A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself

by William Boyle

  Rena nods. “I won’t tell anyone.”

  Enzio continues: “Good, thanks. So, Eddie, he thinks about Madeleine, he thinks about his kids, he thinks maybe he’s gonna piss himself and then his brains’ll be splattered on the beach, the end. But instead of pissing himself or begging for his life, he starts laughing. Like a goddamn clown. Just hardy-fucking-har. Excuse me. Just hardy-har-har, you know? Maniac stuff. The Godorskys are taken aback. They’ve never seen this. Eddie laughs harder. The Godorskys start arguing in Russian. They think maybe he’s got something on them they don’t know about. They turn on each other. Gun’s off the back of Eddie’s head. Now the one brother is pointing the gun at the other brother. The other brother takes out a gun and points it at the one with original gun. Then bam. They shoot each other. Just like that. Eddie gets up and looks around and the Godorskys are on their backs, choking on blood. Eddie laughs some more and then steals their car and goes home.”

  “What’s the point of that story?” Rena asks.

  “Laugh a little, that’s what.”

  And she does laugh. Russian mobsters shooting each other like that. Jesus, Mary, and Saint Joseph. What a tale.

  “There you go,” Enzio says. “You’ve got a nice laugh. All these years, I’ve never heard you laugh, you know that?”

  She’s still laughing. Now she can’t stop. She’s looking across at Enzio, this old man who just told this ridiculous story, and she’s noticing his elbows on the table, his flabby chin, hair under his nose and around his ears that he’s also missed shaving, earlobes that dangle like melted coins, a little burst of blood vessels on his forehead.

  “Okay, okay,” Enzio says.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, trying to catch her breath. “I can’t stop. I’m gonna pee my pants.”

  “Don’t piss your pants.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Christ, what’s so funny?”

  She gasps. Tries to settle herself. Her laughter finally sputters to a stop. “Sorry. Just the whole thing.” She waves her hands in front of her as if swatting away gnats. “I’m done, I swear.”

  “You’re laughing at me?” Enzio asks.

  “Not at all,” Rena says.

  “I’m no fool.”

  “I know. I mean, you wanted me to laugh, right?”

  “Not like that.”

  She gets up. “I need some water. You want some water?”

  “I don’t like water.”

  Rena goes over to the sink and runs the tap, passing her hand through the stream to make sure it’s cold enough. She takes a glass from the dish drain, fills it, and slurps down the water, her back to Enzio. “You’re mad?” she asks. She doesn’t particularly care if he is—he’s just a neighbor to her anyway—but she feels bad for laughing at him. She feels bad he knows she was laughing at him. She wishes Vic was still alive for a lot of reasons, but mostly, right now, so she wouldn’t have to deal with Enzio.

  “I’m fine,” he says, picking at his ear.

  She runs more water into her glass and downs it. “I’ll come with you to your house,” she says, and she’s not even sure why she says it. Maybe she knows it’s the only way the tension will die.

  “Yeah? Wine and cookies?”

  “One glass. Maybe a cookie.”

  Enzio claps his hands together. “That’s a start.”

  Rena places her glass in the sink slowly, hoping if she takes long enough Enzio will go away and she won’t have to go with him on this, this . . . what else to call it but a date?

  “You won’t be sorry,” Enzio says, grabbing his jacket. “I’m a gentleman.”

  “Famous last words,” Rena says.

  Enzio’s house is just a few doors down, a two-family brick job. Enzio no longer rents out the downstairs. He tried about fifteen years ago and got into a bad situation with a bunch of gypsies. A Christmas wreath still hangs on the front door of the upstairs apartment, which is where he lives. An Italian flag dangles from a pole rigged on the ledge of a third-floor window. The flag is weather-bitten, ragged. The Virgin Mary in the front yard has a chipped nose. Next to her is a flattened garden that died with Maria. Enzio’s near-mint 1962 Chevy Impala, driven sparingly, is under a blue tarp in the driveway.

  They climb the short staircase up to the second-floor entrance. Enzio leaves his white Filas on a mat outside and asks Rena to take off her shoes.

  “Really?” she says.

  “I care about the carpets.”

  She nudges her feet out of her white Keds and kicks them onto the mat next to Enzio’s sneakers. All these years, she’s never been in his house. Not once. Not for coffee with Maria. Not anything.

  It’s exactly what she imagines. Totally from the past: green shag rug that’s still in decent shape, plastic on the sofa. Elaborate vases. Paintings of vineyards and posters of Jesus on the walls. There’s a heavy glass cigar ashtray on a coffee table covered in lace doilies and the smell of bad cologne in the air. The only thing out of place is the big-screen TV in the living room.

  “You like the TV?” Enzio says, noticing her noticing it.

  “It’s big,” she says.

  “Sixty inches. Picture’s great. Like having the movies in your house.”

  “I don’t get these big TVs. Give me a little TV. That’s fine. Why do I need to feel like I’m in a theater?”

  “I’ll show you the picture after. You’ll be impressed.”

  Rena follows him into the kitchen. She takes a seat at the table. It’s Formica, the top patterned with white and gold boomerangs. A saltshaker stands alone in the middle of the table, a hulking ring of keys snaked around it. She looks over at the refrigerator. No pictures, no magnets. Dirty dishes are toppled in the sink. Empty pizza boxes are stacked on top of the dish drain.

  Enzio motions at the boxes and says, “The bachelor’s life.” He digs around under the sink and comes out with a dusty magnum of wine. He strips away the seal, humming, and uses a corkscrew key to yank the cork. He fills a couple of juice glasses, their flowered sides laced with smeary fingerprints, and gives one to her.

  “Thanks,” Rena says, lifting the glass up to her nose and taking a whiff.

  “Larry does a great job with this,” Enzio says. “He makes it down in his basement. I used to make it like that, but I got lazy. He’s devoted.” He comes over and sits across from her at the table, reaching out to clink her glass. “Salute.”

  Rena doesn’t clink back. She sips the wine. It’s fruity and heavy.

  “The good stuff, right?” Enzio says.

  “Not bad,” she says.

  “Not bad, my ass.” He takes a long slug. “You want a cookie? What kind? Savoiardi? You’re a savoiardi girl, I can tell.”

  “I’m good.”

  “Come on, have a cookie.” He gets up and opens the refrigerator. The white box of cookies is on the top shelf, wrapped carefully in a plastic Pastosa bag. Keeping cookies in the refrigerator was a big no-no for Vic.

  “I’m good.”

  “You sure? I’m having one.” He peels back the plastic, opens the box, and takes out a seeded cookie. He munches on it, cupping his palm under his mouth to catch the crumbs. “I’m lonely eating this alone. Have one.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d quit with the cookies. I want one, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “To each his own.” He turns and goes back into the living room. Starts fiddling around with the TV. The screen bleeps on. Bleeps? She’s not sure of the word for whatever TVs do now when they turn on. Not bleeps, exactly; more futuristic than that. A big bubble opens up in the middle and then little dreamy rainbow raindrops flood the blackness.

  “What are you doing?” Rena says from the kitchen.

  “Enough with the slow dancing,” Enzio says. “I’m putting something on for you.”

  “I’m gonna be impressed by your big TV?”

  The screen is snow now.

  And then it’s not.

  And then there are bodies. Smooth bodies, tangle
d, two men and a woman. She’s blond and fake with silly boobs. The men are hairless, muscly in all the wrong ways, barbed-wire tattoos on their arms. Rena doesn’t want to think about what they’re doing, all of them involved like that.

  “What is this?” she asks, standing up.

  “My favorite kind of movie.”

  “Uh-uh. Nope.” She shakes her arms and puts up her hands, as if she’s just touched something skeevy, maybe a dead mouse in a trap. She keeps her eyes away from the screen, not wanting to catch another glimpse of the bodies. It’s the first time she’s ever seen pornography. Vic, if he ever whacked off, must’ve done it to old Life spreads of Sophia Loren, because Rena never found any dirty stuff in the house. Not even a Playboy.

  “You don’t like it?” Enzio says.

  “No, I don’t like it, sicko. I’m leaving.” She’s in the living room now, everything swirling, focused on making it to the front door without any unnecessary Enzio contact. It’s weird to be walking around his house in her socks.

  “Don’t leave. Let’s watch. You’ve lived your whole life like a prude; let it go.”

  Rena stops. “You’re calling me a prude? You don’t know me.”

  “I know you.” Enzio’s closer to her now, almost at arm’s reach. “Loosen up, huh?”

  “Fuck you, okay? You like that? You like me talking like that?”

  Enzio puts up his hands. She can see the action on the screen behind his head. He says, “It’s a nice movie. Nothing too crazy. I’ve got the wine—”

  “Nice movie?”

  “It’s nothing strange.”

  “It’s strange to me, okay?”

  “I’ve got Viagra. We can have some fun.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Viagra.”

  “You’re gonna take a Viagra and then we’re gonna what? Watch this movie and have sex?”

  Enzio shrugs. “Make love, yeah. I can satisfy you.”

  Rena’s not sure if she should laugh again or continue storming out. What those bodies are doing now! Like some horrible painting of hell. He’s really thinking she’s going to go along with this? Crawl onto the couch and let him go to town? “I don’t think so, Enzio,” she says, so shocked that her voice feels full of restraint.

  He moves toward her and puts his hand on her arm. “Think about it. You’re gonna go back to your quiet house? We’ve got entertainment here. We could have real fun.”

  “Get your hand off me, please.”

  “I got this Viagra,” he says. He pulls his hand away from her arm, reaches into his pants pocket, and fishes out a small blue pill. He pops it into his mouth and swallows it dry. “Don’t you want to touch me? Don’t you want to be touched?”

  “I told you, I don’t like being touched.”

  He’s getting closer again, reaching for her.

  She sidesteps him and picks up the heavy glass ashtray from the coffee table, holding it up in front of her chest with both hands. “Touch me again, I’ll hit you with this.”

  “Rena.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “You’d hit me?”

  And then he’s smiling and his hand is on her waist. She can feel how rough and warm it is through her shirt.

  “I’m about ready for some love,” he says. “Aren’t you?”

  She lifts the ashtray over her head and then thwacks him across the head with it, hard as she can. A raw-meat sound comes with the impact. And there’s a little spray of blood. He makes a noise, a small, prolonged one, like a balloon deflating. He spins and collapses toward the coffee table, his head slamming the edge on his way down. He crumples to the floor.

  “Jesus Christ,” Rena says to no one. “I told him not to touch me.”

  She drops the ashtray, blood mapping its bottom.

  She looks at the ceiling. Closes her eyes.

  Three, four minutes pass like that. A lifetime.

  She squats next to Enzio. She looks closely at his back to see if he’s breathing. Like the first six months with Adrienne. Watching the rise and fall of her baby’s breathing. Paranoia and parenting so intertwined. But this is something different.

  He’s still breathing, but it’s slow.

  She thinks of a woman she saw on Bay Thirty-Fourth Street once. Just pushing her shopping cart along and then her feet went out from under her and she fell sideways, hitting her head against the sharp point of an old iron fence. Blood then, too. And slow, pained breaths.

  The worst part is Enzio has wood from the Viagra. It’s tenting up his pants.

  The shininess of the movie draws Rena’s attention back to the screen. Moans getting louder. Mechanical pounding. She watches to keep her eyes away from Enzio. She thinks maybe when she looks back at him next, he’ll be sitting up, knuckling the blood from his brow, ready to apologize.

  What’s happening on the screen now mystifies her. They’re moving like the oily wrestlers Vic used to love to watch.

  Back to Enzio. More blood, pooling around his head on the green shag rug. Clotting darkly. The thick threads pimpled red.

  “Jesus Christ,” she says again.

  She stands up and walks over to the TV and feels around on the side of it for a power button. She hits the volume controls first, and the noises from the movie get louder. She’s not shaking. She feels like she should be shaking. She punches a couple of other buttons and finally powers down the TV, the nightmarish final image—the woman on all fours over one man, while the other drills her from behind—sputtering away.

  Oppressively quiet now. She swears she can hear the blood leaking from Enzio.

  Calling 911 doesn’t occur to her.

  She goes back to the kitchen and sits at the table. The wine Enzio poured for her is still there. As if it would be gone somehow. Dust specks float on the surface. She downs the rest and pushes the glass away. It’s close to the edge. She pauses, but then thinks, What the hell? and pushes it farther. The glass falls from the table and shatters on the kitchen floor, a mess of splintery shards. She gets lost staring at the boomerangs in the Formica. She thinks of her house, of this house, of this block, this neighborhood, and decides she should just leave.

  She doesn’t have a car anymore. She sold Vic’s Chrysler Imperial after he died and hasn’t needed one. But Enzio’s keys are right there in front of her.

  If Enzio’s not dead, he won’t come after her. He’ll be thinking she’s still connected through Vic. All she’s got to do is get on the horn. And it’s true. Tell Vic’s old crew this creep tried to rape her, he’ll probably wind up being dismembered and buried somewhere out in Jersey.

  And if he’s dead—she’s not checking, no way—she didn’t mean to kill him. It was an accident. Hitting that table on the way down did the real damage. A man can’t just put his hands on a woman like that. Self-defense, pure and simple. If he hadn’t turned on that dirty movie and popped that pill and then touched her. What he said, to boot. She’s not sorry. He’s a dirty old man, but that’s no excuse.

  Those keys.

  She can just get in the Impala and drive to the Bronx. Drive to Adrienne and Lucia. Come to them out of desperation. They won’t be able to refuse her. Maybe something good can come of this.

  Outside, the key glistens in her hand as she slips her shoes back on. It took some doing, sorting through the other keys on the ring, but the one for the Impala showed itself to her. She and Vic had an Impala back in the early days of their marriage—it was the car they drove to the Catskills for their honeymoon—and she recognized it immediately. A small key with a slot in it. Silver.

  She pulls the tarp off the car, folds it as neatly as she can, and stuffs it in the garbage can chained to the front fence.

  She wonders if anyone is watching her.

  She looks up at the windows in the apartment building across the street. People move behind drawn shades, caught up in their own lives, as they should be. A bus on Bath Avenue wheezes to a stop. Some kids jump around outside the deli on the corner. Otherwise, Sunday quiet rei
gns.

  No one is noticing her.

  She stares at the car. It’s been a while since she’s seen it out from under the tarp. Crayon black and shiny. Rosary beads hanging from the rearview mirror.

  Rena remembers how, on summer Saturdays, Enzio used to get in the car, start it up, back up to the edge of the driveway, and just sit there listening to WCBS for about thirty minutes while sunning the hood. Sometimes he’d check the oil and wipe the dipstick on a crusty rag he kept in his back pocket. He doesn’t do that anymore.

  She opens the driver’s-side door and gets in behind the wheel. Red interior. The car smells like gas and grease and vinyl. She runs her hand over the dashboard, which Enzio cleans with expensive wet wipes that he buys at a crammed-to-the-gills automotive store on Benson Avenue. She adjusts the mirrors and starts the car. Shifting it into reverse, she lulls it out of the driveway, careful not to clip the nearby telephone pole.

  At the end of the block, she turns left and heads for the Belt Parkway toward Long Island. From there, she knows she’ll get on the Cross Island Parkway and then take the Throgs Neck Bridge. The car has a glowing radio. She searches the stations and settles for Lite FM.

  WOLFSTEIN

  SILVER BEACH, THE BRONX

  Wolfstein is sitting in her yard on the paint-chipped bench next to the birdbath, smoking her last Marlboro 100 and drinking a Bud Light. Her neighbor from down the street, Freddie Frawley, wearing Yankees gear from head to toe, walks by out in the street with his St. Bernard. He waves at her.