by Jason Starr
“Let me explain what’s going on,” Mickey said, almost whispering. “See, this guy Angelo—he’s connected.”
“So?”
“So that’s why I put in the action for him.”
“You’re talkin’ to a brick wall,” Artie said. “I asked you on the phone about this guy, and you vouched for him.”
“I know, it’s my fault,” Mickey said. “But what am I supposed to do?”
“Am I talking to myself here? If you want to close your account, I’ll close your account. We can make up a payment plan, and when the account is paid off, you can start from scratch again.”
“You think I should pay it off?”
“You said you got money in the bank, right?”
“That’s my life savings so I can go to college next year. There’s no way in hell I’m using that to pay off some stupid bets.”
An old guy across the table glared at Mickey over a torn-out racing page from the Daily News.
“Keep your voice down—Jesus,” Artie said. “You sound like my fucking wife for Chrissakes.”
“Sorry,” Mickey said.
“What do you want me to tell you?” Artie said.
Mickey glanced at the TV and saw the race had started. The four was on the lead—the six was on the rail, in behind horses. Mickey continued to watch the race as he said, “I’m not stupid, Artie. I don’t just go around putting in action for guys I don’t know. But this guy, Angelo, asked me to make the bets, and I couldn’t say no to him.”
“All the more reason why you should make a payment plan or just pay it out of your own pocket and start saving again,” Artie said. “You asked for my advice and I gave it to you. Chalk it up to experience. What do you got here?”
“Four-six.”
“Rip up your ticket. The six is dead as Kelso’s nuts.”
Mickey looked up and saw that the six horse was backing out of the picture.
“Hey, don’t think I don’t wanna help you out,” Artie said. “Believe me, if there was anything I could do for you, I would, but Nick calls all the shots. Meanwhile, I’m up shit’s creek with my own problems. I can’t catch a cold at the races since—I don’t remember the last time I cashed a fuckin’ ticket. I got my own debts and bills. I’d be better off sitting on the couch watching TV with my fuckin’ wife, but like an idiot I come here every night. How’s your father by the way?”
“All right,” Mickey said.
“He can’t make it out to the track no more, huh?”
“Nah, those days are over,” Mickey said. The race at the Meadowlands had ended. The four and six had finished last and next to last.
“I got a friend whose father had that Alzheimer’s shit,” Artie said. “It’s hard. I give you a lot of credit for what you do—taking care of him like that. I know I never would’ve been able to baby-sit my old man.”
“I better get going,” Mickey said.
As Mickey stood up, Artie said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll buy some time for you. I’ll make up some story—your father’s sick, was in the hospital, whatever. But all I can promise you is another few days. After that, I don’t know what I can do. A thousand and change is a big fuckin’ number—you’ll have to start paying it off somehow. If you have to take it out of your own pocket, then you have to take it out of your own pocket. That’s the best I can do for you.”
“Thanks,” Mickey said, leaning over and patting Artie on the back. “I owe you one.”
AT THE NEWSSTAND under the Kings Highway subway el, Mickey bought a copy of Sports Eye, then he went to the OTB on East Sixteenth. Although Mickey only knew the names of a few people at the OTB, he knew almost all of their faces. He had been seeing the same people, hanging out at OTBs and racetracks, for most of his life.
The Sixteenth Street OTB was small—the whole place was about five hundred square feet—and you could see the cigarette smoke under the fluorescent lights. It was one of the only OTBs in Brooklyn that was open nights for the trotters at Roosevelt and Yonkers, and degenerates from the entire borough jammed into the place. It was so crowded, sometimes you couldn’t get up to the windows in time to bet, and the spillover usually hung out on the sidewalk, pissing between cars and drinking beer out of paper bags.
When Mickey arrived, the usual crowd of dirty, tired-looking men were standing on the street in front of the OTB, smoking and reading their racing programs and scratch sheets. Mickey pushed and weaved his way through the loud, angry crowd, glancing up at one of the TV monitors. The fifth race at Yonkers was going off in seven minutes. There was a long line of people waiting to bet, so Mickey got a betting slip and stood at the end of the line while he used his copy of Sports Eye to handicap the race. It was very crowded and, on a normal night, Mickey would have headed back over to the bookie joint. But Artie was there and Mickey didn’t want Artie to see him making more bets.
Mickey got his bet in seconds before the pool closed, then he made his way back toward the TV screen.
“Hey, who you got here?”
Mickey looked over and saw the guy with the gray hair and the bushy gray mustache. Although they talked just about every time they saw each other, Mickey wasn’t sure what the guy’s name was. A couple of years ago the guy had introduced himself to Mickey, and Mickey thought his name was Ray or Roy.
“The F,” Mickey said.
OTB used letters to correspond with the numbers at the track, so the F was the six.
“He’s missing a week,” the guy said.
“He should get a good trip, though,” Mickey said.
“I went with the D horse.”
“Got as good a shot as any,” Mickey said.
“I was by Yonkers last night,” the guy went on. “Had the three in the last, needed it to get home the double. The three takes over at the top of the stretch, then the two comes out of the clouds to nail me. Can you believe that? The double comes back two and change—woulda been bigger if the three got it.”
Mickey was shaking his head, as if he felt sorry for the guy, but the truth was he didn’t give a shit.
As the horses were lining up behind the starting gate, Mickey looked around to see who else was in the OTB. He spotted the skinny Indian guy who bet the eight horse in every race. If the eight horse wasn’t in contention, he would just stand there, not making a sound. But if the eight left the gate strong or started closing on the outside, he would start screaming like a madman: “Come on freight train, come on freight train!” The retarded guy with the red hair was standing in the corner, mumbling to himself as usual, and standing near the door was the father with his two kids. The kids—a girl and a boy—looked like they were about ten years old, and they always stood around, looking bored and lonely, while their father gambled.
Staring at the family, Mickey had missed the beginning of the race. It didn’t matter because his six horse hadn’t left the gate and the horse was sitting three deep on the rail. The six never made a move, and the four horse won the race easily.
“What’d I tell you?” the guy with the gray hair said to Mickey. “This is an easy fucking game. I shoulda put more on it. The horse was a fuckin’ lock.”
Mickey ripped up his losing ticket into tiny pieces, then he tossed the pieces onto the floor like confetti. He realized he was kidding himself, gambling tonight, chasing Angelo’s money. He was about to go home when he imagined what it would be like—fighting with his father, or lying in bed with nothing to do, watching The Odd Couple and The Honeymooners for the zillionth time—and he decided to hang out for a few more races, see if he could make something happen.
Mickey was standing outside the OTB, reading Sports Eye, when he heard someone shout, “Hey, loser!”
Mickey looked toward the street and saw Chris smiling, sitting double-parked in his mother’s Chevy. He was wearing a shiny electric blue satin jacket with the top four buttons undone and a gold link chain hanging in his chest hair. His hair was slicked back, and he had a lightning bolt ear-ring in his left ear.
Mickey went over to talk to Chris. It smelled like he’d used an entire bottle of Paco Rabanne cologne.
“What’re you doing here?” Mickey asked.
“I just had to do some shopping for my mother and I was passing by,” Chris said. “So you winning any money at least?”
“Not tonight,” Mickey said.
“What happened to your hand?”
“Oh, nothing,” Mickey said. “Just a little accident at work.”
“Yeah, right, probably jerking off too much,” Chris said. “At least it’s your right hand so you can still bowl. Hey, come out to the city tonight.”
“The city?” Mickey said.
“Come on, I’m gonna hit a few bars, see if I can fuck a horny city chick. Maybe you can do her friend.”
“Nah, I don’t think so. Not tonight.”
“Why? What’re you gonna do, hang out with the old men on a Friday night?”
“I have to get up early tomorrow.”
“What for?”
“Just to do some stuff around the house.”
“Come on, come to the city with me,” Chris said. “It’ll do you good.”
Mickey was looking back toward the OTB. The guy and his two sad-looking kids were hanging out in front surrounded by people screaming.
“All right,” Mickey said to Chris. “What the fuck?”
MICKEY DROVE HOME and changed into a pair of dark green corduroys and a red button-down shirt. When Chris honked, Mickey went outside.
“What’s with the outfit?” Chris said when Mickey got into the car. “You going to church or you going out drinking?”
“Fuck you,” Mickey said.
“I’m just bustin’ chops, man,” Chris said. “You look great. The chicks are gonna be all over you tonight. Trust me, tonight’s the night Mickey Prada finally gets laid.”
4
DRIVING DOWN CONEY Island Avenue with one hand on the steering wheel, Chris said, “Me and Filippo saw Debbie Does Dallas the other night, what a great fuckin’ movie, man. You know what’s funny? It takes place in Brooklyn. You’d think with the title Debbie Does Dallas, it would be Dallas, but it’s all Brooklyn. They got this one scene, an orgy, was shot in the locker room at Brooklyn College. Imagine you’re going to school there, just walking by, and you see this orgy goin’ on, what would you do? I know what I’d do. I’d have my pants down to my ankles, and I’d get three chicks on me at once. Man, what a great fuckin’ movie that was.”
“So where we going, anyway?” Mickey asked.
“New bar on Twenty-third called Live Bait,” Chris said. “Guy at work told me about it. He said soap opera stars hang out there. Maybe we’ll meet Genie Francis.”
“Can’t we go someplace else?” Mickey said. “How about one of those Irish pubs up on Second Avenue?”
“Irish pub?” Chris said. “What do you want to do, fuck an old man?”
“You know what I mean,” Mickey said. “Someplace more laid-back.”
“Just sit back and relax,” Chris said. “Uncle Chris’ll take care of the entertainment this evening.”
They continued around the traffic circle near the Parade Grounds, heading toward the entrance to the Prospect Expressway. Chris turned up the volume on the radio, blasting “Back in Black.”
When the song ended, Chris turned the volume back down and said, “You watch wrestling last week?”
“Nah,” Mickey said, staring out the window.
“You don’t know what you missed, man,” Chris said. “They had George ‘The Animal’ Steele on. He comes out with all this spit dribbling out of his mouth, then he starts chewing up the ring. I’m serious. He was eating the ropes and the posts, and they show all this cotton and rubber and shit, coming out of his mouth. You shoulda been there. I was laughin’ my fuckin’ ass off.”
Mickey was thinking about the girl from the fish store, remembering her green eyes and that great smile.
“Hey, douche bag,” Chris said. “Douche bag.”
“Yeah?” Mickey said, snapping out of it.
“What’s wrong with you? Why’re you zoning out? You start smokin’ weed or something?”
“I was just thinking,” Mickey said.
“What’re you thinking about, horses?”
Chris laughed.
“I wasn’t thinking about anything,” Mickey said. He was suddenly angry and he didn’t know why.
“Hey, I was gonna ask you,” Chris said, “what’s going on with you and that Mafia man?”
“Mafia man?” Mickey said, pretending to forget. “Oh, him. That’s all taken care of.”
“He gave you the money?”
“Yeah, he gave me the money.”
“See?” Chris said. “You were shittin’ bricks for nothing.”
They took the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel into the city. Although East Flatbush, Mickey’s neighborhood, was only about eight miles from Manhattan, it might as well have been on a different continent. Hardly anybody in his neighborhood went into the city, unless they worked there or had some other reason to visit.
Driving up Broadway through Soho, Chris said, “You believe people live in these old fucking buildings? They don’t even got walls, and you can see all the pipes in the ceiling.”
A few minutes later, driving through the Village, Chris started making fun of the kids with spiky green hair and mohawks.
“Look at that one. He looks like a fuckin’ Indian. Can you believe people pay to look like that?”
They drove up to Twenty-third Street and found a parking space around the corner from the bar. They were only a few blocks away from Baruch College, where Mickey had been supposed to start school this year.
“You sure you wanna go in here?” Mickey said to Chris, while they were waiting on line to be proofed.
“What’s wrong with it?” Chris said.
“It looks too uptight,” Mickey said.
“What are you talkin’ about? Wait till you see the hot fuckin’ chicks in this place. And they don’t pussy around, either. These city chicks come to play, you know what I mean? I wish I had some coke on me.”
“Why?” Mickey asked.
“You know what they say,” Chris said, “blow for blow. You give these chicks some coke, they’ll take you back into the bathroom and suck the rust off your tailpipe.”
The bouncer waved Chris in, but asked to see Mickey’s driver’s license. Chris had gotten Mickey a fake one last year, which made him nineteen. The bouncer looked at Mickey and at the license a couple of times before letting Mickey inside.
“Come on,” Chris said to Mickey, smiling. “Let’s get laid!”
The front bar area was jam-packed with rich-looking guys—some in suits and ties, others wearing Izods with the collars flipped up—and beautiful women in expensive clothes. Mickey felt very out of place. Chris, dressed like a guido, didn’t fit in, either.
Chris weaved ahead of Mickey through the crowd, smiling at all the women he passed, and a few times he stopped and talked into their ears. Some song about turning Japanese was blaring, and Mickey couldn’t hear what Chris was saying, but none of the girls stopped and some of them made disgusted faces while they walked away.
At the bar, Chris bought Mickey a Bud and a shot of something green.
“What is it?” Mickey asked.
“Just suck it down,” Chris said.
Mickey did the shot, wincing as if it were poison, then chased it with some beer.
“Come on, smile,” Chris said. “If you stand around, looking like a fuckin’ sourpuss, girls’ll never look at you.” Chris started smiling. “See that blonde over there? The one with the big knockers and the nice caboose?”
Mickey looked over. The girl had straight shoulder-length hair, and she looked like she had probably grown up in the city in some fancy apartment uptown, maybe on Park Avenue. She was with another girl who looked the same except her hair was brown.
“Yeah, what about her?” Mickey asked.
“Look how fuckin’ hot she is,” Chris said. “She has the big blow-job lips and the blonde hair just like Bambi Woods.”
“Who?” Mickey said.
“Debbie,” Chris said. “Come on, you get the friend.”
“Hold up,” Mickey said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Don’t you think those girls are out of our league?”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re not gonna wanna talk to us.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I can tell. They’re looking for some Wall Street guys with money, that’s why they came to this place.”
“Watch the doctor operate,” Chris said.
Mickey shook his head and followed Chris over to the two girls. Chris started talking to the blonde. The other girl looked at Mickey, then she whispered something to her friend and walked away.
Chris continued to talk to the blonde. Mickey felt stupid, standing by himself, so he went back to the bar and finished his Bud. After a few minutes, Chris returned.
“Fuckin’ skanky city bitch,” Chris said.
“What happened?” Mickey asked.
“I was talking to her, getting her to laugh and shit, then she tells me she’s ‘with somebody tonight.’ I knew she was full of shit, feeding me a line, but I didn’t feel like playing that game, you know? It’s not like she’s the last chick on the fuckin’ planet . . . What happened with your chick?”
“We have a date Saturday night,” Mickey said.
“You know what your problem is?” Chris said. “It’s your attitude, that’s what your problem is.”
“My attitude?”
“Yeah.”
“The girl walked away from me.”
“But why’d she walk away? That’s the question you gotta ask yourself. Maybe if you said something to her or even smiled, she would’ve stuck around. You can’t just look at a girl like you hate the world and expect to get laid.”
Chris took out a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and jutted one toward Mickey.
“No thanks,” Mickey said.
“That’s another problem,” Chris said, “when you go to a bar you gotta smoke. Chicks like guys who smoke. Besides, if you got some smoke into your clothes, you wouldn’t smell like the freakin’ Fulton Fish Market.”
