The Walking Man (11 page)

The game took place on the better of two softball fields adjacent to Shyshire High School. The event was well attended, for it was the late Eighties and laws against public drinking were yet to be strictly enforced. Pick-up trucks outnumbered cars in the field's parking lot by two to one; mainly Fords, a couple Chevys, and one Toyota. There were stands but they were almost empty, most spectators sat on their tailgates, cooler to one side, grill to the other, protecting their smoking kielbasa with looks that would scare a Doberman Pinscher.

Maria once mentioned to me that Johnny Bash drove a blue Ford F250 pickup with a playboy bunny decal on the rear window and vanity plates that read: "IBASH." Consequently, his truck was easy to find. It was parked on the first base side of the field, within Johnny's view whether he was marching his team up or down the gridiron.

The tailgate of Johnny's truck was almost touching the chain link fence that surrounded the field. The fence had been installed a year earlier to prevent foul balls from denting parked vehicles, especially the pick-up trucks, the local sports fans having no interest in watching a grown man cry.

I instructed Smitty to park the handicap van in front of Johnny's truck, bumper-to-bumper. His curiosity aroused, Johnny didn't wait until the end of the game to check out our intent. We were at the field for less than five minutes when Johnny called a time-out and approached us. He was wearing a white hockey jersey, a red stocking cap and gray sweat pants. It was windy, but Johnny's clothes were taut from being stretched by his enormous muscles. Smitty was lowering me onto the field when Johnny got close enough to recognize me; he was visibly relieved.

"Awesome, dude," Johnny Bash said. "You've come to check our game, awesome!"

"Hi, Johnny," I said, "Come closer please, my voice is weak and I have something to say to you."

"Sure, dude," Johnny said. "Any friend of Maria's is a friend of mine."

Johnny, being a schmoozer, got within a foot of my face then said. "So what's up, Buddy?"

In response I said, "Johnny, I'd like to introduce you to my friend, Smitty."

My words triggered a right hook from Smitty that flattened Johnny's nose, spattering me with blood.

Johnny staggered backwards, but didn't fall. "You broke my fucking nose," Johnny Bash screamed. "You broke my fucking nose!"

As planned, Smitty then grabbed Johnny, put him in a full headlock and lowered him to within an inch of my face. Blood was still streaming from his nose as I calmly stated, "If you ever hit Maria again, I will kill you Johnny Bash. Got it? I will kill you."

Smitty increased the pressure on Johnny's head and back.

"Got it?" I repeated.

"Got it," he rasped.

Smitty dropped Johnny to the ground and gave him a goodbye kick that broke a couple ribs. He then hoisted me into position so I could spit on Johnny's bloody face.

Nobody came running to rescue Johnny.

Our work complete, Smitty loaded me into the handicap van and we drove away. Anticipating the blood, I'd brought a change of clothes, so we stopped at the Shyshire Dairy Queen where Smitty cleaned me up and changed my shirt. I then bought Smitty a banana split sundae.

I could tell Smitty wasn't happy.

"I don't like hurting people, even if they deserve it," Smitty said. "He's not going to change and I'm not going to keep smacking him down. This was a one-time event."

"I understand," I said.

I then assured Smitty I would never ask him to harm anybody again. I then thanked him profusely.

"I owe you a favor," I said to Smitty.

"No, you don't," he replied. "Who do you think you are? Don Corleone?"

~ ~ ~

I was back at Room 302 for less than an hour when Maria arrived. She was furious.

"Buddy, how could you!" Maria screamed.

"He beat you, Maria."

"Buddy, it's none of your business."

"Yes, it is," I said. "Nobody hits the woman I love and gets away with it."

"Love!" Maria yelled. "Love, Buddy, what are you talking about?"

"I love you, Maria."

"What do you know about love?" Maria screamed. "You can't love me!"

"Of course I can," I said. "I am a man."

"Buddy, are you fucking crazy? You can't move! You can't be my boyfriend. You can't love me like a real man," Maria cried as tears streamed from her blackened eye.

"I love you, Maria."

Maria stopped yelling and looked at me. Our souls connected.

A few seconds passed, Maria started to cry and then calmly said, "Goodbye, Buddy. Goodbye."

She turned and left my room.

I knew Maria's goodbye, to her, meant goodbye forever. But there was no way I could respond in kind. I could never say goodbye to Maria.

She was the one.

Chapter Seven

Dear Gabb
y

Being quadriplegic, I knew better than most folks that there are all sorts of hurts that last forever. While I was at Leicester County Hospital, a day never went by without me thinking about my youth when I could run and throw a baseball. My memories of motion carried a slight element of pain, but the hurt was always rapidly overwhelmed by the happiness I associated with my boyhood activities: riding my bike, playing flag-football, and fishing with my dad. More troubling were my memories of my dead mother. Somehow, no matter how hard I tried; I couldn't visualize my mother, not even the color of her hair. My slightest thought of Mom instantly triggered feelings of guilt that suppressed all other thought. Fortunately, albeit shamefully, more often than not I was able to suppress the urge to remember my mother, thus avoid the pain associated with her passing and my active role in bringing about her premature death. I had long ago concluded, regarding Mom, that my only salvation would be forgiveness in the afterlife, if such a thing existed.

The hurt of losing Maria was another story. To me, Maria wasn't a memory; she was part of me that was missing. My longing for Maria was a diffuse ache that permeated every corner of my being. Just below the surface of everything I did sat Maria. Hers was the name that I spontaneously whispered in my quiet moments and her love was the subject of my nightly dreams. Like a parent of a lost child, so intense was my hurt over missing Maria, I knew my only option to survive was to hope for a reunion, or give in to the darkness that was waiting to suck all sanity from my being.

Noting my feelings for Maria, after five years of hurt, selfishly seeking to preserve the possibility of a reunion, I took extraordinary measures to ensure Maria's wellbeing. Although I wasn't a psychologist, I recognized Johnny Bash's violence against women was a pattern of behavior that wouldn't cease due to a single broken nose and an accompanying death threat from a pathetic and overweight quadriplegic. I knew the only way to ultimately protect Maria was to make sure Johnny Bash lived in constant fear of swift, certain, and severe reprisal. To that end, with the Smitty option being off the table, I made some special arrangements to keep young Johnny's ass in check via Rodrigo.

When I initially told Rodrigo of my need, i.e., a service to prevent a bad guy from hurting the woman I loved, he instantly recognized my problem and knew of a solution.

"Police can't arrest somebody for a crime they haven't committed," Rodrigo said. "You need a private warning service, a warning service."

"What's a warning service?"

"Bad asses that warn people. Bad assess with long memories, the baddest of bad asses, the baddest of the bad asses." Rodrigo smiled.

"Do you know such people?"

"I know people who know people, who know people," Rodrigo said. "We need to go to New York City, NYC, NYC."

"Make the call," I said. "Smitty will get the van."

Luckily, Rodrigo was on probation, so both he and Smitty were available to travel to the Big Apple with me to arrange Johnny Bash's virtual castration. Rodrigo couldn't put a name on his "warning service," but he did have an address and he was certain it was real, having been verified by three men in the know, all serving twenty to life.

"You get a briefcase, full of twenties, and I'll do the rest," Rodrigo said. "I'll do the rest. You get the twenties. You get the twenties."

Getting the money was a simple matter for me, having recently become a man of means following the death of my mother's brother. Getting a two-day pass for a trip to NYC was a more difficult matter. I had to work Juliette Dritch for over a month to get the okay. And her approval required Smitty to be formally certified as a quadriplegic caregiver. This meant Smitty had to go to school for two weeks and then pass a lengthy exam. Luckily, when Smitty finally passed the test, Rodrigo was in between trials, so he was available to be our guide. This was fortunate— Rodrigo wouldn't disclose our final destination because the con who provided the referral told Rodrigo if he mentioned the address to a living soul, he would "eat his liver."

Our trip to New York City was fairly uneventful with the exception of stopping at every other rest area so Rodrigo could process the half-gallon of coffee he'd been drinking.

"Smitty, Rodrigo gotta pee. Smitteeeee, Rodrigo gotta peeeeeee," was Rodrigo's constant refrain.

To keep his word, Rodrigo blindfolded Smitty and me as we approached our destination. This normally wouldn't have been a problem, but Smitty was driving. After several screams and a couple thumps, we finally arrived at our location. When Smitty finally removed our blindfolds, we were facing a two-story dwelling with a small storefront. Behind it, Yankee Stadium was visible. It was less than a mile away.

The building looked like a proper structure for a warning service. It reeked bleak. It was sided in dirty vinyl that was covered by spray-painted gang symbols. Its do-it-yourself second floor was dotted with bullet holes, and worse, on the sole first floor window there was a Yankees decal, a clear sign of evil ahead. Reflective lettering on the gray-steel entrance door read "Triple J Bakery."

Inside the dilapidated structure, there were no ovens and no smell of bread. Instead, there was a small table in the corner, no other furniture and no pictures on the walls. Sitting at the table was an old woman. She was clean and dressed well, with it, not frilly. She was knitting. Her hair and skin were white. There were two empty chairs and room for me. It appeared Rodrigo's contact had made the necessary arrangements.

"Have a seat, boys," the old woman said without raising her head. "I'd offer you cupcakes and a glass of milk, but we're not really a bakery."

"Hello," I said.

"Hello," she responded. "Who are you?"

"I am the man with the briefcase full of twenties."

"Very good," she replied. "With apologies to Quentin Tarantino, I'm Mrs. Pink."

"Mrs. Pink, Mrs. Pink." Rodrigo laughed.

"Perhaps your rat wants some cheese," Mrs. Pink said.

"No cheese, no cheese," a frightened Rodrigo chattered.

"So," Mrs. Pink said.

There was a pause.

"We need to prevent a man from hurting somebody," I said.

"A man," Mrs. Pink said.

"A wife beater," I said.

"I see," Mrs. Pink said. "Our specialty."

"What am I paying for?"

"We'll prevent this man from hurting his wife."

"How?"

"We'll pay this man a visit and make sure he understands the consequences of misbehavior," Mrs. Pink said. "And then we'll send him little reminders that we are watching him."

"And if he persists."

"He disappears," Mrs. Pink said. "We never fail a customer. Our job, I assume, is to protect the woman."

"Yes, it is."

"The briefcase please," the woman said.

"Your boys," Smitty said.

"And there I was thinking the big one was dumb," Mrs. Pink said. "Boys."

The door directly behind Mrs. Pink opened. Two men entered the room, one bigger than the next and both bigger than Smitty. One had a teardrop tattoo on the corner of his right eye.

"Men, meet my boys, Jerry and Jake, two of the three Js of Triple J Bakery," Mrs. Pink said.

"Boys," I said.

"Gentlemen," the boys simultaneously said. They were scary because they appeared to be normal.

"So, Mrs. Pink, who was the third J?" I asked, too curious to keep my mouth shut.

"My daughter Jean," Mrs. Pink said. "She was strangled by her husband."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"You see, our work isn't just about the money," Mrs. Pink said.

"I understand," I said. "Smitty, please hand Mrs. Pink the briefcase."

A week later, Rodrigo spotted Johnny Bash entering his Insurance Agency. He had a broken leg and two black eyes.

~ ~ ~

The briefcase full of cash I gave Mrs. Pink was a gift from my Uncle Ed, if inheritance can be considered a gift. My mother's brother Ed was a single man who liked men. He lived in San Francisco. I never met him. He died of AIDS. He was a marketing executive for an Internet company that never made any money, but somehow made my Uncle Ed into a millionaire. He never visited me but he must have known I existed because he left me one hundred fifty thousand dollars in his will. My brother Hal made a special trip to room 302 to ask me what I wanted to do with the money. I told him I had "no idea."

"I can put it in a savings account for you, or you can buy some stock," Hal said.

"I've always wanted to own some Apple," I said.

"Why?"

"Apple, Massachusetts."

"You want me to buy Apple stock for you because you like the name?" Hal asked.

"Yes."

"How much?"

"All of it," I said.

"You want me to buy you one hundred fifty thousand dollars worth of Apple stock?"

"Yes, I do," I said.

"The place is run by a crazy man named Steven Jobs."

"Crazy people make all the money," I said. "Besides, I have no living expenses. Leicester County Hospital is funded by a private trust. My room and board is free. What am I going to do with one hundred fifty thousand dollars?"

"Very good, brother," Hal said. "I'm putting my one-fifty in GM. Nobody's ever lost money betting on the world's biggest car maker."