The Romero Strain (Book 1): The Romero Strain

by Alan, TS

  Though we had explored the blocks surrounding the armory, scavenging as much needed supplemental supplies as necessary—food and personal hygiene as well—we had not actually had a day away from our new home with the intention of exploring for the sake of exploring. We needed a few days of enjoyment, moderate relaxation, and no work. I wanted to take my friends on a “field trip” to a secret destination before going home to retrieve personal items.

  Marisol was hesitant about returning to her home; she was afraid of what she knew she would find. David, had no one at his home, which was not in New Jersey, but a townhouse on the west side of Gramercy Park. He was anxious to return and retrieve his seven guitars, which he told me was ever-present on his mind since we made the relocation to the armory. The armory was less than five blocks north of his townhouse and he had considered walking home on several occasions.

  I wanted a day away from the armory, a day to take my friends to my old neighborhood, to a special destination. I did ask the doctor to join us as he was sticking me with a needle for one of my treatments. As expected France declined, which was fine by me. We showed him how to use the radio in the communication room, in case there was an emergency, and locked the exterior gates behind us as we departed.

  I lived on 13th Street between Third and Second Avenues. My neighborhood was famous; so was my building. Famous, if you were a movie buff and a fan of the 1976 Martin Scorsese film, Taxi Driver. I lived at 204 East 13th Street, the building where Robert De Niro met and eventually shot Harvey Keitel. Not to be confused with the building that was used as the brothel, where De Niro’s character, Travis Smiley, went on a bloody rampage in the film’s climatic finale. That was 226 East 13th. Besides, my building was renovated while the other looked like it was from 1976.

  I loved where I lived; it was a good neighborhood and I knew quite a few of my neighbors. I also liked where I used to live on East 10th Street across from Tompkins Square Park. Although during the 1980s, the park had become a high-crime area that contained encampments of homeless people, and it was a center for illegal drug dealing and heroin use.

  The property values of the neighborhood had plummeted by then, and no one wanted to live in the neighborhood for fear of their lives, including my mother. However, my father turned the plight of the neighborhood into an opportunity. He, along with a few of his colleagues, scraped up enough money to buy a building for slightly over $100,000. That was one year before Daniel Rakowitz made brain soup out of his roommate of sixteen days, Monice Beerle, in the kitchen of their apartment at 700 East 9th Street.

  When my mother read this in the paper, she told my father if he didn’t move out of the neighborhood she was going to divorce him and move back with her parents. She did leave my father for a week until he pleaded with her to return. She did, and my father spent the rest of his life making it up to her. My father’s recompense came to fruition when he retired and sold his portion of the building to his partners. He retired a millionaire. His small investment had skyrocketed as the property values soared in the aftermath of the cleanup and gentrification of Tompkins Square Park and the surrounding neighborhood. Part of that sale went into another investment, my 13th Street apartment.

  As I drove down Second Avenue with Max in the passenger seat and David at gunner’s position—Marisol, under protest, rode in the Stryker since she had proven a capable targeting systems operator—and crossed 18th Street, I didn’t realize I had been singing aloud until David brought it to my attention.

  “Are you singing?” he asked, talking through his radio.

  “Sorry, I didn’t know my comm was on.”

  “I didn’t know you sang? That was pretty good,” David complimented. “Sounded like Elton John?”

  “Thanks. It was. Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters. My favorite song about New York.”

  I slowed the vehicle down as we crossed 13th Street.

  “You a musician?” David asked simultaneously as Kermit’s voice came over the radio.

  “Why are you slowing down? Is there a problem?” Kermit asked, brusquely.

  He had been a little grumpy since he had only instant coffee to drink. However, my side trip was not motivated to please the grouch; it was more for my needs.

  “Negative,” I responded. “No problem, just a quick stop. Tell Sam I’ll need his bolt cutters. J.D., out.”

  I stopped in front of the Open Pantry. It was my favorite place to purchase coffee. After retrieving Sam’s bolt cutters, I walked in front of the East Village Thrift Shop, which was the adjacent building front. I swore I saw Victor Walker inside behind the checkout counter, but it was only my wishful imagination. Victor, like all the other shop managers I knew, were gone.

  After cutting the lock off and rolling up the gate, I punched the glass out of the store entry door with the tool’s cutting jaws and unlocked the door from the inside. Behind the checkout counter, to the right and up, were the different brand chocolate bars. I took all of the Black & Green’s milk chocolate bars, and even ones that were a different brand. I also grabbed a few cans of ground coffee. No one asked what I was doing for it was obvious I was looting the shop.

  There had been no time to mourn those we had lost. No time to be concerned with what tomorrow would bring. We had been in a fight for our survival, a struggle in which bonds of friendship and trust were born. Once we had found sanctuary in our underground hideaway, we had gone into denial mode. We had not and could not see the true extent of the world’s demise from our bunker, nor did we want to think about all we had known, all we had taken for granted, and those we loved and even hated were gone. As the months passed at the GCC little snippets of realization emerged. Then as we were forced to find a new home we were confronted with reality. As I drove through the East Village, the harsh truth began to awaken those feelings and memories I had tried to suppress. The sadness that washed over me began to suffocate me. This was not the time or place for me to grieve. There would be plenty of time for that in private, in a sanctuary I found in the darkness and the relative silence of the armory’s roof.

  I answered David as we proceeded on our way. “Once, to answer your question.”

  “You never told us that,” David replied. “What instrument?”

  “That’s cuz it never came up in a conversation,” I simply replied, not fully answering his question.

  He asked me again. “What instrument?”

  “Mainly piano. But that was long ago.”

  “What’s up with that?”

  “I started when I was six and stopped when I was somewhere around twenty-two.”

  I hadn’t driven very far when I came to the Stage Restaurant near the corner of 8th, not to be confused with the Stage Deli. I stopped our vehicle once again.

  “You classically trained?”

  “I was taught to play classically, but I taught myself jazz, rock and Broadway show tunes. I didn’t just want to be a classical pianist. I wanted to be a composer like Jim Steinman, James Pankow, and Paul Williams. I wanted to sing like Harry Connick, Jr. and Joe Jackson, and be able to play like Oscar Peterson and Elton John.”

  “Why’d ya quit?” he probed further.

  “After an open mike at a piano bar in the Lower East Side, some jackass came up to me and said, ‘Dude, that was awesome. It reminded me of Jack Black and Leo Sayer with hemorrhoids.’ Then he slapped me on the shoulder to compliment his snide remark.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “I answered with an elbow strike to his forehead and knocked him out. That was the last time I ever played.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I had a bit of a temper back then.”

  “You don’t say.”

  I was sure by his tone he was grinning.

  “That’s a very endearing story,” Kermit announced over the radio with a slightly snarky attitude. “Now how about we keep the channel clear?”

  I responded with, “That freeze-dried java not cutting it, Kermit. Well, I picked you up a gift, s
o play nice.”

  However, what I had imparted to David wasn’t entirely the whole story. The truth was I had not publicly performed since that incident, but I hadn’t given up playing or singing. I just did it at home.

  One positive note that came from that night in the West Village, it was later the same evening that I went to another club to see a band called The Tiger Lillies, a London-based three-piece gypsy cabaret group, who were the self-proclaimed sultans of delinquent Brechtian punk cabaret. The band was known for singing songs of bestiality, prostitution, and blasphemy. It wasn’t the offensive lyrics that got my attention. It was Martyn Jacques, the main vocalist, who played the accordion in ways I had never heard it. Two days later I bought the same model he played, an investment well worth the money spent.

  I got out of the vehicle and Max followed. As soon as I did, Kermit’s voice came over the radio again. “More reminiscing or you lookin’ to make yourself an omelet?” he jokingly asked.

  “No, Salisbury steak with buttered noodles and cut green beans,” I retorted with a reference to South Park’s Chef. Yeah, I was being a smart-ass, as usual—but he set himself up for it. “Just give me a moment, please.”

  The Stage Restaurant serves Eastern European food, mainly polish. Well, it did. Many mornings and evenings I sat by myself in the back of the restaurant, usually at the end seat, which had more counter space to the left since there was not another seat next to it.

  The restaurant was small; it only had sixteen counter seats. The eating area was narrow, much like the food preparation/dispensing area. Two people could not pass simultaneously without squeezing by one another. For a moment I thought about all the wonderful staff that made me become a regular patron. There was Chester the cook, Agnieszka the waitress, and Andrei the evening cook. The last one to round out the staff was Robert the part time cook, who worked mostly afternoons. Robert and I had a special friendship, and it had to do with macaroni and cheese, one of the specials on Friday’s menu. Robert always saved me a big plate. Though I had a set meal break when on duty, it often was delayed because of a call. However, Robert always made sure it was waiting for me no matter at what time I showed up, and for this I made sure he was always tipped above twenty percent.

  However, above all others there was the proprietor Roman Diakun. Roman was a cheerful man, tall in stature with dark hair and moustache. He was outgoing and liked to know as much as he could about his customers. Roman always greeted his customers when they came in, whether it was when they walked in the door or after they sat down, and he always thanked them as they departed. He was the kind of man who believed the customer was important and went that extra step to make them feel welcome. He also made it a point to know everyone’s name that frequented his establishment. He called me by my name the third time I came into his eatery.

  I thought about how little I really knew Roman or any of the staff, even though I had patronized the restaurant at least three times a week for as many years as I had been on my own. I wished I had really talked to them, and truly got to know them, instead passing the usual pleasantries or making mention of what was in the news or how my job was going.

  Max, whining and pulling at my pant leg, brought me out of my last thought. He looked up at me beseechingly. At first I didn’t understand. He let out a bark and ran to the edge of the sidewalk, then back to me. Another look and bark came, and then back to the street as to say, come on, time to cross. It only took me a minute to decipher his actions. Max wanted his treats from Phil.

  “Max wants treats?” I asked him.

  He barked an affirmation.

  “Home is where the Greenies are. Right, Max?”

  He gave me another approving bark.

  “Okay, Max. But ruhig, ruhig.”

  Max and I got back into the Humvee and I radioed to the others that I needed to make one more stop before we made it to our mystery destination. It was to Whiskers.

  Whiskers had been the store where I bought Max’s food. It sold holistic pet products, but above all it was where the Greenies were. Whiskers was a quick block behind us on 9th Street on the west side of Second Avenue near the corner. It was owned by Phil and Randy Klein.

  I didn’t know much about Randy. I mainly saw her behind the desk in the office as I passed by the always-open doorway. Phil was the face of Whiskers. He was the kind of guy you took an instant liking to, the cool uncle you wish you had. Phil was a Vietnam vet who had found his calling after the war, not in Silicon Valley like many had, but in computerized document production long before people were doing it at home or running to Kinko’s.

  In 1988, Phil and Randy founded Whiskers Holistic Pet Care, due in part to the proliferation of home computers, but mainly because Randy’s beloved dog became seriously ill. At that time there were few, if any, alternatives to traditional invasive and harsh drug-based animal care. They were among the early pioneers of the alternative, holistic pet care movement.

  Phil was a stocky, jovial man in his early sixties with white hair and beard. He was cheerful, pleasant, and a joy to talk to. He was also a wealth of information on everything in his shop. If an animal was feeling out of sorts, all the customer had to do was tell Phil the animal’s symptoms and he could recommend a holistic medication. Phil was also the store greeter, the one with the treats, and Max just loved him. Dried lamb lung, that’s what Phil always gave to his canine customers. Max loves that almost as much as Greenies and Phil was more than happy to oblige him.

  “There are three things in life,” he once told me. “Talk, walk, and ride. Talk on the phone. Walk the Dog. Ride the motorcycle.” However, his life was not that simple. He worked six days a week, many hours a day. On his one day off he made time to take his bike out for a long ride. He had even taken me out several times and was willing to teach me to ride, though I never did follow up on that. Phil was the face, the backbone and the hands-on team leader. Phil was my friend.

  The store was secured as we pulled in front of it, which was a sign to me that the Klein’s and their employees had not been trapped in their store. It also signified that I would need Sam’s help in liberating what Max was so adamant in having.

  With a couple quick snips of the bolt cutters we accessed the storefront door as well as the outside sidewalk basement entrance. Within twenty minutes we loaded up the Stryker with all of Max’s favorite foods, and some that were not, and of course every bag of Greenies we could find.

  Max and I opted to walk to our destination, so Julie joined David and drove the Humvee and then trailed us up 9th Street to 4th Avenue, south to 7th Street and to McSorley’s. Walking wasn’t the smartest thing, since we never knew when a half-mute would set upon us—though we had discovered they are attracted to loud noises, it was never safe—but I needed this for both my own well-being and Max’s. He had been too many months on the treadmill at the GCC and too little walking since we emerged.

  After Sam sheared off the lock to the pub, we broke into the basement where I changed out the stale kegs for new. Since I was hosting this outing, I played bartender and offered them their choice of four beverage types: amber ale, dark ale, Coca-Cola or ginger ale; the latter two still could be found in the bar refrigerator.

  McSorley’s Old Ale House was the oldest Irish Tavern in New York City, established in 1854, and one of the last “Men Only” pubs, that ended in 1970 due to a District Court ruling. It was difficult to describe McSorley’s. It was like a two-room museum that had never been dusted. There was traditional sawdust on the wooden floor, cobwebs on the bar chandeliers, and the walls and ceiling were lined with artifacts, newspaper clippings and photos from the early 1900s. I found out that they kept adding but had never removed anything since 1910. There was even a pair of framed Woodstock Festival tickets stubs behind a fan above the left corner of the women’s bathroom entrance. McSorley’s had an “Olde New York” feeling, like it was from another time.

  We sat at the table next to a cast iron potbelly stove, third table from the windo
w. It was not my regular table, and as a regular I had a preference, which was in the back room in front of the non-functional fireplace. I choose to sit in the front room, mostly because the back was too dark for my companions. After we raised our glasses together, I made a toast, first to our friendship and then to our benefactors, the 69th Regiment.

  “To all of you. Friends and comrades, I give you this Gaelic toast,” I said, as I stood and raised my glass and spoke in the language of my ancestors. I then translated it on Kermit’s request. “Here’s to cheating, stealing, fighting, and drinking. If you cheat, may you cheat death. If you steal, may you steal a woman’s heart. If you fight, may you fight for a brother. And if you drink, may you drink with me.”

  I raised my glass high and took a drink.

  “Here, here,” Kermit responded.

  I continued. “I’d also like to toast the gallant men of the Fighting Sixty Ninth. We give you a hearty cheer, me boys, and we hope it greets you with smile. To the boys who feared no noise!” I cheered, and then took another gulp of the amber ale.

  “This is really good beer. Thanks for the outing,” Julie said with appreciation.

  “Teach you I shall, my young padawan, Beer is not served in this establishment,” I informed her. “Only ale, light or dark. And that is how Pepe would school you if he were here today.”

  I sat quiet for a while thinking about the good times I had and the people I would miss.