THE PUNISHMENT

So, after the ‘Cumberland Farms Incident’, and my subsequent capture at the hands of the faux McCloud cop, Officer Roccio, I am grounded for the next month, in addition to the embarrassment of it all. Talk about adding insult to injury!!

My father winds up having to pay for half the cost of replacing the window. Which is even more guilt inducing, since he’s still out of work, and can ill afford it.  Actually, he has to negotiate with the suits in management at Cumberland Farms, because Fat Jim, for all his newfound holiness, was really pushing to press charges - to punish me for my sins.

So my father saves me from that ignomious fate. But to do so, he has to borrow money from my Uncle Richie now, to pay for it all. I know that’s a major blow to his ego, since he so fiercely prides himself on his self-sufficiency and independence.  Yeah, it’s a guilt fest, alright. Thank God they’re still allowing me to work at the Fox Hole though, otherwise it would probably be a death sentence. I still have to go to school, of course, but on the days I’m not working, I’m confined to my room. No phone calls, no visits, no TV - and that includes the weekends!  

In an attempt at some form of reparations, I vow to give my father $25 every week till I pay off the debt, but even that gesture does little to soothe my twisted conscience.   

Otherwise, that awful sense of doom infiltrates my guilt, as I realize I’ve utterly blown it with Esperanza.  There’s no way to explain this one away. I make several attempts to call her to try to explain, but each time, I hang up the phone ashamedly, before she can even answer. I mean, what the hell am I going to tell her? That I’m grounded? Gimme a freakin’ break.  

Me - standing Esperanza up!  What a sad joke. I lay there on my bed that Saturday, the first day of my solitary confinement, a beautiful crisp late October day outside. My room, which has always been my sanctuary, now looms instead as my mausoleum. I guess that Skinny and Ricky are out playing baseball or football on Floral Street, with Daniel Webb and Bobby Turski, and the guys. I can almost hear their shouts of excitement if I lie still and listen hard enough. That all seems like such a faraway time ago.

Then I think about Skinny and Kyla McBride, and now anger intermingled with the melancholy. What are they doing, anyway? Are they really going out with each other? How could he do this to me? I wonder if all this stuff I had done …the boxing, the black clothes, The Fox Hole, and – especially - this pursuit of Esperanza. I mean, is it all really worth it?

Tears begin to roll down my face, as my eyes dart around the room in an attempt to evade the crushing swell of thoughts. My gaze finally resting on this statue, a bust of Napoleon, which is perched on the bookshelf atop my desk. I’ve always been kind of matter-of-factly aware of its presence, but never in any profound type of way.  Until now.

As I think back, though, it starts to freak me out. Napoleon has always been there! As long I can remember, even way back when we lived in Brooklyn! Always there in the same spot, on the shelf above my desk.  Why was it there - and where did it come from? What is the reason behind it?  Insidiously staring at me…unblinking in its smugness.

Conspiracy theories thunder through my head, forcing my heart to pound wildly. What does Napoleon mean? A Napoleon complex? Hmmm…yes-but-but-there must be more.  I mean, otherwise it could be just any bust! George Washington or Abraham Lincoln, or even Sammy Davis Jr., for that matter.  Why Napoleon specifically?

Ah! Napoleon had met his Waterloo! Of course! An omen. Is this my Waterloo?

THE CHASE - PART 2

So, this is the continuation of The Chase, where I escape the cop car after me for breaking the Cumberland Farm’s window, by wriggling through backyards and secret passageways - and wind up in the parking lot of Willowbrook Gardens Apartments, as the Eagles song is playing from somebody’s apartment.

I sing along to ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling” silently in that alley, as a soothing wind flows over me. And look at the clear, black sky to gaze at our own stars. And right there in front of me - is a payphone. What the hell is that doing here?  I’d never even noticed it before. Probably been broken since the 50s. Spontaneously, I pick up the receiver, and without even really thinking about it, call Esperanza’s number. I figure she won’t even be home. It rings several times, and I go to hang it up...

“Hola?”

“Hi-um-is Esperanza there?”

“Yeah…this is her- who’s this?”

“Oh-Esperanza- hi! It’s Joe. José!”

“Oh hi, papi! How you doing? You lucky, you caught me at home tonight.”

       “Yeah, that’s not the only thing I got lucky with – you wouldn’t believe what’s been going on tonight!”

I go on to relate to her the whole story of what’s happened to me this crazy evening. From Philly’s antics at The Fox Hole, to my brother, Paul, destroying my whole fish hobby, to my daring escape just now from the cops.

From there on, it becomes this magical experience. The perfect phone call.  Just like the one I had visualized before. I mean, I don’t know how it happens - but I am freakin great!  I’m hilarious. I’m charming. Every joke, every ad-lib, goes over flawlessly, even as I’m depositing dime after dime to keep the call going.  I did it - and we’re going out this Saturday!  Holy shit!

I practically skip all the way back home. Forgetting all about the cop chase, the wounds, and the blood soaking through my pants. None of it matters. I have such a peaceful, easy feeling. I approach my driveway, still floating in ecstasy.

“GOTCHA!” 

        An arm grabs me around my neck, another pulls my arms back, and I feel something cold and metallic being roughly thrust upon my wrists.

“Son, I reckon you’re about in more trouble than a cat in a roomful of broomsticks,” says a voice behind me with a deep Southern twang

BUSTED.

Officer Roccio. He must have been hiding behind the trees in front of my house. I knew him. Everybody did.  This clown. He grew up in Roselle.  Half Italian- half Irish.  A while back he goes off to North Carolina, and when he comes back about a year later, he suddenly has the thickest of Southern accents, wears a cowboy hat, and incessantly chews on a piece of grass. Or straw, or whatever it is. Then he joins the police force and thinks he’s McCloud.

Being dragged up my front steps in handcuffs is a memory that now becomes seared into my consciousness. It isn’t that I broke the window that makes me feel horrible. It’s not even getting caught. It’s getting caught by this pseudo Conway Twitty that’s so embarrassing. I couldn’t be any more ashamed than, like, if I’d been busted wearing my sister’s dress at my father’s Friday night poker game in the living room with my uncles. Worse yet, is the reaction of my parents. My father, well, he’s beyond pissed, but the most soul devouring part by far, is the expression on my mother’s face. While my father may be furious, my mother’s face reads disappointment. Real and total severe disappointment. In me. Pure hurt.  Like she can’t even look at me. That kind of hurt. What a total skeeve I feel like! That look alone is much more devastating than the one-month grounding I receive as my punishment.

THE CHASE

So this is right after I throw the rock at the Finnegan’s Gang guys - but miss and shatter the Cumberland Farms window! Fat Jim comes out, has me in a bearhug, and the cops come right up…

I didn’t have to be a soothsayer to predict what’s going to happen next.  I give Fat Jim a mighty kick in the shin with the back of my foot, escaping from his grip. Scramble toward the back of Cumberland Farms, hurdling the chain link fence which separates it from Quigley’s Auto Repair. Deftly, I avoid the snarling fangs of Buck, the Vietnam trained-to-kill German Shepard, who is fortunately on a short chain.

The scream of the siren, and the screech of rubber on pavement ensue - the chase is on! Running through backyards, I hop the half-finished Berlin Wall-like fence being constructed by the Goulashes, the family of Slovakian refugees whose kids all resemble sparrows, for some reason. The cop’s got his lights on, in dogged pursuit. I try to clear the Maloney’s barbed-wire barrier but miss, opening up a jagged gash on my left thigh. Stumbling over the various bows and arrows, spears and targets scattered all over their backyard, I finally smack into a cannon from, like, The Civil War. Blood spurts like champagne as I collapse to the cold dirt. The cop car skids into the driveway, shining the spotlight in my face, as I try to cover up with my sweatshirt.

“Halt!” he commands from his bullhorn.

Halt?! I mean, c’mon, who am I? The freakin’ Fugitive?

Now though, the energy buzz really kicks in, and I know there’s no way this cop’s gonna get me.  Nobody in Roselle is more of an expert on the backyards and passageways around here, garnered from years of experience playing Star Trek with my cousins. I surge through a series of backyards - the MacGregor’s, the Parrishes, the Lusciouse’s. Juking and faking out the howling neighborhood dogs, like Mercury Morris in the open field. Front porch lights flick on; people come out to see what all the commotion is about.  The copper is still on my trail though, screeching and turning with what he probably thinks are clever maneuvers. It’s lovely chaos.  But now it’s the end of the backyards. I’m in the last one before the street. Columbo thinks he’s got me - boxed up in that yard.  Ha! What he doesn’t know is that I have an ace that he’s not even aware of – the forgotten passageway! A narrow, jagged strip that I think used to serve as some sort of drainage pipeline a long time ago. It’s back the other way, towards the Gumper’s backyard. It not only runs adjacent to all the backyards on both sides of the street, but it runs under the street also - leading to Amsterdam Avenue - and the parking lot of the Willowbrook Apartments. I don’t think even my cousins knew about it! That’s how I would always evade them in the Star Trek games, leaving them completely baffled. Overgrown with thick weeds, prickly bushes, and thorns, I belly crawl through the gauntlet of glass and rusted tin from decades of broken beer bottles and cans. It’s tearing up my clothes and arms. After about ten minutes of high intensity squirming, I emerge in the parking lot of the apartments. I hear the siren a couple of blocks away and smile. Burned that copper! I sit and rest in the shadows of the complex for a minute, very self-satisfied, counting my wounds. At the same time, as I’m reflecting on my victory, a pang of sadness arises.  Esperanza.  I never did get to call her tonight. Damnit! The thrill of my conquest turns bittersweet as I half-limp, half-walk down the alley, to the other side of the buildings.  Out of one of the windows, Peaceful Easy Feeling, by the Eagles, sweetly serenades me.  I stand there for a while, leaning against the side of the wall, taking it all in.  

“And I want to sleep with you in the desert tonight

With a million stars all around

Cause I got a peaceful, easy feeling

And I know you won’t let me down,

Cause I’m already standing on the ground…”

OBSTACLES TO LOVE!

As Joey tries to make the all-important call to Esperanza from the phone booth of The Fox Hole, he is faced with all sorts of frustrations!

Taking a minute to calm down, I begin the crucial dialing process...

Rrrring!  Rrrring!

Badump!

What the fuck-

Freaking Philly, banging on the door, pressing his big lips against the glass.

“What are ya doin’ Joey?” He screeches in that grating voice of his.

Rrrring…

“C’mon Philly, get outta here - I’m trying to make a call!”

Rrrring…

“Tommy Boy says he wants you up now! It’s gettin’ busy.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be up in a minute”

“He says he wants you now, Joey!  He’s smacking his gum, loudly and deliberately.

“Hello?”  The voice on the other end inquires.

“Philly- will ya”-

“Who’s this?”

“Uh…uh”-

My concentration destroyed, I quickly slam the receiver down, and kick open the door, furiously.

“Philly, what the fuckin’ fuck is your fuckin’ problem?! Fuck!!”

I’m spitting out expletives, so livid I can’t even form sentences.

Philly’s freaked out now, starts backpedaling

 “It-it wasn’t me, Joey, its Tommy Boy!  He’s the one who told me to get ya!”

I storm past him and up the stairs, consumed by anger.

When I get out of work that night, several hours later, I’m still seething - at Philly, and at the world. As I walk home, my enraged thoughts shift to brooding meditations on the meaning of life. Just the tenuous nature of our existence here, the sheer fragility and randomness of events that happen to us. What if we had no control over anything? I mean, if Philly misses me by just one minute, or doesn’t see me in the stall?  I wind up making the call, and it goes well, and Esperanza and I wind up going on a date, and as a result of that, getting married?! That could change the course of my whole life!  That one action! Now I’m screwed! Finished. I slide deeper into existential despair, so that it’s almost painful for me to even continue walking. When suddenly – an epiphany?

“Why couldn’t I call Esperanza now? I mean, it’s only, like, 9:30. Is there any hard and fast Benjamin Franklin type rule about that? 

 “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise?”

No-no- there wasn’t! I could do it!

I lope home now, filled with an unshakeable confidence! Bursting through the back door and flashing past my parents, who are watching the Mary Tyler Moore show on TV, their heads swiveling quickly as I bound madly up the stairs.

“What the hell?! What is this - the Flying Wallenda Brothers, for crissakes?!” my father hollers.

“Joseph! Come here for a minute!” my mother calls out. I crash open their bedroom door, spring inside and pick up the phone. Freakin’ great – no dial tone!

“Ma! What happened to the phone?! I yell down, already in a panic.

“Joseph-listen...we…we…have something to tell you – come down –

“What?!” I begin to descend rapidly down the stairs, thoroughly annoyed.

“You ran up so fast we didn’t have a chance to tell you…your fish tank... your brother Paul -”

I immediately barrel up the stairs, and into my room, kicking the door open

“Oh, my God”…

Dead! Gone…all of them…my tropical fish. I had been raising them, breeding them, for about five years now. I had been awarded First Place with my neon guppies, at the 4-H Fair two years ago. Now…Bernie, my Kissing Gourami, Champ, my prized long tailed male guppy, Amazonia, my female Black Molly, who I have had for four years… Cal the Catfish…gone. The water is now a sickening mixture of milk, orange juice, and soggy Cap’n Crunch cereal. The aquarium light has also been destroyed. I sit down on the edge of my bed – crushed,

I half scamper, half trip down the stairs, and out the back door. I’m defying the screams of my parents to get back here.

I run for a long while, through the darkened streets, screaming, sobbing, and breathing as hard as I can through tears, till I eventually wear myself out. No! I must call Esperanza right now, the divine intervention advises me, and dedicate it to the memory of my esteemed underwater companions!  I know where there is a payphone, and I rush to the site, brimming with a sudden surge of goodwill.  Cumberland Farms - the parking lot! Yes!

I approach my destination, aglow with desire, visualizing my magical perfect phone call.

Uh-oh.

          There in the parking lot, huddled together in a circle, and passing around a quart bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Rambunctiously puffing on Marlboros. Four members of Finnegan's Gang, or at least what’s left of them. Jackie Miller, Eddie Brukowski, his brother Tommy, and Dave Zambowski, clad in their long ratty army coats. Jabbering drunkenly about the Monster Car Show at Raceway Park in Englishtown, this weekend.

These guys are a huge pain in the ass when they’re sober, and that much more when they’re shitfaced. Nonetheless, I advance towards them, determined to use that payphone.

“Hey Niggerhead, what are you doing out here this time of night?” yells Eddie Brukowski.

“Hey! Cotton Comes to Harlem!” chides Zambowski.

They’re all breaking up now, as they crack open another bottle of Pabst, and flick their cigarette butts my way.

Yeah, you guys are real talented, I think to myself.

“I gotta use the phone, guys.”

“Oh, Cotton’s gotta use the phone, guys! Who you gonna call - Christie Love?!”

“Ha-Ha-Hee-Hee-Hee”, now they continue cackling.

“We’re using the phone right now, Afro Sheen,” spits out Jackie Miller.

“Yeah, go use the phone on Soul Train, or something!” adds Brukowski.

I start pushing past them, but one of the clowns flicks a lit butt at me, catching me on the side of the face…

That’s it.  Patience gone. Rage in. I strike out, pushing Jackie Miller, who’s the closest one to me. He falls to the ground. The rest immediately pile on top of me, knocking me to the pavement, and pounding me in the back. A well placed kick from steel- tipped work boot sends a sharp pain through my ribs, knocking the wind out of me. A few more blows to the stomach ensue.

“Ok - ok, let him go guys! Stop! Eddie, quit it!” orders Jackie Miller.

“Get up, Montaperverto! You still wanna use the phone?!” He taunts further.

I stay on the ground for a few seconds, coughing and gasping for air.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

“Next time, we’ll fucking cream you, man! Threatens Tommy Brukowski.

They all guffaw vengefully.

I get up on my knees, trying to regain my wind, and turn away, tramping off in apparent defeat. The next second, though, I grab a huge chunk of rock from the driveway, and hurl it at him with murderous intent.

“Whoa! Duck! Oh shit!”

It whizzes past their heads.

CRASH!

There goes the plate glass window of Cumberland Farms, shattered all over the parking lot. Jackie Miller and the boys all scram. Screams from inside the store as the customers scatter, ducking behind the sale rack of Lutz Potato Chips (probably expecting the Germans have attacked.)

Fat Jim Whitford dashes outside. The shrill voice of Mrs. Acker cries out:

 “Oh dear God, Fritz, it’s the end of the world!”  

“What in the name of Michael the Archangel?!” Fat Jim belts out in disbelief.  

Apparently, he had found religion, because a big wooden cross hangs from a leather cord around his neck.

The force of the throw had knocked me to the ground, bloodying my hand on the gravel. Before I can get up to bolt, Fat Jim quickly corrals me in a bear hug, and begins spewing verses at me.

“May the Lord cleanse your bedamned soul for what you’ve done!”

Unbelievably, a cop car cruises by at that exact moment. Fat Jim frantically flags him down.

“Officer! Officer!”

Customers pour out of the store. Mrs. Acker’s little dog, Fritz, scampers around in circles, yelping furiously.