A Time To...

  Al quickly bowed his head again, reached into his pocket, took out his wallet, pulled out two dollars, and handed them to the Apostle while looking at his feet.

  “Don’t break anymore of our laws,” he warned as he took Al’s money. “We’d hate to fine you again,” he said with a grin.

  “Yeah, me too,” Al said with a hint of disgust.

  “Hey. You remind me of somebody. Some kid I knew in elementary school who owes me a baseball signed by Mickey Mantle. His name was Al, too,” said the curly-haired Apostle.

  “Billy? Billy Bensen?” Al said under his breath while studying his face.

  “Al Masterson!” exclaimed Billy. “How about that? The last time I saw you we were at Coney Island on our school trip, and you were brown-nosing the teacher with some stupid doll you won.”

  “Didn’t you move away that summer?” Al inquired to change the subject.

  “You still got that Mickey Mantle baseball?” Billy replied.

  “You moved to around here?” Al asked to avoid Billy’s question.

  “You still live around Astoria Park, in Disciple land?”

  “The ball is in my basement somewhere,” Al said to move the conversation away from the Disciple discussion.

  “Disciples? What do you know about the Disciples?” asked the leader.

  “Man, you’ve changed. I didn’t recognize you with all your hair, and you’ve bulked up,” Al told Billy.

  “What do you know about the Disciples?” the leader repeated.

  “Disciples? What do you want to know?” Al asked tentatively. “It’s been a few years since I studied them for my confirmation.”

  “Hell no. Are you trying to be funny? I’m talking about the Disciples, the gang that hangs out in your neighborhood” the leader scolded Al.

  “Gang?” Al shrugged.

  “Don’t play dumb with me. You know, the guys that walk around with those ugly green sweaters that say Disciples on their backs ... those Disciples!”

  “Oh. Sorry. I thought—” Al began to reply.

  “You knew what he meant,” Billy Benson said as he grabbed a fist full of Al’s shirt. “You’re one of them. Admit it!”

  CHAPTER 34

  Aiding the Enemy

  “Always so brave when you’re with a crowd,” Al said, looking eye to eye with Billy.

  “I don’t need anybody else to take you. The only reason I didn’t do it when we were kids was my old man. And since he ain’t around anymore, guess what?” Billy said as he handed his bat to the tall Apostle and motioned for his two buddies to give him and Al some room.

  Al took a boxing stance facing Billy and repeated to himself his Disciple mantra, “Be tough, brave, intelligent, and loyal.”

  “I never liked you. You always rubbed me the wrong way,” Billy snarled.

  “That’s your problem,” Al shot back. “I always minded my own business, but you … you weren’t happy unless you were making my life miserable.”

  Billy swung his fist hard at Al’s face but missed when Al moved to the side and deflected it with his open hand.

  “You didn’t always mind your own business, Daniel Boone, always bragging about coming from Kentucky, like you were somebody special,” Billy corrected Al as he swung again, hitting Al in the stomach this time.

  Al backed up to catch his breath. “I only talked about Kentucky when people asked me about it. Special? Me? Confused! Lonely! Freak was more like it!” Al barked as all those hurtful memories rekindled a fire in him.

  Before Billy could respond, Al lunged at him, landing two blows, one to Billy’s side and the other to his nose, which started to bleed.

  A startled Billy backed up a few steps and wiped the blood, which had trickled down into his mouth, with his hand. Billy, now enraged, pointed at Al with his blood-soaked finger and said, “Now … now you learn a lesson you won’t forget, Daniel.”

  “Get him, Billy! Yeah!” urged his fellow Apostles.

  “Go away! Take that stuff somewhere else!” shouted an elderly woman from her third-floor apartment window overlooking the fight scene from across the street.

  “What was that, Grandma? I can’t hear you!” laughed the leader.

  “You’ll hear the police when they come!” she shouted even louder.

  Billy swung his fist wildly at Al a couple times but didn’t connect.

  “Come on! You can do better than that,” mocked Al.

  “Shut up and fight,” Billy demanded before grabbing Al’s arms and wrestling him to the ground. As they rolled around on the sidewalk, they exchanged punches. Billy’s bloody nose smeared blood on both their clothes. It was a bright red on Al’s white t-shirt, brown on his tan jacket, and a darker shade of burgundy on Billy’s sweater.

  “How do you like that?” Billy scowled after landing a solid punch on Al’s right ear that dazed Al for a couple seconds.

  “Here’s some mor-mor-more …” Billy stammered as his eyes rolled up into his head and his body began shaking wildly. He let go of Al. His body now looked like a fish that had just been pulled from the water and tossed on land.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, Billy?” the Apostle leader asked while shaking his head.

  Just then, the sound of a police siren grew louder as it approached them from a block away.

  “Come on! We gotta get outta here,” screamed the leader as he began running down the street in the opposite direction.

  “What about Billy?” the other Apostle asked with concern.

  “What about him? He’s either possessed or really sick. Nothing we can do,” the leader surmised as he continued running. The other Apostle shrugged and followed his buddy down the street.

  Al watched Billy flop around for a few seconds before he realized that he had to do something quick or else Billy would seriously hurt himself. If he continued to hit his head against the sidewalk and rolled over onto the broken wine bottle that was now just a foot away, he could even kill himself.

  Al remembered seeing his cousin flop around like that on the carpeted floor of his home during a visit. His aunt and uncle had wrapped him in a blanket so he wouldn’t bang into things in the room. Since Al didn’t have a blanket or anything to wrap Billy in, he got down on his knees behind Billy’s head and lifted him from his armpits while wrapping his arms around Billy’s chest. He held on as tight as he could. The force of Billy’s convulsions knocked Al off his knees and onto his backside. But now Al could more securely cradle Billy between his knees while holding onto his chest with his arms.

  Billy’s face and head were bloodied, bruised, and scraped when the police car pulled up to the curb alongside Billy and Al.

  “Break it up!” commanded the officer who popped out of the passenger seat of the cruiser.

  “It’s not what you think. We’re not fighting now,” reported a breathless, blood-stained Al.

  “Officer, officer! Two of the young hoodlums are getting away!” shouted the woman who had called the police, from her third-floor window.

  Ignoring the woman, the officer responded to Al, “Is that right?

  What then?”

  “He’s sick! Look at his eyes!”

  “Officer, officer! Can’t you hear me? Don’t let them get away!” the woman pleaded.

  “Lady, please, first things first!”

  Billy continued to twist and turn as if jolts of electricity were pulsing intermittently through his body, and Al hung on despite Billy’s head butting his head several times.

  “Is he on drugs?” asked the policeman who had been driving as he exited the car.

  “No. One second he was fine; the next he started shaking like crazy and his eyes ... his eyes went blank.”

  “Sounds like an epileptic seizure. We’ve got some padding in the car,” the driver said as he rushed to get it from the trunk.

  “I think he’s dead! His body stopped shaking. It’s not moving at all,” Al told them.

&n
bsp; The first officer checked Billy’s pulse before saying, “No. His seizure is over. It just took a lot out of him.”

  Billy, still cradled between Al’s knees with his back propped up against Al’s chest, moaned as if he had just begun feeling the effects of what had happened to him.

  “You must have gotten me good,” a groggy Billy told Al while he opened and closed his eyes.

  “No. You ... you had a seizure,” Al told Billy.

  “What?” said a puzzled and exhausted Billy.

  “Yeah. Your friend probably saved your life,” said the first policeman.

  “Friend? Where are my friends?”

  “Right next to you,” said the second policeman.

  “You ... you helped me?” Billy said in amazement.

  “Yeah,” Al replied as he bit his lip.

  “Why?”

  “Somebody had to keep you from killing yourself, and I was the only one around.”

  “Where are my Apostle brothers?”

  “I’m guessing they’re at least five blocks away by now. They took off just before the cops got here.”

  “Officer! Officer! You let them get away,” the woman shouted from her window across the street.

  “Lady, you’re right. We’ll get ‘em next time,” said the first policeman.

  “Why didn’t you run too?” Billy asked Al.

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t. I thought about it. I guess I didn’t think I could have lived with myself if I left you like that,” Al replied.

  “Here,” said the second officer as he handed Billy a handkerchief. “Wipe the blood from your nose and face.”

  Billy took it and slowly wiped off his blood. “I wouldn’t have done the same for you,” Billy confessed before covering his eyes with the blood-stained handkerchief and hanging his head. “I wouldn’t have done the same for you,” he repeated as he began sobbing.

  “You don’t know that, but it doesn’t matter,” Al said as he got up off the ground. “We aren’t friends, but that doesn’t mean we have to be enemies,” Al said as he walked away. After taking a few steps, Al stopped, turned around to Billy, and said, “Maybe you’ll return the favor some time,” before he continued on his way to Sal’s Place.

  CHAPTER 35

  Blood, Good Numbers, and Valuable Coins

  Al had walked about a block before hearing a strange voice call out to him. “Hey, pal! Can you do me a favor?” asked the pot-bellied, middle-aged, stubble-faced man who stuck his head out of Sal’s Place as Al walked by the bar’s entrance.

  “I don’t know,” Al said warily. “What is it?”

  “Well, I’m playing the lottery and I need some good numbers. When I saw you, I knew you’d have good numbers.”

  “Good numbers? Sorry. Don’t have any. Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The man then walked out to the sidewalk next to Al and said, “Your birth date: day, month, and year. That’s what I’m talking about.”

  “You don’t know me. Why do you think my birth date numbers are lucky?”

  “I know enough about you,” he said as he stared at Al’s shirt. “You wouldn’t understand why I think you’re numbers will bring me luck.”

  “Try me. No explanation, no numbers,” Al declared.

  “You’re gonna think I’m crazy, but I guess I don’t have a choice. Red is my lucky color. I’ve been watching out that window for the past hour for someone to walk by who was wearing red. Finally, you came.”

  “I’m not wearing red,” Al corrected him.

  “What’s that?” the man asked, pointing to Billy Bensen’s smeared blood on Al’s shirt.

  “Blood. I was just in a fight and that’s the other guy’s blood.”

  “This is my lucky day. I thought it was a tie-dyed shirt. I like red because it’s the color of blood,” the man said enthusiastically.

  “I’ve got to go,” Al said as he walked away.

  “Wait! Your numbers, I need your numbers.”

  “Ten, four, nineteen, fifty,” Al said as he walked over to the door that led to the apartment above Sal’s Place.

  “Thanks. By the way, I’m not a vampire, in case you’re wondering. My son lost a lot of blood when he was hit by a car about ten years ago. We have a rare blood type and I only had so much blood to give him. For a while we didn’t know if he would get the needed blood in time. Ever since, blood has meant more to me than just some stuff that runs through us ... if you know what I mean.”

  “Good luck with the lottery,” Al told him as he entered the door to the staircase that would take him one flight up to his appointment with Sal’s son, Eddie.

  “Secret agent man, secret agent man. They’ve given you a number and taken away your name,” sung Eddie along with the radio blasting in his apartment as Al climbed the last stairs. “There’s a man who lives a life of danger. To everyone he meets, he stays a stranger ....”

  Knock, knock, knock! Al pounded his fist loudly on the door.

  Suddenly the singing stopped, the radio silenced, and the apartment door flung open in quick succession.

  “Yeah?” said Eddie, who was wearing a Superman t-shirt with a dollar sign instead of the usual S logo on his chest.

  “Sorry, I’m late. Some guy picked a fight with me just up the street,” Al told Eddie while pointing to the blood on his shirt.

  “Are you Al?” Eddie inquired.

  “That’s me,” Al confirmed.

  “Fight? You OK?” a mildly concerned Eddie asked.

  “Yeah I’m all right. I gave the guy a bloody nose. It’s his blood.”

  “Hmm,” Eddie responded as if contemplating the situation carefully before commenting on it. “Ten to one. Give me ten to one,” Eddie said as he pulled a dollar bill from his wallet while ushering Al into his home. Eddie put the dollar on the table between Al and Eddie as they sat on chairs around it.

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “I’ll bet you a dollar that I know your blood type if you give me ten to one odds,” Eddie said, as if doing Al a favor.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Damn right,” Eddie said as he tapped the dollar bill on the table.

  “Sorry. I don’t even know my blood type.”

  “Well, when you find out, I’ll bet you,” Eddie said as he picked the dollar up off the table. “Tell you what. I’ll bet you a dollar straight up that you don’t know whose face is on a one hundred dollar bill,” Eddie added while tapping the dollar bill on the side of his head to encourage Al to think and take the bet.

  “You’re right. I don’t know.”

  “Are you sure? I’ll give you a hint. It’s an old famous guy.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen a one hundred dollar bill.”

  “Now you have,” Eddie said as he pulled one from his wallet. “See. It has two more zeroes than this one, and this guy’s picture on it,” Eddie added while showing Al the engraved portrait of Benjamin Franklin. “Too bad you didn’t know ... could have been a dollar richer.”

  “Yeah, too bad. I’m more into coins.”

  “That’s right. You’re here to check out my coins. I’ve got some very old ones. They’re worth a lot.”

  “Well, I’m not a professional collector. I just like to have coins with special dates, dates when things happened that mean something to me,” Al explained.

  “Like what?”

  “I started with the birthdates of my mom, dad, brother, and sister, and then added coins with the birthdates of friends and other relatives who have been a big part of my life. It’s another way of keeping special people close to me. Now, I’m also collecting coins associated with certain people and events in history for the same reason,” Al told Eddie.

  “Man, you gotta be kidding. The only coins worth anything are the rare ones that people will pay big bucks for.”

  “Sometimes the ones I need are rare, but that’s just coincidence.”
>
  “Well, then maybe I can help you. What do you need?” Eddie quizzed.

  “I need 1904, the year my mom’s parents came here from Italy, and 1888, the year my dad’s parents came here from Sweden. I just started learning about what brought them here and what their lives were like in their old countries. The years they came here are special because a lot of lives were changed as a result. I wouldn’t even be alive because my mom and dad would never have met if their parents didn’t come to America.”

  “Hey, piasan. I’m one-hundred-percent Italiano. My old man’s parents got off the boat back in the twenties, a couple years before he was born. My old lady and her parents came over after the war in the forties. Maybe we’re related.”

  “Bet we’re not … a hundred to one,” Al said with a smile.

  “A thousand to one that we are,” Eddie countered. “I’d risk a buck for a shot at a grand to know if we’re blood.”

  “Can I ask you something?” Al said in amazement.

  “Bet.”

  “What’s with you and all the betting? It’s like you’ve got to bet on everything.”

  “Hey, man, it’s what I do,” Eddie said defensively. “What’s with you and collecting coins just because they have dates that you like for some stupid reason?”

  “No. No. Don’t take it the wrong way. I’m just curious, that’s all.”

  Eddie peered into Al’s eyes for a few seconds to see if his words matched his intent. “I do it because I’m good at it. I only bet when the odds are in my favor. And I make it my business to know the odds.”

  “So how did you figure a thousand to one that we’re related?”

  “That was nothing, a joke; because I knew you wouldn’t bet me. But even if you did, I would have told you that all Italians are related because they come from the same gene pool. I gave you ten to one on your blood type because I had a one in eight chance of guessing right—only eight blood types in the whole world.”

  “So you bet on just the things you know about?”

  “Do Eskimos live in igloos?” Eddie smirked.

  “What do you know about the Apostles?” Al asked to change the subject.

  “The ones in the Bible or the ones in the sweaters?” Eddie joked.

  “The sweaters.”

  “Lousy betters. I let them win little chump change bets once in a while just to set them up for the big ones,” Eddie said with a wink of his eye.