Bloodbrothers

by Richard Price

  "Oh, my God," Tommy groaned. Stony followed his stare into the dinette. A smashed chair lay like the carcass of a rotting animal. A broad stroke of blood was smeared on the dinette wall, as if it had been laid on with a paintbrush. Stony crawled through the dinette into the living room. Ran his hand lightly over the stained rug. The stiff fibers were caked with blood. Stony scraped a tiny ball of crust off the rug with his nails. Sat there rolling it between his fingers like snot.

  "We'll never get this out." Tommy stood near Stony.

  Stony looked up at him. "Turn off the TV," he mumbled. As Tommy moved to the set, Stony stretched out like a cat on all fours, arched his belly downward, heaved a few times and finally vomited, the vicious contractions of his stomach making him cry in pain.

  ***

  Stony sat powwow style in the kitchen, a sponge pungent with Comet in his lap. Tommy was rigorously scrubbing the rug with something foamy laying like sediment on top of the stains. "It's a good thing Phyllis uses them plastic slipcovers," he yelled into the kitchen. "Saved the fuckin' couch. She shoulda had one on the damn rug," he grunted as he scrubbed.

  Stony stared at a small bloodstain in front of his face on the cabinet door below the sink. It looked like the profile of a witch on a broomstick. She was flying into a strong wind that swept back her hair and her long brown skirt. Her nose was hooked like a claw. She was old.

  "What the fuck you doin' in here?" Tommy fumed. Stony didn't move. Tommy knelt down, grabbed the sponge from Stony's lap, curled Stony's fingers around it and moved his son's hand up and down the side of the washing machine.

  "Snap out of it, Stones." He moved Stony's limp arm up and down like a puppeteer. "Act like a man."

  Stony continued to stare straight ahead, oblivious to the movement of his arm. He screamed. The witch had moved.

  ***

  Stony lay in bed, the covers up to his chin. The room was pitch black. Tommy opened the door, a slice of light like a deep cut in the darkness. Television noise trickled into the room. Tommy sat on the bed. Stony stared over his shoulder.

  "You cold?" Stony didn't answer. Tommy lit a cigarette, the small explosion of light illuminating his face like a Halloween pumpkin. He exhaled into the darkness. "Stony, there are some things a man has to do." He ran his thumb down his mustache. "Ah, fuck it. Look, it's over. Tomorrow you go back to the hospital. I ain't gonna hassle you no more." He smoked in silence for a long moment. "When I was a kid I useta belong to this gang, The Fox Street Gougers, tough kids. The initiation was you had to jump on the back of a subway train, you know, hang on to the rail on the last car and ride it three stops. Me an' this kid Pete Maddarasso was doin' a double initiation. We jumped on the train at a Hundred and Forty-ninth Street and the Concourse. The whole gang was on the platform watchin'. I was scared shit but I wanted to be in that gang so bad. Anyways, we both jump on, ride down to a Hundred and Thirty-eighth Street. Everything's cool. All of a sudden the subway makes this sharp turn 'n' Pete loses his grip. I tried to catch him, but it happened too fast. The poor fuckin' kid fell on the third rail—burned to death. You know what I did? I stayed on the back of the train for the next two stops so I could pass the initiation." Tommy took another drag. "There's a fuckin' initiation for everybody." He stood up, sighing. "Baby, tonight was yours." He leaned down and kissed Stony on the lips.

  29

  AN HOUR LATER Stony was walking naked through the sleeping apartment. His fingers still smelled of Comet. To him it smelled like cunt, but he knew what it was and why it was on his skin. Leaving the light off, he washed his hands in the bathroom, rubbed some after shave on his palms. He shuffled into the living room, sat down on the overstuffed couch and listened to the distant grinding of the electric wall clock in the kitchen. The brocade material of the couch felt scratchy on his ass. He got up. squatted next to a tall stack of records. In the darkness he pulled out a James Brown album, slipped it onto the turntable, adjusted the volume to the lowest audible level and sat cross-legged on the rug. Before the arm hit the record the phone rang with a shrill heart-freezing suddenness.

  Stony leapt to his feet, ran into the kitchen and grabbed the receiver before the second ring. The clock read two-fifteen.

  "Hello?" he whispered.

  "Stony?" Chubby's voice sounded childlike and alien. Stony covered his crotch with a dishtowel.

  "Chubby?"

  "Yeah, it's me. Stony, did your dad go up to my place tonight?"

  "Yeah, we cleaned it all up."

  "You went too? Oh, Stony, it was a mess, hah?"

  Stony shrugged but didn't answer.

  "Stony, I'm so ashamed. I can't tell you," Chubby whined. The tone of his voice made Stony want to cry.

  "It's O.K. now, Chub, it's clean, you wouldn't even know that..." Stony cut himself short.

  "Stony, you're a good boy. You look after your own people like a man. You help me, Stony. I need you."

  For the first time in his life, Stony felt like he was bigger than Chubby and that frightened him.

  "I need you, Stony." Chubby sounded like a midnight lover. A woman. "I'm gonna be home tomorrow."

  "I'll come up tomorrow night, keep you company." Stony wanted to be a little kid again.

  "Maybe we can watch TV or go to the movies, hah?"

  "Sure." Stony pinched the flesh between his eyes, fought back tears. "I gotta go, Chubby."

  "You come up tomorrow night."

  "Sure. I gotta go, Chubby."

  "I can lean on you, Stony."

  "You can lean on me."

  "You're a man, Stony."

  "I'm a man."

  "You're one of us."

  "I'll come up tomorrow."

  Stony listened to the dial tone for a long time before hanging up the receiver. He walked back to the living room. James Brown screamed with insect tinniness on the barely audible stereo. He sat down in the middle of "King Heroin." "You're hooked ... your ... foot ... is ... in ... the stir-rup! So mount the steed ... and ride ... him ... well..." Stony got up, padded back into his bedroom, sat down at the desk, lifted the blotter and slipped out the piece of paper with Doctor Harris' phone number, lifted it into the moonlight and dialed in the darkness. Albert mumbled something in his sleep. One ring, two, three, four ... Stony slammed down the receiver. Albert jumped upright in bed and whimpered in a half-sleep.

  Stony sat next to him on the bed. He touched Albert's chest with an outspread palm. Albert gasped, focused his eyes on his brother.

  "Ssh." Stony eased Albert back down on his pillow. Albert fretted and whimpered but fell back to sleep almost immediately, his hand closing around Stony's arm. Stony stared at his brother, then gently ran a hand over his face, his chest, his crotch, his legs. Albert's face had a petulant frown as if he were in the middle of a nightmare. Stony freed his wrist from Albert's grip.

  He returned to the living room.

  "Ah was talkin'...ah was talkin' to a cat th' other naht, he say what ev-bahdy lookin' for today is escap-ism." The record clicked off and Stony was alone with his thoughts. He collapsed on the couch, one arm flung across his eyes. Take care of his own. One of us. You don't do the hospital Monday, don't come by Monday night. Butler. Bastard. Stony crossed his arms in front of his chest, stared at his biceps. "I'm a man! Mah father's a man! Mah uncle's a man! You, you're a fuckin' pantyhose salesman an' you're tryna fuck me up! Stony ran back into the bedroom and dialed Butler's number. After two rings he quietly replaced the receiver. "Ah, bullshit," he muttered. Fresh air. Need some fresh air. He fumbled for his dungarees and stumbled out of the apartment.

  ***

  Efram Concepción was the security guard on the midnight to 8:00 A.M. shift for the Roosevelt Loop section of Co-op City. For $140 a week he hung around jerking off his nightstick five nights a week while the three high rises and six town houses on his beat slept. Usually he was an easygoing lay-back guy, but tonight he was in a mean and twisted head. Five hours earlier his wife had discovered a diaphragm in his sixteen-year-old daug
hter's bottom dresser drawer and all hell broke loose. For the first time in his life he struck his daughter—knocked her right out of her platform shoes. Puta! She ran from the house cursing as his wife cried and fluttered around like a bird out of its cage. He took the diaphragm, holding it with delicate disgust as if it were a huge dead roach and dropped it down the incinerator. When he left for work at eleven, his daughter was still out. Now at three-thirty he was sitting on a bench in Roosevelt Loop, his face rigid, his back straight as a ramrod, steadily slapping his nightstick into his open palm, his brain filled with images of low income housing, all-nigger gang bangs, cocksuckings, ass fuckings. Those god-damn platform shoes... He got up and paced his beat like a caged animal. He gripped his nightstick so tightly his knuckles were almost translucent with tension.

  He wheeled around at the noise. Thirty yards away a half-naked teen-ager stood in the doorway of one of the high rises. He stepped forward, stopped, then headed for the garage. "Hey! Yo!" Concepción strode toward the lurching form. At the barking command, Stony stopped dead in his tracks. He inhaled, hitched up his pants and slowly turned. Shit. Sergeant Garcia.

  "Where you runnin' to?" Concepción laid his nightstick across Stony's naked chest. Stony looked down at the stick, then back up at his interrogator. Fucking spic Mickey Mouse cop.

  "You take that stick outta my face, Cap'n Bubba, and I might just tell you!"

  Concepción pressed the stick harder into Stony's chest. "I'll lay your fuckin' brains out all over the ground." Despite the calm tone of his voice. Stony felt Concepción trembling through the wood across his chest. "Fuck off," Stony sneered and pushed the nightstick away. Concepción smiled, allowing Stony to turn. Out of the corner of his eye Stony saw the stick coming down, lunged to the left and felt a stinging pain in his shoulder. Struggling to keep his balance and wheeling around he charged head down at Concepción's gut. Concepción fell over backward with Stony on top. Stony grappled for the nightstick, flung it into the grass and brought his fist down across Concepción's cheek. Stony went berserk. Tried to pound Concepción's face into jelly. "Where you runnin'! Where you runnin'! Where you runnin'!" in rhythm with the blows. Concepción was out cold. Blood trickled from his nose and the corner of his mouth. Stony got to his feet with a delicious exhaustion. He tasted blood in his mouth. He was high as a kite. With his bare foot he kicked Concepción in the ribs. Concepción grunted but hardly moved. Stony stumbled to a bench near the back of the building, sat down and tried to stop shaking.

  He took some deep breaths through his nostrils. The faint familiar stench of the bay was soothing. He shut down all his other senses and concentrated on that smell. Stony felt calm. His mind was clear. Blank. Peaceful. He rose and headed upstairs.

  One ring, two, six, ten...

  "Yeah?" Doctor Harris' voice was thick with sleep.

  "Harris? You stay the fuck away from me..." Stony jabbed the air with his finger as he hissed in the phone. "You stay the fuck away from Albert. You stay the fuck away from all of us, unnerstand?"

  "Who the hell is this?" Harris growled.

  "Take a goddamn guess." Stony almost spat the words, then hung up.

  He started to remove his dungarees, stopped, zippered them up again, took the white canvas utility belt that was hanging on the bedpost and buckled it on. He sat cross-legged, hunched over, staring at the weak gray light filtering through the curtains. The pliers in his belt stuck him under his ribs but he didn't move.

  "No wait, hold it, hold on, hold on." He couldn't tell if he spoke out loud or if he just thought the words. He couldn't tell if he was crying or not.

  He was.