Читать книгу The Perfume Burned His Eyes - Michael Imperioli - Страница 16

eleven

Ciro asked me to work until midnight one Saturday evening. I had to ask permission from my mother. She said it was okay but that she wanted to pick me up when my shift was finished. I understood her concern but it made no sense because I already spent hours up until midnight walking all over the East Side, going in and out of buildings and strangers’ apartments.

At around eleven that night Lorenzo, the weekend manager, gave me a ticket for the building I lived in. The delivery was for apartment 8A, which I figured was one of the penthouses. The name on the order was Jones, which didn’t ring any bells. It was a weird order: two large OJs, two strawberry milkshakes, two double orders of bacon (a total of four orders), and lots of pickles.

Strange, but far from the strangest for sure. That dubious honor went to Miss A. Lundgren, a 400-pound woman who lived on East 68th Street. Miss Lundgren, dubbed “Circus Circus” by Ciro, had a standing order every Saturday and Sunday morning. At nine thirty a.m. she expected to be delivered to her door: half a dozen eggs sunny-side up, twelve sausage links, eight slices of toast with ten small packets of grape jelly, a triple order of home fries, and three large chocolate milks. Included as a courtesy in one of the bags was a full-size glass bottle of Heinz ketchup. The order stood for two years straight until one Saturday she didn’t answer the door and was never heard from again.

When I got to my building with 8A’s order in hand, the new doorman Jeff was on duty. I liked Jeff a lot. He reminded me of a character in an old Western who would play a sheriff or a train conductor. He was a tall, sturdy, healthy-looking guy. A Midwestern oh-my-gosh type with neatly trimmed hair and respectful, old-fashioned manners. He didn’t seem to belong in New York City at all.

But Jeff was far from straitlaced. He had a fetishistic obsession with ballerinas and would often hang around the entrance to the ballet school at Lincoln Center. He would lean against the building and pretend to read the paper but he’d really be watching the young dancers come and go from their classes. He wasn’t at all shy about sharing any of this with me and spoke of his fixation very casually. As if it was something that any normal American male would appreciate.

The girls who took classes there were young: from high school age down to like ten years old. Jeff would get this devilish twinkle in his eye when he described these aspiring dancers “in their little pink leotards and soft satin shoes . . . so small and petite.” He tended to like the girls on the older edge of the spectrum, thank god, and especially got off watching them smoke cigarettes and curse. Jeff claimed that ballerinas had some of the filthiest mouths anywhere.

I didn’t feel the need to be announced, so I didn’t tell Jeff where I was going. I was sure they were expecting me. The door to apartment 8A was about halfway open and I could see into the main room. There was a low wooden table in the middle of the space and not much else in terms of furniture. A reel-to-reel tape recorder sat on top of the table and its wheels were spinning. There were cabinet speakers on both sides of the table, their innards pumping out a loud, distorted drone which I guessed was most likely from an electric guitar—a fact deduced from the sight of two electric guitars that leaned against a wall. One guitar was red, the other black. The red one had holes in it, the black one did not. They looked like a happy couple.

There were lots of books piled on top of lots of big cardboard boxes bearing the name and logo of RCA electronics. Most of the books were paperbacks and were stacked outrageously high into towers that teetered on the verge of collapse. Tons of notebooks and yellow legal pads, scribbled-up sheets of paper, pens and pencils. Some of the cardboard crates had rows of empty bottles sitting on top, neatly arranged like chess pieces and segregated into wine, beer, and liquor sections.

Lo and behold. It was him. The blond man with the Iron Crossed head was crouching beside the low table, manning the tape deck.

Was he Jones?

His lady sat Indian style on an Oriental-looking cushion, her back to the door. I stood at the threshold holding their food. I could feel the heat slowly waning from the bacon as I waited for someone to notice me. For some reason I didn’t feel right knocking or clearing my throat or saying anything at all. I just continued to watch and wait.

There was no rug on the hardwood floor. I thought it looked like a cold surface to sit on even with a cushion. But the pair didn’t seem to mind. He hit a knob on the deck and the reels stopped spinning. The speakers went quiet. He hit another knob and the tape spun the opposite way. He replayed the droning guitar.

“That part, right there, that’s the part I’m talking about. Do you hear it?” He jotted something onto a coffee-stained legal pad. A cigarette burned in an ashtray on top of the same yellow page.

“Yes, I hear it.” Her voice was quiet and I couldn’t tell if she had an accent or not.

“That’s what I’m trying to do. That’s what the whole shot is about. It’s all there in that one riff.”

“You’ve done it.” She spoke soft and kind.

“Now what? . . . Now what, baby?” He said this as if he really wanted an answer from her, but this was definitely not the case.

“That’s always the question, isn’t it?” She did have an accent. Maybe Spanish or Portuguese.

He chuckled with a childlike pitch that surprised me. It took some of the edge off his menacing aura. Then, as his laughter subsided, he turned his head in my direction. “Hello.” He said it flatly but his eyes had the intensity of a brain surgeon staring down the tumor in a young boy’s head. “What are you, like fourteen? Jesus Christ! Tell Fernando he can’t send kids to my place! What, is he trying to get me fucking arrested?!”

He scared me. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about or who Fernando was. I wanted to tell him that I lived downstairs but I thought that would confuse him even more so I just held up the bags of food.

“I have your delivery.” When I spoke, the woman

turned her head. She was exotic-looking with high cheekbones and dark eyes. Mexican or Indian or maybe from Spain. She glanced at me and then quickly looked down.

“What?!” He shouted it like he was expecting some kind violence to happen.

“He’s from the diner, Lou,” she said.

“Oh . . . oh yeah.” He relaxed a little. “Where’s the old man? Did you mug him or something?”

“No, ummm. I just started working there a few weeks ago . . . and I . . .”

“I’m kidding, man.” He chuckled again. “What’s the matter? Can’t you take a joke? How much I owe you?”

“Seven fifty-five.”

The moaning feedback echoed from the speakers. He stood up and started searching his pockets. I smelled the kerosene on him again. She looked back up at me. Her eyes were gentle but I was uncomfortable. I felt like she was waiting for me to do something or for something to happen. I didn’t know what that was, but I had a strong feeling that I had forgotten to do it or didn’t know how. I became very confused and disoriented.

Whatever specific energetic vibration they gave off as individuals was new to me—that I understood. But as a couple the voltage was magnified and amplified: a white-hot current looping between transponder towers. My heart began to race, I was nauseous and sweating. Maybe it wasn’t them, maybe it was the recording that upset my equilibrium. Everything became alien and dangerous. My knees started shaking. I wanted to run but my legs felt stiff and heavy.