Page 13 of Two Chances With You

Pallina shakes her head. “Oh, no. There she is. She’s gone. We should go too, come on. Let’s go in and get a beer. Oh, if you feel like it, you can catch up with us, okay? We need to talk about old times.”

I don’t even get a chance to say goodbye before Pallina’s dragging me away. “Christ, there are a thousand things I need to tell you. Oh, if you’d bothered to drop me a line, a short letter, even a postcard. Do you even remember my phone number?”

I recite it for her. Then I give myself away. “That’s where I’d call to reach Pollo.” Fuck, I wish I hadn’t said it. Luckily, we’re already at the entrance. Pallina saves me. Either she didn’t even hear me or else she’s pretending she didn’t. She says hi to a skinny-looking bouncer. “Ciao, Andrea. What do you say, can we get in?”

“Of course, Pallina, are you alone with your friend?”

“That’s right, but do you know who he is?”

Andrea says nothing.

“Come on, this is Step. You remember, I told you all about him…”

“Of course.” He smiles. “Fuck, are all the stories I’ve heard about you really true?”

“Cut it down to about sixty percent, and there might be something good in there.”

Pallina shakes her head, pulls on my arm, and heads in. “He’s just being modest.” Pallina slaps him on the shoulder: “Thanks, Andrea.”

I follow after her, laughing. “Certainly, times have changed…”

“Why?”

“Is that the way they’re hiring bouncers these days?”

Pallina looks at Andrea, who’s following our progress with an uncertain glance. Maybe he has his doubts as to whether I’mtheStep he’s heard so much about.

“Oh, hey, listen, Step. He’s serious about his work.”

“Okay, serious about his work. What is that supposed to mean? Back in the good old days, before they’d let you stand on a door, they’d beat you silly to see whether or not you could pull it off. You know that, once, at the Green Time, they told me to take the money down to a room at the far end of the club. I went in, and there were three of them. They all jumped me at once.” I start telling the story. Pollo was there too. This time, though, I manage to keep him at bay. I convince Pollo to stay quiet, to stay in his place, wherever that is. I just hope that he’s listening, and that he’s smiling at this memory.

“Anyway, no way was I going to let them get that money. I whipped off my belt and boom! In the face of all three of them. I got one with the buckle and shattered his cheekbone. The other two, nothing much. But I let them have it with blows to the face. And after that day, I worked four months running on the door at the Green Time. Pulling down a hundred a night. It was a dream come true, and you picked up chicks like it was a dream.”

“Pollo had a mark on his face right under his left cheekbone. He told me it was a belt mark.” She misses nothing.

“Maybe it was his father.”

She looks at me and smiles. “Liar. You haven’t changed a bit.”

We sit down at a plastic table with white chairs and remain silent. I turn and look around. Behind us, there’s a sort of patched-up rubber dinghy that serves as a swimming pool. People of all sorts splash and yell in it.

“So how are you?”

“Just fine. How about you?”

“Fine. fine.” We sit in silence for a while, embarrassed about a time that’s long gone. Luckily, from the speakers scattered all over the place come the notes of a song, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” And who knows which of us is the lion here, among us. And, more importantly, whether he’s actually sleeping. A waiter comes to take our orders.

“Wait, let me guess. A Corona with a slice of lemon,” Pallina says.

I smile. “No, strictly Bud these days.”

“Oh, right, I love Bud too. Two Buds, thanks.”

Who knows if she really meant it.

“You know, I thought about you lots while you were down there…in New York, right?”

“Right.” I have to laugh because Pallina hasn’t changed a bit. She talks in machine gun bursts and sometimes just for the fun of it. Fuck, Step, it’s Pallina. Let her be. She’s the girlfriend of your old friend Pollo. Don’t judge her, too, don’t be analyzing her words continually. Come on, cut it out.

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