My Novelette, "Lion."

 

Copyright Glo Lewis 8/24/2023

 

Dear Readers of My Blog, 💚

 

I have decided to share my novelette, "Lion," with you. Here it is below (As usual, God bless, and I'll be in touch soon):

 

                                                        Lion

 

Copyright Glo Lewis 8/24/2023

 

 

 

Valentino felt so alone; it made him want to cry. He ran the back of his hand across his mouth and stared at the drops of condensation on his can of Pepsi. Yet it was clear that men were not to show their hurt, especially Italian men. His father had bullied him into the acquisition of this knowledge at an early age, making sure that he comprehended the honing of steel—the metaphor for growing up hard. He had learned this at his father’s rattled intellect, until he could no longer locate his own fire. It was all right, however, he consoled himself. He would manage. He had seen a documentary once, and he knew that even a lion is shunned from the pride by its mother and the other females, once it reaches adolescence. He would make it just like the lions. He knew the ways of the streets—insider knowledge that should ensure his survival.

 

Now nineteen, he had already excelled to a point where he was in college taking classes. This defied everything that the dangerous streets expected of him, and in part surpassed his own expectations. His father was in prison at Riker’s Island for the sale of heroin to minors, and had been away for many years, because a child had died after a hot dose. Valentino and his father barely knew each other. Though he still possessed in his ragged heart the memories of his father sitting in a chair in his blue boxer shorts at the kitchen table—the only furniture in two rooms—wrapping the rubber band of the fix around his arm to get high, his Roman nose in profile in the apricot light of sunset.

 

In his mind’s eye, his mother, whose family had emigrated from the island nation of Trinidad, wore a purple cloth around her bedhead hair and did ironing for others, glowing with sweat in the heat and barefoot. He could still hear the fan whirring. Memory recalled to him his mother’s dark face hot with rage, as she slapped him. “Get out of here! What I tell you ‘bout dis? Don’t be hangin’ round when Daddy or me fixin!” She’d laughed wildly then, as if insane. “I’m goin’ to lay a beatin’ on you!” She would shove him. “Get your little butthole outside.” Plucking his cap up off the floor, she said, “Take this wit cha.” In his mind, he was back there—a six-year-old child, putting his hat on and taking to the streets for the day. He learned to be quiet, silent, and to run fast. He returned in the evening with the moths, by the light of streetlamps, crazy from hunger, while night fell, and crickets chirped in the field nearby. Dinner might be saltine crackers with butter or sometimes fried liver and onions if his mother felt ambitious. He hated liver, but it was meat, if nothing else. Sometimes it was just cracker crumbs. A treat might be lemon wedge scrunched into the grit of sugar.

 

At last, he moved to be near the City College of New York, not far from Harlem, into a boarding house room the size of a closet. He was studying Dante, an Italian poet who had lived in the 13^th century. Valentino thought the author wrote like a prince. He, himself, had tried to write, but his own work seemed crude, the words rough, not polished like smooth green stones that had the immediacy of dice, which a man could shake in his closed fist, throw out across the page, and come up a winner, the way Dante had managed. His aunt said that Valentino’s writing lacked grace. Why? He wondered, frustrated. He felt that everyone in his immediate circle excelled at undermining him. It was tough to keep going. But he had to, or he’d flunk out of school. He knew that for sure. And school was the place where he felt that he was becoming a better man, one not defined by his father’s resignation from life.

 

He had a story to write for his class. He felt anxious and paced the modest floor, hoping for inspiration. Finally, he sat down with his Bible and flipped the pages. He wound up at Numbers 13:33 and read: “And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.” Now his eyes moved back in the verses, rather than forward, searching for clarification. In Numbers 13:30 in the “report of the spies,” was written: “And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, ‘Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.’”

 

This was the grand thing that his teacher had taught him—that in allegorical stories, one should apply one’s own interpretation. The giants were the negative voices in a man’s mind that told what he could not do. Negative editors who tried to silence the still, small, grasshopper voice of talent in a person. Do you believe in yourself or not? No matter how loud the terrible memories in his head were, it was all up to him now. Up to every man—to nurture his own self until he lit up, and to possess, no matter how desperate he felt, his own fire.

 

He remembered himself as he used to be—a small boy playing at the local baseball diamond. Now, he saw himself running as a man on that field, his short hair fuzzy as a duckling, his shoulders held back proudly, chest out. His hands were smooth with youth. He flashed a brilliant smile in his olive-skinned face. He was soaring on the current of a wind. It was only in total faith that he could believe he would hit every base, his feet touching down hard and sure, kicking up dirt. All the voices of his friends out there on those sunny days of his boyhood cried out, “Go Valentino, go! Run! Run! Run!” A crescendo of voices called him in to home base, where, out of breath, he slid easily across the mark. That was it! To envy no one else. To seek the true city of one’s own potential to be found within yourself by running on your own talent and cheering on others just as much, if not more. He felt buoyed by this epiphany.

 

What defined a man and gave him strength was how he behaved when no one was cheering. Did he, Valentino, own such manhood? Such a flame? After all, this wasn’t something you could slam down coins for at the store, as for ice cream in high summer. You grew into confidence by first mastering yourself—your sin and your fear. Had he happened upon the spark of some great wisdom? Suddenly it was clear to him that success had little to do with charming pretty girls. Yet, it was good if you could find love because your nights with your books would not be so lonely.

 

No one could steal your fire! This excited him like a child. Yet, he had discovered that it was simple enough for someone close to you to douse your joy with a single drop of sour water if you lacked confidence. Your tightest people could undermine your effort. You had to gird yourself up against it. They were fools. They had spent their talent chasing other fools or addictions. It killed them to think that you might leave them in their dust.

 

Valentino rose from his dilapidated mattress, its insides crinkling under the weight of his movement, and stood at the sharply circumscribed window that overlooked the grimy avenue below. He wore a tank white T-shirt and pants, and rubbed his unshaven, whiskered chin on his taut bicep. He wanted his ideas to burn with inspiration, to mean something long after he was gone, just as had been the case with Dante’s work. So what if Dante was a genius! There’s room for all kinds of talent out there in the wide world, he mused. If nothing else, he knew that he would eventually escape this ratty room and wanting window above the street, and the clamor of the Cuban restaurant and bar in the alley, from which music already began to drift upward.

 

Down on the sidewalk, a child with a cardboard box was giving away fierce kittens. They had long legs, and with their claws, they clung to her as though death lurked nearby, which of course, it did. Like selling leopards in Hell, Valentino thought. I can make it out of here, he promised himself. I can. He found that he had to think like this repeatedly just to keep himself grounded, to hold onto hope. Otherwise, on the grim, unlucky days, he worried to a shaft of moonlight that it would be like this forever: lying awake to the violence banging around in the other rooms, against the staccato shouts and muted cries.

 

He was appalled—if he could use such a college-boy word. One thing was certain: He had changed. College had done that. Professors had influenced him. He couldn’t go home again. Not to rats and his mother nodding off or frantic for black tar heroin. He had to get out and stay out. Even if it meant sucking on the inside of an orange rind past its sustenance and calling it a meal.

 

When he felt bold, he would call the cops. “Hello police?” Breathing heavily into the phone, he would hear his mind whisper frantically, “Ay ay ay,” like Ricky Ricardo from an old “I Love Lucy” TV show. Even as now, he made such a call: “The man next door is beating his wife. Kids are crying. We need the police here fast!”

 

“We’ll do what we can. Any weapons there that you know of?”

 

“Not that I know of. Are you coming soon?”

         

“We’ve got a couple of homicides. We’ll dispatch a team as soon as we can.”

 

He felt stricken and wondered if they grasped the certain danger. “There’s going to be a homicide here, if you don’t respond soon,” he reported.

 

“Don’t tell us how to do our job, okay? Just do us a favor and stay put in case we have questions later.”

 

“Sure,” he answered, distracted, and dauntingly thinking about Dante’s concerns regarding the waning of civility in the city streets, he agreed to wait, and closed his cell phone.

 

Now the woman next door was screaming what his mother called “bloody murder.” Valentino raced to the room nearby. He banged on the door. “Leave her alone! Leave her alone!” he shouted.

         

Suddenly the door opened. In a second, Valentino saw a burly, bare-chested Caucasian man holding a small woman by her black hair, which was wrapped around his fist like a rope. Valentino lunged at the man. He struggled against the girth of the guy, his pink, bare chest slick with sweat and smelling of waste, and wine, and cigarettes. The man said, “Hey punk! Think you can come into my home and give orders? Let me show you how it is. Get down on your knees!”

 

The gun was deep in Valentino’s abdomen. The fire of the bullet was so intense that his body remained standing, sustained by the sheer momentum of the shock. Then he slumped and staggered backward from the blow. On the floor, he saw his blood rush from his body. The woman was screaming—the grimace of her face a portrait in horror. The children’s faces howled in the snot of their tears.

        

The bowed woman struggled against the man’s thick hands, and he relinquished his grip on her wavy black hair. She stepped to Valentino’s side and squatted near his wounded belly, stricken, throwing up her hands as if helpless to stop the flow of blood. She ran to the door and screamed into the hallway, “Call an ambulance! …911!” Valentino felt himself fading, and his vision clouded. Suddenly the woman was patting his face. “Stay with me, stay with me, stay with me…” Her hands felt long, thin, and warm, the nails slightly grazing his skin. She had a sheet with a rose floral print now and pressed it into his wound. Her cheek was smeared with his blood. In the streets below, Valentino heard the yelping wail of police sirens. Where was the man who had shot him? He saw the small, straight fair legs of the children who stood near, and the pinafore of the little girl. Details, details, waning to white. Was he dying? He remembered his study of some writer so long ago who all his life longed to know the sound inside of a wave—who was that? And was he, himself, now inside the hush of death? He felt no pain, only perfect peace. He gave himself over to the care of others: this dark-haired frantic woman, her curious, traumatized children with their mops of auburn and brown hair, little arms at their sides, transfixed by the crime scene. Their small faces and little, freckled noses. Police and medical personnel in dark city uniforms appeared. IVs and the twisting cord of an oxygen mask uncurled before his eyes by competent hands. Now he was shifted onto a stretcher and hefted into the air. He saw neighbors down the hall from him in their doorways and scrambling teenagers in hoodies—a blur of black, brown, and Asian-American faces, their dark eyes a mix of fear and curiosity. Old men with cigarettes dangling from their yellowed fingers, cheap wine and whisky from glass bottles. Withered women wearing curlers and thick bathrobes moving aside. Blue sparkling Chinese slippers scurried into a doorway. Valentino gazed upon the chipped pink and brown paint on the walls of the dank, dark hallway. A rod of cloudy sunlight, glittering with carpet dust, poured from a dingy rectangular window. Through the glass, outside, a metal fire escape jutted from the brick wall of the building.

 

The paramedics struggled the stretcher down to the last step at the first floor landing, whisked him toward the sound of police radios, and voices inquiring, “What happened?” “Did you see it?” “Will he live?” “That’s a lot of blood!” And now a pointing finger. “Hey man, I know him!” An ancient Hispanic woman shriveled with wrinkles, the cotton of her black dress thin with age, lunged toward him. She thrust the crucifix of her glass-beaded rosary at him. “Father, a blessing!” She kissed the cross.

 

Suddenly outside, he felt the crisp fall air through the thin pale blanket that now covered him to his neck. He shivered with cold, struggling for consciousness, glancing at the opaque sky. Black cop cars were parked at angles in the street, their red and blue lights swirling amidst squawking radio chatter. Several cops crouched behind their cars. The buzzing crowd scattered from the front of the red-brown building amidst the directing arms of police. It was a street symphony choreographed all for him. “Step back! Make way! Clear the area!” an officer commanded the crowd.

 

Valentino tasted blood in his mouth and felt sickened by the swell of it in his stomach. The cool hand of a female paramedic touched his face. “Look at me.” She smiled. “You’re going to have to hang in there for us, okay?” Why was she yelling? Police jumped out of a van marked, “Swat Team,” wearing helmets, their bodies bulky in riot gear. They hurried up the steps of the building and skulked down the sidewalk, pointing their guns. The mild plastic smell of the oxygen mask drifted into Valentino’s nostrils. He absently reached up to grab the mask. “No, no. Don’t touch that.” The paramedic pushed his hand away. He looked into her kindly dark eyes. “We’re going to take care of you. Don’t worry.” Then, “Frankie! I’m losing him! I’m losing him!”

 

***

 

“How long have I been here?” he asked a man in scrubs upon awakening in a large, sunlit room with many beds.

 

“Ask your nurse,” the orderly stated as he left, a blur of swishing green polyester.

 

Valentino pressed the button at his bedside, ringing for a nurse. A long time passed in which, toward the end, he kept his thumb pressed to the button. “How long have I been here?”

         

“Two months,” the bustling nurse said.

 

“I’m so hungry,” Valentino moaned.

 

“Music to our ears, sunny boy. I’ll bring you a menu.”

 

Valentino selected pudding, Jell-O, juice, and milk. When his meal arrived on a tray, he lifted his spoon methodically, studying the little cups of pudding and Jell-O, the orange juice, the small, white milk carton, the straws. He was tired again and slipped down in his bed as the nurse lowered the angle of the metal frame.

 

At last, a time came when he felt well enough to look at his wound, which was a sunken angry-red hole sutured with plastic and ant-shaped masses of black stitches. The flesh around his scar was swollen. “Ahhh,” Valentino cried out, throwing his head back against the pillows, afraid for his future. How long would it take to heal? His status at school he could only imagine. Had they thrown him out? What had become of his room at the boarding house? Did his mother know or even care about what had happened to him? She was probably getting high somewhere—might even be dead.

 

One day, Juan, a classmate from school, came to the hospital to take him home. He was in the Latinos Century Club, and Valentino knew him casually from the club dances. The young man wore a thick, red-hooded sweatshirt. The red, cloth-covered cords to the hood and a silver chain dangled at his neckline. He had a small black mustache, large dark eyes, and a broad grin. He shook Valentino’s hand, and then they pressed their knuckles together to seal it. “My history professor asked me if I’d help you out. Come here to the hospital. Pick you up. Do this. Do that,” Juan said. “I’m glad to do it. You look like you could use the help. So!” He clapped his hands together. “What can I do for you?”

 

“How’d your professor know I was here?” Valentino gathered his hospital-release paperwork off the metal table and folded the stack in half. He inched around the bed, one hand over his hurting abdomen. Even though the nurses had been making him walk down the hospital corridors for days, he still moved slowly.

 

“Your shooting made the news. You’re a celebrity, man! The prof., Manuel Gonzales, gave me your address from the student directory.” Juan patted the pocket of his sweatshirt. “Got it right here. Manuel said to tell you to call him. Says he’s going to help you work something out about your classes, your financial aid, and your job.”

 

“I’ll call him. Thanks for coming. Can you help me get home?”

 

“That’s why I’m here, brother. Not to worry.” Juan spread his arms wide. “These hands will manage you like fragile glass.”

 

“Do you have a car, or are we taking the bus?”

 

“I come in style. I’ve got a taxi waiting outside. The Latinos Club started a collection and hooked you up.”

 

Valentino sat on the edge of the bed and sighed deeply with relief. “That’s the best news.” Frowning, he inquired, “Do you know what happened to the shooter?”

 

“He’s in jail, awaiting trial. You’ll probably have to testify.”

 

“With pleasure,” said Valentino, and bent over to tie his sneakers. “Ahhh, that hurts.” He stood up with effort, one hand over his wound, wearing a white sweatshirt and blue jeans that the hospital had provided from the Salvation Army.

 

Juan wheeled him down to the hospital pharmacy where Valentino presented a prescription that the doctor had written that morning for his pain. “Just take a seat in the waiting room. It should be ready in about half an hour,” the pharmacy assistant said. Valentino nodded, and then Juan wheeled him to the waiting area, where he picked up a People magazine and flipped its pages without interest. He glanced over Juan’s shoulder at the National Geographic that Juan held. “What’s going on at school?”

 

“It’s winter break. Classes start back up in a few weeks.” Juan closed his magazine. “Hey, you should get over to campus as soon as possible, if you plan to attend classes this winter. They already had early registration for continuing students, so you should ask Mr. Gonzales to help you—you know, if you can’t get into a class. Like if it’s full or something.”

 

“Geez!” Valentino shook his head. “This injury has screwed me all up. I guess my teachers failed me, or I’ll have a bunch of “incompletes” to make up.”

 

Juan nodded. “That would be my guess. It’s going to set you back, no doubt about it, but maybe you can work out something—a special concession due to like, being shot, you know?”

 

“Oh, I know. I’m living this.”

 

“It should work out. They have to do something to make this easier for you. I mean, it’s not your fault that you got shot, is it?”

 

“No!” Valentino twisted up his face and gave Juan a look of outrage.

 

“Take it easy—I’m on your side. I never meant to imply that this was your fault. I heard you’re some kind of hero, and I believe it.”

 

“Yeah, alright.” Valentino looked around. He felt impatient.

 

“I’m going to make sure the taxi driver is still waiting,” said Juan.

“Thanks.” Valentino opened his magazine again.

 

Juan hurried out. He returned shortly, flopping down in the seat next to Valentino. “No worries. The cabbie is waiting.” 

                

“Valentino Ferrari!” cried the pharmacy tech.

 

Juan stood and wheeled Valentino to the counter. He said, “I’ll pay for this, man. Mr. Gonzales gave me extra money for just such a thing.”

 

“I need to see some identification,” said the pharmacist’s assistant.

 

“I don’t have my I.D. I didn’t have it on me when I was injured,” said Valentino.

 

“Yeah. He got shot. He didn’t have time to collect his papers when he was bleeding all over the place. It was on the news,” said Juan.

 

“Nevertheless. I will need someone to vouch for you,” said the technician to Valentino.

 

“I vouch for him,” said Juan.

 

“No, I mean a doctor,” said the tech.

 

“Can you call my doctor—the one who wrote my prescription? He was upstairs in the hospital this morning,” said Valentino.

 

The technician took Valentino’s bottle of pills and walked away, farther down the counter. Valentino could see her now, speaking on the phone. In a few minutes, she returned. “Okay. It’s authorized.” She bagged the medication and rang it up on the register.

 

Juan handed her two twenty dollar bills. “Will this cover it?”

 

“It’s eighty-two dollars and fifty-seven cents,” said the technician.

 

“Damn! What’s in that bag— gold?” shouted Juan, incredulous. He pulled two more twenties and three one-dollar bills from his pocket and handed the cash to the pharmacy tech. She put the money into the register, then picked out some coins and slipped the change into Juan’s hand. He dropped the coins into his pocket.

“Let’s get you home,” he said, nodding to Valentino, whom he rolled out to the curb and the waiting taxi. He helped him into the back seat of the yellow cab and then slammed the door. Valentino watched as Juan returned the wheelchair to the lobby pharmacy area and then ran back to the car, jumping into the front seat next to the cabbie.

 

“Take us to 1025 East Convent Avenue, please,” said Valentino.

“You got it!” The taxi lurched into the moving stream of cars on Lenox Avenue.

 

Valentino turned to see the red-neon sign for Harlem Hospital Center. He put a hand to his abdomen to support his wound and turned to look out the rear window. The sprawling complex of buildings receded behind them, the green-blue glass facades shimmering like a wall of fiery ocean in the platinum sun.

         

When the cab pulled up outside Valentino’s rooming house, Juan said, “Dude. You want me to go in with you?”

 

“No, it’s okay. I can manage.”

 

“You sure? You don’t look well. In fact, you look sickly. Come on; let me help you into your place. I’ll get you situated.”

 

Valentino felt sick to his stomach. Sitting in the back seat of cars always made him feel queasy. He regretted not asking to sit in front and now pushed the door open, sucking in fresh air. “Yeah, okay,” he said between breaths. “That’s cool. I could use the help.”

 

Juan turned to the driver. “Wait for me, okay? I’ll just get my friend into his place, and you can take me home.”

 

“Your money.” The driver rolled down the window and spat into the street. He threw the car into park and flipped the ticking meter. “The meter’s running.” He lit a cigarette.

 

Juan jumped out and ran around to help Valentino. They walked slowly up the steps to the front door, Valentino with one hand on the cement banister, and Juan’s long legs stretching up alongside him. Valentino shuddered in the damp early-winter air. He felt goose bumps break out over his arms. He shook his head. “Oh man!”

 

“What?”

 

“I don’t have my keys!” Valentino rang the buzzer for the Super. The blinds by the front door bent open with two slats and dark eyes peered out. A buzzer sounded, and Valentino pulled the door open with considerable effort, so Juan ran around and held the door.

 

On the first floor landing, the Super, Antonio Rossi, met them. “Valentino! Home from the hospital?”

Valentino nodded.

“Am I glad to see you! How you feeling?”

 

“I’ve felt better.”

 

“You know, you’re something of a hero in the neighborhood now.”

 

“Am I?”

 

“Oh yeah. A stand-up guy. That’s what you are. Not everyone can say that. And that bum who shot you—I got rid of him. He’ll rot in jail if I get my way.”

 

Juan elbowed Valentino lightly. “See! What’d I tell you? You’re a hero.”

 

“Yes, that’s a fact, Valentino. And I hate to bring it up so soon—the rent. I’m going to need your rent for the last two months and for December. I held your room.”

 

“Mr. Rossi, can you give me a few days to figure out how I can raise the money?” Valentino hoped he could get an emergency loan from school. He felt suddenly faint.

 

Mr. Rossi lowered his head and appeared to think about this for a moment. He raised his head slowly. “Yeah. Yeah. We’ll work it out. You seem sick, now that I look at your face. You sure you’re well enough to be back?”

 

“I’m recovering.”

 

“Go on—get some rest. I’ll explain to the owner that you need more time.” Mr. Rossi threw up a hand. “He should understand. A guy is shot, he can’t just get up and act like nothing has happened. You need a little time to figure out what you’re going to do. I tell him.” He shook his head. “It’s a hard world.”

 

“You don’t have to tell me,” said Valentino. “Can you let me into my room? I left my keys there.”

 

“Sure, sure. I’ll get my keys.” He went into his manager apartment and came back with a ring of keys with numbers. He led the way up the stairs, his ample buttocks in gray flannel trousers held up by red suspenders over a white shirt. He was a dark, squat man, affable and always slightly unshaven but with a full head of graying hair. Italian. A paison. Gruff but kind. Valentino liked him.

 

Mr. Rossi looked at them over his shoulder. “The place used to have an elevator. Many years ago. They had to take it out.” He pointed. “Down there was the shaft.”

 

Valentino peered down over the staircase to where a doorway was boarded over by plywood.

 

“Up and down. Up and down. It’s a lot of exercise for an old man. But what you gonna do?” said Mr. Rossi. “The old elevator was trouble too. Always breaking down. And the prices they charge today to fix! Too much! The owner said, ‘Board it up!’ so I did.”

They rounded the top of the stairs, the cloudy light of the sun pouring through the rectangular window now at their backs. They worked their way down the hall. Mr. Rossi unlocked Valentino’s door. “I looked after your room. I told these people, ‘Don’t you think you can get away with breaking into Valentino’s room! I find you out! You ransack Valentino’s room—you steal from him, and I boot you out. Just like that!’ These people—some of them make me crazy with all the games. I have to be tough. That’s all some people understand, you know?” 

Valentino nodded.

 “They are maybe drinking the booze or could be using the needle. These addictions turn them into thieves! I don’t ask questions, but I don’t have patience for criminals,” Mr. Rossi said. “I’m not here to baby-sit. I tell them, ‘If I think you are guilty, you are guilty. Maybe’—I told them, ‘you think you don’t look so guilty. Maybe you are, and maybe you are not. But,’ I tell them, ‘if I think you are, you are, and then you go. Right out onto the street!’” He slapped his hands together, the keys rattling below his fingers. “I don’t mess around!”

 

“Thanks, Mr. Rossi. I appreciate it.”

 

“You let me know, Valentino, if anyone steal from you. I boot someone out.”

 

“I’ll do that,” said Valentino, trying hard not to smile.

 

Mr. Rossi patted Valentino’s arm. “You’re a good boy.” He glanced at Juan. “He’s a good boy.”

 

“Straight up,” said Juan, the light of amusement flickering in his eyes.

Valentino coughed to suppress a laugh.

 

“You rest up. We talk again in a few days. You come to my place, and we talk—arrange the rent.”

 

“Yes,” said Valentino, and Mr. Rossi trudged heavily down the hall and into the stairs.

 

Valentino pushed the door open to an icy draft. His room was cold, and he could see his breath. Inside his room, Juan and he shook hands.

 

“Hey, let me give you my phone number, — in case you need anything,” said Juan, who bent over Valentino’s small end table and wrote his number down on a piece of paper.

 

Valentino tore the paper in half and wrote his own number on it, handing it to the other man. “I can’t thank you enough, Juan.”

 

Juan grinned. “Hey, we’re in the club. Take care of yourself. Call me if you need anything.”

 

“Sounds like a plan.”

 

“Before I go—you hungry? I could get a pizza or something and come back.”

 

“No man. I’m beat. I’m just going to crash—maybe call my mom or something. I don’t think she even knows where I am or that I got shot.”

 

“That’s cool. That’s cool,” said Juan, moving around against the cold, rubbing his hands together. “Call the old woman. She’ll appreciate it. My ma does. She’s got to have me keepin’ in touch, like a phone growing out of my hand!” He laughed jovially.

 

Valentino imagined his mother tugging at her hair—itching from heroin. “Yeah, mothers are like that,” he said sadly.

 

“Well, I’ll catch you later,” said Juan, stepping out into the hallway.

 

Valentino swiped him casually on the arm. “Catch you later. Thanks again. Do you have money for the cab?”

 

“Got it! Oh, I almost forgot.” He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a wad of cash. He handed the money to Valentino. “From the collection that the club raised for you.” He glanced around and whispered, “Almost seven hundred dollars there, my friend. Be careful with it.”

 

Stunned, Valentino curled his fingers into a fist, protecting the money in his palm, suddenly hopeful. His voice low, he said, “All this for me? Do I have to pay it back?”

 

“No, buddy. Just get well and come back to school.” Juan spoke conspiratorially, leaning toward Valentino. “I almost forgot because I’m a little loaded. Smoked a joint before I picked you up. Want to get high?”

 

“No. I don’t do drugs. They rob you of your ambition.”

 

“Ah! A little never hurt anyone.”

 

“Maybe. But it can start small and end big,” said Valentino, picturing his father in his prison cell at Riker’s.

 

“Yeah, well, I guess it’s already big!” He shrugged, waved, and headed toward the stairwell.

 

Valentino shut the door. What to do first? he wondered, opening his hand to stare at the green money. This cast a completely new light on things. He sighed heavily, considering where to hide the money until he could settle with the landlord. His room felt foreign, as though he no longer lived in it, and it belonged to a stranger. He touched the icy wall. He moved the dial to turn on the heat and waited. After a moment, he pushed the money into his pillowcase. He went into the kitchen and turned on the water at the sink, letting brown rust run until the water ran clear enough to fill a glass. Then, removing the amber plastic bottle of pain pills from the pharmacy bag, he twisted the childproof cap and jiggled out a pill, swallowing hard with the chilly water. Refreshed, he kicked off his sneakers. The radiator began to sputter. He opened the diminutive utility refrigerator, and the stench of mold swept over him. A single can of Pepsi stood on the top shelf near the illuminated bulb of light under the freezer. He closed the door, vowing to bag up all the moldy food and throw it out as soon as he felt up to it. Then he walked to his bed and eased himself down into the gray-striped broken mattress, its caramel-colored stains of perspiration and soft drinks sinking under his body. He guided the cold blankets that reeked of his musty odors up to his face and slipped deliciously into narcotic sleep.

                                                      ***

He awoke to the noise of someone’s radio in a room nearby. He was wet with sweat, and his belly ached. He climbed heavily from his mattress and turned down the heat. He struggled out of his sweatshirt, noticing that he stunk of perspiration. Still wearing a tank T-shirt and jeans, he padded into the kitchen and removed the Pepsi from the refrigerator, popped its top, and chugged it down with a pain pill. The soda bubbled its stinging frostiness against his throat. It felt wonderful. He burped, standing barefoot on the cracked tan linoleum of the kitchen floor, assessing the state of his space. It was a relief to be home. He glanced at the clock above his hotplate. It was 7:00 P.M., and the second hand was sweeping the dial. Evening. Only streetlights illuminated his room on the second floor. He moved toward the center of his place and turned on a light.

 

There was a knocking. He opened the door. A dark-haired woman faced him. “My husband is dead.” She burst into tears.

 

“Are you the woman...?”

 

She nodded. “My husband shot you.”

 

“How did he die?”

 

“I was just informed that he was killed by another jail inmate.” Tears streamed down her face.

 

Valentino breathed deeply. “I see,” he said. He touched her arm. “Is there anything I can do?”

 

“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I feel like I want to blame someone. Like I want to hold someone responsible.”

 

“You don’t blame me, do you?”

 

“Maybe I do.” She blew her nose into a tissue. “I know that’s not right either.”

 

“But I have been shot. I feel like I’ve lost my whole life because of this.”

 

She shook her head. “He was the father of my children. He just got a little crazy.” She threw her hands in the air, the white tissue like a truce flag between her fingers. “Oh, why did you have to get involved! My husband might still be alive!”

 

“Girl, you are deluded.” Valentino looked off into the amber light of the hall.

 

“My kids. How am I going to feed my kids?”

 

“You can’t be serious. That’s a different question altogether.”

 

“Oh, I’m serious—as how you say? A heart attack. He was the father of my children, and now I must tell them he’s dead.” She wiped her nose. “It’s bad. It’s just so bad. All of it.”

 

“Your husband was an abusive pig. Maybe your kids will be glad he’s gone. Ever consider that?”

 

“No! They are little children. They don’t think like that.”

 

“You might be surprised. Children don’t wish to live with violence. You regret that he is dead, but to me it’s a relief. I won’t have to look over my shoulder.”

 

“I was taught to reverence the dead and not speak ill of them.”

 

“Respect is earned.”

 

“No. No. He gets respect for being their father.”

 

“Only when he behaves like a father!” Valentino felt anger rising within his chest.

 

“Maybe I shouldn’t feel this way. You tried to help. I’m confused. I just know that because of you, it seems that my husband is dead now.”

 

“I think maybe you are a little crazy?” He wrinkled his nose and threw his arms out at his sides like a gang member sporting for a fight. “In one of my classes…I learned…this is co-dependency. You need help.”

 

She stared at him as though shocked, and turned and went to her room.

 

Valentino closed his door. In the bathroom, he ran the water for a few minutes into the chipped white porcelain sink, peering at his emaciated reflection in the mirror on the wall. He splashed his face and underarms with freezing water and toweled off roughly. He craved a beer and something to eat. He hated to go out. He wasn’t up to it. He opened the kitchen cabinets one by one. He had not one good thing that he could prepare for dinner. He could order something and have it delivered. But that was so expensive, even from the Cuban restaurant. He had to go out. Ah, he needed the exercise anyway. He bagged up the rotten food in his refrigerator and stepping out into the hall, flung it with satisfaction down the garbage chute. Then he returned for his keys and put on his shoes. He found his cell phone and plugged it into the charger. He counted the money that Juan had given him, which came to six hundred and ninety-seven dollars, an amount that shocked him by the generosity that it represented. He would reconcile his rent with Rossi in the morning. He knew the older man didn’t like to be disturbed in the evening. Valentino thrust the cash back into the pillowcase, placing the side with the money against the mattress. He moved back into the kitchen. He wouldn’t spend any money from the Latino club until his rent was paid. He rummaged around at the back of a cabinet until he found the coffee can. He removed Scotch tape from the two twenty dollar bills on the bottom of the can and thrust the money into his wallet. He put on a sweater and then a jacket, placing his wallet within the inside pocket of the jacket, which he zipped closed. He patted his chest area where his wallet rested. It felt good to have his things again. He unplugged his cell phone and put that in his pants’ pocket. Suddenly, he realized that he hadn’t paid his phone bill and that undoubtedly, the service had been discontinued. He withdrew his phone, opened it, and stared at its lit background that virtually sang of working. Deceptive as a player, he brooded. Well, don’t play a playa, he thought, goofing around in his mind. Maybe it will still reach 911, if I need to call. He dialed 911. “Police dispatch,” said the desk cop.

 

“I'm making sure my phone can still reach you, officer. I just got out of the hospital and haven’t been able to pay the bill yet.”

 

“Okay—release the line now.”

 

“Yes. Thank you,” said Valentino.

 

“Yep. Have a good night.” The police dispatcher clicked off.

 

Valentino returned the phone to his pocket, now considering it with greater respect. On the counter, he spied his pocketknife. Just in case, he thought, slipping the weapon into his other pocket. He stepped out, locking his room. Now he advanced down the hall, slow as an elderly man, guided by the delicate nature of his wound that the Percodan could not reach. He passed the doors of other tenants, their shouts and ranting, TV and radios, resonating with familiarity, and descended the stairs, finally edging out of the front door, its glass window rattling behind him.

 

On the sidewalk, he saw that night had fallen. Traffic swung by, the yellow glow of street globes casting halos from the headlamps in the early winter air. A thin gray cat howled from the alley where Spanish salsa music tinkled from the Cuban restaurant. Valentino glanced about. He had forty dollars, was out of the hospital at last, and a man must eat and drink, he reasoned. All of it was cause for celebration. Should he stick close to home? He wavered. The frigid air was electric with possibility. The Cuban restaurant was right next door, but the neighborhood was suddenly heady to him—a sea siren salting the mist, calling to him. He set out at this new, agonizingly slow pace up the avenue toward the blinking red and green traffic signals. In his weakened condition, his destination seemed miles away.

 

It was close to midnight when he returned to the boarding house, having taken his time at the nearby pizza parlor, eating a meatball sandwich and drinking two beers with the locals, whom he knew. He felt woozy from the mix of alcohol and Percodan, but it was a nice high, though a red light in his brain flashed a warning. He ambled home, hoping he wouldn’t be mugged. He was tired from all the conversation—everybody wanting to know about his wound, his classes, his future, how he felt about the shooter (what could he tell them?—He didn’t even know the guy), the this, the that—as though only he had a life—theirs being little more than beer and pool, pizza, meatballs, darts, gossip, and sex when they could find it. He liked and understood these people but found them to be limited.

         

The woman came out of her door across the hall, when he reached his room—as though she had been waiting for him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I’m a fool. My kids.” She raised her hands helplessly, her mouth opening, her eyes seeming to ache to find the words to express how she felt. “I hurt all over,” she said.

 

“Me too!” said Valentino.

 

“Oh yes. I’m sure. I am so sorry about that. You helped me, and look how I behaved toward you.” She looked away toward the stairs. “I just… I worry about how I’m going to feed my kids.”

 

“Aren’t there programs for moms with kids?”

 

“Yes. There are. I’m receiving aid now—it pays my rent and puts food on the table—but they want me to get a job. I have never been on my own. Now, with these kids. I’m so scared.”

 

He reached out to touch her arm, his fingers falling short. “Listen, it’s okay. There is a daycare at my college. Maybe you can enroll your kids and look for a job. They might even hire you there.”

 

With her hand, she brushed the hair from her face, her dark eyes flashing. “Really? You would help me like that?”

 

He saw that she was pretty and young. “I can’t promise—but I’ll investigate it for you. We’ll make something work—I’ll promise you that, okay?”

 

She nodded. “Is that where you work—at college?”

 

“Yeah. At City College of New York. It was a little scary for me at first too. But I applied, and the Philosophy Department hired me. I tutor other students now.”

 

“Hey! Maybe I could get me some higher ed!”

 

“Why not?”

 

She smiled wistfully. “Nah. People like me never get ahead.” Her face took on a quizzical expression in the dim light of the hall. “Why?” she asked.

 

“Why? What do you mean?” He kicked at the thin carpet, impatient for sleep.

 

She nodded. “That is so sweet, that you would offer to help me, after everything… getting shot. After how I behaved earlier.”

 

His abdomen was throbbing; it was time for him to take another pain pill. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to rest.” He fumbled with his keys, lining up his door key with his index finger and thumb. “Good night.” He turned.

 

“Wait. Please. It’s a lot.” Her voice cracked. 

He turned to face her again and saw that her eyes were shining with tears. 

“You took a bullet for me and my kids. So, why? Why did you do that—help me that day?”

 

“You wouldn’t understand. And I don’t go around preaching. That’s for old people. Old people do that.”

 

“Please.” She lowered her head and glanced askance at him under her lids. “I have to know.”

 

Was she in some weird way flirting with him? He couldn’t tell. He was in no mood for romance. Someday, but not this day, and not with this woman. Besides, it occurred to him like a swift kick that his legs felt weak. He had to lie down.

 

“My name is Maria. Yours is Valentino, yes? I heard it was.”

 

“Still is.” They both smiled at this. “I did it for God, alright? I only did what was right-- going to help my neighbor. You don’t owe me or anything. Things happen.”

 

“You saved my life, maybe my kids’ lives too.”

 

“It’s not like I just flew over there. I called the police first—but they were busy with murders.”

 

“Still—you saved us.”

 

“Well, pass it on. Save someone else in some way.”

 

“Thank you, Valentino.”

 

“Don’t mention it.” He waited for her to close her door, heard the lock click. He opened his door and went inside the tiny room.

 

Suddenly he wasn’t so tired. He took a pain pill and turned on the heat just a touch. He lowered himself into his one decently padded chair and sat contemplating the events of the last few months, until the early morning sun streaked the sky pink. Then he went to his window and looked out over the dark rooftops of the awakening city. The streets ran in parallel lines and then veered to the left and right, their traffic signals blinking alternately green and red under the rose clouds. His heart thumped steadily, comforting him like a song. I am alive! he thought with sudden unexpected glee. The old cat groomed its gray coat in the alley below, where a man darkened by the building’s shadow moved his broom back and forth, sweeping the concrete. A car horn sounded. He was a part of all this, he knew, and of all that had gone before—the good, the bad, and the terrible. But within him now pulsed his true self—the man he had become. The poverty that surrounded him within and without—he could let go of all that. He was free from this bondage, liberated from his past— all those inscriptions written within his soul. He was his own fire.

 

He pulled the money from his pillowcase and made his way down the stairs to Mr. Rossi’s apartment, the start of the new day sparkling through the hall window onto the threadbare carpeting.

 

The End