The Temptations of St. Frank

by Anthony Bruno

  Of course, Mr. Nunziato and Frank’s father were pretty racist, too. They were always talking about the “friggin’ niggers,” the “shines,” the “moolinyams,” the “titsoons.” Frank didn’t even know what that last word actually meant except that it had to be a derogatory Italian term for a black person. He wondered if his father or Mr. Nunziato would ever hurt a black guy the way Father Ugo had shot rock salt at those little black kids. Frank’s father wasn’t a violent person, but he had a hot temper sometimes, and “niggers” was one topic guaranteed to get him riled up. Mr. Nunziato was always laughing and smiling, but given his line of work, who knows what he was capable of. He worked for John Trombetta, and Trombetta probably had guys beaten up all the time. Broken legs. Smashed heads. Kneecaps shot out. Frank was pretty sure he didn’t do this stuff himself. He must’ve ordered other guys to do it. Guys like Mr. Nunziato?

  Frank turned around in his seat and looked at the 55-gallon barrel in the back of the truck, just on the other side of the glass. He glanced at Mr. Nunziato, the wind blowing a grin onto his face as he drove.

  No, Frank thought. He didn’t want to believe it. There wasn’t a body crammed into that barrel, was there? If Dom’s father was disposing of a body, why would he take Frank along?

  As a decoy, a distraction. A kid in a tie and a Catholic school blazer makes this trip seem as normal as pie. Father and son out running an errand. That’s why he’d asked Frank to go for a ride instead of Dom. Dom didn’t look that innocent. He didn’t go to Catholic school and usually dressed like a hood in training. Frank glanced at the barrel again. Jesus, fuck!

  Frank stopped looking and stared out the windshield, afraid that Mr. Nunziato would figure out that he’d figured it out. If that really was the case, which Frank didn’t want to believe. But he was really starting to believe it. But could you really get a body into a 55-gallon drum? An adult body? Sure, why not? Unless the guy was a big fat slob. Or big like Wilenski. But who says it’s a guy? It could be a woman. Or it could be a big person all cut up in pieces like chicken pieces in the meat case at Foodtown. Or it could be a little kid. Or a couple of little kids. He remembered the two little black kids. Maybe Father Ugo had called Mr. Trombetta who put out a contract on them and had them whacked. And Mr. Nunziato got the job. Frank could feel the steel drum’s presence behind him. No, he thought, Mr. Nunziato would never kill a kid. He couldn’t. But maybe he was ordered to get rid of the bodies. Fuck.

  Frank felt a little queasy. He closed his eyes and sucked in deep breaths until the feeling passed. He told himself he was just letting his imagination get the better of him. Mr. Nunziato was a good guy. He said he was getting rid of some dirty motor oil, so why shouldn’t Frank believe him? Just because he worked for John Trombetta that didn’t mean he was a murderer. Not everybody who worked for Trombetta could be a killer. Frank’s father took care of Trombetta’s lawn, and he didn’t kill people. Frank had mowed Trombetta’s lawn plenty of times, and he didn’t kill people. But that was a different kind of work. Frank and his father weren’t in Trombetta’s “business.” So maybe–

  “Yo, Frank, whattaya sleeping?”

  Frank opened his eyes.

  Mr. Nunziato was making a right turn, a cigarette clamped tight in the corner of his grin. “What’sa matter? Rough day at school?” he asked with a hoarse chuckle.

  “No, no. Just resting my eyes.”

  “Well, that makes sense. You do a lot reading. Your old man told me.”

  “He did?” Frank was surprised that his father discussed him with his buddy in a positive way. Maybe he had been complaining that Frank read too much, that he should have been out mowing lawns with him instead of reading books.

  “Your old man brags about you all the time. You know that, don’cha?”

  Frank shrugged. No, he didn’t know that.

  “He always tells me he gave up some of his brains for you. He says he gave up a few inches, too, so that you could be tall.” Mr. Nunziato’s chuckle sounded like an egg on a hot skillet.

  “Yeah, he says that all the time,” Frank said, wondering about the giving-up-the-brains comment. Was it a back-handed compliment or a complaint? Knowing his father it was probably both, depending on who he was talking to. It would be just like him to brag to his customers about his son but complain to his friends.

  Frank looked out the windshield. He wasn’t sure where they were, but the neighborhood looked familiar—wood-frame two-family houses on both sides of the street, all of them jammed in close together just a few feet apart, most of them well-kept, but the overall effect was shabby and sad. It wasn’t until he spotted the onion dome of the Eastern Orthodox church peeking over the rooftops that he realized where they were. Yolanda’s neighborhood in the Ukrainian section of Jersey City. But what were they doing there?

  Mr. Nunziato took a left, and a tart smoky smell came in with the breeze, and Frank knew exactly where they were going. The landfill. That’s where Mr. Nunziato was going to dump the barrel. And whatever was in it. No wonder the mob kept this toxic inferno. What better place to bury bodies? If the fire didn’t burn them to cinders, the chemicals would turn them into unrecognizable goo.

  They drove along the high cyclone fence where Frank and Dom had met Yolanda, Tina, and Yolanda’s grandfather, the guy who had just died. Where all the people had been protesting. Mr. Nunziato drove down a little farther and pulled into an unpaved driveway at an open gate in the fence. He didn’t slow down as he passed a small rundown shack with a large open window where a fat, bald man sat on a stool. Mr. Nunziato waved to him, and the man just barely managed to raise his hand in acknowledgement. Frank imagined that he had been normal once but standing guard in that shack day after day had turned him into a human toadstool.

  The dirt road was rutted and bumpy, hardly a road at all, just a flattened path made by bigger trucks. The pickup’s springs groaned as they jerked and jolted. Frank glanced back at the barrel, afraid that it would come loose, roll to the rear gate, and bounce out of the bed. The lid would fly off and the bloody contents would spill out. Then what? Cops coming to arrest them? Frank, too, as an accessory?

  Frank’s gut clenched at they drove toward another shack, a bigger one farther into the landfill near a mountain of trash where a pair of huge dump trucks the color of dirt crossed the forbidding terrain like woolly mammoths. Black men in grimy coveralls wandered around the shack like zombies. They stared at Frank and Mr. Nunziato as they drove by, and Frank felt very conspicuous being a white kid in a blazer and tie.

  “Do you always bring stuff down here?” Frank asked.

  Mr. Nunziato shrugged. “Once in a while. Why? You got some stuff you wanna throw away?”

  “No. Just asking.” Frank kept his eyes straight ahead. He wanted to know more about the landfill, but he didn’t know how to ask without sounding like a snoop. Maybe that’s who was in the barrel, he thought. A snoop. A dead rat bastard snoop.

  Mr. Nunziato pulled up to the shack, and one of the zombie men ambled up to the window.

  “Take care of this for me, will ya, Thomas?” Mr. Nunziato jerked his thumb at the steel drum.

  Thomas the zombie mumbled something and nodded.

  Mr. Nunziato turned to Frank. “Wait here. I’ll be right out.” He got out of the truck, slamming the door behind him, and headed for the shack.

  Frank watched him go. After he disappeared into the shack, Frank felt a little uneasy being out there by himself. He felt like an alien and didn’t want to have to deal with zombies on his own. He wondered how long Mr. Nunziato was going to be. He wanted to get out of there.

  The truck dipped, springs squeaking, and Frank’s heart jumped. He looked over his shoulder. Thomas the zombie was in the back of the truck, untying the ropes on the steel drum. Another zombie, a bigger one, climbed in to help, and the whole truck rocked. A third watched from the side. He shifted his gaze
to Frank, and Frank quickly looked away. Two more zombies wandered toward the truck from Frank’s side. These guys hated him, he knew it. He was white. He was wearing his St. A’s blazer. None of their kids went to private school. He was sitting while they were working. This was bad, he thought. This could turn into a real zombie movie.

  A third man climbed into the truck. They were like ants on a piece of cake. They wanted what was in that steel drum. They were hungry. But did zombies eat dead flesh? Didn’t they chomp on live people so they could make more zombies? Maybe the dead-guy stew in the drum was just an appetizer for the meal they really wanted—Frank.

  A new zombie drove a forklift up to the back of the pickup. The zombies in the bed slid the drum to the gate and pushed in onto the fork. It was obviously heavy from the way they struggled with it.

  Maybe it wasn’t body parts, Frank thought. Maybe it really was just dirty oil. But even so, they shouldn’t be dumping it here. This place was polluted enough for chrissake. If it seeps into the dirt, it’ll just add to all the other crap burning underground. He wanted to say something to the zombie guys, but he had to think about it first, figure out how to say it to get through to them. He didn’t want to sound like some asshole white kid who didn’t know shit about shit. He had to make it sound like it was uncool to dump that crap. Something like, Yo, brother, you dump that shit, you’re just hurting your own people, killing your own babies.

  Or… You spill that here, you’re just hurting the black man, man.

  Or…. You do that, you’re just helping the man keep you down.

  Well, not exactly that, but something like that.

  “Hey!”

  Startled, Frank turned toward the voice. John Trombetta was glaring at him, standing by the door, his face just inches from Frank’s. His black Lincoln Continental was parked a few yards away. Frank hadn’t heard it coming. It just appeared there.

  “Mr. Nunziato’s inside,” Frank said, hoping that would get rid of him.

  “I wanna talk to you,” he said, holding Frank’s eyes with his evil gaze like a cobra mesmerizing its prey.

  “Well… yeah… sure.” Frank sounded like an idiot and he knew it, but he couldn’t help himself.

  Mr. Trombetta put his forearm on the frame of the window and leaned on it as if to keep Frank from opening the door and escaping. The ruby in his pinkie ring glittered in the sun.

  “My daughter,” he said. “Annette.” He let the words just hang there like atomic bombs dropped from high in the atmosphere while Frank had a slow-motion heart attack waiting for the explosion. “She talks about you all the time. Doesn’t shut up about you.”

  Frank didn’t know how to respond. It sounded like an accusation, and Frank felt that he should defend himself in some way. But how? Trombetta hadn’t really accused him of anything—yet. But did he know that Frank had gotten to second base, maybe even third with his daughter, that his middle finger had just barely touched the uppermost reaches of her vagina. But that didn’t count as actually fingering her, did it? You can’t say you’ve really been to Michigan if you’ve only been to the Upper Peninsula, can you?

  Frank glanced at the Lincoln. A teenage kid was sitting in the front passenger seat. He had Mr. Trombetta’s dark hair and Bela Lugosi eyes. This had to be Johnny, the son. Annette’s brother.

  “She likes you,” Trombetta said. Another incoming missile hanging in the stratosphere. His upper lip curled. “I assume you like her.”

  “Ah, yeah,” Frank said automatically. He didn’t dare say anything else.

  “Look, I know you’re Frank the gardener’s kid, and that’s okay with me ‘cause I hear you’re a smart kid. But—“ He stopped and just stared at Frank, leaning in a little closer, the cobra ready to strike. “You gotta respect her.” He spit out the word like venom. “Respect. You understand what I’m saying?”

  Frank was shitting bricks. He’d fucking disrespected her already. Well, not by his definition, but certainly by her father’s.

  “Tell me you understand. You do know what I talking about, don’t you?”

  Fucking her brains out, Frank thought. That’s what he’s talking about. Not fucking her brains out.

  Trombetta spoke slowly. “Tell me… you under… stand,”

  “I understand,” Frank said. “I wouldn’t… I would never…”

  “Good. That’s what I want to hear.”

  Frank relaxed a bit.

  “But you know why?” Trombetta said.

  Frank was tense again. “Why?”

  “Because the one thing I hate the most in this whole fucking world is people saying, ‘I’m sorry.’ I never ever like to hear that.”

  Frank nodded. His throat was the Sahara Desert.

  “So… we will not be having this conversation twice. You understand what I’m saying?”

  Frank coughed and nodded. “Yes.”

  “Good. Just treat her right.” He walked back to his car. The or else was implied, but it was the biggest bomb in his payload, hanging right over Frank’s head.

  Trombetta got into his car and stomped on the gas, turning in a tight circle around the pickup, staring at Frank the whole time. The car’s mirror finish made Frank squint as it bounced along the bumpy road back to the street.

  How much did he know? Frank wondered. What the hell had she told him? Did he know that Frank had been in his office? Did he know that he had been in Annette’s bikini bottom? Fuck! He was a dead man. If Trombetta ever found out how far Frank had gone, he’d be in a 55-gallon drum with zombies dumping whatever was left of him into the burning ooze that bubbled in the toxic pits right under his feet.

  Mr. Nunziato came out of the shack and walked back to the truck. Frank’s thumping heart synched with his footsteps.

  “Okay, we’re done,” Mr. Nunziato getting behind the wheel.

  Frank studied his face. Did he know, too? Was this a set-up? Had he brought Frank here specifically so that Trombetta could corner him? Was the steel drum just an excuse? But Mr. Nunziato’s face was the same as it always was, Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky.

  “Hey, you feel like a donut?” he said. “There’s this great donut place not far from here.” He turned the ignition and fired up the engine. “C’mon. I feel like a donut.”

  “Sure,” Frank said. But his heart was still thumping.

  Chapter 18

  The open bag of donuts sat on the seat between Frank and Mr. Nunziato as he pulled into his driveway. White sugar powder marked the corners of Mr. Nunziato’s mouth. He had eaten three donuts on the way home—a jelly, a honey dip, and a powdered sugar. Frank had only had one, a cinnamon cruller, and he’d only taken it because Mr. Nunziato kept insisting that they were the greatest donuts he’d ever eaten and he’d eaten plenty in his life and that Frank should try one. Frank had to admit it was pretty good.

  Mr. Nunziato stopped the truck next to a metallic blue Ford Mustang parked in the driveway just like the one Frank had seen in the Trombettas’ driveway.

  “Whose car is that?” Frank asked.

  Mr. Nunziato shrugged. “Some friend of Dom’s.” Frank stared at the car. Was Dom friends with Trombetta’s son? When did that happen?

  As soon as Mr. Nunziato shut off the pickup’s engine, the sound of an electric guitar replaced the farting rumble of the leaky muffler. Frank recognized the song right away, “House of the Rising Sun,” and he knew that it was Dom playing because Dom always messed up the chords on the second part of the verse.

  “You comin’ in?” Mr. Nunziato said.

  “I really gotta get going. I got homework.”

  “C’mon. Just for a minute. Show Dom how to play that fuckin’ song, will ya? Drives me nuts whenever I hear him get it wrong.”

  Frank was surprised that Mr. Nunziato knew “House of the Rising Sun,” that he knew any rock song. “If
I had time, I would, but I got this paper I gotta write—“

  “Come on. Just show him the chords. I’ll drive you home.”

  Right on cue, Dom came to the part that he always messed up and of course, he messed it up again, repeating the same chords as the beginning of the verse. Frank pictured Dom’s sunburst Jaguar. If Dom let Frank show him the chords, it would be a chance to play his guitar. Dom had only let Frank try it once, and he wouldn’t mind trying it again. It was that nice.

  “Okay,” Frank said. “Just for a minute.”

  “Good.” Mr. Nunziato grabbed the bag of donuts, and Frank followed him into the house through the kitchen door.

  Inside Dom’s playing was a lot louder. Mr. Nunziato tossed the donuts onto the counter and nodded toward the cellar door. “Go ahead down. You know where it is.” He walked into the hallway that led to the front of the house.

  Frank opened the basement door. A broom, a mop, a duster, and a metal dustpan hung from the back of the door. The dustpan rattled with the volume of the guitar. Frank started down the wooden steps when he heard something unexpected, something different. A thumping bass line from a bass guitar. Dom wasn’t alone. Someone was playing with him.

  Frank slowed down. He had a bad feeling about this. Trombetta’s son had a bass—Frank had seen it at his house. Was this a setup, like the trip to the landfill? Were they gonna beat his brains out with a heavy Fender Precision bass, stuff him in the trunk of the Mustang, and take him to the landfill? He stopped in the middle of the staircase and considered turning around and getting the hell out of there.

  “Frank! Hi!”

  Frank looked down and there she was, standing at the bottom of the stairs. Annette with her Nancy Sinatra flip. Annette wearing her school uniform, the blue pleated skirt hiked up way above the knee, showing a lot of leg… leg that led up to the place he’d almost been to.