Nine Hundred Nights Read online

  When the song ends, Jimmy is surprised by the feeling that together, he and these particular three people...FEEL right. Instead of playing several more songs, as Ingy and Kenny expect, he dismounts his drums and takes a seat at the table. The others follow his lead and join him.

  "Thirsty Nick? I'm gonna go get some beer." Jimmy asks.

  Nick reaches into his pocket, while Jimmy glances at Ingy.

  "S'alright, I got it." Jimmy adds.

  Ingy smiles as Jimmy moves toward the door. Upon reaching it, the door opens and Sean O'Neil enters carrying a shopping bag full of beer; he's dressed in his SHOPVALU butcher whites having come directly from work.

  Jimmy says in awe "Perfect timing!" then he adds longingly "Dude, if you were a chick I'd bang you."

  "THANK GOD I'M NOT A CHICK!" Sean says with such relief it sends everyone into hysterics.

  Jimmy takes the beer from Sean and sets it on the table then pulls out a chair for Sean, who collapses into it, clearly exhausted.

  "Sean, this is Nick." Ingy says.

  "Hey. Auditioning?"

  "Yeah. What's crackin' Sean?"

  Nick offers his hand and they shake.

  "Long god damn day, four hours overtime; I had to cover for a guy who sliced a chunk of his thumb off on the band saw."

  "Band saw?" Nick asks in mock panic.

  Kenny is busy doodling on a pad and offers "He's a butcher over at ShopValu. Sean's our band manager."

  "The band manager's a butcher...I'm guessing the message is 'Don't be late for practice or you'll lose a random body part.'"

  Jimmy takes a seat and hands a beer to Nick "So what do you think man?"

  "You tell me."

  "It sounds good." Jimmy takes a sip "You're only playing a year?"

  "I lied."

  "I thought so."

  "Ten months."

  Jimmy looks at Ingy in disbelief "Pffftt. What are you looking for?"

  "I wanna play in the clubs."

  "Don't mean to sound like a dick or anything...why?"

  "I love the music." Nick says simply.

  Ingy staring at his beer says "Good answer."

  "What about the look?" Jimmy asks.

  "Secondary. Important, but secondary."

  Jimmy looks at Ingy who gives a nod, then at Kenny who also nods "So, you wanna play with us?"

  "If I say yes, I don't have to hump my huge friggin' amp back down those stairs, right?" which prompts laughs and grins "Seriously, if you want me, I'm yours."

  "We want you. Know any singers?"

  Nick shakes his head "We'll have to troll for one. If you don't mind me asking, how many guitar players did you have to go through?"

  Ingy says "You're lucky number fourteen."

  "It's gonna be harder to find a singer. But ya know, whatever it takes."

  Jimmy smiles mischievously at Ingy and Kenny "Well, it looks like we got us a GUNSLINGER!" and hits the PLAY button of the boom box; Iron Maiden's 'Gangland' immediately begins at high volume. Ingy, Kenny and Jimmy break out in laughter while Nick tries to figure out what's so funny.

  Track 3

  Night Moves

  Two days later Nick drives into Jersey after work to meet Ingy.

  "I'll drive." Ingy says, heading to his car.

  Nick parks his car and hops into Ingy's, and the two set out in search of fast food.

  "There's a place on 17 a mile down that's pretty good if you feel like grabbin' a dog." Ingy offers.

  "Sounds good."

  They navigate the short distance and pull into the parking lot of 'The Dog Show'; the rooftop light-up sign is a cartoon of a man in a tuxedo walking a hot dog on a leash down a runway. It's still rather early for dinner and upon entering they find the place empty. Stepping up to the register, Ingy places his order to an attractive girl who I'd guess is maybe nineteen or twenty; she's of medium height, with brown hair in a pony tail that sticks out of the back of her DOG SHOW visor. She has a pretty no-makeup face, largish breasts and is wearing a name tag that reads "Venice".

  "Two chili-cheese dogs, an onion rings and a Budweiser."

  "Sure... Are these together?" she asks as she enters the order into the register.

  "Please." replies Nick.

  "And for you?"

  "Have hot mustard?"

  "Sure."

  "Can I get a Chicago dog, but with the HOT mustard?"

  "Sure. Is that it? Your friend got two." she says with just a bit of playfulness.

  Nick smiles, looks at Ingy and back to her "So I'm LAGGING...is that what you're saying..." he makes a show of looking at her nametag carefully "...Venice?"

  "Well you said it, I didn't."

  "Well, you implied it then." Nick said evenly.

  "I implied nothing, you inferred." she shot back immediately.

  "I love a girl who knows her logic. OK Venice, I can think of a way to even it up."

  Venice waits for an answer, eventually arching her eyebrows as if to say "Well?"

  "Let me take you out on a date." Nick says earnestly, without a trace of a smile.

  Venice chuckles and begins to turn pink "HA! THAT'S your plan?"

  "Why not?" Nick asks in a funny but plaintive tone.

  "Why on earth do you think I'd go out with you?"

  "One word...Chemistry. Also, dinner at a place where you DON'T have to order into a clown's face. Aaaand if that isn't enough...I'm not a weirdo, so you can leave the pepper spray at home."

  "How do I know you're not a serial killer or something?"

  As Nick pulls his driver's license out of his wallet, he wears a slightly indignant expression and says "How do I know YOU'RE not one?" showing her his license "There...now you know my name and address; you can check up on me. See...I'm also an organ donor, which ya know, if your liver gives out during dinner..."

  Which prompts an outright laugh from Venice.

  Nick turns to Ingy "Ing...ya wanna help me out here, tell Venice I'm not a serial killer."

  "I just met this guy." Ingy says dryly "I saw him burying something on the side of the road and I stopped to help."

  "You suck."

  Ingy presses further "If he IS a serial killer, I'm guessing he bores them to death."

  "That's it; we're eating at separate tables now!" Nick replies in comic frustration.

  As the banter is exchanged between Ingy and Nick, Venice advances a blank piece of receipt paper out of the register, writes her phone number on it and slides it across the counter.

  Nick smiles "I'll call you and you better not give me that wrong number routine." then he looks at the paper "1-800-TRUCKMASTER! I'm not fallin' for that...AGAIN!" prompting a laugh from Ingy and Venice.

  "So do you want anything else? You already got a date out of this."

  "If I try a little harder we'll be married before I leave..." he scans the menu overhead "...a large onion rings too please Venice."

  "Drink?"

  "Bud's good."

  Venice places a little plastic sign on the counter that reads "23", along with 2 bottles of Budweiser, each having a plastic cup over the top of each long neck bottle.

  "They'll bring it to your table."

  "What's the total?" Nick asks, holding a fold of bills.

  "Go sit down." she says smiling.

  Nick gives her an appreciative smile and he and Ingy take their drinks and the number sign, and sit at a table near the exit. Ingy stares at Nick for a full minute without making a move for his beer, and when Nick fails to catch on, he asks "What the hell was that?"

  In mock surprise Nick replies "I really don't know."

  Both put the cups aside, and take a sip of beer directly from the bottle, then Ingy presses "Jesus H. Christ, do you like, do that all the time?"

  "I wish...Man, she's cute!"

  "No shit."

  There is a silent pause and Nick notices Ingy is staring at him "Shut up and drink your beer."

  Ingy laughs to himself as he shakes his head and takes a sip of beer "Fri
ggin' Nick."

  "So Ing, I know you go to Fordham. You live with your parents still or have your own place or what?"

  "What? You're gonna ask ME out on a date now Don Juan!" then he says in a whiney voice "I want a really expensive dinner..."

  Nick laughs and Ingy presses on "...and you have to buy me something nice. A present."

  "Shut up already."

  Ingy finally answers "Yeah I'm still living at home. Jimmy and Kenny too."

  "Yeah, me too. From around here?"

  "Born here. Paramus. You?"

  "Bronx. We left there a few years ago, live north of the city now...brothers and sisters?"

  "Got a brother who's a couple of years younger than me, and a little sister. Lizzy."

  "Yeah? How old is she?" Nick asks.

  "She's eight."

  "Wow."

  "What?"

  Nick says "Just a big spread in ages."

  Ingy doesn't reply, and the silence is conspicuous.

  Nick says matter of fact tone "Lemme guess, your mom got a boob job and it breathed new life into the marriage." which again fails to prompt a reply from Ingy.

  Nick asks "What?"

  "Nothin'...my mom died when I was eight and my father remarried and Lizzy was born like a year or so later."

  "Crap. I'm really sorry man, I didn't mean anything..."

  "No, no, I know you didn't."

  A runner sets their tray of food down on the table and after he's left Ingy continues "It's OK, was a long time ago."

  "Sorry for your loss man."

  "Thanks...was a long time ago, I was a little kid...I'll tell ya though, the way I found out about it was kind of fucked."

  "Yeah? What happened?"

  "She'd been in and out of the hospital a lot, and then one day I'm sitting in class at school, and I hear over the loud speaker 'Please observe a moment of silence and pray for the soul of Maureen England who passed away early this morning.'"

  "No way."

  "They were supposed to pull me out of class to tell me, and ya know, I wouldn't have to be in the room when they made the announcement."

  "Everyone watching you I bet."

  Ingy takes a breath "I was numb for like a month...the wake, the funeral...numb. It was months before I really dealt with it...but bad as it was for me and my brothers, it was even worse for my old man. I'd never seen ANYTHING get to him like that, not before or since. He literally looked like a train hit him. He just looked...lost, ya know, like one of those guys in the city...just walkin' the street...lost."

  "He OK now?"

  "Yeah." Ingy took a small sip of his beer "He needed time to get over feeling guilty."

  "Guilty? About what?"

  "That it wasn't him instead of her."

  Nick's face flushes as he feels a surge of empathy.

  "Then he met Elizabeth and it got better. She knew how to help him." Ingy said, his voice becoming a bit louder "Thank god man, I don't know how long he would have lasted."

  After a moment, a look of recognition appears on Nick's face "Ahhh Elizabeth...Lizzy, I see. So you're old man's OK these days?"

  "He's back to his old self, all over my ass to cut this band shit out and focus more on my schoolwork."

  "And cut your hair! Hippie!" Nick says sternly.

  "You're channeling my dad." Ingy says smiling.

  Nick takes a long pause and says "Strange but a similar thing happened to me, but for me it was my dad."

  "What do you mean?"

  "My dad died when I was fourteen. He worked in a ship yard when he was young, and the asbestos...anyway near the end he was at home half the time 'cause we had a hospital bed set-up." Nick takes a sip of beer and continues "One night, I'm home alone, and the phone rings. It's some doctor and he asks if my mom is home. My dad was at the hospital that whole week and my mom was there every night, right at his side. So I tell 'Doctor-Whoever' that she's at the hospital visiting my dad and that maybe she just left the room for a few minutes. So there's this ya know, pause...and the guy says to me "Well, when she gets home, tell her your father died." And he hangs up. "So I know what you mean when you said you felt numb...I was numb for three years."

  "Christ." Ingy sighs, then crooks his head quizzically "What do ya mean three years?"

  "Seriously. I felt nothing at the wake and funeral...and after...nothing. I acted like I was sad 'cause that's what I knew everyone expected. I really thought something was wrong with me. The only thing I DID feel was guilt for not being sad." Nick takes a long pull on his beer "I loved my dad. When I was seventeen I had my first serious girlfriend and one day she started asking me about my father, and I mean, she wouldn't leave it alone...I was starting to get annoyed, when it all came out. I was bawlin' like a baby." and wearing a crooked smile Nick said "I don't know how she knew, but she knew."

  "That doctor...who would fucking do that?" Ingy asked feeling anger, able as he was to empathize.

  "Doesn't matter. It happened and it's behind me. I tell ya Ing, my dad was a great guy, he was kind of the glue that kept the aunts and uncles together, all the holidays...He was really kind hearted too, we never visited without bringing gifts and he could always get my aunts and uncles to laugh when they seemed down." Nick picks up an onion ring and locks his eyes upon it "But here's the thing, I didn't really have much of a relationship with him. It's strange but it seemed like...like he wasn't sure of how to do it. He was kind to me, but we weren't...close. I wish we'd had enough time to work that out. Know what I mean?"

  "Yeah." Ingy says solemnly.

  In unspoken remembrance both raise their bottles and drink a solemn and wordless toast.

  Back in the car, Ingy pulls out of the parking lot and merges onto Route 17. Oddly, the traffic is light and Ingy drives a mere ten miles per hour over the posted speed limit.

  "Where to?" Ingy says as he fishes for a cigarette from a pack in the console between the seats.

  "Yonkers. The place is called The Rising Sun...has live metal Wednesday through Saturday."

  Ingy lights his cigarette with the dashboard lighter "About three miles up there's a turn around."

  Nick cracks his window "You gonna' give me cancer with that fuckin' smoke."

  "Propaganda my friend...it's actually nutritious. Take deep regular breaths."

  Ingy merges into the left lane and as he's putting his dashboard lighter back in place, a black muscle car with heavily tinted windows blows by him in the right lane at terrifying speed.

  "Holy shit!" Ingy says with a look of shock, his cigarette dangling from lips.

  "Whoa." Nick mutters in disbelief.

  Ingy stomps on the accelerator and begins to gain on the car. Nick looks at him and back to the speeding car, and begins to laugh "You're never gonna catch him bro."

  As they catch up to the speeding car and are even with it, Ingy yells at the muscle car through Nick's partially lowered window "NOBODY PASSES INGY!"

  Nick cackles and the muscle car speeds up.

  Ingy, now completely committed to battle, declares to the challenger "Oh yeah?", sits up in his seat and matches its speed.

  Suddenly there is an impressive roar coinciding with a burst of acceleration from the muscle car; it leaps ahead as if Ingy's car were standing still. Ingy and Nick are both astounded; their mouths open slightly as they stare in amazement.

  "Wow."

  "I think you made him mad." Nick says in a low voice.

  With an unconvincing defiance, Ingy repeats softly "Nobody passes Ingy."

  The two continue into New York, cross the Tappan Zee Bridge and follow the highway to Yonkers. As they near their destination Ingy notices his gas gauge.

  "Let me get some gas at this Shell station."

  "I lived in this town for a year and I used to work here pumping gas. The club is right across the street." Nick says.

  "Cool."

  "I wonder if anyone from the old crew is still here."

  Ingy parks at a pump and both emerge from the car. Ther
e is a worn and peeling sign attached to the pump that says 'FREE STEAK KNIFE WITH FILLUP, COLLECT A SET!'

  An old man, short and round, in a brown uniform emerges from the garage; he wears a matching brown ball cap with the Shell logo. His tortoise shell thick framed glasses hold the thickest lenses that Ingy has ever seen.

  Nick yells at the man as he walks slowly toward the car "BIG GEORGE!"

  Squinting, it's clear George can't see that far. But after a few more steps "Eh...who's ya... Nicky?"

  "Yeah."

  George unscrews the gas cap and begins to pump the gas.

  "How the hell are you George, still chasing the ladies?"

  The old man's expression immediately changes from grumpy to excited "Oh there was one in here a little while ago. Bakin' cookies Nicky."

  "That so?" Nick asks smiling.

  "Oh she was just ya know...milk and cookies, this one."

  Nick says in a sing-song tribute "Big George...still chasin' the hot girlies."

  "How much ya want?" George looks to Ingy.

  "Fill it up."

  "George this is my buddy Mark." Nick says and each nods to the other.

  "So what brings ya back here?" George asks.

  Nick glances at the worn promotional sign on the pump "Well, we heard about the free steak knife thing, and we drove all the way down here. I told Mark 'George'll take care of us.'"

  "That's an old sign." George scowls.

  Nick immediately affects an incredulous expression as if George is trying to put one over on him "C'mon George, don't gimme that..."

  George, now irritated, says "The last vehicle that got a free steak knife had a fuckin' horse in front of it."