Tom Piccirilli: Headstone City

The Jersey shooter had drawn a.45 and pulled the trigger, aiming for where Vinny had been an instant before. But the bullet struck the sidewalk and shards of cement exploded toward Dane. There were moments when you realized how ridiculous you looked in flight.

Vinny capped the shooter in the face and stuck his gun back in his jacket. He stared down at Baldo Cruz, thrashing in the street, pissing himself, an expression on his face like he'd just been poorly laid.

Then Vinny got a firm grip on Dane's arm and ushered him down the block and into his car without a word. They circled the neighborhood twice, Vinny grinning the whole time, proud of himself. But there was something more there. Dane asked him what was going on, and Vinny explained about the three trails of reality he occasionally saw and could slip into, fuck around with, decide upon, and even sometimes return from again. He could walk into a different version of the world in midstream, and just keep going. Dane laughed like one of them was crazy, not knowing which. Vinny laughed the same way.

Afterward they'd gone to Aqueduct to watch the races. While Dane stood around thinking about what it might be like to walk into a different reality and walk out again, Vinny lost fourteen thousand bucks.

“So why didn't you bet the winner?” Dane asked.

“I didn't see the winner. He wasn't one of the three choices.”

“The hell good is foresight then?”

“I didn't say it was good. Not always.” Smiling, the false teeth too fucking white. “Not at the track today, but pretty good on the street with Baldo, eh? How about you? You come away with anything from the accident?”

“No.”

“You're lying.”

“No.”

Dane, unsure how to say that Baldo was right there behind Vinny while he was talking about the guy, staring at Dane with dead eyes, whispering, “He hates you too, Danetello. He's going to want your head on a platter. He'll get it, someday, unless you get him first.”

Since then, Dane had been trying to figure out which of them had a greater burden. He still wasn't sure.

“Why don't you just let it go?” Dane asked.

“It's you who won't let go. You're resistant now, but that's okay. We'll get there together.”

“Where?” Dane tried to grin but he could tell it just came off sickly, his features contorting. A ripple of vertigo spread from the inside of his head outward, his vision clouding as it throbbed through him. It felt like Vinny might be toying around with his alternate tracks even now, taking Dane along with him for a step or two. “I just want to be left alone.”

“Nobody pushes you, Johnny. Whatever happens is because it's set in motion the way it's got to be. You stand or slump on your own.”

Dane figured that after all these years he was as hard and strong as Vinny. That if they were going to do this thing, they might as well do it now. Vinny wasn't packing. Hand-to-hand, Dane could kill him without half trying, if only he could make himself do it.

“Don't make me kill you.”

“I won't,” Vinny said, and let out a sort of sad smile. His lips squirming on his face. “Death is nothing anyway.”

“It's something.”

“We beat it a long time ago, when we went through the windshield. You didn't know that?”

“You pazzo fuck.” Dane spun and headed for the door, and the nausea washed through him again. He doubled over but didn't hit the floor. His metal skull rang like a church bell. Vinny was toying with reality again, changing tracks in midmotion, and somehow dragging Dane along.

“Don't forget the cannoli, ” Vinny told him, patting him on the back and walking out the door.

Dane looked up and the bar was full of people. A few of the Monticelli muscle boys and a couple of familiar faces at the back tables, staring at him oddly. A brute of a bartender looking like he was about ready to jump over the bar and toss Dane out.

An orange-lipped waitress carrying a tray of screwdrivers leaned over him and said, “You okay?”

“Didn't Vinny give you the day off?”

“He never gives us the day off.” She helped him to straighten up, hand on the back of his neck, but after a second she yanked her hand away, like her fingers had been singed by his scars.

His daddy, large in Dane's mind but not in his life, took on a greater shape and made himself known again. The man, wherever he was, looking at Dane from the other side of the void and giving him a run along now pat on the ass, just so he wouldn't forget there was unfinished business to be taken care of.

The past gained greater momentum, reckless in its approach but carrying him along, bringing him up to speed. If you don't fight this kind of current, it would take you wherever you had to go. He could feel himself catching up a little more, fitting back in. The trouble was making sure you didn't jump the track and completely derail.

Dane walked the mile to the Olympic Cab & Limousine Company. Looking through the window of the inner office, he saw that Pepe Morales had been promoted to manager.

Pepe was sitting at the back of the office chattering on the radio, huge pictures of his wife and kids on the large metal desk. He was telling a story that Dane had heard maybe twenty-five times, about the night when Pepe picked up the two lesbian hookers over by Sheepshead Bay and one went crazy with a straight razor on the other. The laughter grew so loud on the speakers there was feedback.

Pepe had been the only one from the neighborhood to visit Dane in the slam. You could count on him making the holidays something special even behind bars. Pepe would show up on Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Eve, bringing a bunch of gifts. Books and magazines mostly. He'd spread them around to the nine or ten buddies and relatives he had in the joint, and sometimes even brought something for the bulls. Keeping everybody in a good mood, even the guards drawing the shit shifts, who couldn't be home with their families.

Dane moved to the counter, where a harried young brunette with mussed hair fidgeted in a chair, filling out blue forms and chewing a toothpick to splinters. Without glancing up she said, “Yeah?”

“I'd like to talk to Pepe.”

“He's busy.”

“I'm a friend,” Dane said. He grinned but she still hadn't lifted her head. Maybe he was starting to lose some of his charm.

“All his friends are locked up.”

“I know, but I just got out.”

“Well, isn't that just fuckin' great for the rest of society.”

“It made my grandmother happy,” Dane said, giving the smile all he had even though his lips were starting to get tired.

“A respectable woman.”

“Yes.”

“Upon whose house you bring shame.”

“Actually, I bring her a lot of cannoli. ”

She flipped through more papers and spit the shreds of toothpick on the floor in front of Dane. “I told you, he's busy.”

“So are you and you're talking to me, honeybunch.”

It got her attention. She swiveled in her seat and glowered from beneath a jumble of loose curls. Bloodshot eyes, the seething tension there sharpening into instant hatred. At least she was looking at him.

“You a mouth?” she asked.

“No.”

“You got something you want to say? Am I going to have trouble with your ass? You think I'm putting up with that shit?”

Dane could never quite figure out why everybody was always so pissed, showing disapproval over any small thing, ready to jump into a stranger's face. Everybody in the joint was much more relaxed.

“I'd just like to speak to Pepe.”

“I already told you twice now, he's got work-”

It was already too late to defuse the bad atmosphere. Dane stared beyond her and tried to make eye contact with Pepe. He was up to the part in the story where one of the working gals is slashing like wild, her girlfriend screaming with her cheek sliced open, blood everywhere, and while Pepe is struggling with the slasher they wind up driving off the pier. He couldn't swim and almost drowned, sucking down half the East River, shouting for somebody to save him. But this version of the tale had a happy ending, because the whores made up while they were giving him CPR.