“I picked up the phone and this deep voice said,
‘Tel the whore to stay away from us or someone’s going to get hurt.’ Can you imagine her cal ing me a
‘whore’ when she’s the one fooling around with my husband? What a bitch.”
I was pretty sure the cal wasn’t meant for her.
“It was probably just a wrong number,” I told her.
“Or a prank cal. It doesn’t sound like Dottie’s style.”
“The woman almost shot you to death!”
“Yeah, but to be honest, she didn’t know it was me. And I was peeping into her window at the time.”
“I stil say that woman is capable of anything,” my mother grumbled.
Just then, a crashing noise came from the window. We both turned to look.
Gunshots!
“Get down!” I shouted at my mother.
“What?”
I threw myself in her lap, knocking both of us to the floor. “Someone’s shooting at us!” I cried.
Apparently, Michael Harrington wasn’t going to be satisfied with a warning delivered by phone.
“Ow!” my mother screamed.
“Mom!” I would never forgive myself if my mother got hurt because of my involvement with the Harringtons.
“My hip!” she moaned. “Ow!”
Shit, she’d been shot!
I looked at her. “I’l cal the cops,” I told her. I was about to crawl to the phone when I looked at her again. “I don’t see any blood.”
“Of course there’s no blood,” she said, standing up. “You just almost broke my hip with that meshuggana move you pul ed. Are you trying to kil me?”
“Get back down!” I shouted, pointing at the window where more bul ets struck the glass.
“Someone’s shooting at us!”
“Those aren’t gunshots,” my mother said.
They weren’t?
I listened again.
The sound was more of a tapping then a blasting.
Ooops. OK, maybe I did overreact. Had I taken my medicine today?
“Someone’s throwing something at the window,” she said. “Rocks or… pebbles. I haven’t heard that sound since…”
Hip hurting or not, she ran to the window like a schoolgirl. She flung it open and we heard him outside: “Don’t sit under the apple tree, with anyone else but me, anyone else but me, anyone else but me…”
My father’s singing voice was legendarily bad, but my mother’s face glowed as if she was listening to Sinatra.
I joined her at the window. My father was standing on the street in a white tuxedo and tails. He held a bouquet of blood red roses. A white limousine was parked on the street behind him, the driver holding the door open.
A smal crowd gathered behind my father. More street theater. These are the moments New Yorkers live for.
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your golden hair,” my father cal ed.
My mother blushed and waved him away.
“Come on,” a guy who looked like a construction worker (and was actual y pretty hot) cal ed out to her.
“Give da guy a break.”
“Come, fair lady, upon my glorious steed.” My father gestured towards the limo.
My mother blushed and put her hands on her cheeks.
A
fifty-something
African-American woman shouted at us, “Honey, if you don’t get your ass down here, I’m going with him!” The crowd laughed.
My mother turned to me. “What do I do?”
“Wel,” I said, “you could hop on the fire escape and climb down, but since you’re wearing white slacks, I’d probably take the elevator.
“Should I forgive him?”
“I don’t think you have anything to forgive him for, Mom. He never laid a finger on Dottie Kubacki and you know it.”
My mother smiled wisely. “You see, what he’s doing now? I think this is what I needed.”
My father began singing again “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do…”
My mother leaned out the window. “If I come down, wil you promise to stop singing?”
The crowd laughed.
“You cal this singing?” my father asked. More laughter.
“What I cal it,” my mother said, “is very sweet.”
This time, the crowed “awwwed.”
“I’l be right down!” my mother shouted and she skipped-actual y skipped! — to the door. “I might not be back tonight!” she tril ed to me.
“You better not be back!” I cal ed back to her.
“I love you,” she said.
“Love you too, Mom.”
I watched for a minute as my mother emerged from the lobby door and ran into my father’s arms.
Given that she had at least thirty pounds on him, most of it in the bosom, I was surprised he didn’t fal over.
The crowd cheered. So did I.
And not just because I had my apartment back.
My father watched as the limo driver guided her into the backseat. When he closed her door, my father turned to me. “Not bad for an old man, huh?”
“I’m proud of you Dad,” I said, my eyes for some reason fil ing with tears. Must have been relief.
“Your old man, you have to admit, he’s stil got it,” my father said. “Now, you won’t miss her too much, wil you?”
“I’l survive.”
“You’re a good boy. Thanks for looking after her.”
“Thanks for taking her back!”
My father climbed into his seat and the limo took off. The crowd dispersed, except for Construction Guy who stayed looking at me. I looked back. I’d guess he was maybe twenty-eight or twenty-nine.
Dark skin and dark eyes. Italian or Latino. Built like a tank.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi,” I answered.
“Pretty crazy family you got dere.” His accent was pure Brooklyn.
I laughed. “Yeah, wel, they’re the only one I have.”
“So tel me, cutie,” he yel ed up. “Think I could get you to throw down your golden locks, too?”
It was tempting. God knows I deserved something fun after the day I had. “It’s not a good time,” I said.
He pointed to my cheek. “I can see that.”
I chuckled. “Believe it or not, that’s the least of my problems.”
“Sounds like you could use a good massage.” He winked, grinning at the obvious lasciviousness of his suggestion.
That sounded good. “Some other time?”
“Real y?” he said. He grinned ear to ear. Damn, he was cute.
I realized I spent the past few years waiting for Tony or having sex for money.
It had been a long time since I dated an attractive boy just for the sake of a date.
“Sure,” I said, reassuring him as much as me. “I’d like that.”
“One second,” he said. With a great leap, he jumped up and launched himself onto the railing of the fire escape. He pul ed himself up to the first floor landing. “I’l be right dere.”
Monkey-like, he climbed the metal structure, displaying a natural grace and limberness that belied his muscular build. In a minute, he was standing by my window.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.” Up close, he was a total snack. “That was pretty slick.”
“Wel.” He cocked his head, “I’m a pretty slick guy.”
“I’m Kevin,” I said.
“Romeo,” he put out his hand.
“You’re kidding.”
“What?”
“You just climbed onto my ‘balcony’ and your name is ‘Romeo?’”
He shrugged. “That’s what they cal ed me. Romeo Raul Romero.”
I bit my tongue. “That’s quite a name.”
“Yeah, my parents real y had a hard-on for de letter R, huh?”
I smiled. “It’s a very handsome name, Romeo. It fits you.”
“Ya think?” He leaned in closer.
“Uh-huh.” I leaned in a little, too.
Romeo planted one on my lips.
In the movie Norma Rae, Sal y Fields is being pursued by an unattractive but intriguingly-Semitic liberal activist played by Ron Leibman. Just in case his every characteristic and frequent use of Yiddish wasn’t enough to let you know he was Jewish, they saddled him with the name Reuben Warshowsky.
In any case, at one point Rueben expresses his sexual interest in her. She kisses him, explaining that if the kiss is good, the rest wil fol ow.
If she was right, then Romeo was real y, real y good.
I know, it seems crazy that after the day I’d just had I’d be standing by my window under a ful moon being kissed by a beautiful stranger who scaled my fire escape. But on the other hand, would I ever get a better excuse for acting a little crazy?