Travelin' Man (14 page)

The sadist in Charlie wants the little bastard to suffer a few hours of anxiety before calling him back to announce he's decided to stay in Philadelphia this weekend after all. He considers making a pit stop at the travel plaza as a precaution in the event of a bottleneck on the Walt Whitman Bridge. He's consumed two cups of coffee, three energy drinks, and a sixteen-ounce Diet Coke this morning. Pissing his pants one hundred feet above the Delaware River wouldn't be cool. His stomach is queasy and something more ominous than a fart is stirring in his bowels. He makes a vow to throw those fucking greasy Hot Pockets in the trash and swear off Mickey D's and Church's fried chicken in favor of a healthy diet. But the brief moment of urgency passes and the next exit sign says: PENNSAUKEN 2 MILES. He has to make a quick decision. He's swears he's not giving in to temptation even as he steers the car toward the off ramp.

A landscaping road crew, saddled to a small convoy of tractors, is working on the barrier knoll, their brown faces protected from the midday sun by wide-brimmed floppy hats. He turns off the AC and opens the window, filling the car with the sweet smell of freshly cut grass. The sky is a brilliant pale blue and the fluffy white clouds float aimlessly with no threat of rain. It's a beautiful day for a blow job at the ABS on State Road 30, a mile from the last exit before the bridge.

 

Charlie counts eight vehicles in the gravel lot, mostly pickups and delivery trucks parked behind the tall fence that assures discretion for the customers of Adult Discount Videos (no clever names like Aphrodite's World for this bare-bones operation). It's a lunchtime crowd, mostly blue collar married guys looking for a quick, anonymous pump and dump. Charlie's instantly aroused by the prospect of musky armpits, scratchy stubble, and filthy baseball caps. The cashier working the register is irritated at being distracted from the latest issue of
Iron Man
when Charlie approaches.

“You gotta pay a five dollar minimum for tokens,” he mumbles. “Well, you want 'em or not?” the kid asks, finally looking up from his comic.

The boy's face is punctured with piercings. He's got loops in his eyebrows, his nostrils, and, creepiest of all to Charlie, his upper lip. He's smeared kohl over his eyelids and his fingernails are painted black. His tee shirt is worn, a souvenir from a tour by a band Charlie's never heard of. The kid's a Goth and is, without a doubt, the owner of the rust bucket plastered with anarchist/vegan/death metal band bumper stickers that's parked out back. The front room, crowded with racks of used DVDs and sex toy display cases, reeks of the strong onion of his Subway veggie patty lunch. Ordinarily Charlie would spend a few minutes nonchalantly flipping through the video packages, seemingly disinterested in what's going on in the back room. But today he's impatient and pushes aside the dirty curtain drawn across the entrance to the peep show arcade. He stands in a corner, his back against the wall, waiting for his pupils to adjust to the dim lighting so he can wander the maze of booths without stumbling over his feet.

He'd expected a parade of horny plumbers and deliverymen, maybe a hot suburban dad who'd wandered in from his sales route. But the aisles are deserted, no sound of shoe leather slapping the cement floor, no glowing orange tips of lit cigarettes. Charlie's arrived too late for the party. Everyone's already paired off and barricaded themselves in the narrow booths to finish their business. He hears the metallic clink of tokens being fed into the meters and female voices on the soundtracks begging to be fucked harder, faster. The hidden men behind the latched doors grunt and announce they're about to cum. An enormous black dude with a shaved head emerges from one of the booths. He tosses a crumpled tissue on the floor and pushes past Charlie, his semen still dripping from the chin of the fat little bald man on his knees in the cramped cubicle.

Charlie feels a hand lightly brushing against his ass. Charlie doesn't resist as the man slips his fingers between his legs and tickles his taint. He leads Charlie to a vacant booth and kicks the door shut behind them. The guy's good-looking enough and his calloused hands and ropy neck muscles are proof he's obviously well acquainted with physical labor. The man pulls Charlie's tee shirt over his head, a prelude to groping and the awkward fumbling with buttons and buckles and zippers until their pants are around their ankles. At least he doesn't refuse to kiss. His breath tastes like peppermint and cigarettes. They grind their hips together and the selfish bastard disappears without saying goodbye as soon as he shoots his load, leaving the door to the booth open and Charlie standing exposed, nearly naked, a stranger's cum splattered on his thigh.

A young man, his face half-hidden behind the wide bill of a baseball cap, is standing in the aisle, staring at him. There's something vaguely familiar about his mouth and chin, the way he tilts his head, something recognizable even in the poor lighting and despite the hat he's wearing like a mask. Before Charlie can speak, he spins on his heel and dashes towards the exit, nearly tearing the curtain from the rod. Charlie chases him through the front room and into the parking lot.

“Hey! Hey! It's Charlie Beresford! Hey!” he shouts, feeling like an idiot as he pounds on the window of the guy's truck.

The man reluctantly opens the window and stares him down. Charlie hasn't lost his mind. He's not hallucinating. How the fuck did the Mighty KC Conroy find this shitty little ABS in nowhere New Jersey? What's he doing here? Well, it's obvious what he's
doing,
but why
here?
The last time they met his hair was buzzed to the scalp, but it's grown back into the same mop of unruly curls he'd had in high school. The small scar from a home plate collision with the tip of a cleat is exactly as Charlie remembers. But he's different, menacing, seething with a nervous energy that could spontaneously ignite.

“What do you want?” he snarls, his tone hostile, the glint in his still piercing black eyes threatening.

“Hey man, how's it going?” Charlie asks, unable to steady his trembling voice, nervously acting as if they're having a casual conversation while he's hanging white-knuckled on the door handle.

“Get off my truck if you don't want to be dragged across the parking lot,” KC warns as he rolls up the window.

Charlie can't believe KC really intends to hurt him, believing that stubborn persistence will force KC to speak to him. But KC pushes the accelerator to the floor, spraying gravel like a blast from a tommy gun. The truck loses traction on the pebbly surface, spinning in tight circles, and centrifugal force sends Charlie flying across the lot where he makes a hard landing on his back. He hears the crunch of KC's boots on the pebbly surface and opens his eyes to see KC staring down at his face.

“I could have killed you! What's wrong with you? Are you crazy?” KC shouts. Charlie plays possum, taking some small satisfaction in the abrupt change in KC's attitude now that he knows his rash and thoughtless aggression may have inflicted serious and permanent damage to someone who was once his friend. “Don't move! I'm calling 911.”

Charlie slowly rises and settles into a sitting position. His muscles are already beginning to ache. He's going to be stiff and sore tomorrow, but nothing's broken, no injuries suffered more serious than a few bruises and cuts.

“I'm okay,” he insists, taking the hand KC offers to help him to his feet.

There's an awkward moment when they would be standing nose-to-nose if Charlie were a few inches taller. KC steps back, keeping a safe distance between them. Charlie had long ago given up all hope of ever finding KC. After he'd learned KC had been signed in the MLB draft, he'd followed his progress from the Rookie League to winter ball in Texas and finally to a Short Season Class A team in Washington State. Charlie had tried in vain to reach him on the Spokane Chiefs website message board. After several weeks he finally received a terse one-line response that KC Conroy was no longer on the roster. He finally called the Chiefs front office, telling the wary receptionist he was KC's brother and it was extremely important that KC contact his family. She denied having any knowledge of KC's whereabouts and, annoyed by Charlie's skeptical persistence, told him to hire a private detective if it was so important they find him.

“How come you never answered any of my messages?” Charlie wants to know now that KC is standing an arm's length away. “Are you pissed at me?” he asks disingenuously. Anyone who had been treated the way Charlie welcomed KC the weekend he'd appeared at Dartmouth would be pissed at him. He can't even remember now exactly why KC's presence had made him so uncomfortable. He's perfectly normal looking with two eyes and a well-proportioned nose. His diction is unremarkable though he still has the unfortunate habit of dropping the letter
h
, saying
wit
rather than
with
. Why had Charlie been so embarrassed by him, so worried about the impression he would make on a few pretentious assholes whose faces he now barely recalls and whose names he can't remember?

“Look . . .” KC, clearly uncomfortable, starts to respond but, after confirming Charlie Beresford is in one piece, turns and walks away instead, not needing or wanting to explain himself. But Charlie reaches out and grabs him by the wrist.

“Wait, please,” he says.

They stare at each other, avoiding any further reference to a broken friendship and damaged feelings.

“Where's your shirt?” KC finally asks.

Charlie just now realizes he's bare-chested, having forgotten his tee shirt when he chased KC into the lot. God only knows the disgusting uses the patrons of Adult Discount World have put it to in the past five minutes. It was just a cheap station giveaway anyway. There are boxes of them in a closet back at the studio if he wants another one.

“Uh, you know, it's in there . . .” Charlie mumbles, embarrassed about having been caught
in flagrante delicto
by KC whose pants were zipped and belt was buckled at the time of the unforeseen encounter. They gaze at their shoes as a burly customer emerges from the bookstore and walks to his van.

“I got a shirt in my truck I can give you,” KC offers. “It's clean,” he promises when he returns carrying an official jersey of the Camden Lampreys. “Look, man. Take care of yourself,” KC mumbles, anxious to break away.

“You playing for them this season?” Charlie asks, stalling for time.

“Yeah,” KC mumbles. There's no reason for him to lie since a quick search of the team's website would confirm he's on the roster.

“I work at a radio station in Philly. We just did a live remote from the Borgata,” Charlie sputters, hoping to pique KC's curiosity and stall his abrupt departure.

“I know where you work, Boo Boo.”

“Christ, it's so fucking lame,” he says, acting as if the nickname's a burden and that he isn't secretly pleased KC's aware of his small local notoriety. “
Beres
-ford. Bears. Yogi and Boo Boo. Get it?”

“Yeah, Charlie, I get it. I know I only went to junior college but I'm not as stupid as you think,” he says as he climbs behind the wheel of his truck.

Charlie's face flushes, blood rushing to his cheeks.

“Hey, wait one minute,” he says, flustered.

He runs to his car to retrieve a pen that hasn't gone dry and writes his number on a greasy McDonald's napkin.

“It's my cell. Call and I'll save you in my contacts. I can meet you to return your jersey.”

“Keep it,” KC says. “I don't need it back” are his last words as he drives off.

At least he didn't crumple the napkin and toss it to the ground. But Charlie remembers KC is always carefully polite and would wait until he's long out of sight before throwing it out the window.

 

S. Gagliano & Son has been a barber shop fixture in South
Philly for decades. Frankie and Michael Gagliano's Italian
immigrant father—Luigi to his customers, Papa to his
sons—presides over the store, enlisting his children as soon
as they're big enough to wield a broom. On their mother's
deathbed, eight-year-old Frankie swears that he and his
little brother will always take care of each other, a vow he
endeavors to keep through their father's violent outbursts
and the string of wives who try to take their mother's place.

 

After their father's death, Frankie takes over the shop,
transforming it to fit in with the gentrifying neighborhood.
Michael becomes a successful prosecutor with a rising
political career, still close to his big brother despite the
differences between them. Then comes an unthinkable,
impulsive act that will force Michael to choose between
risking his comfortable life and keeping a sacred oath—
made before he knew how powerful a promise can be.

 

The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter
is a stunning
evocation of working-class Italian-American life—
a story of brotherhood, loyalty, and the contradictory,
unpredictable nature of family love.