While it could safely be said that Fat Mancho hated most everyone he met, for some reason he tolerated us. To him, we were harmless street rats, out for nothing more than a good time. He liked to joke with us, poke fun at everything we did and insult us whenever he felt the urge. We had known him all our lives and felt that he trusted us. We would never steal from him or try to deceive him in any way. We never asked for money and never caused trouble in front of his store. He liked our company, liked it when we gave back as good as we got from him, his eyes gleaming on the rare occasions we bested his taunts. We always felt that Fat Mancho had a good heart and that he liked kids. He just never wanted anybody to know that.
'What is that shit, anyway?' John wanted to know, pointing to the Colt.45s.
'Beer mixed with piss,' Tommy told him, one foot resting on the fire hydrant in front of the store.
'Then the drunks are right,' John said. 'Mancho is chargin' them too much.'
'When you gonna open up the pump?' Tommy asked.
'Cops are due for one more pass around,' Michael said, standing behind him. 'After that.'
'Hey, Mancho,' John yelled into the back of the store.
'What?' the Fat Man said.
'Can I use your bathroom?' John asked.
'Fuck you, punk,' Fat Mancho said, laughing. This was his idea of major fun. 'Wet your pants.'
'That a no?' John asked me.
'I think so,' I shrugged.
'Hey, Mancho,' Tommy said. 'Give the guy a break. He's really got to go.'
'Blow me,' Fat Mancho said, having a great time.
'That's it,' Tommy said. 'We're never gonna buy from your store again.'
'Kill yourself,' Fat Mancho said.
'C'mon,' I said to John. 'You can go at my place. I gotta pick something up anyway.'
'You sure?'
'It's either there or the back of Fat Mancho's car,' I said.
'Where's he parked?' John said.
Apartment doors in Hell's Kitchen were never locked during the day and ours was no exception. John and I took the two flights at full throttle, chasing Mrs. Aletti's black alley cat up the stairs ahead of us. We scooted past the large potted plant outside Mrs. Blake's and rushed to my door. I turned the handle and walked into the kitchen, John right behind me. The bathroom was on the left, next to the kitchen table, a Padre Pio calendar tacked to the wooden door which, for reasons known only to the previous tenant, locked from the outside. I could hear my mother whistling an Italian pop song from one of the back rooms. A fresh pot of espresso was on the stove and two cups and a sugar bowl were on the table.
'Didn't think I was gonna make it,' John said, reaching for the bathroom door.
'Hurry,' I said. 'Before you pee on the floor.'
The door swung open and both John and I stood as still as ice sculptures.
There, on the bowl, in full white habit, sat Sister Carolyn Saunders, my second grade teacher and one of my mother's best friends. She stared back, as motionless as we were.
She had a wad of toilet paper bunched up in one hand.
'Holy shit!' John said.
'Oh my God!' said Sister Carolyn.
We were back on the street in seconds, John nearly tripping down the final steps in his rush to get out of the building. Michael and Tommy were pitching pennies against a brick wall.
'That was quick,' Michael said. 'What'd you do, start in the hallway?'
'I'm dead,' I said. 'Dead and buried.'
Tommy looked confused. 'Because John took a piss in your house?'
'We saw a nun.' John was bent over, hands to knees, trying to catch his breath.
'Where?' Michael asked. 'In the hall?'
'On the bowl!' John said. 'She was sittin' on Shakes' toilet! Takin' a piss!'
'No shit,' Tommy said. 'You never think of nuns doin' stuff like that.'
'Which nun?' Michael asked.
'Sister Carolyn,' I said, still shaking from the memory.
'Good choice,' Tommy said. 'She's really cute.'
'Did you see her snatch?' Michael asked.
'A nun's snatch!' John said. 'We're gonna burn like twigs for this, Shakes!'
'Relax,' Michael said. 'Nothin's gonna happen.'
'What makes you so sure?' I asked.
'She's a nun, right? So she's not gonna tell. If people find out, it's more trouble for her than it is for you.'
'Maybe,' John wailed. 'But we still shouldn't've seen what we saw.'
'Are you kidding me?' Tommy said. 'It don't get better than nun snatch.'
'I only saw skin,' John said. 'I swear it. White clothes and white skin. Nothin' else.'
'She say anything?' Tommy asked.
'Ask her yourself,' Michael said, looking over John's shoulder. 'She's coming this way.'
'My heart just stopped,' John said, his face pale, his voice cracking.
'She's coming for us,' I said, turning my head in Sister Carolyn's direction, watching her walk down the steps of my apartment building, check for traffic and make her way to where we were standing.
'What the fuck's that nun want?' Fat Mancho said, slurping a Yoo-Hoo and scratching at his three-day growth.
'Stay quiet, Fat Man,' Michael said.
'Eat my pole,' Fat Mancho said, walking back behind the bodega counter.
'Hello, boys,' Sister Carolyn said, her manner calm, her voice soft.
She was young, her face clear and unlined. She was Boston big-city bred and had spent three years in Latin America working with the poor before a transfer brought her to Sacred Heart. Sister Carolyn was popular with her students and respected by their parents and, unlike some of the other nuns of the parish, seemed at ease among the people of Hell's Kitchen. Though she spoke no Italian and my mother hardly a word of English, they had formed a solid friendship, with Sister Carolyn visiting her an average of three times a week. She knew the type of marriage my mother was in and was always quick to check in on her after my father had administered yet another beating.
'Hey, Sister,' Michael said casually. 'What's goin' on?'
Sister Carolyn smiled and put one hand on top of John's shoulder. Nothing but fear was keeping John in his place.
'The bathroom's free now if you still need to use it,' she said to him softly.
'Thank you,' John mumbled.
'We're very sorry,' I said.
'I know,' she said. 'Forget it happened. I already have.'
'Thank you, Sister,' I said.
'I'll see all you boys in church,' she said, turning to leave.
'Bet on it,' Tommy said.
'What a peach,' John said, watching her as she walked up the street back to the Convent on 51st, her long white skirt swaying at her feet.
'And not a bad lookin' ass, either,' Michael said, winking at me.
'Fuck do any o' you know about ass,' Fat Mancho said from behind his counter.
'I'm gonna go pee,' John said, running back across the street. 'Can't hold it in anymore.'
'Watch now,' Tommy said to me. 'This time he walks in on your mother coppin' a squat.'
'That happens,' Michael said. 'He might as well just throw himself out a window.'
'He should throw himself out a window anyway,' Fat Mancho said. 'Useless fuck.'
'Go wash your mouth out with shit, Fat Man,' Tommy said.
'Set yourself on fire,' Fat Mancho said. 'All of you. Burn till you die.'
We all looked over at Fat Mancho and laughed, walking away from his store, toward the fire hydrant and a dose of wet relief from the heat of the day.
SIX
Father Robert Carillo was a longshoreman's son who was as comfortable sitting on a bar stool in a back alley saloon as he was standing at the altar during high mass. Raised in Hell's Kitchen, he toyed with a life of petty crime before finding his religious calling. Carillo left for a midwestern seminary three weeks before his sixteenth birthday. When he returned ten years later, he asked to be assigned to the Sacred Heart parish.
As far as we were concerned, he wasn't like a priest at all. He would spring for pizza after an afternoon pick-up game or twist a few neighborhood arms and raise money for new sports equipment for the gym. He was a friend. A friend who just happened to be a priest.