Dangerous Boys, page 4
“Just sort of ended when she went to college.”
“Happens.”
He was right of course, and while I had feelings for Mariana, I’d never had any illusions of spending the rest of my life with her. She was my one serious high school girlfriend, but that was over now. We’d started dating halfway through junior year. Once we graduated, she worked for a year at the mall before going off to college. We kept dating, although it was mostly just going through the motions and counting down the inevitable by then.
“Mariana’s goin’ places,” I said. “Where the fuck am I goin’? Plus, the whole thing with her family sucked.”
Woody looked at me, puzzled.
“First-generation Portuguese. Her parents treated her like she was twelve years old. Even if they did let her date, sure as hell wouldn’t be with a guinea like me. Had to be another Portagee or they wouldn’t go for it. So we snuck around like little kids. Didn’t mind at first, but a couple years in it got real tired.”
“I can see how it would.”
“It’s better this way.”
“You sure?”
“She’s got big plans. Why should I get in her way?”
“Don’t you have big plans, too?”
“Yeah,” I scoffed, “sure.”
“Don’t let shit hold you back, Richie. Whole world out there, man. Go get you some. Nobody’s gonna hand you a goddamn thing, you know that.”
“Yeah. Figured that out a long time ago.”
I stabbed the cigarette between my lips and left it there. Maybe so I wouldn’t have to say anything else. Or maybe because the memory of that hippie lying in the street suddenly came back to me, and I wondered what Woody might think of me had he known what I’d done a few hours before.
“Something else bothering you, man?” he asked.
“Think Bronski came by to see my mother while I was out.”
“Yeah.” Woody winced, hit the joint, then had a pull of tequila. “I saw him around earlier.”
I puffed my cigarette. Normally I’d have been filled with rage already, but the weed was making me so mellow I couldn’t muster the anger. “Fuckin’ guy.”
“He’s a parasite, Richie. A piece of shit.”
“He’d leave her alone if she wouldn’t let him in.”
“Your mother’s a good woman.” He reached over, gave my shoulder a quick pat. “We all got our devils, man.”
He was right, and I knew it, but it didn’t help.
Another siren blared in the distance.
“Wish I could get us out of here.”
“What’s to say you won’t?”
“No way out, Woody. Not for people like us.”
Woody offered me the joint. I passed, so he hit it and seemed to think about what I’d said a while. “One thing I learned in the jungles,” he said a moment later. “There’s always a way out.”
“Yeah, but—”
“No buts. There’s always a way out, man. May not be clean, may not be exactly the way you want it, may have to pay a hell of a price for it—or someone else might—but there’s always a way out. Always.”
“Lived in this city my whole life,” I told him. “Spent most of it trying to figure out how to be someplace else. Ain’t found a way yet.”
“Hey,” he said through a big smile, “there’s always the beach.”
I smiled too. Didn’t much feel like it but couldn’t help it. “Of Falesá?”
“You, me, your moms, couple hot little bikini bunnies. Sun, sand, beautiful healing ocean, stiff drinks, good food, and all the drugs we want. Fuck yeah.”
“Nice dream.”
He handed me the tequila. “Nectar of the gods, baby. Makes all your dreams come true, even if just for a little while.”
We were a long way from paradise, but Woody was right. The weed and booze would get me there, if only in my mind. And on that unbearably hot night, up on that dirty old roof, in a dark city slowly choking the life out of me, that was close as I could get.
CHAPTER TWO
Richie?
I found her standing in the doorway to her bedroom in a T-shirt. Her short, thick hair was mussed, her face void of makeup, breasts full, nipples pressed against the thin fabric, her legs and feet bare. She held the bottom of the shirt just low enough to cover herself and smiled that sexy little smile of hers, her top lip curled like a snarl, her dark eyes alive and lusting.
Richie?
“Mariana…” Her name caught in my throat. “I…”
“I miss you too, baby.” She leaned against the doorframe, cocked her head to the side and whispered, “C’mere.”
Richie!
Mariana fell away to darkness as my eyes opened. Through a thick, hazy blur, I saw my mother standing over me with a stern expression.
“Will you wake up already? You got a call.”
Realizing I had an erection, I pulled the sheet a little higher so she wouldn’t see it. “Yeah,” I said, coughing. “Okay. Gimme a minute.”
As she left the room, I rubbed my eyes then swung my legs around onto the floor and coughed some more. Couldn’t remember how late I’d been up on the roof with Woody, but from the way I felt, we’d gotten fucked up good. With a yawn, I grabbed a pack of cigarettes from my nightstand and shook one free. Rolling it into the corner of my mouth, I searched for a lighter but came up empty. Must’ve left it on the roof.
I struggled up out of bed, and since my hard-on was still raging I threw on a pair of sweatpants and padded barefoot down the hallway to the kitchen phone. It was hotter than hell, the humidity already through the roof. The wall clock next to the fridge read nine-forty-seven. The Mr. Coffee was on, and the whole kitchen smelled like freshly brewed. I ignored the rumbling in my stomach and grabbed the phone from the wall. “Yeah?”
“Hey.” Aldo. “It’s me.”
“What’s up?”
“Still sleeping? Lazy prick.”
“Yeah, until you fuckin’ woke me up. What do you want?”
“We’re hitting The Park, you coming or what?”
I scratched my crotch, looked around for a lighter. “Yeah, of course.”
“Ma should be here any minute. We’ll head your way soon as he lands. Probably about ten minutes, cool?”
Snatching a lighter from the kitchen table, I sparked up the butt and took a long drag. “Nah, man, I got to take a shit and grab a shower,” I said. “Make it twenty.”
I hung up then went to the fridge. Not much on the shelves, but there was a small bottle of cranberry juice. I drank half of it then put the rest back, closed the fridge and leaned against the door, still groggy from sleep and still thinking about Mariana in that little fucking T-shirt. It was summer, I thought. Maybe she was home on break from school. Maybe I should call her, I thought, see how she’s doing. Maybe she’d want to hang out.
After a quick piss, I stumbled back out into the kitchen and called her. Her mother answered the phone but she barely spoke English and I couldn’t figure out what she was saying. I could tell by the tone of her voice she wasn’t happy about a boy calling for her daughter, but I kept on it anyway. If Mariana was home, I wanted to talk to her. After a minute, she went quiet, and for a second or two, I thought she’d hung up on me. But then Mariana’s younger brother Marcelo came on the line. Even though he was two years younger than us, he’d always been a decent kid, and he’d helped keep our relationship quiet the entire time we were together. I didn’t know him that well, but far as I knew, he was all right.
“Hey, Richie, what’s going on? You looking for Mariana?”
“Yeah, I was thinking maybe she was home for the summer and—”
“She is, but…” He tried to cover the phone real fast, but I heard him arguing in Portuguese with his mother. When he came back on the line he was almost whispering. “You still there, Richie?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“She’s in Rhode Island for the next couple days.”
“Oh yeah? What’s she doing in Rhode Island?”
“Staying with a friend of hers from college.”
“A girlfriend?”
“A dude. New boyfriend. Sorry, man.”
I felt my face flush with embarrassment. “Hey, no problem, it’s cool. I was just calling to say what’s up, see how she was doing and shit. No big deal.”
“Yeah. You want me to let her know you called?”
“Nah, man, don’t worry about it. Thanks, I’ll talk to you later.”
Before he could say anything else and I could feel any worse, I hung up. My mother was waiting for me on the other side of the table, still in her bathrobe, a mug of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
“You gonna call Mr. Montero today?”
“Jesus H., what a haunt.” I opened a cabinet, took out a mug and shuffled over to the coffee pot. “Yeah, if I get a chance, I—I don’t know. Maybe.”
“You got something better to do today?”
“Goin’ over The Park with the guys.”
“The Park. Hanging around there like hoodlums doing God knows what.”
“Mom, I just woke up. Gimme a break, huh?”
She smoked her cigarette, watching me through the vines of smoke circling her. “What about that air conditioner?”
“Told you I’d take care of it, didn’t I?”
“Why you got to talk to me in that tone of voice?”
I poured my coffee, sipped some. She was still staring at me. “I’ll buy one today, all right? That’s all I meant. Don’t worry about it, I’ll get one.”
Her expression softened a bit. “You need a couple bucks? I don’t have much, but I could give you a twenty towards it. Hit on a scratch ticket yesterday for fifty.”
We both knew that was a lie. Bronski had given it to her. Broke my heart and pissed me off all at the same time. Like always. “It’s okay,” I said, moving toward the hallway. “You hang on to it.”
She looked away, said nothing.
I gave her a kiss on the cheek then slipped down the hallway and into the bathroom. Collapsing onto the toilet, I smoked my cigarette, drank my coffee and tried to forget about Mariana rolling around with some Joe College asshole, and my mother rolling around with that pig Bronski.
Day hadn’t even started yet and it was already shit.
I didn’t know then it was only going to get worse.
Despite the heat, I wore a pair of jeans, high-top sneakers, a T-shirt and my black leather jacket. I had two jackets, one for winter and a lighter-weight one for spring and summer. We had a uniform for The Park, and it always included our leather jackets. It was our mark. Same way a gang wore their colors when they were at war. With us, it didn’t make any difference. We were always at war.
At the corner, I waited for my ride, smoked a cigarette and replayed the conversation I’d had with Marcelo in my head eight or nine times. I felt like an idiot. Never should’ve called. Then again, at least I knew now that Mariana had moved on. New boyfriend. Had I expected something different? Beautiful, smart and sexy girl away at school? I’d known it was over between us, and I was okay with that—or so I thought—but there was something final about this new information, the last nail in a crucifixion I had no control over. All I could do was hang up there on my cross a while and feel sorry for myself.
Just shy of ten-thirty in the morning, the neighborhood was still relatively quiet until Ma’s IROC came flying around the top of the block, roared down the street and screeched to a halt not ten feet from me, an Iron Maiden tune blasting. From the passenger seat, Aldo leaned out a bit and grinned at me.
“Hey, slut,” he said. “How much for a gangbang with me and my friends?”
“More than you got.” I took a final drag on my cigarette then flicked it away. “Wop cocksucker.”
“We got us a feisty one, boys.”
“Open the fuckin’ door, retard.”
He did, and I climbed into the backseat. Fritz was back there, his black shades concealing his eyes as usual. I slapped hands with him then leaned forward and did the same with Ma, right before he rocketed out of there, flying through the streets of the city like the cops were chasing us.
“Where’s Petie?” I asked, flopping back.
“Home,” Aldo said.
Home was an apartment in the north end of the city where Petie lived his grandmother, an ornery old lady who had raised him from the time he was in elementary school. His mother was serving a life sentence in Framingham for beating her then-boyfriend to death with a crowbar while he slept, after a weekend of drinking, drugging and fighting. Like me, Petie had grown up without a father. Only difference was, he had no idea who his was.
“Wanted to hang with Tammy a while,” Aldo added.
“Have a little Bible study,” Fritz said in his deadpan voice.
We all laughed.
“Said he might see us later at The Park,” Aldo told me.
“What about you, Ma?” I asked above the blaring music. “It’s Friday, no work today?”
Unlike the rest of us, Dino had a real job and had grown up and lived in a house with both his parents. He had two older brothers and one younger sister, and the IROC was his second new car since he’d gotten his driver’s license four years before. His family owned a junkyard and scrap place on the outskirts of the city where he spent days tearing apart engines and appliances and heavy pieces of discarded machinery. We all worked out with weights a few times a week to stay in shape, but Dino stayed ripped by lugging all that shit around eight hours a day. “Good to be the boss’s kid,” he said, chuckling maniacally.
We left the city, flew toward The Park, which was technically two towns away but only about a five-minute drive from my door to the entrance. Lincoln Park, or just The Park, as we called it, was a giant old amusement park that had been there, in one form or another, since the late 1800s. Spread out over forty acres, there were numerous rides, food concessions, a midway of games and various exhibitions, a ballroom and all sorts of attractions. A huge Ferris wheel could be seen from a distance, but the main attraction was a giant, old wooden beast of a rollercoaster dubbed The Comet. For us, The Park was a regular hangout where we spent most of our time in the pool hall, a building that housed numerous bowling lanes and a large area for billiards.
For us, The Park had always been a fixture. We’d been going there our whole lives, and as kids, it was a treat if we got to go and ride the rides, see the sights, eat the shitty food and run around having fun. When we got a little older, we’d go see all the professional wrestling stars from TV fight in the ballroom or catch concerts from bands that were big once but fading fast, working the smaller circuits and milking whatever hits they’d had from years before. We didn’t care. Tickets were cheap, when and if we actually bought them, and we walked around like we owned the place. Although our altercations usually took place in, or at a minimum began in, the pool hall or bowling areas, over the last few years we’d earned a solid reputation throughout The Park for violence and aggression. It wasn’t much, but we considered The Park our turf, and if we had to fight to hang onto it or make examples of those who tried to challenge us, so be it. The regulars there knew that when we showed up, we were to be given a wide path, because it didn’t take much to set us off, and once we went, things got ugly fast.
We’d usually hit the grounds in the morning and stay until closing later that night. It got tired sometimes, but there wasn’t much else to do. We’d been banned from The Park at least four times in the last two years, but we just kept coming back. Sometimes one of the bigshot management guys would spot us and tell the cops working details there to get us off the grounds. If they could find us they threw us out, but The Park was huge, and on a busy day there were thousands of people milling around. Wasn’t but five or six cops in the entire place. Few more once the sun went down, but even then it was hard to keep up with us. Most of the employees were afraid of us, so we had no problem getting in. Once on the grounds, we had lookouts that let us know if the cops were headed our way. If we got word, we’d screw, move to another section for a while—get something to eat, play a couple games of chance, whatever—then come back and shoot pool once the coast was clear again.
Like everything else, it was a routine that was getting old, but I went along anyway. This was my life and these guys were my crew, what could I do? If I was going nowhere fast, who better to go with than my best friends?
“Hey,” I said to Aldo, leaning forward so he could hear me over the music. “I got to get an air conditioner. Promised my mother. She couldn’t sleep last night.”
“Hot as a fucker last night. Me and Candy couldn’t sleep either. Had to fuck the shit out of her a bunch of times until we were so spent we just kind of passed out. Blasted her in the face with a load so big, I actually kinda felt sorry for her.”
Barely audible above the tunes, Fritz muttered, “His life is hell.”
Aldo was the only one who didn’t still live at home. He and his girlfriend Candy, a pretty blonde who managed a trendy clothing store at the mall, lived in a small bungalow owned by Aldo’s uncle just outside the city. I’d have never admitted it to my mother, but she was right, Aldo’s family were a bunch of criminals, and his Uncle Lou, in particular, was the worst of the lot. He had a hand in illegal activities all over the city, and connections to organized crime from Federal Hill in Providence all the way to the North End of Boston. I’d never had a whole lot of traffic with him, but I always liked the guy, and he’d always been nice to me. There were a lot of rumors about him, like he’d killed four guys when he was younger and earning his chops, or that one time he’d taken a guy’s hand off with a hatchet for stealing from him, or that he could make one phone call and nobody’d ever see you again. According to Aldo, they were all true, and I had no reason to believe otherwise.
“Seriously,” I said, “I got to get a hold of one today.”
“No problem. We’ll go see Chuckie D. later.”
I sat back. “Cool.”
A minute later, we pulled into the enormous parking lot. Dino parked and activated his car alarm. Rides like his were stolen all the time, and while anyone who knew Dino would never intentionally go anywhere near his car, most of the punks from Fall River, or beyond, who sometimes came this way to scour the area for potential jacks, didn’t know him from a hole in the wall. So even with his reputation, their ignorance made him as vulnerable to those types as anyone else. Whenever he parked somewhere, it was a roll of the dice. Maybe his car would be there when we got back, maybe not. Usually at The Park it was safe, as enough people knew who the car belonged to, but there were no guarantees.
