The Iceman (3 page)

He walked around to the front of the truck. The cab was empty. No one was around. His heart started to pound. It was right there for the taking. If he waited, the driver would come back, and then it would be too late. He looked all around as he went to the back of the truck. He let a couple of cars pass, then looked over at the loading docks at the Manischewitz factory. Nobody was there.

Suddenly all he could hear was his heart beating. He reached up to haul down a crate from the top of a stack, but it was heavy, heavier than he’d expected. His hand was on the crate, but the whole stack was teetering, and he was afraid to step up onto the tailgate to get it down. If someone spotted him
in
the truck, it would
look
like he was stealing. But he wanted the wine. He’d never even tasted wine, but he knew he wanted it because it was worth something.

With sweat beading on his forehead, Richie put his foot up on the tailgate, hoisted himself up just long enough to get the crate down without toppling the whole stack, and bounced back down to the pavement. The crate was heavy, very heavy. But he had it, and he was standing there at the curb with it, guilty as sin. He lifted it onto his shoulder and started to run with it, his back aching and his heart going crazy, thinking about the Paramount Theater downtown and the cowboy movies he’d seen there on Saturday afternoons, how the good guys always talked about catching the bad guys red-handed. That’s what he was now. Red-handed with red wine.

He ran all the way back to the projects, straight to the incinerators, slamming the heavy metal door behind him. A window the size of an envelope on the face of the furnace sent a fiery glow into
the dark room. Richie set down the crate and closed the door. Staring at the fire, he remembered the bullshit the nuns always told him in school about burning in hell. He didn’t believe it. It was just something they tried to scare you with to keep you in line. He pulled out a bottle from the crate and examined it. The wine was so dark even the light of the fiery blast couldn’t penetrate it. He took out the penknife he carried and tried to figure out how to get the cork out. His heart was still pounding, and the heat of the furnace flushed his face. He picked at the cork with the blade of the knife, hoping he could pry it out, but that didn’t work, so he sliced the cork while it was still in the bottle and broke it into pieces. He dug out part of the cork, then jammed the rest into the bottle. His hand was shaking as he lifted it to his lips. The taste wasn’t what he expected. It was thick and sweet, but not a good sweet. But maybe this was what his well-off uncle Mickey had meant when he said something was an “acquired taste.” That meant it was really worth something even if it didn’t seem that way. Richie spit out cork crumbs and took another swig. He wasn’t sure whether he liked it or not. It must take time to acquire a taste, he figured. He drank as much as he could stand, then hid the rest of the crate under some old newspapers in a corner of the incinerator room.

That night he was sick, and he threw up purple. He didn’t get drunk; at least he didn’t think so. He was just sick—
worried
sick that the police would come to the door and take him away, worried that they knew it was him who took the wine.

His stomach bothered him for a week, but he didn’t say a word to his mother. He couldn’t eat, and he was afraid to go out, afraid that the police would snatch him off the street if he did. But nothing happened. It was two weeks before he finally convinced himself that he’d gotten away with it, and the wine was really his.

But when he went back to the incinerator room to check his stash, the crate was gone. Someone had found it and taken his
wine. He figured it was probably Johnny trying to screw him up again.

A train clattered in the distance, crossing the concrete trestle on Newark Avenue, either heading for or coming from the Hoboken yards. Richie’s father worked for the railroad. He thought his father was a brakeman, but he wasn’t sure. The last time he’d seen his old man was when his little sister was born three years ago. The old man had run off when Richie was just a little kid, but he’d show up out of the blue every now and then like a sailor home from the sea. It was no treat when he came around. He had a bad temper, and he liked to beat his oldest son just for the hell of it. He’d come storming into the kids’ room, stinking drunk, yelling and screaming about something, already pulling the belt out of his pants. It wasn’t so bad when his mother was home. She’d try to stop it, yelling and screaming herself, and the beating usually wouldn’t last too long. Richie had figured out that his old man was like anyone else. All he really wanted was a little attention. That’s why Richie knew that whenever his mother was at work, the old man would take off that belt and do his worst, and there was nothing Richie could do or say that would change his father’s mind because the guy was just looking for attention. All Richie could do was take it and try to think about something else while it was happening.

Of course, his mother beat him, too, with the broom handle, but she never seemed to have as much energy, so it didn’t hurt half as bad as the belt. She put in so many hours at the Armour meat plant she hardly had the time to beat her kids. She had other ways of making you feel bad, though. Better ways. She did it with words and attitude, comments that stung and cut and left you feeling like shit, feeling that her disappointment with life was all
your
fault, that you should do something to fix it. But whatever you did just made her more miserable. Yeah, she could be much worse than the old man.

But taking crap from your parents was one thing; taking it from
another kid was something else. You couldn’t do anything about your parents, but someone else giving you grief you were
supposed
to do something about, the way the cowboys did in the movies. And now, standing under the smoky night sky with his back to the warm bricks, the closet pole in his hand, he was ready to do something about it. He was ready to go to war.

Johnny didn’t just taunt Richie. The bully liked to beat him up, too. He lived downstairs from Richie, and he had his own gang, six other kids who lived in the Sixteenth Street projects. Johnny always smacked Richie around when his gang was there. It made him look like a big man. It made him the leader. In the beginning Richie had tried to fight back, but whenever he raised a hand to Johnny, the other kids would gang up on him and get their licks in, punching and kicking. After a split lip and a dull pain in his side that took a month to go away, Richie learned that it was better just to take it and get it over with, the same way he took his father’s beatings. But it was hard to take it from Johnny. The boy’s incredible arrogance just got to him, and the humiliation of hearing the gang laughing at him gnawed at his gut.

Richie shuddered with pent-up hate just thinking about Johnny and his stupid gang. He tapped the end of the pole on the asphalt pavement, nervously waiting. No. He’d really had it now. He wasn’t going to take any more.

Footsteps came into the dark courtyard, and Richie’s heart stopped. Someone was coming this way. Richie gripped the closet pole and started to raise it over his head. His arms were shaking. His legs were like lead.

The footsteps came closer.

Richie wished he could stop shaking. He wanted to run, but he didn’t want to run, not anymore. He wanted to teach Johnny a lesson, show him that he couldn’t pick on Richard Kuklinski anymore. Richie just wanted to get Johnny off his back so he could live in peace. Richie just wanted to be left alone.

The footsteps were within reach when he saw a face squinting out of the gloom.

“Richie?”

He dropped the pole to his side and hid it behind his leg when he saw who it was, Mr. Butterfield from down the hall. The man had a quart bottle of Rheingold in his hand, and Richie could tell this wasn’t his first quart of beer tonight. Mr. Butterfield was a drunk, and he beat his kids, too.

“Your mother know you’re out this late?”

Richie shrugged. “She don’t care.” She had fallen asleep listening to the radio, same as every other night.

“You better get in. It’s late.”

Butterfield took a swig from his quart and moved on.

Richie chewed his fingernail as he glared at the man. The bastard didn’t give a shit about his own kids, and here he was making believe he cared about someone else’s kid. Listen to him: “It’s late.” Goddamn hypocrite.

But Richie wondered how late it really was. He didn’t own a watch, not one that worked. Suddenly he remembered his confirmation day, three years ago, and that burning humilation attacked him again. It blinded him with rage whenever he thought about it.

Johnny had worn a new blue suit, white shirt, silver tie, and the lily white satin armband on his bicep. He looked more like a young hood than a kid going to his confirmation. He must’ve stolen the damn clothes because he was as poor as everyone else in the projects. But there he was that day, cockier than ever, strutting down the church steps after the ceremony, a new soldier in the army of Christ. More bullshit and hypocrisy from the nuns. Why would God want an asshole like him in His army? Why would they even allow someone like Johnny to be confirmed? Why? Because he had a nice suit? Bunch of goddamn hypocrites, all of them.

Richard had been confirmed that day, too, but he wore the same baggy clothes he wore every day: the brown pants, a worn striped shirt, and his navy blue wool peacoat. It was April, but he had to
wear his winter coat because it was all that he had, and his mother had insisted. He remembered working the armband up the sleeve of his coat, hoping the elastic wouldn’t snap, wishing his mother had put it on for him. But she had to work that day; she got time and a half on Sundays. His little brother and sister stayed with one of the neighbors.

Richie had gone to church by himself that day, and he did what the nuns told him to do, kneeling at the altar with the others as the priest came down the line, mumbling in Latin, dipping his thumb in holy oil and anointing each forehead, tapping each cheek with the blow of humility before he moved on to the next inductee. Richard floated through the whole event, feeling blank and empty, and after it was over and the other kids ran to their waiting families, he just started for home, intending to fix himself a sandwich for lunch if there was anything to eat in the icebox.

But as he came down the steps, he spotted Johnny with his family. They were making a big fuss over him. Johnny was smiling, holding up his wrist for everyone to see. Richie could hear Johnny’s mother cackling, “Say thank you to your uncle Mario, Johnny. Say thank you.” Johnny had a new watch. It was gold with a gold stretch band. Johnny always bragged that he had a rich uncle who gave him things. Until Richie saw that watch, he had never believed it. His mother hadn’t even bothered to tell his uncle Mickey that he was getting confirmed.

As he pushed his way through the crowd, he noticed other kids holding up their wrists, showing off new watches. Even the girls had watches, those tiny little watches so small you could barely read the time. Everybody had gotten a new watch except him.

The next day after school he went to the corner candy store, determined to buy himself something for his confirmation. He’d seen wristwatches there, pinned to a sheet of cardboard hanging over the cash register. He had almost a dollar in change. The watches cost seventy-nine cents each, and his heart raced as he counted out the coins on the counter. The man took down the
cardboard and let him pick the one he wanted, even though the watches were all the same. He picked one, and the man wound it for him, set the time, and said, “Good luck, kiddo.” Richie strapped it to his wrist and admired it.

The next morning when Richie woke up, he noticed that the watch had stopped. He tried to rewind it, but the stem came out in his hand. He went back to the candy store, but the man refused to take it back.

Richie wore it anyway, just so he wouldn’t be the only one without a new watch. But in his daydreams he dreaded the moment when Johnny would notice that his watch did not have the right time and the stem was missing, that the cheap band was cracking and left brown stains on his skin. He could hear what Johnny would say, how he would say it, how it would probably lead to another beating if his gang were around. Richie’s heart was thumping, his jaws clenched in fear and anger just thinking about it.

Johnny and his gang had been bothering him for years. But that was going to stop. He was going to show them that he couldn’t be pushed around anymore. Not anymore.

Richie stared hard into the dark shadows across the courtyard. He was staring at the corner of his building, the corner where Johnny would be coming from. Lately Johnny had been coming out here every night to call up to his gang members and taunt them into coming down so they could smoke and joke and yell up to the girls they knew and say dirty things about them. Sometimes Johnny would call up to him. “Hey, Polack, you sleeping up there? Or you just making believe so your mother won’t know you’re jerking off?”

Every night this went on. But it was going to stop.

Suddenly he saw something in the shadows. He squinted to see better. A glowing orange pinpoint was rounding the corner of the building, coming this way. It was a burning cigarette. Richie clung to the wall, the pole tight in his fist, close to his leg. His eyes were
wide, and he wasn’t breathing. His pulse was racing. He didn’t have the urge to run this time. He wanted to get this over with. He wanted to show Johnny. He wanted to hurt him and teach him a lesson once and for all.

The face behind the orange glow emerged from the dark. The small dark eyes, the wise-ass smirk. It was him. Cigarette smoke trailed off behind Johnny as he stepped closer, surprised to see Richie out there, but also pleased to see him, pleased to have his favorite target right there out in the dark courtyard, alone.

Johnny stopped a few feet away from Richie, took a long drag off his cigarette, and just stared at him for a moment. “What the hell you doin’ out here, Polack? You looking for trouble or what?” He coughed up a laugh.