Clear Blue Sky

by F. P. Lione

  “This is the float that’s gonna turn,” Hanrahan said.

  “Oh no,” Joe said as he watched the sea of people heading for us.

  Rooney said something else.

  The cops with the orange fencing ran across Eastern Parkway and blocked it off.

  “This is insane,” I said. “Look at these people.”

  “We shouldn’t do this,” Rooney said, shaking his head. “This is not good.”

  The captain walked over to the cab of the float and pointed down our street, telling the driver to move this way. As the driver turned and passed the corner the float stopped again. There was a sea of people now rushing toward the float, psyched out of their minds at the rapper.

  The rapper bent down and picked up a bottle of Heineken, and they went wild as he saluted them with it.

  “Let’s give it up for the cops,” he yelled and guzzled the beer as the crowd went wild.

  I’d like to think that he meant it and wasn’t trying to get us all killed, but considering the liquor ban, I doubted it. He started rapping again as the float moved forward, and people were now running from Eastern Parkway, following the float toward us.

  As the float came up on us I saw that the wheels were almost as big as me. If we got pushed back into them, we’d be crushed. I started thinking that if the crowd rushed me, I’d spin them around and toss them to the side and work my way into the crowd away from the wheels. The float probably wouldn’t stop any quicker for a cop than it would for a bystander, and I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.

  “If they rush us, jump up on the float or you’ll go under the wheels,” Rooney yelled.

  I could picture Rooney trying to haul his 230-pound rear end onto that float. He’d probably fall off attempting to heave himself over and go under the wheels anyway.

  The crowd was close enough on us now that I could feel the heat coming off them. They were young, most of them in their early twenties. The guys were shirtless and sweating, stinking of booze. And the females—although the clothes were minimal, the hair and makeup was done up.

  It was frenzied now, and I felt a shift in the atmosphere as the rapper passed behind me. The sound was so loud it obliterated everything around us, and while we could see the animated faces, they made no sound. Fists were pumped in the air, and mouths were moving while all eyes were mesmerized on the float.

  We were trying to keep the crowd back, but they were pushing in on us. As the crowd looked past me, up at the float, I saw a kid, maybe about ten years old, struggling to keep from getting crushed in the crowd. He was big for his age, but I could tell he was young. I wondered why the kid was here and who in their right mind would leave him alone in a crowd like this.

  I don’t know what happened behind me, but the crowd roared, and I saw the fear on the kid’s face right before he went down. I started screaming, “Watch the kid!” as I pushed people out of the way to get to him.

  No one heard what I said, and I saw the eyes of the crowd swing toward me, and I knew it was gonna get ugly. I saw their anger, like I was challenging them, and I pointed to the kid on the ground. A couple of people realized what happened and started pushing everyone out of the way to grab the kid. Once we got him up we pushed back the crowd and pulled him out of there, and it was almost like it broke the spell.

  I went to step back next to Joe and Rooney, and the next thing I knew, the crowd overtook us. I panicked a little realizing I couldn’t see Joe or Rooney, and I started to pray, Lord, help me here. I don’t want anyone getting killed, especially not a kid.

  People spilled from the sidewalks, filling the street in a matter of seconds. They reached the float as it passed, running after it as it went down the street. I saw one of the cops holding the mesh get knocked on the ground as everyone scrambled to put the barriers back up and close off the block.

  Once the barriers were in place it stopped the stream of pedestrians onto the block while the rest of them ran after the truck. I heard someone yell, “They’re calling us on the radio to get back to the corner of Eastern Parkway.”

  They didn’t have to tell me twice. My hands were shaking as I lit a cigarette, and I was sweating so much my clothes were sticking to me. I spotted Joe and Rooney at the corner, sweating and looking like they just cheated death.

  Rooney started screaming at the captain, “That was the most asinine thing I’ve ever seen. You could have gotten us killed! Who’s the moron that thought this up?”

  The cops were so angry, ranting about how we could’ve gotten killed. The captain and Sergeant Bishop didn’t say anything, but I could see Hanrahan was fuming.

  Walsh and Snout, who I hadn’t seen since this morning, looked scared out of their minds. I smiled at them and said, “Welcome to the NYPD,” as I took a drag off my cigarette. “You’re alive, you’ll get to sign out at the end of the day.”

  “Aren’t you glad you signed up?” Joe asked them.

  Walsh looked shell-shocked as he said, “I can’t believe that I’m at a parade where I’m almost killed and they tell me not to summons anybody.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” I said.

  Rooney went on to say that the brass had no testosterone-producing body parts.

  “No, seriously,” Walsh said. “Why didn’t we lock up that rapper? He was guzzling that beer, inciting the crowd.”

  “If we locked up that rapper,” Joe said. “There would have been a riot.”

  Walsh and Snout wouldn’t be back next year. The way it works is you work the detail and it winds up being a day like today. Then you stay away for a few years until you forget how bad it is and you sign up again.

  The parade was winding down, and we opened the streets again to pedestrians but not cars. We were all exhausted, legs aching, full of sweat and grime. At about 4:00 they mustered up another group of cops to take over for us. We climbed back into the van at 4:30, and I immediately fell asleep to the sound of Rooney complaining about the captain.

  We got back to the precinct at 5:00, and I went down to the locker room to change and was back upstairs to sign out in ten minutes. We were getting travel time until 6:00, and I wanted to be home by then.

  “What time are we meeting tomorrow?” Joe asked, looking exhausted.

  Joe and I were working a day tour tomorrow. We had to qualify at the range up in the Bronx, and we wanted to get there early so we could be in the first relay and get out early.

  “How about six fifteen?”

  “Sounds good,” he said, shaking my hand. “I’ll see you then.”

  My steering wheel was hot to the touch when I got in my truck. I rolled the windows down and blasted the air conditioner to cool it off. There was no traffic on the West Side Highway as I headed downtown, just long shadows of the buildings in the afternoon sun. It was one of those weird days, a Monday that felt like a Sunday.

  The roads were clear. The day was nice enough to keep everyone at the beach, but by 9:00 tonight it’d be bumper-to-bumper coming in from the Jersey Shore.

  I took Father Capodanno Boulevard home, watching families pack up their coolers and blankets in the parking lots along the beach.

  I live in a basement apartment in Grant City, a block up from the beach. It’s a dead-end street with access to Miller Field, the old airfield that is now used by the Parks Department. It’s quiet there, except on Saturday and Sunday mornings when the sounds of whistles and soccer games can be heard from a mile away.

  I moved there a year ago last month when my family home was sold. The sale of the house was the last round of my parents’ long divorce battle. They had a verbal agreement that my mother would keep the house, which was worth half a million bucks, and my father would keep his pension, which was worth double that. In the end my father screwed her and had the house sold out from under her anyway.

  My landlord, Alfonse, was in the backyard grilling sausage with one hand and holding a glass of wine in the other.

  “Tony!” he said with a smile. “You look exhausted. You w
ork today?”

  “Yeah, I worked the parade in Brooklyn,” I said.

  “What parade?”

  “The West Indian Day.” I said it like a question.

  “Never heard of it,” he said.

  Most people haven’t unless they’re from the area. Plus, he’s Italian, so unless it’s the San Gennaro feast he can’t relate. Alfonse must be about seventy. He came to America from Sicily about fifty years ago and still makes his own wine and sopressata. He has a huge garden with figs and a grape arbor, and I’ve been eating beefsteak tomatoes for a month now.

  “Hey, Julia,” I said to Alfonse’s wife.

  She’s pretty in an old-world Italian kind of way. She has short black hair and big brown eyes and always wears a dress. Even today barbequing in her backyard she had on a white shirt and pink floral skirt.

  “Did you eat?” she asked.

  “Nah, I’m good,” I said.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, already putting together a plate for me.

  I sighed and put my bag down next to the picnic table. I might as well sit and eat to save myself the ten minutes we’d argue until she talked me into it.

  She sliced some Italian bread and took a sausage link off the grill. She made me a sandwich and topped it with sautéed peppers and onions. She threw some tomato and red onion salad, grilled chicken on a skewer, and a skewer of grilled zucchini, tomato, yellow pepper, and carrots on the plate. Then she added some cold ravioli salad with sun-dried tomato and basil and set the plate down in front of me.

  “Sandy stopped by,” Julia said. “She left something by your door.”

  Sandy lives across the street with her two kids. In the spring her psycho soon-to-be ex-husband almost killed her. He beat her within an inch of her life one day and then came back the next day and stabbed her three times. Alfonse woke me up on both days to go over and help her, and the day her ex stabbed her I managed to hold him at bay while she crawled out of the house. She’s so grateful it borders on pathetic. She makes me food, gives me vegetables out of her garden, and washes my truck while I’m sleeping. She also told everyone on the block what a hero I was, which, trust me, wound up working against me.

  Now every time someone gets a parking ticket they want me to take care of it. They call me when the guy on the corner plays his music too loud, and last week they had me pulling an old lady with Alzheimer’s off the cement divider on Father Capodanno Boulevard. Not that I wouldn’t have helped her, but you call the cops for stuff like that.

  “You’re gonna be here on Saturday, right, Tony?” Alfonse said, talking about the block party. Everyone on the block chips in money for the rides and stuff, but we all do our own food.

  “Yeah, I’m working the night before, so I’ll catch a couple of hours’ sleep first.”

  “Who did you invite? I have the two tables for the food and about twenty chairs. Let me know if you need more, and I’ll have my brother bring some.”

  “Well, Michele and Stevie are coming. My partner Joe, his wife and three kids, his parents, my sister, my grandmother, and I don’t know who else.” I shrugged.

  Half my family wasn’t talking to me, so I didn’t know who’d show up. Fiore’s father said he hasn’t been to a block party since he left Queens and moved to Long Island, so he’s all excited about it.

  “We got the slide and the moon walk,” Alfonse said, talking about those inflatable rides that you rent. “We also got the pirate ship, the candy cart, and the face painters. The only thing we need is the fire trucks, and we thought you could call the firehouse up in New Dorp to make sure they’re coming.”

  “Just get me the number, I’ll give them a call,” I said. I knew a couple of firemen there.

  I finished my food and felt my eyes starting to close.

  Alfonse smiled. “Go get some sleep.”

  “Yeah, I’m beat,” I said. “The food was delicious, thanks.”

  I walked down the cement stairs to my apartment and found a brown shopping bag with a foil-covered plate outside the door. I unlocked the door, put the bag on the counter, and hit the play button on my answering machine. I had four messages.

  The first was Denise. “Mom’s coming Saturday, but I want to talk to you about it first. Call me back.” It beeped again, and I heard my grandmother’s voice. “Tony, it’s Grandma,” she said in a clipped voice. “Call me back.” The third call was a hang-up, and the fourth was from Michele asking me to call her when I got in.

  I called her cell phone but got her voice mail. I called the house and told the answering machine that I got her voice mail on the cell and to call me when she got the message.

  I took the plate from Sandy out of the bag and put it in my fridge without unwrapping it and sat down on the couch to watch the Yankees game. I was too tired to call anyone else back, and I would have read my Bible, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to concentrate. I didn’t have to think to watch the game. The Yanks had just wrapped up a three-game sweep with Boston and were beating the Blue Jays. I passed out after two minutes and woke up at midnight. I ignored the blinking light on my answering machine. I hadn’t even heard the phone ring. I set my alarm for 4:45 and crawled into bed.

  I showered, shaved, and was out of the house by 5:15. I stopped for coffee and an everything bagel with cream cheese on the corner of Clove Road and Hylan Boulevard. It was early enough that I didn’t have to wait in line for twenty minutes, and the guy made a good bagel, soft and chewy, still warm from the oven. I finished the bagel, lit a cigarette, and drank my coffee with it.

  The sun was still on the rise, sending streaks of pink and blue across the eastern sky. It was cooler today, probably in the sixties now that I would be out of uniform and wouldn’t have to stand around in the heat all day.

  I put the radio on 1010 WINS because, like every other New Yorker, I’m obsessed with traffic. After years of being stuck in it we know at least three alternate routes to anywhere around the city. 1010 WINS is the only place you can hear traffic reports from all five boroughs, upstate, Connecticut, Long Island, and Jersey. Six times an hour you get the skinny on East River Crossings; Hudson River Crossings; the bridges; the tunnels; inbound and outbound traffic; subway delays, including which lines are running, who had a track fire, and which lines are closed because someone got pushed onto the tracks; which alternate side of the street parking is in effect; and where there was an accident. I couldn’t live without it.

  The range where we qualify to shoot is in the Pelham Bay Park up in the Bronx. I took the Gowanus Expressway—or the “Don’t Go on Us Expressway,” as it’s called. It’s always crowded and the slowest way to get into Manhattan. I took the FDR to the Bruckner and took the Willis Avenue Bridge to City Island Road. Because it was early in rush hour, it took me less than an hour to get there.

  The range is an old fenced-in compound. It’s isolated by marsh but close enough to the bay that you can smell the salt water. It opened in 1960 and still uses the same life-size, two-dimensional target it used back then. The old-timers call him the thug. We just call him the bad guy. He reminds me of a gangster from the fifties, a cross between Ernest Borgnine and Rocky Graziano, which is who my father said they had in mind when they made him.

  I pulled up to the gatehouse and let the old-timer check my ID. It was early enough that I got a parking spot near the front, next to Rooney’s car.

  I went around to the back of the cinder-block building and got in line to sign in. Rooney was in front of me, still bellyaching about the captain who used us as a human barricade at the parade yesterday. I shook my head. It was the last thing I heard him talking about yesterday and the first thing I hear him talking about today. Then he started yapping about what a great shot he is, how he always qualifies with a 100 and his groupings are always great. No wonder his wife is a stewardess. Who could live with him on a full-time basis?

  The line was getting longer now, and I gave a “Hey, buddy” to Fiore, who was about three people behind me. He switched off wi
th the guy behind me so we could shoot together. Further down the line I saw Walsh and Snout, along with Rice and Beans from the four to twelve.

  I got up to the table, showed my ID, and filled out the paperwork to get my rounds. Since I use my Glock 9mm both on and off duty and I have a .38 for off duty, I would have to qualify with both and would need bullets for both.

  I got into relay 2 and had the twenty-first shooter position, which meant I’d shoot first and then hear the lecture on how not to point our guns at anyone, not to scratch our heads with our guns, and not to turn and point our guns while we’re looking around or being chased by a bee. The speaker also tells us that if we get hot brass from the bullet casings down our shirts to holster our guns, step back, and raise our hands instead of screaming and letting off rounds as we jump around while our skin blisters.

  I reholstered my gun, got my bullets and paperwork, and waited for Joe and Rooney, and the three of us made our way over to the range.

  5

  The part of the range where we shoot is a cinder-block structure. It’s painted red, with cement floors and a wooden overhang that ends at the twenty-five-yard mark. There are two range instructors who buzz you to shoot from a glass-enclosed booth. To the right are big metal drums filled with discharged shell casings.

  Colored circles are painted on the cement floor—white, yellow, green, and red—with the corresponding number above on the overhang to coordinate with your target. Past the twenty-five-yard line is all grass, leading up to a sand dune. It was nice and quiet, and I could still hear the birds chirping and the drone of planes overhead, probably an air path from LaGuardia or Newark airport. Once we started shooting, we wouldn’t hear anything.

  Rooney and Joe were on either side of me. Joe and I had our three-dollar goggles, but Rooney brought top-of-the-line stuff. He wears a medal for all the times he got 100. They don’t give it to you, you have to buy it yourself at the police uniform store. Rooney was going at it again about how great he is, and it was starting to get on my nerves. I always score between 98 and 100, and you don’t see me beating on my chest.