...And The Nights On Broadway...
By Jim Parks
I don't know what was there in those days - at the corner of Romolo and Broadway - next door to Enrico's. I don't remember.
You know Enrico's, Enrico Banducci's - the bistro that is open air at the sidewalk in front and filled with elegant tables all dressed in white linen in back. Sometimes they have a little combo playing there, guitar, sax, upright bass, keyboards.
North Beach. To the bone.
But the building across the way on the same side, across Romolo, one of the steepest streets on Telegraph Hill, has been the location of many things. It was the city jail in the nineteenth century, smack dab in the middle of all the bagnios and small time hootchy kootchy joints up street from the Barbary Coast on Kearny and Montgomery down to Portsmouth Square and Pacific Street.
Anyway, it was the happening of a moment; it happened in the blink of an eye, and it is burned in there, in my memory, where it belongs.
I was strolling, really humping down the sidewalk on Broadway's level after I had come up from the Tenderloin through downtown, through the Stockton Tunnel, skirted Chinatown. I was really strolling, really humping the way a young man does, really picking them up and laying them down, slamming my heels and toes into the sidewalk. I'd worked up a sweat, one of those clammy feeling sweats you get in the cool fog of a San Francisco night.
There on the sidewalk ahead of me, that chipped and cracked old sidewalk with the granite curbstone and the parking meters, the exhaust gas and bally of the barkers and flashing colored lights, there was another man dressed in grey sharkskin, his baggy suit coat with side vents swinging to and fro with his gait, his wingtips slamming down on the pavement, a thin little cigar in the corner of his mouth. I could smell the cigar as he chuffed and puffed along, minding his business. I didn't think anything about it. There are a lot of dudes in business drag on that block. They come and go from the topless places and the jazz joints, the eateries around the corner on Columbus and Upper Grant Avenue. I figured he was on his way to a parking lot on down Broadway to get his car.
In the blink of an eye, a street dude stepped out of the dark there on the corner of Romolo and got in the sharkskin dude's face. I don't know what was said, or even if anything was said. It all happened so quickly.
But he got in the dude's face and you could suddenly see his complexion, the kind dopers get, all pale and sick looking, his hair unkempt and tangled, Levi's and t-shirt just hanging on his frame because he was so sick and so down and beat.
The dude in the sharkskin didn't hesitate. He kicked the street man's knees out from under him, upset that nonexistent third leg on the tripod they talk about in martial arts, and with one swift motion drew a snub-nosed double action revolver in some cold blue steel with his right hand while he flipped out his Inspector's badge with his left.
"You want some of it? Huh? Whadda ya' want? Huh?" He forced the muzzle of the pistol under the dude's nose, jabbing it with every phrase.
The man who had gotten in his face was down, the breath knocked out of him. He waved his splayed fingers in front of his face - back and forth - from his place on the cold concrete, his head in the gutter. He'd fallen there as neatly and swiftly as a tree suddenly fallen by a lumberjack.
Behind me, two guys dresssed in leather jackets and khaki chinos had jerked up two other men - both of them as unkempt and goofy looking as the guy sharkskin had felled. Across the street, two uniformed cops were chasing down another dude where he fled down the steepest part of Montgomery Street.
But it was that moment with the gun sticking in the assailant's face, the glare of the multi-colored blinking lights glinting off its precisely machined surfaces and highly polished finish, that brought it all home for me. Knocking the schmuck down in one set of well-coordinated moves was one thing; badging the guy was another, but without the gun to back it all up, it would have been meaningless, totally about nothing.
"All right, guy, you're charged with Section ____________ of the California Penal Code, Assaulting a Police Officer, Pandering and Loitering in violation of the San Francisco Municipal Code," the sharkskin dude bellowed as he jerked his prisoner to his feet and cuffed him.
"You have the right to remain silent," he said, as he kicked his ankles and made him spread his legs wide where he leaned against the wall. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law..."
I stroked on through the scene, neatly sidestepping the actors and continuing on up the street to the hotel where I knew the people and went to score sometimes. Without the gun, it would have all been meaningless to me because I was a much, much younger man in those days.
I think Sharkskin and the other cops had been laying for that little gang there in old Sydney Town. Nothing new on the Barbary Coast.
You'd better believe he would have shot him if he had to do it. You'd better believe it.
My point is that it all makes the revolver with the knot in its barrel, you know, the giant sculpture of the Colt .45 Peacemaker in United Nations Plaza in New York, it all makes that scene look ridiculous when you've seen it up close and personal in a place you dig. That's all I mean.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Blood, The Pool Cue, and the Parking Place
By Jim Parks
Because everyone gets sick at the same time, there were almost no parking places available at the VA Hospital.
A white man in a pickup and a Mexican in an ancient station wagon vied for the same slot, nearly slamming fenders. The white man grabed a sawed-off pool cue and menaced the Mexican. The Mexican took it, fed it to him - blunt end first.
The cops confronted the Mexican about the fight.
What fight?
They showed him the pool cue, the blood on the pavement.
I laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"Whoever designed this parking lot. He showed his ass pretty good. "
(100 words)
Because everyone gets sick at the same time, there were almost no parking places available at the VA Hospital.
A white man in a pickup and a Mexican in an ancient station wagon vied for the same slot, nearly slamming fenders. The white man grabed a sawed-off pool cue and menaced the Mexican. The Mexican took it, fed it to him - blunt end first.
The cops confronted the Mexican about the fight.
What fight?
They showed him the pool cue, the blood on the pavement.
I laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"Whoever designed this parking lot. He showed his ass pretty good. "
(100 words)
Monday, May 18, 2009
You got that screaming tenor horn, dude. You got that rock and roll. You got your driving beat. You got your summer heat. You got all that sweet, sweet female meat - jumpin' jivin' soul survivin' and hangin' out on the street.
You got that jive he's chanting; it's riding that bass line like it's on a brand new groove line, downtown to uptown, any which way, but right on time. Always right on time. No fair runnin' late.
You'll never get over it, dude.
Roll up a pack of Luckies in your t-shirt sleeve and hit the streets when it's hot, man. Down at the shore. Up in Newark, over by Cherry Hill Township. Give it a shot, man. We call it the refinery. That's what it is.
Check out the "Stray Cat Blues" for a change. Shift gears and give it up to "Be Bop A Lula."
You know, like, all my friends got it, so it must be goin' around, saith Carl Perkins at the birth of rock - and you roll, dude.
You roll.
Got to let your backbone slip, walk with a hip slung strut, leather jacket draped over your left shoulder, engineer boots with the horseshoe taps striking fire from the pavement, your blue suede tenny-shod feets pounding that street, smokin' that crack and lookin' back.
But I warn you, mister. If you walk this way, walk on the wild side, man, if you do, don't be lookin' back because whatever is behind you is definitely gaining on you. Thus spach Satch Paige of the storied and fabled Negro Leagues.
And you rock And you roll.
That's what I be talkin' about, man.
Go. String 47 miles of barbed wire. Wear a cobra snake for a necktie. And then take a little walk with me, honey, and tell me who do you love.
Hoodoo ya' love, baby.
Thus spach Bo Diddley. We gone. Beep beep.
The Legendary
p.s. What I mean, when you dig Bruce, you dig a dude puttin' on his trash - flashin' his trash - with all the grand tradition implicit in that high walk of tragicomic American jive, my man. It's a solid lock, a family tradition. They all be doin' it, man. They all do it.
J.
You got that jive he's chanting; it's riding that bass line like it's on a brand new groove line, downtown to uptown, any which way, but right on time. Always right on time. No fair runnin' late.
You'll never get over it, dude.
Roll up a pack of Luckies in your t-shirt sleeve and hit the streets when it's hot, man. Down at the shore. Up in Newark, over by Cherry Hill Township. Give it a shot, man. We call it the refinery. That's what it is.
Check out the "Stray Cat Blues" for a change. Shift gears and give it up to "Be Bop A Lula."
You know, like, all my friends got it, so it must be goin' around, saith Carl Perkins at the birth of rock - and you roll, dude.
You roll.
Got to let your backbone slip, walk with a hip slung strut, leather jacket draped over your left shoulder, engineer boots with the horseshoe taps striking fire from the pavement, your blue suede tenny-shod feets pounding that street, smokin' that crack and lookin' back.
But I warn you, mister. If you walk this way, walk on the wild side, man, if you do, don't be lookin' back because whatever is behind you is definitely gaining on you. Thus spach Satch Paige of the storied and fabled Negro Leagues.
And you rock And you roll.
That's what I be talkin' about, man.
Go. String 47 miles of barbed wire. Wear a cobra snake for a necktie. And then take a little walk with me, honey, and tell me who do you love.
Hoodoo ya' love, baby.
Thus spach Bo Diddley. We gone. Beep beep.
The Legendary
p.s. What I mean, when you dig Bruce, you dig a dude puttin' on his trash - flashin' his trash - with all the grand tradition implicit in that high walk of tragicomic American jive, my man. It's a solid lock, a family tradition. They all be doin' it, man. They all do it.
J.
Monday, April 27, 2009
The Spanish Moon
By Jim Parks
... From down the street, I heard such a sorrowful tune coming form the place they call the Spanish Moon. - Little Feat
The constant drone of the conveyor belt taking away shells through a hole in the cinder block wall, the clicking of the shells as the shuckers tossed them on the pile, it was all very lulling in the shed, its dank atmosphere and wet floor exuding that scent of iodine and brackish water where the mollusks grow on top of each other. Gino was busy culling the best for the half shell trade, arranging them on a wooden slab the way they would be served on a tin tray in the bars and restaurants - with red sauce and horse radish, lemon wedges, the works.
He worked with deadly accuracy with the short, brutal oyster knife, its edges honed to razor sharpness by years of use, as he "lipped" the oysters, forcing them open, then cutting the muscle that held the creature to the shell, finally twisting the top half of the shell away and throwing it over his shoulder. Carmine just liked to see if he had a quality selection before he got on the phone.
The oyster house competed with a half dozen other organizations around the bay, their cultivation beds famous for quality. He came to look at them, grunting his approval. These were nice and salty, clean and with a crisp texture, even though they hadn't been iced down. They were fresh from the bay. He pointed to the culled piles Gino had arranged around his stool, motioning for the two helpers to sack them, tie them, load them on the truck.
He handed Gino a diminutive oyster fork and they began to eat the ones he had shucked for display. He had an ice cold beer in each pocket of his foul weather jacket, and they cracked them for a quick lunch. After that, they worked together quickly to see how many oysters it would take to fill a pint jar, a quart can, a half gallon, a gallon, for the stores and places that served them in stew and fried.
It had been a pleasant morning's work. Everyone was making money. They had caught the weather just right - cold enough for the mollusks to close their shells and purge themselves of the impurities washed down from the creeks and bayous, the cities and towns upstream. The state biologist had declared them clean enough for human consumption. They were getting well, a yearly drama after white shrimp season was all over.
At that moment, a state biologist wearing the crisply starched khaki shirt and funny-looking stretch fabric uniform pants walked into the shed. He beckoned to Carmine. They argued, Carmine gesticulated, the biologist shrugged his shoulders; he made reasonable faces at the enraged Carmine; he threw up his hands and let it be known that Carmine was somehow unreasonable.
"All right," Carmine shouted as he man left the shed. "Get this stuff back down on the barges. It's got to go back to the beds. Pezzonovante turned them down."
One of the barge hands who had been lounging outside the door came on the run. "But, hey, boss, the man passed them out on the water this morning." Carmine silenced him with a fierce look that beetled his brows and made his nose look like a hawk's beak
"Hey, what are you gonna do? This is his boss. He said some over at Lone Star Fish Company didn't pass. Better be safe, he said. I give up."
In his mind, Carmine knew exactly what had happened. His rivals knew he was doing very well, especially because his beds were located where his family and friends who lived on the point could see exactly who may be on the bar at any given time. He had over the years furnished everyone in his compound with high power binoculars and telescopes for the purpose. Then there was the new liquor and alcohol permit for "The Spanish Moon," a bistro and trattoria all brass and mahogany and green gloosy enamel paint and soft lighting he had located on the point.
Full moon nights the path of the reflections on the water were very pleasant to diners and people boozing on the patio. It would start to make money if he could just keep on supplying what they wanted - fresh shrimp and oysters, stuffed flouder, broiled red snapper, all that jazz.
He went back to his office and figured his daily payroll, the taxes, wrote the checks, looked at his fuel bills, his utilities. He ran his fingers through his curly hair and struggled to keep calm. He kicked back in the hard wooden swivel chair, rocked back on its groaning springs amid the paperwork mess and dusty atmosphere that made his grandchildren sneeze. He looked at the needlework sampler framed on the wall - "Old bosses never die. They just sit on their assets."
Still, he was angry, deeply angry. He couldn't deny it. The last thing he should do would be to lose his temper.
That really cost money.
He shrugged and twirled his moutstache ends. For every action, there is a reaction. What's a lousy day? He would be back tomorrow, an earner, a man of respect.
"Pezzonovante!" He mouthed the word with contempt. He spun his rolodex, found the card he was looking for, and dialed the number.
"Hey, it's me. You know the guy in the shirt? Okay. Time we drank a beer. Yeah, the Moon. Why not?" He listened carefully for a minute. "Okay, then, The Castaway."
He swung out of the office, traipsed across the shed floor, stomped his boots clean and changed to a pair of loafers, then climbed into his pickup truck. The motor caught on the first spin.
"Pezzonovante!" He spat out the open window and adjusted the radio, looking for his favorite news show.
It would be simple enough. The asshole who dropped the dime on him had opened up his own place across the bay from the point. It was a combination disco, restaurant and a general mess. All it would take would be to import some very good-looking young women from a nearby city to start coming there nightly with fake identification that gave their age as twenty-one, then drop a dime through the alcoholic beverage control board. Suddenly, the young girls would have proper identification that showed them to be underage. His spies already knew the doormen came to work drunk, sold drugs and they were banging the young girls in the men's room.
He should be so lucky, Carmine thought. To go to the men's room to screw a young woman! He laughed, snorted, twirled his moutstache ends.
"Pezzonovante!" He said it with conviction, clinging to the multisyllable word with all his might.
_________________
... From down the street, I heard such a sorrowful tune coming form the place they call the Spanish Moon. - Little Feat
The constant drone of the conveyor belt taking away shells through a hole in the cinder block wall, the clicking of the shells as the shuckers tossed them on the pile, it was all very lulling in the shed, its dank atmosphere and wet floor exuding that scent of iodine and brackish water where the mollusks grow on top of each other. Gino was busy culling the best for the half shell trade, arranging them on a wooden slab the way they would be served on a tin tray in the bars and restaurants - with red sauce and horse radish, lemon wedges, the works.
He worked with deadly accuracy with the short, brutal oyster knife, its edges honed to razor sharpness by years of use, as he "lipped" the oysters, forcing them open, then cutting the muscle that held the creature to the shell, finally twisting the top half of the shell away and throwing it over his shoulder. Carmine just liked to see if he had a quality selection before he got on the phone.
The oyster house competed with a half dozen other organizations around the bay, their cultivation beds famous for quality. He came to look at them, grunting his approval. These were nice and salty, clean and with a crisp texture, even though they hadn't been iced down. They were fresh from the bay. He pointed to the culled piles Gino had arranged around his stool, motioning for the two helpers to sack them, tie them, load them on the truck.
He handed Gino a diminutive oyster fork and they began to eat the ones he had shucked for display. He had an ice cold beer in each pocket of his foul weather jacket, and they cracked them for a quick lunch. After that, they worked together quickly to see how many oysters it would take to fill a pint jar, a quart can, a half gallon, a gallon, for the stores and places that served them in stew and fried.
It had been a pleasant morning's work. Everyone was making money. They had caught the weather just right - cold enough for the mollusks to close their shells and purge themselves of the impurities washed down from the creeks and bayous, the cities and towns upstream. The state biologist had declared them clean enough for human consumption. They were getting well, a yearly drama after white shrimp season was all over.
At that moment, a state biologist wearing the crisply starched khaki shirt and funny-looking stretch fabric uniform pants walked into the shed. He beckoned to Carmine. They argued, Carmine gesticulated, the biologist shrugged his shoulders; he made reasonable faces at the enraged Carmine; he threw up his hands and let it be known that Carmine was somehow unreasonable.
"All right," Carmine shouted as he man left the shed. "Get this stuff back down on the barges. It's got to go back to the beds. Pezzonovante turned them down."
One of the barge hands who had been lounging outside the door came on the run. "But, hey, boss, the man passed them out on the water this morning." Carmine silenced him with a fierce look that beetled his brows and made his nose look like a hawk's beak
"Hey, what are you gonna do? This is his boss. He said some over at Lone Star Fish Company didn't pass. Better be safe, he said. I give up."
In his mind, Carmine knew exactly what had happened. His rivals knew he was doing very well, especially because his beds were located where his family and friends who lived on the point could see exactly who may be on the bar at any given time. He had over the years furnished everyone in his compound with high power binoculars and telescopes for the purpose. Then there was the new liquor and alcohol permit for "The Spanish Moon," a bistro and trattoria all brass and mahogany and green gloosy enamel paint and soft lighting he had located on the point.
Full moon nights the path of the reflections on the water were very pleasant to diners and people boozing on the patio. It would start to make money if he could just keep on supplying what they wanted - fresh shrimp and oysters, stuffed flouder, broiled red snapper, all that jazz.
He went back to his office and figured his daily payroll, the taxes, wrote the checks, looked at his fuel bills, his utilities. He ran his fingers through his curly hair and struggled to keep calm. He kicked back in the hard wooden swivel chair, rocked back on its groaning springs amid the paperwork mess and dusty atmosphere that made his grandchildren sneeze. He looked at the needlework sampler framed on the wall - "Old bosses never die. They just sit on their assets."
Still, he was angry, deeply angry. He couldn't deny it. The last thing he should do would be to lose his temper.
That really cost money.
He shrugged and twirled his moutstache ends. For every action, there is a reaction. What's a lousy day? He would be back tomorrow, an earner, a man of respect.
"Pezzonovante!" He mouthed the word with contempt. He spun his rolodex, found the card he was looking for, and dialed the number.
"Hey, it's me. You know the guy in the shirt? Okay. Time we drank a beer. Yeah, the Moon. Why not?" He listened carefully for a minute. "Okay, then, The Castaway."
He swung out of the office, traipsed across the shed floor, stomped his boots clean and changed to a pair of loafers, then climbed into his pickup truck. The motor caught on the first spin.
"Pezzonovante!" He spat out the open window and adjusted the radio, looking for his favorite news show.
It would be simple enough. The asshole who dropped the dime on him had opened up his own place across the bay from the point. It was a combination disco, restaurant and a general mess. All it would take would be to import some very good-looking young women from a nearby city to start coming there nightly with fake identification that gave their age as twenty-one, then drop a dime through the alcoholic beverage control board. Suddenly, the young girls would have proper identification that showed them to be underage. His spies already knew the doormen came to work drunk, sold drugs and they were banging the young girls in the men's room.
He should be so lucky, Carmine thought. To go to the men's room to screw a young woman! He laughed, snorted, twirled his moutstache ends.
"Pezzonovante!" He said it with conviction, clinging to the multisyllable word with all his might.
_________________
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Why Kitties
By Jim Parks
The mother cat, Miss Rosabel, ignored me as I scooped the kittens up and put them in the tow sack. She rubbed against my legs and shot out of the shed door, chasing a hoodoo.
I came out into the sudden sunlight and chattering summer cicadas of the back yard. There she stood in her four-year-old sun dress, curls brushing her bare shoulders, her dirty, naked baby doll tucked under one arm.
"Where going, daddy?"
"I'm going out to play," I said, opening the pickup door.
The kittens were mewing inside the bag, crying out, tumbling over one another. She looked very curiously at the bag, dug a bare big toe in the dirt.
"Why kitties?"
"I'm just playing with them."
"Me come, too." I set the bag down at my feet. The kittens were already scrambling like mad to get out. They came crawling out of the bag one by one, their tails held high.
She came running into my arms, laughing. I threw her up, up in the air over my head, catching her and hugging her.
"Me love daddy."
"Me love you, sugar. Me love baby girl."
# # #
By: Jim Parks published 11/07 in "Writer's Corner," The Republic of Ireland, Marie Lynam Fitzpatrick, editor
The mother cat, Miss Rosabel, ignored me as I scooped the kittens up and put them in the tow sack. She rubbed against my legs and shot out of the shed door, chasing a hoodoo.
I came out into the sudden sunlight and chattering summer cicadas of the back yard. There she stood in her four-year-old sun dress, curls brushing her bare shoulders, her dirty, naked baby doll tucked under one arm.
"Where going, daddy?"
"I'm going out to play," I said, opening the pickup door.
The kittens were mewing inside the bag, crying out, tumbling over one another. She looked very curiously at the bag, dug a bare big toe in the dirt.
"Why kitties?"
"I'm just playing with them."
"Me come, too." I set the bag down at my feet. The kittens were already scrambling like mad to get out. They came crawling out of the bag one by one, their tails held high.
She came running into my arms, laughing. I threw her up, up in the air over my head, catching her and hugging her.
"Me love daddy."
"Me love you, sugar. Me love baby girl."
# # #
By: Jim Parks published 11/07 in "Writer's Corner," The Republic of Ireland, Marie Lynam Fitzpatrick, editor
Monday, April 13, 2009
Boogie staccato downtown city boogie
Believe in me cause I don't believe in anything
and I want to be someone to believe, to believe, to believe.
Me and Mister Jones stare into the future
tell each other fairy tales
stare at all the beautiful women...
Me and Mister Jones go stormin' through the barrio...
Me and Mister Jones, we're gonna be big, big stars.
We both have different reasons for that.- Counting Crows
Dig.
I have been here before in a thousand conversations from the American nightmare standing on the corner after the rain arguing about the wine, the women, the music, listening to the taxis and buses and the wheels of the cars making sounds like frying bacon on the wet pavement as a cop on a Harley comes by and shouts "Get off th' fuckin' corner, wino motherfuckers!" Yeah, I have been here before, oh, my brothers, and you know it, you know it as well as you know your own names or the faces of your women and children.
So don't try to bullshit me because I am The Legendary and I'm going to live forever and I want to make it to Heaven and see my mama again, you know.
You know.
Fuckers know what I mean.
So, what are you going to do? Just give it away?
Without a fight? Without saying a goddam thing about it, just stand there and let them take it like a baby with a big dick just dying to lose?
Huh?
I don't think so. I know y'all better than that.
I'm gonna hit the highway, the highway they call highway 49.
I'm gonna hit the highway, the highway they call highway 49.
I'm gonna stop off at the liquor sto'
and get me a bottle of that motherfuckin' wine.
Dig. I got my used horsehide leather jacket out of a Columbus Avenue store front owned by some dykes in North Beach in 1966 when I was just a kid, a teenager on a coast to coast boogie siphoning gasoline and stealing cartons of cigarettes with a mean look on my face in supermarkets and other roadside attractions.
So get over it. I did.
Got over it a long time ago.
The Legendary
and I want to be someone to believe, to believe, to believe.
Me and Mister Jones stare into the future
tell each other fairy tales
stare at all the beautiful women...
Me and Mister Jones go stormin' through the barrio...
Me and Mister Jones, we're gonna be big, big stars.
We both have different reasons for that.- Counting Crows
Dig.
I have been here before in a thousand conversations from the American nightmare standing on the corner after the rain arguing about the wine, the women, the music, listening to the taxis and buses and the wheels of the cars making sounds like frying bacon on the wet pavement as a cop on a Harley comes by and shouts "Get off th' fuckin' corner, wino motherfuckers!" Yeah, I have been here before, oh, my brothers, and you know it, you know it as well as you know your own names or the faces of your women and children.
So don't try to bullshit me because I am The Legendary and I'm going to live forever and I want to make it to Heaven and see my mama again, you know.
You know.
Fuckers know what I mean.
So, what are you going to do? Just give it away?
Without a fight? Without saying a goddam thing about it, just stand there and let them take it like a baby with a big dick just dying to lose?
Huh?
I don't think so. I know y'all better than that.
I'm gonna hit the highway, the highway they call highway 49.
I'm gonna hit the highway, the highway they call highway 49.
I'm gonna stop off at the liquor sto'
and get me a bottle of that motherfuckin' wine.
Dig. I got my used horsehide leather jacket out of a Columbus Avenue store front owned by some dykes in North Beach in 1966 when I was just a kid, a teenager on a coast to coast boogie siphoning gasoline and stealing cartons of cigarettes with a mean look on my face in supermarkets and other roadside attractions.
So get over it. I did.
Got over it a long time ago.
The Legendary
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Sun Splashed Sunday Morning
By Jim Parks
Streaming sunlight penetrating the gauzy curtains through air washed of its sooty, dusty characteristic haze by the previous night's violent thunderstorm, a night spent huddled together in the big old double bed beside the bay window in the comfortable flat on the upper east side.
He, Charles, dressed in the solid royal blue pajamas she told him Santa brought him from Bergdorf's, she, outfitted in plaid warm-ups and a Starbucks t-shirt, her gleaming skin tanned and her smile brilliant, radiant in her happiness when he brought her juice, the Times in its five pound good, gray Knickerbocker eminence, and toast with the jam they found on a New England ramble.
Turning to her man Charles, looking into his good, gray eyes behind the thick lenses of his black horn-rimmed business professional's glasses, Rosalie said "You almost make me cry because I'm so happy. Almost, but not quite." Charles smiled, kissed her, and said, "Um, warm girl. Yum."
"I'm pregnant," Rosalie announced with a lilting, sunny smile in her voice, a voice with a Brooklyn accent and the rose tinted, eternal hope of motherhood. In her mind's eye, a thousand peasant crones, all of them dressed in black, stood as one and raised their fists in the air, screaming "Cacciatora!" "I know," Charles said, his voice coming through to her high and reedy. He grasped at his stiffening male member through the high thread count poplin of the pajama bottoms. "I did it with my magic wand here. Wanna see me do it again? I'll show you how I did it - one more time."
She gave him a light slap on the cheek. He said, "Slap me, bitch, you're beautiful when you're angry - angry and knocked up. Yeah." "Four years at Stanford, an MBA from Penn and Harvard Law, and you still talk like some schmuck from Jersey," she said, giggling. She, Rosalie, fell back on the bed laughing at the sunlight streaming through the window, streaming through the gauzy curtains, through the suddenly clean air washed of its usual sooty, dusty condition by the violent thunderstorms of the night before.
Charles's head exploded in sprays of blood, brain tissue and bone fragments that coated Rosalie's face and her Starbucks t-shirt and splattered the bed and wall behind her. For a moment, she sat shocked, unable to comprehend what had happened until she glanced at the window and saw the shattered glass still dangling from the old casement, shards of it spread across the carpet. She clung to his body in panic, grasping at his glasses and trying in vain to hold his weight against her chest, then, succumbing to her fear, she scrambled off the bed and crawling out the bedroom door to the kitchen, she headed for the telephone in the pantry.
One gunman came in the back door. He had used a pass key or picked the lock. Rosalie gasped when he walked in on her. The other strode into the room from the bedroom where he had come in from the fire escape.
The man who had shot Charles from the fire escape held the pistol close to her head where she crouched on the floor trembling. He slowly pulled the trigger. Feeling sick, he looked up at his partner in crime and asked, "Why do we get involved in these capers?"
"I don't know about you, but I do it for the money," the man who had come in the back door said.
He leveled the heavy automatic on the man who stood over the dead woman and fired a bullet into his heart. Then he pulled the knit ski mask down over his face and left the way he had come in, taking the stair steps two at a time, ducking into the service hallway of an apartment two floors down where a woman stood holding the door partly open for him.
When she closed the door, he took her in his arms, savoring the good, lithe body, and kissed her. His hand on the back of her head, the other on the point of her chin, he suddenly twisted it violently, snapping her neck. She slumped to the floor at his feet, already looking like the sad remains of a human being and not the kind of monster who would help hired killers take the lives of two of her neighbors.
He looked at his watch. The entire operation, once they were in place, had taken only three minutes. Now it was time for the getaway, the most important part of any assault.
Streaming sunlight penetrating the gauzy curtains through air washed of its sooty, dusty characteristic haze by the previous night's violent thunderstorm, a night spent huddled together in the big old double bed beside the bay window in the comfortable flat on the upper east side.
He, Charles, dressed in the solid royal blue pajamas she told him Santa brought him from Bergdorf's, she, outfitted in plaid warm-ups and a Starbucks t-shirt, her gleaming skin tanned and her smile brilliant, radiant in her happiness when he brought her juice, the Times in its five pound good, gray Knickerbocker eminence, and toast with the jam they found on a New England ramble.
Turning to her man Charles, looking into his good, gray eyes behind the thick lenses of his black horn-rimmed business professional's glasses, Rosalie said "You almost make me cry because I'm so happy. Almost, but not quite." Charles smiled, kissed her, and said, "Um, warm girl. Yum."
"I'm pregnant," Rosalie announced with a lilting, sunny smile in her voice, a voice with a Brooklyn accent and the rose tinted, eternal hope of motherhood. In her mind's eye, a thousand peasant crones, all of them dressed in black, stood as one and raised their fists in the air, screaming "Cacciatora!" "I know," Charles said, his voice coming through to her high and reedy. He grasped at his stiffening male member through the high thread count poplin of the pajama bottoms. "I did it with my magic wand here. Wanna see me do it again? I'll show you how I did it - one more time."
She gave him a light slap on the cheek. He said, "Slap me, bitch, you're beautiful when you're angry - angry and knocked up. Yeah." "Four years at Stanford, an MBA from Penn and Harvard Law, and you still talk like some schmuck from Jersey," she said, giggling. She, Rosalie, fell back on the bed laughing at the sunlight streaming through the window, streaming through the gauzy curtains, through the suddenly clean air washed of its usual sooty, dusty condition by the violent thunderstorms of the night before.
Charles's head exploded in sprays of blood, brain tissue and bone fragments that coated Rosalie's face and her Starbucks t-shirt and splattered the bed and wall behind her. For a moment, she sat shocked, unable to comprehend what had happened until she glanced at the window and saw the shattered glass still dangling from the old casement, shards of it spread across the carpet. She clung to his body in panic, grasping at his glasses and trying in vain to hold his weight against her chest, then, succumbing to her fear, she scrambled off the bed and crawling out the bedroom door to the kitchen, she headed for the telephone in the pantry.
One gunman came in the back door. He had used a pass key or picked the lock. Rosalie gasped when he walked in on her. The other strode into the room from the bedroom where he had come in from the fire escape.
The man who had shot Charles from the fire escape held the pistol close to her head where she crouched on the floor trembling. He slowly pulled the trigger. Feeling sick, he looked up at his partner in crime and asked, "Why do we get involved in these capers?"
"I don't know about you, but I do it for the money," the man who had come in the back door said.
He leveled the heavy automatic on the man who stood over the dead woman and fired a bullet into his heart. Then he pulled the knit ski mask down over his face and left the way he had come in, taking the stair steps two at a time, ducking into the service hallway of an apartment two floors down where a woman stood holding the door partly open for him.
When she closed the door, he took her in his arms, savoring the good, lithe body, and kissed her. His hand on the back of her head, the other on the point of her chin, he suddenly twisted it violently, snapping her neck. She slumped to the floor at his feet, already looking like the sad remains of a human being and not the kind of monster who would help hired killers take the lives of two of her neighbors.
He looked at his watch. The entire operation, once they were in place, had taken only three minutes. Now it was time for the getaway, the most important part of any assault.
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