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Kindle Edition
Amazon
Matt Ponticello
Category:
Humor
Publisher: Amazon
ISBN-10: 1481020587
Type: Fiction
Pages: 305
Copyright: Jan 9, 2013
ISBN-13: 9781481020589
From the annals of How to Beg for Cigarettes, comes the continuing saga of one businessman's hilarious, "Laugh-a-mile-a-minute" romp through the Inner City where he interacts with a cast of real and sometimes surreal characters within a dysfunctional city, a business, and a staff of employees to match! Based on actual events!
First of all, let me get one thing straight; I’m not talking about Jersey City, New Jersey. I’m talking about an American Inner-City, which I, because of the nature of my contentions, do not wish to divulge neither the name nor the location of such city. My name is Mataos Luigi Ponticello. Everyone calls me Matt. You don’t know me. You probably never heard of me even if you read the book titled How to Beg for Cigarettes; but it doesn’t matter. I wrote the book, and I based a lot of it on the truth, mainly. I did elaborate, or stretch the truth a bit, about many of the incidents I witnessed, and/or took part of, during my proprietorship in the Inner City. I also elaborated as well about my shaky and shady relationships with a great number of my associates and even some of the customers, but mainly I told the truth. That means nothing. I never knew anybody who hasn’t lied one time or another. After all, I am your Urban Entrepreneurial Storyteller. I coined the phrase myself. It wasn’t accidental. I can’t tell you how many times I sat on the bottom step of my Brownstone, and told stories about the times I worked in the bowels of an American Inner City.
Excerpt
Chapter 5
VINNIE BORK
By reason of absolute horror and panic, I scream like a sissy, throw myself across the front seat of my car, and cover my head and face because I think a small aircraft just crashed onto the intersection, and I don’t want to burn to death covered in airplane gas. My eyebrows stretch so far towards the top of my forehead, my eyeballs hurt. When I peek out of the car window, I see that my friend Vinnie Bork of Vinnie’s Towing Service has pulled alongside me with his customized 1941 Oldsmobile modified with a Chrysler 426 cubic inch, nitro-injected, turbine-turning, Hemi-head engine. The powerful Olds rumbles with open exhaust pipes, and Vinnie keeps revving the motor to keep it from conking out. With all the explosive popping sounds coming from the Olds, I expect many lights to click on in the housing projects, but they don't. The neighborhood knows Vinnie by now. I’m sure they lay in bed, complaining, “Doesn’t that asshole ever sleep?” I bet children shake their parents awake, crying, “Mommy, I’m scared.”
Vinnie’s a real good friend of mine. He brings me a lot of work, and makes me a lot of money. But friend or no friend, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s still a greaseball who smells like a chilidog. Even when he’s clean, he still smells like he took a bath in hotdog water. From the front, his head looks like he has only one layer of flesh. It’s a dull pink, and his skull, and everything what’s supposed to be attached to his skull, looks like it’s deteriorating. From the left or right, his profile stretches wide and flat, like a psychologist’s ink splotch. His bulging eyes move independent of each other like a lizard, and his left eye always bleeds as though something ruptured in his head. Although he has a bony neck with a whopping Adam’s apple like a turkey buzzard, Vinnie has a toned, tattooed, and muscular, strapping body because of his hands-on manual tows using no electric or hydraulics. Nothing but heavy rusted chains, an unlocked toolbox, and a manual hoist with a manual crank weigh down his rusty “Apocalyptic” tow truck. For a hefty price, Vinnie Bork tows anything, anywhere, and in any weather.
In this city infested with customized “Imports,” Vinnie’s Oldsmobile remains a rumbling, ticking time bomb, eager to avenge his father’s death at Pearl Harbor (As if the A-Bomb didn't do enough damage!). Vinnie’s raids, or demolition derby tactics, as I call them, begin after sunset and continue through the night. Some eyewitness accounts say he prowls the streets real slow with his headlights off, and then kicks into gear when he chases the imports. Others say Vinnie lurks in the alleyways with his headlights off, and torpedoes them as they cross in front of the alley, like one of those old time gags with a boxing glove on a spring-loaded gate.
At least now, with sunrise, I’m able to take in the full effect of the glimmering paint job on the Oldsmobile: a dark, morbid purple base with elaborate airbrushed artwork of a 1940’s sailor adorning the side of the car. The sailor has a vengeful scowl with clenched teeth as he scrunches his crotch like Michael Jackson, and snarls, "Tora this!" Filling a cartoonist’s balloon shaped like a mushroom cloud of an atomic blast.
Vinnie watches through the corner of his bleeding eye as I inch up a bit to see the front of the car. He has notches etched on the bumper similar to those on a gunslinger’s pistol. The vanity plates read "DADDEC7," in memory of his father.
Vinnie inches up a bit, and then motions me to roll down the passenger side window. I look across the passenger seat and watch Vinnie play with an industrial-sized screwdriver; twirling it like a baton. He stops spinning the screwdriver, and presses his thumb onto the tip, which he’s honed to such a fine, glimmering point, it pierces his thumb, drawing blood.
Vinnie winks at me with a wicked grin, “Silver Toyota,” he sneers from the corner of his mouth as if he’s trying to pass on a secret code, or a secret password nobody else knows, “Right quarter panel, rear bumper, your shop; this afternoon.” Foam spews from the corners of his mouth and drips off his chin like a rabid dog; a sure sign Vinnie once again sank another import.
Yes, I set up my auto body repair shop deep in this inner city. Whether private preference or insurance jobs, Moncho, the Amigos and I sometimes work seven days a week fixing fender benders, patching up bullet holes, and replacing stolen and/or smashed body parts. A big part of our business comes from modifying the imports for legal residents as well as the “Swole“ community, and we also make money fencing in those cars confiscated by the police.
(We call it the “Swole” community because the word “Swole” simply means jealousy. Many of our customers have their cars customized with different auto parts and wild colors. This in turn makes their friends “Swole.”)
At lease twice a week, we receive a damaged import towed to the shop.
I remember this one time when Vinnie pulled one of his signature sneak attacks on a Japanese tourist.
Disoriented and sweaty in their loose khaki clothing, the husband and wife hugged each other as though they were facing the end of the world. “Akuma!” The unforgettable Japanese couple exchanged the same word with each other. The word came from deep within their guts. “Akuma!”
His 35MM camera hung open and broken, dangling around his pencil neck, getting in the way of her body pressing against his. The flatbed truck carried their smashed import onto the lot.
“Akuma!” The pair once again screamed in fright. The woman tucked her face into her husband’s shoulder, “Akuma,” she trembled, “Akuma.”
I circled the flatbed and examined the damaged car. Akuma? What's an Akuma; I never heard of it. I tapped the woman on her shoulder and told her to relax because it’s not as bad as it looks.
“No, car!” The husband cried out in a rapid, choppy accent while at the same time moving my hand, making sure I didn't feel his wife‘s ass.. “Akuma! Smoke! Fire orr alound us!”
I looked back at the car. “I don’t see any fire damage.”
“Godzeera!” The husband snapped at me.
Yeah, he screamed like a banshee. I guess he figures we Americans relate sheer terror through the antics of Godzilla strolling through power lines while slam-dancing Tokyo into smithereens. Nevertheless, he pressed his wife’s face into his scrawny chest as though he were her superhero.
The husband ran around the flatbed and pointed out the damage on his car. His wife wrapped her fingers through his belt loops and dragged behind him. He punched his fists together. “Boom!” He screamed with his eyes wide open. “Akuma!” He growled the word again as he showed me the crushed panel of the car. This time, he ground his teeth, snarled, and shook his head from side to side as if to tell me how this Akuma character ripped the car apart using giant teeth. He continued with his wild exaggerations and expressions, wiggling his index fingers near his temples, imitating a set of horns. “Akuma,” he murmured.
Exhausted, spent, and drenched in a cold sweat, he slumped against the flatbed.
The wife screamed like a drama queen as she recalled the horror. She put her arm across her forehead and fainted -- Hollywood-style.
Dan, the flatbed driver, dressed in greasy jeans, a flannel sleeveless shirt, and a baseball cap holding down a crop of curly hair, stepped from the cab. He unhooked the chains holding the car. “Akuma’s the devil,” he spoke as he worked. “It’s the Jap word for devil.” He shook his head and scoffed at the couple embraced and shivering as the car rolled off the truck. “Chalk up another one for your asshole buddy Vinnie Bork.”
I didn’t say a word.
Dan gave his bill to the husband. “That’s one fifty,” he shuffled the cash from the man’s grasp, “Fire and brimstone, huh?” He mocked them. Then, with a resentful tone, he pointed at me. “Don’t worry; the devil’s keeper will fix your car as soon as you grease his palm.”
“Akuma,” the husband repeated, and dragged out a loud whisper: “Akuuuuma!”
The wife clutched her husband tighter and let out another short gasp followed by a scream.
I make a fortune repairing these types of damages. We never repair Vinnie’s Olds. He could drive and/or park the car in the middle of any melee. In short, even Godzilla knows enough to stomp on every car but the Olds.
Vinnie revs the Olds again, and cups his mouth to yell over the deafening exhaust system, “Hey Matt, I cruised pass the shop a little while ago. The cops are there. There’s a dead guy in the yard.”
“Oh no, not again!” I draw a deep breath while massaging my forehead and temples in anticipation of a major headache; a hammering headache and budding nausea that has become second nature.
Vinnie never pulls punches. When he says there’s a dead guy in my yard; there’s a dead guy in my yard. This is the third time a person died on this property, the first being Jungle Jim, A.K.A. “the fireball,” born and raised in the sweltering equatorial belt crossing through Ecuador, South America. I don’t know why Jim traveled all this way to settle in this city; but then again, why not; everybody else does.
On a day when Jim poked his head into the shop to mooch his first cigarette, we had a conversation. I found out he attended the University of the Americas. Then, one day out of the clear blue sky, he thought it would be nice to take a long walk. He walked among people in every aspect of life. He shared wine, cigarettes, and knowledge with the wealthy and astute, as well as those as poor and misguided as a sponge diver living in Newark, New Jersey. After years of walking, Jim found his niche; he felt most comfortable amongst the dregs of society and the chaos in a greasy spoon diner. He explained that nothing had been as comfortable as when he’d sit at a coffee counter, and when someone bumped into him, he had to feel his back pants pocked to make sure he wasn’t pick-pocketed.
As he continued his journey, people everywhere, no different from myself, asked him why he walked across the country. Jim chugged on a bottle of whiskey concealed in a brown paper bag, and explained that he wanted to be the first person to walk across the country drunk on his ass.
Jungle Jim enjoyed his first summer here, and tolerated the fall, but a mild winter’s day turned into a horrific tragedy. While most of us, especially the children, opened our mouths to catch the snowflakes from the winter’s first flurry, Jungle Jim used a bottle of Vodka to set himself on fire. He looked like a volcanic eruption in the middle of the street as he screamed, “I’m freezing! I’m freezing!” In fact, we heard someone called the fire department, thinking a propane truck blew up in the middle of the street. We tried to put him out when he plopped on my property. The survival rules say: “Drop and Roll. “ Well, we could have dropped and rolled Jim fifty laps on the local horseracing track, and he still burned.
One year later, a leather-clad drifter who we labeled “The Blue Biker,” suffered a heroin overdose and staggered into the doorway of the shop. He had to die during the night, because somebody stripped him of all his clothes and his boots, and by morning, his skin turned ten thousand different shades of blue. The police showed up with the meat wagon and took the body. Later in the day, they located his motorcycle at a local bar, and rounded up a couple of people dressed in leather clothes and boots that didn’t fit. The cops asked me to pick up the bike and hold onto it until they notified the next of kin. Yeah, right, as if I would hold onto it. Moncho and I stripped it and sold the parts the next day.
I take another deep breath, purse my lips, and make a disgusted noise while muttering obscenities under my breath. I bow my head, run my tongue across my teeth into my cheek, and reply, “Yeah, okay, yeah, right. Thanks Vinnie.”
I want more details, but a customized import buzzes through the intersection. Amber light, red light, green light; it doesn’t matter. Vinnie clenches the screwdriver in his mouth and screeches away in hot pursuit. I close my eyes and bite my bottom lip - yup, another routine day.
When daybreak reveals itself in full-force, the buildings pale in a soft yellow reflection from the dingy streetlights. If the city workers show a bit of incentive, they’d wipe the bowls clean of those “Go toward the light,” suicide moths to make things brighter around here. I concentrate on another deep inhale of the cigarette and watch the first sign of a brilliant, fiery starburst scorch its way through the gaps between the buildings. Ah-zah-lute, I salute in Italian and hold my coffee to the streetlights, bidding them farewell.
The intense sunlight causes me to squint and rub my eyes. Maybe this is not another steaming summer day. Maybe the sun can burn off the stench lingering over this city. Could this be a torch, a glowing ball of fire held by God exclaiming, “Enough is enough?”
No, it's only an aspiration. I try to convince myself every evening that the next day will come and go without an incident, but it never happens. Every day is another episode, compounded daily, one incident worst than the next.
The sunshine brings ground-level movement, the first being a homeless man staggering toward me with the expectation of a handout. He leans on the car door. I jerk back because I expect him to puke on me when he opens his mouth. Instead, he gags a bit, coughs into his palm, and says, “You should get a tune-up. The smell from your emissions is making everybody sick.”
That’s a new one; I laugh. I give him the rest of my cigarette and tell him “It's people like him who make people like me have a bad day.”
He puffs on the cigarette; flicks it to the ground and curls his lips, “Buddy, you don't know what a bad day is. Try waking up after a three-day drunk and find out a trap spider built its nest in your asshole.”
Without thanks, he retires to his blanket of newspapers in one of the darkened alcoves.
The light finally turns green, but I decide to wait before going through the intersection. A promiscuous Latino teenage mother, wearing pink flip-flops, plaid pajama bottoms hanging off her hips, and a halter-top with no bra, steps off the curb. I release a deep sigh of worship, and mutter to myself, “God, I wish my wife looked like that.” The hot little woman struggles as she tugs and jerks a broken shopping cart loaded with dirty laundry and high-end detergents. A ten year old boy sits on top of the cart while she pushes her other two children on an orange and aluminum hand truck she has to use instead of a stroller. The two younger children poise themselves on the hand truck with the older child strapped in like a small refrigerator, leaning back awkward and stiff as he balances his baby sister wobbling on his shoulders.
Of course, she doesn’t acknowledge me, or even nods a “Thank you” for stopping and allowing her to cross against the light. It’s not that I expect it, because I’ve found that people like her know how to work the system. These cocky types feel the world owes them a living and a lifestyle. They take the time to pursue every avenue including free rent, paid utilities, free furniture, free birth control, and other free stuff that many of us do not pursue because we simply don’t know about it. And nine out of ten times, they get what they want - and more!
As she crosses in front of my car, a pink bra and thong fall off the shopping cart. The mother yells at her son in a barrage of Spanish reprimand. The boy gets off the cart and picks up the clothing. He giggles and gives me a child’s mischievous grin, and then pretends to slingshot the thong like a rubber band. His mother snatches it from him and slams it back into the cart. “Hermano!” She calls the kid a brat.
Finding it humorous, I curl my lips and shrug. In return, she flips me the finger while cursing in Spanish and English.
A whooptee, filled with a horde of young black men numbed to a zombie state because of the loud music, slows down beside the woman. The boy on the cart waves to the driver and calls him daddy. The driver doesn’t acknowledge his kid. Instead, he slips his woman a small white packet. In return, she leans and kisses him while he rubs her ass for a moment before leaving.
She has a new lease on life. She lifts the packet to Heaven, kisses it, squints her eyes, and smiles ear-to-ear while dancing in place to the tune of La Cucaracha playing in her head.
I light another cigarette and blow smoke out of the window. The woman looks dead into my eyes. She leans forward to expose her cleavage and throws me a condescending kiss. I read her lips, “Fuck you,” she says before continuing her trek to the Laundromat.
I could go now.
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