WITH OPEN ARMS

That’s the thing about this city… she’s a lady; she cries, and a tempest rages over the spiring buildings; she beams, as bright as neon in the dark of night; she breathes like a zephyr in the blended air. And here’s the thing… she’s my lady.

I'd felt dragged through the mud, dumped in the gutter and left for dead, so I’d turned my back on her, but I couldn’t stay away. No matter how far away from her I was, she was prickly in my head, a raging fire in my heart.

Trembling as I approached her, my dry, flaming skin absorbed the sweat welling up on my body. What would she say to me? Would she force me away? I wavered, but there she waited… with open arms as if I’d never left.

My city, nestled between peaks, a pearl in the oyster. The highway meandered through her, disappearing behind the largest prominence in the distance. From afar, lights twinkled, the flickering streetlights, no doubt. There, they tell tales of a time when those twinkles were gunshot flares. Those sounds are not heard anymore, but hybrid sounds journeyed through the air as I drew closer.

The periphery breached, I slowed down, the gust behind me twisting and swinging into me, carrying a wisp of garden in the crisp air. Smelt like silky roses. In clinking small glass bottles.

Hah! Joney. She did this thing when she perfumed herself up. She’d tilt her head from side to side. I’d always thought those fragrances lucky to be touching her all the time. When I’d held her tight, relaxed and let her go, she’d say, “You’re never gonna get rid of me. I’m all over you now.”

But that wasn’t true, was it?

My memories in the background for the moment, I arrived in the city centre and waited at the traffic light. Vehicles boxed me in, but my hand held steady on my “38”. I’d been in plenty of situations like these before, but… for a minute I couldn’t hear a thing.

Shrieking and screeching, the cars sped off, leaving thick puffs of smoke behind. The smell of rubber burnt in my nose, a sickening smell permeating. It will have to be a late supper. Amid the vehicular charade, I was alone at the traffic light.

So vivid, back in the day, when the smoke evaporated, a row of Tommies spat fire at a lone automobile.

I was twelve when I first saw it happen. Brrrt! Rat-a-tat-tat! And windscreen shattered. Sparks bounced on the street. A man stretched out onto the road from his seat, legs still in the car, bloody holes in his shirt. I sheltered behind the bread box. Out of the blue, Joney slid next to me and held my hand. For the first time.

The warmth had never waned. My hand, warmer when I stared at it, redder. 

This city was always seductive at night, the ambience creating the mood. A pale face from up on high smiled on surfaces glistening with dew, the moisture skimmed by the play of kaleidoscopic lights. A few hundred yards, but an avenue of seduction.

Even at a hundred yards in the wind, Fredo was an excellent shot, the way he took out the “C” in “Cass’s” neons. Everyone knew him after that. Especially Cassandra. And she told her dad, Don Nico, who owned the place. He had a few words with Fredo, and that was that.

My headlights shimmered on the tarmac, its beam arcing across the stores, as I pulled into a parking space from where I could orient myself.

A lot had changed.

Mannequins hastily dressed hardly appeared human, absent a touch of lipstick and a hint of rouge. Mrs Tarant would’ve had a fit. “Make them sexy,” she’d say to her apprentices. “Remember, sex sells.” She’d smile wickedly and bounce off to the backroom. And the wigs slanting over the dusty faces of the mannequins—Mrs Tarant hadn’t been around in a while.

Loud voices carried in a symphony of tone, dialects, and languages. High up, a voice cast downwards, snaked its way between dusty windows, along flaking walls to the ground. “Yoh! Chucky, I see you. Where’s my money?”

And from below thrown skyward, “Cool…! I gahrit man. See you tamara.”

In the vapour lingering in the night air, a familiar waft feathered my nose. My brain was fuzzy, yet somewhere inside my head, I knew that scent. Meanwhile, a taxi pulled up ahead between me and the scent, and a couple disembarked. My mind went crazy. I knew that smell, but—

“You think we should check on the kids?” asked Mrs Feet-too-fat-for-heels. She wasn’t doing so good at walking. She stumbled, twisted her ankles a few times, but her husband had her in a clinch, preventing her from kissing the floor.

“Would you relax! We just got here,” said her husband, shaking his head. He freed her and shuffled in his pockets, dark waves forming across his forehead. “I… I—"

“Don’t tell me you’re looking for your wallet, simpleton,” said the wife. “It’s in my bag, remember?” She tapped him on his back with her handbag, and they stepped up to the restaurant.

I hadn’t expected it but...

“Tomassino’s" used to be on the other end of the city. Everyone knew it. First, turn right, then left, right-right, and then turn into the smell. Spaghetti and meatballs. Chutney like only Uncle Vito could make. I’d learned they’d closed some years ago, but boy, were they back.

And they'd clung to the recipe.  

Everybody in the city tasted Uncle Vito’s special. Some paid for it, most worked for it. Dishwashing, sweeping, painting—there was always a way to get a bowl. But most of the time, he gave away a bowl, simply because someone was starving. He was that kind of person, Uncle Vito.

The uniformed doorman smiled and asked, “Good evening, sir, do you have a reservation?”

“Ahem! No. Thing is I haven’t been around for some time. But I used to come here all the time… How ‘bout it? I just wanna look around.” Again he smiled, and opened the door for me, but not before I handed him a note.

Inside, a youthful woman approached me, and… same routine minus the note, and minus success. “But, sir, you’ve got to book,” she said.

“It’s okay, Sara, I’ll get this,” said a dark-suited man who had slipped in beside her. He turned to face me, “Good evening, sir. May I—" But when he did, "Sara, have table 1 ready... now.”

"But, Junior, table 1 is—" She yelled from the midst of the eatery.

“Please…?” he said to her. Turning, he smiled at me and said, “This way, sir.”

He showed me to a corner table looking out on to the street. The restaurant had kept its character, and was still visited by some real characters, like in the old days. A smattering of mispronounced Italian issued from a rowdy table against the wall. Whilst a young, timid couple at another table barely spoke, looking around, glancing at each other. 

Photos, and movie posters (a passion of Uncle Vito’s), embellished the walls. I ever suspected there was a special logic to their layout, but I could never figure it out. Maybe the purpose was, in the first place, to draw the viewer in, to see behind the pictures.

The waitress entered with a bottle of wine, and a thick “Jack”. Someone remembered. I meant to inquire, but she had left. And I meant to order.

I swigged my drink, and my head remained thrown backwards. On the ceiling, lanterns hung sideways, secured with fishing line. I laughed. The first time I noticed them, I was drunk and lying back on a seat. I wondered then about my angle if the lanterns were sideways.

I picked out a crackling, mellow harmony, circulating in the room; an indistinct sound of certain purity. Closing my eyes, I feigned blowing into a saxophone, dragging, and swaying my shoulders.

“Sidney Bechet.” The young man from minutes earlier, stood before me, smiling. He had removed his jacket and tie. There was now no mistaking who he was; the loose lock dangling on his forehead; the face and the side-smile. Uncle Tommy's son, Junior. “Sorry I interrupted you, but I saw you liked it,” he said.

“Can’t go wrong with genius.”

Junior’s stare drilled into my head.

“You’re him, aren’t you?” he asked and took a seat opposite me. “We knew you’d come… He knew you’d come.” His watering eyes dripped onto the tablecloth he fidgeted with. “He loved you like a son, you know. He understood everything... he said so.” Junior went silent for a moment. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers, “Almost forgot. I got something for you,” and went into the kitchen.

Returning, he lightly set a package on the table. “He kept this for you.”

In the package, photos of Joney, like the one of her facing an evanescent summer sun; her journal; letters I’d sent to her; and her favourite white dress, appearing pink after capturing the blush from her cheeks. I arranged them in front of me, these parts of me.

The haze that had adhered to me all these years, cleared away; like a curtain drawing back, a portraying of an earlier time emerged, a time when…

* * *

Joney and I had been getting serious a year earlier. A single gaze into the eyes of my childhood friend changed everything. I’d kept things discrete and didn't know the old man was aware, until one afternoon he summoned me into the kitchen, and exhibited his cutlery. Explaining the purpose of each one, he said, “Don’t break her heart.” Then he walked out of the kitchen, leaving me alone to ponder on his statement.

I’d gotten the message clear enough. But I couldn’t break her heart even if I tried. She was that kind of girl: Joney. The orphaned niece, more a daughter, to Uncle Vito.

Excited at Uncle Tommy’s unofficial approval, we went out on our first date to the place to be: “Cass’s”.

In a powder-blue dress contouring her body to just below her knee, Joney drew gasps. I’d been going to "Cass's" for years, but never felt that proud. All the guys were there, and their girls too.

The incident with the neon sign appeared long forgotten. But vengeance is never forgotten.

Now a lovely young woman, Cassandra too was there, as she was every weekend. No surprise there, since her dad owned the place, and her name was the one up in lights. Flirting with the guys, with their dates on their arms, she loved the male attention and female envy.

But try as she would, she couldn’t sneak a glance from me.

Unbeknownst to anyone, she’d been calling me, and sending letters and gifts, which I returned. It wasn’t even flattering, just plain irritating. I didn’t tell Joney; she would’ve slapped Cassandra silly, and I didn’t want that. I wish I’d known that revenge and Cassandra were becoming fast friends.

I wish I’d known they’d go after Fredo, to get to me.

Sometime during the evening, I found Fredo sprawled on the bathroom floor. Red all over him, spreading around him in a wide pool. And the smell.... I couldn't see maroon again. A bit of bright blue eye deep inside his mashed-up face faded to a greenish-grey, but the gurgling in his mouth showed Fredo, always a fighter, was fighting still.

“Big Sal… Don’t do nothing… Take Joney… Go! Go!” he said, thick red globs flying out of his mouth. He pushed forward toward me, then fell back.

The knife in his side had got him good.

Big Sal was waiting when I came out of the bathroom. "Looks like you got some blood on you, boy… Yours?” he said, smirking.

I weighed my options, which weren’t many. Just then, Joney came running out of the smoky fog in the room. “Oh, my god what happened! You okay?”

“Yeah, he’s okay. Just some blood. Maybe he’d like some of yours on him too. Bitch!” Sal said and swung his hand.

Sal was a huge guy. His swing connected with Joney’s jaw, sending her tumbling down the stairs. Her head hit the corner of the staircase, and she lay still on the wooden floor. She twitched in my arms, wheezing, and then stopped moving, her eyes staring at the ceiling.

There was silence for a moment. Not a sound. Nothing moved.

Nothing mattered.

Inside of me, a volcano erupted, burning my body; draining my lungs and suffocating me; a whirling mass of heat flooded my head, spinning and spinning in a dark blur...

From a distant world, someone said, “Come on, man. Move! Run!” Geno was at my side, tugging at my jacket.

My hands were still tight around Cassandra’s neck, her face bloody, the back of her head bleeding on the countertop. She wasn’t moving. Or breathing.

Further away, Sal lay on the floor, a slash to his neck. Gunshots rang behind us as Geno and I ran outside.

Later at Uncle Vito’s, Geno related the ordeal. His lips moved, but the words didn’t reach me. Uncle Vito nodded and shook his head, and turned to me now and then. He grabbed me by the collar and shook me. “You gotta listen good, boy. What you did... It’s a bad thing. I understand... I’m hurting too. But it's a bad thing. She was innocent like Joney. Two wrongs don't make it right. You gotta leave town right now. They not gonna rest ‘til they get you.”

In the car a few minutes later, the distancing city lights reflected in the rearview into my rheumy eyes. All that I’d known disappeared into the brightness behind me. Into the darkness, I went.

* * *

Back at the restaurant, Junior and I had gone through a couple of bottles of wine, and bowls of chutney mopped up by loaves of pane Toscano. Junior remained quiet, his eyes away from me. He looked different from earlier, a pall of sadness swept across his face as he turned to me. I expected tears to explode.

But he held back, his voice breaking. “So what now? They’re all gone, you know.”

I patted him on the shoulder, and stepped outside into a new day, into a new vision.

The sun peeked from behind sleepy peaks, red streaks bold on a hazy vista of grey. Rising, the orange globe cast early light into the valley. Brightening, rays glinted off glassy surfaces and shimmered on textured façades.

The streets were wider these days, the purr of cars on them this morning getting gruffer. The buildings were higher, a lot more people in them, the cable entanglements of the past, now a hovering mesh.

A cool breeze against me descended from the mountains, bringing into my presence a scent of soft dough fired in the oven. Pom-pom! The paper truck did its rounds. Hooting on his inward route signalling “Fresh Bakes” to have his bread ready for his outbound course. They still did that.

I made my way up to the corner of the street. Whereas the other places had all transformed, this place seemed never to have moved beyond that night. A rusty collapse jutted from the roof. When once it hung bright and proud, now it dangled precariously, the lights burnt out a long time ago.

I poked my nose into a hole in the dilapidated building, and out quickly, repulsed by the stench inhabiting the place. There was a time when bouquets of fragrances drifted around the room; when the wine just poured in glasses already tasted sweet; when smoky wisps ascending to the ceiling swirled around the place in a foggy atmosphere.

A wonderful time. 

A man sidled up to me and shared my view of the few papered-over windows, and many boarded-up gaps.

“Cass’s,” he said. “They’re gonna tear it down soon. Used to be a buzzing place, I hear, but the owner… she did a bad thing.”