Sunset Park (27 page)

“Then why me and not her? Why me and not any other girl?”

“I don’t know. How the hell should I know?”

I mashed my lips together and swallowed my frustration. The impatience still did not leave his face.

“Look man, I’ve never dated. I’ve never had a real relationship. Why? I don’t know. Too lazy, too uninterested, and I only messed around with girls I’d known for years, and they were never serious about me. I was a convenient dick, and we had fun together, and that’s what it was. They knew the deal and so did I. Crystal wasn’t an exception. It just went on for a long time until she finally grew up and found a greener pasture. But you know what? I didn’t get my feelings hurt because I never tried to make it with her.”

“So why me?” I pressed. “If you liked having sex with her, and you had a good time with her, why me and not her?”

“Because I had to make a real effort with you!” Raymond’s nostrils flared as his voice rose. “You didn’t just come over to smoke my weed while I played first-person shooters. You made me go out and do shit with you. You showed interest in what I was going to do with my sorry-ass self. Actually thought I should do something with myself. You didn’t just shrug and assume I’d keep being a bum like everyone I grew up with. Including Crystal and Chris and Sharky. No one expects me to do shit.”

“But—”

“Just fucking forget it. I’m tired of defending myself.”

Raymond ripped his wallet out of his pocket and made a brusque gesture at the waitress.

“You keep acting like I’m saying I don’t want you just because I’m trying to—”

“
Figure me out
. Yeah, I got you the first fifteen times.”

The waitress appeared with the check, and Raymond handed her a card without looking at it. I wanted to argue about paying my half, but knew it would just make his mood worse. I stared at his grim profile, mulling over just how pissed off he was and how much worse I would make it if I kept trying to explain. It was best to keep my mouth shut, but I refused to leave it the way it was—with him thinking I was looking for an excuse to keep using him as a convenient dick while pursuing more high-quality interests. It was bogus, and way off the mark, but I could just see him getting angrier and angrier.

“Listen,” I hissed, bending my head toward his. “I’ve been burned by straight guys before. It hurt and those were immature crushes and puppy love. It would mess me up if it happened with you.”

“I’m not straight, you idiot. Or did you miss it the last two times I had my dick in your ass?”

The waitress returned, and my cheeks burned. What shit timing.

She gave me a slightly sympathetic glance. I dropped my gaze and took a deep pull from the hookah. The repetitive breathing didn’t help my nerves, or my temper, and before I knew it, Raymond was scribbling his name on the check.

“Do you want to finish this?” I asked, offering him the hose.

“No,” he said curtly. “I’m done here.”

There was no question that he was talking about more than just the hookah.

My speculation was confirmed by an icy walk to the subway that left no room for wondering whether or not he was less than 100 percent fed up with me. I’d realized a while ago that Raymond was quick to back down if something started looking like a lost cause, and I was sending him that message left and right while Oli waited in the wings. I may as well send him a Facebook invitation for open season on Raymond’s ass.

The choices were clear. Take a risk on a guy who was almost guaranteed to treat me like a secret when we were around his friends and family, or try to save myself the grief by being friendzoned while he moved on?

Something had to give, and that something would have to be me.

Raymond

I APPRECIATED
winter the same way I appreciated a kick in the nuts. All of the Caribbean blood flowing in my veins did absolutely fuck-all for my ability to withstand the cold. I gritted my teeth and tried not to cringe away from the wind cutting through Rolly’s neighborhood in Carajoville,
Long Island.

It had taken me three phone calls and a bombardment of text messages to convince my former dispatch manager to even talk to me. By a miracle of God, he’d taken pity on me because I was slumming at an office job, and agreed to let me plead my case. But not on the phone. The old-timey bastard ordered me to come do it in person. “Like a man.” I guess men in the 1890s, when he was born, had still been leery about talking biz through the wire.

The house was nicer than I expected for a guy who’d rocked the same jean jacket for as long as I could remember, but I attributed the neat hedgerow and Christmas decorations to his wife. And as great as their front porch was with its wind chimes and potted plants, it was still close to freezing with the wind chill.

I glanced at my phone, saw no reply to my message, and pressed my thumb against the doorbell. It sounded with an embarrassing three-chime pattern, and I cringed. My presence did not need that much fanfare.

Rolly opened the door in a green Giants sweatshirt and a pair of mesh shorts. The guy was out of his mind.

“I’ve been standing here forever,” I groused when he opened the door.

“You just rang the damned bell.” Rolly stood to the side so I could enter. His salt-and-pepper hair wasn’t slicked back with gel like it usually was, and he’d lost his summer tan.

“I texted you ten minutes ago!”

“Texted?” Rolly shut the door. “Fucking kids. Ring the doorbell, for God’s sake.”

He led me through the house, and I got a load of beige furniture, olive-green walls, and flower patterns that weren’t what I expected from a tough Irish roughneck like Rolly.

“Raymond, it’s so good to see you!”

I could hear Mrs. McKinney before I saw her, but that had always been the case. The lady was louder than my entire family combined, especially when you got a load of her rowdy color patterns and bright orange hair. She gave me a big hug when we entered the kitchen.

“How you doing, Mrs. McKinney?”

“Bad time of year,” she said, pulling away. “But you know about that, honey.”

Did I ever. My pops had kicked the bucket around the holidays last year, and sometimes I forgot that their son and my high school friend, John, had killed himself on Christmas a few years before that. He’d only been home from a tour in Afghanistan for a month.

“How’s your brother?”

“He’s good,” I said. “We started renting the old house, and now he’s living with Nunzio—you remember him?”

“Yeah, the gay one.”

Mrs. McKinney gave her husband a lethal stare. “Shut your mouth if you don’t have anything nice to say.”

“What did I say?” Rolly demanded. “I don’t give a damn if they’re gay. I was making a statement.”

I hadn’t said Michael was gay, but no one seemed bent out of shape over the idea, so I left it alone. Still, I felt a little guilty.

“I moved to Sunset Park,” I said, hoping to divert the attention. “I’m rooming with this guy Mikey knows.”

“A lot of changes,” Rolly noted. “Who decided to rent the house?”

“Mikey, but I can see where he’s coming from now. We both needed a change.”

“Hmm.” Rolly surveyed me, the same scrutinizing once-over he’d given me the day I’d run into him at Queens Center Mall and he’d offered me an opportunity to get in on some work at the docks. “Your haircut is better. You look like a man.”

I self-consciously ran a hand through my hair. I’d cut it just that morning, and it was still a surprise to feel the cold air on the back of my neck. It had been an impulsive decision, one made after days of stewing in self-loathing and frustration about feeling stuck, but
looking like a man
sure as fuck hadn’t figured into it.

“I guess.”

Rolly grunted. “Let’s go outside and talk.”

The guy seemed to have no understanding of it being cold enough to freeze off my sensitive bits, but I withheld the complaints and followed him into the backyard. It wasn’t as well kept as the front. The hedges around the house were hemorrhaging dead, brown leaves, and the back porch was full of football paraphernalia and overflowing ashtrays.

“Okay, kid.” Rolly plopped down in a canvas folding chair. “You got three sentences to explain why I should take your name off the shitlist and have dispatch start giving you work again. I’ve shitlisted casuals for picking up the phone too slow and walking to the counter at less than a brisk pace. You showed up high or not at all, seven times.”

“I really only have three—”

“Is that part of your explanation?” Rolly crossed his arms over his chest. “No? Then get it together.”

Exhaling through my nose, I leaned against the yellow railing on their porch. “I screwed up, and I’m sorry.” Did that count as one or two? Even though it was freezing, I was sweating under his glare. “I thought I could half-ass the job like I did with everything else, and when I stopped getting work, I realized what an asshole I was for blowing it. I got another job, but it’s not for me. Just give me one more chance.”

“That was four.”

I threw up my hands in exasperation. “Seriously, Rolly? You’re going to ride my ass when I’m groveling?”

“I haven’t seen you grovel yet.”

This was the point when I would normally snarl and unleash a slew of profanity, but Rolly didn’t look too keen on dealing with my bullshit. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, squinting like he was trying to see through my skull.

“You’re still smoking pot?”

“Not as much,” I said. “My roommate doesn’t smoke like that, and I feel stupid hanging out with him while I’m high all the time.”

“Huh.” Rolly didn’t shift his position. “What’s wrong with the office job?”

“It’s an
office job
.”

“Can’t handle work that requires you to keep it clean?” Rolly gave me a knowing look. “Or are you not getting along with people?”

“I deal with those assholes just fine. I just don’t like it. It’s not for me. I like to go home knowing I did something, even if it’s just moving containers and doing inventory. It’s, like”—
what had David said?
—“tangible work. I know where my effort is going. I know I got something done at the end of the shift. And I like being on the docks.”

Rolly slid a pack of cigarettes from his shorts. “What are your long-term plans, kid?” he asked. “I know it’s rough with your parents gone, but you need to start thinking about what you’re going to do with your life.”

“I have been.”

“And?”

The past week had seen me coming up with an actual plan for myself, but talking about it with Rolly was a different thing. I’d been hesitant to discuss it with anyone except Jones, an old friend of my father’s and a counselor at the rehab Michael had attended for a month. He’d invited us over for dinner, and Michael had been too busy to go, but I’d taken him up on the offer. It had resulted in hours of talking without feeling like I was being belittled by someone who’d already had their career going by the time they were my age. Talking college with a guy whose job it was to counsel people in my situation was a lot different than discussing it with people who couldn’t relate at all.

“I was thinking about signing up for the summer semester at Kingsborough.”

“The community college?”

“Yeah.”

“For what?”

Ignoring the skepticism in his voice, I said, “They have a maritime technology program. I was thinking about going part-time while staying on as a casual, get my certification and government creds together, and start working up to being an inspector.” The statement met silence, and I was left hanging like a torn kite. The plan might be impressive to someone who had never worked on the shore, but to a man who’d made his career there, it could possibly seem like a load of bullshit. “It probably won’t work, anyway.”

“Why not?”

I shoved my hands in my pockets. “I’m sure a lot of guys say they’re gonna do all that.”

“A lot of guys say a lot of shit, but they don’t follow through with school to give them a leg up,” Rolly countered. “I’m not going to float your balls and pretend like you’re going to be the king of the docks one day until you put the work in. Do I think you should do it? Yeah, I do. You’re smart, a thinker, and the shipping managers loved you. Do I think you can do it? Maybe. If you quit acting like a punk kid and quit smoking that shit so you’re alert and ready to work around the clock.”

Jones had already given me that lecture, and I’d already got the whining out of my system. Rolly gave me an impressed nod when I only gave an easy shrug in response.

“Weed’s not life. I have other things to keep me occupied now that I’m not holed up in the old house and bored out of my mind.”

“Good. So it’s settled.”

“What’s settled? You ain’t even said shit yet.”

Rolly stood with a groan, his knees clicking. “I’ll get you on weekend and night gangs for now. Until you prove your salt, keep the day job. If you can handle both for the next few months, I’ll know you can handle more work while going to school.”

“That’s a crazy schedule, man. I can’t—”

“You can do it if you want to,” Rolly said, his tone brooking no room for argument. “Maybe you’ll be too tired to smoke that crap.”

Or do anything else for that matter.

I swallowed my protests and kissed free time good-bye. All things considered, it was better than him telling me to go to hell. Even if I had to put in more time at LLS, land of the mindless drudges.

“Thanks, Rolly.”

He clapped me on the back. “We’ll see how it goes. You need some discipline, but you can do it. Now, how’re you spending Thanksgiving?”

“Sleeping, unless you can get me on a gang that day. I don’t give a rat’s ass about holidays anymore.”

“That’s what everyone says until they’re alone on the damned day.” Rolly stubbed out his cigarette. “You and Michael are welcome here if you have no plans. The Italian too.”

“Could I maybe bring my roommate?”

“Whatever you wanna do, kid. That woman will cook enough for a small army regardless.”

I thanked Rolly again, and we spent the next hour talking about family, the docks, and the little he knew about maritime courses. His internal obligation to be a hard-ass wore off as we sipped coffee strong enough to give me an ulcer. I was on my way back to Brooklyn before the sun went down.