by F. P. Lione
The lounge is in the basement, a twelve-by-twenty-foot room that holds four tables for eating. A foul-smelling re-frigerator mottled with mold sits with a microwave on top of it. There are no windows, just panels of fluorescent lights that cast a dismal shadow on the already gloomy room. Black cushioned benches line three of the walls where most people sleep. Someone’s old couch sits in front of the television. Four day-tour guys were watching reruns of Law and Order, so Fiore and I sat down at the table to watch with them. Fiore went up at 4:30 to sign out. I signed out for 4:30 but didn’t do it until 5:00.
I changed into blue cotton shorts and a white shirt and went over to the bar on 9th Avenue with Frankie Amendola from the bike squad. Frankie played first base with us last year but hurt his arm wrestling with a pickpocket up on 34th Street. He was bummed out about missing the playoffs but would be back to play next year. Willie the bartender was engrossed in a heated argument with one of the day-tour guys, about his bar tab. He calmed down when he saw us all looking at him. I doubted he wanted to lose business over a bar tab.
I drank beers with Amendola until about 6:00, then walked over to my favorite Chinese food dump. I picked up an order of house lo mein and some chicken and broccoli. I walked back to the station house and ate my food in the lounge while watching the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Fiore was asleep on one of the benches in the back, the lights off on that end of the room. I finished my dinner, then napped until about 10:45 to sleep off the beer.
I washed and changed and went back to the muster room for roll call. Sergeant Hanrahan was out, and his replacement was Jimmy Yu, a new sergeant.
I met up with Fiore by our vehicle. He cleaned out the car again, saving the Post for me. We stopped for coffee on the corner of 35th and 9th. A red Ford Taurus was blocking the left lane, bringing traffic down to three lanes. The left front tire was up on the divider and the driver’s door was open.
“What is this moron doing?” I said as I pulled up behind the car and gave the guy a whoop with my siren. I saw no reaction or movement inside the car. I whooped him again and turned on my turret lights as an old-time security guard in front of the post office on 32nd and 9th yelled over, “I think he’s drunk.”
Now I was mad—this guy was gonna get someone killed because he was drunk in the middle of traffic. We both got out of the car, Fiore more carefully because he was on the traffic side. Cars were slowing down to see what was going on. I stomped over, angry that I had to deal with this. The security guard called over again, “I called it in.” Of course he called it in, to come and get me to clean up the garbage. I pulled the door open more and leaned down into the car.
“Buddy, what’s the problem?” I got no response. His face was toward the passenger side so I added a little louder, “Have you been drinking?” I leaned in and saw him close his eyes. He was an older black man, about sixty years old and dressed in blue work pants and shirt. I didn’t smell booze, but the car smelled faintly of urine. I tried to pull him out of the car, but his body was stiff. Fiore was looking in the passenger side window and must have seen the drool on the side of the guy’s mouth because he motioned me with a wave. “Tony, I don’t think he’s drunk, but he might have had a stroke or something—he’s trying to respond but he can’t.”
I leaned over him. “Buddy, are you having a heart attack or something?” His arms started to flutter but that was the extent of it. Fiore was already on the radio calling for a bus (ambulance), telling them we had a possible stroke victim and giving our location.
“Easy, buddy,” I said as I patted his shoulder. “The ambulance is on the way.”
He tried to nod.
“I’m gonna get your wallet,” I said as I checked his back pants pocket on the left side. There was no wallet on that side, so Fiore leaned in from the passenger side and retrieved it from his right back pocket.
I stepped back outside to direct the traffic as Fiore came over to the driver’s side and spoke to him in a soothing voice. Now I felt terrible, because I realized the poor guy had tried to move his car out of traffic when he realized he was having a stroke. If the security guard had bothered to see what was going on, the ambulance could have been here sooner.
“So was he wasted?” the guard called from his booth, almost giddy.
“No, he had a stroke,” I snapped. His face fell.
The ambulance arrived, parking in front of the man’s car, and angled up on the divider so they weren’t out in traffic.
“Do you need a hand?” the guard called again, now acting concerned.
“No thanks, pal, you’ve done enough,” I called back.
Fiore took the information off the guy’s license, and we waited until they got him into the ambulance. Fiore drove the man’s car back to the precinct, and as I walked back over to my sector car the security guard yelled out, “I’m not allowed to leave the booth.” I ignored him and drove away.
Once I got back to the precinct I dialed information and got the man’s home phone number. A fragile voice answered and confirmed that it was her husband driving the car. I was careful when telling her that he had been taken to Bellevue, but she sounded like she was having a heart attack anyway. “He’s okay,” I lied. “EMS was taking good care of him when I left.” She calmed down somewhat and said her son would take her over to the hospital. I told her that the car was parked at the precinct and she could pick up the keys from the desk sergeant. Fiore left the keys at the desk with a note instructing them to give them to the family.
We drove back out and parked in an empty parking lot on 37th Street. I sat smoking, listening to the distant sound of cars and trucks, the occasional pieces of conversation as people walked by. Each time a car drove down the street they ran over a manhole cover that made a kerplunk sound. Above us on the sixth floor the windows shone with a scarlet glow, and an oriental red lantern hung on the fire escape. It was a Korean geisha house. Straight ahead in between the buildings we had an amazing view of the Empire State Building, lit up for the holiday in red, white, and blue. Two fire trucks barreled down the street, horns blasting, sirens going. It was so loud my heart started pounding in my chest.
I read the paper for a while then watched the building, smoking another cigarette, a million things running through my head.
Fiore broke into my thoughts. “Got a lot on your mind, Tony?”
I shook my head. “Not much.”
“Everything okay? Ever hear from that old girlfriend of yours?”
“Nope.”
“Going down to the Jersey shore this weekend, right?”
I nodded and heard him chuckle.
“Are you leaving in the morning?”
“No,” I said. “My family is coming over for a barbecue tomorrow, then I’ll head down the shore tomorrow night or Friday morning.”
“You have a big family?” he asked.
“Not really, one brother, one sister. My parents are divorced, my father’s remarried. They’re all coming tomorrow, so it should be interesting. It always is.”
“Why, don’t they get along?” he asked quietly.
I laughed. “Not really.”
I pulled out and drove toward 6th Avenue. I didn’t want to tell Fiore about my family or anything else for that matter. I tried to give myself something to look forward to about this weekend but couldn’t. I didn’t want to see my family, and I didn’t want to go to the shore and drink too much.
I lit another cigarette and drove down to 8th Avenue and made a right, heading north. I passed Port Authority on my left and the triple-X stores with their constant parade of customers on my right.
I stopped at the light on 42nd Street, getting ready to head toward Times Square, and smiled. To the right my old pal John Wilson was dealing crack out of a potato chip bag. John and I went back a ways, and he always tried to be real cool with me. He used to try and give me free tapes and CDs, telling me he’d “take care of me” and get me anything I wanted. Now that really made me mad, him thinking I’d look the other
way for some stolen CDs. I must have locked him up for drugs four times already, yet there he was, back on my streets. He was about six feet tall and fat. His dark hair was buzzed, with the tips bleached white. He wore a big white T-shirt with a cartoon on the front and red tropical print shorts, white socks and sneakers. His eyes were looking around each time someone put their hand inside his bag of potato chips and dropped money into his hand.
I pulled the car over and got out, nightstick in hand. He froze when he saw me, then he jumped. I could see him wondering if I saw him dealing. He switched gears and smiled.
“Hey, Officer Cavalucci, howz it goin’?” He was white but spoke with a Spanish twang.
“Hey!” I smiled. “You got some potato chips for me?”
He crumpled the top of the bag. “No, there’s none left.”
“Oh, come on John, you don’t have any potato chips for your favorite officer?” I reached for the bag.
“No, sorry, there’s no more.”
I took the bag and looked inside at the multicolored caps to the crack vials. “Wow, multicolored potato chips! My favorite!”
John took off running toward 8th Avenue, heading north. I started to chase him, laughing as I went. His shoes were too big for his feet, and he almost lost both shoes as he tried to run. When I caught up to him, I kicked his right foot into his left foot and he went flying in the air. Whack! He hit the ground. His shoes came flying off, landing a couple of feet from his body. His hands and face were scraped, and he was bleeding all over. He started to cry when I put the cuffs on him. I turned around to see Fiore right behind me, one hand on his radio, the other on top of his gun.
We walked John over to the car and drove back toward the precinct. As I drove back he was crying like a baby in the backseat. Several minutes later an unmistakable odor filled the car. “Did you go in your pants?” I yelled into the back.
“I think so.” He continued sobbing.
“What? I can’t believe you just crapped in your pants! You know what? Now you’re gonna sit in it for the rest of the night.”
A lot of perps would mess their pants, figuring the cops wouldn’t want to deal with them and just let them go. If you pick someone up for crack and they crap in their pants, forget it, leave them. You can always go another block down and grab someone else for crack with cleaner underwear.
Fiore rolled down his window and actually started to gag. “Tony, let me out of the car!”
“You have kids, how can this bother you?” It was disgusting, but even I wasn’t gagging.
“It’s not the same, Tony. They’re my kids.” His eyes were tearing and his face was red.
I pulled the car over, and he got out, taking in big gulps of air. I didn’t want to goof on him—he’d never said anything about me puking—so I dropped it.
“You see! Now my partner’s gagging because you’re so disgusting. You’re gonna sit in it all night,” I spat toward the back.
Fiore got back in, keeping his head out the window as I drove. I took John back to the precinct and put him in a cell. The guys in the cell were screaming at him. “Man, what did you do? Ah, that stinks! White boy crapped his pants!”
I left him handcuffed in the cell, stinking up the place. I wasn’t taking the arrest, so I knew I’d have to get him cleaned up, but I was gonna let him sit in it while I did the paperwork.
Romano, a rookie, wanted the collar so he could stretch the overtime for the whole day and get fifteen and a half hours while staying in the precinct for the night of the Fourth. As I did the paperwork, the other perps were calling John names. John was talking about how he’d done time before and that it was no big deal.
I walked over to the cell. “No big deal? No big deal? You were crying like a little girl when I locked you up,” I yelled into the cell.
“Officer, please, let me clean up.”
“Okay, shut your mouth and follow me. I’m gonna take you outside, and I’m telling you right now, when I take the cuffs off you so you can wash yourself, if you run, the next place you’ll wake up is Bellevue, you understand me?”
He nodded.
I took him outside where the guys in peddlers park their vendor carts. It was fenced in so he couldn’t run anywhere. There was a short hose, and he had to stand right up against it while he washed himself. I gave him a plastic bag for the soiled underwear and brought him in to the men’s room to wash his hands with soap. I left him with a warning. “If you ever pull a stunt like that with me again, you’ll sit in it all night.”
Fiore had been quiet through this whole thing, just staying close by in case I needed him. I didn’t think he objected to the way I handled the situation, probably just some of my language, which I’ve edited here. That was another funny thing about Fiore—he didn’t curse. All cops cursed; in fact, I cursed more at work than anywhere else. Not him, but we’ve never been in anything really hairy together yet. Time will tell.
We stayed inside until our meal, ordering turkey and cheese sandwiches from a deli. We went back out at 5:00 a.m.—a transformer had exploded, sending a manhole cover flying ten feet in the air and crashing into a parked car. We stayed there until Con Edison was on the scene. At 6:45 when we were getting ready to head back in, someone called a bomb threat in at the Empire State Building. Just in time to start off the Fourth of July festivities. A security guard said a suspicious-looking suitcase was left by the front entrance. The Empire State Building was in Charlie-Frank sector, so we went to back up O’Brien and McGovern. After a half hour of waiting for emergency services and the bomb squad to get there McGovern finally said, “Screw this” and walked over to open it up. The only things inside were some clothes, papers, deodorant and other toiletries. By the time I got back to the precinct I was so tired I could barely stand. I changed back into my shorts and shirt, wished Fiore a good weekend, and went out to my truck.
The heat and humidity were incredible. When the city gets this hot there’s always an undercurrent of hostility. The weather had been cooking up for a week, and it was supposed to break a hundred degrees today. I could already hear sporadic fireworks as I drove home. The mayor’s plan to rid the city of fireworks is futile. Every year they say the same thing, and every year there are plenty of fireworks. Thousands of people all over the city today would be drunk and armed with explosives. Now that’s a scary thought. By tonight there will be so much smoke and litter from the fireworks, it’ll be three days before the city cleans it up.
I was dreading spending the day with my family. I just wasn’t up to the drama of a family get-together and was already wishing it were over so I could go down the shore for the weekend.
The traffic was heavy, and it took me forty-five minutes to get home. When I pulled up in front of my house Denise and Sal Valente were carting a redwood picnic table into the yard. I walked around to find them setting up the deck for the party. I was tired and people were already here at 8:30 in the morning.
“Tony, I put your air conditioner on so it’s cool in there and you won’t hear us out here. I had the air on all night downstairs so if it gets too hot we can eat inside,” Denise said. She was wearing a white Old Navy shirt with a flag on it and short blue shorts. Her hair was caught up in a red fabric thing and she had little Statues of Liberty hanging from her ears. Sal wore blue shorts, a white tank top, and a red baseball cap. What were these two up to?
“I’m going to bed. What time is everyone coming?” I asked.
“Two o’clock, but don’t worry about the food. Sal and I made the salads last night. And except for what needs to be grilled, everything else is done.”
I nodded and made my way inside. It was freezing in the house and even worse in my room. I put on a sweatshirt and sweatpants and crawled under the covers with my teeth chattering. I set my alarm for 2:00 and was asleep almost immediately.
They dropped two bombs on me that day. My alarm went off at 2:00, but I hit the snooze until 2:27. I heard the hum of my air conditioner and then the sound of voices bel
ow a minute or two later. I could hear Marie’s big mouth telling Vinny to get another bag of ice for the cooler. I crossed to the bathroom. The temperature of the house was slightly warmer than my room. I showered and shaved, dressing in a black shirt and beige Dockers shorts. There was a pot of coffee brewing in the kitchen, and as I poured a cup, my grandmother came through the sliding doors.
“Tony! Come and give Grandma a kiss.” She beamed as I crossed to kiss her, and she got me in one of those hug headlocks, choking me with her perfume. She was decked out in patriotic red shorts and a blue and white striped shirt.
“Everyone’s here. Come out and get something to eat.” She hugged me again, grabbed a bowl from the refrigerator, and went back out to the deck. Through the glass doors I could see all the boats out on the water. A lot of smaller boats came up to see the festivities, and two days ago one of them capsized. The currents under the Verrazano are strong and the wake of an aircraft carrier is no joke. I didn’t get the whole story, just that an off-duty cop saved a two-year-old girl from the water when the boat tipped.
Out on the deck my mother was talking to Vinny. From where I stood in the kitchen I could see the lines of bitterness etched into her face. But she had lost some weight and looked better than she had in a long time. Marie and my dad were talking to Frank Bruno and his wife, and their daughter, Nicole, was sitting on a beach chair with a bored look on her face. Denise and Sal had set up the deck buffet style with the table next to the grill and chairs set up along the deck. A radio was tuned to the oldie station, and a doo-wop song was playing. Vinny was grill chef while Sal helped Denise at the table.
I went to the refrigerator for milk and found it stuffed in with bowls of potato and macaroni salad, hamburgers, and hot dogs. On the bottom shelf sat a watermelon cut into the shape of a basket with grapes, blueberries, strawberries, and other fruit inside. I grabbed the milk from the back of the top shelf and poured some in my coffee. I took my coffee out onto the deck and set it on the picnic table. The sun was strong—it had to be over ninety degrees. There was no shade, and we didn’t have an umbrella, just a slight breeze coming off the water.
