Tough Luck

by Jason Starr

  Mickey wanted to leave, but he kept thinking about the money—five grand, enough to pay off Artie, make a deposit in his bank account, start school in the spring, and get his whole life back on track.

  “So what are you gonna do,” Mickey said, “just go break the door down?”

  “Nah, we’re gonna blow it up with a stick of dynamite.” Chris rolled his eyes. “Ralph used to work for a locksmith on Avenue U. He knows how to pick any kind of lock, and he can dismantle alarms too. Whatever we get Ralph’ll bring to a fence in Queens. Let’s say we come away with thirty grand worth of shit. We sell it to the fence for twenty and boom—we get five grand apiece.”

  “What if the police catch on?” Mickey asked.

  “How could they?” Chris said.

  “Gee, I don’t know,” Mickey said, “what if they figure out only Filippo’s relatives are getting robbed?”

  “It’s two houses in two totally different neighborhoods in Brooklyn,” Chris said. “Filippo’s grandmother was Canarsie, his cousin’s Manhattan Beach. The only connection is Filippo, but how would the cops figure that out? Besides, that’s why we waited a month. So the two robberies would be spread apart. I’m telling you, we got all the bases covered.”

  Mickey imagined what it could be like—winding up with more money than he’d had before Angelo made his first bet, moving out of his father’s house into his own apartment, maybe in Manhattan.

  After thinking it over for about a minute, Mickey said, “So you’re sure Filippo’s cousin’s gonna be in the Poconos, right?”

  8

  CHARLIE WAS AT the counter, cutting tuna steaks with one hand, his other arm with the cast by his side. Rap music was playing at a low volume from the boom box on the floor next to him.

  “We’ve got two hands between us,” Mickey said, holding up his hand with the bandaged finger.

  “Don’t bother me,” Charlie said. “I got one hand, I do half as much work, that’s all.”

  Working very slowly, Charlie continued to cut the tuna with one hand.

  “How’s your cousin doing?” Mickey asked.

  “He got out of the hospital yesterday,” Charlie said. “He had a concussion and a skull fracture, broke some bones. He has trouble remembering shit right now, but the docs say he’ll be all right.”

  “That’s cool,” Mickey said. “I hope they catch the bastards who did it. “

  “I ain’t keepin’ my fingers crossed,” Charlie said. “Till we get a black mayor in this city, black people won’t get shit from the police.”

  “Hey, I need to talk to you about something else,” Mickey said. “It’s something Harry said to me yesterday.”

  “If that asshole wants me to start coming in earlier, tell him forget it. I told him—I gotta take my little brother to school in the morning.”

  “It’s not about that,” Mickey said. “It’s just there’s kinda been a problem in the store lately. At least that’s what Harry says.”

  Charlie stopped working, holding the knife by his side. He said, “What kinda problem?”

  “Harry said there was some money missing from the register.”

  “Don’t surprise me,” Charlie said, turning back away from Mickey, slicing into the fish again. “The guy’s the dumbest motherfucker in the world—he probably don’t even know his times tables yet. You think he can count money from a cash register?”

  “I don’t really care,” Mickey said, “but Harry said it’s happened twice.”

  “So maybe he made a mistake twice,” Charlie said. “Wouldn’t be the first time that man had his head up his ass.”

  “Yeah,” Mickey said, “you’re probably right.”

  Later, Harry returned to the store to close up and Charlie left before Mickey.

  “So,” Harry said to Mickey as soon as Charlie was gone. “Did you find anything out?”

  “He said he didn’t do it,” Mickey said.

  “Figures,” Harry said. “The guy’s a born thief and a born liar. Well, you did your best. I guess we’ll just have to catch him in the act.”

  MICKEY HADN’T THOUGHT much about Rhonda since getting off the phone with her the other day, but when he arrived home from work he was surprisingly nervous about their date tonight. He showered, washing his hair twice and scrubbing himself with soap and rinsing off several times, trying to get the fish odor off of his body. He thought he got most of it out but he put on extra Old Spice, under his arms and all over his back, chest, and stomach just in case.

  He cut himself shaving in a few places and had to cover the cuts with tiny pieces of toilet paper to stop the bleeding. In his room, he was about to get dressed when he realized he didn’t have any nice clothes to wear. He wished he’d thought about this sooner—he could have gone shopping, bought a new pair of pants at least. He put on a red pin-striped shirt, which was too tight on him, and beige corduroys, which were definitely out of style. He didn’t have anything better to wear and it was too late to try to find a new outfit, so he decided he’d just have to make the best of it. Cursing, he brushed his hair, catching a whiff of his breath. He’d had a slice of pizza with pepperoni and sausage on it for lunch, and he needed to brush his teeth. He was on his way to the bathroom when he saw the thick smoke in the hallway. Covering his mouth, he went into the kitchen and found the source of the smoke—two smoldering whole fish on a frying pan. He shut the flame and put the frying pan in the sink, creating a huge rush of fishy smoke that went right up to his face.

  “Dad!” Mickey yelled. “Dad!”

  Sal Prada came running into the kitchen.

  “What the hell’s going on?” he said. “You trying to burn down the fuckin’ umbrella?”

  “The what?”

  “You started a fuckin’ fire.”

  “You did this,” Mickey said. “You left the fuckin’ frying pan on the stove.”

  “I never put any frying pan on the stove, you lying son of a bitch.”

  “I’ve had it with this shit,” Mickey said. “Next week you’re outta here—I’m putting you in a fuckin’ home where you belong!”

  “Hey, where the hell do you think you’re going? What about my dinner?”

  Mickey went to his room to get his wallet, then he pushed past his father, who was still screaming at him, and left the apartment. The inside of his car needed a cleaning badly, but it was already after eight o’clock, the time he was supposed to meet Rhonda. He pushed the biggest pieces of garbage—a pizza box, a potato chip bag, a Whopper wrapper—under the front seat.

  As Mickey drove down Avenue I, past Bedford Avenue, the houses got bigger and nicer. There were more trees on the blocks—some of them still had orange and red leaves— and there were large front lawns with tall bushes and flower beds. In Mickey’s neighborhood, most people didn’t have front lawns—there was just fenced-in concrete. On Rhonda’s block, there were big expensive-looking houses, and Mickey knew he didn’t have to worry about feeling embarrassed around her tonight because of the way he was dressed or smelled; he had no chance with her, anyway.

  He spotted Rhonda’s house, one of the nicest ones on the block. It was three stories with a big front lawn and a new-looking tan Mercedes in the wide driveway.

  Mickey parked in a spot across the street from the house, then he headed up the stoop and rang the bell. As he was waiting, he looked at his reflection in the little glass window on the door and saw that he had forgotten to remove the pieces of toilet paper from his face. Frantically, he tore off the toilet paper and then the door opened and a short balding man with a dark beard was standing there.

  “Hi, I’m Mickey. I’m here to pick up Rhonda.”

  “Come in, I’m Rhonda’s father,” the man said without smiling. Mickey recognized the man’s voice from on the phone.

  The house was as nice on the inside as it was on the outside. There were fancy rugs, maybe Oriental ones, on the floor, and there were mirrors and paintings on the walls. They went into the living room, where there were two couc
hes and a chair. Both couches were covered in plastic slipcovers. Rhonda’s father sat in the chair and said, “Take a seat,” motioning toward one of the couches.

  As Mickey sat at the edge of the couch, the plastic crackling under him, he noticed a menorah on the mantelpiece, to the right of where Rhonda’s father was sitting. Mickey hadn’t even wondered if Rhonda was Jewish, but now it made sense. She didn’t look Irish or Italian or anything else, and a lot of rich Jewish people lived in this neighborhood, past Bedford Avenue.

  Mickey was still staring at the menorah, when Rhonda’s father said, “So I understand you work at a fish store.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Mickey said, smelling the fish odor still on his body. “Vincent’s on Flatbush Avenue. Ever been by there?”

  “No, but I think I’ve seen it before. So is this what you plan to do with your life? Be a fishmonger?”

  “No,” Mickey said.

  “Do you go to school?”

  “Not right now,” Mickey said. “But I want to start college in the spring.”

  “You want to go to college in the spring. Well, that’s very ambitious.”

  Mickey tried to smile.

  “So you finished high school I take it?” her father asked.

  “Yes,” Mickey said.

  “So why the wait? Why not start college right away?”

  “I don’t know. I mean I just thought I’d take time off.”

  “To work in a fish store?”

  “No. I mean yes. I mean I’ve worked in the fish store for a long time, so it’s not like I took time off to work there.”

  “Hi, Mickey.”

  Rhonda was standing by the doorway. She was wearing tight jeans, a light blue fuzzy sweater, and purple plastic triangle-shaped earrings.

  After staring at her for a few seconds, thinking that she was even better-looking than he’d remembered, Mickey said, “You look great.”

  “Thanks . . . so do you,” she said. “So you met my dad, huh?”

  “Yeah, I did,” Mickey said.

  “Mickey and I were just discussing his college plans,” Rhonda’s father said.

  Rhonda took a few steps toward Mickey then stopped, squinting as she looked up at Mickey’s left cheek.

  “I think you’re bleeding,” she said.

  Mickey touched his cheek then looked at his index finger and saw the blood covering the tip of it.

  “Sorry,” he said, feeling like an idiot. “You have a bathroom?”

  “Sure,” Rhonda said. “It’s down the hall to the right.”

  In the bathroom, Mickey whispered curses as he cleaned the blood off his cheek. He wanted to crawl up into a ball and die, but he finally returned to the foyer. Rhonda was waiting near the front door with her father and a very thin woman with short red hair and pale skin.

  “Mickey, I’d like you to meet my stepmother, Alice.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Alice said.

  Alice smiled as she shook Mickey’s hand and Rhonda’s father stood off to the side.

  Rhonda said good-bye to her father and stepmother, and Mickey told them how it was great to meet them and then he and Rhonda left the house.

  “So I guess my father was giving you the third degree before, huh?” Rhonda said.

  “No, not really,” Mickey said. Then he said, “Kind of.”

  “I swear to God, he’s so embarrassing sometimes,” Rhonda said. “He acts like it’s the nineteen fifties. He insists on answering the door, interrogating anybody I bring to the house.”

  “It’s all right,” Mickey said. “I’m sure he’s a nice guy when you get to know him. Your stepmother seemed nice too.”

  “Don’t let her fool you,” Rhonda said. “She can be a real bitch sometimes.”

  Mickey opened Rhonda’s door first and held it open for her. When Mickey got in, he immediately noticed his strong fish odor again, but he decided not to say anything about it, just like he wouldn’t say anything about his bleeding face.

  It took three turns on the ignition, but the engine finally caught and they drove away. Mickey looked over to see if Rhonda was disgusted by his car and everything else about him; surprisingly, she seemed happy.

  “I should probably explain about my father,” Rhonda said as they headed toward Avenue J. “See, he has this thing about me dating non-Jewish guys. You’re not Jewish, right?”

  “Nah,” Mickey said.

  “I didn’t think so. I don’t care one way or another, but my father is such a jerk about it. See, I grew up kind of religious. Well, not religious-religious. We were Conservative.”

  “Oh,” Mickey said. He imagined Rhonda standing outside a temple with those guys in black top hats and the long curly sideburn hair.

  “But I’m Reform now,” Rhonda said. “I mean I celebrate all the Jewish holidays and everything, but that’s it. My father’s still kind of religious, though. So what are you?”

  “Italian,” Mickey said.

  “That’s nice,” Rhonda said. “I don’t really care a lot about religion. I think all people are basically the same.”

  Rhonda went on, talking about herself. Her mother and father had gotten divorced three years ago, and now her mother lived in Los Angeles. She was going to Brooklyn College, only because her father had pressured her to go to a school close to home, and next year she hoped to transfer to NYU or Columbia. When they arrived at Cookie’s, a restaurant on Avenue M known for its big salad bar with unlimited shrimp, Mickey was amazed at how quickly time had gone by. It seemed like they had only left Rhonda’s block about a minute or two ago, and there hadn’t been any lulls in the conversation.

  They parked around the corner from the restaurant, and Mickey went around and opened Rhonda’s door for her. There was a wait to be seated, so they stood at the front of the restaurant, talking almost nonstop. Rhonda asked Mickey why he hadn’t gone to college right after high school. Mickey explained about his father’s Alzheimer’s disease and stroke and how he’d been taking care of his father since the summer.

  “I think that’s so wonderful,” Rhonda said.

  “What is?” Mickey said.

  “The way you love your father. You two must be really close.”

  Remembering how his father had tried to kill him the other night, Mickey said, “Yeah, I guess you can say that.”

  The hostess sat them at a table in the back. Rhonda asked Mickey about his mother and Mickey explained how she had been killed in a car accident on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

  “I’m so sorry,” Rhonda said. She leaned across the table and put her hand on top of Mickey’s.

  “You work very hard, don’t you?” she said.

  Although Mickey had scrubbed his hands, they still looked dirty and had a lot of cuts and scratches.

  “Sorry,” he said. “My hands just get like that from cleaning fish.”

  “I like them,” Rhonda said. “They have a lot of character.”

  Rhonda let go of Mickey’s hand but Mickey wished she hadn’t.

  As they ate their salads and chicken with mashed potatoes, they continued talking and laughing. Rhonda told Mickey how she wanted to be a high school English teacher someday and travel to Europe. Mickey said he wanted to be an accountant, then he told her the story of how he got the name Mickey.

  “The Yankees were playing the Orioles the day I was born. Mickey Mantle hit a homer in the ninth to win the game, so my father said to my mother, ‘Let’s name the kid Mickey.’ For years after that my father said to me, ‘You’re lucky Boog Powell didn’t hit one out that day.’ ”

  Rhonda laughed and Mickey was surprised how well the date was going. Even though Rhonda knew that he didn’t have any money and came from a strange family, she wasn’t turned off.

  For dessert, Mickey took Rhonda to Jan’s on Nostrand Avenue. There were a lot of teenagers in the place, and Mickey liked how a few guys checked Rhonda out as he sat down with her at a table. They ordered “the kitchen sink,” a huge bowl with eve
ry kind of ice cream and syrup inside it.

  Rhonda said, “I don’t want to butt into your life or anything, but can I make a suggestion?”

  “Sure,” Mickey said.

  “There’s an accounting program at Brooklyn College,” Rhonda said, “and there’s probably courses you could take. Why don’t you take a class or two at night next semester? It probably wouldn’t take too much time—I mean you could still work at the fish store during the day. Meanwhile, you could be earning credits toward a degree.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Mickey said. “But I’m gonna start school in January full time.”

  “You are? I thought you told me on the phone you weren’t going to go until next year.

  “My plans changed since then,” Mickey said. “I figured, why put it off if I don’t have to?”

  As Rhonda went on, talking about something else, Mickey stared at her mouth. Her lips looked so good, eating the ice cream, Mickey wanted to kiss her right now—just lean across the table and get it over with.

  “Are you okay?” Rhonda asked.

  “Yeah, fine,” Mickey said.

  “Your eyes looked like they were crossing for a second,” Rhonda said.

  “Nah, I was just thinking about something,” Mickey said. “Sorry.”

  “You had a long day at work—you must be tired.”

  “Nah, I’m fine, really,” Mickey said.

  Rhonda looked at her watch and yawned.

  “I guess it’s getting kind of late,” she said.

  Mickey didn’t want the date to end. He wanted to take Rhonda for a long walk, maybe near Sheepshead Bay. It was nice there at night, by the docks. It would be a good place to kiss her.

  “You should really take me home now,” Rhonda said. “My father’s gonna kill me if I get home late tonight.”

  “It’s not late yet, is it?” Mickey said.