“Can’t wait till Monday, huh?” Joe asked, already knowing the answer. “It’s beginning to snow out here.”
“Sorry, Joe, he’s out and he’s a new customer.”
Yeah, sure, Joe thought, they’re always out. It was one of those convenient lies people told to make sure you’d come in a hurry, or, when things were really busy, to make sure you’d come at all.
“Okay, Ma, lemme pull over here and get a ticket.”
“The name’s Healy,” Ma said when Joe gave her the go ahead. “H-E-A-L-Y. He’s at 89 Boxwood Avenue in Kings Park, off 25A. It’s a fill up at the two hundred gallon price. Cash. The fill’s on the right side of the house up the driveway. You copy that, Joe?”
He copied all right. Not only was he stuck doing another stop, but it was way the hell up on the North Shore. That’s why Ma had sounded so guilty. Delivering oil is dangerous enough in perfect weather, but in the snow, in the dark. Forget about it! If you think controlling a skid is fun in your family car, try it in a Mack truck sometime. He pulled away from the curb and began slowly backtracking his way over the L.I.E., through Hauppague and Smithtown, up Landing Avenue, down Rose Street and onto 25A.
Fifteen slippery minutes later he was in Kings Park. Kings Park was a cute little town whose name had nothing to do with royalty and everything to do with the now shuttered psychiatric hospital that bore the same name. The hospital was established as an offshoot of Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, hence the Kings in Kings Park. The town had grown up around the extensive hospital grounds situated on an inlet of Long Island Sound.
Joe turned onto Boxwood, his eyes trying to focus on some address, any address, just to establish the odd numbered side of the street. That was no mean feat at night with the snow piling up on the ledge of the tugboat’s side windows and mirrors. Old Macks are great trucks, but their heating and defrosting systems are for shit. About a quarter of the way up Boxwood, Joe caught a number on a mailbox. 43. Bingo!
89 Boxwood was a neat split ranch-gee, what a surprise on Long Island. Normally, he would have parked the truck, gone to the front door and confirmed the delivery. He was too tired, too pissed-off to do his normal routine. He popped the air brake, put the truck in neutral, flipped on the PTO and shifted into third gear. He set the meter, primed the pump, yanked the hose over his shoulder and walked up a stranger’s driveway for the twenty-sixth time that day. It was days like this Joe most regretted complaining to Frank about the kid. Cain wasn’t a kid, not really, but his being retarded made him seem like one. Christ, he was a good two inches taller than Joe and strong as an ox for someone so reedy thin. Country strong, Frank called him. Retard strong; Dixie, one of the other drivers, was less kind.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like Cain. He did. Joe was the one who gave him the nickname King Kong. It fit-Cain Cohen, King Kong. The perfect moniker for a hose monkey. Even now as Joe shlepped the hose, he smiled thinking about the kick the kid got out of the nickname. He was so proud of it. The thing was, Cain drove Joe a little nuts. When they stuck to subjects like sports, they were okay. In fact, it kind of reminded Joe of riding the streets with his first partner, but you could only talk so much sports and Saturdays could be very long days.
The kid was a little too preoccupied with that Japanese anime crap. And the kid could fool you. He sometimes seemed almost bright, but Joe had learned there was a limit to the kid’s range. There was just some stuff that Cain couldn’t get no matter how many times you explained it to him. That wouldn’t have been bad if the kid wasn’t so freaking curious. He asked a million questions and it was one of these questions that had finally gotten to Joe.
“Why is Frank’s company called Mayday, Joe?”
“Cause Frank thought it was a good name that people would remember.”
“Why? It sounds like a stupid name to me. What does May have to do with oil? It’s hot in May and we don’t deliver a lot of oil in May.”
“Mayday’s got nothing to do with the month of May, Kong.”
“Then what’s it mean?”
“It means ‘help me.’ Even though we spell it m-a-y-d-a-y, it comes from the French m’aidez, m-a-i-d-e-z, which means ‘help me.’”
“But we don’t speak French in America, Joe, so that’s stupid.”
After about a half-hour of going round and round, Joe had cut off the discussion. That night he went to Frank and asked for the kid to be taken off the tugboat. Two months had passed since then. Cain had gotten over his initial hurt, but Joe still felt shitty about it. He had come to the realization that the kid’s questions were painful echoes from his own life. His son, Joey, now fourteen and living with his mother and stepfather in Daytona Beach, had always been a curious kid. Worse even were the echoes of Vinny in the kid’s questions.
Joe hooked up the nozzle to the fill pipe. He was about to start for the front door, when he heard a storm door slam shut and footsteps coming his way.
“Fill up?” Joe shouted.
“Whatever she’ll take,” a man answered back, his footsteps growing louder as they grew nearer. “I shoulda checked the tank a week ago, but… There’s alotta things I shoulda done.”
Joe said nothing. He heard this lament or versions thereof several times a day. He slid the trigger open and got a strong vent whistle. The homeowner was standing right behind him now. Joe didn’t bother looking up. He wasn’t interested in making friends and influencing people. He just wanted to get done.
“I really appreciate your coming so late.”
“No sweat,” Joe lied through clenched teeth.
“This weather sucks, doesn’t it?” the customer asked. “My wife used to love the snow. Me, I got no use for it.”
“Oh God,” Joe muttered to himself, “a fuckin’ talker.”
“Did you say something?”
“No, nothing. Yeah, this weather sure does suck.”
“It must be rough for you, working in this shit. No?”
Suddenly, a chill rode the length of Joe Serpe’s spine. There was something about this guy’s voice, the way he phrased things that was eerily familiar. Frantically, he searched his memory, trying to recall the customer’s name. The whistle weakened, the tank almost full. Joe did not take notice as he tried remembering Ma spelling the name out for him. What was the name? Now, the whistle died completely. Joe did not slap the trigger shut. There was a loud gurgling in the vent pipe, oil rising up fast. Healy! Christ almighty! Joe snapped back into the present, smacking the trigger closed. Only a few drops of oil sputtered out the vent pipe turning the virgin snow beneath the color of cherry ices. The customer seemed not to take notice.
“Okay,” Joe said. “I’ll write you up and meet you at the front door.”
“Good. I’ll get the cash.”
Joe did not turn to look as Mr. Healy retreated. Instead, he looked at the fresh footprints as he carried the hose back to the tugboat. When he removed the ticket from the meter, Joe noticed his hands were shaking. No, he thought, it had to be a different Healy. There must be hundreds of Healys on Long Island. Joe filled in the totals, laughing at himself for being such an idiot. He felt like some brokenhearted teenager who runs into an old girlfriend. He walked up to the door, bill in hand, an embarrassed smile on his face. He knocked at the storm door.
“One second. Gimme a second,” a bodyless voice answered the knock.
Shit! There was that chill again. It was the voice. His voice. Just as he could not calculate the millions he had confiscated over the years, Joe could not count the hours he’d listened to that voice accuse and cajole, prompt and prod, jab and parry. He was tempted to leave the receipt in the mailbox and run, scream for Healy to send in a check.
But Joe Serpe hadn’t run from anything in his life and he wasn’t about to start now. Instead he cupped his hands around his eyes and pressed his face up close to the storm door. He looked at the framed collage of family photos on the staircase wall.