I park the car near the familiar deli for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, locking the doors before strolling toward it. It's empty inside, the chairs upside down on top of all the tables, but I can see a hint of light in the back, beyond the swinging door.
I know he's here.
He always is at this time.
The door is locked, not budging when I pull on it. Sometimes I wonder if he put the bars on the place because of me. I remember when he first opened it, when I was just a kid, when Vitale's hung prominently and the glass was exposed, open and friendly.
Everyone was welcome back then.
I was only eighteen the day my father told me to get out and never come back, the day he told me my kind wasn't welcome here anymore.
The bars went up a week later.
I've kept my distance ever since.
I round the corner, slipping down the small alley that runs behind the stretch of buildings. Dumpsters line the graffiti-riddled walls, the smell of trash and piss burning my nostrils as I pass. The back door of the deli is lit up from the inside, the door propped open a crack thanks to a cinder block.
My father stands just inside, in front of a long metal table, chopping vegetables with his back to the door. He stalls when he hears me step inside, his shoulders squaring, but he doesn't turn around.
Five. Ten. Fifteen seconds pass, as I stand just inside the kitchen, before he goes right back to what he was doing.
"Twice in one day, Ignazio," he says without even looking, the sound of the knife against the cutting board magnified as he expertly chops. I learned how to do that from him, how to use a knife gracefully like it's an extension of my limb.
I just use it differently.
"It's almost sunrise," I say, shoving my hands in my pockets as I lean back against the wall beside the door. "It's a brand new day."
He finishes that head of lettuce before moving on to another. "If you want to get technical, it's only been twelve hours since your last visit. That's half a day."
"Yeah, well, what can I say? You're always so hospitable. I can't seem to stay away."
He works in silence, easily shredding the second head of lettuce as I stand there, before he finally sets the knife down and turns around. He wipes his hands on his old, stained white apron before running his palms down his face, sighing exasperatedly.
Tired eyes greet me, surveying me, judging, as he leans back against the metal worktable.
Giuseppe Vitale is the most fearless man I know. I've never seen him cower from anyone—not from the police, not from the wise guys who used to try to extort money from him, and certainly not from me. He has high standards and a low tolerance, and I never quite fit in with his expectations. I disappointed the man from the moment I started talking, and he drove me further away every day with his criticism.
We'll never see eye-to-eye. He wrote me off the day I started working for Ray, and Ray become the kind of father to me that Giuseppe would never be. But the fact remains—the man in front of me gave me life.
I'm grateful for it.
And I respect him.
Even if it isn't mutual.
"Who was she?" he asks, crossing his thick arms over his broad chest.
"Who?"
"That girl you brought here."
I regard him curiously. "She didn't look familiar to you?"
"She did," he says, "that's why I'm asking. She's got one of those faces, you know, and you don't forget a face like that, ever. Used to walk in the front door of the deli after school every day, looking for one of your mother's cookies. Such a sweet face… haven't seen it in a long time because of you."
He blames me, naturally.
I started it all, set up the dominos to eventually fall.
Had I not stolen from Ray's shop that day, he wouldn't have offered me that job, and Johnny and Carmela probably would've never even crossed his path. I met Maria the first time I walked into her father's house at sixteen years old, and it was through me that she met the rest of them.
I was the center of it all, and my father knows it.
I was a damaged nucleus.
He always believed I was too weak to hold anyone else together.
The day of my wife's funeral, my father walked up to me, grasped my hands tightly, looked me dead in the eyes, and said, "rats will always desert a sinking ship, Ignazio."
I thought, at first, it was compassion. I thought he was sympathizing that my friend turned on me. It wasn't until later that I realized it was a swipe at the person I'd become instead.
I was a sinking ship.
He didn't blame Johnny for running for his life.
He didn't blame them for jumping overboard.
He blamed me for going under.
"She's their daughter," I say. "Johnny and Carmela's."
"Does she know who you are?"
"Yes."
"Then why's she with you?"
It's a damn good question. I don't know how to answer. I could list a dozen reasons she might be with me but it would amount to nothing in the way of explanation. At the end of the day, she's with me because she has to be. Compared to that, the rest means nothing.
If she could've left long ago, she would've, and I think she still might if she ever gets an opening.
Shaking his head at my silence, he turns away from me and picks up the knife again as he sets back to work. "I wish I could say I'm surprised, surprised you'd drag that girl into your mess, but I'm not. Your mother, though... your mother would be devastated. Disappointed. Disgusted. You can destroy yourself all you want. I don't care. I'm done caring. You want to be one of those schmucks who calls himself a man but lives like a thug, you do that, but you do that away from me, and away from your mother, and you especially do that away from innocent little girls."
I'm glad he's not looking at me, because his choice of words makes me grimace. "She's not a little girl."
"Yeah? How old is she?"
"Nineteen."
He laughs. Laughs. "I remember you at that age. Running the streets, thinking you were a man... a big man... but you were no man. You were a little boy with a gun and a grudge, thinking you had it all figured out. But I'll tell you—you didn't. You still don't. You never grew up, and look at you. Look at you!" He doesn't look at me, but I can only imagine what he'd see if he did, the wall holding me up as I clutch my wounded side. It's throbbing. "I heard you got shot again. One of the neighbors heard about it, told your mother. I thought she was going to have a stroke!"
"It was nothing," I say. "I'm fine."
I feel like I've said that a hundred times this past week.
"You look like death," he says. "You're taking yourself down again, you're going under, and you're going to take that girl with you if you're not careful. And that certainly doesn't make you a man, Ignazio."
It's nothing he hasn't said before, but I caught him early enough in the morning that the harshness hasn't taken over. What I hear now is exhaustion with a hint of concern.
The concern is for Karissa.
He's just plain tired of me.
"You know, I didn't come here for a lecture."
"You shouldn't have come here at all," he says. "I told you you're not welcome. You're trespassing right now."
"You gonna call the police? On your son?"
"My son's dead," he says, matter-of-fact. "He died on the streets when he was just a kid. I don't know why you come around, why you're even here right now."
"Yeah," I mutter. "I don't know either."
I consider leaving when he turns around, pointing the knife at me. There's no threat to it. He's just trying to make a point, trying to get my attention. "You care about that girl?"
"Yes."
"Remember what happened the last time you cared about one."
He turns back away from me, and I know he's said all he's going to say. If I don't walk back out the door right now, he'll call the police. He will.
And I can't let it get that far.
/>
I can't do that to my mother.
My father gave up on me long ago.
My mother's the lingering hope that maybe I'm not all hopeless.
"It's infected."
I move my forearm from across my eyes and glare at the man standing over me. Dr. Carter. I don't like people in my house. I don't invite people in my house. But yet here the man is, standing in my den again.
My gaze moves from him down to my chest, as I lay shirtless on the couch. The skin on my side is enflamed, the wound oozing. It's throbbing, every inch of me burning up, raw and painful to the touch.
Infected. No shit.
I can even smell it.
My eyes turn back to him, but I don't say anything. He was the compromise, a forced concession. Karissa insisted I needed to go back to the hospital but I said I was fine, so she called him instead.
I'm ten seconds from removing him from the vicinity.
Carter clears his throat, surveying my injury as he holds his medical bag. "Did you take the medicine you were prescribed?"
"No," a voice calls from the doorway. "He didn't."
Karissa.
Sighing, I cover my eyes with my arm again, not in the mood for this.
Carter has dealt with me enough to know his line of questioning is pointless, so he doesn't bother asking anything else. I keep my eyes closed and clench my jaw when he puts on a pair of latex gloves and starts poking around at my skin. He flushes out the wound, sterilizing it, before covering my side with a fresh bandage.
I feel it, as he sits near me, perching on the table right in front of the couch.
"I get it, Vitale," he says quietly. "If you wanna suffer through this, go right ahead. We both know the pain won't kill you. But this infection? If you're not careful, it will. Take the antibiotics, keep the wound clean, and for God's sake, stay off your feet."
"For how long?" Karissa asks, listening to our conversation. "How long will he be down for?"
I want to make a snipe about why it even matters but the truth is, I couldn't get up and move around if I wanted to right now. I pushed myself too fast, too far, and I hit bottom before I could even really start.
"Until he's better," Carter says. "He needs to relax and sleep."
"I'll sleep when I'm dead," I mutter.
"Yeah, well, at the rate you're going, that might be soon."
The man walks away. I listen to his footsteps as he heads for the front door, Karissa behind him, showing him out. I can hear their voices in the living room, whispered words I can't make out, before the front door open and closes. Relief eases the tension in my muscles once he's gone and I hear the locks jingling, Karissa securing them.
I don't hear her footsteps.
No, she's deathly quiet.
I don't know she's there until the couch shifts, starling me when she sits down on the edge. I move my arm again, peeking at her as she holds out the orange prescription bottle and shakes it in my face.
"Antibiotics," she says. "You heard the man."
Words are on the tip of my tongue.
I don't take orders from anybody.
I nearly say the words but swallow them back at the last second as I force myself up into a sit. I grimace, one hand clutching the bandage on my side, as I snatch the pill bottle from her with my other hand. I glance at the label, reading the instructions:
Take four times daily for seven days.
Wordlessly, I open the bottle and take out a pill, popping it in my mouth and swallowing it dry. I toss the bottle down on the table in front of me before lying back down and closing my eyes.
"You're supposed to take it with food."
"I'm not hungry."
"Then at least let me get you some water."
"I'm fine, Karissa," I tell her. "Good as new."
"You're delusional."
"You mispronounced handsome."
She scoffs. "Not today. You look like shit."
I move my arm when she says that. The moment I meet her gaze, she rolls her eyes and turns away. "Whatever, so maybe you're still handsome, even when you look like you've been fucked by the grim reaper."
Those words make a laugh echo from my chest. It hurts like hell, but it's worth it, I think, based on the smile that touches her lips. Reaching toward her, my fingertips touch her cheek before grazing her lips. "You're getting awfully brave with your words lately."
"It's because you're infuriating," she says when I drop my hand. "You're so stubborn. I know you probably don't need anybody in life, but I'm here, you know, so I might as well…"
"Help me," I say when she trails off.
"Yes."
I consider it for a moment before letting out a resigned sigh. Appearing weak is against my rules, showing vulnerability too dangerous outside of these walls, but when it's just the two of us, when we're right here, maybe there's no harm in it.
"Fine," I say. "You want to help me?"
"Yes."
"Make sure nobody else steps foot in this house."
She smiles slightly. "That I can do."
One week.
I give myself a week this time, seven days to rest and recuperate. I take the antibiotics when I'm supposed to and give Karissa some leeway. By the seventh day, I'm feeling much more like myself, my strength coming back, the infection cleared. The wound still hurts a bit when I move, but it's healing. Before long, I'll barely notice it's even there.
But for now, I still remember.
For now, I won't forget.
I won't forget how it got there.
Won't forget what I have to do about it…
You can only make one first impression.
My father stressed that when I was a kid. Stand up straight. Don't slouch. Hold your head high. Don't scowl. It takes less than a second for someone to make up their mind about you. Just a glance. The blink of an eye.
It's something I grew up remembering. People see me how I want them to. But as important as it is, making a good first impression, it's the last impression that matters most, I think. They might not remember what they first thought about you. Feelings evolve. People change their minds. But they'll never forget the last moments. They're eternal.
Last words.
They say when Al Capone was on his deathbed, he begged the ghost of Jimmy Clark to leave him in peace. Capone was a troubled man, haunted by the past, tortured by the memory of a man he ordered slaughtered in a garage years before.
I wonder if that'll be me.
I wonder if it'll all catch up to me someday.
Will my carefully controlled world be ripped apart because something finally broke me at the end?
I hope I'll be more like Frank Gusenberg, as he lay in a hospital bed, fourteen bullets pumped into him from Capone's men.
"Who shot you?" the officer asked.
"Nobody shot me," the man said before taking his last breath.
I think about it a lot.
I choose my words carefully.
Don't say it unless you mean it.
You never know when it might be the last thing you ever say.
The old meatpacking plant is abandoned, deep in a rundown neighborhood in Queens. Slaughterhouse Number Five, Ray jokingly calls the place. It's seen more death than a soldier in war. Although the outside of the structure is still sound, the bricks all in tact, the inside is demolished.
Back to work I go.
A man hangs from a meat hook on a rafter by chains around his wrists, dangling so low to the ground that his shoes scrape the concrete. He's battered and bloodied, a fucked up, snot-sobbing mess. I don't know his name. I don't even know what he did to end up in this place. But he's here, and when you end up in his position, there's only one way out of it.
In a body bag.
"Any last words?" I ask.
The man blinks slowly as if drugged, but I know there's nothing in his system. No, his body is just shutting down on him. Who knows how long he's been here. I got a call from Ray this morning, asking me to end the suf
fering.
So there's this guy...
He stares at me like he's seeing an angel of death, and I guess in a way that's what I am.
I'll take his life as payment for his sins.
With a gloved hand, I reach into my coat and pull out the cheap .22 caliber pistol, already loaded, definitely not registered in my name. The great state of New York will tell you I don't own any weapons.
I point it at him, giving him time to come up with something to say.
His silence is deafening.
"Last chance," I tell him. "Make it profound."
He spits on the ground, a mixture of blood and saliva, before muttering, "Fuck you."
Admirable last words, although a bit cliché. Not the first time someone's said them to me in this place. I aim the gun and pull the trigger, the gunshot echoing loud as the bullet rips through his skull, ending him right away. His feet drag the cruddy ground as his body sways from the impact.
I drop the gun and walk out, discarding it there. It can't be traced back to me. Nobody will ever know I was even here.
I've said it before.
I'll say it again.
I'm not a good man.
I never will be.
I drive around for a while afterward to purge the adrenaline before making my way back to Brooklyn. It's still early, so I'm surprised to find Karissa moving around already, showered and dressed.
She's in the kitchen, wearing a pair of cutoff jeans shorts and one of my white undershirts overtop of a bright pink bikini top, the strings tied around the back of her neck. Her hair is pulled back into a loose ponytail, her skin free of makeup as she stands beside the refrigerator and shoves some bottles of water into a little foam cooler.
"Going somewhere?" I ask.
She swings toward me, smiling widely.
The sight of her smile makes my chest ache.
She's in an awfully good mood this morning for some reason, but whatever it is, I'll take it. Whatever makes her happy, I'm on board.
"Well, yeah… it's the fourth."
"The fourth?"
"Yeah, you know… the Fourth of July. Let freedom ring and all that jazz."
Ah. I didn't notice, but I usually never do. Holidays are just more days to me. A title and a national declaration don't give them meaning. She looks excited about it, though. "Huh."