David Corbett - The Devil’s Redhead

Abatangelo thought it over, then obliged, feeling guilty for the trouble he may have caused. Eddy tore Shel’s letter out of the envelope and read it as though looking for his own name. After a moment, with a puzzled expression, he glanced up from the page and said, “Living out in B.F.E.? That’s-?”

“Bum Fuck Egypt,” Abatangelo replied.

“Oh, right, right.”

Their salads arrived with a fresh basket of bread and the two bottles of wine. Massimo did not bring them. In his stead he sent a stocky busman with a tooth missing. His bow tie was crooked and his shirt had elbow stains.

“From now, you want, you say Oscar, anything,” the man announced.

Oscar popped both corks and disappeared. Eddy said, “Next time, we eat Chinese, just to spare you these little flashbacks, okay?”

He returned to Shel’s letter, finishing it shortly and folding it back into its envelope. He passed it back across the table and attacked his salad. Abatangelo continued studying the addresses. With a little concentration, you could make out which one was most recent. He’d head out as soon as dinner was over, use Dominic’s car, get a map of the area once he was out there.

To Eddy, he said, “So what did you think? Of her letter, I mean.”

“Read between the lines,” Eddy said with a shrug. “Read deep. Then read a little deeper.”

“That bad?”

“Bad as that,” Eddy said through his food. “Worse, maybe. You know how she is.”

“I did once.”

“Now, now. Don’t pity yourself. It’s unlucky.”

“You saw her,” Abatangelo said.

“That I did,” Eddy confirmed.

Eddy had bumped into Shel by accident six months earlier in Antioch. His brother-in-law had a repair shop on the Delta Highway. Eddy went out to help him on weekends. While buying himself a hero in Safeway, he spotted Shel at the checkout. It’d been great for a minute or two, then increasingly edgy and odd. They talked at most ten minutes.

“She really seem that bad?” Abatangelo asked.

Eddy groaned. “You’re like a little kid, know that? We’ve been through this. She says it herself in the letter. She’s attached. To a loser.”

“Loser how?”

“Something about the way she was talking, I dunno, it just had crank written all over it. It’s very big among the white folk out that way.”

Eddy looked up to see what impression he’d just made. Abatangelo obliged him with, “Don’t get fooled. The guy’s being a loser could just mean he’ll be easier to cut loose.”

“He’s a cranker,” Eddy repeated.

“So?”

Eddy was outraged. “So? I seem to remember a little lecture I got once from a certain Daniel Abatangelo. The speech went: Steer clear of crankers. They’re loose on deck. They’ll fuck you over just to get it out of their system. They shit where they eat.”

“I said that?”

“Put money on it.”

“Well this is about Shel, not crank. And Shel is a girl who believes in Fate. Which is just another way of saying she doesn’t expect much. You End Up Where You Started. I began to see a lot of that in her letters before she stopped writing. It bothered me then and it bothers me now. But it doesn’t surprise me. This crankhead of hers, he’s nothing but a project, you watch.”

Eddy puffed his cheeks. His eyes suggested a certain mystification. Then he shrugged. “Yeah. Okay. Maybe so. What I know about women you could fit inside a pea.” He stared at his salad, licked his teeth and shook his head. “You ask me, though, she ain’t free to walk away the minute you show up.”

Abatangelo tried to form a picture of this in his mind. The task proved the better of him, for reasons he preferred not to address. He asked Eddy, “Any suggestions?”

Eddy chortled. “I suggest you get a little settled before you haul your ass out to Bum Fuck Egypt and get your dick stuck in the fan. She’s a convicted felon, check condition number nine of your release. You get permission to see her, I’ll kiss your bare ass at Geary and Powell.”

“I got permission to see you.”

“Because I sweat blood to make it that way. I’m the perfect parolee.” He finished his salad. Tearing off a chunk of bread, he sopped up the dressing off his plate. “Besides which, you’ve got a job,” he said. “Incidentally, I checked out this guy Dominic’s set you up with. He’s a goofy bird and the work’ll bore you stupid, but I don’t think he’s gonna mess with you. No kickbacks, no weird threats because you scare him. My guess is, it’s the best gig you could expect right now involving photography. Stick with it for a year, who knows? You could be doing your own stuff, showing it around town maybe. There are still a lot of little galleries here. That’s what you want, right?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Eddy snorted. “It’s what you want, trust me. As for women, this is an easy town to get laid in. All the nice guys are boning all the other nice guys. Polly’s got friends who’ll jump you in a frenzy, I’m serious. You’re red meat compared to the preening yuppie fluff they’re used to. Don’t get me wrong, Shel’s a great old lady, or she was once. She chumped you off, though, remember? Don’t obsess. It’s not going to get you anywhere, except back in the tank.”

Oscar cleared their salads as the entrees arrived, then returned with a bumbling flourish to shower their plates with Parmesan. Abatangelo found himself staring at his food.

“It won’t bite back,” Eddy said, watching him.

Abatangelo speared a serving of sausage with his fork. He felt an excruciating reluctance. When he finally managed to put the serving on his tongue, what he feared would happen, happened. He put his fork back down and covered his face with his hand.

“It’s all right,” Eddy said gently. “Same thing happened to me.”

Oscar popped up tableside. Eddy assured him all was fine and gently urged him to vanish. In time, Abatangelo looked up from his hand, wearing a vacant smile, eyes red.

“Stupid,” he said. “Sorry.”

“No more sorry,” Eddy replied. “You’re home.”

Abatangelo picked up his fork. Memories came at him again and again as he ate, memories of a childhood spent in this same neighborhood. A childhood consumed with defying his father’s shame, nursing his mother’s fear, tormenting his sister, playing pranks on the phonies.

“Can I ask you something?” Eddy said.

Abatangelo looked up.

“This Shel thing. Twenty-five words or less: How far you willing to go?”

Abatangelo stared across the table. He figured it was best not to tell Eddy what he didn’t want to know. “She said she could stand to see me,” he said. “I could stand to see her. I’ll be careful. After that, what happens, happens.”

Eddy shook his head. The effect of the wine was beginning to show. “That’s no good.”

“Ed, what- ”

“I can assure you, man, Shel’s in a spot. Her eyes tell you that. But that doesn’t mean she’s suffering for you . Okay? Her being in a jam does not demand a response. Ten years is enough. Too much. Tell me we’re clear on this.”

Abatangelo put his fork down. “You’ve made your point.”

Eddy leaned close, eyes aglow. “Don’t… obsess…”

Abatangelo regarded the face before him with a sudden intense discomfort. He said, “What do you suggest, Ed? Sit and reflect? I’ve had ten years of rolling things around in my head. Time for a little exercise.”

“Look, Dan, I know how you feel.”

Abatangelo cackled. “Do you, now? What was it, forty-two months you did? Why was that, Ed?”

Eddy shrank back a little. “Look, I owe you. Big-time. I realize that.”

Abatangelo waved him off. “To obsess or not obsess is not my problem, Ed. My problem is making sure I don’t fall back into the bad habit that sneaks up on you inside the walls, the habit of thinking everything over ten different ways because that’s all you’ve got the chance to do. Lots of time on your hands. Remember? Well, that’s over. At least everybody keeps telling me it is. What’s your take on that, Ed? Is it over?”