A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself

by William Boyle

  Lucia squares her shoulders. “I’ll have some!”

  “Lucia, no,” Rena says, like she’s telling a dog to get down.

  “‘I’ll have some,’ the kid says.” Mo yanks out a bottle and unscrews the cap. “Would you get a load of her?”

  Lucia shrugs.

  Rena takes out the granola bar Wolfstein bought her and opens it. She nibbles it a little before deciding it’ll make her sick and setting it aside.

  She’s thinking about Vic again as she sits there. About this one time in particular. A kid in the neighborhood Vic helped out. Italian kid, of course. Mikey Benvenuto. Mikey beat up this black kid on the basketball courts over on Twenty-Fifth Avenue where there’s just a parking lot now. Beat him up bad with an aluminum bat. Vic and his crew were at Angelo’s Bakery across the street, just standing outside with espressos and sfogliatelle and racing forms and they saw it happen. Cheered Mikey on. Hustled him back to Vic’s house before the cops got there. Rena fixed him a veal cutlet parm hero. Mikey was so happy. He was smiling this big dopey smile, chowing down. Rena was happy to feed him. Vic and his crew, they were laughing with Mikey, saying nasty things about the black kid, saying you’ve gotta plunk a kid like that in the head to keep the neighborhood the way it is. Rena pieced it all together after a few hours. Next day she found out the kid died. His parents were on the news, heartbroken. A black kid in an Italian neighborhood, killed for the color of his skin. Mikey never got caught. She’d fed him happily. He wound up working for Vic until he got himself bumped off in Atlantic City over a gambling debt. She could never shake that. Vic taking the kid under his wing, laughing with him, congratulating him, protecting him, rewarding him with a job. And her feeding him like he’d worked a long day and needed sustenance. She feels confused. Maybe she’s always been confused. What she knows now is she feels so complicit. In everything.

  ENZIO

  Enzio is pleading his case to Richie as they hurtle along the Palisades, chased by Crea. “There’s a pull-off coming up ahead. Just let me out. Please.”

  “I’m gonna pull over and let you out here?” Richie says. “Then what? Crea lights us both up, that’s what. I said pipe down.”

  Enzio feels sick. He hadn’t made a move on Rena, none of this would be happening. He wishes he could play it all in reverse. Get a do-over. Go to Coney Island, score a quick handjob from a Russian with long legs and foul breath, pick up a white pie from Totonno’s, and then go home. Watch one of his movies. Eat a slice of pizza over his lap, no paper plate or napkin even. His Impala would still be in the driveway instead of thumping along the Palisades Parkway in the nightmare dark.

  As a kid, Enzio hated danger more than anything. He tried never to feel afraid, which was hard when you had an old man like his. A lot of kids he knew had a father who was quick with a belt. With Pop, it was more than that. Pop had come to Brooklyn from Naples in his twenties. Work and booze had made him mean. Enzio remembers, at six, cowering in the corner by the boiler, counting screws that had fallen out of a tool chest near Pop’s workbench. He remembers buckets full of wires and a soldering iron that he’d focus on as Pop came rampaging toward him. He never wanted sympathy for having an old man like that, never talked about it. Not even to Maria. One time he got to yapping with this young hooker. Told her more than he’d ever told anybody. She didn’t give a shit. What she’d come from in Serbia was a million times worse.

  Enzio has many regrets. Maria on her deathbed flashes in his mind. Forget what she did or didn’t do for him all those years, there’s a lot he should’ve said. “Get you anything?” being the main one.

  Crea disappears from behind them, the inside of the Impala going dark.

  “Did he just shut his lights off?” Richie says.

  Enzio turns around to look, hoping that Crea’s gone, hoping that whatever he’s doing affords Enzio the opportunity to get out of the Impala and escape. It’s not that his car doesn’t matter to him anymore. It’s that he’s suddenly afraid of death in a way he’s never been. He should’ve anticipated that before he got in the car with Richie. What if there’s nothing? What if you get clipped and it all just goes dark? Or, worse, what happens if your body is dead but you can still see yourself and still feel regrets and still feel afraid? What if being dead is nothing but feeling afraid forever? “I don’t see him,” Enzio says.

  “Games,” Richie says.

  “Pull over. Please.”

  Another flash of Maria on her deathbed. Her wilting mouth. Her bony body. The color gone from her face. “I’m nothing,” she said to him. “I’ve never been anything. You’re worse than nothing.”

  “I’m something,” he said. “We’re both something.”

  “What was it all for?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why did we even live? We weren’t happy.”

  Enzio hadn’t answered her. He’d known happiness, just not with her. The Dean Martin hero from Lioni’s. A perfect egg cream at Hinsch’s. His Impala, of course. Being in the stands when the Dodgers won the Series in ’55. A hot dog from Nathan’s on the Boardwalk in the summer, just sitting there on a bench, watching the Wonder Wheel and watching the women on the beach and watching all the seagulls swoop down for tossed-away bread. That young Serbian spitting in her palm in this very passenger seat and smiling at him, showing her yellow teeth. Jody from the bank wrapped up in the curtains at the Harbor Motor Inn on Shore Parkway, light from outside streaming across the little green dragon she had tattooed on her back.

  The only happiness Maria brought him came when she died. Friends showed up with hulking trays of ziti, loaves of semolina bread, and boxes of cookies. He was kissed on his cheeks by women wearing strong perfume. He liked the feeling of cleaning out Maria’s closet, giving away her clothes or throwing them in the trash or taking them to the Knights of Columbus. He liked being called a widower. He liked going to Single, Separated, Widowed, and Divorced group dances at the church. He liked playing cards with other widowers. He had purpose as a widower. He no longer felt like he was capable of bad things.

  “Where’d he go?” Richie says, looking over his left shoulder and then over his right, the car swerving with its jerky movements.

  Enzio starts to blubber.

  “Jesus Christ, shut up.”

  Enzio’s thoughts turn to Crea. He sees Crea stripping him down on an abandoned stretch of road and throwing him in a shallow grave.

  “I’ll push you out the door,” Richie says.

  “Just up here,” Enzio says. “This pull-off. Please.” He wants to walk off into the woods. He wants to be cold in the woods. He wants to come out on the other side of the tall trees and see a house where someone will welcome him with hot coffee and bacon, where someone will change his bandages and see that he is tended to.

  A fantasy unfolds before him.

  This house he stumbles upon, a nurse lives there. He’s always wanted to fall in love with a nurse. When he was at Maimonides earlier, he looked down his young nurse’s top and touched her hand as much as he could. She had tired eyes and wore unattractive sneakers. Her scrubs were purple. She needed a mint and more sleep. The nurse who owns this imaginary house at the edge of the woods is in her forties. She’s pretty. Her hair is black but a little gray at the roots. It looks like she works and goes to the gym and that’s about it. She has an old television because she doesn’t watch much, maybe the news. Her scrubs are pink. Her breath smells like bubblegum. “You must be freezing,” she says to him when she finds him on her porch.

  “I am,” he says.

  She takes him by the hand and brings him inside. She unwraps his bandages and cleans his head with peroxide and slathers on Neosporin. She applies new bandages. They’re softer and better than the ones from the hospital. She does a better job of putting on the bandages. “Who did this to you?” she asks.

  “I don’t know,” he says, and he feels like he’s telling the truth.

  She makes coffee and puts on the bacon. He asks what time it is
. She says late. When she kisses him on the cheek, she kisses him like someone who would never let anything else bad happen to him.

  He looks out her front window for Richie and Crea, but they’re gone from here, spinning off to another world.

  “I’m here,” she says.

  “What’s your name?” he asks.

  “Lily.”

  “I’m happy I found you.”

  “I’m happy you found me.”

  Life could be like that, he’s convincing himself, if he could only get out of the car. This Impala that he’s long felt to be an extension of himself. Maybe, when it comes down to it, the only thing he’s ever truly loved. And now, suddenly, he’s ready to deny it, to let Richie do with it what he will. Crash it against a tree. Drive it into the river. He feels so separate from it now. He wants the nurse in her house. He wants her to touch him and kiss him and cook for him and tuck him into her soft bed. He’s not even thinking about anything dirty.

  The pull-off approaches, a dark, twisting road that branches from the parkway. Richie, exasperated, yanks the car sharply to the right at what feels more like an exit than a mere pull-off just as they’re about to pass it, Enzio assuming that he doesn’t want to give away too soon that he’s getting off, hoping to shake Crea if he’s ghosting them with his lights cut. It seems to work. Enzio turns and doesn’t see a car close behind them. Maybe Crea’s fallen far enough behind, though, that they just can’t see him, making it seem as if he’s no longer on their trail.

  The pull-off is way, way more than Richie bargained for, and he’s cursing, pounding the wheel. A long two-way road cuts back through trees and opens up into a parking lot with a rest stop and tower viewers looking out over the Hudson. Since it’s late, the parking lot is empty except for one car, a cream Ford Explorer with a bumper held on by duct tape and a cracked windshield and clear plastic over the broken back door glass. It’s backed into a spot next to a small gravel heap.

  Enzio can tell that Richie’s troubled by the fact that the only road returning to the parkway is the same road they took in. “I told you not to come with me,” Richie says, leaning across him, jerking the handle, and pushing open the passenger door. “Now get the fuck out.”

  Enzio wipes his eyes and climbs out as quickly as he can, knocking his bandaged head against the doorframe. He tries not to look at the Impala as he takes several steps away from it. Tries to pretend that it’s no longer his. He sees glints of light in the dents that Crea has made in the bumper. He thinks of his nurse. She’s nowhere. There are no nearby houses. He’ll have to stay at the rest stop until morning. Find somewhere warm and hope an old man like him can make it through the night. That’s fine. Maybe there’s a pay phone somewhere. Maybe he can call Harry, and Harry will send Lou. Enzio would kill to see that dumb fuck Lou about now.

  Enzio notices a bench over by a tower viewer. He thinks that he’ll just curl up there like a bum. He can’t see the river from where he’s standing. He wonders if he’ll be able to from the edge. He can see cliffs silhouetted against the night. He can see dark, low-hanging clouds, almost purple in their darkness. He can see the lights of the George Washington off to the right. He can see the swampy lights of houses and buildings and whatever else is across the river. All these people going about their normal lives. Sleeping in their beds. Working late. Maybe his nurse is over there.

  Richie pulls the door closed with a huff and speeds off, his tires kicking loose gravel against Enzio’s legs.

  Back at the entrance to the lot, a pair of lights snap on. Crea’s Town Car, Enzio can tell. Blocking Richie’s path. The Town Car starts moving.

  Instead of slowing down, Richie barrels along. The driver’s-side window is open. With one hand still on the wheel, Richie leans a little out the window with a small piece in his unsteady hand, firing twice at the Town Car and hitting the front fender once and the passenger-side windshield. The gunshots get sucked up in the valley. The river muffles them. Richie is screaming. Crea is still coming.

  Richie cuts the wheel in an attempt to get around the Town Car, but Crea plows into the driver’s side of the Impala. This noise is louder. What’s happening now is slowed down, the messy tangle of the cars, all that metal, the Town Car pushing the Impala back into a ditch and flipping it. The last thing Enzio notices before he closes his eyes is Crea laughing his ass off.

  When Enzio’s father died in Victory Memorial, he was at his side, even though the old man didn’t want him to be. His father had said to him, “I don’t need you here.” He stayed anyway. He got his father coffee and ate the hospital food that the old man couldn’t eat. Slimy fruit and pale cold cuts and tough bread. A sad carton of orange juice. Enzio was in his forties when his father died. So long ago, but now time seems different, as if there are all these avenues to different moments and everything is one moment. He’s trembling. His father’s last words to him were “Get the hell out of here, would you?” After he finally left that last night at Victory, his father died alone. The nurses got to him quickly, but he wanted to die alone, and he did. It made Enzio happy to think that this was why his father had said what he’d said. He didn’t want his son to watch him die. Enzio is not upset he never had a son or daughter. Never felt like something was missing. Still doesn’t. Man is a cancer.

  He opens his eyes to smoke trails. He thinks about climbing over the railing, if he can even make his old body do that. He would skid down the enormous rocky hill to the river. He would swim across the river. He would come up on the far shore and his nurse would be waiting for him.

  Richie, dazed, is out of the Impala. He’s somehow climbed out of the car and up from the ditch and is on his knees next to a green garbage can. The Impala is battered, on its back like roadkill. All the years it was Enzio’s baby, he never imagined he’d see it roof-down like this.

  Instead of climbing the railing, Enzio makes a move for the Ford Explorer with the clear plastic taped over its rear right-side door glass. He’s hoping there’s a key inside. He’s hoping there’s a way out of here. He’s mad at himself for not thinking of it sooner. He gets there and rips open the plastic, sticking his hand inside and unlatching the door lock. He climbs in the back seat, feeling overwhelmed by the task of moving up to the front to search for a key or to see if he can rub wires together and make the thing go. He sits there for a moment and catches his breath. He doesn’t remember how old he is. He’s old, he knows that. His nurse does not exist.

  Through the windshield, he sees Crea with his hammer. He’s standing over Richie, bringing the hammer down on one of his knees. Richie is howling with pain. The sound of him howling streams into the car through the ripped-open plastic. Enzio doesn’t want to hear it. He reaches and unlocks the driver’s-side door and then moves up to the front. His breath is fogging the glass. He turns down the sun visor, hoping a key will spill out. Nothing. He feels around in the cup holders. He opens the glove compartment and the center console. Nothing. Under the dash, he plays with wires. It’s been a long time since he started a car this way. He’s not having any luck. He doesn’t remember exactly what to do.

  When he looks up, sweat beading his forehead, his bandages soaked through with sweat, Crea’s coming for him.

  “I remember you!” Crea calls out, waving the hammer around. “Vic’s neighbor!” It’s like he’s recognizing him in a crowd, like he hasn’t seen him in years and he’s approaching for a hug. Richie is still wailing over by the cars.

  Enzio has evacuated his bowels. The smell is terrific. Maybe he’s never been a man. The darkness in the rearview mirror seems to get darker.

  Crea opens the door and pulls him out. Enzio is panting, his hands over his face, saying, “Please, I’ve got nothing to do with any of this.”

  “Did you shit your pants?” Crea asks.

  “Please. I’m nothing. I’m just a nobody.” Enzio’s hands are on Crea’s shoes. “You want money? I’ll give you whatever you want. You want me to kiss your shoes? I’ll do whatever you want.”

>   “None of that matters,” Crea says.

  Enzio thinks maybe Rena killed him with the ashtray and everything since has just been the road to hell. He looks up at Crea’s cheap smile. His teeth seem razor sharp. Crea brings the hammer down. Maybe Enzio stops existing. Maybe he’s never existed in the first place.

  WOLFSTEIN

  Wolfstein and Mo are passing the wine back and forth, chain-smoking cigarettes. Lucia is snuggled up against Rena, both of them passed out from exhaustion, the briefcase held tight between Lucia’s legs. She looks like a real little kid now, even with the way she’s been acting. Fifteen’s tough. Especially when your world gets turned upside down.

  The wine is cheap stuff, not quite bum wine but not far off. Wolfstein unscrews the cap and takes another swig. “I’ve gotta clear my head,” she says to Mo.

  “This will help, I promise.”

  “I can’t believe what we saw back there. I can’t believe any of it. A chase, too.”

  “Freaked you out bad, huh?”

  “Mob wife.” Wolfstein tilts a thumb at Rena. “I don’t know if she ever saw someone get shot before. Maybe she saw a lot of other people get shot. But she shouldn’t have it happen to her daughter right in front of her. That fucking Bobby. And the other guy, what he did. My god.”

  “No shit, she’s a mob wife?” Mo asks in a whisper, swatting Wolfstein’s leg. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “I mean, she was. Mob widow, more accurately.”

  “That’s what this is all about?”