Pinky ran up excitably. “Lissen, boys,” he screamed, “do you want I should lose my license?”
“We are all friends,” Palangio said. “Shake hands. Everybody shake hands. Everybody have a drink. I hereby treat everybody to a drink.”
Elias lumbered back to Palangio’s side. “I am sorry if I made a commotion. Some people can’t talk like gentlemen.”
“Everybody have a drink,” Palangio insisted.
Elias took out three dollar bills and laid them deliberately on the bar. “Pass the bottle around. This is on Elias Pinsker.”
“Put yer money away, Elias.” Geary pushed his cap around on his head with anger. “Who yuh think yuh are? Walter Chrysler?”
“The entertainment this afternoon is on me,” Elias said inexorably. “There was a time I would stand drinks for twenty-five men. With a laugh, an’ pass cigars out after it. Pass the bottle around, Pinky!”
The whisky flowed.
“Elias and me,” Palangio said. “We are high class spenders.”
“You guys oughta be fed by hand,” Geary said. “Wards of the guvment.”
“A man is entitled to some relaxation,” Elias said. “Where’s that bottle?”
“This is nice,” Palangio said. “This is very nice.”
“This is like the good old days,” Elias said.
“I hate to go home.” Palangio sighed. “I ain’t even got a radio home.”
“Pinky!” Elias called. “Turn on the radio for Angelo Palangio.”
“One room,” Palangio said. “As big as a toilet. That is where I live.”
The radio played. It was soft and sweet and a rich male voice sang “I Married an Angel.”
“When I get home,” Elias remembered, “Annie will kill a pedigreed pigeon for supper. My lousy wife. An’ after supper I push the hack five more hours and I go home and Annie yells some more and I get up tomorrow and push the hack some more.” He poured himself another drink. “That is a life for a dog,” he said. “For a Airedale.”
“In Italy,” Palangio said, “they got donkeys don’t work as hard as us.”
“If the donkeys were as bad off as you,” Geary yelled, “they’d have sense enough to organize.”
“I want to be a executive at a desk.” Elias leaned both elbows on the bar and held his chin in his huge gnarled hands. “A long distance away from Brownsville. Wit’ two thousand pigeons. In California. An’ I should be a bachelor. Geary, can yuh organize that? Hey, Geary?”
“You’re a workin’ man,” Geary said, “an’ you’re goin’ to be a workin’ man all yer life.”
“Geary,” Elias said. “You red bastidd, Geary.”
“All my life,” Palangio wept, “I am goin’ to push a hack up an’ down Brooklyn, fifteen, sixteen hours a day an’ pay th’ Company forever an’ go home and sleep in a room no bigger’n a toilet. Without a radio. Jesus!”
“We are victims of circumstance,” Elias said.
“All my life,” Palangio cried, “tied to that crate!”
Elias pounded the bar once with his fist. “Th’ hell with it! Palangio!” he said. “Get into that goddamn wagon of yours.”
“What do yuh want me to do?” Palangio asked in wonder.
“We’ll fix ’em,” Elias shouted. “We’ll fix those hacks. We’ll fix that Company! Get into yer cab, Angelo. I’ll drive mine, we’ll have a chicken fight.”
“You drunken slobs!” Geary yelled. “Yuh can’t do that!”
“Yeah,” Palangio said eagerly, thinking it over. “Yeah. We’ll show ’em. Two dollars and seventy-fi’ cents a day for life. Yeah. We’ll fix ’em. Come on, Elias!”
Elias and Palangio walked gravely out to their cars. Everybody else followed them.
“Look what they’re doin’!” Geary screamed. “Not a brain between the both of them! What good’ll it do to ruin the cabs?”
“Shut up,” Elias said, getting into his cab. “We oughta done this five months ago. Hey, Angelo,” he called, leaning out of his cab. “Are yuh ready? Hey, Il Doochay!”
“Contact!” Angelo shouted, starting his motor. “Boom! Boom!”
The two cars spurted at each other, in second, head-on. As they hit, glass broke and a fender flew off and the cars skidded wildly and the metal noise echoed and re-echoed like artillery fire off the buildings.
Elias stuck his head out of his cab. “Are yuh hurt?” he called. “Hey, Il Doochay!”
“Contact!” Palangio called from behind his broken windshield. “The Dawn Patrol!”
“I can’t watch this,” Geary moaned. “Two workin’ men.” He went back into Lammanawitz’s Bar and Grill.
The two cabs slammed together again and people came running from all directions.
“How’re yuh?” Elias asked, wiping the blood off his face.
“Onward!” Palangio stuck his hand out in salute. “Sons of Italy!”
Again and again the cabs tore into each other.
“Knights of the Round Table,” Palangio announced.
“Knights of Lammanawitz’s Round Table,” Elias agreed, pulling at the choke to get the wheezing motor to turn over once more.
For the last time they came together. Both cars flew off the ground at the impact and Elias’s toppled on its side and slid with a harsh grating noise to the curb. One of the front wheels from Palangio’s cab rolled calmly and decisively toward Pitkin Avenue. Elias crawled out of his cab before anyone could reach him. He stood up, swaying, covered with blood, pulling at loose ends of his torn sweater. He shook hands soberly with Palangio and looked around him with satisfaction at the torn fenders and broken glass and scattered headlights and twisted steel. “Th’ lousy Company,” he said. “That does it. I am now goin’ to inform ’em of th’ accident.”
He and Palangio entered the Bar and Grill, followed by a hundred men, women, and children. Elias dialed the number deliberately.
“Hullo,” he said, “hullo, Charlie? Lissen, Charlie, if yuh send a wreckin’ car down to Lammanawitz’s Bar and Grill, yuh will find two of yer automobiles. Yuh lousy Charlie.” He hung up carefully.
“All right, Palangio,” he said.
“Yuh bet,” Palangio answered.
“Now we oughta go to the movies,” Elias said.
“That’s right,” Palangio nodded seriously.
“Yuh oughta be shot,” Geary shouted.
“They’re playin’ Simone Simon,” Elias announced to the crowd. “Let’s go see Simone Simon.”
Walking steadily, arm in arm, like two gentlemen, Elias and Angelo Palangio went down the street, through the lengthening shadows, toward Simone Simon.
Luck be a lady
by Maggie Estep
Kensington
(Originally published in 2004)
Harry Sparrow’d had a run of luck so rotten you could smell it three blocks away. Harry felt like everywhere he set foot folks gave him the twice over and then some. Even doing hump things like his laundry and shopping. Used to be Old Elsa at the Laundorama on Caton Avenue always had a kind word for him, even sometimes let him use the special dryer at the end free of charge. Nowadays Elsa acted like Harry had Ebola. Lousy way to go. Blood pouring out of your eyes and mouth. Harry didn’t like blood much. Or he guessed he didn’t. He’d somehow made it through a lot of years living on the left side of the law without coming close to blood. Probably because Harry never carried a weapon. You took a fall with a weapon, it was Armed Robbery. Harry kept it to Breaking and Entering. He’d only ever done a little time. Jail not prison. Harry wanted to keep it that way.
Harry’s luck took a turn for the better one night when he least expected it. The day had been lousy. The mercury hitting a hundred and staying there even though it was barely May. Harry hadn’t wanted to be cooped up in his room that stank of baroque spices from his landlady Mrs. Desuj’s cooking. So Harry had taken the F train to the A train to Aqueduct Racetrack to meet McCormick, a sometimes associate who swore he had a live tip from an apprentice jockey. McCormick was a small man who wore the same navy three-piece suit every day of the week. He had a history of mental illness and Harry took everything he said with a grain of salt. But Harry knew that sometimes McCormick’s tips were live. So he kept an open mind about it. He tucked a C note in his sock and two twenties in the money clip given him by Susan, the last girl he’d dated. Susan had been arrested for forgery shortly after moving into Harry’s room with him. Harry couldn’t say he’d been sorry to see her go. She was pretty and fond of having sex in public places. Thing was, she had a mean streak. Even that would have been okay, but it was unpredictable. Harry would ask Susan to pass the sugar and she would snap. Start shouting at Harry and kicking him in the shins.