Tough Lessons Read online

  “You’ve always got to insist on doing it the hard way, don’t you?” asked Joseph.

  “What’s a matter wit’ you now?” asked Eddie grumpily, as he hauled his frame along. “A couple of days ago you were bugging me to get out of my apartment. The minute I do that, you’re bugging me again! I can’t win with you, Joseph, you know that?”

  He supposed Eddie had a point. Joseph had been worried about the old guy. He had seemed to lose his appetite—for food, for company, for life—after the beating he had taken. The physical injuries were one thing, but it was the psychological damage the once-hard man had received that concerned Joseph the most. Eddie’s confidence had been all but destroyed in that attack. Joseph was willing to bet he had no idea how to cope with a beating received from a bunch of girls. Even if he had been physically capable of it, he doubted whether Eddie would have been able to force himself to fight back.

  Since then, all efforts to get him out of his apartment had failed. Then word had gone round that the police had rolled up the notorious Crips’ Killers and the mood of everyone on the project had lifted. Suddenly, the residents of Highbridge became more visible. It was like the whole apartment block had breathed a collective sigh of relief. The very next day Eddie had suggested an excursion to the Mucky Duck and Joseph had been delighted, readily offering to drive him down there.

  “I go on my own two legs or I don’t go at all,” the old curmudgeon had snarled and that had been the end of the debate.

  Now he propelled himself along in the stiff-legged way of the invalid. “Yomi forgiven you for getting his girlfriend’s pop arrested?”

  “Hasn’t said much about it. I don’t think he’s seeing Laura anymore.”

  “Mmm, that ain’t no surprise, but he understands, does he?”

  “I think so.”

  “What about her father? Got to be looking at a lot of jail time.”

  “They’re still evaluating him, psych tests and profiling and whatever the mind doctors do. It might surprise you to learn this but I’m hearing they might let him out on bail. Even McCavity is talking about just charging him with manslaughter without criminal malice and she’s no longer pushing for murder one. I think the DA told her that Merve was probably deranged and there aren’t too many votes in those types of cases.”

  “Jesus, after what he did to that teacher?”

  “I know, but they’re saying his mind was disturbed on account of his sweet, innocent daughter being corrupted by her teacher like that.”

  “You gotta be kidding me!”

  “I’m not saying I agree with it. I’m saying they think that’s how he saw it. It’s what made him snap.”

  “Jesus, he didn’t even stab the right guy.”

  For the umpteenth time, Eddie had stopped in the street, straightened himself, and taken in a few slow, deep breaths. At this rate, he would be exhausted before he got there. Joseph secretly hoped he could get the man full enough of beer and Irish whiskey that they could both hop a cab back afterward. The irony of paying someone else to drive him home after a few drinks was not lost on Joseph.

  The journey was clearly taking more out of Eddie than he’d hoped. Joseph stood placidly to one side, emotionless. “What you looking at?” asked Eddie. “You got some place to be? Then go.”

  “Someone’s got to watch your ass, make sure you don’t fall flat on it.”

  Eddie mumbled something inaudible and they set off again. “I hear the cops raided the lockups, picked up a gang of young fucks for holding some stolen shit there,” observed Eddie self-consciously.

  “I heard that, too,” said Joseph.

  “You sure you didn’t know anything about that bust?” asked Eddie.

  “Me? How could I?” He hadn’t told Eddie about McCavity yet or the fact he would soon be working for her.

  Eddie thought for a moment. “Mmm, well, don’t s’pose they busted the whole gang but at least they got what was coming to ’em.”

  He could tell Eddie was searching for any sign that Joseph knew he had taken a beating from a gang of girls. Joseph could see no point to admitting that. As it stood, he knew the old man was past his prime and he’d been jumped by some pretty frightening individuals. It made little difference to Joseph that they happened to be born female. Either way, nobody would be seeing them round here for a while.

  Joseph decided to change the subject and Eddie seemed glad of it.

  “The doctor told me you were lucky. He said you had a hard head.”

  “Oh yeah?” answered Eddie. “What did you say?”

  “I told him he didn’t know the half of it. I said you had the thickest head in Jersey. I told him, ‘This is the man who took on Big Joey Moretti and beat him in a fair fight, kind of.’”

  Eddie chuckled. “And what did he say to that? He even heard of Joey Moretti?”

  “Nope.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” said Eddie wryly. “It’s a man’s curse to outlive the usefulness of his deeds.”

  “That is very profound, Eddie. Who said that?”

  “I did,” answered Eddie indignantly. “Just now.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh what? You saying you didn’t think I was smart enough to come out with something profound. Is that what you are saying?”

  “No,” answered Joseph, and then he said, “Actually, yes. Normally you can’t utter a sentence without it containing motherfuckin’ this and cocksuckin’ that.”

  “You serious?”

  “Completely, everything is always ‘fuck yous’ and ‘get the fuck out’ or ‘the dumb-ass motherfucks don’t do this’ or ‘them cocksuckin’, dirt-bag low-lifes should do that.’ And this is only when we’re watching the evening news together. I hate to think what you say when you’re with your drinking buddies from the old precinct.”

  Eddie laughed. “I guess you got a point there. Since my poor gal died, I’ve had no one to slap me down for my cussing. I was a cop for forty years, Joseph. I seen some things that make a few cuss words seem…”

  “Unimportant?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “But it’s bad. My mother, God rest her, she used to say it’s the sign of a limited vocabulary. It ain’t a good thing to be always cussing like I do.” He thought for a moment. “You know what? I’m gonna stop, right here, today. I am, truly.”

  “You really mean that?”

  “Course not, you sorry-ass, dumb-shit, cocksuckin’ motherfucker. Now, get a move on or we ain’t ever gonna get there,” and he set his crutches in motion again. “Oh, and you don’t have to go worrying about my drinking buddies, neither.”

  “No?”

  “All gone, dead, or retired to Florida, which is the same fucking thing if you ask me.”

  “None left, huh?”

  “You the only one, Joseph, the only one who’ll still drink with a twisted old fuck like me. Why do you do it? Tell me, why do you bother with me?”

  “You want to hear the truth?”

  “Give it to me straight, doc.”

  “I get a check each month from the welfare.” Eddie was laughing now. “They said, ‘Someone has to do it, Joseph. Someone has to stop him from writing to us and calling us up all the time to complain. Take the miserable SOB to a bar and we’ll pay you. We’ll even give you a green card.’ There, that’s the truth, Eddie. I’m sorry you had to hear it from me like that.”

  They were both laughing now.

  “So that’s it then. The only reason you spend time with me, you miserable fuck?”

  “Yep,” said Joseph. “Like you Americans are fond of saying, “That’s all she wrote.’”

  Eddie laughed again. “Yeah, well, we got a way with words in this country but then so have you. I like the way you Nigerians say stuff. Now that is some truly profound shit. You got any more of those sayings? They cheer me up.”

  “Okay.” He thought for a while.

  “Come on, then,” urged Eddie.

  “Wait a mo
ment, I’m thinking. Okay, I got one. It means the same as your ‘There’s more than one way to skin a cat.’”

  “I’m all ears.”

  Joseph put on the deep, exaggerated, Africanized voice of a man who has never once left his neighborhood in Lagos. “When a man steals your wife, there’s no better revenge than to let him keep her.”

  “Oh, that’s a good one,” laughed the old man. “I’ll buy you a drink for that.”

  “If we ever get there.”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  They rounded a corner and the cheerless, green sign of the Black Swan came into view. Joseph realized he really wanted a drink. It had been a tough week for everybody, but he knew there were people all around him with bigger problems. Eddie for one. He was growing old and had to face the fact that he was no longer the man he used to be. Yomi had been forced to hear the testimony of the heartbroken mother of a murdered boy just so he could finally learn that it wasn’t cool to carry a knife, and then he’d lost his first girlfriend because his father couldn’t resist playing the policeman. Coach Geller had discovered the tragic consequences of a midlife tryst with a teenage girl, while Merve Williams was forced to live the rest of his life knowing he stabbed an innocent man to death because of it. As Eddie was fond of saying, it was a crazy, mixed-up, fucked-up world out there. It seemed to Joseph now, as he looked back on the events of that fateful night at Antoinette Irving, that a whole lot of people had been forced to learn some tough lessons.

  THE END

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