Lou Manfredo - Rizzo's Fire

“Sure,” he said.

“Okay, you asked for it. I’m havin’ breakfast yesterday with Karen. Very nice, I cooked her eggs, she’s all happy, everything is cool. Then all of a sudden, things get all melodramatic. She says, ‘We need to talk.’ ”

Rizzo winced. “Ouch. That usually means trouble in paradise.”

“Yeah, well, this wasn’t the first time we had this conversation. See, Karen is very close to her parents, they’ve been really cool with her ever since she came out to them in high school. It’s impossible for her to relate to my situation with my own crazy-ass mother. So now it’s the holidays, this friggin’ Thanksgiving, and Karen’s folks are going away on a cruise. She figures this for the perfect opportunity to mend my fences, have a little down-home Thanksgiving with my old lady.”

She sat silently for a moment, shaking her head as the scene replayed in her mind.

“She means well, Joe. But she just don’t get it. I don’t have a mother. All I got is some drunk who dumped me out in the backseat of a gypsy cab ’cause she was too fuckin’ stupid or disinterested to get her ass to a hospital on time. But Karen figures we invite her over, sip some sherry, eat some turkey, and exchange decorating ideas for the apartment. Blah… blah… blah, Upper East Side bullshit. I swear, sometimes I think Karen sees the whole world as some Vassar sorority round-table jerk-off club.”

“So,” Rizzo said. “How’d you leave it off?”

“I told her no friggin’ way. That old lady just doesn’t exist for me, Joe. Not after the hell she put me through till I got the fuck outta her grasp.”

“Sounds like you’re not kiddin’.”

“Damn right I ain’t. But now I gotta deal with all this… You know what Karen told me? She said she expects me to be the person I am, not just some hard-ass cop I like to pretend to be. She expects me to do the right fuckin’ thing with this. And do you know what the right thing always is, Joe? What she wants me to do.”

They sat in silence for a moment before Rizzo spoke. “Yeah, Partner,” he said. “The right thing. I know all about the right thing.”

“Can you imagine? I mean, I love the girl, but, Jesus, can her head be any farther up her own ass? Does she really figure my old lady is gonna drop her gin bottle and bake me and my girlfriend a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving?” She shook her head. “Jesus, girl, get real.”

“This is the stuff people gotta hear, Cil,” Rizzo said, allowing himself a small smile.

“What stuff?” Priscilla asked.

“This stuff,” he said. “It’s so routine. It’s the same-old same-old everybody’s gotta deal with. I mean, that decorator thing you told me about, and how Karen’s old man wants to hook you into corporate city, and her mother wants you off the cops. Now this, this crap about your mother. It’s the same stuff couples been dealin’ with since Eve boosted that apple and fucked everything up.”

“We are a couple, Joe. We ain’t fuckin’ Martians.”

“Exactly,” Rizzo said emphatically. “That’s what the boys in pink and the pain-in-the-ass lesbos gotta start publicizin’. Get this stuff out there, you’ll have the sympathy of every straight man and woman in the world.”

Priscilla shook her head. “Hell, I’m not looking for any sympathy from any-fuckin’-body. I’m just looking for some peace. Get Karen off my back with this bullshit. My mother is fucked up. Totally. And nothing is ever going to change that.” She let air out from between her lips. “Now these goddamned holidays gotta be a freakin’ issue.”

She turned full face to Rizzo. “Please tell me we’re working Thanksgiving, Partner. Please.”

Rizzo shook his head. “Sorry. I checked the duty board through New Year. We’re off Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. That’s three fuckin’ arguments you can have with Karen. Ain’t the holidays fun?” he asked, his brows raised.

“Yeah, a freakin’ riot.”

After a moment, Rizzo spoke again. “Why don’t we do this? I’m having Thanksgiving at my house. Just my girls, Jen, her mother and mine. Why don’t you and Karen come? You can tell her you feel obligated, new partner, you gotta say yes, like that. You can push off this reunion from hell showdown for another month. Think about it. It’ll be fun watchin’ my mother and mother-in-law watchin’ you and Karen.”

Priscilla laughed. “Yeah, that sounds just great, Joe.”

“No, seriously,” he said. “It’ll be fine. Plus, maybe you and Karen can do me a favor and try to talk Carol out of goin’ on the cops. Hell, maybe Karen can get her old man to hook Carol up with some nine-to-five big payday bullshit job.”

“Okay, Joe, I’ll think about it.” After a pause, Priscilla spoke again. “Actually it may not be a bad idea. Karen would like to meet you.” She smiled at him. “I told her what a broad-minded, liberal Democrat you are, but somehow I don’t think she believed me.”

“Yeah, broad minded,” he said. “Though I gotta tell you, broads ain’t been on my mind as much as they were when I was younger.”

“Well, good for you,” she said.

They ate in silence for a while, watching pedestrian traffic move along the avenue in front of the Burger King’s parking lot.

Then Priscilla spoke once again, her tone neutral, her face expressionless.

“I gotta say, though, you did surprise me a little.”

“Oh, when was that?”

“In Lauria’s kitchen. With that black M.E. When you so diplomatically reminded him to check the corpse’s eyes for what ever. In case the guy was too stupid to think of it himself. You know… maybe since he was black and all.”

“Well, well,” Rizzo said with a laugh, “did that get your pan ties all bunched up?”

“A little bit, yeah,” she said.

“Cil, you need an explanation, I’ll give you one. But it’s not gonna break my heart any if you don’t believe it, so don’t hurt yourself tryin’.”

He turned full face to her, speaking carefully.

“There’s a few M.E.s out there who do it for the science, for the love of it. Those are the fucked-up ones, the head cases who like carvin’ up bodies, pokin’ around the maggots for clues. They’re like dysfunctional high school science nerds tryin’ to invent a better jerk-’em-off machine. But most M.E.s, the guy at Lauria’s place more’n likely, are guys with medical degrees who can’t get licensed to practice or can’t pass their boards or what ever. Some can barely speak English, guys from Puke-istan or some other shit-hole somewheres. They take the M.E. job for the steady paycheck, benefits, and a pension. Same reason guys become cops or garbagemen or work down at the DMV. They ain’t exactly consumed with ambition, you know? That’s why I reminded the doctor to get potassium levels from those eyes. I didn’t figure him for a slacker ’cause he was black. I figured him for a slacker ’cause he was an M.E. End of story.” He sat back in the seat, taking up his burger.

“Okay, Joe,” Priscilla said, turning to her own food. “I was hoping it was something like that.”

“All right, then,” Rizzo said. “Let’s skip the awkward silence, okay, and get back to business.”

“You got it,” she said. “Tell me.”

“Jesus,” he said, shaking his head. “Now she’s gonna start talkin’ like me. A fuckin’ Frankenstein I’m creatin’ here.”

“That invite for Thanksgiving still stand?”

“Sure,” he said. “If you decide to come, I’ll tell Jen to fry you up some chicken. You know, sos you’ll have somethin’ to eat.”

Priscilla tossed her crumpled napkin at him. “Okay, Joe. I get it. Okay.”