Frank Zafiro: Blood on Blood

“Jesus, Kos, don’t call me mister . I ain’t that fuckin’ old.” I laugh and shake the guys paw. I’m giving him the best grip I got and clamp it on him. The guy looks down at my hand and his expression changes. He tries to tighten up on the shake but it’s too late. I smile some more at him.

“Hey Patrik, he’s just tryin’ to do what you pay him to do right? So, whaddya do? Bust his balls.”

I’m laughing it up now.

Patrik claps me on the shoulder. “All right, good. We’re all straight here. Jerzy, you’re damn right I’m the manager now. So let’s go. There’s a bottle of Belvedere in my office calling us.”

Patrik leads the way to the back. As we walk by Kos, I grab the big guy around the neck and fake a punch to his ribs. Playful like, all shits and grins. He grins back at me and then I tighten the grip around his neck and lean in. The music is really loud again now. I swear it’s the fuckin’ Bee Gees from Saturday Night Fever . The colored disco lights wash over us again.

I motion him and he gives me his ear.

“So anyway, just know this. I’m gonna hurt you. Like real soon.”

I give him one more real hard yank on the neck, smile my best smile and follow Patrik. I know he’s watching me walk away and I like that.

We weave through the crowd at the Ambrozy. The men move aside and a few nod at me. The women look at me and think what I’m thinking. I like that, too.

Hell, I like it all.

Mick

I scraped the grill a final time with the spatula, pushing the last few scraps of food off the edge and into the trap. I could hear the fading voices as Eddie bid the slow-to-go customers a good night. Glasses and dishes clinked in the small diner as Connie finished busing the tables. She always took the time to straighten the salt, pepper and sugar containers instead of waiting until the morning. Sometimes, after a long day like this one, that kind of thing irked me. Most times, though, I liked it. It meant that she liked to start clean every day. Or so I told myself.

I sprayed some cleaner on the grill and was rewarded with a mild hiss. Then I used the wire pad to start scrubbing. Tomorrow morning would start with a clean grill to go with the orderly tables.

Connie walked into the kitchen just as I was finishing up. Her hands and arms were full of dishes.

“You know we have a plastic tub for that, right?” I asked her.

“I know,” she said, clattering the armload of dishes into the sink. “I don’t need it.”

I wiped my hands on a towel. When she reached for the large nozzle and started rinsing the dishes, I stepped up behind her and put my mouth to her ear.

“See you later on, right?”

She froze for a second, and I knew right away what that meant.

Steve was back.

Steve, the high school jock and grown up jerk off, worked on a freighter that sailed out of Chicago. The ship’s name was Sweetness , named for the famous running back from this city of broad shoulders, and that, as far as I was concerned, was about the only good thing about Steve. More than once, I wished the prick worked on a ship called the Edmund Fitzgerald instead.

“I can’t,” she whispered, but I’d already stepped back. She glanced over her shoulder at me, her eyes a little bit apologetic. But there was also a little bit of worry that Steve might find out about us. More than anything, she was pissy about the whole situation.

I shrugged. My hands were already untying my apron and balling it up. “I gotta go,” I said.

The apology drained from her expression, and that little bit of worry, too. That just left pissy. “Don’t be that way,” she said, her voice still in a whisper. She glanced out toward the dining area and then back at me.

That almost made me laugh. Who cares at this point if Eddie figures it out? How long has he owned this place? Seven, eight years? And how many times in all those years has it turned out that the help was sleeping together? Hell, he probably dabbled in that arena himself.

“You’ve got no right to be pissed off,” she said. “You know the way it is.”

“Yeah,” I said, grabbing my jacket off the rack and slipping my arms into it. “I do. It’s fucked up. That’s how it is.”

“He’s my husband.”

“He’s an asshole.”

“He pays the rent.”

“So he’s a rent-paying asshole,” I said. “You don’t even love him, Connie. If you did, you wouldn’t be fucking me.”

A quick, little shadow passed over her face, then was gone. “Is that all we’re doing? Just fucking?”

I tossed my apron into the laundry bag in the corner. “Oh, now you want to pretend it’s something else? Well, if that’s the case, why are you still with Sailor Boy Steve?”

“I’m stuck,” she said. “All right? I’m stuck.”

“Don’t act trapped,” I said. “It’s not like you’ve got kids with this guy.”

“I’ve got bills,” she said. Her voice still came in a harsh whisper. “Who’s going to pay those? You? On a grill man’s wages?” She snorted. “You barely get forty hours a week.”

Truth was, I got thirty-five a week. That saved Eddie on paying me benefits, which I didn’t give a shit about either way. He paid me an extra five hours off the books for that, and we both came out ahead.

“So you’re staying with a guy who treats you like shit because of money?”

She didn’t answer.

“You know what, Connie?” I said. “They have a word for that.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. Her jaw set and she shook her head slightly. “No. Don’t you say it.”

It was too late, though. I could see that. She wasn’t ever going to leave Steve. Hell, I should have seen it all along, but I thought there might be a chance somehow. I got suckered in by long walks downtown after a movie, by long talks over coffee and by long sessions of fucking at my apartment.

We might have been able to make a go of it, but it was too late now. Because she was choosing Steve for whatever fucked up reasons she had. And I was pissed off about it and maybe a little hurt, too, which pissed me off even more. And there was no way I could stop the words from tumbling out of my mouth.

“You want to be a whore, Connie?” I shrugged. “You go right ahead. But personally, I don’t think you’re worth the money.”

That was that. There was no coming back from it now. We were done. And probably one of us was going to be looking for another job soon, because although Eddie didn’t seem to care who was banging who around this place, he didn’t put up with any bullshit when it came to attitudes.

I turned to go, walking out of the kitchen instead of past her to the back door and the alley. I knew if I did that, I’d catch a whiff of her perfume and regret everything I’d just said.

As soon as I pushed open the door to the dining area, I wished I’d taken the alley instead. Two mopes, obviously muscle for somebody, were clustered around Eddie, who was backed up to the wall near the cash register. The larger of the two, a small mountain with a shock of black hair, stood with his face only a few inches from Eddie. The other one had a finger poised over the cash register. He was wiry, with a mean, hawk-like face.

“What the fuck?” Hawk-face said. His voice betrayed a thick, Eastern European accent. Not guttural enough for Russian. Probably Polish.

I wanted to sigh, say to hell with it and turn around. Leave by the alley way and mind my own business. But it was too late for that. And one look at Eddie’s scared eyes anchored me to the spot.

“What the fuck back,” I said.

The two exchanged a confused glance. Then Hawk-face said, “Get the fuck out of here. This is none of your business.”