Jack Parker - Photo orgy

I pulled out of the tract of houses and onto Broad Street. It was one hell of a hot day. The sun was beating down and there wasn't a breeze in the air. The road back to town is a wide, macadam jobber, newly finished. It cuts through a big forest for a couple of miles and then you come into town. Northridge is a funny place. It's an old town with an old railroad depot and buildings like out of the Gay Nineties. But as soon as you get out of the old town a half-mile in any direction, there's all sorts of modern shopping centers, schools, and housing developments.

It all started in the late fifties, when everybody started moving up from New York. I liked it better the old way; I got plenty of good memories from when I was a kid, running around in the woods, having apple fights in the orchards, and like that. Now, most of the orchards are gone and pretty soon there won't be any woods left. On the other hand, as long as they keep coming in, I'll never have to sweat for work, being a plumber and all. And I gotta admit, putting it to middle-class, Bronx pussy is a lot better than romping in the woods with the guys.

I thought about my job as I rolled down Broad to town. Carl was gonna be pissed. It was a pain in the ass, having to answer to him all the time. Sometimes, when I think about it, I get really teed off at myself. I mean, here I am, twenty-three already, out of high school five years, and not a pot to piss in. I got no big expenses. I live with my parents still, and I don't have any payments except for the Impala. All a guy would need in a growing town like this is a stake, and he could go into business for himself. Hell, I could run my own business. The truck could say Pete Novak on it instead of C. Arlotta amp; Son, Plumbing and Contracting.

But I never was any good at saving or planning ahead.

As I got closer to town the stores and new buildings began to pop up along the road. Going by the big A amp;P center, I passed Charlie Dee, one of the local cops and a drinking buddy, and we honked at each other. A little way further down, I passed Billy Gilcher in his '68 Merc, but I didn't honk that wiseass son of a bitch.

Then I was on the main drag of the old part of town. It's a pretty narrow street with potholes up the ass and old store-fronts that are gonna be torn down by urban renewal, if they ever get around to it. Carl keeps the office down here cause the rent's cheap; in our line, you don't need to be in a fancy place in one of the shopping centers.

I hung a right and pulled into the lot we share with Al the barber and Ed's Grill. The three of us are in an old building made out of cinderblocks.

When I went inside, Carl was on the phone. He's a fat, bald guy of forty-five or so, with a big red nose on him from all the booze he puts away next door at Ed's. I flopped down in a chair across the desk from him and threw down Mrs. Stanyon's bill and her check.

"OK, Mrs. Longo, right away," Carl was saying. "I'll send up one of the boys right away." He hung up the phone and looked at me, then grabbed the bill and check.

"There was a lot of work," I said. "The pipe was clogged up good."

"An hour and a half you were gone," he said. He was pissed. "An hour and a half and all you charged her was ten bucks?" He looked at me like I was some crazy stranger.

"Yeah, well, it was just a snake-job, that's all," I said. "How could I charge her more?" I was trapped; it was a weak argument, but what could I tell him? That the job took ten minutes and the rest of the time we were banging?

"Ah, sweet Jesus!" He slammed a meaty fist down on the desk and looked up at the ceiling. Then he glared at me. "How long you been working for me? Five years? How many times I gotta tell you, it's ten dollars just to go out there and look! If to fix takes a couple minutes, OK, ten dollars. If there's a wad of toilet paper and it takes five minutes, ten dollars, OK, OK. So there's a big turd, it takes ten minutes, still OK, ten dollars. But – Jesus Christ – when it's an hour and a half, you don't charge ten dollars! You think I got time to burn? You should have charged her triple!"

"But, Carl," I said, "it was just that…"

"Never mind, never mind," he said, waving a hand in front of me. "We ain't got time. Listen, get out here and see what the story is. And don't fuck around this time, don't fuck with my business!"

He handed me the slip; he didn't know the half of it.

"Mrs. Longo," I said, reading the address. "Isn't she that fat broad on the PTA?"

"Yeah," Carl said. Then he made what was supposed to be a joke. "Probably got her fat ass stuck in the toilet seat."

I rose, unsmilingly. I wasn't about to let him smooth things over that easily. "I'll get going right away," I said. "Listen, Carl, where's Tony?"

"Next door, having lunch."

"Carl, how 'bout letting me grab a bite, OK?"

He frowned and stared up at me for several seconds. Then he wiped the sweat from his brow and was about to say no, when the phone rang. He grabbed it and brought it to his ear.

"Carl Arlotta," he said. A pause. "Oh, Mrs. Lebwohl, how are you? Trouble? Overflowing, huh? OK, Pete, but ten-minutes, you understand? Ten minutes! No, no, Mrs. Lebwohl, I was talking to one of my boys here. Yes, I'll get right on it…"

I didn't waste any time beating it out of there and ducking into Ed's. The place was empty, except for Ed behind the bar and Tony, sitting across from him on a stool. It's a small, dumpy place, narrow and dim. The fan overhead wasn't doing much. I was sweating like a bastard as I sat down next to Tony.

"Hey, Tony," I said. "Ed."

"Hey, Pete," Ed said. Tony nodded at me, his mouth stuffed with a bite of meatball hero.

"It's one hot mother out there, huh?" Ed said. He's a tall, skinny guy, about forty, with a bald spot and a lot of pock marks on his face.

"It's no better in here," I said. "When are you gonna break down and get an air conditioner?"

"Well, I don't know," he said, pouring me my usual, a glass of Rheingold. "There ain't that many bad days like this. Most of the time, you don't need it. There's no point in wasting money."

"Listen, Ed, gimme a wedge, like Tony got. I'm in a hurry."

Tony turned to me, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "The old man riding you?" he asked. He was a younger version of Carl, beer belly and all. Already, his hair was receding and he was only twenty-three, like me. We graduated in the same class.

"Yeah," I said. "About the job at Mrs. Stanyon's. What was he doing, bitching about it to you?"

"Yeah," Tony said. "You know the old man. Time is money and all that crap."

I took a long swallow, then another that emptied the glass. I reached over the counter and served myself, pulling down the lever and holding the glass. Ed was out back fixing my hero. I slid a quarter for the beer over toward the edge of the counter.

"I gotta go out on a job at Mrs. Longo's," I said.

"That's that fat PTA broad, right?" Tony asked, just before shoving the wedge between his fat lips and biting down with a loud smacking.

"Yeah," I said. "Listen, Tony, your old man say anything like he thought maybe I'm screwing around or something? I mean, he doesn't think I'm playing around with any of them broads, does he?"

Tony smiled and washed down his mouthful with beer. He turned his face to me. "No, he didn't say nothing like that. Why do you ask?" He looked at me with a knowing leer.

"No reason," I said. "I just wonder, because I know that's what you think, right?"

He gave me this silly grin, like we were two kids peeping through a knothole at naked ladies or something. Tony is what you'd call a loser. He has a lot of girlie mags and stuff like that, but he never seems to get any of the real thing. I don't think I ever even seen him dance with a girl, and I've known him for ten years.