Day 203:  Friday, July 2, 2010:  Your rear end has a backup warning.

GHOSTS AND MEMORIES

I tend to hold my thoughts more and speak less these days, just watching it all unfold as I enjoy my family and take pleasure in the small things.   Life has been a roller-coaster to say the least. 

I didn’t have to work on Monday, and it was oppressively hot and humid trying to do some yard work while my daughter enjoyed a few hours of activities up at the school.

“Let’s go to the beach,” my wife said.  “Let’s pack some gear, pick-up Gwenny, and go to Narragansett.”

We saw the mother of Gwenny’s friend, Sarah, who had moved out here from Utah last year, and arranged to take her as well.

We were at the beach by 1:30 and stayed till 5:00, body-surfing and looking for shells and building sand castles before a fast moving storm blew in from the north and signaled time for dinner at a local landmark known as Aunt Carrie’s.

We ordered clam cakes, strips, and chowda.  I stepped outside and looked over at a place where I lived and worked for a couple of years.  It’s the setting for my recent short story about a retired boxer now fighting dementia and alcoholism.  I used to walk downstairs and bounce five nights a week, and memories washed over me as I strolled over and into the Alley of Broken Dreams.

I still remember walking into the Bon Vue for the first time, watching Howie flip and juggle bottles and glasses as he mixed drinks, listening to a rock band as people filled the bar and interacted.

 A few years later, I was surveying the carnage of a Christmas party that had exploded into an incredible bloody brawl, with ambulances, police, and injured people walking around in a daze.

 

 

Once Home

 I had been working the door that night, and was trying to assist a huge, unconscious drunk who had flown backward off the front steps and landed hard, with blood pouring from his scalp.   

Apparently some of his friends thought I was trying to hurt him, so they came up from behind, wrapped my upper body with a large coat, and started punching and kicking away.

I covered well until some friends got them off me, and still remember Sully holding one of them in a half-Nelson, telling me to go ahead and punch his face in.

I declined his offer, and told them it was over.  I explained that I had been trying to help the man, and was checking his scalp when they attacked.  I wasn’t hurt, and hoped there were no hard feelings.

The man suggested that I do a certain contortionist act involving my head and anus. 

It was a Christmas Party, so I gave a generous two-week notice and retired, done with it forever.

So my wife, daughter, and friend waited for dinner, and I walked into a seaside bar full of loud drunks and band equipment piled in a corner.

Nothing . . . I got nothing.

My room upstairs is now part of a nice dining area with windows overlooking the bay, and the clientele is a little more upscale.  A balcony encircles the upper floor, and the only familiar friend is a ratty, unkempt tree next to a utility pole in front.  My Vietnamese friend is long gone and possibly dead.  He is “The Cambodian” in my story.  Everyone I had adventures with are gone.  Only Howie remains as the owner, but he wasn’t there.

“See anyone?” my wife asked, when I returned.

I shook my head and mumbled something about how you can’t go home again.  We bought the kids ice cream and drove home, and after a few miles I adjusted the rear view mirror to see both girls asleep after their very active beach day, heads resting against each other.

And so it appears I have a much better home these days.  There’s a small crop of potatoes out back, and three dogs in the fenced yard, and Gwenny has SpongeBob on the telly before we catch the evening news.  I don’t have to worry about getting money for tabs from the fishermen before it goes up their nose and to their ex-wives.  I won’t be waking up at 3:00 a.m. when the heroin addict comes looking for his girlfriend, because she’s staying in the next room with her parents until things blow over.  I don’t have to worry about getting shot or stabbed, or messing with a steroid monster who just bit a man’s finger off, or covering for the police lieutenant’s wife when she gets drunk and stupid with a frat boy.  No more Monday morning court appearances to say a scripted response to questions like, ”Why did you break Mister Smith’s nose?”

Those were my “Charles Bukowski” days about twenty years ago.  Now it’s just a tree of memories, where I check the fruit to see what can be used in my writing.  A close Vietnamese friend is now Cambodian, and friend to a different tenant in my room.  A night in Chinatown gets radically tweaked.  The beach and ocean road becomes the same, where I certainly lost a meal or two running with a hangover.

So it wasn’t a complete waste, but now I’m just another tourist within the Bon Vue’s shadow.  Maybe with a strong history, but it’s all just ghosts and memories. 

Aunt Carrie's

 

Day 124: Tuesday, February 9, 2010: Every ink blot test reveals another cheeseburger.

Severance Pay: Continued from Day 123 . . .

Over 2900 miles east of Bobby, the McCrory household was undergoing a change of routine, Janelle and Ferg watching Fiona get Rhiannon ready for school like a drill sergeant overseeing muster.

“Hat,” she said, and Rhiannon grabbed her knit hat, reporting that gloves were already in the backpack, along with a snack and homework.

“Nunchukas,” Fiona ordered, just to get a look out of her parents.  “Samurai sword.” 

Rhiannon joked how she was going with an automatic weapon today.  “Something that matches my skirt, like a Baretta.”

“We gotta talk,” Janelle said, watching her sister-in-law. “Today.”

“I had nothing to do with that, Janelle.  The girl reads anything that’s not nailed down.  I was getting my hair done last month at Rona’s Hair Styling?  I didn’t notice the Playgirl magazines until it was too late.”

“Big mistake, Aunt Fee.”

Fiona nodded.  “She got a quick anatomy lesson.”

Janelle shook her head.  “No, they overcharge.

“Oh.

“Plus, we gotta talk about sleeping arrangements.”

“Ohhhhhh . . .”

“Yuh.”

“Ahh.”

“Ahh.”

“Okay Rhiannon!  Let’s get out to the bus!”

And Rhiannon kissed her parents good-bye, as the family huddled and planned a new and uncertain future.

-  -  -

1:00 PM: Hartford, Connecticut:  Big Jim watched his guy bringing a gorgeous blonde across the club toward his bar, Jim being called big because he was so damn small, but always acted very big.  His other name was Jack Russell, but only dog people got the joke.

“You’re hired,” he said, thinking she was there to dance.  “Tips get split among the girls.  There’s no competition . . . oh.”

He looked closer.  “I know you.”

“Candy Kane.”

“Candy.”

“Kane.”

“Bobby’s girl.”

Candy pointed a finger and pretended to shoot him. 

Jim waved his guy off.  “Remember me, Candy?”

“Gin and tonic.”

Big little Jim was nodding, sizing her up.  “On the rocks.  I asked Bobby how he found such beautiful bartenders, and he filled me in on his little girl, all grown-up and out of school now.”

“I was learning the club, and you were out there meeting about east coast business.”

“I heard you learned a little too much on that coast; a little too much on this one.”

“Really.”

“You learned a pole out there, and the Ukrainians out here.”

“Dad’s been calling you.”

“Stick around and listen for the phone.  It won’t be long.”

Candy smiled.  “I really got him, huh?”

Jim watched her closely.  “Is this what they teach you in business school?  Piss everybody off?”

Candy shuffled uneasily, looking around.  “He played me like a child.”

“Hey honey?”

She looked his way and thought of a younger Robert Di Nero.  “He’s looking out for you.  Is such a thing criminal today?”

“He lied to me, Jim.”

“And what did he tell you?”

Candy gathered herself and faced him down.  “He told me these people took over, and I was supposed to come out here and see if they would relent the club.”

“Relent the club.”

“Yuh,” Candy was nodding quickly, driving her point home.  “Give it up.”

“Can I let you in on a little secret?”

He gestured for her to huddle close, looking around to make sure they were alone.  “If they took that bar over by force, and you came out here trying to work a deal, they would relent your head from your fucking body.”

Candy looked like a very angry little girl.

“Candy, honey.  The lease they had with your father was running out, and he made a deal to hand you the keys; lock, stock, and barrel.  I don’t know why he didn’t just send you out here to do it, without running a stupid game.”

“Because handing me the keys is no kind of challenge.”

“And you’re a stubborn fucking Sicilian like your mother.”

“See the black roots in my hair?”

“How did you guess the deal was rigged?”

“Call it a hunch.”

Jim smiled. “He must’a shit when you said a raid was coming.”

“The call was immediate.  They ran out of there like angry hornets.”

“Huh,” Jim started.   “Proving your hunch.”

“Stirred the hive up pretty good.”

“Thing is . . . those guys are nuts.”

Candy straightened-up from the bar.  “Like . . . how nuts are we talking?”

“Payback nuts.”

“But they’re leasing.”

“They didn’t teach you about survival in that Russian country, during this cold war era?”

“The cold war’s long over.”

“Says who . . . a tumbling wall?  You see any more businesses flocking to Moscow these days?”

“We uh . . . only studied the exchange rate.”

“In money or blood?”

“But the contract . . .”

“Contract?”

Candy waited for it.

“Candy, it’s not about money or anything like that, it’s about disrespect and fucking them over.  Even the cops hate to mess with these guys, and they have a street code harder to understand then Russian Roulette.  Why do you think we had a cold war for so many years, and things are back to shit?  Nobody understands the motherfuckers.  Presidents go to China before they go to Russia, and those Ching Chong bastards sell their own mothers for a stinking gall bladder.”

“Archie Bunker is in the house.”

“Gimme a minute; I’ll get back to Sicilians.”

“Great.  So now what?”

“Now what?”

Jim looked around.  “Now you kiss ass like Bill Clinton, after putting cigars into other women’s ash trays.”

She balked at that one.

“Call your dad, Candy.”

“Errrr,” she growled, looking away.

“Call your dad.”

“He went behind my back.”

“Then go to the Ukrainians.  You never use business for revenge, and you never use the Ukes.”

She looked at him with a question mark on her face.  “Funny how that rhymes with nukes.”

“You wanna learn some foreign business?  Go ahead and tell them everything, then call Bobby from the Motion.  That will impress people.”

“Serious?”

“You get in trouble, give me a call.”

“You think this is best.”

“I know nothing else, except to call and kiss daddy’s ass.”

“Shit!”

“Go.”

“I’ll see this guy . . . Victor?”

“Listen . . .”  Impatience was seeping through as Jim leaned closer.  “You strut in there like that big dike Sylvester Stallone married . . .”

“Bridget.”

“Right.  You have some drinks and go in there like you own the place, talking loud and looking them right in the eye, got it?  If I send people then it’s gonna get messy again, but if you go in there like ‘I did this and I did that and it was all my fault; I was just mad at dad and screwed up,’ and you shoot a vodka down and smoke a Camel, then everything will be fine.  Trust me.”

“Otherwise.”

“They love conflict, Candy.  They love conflict and sadness and depression and Chekhov, but  they spot weaknesses like sharks to blood.  This is your challenge for real now.  You must speak of family troubles and sadness, but you must also be incredibly strong.  The cherry trees are dying.  Your father is mean and stupid.  Get into character, and do not waver.  You cannot waver.”

“I have no idea what you just said.”

Jim held a finger up, ignoring her.  “You must not waver.”

“Look,” Candy said, reaching out.  “My hand does not waver.”

“Wait a sec . . .”

“C’mon!”

Jim snapped his fingers.  DiCaprio in The Departed.”

“Bingo.”

“You go girl!”

“Oh Christ,” Candy said, ordering a Chardonnay.  “You just ruined the moment.”

Jim looked around.  “I’m so out’a touch today.”

To be continued . . .