chrissake,” he said, disgusted, “just ask her out already.”
Sal blushed and grinned at the same time. “Really? Would that really be okay with you?”
My father leaned back in the chair, his eyes almost closed. He flapped his hand in Sal’s direction, like,
Sal cleared his throat. “Would you like to go-”
“Yes!” I said.
He laughed. “You don’t even know what I was going to ask you.”
Now it was my turn to blush.
He started again. “Would you like to go to a movie this weekend?”
I pretended to think it over. “Sounds good.”
“I’ll pick you up on Friday at 7.”
“See you then,” I said.
I dated Sal for three months before the attraction wore off. He was a gorgeous Latin male, but he was a Latin male. It was 1987, and the idea that I would be subservient because he was the guy grew old quickly.
After we broke up, I found myself missing the stories he told about his job. I didn’t miss
I was glad for the time I’d spent with Sal-it was good preparation for all the crap I had to put up with from the other cops. But I just laid low and smiled through the practical jokes, even the nasty ones. After a while, they stopped. I was pulling my weight, and then some. I started making some good busts, and a few of the old hairbags even gave me some grudging respect. I bumped into Sal once or twice at rackets, and he always made sure to let me know that he was dating a busty blonde. I didn’t care.
When I had five years on the job, I was assigned to a detail that focused on getting the homeless off the streets. The mayor wanted the city to look clean-he didn’t actually want to clean it up, he just wanted it to
One night, after a tour that dragged into overtime, I staggered back to the studio apartment I was renting on the East Side, exhausted. All I wanted was to go to bed because I had to be up again in six hours to head back to work. I had just laid down when Freddie Prinze appeared-on the ceiling this time.
I groaned. “I’m really tired. Do we have to do this now?”
“Hey, what’s the matter? You’re not happy to see me?” He sounded genuinely hurt.
“No, no, it’s great, really. I’m just very tired. Can you come back another time?” This dead guy in my house was just too much after the day I’d had.
“I have something important to tell you. That’s why I show up, you know. It’s my job to let you know this stuff.”
I couldn’t keep my eyes open one more second. “I’m sorry. I really have to go to sleep.” I was out like a light.
The next thing I knew, I was sitting up in bed, only I was fourteen again. I looked down at my knobby knees and tried to figure out what was going on. Freddie was slouching against the wall in Ed’s garage. What was my bed doing in California?
“It’s a dream,” Freddie said. “It doesn’t have to make sense.”
I didn’t feel tired at all, so when he spoke, I was happy to listen. I even enjoyed his company.
“If you’re too tired to stay awake, I’ll just have to talk to you while you’re sleeping,” he said. “Here’s the thing: You’re gonna have to make a tough choice very soon. I don’t want you going down the wrong path.”
“What are you talking about?” I felt floaty and good.
“These homeless guys you’re dealing with-one of them is going to try to hurt you. Your instinct will be to shoot him.
He started fading out, and then I wasn’t aware of anything else until the alarm woke me. The noise startled me back into the world, and I wondered whether my dream had been real. I didn’t have time to ponder it later that morning as I hustled homeless people into the converted trailers we had waiting for them.
Scraps of the dream came back to me as the day wore on.
We were almost ready to go back to the station house when one of the street guys pulled a knife out from under his seventeen layers of clothing and stuck it in my face. My adrenaline jump-started me, and I kicked out at the guy. He was wearing too much clothing for the blow to have any impact. It just made him madder. He slashed at my face with the knife. I felt a trickle down my cheek, and a moment later, fire blazed the same trail. I pulled my weapon.
All my police training screamed at me to shoot. My finger started to pull back on the trigger. I aimed at the lunatic’s torso, just as I was taught at the range, but the view of my target was suddenly clouded. The sounds of the city were blocked out. All I could hear was the blood pounding in my ears. Each second felt like a month. Over the roar in my head, Freddie’s words came back.
I lowered my gun. The crazed homeless guy jumped on top of me. Bulletproof vests aren’t designed to stop knives, and mine didn’t slow this one down.
The knife slid in between my ribs, and I felt as though someone had disconnected my electrical charger from the wall socket. My essence just drained away.
I had felt pain at first, but now I didn’t. I noticed a cop lying on the ground, red blood staining the blue uniform. It was me, I realized. What was I doing down there?
Wait a minute, where was
I looked around. The street appeared the same as it had moments before, except that I was seeing it from above. Holy Christ, was I dead?
Freddie appeared. “How you doin’? You all right?”
“All right? I think I’m dead.”
“Yeah, pretty much,” he said and looked down. Paramedics were covering the dead cop-me-with a white sheet.
“Why’d you warn me against shooting?” I asked him. Then I realized that I didn’t have to ask. I knew without his telling me that he was just doing his job as my guardian angel.
Then I knew something else. I wasn’t supposed to be dead. Freddie had screwed it up.
“Yeah,” he said, acknowledging my newfound understanding. “What did you expect?”
I thought about it. I really had no one to blame but myself for being dead. After all, what could I expect with Freddie Prinze as my guardian angel?
THE ORGAN GRINDERBY MAAN MEYERS
Antonio Cerasani rolled the mobile contraption over the broken cobble where Broome Street met Jefferson. The barrel organ had two wheels and handled like a pushcart. Every part of it gleamed in the bright sunshine. Even the country scene painted on its side seemed to glow with its own light.
He settled the cart as close to the curb as possible in the least of the refuse that layered the streets. With the cart in place, he began to crank the organ. Music poured from the barrel with sweet abundance, almost blocking out the other sounds: babes howling, the scraping of thick shoes on the asphalt pavement, metal-clad hooves and wheels clamoring on the cobblestones, passersby in screaming conversations.
The cacophony of everyday life. But here the very intensity of it was an abomination.
Indifferent to the heat of the day, Tony wore heavy trousers, a vest, and a long brown coat. His shabby, dark
