Rackets by Thomas Kelly

Author:Thomas Kelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road

For two weeks, Jimmy rode the train downtown with his father and Liam. After the first few days his body settled into the new rhythm, the strain became bearable, and he slept like the dead. He accepted the needling over his new status. He looked at it as a reprieve, a way station, and was determined to make the best of it. After work they headed toward the Old Town Tavern on Eighteenth Street. As they walked along, Jimmy felt the strength of his body, the muscles thickening from the work. It was something he had missed in the white-collar world. There he felt a strange type of inadequacy. He had always earned money with his back, as had everyone in his family going back to the beginning of time. When he had finished school and made the change to the professional world, he felt as if he was cheating somehow, that if you were not sweating you were not working. Now, back in the blue-collar world, he felt the satisfaction that comes from exerting yourself for money.

They pushed their way into the tavern. He had not heard from Punchy and decided to call him. The receptionist, his neighbor from Inwood, acted as if she did not know who he was. He reclaimed his stool. Liam was twirling a quarter on the bar.

“Who you calling?”

“A guy about a job.”

“You got a job.”

“Yeah, well, a guy about a new job.”

“You’re just dying to get back in a monkey suit, ain’t you?”

Jimmy waved the bartender down. He was Richie O’Rourke, a guy from Kingsbridge in the Bronx, who worked days at the bar. “Hey, Jimmy, how’s your father?”

“Good, Richie, good. He’s waiting on some trucks.”

“He still running against that skel Keefe?”

“Last I heard.”

“Your father was always a stubborn bastard.”

A man claimed the barstool next to Jimmy, took but a cell phone, and began jabbering away. He waved to Richie. Richie ignored him, then started his ritual, quizzing Liam and Jimmy. He was a master of sports trivia.

“Today’s easy. How many World Series did Yogi Berra play in?”

Liam said, “Come on, Richie. That’s bush league. Fourteen.”

“Jesus, how’d you get past ten? Take your shoes off?”

The man on the cell phone was waving frantically to Richie, trying to place a drink order with some type of sign language. Richie looked at him and shook his head.

“You believe this prick? So, Liam, you still live uptown?”

Liam nodded his head as he chewed on a drink straw. The man was now slapping his hand on the bar and waving with his head.

Richie said, “Hey, hang up the goddamn phone and order like a human, you want a drink. I don’t understand monkey signals.”

The man placed the phone down and said, “I would like a Beefeater martini with three olives.”

“Yeah, I’ll be right with you. How’s your mom holding up, Liam?”

“She’s good, thinking about running for office as of this morning. Put an end to immigration.”

“She’s an immigrant, from the other side, right?”

“According to her, it’s different.”

“Ahem.”

Richie shot the man a withering look and said, “Hang on, fellas.

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