Saving Room for Dessert

by K. C. Constantine

  “You don’t get down now I’m goin’ put one in your kneecap!”

  “Aw that’s right, threaten me, you fuckin’ nigger. Gonna shoot? Shoot! Go ’head, see if I give a shit!”

  “Last warnin! Get down! Facedown on the ground! Or I shoot!”

  “Owwww! Jeeee-sus fuck!” Canoza cried out.

  Rayford turned quickly to see if he could see the reason for Canoza’s cry of pain.

  “Boo, what happened? Boo? Boo, say somethin’!”

  “You stupid fuck!” Canoza shouted, hissing and groaning. “Oughta pinch your fuckin’ head off. Jeeeeees-us Christ.” He staggered out from between the houses with Rose Scavelli slung over his right shoulder, his knees wobbling, his face twisted up in pain. Then he straightened up and trotted across the street to his MU, where he dumped her back-first across the trunk, her head hitting the metal with a hollow thump.

  Rayford was glancing rapidly back and forth between Canoza and Rose Scavelli and the two men in front of him. He heard Rose Scavelli’s body and head hit the metal and heard her groan. He watched Canoza flip her over onto her face like she was no heavier than a magazine. That’s when, in the light coming from the mercury lamp at the corner, Rayford saw the greenish handle of something sticking out of the top of Canoza’s back, on the right side just below his neck.

  Rayford kept looking back and forth between Canoza and Hornyak and Buczyk. He caught a glimpse of Canoza cuffing Rose Scavelli. When he turned back to glance at him again, Canoza was stuffing her into the backseat of his MU. She was limp. After he shut the door, Canoza tried with both hands to reach the thing that was sticking in him, but when he took hold of it with his right hand, as soon as he touched it he let out a howl and let go immediately. His knees buckled. Just as quickly he straightened up, turned, and started back across the street, muttering and cursing.

  “Boo, what happened? You awright?

  “Stabbed me … sonofabitch … he stabbed me!”

  Between the sounds of Hornyak and Buczyk groaning, moaning, and cursing, Rayford could hear someone going away from them, tripping and falling, crying out. He stuck the flash in his right armpit to switch on the radio attached to his left epaulet and momentarily lost Hornyak to the darkness.

  “Base? Thirty-one here. Ten-forty-seven, officer needs assistance, 10–47, officer down, 10–47!” While he was talking he grabbed his flash and aimed it at Hornyak again. Hornyak, it seemed to Rayford, had moved much closer to him. He was now on the edge of the sidewalk closest to the street.

  “Last time, Hornyak, on the ground! Now!” Rayford aimed at the grass about a foot beside Hornyak’s right knee and fired.

  “Shootin’ at me? You shootin’ at me now you nigger bastard!”

  “Next one’s in your knee! Get on the ground! Get on the ground! Base, 10–16, what’re you doin’?”

  “Roger that, thirty-one. What’s your 10–20?”

  “Jefferson Street! Where you sent me! Canoza’s stabbed! Two actors on the sidewalk, one fleein’ on foot. Where’s Reseta?”

  “Roger that, thirty-one. He’s 10–17.”

  “Tell him move it!”

  Rayford saw Canoza, walking much slower now, make it back across the street, hissing and grunting out every breath. Rayford could see Canoza’s back wet over the right half of his shirt, the wetness as black as the shirt. His pistol handle and holster were also wet. As though in slow motion, one drop slid off Canoza’s holster and fell to the street, bright crimson. Rayford couldn’t tell what the thing was in Canoza’s back, except it didn’t look like a knife.

  “Boo, you hear me? Can you hear me?”

  “Yeah. What?”

  “You okay, man?”

  “Fuck no … got me three times, that prick … three rimes.”

  “Three?”

  “Yeah … that’s what it feels like. Oh fuck …”

  Rayford had been swiveling his head back and forth, but heard movement and turned to see Hornyak taking a step toward him. Rayford didn’t hesitate. He leveled the pistol on Hornyak’s right knee and fired.

  Hornyak hopped back across the sidewalk and fell hard on his tailbone, screaming and clutching at his knee.

  “Thirty-one, who’s firin’, who’s firin’? Thirty-one?”

  “Me! I’m firin’! Now I need another 10–47. And got-dammit where’s Reseta?”

  “He’s 10–17. Shoulda been there by now.”

  “Well he isn’t! Wait wait, I hear the horn, I see lights reflectin’ in the windows. Ah crap, it’s the 47. Call Reseta, man, tell him get here! And Carlucci too. And the chief too.”

  “Roger that, thirty-one. Base open.”

  Rayford hurried to Buczyk’s side. He was still on his back, holding and rubbing both his legs.

  “You stay right where you are, you hear me? You move I’ll put one in your knee just like I did him, you understand? Don’t just nod, I wanna hear words!”

  “I understand.”

  “Good!”

  Canoza was now crossing the sidewalk and heading between the houses when Rayford rushed to his side and said, “Where you think you’re goin’?”

  “Get that cocksucker—”

  “No you ain’t! You goin’ stay right here. You goin’ get in that 47 and get your ass to the ER. I’ll get him, soon as Reseta gets here, don’t you worry about him.”

  “All you’re gonna do … you’re just gonna collar him. I’m gonna take him down the river … drown his fucking ass.”

  “Shuddup, Boo! Shuddup a minute. You ain’t goin’ do none of that! Hey! You guys?” Rayford called to the EMTs now jumping out of the ambulance and scrambling for their gear in the back.

  “Over here! Forget those two! Here’s your work, right here.”

  Rayford moved around the other side of Canoza and held his left arm and patted his left shoulder. “That okay if I do that? Don’t hurt, does it?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Don’t wanna hurt you, that’s all.”

  “How’d that old prick … how’d he move that fast … how’d he get me three times, old as he is … you figure that?”

  “Didn’t get you three different times,” the ambulance crew chief said, coming up on Canoza’s other side and taking hold of his right arm. “Just got you once.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s one of those, uh, I don’t know what you call ’em, three-pronged diggers or somethin’.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a gardening tool, you know?”

  “Oh yeah, Boo, it’s like a little rake, you know? Only with just three prongs, know what I’m talkin’ about?”

  “Hey fuck what it’s called, okay? Just get it out!”

  “Oh I’m not takin’ that thing out, not here.”

  “Why not?”

  “’Cause he’s losin’ enough blood with those prongs pluggin’ up the wounds. Mighta caught a major vessel under there—”

  “Yeah,” said another EMT. “Can’t tell how deep it is. I wouldn’t touch it.”

  “Hey, you guys wanna talk about this later, fine. Get him in that wagon and get him up the ER, let those people handle it.”

  “Plus,” the crew chief said, “God knows what’s on that thing.”

  “Hey stop talkin and start movin’, huh?”

  “Hey, Rayf? ’Member when you were a kid, huh? You get hurt? Your ma, huh? She’d kiss your boo-boo’n make it better, ’member?”

  “Yeah. I remember.” But at that moment he was just talking.

  “Every time my ma tried … my old man’d say, don’t do that … you’re gonna make him into … into a sissy. Prick. Shoulda been married to Mrs. Scavelli.”

  Rayford took his hand off Canoza’s back where he’d been patting him. His fingertips were wet and slippery. He wiped them on his trousers.

  Canoza looked at Rayford and said, “I grabbed her up … was gonna grab him … carry ’em both back to their place … she got her hand loose, stuck her fingers up my nose … hada jerk my head back �
�� and that’s when that fucker nailed me.”

  “Man, he’s huge,” said the third EMT.

  “Can you walk?” said the crew chief.

  “What you askin’ the man if he can walk for?” Rayford said.

  “You wanna try puttin’ him on a gurney? With that thing where it is? How much you weigh, Officer? What’s your name?”

  “His name’s Robert Canoza. Patrolman Canoza. Twenty-five years in the department, did one tour in Vietnam. And if he hadn’t showed up, that thing probably be stickin’ in my back. So quit askin’ him how much he weigh and get him goin’ any way you can, awright?” Rayford didn’t want to say that if Canoza had stayed on the sidewalk and watched Hornyak and Buczyk, he wouldn’t be the object of all this attention now.

  “Hey, it ain’t like I … I can’t talk myself, you know?” Canoza said. “Or like I don’t know … who I am.”

  “Yeah, like you know who you are. Just like you remember to wear your vest.”

  “Oh man … Nowicki … he’s gonna be … so fucking pissed.”

  “I doubt a vest woulda helped him. Not where that thing is.”

  “Hey, cut the talk, get movin’!”

  “C’mon, let’s go, guys. One on each side, one behind, c’mon. We’re gonna need all the help you can give us, Patrolman, okay? What is it, Canoza, is that your name? I used to know some Canozas. Up in Norwood. Robert? Is it Robert?”

  “Yeah … ’at’s me … Ma’d try to kiss my, uh … my boo-boo … woo, man, startin’ to get dizzy here.”

  “Hey, don’t fall now, man, c’mon, couple more steps here, you can make it, c’mon. Hey, Patrolman? How about you get up in there, grab hold of his hand, huh? Wanna get up in there, take his left hand?”

  Rayford hustled around them, stepped up into the back of the ambulance, and reached out.

  “C’mon, give your partner your left hand, c’mon, stretch it out. Man, how much you weigh? You gotta be two-seventy, two-eighty, huh?”

  “Ain’t my partner … he was my partner he’da blown his head off … that’s what a real partner woulda done.”

  “You were s’posed to stay on the sidewalk, man, watch those other two. Why’d you come around there anyway?”

  “You don’t know how to talk to dagos … takes a dago … talk to dagos.”

  “Oh you talked to ’em real good, didn’t ya? Gimme your hand, c’mon, take ahold. C’mon, Boo—hey, you guys, everybody. On three, c’mon. One, two, three!”

  With the EMTs pushing and Rayford pulling, Canoza lurched into Rayford and sent them both sprawling to the floor of the ambulance.

  “Aggghhh, Jeeeee-sus! Owwwww, man, get off, get off! Get off me, owwwww!”

  The EMTs clambered in and rolled Canoza to his left off Rayford, who immediately curled up, instinctively covering his genitals with his hands as though that would bring relief from the excruciating pain bringing tears and a rainbow to his eyes. He thought he was going to throw up. The pain rolled over him. There was nothing else. He was lost in it, swallowed by it, consumed by it. He passed out from it, awoke to it, and passed out from it again. He heard voices, coming to him from a long tunnel filled with thick white soup. He tried to roll another way but couldn’t, rolled back, then slowly, slowly regained awareness of where he was while the pain turned from white-hot hammers to a viselike throb, throbbing more with each turn of the vise’s screw, finally easing off slightly more as each second passed. It occurred to him that he might not die, when just moments before he’d been hoping he would die instantly.

  He tasted his own tears, licked his upper lip and tasted mucus. “Man,” he croaked, “fuck happened?”

  “He landed on you with his, uh, looks like the handle of his nightstick there. Musta slipped around.”

  Rayford whispered, “If he ain’t dead I’m goin’ kill him.”

  “Oh, he’s not gonna the from that thing. You okay?”

  “No. Aw shit … man …” Rayford tried to pull himself up to a sitting position. One of the EMTs reached out to help him.

  “Think you can stand up?”

  “Don’t know. Jesus … never felt pain like that in my life. Gimme your hand.”

  The EMT pulled and Rayford heaved himself up, where he doubled over immediately as another, different kind of pain shot out from his testicles.

  “Motherfucker, Boo, when you get out the ER, I’m goin’ shoot your ass, you hear?”

  “What’s goin’ on?” Reseta said, sticking his head in the back. “Man, William, you don’t look so good—hey what’s wrong with Boo? Hey! Somebody! Talk to me!”

  “Fuck you been, man? Long’s it take you get a juvey down there?”

  “Problem child, what can I say—what happened to you guys?”

  “Motherfucker fell on me, somethin’ stuck me right in my balls. Handle on his P-24 probably.”

  “Ow shit,” Reseta said, wincing.

  “Yeah ow shit. Better believe ow shit. Worst ow shit I ever felt. Nuts feel like they’re in a vise and somebody’s poundin’ on ’em with a sledgehammer.”

  “Well what happened to him?” Reseta said, nodding toward Canoza, who was being wedged into a position so he couldn’t roll once the ambulance began to move.

  “Donchu worry ’bout him. He be fine—till he get out the hospital. Then I’m goin’ kill his dago ass. Motherfucker. He’da stayed where I told him, none of this shit woulda happened.”

  “Coupla minutes ago, you were sayin’ how if it wasn’t for him, that thing would probably be stickin’ in your back.”

  “Fuck’s talkin to you? And whatchu still doin’ here anyway? Shoulda been gone already. Look out, James, back up, I need to get out this motherfucker.”

  Rayford stepped down, immediately doubling over, then trying to straighten up while walking gingerly on the balls of his feet.

  “Man, I know that hurts. Got kicked there once.”

  “C’mon, let’s go.” Rayford hobbled and limped past Buczyk, who was trying to get up. “Who told you get up?”

  “Huh?”

  “Did I tell you get up? Get down! On your belly! Put your hands behind your back.”

  Buczyk obeyed without a word. Rayford cuffed him.

  “Help me,” Hornyak pleaded. “Help me. Somebody help me, please. Maaaaa-ry!”

  “Shuddup!”

  “Fuck you too, nigger.”

  “Wow,” Reseta said. “The way you’ve improved community relations here, I’m impressed.”

  “Real funny, man. I want you to know I know how long it take to get to the juvey center and back. I made that trip a few times myself, case you don’t remember.”

  “Where we goin’ now?”

  “Goin’ grab up old man Scavelli.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “He stuck Boo, that’s why.”

  “He stuck Boo?! Get outta here—that scrawny old man?”

  “Yeah that scrawny old man. Boo grabbed up his old lady, put her on his shoulder, said he was goin’ carry ’em both home, and he stuck him. That’s what Boo said anyway.”

  They started between the houses. As they passed between the two back porches, Reseta’s right foot shot out from under him and he went down hard on his right hip and holster.

  “Shit!”

  “What? What happened? You awright?”

  “Aw man. Jesus Christ.”

  “What, what?”

  “Slipped … dog shit. Awwww, man.”

  “What?”

  “It’s all over my shoes, my pants, my hand, holster, Jesus—that’s it for these people. Everybody got a dog here’s goin’ to jail tonight, if I gotta fill out UIRs till tomorrow. Gimme your hand.”

  “Not the one with shit on it.”

  “Gimme your hand! Where’s my flash? Dropped it. You see it?”

  Rayford pulled Reseta up and shone his light around the grass. “There it is. C’mon, let’s go collar this old prick. And watch your step, shit probably all over here.”

  They made it the rest of the way acr
oss the backyards without falling and came to the stockadelike wooden fence surrounding the Scavellis’ backyard.

  “Prick turned out all the lights,” Rayford said. “You want the front or the back?”

  “I’ll stay here—unless there’s no gate in this fence.”

  “Never saw a gate here,” Rayford said, walking up and down the fence, sweeping his flash over it, finding no gate. “Course, I never been back here before.”

  “Hey, no gate, it’s all yours, I’ll take the front.”

  “Bullshit too, I ain’t jumpin’ no fence in the dark, uh-uh.”

  “So how’d he get inside then?”

  “Who said he’s inside? Went alongside the fence probably. C’mon.” Rayford led the way to the end of the fence, then turned down the narrow bricked walk alongside the Hlebecs’ house.

  “These people have guns?” Rayford whispered. “You know?”

  “If they do, they never showed ’em to me.”

  “Okay,” Rayford said. “Here we go.”

  The narrow walkway led to the sidewalk on Franklin Street. As soon as they got to the sidewalk, Reseta turned his flash back along the other side of the wooden fence and whispered that he was going there to get to the back of Scavellis house.

  But as soon as he started up that path, somebody started whimpering and groaning on the Scavellis’ front porch. Rayford turned his flash up on the porch and saw Nick Scavelli huddled by the front door, looking at his left shin, which was scraped raw and bleeding. Rayford shined the flash on his hands.

  “It’s him, James. Hey! Put your hands out where I can see ’em! Hold your hands out! Not goin’ tell you again.”

  “Where’s Rose? What’d you do with her?”

  “Never mind about her, Mr. Scavelli, you’re in a lot more trouble than she is.”

  “Lousy tuzone, go to hell.”

  Reseta shone his flash on Scavelli, went up the steps, and said, “Mr. Scavelli, well look at you, huh? You’re under arrest, sir.”

  “Arrest,” he said, as though trying to decipher the meaning of the word. “You want fries with that?”

  “Aw here we go with the fries shit.”

  “I fell. Think I broke my leg. You saved room for dessert?”