Saving Room for Dessert (13 page)

Since Jimmy Abrigatto’s grandparents and Robert Canoza’s grandparents had come from the same village in Italy, and since Jimmy’s
mother and Robert’s mother were both members of Mother of Sorrows parish in Norwood, and since Jimmy and Robert had gone to
Mother of Sorrows Elementary School together, Jimmy thought he’d have no problem reaching out to Robert to solve his problem
with the bikers.

“You always said I wasn’t smart enough to walk and chew gum at the same time,” Canoza had responded to Jimmy’s outreach.

“Hey, I was a kid, you know? Kids say things.”

“Oh is that what it was, huh? You were a kid. I get it.”

“C’mon, you’re not gonna hold that against me now, are ya?”

“Well what happened—you got older and dumber? And I got older and smarter—is that what you’re sayin’ now?”

“Whattaya mean?”

“Hey, genius, ever hear of nine-one-one? Next time they start some shit, pick up your phone and push those numbers. Coupla
cars’ll show up, they’ll bust some heads, kick over a few bikes, that’ll be the end of that.”

“Yeah but how will I know you’ll be workin’?”

“Whattaya mean, how will you know
I’ll
be workin’? You askin’ me to do this? Me specifically? What’s goin’ on here, Jimmy? You wouldn’t be solicitin’ an aggravated
assault, would ya?”

“No no no no no, nothin’ like that, c’mon. I’m just sayin’, you know, I don’t want a coupla little guys showin’ up, I mean
what the fuck, you know? You show up, that would be like, uh, impressive, you know? You’re a big guy, Booboo.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Hey, sorry. I forgot.”

“I’m a big guy, huh? No kiddin’. Nobody ever told me that before.”

“Hey, you know what I mean—oh, you’re pullin’ my chain now.”

“Me? Robert Canoza? I’m pullin’ your chain? The guy ain’t smart enough to pass the sergeant’s test? The guy ain’t smart enough
to get out of a car and behind a desk?”

“Hey, I never said that about you, man. Anybody says I said that is a fuckin liar, man.”

“Yeah? Well maybe you should have a little talk with your mother, ’cause that’s who told my aunt. And guess who she told,
huh?”

“Nah, whoa, c’mon, Bobbie. My mother said that? Never. Never fuckin’ happen she said that.”

“Yeah? First off, not even my mother calls me Bobbie. Second, this better be on the square, Jimmy, ’cause I find out you’re
usin’ me to solve a problem? After I bust their heads I’ll bust yours, you got that?”

“Yeah, hey, Robert, I got ya, man. I understand. Absolutely.”

“Good. ’Cause, uh, obviously your memory’s goin’ bad.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah. What you apparently can’t remember is how you been raggin’ me since we were kids. You think I forgot that, huh? Back
in Mother of Sorrows? Then, you were the skinny good-lookin’ one, the one with the wavy hair and the fast mouth, and I was
Quasimodo, remember? King Kong? Mighty Joe Young? Now you’re just another bald guy can’t see his dick when he pees. Another
bald, fat guy with a problem he thinks I’m supposed to solve just ’cause I’m on the city payroll. I’m gonna say this once
more, Jimmy. If this ain’t what you say it is, I’m gonna be on your payroll long as you own this bar, understand?”

“Absolutely. No question, man—Robert. I know exactly what you’re sayin’. But I swear on my mother, these guys are ruinin’
my business, man, they’re worse than a buncha fags. They don’t show up, I’m empty here.”

Three days after that conversation, the leader of the Animals got loud with the leader of the Undertakers, and Jimmy thought
he saw a knife. Then he thought he saw another knife, and then he started hollering he was dialing 911 before he even started
for the phone.

By the time Canoza and Rayford showed up a few minutes later, the Animals and the Undertakers were all charm; their behavior
could not have been more congenial. Canoza looked around for a minute or so and then asked who their leaders were. Nobody
answered. Canoza stepped quickly behind two of the Undertakers who happened to be sitting with their backs to him, cracked
their heads together, and then slammed them facedown onto the bar, breaking both their noses.

After their screams turned to muffled sobs, a strange silence fell over Suds and Subs, exaggerated by the hum of the beer
coolers and the sizzle of frozen potatoes in the deep fryers.

“One more time, who’s in charge here?”

At the other end of the bar, the two who had been in each other’s faces provoking Jimmy’s 911 call held up their right hands.

Canoza approached them, bent between them, put his hands on their shoulders, and said, “We got a report this place is becomin’
a nuisance bar. Know what that means? The LCB is gonna be sendin’ its agents here. Know who they are? Case you haven’t heard,
LCB regs are now enforced by the state police. If you fellas don’t want the state cops on your case, you’ll find someplace
else to hang out, understand?”

The leader of the Animals looked at the leader of the Undertakers and they started to laugh and turn around.

Canoza cracked their heads together, quickly slid his hand down their backs until he found their belts, then jerked them backwards
off their bar stools, and started carrying them, one in each hand, toward the front door, telling Rayford to open it. Then,
banging their heads off every surface he passed, Canoza carried them, gasping and coughing, outside, where he rammed them,
first one and then the other, headfirst into the side of his MU. Then he dropped them, barely conscious and bleeding profusely,
onto the macadam.

He turned around, looked at the double line of Harleys, eleven in a line closest to the door and nine in the second line,
dropped into a crouch beside a bright red one on the end of the second line, put his hands on the seat and gas tank, and with
a guttural roar, shoved it into the next one, toppling all nine like dominoes. Inside, he made the same announcement as before,
much louder this time, to the rest of the bikers, who were scurrying to put tables between them and him.

No one was more impressed with Canoza’s display of courage and power than William Rayford, who’d only been on the job six
months and knew he didn’t have the vocabulary to say how happy he was that Canoza arrived on the scene about ten seconds before
he had and not only was first through the door but had never hesitated about taking the initiative. As Rayford described it
later, and he would describe it many times to any of his fellow officers who wanted to listen, he stressed that Canoza had
never even asked him if he wanted to handle it. “It was like I wasn’t even there,” Rayford would say. “But I’m tellin’ you,
man, my chin was on my chest, I ain’t lyin’. I had to tell myself to swallow or I would’ve been droolin’ all down my chin.”

Second most impressed, of course, was Jimmy Abrigatto, who, the moment the last Undertaker ran out his front door, shouted,
“Man, Robert, long as I own this place, you eat here, you drink here, you don’t pay for nothin’. I swear on my mother, anything
you want, anytime you want it, it’s on me, man.”

“And that’s the only time ol’ Boo acted like I was even there, man,” Rayford would say. “He looked at this Jimmy and then
he pointed at me and he said, ‘I got a witness, Jimmy. You heard that, Rayford, right?’ And I told him yes sir I surely did.
And that’s why Boo eats there all the time. Man, you shoulda seen those bikers scatter. Left their wounded behind too, man.
Buncha chickenshits.…”

Even before Canoza found the one empty seat at the bar, Jimmy was working on a meatball sub for him, while one of the waitresses
reached around the corner of the bar, got a frosty mug and filled it with ginger ale. She brought it around the bar and set
it in front of Canoza with her most genuine smile while pushing into his right arm with her breasts.

“Hi, Robert,” she said.

“Save that for the tourists,” he said, leaning away from her.

“Gee, you’re welcome,” she said, acting hurt. Or maybe she was hurt, Canoza couldn’t tell.

“Why do you always do that?” she said.

“Do what?”

“Pull away from me like I’m some kinda …”

“Some kinda what?”

“Hey, you know what I mean. I’m just doin’ my job, okay?”

“And you do that to do it better, right?”

“Hey, it’s a job, you know? I got a kid, okay?”

“If that’s part of the job description, you oughta sue the prick.”

“What prick, who’s a prick?” Jimmy said, delivering the meat-ball sub.

“Who do you think? You.”

“Me? I’m the prick? Fuck’d I do now?”

“Tell your waitresses shove their boobs into me every time they bring my ginger ale.”

“Hey, that’s bullshit, Robert, I don’t tell ’em do that. They do that all on their own. What you don’t understand is they
like you.”

“Yeah, right,” Canoza said, taking a bite of his sub. He chewed for a while, closed his eyes, and said, “Good sauce. Good
meatballs. Had it all together when you made these.”

“Same way I always make ’em.”

“Nah, uh-uh. Some days you make ’em you leave your dago soul in the parkin’ lot. Those days they’re like sawdust and porch
paint.”

“What’re you talkin’ about, sawdust and porch paint, that’s my mother’s recipe. Get outta here with that bullshit.”

The waitress was back, looking genuinely hurt. She tapped Canoza on the shoulder.

“What?”

“I’m tired of you really hurtin’ my feelings.”

“Gimme a break. You said it yourself, it’s just a job.”

“You think you don’t have feelings ’cause it’s your job?”

“Hey,” Jimmy said, “if you don’t have tables to work you can always clean the ladies’ toilet, you know? Do somethin’, Jesus.”

“If I had tables, I’d be workin’ ’em, okay? God knows, that’s the only way I make any money around here.”

“What’s she mean? You don’t pay ’em?”

“Whattaya think—I’m nuts? Much as they make they oughta be glad I don’t take a cut.”

“Oh please, much as we make.”

“No joke—he doesn’t pay you?”

“He just said it, didn’t he?”

“You don’t pay them
anything? Nothin’?
How do you get away with that? You can’t do that.”

“Who says?”

“Get outta here. You can’t make people work for nothin’.”

“They don’t work for nothin’, they work for tips. You think tips are nothin’, you kiddin’? How much’d you make yesterday,
Lois, huh? Tell this fuckin’ gorilla.”

“Sixty-three and change. Only had to be here from eleven till midnight.”

“Wait wait wait—what’d you call me?”

“Huh?”

“You said tell this effin’ gorilla.”

“No I didn’t.”

“I ain’t deaf. Hey, Lois, what’d he call me, huh? You heard him, what’d he say?”

“I didn’t hear anything, honest.”

“You’re both fulla crap. I heard what you said, Jimmy.” Canoza jumped up, stretched over the bar, and grabbed Jimmy’s right
ear and squeezed. “I’m tellin’ you for the last time, Jimmy, you ever call me gorilla again? Or anything like it? You’ll spend
the next nine months in rehab learnin’ how to write with a pencil in your teeth, you got that?”

“I got it, Robert, I got it, let go my ear, man, that hurts!”

“Not half as bad as it’s gonna hurt you ever call me that again. Or I ever hear anybody tell me you called me that again,
you got that?”

“I got it, man, I got it, let go, please!”

Canoza let go of Jimmy’s ear and sat back down. Jimmy rushed away to put some ice in a plastic bag and hold it to his ear.

Canoza turned and said to Lois, “I’m tryin’ to stick up for you with this prick and whatta you do? You go deaf. You wanna
work here for nothing’ but tips, that’s your problem. Don’t ever complain to me about it again.”

“I wasn’t complainin’ to you about that. I was complainin’ ’cause you hurt my feelings.”

“Aw please, hurt your feelings, Jesus.”

She took a deep breath, started to say something, but couldn’t.

Canoza saw tears running down her cheeks and swung around on his stool. “Okay okay, look, I’m sorry, alright? Don’t cry, okay?
C’mon, don’t! I didn’t mean to make you cry, aw Jesus—here, take my napkin, c’mon, take it, here.”

She started to take the napkin and they both saw the red stains from where he’d wiped sauce off his mouth. He folded the paper
napkin so that the stains were on the other side and tried to dab her cheeks, but she pulled away.

“C’mon, Jeez, I was tryin’ to stick up for ya, you know? What, you havin’ your period or something’?”

“No! Jesus, you think the only reason I might be cryin’ is if I’m havin’ my period? Screw you, Robert, okay? Just screw you.”

Canoza’s shoulders sagged as he watched her hurry away. Jesus Christ, he thought. Come in here, all I’m askin’ for is a little
peace to eat my sub. And what the fuck do I get? Grief. Everywhere I go today, I’m in a fuckin’ grief storm. Fuckit. I’m outta
here.

Canoza picked up the rest of his sub and walked out the door, taking another bite and chewing as he walked.

“Hey, Jimmy, look at me,” he called out over his shoulder. “I’m walkin’ and chewin’ at the same time.”

He finished the sub in the MU, and was starting to call himself back into service when he noticed that he’d slopped sauce
on his shirt and tie. “Fuck,” he said. Then he remembered he was out of Moist Towelettes. “Double fuck.”

He started to drive to the Giant Eagle out on Route 30 in West-field Township but thought he better go to the Foodland up
on Pittsburgh Street, even though the last time he went there they were out of Moist Towelettes. So he’d had to go to the
Giant Eagle in the township, but some piss-and-moaner from the city spotted him and called the station. Chief Nowicki had
just relieved the dispatcher so he could take a piss break, and Nowicki took the ear assault from the P&M about city cops
being in the township when they were supposed to be patrolling in the city.

The geopolitical fact was the city was one large land island and two smaller ones surrounded by the township, so city cops
were always driving through parts of the township to get to other parts of the city, a geographical fact complicated by the
political fact that the township had no police department of its own and was supposed to be patrolled by state police from
Troop A Barracks, which was located in the city, two blocks east of Pittsburgh Street. But since Troop A—like the entire state
police since the early 1990s—was pitifully undermanned because nearly a third of the force took early retirements offered
by the state legislature to balance a budget at that time, Rocksburg PD was called to respond to incidents in the township
more often than the state police. Troop A dispatchers were in fact doing most of the calling. Because it irritated and annoyed
Chief Nowicki to repeat these geographical and political facts to every caller who pissed and moaned about city cops wasting
their taxes shopping in township supermarkets, he appealed to his officers to try to avoid doing so.