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The Last Supper
It's deadly quiet in Little Italy tonight and Peligrino's is nearly empty. Lloyd takes a deep breath
and stares menacingly across the table at Gloria. If she wasn't paying attention before, she is now.
"Listen, Gloria, this is why you don't wanta get to know me. Take my word for it, it's really better this way.
You over there and me over here. No dividing up the territory, playing both sides, me laying down fire while you
cower under the sheets in horror. Me picking up chunks of burned flesh out of your hair. I duck, you run, the
police come, and then the little men in white coats breeze in with their needles and straightjackets.
You getting strip searched by a sadistic bull at Bellview. Me doing five to ten years at Rikers Island.
You taking it up the ass to spring me. Then me running out on you, leaving you there with a kid,
holding the bag. You naked on the bed, struggling with your panties, ripping your undercover boyfriend's
jeans to shreds with your teeth trying to get at it. Getting even. Me and Little Frankie sitting
in a safe house in the Bronx watching the video. Nobody screams when the razor takes a finger off.
Nobody gets hurt."
A pause. The waiter brings the entrees. A Cobb salad for Gloria, a still-moving sirloin steak for Lloyd.
The waiter catches the look in Lloyd's eye and evaporates into outer space. Gloria could be in a coma and who'd know?
Lloyd doesn't even stop to take a breath.
"This way you don't have to wonder what I'm thinking. Or sue anybody for alimony. And no restraining order.
I don't have to pretend you care and you don't dream up sick things to do to me. No need for protection.
Just use our imaginations and twist it into anything we want. Ruin everything with it. Two punch drunk
lightweights shadow dancing in The Bricks in Jersey, not a penny to our names, the dirty city snow falling
all around us in greasy white sheets covering up the spot where we buried the bodies. Nobody shooting smack
between their toes. The kid doesn't grow up to hate our guts. Dog doesn't run off and die under a bus.
My mask doesn't slip during the diamond heist. No fire breathing witch hiding in the dark, picking me
out of the line up. No ten more years at Rikers. No parole for good behavior and time served.
No Harry the Hook laying odds on how long before you crack, wondering if he should make you blow
him first for ratting us out.
"No dragging you kicking and screaming, splayed out like a carp with your legs spread and blood pooling
up in your new shoes, the moon laughing in your face. Shooting stars crisscrossing every sign you've got.
Pluto in retrograde, Mars ascending. A hot rod up Uranus. No coughing up blood. No crying yourself to
sleep on a lice infested mattress under the bridge turning tricks for rocks. No laying there in the
Meadowlands next to Jimmy Hoffa and my squealing snitch bitch of a first wife under ten foot of Astro
Turf somewhere between the five and ten yard line, maggots nibbling on your juicy white bones.
"That's why you don’t need to get to know me. Take my word for it, kid, I'm doin' you a favor. Believe me,
it's better this way. Trust me. You don't wanta get to know me."
A very long, ice coated pause. The waiter must have found another job on another galaxy.
He's nowhere to be seen.
Gloria must have come out of her coma because she's shaking like a tiny butterfly on speed,
wringing her clammy hands under the table. Somehow she manages to stomp her pretty pink feet on
the cold marble floor and stammer nervously, "Jesus H. Christ, Lloyd! Aren't we just full of ourselves today?
Who in the hell do you think you are anyway, Charlie friggin' Manson? Get a grip for crying out loud.
You off your meds or something?"
Rattled, Gloria fiddles with her purse and slaps on the lip-gloss, warbling away like
a canary in a tunnel, sniffing for gas. "I only agreed to go to lunch with you so I could explain myself.
It's what people do before they get make up and get back together. They have lunch and a conversation.
That's why they call it getting to know each other again. What is it with ex-cons these days?
They spring you from Rikers five years early thanks to me marrying you so they couldn't make me
testify against you, and now you go psycho on me? What's up with that? I never said anything to
anybody. I know Little Frankie's your best friend and all, but I swear to God this reconciliation crap
is definitely the LAST bad idea I let that rabid little cockroach talk me into. And I mean EVER!"
Another pause, colder than before. Icicles are forming on the tips of Lloyd's natty new patent leather shoes.
A new waiter finally brings dessert. Strawberry shortcake for Gloria. Chocolate Mousse for Lloyd...
"Well, ok then, shit," Lloyd croons as smooth as a baby snake's skin, adjusting the fish filleting knife
he's got stuck in his sock. Gloria's got no clue that Lloyd knows it was her that dropped a dime on Frankie
and him or that it was her that told her undercover pig boyfriend in Queens that it was Lloyd that whacked
his first wife Carleen or that Lloyd knows for a fact it was Gloria who ratted him out as to his whereabouts
on the night Carleen got smoked. Or why they never found her body. Or what it was like for Lloyd having
to spend five years stewing in stir, his teeth rotting and his bowels twisting up inside like epileptic worms.
Or what he owes Little Frankie for taking the fall and then finding out later he's going down for life, thanks
to the new Three Strike law that Lloyd had forgotten to tell him about.
"Don't get your panties in a wad, Gloria, "Lloyd murmurs dreamily, lathering on the charm,
"I didn't mean nothing by it. I'm just pulling your chain," flashing her an indecipherable grin
while snarling ominously under his breath, "you two-timing, double-crossing little whore," the bared
teeth of demonic malice barely concealed beneath his pink and purple, perfectly knotted, polka dot tie.
"Now come on, let's eat. Then we can take a little walk. Somewhere nice. Like down by the Meadowlands.
Whatdaya say, huh? Here, have some shortcake. And smile why doncha? What is this, the Last Supper?"
THE GREEN LINE
Gunfire wakes me up early and I stumble over my own feet getting dove down proper under the bed.
A thunder and lightening storm in Technicolor is what it looks like in here. Darby and me are on
the run again and some people don't seem too happy about it. But what do they know? Gangster
wantabe slacker psychopaths. Sounds like some kid is out there in the hallway firing his
whole bag of marbles at us, clanging them against the walls, shattering the windows.
Two rounds ricochet against the bed board. Another one pings off the sink and misses
my face by half an inch.
Darby's blabbering away half mad in the corner, trying to cover up her half naked self. I stay clear of her.
I don't know what she's crying about, she's not even hit, but with that hair trigger temper of hers, I never
know when she's gonna blow.
Outside in the hallway dogs are screaming, their ear drums busted. I fire three .44 rounds at the keyhole
and dive for the fruit cellar door, dragging Darby howling behind me. I shoulda fired all I got at those sons
of bitches, but I'm running out of shells fast and my gun's jammed, so what's the point?
Narrow damned wet cave tunnel. Reach the street and poke my face up under a manhole cover.
It's a hit man parade up there. Duck back down and pop up at the next one. Looking good so far.
We make a run for it and grab a cab, smelling of garbage and rat shit. Me and Darby, not the cab,
although it's not all sunshine and roses in there either.
Darby's bleating like a gut shot coyote, blubbering away in the cabbie's rear view mirror. He looks like a kiddy
porn producer the way he's staring at her. Somebody's gonna pay for that war back there, but I'm in no hurry.
I'm still young. Getting set up like that by Sammy Rats and the Dover Street boys is embarrassing. Rotten,
yellow, racket boy bastards. They'd all sell their mother's for a fin if they could cop a buyer for the old coots.
Bloody assassins must be getting minimum wage these days, judging by the way they can't shoot straight.
Not that I'm complaining. Nobody's wounded, just Darby's pride. She's got nothing but a towel on, wraps
it tight around her bare legs and cries me a river.
We hit the MTA and jump the turnstile. Darby's towel is flapping in the breeze, giving the winos a free peep show.
A bum throws her a dime and starts playing with himself. Best sex he's almost had in years. Fuck him. Get a job.
Riding the Green Line, Darby's sitting cross-legged, cool as a debutante on her way to Belmont Hill for a game
of tennis. Like that's gonna happen. Thinks Charlie's wife is going to "throw us a sandwich as the train
goes rumblin' by". I gotta get Darby outa here but don't know where the boys might be hiding.
Never should have taken her with me, or so says her abusive shit bag husband, Sammy Rats.
Made his bones eating the tiny heads off the creepy little fur balls. Says I'm a dead dick walking.
A corpse on wheels. Tells me his child bride doesn't belong to me and wants her back.
I'm going to make sure the sick prick perv never touches her again, only he doesn't know that yet.
Darby's still barefoot and fuming, sucking on a French fag, acting like she's Catherine Deneuve shooting through
the streets of Paris with Jean-Paul Belmondo on her arm. Tells me she's fat. Can't weigh more than a hundred pounds.
Jesus, what is it with women these days?
We jump off at Boylston so Her Royal Highness can buy a dress and some new shoes. I didn't even own a pair
of frigging shoes till I was in fifth grade. She's trying on her twelfth pair when I see Sammy Rats staring
through the window. Darby's concentrating so hard on shoes she doesn't notice him till he's squatting right
in front of her on his chubby haunches, looking up her brand new pink, summer dress. I walk up behind him
and slam my .44 against his fat head. He's lying on the floor as quiet as a deflated Pillsbury dough boy,
but when I look up, Darby's slipping out the back door of the store without me. What the hell? What did I do?
I just saved her butt from that abusive pile of hog guts, and now this? Who knows where she's going?
Jesus! Women. Maybe she likes having Sammy smack her around. Screw it. I'm better off without her anyway.
I'm going home.
Before I can get halfway through my bullet ridden front door, somebody fires a high heel shoe at the side of my head.
I look up and there's Darby, standing on the curb. I've never seen her so furious, limping around on one blue
shoe with blood splattered all over her new dress, screeching at me: "Where did you run off to you big, dip
shit pecker head? When I came back from the ladies' can you were gone. What's up with that?"
She's gotta lot of gall asking me where I went. I'm not the one that ducked out the back of the shoe
store when things got dicey. Her bottom lip's quivering like a worm on a hook, but she's not backing down
and lights right into me, "I was so scared back there I had to go take a pee and, when I got back, you were gone.
What's wrong with you anyway? You don't like me anymore? You got a bimbo stashed away somewhere?"
Good God, who put a stick up her butt, I'm thinking. I thought she'd skipped out on me. What was I supposed to do?
It's an easy mistake to make. I guess it's good to see her. She's cute when she's mad. We jump the Green Line and go.
I don't know where. South.
Steve Newton studied with C. D. B. Bryant at the University of Iowa and Philip Roth
at the University of Iowa Creative Writers Workshop. He studied graduate and undergraduate creative writing and
poetry at the University of New Mexico. He is a professional songwriter, poet, and part-time photographer.
His short story, "Nothing But A Kiss", won First Place in the
Santa Fe REPORTER Annual Short Story Contest,
"Somewhere in LA", received honorable mention in the
ALIBI Magazine Short Story Contest, "Dominique's Mother" was a finalist in
England's Gator Springs Gazette Annual Short Story Contest,
and Dust Devil won First Place in Ascent Aspirations Magazine flash fiction contest.
He has published these and other short stories in Amarillo Bay Literary Magazine, Juked, Evergreen Review,
Hot Metal Press,
Gator Springs Gazette, Ascent Aspirations, and BLINK.
He has completed three mainstream contemporary novels, Southeast of Eden,
The Ghosts of Babylon, Evangelo, and Shrinking Violet.
Vurrently he is nearing completion on an historical fiction novel, Billy's Kid.
Email: Steve Newton
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