“Yeah, me too.”
“Is she back yet?”
At Ruth’s grating query Abe shuddered to wakefulness, slapping a fly off his nose. He’d dozed off, the constant ache of hunger no longer there to keep him vigilant. Just like the good old days, after a thick pastrami and tongue sandwich from Second Avenue Deli, he’d grown slumberous on a full belly.
“You were sleeping?” Ruth’s voice rose, her tone accusatory. “Ucch, Abraham, you’re given one simple task, to keep an eye out for our fairy goddaughter, and you botch it.”
“It’s not like I fell asleep on purpose!” He lifted himself off the chair, glissandi of pins and needles strafing his quaking legs, and hobbled off to pee in the bucket in defiance of his prostate. “If she came back she’d have said something. I would have heard. What, I’m the only one around here who can keep a lookout? If she came back she’d call up, wouldn’t she? Hah?”
“Who knows? She’s an odd girl. And don’t go putting the blame on everyone else. You volunteered to keep an eye out for her.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.” Abe shook off the last few burning droplets and zipped up, wishing he’d asked Mona to pick up some Flomax; maybe next time, if there was one. He maintained his ornery posture but he knew he’d screwed up. He’d admit it to almost anyone but Ruth; she took too much pleasure in seeing him fail. How long had she been watching him slumber? It would be just like her to watch him rather than the street below, just to needle him for having blown his responsibility.
“No, not ‘whatever.’ You had an important task. Maybe a younger person should do it. I thought you were at least capable of doing a job that involved basically sitting around doing almost nothing, but apparently nothing is the only part of that you’re actually qualified for any more.” Her voice lanced through his ears, sharp, pointy, shrill.
Abe exited the bathroom with the sloshing bucket and fought the urge to empty its contents on his fishwife’s head. With all the dignity he could muster he padded by across the moth-eaten Oriental rug and tossed his amber-colored, slightly acid discharge out the front window. In his heart he hoped this act would elicit the stock slapstick cliché: that Mona would be down there, full shopping cart before her, wiping Abe’s piddle from her face. It’s not like he wanted to douse the poor girl, but his tossing the piss seemed the perfect setup for her return. But no mwah-wah-wah comedy trumpet trill moment was in the offing. The liquid splashed the mindless shufflers and that was that. The last vestiges of light faded, darkness returned, Mona didn’t.
“This is not good,” Abe muttered as he lit a candle. “This is not good at all.”
“So where is she?” Ruth said, her voice small.
“Like I know. Like suddenly I’m the Amazing Kreskin.” Abe looked at Ruth’s face. Even in the shadows it was obvious she was more than upset. She wasn’t hollering and screeching and fussing and nagging. She was silent. Abe shuffled over to her and held her, pressing her balding noggin against himself. It would be too cruel if Mona didn’t come back, but life was nothing if not immeasurably cruel. He patted his wife’s back gently and tried to make his assurances sound heartfelt. Even if Mona didn’t come back, the coffers were well stocked. They’d last a few more weeks. He kept petting Ruth, hoping the tears leaking out of his eyes wouldn’t drip on her. Then the jig would be up.
“I can’t believe that spooky little bitch ditched,” Eddie said to the top of Dave’s head. Dave was busy, so he didn’t reply one way or the other. But Eddie didn’t need confirmation. He could totally believe it. Why the fuck would anyone voluntarily stay with a bunch of losers like the ones in this building? Eddie yearned for being someplace else. There had to be other survivors, somewhere. Pockets of tough motherfuckers holed up, giving the zombies what for-real men with guns and weapons. That totally sucked about this bunch. No weapons. Sure, some kitchen knives, even a couple of professional-grade meat cleavers, but no guns. If Eddie’d stayed in Bensonhurst he’d have access to plenty of guns, but here on the Upper East Side? Please.
What had he been thinking moving up here?
Okay, so he’d enjoyed the bar scene on York Avenue. He’d nailed a lot of slim high-maintenance Jewesses on his innumerable pub crawls and contrary to stereotype, those women sure knew how to give head. Eddie had thought Italian chicks like the ones in his old neighborhood were proficient, but they were rank amateurs compared to the JAPs he’d scored with ’round these parts.
In Brooklyn, fellatio was merely a Catholic stalling act to keep the cherry intact until the wedding day. How many girls had kept Eddie out of their cootchies by offering up auxiliary inputs? That was a laugh. Eddie thought about all those girls lined up trying to get into Heaven now. Saint Peter would be all like, “What? You safeguarded the ’gina but let ’em do what in your what? Sin is sin, Sweetcakes. Scram!” In cars, attics and basements, in stairwells and on rooftops, in all the clandestine locales available to him in his youth he’d done everything but get in the front bottom. He’d lost his own cherry, so to speak, at fifteen to a twelve-year-old she-devil named Roxanne who sat in her bedroom window and smoked menthols and taunted and teased all the neighborhood boys. Eddie thought she’d singled him out for her affections, but it turned out she’d blown every kid on the block, and some from not on the block, and some from Borough Park, and some from Bath Beach, and some from as far as Bay Ridge. And some who weren’t even so young, like her uncles and cousins.
And so Eddie formed the opinion that maybe the fairer sex were all whores, like his pops implied in a not-so-subtle fashion when addressing Eddie’s mother as such. Eddie’s mother was such a flirt it was easy to see why his pops drank and on occasion showed her the back of his hand. She didn’t fight back much, maybe a little harsh language, but she knew she was guilty of whatever and besides, why screw up a good thing? She had a nice house and a nice car. Eddie’s sister Patty, though. She was a tramp, no doubt.
So anyway, here he was, in a faggy neighborhood, bereft of cunt, getting a blowjob from his former Ice Knights teammate. Go Rutgers. Eddie rolled his eyes impatiently. Dave was getting all fancy, licking it like a lollypop and fiddling with the balls. Eddie just wanted to bust a nut and go to sleep, but whatever. Dave had gone full-bore homo and there was nothing to do about it. The facts were the facts. Look at Dave’s lack of interest in the spooky little shorty who’d shown up and brought home the groceries. And Dave harshing on him for wanting to tap that ass? You’d think Dave would want to give his a break. Whatever. The little chick was probably never coming back anyway, so Eddie would make do.
But he wished Dave would just hurry the fuck up.
23
Three in the morning, give or take. Moans of brain-dead protest accompanied by regular knifelike squeaks of a trolley wheel in need of a spritz of WD-40. The squeaks increasing in pitch and loudness, and then silenced. The inhuman groaning continues, growing in fervor. The strike of a match, the smell of sulfur followed by paraffin, and then barely audible bare-footfalls creeping across bare floorboards.