Tough Luck

by Jason Starr

  She sounded like she really knew.

  “This is the spot, isn’t it?” she said. “The car accident your mother was in—you said it happened right here, on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Did we just pass the spot or something?”

  “Yeah,” Mickey said, even though the accident had happened on a different part of the BQE, near the merger with the Gowanus Expressway.

  During the rest of the trip into the city, they didn’t talk much. They parked in a lot on Forty-eighth Street and walked down Ninth Avenue. Mickey didn’t feel comfortable in this part of the city, especially with a girl. On every block there were porno theaters and sleazy-looking people hanging out in front of doorways and drugged-out homeless people asking for change. They passed a couple of Guardian Angels—Hispanic guys walking around in their red berets, looking tough, trying to protect the neighborhood—but Mickey still didn’t feel safe and he held Rhonda’s hand tightly.

  Mickey asked Rhonda what kind of food she was in the mood for.

  “Whatever,” she said, looking away.

  They went to an Italian restaurant on Restaurant Row. Lunch was going to cost at least thirty bucks and parking would cost around twenty. It would be no problem for today—Mickey had a hundred bucks with him—but he knew this would be the last time he’d be able to spend fifty or sixty bucks on a date. He remembered the Rolex from last night and he wished he’d kept it. He could have hocked it or sold it and used the money to pay off the rest of Angelo’s debt and still had some left over.

  Mickey ordered lasagna and Rhonda had a veal dish. As they ate, Rhonda did most of the talking. Mickey must have been staring off because Rhonda said, “Are you still upset about your mother?”

  “No,” Mickey said.

  “Then is it something I did or said because—”

  “No,” Mickey said. “It’s nothing.”

  “Well, you don’t seem very happy to be with me today.”

  “Of course I’m happy,” Mickey said. “I’m very happy.”

  During the rest of lunch, Mickey didn’t say anything. He paid the bill, thirty-five bucks with tip, then they walked uptown a few blocks to the Winter Garden Theater on Fiftieth Street and Broadway.

  The seats were great—in the middle section, three rows behind the orchestra. Waiting for the curtain to go up, Rhonda was still trying to talk to Mickey and Mickey was still quiet. He was worrying about what Ralph had done with Chris’s body, and about Filippo’s uncle’s body, lying there in the house.

  Mickey didn’t pay much attention to the show. Rhonda seemed to have a great time, though, smiling, singing along with the cast.

  When they left the theater it was about five-thirty, and it was dark outside. They walked along Fiftieth Street toward Ninth Avenue. Rhonda was still singing one of the songs from the show, something about a cat named Skimbleshanks, and Mickey just wanted her to shut up.

  On Ninth, Mickey noticed a tall, thin Puerto Rican guy standing in front of a bodega, looking at him and Rhonda as they passed by. Then, when they turned onto Forty-eighth Street, heading toward the parking lot, Mickey looked over his shoulder and noticed the guy following them.

  “Come on, walk faster,” Mickey whispered.

  “Why?” Rhonda said in a normal tone of voice.

  “Just do it,” Mickey said.

  Mickey and Rhonda walked faster, but Rhonda was on high heels and Mickey felt like he had to pull her along.

  “I can’t go this fast,” Rhonda said. “What’s wrong with you? Why’re you pulling me?”

  Mickey looked back and saw the guy behind them was also walking fast, gaining on them. But Mickey and Rhonda had reached the parking lot now, where the street was lit better, and there was a parking attendant sitting in a booth only a few feet away. The guy who’d been following them turned around and headed back toward Ninth Avenue.

  Mickey paid the parking attendant then headed toward the car with Rhonda.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Rhonda said. “Why did you have to pull me like that?”

  “That guy was following us,” Mickey said.

  “What guy?”

  “The guy behind us. He followed us from that bodega.”

  “So why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I couldn’t tell you.”

  “Then why’d you have to pull me? I almost twisted my ankle.”

  “Sorry,” Mickey said, “I didn’t have a choice. The guy would’ve mugged us.”

  They got in the car and drove out of the lot.

  “You okay?” Mickey asked.

  Rhonda didn’t answer, her arms crossed in front of her chest. Mickey tried to hold her hand but she moved it away.

  “Look, I didn’t know what to do, all right?” Mickey said. “I really thought the guy wanted to mug us. You’re lucky you didn’t get your purse snatched.”

  “I really wish you’d tell me what’s wrong,” Rhonda said.

  “Wrong with what?” Mickey said.

  “Everything. You’ve been acting weird all day. You didn’t talk at all during lunch, and you haven’t said anything about the show.”

  “It was good,” Mickey said.

  “It was good? That’s it? What was good about it? Did you like the singing, the dancing?”

  “I liked all of it.”

  “It didn’t seem like you liked any of it. You were just sitting there the whole time looking angry. Is it me? Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, it’s nothing, I told you. I had a great time today.”

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Sure you are.”

  They were driving down Eleventh Avenue and it was starting to drizzle. Mickey turned the wipers on with the slow setting. For a few minutes the only noise in the car was the occasional rubbing of the wipers against the windshield.

  Finally, Mickey said, “Look, I really am sorry. I know I’ve been a little out of it today. But, believe me, it has nothing to do with you. I swear to God it doesn’t.”

  “It’s all right,” Rhonda said quietly.

  “No, it’s not all right,” Mickey said. “I’ve been acting like an idiot all day, but this isn’t me. You know what I’m really like.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Rhonda said. “It’s not a big deal.” As they continued back to Brooklyn, Mickey tried to make conversation. He told Rhonda how much he liked the show and how he would love to go to another show with her sometime, but he couldn’t keep his act up for long. Soon he started thinking about last night again and the dead silence returned.

  Rhonda asked Mickey to drop her off at the corner of her block, instead of in front of her house, so her father wouldn’t see. Mickey pulled into a parking spot on the corner of Avenue I and East Twenty-third Street and put the car in park.

  “Let me take you out to dinner one night this week,” Mickey said. “How about Wednesday night?”

  “Maybe,” Rhonda said.

  “Maybe?”

  “I don’t know what night’s good for me.”

  “I’ll call you.”

  Mickey was trying to look into Rhonda’s eyes, but she was looking away, fidgeting with the door handle. Mickey leaned around and kissed her, but it wasn’t anything like the kiss the other night. She didn’t open her mouth and she pulled back quickly and said, “Good night, Mickey.” Then she left the car and headed up the block toward her house without even looking back or waving.

  Mickey drove away, hating himself for ruining everything, for acting like such a jerk, then he turned onto Albany Avenue and saw the police car parked in front of his house and the two officers out front talking to his neighbors.

  11

  MICKEY PARKED ACROSS the street from his house and got out of his car slowly. The neighbors noticed him and stopped talking to the officers and to each other right away. Mickey’s landlord Joseph was there, and so was Shawn, the thirteen-year-old kid from next door, and Shawn’s parents, and John Finley and his wife Kathy, and Kenny Du
gan from up the street. Then Mickey saw Mrs. Turner, Chris’s mother, standing off to the side by the driveway. Everyone was looking at Mickey with sad, disappointed expressions, probably wondering how a kid like Mickey, who’d always seemed like he’d had such a good head on his shoulders and was going to go places in life, had wound up getting involved in something like this.

  The two officers saw Mickey and immediately stopped what they were doing and walked toward him, looking very serious, to head him off before he reached the house. Mickey expected to be thrown back against the car and handcuffed from behind and the officers to start reading him his rights.

  “You Mickey Prada?” one of the officers asked. He was a stocky guy with a thick brown mustache.

  “Yeah,” Mickey said, bracing himself.

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you,” the officer said. “Your father was killed this afternoon.”

  “What did you just say?” Mickey said.

  “I said your father was killed this afternoon,” the officer said. “He was struck by a car while crossing Fort Hamilton Parkway. We’re very sorry.”

  It seemed like a second later Mickey was sitting on his stoop, the two officers standing in front of him, and he had no idea how he got there. The other officer, who was tall with a short blond crew cut, was explaining how the accident had happened. Sal Prada had been trying to cross Fort Hamilton Parkway against the light at approximately three-thirty P.M. when a laundry truck slammed into him. Mickey was barely paying attention, but he heard the officer say “your father died instantly” and “he didn’t feel any pain.”

  The neighbors came over to Mickey, one by one, trying to console him. Chris’s mother sat next to Mickey on the stoop and put an arm around him. Mickey could smell alcohol on her breath as she said, “Don’t worry, your father’s in heaven now and he’s not suffering anymore.” She kissed Mickey on the cheek and then said, “I know this is a terrible time for you, but do you got any idea where Chris is?”

  Mickey looked at the officers standing nearby, only a few feet away. But the officers were busy, writing in their pads, and didn’t seem to be eavesdropping.

  “What do you mean?” Mickey asked.

  “He didn’t come home last night and I haven’t heard from him all day,” Mrs. Turner said. “I thought he might’ve gone to Atlantic City or something with you and maybe he didn’t tell me.”

  “I haven’t seen him since last Thursday night,” Mickey said.

  “I’m sure he’ll come home soon,” Mrs. Turner said. “And when he does I’ll tell him to come over and be with you.”

  After a few minutes of consoling Mickey, Mrs. Turner returned to her house across the street. The police officer with the mustache gave Mickey some personal items that were found on Sal—his wallet and keys—and explained that the body was currently in the Victory Memorial Hospital morgue.

  “If you want to come with us to ID the body, we’d be glad to give you a lift.”

  Mickey nodded and followed the officers to the squad car. During the twenty-or-so-minute drive to Bay Ridge, Mickey stared out the window while the officers up front bullshitted about baseball.

  At the hospital, Mickey was led down to the morgue. An attendant explained that the body was in “bad shape,” so instead of showing Mickey the actual body, he showed him a black-and-white photograph—a side view of Sal Prada’s face. Mickey recognized his father immediately and the attendant asked him to sign the picture.

  Mickey was given a card with a number to call to give instructions on where to send the body, then the officers led Mickey back upstairs.

  In the hospital’s lobby, the blond officer said to Mickey, “We understand that your father was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and had also recently suffered a stroke. Is that correct?”

  “Yes,” Mickey said.

  “Do you have any idea why he was in the Fort Hamilton Parkway vicinity today?” the officer asked.

  “No,” Mickey said. “Not really. I mean this is the neighborhood where he grew up, Bay Ridge, and he sometimes got confused about the past.”

  “We also understand this wasn’t the first time your father wandered away,” the officer said.

  “No it wasn’t,” Mickey said.

  “Excuse me for saying this, but if this happened before, why wasn’t your father receiving supervision?”

  “You mean why wasn’t he in a home?” Mickey asked.

  “Yes. Or why—”

  “Because I didn’t want to put him in a home, all right? I wanted to take care of him. Would you put your father away in a nursing home?”

  “I don’t know, but if I didn’t put him away I probably wouldn’t let him wander the streets, either.”

  Mickey was about to tell the blond officer to go fuck himself when the officer with the mustache cut in and said to his partner, “I think we should get going now.”

  They drove Mickey back to his house. Mickey got out of the car without saying anything, letting the door slam behind him.

  All the commotion in front of the house had cleared, and Mickey went up to his apartment. He sat at the kitchen table, looking through Sal Prada’s old address book. Most of the names in the book were of old friends of his father’s who had died or whom his father had fallen out of touch with. But Mickey called all the people he thought would want to hear about his father’s death, including his father’s cousin Carmine on Staten Island. Carmine was in his eighties and couldn’t hear very well. Mickey had to keep yelling, “My father died!” until Carmine finally understood. “Oh,” Carmine said, not sounding very surprised or upset. Mickey explained how his father had died and Carmine said, “Oh, that’s too bad.”

  Mickey called a few other distant relatives and old friends of his father and got similar reactions. No one seemed very surprised to hear that Sal Prada was dead, and they didn’t seem to care very much, either.

  When he finished calling, Mickey went into his room and turned on the radio. He listened for an entire hour, lying in bed, but there was still nothing about a robbery or a murder in Manhattan Beach.

  Downstairs, in his landlord’s apartment, Blackie was barking as loudly as usual; otherwise, the apartment was quiet and suddenly seemed very empty.

  It was after eleven, but Mickey decided to call Rhonda, anyway. A woman answered the phone—it sounded like her stepmother—and Mickey asked to speak with Rhonda. About a minute went by and then Rhonda picked up.

  “Rhonda, it’s Mickey.”

  There was a long pause then she said, “Hi.”

  “Sorry to call so late,” Mickey said.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “So what do you want?”

  “My father died today.”

  Rhonda hesitated then said, “Are you serious? What happened?”

  Mickey explained.

  “My God, that’s so awful,” Rhonda said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “So what’re you doing right now?” Mickey asked.

  “Now?”

  “Yeah. You feel like going to a diner and getting some dessert or coffee or something? I mean I know it’s short notice but I really want to see you again and—”

  “I can’t now,” Rhonda said. “I mean it’s late and I have an early class tomorrow and—”

  “Oh,” Mickey said, “because I really wanted to make up for today. I know I was an asshole.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rhonda said. “I can’t.”

  “It’s okay,” Mickey said. “We’ll do it some other time then.”

  “Yeah, some other time,” Rhonda said. “I’m really sorry about your father.”

  “Thanks,” Mickey said.

  He wanted to say something else but Rhonda said, “Bye, Mickey,” and hung up quickly.

  AT EIGHT THE next morning, Mickey called Harry at home and explained he would have to take the morning off.

  “You better have a good reason,” Harry said.

  “My father died,” Mickey said.

  “Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” H
arry said, for once in his life sounding sincere. He asked Mickey how it happened and after Mickey told him he said, “You sure you don’t wanna take the whole day?”

  “Nah, just the morning,” Mickey said. “I’ll see you at noon.”

  Mickey spent most of the morning on the phone. He looked in the yellow pages for funeral homes and called a few that didn’t seem too expensive. But even the cheapest funeral would cost three thousand bucks, not including the price of the coffin, the hearse, or the cemetery plot. Mickey only had about nine hundred left in the bank and he still owed Artie over a thousand, so there was no way he could even afford a coffin.

  Mickey decided to forget the funeral. He would just have a wake for his father and have the body cremated. He found a wake/cremation package for twenty-two hundred bucks at a funeral home on Avenue U. When Mickey explained his financial situation, the funeral director agreed to let him pay with an interest-free payment plan—two hundred bucks up front, and then payments of at least a hundred a month.

  After Mickey called the morgue and arranged for the body to be delivered to the funeral home, he called a few of his father’s relatives and old friends and told them about the wake on Wednesday. He even called Artie, leaving a message with his wife, then he called up some of the neighbors who had been by the house yesterday. He called Chris’s mother last. She said she wanted to come, but she was too worried about Chris to think about anything else. Mickey said he understood.

  “I haven’t seen him in two days now, and it’s just not like him not to call,” she said.

  “Like I told you,” Mickey said, “I haven’t seen him since Thursday night.”

  “He left to go out Saturday night,” Mrs. Turner said. “I heard the door slam, but he didn’t say where he was going. I was drinkin’ a little bit that night, so maybe he said something and I didn’t hear him.”

  “I’m sure he’s all right,” Mickey said.

  “If I don’t hear something by noon, I’m calling the police,” Mrs. Turner said. “This just isn’t like Chris.”

  When Mickey got off the phone he was sweating all over. He showered and dressed for work, leaving his apartment at a quarter to twelve. At the grocery store on Avenue J, he bought a copy of the Daily News and flipped through it as he walked, but there was nothing about the robbery.