The Temptations of St. Frank

by Anthony Bruno

  “We take his money and leave him here,” Mr. Nunziato said. “Teach him a lesson.”

  Trombetta stared hard at his underling.

  The beefy driver laughed through his nose. “That ain’t a bad idea, boss.”

  “Did I ask you anything?”

  “No.”

  “Then shut the fuck up.”

  “Sorry, boss,” the man muttered.

  Trombetta looked at Frank as if he were a turd on his leather seats. “You’re right,” he finally said. “He’s not worth the trouble.”

  “That’s what I’m saying,” Mr. Nunziato said. “Is he worth that kind of aggravation?”

  Frank assumed that “that kind of aggravation” meant trouble with the cops over a murder. His murder.

  “Make sure he doesn’t have any cash, then boot him the hell outta here.”

  Mr. Nunziato took Frank’s wallet and ran his fingers through the back compartments. Frank knew there was no other money in there, just the rubber. Mr. Nunziato must have felt it, but he didn’t pull it out, thank God. He dropped the wallet in Frank’s lap and went through the pockets of his jacket and patted his pants pockets. “Gimme the change,” he said, looking Frank in the eye, trying to connect with him.

  Frank sensed that he was worried, but he wasn’t going to rat the man out. He dug the change out of his pants pocket and poured it into Mr. Nunziato’s hand. Mr. Nunziato opened the door and got out, then ducked his head back in.

  “C’mon. Out,” he said. “Hurry up.”

  Frank slid across the seats. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Trombetta glaring at him. “And stay the fuck away from my daughter. You hear me?”

  Frank nodded without looking at him. The man had nothing to worry about on that count.

  As Frank climbed out of the car, a stiff breeze blew dust in his face, making him squint.

  Mr. Nunziato grabbed him by the lapels and pulled him up close, nose to nose. He growled under his breath. “You did the right thing, kid. I owe you one.” He quickly dipped his hand into the side pocket of Frank’s jacket, then shoved him away, making Frank stumble.

  Mr. Nunziato got back into the car. The door slammed shut, and the car took off, kicking up a cloud of dust as it raced away. Frank breathed through his sleeve and closed his eyes to keep the grit out. When he opened them again, the Lincoln was back on the road. All of a sudden it was very quiet, only the breeze in his ears. He shaded his eyes against the sun as he tracked the car driving away. He saw two other cars on the road but no people anywhere. I’m Robinson Crusoe, he thought, looking down at his ragged jacket. Fucking stranded.

  He reached into the pocket that Mr. Nunziato had put his hand in and found his change. He stared at it in his palm. Twenty-one cents. Three nickels and six pennies. Thanks a lot. The bus costs at least a quarter. If he could find one.

  He looked all around. Nothing but weeds and dirt and projects and tenements. He looked up at the sun. He guessed it was probably around noon. Could be worse, he thought. It could be after dark. He started walking in the direction the Lincoln had gone, his desert boots kicking up puffs of dry dirt with every step.

  A black man behind the wheel of an emerald-green Eldorado leaned across the seats and looked up at Frank over his shades. He rolled down the power window, and Frank heard “Tighten Up” on the car radio. Archie Bell and the Drells.

  “You looking for pussy?” he said.

  The man had been driving at a snail’s pace for the past two blocks, following Frank as he walked along the sidewalk. Frank had thought pimp the minute he saw the car, and the man himself reinforced that impression. He had a fleshy face, a considerable gut, stiff processed hair, and rings on every finger. He kind of looked like B.B. King, but it was hard to tell how old he was. He could be anywhere between 35 and 55, Frank guessed.

  “You want pussy? That what you want?”

  “Excuse me?” Frank had heard him just fine, but he didn’t know what else to say.

  The man pinched his nose and stifled a wet-sounding chortle that escaped anyway. “Only two reasons white boys come down to the ghet-to. Horse and pussy.” He tipped his sunglasses to the end of his nose. “And you don’t look like the horse type.”

  “I’m just looking for a bus,” Frank muttered and kept walking.

  He was on a narrow street of tenements. He’d been walking for at least 45 minutes, and he hadn’t seen a white face since he’d been abandoned. The people he’d passed—mostly middle-aged women and old men—took one look at his shredded jacket and gave him a wide berth. He looked like a lunatic, and a person had to be genuinely crazy to walk around this neighborhood with his skin color. Only hippies frolicked happily interracially. And even they only had a few black sprinkles on their basically white cupcake world. Maybe in Haight-Ashbury there was no racial tension, but this was Newark, where black people had rioted just a few years ago, and everybody—whites and blacks—were brought up to be wary of a different color. That’s why he was keeping his nutcase jacket on. If people thought he was wacko, they’d probably leave him alone.

  The pimpmobile cruised along with him, the man leaning over the seat as he steered with one hand. “I gots white meat, too, if that’s what you want.”

  Frank’s face flushed with humiliation. He must look like a loser, he thought, because only losers have to resort to prostitutes. And even if he did want a prostitute, what was he gonna get for twenty-one cents? He was absolutely ashamed to be in this helpless, cashless situation.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you, boy,” the man’s bullshit friendliness turning cross.

  Frank kept his eyes straight ahead and kept walking.

  The Eldorado suddenly shot ahead, jumped the curb, and blocked the sidewalk. The man jumped out of the car and glared at Frank over the vinyl rooftop.

  Oh, shit! Frank’s heart beating faster than “Tighten Up.”

  “You’re acting pretty uppity for a white boy on my street. Especially when y’all’s dressed up like a raggedy-ass Robinson Crusoe.”

  Frank just stared at him.

  The man slapped his hand on the rooftop. “Who the fuck do you think you are, Mr. Uppity, treating me like some ignorant nigger? That’s what you’re thinking. I know it.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Don’t fuckin’ lie to me! I hate liars more than anything. I’d rather have a man call me a nigger to my face than pretend.”

  “Hey, I’m just trying to get home. Somebody took me here and left me.” The forlorn lilt of Frank’s voice surprised him. He sounded as desperate as he felt.

  The man’s frown gradually relaxed and wide smile took its place. “Somebody took you for a ride? Well, how ‘bout dat!” He slapped the roof repeatedly, cracking up. “They done took you for a ride.” He squeezed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, laughing and hissing like a leaky radiator.

  “They always take you white boys down here. Scarify y’all with all the big black niggers ready to kick yo’ ass and slice you open like a watermelon.” He let out a howl and slapped the car roof again.

  Frank just shrugged. What could he say? The man was right.

  “Look, I’m just trying to get home. Which way is South Orange Avenue?”

  The man nodded down the road in the direction Frank had been walking. “That way.”

  “How far?”

  “I dunno. ‘Bout a mile.”

  “How much farther to Orange?”

  “Orange?” The man made it sound as if Frank had said China. “Long way. Better start walking, son. Y’all don’t wanna be in boogie town after dark. Bad shit happens down here.” He squeezed his nose and cracked up.

  Frank didn’t want to ask for help, but he had a feeling this might be his only chance to get any. “Can I ask you a favor?”

  The man stopped laughing. �
��What?” He seemed to be offended.

  “Can I borrow four cents? So I can take the bus. I only have twenty-one.” It killed Frank to admit that.

  The man narrowed his eyes. “Twenty-one cents? You only got twenty-one cents? What kinda fool did yo’ mamma raise?”

  “All I’m asking—”

  “Yo’ mamma, yo’ daddy, yo’ granddaddy, yo’ grandmamma—somebody who brought you up has to be responsible for creating a boy so dumb he gets himself taken for a ride to the ghetto with just twenty-one cents in his pocket.”

  “All I’m asking for is four cents. I’ll pay you back.”

  “And when might that be? You gonna come all the way back down here to pay me my four pennies. Shit. I don’t think so.”

  “Come on. Gimme a break.”

  “Let me tell you something, son. Nobody never gives nobody a break. Even when you think they’re giving you one, they’re not. They be wanting something from you in exchange, even if they don’t say so. And it ain’t never something you wanna give up.”

  Frank immediately thought of the mess he’d made taking Annette to the prom.

  “Shit,” the man said. “My girls got more damn sense than you do. They better or they get their asses whipped.”

  Frank sighed. “It’s just four cents. You can’t spare four cents?”

  “Nope.” The man shook his head. “I can spare it, but you can’t have it.”

  Frank looked down at the pavement where someone had drawn a sloppy hopscotch grid in blue chalk.

  “Be a man,” the man said.

  “What?”

  “If you gots twenty-one cents, you gots a dime to call home. Ask your daddy to come pick you up. If I was him, I’d whip your ass for being so goddamn stupid. Teach you a lesson you won’t never forget so you don’t get yourself in this situation ever again.”

  Frank had already considered calling home. But asking to be picked up would only make the shit storm he was going to have to face worse. His parents will definitely go ape shit when they find out what had happened at school that day. His mother will never forgive him for telling a priest off.

  The man got back in his car and backed it off the sidewalk.

  Frank went to the passenger window. “Do you think you could give me a ride?”

  “No.”

  “Just to South Orange Avenue?”

  “No.”

  “Please?”

  “There’s a pay phone on the next corner. Call home. You’re their problem.” He threw the transmission into drive and tore off, the Eldorado’s muffler leaving a throaty growl in its wake.

  Frank watched the emerald-green pimpmobile disappear around the next corner as he fingered the change in his pocket. He didn’t want the man to go.

  It was after six when Frank finally got home. He’d gotten lost and walked all the way to Irvington before he’d realized he’d gone in the wrong direction. His feet were sore, and he was dead tired as he trudged up the incline of his driveway. He’d taken off his ruined jacket as soon as he got out of the ghetto when he didn’t feel the need to look like a crazy person anymore, and it was balled up under his arm now. His father’s truck was in the garage, but the car was gone, which meant he was probably out. He’d have to deal with his mother first, and he didn’t want her to see the jacket, not right away. She’d freak out if she saw him wearing it, and he didn’t want her to freak out any more than she had to because she was definitely going to have a major freakout when she found out about the masturbation-fornication assembly.

  Frank climbed the brick steps to the porch, and as soon as he opened the front door, he could hear his father playing the piano in his room. That seemed odd—his mother out and his father at home. But maybe this was good, he thought. His father was crazy and irrational but usually not about parental things. That was his mother’s freak-out zone. He was kind of a laissez-faire parent, more interested in being a pal than a father. When he wasn’t being a full-blown nut job, of course.

  Frank walked carefully up the squeaky stairs to his family’s half of the house. He didn’t want his grandmother to hear him because she’d probably want to feed him, and even though he was hungry, eating her food would be a bad idea. His mother always got pissed when he or his father ate whatever his grandmother made for dinner instead of what she made even though it was always better. It would be mondo stupido to give her something else to be pissed about. Not tonight.

  Frank stopped in the middle of the staircase and listened to his father play. It was the same song he always played, the name of which his father said he couldn’t remember anymore. It was flowery and romantic and overblown, like those old Neapolitan songs that Mario Lanza sang on TV. His father didn’t play badly, considering that he didn’t play very often. He was naturally musical, and he could pick up a tune on the piano by just listening to it, a skill that Frank envied. But usually he just fooled around on the piano, playing snippets of songs and never finishing a whole one, hitting high notes with his hand shaped like a pistol, the way Chico Marx did in the movies.

  Frank lifted his foot to the next step, but his legs were made of lead. He didn’t want to go any farther. But the words of the man in the pimpmoblile were in his head and had been for the past five hours: “Be a man.” It was a scary thought. What exactly was a “man?” A tough-talking pimp? A perpetually pissed off mob boss? Mr. Nunziato? Mr. Dalton? Mr. Pomeroy? Mr. Musso? His other teachers at St. A’s? The Walrus King? Monsignor Fitzgerald, God forbid? They were all like puzzle pieces dumped on a coffee table. Not a clear picture, just pieces of a picture. Frank didn’t know if he’d ever think of himself as a “man.” Did Greek gods think of themselves as gods? Did saints think of themselves as saints? Did the Beatles think of themselves as Beatles?

  He forced himself to climb the rest of the stairs and trudged into the laundry room. He looked through the doorway into his room. His father was sitting at the gold-painted standup piano under the Moby Grape poster, playing away. His mother had spray-painted the old piano, keys and all, years ago in a fit of “sprucing up.” His father’s hair was wet, and he was wearing nothing but a pair of black pants. He must have just taken a bath after he’d come home from work. He kept playing that song.

  Frank tossed his blazer onto the ironing board before going into his room.

  “Hi,” he said, thinking he already sounded guilty.

  “Whoa!” His father’s eyes shot open. “I didn’t know you were there.” He was smiling brightly. The thing about his father was that no matter what he did, it was always 100 percent—100 percent happy or 100 percent pissed off. There was no middle ground with him.

  “So how’s it going?” he asked. “School okay?”

  “Yeah, it’s okay.” Frank plopped down on the bed and took off his shoes. He put his feet up. God, that felt good. He slid his tie out of his collar.

  His father went back to playing, but it was a different tune. Frank recognized it. “Fascination.” His father was reading from an open music book, one of Frank’s books from when he used to take guitar lessons.

  Frank closed his eyes. He could easily fall right to sleep.

  “Hey,” his father said. “Why don’t you play with me?”

  “Huh?”

  “You know this song. Play it with me.”

  Frank was confused. They’d never played together before. Musically they lived on two different planets. Planet schmaltzy classical and planet rock’n’roll. Intergalactic explorers had yet to reach their respective domains.

  “Come on, get your guitar.”

  Frank looked at his big Vox amp wedged in the corner between the piano and his dresser, right next to where his father was sitting. “I don’t know. It’s hard to play soft with that amp.”

  His father made a face. “Not the electric. Your other guitar. I never see you play that anymore.�
�� He was talking about the blond acoustic Guild archtop that he had bought for Frank after he’d taken lessons for about a year. “Come on. You play the chords.”

  Frank dragged himself off the bed and knelt on the floor, pulling out his electric guitar’s gray pickle case so he could get to the acoustic’s black case. It was covered in dust. Frank hadn’t played it in a while. He opened the latches and lifted the lid. It smelled a little musty inside. He thought of his father’s violin in the cellar and wondered if someday someone would find this guitar in the same state of neglect. It was a sad thought. This was a really nice guitar. It just wasn’t electric.

  Frank pulled it out and found a pick on the dresser. He went over to the piano and stood behind his father with his foot up on the bench. When he strummed the open strings, he winced. It was way out of tune.

  “E, right?” his father said.

  “Yeah.”

  His father hit an E on the piano, and Frank tuned his low E string.

  “A,” Frank said.

  His father hit an A, and Frank tuned the A string.

  They went through all the notes until Frank had the guitar tuned to the out-of-tune piano.

  His father pointed to the first bar on the page. “Okay. I’ll start off with this.” He played the first four rising notes. “Then you come in with the G chord.”

  “Okay.”

  His father started playing and Frank jumped in a little late, forgetting that this was in waltz time not 4/4 time. He stumbled on the next chord, Gmaj7, because he hadn’t played it in a while. He couldn’t remember ever seeing a major seventh chord in a rock song, and that’s all he’d been playing since he stopped taking lessons. But it was an easy fingering—one finger on the second fret, first string—and he quickly got back on track.

  They got into a groove, and Frank didn’t stumble on the Am7 chord when it came around, which pleased him because he didn’t play minor sevenths very often either. “Fascination” was kind of a corny song, but Frank had forgotten how much he liked it. He liked anything in waltz tempo. It was calming.