Silk Stockings - 10
Boston Garden and the Scent of Rage
If you don't know what a subway is, it is like a train, only more crowded. The other part is the frequency it goes over and underground – I was reminded of this when my train sloped up after Haymarket. The subway gradually pulls from under to above the ground and to the lights.
If you got off at North Station, the was a jive that took you spinning around and left you breathless. It was old fashioned in its own way beating on a drum in Cab Cymbeline crystalline crash koko-style. Sure, the swing moved on, but it was still there hiding in Cotton Club Hi-De-Ho.
If you went into the Garden, you could feel the crampiness in every movement of the seats – the rolling sweat on the boxers' brows from the lights.
If you go to the Garden, then know that tonight’s attraction is the Knicks. The day of Doom has not yet come. This time I took no weapons because it was Boxing Day and a time for rest.
While watching the 2nd Quarter, where the crowd was rousing for blood in revenge for the Celtics’ loss the 10th, I felt a finger tapped me on the right shoulder and turned around. It was Tony and his face packed a wallop of seriousness that I knew I would have to follow him to find out what the details were.
That meant we were down the exit ramp. My face was blank but he was worried.
“Do you remember the boy that we persuaded,” well that was one way of putting it, “that he would be at someplace different?”
I thought for only a moment and then queried: “On the Revere Beach? Sure.”
“He has been told something.”
“You will have to be more specific.”
“His cousin tried out to be calm a priest.”
“I’m sure that you think that makes things clearer, but it doesn’t.”
“His cousin has friends who made it where he did not.”
There was a noise from the garden and it was clear that the local boys had slammed another basket home. Probably Sharman, the was on fire tonight. The boys and green had built up a lead already and did not seem to be looking back.
Tony made his eyes roll back. “For someone who took a larger share of the brains you can be awfully dense.”
“So, explain it to me s – l – o – w – l – y.”
“He heard it from someplace that there was some issue about your past.” And he meant only one thing by this.
“From whom?”
“I dunno know. Maybe his aunt was talking to other nuns. But let me get down to the point: around the end of the fourth quarter he and some of his friends are going to be waiting around the exits to the garden with ill intent.”
It did not take much more than 2+2 to figure out most of what Tony was saying. They knew that there was something fishy about my status. A bunch of Mick boys were gathering together to hammer me and perhaps even kill me. Then they would talk about the discrepancies and throw themselves on their blue-suited friends.
Even Tony could see that the results were not going to be pretty.
I then replied: “I’m going to go back at least for the third quarter and then depart.”
“That’s a good idea. You know that Giorgio is also here.”
“No, I didn’t.” But turned around and went up the ramp to where the action was.
When I saw the floor, it was drama in motion poetry the way the enormously tall men command the basketball to move both up and down and forward and back. It was like Willie of Shakespeare in Midsummer Night’s Dream in that people did things wrong and so how they came out right.
Then the Russell grabbed the rebound from the enemy. He was taller than tall and somehow, he got down into the triple threat and then unwound to his loopy stride. One could feel the intensity in his body. His face had no expression, but his shoulder grew tense, and he unwound again like Mendelssohn’s Octet in the Scherzo to float high on Handel’s Alleluia tune cum growl.
He passed to Coucy on the parquet with a force that everyone could feel.
But a few people were not looking at Russell. One was one it knew of. Giorgio was searching the stands. I silently move behind the stands. Not that I knew that Giorgio was looking for me, but I had a premonition: look at the lonely people caused Giorgio.
I crouch down and slunk behind the white wall that slash between the upper decks and ringside along the stands. As I was sitting there, I wondered who had told Giorgio my secret. The first name that cropped up was Maria. Why would she do that? I thought that we had more than a mere friendship though it was not quite the allure of love. Yet. Then I became dizzy as red from the blood made an appearance in my eyes.
And still, I wondered why Maria? Though Maria was not the only person, but she was the overwhelming target.
Then I got up and cleared over the white wall to see either Giorgio or the young man whose name I had forgotten. Instead, I saw that there were more police officers who amidst the crowd, but this could be anything at all because you know how police are: if there is a threat the cops want to be there in slap-handed force.
But then I felt a large hand on my left shoulder, and I felt its force caressing my clavicle. Without turning around, I lifted my left hand and pried loose the grip. “I don’t think you want to do that.”
“And what if I do?” It was the blonde-haired voice from another age. He tried to establish his grip, but they held miserably. I, for one, was not going to wait patiently while he did so and immediately got down and moved into the thicket of bodies. Each one was sweaty and toxic with cheap beer and other forms of rage. Personal and impersonal: at the Knicks, at your boss, at your wife – congeal into that lather of the mid-century male. It was the exudation that made it possible for me to slide between the shirts and pants because everyone was standing close to the white wall to get a better look and that meant that there was a small sliver of corridor to make my escape.
Then I ran down and exited and saw Maria in a most unusual place because I never thought she would hang out in the garden except maybe for ice skating. She opened up a white room and motioned me inside with all of the mops and brooms.
She began with an intense whisper: “Giorgio is after you and has some blue-suited men who will look the other way.”
Putting my suspicions of her involvement aside: “How do you know this?”
“He was hanging out at the Tam with McSomething and MacSomeone. It was for a close and it was clear that they were hoping that he had some information. I think he did. And we both know what a concern.”
I did not know whether or not to believe that her involvement was pure. Thought I looked at her in the dim light and said: “You must get out of here.”
She nodded and made ready.
I gesture with a finger over my lips hoping that she would know that I would go first and take the boys so that she could escape.
Opening the door, I checked the sides and it seemed that there was no one hunting me as of yet. I walked in that normal way that screams “nothing to see here” and hoped that I could transverse the garden to the exit. But going down to the lower floor the young man saw me and told to his boys to give chase.
There was a screaming case as I moved through the bodies with breakneck speed. Then I saw Giorgio with two cops. I wondered for a moment whether the cops would chase me or whether they were simply paid to look the other way. I am sure I will find out.
I ducked. I heard only one set of footsteps rattling along after me which implied that the cops were only there to not be there. Probably.
I went the other way into the Garden. There I saw Russell taking a defensive rebound. No one came closer to him. With one hand he lofted a pass to Sharman. Sharman took it for the easy layup.
Then I was manhandled the way the ball was and pushed to the back away from the Garden. I saw two young dirty blonde-looking men. Each of them had a leer like Beethoven’s Fifth – it goes on and on till the crash. One tried to smash me in the face, but his aim was poor. I fled into the swelter mob, pushing and shoving as if were disappearing into the volcanoes of Mexico with the Church howling after me. The smell of dirty cigarettes reeked me, and I turned back to see a trio of young men after me and up ahead Giorgio in the yellow light form over heed glaring down to call to the devil. I saw a stiletto in his pocket. As if he studied Plotinus Poe's St. John of the Cross in its belfry of crystal shades and telepathy of bop.
Making like a devil on wheels I tore out of the entrance and into the stream lights of Causeway. Glare erupted and I could barely see. I stumble into traffic and must count myself lucky that I was not hit. Honks and blares echoed on the inside, outside, and hereafter as the black sides and rooftops of trucks and convertibles tied to make the lights and failed. A light blue Cadillac with fins just barely got through the yellow light and was gone. Blue and red lights were everywhere calling customers in.
But I still fled. On to the bridge over the Charles. Fleeing onto the Sacred Ground of the monument. Reached the obelisk and panted to the ground. Leaning on my Oxford cloth shirt and khakis drenched in the rain.
I do not know how long I stayed there but in the distance, a siren called. I did not have the strength to rouse myself but instead watched as the police car came into view. He had a heavy gun.
It stopped. And out from the driver’s side came a constable. Seating on the monument I only stared.
The officer was beaten down. I was expecting to be arrested but the cop merely extended his right arm and lifted me. I spat out: “Am I going to live?” The officer merely bent down my head inside the car after checking for weapons.
I waited at the police station in the cooler. Eventually, an investigator came into the cell. He looked at me. Put down his cigar.
I ask nonchalantly: “Who are you?”
“I’m Hoffmann.” Like the short storyteller.
I only nodded.
“Do you know why you are here?”
I shook my head in the negative.
“What’s your name?”
“Niccolò.”
“Nicolo, do you know a place called the Tam?”
“I am not old enough to drink.”
“So, you do know of it?”
“Yeah.” I dumbed myself down.
“Do you know a man called Giorgio?”
“What’s the last name?”
“Carbone.”
“Yeah, I have seen him before.”
“You know what he does for work? I use that term loosely.”
“No.”
“He works for the mob.”
“Mob?”
“They call it La Cosa Nostra. ‘Our thing’ in English.”
“First I have heard of it.”
The investigator looked at me sharply. “I let that one slide. Giorgio is wanted for assault and battery. He got a trifle rough down at the main bar.”’
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“You sure?”
Truthfully, I did not know how Giorgio did his business. “No.”
“Recognize these?”
He threw a pair of silk stockings, very large, on the table.
“No. What’s that for?”
“Found them on Carbone. He said he got them from a man.”
I shrugged.
The inspector studied and ruminated. Then he waved me away.
“Then you free to go.”
“What will happen to Mr. Carbone?”
That is for the DA’s office to figure out. But the case is solid.”’
I nodded. The remainder of the time was administrivia.
I was as free as a bird, and I went to the apartment I rented with three other guys.
On my bed, there was a letter with a neat handwritten address with a return in Hyde Park. I opened it and it was from the nun. The letter read:
I have to write this note because I am ashamed. I don’t know who you think told other people about your predicament. But it was me even after I said that my lips were sealed, I figure out what you were talking of was the scandal which no one who know of it can breath a word. I am very very very sorry and will now have to pay for my transgression.
Goodbye
Two days later I read in the Globe an obituary for the nun. The obituary said that it was natural causes, but I do not know if that is the case.
A year later I was on to Notre Dame to make good on my wits. I became a lawyer and with a heaving sigh, I learned that Maria became a nun.
Applauded, friends, the comedy is over.