by J. L. Abramo
“Did you get hold of Sam?”
“Left a message for him to hurry down here. He’s out on the job somewhere.”
“I’m missing all the fun.”
“Don’t worry—there will still be work when you get back. There’s never a shortage in your business.”
“Hallelujah.”
Alex Trebek read the categories for Double Jeopardy.
Maggie and the old man kept the conversation light during their visit. That and the pain medication for the parts of my body that could still feel pain made me sleepy again. I had heard from the hospital grapevine that the operation was tentatively scheduled for the day after next. The theory was that a small bone fragment, which was pressing against my spine, would be carefully removed through a touchy operation and my almost surely temporary lower body paralysis would be history. Terrific theory. And certainly one worth subscribing to. Maggie and Dad said their goodbyes and left me to drift into sleep. I was fighting to stay awake until I heard from Sam, but lost the battle.
In my dream I was reading a book in bed when I heard my father’s 1982 Ford Galaxy start up in the driveway. It was October 1986, and Dad was taking my brother to the sixth game of the World Series against the Red Sox at Shea Stadium. The Mets were down three games to two.
Frankie was the logical choice to go with Dad.
Frankie was a diehard Mets fan. I was a Yankee fanatic, but the last time the Bronx Bombers had been in the Series was in 1978, and at five I was too young to go. Regardless of allegiances, I was as jealous as a thirteen-year-old could be that his nine-year-old brat of a brother was going to get to the big game before I did. But in the dream it felt as if something else made me want to jump out of the bed, run to the car, and tell Dad not to take Frankie with him that day. Tell my father to take me instead, and leave Frankie home with Mom. But in the dream I couldn’t move my legs, as desperately as I tried, and I lay there helplessly as I listened to the Ford pull away.
When the phone woke me, I was soaked with sweat and I was shaking like a leaf.
Fortunately, the phone was within my reach and I grabbed it after the third ring.
“Spook house,” I said.
“Did I wake you?”
“Yes, and I can’t thank you enough,” I said. “Where are you?”
“I couldn’t begin to tell you, partner. It’s such a mess that to call it ridiculous would be a gross understatement. I wish you were here.”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
“Margaret tracked me down. How are you feeling?”
“Not bad from the waist up.”
“I’m not going to get out of this one soon, but I’ll come straight over when I can cut loose. Get some sleep. If you’re asleep when I get there, I promise to wake you up.”
I wasn’t anxious to fall asleep again and pick up my dream where it had left off. I knew all too well how it ended. I wanted another smoke pretty badly, but not enough to bother the nurse again. I turned the television on and flipped through the channels until I came across a martial arts movie already in progress. I watched with the hope that soon I’d be up and kicking again myself.
I was dreaming again. The car was pulling out of the driveway. I was trying to get up from the bed but my legs wouldn’t work.
“You will not believe this one.” I snapped awake.
The booming voice ricocheted off every wall in the small room and reached my ears with the subtlety of a slap in the face. This is how Sam wakes you. Not like Prince Charming with a whisper and a kiss, but like a hostage negotiator with a bullhorn.
It’s one of the character traits that make him so lovable.
“I’m ready to believe anything,” I said.
“Picture this, if you will. A guy calls in a pizza delivery order from Di Fara’s on Avenue J. Sausage, onion, and green pepper.”
“I appreciate the attention to detail.”
“It’s important. The delivery kid knocks on the door, it’s the upstairs of a two-family house on East Fourteenth Street, and the guy opens the door. He keeps the kid waiting on the landing while he goes to get his wallet.
“Cat comes back with a slice on a paper plate, he holds it out to the kid and says, ‘Take a bite and tell me if this is sausage, onion, and green pepper.’ The kid says he’s not really very hungry and he can tell just by looking that it’s pepperoni and mushroom. The guy pulls a forty-four Magnum and insists the kid taste it just to be certain.”
“He forced the kid to eat pizza at gunpoint. Is that a felony?”
“It gets better,” said Sam. “The guy forces the poor kid into the apartment and ties him into a chair. Clothesline. Then he calls the pizzeria and he tells the manager it’s the third time they’ve fucked up his order and if they don’t get the right pie up to him in twenty minutes he’s going to blow the delivery kid’s head off. So much for don’t shoot the messenger.”
“Unbelievable.”
“What’d I tell you? The manager calls the owner at home and the old man calls it in to the precinct. So me and Stevie O’Brien—this is who they put me with because you had to go and get plugged—run over to the pizzeria. O’Brien throws on a smock covered with red sauce, and we take a pizza over to Fourteenth Street.”
“I can’t stand the suspense.”
“Wait. We get to the place, O’Brien knocks on the door, I stand out of view of the peephole. The guy says through the door, ‘You look a little old for a delivery boy.’ Not to mention that O’Brien looks less Italian than I do, his skin is the color of Elmer’s Glue-All. Anyway, Stevie starts winging it, rambling about how he owns the joint and he’s Irish, the name Di Fara’s is a cover but don’t tell anyone because it could hurt business and the hostage in there is his sister’s son and she’ll murder him if anything happens to the kid, and the pizza, which absolutely has sausage, onion, and green pepper and is by the way on the house, is getting cold.”
“I’m exhausted just listening to this. Does the guy make the exchange?”
“He opens the door. He’s got the forty-four pointed right at O’Brien’s head.”
“Oh, boy.”
“I’ve got to admit Stevie stayed cool. He takes a step toward the guy and starts to open the pizza box. The guy asks Stevie what the fuck he’s doing and O’Brien says he wants to show the guy that the toppings are correct so he can get his nephew the fuck out of there. Meanwhile, I’ve got my gun out and I’m wondering when this guy is going to take a peek over and spot me. The next thing I hear is screaming. I jump into the doorway and this guy is trying to get hot mozzarella out of his eyes while O’Brien is tackling him to the floor, the weapon drops neatly into the pizza box, Stevie is trying to handcuff the guy, both their hands are slippery with marinara, and I don’t know whether to try to help O’Brien or grab a slice.”
“You arrest the guy?”
“Oh, yeah. When I left the station they were still trying to figure out the charge. The gun wasn’t registered, but it wasn’t loaded either. If we call it a kidnapping, the FBI is going to make us hear about it until the end of time. And all along the guy is yelling about how he’s going to sue the city for burning his face with hot tomato sauce. His cheeks look as if they were used to wax a car. So how are you doing?”
“Better than some. Anybody have any ideas about who put the bullet in me?”
“Not a clue, probably someone you locked up once or twice. Maybe we could sit and brainstorm for a while. Can we smoke in here?”
“What are they going to do, arrest us?”
After graduation I had a decision to make. Maggie had been accepted by the Columbia School of Law, but no law school in the city was interested in me. There were a few out-of-town schools that were interested, but the thought of leaving New York City and Margaret Kelly was unacceptable. I enrolled in the Master’s program at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice instead. Two years later, newly married and with Maggie still studying, it was time to begin earning a living. The obvious choice, maybe the only choic
e from the very beginning, was to join the police force.
I met Sam on my first assignment as a homicide detective. When I arrived he was already at the scene.
“Sullivan,” I said, holding out my hand. “John to my friends.”
“First homicide call?”
“It is.”
“You look Sicilian,” he said.
“My mother. My dad was another Irish cop.”
“Then we could be distant cousins.” He smiled, his white teeth sparkling in his huge black face. “Name’s Samson, Sam to my friends.”
“Good to meet you, Sam.”
“We’ll see, John. Gotta minute?”
“Sure.”
“Follow me.”
He led me into the adjoining room. In the middle of the room was a large bed. In the middle of the bed was a small child. Ten months old. A year at most. A little boy, though you couldn’t tell it from his face which looked as if it had been used for soccer practice.
“Welcome to Homicide,” Sam said.
That night my father was over for dinner. I asked him what he considered his worst experience in all his years on the job. He reminded me it was the time he came very close to shooting a teenager in the A&P supermarket.
Sam went on and on with a blow by blow recapitulation of all the fun I had missed during my three weeks in limbo.
After an hour and a half of non-stop narrative, Sam fell asleep in the middle of a sentence. It was getting on toward eight in the morning. I decided I had best wake him. I expected Maggie to drop in on her way to the office and figured it was time Sam got some real rest.
If I could have reached him from the bed I would have used a gentle shake. Instead I bopped him off the forehead with an empty paper cup.
He opened his eyes and looked at the cup that had landed neatly in his lap.
“Fine shot.”
“Go home and get some sleep.”
“Good idea,” he said, slowly rising. “I’ll be back later. Want me to bring you anything?”
“Anything on my assailant would be nice.”
“I’m not very optimistic, but I’ll do my best,” Sam said. “I’m very glad to see you back among the conscious, partner.”
Maggie ran in and out just long enough to give me a kiss and a little squeeze between my legs to see if there had been any miracles overnight. Nothing, but I appreciated the gesture.
Soon the Bobbsey Twins materialized with a third person in tow. He was a good-looking kid with all the trappings of a doctor—lab coat, stethoscope and clipboard. He was introduced as Dr. Levine, an intern working with them on my case. Levine looked so young it was all I could do to stop myself from asking if he was looking forward to his bar mitzvah.
The three stooges took turns round robin style going over the operation planned for the next morning. What it would entail, what I could expect, and what the desired outcome would be.
“If all goes well”—they let Dr. Levine do the closing argument—“we will eliminate the source of pressure on your spine and you should be able to walk out of the hospital at one hundred percent.”
I loved it when they use words like if and should, straight from the handbook of medical disclaimers.
“Will I be able to tap dance?” I asked Levine.
“I see no reason why not,” he answered confidently.
Except for the fact I could never tap dance before.
And, believe me, there had been many times I’d tried.
They turned to leave but I pulled them up short.
“Aren’t there some papers I need to sign?”
“Oh, yes,” said Moe, or was it Curly, “how silly of us, we almost forgot.”
You did forget, Einstein, I said to myself. And did he say silly?
I was hoping they would remember to wear their silly little rubber gloves the next morning.
It was still not even nine in the morning, and I had at least twenty-four hours to wonder if I would really be able to walk on my own two legs again. The choices for distraction were Rachel Ray, Live with Kelly and Michael, or the paperback Maggie had dropped off. I opted for the book. A murder mystery.
There were visitors coming and going all day. They must have waived the limited visiting-hours policy because I was a hero. Lucky me. When you’re a cop and you get shot they always try to make you a hero, no matter what you were doing when you got shot, even if you were walking your dog or holding the weapon in your teeth when it happened.
My father was there most of the morning and the early afternoon. He was taking advantage of my condition, telling me stories I had heard a hundred times since I was four years old. He had a captive audience.
And he had nowhere else to go.
Frank Sullivan was a lonely man, even in a room full of people, particularly since my mother passed away.
It had been proven at many a gin mill and family get-together.
Sam showed up just before noon, looking as if he had slept for a week and needed at least two more. He rescued me briefly by taking Dad down for lunch.
There were others in and out. Other cops, some suit from City Hall bringing best wishes from the mayor, the dynamic duo with more papers to sign, Sam to re-deposit Dad by the bed before he had to “get back out on the street and go do good,” the Campanella kid to check up on my nicotine cravings.
It’s amazing how popular you can become just by taking a bullet in the back.
Look at Jesse James.
My sister came to drop my kids off after school and collect Dad.
Charlie had a baseball bat and asked if he could bat my legs to see if I would feel anything. I said, “No, but thanks for asking.”
Anne, she insisted her days as “Annie” were officially over, scooped up the mystery novel and went straight to the last chapter.
Maggie showed up after work and took the kids home for dinner, and came back for a few hours in the evening.
Nurse Campanella came in at around nine insisting I’d need my rest for the morning’s appointment with the knife. She encouraged my wife to leave without too much coaxing. The Counselor was exhausted.
Maggie kissed me goodnight, asked me not to worry and assured me she would be at my side throughout.
Not long after Maggie left, Nick Ventura walked into the hospital room holding a large flat box with Totonno’s written all over it.
Nick and I grew up on the same Brooklyn street. He was a private investigator who tried roping me into his fiascos a little too often.
“Did you bring beer?”
He placed the box on the bedside table and pulled a Sam Adams out of each pocket of his jacket.
“There’s a slice missing,” I said when he opened the box.
“Bribe to Mary Campanella to let me in after visiting hours.”
“If you’re here to ask for help on one of your hopeless cases, I’m sort of on sabbatical.”
“I just came to see how you were. Carmella sends her regards.”
“Have Carmella and the boys got the beauty shop up and running again?”
“Why? Do you want to get your toenails done?”
I had to laugh.
“Did you hear about Sonny Balducci?” Nick asked.
“They find him?”
“A Boy Scout troop stumbled on a shallow grave when they were digging a fire pit at Camp Pouch in Staten Island. When the forensic guys dug him up they found three red snappers sitting on his chest.”
“Nice touch.”
“What do you think?”
“Good riddance.”
We ate pizza, drank beer, smoked Camels, and reminisced about all of the lines drawn and the choices we were forced to make growing up in the Borough of Churches.
“Do you remember my brother Frankie, Nick?”
“Of course I do. He was a sweet kid.”
“Yes, he was,” I said.
“Everyone is saying you’re going to be fine.”
“What if everyone is wrong? What if this is it, and I can’t
dance at my daughter’s wedding?”
“Remember junior year when I broke my ankle sliding into third base last game of the season?”
“How could I forget, they could hear you screaming in Yonkers.”
“I thought it was the end of the world.”
“You were safe at third, the pinch-runner scored, we won the game, and we made it to the Borough Championship.”
“It didn’t matter to me, I was inconsolable. Two weeks later I was in a cast up to my knee on the day of the championship. My father planned to take me to the ball field. I said I wouldn’t go and I locked myself in my room. He warned me if I didn’t unlock the door he would bust it down and break my other ankle. I believed him and let him in. He asked me why I wouldn’t want to see my team play for the title. I told him I didn’t think I could handle it, that it would be hell to be there and not able to be out in the field. My old man never said much worth repeating but what he said that day got me out to the game.”
“What was that?”
“When you’re going through hell, keep going.”
Nurse Campanella came in to chase Nick out and feed me a pill to help me get to sleep.
“Yell if you need anything,” Ventura said.
“Could you leave a few of those cigarettes?”
He placed the package of Camels on the pizza box. He stopped at the door.
“John?”
“Yes?”
“How come no one told me little Annie was engaged to be married?”
“Cute,” I said, smiling. “I appreciate you dropping by, Nick.”
The pill kicked in quickly and I was nodding out before the second commercial break on an old rerun of NYPD Blue.
I remember wondering if I would grow up to be like Andy Sipowitz or Larry Flynt. I remember wondering why all the female cops looked like movie stars.
I remember wondering why David Caruso and Jimmy Smits had given up such a great job.
I remember wondering, as I asked a little favor of God, whether the answer was going to be yes or no.
