Johnny Blade

by Phillip Tomasso

  “You look nervous,” Felicia said.

  “I want a cigarette.”

  “Me too. Want to leave?”

  “Lets.” Michael picked up the check. “This is mine.”

  Felicia put money on the table. “Then I’ll take care of the tip.”

  Outside, they both lit up and walked slowly back toward Michael’s car.

  “Doesn’t seem as cold out,” Felicia commented.

  Michael looked around, as if assessing the weather. “Not nearly as cold as it was.” An awkward silence followed, and grew. Michael felt apprehension building within him. He thought he should say something. Nothing worthwhile came to mind. He did not want just to blurt out anything and risk sounding stupid.

  Before he could think his next thought, she was standing directly in front of him. Staring and chewing on her lower lip. “Kiss me?”

  Felicia sounded insecure, fragile. Michael could not resist. He leaned forward, kept his eyes open and kissed her. Once their lips were pressed together, she closed her eyes first. When he closed his, an explosion of desire and satisfaction was set off in his heart. He wanted the kiss to last, but he also wanted more of her.

  When the kiss ended, they both opened their eyes slowly. “That felt nice,” Felicia said.

  Michael could only swallow. Every urge flowing inside him grew more and more intense with each throb of his heart, with each surge of swift moving blood. “I better get you home,” he said. He looked at his watch and smiled an ironic smile with arched eyebrows. “It’s early.”

  “I’m not tired,” she said, lazily. She continued to stare at Michael. She licked her lips. “Want to go somewhere where we can be alone?”

  Yes. “Not tonight, no.” There was no other way to put it. “I mean, I want to. I can’t.”

  “A girlfriend?”

  “You could say that,” Michael said. He could see Ellen’s face in his mind’s eye. He knew the kiss had been wrong. Guilt ebbed its way through his system. The throbbing he felt quickly descended into a steady and more normal pulse. “Felicia . . . ”

  “We can be discreet?” she asked. He thought he could sense her hunger and wondered if it came close to comparing with his own.

  “It wouldn’t be right. Not at this point,” Michael said. Even as he spoke, he began to question his own words, and the meaning surrounding them. Were they just talking about having sex, or making love? Would things change if he left Ellen and started seeing Felicia? He knew he would not be able to stay with Felicia if she did not change careers. Would she change careers for him? “Besides, I want to get to know you better.”

  Felicia let out a loud laugh. “Ha! You’re a guy,” she said. She took hold of his coat lapels and pulled herself in close to snuggle. “Don’t tell me you’d rather talk than make love.”

  “I never said that,” Michael said. He kept watching her lips, then looking into her eyes. “I never said . . .”

  And she kissed him. This time it was a deep, hard and passionate kiss. Her tongue slid through his lips and darted around inside his mouth. Her arms snaked under his coat and around his back, while her fingers kneaded and massaged his muscles.

  Unable to resist the affection, Michael hugged her tightly, pressing her body against his. He felt amazed at how perfectly they fit together; in awe at how natural it felt holding her; mesmerized by how completely turned on and aroused he had become.

  He stopped the kiss. As firmly as possible he said: “I can’t.”

  They both knew the reason revolved around Michael’s girlfriend. “She’s lucky, you know.”

  Not really. “I suppose she is,” Michael said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I understand. I admire you and envy her,” Felicia said. “And I am ready to go home now, too. Mind giving me a lift?”

  “Felicia, you know I’m going to drive you home. Get in the car,” he said. The drive was silent, except for Felicia calling out left and right turns. Michael pulled into the driveway of a small Cape-Cod home. The front step light was on. “Nice place.”

  “Thank you. I rent it. I’d love to buy a house some day. It’s hard to do that when you can’t get a mortgage. Banks want you to show them you have a steady job, you know? At least like, a year with an employer. If I told them how long I’d been at my job, and how much I made weekly, I’d be living in Pittsford.” She opened the door. Before closing it, she leaned in. “Want to come in?”

  “I do.”

  “But you won’t?”

  “I won’t.”

  “See you around, Michael,” Felicia said and closed the door.

  Michael watched her walk carefully to the front step. The snow appeared to be several inches deep. Large icicles hung like dangerous crystal stalactites along the gutters. It took every bit of strength and will power for Michael to remain in the car.

  When he arrived home, he took a long, cold shower. He knew he only had a few hours to sleep, since he told the police he would be down first thing in the morning. He wanted to sleep and not think about Felicia. Yet, once asleep, Michael found himself confronted by a brigade of sensual dreams, revolving around a pretty, burgundy hair colored prostitute.

  Chapter 14

  Sunday, January 13

  Michael did not feel at all rested. He felt as if he had been awake for forty-eight hours straight and going to the police station proved an ordeal. The police officers from the other night produced a line-up. Michael immediately recognized the two young men from the restaurant, but could not confirm as fact that they had been responsible for the hold-up. He told the police time and again that the robbers wore masks, and although he thought it might have been the two in the line-up, he could not say for sure.

  He filled out a complaint before leaving.

  Knowing he should go home and get some more sleep before his third night shift at Jack’s Joint, Michael did not think he would be able to sleep. He instinctively knew it would all catch up with him, especially Monday morning, when he went right from Jack’s to his job at the paper.

  Hungry, and having skipped breakfast, Michael wanted to eat lunch. There were many places to go for a good meal, but he decided on Jack’s. He found a good parking spot along Lake and went in. Murphy, behind the counter, waved.

  “Hey, Murphy,” Michael said.

  “Hey Michael,” Murphy said with a grin. “Hungry?”

  “Like a bear,” Michael said. He sat down at a counter stool, and ordered. He was sitting one over from Speed, who was more than half way through his lunch. “How are you, Speed?”

  “Feel like I’m running behind. This place opening late had my entire day off-kilter. I get here around seven, like I always do, and the place is closed. I stood in front of the door for like three minutes, just standing there like an imbecile. I’m thinking, closed? Jack’s don’t close. It’s one of the things I love about it here. The Joint is always open. So then I have to find somewhere else to eat breakfast. There’s that place a few blocks down. They have okay food and all, but it’s not the same. So by the time I finish eating, it’s later than usual, and time is money. Ever hear that expression before, that time is money. Well, trust me, it couldn’t be any more true. Not enough hours in the day for me to amass the kind of money I want. So when lunchtime rolls around, I’m stuck, you know? I have to debate, do I come back here and risk seeing the closed sign hanging on the door, or just go somewhere else to eat?”

  Michael just smiled and shook his head. “Murphy put you in a real tough spot, didn’t he?”

  “Don’t encourage him,” Murphy said, giving Michael his soda. “Did you go to the police station this morning?”

  “Police?” Speed asked. “Why would you go see the police?”

  “I went,” Michael said. “Place was almost robbed last night.”

  “Damn,” Speed said.

  “And?” Murphy asked.

  “It went okay,” Michael said. He didn’t feel comfortable discussing the situation in front of everyone. “I’ll tell you abo
ut it after, all right?”

  Seeming to catch on, Murphy agreed.

  Michael stuck a straw between the ice cubes in his drink. “So what was your day like, Speed?”

  “Busy, like I said. Busy. Today’s my father’s birthday. It’s his fiftieth. My mom’s having a big surprise party for him tonight. She called me late yesterday to remind me. She knew it would slip my mind, and it had. So I spent the morning finding a gift for my father,” Speed said.

  “With work you don’t have time to go shopping?”

  Murphy laughed as he served Michael his meal. “No time to go shopping? Speed, hear that one?”

  Michael looked from Speed to Murphy. He did not get the joke.

  Murphy said, “You might say Speed here is in the merchandise business.”

  Speed smiled. “Screw you, Murphy.”

  Michael ate a french fry while he added ketchup and mustard to his burger. “I’m listening.”

  “Anyway, I get to the mall as it opens, right? I walk in using the entrance by men’s clothing. The place is always unorganized first thing in the morning. People are setting up still, and talking about what they did the night before. So I go right over to the sweaters and shirts. While I look at one I like, while I look at the price tab—know how those tabs have the perforated edges—and with my thumb I bend and then gently tear off the price. I drop a few of those items into my bag and walk briskly to the men’s counter.

  “As I suspect, no one is at the counter, or anywhere near the men’s apparel, as they call it, so I stand there waiting. When this teenage girl arrives, she’s all apologetic for keeping me waiting. So I tell her I am in a hurry, and that I bought these items just the other day. I set the bag on the counter and she removes them. I tell her they are a gift for my father—which will be the truth—and that my wife told me I got all the wrong sizes. I ask her if I can just exchange them,” Speed said, smiling. He’s into his story. “The girl says sure, so I, in a round-about way, get back over to the sweaters and shirts and pick the extra-large sizes that I want. I bring them back to the counter. And the girl tells me I’m all set.”

  Michael just laughs. “You’ve got to be kidding me?”

  “Mike man, no wait, you haven’t heard the best part,” Speed explained. “I then tell the cashier that I had the items gift wrapped—because the store does that stuff free, if you have a receipt. I told this girl that in order to return the stuff for the right sizes I had to tear open the gift-wrap. She tells me not to worry about it. She gets on the phone, calling over to customer service and tells the girl over there to re-wrap my gifts for me. At no charge.” Punch line delivered.

  “What if you get caught?” Michael could not help but ask.

  “Part of the risk. It’s all part of the risk. But see you’re missing the point. I just got a store to give me a few sweaters and shirts free—but not only did they give them to me free, they also wrapped them in beautiful birthday paper with bows.”

  Michael got it, all right. When Speed left, he ate his burger and contemplated what he had been told. He wished he had his notebook handy. He did not want to lose any detail of the story in his own rendition.

  Though it was after noon, Michael wondered about Felicia. Did she spend her days sleeping, and only come out to play at night?

  He looked around the room. He did not recognize any of the people. Some of the customers seated at tables and booths wore suits. Michael would have sworn he was in the wrong place without Fatso sitting at the counter to serve as a kind of landmark.

  Chapter 15

  Martin Wringer filled his tank with gas using a credit card, which he had never used before. It was equipped with a ten thousand available line of credit. The bill would be sent to his wife at the end of the month. Wringer knew she would call the company and tell them he no longer lived at the address. Wringer figured he could squeeze a month of usage, maybe two, out of the card before it was canceled on him.

  He remembered back to when immediately after losing his job with Manson Chemical Technologies, he had applied for Unemployment Insurance Benefits. He would never forget the long, drawn out, over-the-phone application. He had to listen and respond to over eighty automated questions by pressing a corresponding number on the keypad of his touch-tone phone.

  A week later, he had received in the mail the determination handed down by some ass-face Claims Examinerwith New York’s Department of Labor. The Determination told him that he was not eligible to receive benefits. The reasoning was based on the information his former employer provided. The Department of Labor believed his actions rose to the level of misconduct within the meaning of the Unemployment Law.

  “Get the hell out of here,” Martin Wringer had said out loud, standing alone by the mailbox as he read the form. He had stuffed it into his pocket, wanting to hide it from his wife.

  He had decided to call the Department of Labor. After being placed on hold for nearly an hour, and after supplying someone with his social security number, Wringer had found himself talking to the ass-face Examiner that wrote the determination.

  “This is Brian McCollough. How can I help you?”

  Wringer had taken a deep breath and exhaled before explaining his situation. “I received a determination from you today, informing me that I am not eligible to receive unemployment checks. I’m out of work, you know. I have a wife and kids to support and a mortgage that needs to be paid. We’re coming on the holiday season. Listen pal, I spent twenty years with that company. All the while, I’ve been paying into unemployment. That money is mine. I don’t know who you think you are telling me that I’m not eligible . . .”

  “Sir,” McCollough had said, “according to New York State laws, you were terminated from your job for reasons that rise to the level of misconduct. If you are unhappy with the determination, all you need to do is request a hearing.”

  “Yeah, and how do I do that?” Wringer had asked.

  “All you need to know should be on the back of the determination you received in the mail.”

  Martin Wringer had turned the form over in his hands. His wife had entered the kitchen and watched him expectantly.

  “That’s all I have to do is request a hearing and I’ll get one with some impartial Administrative Law Judge?”

  “In writing, sir. Send it to the address on the front of the document.”

  “And how long will I have to wait before I get a court date?” Wringer had asked.

  “Not long. The cases get assigned quickly.”

  “Quickly? We’ll see about that,” Wringer had said, and hung up.

  The hearing regarding Wringer’s Unemployment Insurance had been set for Tuesday, November 20th at 10:00 a.m. Wringer’s wife had made him wear a shirt, tie and sport coat. He arrived at the office on South Union at 9:30, but spent fifteen minutes trying to figure out where to park.

  He had signed in with the security guard in the lobby and took an elevator up to the 3rd floor. He had entered a room manned with two secretaries and the lady sitting furthest from him made eye contact.

  Unsure, Wringer had approached her and handed over the Hearing Notice he had received in the mail. She smiled and posted his notice on a corkboard under the Administrative Law Judge’s name. “You can just have a seat. We’re running a little behind today,” she had said pleasantly.

  Wringer knew he had a doctor’s appointment at noon. It took him more than two weeks to schedule the visit. He did not want to risk missing the appointment. “Thank you,” he had said simply.

  He had turned around and shook his head with disregard. Seated in the back row of chairs were his former supervisor, a woman in a smart gray suit and a large man wearing a white dress shirt and black tie.

  His former supervisor had nodded a hello. Wringer had ignored it and sat down in the front row of chairs.

  At fifteen minutes after ten, the secretary had called their case and led them into the judge’s room. The large man in the white shirt and tie remained seated in the waiting roo
m. Wringer had found this curious.

  The Administrative Law Judge was perched behind a large steel desk. Jutting out from the desk was a six-foot long table with two chairs on both sides. Wringer had sat across from his former supervisor and the woman in the smart looking suit.

  Aside from his degrees and a few plaques from a college fraternity hanging on the walls, the room was bare, save a large window with a view of the Strong Museum.

  The judge had introduced himself, then had each person present introduce themselves, for the record. The hearing had been recorded.

  “Stan Engler. Supervising Team Leader for Manson Chemical Technologies.”

  “Kathleen Parsons. I’m an Unemployment Insurance Hearing Representative. I work directly for Manson Chemical Technologies.”

  “Martin Wringer. I used to work for the Charlie Manson company. I don’t work anywhere right now,” Wringer said, smiling at his joke. He did not care that no one else found him amusing. It felt a little intense sitting there. He felt isolated. He wanted to lighten the mood, and felt he had done so the only way he knew how. Humor.

  Testimony was taken under oath first from the supervisor. The judge did a thorough job of examining the witness and extracting a side of the story. When he felt confident enough with the answers he had received, he allowed the employer’s representative to question the witness.

  When Parsons finished asking the supervisor questions, the judge said, “Mr. Wringer, do you have any questions for the witness?”

  “I have some,” Wringer had said. “But this is new for me. I don’t have the skill that this woman has to ask questions.”

  “That’s all right, Mr. Wringer. I will assist you in any way I can to ensure that you are allowed to ask whatever relevant questions you have,” said the judge.

  Wringer had smiled nervously. “Isn’t it true that you have a problem with me? That you never liked me since the first day we met? Didn’t you have it in—”