Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 55860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
He rattles off a number.
“What?” I ask him to repeat it. I can’t have heard him right.
“Ya heard me, sixteen thousand,” he says irritably.
I drop the rag in my hand, which lands with a splat on my shoe. I feel like I’ve been punched in the face. It’s never been so much before. My four-hundred dollars won’t even buy us a week if it’s the wrong people.
“Who?” I ask faintly.
“Philly Shapiro,” he lisps, disgusted.
I reach for the other kitchen chair so I can drop down into it. My knees are about to give way. Philly Shapiro? I press my lips together. I won’t yell at him, no recriminations. It has to be hard to admit this to his grown daughter, that he owes five figures to a notorious Mafia bag man. A guy who is not going to respond to excuses or sweet talk.
“How far behind are you on the payments?” I ask and my voice seems to float up out of nowhere. I feel like I’m having an out of body experience, floating above us near the kitchen ceiling, hovering as he lies the first two times, swearing it’s just one payment.
“We talked about this. You want my help. You don’t bullshit me,” I say as firmly as I can manage.
“Such a hard ass like your mom,” he says, not too fondly. “It was three payments I missed it, okay? I gave him fifty bucks on Monday. You’d think that’d hold him. It ain’t like I’m the only guy that owes him money. Give a guy a little wiggle room I always say. We’re only human.”
This long speech of excuses takes it out of him, and he slumps down in the chair even more. I don’t bother asking why he was home so early from his job at the factory. He took the day off to convince the Marino crime family to spare his knees and nads. The sorry sight before me got the message across loud and clear. They expected payment on time.
That pitiful amount I have in savings almost makes me howl with grief and frustration, but I reason that it will be better than nothing. I have something I can offer them at least until I work out a plan. I always work out a plan to pay back his debts, but the Mob doesn’t take you to court for nonpayment. They take you to church, or they bury you behind one.
So much for only missing one semester so I can work full-time and earn enough to cover my tuition and his debts. I can’t even think about it without wanting to wail.
This is the first time I look at my dad as a burden. He’s worn out my patience and most of my good will. I’m twenty-four years old still trying to finish a two-year degree because I quit to pay off his debts. Working two jobs, eking out two or three credits a semester when I can. Passing pharmacology is supposed to be a sign my luck is changing. It’s a hard course, and I was proud of myself for two seconds before the shit hit the fan again.
I’ll figure it out. It’s just so much worse this time. I need a plan.
2
JACK
I’ll give Ronnie an earful over this. I said I’d step in and look after the bar for a week even though I don’t like the seedier atmosphere. I swear there’s secondhand smoke clinging to this place from the eighties. Everything has that ugly yellowed look to it, but I guess the dinginess is kind of the point. It attracts the neighborhood drunks and gamblers, the ones that are so far gone they don’t care if everybody knows what they are.
No more hiding the habits and pretending respectability. Sit down at Bettino’s and you might as well dig your grave and climb in it. Let’s just say there’s not exactly an alumni reunion for this joint with fond memories and old friends. It’s a bunch of poor bastards trying to screw each other out of money for a drink or a late payment on a bad debt.
This joint depresses the hell out of me. If my pop was still around, he’d laugh his ass off at me thinking about dusting off a chair with my handkerchief before I sit down, but this is a nice suit, and I don’t want it soiled by contact with the decades of smoke and hopelessness inside these walls. It’s a profitable concern, if you don’t think about the scavenger aspect of the business. It does a good amount of liquor sales, and the bookies love it here. Fuckin’ vermin. I like the profit margin, but nobody wants to see the sausage get made as it were.
“Ronnie said you was comin’ in to babysit this place while he’s out. How do ya like it? I bet you ain’t been in here since you was too little to get up on a stool,” Foz chuckles as he lines up glasses on the bar.