Carmela, turning to give me the first smile I’d seen from her. A bewitching, missing-toothed grin. She slurped her milkshake. “And then he got my mommy.”
“I met her in jail,” said the Handyman. “I was in for only five months. They busted me, but they busted me on the wrong day. I didn’t have shit. They wanted to put me away forever, but instead, they had to put me away for no time at all. She was my cellmate Victor’s wife. Fool wouldn’t see her, got pissed over some small shit, thought she was fucking his brother, so I went out and there she was.”
“The most beautiful woman my daddy had ever seen,” said Carmela, happily.
“Her name was Maria,” said the Handyman.
I was enchanted. I’d started writing a tragic motherless-child-and-widower story in my head. Death in childbirth. Grieving widower, scarred by a criminal past, trying to hack out a living through fix-it gigs, little daughter raising herself on mustard-and-marshmallow sandwiches. Horrible as it was, it appealed to my drama-saturated nature. I was already considering how I’d adapt it into a hybrid of Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, and Sam Shepard. I was envisioning my Pulitzer. My Tony. My Oscar! The trifecta, balanced on the bookshelves I’d finally be able to afford.
“What happened to her?” I asked softly, ready to comfort him. He started laughing. Laughing hard. Slapping his knee at my apparent stupidity. Carmela drew some milkshake upin her straw. She shot it, with perfect accuracy, at the Handyman’s cheek.
“Damn, mamita, whadda you think?” The Handyman wiped his face, still laughing.
I protested that I didn’t know. How could they laugh about something as tragic as this? What kind of people were they? Had they no compassion?
“She ran off on the back of a motorcycle with some fucker she met in the 7-Eleven. Left me with this one, still a baby. I had to raise her on a bottle, yeah, Carmela?”
“Yuck,” Carmela confirmed.
“And now, we gotta go. Somebody on Eagle Street has a busted buzzer. I’m coming by your place tomorrow afternoon, to fix yours, ‘cause it’s fucked, right, mamita?”
“It quacks,” I told him.
“Yeah, I didn’t like the people who lived there before you,” said the Handyman, grinning. “I gave ‘em a joke buzzer.”
And with that, they were gone. I moved to a booth and ate my sandwich. I wasn’t sure what to think of what had just happened. It was starting to be clear to me that, though I knew plenty about Greek tragedies, I knew almost nothing about real life. As if that were not enough, I could see my reflection in the window and it looked like an obsessive-compulsive bird had built a nest on my head.
I ONLY HAD A COUPLE of minutes to feel sorry for myself, before I noticed a guy pressing his face against the outside of the glass. He was tall and pale, with lank blondhair, and looked to be somewhere in his forties. He came inside, walked straight to my booth, ordered a beer in Polish, and without any warning, started sobbing. I signaled urgently to the waitress. She shrugged.
“Are you okay? Do you need a doctor?” I asked.
He let loose with a snot-drenched stream of Polish.
“He says you look like his ex-wife,” the beautiful teenage waitress translated, rolling her eyes, and then went to get him another bottle of Tyskie beer. He opened it with his teeth. Normally, I would have moved to another table, or left the restaurant altogether. I could smell the crazy on him. But that day, I was willing to admit that maybe I was a little crazy, too. And here we were, in a diner in Brooklyn, crazy, at the same moment.
The scene in King Lear that I’d always liked best involved Lear, gone mad, wandering the beach in the storm to end all storms, running into his old friend Gloucester, who has been blinded. There they are: these two people who’ve known each other forever, in the middle of a rainstorm, at the end of their reigns. For a little while, they save each
“I met her in jail,” said the Handyman. “I was in for only five months. They busted me, but they busted me on the wrong day. I didn’t have shit. They wanted to put me away forever, but instead, they had to put me away for no time at all. She was my cellmate Victor’s wife. Fool wouldn’t see her, got pissed over some small shit, thought she was fucking his brother, so I went out and there she was.”
“The most beautiful woman my daddy had ever seen,” said Carmela, happily.
“Her name was Maria,” said the Handyman.
I was enchanted. I’d started writing a tragic motherless-child-and-widower story in my head. Death in childbirth. Grieving widower, scarred by a criminal past, trying to hack out a living through fix-it gigs, little daughter raising herself on mustard-and-marshmallow sandwiches. Horrible as it was, it appealed to my drama-saturated nature. I was already considering how I’d adapt it into a hybrid of Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, and Sam Shepard. I was envisioning my Pulitzer. My Tony. My Oscar! The trifecta, balanced on the bookshelves I’d finally be able to afford.
“What happened to her?” I asked softly, ready to comfort him. He started laughing. Laughing hard. Slapping his knee at my apparent stupidity. Carmela drew some milkshake upin her straw. She shot it, with perfect accuracy, at the Handyman’s cheek.
“Damn, mamita, whadda you think?” The Handyman wiped his face, still laughing.
I protested that I didn’t know. How could they laugh about something as tragic as this? What kind of people were they? Had they no compassion?
“She ran off on the back of a motorcycle with some fucker she met in the 7-Eleven. Left me with this one, still a baby. I had to raise her on a bottle, yeah, Carmela?”
“Yuck,” Carmela confirmed.
“And now, we gotta go. Somebody on Eagle Street has a busted buzzer. I’m coming by your place tomorrow afternoon, to fix yours, ‘cause it’s fucked, right, mamita?”
“It quacks,” I told him.
“Yeah, I didn’t like the people who lived there before you,” said the Handyman, grinning. “I gave ‘em a joke buzzer.”
And with that, they were gone. I moved to a booth and ate my sandwich. I wasn’t sure what to think of what had just happened. It was starting to be clear to me that, though I knew plenty about Greek tragedies, I knew almost nothing about real life. As if that were not enough, I could see my reflection in the window and it looked like an obsessive-compulsive bird had built a nest on my head.
I ONLY HAD A COUPLE of minutes to feel sorry for myself, before I noticed a guy pressing his face against the outside of the glass. He was tall and pale, with lank blondhair, and looked to be somewhere in his forties. He came inside, walked straight to my booth, ordered a beer in Polish, and without any warning, started sobbing. I signaled urgently to the waitress. She shrugged.
“Are you okay? Do you need a doctor?” I asked.
He let loose with a snot-drenched stream of Polish.
“He says you look like his ex-wife,” the beautiful teenage waitress translated, rolling her eyes, and then went to get him another bottle of Tyskie beer. He opened it with his teeth. Normally, I would have moved to another table, or left the restaurant altogether. I could smell the crazy on him. But that day, I was willing to admit that maybe I was a little crazy, too. And here we were, in a diner in Brooklyn, crazy, at the same moment.
The scene in King Lear that I’d always liked best involved Lear, gone mad, wandering the beach in the storm to end all storms, running into his old friend Gloucester, who has been blinded. There they are: these two people who’ve known each other forever, in the middle of a rainstorm, at the end of their reigns. For a little while, they save each
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