoli’s. It was only a month ago but it feels like another lifetime.
After every sip of whiskey he scratches off one of the lemons on the ticket with the edge of a quarter. If you match dollar amounts on all four they have to cut you one of those government checks for the amount. On maybe the fifth ticket Hawk uncovers five thousand dollars behind the first lemon.
He leans back in his chair and sips his Jack.
Five thousand on the second, and sips.
Five thousand on the third, and sips, and salutes the whiskey bottle. One more and he wins five grand.
It wouldn’t be the Connecticut lottery but could be something, a place from which to start rebuilding on the foundation of the twelve hundred or so dollars, debt free, he now has in his jeans. For sure he’ll tie some Earth Day and July Fourth Celebration balloons and celebrity T-shirts to his cart, bring a fully pinned foam core board with buttons from both conventions and other events.
Hawk studies his puffed and pricked knuckles and hands, then finishes the Jack in his cup and feel
s its warmth spread into his legs and pours himself a generous refill. He starts to scratch the ticket and then stops and raises his cup and his eyes tear in gratitude to those who sweep up after. He lights a Marlboro, stands his Zippo on the table, and raises the cup again in toast to all the vendors out there being heroes everywhere. He figures he’ll wait on this ticket, hold onto this latest hope a little longer since it’s always sweet to hope before you scratch the last lemon.
