BALL PEEN HAMMER By Robert Caporale

BALL PEEN HAMMER: A ROMANCE - ROBERT CAPORALE

 

Margo orders Tony and Carlo to hustle Auggie’s defiant ass out the back door of The Empire Lounge.

 

Margo owns the Empire Lounge. She is a bartender by trade, and from her years of diffusing difficult nightclub and café situations she has become known on the streets as “The Diplomat” a person who adroitly negotiates disputes in three languages.

 

Auggie drags his feet as Tony and Carlo drop him onto the slick cobblestones of the back service alley.

 

The long narrow alley glows in orange shadows from the security lamps and stinks to high Heaven with stale booze, warm piss and congealed 55 gallon drums of rendered animal fat.

 

Auggie makes a move to get back inside the Empire Lounge.

 

Tony and Carlo step in front of the door and fold their arms.

 

Please, Auggie begs, just let me explain to the guy what I was doing...I meant no disrespect.

 

Margo says its for your own good.

 

I have to talk to the guy.

 

Auggie, the guy doesn’t speak English...he’s from Palermo. He’s here on a quick business trip.

 

I know a little Italian.

 

Enough to get a cap in your brain. Go home, Auggie.

 

It’s a simple misunderstanding...I know I can fix this.

 

Not a chance.

 

What kind of business is the guy in?

 

He doesn’t import olive oil.

 

Auggie thinks about that for a moment. Ohhh, he says.

 

Carlo nods.

 

Still I’m sure I can make him understand that I was admiring his nose not making fun of it.

 

Listen, Auggie, we’re driving the guy to Logan in a couple of hours to catch a flight back to the old country, Carlo says. And he’ll never be back here again. The end. Go home.

 

I left my tip jar on the piano.

 

I’ll get it, Tony says.

 

I know how much is in there, Tony.

 

Tony spins around, how about if I usher the guy out here to whack you, Tony smirks.

 

No one understands my wry sense of humor.

 

That’s because you’re not funny, Auggie, Carlo says.

 

Tony shakes his head and steps back into The Empire Lounge.

 

Auggie offers Carlo a smoke.

 

They light up.

 

What the fuck we’re you thinking with the nose gesture?  Carlo asks.

 

It was a reflex action. I just finished my last set and sat at the bar to have a cocktail and wind down, Auggie says. Margo set me up with a Vodka Martini...three olives. That’s when I spotted the guy sitting across from me. I couldn’t stop staring at him.

 

Are you gay?

 

I was admiring the man’s nose.

 

Carlo shakes his head.

 

He has this quintessential Roman nose. I’ve seen it on paintings by Michelangelo and Da Vinci. The man has a perfect Greco Roman nose, big curved and beautiful...like the Barber of Seville.

 

You are gay.

 

So I gestured to the guy...like this, Auggie positions his long piano fingers over his nose.

 

Not a good idea.

 

I did not know at the time that the man was a hired assassin who could not speak English.

 

So you get his attention by flashing the clown-nose at him.

 

It was a complement, plus who knew he was so sensitive about the size of his damn nose.

 

He probably thought you were telling him his nose looked like a two car garage.

 

Auggie shakes his head and pulls hard on the cigarette and blows out the smoke and watches it swirl around like mercury in the stinking orange glow.

 

You just fucked with the wrong guy, Auggie...that’s all.

 

I have to learn to mind my own business.

 

We all do, Carlo nods.

 

Tony comes out with Auggie’s tip jar. The guy is looking all over the place for you, Auggie. The man is rip-shit. They’re trying to calm his ass down. He says he’s going to do you just on general principles.

 

Damn.

 

He also says you are ugly.

 

I’m pretty, Auggie says turning profile.

 

All of a sudden the metal fire door bangs back open and the nose sensitive Sicilian is standing there looking a lot like Leon from Blade Runner. The man freezes Auggie with a dark deadly stare. A satisfied smile softens the Sicilian’s face as he pulls a pistol out of the back of his pants and points it at Auggie’s forehead. The tip jar slips through Auggie’s piano fingers and shatters on the damp cobblestones; coins scatter, paper money sticks.

 

The Sicilian’s dark eyes narrow as he gets down to business.

 

Tony steps aside.

 

Carlo jumps in front of Auggie waving his arms pleading with the serious Sicilian not to pull the trigger.

 

The Sicilian makes the clown nose gesture.

 

No. No. You don’t understand, Carlo begs, he likes your nose.

 

I love it! Auggie says placing his hands over his heart. Armoire. I really do love it.

 

The Sicilian shrugs.

 

Just then Margo steps around the Sicilian, and quickly sizes up the situation as perilous. She gently places her hand on the Sicilian’s forearm and says, in eloquent high-Italian, Nuncio, I can’t allow you to shoot my piano player.

 

Why not?

 

He’s the only one I have.

 

Piano players are like broken glass, Nuncio says,...they are everywhere. Nuncio takes a breath and pulls back the hammer on the pistol.

 

Auggie knees buckle.  He thinks he just pissed his pants.

 

Wait. If you shoot him here the cops will be all over me, Margo says. I’m already on notice with the liquor commission. A dead body in my back alley will surely lose me my liquor license for a time.

 

Then where?

 

No where.

 

I have to shoot him.

 

Why leave a dead piano player behind to jeopardize an otherwise job well done. Your work here is finished. You did a man’s job, Nuncio. Flawless. In an hour or so you will be on a plane heading home. No loose ends. Nobody the wiser. It is not worth the risk.

 

Nuncio looks at Margo. What risk?

 

Witnesses, Margo waves her hand.

 

I’m inclined to shoot you all, Nuncio says.

 

Nuncio, I’m told you are a professional of the highest caliber with impeccable credentials, and I don’t have to tell you that shooting all of us will not please you’re employer.

 

Nuncio strokes his chin. Something must be done, he says. It’s a matter of honor.

 

You are absolutely right, Nuncio, something must be done to the piano player. So let’s figure out what will satisfy your pride short of killing him.

 

Nuncio nods.

 

The negotiations sound touch and go to Auggie.

 

Maybe if you put the gun down we can think clearer, Margo says.

 

Not a chance, Nuncio says.

 

Do you have an alternative punishment in mind for the piano player?

 

I once had to break a jockey’s hands for winning a race he was paid to lose.

 

A broken hand is a good idea, Margo says.

 

Two broken hands.

 

How about just one hand so the piano player can at least wipe his own ass.

 

Why are you protecting him?

 

I’m not.

 

Are you two...?

 

No!

 

OK, Nuncio says one hand...but I will have my way with his wife or girlfriend in lieu of the second hand.

 

You drive a hard bargain, Nuncio.

 

Nuncio locks his elbow. It’s either one broken hand and his woman or I take this guy out, right here, right now.

 

Carlo and Tony understand the ramifications of the Sicilian’s new posture and immediately squint anticipating a gunshot.

 

It’s a deal, Margo shouts out.

 

Bring me a ball peen hammer, Nuncio says.

 

We have a baseball bat behind the bar, Margo tells him.

 

That will work fine.

 

Margo sends Tony for the bat.

 

What about his woman? Nuncio asks.

 

Please tell me what is going on, Auggie begs Margo.

 

The good news is Nuncio is not going to kill you. The bad news is he’s going to break one of your hands with a baseball bat.

 

That’s the best you could do?

 

There’s more good news.

 

What?

 

I get to have sex with him.

Interlude Stories: Robert Caporale

TEN DOLLAR STORY - ROBERT CAPORALE

The T-Bird Lounge is a social networking relic from another era.

If you can’t find a ten dollar story in a joint like The T-Bird, you better give it up.

You step in and sit at the sticky mahogany bar and order a Sam Adams. The bartender just stands there drumming his fingers on the bar and staring down at you. You order a draft and snag a couple pickled-eggs out of the jar on the bar. The caged Motorola above your head is silent, grainy and the picture flips. While the bartender draws your beer, you glance into the streaky mirror behind the bar sneaking peeks at the tortured faces of the denizens of midday beverage.

Before long, this tawdry bloated battle-ax of a woman with a blue ribbon in her hair spills her scary ass onto the stool next to yours and says, buy a girl a drink?

You could easily buy the pitiful old scullery maid a beer but instead you hear yourself say, Beat it, sister...you’re bothering me. Just then the door swings open and an intense blast of sunlight rolls into the dark murky cafe. Everyone squints and moans until the heavy wooden door slams shut and the last of the brazen sunlight recoils back outside leaving only a single laser beam of light shooting through the keyhole. Direct sunlight is the mortal enemy of all cold blooded lounge-lizards.

Give a girl a break, the scullery maid pleads.

You give her the once over.

I wasn’t always this pitiful, she says. There was a time you would have fell to your knees and begged to get into Betty’s pants.

Not my type, you say.

Betty was everybody’s type back then...even Father Flannigan.

You smirk, nod.

When my Rocco was alive, I had it all, Betty says. He got it for me: Colt .45, creamsicles, beer nuts, Skybars, chocolate éclairs...Rocco was the best....he worshiped me...I was the Queen of Atlantic Avenue...I miss Rocco.

What happen to your Rocco?

His monkey killed him.

Monkey!?

Rocco was the organ grinder down on the steel pier. He worked under the pink Ferris wheel for years. He was famous. The tourists loved Rocco and Gus.

Gus?

Gus was Rocco’s monkey; a mean little piss-ass of a dysfunctional monkey. Gus and Rocco had a drunken quarrel one night over the percentage of their take. Gus thought because he did all the work; dressing up like Captain America, dancing around and doing slapstick comedy that he should get a bigger cut than Rocco. According to Gus, all Rocco did was crank the damn handle. Gus thought that you didn’t need a special talent to crank a handle; any dimwit with an arm could crank a handle.

Rocco reminded Gus that monkeys can’t take out a vender’s license. That’s when Gus flipped-out and threw a bottle of Chianti right at Rocco’s head, killing him dead.

Maybe Rocco is not dead, you tell Betty, maybe he’s just hiding.

I watched Rocco thrash around on the kitchen floor in a puddle of wine choking on his own blood. A piece of broken bottle lodged in his neck and severed his...you know...his larry...something X...his windpipe. The police accused me of breaking the bottle on the Formica table and sticking it into Rocco’s neck during a violent domestic dispute. I told them that Rocco was my golden goose; why would I kill my golden goose? I told them Gus the monkey did it. They did not believe me. They asked me where was Gus? I told them he jumped out the window. The cops chuckled and told me they’ll put out an all-points-bulletin to pick-up the armed and dangerous steel pier monkey. You guys are a real funny, I told them. A damn riot. The cops talked to my neighbors; they heard screaming and arguing coming out of the apartment. I tried to explain to the cops that was Gus’s high pitch squeal. The cops believed me even less.

You’re sure it was Gus who murdered Rocco?

It had to be Gus. Rocco didn’t cut his own throat. Plus that little devil monkey turned and smiled this creepy green-toothed smile at me just before he jumped out the window onto the fire escape. That monkey set me up. That monkey ruined my life. I was innocent of all charges and still got 15 to 20; I did eighteen years in Rahway Prison for women and believe me it’s not like in the movies. It’s no lesbian picnic. It was a nightmare. I was in my prime when I got locked up...now look at me.

What happen to Gus? you ask.

Parts unknown...but if I ever get my hands on that little bastard of a monkey...

You finish your beer, wipe your mouth on your sleeve. Good story, Betty, you say. I’ll give you five bucks for it.

Ten...along with a shot and a beer.

I own all rights?

Deal, Betty says.

You motion to the bartender, a shot and a beer, you say, for the reigning Queen of Atlantic Avenue.

A Twist Of Noir 519 - Robert Caporale

THE PROTOCOL OF DEATH IN A POOL HALL - ROBERT CAPORALE

“Bronco’s Billiard Academy” blinks in blue neon from a second floor window of the Worthy Hotel Building. The sign has been there since neon was invented and never stops blinking. Bronco’s is open 24/7, even on Christmas.

Bronco’s is a microcosm...a collection of every kind of proton and neutron known to man...it’s all there for the taking.

There is street poetry in Bronco’s.

The manager is a woman. Her name is Missy. Missy started out as Bronco’s cocktail waitress, serving up drinks in the “Bank Shot Lounge.” She became Bronco’s mistress and was quickly promoted to ball girl and placed behind the counter where she pretty much ran all the day-to-day activities for decades. When Bronco retired to Florida last year, he put Missy in charge.

In Missy’s day, she was something to look at…for real. There are black and white photographs of her hanging on the wall of the “Bank Shot Lounge.” She is staring into the camera with these Greta Garbo spitfire eyes in the company of gangsters.

Eddie has the shoeshine concession in Bronco’s; had it since day one. Two oak chairs with curved backs and thick leather seats up on a pedestal. He’s shined some famous shoes in his day, including the rum runner Joe Kennedy, who told him one day his son would be president of the United States, and Minnesota Fats, who gave him a twenty dollar tip.

Eddie still talks about that generous tip.

Bronco surf-fishes the day away down in Largo now, but he misses the action of the city and the pool hall and the guttersnipes.

Word on the street has Chickenman in town peddling his poultry, and that means it won’t be long before he’s in Bronco’s, shooting nine ball.

Chickenman rolls into town once every three or four months driving a flatbed truck stacked high with wooden cages full of chickens...hundreds upon hundreds of the filthy clucking birds on their way to be deep-fried at KFC or Kenny Rogers’.

An old gentleman named Forbes is part of a foursome that plays billiards in Bronco’s every day at noon like clockwork orange; a tradition that goes back some thirty years. Forbes is a master tailor and owns a highly-regarded Haberdashery down on Bayside Boulevard. The four old-timers are all professional men...one is a stogie-smoking doctor they call “MD.”

Chickenman swings the flatbed around on Avocado Street and backs his feather-flying rig up to the loading docks of the Poultry Exchange. Teamsters unload his chickens. As Chickenman waits for his check to be cut, he watches the young receptionist fold and unfold her legs a half-dozen times, hoping to catch a glimpse of panties. From Avocado, he goes to the bank and cashes his check. From the bank, he stops by the Farmers Council Building on South Main to bitch about government subsidies; then to the White Castle for a double cheeseburger to go.

With the white White Castle bag in hand and a shit-eating grin on his lined, weathered face, he walks the two blocks to Bronco’s Billiard Academy.

Forbes carries a Thermos-brand thermos to the Haberdashery with him every morning. It’s an antique. The stainless steel thermos has rings around it and a real cork stopper. It is not the original cork; it’s a replacement he sent away for to Akron, Ohio. Forbes brings the thermos with him to the pool hall every noon. He unscrews the silver cup and pops the cork and pours out steaming black coffee. All of his gestures are performed in an elegant fashion without any false affectations. Forbes loves that thermos. To him, it represents an honest day’s work and a job well done. He relishes these quiet moments sipping on hot coffee from the thermos and inhaling smoke from a Camel cigarette.

Chickenman pushes open the street level door to Bronco’s and heels across the glistening black and white tile floor. He double-steps up the flight of scalloped-smooth marble stairs anticipating the interior of the pool hall. Even before he steps into Bronco’s, he pictures the stately rows of mahogany tables covered in green felt, each with a ruby stained-glass chandelier illuminating it. Between the manqué de queue of burger pool hall and nine ball, Chickenman can barely stand the rush. He literally dreams of playing nine ball in Bronco’s and making these incredible shots under the ruby light. He never dreams of shoveling chicken shit...ever.

The gentleman Forbes sips hot coffee all while leaning on his cue stick contemplating his next shot. After a moment, he swallows the last of the coffee, balances the silver cup on the arm of a chair and leans across the table and starts stroking his cue stick, calculating just where to hit the cue ball to get enough high left-hand english on it when something inside of him just gives out. The gentleman Forbes casually places his cue stick on the felt and slithers down the billiard table to the floor...pretty much the same way he lived his life: peacefully and without fanfare.

“MD” examines Forbes...he cannot find a pulse or a heartbeat. He checks again. He takes a big pull off his White Owl, blows out the smoke and says, our old friend Forbes is deader than a doornail.

Missy calmly phones the police. A man is dead, she tells the dispatcher, natural causes, no rush.

Not the first time Missy has made the dead man call.

A few moments later, Chickenman bursts through the heavy swinging doors and steps up onto one of Eddie’s oak leather chairs and places his cowboy boots in the footrest and opens the White Castle bag and sticks his face in and takes a deep breath. The aroma of flamed broiled beef and sweet onion pass through his sinuses and singe his brain like acid. The opiate scent will stick to his sinus membranes for days to come. Eddie starts rubbing polish into Chickenman’s cowboy boots. Chickenman never notices poor old Forbes half under the billiard table. Eddie never mentions Mister Forbes to Chickenman; he just minds his own business and starts slapping out a funky Motown beat on the boots with a buffing rag. Chickenman slides the burger out of the bag with pageantry and dirty fingernails. After three months of mostly chicken pot pie, chicken soup, chicken salad and chicken fricassee, Chickenman savors the unwrapping of the flame-broiled burger.

MD and the other gentlemen are patiently waiting for the ambulance to arrive and remove their dear old dead friend Forbes so they may resume their billiard match. Time is of the essence. They keep checking the big Seagram’s neon clock on the wall and start pacing as they all have things to do places to go and people to meet. Pretty soon, they huddle up. It looks like they are praying but, in fact, they are debating the protocol of death in a pool hall. After a moment of whispers and quiet introspection, MD says, it is what it is, and they continue their billiard match knowing that if roles were reversed and it was one of them stretched out...Forbes would do the exact same thing.

Chickenman delicately peels back the white wrapping paper, revealing a plump moist bun with ketchup, mustard and mayo squeezing out of the sides. He peeks under the bun at the charbroiled paddy, making sure the pickles and onions are where they’re supposed to be and the cheese is in the proper melting mode before drawing the burger to his mouth like communion. His eyes roll back in his head as the virgin juices of red meat and condiments blend and slide down his throat and drip off his chin.

The three gentlemen are stepping around and over their dear old dead friend Forbes, trying not to add insult to injury by tripping over him. Considering the circumstances of their twisted and contorted positions, they’re still making some splendid three and four bank billiard shots.

One of the gentleman points out that Forbes’ wingtips have just recently been re-soled and heeled.

What a waste of good Italian leather, MD says.

The whole scenario is turning dark and ominous.

Outside, there is a fine warm mist falling as an ambulance and police cruiser siren up to the curb by the entrance of Bronco’s. Their flashing lights glisten on the wet blacktop.

Hearing the siren, the three gentleman pick up the pace of their match.

The Redmond Brothers follow the gurney up the stairs and into Bronco’s. They are mildly curious about who got their head split with a pool cue when they spot Chickenman wiping burger juice off his chin with his sleeve.

The police have a few perfunctory questions to ask witnesses before they close their little pads and leave the medics to their work.

The medics cover The Gentleman Forbes with an antiseptic white sheet and roll him towards the door with his newly-soled wingtips poking out of the sheet.

The three gentlemen glance up at the Seagram clock and slip their sportcoats over their Brooks Brothers shirts and line up single file behind the gurney and follow it out the door. But not before MD surreptitiously snags poor old dead Forbes’ beloved Thermos brand thermos and quickly corks it and screws the silver cup on and awkwardly hides it under his blue blazer with the Forbes Haberdashery label French-stitched onto the gold silk lining.

MD has always had designs on Forbes’ Thermos brand thermos.

Chickenman catches a glimpse of the gurney just as it rolls out the door with MD and the boys parading behind with heads bowed New Orleans style.

What happened? Chickenman asks.

Man died, Eddie tells him. A billiard player.

How?

Just like that, Eddie snaps his fingers, like turning off a light switch. Eddie shakes his head in disbelief.

Chickenman checks out the new shine on his cowboy boots. Nice job, he tells Eddie, and drops an extra dollar into Eddie’s tip jar.

The Redmond Brothers swoop down on Chickenman like a couple of strung-out junkies on a get-well fix. The stakes are set at ten on the five and twenty on the nine.

Who’s hustling who is still up for grabs.

Chickenman wins the lag for the break. He places the cue ball and studies the line. He moves the cue ball a quarter inch to the left, studies it some more, then moves it back again. He chalks his stick, checks the tightness of the rack, powders his hands and firmly sets his feet on the floor. Chickenman leans over and starts stroking his cue stick until everything peripheral gets fuzzy, leaving him in a state of pure dead quiet and shrinking reality until he enters the zone and his universe consists of just three feet of green felt and an celestial Ivory ball.

A crowd gathers as Chickenman slams the cue ball like a battering ram into the diamond shaped configuration of pool balls turning them into a frenzy of pretty colors flying in all different directions. Everyone in Bronco’s holds their breath as they track the yellow and white nine ball rolling ever-so-slowly through harm’s way towards the corner pocket.

The nine ball drops.

The place goes wild.

Chickenman anticipates being bolted awake in a cold sweat and pounding heart from another nine ball dream.

BIO: Robert Caporale’s most recent publications can be seen in Wildcat, The Café Irreal, Zuzu’s Petals Quarterly, The Lummox Journal, Confrontation, and The Avatar Review. He is finishing up a short story collection and thinking about a novel. He takes MFA workshops at the University of Massachusetts.

A Twist Of Noir 408 - Robert Caporale

PISSING NEON - ROBERT CAPORALE

First appeared in TATTOO HIGHWAY 2006

Our footfalls thump in unison as we quickstep down the rusted iron stairs of a fire escape. We don’t dare look back yet; it’s too risky to slow down for even a second. Puerto Ricans are fleet of foot and they’re surely gaining on us. They may already have their Saturday night specials pointed at our sorry asses so we say our prayers hold out breaths and drum down three flights of stairs fast as our Hushpuppies will carry us, listening for the cap gun like pop/pop of a twenty-two caliber — the pistol of choice on the city streets after dark with their perfect little entrance holes and no excessive blood.

When we finally hit the blacktop in the back parking lot, we pick up speed and move along the brick wall in the shadows till we get to the corner of the building and screech around the turn single file sticking tight to the brick. Still no pop/pop. Duncan starts ranting about how we deserve a bullet up the ass for letting ourselves get drawn into a fixed Puerto Rican poker game forgetting that he found the stacked game and brought us to it.

Typical Ducan denial crap.

We can hear fast talking Spanish street chatter closing in on us. All we can hope for is that our car is close by when we hit the Boulevard otherwise we may have to split up. One of us going to have to grow some balls quick and glance back and assess the situation.

We hit the boulevard. It’s lined with those sad little city trees washed in a dreamy orange glow from the security lamps burning shadows out of the corners. Every stoop has slow moving figures — ghost people passing around bottles of Thunderbird and quarts of Colt 45 shrouded by clouds of yellow smoke from generic cigarettes. Latin rhythms thunder out of boom boxes. As we trip out of the alley, all eyes fall upon of us, like we just stepped out onto a holy-roller revival stage. We slam on the brakes. A black cat scoots out from behind a trashcan. Not a good sign. Black cats and timing are everything in this life, but, as luck would have it, Duncan’s car is sitting right across the boulevard in a loading zone — the chrome grillwork glinting at us, seemingly enjoying our dilemma. We bolt across the street. TJ finally glances over his shoulder before diving into the car.

The Puerto Ricans are taking aim.

Gogogogogogogogo! TJ screams.

Duncan fires up the engine, bangs the shifter into gear, fishtails away from the curb leaving a curtain of acrid blue rubber smoke hanging in the heavy air behind us.

Great scare.

But now it’s over and we’re feeling a sense of relief. We feel safe and cozy in Duncan’s Malibu SS as if we were riding in the back of Grandpa’s Buick, stroking the mohair upholstery on the way for ice cream and candy.

POP/POP POP/POP. SHIT! We scream and hit the deck and bury our heads and wait for hot electric lines of pain to violate our young tender bodies. Duncan crouches, lowers his head but never lets go of the steering wheel. Pop/Pop. Two more shots crackle in the night. Duncan steps down on the gas pedal. We sideswipe a parked two-toned Mercury. Duncan peeks over the dashboard. After a couple more blocks, Duncan makes a squealing turn, blind and wide, down Lafayette Terrace, sending trash cans flying into the air before jumping a tall curbstone, crushing a mailbox and flipping the car over onto its roof sending us into a slow, spinning, surreal slide down Lafayette before coming to a graceful upside-down stop in front of a fire hydrant adjacent to The Empire Café. All is quiet on the Lafayette front for the moment as we sit on our heads and sort things out. Duncan reaches up and shuts off the engine. A stack of parking tickets from behind a visor float down around us.

That was wild!

Anybody hurt?

I caught the steering wheel in the chest, Duncan says.

You OK?

I think so.

The blood is rushing to my head, Paulie says.

My heart’s pounding, TJ says.

That was some scare.

The best, TJ says.

I’ve been scared but never like that before.

You can’t buy scare like that.

We just did, Duncan says. We lost some serious cash.

We’re up, TJ tells him.

No way.

Just as Paulie flipped over the table, I grabbed the last pot. It was huge. Biggest pot of the night. I’m sure it put us in the black.

No wonder the Puerto Ricans are so pissed.

They’re pissed because Duncan insulted Miguel’s sister.

I thought he was pimping her?

He was.

She’s just a kid.

Puerto Rican girls mature early.

What do I know...his own sister... Damn, I thought they were Catholics.

A siren blares in the distance.

We should go now.

What about my car?

You got fire and theft?

Yeah.

Call it in stolen.

Pairs of fancy dancing shoes start shuffling around the car: black zippered boots, stilettos, and they’re rambling in this quick incoherent alcohol/amphetamine-induced urban slang.

TJ nods towards a set of perfect pretty little toes painted with sapphire nail polish.

He cranes his neck trying to look up the girl’s skirt.

Who invented stilettos?

Why?

He should be famous.

I agree.

He should have a statue.

How do you know it wasn’t a woman?

Not a chance.

The siren gets louder.

We need to leave now.

Duncan can’t open the driver’s door; he shimmies out the window. TJ forces open the passenger door and we roll out headfirst, clumsy but with elegant overtones, like street mimes. We jack-in-the-box up to our feet, stretch our necks, check to make sure everything is in working order, brush ourselves off and find that all the stylish upside-down dancing shoes are attached to a bunch of strung-out barflies with drinks in hand, wearing tank tops and too much jewelry and makeup. They’re gawking at us like we’re the floor show.

Paulie winks at Sapphire Toes.

She smiles back.

Some bad boy nudges her.

The siren is bearing down. There is a strong smell of gasoline in the air.

Duncan crouches on his hunches, bends and looks lovingly into the Malibu SS and says, See you around, sweetheart.

Couple of the barflies bend down to see who’s left in the car. They scratch their heads at the empty cab. We move off down Lafayette working on getting our swagger back when one of the barflies calls out to us. We turn; face him. A wiry skinny little dude is holding up a Zippo lighter. We shrug. He flips open the lighter with one hand and strikes the wheel at the same time. The flint sparks and the lighter flames up. The barfly flashes a wide gold-tooth grin, nods towards Duncan's upside-down automobile.

What’s he want?

Permission to torch your car.

I don’t give a flying fuck one way or the other, Duncan says and nods to the potential Puerto Rican arsonist to knock himself out.

You love that car. You know that.

I’ll get over it.

We get a couple more blocks away before the big BANG. A police cruiser with flashing lights and a caved-in front fender screams past; pretty soon a second cruiser, then a fire truck. That’s when we turn down a back alley, vault a Cyclone fence, and strut our best stuff across a cobblestone courtyard past a sputtering water fountain and turn into a cool damp concrete parking garage glowing neon red from all the exit signs. We’re looking for a Chevy to steal. The place is empty except for rows and rows of cement columns. Our footsteps echo around in the cave-like silence.

I need to take a leak.

So do I.

Me, too.

We each pick a column, step behind it and piss like race horses.

Christ, Duncan moans.

What now?

I must have taken that steering wheel harder than I thought.

Why?

I’m pissing red.

We’re all pissing neon red.

BIO: Robert Caporale’s most recent publications can be seen in Wildcat, The Café Irreal, Zuzu’s Petals Quarterly, The Lummox Journal, Confrontation, and The Avatar Review. He is finishing up a short story collection and thinking about a novel. He takes MFA workshops at the University of Massachusetts.

A Twist Of Noir 385 - Robert Caporale

BREAKING AND ENTERING - ROBERT CAPORALE

Bring the phone, it’s mine.

Are you sure?

I know my own phone.

She won’t have a phone.

She’ll have to get her own. Now help me with this steamer trunk.

Is this a B&E?

No.

I thought this was Carla’s trunk.

My Grandmother gave it to me. She had it with her when she came over from the old country.

Shouldn’t you end that sentence with, Your Honor?

You’re an asshole.

Level with me, this is a B&E, isn’t it?

It’s not a B&E.

Wow, this trunk is heavy.

It’s full.

Of what?

Stuff.

What kind of stuff?

All kinds.

Yours?

Mostly.

What country?

What country what?

Did you Grandmother come from?

What difference does it make?

It doesn’t, except the trunk is stamped, Rome.

So?

Carla’s Italian; you’re not.

Maybe Granny stole it, I don’t know.

I don’t think we should be in here.

Relax.

Carla’s not home and technically you don’t live here anymore.

It’s moving day.

It’s B&E day.

You can’t B&E your own stuff. Now grab hold of the trunk and let’s go.

There’s a bunch of CDs in here.

They’re mine.

All of ’em?

Yeah.

Even the Nick Drakes?

All of ’em.

This is a B&E.

It’s not.

I know a B&E when I see one.

Shut up with the B&E crap and help me, or go and sit in the damn car.

OK, OK, it’s just that these breakups can get pretty complicated.

You got it ass-backwards. The beginning is complicated. The end is simple. It’s over. Now hand me that photograph.

When you and Carla moved in together it was great...like I don’t know, like a TV show.

Stupid?

No. Nice. It was Christmas time, remember? You had a tree with blue lights. I would stop by and watch the Celtics, drink your beer, Carla would make those great sandwiches with the hot peppers, heat ’em up in the toaster oven, remember?

We were playing out a fantasy back then, playing house, it lasted a couple of months before I caught on.

Caught on?

I being was set up.

For what?

The tall white cake.

Marriage?

Oh, yeah. Starts off pretty as you please with a fluttering of pouty eyes and the crying during sex and the please don’t go stay the night blues. Then before you know it, boom, you’re moving in, lock, stock and steamer trunk. And then, just like that they got you by the short hairs. Now hand me that photograph.

But it’s Carla’s mother and father.

It’s my frame and it’s sterling silver. Look at Carla’s mother. Before long she’s going to look just like that, with the little mustache and the fat ass.

Carla doesn’t look like her mother at all. She’s got a great ass; always has/always will with the way she works out. And forget about facial hair, she’s got beautiful skin and she’s way too feminine for a mustache.

Check her out close-up for yourself next time. Now help me with the TV in the bedroom.

That’s a big mistake.

What?

A TV in the bedroom.

Thanks for the tip. Grab my fencing gear out of that closet; it’s in a black case.

Ahh, the red dress, Slicer holds up a sleek red dress. Carla looks outstanding in this dress.

That dress is fantastic, even you’d look good in that dress.

I don’t think so.

Sure you would.

I don’t think so.

Try it on.

Not a chance.

Come on.

Not gonna happen. No way; no how.

You got some kind of a problem with your macho?

I don’t have any problems with my macho.

Prove it. Slip on the red dress like Roxanne. Do it. Or maybe you don’t have what it takes.

You’re not going to dare me into putting on a dress. You wear the damn red dress if you’re so hot on it.

I’ve worn it.

Bullshit.

Butchy The Midget takes Carla’s order at the pizza parlor down the block. He’s standing on a milk crate so he can reach the take-out window. He lays his usual moves on Carla. Points out his new car parked across the street. It’s a Oldsmobile Regency Brougham, he tells her. A nice ride, he says, like driving your living room. We’ll go for a spin someday, just you and me. No Slicer.

Sure, Carla says, I’d like that.

Butchy slides the salad out the window. Check out the back seat. It’s huge.

Carla crosses the street, peeks in the Oldsmobile; finds a metropolitan area phone book on the front seat and wooden blocks duck-taped to the pedals. She chuckles, nods and gives Butchy the high sign putting a smile on his big flat face making him look like some freak out carnival poster.

You look great.

It doesn’t fit.

It sorta fits.

Help me zip it up.

Turn around.

Slicer and Paulie are standing in front of a full-length mirror. The bedroom is filling up with that late afternoon copper colored city sunlight that’s angling into the room through a rusty fire escape. The shadows from the steel bars on the fire escape dissect the room into a jail cell.

OW! Paulie yells. You pinched me.

Don’t be a baby. I can’t zip it all the way. So what do you think? Slicer asks. Am I right, or am I right about the dress?

Paulie stares boldly into the mirror. He adjusts one of the spaghetti straps over a knife scar on his shoulder. Not bad, he says. He turns sideways, puts his hand on his hip. Strikes a pose. There are black Chinese letters tattooed down his arm. The splash of black accents the red nicely, he says.

Slicer falls on the bed and props himself up with pillows. Put on that string of pearls. He points to Carla’s dresser.

You’re out of your mind.

Just to get the full effect. Carla always wears the pearls with that dress.

I’m not Carla.

You’re getting there.

A hard green olive rolls silently though the shadows across the floor and comes to rest on Paulie’s foot.

Shit, Paulie says without looking up.

Carla fumbles with the salad. A couple clumps of feta cheese and another olive hit the floor. What in God’s name?

He said all this stuff was his, Carla. I swear, that’s what he told me, the trunk Nick Drake the phone.

Why are you wearing my dress, Paulie?

He made me.

Carla glares at Slicer. Are you guys just plain sexually deranged or I should call the cops and report a breaking and entering in progress?

Paulie’s not stealing the dress. He’s just trying it on.

I’m calling 911.

It’s an experiment, Slicer winks. We’re just trying to prove that anybody would look great in that dress.

Carla turns back to Paulie, eyes him up top to bottom.

Paulie looks away, shifts his weight, strangely enjoying the attention.

What about the pearls?

I told him, Slicer says. I told him about the pearls.

And the shoes, Carla says. He has to squeeze into the black leather pumps. If you’re going to do this, do it right.

Slicer jumps up. Lipstick, he yells. Don’t forget the big red lips.

Carla steps over to the closet, pulls out a black and red leather purse, loops it over Paulie’s bony shoulder.

Let’s do him, Slicer says. Let’s do him up right.

Carla bends down, shoves aside the fencing gear and fumbles around in the back of the closet before pulling out a pair of shiny high heel shoes.

Paulie checks out her ass while she’s down there, her stretch pants pulling at the seams.

Slicer gives Paulie a wide-eyed I-told-you-so nod.

Carla drops the shoes, twists open a tube of lipstick and starts painting Paulie’s lips.

Slicer goes to snap the string of pearls around Paulie’s neck. Move your hair, he tells him.

Paulie lifts up strands of his long blond hair.

Press your lips together tight, and roll them, Carla says.

What?

Like this. Carla presses her lips and rolls them like a hungry fish.

What’s that do?

Spreads the lipstick.

Show me again.

Carla runs a bead of red lipstick across her bottom lip, presses and rolls.

Paulie leans in real close, inspecting under Carla’s nose.

Why so close, Paulie? Carla jerks her head away. What are you doing? She covers her mouth with her hand.

He’s looking for facial hair, Slicer says.

Oh, is he? Carla says and unzips the fencing gear, pulls out the face mask, slips it over her head, slides the canvas straightjacket on with the red heart emblem on the chest, picks up the foil, assumes the on-guard position. She nods once and lunges at Paulie, pokes him in the chest. Get back, she says.

Paulie jumps back.

Carla turns to Slicer. Waves the foil at him. And now it’s your turn.

For what?

Pick out a dress, she whips the foil like Zorro.

Be careful with that, Slicer says, it’s sharp.

You heard me. You boys want to play games, we’ll play. Now pick out a dress.

You can’t be serious?

Carla lunges at Slicer. I’m more than serious.

Slicer steps back. OK. OK. Relax, he tells Carla and pulls a black cocktail dress off a hanger. I’ll take this one.

Good choice, Carla says.

BIO: Robert Caporale’s most recent publications can be seen in Wildcat, The Café Irreal, Zuzu’s Petals Quarterly, The Lummox Journal, Confrontation, and The Avatar Review. He is finishing up a short story collection and thinking about a novel. He takes MFA workshops at the University of Massachusetts.

A Twist Of Noir 369 - Robert Caporale

MOONLIGHT LIZARDS - ROBERT CAPORALE

Previously published ‘Purgatory’ as in HARDBOILED in 2007

The payphone in front of the Tic/Toc Lounge is ringing off the hook.

It happens a couple of times a month usually on weekends when some unsuspecting nightcluber will make the mistake of picking up the receiver and saying, “Hello.”

The locals flat-out ignore it.

Eddie Cans walks past the ringing payphone, steps into the Tic/Toc, sits at the bar and orders up a bottle of American beer and a cheeseburger with onions.

The Tic/Toc has a short memory.

You can get a burger or a dog at the Tic/Toc and that’s it. No fries no onion rings no tuna melt no eggs over easy no nothing; just a burger or a dog any time day or night.

Auggie pulls a wet one out of the cooler. “How are things in nickel/dime-world?” he asks Eddie Cans.

“I’m out of that business. I bootleg CDs now -- remember?”

“Not in here you don’t.” Auggie slides the bottle of beer across the mahogany bar.

“No. No, Auggie, not in here, for sure. You need anything?” Eddie Cans produces a long list. “I got it all,” he says. “Top forty jazz blues rap hip-hop techno alternative...whatever...anything and everything...’cept country...I got no country.”

“What’d I just tell you?”

“This is just for you, Auggie. A special offer just for Auggie.”

Auggie steps into the backroom and drops a patty onto a carbon-crusted grill. The burger sizzles and spits at Auggie. Flames dance around the meat. A greasy exhaust fan hums and sucks the sweet smoke out across the primeval stink of a cobblestone service alley. “Hey, Record-Of-The-Month-club, Auggie yells out, how do you want it?”

“Bleeding…profusely.”

“You want the onions grilled?”

“Come, Auggie.”

Auggie drops a hand full of sliced Bermuda onions on the grill.

JoJo shuffles through the door; outside the payphone desperately rings in the gathering city twilight.

JoJo sits at the bar, orders a beer, chews on a fingernail, nods at Eddie Cans.

Auggie slides a beer in front of JoJo. “How many?” he asks.

“Three hundred and seventy-two right to the barstool.”

Auggie leans against the bar, contemplates the number 3 7 2, pops a couple of green olives in his mouth, sucks on a lime wedge.

JoJo counts every step he takes all day/all night day in/day out. It’s a left-over tick from his junkie days when he counted the steps from his flat to the methadone clinic uptown, but now it’s just a habit, something he does to keep his mind busy, and that’s OK. Whatever it takes. He has a sister named Tina who occupies her time by copying down menus in pads while she’s waiting for her Miso soup to arrive. She’s no junkie. She’s an evolutionary biologist -- she can tell you why a whitetail deer’s tail is white. She was real fat at one time, but still...something’s not quite right in that family.

“Hey, Auggie,” JoJo says, “you hear about Indigo Red?”

“He get nabbed?”

“He woke up dead.”

“Get out.”

“For real, yesterday morning, Indigo Red woke up dead.”

“I bet that slut he was hanging with...aaa, what’s her name, the pole-dancer...I bet she screwed him to death.”

“I think he was alone.”

“They were here Wednesday night watching the ballgame; she couldn’t keep her hands off him.”

“I can pretty much guarantee he won’t be around for the playoffs.”

“Pool hall!” Auggie shouts and points at JoJo. “You just left the pool hall.”

“Good guess.”

“No guess work. I pulled a Sherlock on you.”

JoJo shrugs.

“Deduction.” Auggie points to JoJo’s green chalky fingernails with traces of white talcum powder dusting his shirtsleeves.

The door swings open and the band chaingangs in. One, two, three, four road weary musicians toting beat-up leather cases and a couple of scratched and dented pawnshop style amps. “There’s a payphone ringing out there,” the drummer says.

The boys at the bar acknowledge with a communal nod. “Stay away from it like it was radioactive,” JoJo warns.

Auggie points to the back of the dark room.

The band squints through lingering cigarette smoke and flickering shadows from blinking neon beer signs trying to make heads or tails of the shifting landscape.

Auggie hits a toggle switch under the bar, a couple of raw spotlights pop on illuminating a narrow room with a small stage and some round duce tables with ice cream parlor chairs decked on top.

The band sets up.

The Tic/Toc is a no-fluff-bare-boned musical Purgatory. A Bluesy Mo-Town R&B club where everyone is forever paying dues.

The band does a sound check; tapping the microphones. Boom/boom. One/two. Boom/boom. One/two. They plug in, tune-up; the narrow room quickly turns into a sound chamber filling with wandering neurotic notes that don’t add up.

Rollo Rollins, a moonlight-lizard in alligator shoes slithers through the door along with a couple of trailing rings from the anxious payphone outside. Rollo sits at the bar next to Eddie Cans. Rollo buys a round for the house including Auggie and the band. “This one’s on me,” he says, “I had a very good day.” Rollo accepts a perfunctory barroom salute by nodding back magnanimously. Then he leans into Eddie Cans, “I believe that’s your phone ringing out there,” Rollo tells him.

“Give it a rest, Rollo.”

“You want to answer it. You know you do.”

“Why you being such a ball-buster?”

“That’s what I do.”

“No one else rags on me about it anymore, not JoJo, not Auggie, not any of these bums.”

“They don’t have my sensibilities for matters of the heart.”

“You do talk some sweet shit, I’ll give you that.”

Rollo raises his bushy eyebrows.

“Do I owe you money, Rollo?”

“I’m not carrying you.”

“So I don’t have to actually talk to you?”

“No, not me, but you should answer the phone and talk to your sweetie-o, you heartbreaker you.”

“It was before anybody knew better when I answered that phone. You know that, Rollo. I was collecting cans and bottles back then and living on the streets, you know that too. And it was snowing that night, sideways, with a wind-chill.”

“I heard you stayed the night, and into the next day.”

“A man does what a man has to do.”

“Or what he wants to do.”

“You ever sleep in a flophouse, Rollo, with a bunch of stinking stew bums and junkies?”

“So when did you find out?”

“Soon as the door opened, I knew.”

Rollo shakes his head.

“Like I said, Rollo I don’t have to talk to you.”

Auggie drops a couple of beers off and waits for his dough.

Rollo pulls out a wad of bills from the pocket of his gabardines. The fat bookies roll is wrapped with a thick red rubber band. It’s a little-dick roll with the large bills on the top, starting with C-notes. It takes forever to peel down to the smaller bills. Rollo is in no particular hurry. He loves flashing his cash. He lives for it. Thing is, what he carries in his pocket is his total inventory; it’s what he owns, it’s who he is. He drops a couple of Jackson’s on the bar just as the chaotic musical notes in the background assemble nicely into a slick rendition of Wilson Pickett’s Midnight Hour. First the bass, then drums, electric keyboard and finally the guitar. The guitar player is a tall thin sickly looking dude named Jake from Cambridge wearing a fedora. Every note Cambridge Jake squeezes out of his black and white Stratocaster cuts across his tortured face like a razor and the elongated empty spaces between the notes land like body blows to his midsection. Cambridge Jake is the music.

“Tell me the story again,” Rollo begs Eddie Cans.

“Not a chance.”

“Once more time and I’ll get off your case forever.”

“That’s not the first time I heard that.”

“I swear.”

“Prove it.”

“If I ever bring it up again, I’ll buy a hundred dollars worth of CDs off you.”

Eddie Cans holds up two fingers.

“A buck fifty,” Rollo counters.

Eddie Cans holds out his hand.

What?

Up front.

You don’t trust me?

It’s not that I don’t trust you...it’s just that...I don’t trust you.

Rollo folds the cash in Eddie Cans’ hand. Tell me the story and don’t leave anything out.

I’m standing in the entranceway of the Tic/Toc...

“Wait...wait...everybody should hear this.”

“I know this is going to be hard for you, Rollo, but try not to be such a ass-hole, and if you interrupt me again...all bets are off.”

“OK. OK.”

Back then I’m carrying my usual trash bag full of cans and bottles around, the Tic/Toc is closing, the wind is whipping down the boulevard, and the snow feels like buckshot on my face. I’m buttoning up my overcoat and pulling a knit cap down over my ears feeling all forlorn and neglected when the payphone starts ringing. I figure, why not, I pick it up, say hello. You look cold, a voice says. You can see me? I ask. I can see you. You’re wearing a long coat and a navy watch cap, right? I glance around. The voice tells me to look up. I glance up over my head into the swirling snow between the skyscrapers. The voice laughs and says, nooo, I’m not God. I’m across the street, the Mayflower Hotel, can you see me waving? I wave back through the driving snow at this blurry figure standing in a buttery yellow rectangle of light on the second floor of The Mayflower. Come on up, the voice says. It’s toasty warm up here. We’ll have cocktails. Room 222.

I knock on the door. As soon as it opens I know what I’m up against...but still I drop my bag of refunds and step in. The room is warm. The Jamaican rum has a single ice cube in it. I take the glass.

You’re not a girl, I say.

I’m not God, either.

You got a better shot of being God than a girl.

“He looks that bad, huh?” Rollo says.

“Actually...no, he’s not that bad looking, in the right light he could fool you...no five o’clock shadow or anything blatant like that...but still you can tell.”

“How?”

“Hands.”

“Big?”

“And beat up like a mechanics.”

“Then what happens?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on...he didn’t touch you?”

“He put his hand on my knee once.”

“Damn. What’d you do?”

“Drank the rum.”

“Christ.”

“There was a blizzard outside...people have been known to freeze to death.”

“What did I’m Not God have on his feet?”

“Open-toed fluffy slippers with clear plastic heels.”

“Shit. Was he wearing a wig...did he have a dress on...what kind a dress?”

“What the fuck, Rollo, if you’re that curious why don’t you just go pick-up the phone and find out for yourself?”

“No thanks.”

“You know Rollo I’m getting a distinct suspicion you got a thing going for I’m Not God?”

“Don’t try and turn this around on me.”

Eddie Cans cups his hand to his ear, leans towards the door. “Listen,” he says. “The phone, it’s still ringing out there. It’s playing your song, Rollo. Hurry; go answer it before it’s too late. You know you want to.”

Rollo gets off the barstool. His gabardine pants are wrinkling at the waist. His shirt twisting, buttons pulling, belly hanging over his belt, face flushed and his arms and legs are rubbery. He stomps a tingling sensation out of his legs.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m okay.”

“You look shaky.”

“I’m fine!”

“Fat guys like you fall over dead at alarming rates.”

“Tell me something I don’t know?” Rollo steps into the men’s room.

Rollo comes out in a few looking only half-baked now with his wrinkles smoothed, shirt tucked, fat pink fleshy face washed, thin hair wet combed straight back; only problem: a tell-tale trickle of piss down the front of his gabardines.

Eddie Cans is finishing up the burger and working the CD angle on JoJo.

“You know Auggie don’t want nothing hot going down in here,” JoJo says.

Eddie slides the list over. “Auggie’s a vinyl dinosaur,” he whispers.

JoJo sniffs, peruses the form.

Without missing a beat the band morphs into, Season Of The Witch.

Rollo finishes his beer, lights up a smoke, flips a ten spot on the bar for Auggie. “Anybody up for Chinese?” he asks.

Eddie Cans gestures to his burger.

“I’m heading over to The Ding/Ho for some noodles and fried wontons.”

No response.

“I’m buying.”

Still no takers.

“Have it your way, smucks.” Rollo hit’s the street alone again.

“I’m not real fond of that guy,” Eddie Cans tells JoJo.

“He’s just tired of eating alone.”

He’s a good tipper. Auggie snaps up the ten-spot, wipes down the bar, buffing up every last little sweat bead droplet of water into oblivion until the lacquered African mahogany shines to hurt your eyes.

Outside, Rollo’s listening to the phone’s last chance desperate rings. To Rollo it sounds like it’s on it’s knees pleading to be answered. And then Rollo swears that phone gets personal, calling out his name.

Rollo starts sweating again and whirls away from the phone.

The phone screams out Rollo Rollo Rollo!

In a hazy moment of chaos Rollo turns back around and picks up the receiver and listens...then he says something that ends with Ding/Ho and hangs up.

Rollo unlocks the door to his midnight-blue Riviera, sinks into white leather and turns over the engine. He makes a u-turn, the wire-wheels sparkle with the reflecting neon signs. Rollo pulls up in front of The Mayflower and inspects his face in the rearview mirror before checking out the front door of the Tic/Toc Lounge.

I’m Not God struts out of The Mayflower and fandangos down the stairs like a nightmare wrapped in billowy yellow silks with pearl earrings and evening gloves. Rollo leans over and swings open the door to the Riviera. I’m Not God bends in, crosses his legs, places his gloved hands modestly over his boney knees and stares straight out the windshield.

Not a word is spoken as they cruise down the boulevard through all the early evening flash of blinking marquees.

Eddie Cans and JoJo step out of the Tic/Toc into a warm mist just in time to watch the Riviera carriage back up to the Mayflower and I’m Not God step out carrying a doggy bag from the Ding/Ho.

I’m Not God leans over and says, “I have always depended upon the kindness of strangers.”

Rollo nods.

I’m not God slams the door closed.

Rollo pulls away from the curb.

The Rivera reflects back at itself in the wet blacktop.

“What do you think about that?” Eddie Can shakes his head.

“Rollo didn’t have to eat alone tonight.”

The payphone starts ringing.

BIO: Robert Caporale’s most recent publications can be seen in Wildcat, The Café Irreal, Zuzu’s Petals Quarterly, The Lummox Journal, Confrontation, and The Avatar Review. He is finishing up a short story collection and thinking about a novel. He takes MFA workshops at the University of Massachusetts.

A Twist Of Noir 359 - Robert Caporale

THIN AIR - ROBERT CAPORALE

Originally published in INK POT #4 - 2004, a literary journal

It’s almost impossible to get into Margo’s Lounge for a quick beer without listening to the tuna boogie blues. Every day the Professor stands out on Canal Street in front of Margo’s panhandling or answering questions for loose change like some back alley quiz show contestant.

A can of albacore packed in water equals a shot and a beer in Professor Pissy Pants’ world. “I need a can of tuna fish," he bums. “Can you help me out with a buck, some change, anything?” It’s his signature spiel, he has a half-loaf of white bread up in his room at the Y but no tuna. “Just till Tuesday,” he Wimpys. “That’s when my check comes, on Tuesday. What do you say?”

“Ignore him,” Tomtom says.

“I own him this time,” Paulie says. “I’m going to stump him for sure.”

“I’m in no mood for Professor Pissy Pants, not tonight,” Tomtom says.

“He’s good for a laugh.”

“He’s good for nothing.”

“It’s a shot and a beer if you can tell me the speed of light.”

“One hundred eighty-six thousand miles per second.”

“Damn,” Paulie says.

“Is he right?” Tomtom asks.

“I believe so.”

“I told you,” Tomtom snaps.

“The guy was a history professor, what’s he know from physics?”

“Enough to take you for a cocktail.”

They watch the Professor chase down a shot of Calvert with a beer.

“Okay,” Tomtom tells him, “take it back out on the street.”

“Chill," Paulie says. “He’s not bothering anybody.”

Auggie, the bartender, asks the Professor the capitol cities named after United States presidents.

“Jackson, Madison, Jefferson City... Monrovia.”

Another shot and a beer.

“See. See,” Tomtom says. “See what you started?”

“Relax.”

“The guy pisses me off.”

“Everybody pisses you off.”

“Not like the Professor.”

“Why’s he so special?”

“Simpatico,” the Professor says.

“What’s he talking about?” Paulie asks.

“Tell me... we’ll both know.” Tomtom shrugs and walks off, drops coins in the jukebox, punches in some tunes. When Tomtom gets back, the Professor has a couple more setups in front of him and he’s starting in on the 1956 Olympic fiasco. That’s when Tomtom loses it, knocks over a bowl of salted beer nuts.

The Professor is showing everyone at the bar with his thumb and index finger the difference between fourth and first place. Tomtom watches him in the mirror on the back of the bar. “Less than an inch and a half,” he says, “that’s it, a frigging inch and a half, the difference between notoriety and obscurity. I was a world-class long jumper back then," the Professor says. “Odds on favorite to take the gold that year. Big man on campus. I was getting all the press. Free drinks in the bars, free food in the best restaurants, people wanted to hang with me, and the women, ohhhhh, how the women treated me fine...”

“Enough,” Tomtom snarls. “We’ve all heard this. Fact is, the closest you came to the ’56 Olympics was reading about them in the Times.”

“Check it out for yourself.”

“I did,” Tomtom tells the Professor. “At the library. You’re not listed. Anywhere.”

“It’s an oversight.”

“You’re an oversight, you old bag of beer bones. You know why? Because they only post the medal winners.”

“My point exactly,” the Professor says.

Tomtom sits down on the stool next to Professor Pissy Pants. He orders up a beer and turns towards the Professor. Considers him. Tomtom slips a Zippo out of his pocket, like he might light the poor son-of-a-bitch bastard on fire or something. Tomtom starts opening and closing the Zippo. Click click. Click click, and at the same time Tomtom grazes on the inside of his own mouth like it’s honey-glazed. It’s clear to everyone sitting at the bar that something is about to happen here. Tomtom stops the clicking. “How long?” he asks the Professor.

“What?”

“The jump? How long was your jump?”

The Professor tells him down to the sixteenth of an inch.

Tomtom’s an impresario at this sort of manipulation, as good as any crooked DA. “How wide do you think Sally Alley is?” Tomtom asks the Professor. Everybody’s leaning in now, curious on where he plans on taking this line of questioning.

“I don’t know.”

“Less than twenty-four-and-a-half feet, give or take?”

“Much. Maybe, sixteen feet.”

“I say there’s no way in hell you can make the jump from Margo’s roof across Sally Alley onto the adjacent roof. Not on your best day. Not in your dreams.”

Christ. Who saw that coming? Nobody. Talk about lowering the boom. This is better than falling in love on a Tuesday night.

Johnny Snips holds up a hundred dollar bill. “I got a C-note says he makes the jump.”

“I'll take some of that.”

“Put me down for twenty.”

Everybody’s right on cue.

What starts off innocuously at the bar escalates three flights up onto the roof of Margo’s Lounge and into the eye of a blue neon storm.

The Professor steps out of his pissy pants, carefully folds them along an imaginary crease, and lays them over a rusty air vent. He’s wearing stained bikini shorts, knee-high pimp-socks, and a beat-up pair of black US Keds.

“What’s with the Speedo?” Tomtom wants to know.

The Professor bends and twists, he stretches his hamstrings as he eyeballs the distance. “You can’t expect me to make a jump like this in long pants,” he says and marches away in giant steps while counting off in threes. He stops, turns back, shakes himself out, and crouches down into a three-point stance. A splendid looking sprinter’s three-point stance. The professor has a new face on. A game face. Who’s having who is still up for grabs. Either way it looks like the Professor is ready to take a belated shot at the gold up in the hazy blue of Margo’s neon sign. The Professor looks determined, he exudes the persona of a true athlete, an Olympian rather than some ball-busting whiny shit-ass stew-bum. He’s all sinew and sleek down in that three-point stance. In his mind he pictures the jump. In his heart he is the jump.

“We’re just having a little fun with you here,” Tomtom says giving the Professor his obligatory way out-always give a guy an out. “You don’t have to do this,” Tomtom tells him.

The Professor gives Tomtom an understanding nod.

“Come on, old-timer,” Paulie pleads, “enough is enough, let’s go back to the bar and suck down some beers. Have a few laughs. You proved your point.”

“I don’t have to prove anything to anybody.”

Tomtom sticks his hand in his pocket and starts clicking the Zippo.

It’s a muffled click, but still it’s a click click. Click click.

“Is someone going to readysetgo me?” the Professor wants to know. “Or am I just going on my own?”

“He’s bluffing,” Tomtom says.

Paulie shrugs.

Tomtom says, “Ready.”

The Professor takes a breath.

Tomtom says, “Set.”

The Professor digs in with his back foot, streamlines. It gets real quiet up on the roof. The Zippo stops clicking, the blue neon stops hissing.

“Go!”

It’s a good start. The Professor is off and running. No bullshit about it. In a matter of a split-second he is in perfect aerodynamic stride. Legs, arms, heart, soul all in concert drawing strength from the collective. We the spectators are blown away by the suddenness and the power and the grace of the spectacle. By the time the Professor approaches the edge of Margo’s roof he is but a blue blur. If he hits the takeoff, Goddamn if he might not make the jump. He nails it. He’s out there-legs arms still working hard, tendon cartilage churning. His ears full of roaring crowd, his eyes wide and sparkling. His chest heaves, his back arches as he stretches and reaches out.

The Professor is running on thin air.

Running.

Running.

Running on thin air.

BIO: Robert Caporale’s most recent publications can be seen in Wildcat, The Café Irreal, Zuzu’s Petals Quarterly, The Lummox Journal, Confrontation, and The Avatar Review. He is finishing up a short story collection and thinking about a novel. He takes MFA workshops at the University of Massachusetts.

A Twist Of Noir 356 - Robert Caporale

FATAWAY - ROBERT CAPORALE

Originally published in Zahir 2009

Bobby Train is on the grift.

Small time.

Nickel and dime.

Esquire has just returned from a court ordered sabbatical after making a fool of himself by dropping his pants in front of a hostile witness. The judge cited him for contempt and sentenced Esquire to ninety days observation at a psychiatric facility.

Esquire is Bobby Train’s longtime attorney.

Bobby Train and Esquire are having lunch at the Canton Restaurant. Its marquee is illuminated by thousands of red white and pink blinking light bulbs signifying the halfway point of Mercury Boulevard.

Mercury Boulevard is the third longest straightest street in the world.

The food at the Canton is hot tasty and pretty as a picture. The dining room is large busy and glows crimson from the vintage lacquered walls, vinyl booths and hanging paper pagodas. The pagodas are dusty and trimmed in black and sway from the waitresses rushing around under them. The constant clatter of voices and pinging forks and spoons bouncing off the low tin ceiling turns the room into a sound chamber making it hard to have a normal conversation.

You’re looking none the worst for wear, Esquire.

Thanks.

How you feeling?

Not bad.

You look rested.

It was quiet up there, that’s for sure.

What did you do all day?

Made leather wallets and wicker baskets.

Sounds like camp.

Need a wallet?

Bobby Train shakes his head.

A busboy fills their water glasses, ice cubes rattle.

I want to make amends, Bobby Train says.

How?

You’re still my attorney, aren’t you?

Of course.

I need advice on a new deal I’m cooking.

Ever since your episode with that fortune teller last year, you’ve changed, Bobby Train.

People change.

You’re a little scary now.

Don’t be ridiculous.

You were predictable before, like a character in a B movie.

How do you know I’m not playacting right now?

My point exactly.

Before the fortune teller, Bobby Train obsessed about every little detail of a scam. Now he doesn’t seem to give a flying fuck; he’s just winging it; riding on the wind.

Everything changed that night he strolled the midway of a carnival on the pier eating fried clams and eyeing all the cotton candy sweety-os and candy apple Romeos riding the neon Ferris Wheel. Bobby Train spotted the black tent, and on a whim he pushed through the beaded door and stepped inside and handed two dollars to Princess Jangle Heart to have his fortune told. The Royal Gypsy Princess read Bobby Train’s tea leaves and lowered her head. Then she took his hands, gently turned them palms up and tracked his lifelines and tightened her lips. She shuffled a deck of Tarot cards and moaned with each flip.

If Princess Jangle Heart had a crystal ball, Bobby Train is sure she would have pulled it out and dusted it off.

The Royal Princess took a deep breath, looked past Bobby Train and told him, You’ll be dead before the year is out. How? In a horrendous car crash. What kind of car? Sports car. What color? I don’t see colors.

Bobby Train is sure the Royal Gypsy Princess Jangle Heart is full of royal Gypsy shit so to test the gods he went out the next day and bought himself a smart little midnight-blue Austin Healy 3000 with wire wheels and drove it like a maniac for one year before selling it to a numbers runner named Franco who promptly smashed it into a bridge abutment while his lady friend was going down on him. Franco died instantly of head trauma. His lady friend choked to death.

The waitress steps up to the booth.

The wonton soup is the best here, Bobby Train says.

They order two wonton soups along with steamed dumplings, pork fried rice and chicken chow mein.

The wonton soup comes right out.

They start in slurping soup with wooden spoons.

So tell me about the scam.

This might be legit.

I’ll be the judge.

Bobby Train is good at what he does. Except for that dash of street-charm he lays out the scam like any entrepreneur presenting a business perspective to an investment banker.

Esquire stops Bobby Train halfway through the soliloquy with a hand gesture and tells him that he is sitting on a cash cow.

I know.

Does the stuff work?

Not a chance.

Didn’t think so.

Is that a problem?

Probably not, he says. Our GNP depends upon selling snake oil to the natives. Still you may get sued, class action, never know. That’s why you play it safe.

Sued for what? Bobby Train wants to know.

Fraud.

But you just said...

I know what I said, still you take precautions, distance yourself.

How?

Set up a corporation.

How does that avoid law suits?

It makes it that much harder to get into your pockets.

Is there anything else I can do to I protect myself?

Be very careful how you market the product, what you say in your advertising. Keep it vague, nothing concrete. You don’t want to give some slip-and-fall lawyer anything to hang a hat on.

Give me an example.

Don’t guarantee anything.

I don’t even know how to spell guarantee.

Esquire smirks, fingers his pencil thin mustache.

The waitress picks up the empty bowls and lays out covered platters of steaming dumplings, chow mien and fried rice.

Esquire presses his hands over his ears. What is that ringing?

What ringing?

You don’t hear a high pitched ring?

No.

Damn, it’s annoying.

You’re just hungry. Eat something.

Esquire rubs his chopsticks together. Have you done your homework on this deal? he wants to know.

Pretty much.

Esquire snags a dumpling. How are you going to market it?

It sells itself.

What venue?

Television.

That’s expensive. You’ll need up front money.

I’ll get it.

What about product? Where will you get product?

I’m still working on that.

I have some ideas.

Sure you don’t want a piece of the action, Esquire?

I’ll think about it.

This is a sweet deal.

I got burnt pretty bad on your last sweet deal, Bobby Train.

That’s why you get first dibs on this one, Esquire. I owe you.

Don’t con me.

You have to climb right back onto that horse, Esquire.

The only way I get in, Bobby Train, is for half. Equal partners.

That’s steep.

It’s my start-up money.

It’s my idea.

I’m setting up the deal and my name will be all over the paperwork. I’ll be the first one they come to again when the shit hits the fan.

You said...

I know what I said. But less we forget, the product does not work. It’s a placebo at best.

Worst case scenario, Bobby Train says, we get wealthy and a bunch of fat people get squeaky clean.

We’ll make money, that’s for sure. But still this is a bang-bang deal, Bobby Train. In and out fast. Understand?

Sounds like I have a partner.

We’ll see. In the meantime, I’m going to draw up the paperwork. I’ll need a post office box number for the corporation, and you should start checking into manufacturers. Check with hotels like the Holiday Inn, find out who makes those little bars with their logo on them.

Brilliant.

Bobby Train stands, pulls on his London Fog, pays for lunch.

Bobby Train wears that London Fog every day of his life. It’s his uniform. He loves that raincoat; he marvels in its plain simple lines; the less-is-more aspect of the garment and the way that London Fog hangs off his shoulders like he was born in it giving him an air of understated respectability without diminishing his natural street swagger.

Esquire and Bobby Train step through Canton’s revolving door out onto Mercury Boulevard. The city is hot and sticky. The traffic is stalled along the boulevard, horns blare.

Esquire covers his ears. There’s that ringing again. You hear it?

No.

Damn. I can’t believe you don’t hear that ringing.

Relax. Everyone’s ears ring.

Not like this they don’t.

When’s the last time you got laid?

Esquire shakes his head, waves down a cab. Need a lift?

I’m going to take in a flick. Want to join me? Bobby Train asks.

I have to get back to the office.

That’s why I don’t have a desk, Bobby Train says.

Esquire smiles and opens the door to a Checker cab and folds his tall thin lanky body into it.

Across the street the marquee of the Bijou Theater lures Bobby Train with Earth Versus The Flying Saucers and Atomic Ants. It also proclaims that the theater is AIR CONDITIONED. The marquee juts out over a narrow ticket booth. Bobby Train lays down a dollar. A pasty-faced lady reading a worn paperback romance novel pushes a button and a ticket pops up. If you hurry, mister, you can catch the cartoon.

Bobby Train takes the ticket, leaves her the change and steps into Bijou’s satin and gilded Rococo lobby. A thin gentleman in a double-breasted waist coat with brass buttons rips his ticket.

Bobby Train takes a seat dead center of the theater. He makes himself comfortable, lights up a Chesterfield. The cartoon starts.

Timing is everything in this life he mumbles to himself.

Are you talking to me?

Bobby Train turns to find a junkie nodding off. He shushes him and points at the screen where Wile E. Coyote with visions of barbequed Road Runner on his brain is tearing into a large cardboard box from the Acme Company. But even with the new catapult Wile E. can’t snag that little bastard Road Runner.

The newsreel is next. To Bobby Train it sounds more like a movie trailer for another low budget sci-fi flick. Two young physicists from the Netherlands wearing tweed overcoats and plaid hats with ear flaps are being interviewed by a BBC reporter who shoves a microphone in their faces and congratulates them on their new findings. It seems you may have debunked Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, he says. The two egg-heads are sporting broad smiles. Our research with Quantum physics has dramatically changed the space/time continuum, one of them explains to a shaky handheld camera. A rusty freighter passes silently into the North Sea behind them. Time is an ongoing affair, the other points out. The past, the present and the future are constant and happen simultaneously. That ship behind us is forever sailing out to sea. An easy way to understand this, they elaborate, is to picture time as an endless loaf of sliced white bread where each slice represents a moment in time. They also believe that occasionally the universe blinks and things get out of sync and there is the possibility that someone can step from one frame of time into another and back again as easily as stepping through an open door.

A fog horn moans in the distance.

Would that explain the recent rash of UFO sightings around the world? the BBC reporter asks.

Possibly.

After a couple of hours of watching tanks and jet airplanes hopelessly fighting off flying saucers over the skies of Washington DC, and giant radioactive ants wrecking havoc on a hot desert mining town, Bobby Train dozes off before returning to Mercury Boulevard.

It’s dusk. Bobby Train stands under the Bijou’s marquee, yawns and fires up a Chesterfield. A brand spanking new two-toned El Dorado floats past him in slow motion dripping in reflecting neon. The chrome is hypnotic and the fins are dangerously long and beautifully shaped with gentle curves. Bobby Train eyes that El Dorado like it was a gorgeous woman sashaying elegantly down Mercury Boulevard.

The very first television advertisement for Fataway soap is a thirty second commercial that appears on the World Wide Wrestling Federation Showcase at 11 P.M. on a Wednesday night. It features a tall erudite looking man in a white smock with a stethoscope draped over his shoulder articulating the benefits of using the amazing Fataway soap, explaining how it works on a molecular level. In the next scene there’s the silhouette of a plump woman behind a frosted shower door scrubbing her blurred copious body. She steps out wrapped in a fluffy bath towel. She is thinner now and very pretty and sparkling clean and oh-so-happy. She tells the camera she lost critical inches off her waist, hips and legs in just five days by showering every morning with the amazing Fataway Soap. The faux doctor steps back into the picture and says, the best part of Fataway Soap is no diets, no exercise, no pills; eat whatever you want, as much as you want and whenever you want and still lose that unsightly jiggling fat that hangs from under your arms, off your thighs, hips, face, neck and buttocks just by showering with Fataway soap once a day. Think about it folks, the pretty girl says, not only do you lose weight but you smell great. Fataway soap comes in three pleasant fragrances: Lilac, Vanilla Cream and English Leather. A catchy jingle starts playing. The tune sounds suspiciously like, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” with a chorus repeating the catchphrase, “lose weight smell great.”

The day after the wrestling ad runs Bobby Train paces his apartment and chain smokes Chesterfields; he can hardly wait to check the P.O. box. By Friday he’s pretty much a basket-case. He can’t wait any longer. He drives down to the Post Office, slides the key into the lock and holds his breath. The P.O. box is empty except for an official notice requesting he stop at the counter. His heart drops. The clerk at the counter takes the request slip from Bobby Train and disappears through a door. Bobby Train is thinking about bolting when the clerk reappears carrying a large canvas duffle bag. Bobby Train signs a form, the clerk hands him the bag. Bobby Train opens it. It’s chock full of envelopes addressed to Fataway Soap representing thousands of orders and thousands and thousands of dollars.

Bobby Train is in a daze. He does not remember leaving the Post Office. Next thing he’s aware of is driving his Rocket 88 across town with the canvas duffle bag sitting on the seat next to him like a lady in waiting. He keeps glancing over at the bag shaking his head in disbelief. He slows down as he passes a Cadillac dealership. He swears that a shiny black Fleetwood sitting under a sprawling crystal chandelier in the middle of the showroom winks at him. He gooses the gas pedal and turns down Roosevelt Avenue and pulls up in front of Esquire’s office building. He parks the car, drapes the canvas bag over his shoulder and takes a Deco styled gated elevator up to the fifth floor.

He stands in front of Esquire’s desk with a smirk on his face.

What? Esquire asks looking up from a messy stack of papers.

Bobby Train just stands there.

What!?

Bobby Train opens the duffle bag, and holds it over the desk.

I’m busy here.

Bobby Train pours out the Fataway soap orders; the envelopes cascade over Esquire’s desk onto the floor.

Christ!

It’s a beautiful thing.

They both start running their hands through the envelopes.

How much?

That one bullshit thirty second ad generated thousands of orders so far.

At two dollars a bar!

Infuckingcredible!

We’re going to need a bigger Post Office box.

We could sell this stuff from now till doomsday.

We stick to the original plan, Esquire says. Couple more hits and we’re out.

Why?

I’m not going to make the same mistake twice.

I got my eye on a new Caddy.

Cool your jets.

It is a very respectable automobile.

I’m sure, but we have lots of work to do before we indulge ourselves.

Like what?

Filling these orders, and getting ready for the next round.

Esquire has his secretary cancel all his appointments. They count and stack the bills and checks in separate piles and call the order in to the soap manufacturer. They make up a bank deposit slip for the checks; the cash goes in Esquire’s safe behind a photograph of JFK in a stovepipe hat taking the oath of office.

They start the celebration, beginning at Margo’s Lounge and ending a long wild night of booze barmaids and reefer at the Café A Go-Go’s after hours club where the girls dance in swinging cages hanging from the ceiling. The Go-Go girls wear fringed bikinis and shake their booty to songs like Mustang Sally, Shotgun and Green Onions. Bobby Train and Esquire party until daybreak finds Bobby Train’s sorry ass passed out behind the wheel of his Rocket 88 that is parked on the pier next to Famous Tony’s Foot Longs. His directional signal is blinking, his parking lights are on and the radio is blasting with a morning talk show host venting about the dangers of the Khrushchev/Castro alliance.

Bobby Train opens his eyes, shuts off the radio, stretches, lights up a Chesterfield and gazes out the windshield.

Silk City is as real as real gets, except for these first few daylight moments when the city is shrouded in this sublime golden wash from the morning sun shimmering up out of the Atlantic Ocean creating a false sense of dreamy innocents. The neon nightlife fades and the multitudes of sagging power lines and telephone wires are coated in a sparkling orange glaze.

Esquire is nowhere to be found.

He hasn’t called his office or been to his apartment in two days since the celebration, his secretary is rip-shit. Bobby Train searches all over Silk City for Esquire. No sign of him. He checks out Esquire’s favorite haunts. No one has seen or heard from him, not a soul. It’s like Esquire’s existence was just a rumor.

The second ad runs on the Sunday morning Three Stooges Comedy Hour with the same glorious results.

Bobby Train has an epiphany and hustles his worried-ass back to Esquire’s office to check behind the JFK photograph. All the cash is still stacked neatly in the safe. He sighs and transfers the bills into a valise. He drives the money to the airport and stuffs the valise into locker B22 and decides to a play a game. He assumes the character of a bagman involved in a major international heist with serious political implications, and as he pockets the key to the locker, he checks people’s faces around the concourse of the airport making sure he has not been made; that done he strolls confidently -- exaggerating his footfalls -- across the terminal while pulling up the collar on his London Fog and nonchalantly glancing over his shoulder for a tail. Doesn’t get any better than this, he thinks.

At 3 A.M. Bobby Train is awakened by a dream that Esquire is sitting quietly in the dark at the foot of his bed watching him sleep, only it turns out it’s not a dream, Goddamn if Esquire is not really sitting there. Bobby Train pops up like a Jack-In-The-Box. What the...!

Did I wake you?

You could have given me a fucking heart attack.

I’m sorry.

Bobby Train fumbles for a Chesterfield on the night table and lights it. You’re a strange man, Esquire.

Grab your London Fog, Esquire says.

Where are we going?

I’m hungry for Bennie’s egg salad.

Bennie’s Cafeteria is three steps below street level. It’s open twenty-four seven and busy with the usual late night suspects: hookers, hustlers, undercover bunko cops, mumbling basket-cases, and third-shift railroad men.

Esquire and Bobby Train step up to the counter and order two coffees along with an egg salad sandwich on a soft roll for Esquire and a BLT with crispy bacon on lightly toasted white bread, for Bobby Train. Bennie takes the order. Esquire and Bobby Train take their mugs of coffee to a booth under a narrow window where an occasional flash of headlight or tail light illuminates the rippled block glass. They stir sugar into their coffees.

So what happened to you?

Fucked if I know.

Where were you?

Right here.

Not in Silk City you weren’t.

Yeah I was.

I looked all over town for you. Talked to plenty of people. No one had seen or heard from you. Not a soul. Bobby Train lights up a Chesterfield. I thought you ran off with the money.

I didn’t.

I know that now.

You’re not going to believe what happened to me.

Try me.

After I left the Café A Go-Go...

Oh, by the way, we doubled our money while you were among the missing.

I’m trying to tell you something important here.

Sorry, I thought you’d like to know.

After I left you at the Café A Go-Go...

I’ll bet you a ten-spot that Bennie bangs on the bread drawer before he opens it.

What!

The bread drawer...

Please, I’m begging you, listen to me.

Watch, Bobby Train points.

Sure enough, Bennie bangs on the drawer before sliding it open.

See? Told you. He does it every time. Do you know why?

Luck?

You don’t need luck to make an egg salad sandwich.

Enough with Bennie and the bread drawer.

Roaches, Bobby Train says. To scatter the roaches.

Esquire lunges at Bobby Train with wide wild eyes. He grabs hold of the lapels on the London Fog and shakes Bobby Train. Listen to me! Please.

Relax. I’m all ears.

BLT and egg up, Bennie drops two thick white platters on the counter mounded with potato chips and a deli pickle.

Bobby Train jumps to his feet, straightens out his coat. Christ, he says and walks off to pick up the sandwiches.

Bobby Train drops the egg salad in front of Esquire and sits back down and takes a bite out of his BLT and nods at Esquire to eat something.

They eat quietly for a few moments.

So what happened after you left the A Go-Go?

I stumbled into the back of a cab and my ears started ringing again.

I told you everyone’s ears ring.

Not like this. All of a sudden the cab filled up with a bright light like a big flash bulb going off. I even heard the pop. I got real warm. I thought I was having a stroke. And then I started to float.

Sure you did.

Right off my seat. I held myself down with the armrests, that's when I must have blacked out. Next thing I know I’m standing at the door of my building, the cab was pulling away from the curb but my key wouldn’t open the front door.

Wrong key, Bobby Train says.

It was the right key.

All those brownstones look alike.

It was my apartment building; 2424, only it wasn’t my building.

You’re talking in circles.

Esquire tells Bobby Train that he stepped back and checked the facade to make sure. It was my building alright, he says, same gargoyles.

Seen one gargoyle, seen them all.

Then I check the names on the door bells. My name is missing. Somebody named Ramirez lives in my apartment. And I didn’t know one name on that list, no Tony Gallo in 2C, no Dan Moran in 2D, just a bunch of people I never heard of with foreign names.

Bobby Train opens the BLT and salts the tomatoes.

I must have passed out again right there in the hallway because some kid with powder blue hair hits me with the door in the morning.

Powder blue?

He was covered in tattoos with rings and things in his nose and lips like some sideshow freak.

We smoked a lot of reefer that night, Bobby Train says. Are you sure you weren’t just dreaming up this shit?

I’m not sure of anything.

Then what happened?

Esquire tells Bobby Train his office building was gone, replaced by a tall glass tower. And Silk City was different.

Different how?

It was over-exposed in this bronzy kodachrome color, and there were highways on top of other highways cutting right through the center of downtown with glass skyscrapers everywhere. And the cars, you should have seen the cars, Bobby Train, they all looked alike, they were colorless and moved silently down the streets. And they had no fins.

No fins!

But in some ways, Silk City was the same.

Different but the same?

Like Sal’s smoke shop was still on the corner of Union. I went in. Sal and Angelina weren’t there.

Sal’s always there booking numbers.

A Spanish couple were working the counter and Eddie’s shoeshine stand was gone.

No way.

I hailed another cab. I told the cabbie, Tony’s Famous Foot Longs because that’s where we parked the car.

He just shrugged like he didn’t understand me. I told him Atlantic Avenue. He asked, north south north south.

Was Tony’s there?

Yeah, but Mexicans ran it.

Tony wouldn’t hire wetbacks.

I was hungry. I ordered crab cakes and eggs and sat at one of the picnic tables outside overlooking the bay when this advertising blimp floated overhead.

I’ve seen those.

This one was playing music, Japanese Geisha music and guess what it was advertising in flashing neon?

I’m sure I don’t know.

FATAWAY SOAP. Big and bold and blinking all over it. FATAWAY SOAP.

Get out.

No lie. So I checked into it with the Mexican couple, they told me everyone uses Fataway soap because it works. I asked them if they use it. Sure, they said. They told me Fataway is a public company and sells on the stock exchange and they own some shares and that Fataway was recently bought out by a huge global corporation owned by a Chinese conglomerate and their shares doubled.

Chinese?

And get this, Fataway soap is in all the stores and they sell the soap world wide over the internet.

The what?

The Web.

Web?

You ever hear of a computer?

Yeah, sure, a huge electronic machine that does math problems. I think they call it UNIVAC.

No, these things are no bigger than your pack of Chesterfields and everyone owns one, and I mean everyone and they do everything with them, buy stuff, sell stuff, watch movies, listen to music, play games, take photos, write letters, read the news and they even talk to each other on them. They can’t function without them.

Bobby Train has another epiphany. He puts down the BLT and stares into Esquire’s eyes.

Esquire fidgets.

You were in the future.

Funny you should say that, because that’s what I was thinking. I’m in the fucking future.

I know what might have happened to you, Bobby Train says. You had a time slip.

Esquire shrugs.

Picture time as a never ending deck of cards, each card representing an exact moment in time and it’s happening all at once, simultaneously. Past present and future.

You just pull this theory out of a hat?

I saw a newsreel. The theory is based on mathematics, physics, Einstein crap.

What do you know from Einstein?

I read books.

Sounds far fetched.

That’s what I thought, too, but after what happened to you who knows for sure what’s what.

Not me.

How’d you get back?

I have no idea. Next thing I knew I was watching you sleep in the dark.

Did you know you were back?

I had a feeling.

Were you ever afraid?

Not really.

What else do you remember?

Everyone was fat.

Cool.

Do you think there is something wrong with me?

You’re fine.

What if it happens again?

It was a one-shot deal.

I hope.

Unless, of course, that’s where you really belong.

This is where I belong, Bobby Train. This is my world.

Then you have nothing to worry about.

Above their heads a street cleaner passes with flashing lights. It sprays an eerie sheet of dirty yellow iridescent water that splashes onto the rippled block window.

Esquire sips his coffee.

Bobby Train lights up a Chesterfield, blows out the smoke and spins a spoon and watches it glint in the fluorescent light.

What do you think we should do? Esquire asks.

Sell Fataway Soap until some little slant-eyed son-of-a-bitch makes us an offer we can’t refuse.

Bobby Train steps into the men's room at Bennie’s. He stands in front of a tall urinal and takes care of business. The place smells of old men and mothballs. There is a detailed historical map of the French rail system on the wall in front of him. He follows the tracks from Paris along the Left Bank to the Riviera where he pictures himself playing Roulette with Murph The Surf. He bets number 22 black. The wheel stops at 22 black. Let it ride, Bobby Train says as Murph the Surf eyes up a diamond studded Riviera Lady. Bobby Train smiles and zips up, turns and faces a bathroom attendant wearing a red double-breasted blazer with a crest standing at the ready with a warm soft cotton hand towel. Bobby Train nods and steps up to a bank of marble sinks and runs water over his hands.

The attendant hands Bobby Train the warm towel.

Bobby Train tells the attendant about his new Fleetwood.

Very nice, the attendant says.

Bobby Train asks the attendant if he has heard of Fataway.

Of course, he says.

I own Fataway.

The attendant holds up a bottle of Witch Hazel. You must be rolling in it, sir.

Bobby Train sticks out his hands.

The attendant sprinkles Witch Hazel on them.

Bobby Train looks at himself good and hard in the mirror and pats his long narrow face with Witch Hazel then runs his hands through his hair. Bobby Train drops a bill in the attendants dish and steps out into Bennie’s Cafeteria to find Esquire among the missing again. Damn, he says, and asks Bennie where Esquire went.

Bennie shrugs.

Did you see him walk out?

Not my day to watch him, Bennie says.

Are you sure you didn’t see him leave?

Last I saw he was sitting alone in the booth with his hands over his ears.

Damn.

You owe me five bucks for the sandwiches.

Bobby Train pays him.

Bennie sniffs. You smell nice.

BIO: Robert Caporale lives and writes in Massachusetts. Some of his work has previously been published in Confrontation, Zahir, Hardboiled, Tattoo Highway, Cafe Irreal, Conversely, Avatar Review, Alsop Review, and Zuzu’s Petals Quarterly, among others.