by F. P. Lione
I wondered briefly how my life would have turned out if I never followed the crowd, if I walked away instead of proving I could do more shots of booze than the next guy. If I didn’t have to have the best-looking girlfriend, just the nicest, would I be married now with a family? I didn’t have it in me to choose right when I was younger. I hoped I had it in me now.
9
We walked the boardwalk through South Beach and into Midland Beach, where the boardwalk turns to a wide cobblestone path. At the turn of the century South Beach was a resort town, and the boardwalk had rides and concessions. After the concessions closed and what was left of the rides moved to a small amusement park, the boardwalk deteriorated. It was a magnet for drug dealers and vagrants, with a pretty big homeless population.
About ten years ago the borough president restored these three miles of beach, turning the burnt-out remains of the old boardwalk into a seaside attraction. Local bands played here on the weekends, and parks department festivities had become the norm. At one entrance a fountain billowed with water while dolphins in motion soared at different heights. It would have been beautiful except one of the dolphins had its backside sticking up while its face was buried in the cement. I guess it was supposed to look like he was diving in the water; instead it looked like he had smashed into the cement and gotten stuck there.
It was now past lunchtime, and we had walked over four miles. We ended up in Miller Field, an old World War I airfield that the Parks Department now uses for sports leagues and picnic grounds. There is a roller hockey rink and huge playground. The old hangars are still there, and also a small row of houses for the park rangers. We sat down on one of the picnic tables by the ranger station, but Fiore got up and said we needed to keep moving or he’d fall asleep.
Summer sunbathers were out en masse on this hot summer day, and the beach was full when we turned around and headed back toward the Verrazano Bridge. The beach concession stands were open, and we bought more water to fight off the dehydration. Fiore wanted to get a couple of hot dogs, but the guy on the South Beach part of the boardwalk had better dogs. I was sweaty and my feet were swollen, but I’d still walk another mile for a better hot dog. I tried to keep talking but yawned every other word, and then Fiore caught it and he yawned every other word.
“Stop!” I moaned.
“Stop what?” He yawned
“Stop yawning.” I yawned.
We stopped talking so we had the energy to make it home. I suggested catching a bus that ran along Father Capodanno Boulevard. The bus would leave us by the bridge, but Fiore said the walking would do me good. I thought about running away and jumping on the bus, but I didn’t want to hear Fiore, plus I didn’t know if he could find his way back to my house.
We stopped at the South Beach hot dog cart. We each got two dogs with mustard and sauerkraut, and black cherry sodas. We ate standing next to the cart. I smoked a cigarette before walking again, putting the butt in my soda can. By the time we got back to my house it was 1:30 and I was too tired to stand. So was Fiore. I gave him my room, turning on the air conditioner. Then I turned on Denise’s air conditioner and crawled into her bed.
I fell into such a deep sleep that I didn’t hear Denise come in the room after work. I woke up at 8:00. I used the bathroom and brushed my teeth, then went down to the kitchen to make some coffee. Denise was at the kitchen table, reading the paper.
“Everything okay?” she asked as I came in. She looked confused.
“Sure.”
“Who’s that guy upstairs in your room?”
“He’s my new partner,” I said as I busied myself with the coffeemaker.
“Why is he here?”
“We worked late, and it was easier for him to sleep here,” I said as casually as I could.
She nodded. “He’s cute.”
“He’s married,” I warned.
“Okay!” She laughed. “I didn’t go that far into the room to see if he was wearing a ring!”
I smiled. “He’s a good guy.”
“That’s good. Are you hungry?” she asked, looking a little funny.
“Starving.” The last things I ate were the hot dogs, and I couldn’t remember what I had before that. I popped two Tylenol and poured a cup of coffee. I heard Fiore moving around upstairs and poured him a cup.
His hair was a little flat and his eyes puffy but he smiled as he came in. “Hey, Tony.” He shook my hand and pulled me in for a hug. “How you doing, buddy?”
I moved away, embarrassed. “Joe, this is my sister, Denise,” I said, my face red.
He smiled and shook her hand. “Hey, Denise.”
“Hi, Joe.” She smiled back.
“I can’t get a signal in the house, so I’m going to go outside to call my wife,” he said, holding his cell phone as he went out onto the deck.
“I waited for you to eat. I was about to order pizza, that sound good?” Denise asked.
“Yeah, but order from Giuseppe, the fresh mozzy and tomato basil pie.”
“Pickup or deliver?”
“Deliver,” I said. I wanted to shower and shave before I ate. Fiore came in from the deck just then, and I asked if pizza was good for dinner. Denise ordered two pies, the fresh mozzarella with basil and a plain pie with mushrooms. Fiore drank his coffee and went up to shower first. It was then that I realized I had forgotten to go to my softball game. I didn’t know what I was going to say to the guys. They’d want to know why I hadn’t gone over to the field when I got back from Bellevue. I put my head down and groaned.
“What’s the matter, Tony?” Denise asked from the table.
“Nothing, I just forgot to do something.”
She said something else, but I was already halfway up the stairs to my room. I got some clean clothes and pulled my electric razor out of my top drawer. I shaved in front of my mirror while waiting for Fiore to finish in the shower. He came out of the bathroom with his hair still damp; I guess he didn’t blow-dry it. I showered and dressed quickly, aggravated that there were no more Q-Tips and that I had to use tissue to dry my ears.
I was a little cranky, but other than that I had no big signs of detoxing. I put my bag together for work, panicking for a second that I couldn’t find my gun. I realized that I had given it over to Fiore and started to feel depressed again. I took a breath to calm myself and went back downstairs as the doorbell rang for the pizza.
Denise sensed that something was going on and did her best to keep the conversation going smooth during dinner. She asked Fiore about his family and asked to see pictures. She asked where he lived and talked about a friend of hers who lived in Smithtown, which Fiore said was near him. Fiore was friendly and talkative and one of the few guys I knew who wasn’t knocked out by Denise’s looks. I could tell Denise liked him—she wasn’t attracted to him, but liked him as a person.
That night I started to learn about God. On the ride into work Fiore told me about salvation, about believing that Jesus is the Son of God. He said that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and was raised from the dead. He said that anyone who called upon the name of the Lord would be saved.
“Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God?” he asked.
“I know I’ve been taught that, but I don’t know what I believe. I know they say that he was crucified by Pontius Pilate, died and was buried and on the third day rose again.” I could still recite it from memory, but the words were foreign to me.
“The most important part of the prayer of salvation is that you believe it. I want you to be saved, but I don’t want you to say something you don’t believe. Why don’t you tell me what you really believe about God?”
“Honestly, I think he’s mean.” I looked over at Fiore to see if he’d be shocked by that, but he just smiled. “I mean, he has all this power and yet no control over what goes on here.”
“It’s interesting that you see it that way. You’ve actually got a better grip on this than most people.” He looked impressed. I had no idea what he meant.
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“How?” I asked.
Fiore had a Bible in his lap, a black leather one that looked pretty worn out. He opened it and started flipping pages. “If you go to the book of Genesis, the first book in the Bible, you’ll learn why it seems like God has no control here. When God created Adam and Eve and put them in the Garden of Eden, he gave them authority over the earth. When Adam disobeyed God and ate of the tree after he was told not to, he gave up his authority, and Satan took control. This separated man from God. When Jesus went to the cross, he was the sacrifice for our sin. He put us back in right standing with God and built the bridge to put us back in fellowship with him. Like Adam was before the fall. Jesus’s death at Calvary gave us a choice to accept the righteousness he bought for us. When we accept Jesus, Satan no longer has dominion over us. In Philippians 3, I think it’s verse 20,” he said as he turned there, “it says our citizenship is in heaven.”
“What about purgatory?” I asked.
He looked confused.
“You know, the place between heaven and hell where you’re in limbo,” I said.
“I have no idea…wait…” He thought a minute. “Do you mean Abraham’s bosom?” he asked.
I shrugged. He started reading something about Lazarus, a poor man who had sores that a dog licked while he sat outside some rich man’s house. He said when Lazarus died the angels carried him to Abraham’s bosom. They comforted him while the rich guy went to hell and could see Lazarus from there. He was tormented and wanted Lazarus to go and tell his family to believe. By the time I got to the precinct I was listening so intently to this story, I barely noticed the ride in.
We changed into our uniforms, and he reached into his locker and gave me my Glock. As I put it in my holster he stuck out his hand for me to shake.
“Congratulations, Tony.” He smiled as I shook his hand. “You just got through your first day without a drink.”
“Oh yeah.” I shook my head. “I almost forgot.” It’s funny, but I felt better than I had in a long time.
The night wasn’t crazy, but it was busier than I wanted it to be. We had two car accidents, one on 8th and 34th involving a cabby and a bus, the other was in front of Macy’s. That one had injuries and we had to wait for an ambulance. We answered two alarms. We talked on the way to jobs and on the way back. We talked while we searched a building, walking down the stairs. Fiore said he wanted to start by telling me about the love of God. When we got back to the RMP, he read me John 3:16–17. He read it one way and then read from what he called an amplified Bible—he said that kind of Bible goes in depth and explains things. I liked what he read so I wrote the verse down on a page in my memo book so I could read it later.
“For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that he (even) gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish—come to destruction, be lost—but have eternal (everlasting) life.
“For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge—to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on—the world; but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.”
I liked that. I had always thought that God was sitting up there waiting to damn me to hell for all the stuff I did. I never looked at it that he didn’t come to judge us. I liked how that sounded—“made safe and sound through Him.” But then it brought another slew of questions from me.
“But Joe, isn’t it a sin that I haven’t gone to church since 1983? Can’t I go to hell for that?” I asked him as he filled out another unnecessary alarm form.
He looked up from his writing and thought about that. “I don’t think it’s a sin not to go to church,” he answered. “I mean, if the only reason you go to church is so you don’t go to hell, you’re wrong to begin with.”
“Why would I be wrong? I’m supposed to go to church. If I don’t go, then I’m sinning.” At least that’s what I always thought.
“Tony, I never go to church because I have to; I want to go,” he explained. “I go because I love God and I love to hear his Word.” He sighed. “I want you to come to church with me. No, don’t say anything yet,” he said as I started to object. “Not this Sunday. Next week, on July 21st. My wife and I are dedicating our daughter that Sunday, and I was going to invite you anyway. We’re off that Sunday, so you don’t have to take the day off. It’s an early service, 9:00, and then we’ll be having people back at the house for a barbecue. The barbecue starts at 1:00, but you could help me set up for it, put the tables up outside and set up the volleyball net.”
“What’s dedicating your daughter mean?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” was all he said. I hoped it wasn’t some strange ritual with weird sacrifices. After everything he’d done for me in the past twenty-four hours I couldn’t say no to anything he asked me.
“I’ll go,” I said. “Just give me directions to your house.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” he said. “Maybe you should come home with me in the morning. I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave you alone just yet. I thought we’d finish out the week with tomorrow, and Friday morning you come home with me.”
“I don’t want to go to your house. I feel funny,” I said.
“Why? I went to your house and didn’t feel funny. Besides, my wife wants to meet you.” He smiled. I wondered how much he’d told his wife. “You’ll like her. She’s nice and she cooks good.”
“Why not.” It wasn’t like I had anything else to do. At least with Fiore I’d forget about going out with Rooney in the morning.
I was on my second day of not drinking, and something inside me wanted to see it through. I couldn’t explain it, but I had something to prove to myself about the drinking. And if I went home with Fiore, I wouldn’t be at the bar. I had to keep busy this weekend. The Jersey shore was out; too much partying there. Dave’s Tavern was out for the same reason. I guessed I could always walk the boardwalk until I passed out from fatigue again.
We stopped at the McDonalds on 7th Avenue across from the needle and button statue that lets everyone know they’re in the garment district. It was almost 2:00, and there wasn’t much left to eat. They had no fries, so I got two Big Macs, minus the onions, a chicken sandwich, and two apple pies. Fiore had a double cheeseburger, a chicken sandwich, and one apple pie. We parked the car in the empty lot eating and talking.
“Joe, my grandmother gives me medallions to wear under my uniform. Do they keep me safe?” I asked.
“The Word of God keeps you safe. Psalm 91 tells us about God’s protection.” He opened his Bible between bites and started to read it to me.
“I think you read that to me at court when you told me about the shield of faith,” I said.
He smiled. “You remember that?”
I nodded. “I liked that about the Roman soldiers with their wood shields. I have to tell you, I never heard stuff like this.” I shrugged. “It’s interesting.”
“I know.”
He told me about God’s protection again as we ate. I liked what he said about “the secret place of the most high.” It sounded like a good place to be.
We answered two more jobs before heading inside to take our meal. One was a larceny in progress in which the complainant didn’t want to do a report. The other was an alarm on 5th Avenue that came up secure. We slept through our meal, heading back out at 6:00 to finish out the tour. We had no jobs, and Fiore dozed in the car. I didn’t want to bother him. I’m sure he was tired from all the walking.
After our tour I took the Long Island Railroad for the first time in my life. I hoped Fiore didn’t want to hoof another eight miles today—I really wasn’t up for it. The sun was bright, with temperatures in the low eighties, just right. We caught the train at Penn Station at 8:20. There’s a 7:50 train, but that’s when we get out. I guess Fiore didn’t believe in cutting out a little early to catch the train. Joe has a pass to ride for free but I didn’t. We argued over who would pay when the ticket
guy came, but Fiore won. I didn’t even find out how much it was. I know it’s not cheap—when cops had to pay for it, they drove in.
The Long Island Railroad was totally different from the city trains. The seats were cushioned, a far cry from the hard plastic seats on the city trains. These were more like airplane seats only they didn’t recline. The seats were in rows, three to the left and two to the right, instead of lining the sides of the train so strap hangers could stand in the middle. I heard there was a bar car, which we didn’t go in.
The train was pretty empty. No skells came in to ask for money. Passengers were reading, sleeping, or listening to music with headphones. There was no screech of the wheels like the subways but instead a constant low hum with an occasional blare of the horn as we passed an intersection or approached a station.
We got off at the Ronkonkoma station where Fiore had parked his car. His car was a piece of crap, a navy blue 1984 Honda Accord with body rot and a hole in the floor of the front passenger side.
“Are you crazy? I can see the ground!” I yelled over the noise from the muffler.
“I’m usually alone when I drive this,” he yelled back. “I have a new minivan at home that Donna drives.”
I smoked a cigarette in the car. I didn’t want to smoke around his family and didn’t know when I’d get my next one. He rolled down his window, but that just let the exhaust into the car.
Fiore lived on a cul-de-sac that held about ten houses. It was nice, real suburbs. The houses were all similar, split-levels and center hall colonials, some more elaborate than others. Fiore lived in one of the middle homes, a split-level that was nice but more modest than the rest. The lawn was mowed but not landscaped like some of the others. You could tell Fiore had done it himself. It didn’t have those twisty green trees or the drooping show trees. But it did have flowers planted in front and along the walk and a lamppost that had a hanging basket of flowers on each spike that came out the side. A white Plymouth Voyager was parked in the driveway; the back bumper had a fish symbol with JESUS in the middle. A small bicycle lay on its side near the front door, as if a kid dropped it in a hurry and tore into the house.
