Short Stories

     He walked in about fifteen minutes after I had opened the candy store at the ungodly hour of a quarter to five in the A.M. His timing was perfect-- he managed to avoid Angel and his gang of retirees, who every morning paced the corner until the newspaper trucks arrived. They carried the bundles in, left their 35 cents on the register, then went home to read and enjoy their second cup of coffee.

     His right hand was planted inside a torn, dirty peacoat. It was very obvious what he was holding close to his chest. Forty years old maybe, very strung out. When I asked what I could get him, his wild eyes landed everywhere in the store but on me.  From the desperate look on his face, from the way his hand shook inside his coat, I knew this wasn’t going to turn out well.

     If you’ve never been in crisis mode, a funny thing does happen. You think more clearly than you’ve ever done in your life. And what was I thinking about on this very early Christmas Eve morning? Pam and I had been married four years, Michael was three, Elise two. Frankie rounded out the family at six and a half months. How could I possibly lose them in one sick, random moment?

     He took a step toward me and started to move his hand out of his coat.

I know it doesn’t sound very heroic, and maybe not all that clear thinking, but in the second before the gun came out of his coat, I made him an offer. “How about a cup of coffee and a buttered roll?” I asked. Without waiting for an answer, I very slowly backed to the coffee machine, spilled some coffee into a large Styrofoam cup, and handed him a pre-packaged buttered roll. He still hadn’t said a word to me, but he eyed what I’d put down in front of him like it was the Last Supper and kept his hand in his coat.

            He drank the hot coffee and ate the roll in under a minute. I immediately gave him another round. Even though we were still the only ones in the store, I knew that if I could stall for another five minutes, the next wave of regulars—Joe Telco, Tommy V. and Ronnie B.—would be in to pick up what they needed for the 5:29 train to the ferry. At that time in the morning, the transactions at the register were pretty much wordless, just a head nod, a barely mumbled “Good morning,” an exchange of cash for goods, and a cherished moment of peace before heading up the stairs at the Dongan Hills station. But they must’ve seen something in my eyes. Each one of them looked at me behind the register, then moved to the counter and spread out their newspapers. A couple of other customers who were usually in and out in five seconds realized what was happening over at the counter and didn’t move from the front of the store.

     When the man raised his eyes from his empty cup, he saw that my customers had closed ranks. And unless he wanted a bloodbath, he knew his moment had passed. For the first time in the twenty minutes of eternity that he’d been in the store, the man looked me in the eye.

Keeping my voice low and as steady as I could, I said, “I’m going to get you another coffee and roll. But this one you’re going to take to go.” He nodded, looked around one more time, took his paper bag and walked out the front door. I never saw him again. But mercifully, everybody who caught the 5:54 for the first time in their lives I did see again. They came to our apartment to celebrate Christmas Eve after I closed up the store at five o’clock.

       Staten Island is pretty dead in the summer. That’s one of the funny things

about living here. Even though we have a lot of beaches, people leave to find 

other beaches. A lot of them head to Jersey—Seaside Heights is big. So is Wildwood. 

Or they go to Brooklyn. A few of the real "miserab" (one of my grandmothers favorite words) 

don’t leave their backyards for three months.

        According to my grandmother, the exodus started thirty years ago when

the scientists finally got around to testing the water. Until then, nobody cared

about how dirty the beach was. They just toweled the tar off when they finished

swimming and dropped down on the orange sand to catch some rays. When the

news came out in the paper that the water was actually dangerous, Mary the

Blonde was furious. They have no right, my grandmother said, to stick their noses

in our business and ruin it for everyone.

         I’m not sure whether she has a point or not. She usually does. But still, the

whole thing doesn’t make a lot of sense. I guess I could see going to Jersey, but

why would people drive over the Verrazzano Bridge to Brooklyn? Coney Island is

right across the bay—we can see the parachute jump from the boardwalk. Isn’t it

the same water? Ralphie says it’s just another example of the great irony of our

existence. He also says it’s a moot point. Even if we wanted to leave South

Beach—which we don’t—but even if we did, none of us has a car. Or, for that

matter, a driver’s license.

         Until maybe today.

         That’s the reason why we’re standing around another Staten Island

neighborhood a little before ten o’clock on this hot July morning. New Dorp’s

pretty dead, too—just a garbage truck and a few old women rattling their

shopping carts to the A&P around the corner—but it’s exactly what we need.

Perfect conditions, really, for Giulia to pass her road test on the first try.

Only from the way Road Test Guy with the Thick Glasses is staring down at

her from behind his clipboard, I’m starting to doubt it’s going to happen.

                                                             -1-

          “I don’t like it,” Ralphie says.

         “Why is he looking at her like that?”

         “Because he hates her,” Ralphie explains, as if he can’t believe I even asked.

          Since his mom died from cancer, Ralphie tends to take a pretty dark view of

things. And in this case, he’s probably right. Everybody told Giulia to try to get

Skinny Road Test Guy with the High-Water Pants and not the Road Test Guy she’s

talking to now. They said he’s a stickler—that he’s obsessed with finding ways to

fail teenagers on their first road test. Not one of our friends who’s taken the test

with this guy has passed. Not even AP Elise, who passes everything. Road Test

Guy with the Thick Glasses made her cry when he said her K-turn wasn’t “crisp

enough.”

           Still, it’s hard for me to understand how anyone can feel that way about

Giulia. She was great in Driver’s ED. She was great when she drove us here twenty

minutes ago. She even dressed up for the occasion: pressed jeans, a white blouse,

and her navy-blue St. Joan’s sweater, buttoned to the neck, even though it’s

about eighty-five degrees already. Her strawberry blonde hair is pulled off her

shoulders in the neatest ponytail I’ve ever seen. If anyone deserves to take a road

test, it’s Giulia. It’s like saying the Staten Island Ferry deserves to float. The one

hitch is that she left her eyeglass case on the kitchen table. I mean, obviously

from the Moe Greene’s he’s wearing, Road Test Guy with the Thick Glasses takes

corrective lenses seriously. But come on—so what Giulia forgot her reading glasses. 

She already knows what a stop sign says.

           “He hates all of us,” Ralphie adds, when he sees I’m not entirely convinced.

“That’s his job.”

            I need a second opinion.

            “What do you think, Sister?” I ask. Sister Domenica is standing next to us on

the sidewalk, about ten feet from Giulia and Road Test Guy. “Does he hate us?”

            She looks over at them and thinks about it for a few seconds. “Maybe,” she

says.

                                                             -2-

             Sister Domenica is Giulia’s favorite teacher at St. Joan D’ Arc’s Academy for

Spiritual and Academic Excellence, where Giulia goes to school now. I have to

admit, Ralphie and I were pretty surprised when a nun pulled up in front of the

arcade this morning. But Giulia explained that her mom couldn’t make it, so she

asked Sister Domenica to take her for the test. It makes sense—Sister Domenica

was Giulia’s Driver’s Ed instructor, too. As a matter of fact, the white AMC Pacer

that Giulia is using for the road test is the same car that she used for the course.

Imagine having a nun sit next to you in Driver’s Ed, saying, “Make a right here,”

and “Hang a Louie” there.” But Giulia loved it. She loves everything about her.

             I think a lot of why Giulia is so crazy about Sister Domenica is because of

how young she is. The three of us—Giulia, Ralphie and I—are seventeen, and

Sister Domenica doesn’t seem that much older. I’ve seen young nuns before—a

lot of them teach the lower grades at Holy Cavalry, which seem to be their

specialty—but they were thirty young. Never twenty young. What makes Sister

Domenica look even younger is that she’s cute. And not just nun cute. She’s cute

cute, God save my soul. But even with all of that, it’s hard to take my eyes off the

crucifix that she has hanging front and center on her white habit. That kind of

puts everything in perspective.

             “But does he hate us enough to send her home?” I ask.

             Sister Domenica turns her thin shoulders to give me a look—a nun look.

             “Do you believe in Giulia?”

             “Of course.”

             “Then we must have faith,” she says.

             Funny how religious people—even young religious people—trot that word

out whenever things get sticky. And even though I’ve had my own run-ins with

Catholic school, I’m good with that. I have a lot of faith in Giulia.

              “You know how good a driver she is,” I say to Sister Domenica. “You think

maybe you should say something to the Road Test Guy? Like vouch for her?”

                                                               -3-

              I figure, even miserable Road Test Guy with the Thick Glasses might give

Giulia the benefit of the doubt if a nun steps in. But before I have a chance to

push the issue, Road Test Guy lowers his clipboard and steps away from Giulia. He

motions for the old woman standing next to a grey Buick, who looks like she’s

ready to faint, to get in the car.

              “I knew it,” Ralphie says.

              But my heart doesn’t completely sink until Road Test Guy opens the

passenger door and gets in the Buick with her.

The bus ride to Giulia’s house is short and sweet. That’s because our driver’s

trying his best to get a group of hot housewives from Great Kills—how’s that for

the name of a dead neighborhood? —on the south shore of Staten Island to the

ferry, which is on the tip of the north shore, in record time. They want to make

the 11:00 o’clock boat. How do I know this? Because the hot housewives are all

up front basically hanging on the driver—I think I saw one of them rubbing his

leg—telling him how excited they are to see "Cats."

              The hot housewives are all decked out like they’re going to a mob wedding

at the Crystal Palace instead of a matinee on Broadway. There’s enough hairspray

fogging the front of the bus to kill all the mosquitos in South Beach. I’m used to a

lot of hairspray, since Mary the Blonde and my younger sister Pamela use a can a

day. But even by their standards it’s excessive. So is the hot housewives’ jewelry.

The diamonds on their ear lobes, necks and fingers catch rays of sunlight through

the giant windshield and shoot them around the bus like a laser show. Why these

hot housewives didn’t take a cab to the ferry is beyond me. But we would’ve

never made it to Giulia’s house in fifteen minutes if it wasn’t for them, so I hope

they all have a great time.

When Sister Domenica saw Road Test Guy with the Thick Glasses sliding into the

front seat of the old woman’s car, she changed from Cute Young Nun to Lawrence

Taylor. She charged up to the Buick and kept knocking on the passenger window

                                                              -4-

with her tiny knuckle. Talk about faith—even Ralphie was impressed. We’re not

exactly sure what she said to him after he finally rolled the window down, but a

minute later Road Test Guy got out of the car and waved Giulia over. He told

Giulia he’d let her take the test if she could get her glasses to the site by the time

they wrap up.

             Ralphie counted nine cars in front of us, including the one with the seventy-

year-old driver that was still puttering away from the curb as we left. He figured

that if each road test takes 10 minutes, we have an hour and a half to bring

Giulia’s eyeglasses back to New Dorp. I thought of the line from The Godfather II

about killing Hyman Roth: “Difficult, not impossible.” And thanks to the hot

housewives, we’re already ahead of the game. But now that we’re standing on

her porch, both of us feel a little weird using the key Giulia gave us to open the

front door.

             “Maybe we should just ring the bell?”

             “But didn’t Giulia say that her mother wasn’t home?”

             “She did,” I say.

             “So,” Ralphie says. “We should probably just use the key.”

             Giulia lives with her mom in Grasmere, a really nice neighborhood that’s

always dead, whether it’s summer or not. Her home is big and kind of

rambling—it looks exactly like a house where teachers would live, with white

shingles and a row of sky-blue hydrangeas wrapped around the big front porch.

It’s also got a maroon door, thanks to the book about the girl in Massachusetts

who’s got a letter on her chest. Giulia’s family loves literature. That’s probably

how Giulia ruined her eyes in the first place.

             “Absolutely,” I say, looking down at the key in my hand. “Here.” But when I

try to hand the key to Ralphie, he steps back and holds his hands up like he’s a

vampire and I just sprang a crucifix on him.

             “Come on,” I say, “You’re her best friend.”

             “And you’re her boyfriend,” he says. When neither one of us moves, he

                                                                 -5-

adds, “Why does it feel like we’re breaking in?”

              “I don’t know,” I say. “Can you break into a house with a key?”

              “No,” Ralphie says. “That’s called trespassing.”

              The real problem is, even though we’ve been hanging out with Giulia since

sophomore year—and I’ve been her boyfriend since that afternoon in April when

the two of us went to the beach and she told me she wasn’t going back to St.

Joan’s—we don’t really know her parents too well. Her father’s a college

professor, but he’s never around anymore. He went to teach English at a fancy

college in Pennsylvania and doesn’t come back to SI much. Tough situation,

especially since it’s just Giulia and her mom in the house now, along with about a

dozen cats.

              What’s worse, Mrs. Stringer knows that Giulia and I are together. And she’s

not crazy about the idea. It’s not that she hates me, but she definitely thinks I’m a

distraction. And I am a distraction, or at least I try to be. So it’s not that I feel all

that welcome in this house, even with a key. Maybe Giulia should’ve just asked

Road Test Guy with the Thick Glasses to reschedule the test.

              “Why didn’t Giulia’s mother just go with her?” Ralphie asks.

              “I don’t know,” I say. “Did she say anything to you?”

              Ralphie looks at me and shakes his head.

              “Nobody talks to me about mothers anymore.”

              The buzz of Sister Domenica’s heroics has worn off, and Ralphie’s starting

to percolate again. That’s what he does when he gets tense, or frustrated, or sad,

especially when there are parents involved. Ralphie’s like the old percolator that

Mary the Blonde insists on using every morning, even though there’s a brand-new

Mr. Coffee sitting in a box under the sink. It doesn’t take much for him to short

out—or boil over.

              “She just said her mom had something to do.”

              “That’s weak,” Ralphie says. “I don’t care what she had to do. How do you

not take your daughter for her road test?”

                                                             -6-

              When two of Giulia’s outside cats sprint across the lawn to the side of the

house, I’m praying they’re after a squirrel. But from the look on Ralphie’s face we

both have a pretty good idea what’s up. Mrs. Stringer is standing by the ivy-

covered trellis in front of the garbage pails, wearing dark sunglasses and a floppy

gardening hat. A giant pair of clippers hangs out of one of the pockets in her

green apron.

              “What road test?” she says to us.

Giulia’s backyard is full of flowers and bushes, including some more

hydrangeas—this time red and pink—and giant ceramic pots full of tomatoes and

basil. Those little dwarves that George Harrison has on the cover of his first solo

album, the one with “My Sweet Lord,” are also hanging around, lined up along the

back fence. We’re all sitting at the patio table, watching Mrs. Stringer pour hot

tea into beautiful China cups. Why Giulia’s mom would feel the need to make a

pot of tea when her backyard feels like a rainforest is beyond me.

              What’s also beyond me is why we’re still here. I’m sure Road test Guy with

the Thick Glasses and his skinny partner have knocked off at least six cars already.

              “John?” Mrs. Stringer says. “Creamer?”

              “I’m good,” I say. Mrs. Stringer is one of the few people on this earth who

calls me ‘John.’ Even Sister Domenica calls me “Johnny.” But I’m already sweating

like a waterfall, so I let it go. Ralphie holds out his cup and Mrs. Stringer splashes

some in.

              “Thank you, Mrs. Stringer,” he says, polite enough. He’s trying hard to stay

calm.

              “So,” Mrs. Stringer asks, “Sister Domenica is there with her now?”

              “Yeah,” I say. “We just need to get her glasses back.”

              “I understand,” Mrs. Stringer says. In the ten minutes that we’ve been here,

there’s been no sign—or mention—of Giulia’s eyeglass case. “I’m just a little

perplexed.”

                                                             -7-

              Join the club. Giulia said that her mom couldn’t take her. I figured it was

one of the mysterious appointments that she told us her mom goes to a couple of

times a week. But I don’t get it—Mrs. Stringer’s here. Could this be what her mom

had to do? I’m sure Mrs. Stringer would’ve put down the clippers for a couple of

hours to take Giulia for the test. What’s worse, the poor Pacer is on its last legs. If

nothing else, wouldn’t it have been better for Giulia to use her mom’s car, a

pretty nice Camry, that, now that I think of it, was sitting in the driveway when we

got to the house?

             There are at least a dozen other questions hovering in the air over that

Goddamn teapot, which is throwing off heat like a bonfire on the beach. And at

least a couple of conversations that we definitely don’t have time for right now.

             “Did Giulia happen to mention why Sister Domenica went with her this

morning?”

             “Not really,” I say. “She probably didn’t want to bother you.”

             Mrs. Stringer flinches at the word “bother.”

             “I would hope Giulia knows that asking me to accompany her on her road

test wouldn’t be a ‘bother’,” Mrs. Stringer says, “As you say.”

             Ralphie tries to come to my rescue.

             “Giulia took Driver’s Ed at St. Joan’s,” Ralphie says. “Could be part of the 

package.”

             “Nice try,” she says to Ralphie.

             Finally, I just come out with it.

             “Maybe she just needs to do something on her own.”

             “Interesting,” Mrs. Stringer says, after thirty seconds of the hottest, deadest

silence I ever heard in my life. “When you say, ‘on her own’, do you mean, by herself, 

or just without me?”

             Both, really. But it sounds terrible when she says it.

             “I mean since she goes to school in the same building with you,” I say,

trying to backtrack. “That hasn’t been an easy thing for her.”

                                                          -8-

             “Easy,” of course, is the completely wrong word here. Aside from Sister 

Domenica, St. Joan’s has been a hellhole for Giulia. She hates the building. She hates 

her classes. She hates her grades. She hates the plays they do. She even hates her 

locker. How does her mom not know this? But all I say is, “She really misses Tompkins.”

             “And I miss her.”

             Mrs. Stringer takes her sunglasses off and places them next to her teacup.

Then she shifts her chair to look at me--I mean, like really look at me. Her eyes are 

the same brown color as the tea in her cup, which she hasn’t touched. And they’re 

the exact same color as Giulia’s eyes.

             “I transferred her to St. Joan’s so I could see her. Since her father began

teaching at Susquehanna, Giulia and I don’t interact very much anymore. I

thought, perhaps if we were in the same school…”

             This is news to me. I thought the Stringers pulled Giulia out of Tompkins

High School when our friend Luke took acid and tried to jump out of our

classroom window. That was the end of our sophomore year, before a lot of the

craziness of this last year: Giulia leaving school, her father moving, and Ralphie’s

mom passing. Even me and Giulia getting together.

             “That’s why Giulia went to St. Joan’s?” Ralphie says. Perc—perc—perc…his

voice is a little shaky. “Not because of Luke?”

              “What Luke did had nothing to do with it.” Mrs. Stringer reaches for her

sunglasses and slips them back on her face. “And now that she’s there, I see her

less than I ever did—not in school, not at home, not on her road test…”

              Four of the outside cats have creeped up on the patio. They’ve closed ranks

around Mrs. Stringer’s chair, pacing back and forth. The fur on the back of the big

grey one looks like a shark fin. And I’m not crazy about how the other three are

glancing up at me and Ralphie, either. I think of the hot housewives, headed into

the city. What I wouldn’t give to be back on that bus.

              “Giulia’s avoiding me,” Mrs. Stringer says. “She blames me. And I don’t

understand why.”

                                                                    -9-

              Finally, Mrs. Stringer pushes her chair back and stands up. The cats look up

at her.

              “I’m not the parent who left.”

When we pull up to the road test site, I jump out of Mrs. Stringer’s Camry first, to

try to run a little interference. Ralphie is right behind me. But all the other cars

are gone. No Road Test Guys, either. It’s just Giulia and Sister Domenica standing

in front of the Pacer.

              “You alright?” I say to Giulia, looking around. “Where is everybody?”

              But Giulia’s already seen the Camry.

              Mrs. Stringer circles around the front of her car and stands on the sidewalk.

She’s lost the gardening hat and, thank God, the clippers, but she still has her

sunglasses on. And the green apron. Her hand reaches deep into one of the

pockets.

              I feel the sun beating down on the back of my neck. I just want to whisk

Giulia into the back seat of the Pacer and get the hell out of here.

              Giulia squeezes my arm, then walks up to her mom.

              “He let me go,” Giulia says. “I passed.”

              Mrs. Stringer nods and moves closer. They wrap their arms around each

other, and Giulia lays her head on her mom’s shoulder. Neither one of them says

a word. And all I can think about, aside from everything else that’s happened this

morning, is Giulia’s pink eyeglass case. It’s still in Mrs. Stringer’s hand, pressed

tight against the back of her daughter’s navy-blue sweater.

                                                                    -10-

     The area around the Dongan Hills train station was its own solar system. It had three suns—the mega-star Lee’s Tavern, my humble candy store, and the barbershop, where the laws of time and space were suspended (and all complaints and gossip entertained) for the price of a six-dollar haircut. 

     Around these stars revolved many planets of all shapes and sizes. Patrick (not his real name) was in one of the more distant orbits. He worked as a driver for the collective of very loose individuals known as Dongan Hills Cabs, an outpost four storefronts down from Mike’s Place that anchored the far end of our brick building on North Railroad Avenue.

     The cab office was the command center. A rotating cast of dispatchers would send drivers out in their perpetually-breaking down vehicles all hours of the day and night. In between calls they would refuel, dropping into the candy store for cigarettes and coffee and gum. These were the staples of their profession. As long as the drivers were smoking, drinking or chewing, they’d manage to keep their eyes open during the long shifts they’d pull. Many of them were good guys and decent men who, through one or two terrible decisions, found themselves in the front seat of a Dongan Hills cab driving around the clock. But even among this crew, Patrick stood out. 

     Among the many crazy things that it was, the car service often resembled a fraternity on wheels. So it was not uncommon for the drivers to get nicknames. When one of the mouthier dispatchers started calling him “Burnout,” first to his face, then to the general public, the name clung to Patrick like the frayed rope bracelet that never left his wrist. And, like most nicknames, it did have the taint of truth to it. 

     Probably close to forty years old, Patrick shuffled through the neighborhood in the haze of a late-August Jersey shore house afternoon—white clamdiggers, old flip-flops and his faded dungaree jacket over flowered shirts. Sometimes I would see him talking to a woman with cat eyeglasses and red hair, maybe a little older than him, but for the most part he’d be in and out of the store 

quickly, quietly and alone. 

     In the candy store I often got life stories in the time it took to butter a roll. But Patrick was one of those rare people who didn’t like to talk about himself. Silent shrugs, a few nods and a mouthed “Thank you,” it was hard to tell what was going on behind his blue mirror sunglasses, which were firmly in place night and day. My only clue was the smile he wore when he first appeared around four o’clock in the afternoon to stock up on potato chips and cupcakes and coffee. It was the smile of someone who knew that the next fifteen hours were going to be long and occasionally crazy, but in his possession, he had a secret weapon that would allow him to navigate the void with patience and equanimity. 

     It was the smile of a man who was stoned out of his mind.

     So when Patrick lingered in front of the register one morning, I knew something was up. It was post-holidays icy early January-- in place of beachwear Patrick had on jeans, sneakers and one of those huge Irish knit pullovers that are sweater and coat combined. I had just about finished cleaning up the counter after the AM rush, and was looking forward to my relief walking through the door at any second.

      “Can I talk to you for a minute in private?” 

      That was never a question you wanted to hear when your shift was over.

      Because of the very public nature of the business, there weren’t too many private moments, but Patrick had timed it perfectly. By nine-thirty in the morning most people in the neighborhood were somewhere else.  Many people actually worked. Those who didn’t—for example, the retired guys-- had already bought their Daily News and Post and NY Times, and the SI Advance didn’t hit the corner until noon. The kids were in school, it was too early for an egg cream or a milk shake and customers weren’t looking for post-lunch snacks yet. GP, my ninety-year-old grandfather, who would survey the proceedings from his stool at the end of the counter from eight in the morning until three in the afternoon seven days a week, had taken Sportie, my father’s poodle, for a walk. I don’t know if Patrick had been waiting outside and saw GP leave, but if he wanted to talk to me alone, this was as private as it was going to get. And while he still had his sunglasses on, I 

noticed right away that he wasn’t smiling.

     He tentatively held up one finger and I poured him a light and sweet, with half and half and real sugar. That was one of the first lessons I learned when I began running the store: in a world that was often indifferent, occasionally hostile, and almost always less than cooperative, people insisted on a good cup of coffee. It was essential that I got their orders right. And if I had to ask, “How do you take your coffee again?” it was a terrible insult, and not quickly forgotten. And that was especially true for the cab drivers.

     Charlie was “regular,” which meant two sugars and a one-second splash of half-and-half. Blackie was, in keeping with his nickname, just coffee, but it had to be filled to the brim, hot and extraordinarily fresh. If the last pot was more than fifteen minutes old, Blackie would tell me he’d be back in ten minutes, which was his way of suggesting that a fresh pot was in order. And honestly, who could blame him? Aside from a flat tire and a bent rim, there were few things worse than starting a long shift with coffee that had been cooking for a while. Ricky, the sometimes dispatcher, insisted that the color of his coffee was “beige,” with two “nice” sugars. Frankie required a splash of milk and four-and-a-half sugars. When I asked him if he could really tell the difference between four and five teaspoons, he looked at me like I was crazy.

     I handed Patrick his coffee, I grabbed my fifth cup of the morning, and we headed to the last two stools at the counter, the ones facing the front of the store. I motioned for Patrick to take the stool that had just been vacated by GP, but he shook his head nervously and just leaned against the counter. I noticed that his hand was shaking slightly as he brought the Styrofoam cup to his lips. 

     “Maybe you heard,” he said, keeping his voice low, “but I got into some trouble.”

     When I told Patrick that I hadn’t heard anything, he explained that he’d finally done a little too much driving with his head in the clouds. A few weeks ago, he was busted by one of his customers, an off-duty cop, for possession of marijuana. In 1990, the brutal drug laws that Governor Nelson Rockefeller had put in place in the early 1970s were still very much in effect, and the number of 

people who were locked up for drug offenses had exploded. It didn’t take a large quantity, no matter what kind of drugs they were, to land a person in jail for a very long time. 

Patrick pushed his sunglasses on top of his head. His eyes were three shades lighter than the blue tint of his lenses, watery and slightly out of focus. It was obvious that his re-entry into our atmosphere had been rocky at best.

     “I figured I’d be going away for a while,” he said, “but my lawyer has an idea.”

     Through some miracle, Patrick had managed to find a sympathetic public defender. What he needed, according to his lawyer, was a letter from an “upstanding” member of the community, preferably a business owner, testifying to Patrick’s good character. That way he might be able to get his sentence reduced to community service, avoid jail time, and hold onto his driver’s license, which would be suspended for everything aside from work. 

     That’s when I realized where this conversation was headed.

     “You’re smart,” he said. “I thought maybe you could make me look good.”

     The slight uneasiness that I felt when we first started the conversation had turned into little fluorescent question marks that wouldn’t stop flashing in my brain: Why would an off-duty cop arrest Patrick in the middle of the night? How much pot did Patrick have in the cab with him? Was it possible that Patrick was dealing? But then why was he driving a cab 16 hours a day? 

     And, honestly, aside from feeling bad for what had happened to a nice enough guy that I really didn’t know at all, the million-dollar question was, why did he have to ask me? The old man who owned the drugstore had been there for a hundred years. The barber too. As far as the community was concerned, I was very low on the “upstanding” totem pole for my letter to carry much weight.

The irony was, the “me” of ten years ago, even five years ago, the “me” who was convinced that he was going to be a successful writer before the candy store landed in his lap, would have drafted that letter in a second. 

     I would have felt honored to write anything for anybody, especially a letter that could keep somebody out of jail. But things were different. I had to face some grown-up truths, especially now that, as part of a family of five, I was finally worried about someone’s safety other than my own. Even though it was very hard to believe that Patrick was dealing, driving a cab while under the influence of marijuana was still not the best of practices. It was one thing to kind of know that Patrick was smoking pot and driving people across the borough in the icy dark, but now that there were charges involved, could I just brush it off so easily? God forbid somebody got hurt—did I want that on my conscience?

     And even if I could ignore the flashing signs, how could I make a case for Patrick when I knew so little about him? What would I write, that he drives a cab seven nights a week and likes his coffee light and sweet? That he has cool mirror sunglasses that he never takes off? That he’s quiet and likable in an extremely low-key way and dresses like one of the Beach Boys in every month but January? I tried to put together a first draft in my head but I wasn’t coming up with much, or in the very least not enough to keep him out of a jail cell.

     I looked at Patrick in his giant brown sweater. The neck was stretched out and the sleeves were rolled up twice. His blondish-brown hair was pushing through the silver rims of his sunglasses in several directions. Maybe, I thought, if I knew a little more about him, I could come up with a piece of the puzzle that would convince a judge (and me) that it was not in the best interests of society for Patrick to serve time. 

     “You grew up around here?” I asked, starting slow.

     “Kind of,” he said, his voice low.

     “How about school? New Dorp?” I asked, which was the public high school by the beach two neighborhoods and three train stops from the store.

     He shook his head. I waited. Nothing.

     “You’ve been with Dongan Hills, for what, six months now?”

     “Sounds good,” he said.

     My mind was racing.

     “What’d you do before you started driving?”

     Silence, followed by a shrug.

     How about…? What—family? Friends? Hobbies? Hopes, dreams? Pets? Mets or Yankees? A few more ridiculous questions followed. Was it possible that after all these questions I knew less about Patrick than before? 

     The thought of continuing this inquisition was tying my stomach in knots and had obviously taken a toll on Patrick: an expression of extreme discomfort bordering on anguish had settled across his face, especially when he saw my eyes land on the rope bracelet on his wrist.

     “I’m sorry,” he said.

     He took another sip of his coffee and looked straight down at the counter. I think he was working up the nerve to ask me not to write the letter. In the meantime, GP and Sportie had just walked through the front door and looked terribly insulted when they saw us by their stools.

     I made an executive decision—the hell with it. If this agreement was good enough for a lawyer and hopefully a judge in a Staten Island courtroom, then who was I to deny him this opportunity? 

    “Of course, I’ll write the letter,” I said, and shook his hand. 

     He told me he was going to try really hard not to drive high anymore. Then he slid his sunglasses back over his eyes. My grandfather gave Patrick a dirty look as he moved past him and out of the store.

     “What’d he want?” my grandfather asked, never one to beat around the bush.

     “Coffee,” I said, and helped GP settle Sportie on the stool next to where Patrick had just stood.

     As we trudged from winter to late winter, not much seemed to change with Patrick’s case, or, for that matter, with Patrick himself. He was in and out of the store buying his coffee and driving his cab every night as if our conversation had never happened. So I was surprised one morning when I looked up from the register at the height of the rush and saw Patrick standing by the magazine rack. He was wearing a light grey three-piece suit, minus his sunglasses, and had his hair cut short and slicked back. I told him that he looked sharp and asked if he wanted coffee, but he said he didn’t have time. I banged out a few more bagels and rang up a dozen newspapers. When I looked up again, he was gone.

     A few hours later he was back. The suit was history, replaced by the dungaree jacket and the clamdiggers. When I asked him how everything had gone, he smiled and said that he was ready to serve his debt to society—in the candy store. 

     I laughed until I realized that Patrick was serious. For the next sixty days Patrick would brave my grandfather’s scowl (probably punishment enough) and head past the last two stools into the back room, where he would grab a broom or a shovel or a mop wringer and beautify the immediate area in and around 635 North Railroad Avenue. I had figured that if the letter actually worked, the judge would have mandated that Patrick dedicate his hours to lofty objectives, like delivering Meals on Wheels, or working in the kitchen at Project Hospitality. But here he was, shoveling snow, taking out my garbage, mopping the floor, and sweeping the area in front of the dumpster so it looked as neat and clean as an area in front of a dumpster could look. Then he would leave the store to drive his cab. 

     But while Patrick seemed to finally get a break, I had my own terrible problems that had nothing to do with writing letters to judges. My youngest son Frankie, a little less than a year old, had a very low T-cell count, which resulted in a compromised immune system. When he became sick, which was often, it quickly escalated into very high fevers, excruciating ear infections and every parents’ nightmare-- pneumonia. When Frankie would wake up at night, often crying in pain, we pressed our ears to his back and listened to his lungs. If we heard a wheeze, we’d race him to Staten Island Hospital, which meant waking up his older brother and sister, bundling and then loading them half-asleep into the back seat of the Cherokee Chief. But before it came to that, my wife Pam and I were on our own night shift, taking turns walking Frankie around the apartment, pressing him to our chest, keeping him upright, massaging his back, and monitoring his breathing.

     As you could imagine, this was a pretty nerve-wracking routine. The two of us would stay in our clothes to save time for our trip to the ER. So when I got the phone call at three o’clock in the morning telling me to come down to the candy store as fast as I could, the police officers laughed when I walked through the busted door four minutes later.

     “What, were you waiting for this call?” one of them said.

     The two officers, both in their fifties, were sitting at the counter. They looked a lot more relaxed than the “perpetrator,” who was on the mat between the register and the magazine rack, face down and handcuffed. When I explained about Frankie and his pneumonia, the cops’ laughter immediately turned to sympathy. After we swapped stories for a couple of minutes about sick kids and trips to ERs, the three of us looked down at the guy on the floor, who hadn’t said a word.

     “You know,” one of the officers said, lowering his voice slightly, “in the old days, we’d take a walk around the block and let you have ten minutes with him.”

     That piqued the perpetrator’s interest, who lifted his head off the floor for the first time.

     “Yeah,” the second officer added quickly, “but those days are gone.” He didn’t look too happy that his partner had shared one of their secrets. “We can’t do that no more.”

     Honestly, physical retribution was the last thing on my mind, especially with my wife, now alone, walking Frankie back and forth across the living room rug. But even if my son wasn’t sick, I wouldn’t have taken them up on their offer. Lotto scratch offs, a few cartons of cigarettes and the 40 dollars, mostly singles and fives, that I kept in the register to start the day, were scattered on the floor—not

a particularly lucrative haul. Just looking at him on the floor, it was obvious that this guy was far from a master criminal. He had cut the metal gates and had smashed through front door with the bolt cutter—I found out later that one of the cab drivers on the night shift had seen the gate up and the shattered glass in front of the store and called the police. 

     The officer who had reminisced, briefly as it was, about the good old days looked down at the body on the mat.

     “You know this creep?”

     “I don’t think so,” I said.

     “Look at him good,” the second officer said. “Usually when they break into a place, they hang around for a few days before, getting the lay of the land, if you will. You sure you don’t recognize him?”

     I bent over, and my tired eyes moved from what he had tried to steal to the perpetrator himself. Not much older than me, maybe a year or two past thirty, short, and dressed in jeans, sneakers and a cheap black leather jacket, he could’ve been anybody that had walked in and out of the candy store. I thought maybe he could’ve used the phone in the back once or twice, but I wasn’t sure. By then I was so emotionally and physically exhausted that when I considered his pathetic take, I actually started to feel bad for him. But when he glared at me through the one eye that wasn’t pressed into the mat, I realized that the guy on the floor was furious with me. It was like some sick invasion of privacy. It was one thing to get arrested, but I had some nerve embarrassing him by showing up in my store on the night he was caught robbing it. The look in his eyes made it very clear that, if our roles had been reversed, he would’ve gleefully taken up the officers’ offer and kicked me until I looked like a half-eaten jelly donut. 

     “Could you get him out of here, please?” I said.

     The officers explained the procedure. They said that on paper he was probably looking at a couple of years-- breaking and entering, burglary, criminal trespassing--but there was a very good chance that he’d plead the charges down, maybe volunteer for a stint in rehab. The officers apologized that they would have to take the scratch offs and the cigarettes as evidence, which I would get back at some distant point, but they told me I could keep the forty dollars. I thanked them and they wished me all the best with Frankie.

     When it was all over and the thief, still seething, was loaded into the police car, I looked at the clock behind the counter-- I had to open the store in 45 minutes.

     Over the next couple of months, as the weather improved, Frankie’s lungs mercifully grew stronger and our trips to the ER became fewer and fewer. Through this ordeal we also found a wonderful doctor, who introduced us to the miracle of Augmentin and who would actually join us at the hospital from time to time. Pam and I started sleeping a little—still very lightly, but for the most part we were horizontal, with Frankie very close in the crib next to the bed.

     One very early Saturday morning in the beginning of May, when I stepped out of the truck to open the store with a much clearer head, I was hit immediately with the smell of burnt paper, of spilled gasoline, of smoke.

     It was unmistakably the smell of fire. 

     The bottom of the new front gate was scorched, multiple waves of black singed into the grey metal. The bundles of newspapers that had been dropped off sometime during the night had been dragged in front of the store and doused with gasoline. Some of the bundles had been set on fire, but mercifully not all of them, or at least not enough to actually burn the store down. But at that moment, from the strong stench, the ashes and the scraps of charred papers that were scattered across the sidewalk, it looked like a miracle that Mike’s Place was still standing. 

     I lifted the gate and unlocked the front door. Some of the old-timers that helped me with the newspapers dragged them into the store, but the smell was too much. I asked them to try to pick through the bundles, take whatever papers they thought were salvageable, then leave the rest outside. No charge this morning for a toasted Daily News.

     I stepped out of the store and stood on the corner. The sun was just beginning to rise, sending its rays over the top of the train trestle. Nobody was up on the platform-- the neighborhood was always quieter on a Saturday morning, without the usual commuter rush, which gave me a little time to think. 

     What the hell had just happened? And why? Was it a prank that had gone too far? The neighborhood kids who had come in and out of the store for the last seven years were terrific—there was no way they would have anything to do with it. Maybe it was it a just a random act of stupidity? But the smell of gasoline was very strong. Who carries that much gas around with them if they weren’t planning to burn something down?

     I went back in and made a pot of coffee—my answer to everything at six o’clock in the morning—and poured my first cup. Customers began drifting into the store, asking about the burnt newspapers, shaking their heads. Finally, around seven o’clock, one of the cab drivers came into the store, just finishing up his Friday night shift. He was new to Dongan Hills Cabs, a veteran of other taxicab companies whom I didn’t know very well and who didn’t stay around the neighborhood all that long.

He said a car had pulled up to the store around four in the morning. Two guys got out and started pulling the bundles against the building. When the cab driver asked what the hell they were doing, one short, very drunk guy, in a black leather jacket, told him to mind his own f--ing business. Then the guy laughed and pulled out a book of matches. 

     ‘Thanks for saying something,” I said.

     “Don’t thank me,” he said. “Thank Burnout.”

     “Burnout?” I repeated. I thought he was talking about the fire.

     “Yeah, you know,” the driver said, helping me out, “the guy with the clamdiggers?”

     The driver said that Patrick had been dozing in the office between calls and heard the yelling through the open door. He saw what the two guys were doing and told them to stop. After they cursed him out, Patrick moved to the front of the store, stretched his body across the bundles that hadn’t been set on fire yet and put his two hands behind his head. He told them that if they wanted to burn the store down, they had to set him on fire too. The two guys laughed, he said, then splashed Patrick with gasoline and threw lit matches at him.

     I shuddered at the image I had just created of Patrick sitting Buddha-like, calmly engulfed in flames, in front of 635 North Railroad Avenue. The driver noticed.

     “You alright?”

     “No,” I said, “Not at all.”

     The driver nodded, then continued with the horrifying details. When they couldn’t set him on fire, they tried to drag him off the bundles again. After he fought them off, they finally got back in the car, which they had left running. The guy in the passenger seat lobbed a beer bottle at Patrick as they pulled away from the curb and headed down Garretson Avenue.

     We both looked down at the corroborating pieces of a Miller Light bottle that I hadn’t noticed when I first saw the burnt papers.

     “Yeah,” the driver said, “it was something. What’d you do to piss off those guys like that?” He looked impressed.

     “My son got pneumonia,” I responded. 

     Much later that afternoon, Patrick walked into the store. In place of his clamdiggers he had on a pair of dungaree shorts and a black tee-shirt. His hair was slicked back like it was on the day that the judge sentenced him to the candy store. I had been running through my mind what I was going to say to him since six o’clock in the morning, but now that he was standing in front of me, nothing seemed right. I mean, what do you say to the person who saved your candy store and who put his life on the line for you and your family? 

     All of a sudden, I had no idea. Instead, I started asking him if he was okay, did he get hurt, did he need anything, what could I do? Almost immediately his expression changed. He had the same pained look on his face as he did back in January when I was asking him those obnoxious questions about his life. Four months later, it dawned on me that I had learned nothing. I was still asking the wrong questions. 

     I looked at my reflection in the blue mirror of Patrick’s sunglasses. Then I left the register and moved behind the counter. 

     “How about a light and sweet?”

      Patrick nodded. When I handed him the coffee, he pulled back the plastic tab on the lid and took a long, tired sip. And then he gave me one of his celestial smiles and told me he’d be back to sweep up first thing tomorrow morning.