Authors: Patrick Abbruzzi
Daily rituals brought busloads of kids on school outings, with bus drivers who double-parked then left their buses without leaving any type of note signaling their destination. These uncaring bus drivers were forever blocking in residents, attorneys and judges as well. The local area surrounding the 120
th
housed the Supreme Court, Family Court, and the Grand Jury rooms as well as the Supreme Civil Court, so parking was always at a premium during the day. Charlie was grateful that he worked midnights because parking was always available.
He wearily climbed into his car, a yellow Subaru station wagon which he loved. The car had pep, was great on gas mileage, and he could carry anything in it. He bought it a local Subaru dealership on the Island and got a great deal because the salesman was a cop in the precinct and worked there as his 2
nd
job.
Charlie started up the
Subby and drove home to the island’s south shore. Everybody was driving to work towards the St. George ferry area as they traveled to their nine-to-five jobs, either in St. George or Manhattan, but since he was going against the traffic his trip home was a breeze.
He lived in a duplex with a neatly manicured lawn in a quiet neighborhood with a mix of Irish, Italian and Polish who took care of their property. He liked the gay couple next door and often invited them over for barbecues.
He stepped through his front door just in time to give his wife, Annette, a goodbye kiss before she left for work. She spent her days in an insurance office, going through her nine-to-five ritual every day.
Annette
Goodheart was just three months older than Charlie and, for an old broad of forty-six, she still had a pretty good body and took care of herself. She had deep blue eyes and ebony black hair and at 5'9" was tall for a woman. She was Italian and a fantastic cook, having been taught by both her mother and grandmother. She could throw together a meal in no time and was famous for her Spaghetti Putenesca.
They had met at an outdoor concert at Silver Lake Park when they were both nineteen years old. Charlie still vividly remembered seeing her for the first time that wondrous and beautiful night twenty-seven years ago. She was with a girlfriend and he was with an old college buddy named Eddie.
Charlie and Eddie had been looking for some action and the concert was one big pickup zone. They wanted to score, like most guys that age, but the night quickly passed and things did not look promising. Then, Charlie had spotted Annette at almost the same time she saw Charlie.
She had on a pair of white Bermuda shorts, which allowed the outline of her black panties to be visible. They were tight enough to accentuate her beautiful ass but loose enough to show she was a lady and had some class. She also had on a yellow, silky blouse that showed some cleavage and really outlined her beautiful breasts. Her hair was dark and shoulder length and she had such a truly beautiful face. Charlie had felt as if she was an angel sent down from heaven just for him.
Both guys approached the girls and before long they found themselves enjoying the concert and talking the entire night. They wound up going to a local malt shop but the night ended there. There had been no sex.
Their kids were grown now and Charlie and Annette had been married for almost twenty-five years. He thought they would have grown closer with the kids gone but it just hadn’t happened. Once Charlie Junior had left, Charlie had really tried. One day he put a sexy flick in the VCR and he and Annette had tried to make love right on the living room rug, but she had not been aroused. He was ready to do anything to please his wife but, for some reason, had been unable to. This was one of the last times that Charlie and Annette had been together sexually.
He really didn’t think his wife was cheating on him but she did dress attractively to go to work. He had tried desperately to dismiss those crazy, insane thoughts from his mind. He was faithful to his wife and had been for his entire marriage, but he was a man who was horny and wanted to get laid. He was a regular guy and even though he often found himself lusting after women he met at work, he didn’t come onto them, even though they were often abused by their husbands or boyfriends and were vulnerable and starving for the least bit of affection.
He settled down with a beer and the remote, flipping through the channels as he wound down from his long night. When he found nothing interesting on the tube, he went to bed and fantasized about the waitress, jerked off to get a release and soon fell fast asleep.
The next night he stopped at the coffee shop on his way to work. Most cops usually stop somewhere to bring in the first cup with them and they were notorious for getting to work early. With that first cup they walk into their muster rooms and peruse their roll calls to see their assignments for the tour. Then they sit and bullshit for a while before heading to their locker rooms to put on the blues.
As soon as Charlie walked in, he realized the waitress was there. She spotted him and almost did a double take. She had never seen Charlie in civilian clothes before so she looked at him as if to say, “I know you from somewhere.” It didn’t take long for her to remember.
“Hi. How are you? Remember me? I came in last night with the list from the precinct,” he said.
“Yes, I remember you. I thought I would see you again during the night but you never came back,” she responded.
“Yeah, I know. It was kind of busy and I drive the lieutenant so I have to go where he tells me to go,” he explained.
Charlie hoped she would buy his lame excuse and decided to put on a pair of balls and ask for her name. He had nothing to lose.
“What’s your name? If you don’t mind my asking,” he said.
“I’m Terry,” came her willing response, “and yours?
”
“It’s Charlie, and actually, I need to head in to the station now but I’ll probably be back later with another list.”
He asked if she wanted or needed anything from another store on the way back, since he knew the girls who waitress at night usually didn’t go out to other places on their breaks.
“That’s really sweet of you, Charlie. I really could use another pack of Marlboro cigarettes. I really don’t think I could last the night with what I have in my pocketbook. Let me get my purse and I’ll give you some money,” she said.
“We’ll straighten it out later when I come back, okay?
”
he replied as he turned and walked out to his car which was parked in a legal spot. He never parked on a hydrant with his private car. Although he knew lots of cops who violated traffic laws while off duty, he was not one of them. His head was swimming. Not only did Terry look great but she smelled great, too. She wore Shalimar. It was his favorite perfume and drove him crazy.
His mind was racing a million miles an hour and he knew had to slow himself down and focus. He had a night ahead that might require him to use every bit of concentration his mind and body could muster.
He drove to the precinct and decided to stop at a local bodega, which was directly behind the station house on Stuyvesant Place and across the street from the Staten Island Museum. The store was open twenty-four hours a day and depended on the cops, especially at night. They were a local numbers joint but weren’t bothered by the local uniformed force. The plain clothes cops were the ones who serviced this joint and most likely were on the pad. The nearness to the St. George ferry terminal afforded the local stores with plenty of customers, twenty-four hours a day.
Often people of all races, creeds and opinions who were filled with curiosity got off the boat and wandered the local decaying neighborhood to see what Staten Island had to offer. It was too bad that all they saw was the sleazy squalor of the north shore. Some were just lice-ridden skels and bums, some were experienced thieves just looking for fresh, virgin fields to steal from, and some were bleeding heart hippies and young yuppies trying to escape the soaring rent rates of Manhattan.
When Charlie walked into the bodega he saw a long line at the counter which meant business was good, especially for 11:15 at night. Juan Diaz was the night manager on duty and was good people; he worked hard and told no lies. He was born in the south Bronx and migrated to the lower east side when he was a teenager. When crime forced him and his family from Rivington Street, he settled in St. George and worked in the bodega where he was now manager. Juan hoped he would own it one day and Charlie hoped it would happen.
Juan had a Wilson baseball bat under the counter that Babe Ruth would have found difficult to lift. He would not hesitate for one iota of a second in using the wooden weapon to bash someone’s skull if he thought he was being robbed of his night’s receipts.
Charlie got in line with the rest of the paying customers, noticing that everyone almost always bought the same things at night – beer, cigarettes and pampers, although every once in a while someone would buy the roll ups makers used for marijuana cigarettes. Those little packages were kept out in the open so people would not even have to ask for them.
When it was Charlie’s turn at the counter, he asked for a pack of Marlboro red for Terry and a pack of Vantage regulars for
himself. He gave Juan a five dollar bill and received five singles in change. It was always done that way when Charlie was in uniform because the patrol force never knew when some nosy shoo fly from the Ivory tower’s Chief of Departments office would be watching. Money was tendered and money was received, plain and simple.
Charlie said goodbye to the man behind the counter, knowing he would see him again during the night. Juan was good and the men of the 120
th
were going to keep him that way. This meant stopping by often to make sure he was alright. It also meant stopping at other food joints where cops got food on the arm. One team stopped at a KFC every night and always brought Juan back some chicken for him because they knew he loved fried chicken.
Charlie walked to the front entrance of the old precinct but before he entered he slowly glanced up at the decaying gargoyles which bravely stood silent watch and guarded the old fortress. On either side of the pigeon-stained lions were the ever-burning green lanterns that adorned all precinct houses throughout the city. Of course the lights here hadn’t been burning for years and were probably two years older than dirt.
It’s believed that the Rattle Watchmen, those who patrolled New Amsterdam in 1650's, carried lanterns with green, glass sides at night as a means of identification. When the watchmen returned to the watch house after patrol, they hung their lantern on a hook by the front door to show people seeking them that they were inside the watch house.
Today, either green lights or lanterns are affixed outside the entrances of police precincts as a symbol that the “watch” is present and vigilant.
Charlie opened the massive and heavy wooden front doors and stepped up two wide and grimy marble, permanently blood-stained, steps. No one knew where the blood came from, however. It could have come from a perpetrator or from an injured officer.
Directly in front of him now were yet another wide set of doors, but these were made of glass. If Charlie had earned a single dollar every times a perp’s head went through these familiar panes, he probably could have put a down payment down on the new car he wanted.
He opened the doors and stepped into the station house. His destination led him directly to the front desk, which was the very heart and soul of the precinct. As he approached the area directly in front of the desk, Charlie saluted sharply. The 4x12 lieutenant glanced up and gave Charlie a little acknowledging smile.
Saluting the desk was something all the old timers did. It was part and parcel of being a cop. It was tradition. It was love. It was in your blood, never to be lost. It was respect for everything that came before and everything that would ever be. Although Charlie hadn’t seen any of the younger members do it, he quietly hoped with the passing of time that they, too, would learn and gather the meaning of that first salute.
He entered the rear muster room and saw that some of his fellow cops were already there, nursing their important first cup of coffee. They were busy discussing the latest rumor that Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was going to bounce Police Commissioner Bratton.
Bratton had been the brain trust of the department and had been responsible for lowering crime in NYC with innovative crime fighting techniques. However, everyone knew Mayor Giuliani would not allow Bratton to accept the credit for it. The Mayor was self-centered and wanted the spotlight only on himself.
Bratton also liked the limelight and loved to frequent New York’s trendy watering holes where he could hob-knob with the city’s rich and famous. In fact, Commissioner Bratton was a frequent visitor of Elaine’s, a very upscale establishment. The collision of their wills was an accident waiting to happen.
Bratton’s wife was a famous newscaster in her own right as part of the Channel 7's Eyewitness News team. Cheryl Fiandaca was married to Bratton, although it had been rumored that their marriage was headed south.
From out of the blue Police Officer Vito
Madoni stood up and placed his hand over his heart, which was difficult for him because he had about six pounds of shimmering gold dangling from his neck. Vito had sworn he was going to snare the new waitress at the Dunkin Donut shop and had warned everyone to stay clear from her, signifying that she was his and that there would be deep trouble if anyone interfered.