Bruce DeSilva - Cliff Walk

I spent ten minutes looking for my cell phone, found it in the pocket of my bomber jacket, and called Joseph DeLucca. Twenty minutes later, I was smoking a cigar in the doorway of Pazienza’s gym when Joseph rolled up in a decade-old Mustang that was even money to beat my Bronco to the glue factory.

I held the heavy bag for him again as he gave it a good working over. When he was done, he helped me wrap my hands. I began with a flurry of jabs and then turned my hips and put everything I had into a left hook. I backed off to catch my breath and then attacked the bag again, jabbing, hooking, and looping overhand rights. Sweat streamed into my eyes. I could barely see, but I kept throwing punches. I hated that bag. I willed it alive so I could beat it to death. I drew a breath and pounded it some more.

“Mulligan!”

I threw a right cross and a left hook.

“Mulligan!”

Another hook.

“Mulligan!?” Joseph said. He grabbed me by the waist and dragged me away from the bag.

“What?”

“Look at your fuckin’ hands.”

Blood was seeping through the wraps.

Thirty minutes later, both of us freshly showered, we knocked on the door at Hopes. It was after hours and the lights were turned down. Annie, the barmaid, unlocked the door, let us in, and locked it behind us. A half-dozen copy editors were playing low-stakes poker at a table in back. A couple of off-duty cops sat at the bar, drinking from tall glasses of Guinness. Joseph and I grabbed a couple of cans of Bud from the cooler, slapped our money on the bar, and took our pick of the empty tables.

I smelled like Dial. Joseph smelled as if he’d bathed in Axe. I hated Axe. I pulled out a cigar, clipped the end, set fire to it, and glared in turn at each customer in the place, daring someone to tell me to put it out.

Joseph gulped from his can of Bud, set it back on the table, and said, “What the fuck’s wrong with you?”

When I got home, I was still jumpy. I lay in bed drinking Bushmills from a pint bottle, hoping it would calm me down. I used the remote to snap on the TV and channel surfed until I stumbled on a favorite movie, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford . As the whiskey kicked in, I fought to keep my eyes open, afraid of what my dreams might bring.

I knew I’d lost the fight when a bloody little girl walked into the room and asked me to help her find her arms.

According to my grandfather, America lost its tenuous hold on civilization in 1967; but, the Summer of Love’s flower children, acid rock, and LSD proved to be a fleeting madness. When the collapse he feared finally did come, he wasn’t alive to see it. It happened in 1998, the year Joseph R. Francis released his first Girls Gone Wild video. Since then it’s been a downward spiral of celebrity boxing, Carrot Top, Jackass, Paris Hilton, Flavor Flav, Norbit , Lindsay Lohan, Glenn Beck, Starbucks Pumpkin Chai, Octomom, Bob Dylan’s Christmas in the Heart CD, and Jimmy Dean’s Chocolate Chip Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick.

The scene at the House of Blues completed the picture. The crowd consisted mainly of unruly college jocks and their half-naked dates, most of them shit-faced before they pushed through the door, bellied up to the bar, and clamored for beer. Recorded music blared from speakers as we waited for Buddy Guy to take the stage. Elmore James. Muddy Waters. Koko Taylor. A rowdy bunch in Boston College Eagles sweatshirts howled along, getting the words all wrong. When an asshole in a UMass-Boston jersey and a double-barreled beer helmet staggered into Yolanda for the second time, his arm mashing her left breast, I figured it had to be on purpose. Maybe she had a point about white boys. This was beginning to look like a mistake.

Late that afternoon, I’d spent more than my customary three seconds looking in my mirror. Getting ready for a date usually required a few simple steps. Sniff the armpits, drag a wet brush through my hair, pluck a relatively fresh shirt from a pile of laundry, and make sure my shoes matched. This time I peered at myself, wondering what I had to offer a woman as… well, as woman as Yolanda. Nothing changed no matter how hard I looked. Maybe I could spill some coffee on my shirt again. She thought it was cute the first time.

On the way to pick her up, I stopped off at the mall downtown and blew a hundred bucks on a pair of loafers at Bostonian. The last time I’d treated myself to a new pair of kicks was when my marriage to Dorcas was ending. They were running shoes. I’d heard somewhere that shoes say a lot about a man. I hoped the loafers were smooth talkers.

It was a short drive to East Greenwich, an artsy little town on the western shore of Narragansett Bay. Time enough to play just six tunes from my prostitution playlist. Just off Division Street, I pulled up to a cluster of roomy condos, stared at the tangle of identical door fronts, and realized that I’d forgotten to write down Yolanda’s unit number. Was it 52 or 53? Or maybe 54?

I was pulling out my cell to call her when I spotted a window with a decal of a dark, clenched fist in the bottom corner. Fierce yet discreet. Had to be her. I switched off the ignition, brushed cigar ash from my pants, bounded up the walk, and rang the bell to No. 54.

The door to No. 53 opened instead, and there was Yolanda, suppressing a smile that said she’d been watching me. Then the door to No. 54 eased open, and a squat gray panther, her hair a mass of blue curls, said, “May I help you?”

“He’s mine,” Yolanda said. “Sorry to bother you, Mrs. Steinberg.”

Mrs. Steinberg looked me up and down and winked at Yolanda before closing her door.

“Fooled by the fist, were you?” Yolanda said. “Wait a sec while I grab my coat.”

She left me alone in a room that was all mint green and air, with lots of framed pictures on the walls and tables. Some were of an older woman with a face like Yolanda’s, others of a man handsome enough to worry me.

“That’s my brother Mark,” she said.

I turned and saw she’d pulled on a sleek leather jacket that went well with her faded jeans and red Tony Lamas. Her hair was pulled back, and she wore very little makeup, as if she knew she didn’t need improving.

“He used to be a reporter, L.A. Times, but he could see there was no future in it. He’s in law school now.”

“Good he’s got a plan.”

“It is, but he’s not thrilled about it. All he ever wanted to do was be a newspaperman. He really misses it. You guys should talk sometime.”

“Oh? So he’s okay with white guys?”

She laughed, the sound I’d been waiting for. “Like me, he considers them a necessary evil.”

I fumbled for the keys to the Bronco as she locked her door. Then she turned to me and said, “Where’s your car?”

“Right there,” I said, pointing to Secretariat, still wheezing and ticking in his stall. “I cleaned off a spot for you on the front seat.”

“Let’s take mine,” she said, and led me to a new burgundy Acura ZDX. Settling into the ivory leather passenger seat was like sinking into a tub of warm butter. Yolanda touched something on the dash, and the engine thrummed to life.

I wondered what we’d talk about on the traffic-choked, hour-long drive to Boston. The Maniellas were a conversation stopper. Dismembered children had dubious romantic appeal. And I sucked at small talk. What could I say to convince her that white guys could be A-OK? Maybe I could remember not to say things like A-OK.

Yolanda touched something else on the dash, and John Lee Hooker started grunting “Hittin’ the Bottle Again.” We fell into a comfortable silence, breaking it occasionally to touch on the weather, the car’s handling, and the quality of the selections from the satellite radio blues channel. We were two people who didn’t know each other well, trying not to talk about work. I leaned back and envisioned the two of us, bodies scrunched together in a jam-packed club, swaying to the rhythms of the best blues guitar player in the world. Maybe Buddy would get Yolanda’s mojo working.