The Dog Killer of Utica by Frank Lentricchia

Author:Frank Lentricchia [Lentricchia, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-61219-338-0
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2014-04-21T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

Anthony V. Senzalma picks unhappily at a plate of small, spicy-hot sausages, as he awaits Eliot Conte in Joey’s office, in the uncommunicative company of bodyguard #1—a slim, stern-faced African-American dressed in a form-hugging, custom-made Italian suit with a .44 Magnum, long barreled and silencer equipped, resting in her lap. For the duration of the dinner, Geraldine Williams will not take her eyes off Conte, whom she had judged correctly, six months ago, to be unstable.

The Giant of Mary Street, as Senzalma thinks of him, parks behind the restaurant and hurries through a sudden cutting wind and steeply plunging temperature to a door alongside a large, stinking garbage dumpster. Waiting for him, as usual, in a surgical mask, is bodyguard #2, Dragan Kovac, a Bosnian immigrant of sumo-wrestler build. The big Bosnian says, “How’s it going?” Conte replies, “Good, and you?” as the Bosnian frisks him, though in desultory fashion.

Conte enters, is met by bodyguard #1 who frisks him again, this time rough and shameless over every inch of his body. She says, “Shoes.” He complies. She puts them out of reach. The odd couple, Conte and Senzalma, embrace, take their seats at the desk, Senzalma behind, Conte in front, with his back to bodyguard #1, who sits in a far corner. Conte turns to her—it’s a ritual moment with them—says, “You’ll make some guy happy with that big thing in your lap, Geraldine.” According to script, she replies with a nod and the smallest trace of a smile.

Six months ago the fire-breathing right-wing talk radio host had knocked on Conte’s door after dark, in the company of his bodyguards, and said, “I’ve come in long overdue gratitude.” After a thirty-year hiatus in their friendship, Senzalma suggests they get together regularly. The apolitical Conte, who couldn’t help tuning in daily to Senzalma’s show, surprised himself by agreeing to the proposal that they meet soon at Joey’s, in clandestine fashion. Senzalma was an irresistible abomination.

That startling moment at Conte’s front door marked the unlikely resumption of an unlikely friendship, dating back to their freshman year at Proctor High, when the respected and feared son of Silvio Conte took pity on the slight and bespectacled Anthony, who in a school of working-class tough guys brought derision, shoves, and sharp elbows upon himself by insisting on carrying his books in a yellow briefcase. Conte’s friendship insured protection, and from the day that star halfback Antonio Robinson was seen eating lunch with his best friend Eliot and little Anthony, little Anthony became himself a person to be feared and catered to. Then it ended, their Proctor High idyll: Antonio won a scholarship to play football at Syracuse, Eliot went off to Hamilton College, little Anthony, more painfully alone than ever, enrolled at Utica College, never to leave his hometown—because no one ever loved Utica more, or dreamed so grandly of restoring the city to its former glory.

Years later, at the peak of his notoriety, with lucrative offers to speak pouring in, Senzalma refused them all with a simple note, “I am rooted like the elegant Elms that once graced my sad city.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.