Bobby rose from the recliner and loomed over his father. “What? A what? Go ahead, say it, Dad. A what?”
Tommy motioned him to sit down. “Okay, okay, sorry. Stop, I’m damn sick today. Please sit down, Bobby, before I puke again. Everything is okay. I’m sorry.” Maybe I’ll have grandsons that I can do all that stuff with. Maybe they’ll have his size, but ambition and toughness.
He let time pass and tried to inject some humor. “I’d like to get back out there on the street and kick some ass. Maybe take Sensei Molletier with me, I’m sure he’d like that. We’d be like the Green Hornet and Kato.”
“Jesus, Dad. You did make a difference. Your time is done, old man. Give up your vigilante dreams. There will always be bad guys. Nobody’s going to change that. You tried. You did your part. Now relax and focus on your health and your retirement.”
Tommy opened his mouth to respond but noticed Bobby was no longer listening. He’d switched to a video game involving cops and car thieves. Tommy couldn’t tell which role his son was playing.
“Jesus. Seriously?” he said, before rolling back over and covering his head with the pillow.
5 Almost Out
As the early evening darkness slowly took hold over his bedroom, Bobby stared up from his bed at the celestial glow-in-the-dark stickers on the ceiling. Dad and I put them up there so long ago.
He thought about how he’d escaped into that imaginary galaxy through all of his childhood, and still into adulthood. To a place where people didn’t hate each other for being different. A place where there was only love, and no hate. A place free of greed and envy. I called it Bobtopia. It’s still out there somewhere. It’s sure not here on this planet.
He stretched out on his bed and put his hands back behind his head to relax as the light in the room diminished, and the stars slowly came alive. They called to him, and he reimagined the trip he’d taken so many times before. He closed his eyes and visualized himself strapped into an interstellar ship, taking off, leaving behind a beautiful-looking blue-and-white swirled planet that was actually rancid with an ugly populace. Can’t wait to get to Bobtopia...
He woke as the downstairs door slammed and he heard someone stumble, followed by a shouted expletive.
“Mom, that you?” he called. “You need help?” He knew. It was the same drill, over and over. So sick of this.
“No, honey,” she responded. “Mommy just had a little whoopsie.”
And about a quart of scotch, he added to himself. Sounds like she’s really been into it this time.
“Where’s your father?” she asked.
“He said he needed something from the drugstore and went out.” He heard her open the hall closet and put away her coat. He listened as first one, then a second clunk sounded to announce her shoes hitting the floor. Then came the sound he dreaded at this part of the routine, her coming up the stairs to repeat conversations they had often, she rarely remembered, and which hardly ever ended well.
She paused in the doorway to steady herself, then entered and fixed her hair in the mirror on his wall. She continued to his bed, and he quickly moved his legs aside and out of her way as she plopped down. “What’s my little Bobby boo-boo doing in bed so early? Not feeling well?” She moved to feel his forehead, and he intercepted the gesture midway.
“Taking a nap, Mom. I’m on night-shift now, remember? Please don’t talk to me like I’m five years old.”
“Oh, right. How’s work then, honey?” She rubbed his legs as they talked. It was something she’d always done back in the good times, and it eased his annoyance at her a little.
“It sucks. I never wanted to be a cop. You know that. I don’t know why I ever let Dad push me into it. I think I’m going to quit.”
“Oh, no. What will you do?”
He decided to probe her again, although all of his previous attempts had been rebuffed. “I’m thinking about moving out West. People are nicer there. I want to be one of those guys that sits on the sidewalk by the beach and makes paintings with spray-cans for the tourists. Maybe open an art shop and call it Bobtopia.”
She erupted in laughter, and he felt his anger rise. He pushed her hand from his leg. He took his gaze from her and moved it back to the peaceful star field above.
“Do you know what I mean about being accepted, Mom? I can’t be myself here, and I can’t spend my life in this room wishing I could be myself.”
As he anticipated, she ignored the prod. “Now, honey. You won’t leave me, will you? It would be just Daddy and me. We’d be so lonely in this house without you.”
“You obviously don’t see the irony in that statement, Mom. I thought you were going to quit drinking? You reek. You told Dad and me you’d stop. Time after time, you told us. You’re silly when you’re drunk, and cranky when you’re not.” He sensed her mood change as his comments hit their mark, and he knew that now she’d go on the defensive.
“You listen here, young man. I have a lot to deal with. Your father is sick. I need a little time for myself. The only downtime I get is when I can spend time with my sister.”
“Don’t bring the cancer into this, Mom. It’s been a problem for long before that. Don’t use it as your excuse. Maybe you and Dad would get along better if you would just stop.”
Her voice rose. “Did you ever think that maybe I drink because of your father? Do you know how hard it’s been to be married to a cop? To a man like him? Why do you defend him? I’ve always been there for you!”
“Yes, I know. It’s always been good cop and bad cop with you two. He was tough on me. It helped me a lot.”
“He was brutal to us both. Remember when he was drunk, coming home from that bar after work, how mean he was to us?”
“I do remember. It’s a tough job. A lot of pressure. I know that firsthand now. Grandpa was the same way to him. Even worse, actually, from what I remember and the stories Dad told me. At least he’s changing now, though. He’s trying. You need to try, too.”
“So he gets a pass, Bobby, and I’m the bad guy now?”
The booze wafting through the room from her breath offended him. This space was his sanctuary, and he never drank much because of the violence it had always caused in their home.
“He never cheated on you, Mom. I know that. He never crossed that line.” He added an accusatory tone toward the end of his statement to her, and he could tell she picked up on it by the fear that came across her face.
“Well, I don’t do anything wrong. I just spend time with Aunt Diane to get away from everything for a little while. That’s all.”
“Really, Mom?”
“Yes. It’s just social time. She and I like to have a few drinks to unwind.”
“And that’s what you were doing today?”
“Yes, just like I said. I’m your mother. Don’t question me.”
“Okay, because she called about an hour ago looking for you. This is a real house of lies, isn’t it?”
“Don’t you dare...,” she started to say, before rising up and going to her bedroom, closing the door firmly behind her.
It was fully dark, and the far-away galaxy now sparkled brightly above him. He closed his eyes again and turned on his side to face the wall and return to his dreams.
6 Buster Vela
Moses came into the infusion area, and Tommy suppressed his happiness at seeing the man. He took the station next to Tommy instead of his usual place directly across. The TV was tuned to the news.
“What’s up, my brother?” Moses asked.
Tommy leaned back in his chair to eyeball his antagonist, feigning resentment. “Brother? If we are, it’s damn sure from another mother.”
Moses laughed a deep, rich laugh. Tommy couldn’t help but laugh as well, and soon both were coughing hard and trying to regain control.
This caught the attention of Nurse Carmen, who hustled over to confront them. “What’s all the commotion about over here, you two?” she asked, with her hands on her hips and a motherly expression.
The two gave her blank stares, then looked at each other and started laughing again.
“Frick and Frack, I do swear. You two behave, or I’m sending you down for electroshock.”
The men laughed even harder at the suggestion.
“Are you two ready for insertion?” she asked, waving the IV needle.
“Do it to me, baby,” Tommy responded.
Carmen continued to admonish the men as she inserted their IVs and began their drips. They watched as Carmen moved off to check on another patient. Both pairs of eyes followed her, focused in particular on the form-fitting bottom of her hospital scrubs.
“Ain’t that a sight to behold?” Tommy said.
Moses cast his eyes down. “At my age, they all look the same to me. But ain’t nobody can hold a candle to my Angie, God rest her soul,” Moses said. “Angie, my angel, I always used to tell her.”
Tommy sensed the man’s guilt for having looked at all. “How old you figure she is?”
Moses rubbed his chin. “Hard to tell sometimes with the Latinos and Asians, they got good skin. I’d say forties maybe.”
“Yeah,” Tommy added. “One give-away is the elbows. Some women spend so much on all that plastic surgery and Botox, but the elbows are like the rings on a tree stump. She doesn’t look it at all, but I’m thinking maybe late forties. She’s got wisdom and maturity that comes with age, too.”
“You got a thing for her, I can tell,” Moses said. “But you’re wearing a ring, Chief. You got something special back home, so you’re only window-shopping, right? Ain’t no harm in that. Nurse Carmen’s not wearing one. Too bad you’re not available.”
“That’s a tough one, Moses. You know how it goes. I guess there are those fairy-tale marriages where people grow old together and stay in love. Maybe. Or maybe those people are as bored with each other as me and my old lady, just good at faking it. Maybe they’re fooling their selves. To be honest, we were talking about calling it quits, and then I got sick. But yeah, that Carmen, she floats my boat. Not that an old-timer like me would have a shot.”
They were quiet for a while, lost in their own thoughts while the poison crept through their vessels. Tommy thought back to his early years with Margie. Their first chapters were fun and adrenaline-filled. He was a beat cop, coming back to home-cooked meals. She reveled in his stories of the adventures that had occurred on his shift. They socialized with the other cops and spouses—grand drunken parties and card games, to blow off steam and the stress of the job.
And then things changed. His partner died, her parents died, and in the course of a single year, a permanent cloud of darkness seemed to descend on them.
Little Bobby appeared on the scene, along with the added stress and expense of parenthood. The job got tougher as Tommy grew older and took on more responsibility. He grew hardened and cold from the experiences it brought him.
Margie had grown in turn into a jaded cop wife. Drinking went from fun to necessary, and then to a dependency for both of them. They went for help together.
He gave it up; she claimed to, and he learned to ignore the fact that she hadn’t. He let her think she was doing a good job of hiding it. Despite his attempts to bring Bobby up with the discipline he’d learned in the Corps, the boy became lazy and sloppy, adding to the conflict in the home.
And then he retired, got sick, and everything became even worse.
He realized the incessant drone of the news on his TV was adding to his declining mood, and turned it to the sports channel. They were just getting to the hockey highlights. “Good timing,” he said to himself.
Moses craned his neck to look over. “I could never get that sport. Can’t follow the damn ball.”
“Oh, come on. And it’s called a puck. Okay, what do you like?”
“Hoops, baseball, football.”
“Okay, in baseball and football, how the hell often do you actually see the ball? Hoops, shit. African ballet, my old man used to call it.”
Instead of laughing this time, Moses glared at him, offended. “Now I see where you get it from, cracker. Chip off the old block, ain’t you? Your pappy wear a white hood on the weekends? You’re crossing a line with that African ballet shit. Look here, you see any brothers on the ice? That’s some racist shit there.”
“Alright, alright. I’m sorry, it was the old man’s way. Things are different now. I’m different too. Times have changed. We can’t do anything about the ignorance of the past.” He gestured to the screen. “As for this, your people need to learn to skate. I’m sure they’d be happy to have you.”
They laughed again. Moses continued to watch. “So that’s the Rangers, right? Red, white and blue like the good ol’ US of A. Our team?”
Tommy was happy for the reach-out, and said, “Yeah, that’s our guys there. And I guess I’m a Knicks fan now?”
Moses chuckled more subtly this time to keep his damaged lungs in check. “Hell no! Nets all the way. Remember Dr. J? Now he was the man, oh yeah. Now you got me all worked up, and I got to piss.”
Moses stood and moved with his rig towards the men’s room. Nurse Carmen came over to check on Tommy. “How’s it hanging, Chief? Where’d your buddy go, you finally ran him off?”
“He’s in the head. I’m doing alright over here. You sure this thing is working? You’re not giving me decaf, are you?”
Carmen laughed as she moved closer to adjust the knobs on the unit. She smelled good to Tommy. She was leaning forward enough while adjusting the equipment for him to see down the front of her blouse. The sight of the white lacy brassiere against her mocha skin sent shock waves through his groin that he hadn’t felt in a long time.
He imagined kissing her, as he glanced from her cleavage and her smooth brown cheeks and full lips. He’d always had a thing for the Latinos, because of his sense of duty and morals he’d never taken advantage of his opportunities. Look where that got me.
He imagined she was doing this to get a reaction from him. Maybe she was lonely. He had to take a shot, or he’d go home full of regret, like the time he almost asked Ginny Paoli to dance at sophomore homecoming. He went for it, with the directness that a cop learns.
“Nurse Carmen, you sure smell good. What’s a good-looking, caring, wonderful-smelling woman like you doing without someone special to go home to? If a man like me were to find himself on the market, do you think you’d consider dinner with him?”
She continued her work without even looking at him, and said dismissively, “I got my man, Chief. He’s my world, and takes away all the pain I bring home from this job. I don’t wear my rings on the job; I don’t want them to be scratching and poking my patients, and don’t want them slipping off. We have to wash up a hundred times a day. Too many close calls. Now you sit there, get better, and stop hitting on the staff.”
The pangs of rejection erased the earlier tingling. Feeling sad and sick, he turned the channel back to the news. Shouldn’t have tried that. He hadn’t noticed that Moses had come back and was sitting next to him again.
Nurse Carmen reached up to adjust the IV bag, and they both looked up as her shirt stretched and exposed the frilly bra beneath it. It also exposed a deep purple-and-green bruise in the shape of fingers around her bicep. She finished and moved away.
“Strike one, two, and three!” Moses said.
Tommy looked at him with concern. “You see that shit? The bruise on her arm? I’ve seen it before, lots of times. Somebody had a hell of a grip on her. Son of a bitch.”
“Enter the bad guy,” Moses said, looking across the room.
Tommy followed his gaze. Carmen was engaged in discussion with a large Latino man in ragged, dirty jeans and a black t-shirt. He was angry and glaring in Tommy’s direction. She was trying to move him away and keep him calm.
Moses grunted. “I don’t think he liked what he saw when she was over here with you, you looking down her shirt and all.”
Tommy stared defiantly back at the man. He tried to send a message with
a glare—Do not hurt that woman, or you will pay. Carmen pulled her purse from the counter, said something to Nurse Beulah, and manipulated the man out of the door.
Tommy stood, moved his rig over to the window, and waited. As he expected, a short time later he saw them both emerge from the building and head into the parking lot. “There they go,” he said.
Curious, Moses got up and moved over next to him. They watched the two approach a battered old Ford.
The man pulled Carmen over to the passenger side, yanked the door open, and shoved her in, then went around and got in the driver’s side. A few moments later, puffs of blue smoke emerged from the exhaust, and the vehicle sped from the lot.
Tommy took note of the plate and pulled his notebook from his shirt pocket to jot it down. “Son of a bitch,” he said.
“Those two are always going at it. It’s nothing. That’s love, I guess—at least to some people.” The two turned and saw Nurse Beulah looking on behind them. “You two sit down, you’re both about done. Let me get this stuff off you.”
When they’d been relieved of their tubes, the two walked down the hall to the elevator together. They entered, and Moses pressed the button for the ground floor. “I don’t know about you, whitey, but I need a drink. Care to join me?”
“Sure. I’ll drive, but I ain’t drinking.”
“You saying black folk don’t have cars?”
Tommy laughed. “I’m saying I haven’t observed you ever coming in with any car keys on your person. Empty-handed and flat-pocketed, except for the wallet in your back left.”
“Damn, busted. You cops are always in surveillance mode. Yeah, a lift home after might be good. I got a place I like, just a few blocks away. Walking distance. I thought your old lady usually came with you to drive you back?”
“I guess that was a one-time sympathy thing. Apparently, I’m on my own now.”
Vigilante Angels Trilogy Page 3
