New Jersey Me

by Ferguson, Rich;

  That unnerving sound reminded me that Blackwater had been coined the cancer capitol of Jersey for a reason. And while I believed cigarettes had been the main cause of Jimmy’s dad’s cancer, I was certain the power plant had contributed to his illness as well. But that vest he’d given to me, both of us knew it would barely protect me from an X-Ray. “So whydja do it?” I asked. “The vest.”

  Mr. Gigliotti pointed out his Joe Camel baseball cap. “This is my way of saying ‘fuck you’ to death, son. I figured the vest could be your way.” He paused, chuckled, then added: “Yours is just a heavier way of saying it.”

  That was for sure. The vest was making my shoulders sag, my chest sweat. I flashed back to my church-going days with Mom. There was Jesus and his burden of the cross—all to take away the sins of the world. No way was I on that level. But the vest definitely felt like a burden; my cross to bear, so to say. I gave it a test run. I flashed double middle fingers, directed them toward the power plant. “Fuck you, death!” I intoned.

  And even though Bessie was moaning something about a gravedigger and last goodbyes, that didn’t stop the laugh lines from returning to life around Mr. Gigliotti’s eyes and mouth. He flashed his own double middle fingers. Repeated those words: “Fuck you, Death!”

  Chapter 23

  With the exception of work, sleep, and shower, I wore that lead vest—which vaguely resembled a bulletproof vest—most every day. Didn’t bother concealing it beneath my clothes. Just strapped it on over whatever I was wearing. Every time my old man would see me in it, he’d shake his head. Whenever Jimmy spotted me, he’d laugh his ass off, call me Leadbelly. The times Mad Man saw me he’d offer that Woody Allen quote, which never got old: “‘I’m not afraid of death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.’” I definitely freaked out some people around town. The first time I wore it into 7-Eleven, the cashier—figuring me for some Piney wackjob gun enthusiast—dove behind the counter, and called out: “Don’t shoot!”

  I raised my hands in the air, flashed peace signs. “I just want a sixer of Rolling Rock!” I called out. “Gonna pay for it even!”

  Luckily, I got through those situations, and others like them, no problem. But then came that one July day, only a couple months after Mr. Gigliotti had given me the vest. It was a Friday, after work. I was out by Barnegat Bay reading Callie’s latest letter. I’d just finished the part where, referring to my dumpy little town and me, she’d written: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” That’s when I spotted Terry.

  He was prowling the streets in his ’78 black Trans-Am two-door coupe. Sounded like a full-on riot under the hood as he sped by. I prayed he’d just keep going, into the next town, the next state, the next life. He skidded over to the side of that lonely stretch of road. His brake lights glowed bloodshot red until they grinded into the burning white eyes of reverse. Burning white eyes bearing down on me. He screeched to a stop, leaned out the window. His voice was all thuggish, like it was packing tattoos and brass knuckles. “Yo faggot,” Terry called out. “What’s with the vest? You becoming a pig cop like your old man?”

  I flashed him the middle finger.

  Terry revved the engine. Made that riot under the hood go wild. “Let’s go for a ride,” he called out over that noise.

  I crammed Callie’s letter into my jeans pocket. “Forget about it,” I said.

  He gunned the Trans-Am’s turbo horses. “Last chance, dickweed.”

  Nothing much had changed that summer. Warblers and mosquitoes still swarmed the humid air. Cars still crashed into Satan’s Tree. Jimmy continued getting wasted, working at Sole Survivor, and helping his mom take care of his dad. Dump parties were big, loud. The once full and colorful cemetery flowers wilted to a shriveled-up brown. And though I was twenty and Terry twenty-two, nothing much had changed with us either. “Fuck off,” I called back.

  Terry leapt from his car, got in my face. Dilated pupils, sweating, clenched jaw muscles, nerves scraped raw: Meth-o-mania. “Got a problem following directions, faggot?”

  I glanced around. Not a car in sight, only massive storm clouds bruising the far edges of the eastern sky. Equally as pummeled was the air. It reeked of salt, rotten fish, and dead sea lettuce that had washed ashore. “I don’t got any problems,” I said. “But it seems you do.” Sure the vest bulked me up in some ways, but over the last few years I’d also done some additional bulking up in the Courage and Attitude Department. As for Terry—the same old trashed James Dean looks, along with solid muscle and cool packed into stonewashed jeans, scuffed-up work boots, and a Shit Happens T-shirt. The only new addition: a naked Baby tattoo on his forearm.

  “Well?” he raged. “What’s it gonna be, faggot?” He shoved me.

  I shoved back.

  “Let’s see how well your vest works,” said Terry. From the waistband of his jeans, he produced a .44-caliber Bulldog pistol; the same model David Berkowitz, aka The Son of Sam, had used to snuff out his victims back in the seventies. He pressed the gun into my chest.

  That was definitely a moment I could’ve spun into a mind-numbing math word problem. Something like:

  Terry can unload all the bullets in his Bulldog in four seconds. Mark can unload them in six seconds. How fast can they unload the bullets together?

  But I wasn’t thinking math, or Mad Man’s wise words, or even Mr. Delaney’s death trivia. All I was recalling was a solid piece of advice my old man had once shared—If ever threatened by someone with a weapon, never agree to go to a second location. So I stood my ground. “What’re you gonna do?” I said. “Shoot me? It’s just a lead vest, you idiot!”

  I wasn’t in the mood to explain why I was wearing it. Terry wasn’t in the mood to hear it anyway. He seized me by the collar of that vest, bullied me to his car. The more I resisted, the more that indigo-blue naked Baby tattoo on his muscled forearm danced. Her hips shook, hair tossed, massive torpedo tits blasted. Terry popped open the car door, flipped up the seat, then punched and shoved me into the backseat.

  He hopped behind the wheel, locked both doors, and turned to face me. “I bet your old man’s got some pretty good weed, huh?”

  “Whudya mean?” I said.

  “He’s Chief of Police, faggot,” Terry insisted through grinding teeth. “I bet he gets his hands on some kick-ass shit.”

  That’s when I realized what he was up to: he wanted to trade me for weed. “Go score off one of your friends. Or Jimmy.”

  “What’re you talking about?” Terry shot back. “There’s no better weed than cop weed.” He slapped Black Sabbath’s Sabotage into the cassette player, and peeled out.

  The whole time he was driving, I was scheming my escape. But seeing as his coupe was only a two-door—both seats blocking the doors—a clean getaway would’ve been impossible. And even if I’d managed to escape, vest or no vest, a flying leap at sixty-five miles an hour would’ve reduced me to mangled roadkill. Mr. Gigliotti wouldn’t even have been able to stuff and stitch me back together. So I just sat there, awaiting Terry’s next move.

  As he continued driving, he flew off in a paranoid rage, going off about how everyone and everything—from the cops, to Satan’s Tree, to the Jersey Devil—were out to get him. He spouted conspiracy theories concerning Jesus, Jimmy Hoffa, AIDS, alien abductions, the Jonestown Massacre, and JFK’s assassination. He ranted about hating school, then taking that lame-ass janitor job at the power plant where, everyday, his nuts got nuked by uranium fuel assemblies, reactor vessels, and spent fuel pools. All he wanted to do now was get super wasted. Erase his brain. By the end of his tirade he was almost bawling.

  “Take it easy,” I said. “Things aren’t that bad.” I didn’t know what else to say or do. In all my years of knowing him, I’d never seen him so nuts. Sure the vest was making me sweat, but there was also fear sweat. That rank scent mixed with the lingering odor of Stargazers I hadn’t yet showered off that day.
/>
  Terry spun the wheel sharply, skidded to a stop by a payphone at the side of the road. He locked eyes with mine in the rearview mirror. “I’m gonna call your pig old man. Don’t try anything funny. I’ll be watching you.”

  “I’ll be watching you, too,” I said.

  Terry lunged through the space between the bucket seats, seized me by the throat. Worked the Bulldog’s barrel between my lips and teeth until it pressed against my tongue.

  I could barely breathe. All I tasted was bitter gunmetal. And forget speaking; my utterances had been reduced to mangled, mumbled vowels. Warm trickles of piss ran down my right leg.

  “Listen, smartboy,” Terry seethed. “Just ’cause I ain’t flashin’ my piece don’t mean I ain’t ready to use it. Got it?”

  More trickles of piss. More grunted vowels and gasps for air. My teeth clicked hard against the barrel as I nodded yeah.

  Terry withdrew the gun, noticed my piss-stained pants. I figured he was about to blast me bigtime. Brand me with every name in the book, tons worse than Jimmy had ever done. Instead, all he said was: “Better not get any on my seats, faggot.” Then he leapt from the car. Kept his gun hand trained on me, and his other hand on the phone while speaking with my old man.

  Once done, he hopped back behind the wheel. Over the riot of that engine, he blasted: “Your pig father went for it.”

  I didn’t buy it. My old man was a by-the-book cop that played by the rules, even when Blackwater’s lowlife didn’t.

  “You’re a fucken liar.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, faggot. We’re meeting him out in the Dump.” Then Terry slapped Motorhead’s Iron Fist into the cassette player. “Go To Hell” blared through the car as he blasted through town. We blew past Duffy’s and Callie’s old house. Satan’s Tree, the three lakes, and the cemetery. With the acrid taste of gunmetal still in my mouth, I regarded all those places—the ones I loved, the ones I hated. I said a quiet prayer to St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, hoping that wouldn’t be the last time I’d ever see those places.

  Eventually, Terry veered the Trans-Am onto the Dump’s bumpy entrance road. The car bounced, bucked, and weaved. Then it came to a stop. Over the throaty idling of engine, I heard the echoed whoops and hollers of faraway partiers.

  Then I heard my old man. Normally, his voice was Sergeant Carter times ten. Now it was that times a million. “Outta the car, Terry!” he boomed.

  “Screw that,” Terry shouted. “You c’mere.”

  My old man approached the car. Though he was sporting normal-looking street clothes—tan slacks and a starched white button-up, sweat staining both underarms—the blood-red setting sun, combined with all the shadows cast by the Dump’s trees, made him look way more renegade. Packed with far more tactics, marksmanship, and decisional shooting training than Terry, he was all business. He had what appeared to be a quart-size plastic bag packed with weed in one hand, and his Smith & Wesson .38 in the other. The gun was drawn on Terry, but his eyes were on me. He observed my piss-stained pants, the lead vest, the wilder than usual look in my eyes. He shook his head, grimaced. Despite that, and even when he said, “If this is a plan you’ve cooked up to break my balls, I swear to God if Terry doesn’t kill you, I will,” I still felt relieved.

  My old man glanced back at Terry. Gone his look of fatherly disappointment. Now: badass glare. He had his thumb resting on the .38’s hammer, but chose to not yet cock it into action. With a voice equally as steady as his aiming hand, he said: “I don’t know what you’re up to, hotshot. Scoring weed’s one thing. But kidnapping, attempted murder, and possession of an unlicensed firearm are a whole other ball game. A good fifteen to twenty hard time. You may as well give up before things get any worse.”

  Terry wasn’t about to do that. Neither was the meth. It had suddenly made him more alert. Eyes trained on my old man, gun steady on me, he said: “Where’s the big pig parade, Chief? Got everyone in hiding? The marksmen in the trees? Or maybe they’re all at Dunkin’ Donuts.”

  My old man could’ve easily produced a cut-down, telling Terry that was the oldest, most lunkheaded joke in the book. But he could see Terry was wired, ready to explode. Code 10-50: use caution. All he said was: “I figured I could handle this alone.”

  “Fine,” said Terry. “Just gimme the goods and I’ll be on my way.”

  After tossing the plastic bag through the open window, my old man said: “Gimme my son.”

  Terry glanced down at the weed, then back at my old man. “How do I know it’s good?”

  “Why don’t you put the gun down and try it?”

  Flashing a greasy grin, Terry said: “Nice one, Chief McDaniel.” With his free hand, he grabbed the bag, sniffed it. “Not bad. Wheredja get it?”

  “Some thugs working outta the diner,” said my old man. “Philly Greek mob.”

  That answer seemed to satisfy Terry. “I’ll leave your pants-pissing faggot son out by the entrance.”

  “Be sure you do,” said my old man. “And whudya have in mind after that?”

  “Smoke this fine weed of yours, Chief. Then who knows? The sky’s the limit.”

  “Well don’t dream too high,” said my old man. “We’ll be seeing each other real soon. Remember, I know where you live.”

  “And I know where you live, too,” said Terry. He jammed the Trans-Am into D and peeled out.

  Yet as we neared the main road, Terry slammed the car to a crawl when we spotted a police cruiser parked by the Dump’s entrance. As the kicked-up cloud of dust surrounding the Trans-Am dissipated, I noticed the cop was one I’d occasionally seen at the police station those times I’d gone there to take my old man dinner when he was working late. On any other occasion, I would’ve signaled to the officer for assistance. But that big bag of cop weed in Terry’s lap made me think twice.

  Terry wasn’t as clear-headed as I. His eyes were darting around like he’d just bought them off the lot, and was taking them out for a test drive. He reached for his .44 in the passenger seat. Made that Bulldog snap its teeth. Keeping that gun low, Terry told me: “Be cool, faggot.”

  “Speak for yourself,” I said. I sat up in my seat, flashed a thumbs up to the police officer.

  That stony-faced officer, suited up in steely blue, had two hands on the wheel—one at ten and one at two. His head: barely moving. His eyes: carefully tracking the slow movements of Terry’s Trans-Am.

  I turned away from the officer, stared straight ahead, did my best to remain calm.

  As for Terry, the meth wouldn’t let him relax. Sweating. Jaw-grinding, wobbly eyes. He kept one twitchy hand on the Bulldog, while the other gripped the wheel. The fingers on that hand: white in certain places, red in others. “I swear to Christ,” Terry uttered, “if I go down for this, we all go down.”

  That’s when the officer flipped on his takedown lights. They turned the dusk-dirty air into a dangerous carnival.

  Suddenly, time slowed bigtime. Like it had just downed some of Jimmy’s mom’s codeine cough medicine. I could sense every creeping moment so clearly.

  A crow flew by. I could practically count every one of its pearly black feathers. There was a smudge of red on its beak, maybe the blood of some dead possum or skunk. The bleeding sun, like a great big wound in the sky, sank a little lower. I smelled honeysuckle and bonfire smoke, dust and gasoline. The bleeding wound sank still lower. I heard crickets and bullfrogs tuning for evening’s symphony. The hiss and crackle of a distant bonfire. The harsh, clear crack of a far-off partier’s gun. And just when it seemed like Terry was about to fire off his own gun, my old man pulled up behind us, waved to the officer to let us through.

  The officer’s head remained unmoving, while his eyes nodded yes. He killed his takedown lights.

  Terry eased us out onto the highway, back toward town. Once we’d cleared the Dump, Terry wasted no time in establishing his own authority. He sh
oved the .44 in my face. “We got some partying to do, faggot.”

  Chapter 24

  Terry punched the gas. The Firestones bit hard and fast into highway. Pine trees blurred by. So did highway mile markers, grazing deer, and all the cars that Terry passed.

  I glanced out the rear window, witnessed a world of dusk’s bruised light.

  Dusk—I felt akin to that time of day. Maybe it was because my own life had always felt like one great big in-between. I spotted a car a ways behind us. Looked to be my old man’s, but I wasn’t sure. Right then, I was reminded of one of his old Irish sayings: “It’s better to be a coward for a minute than dead for the rest of your life.” But when it came to Terry, screw that. I’d played that fearful role for years. It was finally time to change that equation. Atom bomb times neutron bomb: Me. Me to the power of ten: Superfly TNT Dynamite.

  I lunged for Terry’s gun. Wasn’t clear-headed enough to utilize any of the jiu-jitsu moves, special grips, and other close quarters combat skills my old man had tried teaching me in the past. But I did manage to get a good grip on Terry’s shooting hand. He tried jerking free. I held on tight. Was pulled through that space between the seats. Even with that bulky vest on, I still managed to punch and kick wildly. So did Terry. The car swerved from one side of the road to the other.

  At one point, a wild gunshot exploded through the roof.

  Terry muscled the Bulldog away, stiff-armed me into the backseat. “You stupid motherfucker,” he hollered. “Look what you done to my car. You’re so dead.” With eyes on the road, he reached back, squeezed off a shot. It blew through the seat next to me.