The Confession of Joe Cullen

The Confession of Joe Cullen by Howard Fast Page B

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Authors: Howard Fast
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that could put this whole city on crazy street, and there’s not one fucken thing we can do with it, and the whole damn world’s coming apart, and you sit there and give me a lecture on Puerto Rican food.”
    â€œIt still don’t hurt as much as your ulcer. Let the DA worry about it.”
    â€œI’m going over there,” Freedman said.
    â€œLook, Lieutenant,” Ramos said, “they got Casablanca playing down on Fourteenth Street. We can sit down and relax.”
    â€œI saw it six times,” Freedman said.
    â€œSo what? It’s got to be the best picture in the world. So you see it a seventh time.”
    Freedman shook his head. “I’m going over there, and if she doesn’t want to see me, she don’t open the door. I’m not going to break it down.”
    â€œSuppose she’s got a guy there? It’s legal. She’s not your wife now.”
    Outside, Ramos watched him walk away, a big, shambling man, stooped, depressed. Ramos never understood why anyone wanted to be a cop. He didn’t understand why he was a cop.
    It was a dozen blocks to the brownstone where Sheila lived in their old floor-through apartment, three flights up with no elevator. After the divorce Freedman had begged her to move to one of the new high-rises, with a doorman to see who goes in and who goes out, but she preferred her privacy and she wasn’t afraid of anything, including Freedman, who had slapped her once and in return received an iron frying pan on his skull.
    He opened the street door with his key, walked up the three flights, and then resisted the temptation to turn around and walk out of the place. If he pressed the buzzer and she didn’t open the door, he’d be even more miserable than he was right now, and if he did not press it, at least he would avoid rejection.
    He pressed the buzzer. Suppose she had a date. Suppose she wasn’t home. There was no reason that she should sit at home. Whatever anyone said about Sheila, no one ever denied her beauty. She was a tall, black-haired, dark-eyed woman, half Irish, half Italian, and according to Freedman’s mother, not the kind of girl a Jewish boy should marry.
    â€œWho is it?” Sheila asked. “I ordered nothing and nothing’s coming and you didn’t ring downstairs, so if it’s not the Pope, fuck off.”
    â€œIt’s me,” Freedman said.
    â€œOh, God — you.”
    â€œMe — just me,” Freedman said, feeling that even the three words could be interpreted as a softening of the initial harsh response. “Please, I need to see you, Sheila — please. I’m not drunk — one beer, I’m not looking for trouble — please—”
    â€œIs that Puerto Rican bum you hang out with standing next to you?”
    â€œRamos? Why would I bring Ramos here?”
    â€œGood question. Why did you bring him around every other day when we were together? Oh, shit—” She opened the door. “Come on in. I’m probably as miserable and lonely as you are.”
    â€œThank you,” reminding her of a large, awkward, redheaded dog wagging his tail. She had never been able to explain, even to herself, why she had married Freedman. Maybe it was her Italian grandmother, who told her to marry a Jewish boy who would never beat up on her, just because he was a Jewish boy, which was absolutely not true, as she learned. Maybe it was his curious gentleness most of the time, except when wild anger took over, and his love of poetry. She had never met anyone else who was content to sit facing her and read poetry. Had she fallen in love with Freedman or the sonnets of Shakespeare and Keats, or the bemusing wonder of the Rubáiyát, or the love songs of Carew and Herrick? And this coming from a policeman, who spoke the language of the streets of New York, had shattered her resistance.
    â€œWhy the hell can’t you stay away?” she asked him.

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