Bronx Noir

The redhead stumbled around, more bombed than I originally thought. She put her shoes in her floppy purse and began dancing like a gypsy in the movies. Arms waving, hips swaying. Ernie K. tied Connie to a tree, as the dancing redhead began unbuttoning her blouse. I didn’t know a woman like this, how could Lefty?

“Dance with me, Ernie,” she said, reaching around to unsnap her bra. Then she danced and danced, and stripped and stripped. Tossing her clothes onto her floppy purse. Until she was bare ass. Totally bare ass.

I wish I could say we left around this point, because this part is a little embarrassing for good Catholic boys like ourselves. But no one would believe me. We never left. We always stayed to the bitter end. Give us a break; we were sixteen years old and this was the most skin we’d seen outside of National Geographic. Besides, most of the sex in Ernie K.’s nook was hidden by tree branches or blankets. Really. Well, usually. But not this night; this was Loew’s big-screen big, plus Technicolor and Cinemascope. All we needed was popcorn.

“Bridget Fahey,” Lefty whispered.

“No shit?” I said, way too loud, but the redhead’s louder singing drowned it out. I’d heard about Crazy Bridget, but couldn’t remember ever seeing her before. She’d left for California years ago, leaving only her reputation for wildness behind. The Fahey’s lived in Lefty’s building, so I believed him. And I figured if I didn’t remember her, then B.O. probably didn’t either. B.O. was the problem. The part I didn’t know how to handle. How could I tell him that this bare ass redhead was the older sister of Margaret Mary, the love of his life? But Bridget was already naked and dancing in the moonlight. The damage was done. I figured any notification could wait. Besides, the nuns always told us that some things are better left unsaid.

Leather creaked as Ernie K. removed his gun belt and hooked it over Connie. He sat on a stump and began removing the high boots. This was special. Sometimes he didn’t bother taking his boots off, but crazy Bridget was singing in Spanish and shoving her ass in his face as she pulled off his boots, like some drunken scullery maid in an Errol Flynn picture.

B.O. and Lefty were silent, and eerily still. I think we all sensed this was going to be a memorable night. For Crazy Bridget it could have been just an average night. Who knows? She bumped and grinded in the Bronx moonlight, imploring Ernie K. to hurry. The older guys in our neighborhood always smiled when they talked about Bridget. After she left, her younger sisters were kept close to the house, rarely straying from the sight of Mrs. Fahey, ever-present in her third-floor window. Lefty said that cloistered nuns had more freedom than Margaret Mary Fahey. But he never said it in front of B.O.

Naked himself, Ernie K. stepped away from the tree stump and began an awkward, limping dance. It was obvious his bare feet were too tender for God’s pebbled earth. He moved in a slow yet palsied twist. Chubby Checker would have died of embarrassment. Finally Bridget put him out of his misery and moved toward him, arms spread wide, shaking her alabaster breasts. Moving right up against him. The slap of skin on skin. Ernie K. stopped dancing and wrapped her in his arms. B.O. pulled his hands down from his mouth, to keep his glasses from fogging up.

“Over there, over there,” Bridget cried, and pointed to a grassy spot right below us. She pulled Ernie K. by his arm. To right below us. We could have spit on them. With Bridget’s insistence the cop carefully laid himself down on the small patch of grass. But no sooner had he gotten down…she sprung up.

“Wait right there, sugar,” she said. “I need something.”

She ran back across the dirt floor of Kronek’s love nook toward her floppy purse. I figured she needed some woman thing, but I was more worried about Ernie K. If he leaned back to gaze at the stars glittering over the Bronx he would have been looking right into our faces. Instead, Bridget reclaimed all his attention.

Because she came back waving Ernie K.’s gun.

For the first time in my life I understood how certain moments play out in slow motion. It seemed unreal, half dream, half hallucination. Ernie K. had his hand in the air as if it would stop a bullet. Bridget came within a few feet of him and stopped.

“Give me the gun,” he said.

“You don’t know who I am, do you?”

“This isn’t funny, Bridget.”

“What’s my last name, you self-centered bastard?”

“You don’t want to be doing this. Put the gun down, we’ll both walk away. No repercussions.”

“No repercussions,” she said. “You don’t know the first thing about repercussions.”

“I’ll never mention this to anyone,” he said.

“I know that for sure,” she said. “You’ll never mention this to anyone.”

I felt B.O. start to fldget next to me. He didn’t like stress of any kind. And this was big-time stress.

“What is my name?” she said again.