mouth shut and made sure he covered the thing twice over. He even got into the dashboard and knocked a thousand miles off the odometer. But in the end, John didn’t show much gratitude. He’d stiffed Dante the last few jobs, suddenly losing his grasp of the English language when Dante asked him where his money was.
The bulk of his income was from Uphams Corner Auto in Dorchester, but even there, the work had become too sporadic to produce a steady paycheck. Twenty hours one week, forty the next, and sometimes a Sunday phone call from the owner, Gus, telling him there wouldn’t be much work that week and to check back the following Monday. Cal couldn’t give him anything reliable either—the occasional trail job or a weekend gig working security at some downtown office building. Dante wasn’t even on the Pilgrim Security payroll; it was all under the table.
At home, the bills were piling up. Pay one off, and another three come in the mail. Save up a little money for the holidays, and watch it blow away well before Christmas. He felt he’d been busting his ass for the past two years, and ever since Maria came into his life, he couldn’t keep up, even with Claudia working part-time as a waitress. And there wasn’t much to show for their efforts besides the bigger apartment in the North End, just as dingy and decrepit as the old place in Scollay Square, but felt much more like a home, although just last week, a letter had been slipped under the door telling them that the rent was going up twenty dollars a month.
Hoping to make ends meet, Dante had auditioned for some nightclubs needing a piano player. All of his tryouts had come up empty, and he wondered if it was how he played or how he looked. With all that time at the garage—sweating in the pit and hunched over engines—and the sleepless nights trying to comfort Maria after bad dreams, he looked grizzled, the stress and the insomnia adding on the years, the hard lines of his face growing deeper, and all the life in his eyes dulled to a dispirited glare, as if he were one step away from giving it all up.
Another strike against him: the music was changing. Fewer and fewer people wanted to hear the classics, whether it was jazz or swing or soulful standards. Instead it was pop songs by Perry Como, Doris Day, Bill Haley and His Comets, and a handful of pretty white boys singing love ballads suited for a soda-parlor serenade. Fuck, maybe he’d play those songs if he had to, if he got paid well enough. But in the end, he couldn’t see himself in a record store fingering through the Top 40 songbook sheets alongside acne-riddled boys smacked in the face by puberty, and teenage girls showing off their growing curves under tight wool sweaters. Piano men, there wasn’t much need for them anymore. A jukebox would do just fine as long as people had spare change in their pockets.
Dante checked his pack of smokes. Only one remained. He reached in his pocket and took out a paper clip twisted around his key chain. He straightened it out, hooked the edge, maneuvered it inside the office door’s lock, twisted one way and then the other. A small click, and he was inside by the front desk. The cash box was locked, screwed down into the desktop marked with coffee stains and cigarette burns. Below a shelf lined with cans and jugs of windshield wiper fluid, WD-40, and antifreeze was a metal rack squared up with packs of cigarettes and candy bars. He reached in and grabbed four cartons of Camels and a box of Mars bars for Maria, found a paper bag behind the desk, and placed them all inside. He figured that wouldn’t settle the amount owed to him, but at least it was something.
Outside, the air smelled of asphalt and gasoline. His stomach growled and he felt acid crawl up into his throat. With only a few dollars in his pocket, he needed something to fill the hole; he hadn’t eaten much since the morning. He walked toward the lights of the North End, passed onto Prince Street, and
The bulk of his income was from Uphams Corner Auto in Dorchester, but even there, the work had become too sporadic to produce a steady paycheck. Twenty hours one week, forty the next, and sometimes a Sunday phone call from the owner, Gus, telling him there wouldn’t be much work that week and to check back the following Monday. Cal couldn’t give him anything reliable either—the occasional trail job or a weekend gig working security at some downtown office building. Dante wasn’t even on the Pilgrim Security payroll; it was all under the table.
At home, the bills were piling up. Pay one off, and another three come in the mail. Save up a little money for the holidays, and watch it blow away well before Christmas. He felt he’d been busting his ass for the past two years, and ever since Maria came into his life, he couldn’t keep up, even with Claudia working part-time as a waitress. And there wasn’t much to show for their efforts besides the bigger apartment in the North End, just as dingy and decrepit as the old place in Scollay Square, but felt much more like a home, although just last week, a letter had been slipped under the door telling them that the rent was going up twenty dollars a month.
Hoping to make ends meet, Dante had auditioned for some nightclubs needing a piano player. All of his tryouts had come up empty, and he wondered if it was how he played or how he looked. With all that time at the garage—sweating in the pit and hunched over engines—and the sleepless nights trying to comfort Maria after bad dreams, he looked grizzled, the stress and the insomnia adding on the years, the hard lines of his face growing deeper, and all the life in his eyes dulled to a dispirited glare, as if he were one step away from giving it all up.
Another strike against him: the music was changing. Fewer and fewer people wanted to hear the classics, whether it was jazz or swing or soulful standards. Instead it was pop songs by Perry Como, Doris Day, Bill Haley and His Comets, and a handful of pretty white boys singing love ballads suited for a soda-parlor serenade. Fuck, maybe he’d play those songs if he had to, if he got paid well enough. But in the end, he couldn’t see himself in a record store fingering through the Top 40 songbook sheets alongside acne-riddled boys smacked in the face by puberty, and teenage girls showing off their growing curves under tight wool sweaters. Piano men, there wasn’t much need for them anymore. A jukebox would do just fine as long as people had spare change in their pockets.
Dante checked his pack of smokes. Only one remained. He reached in his pocket and took out a paper clip twisted around his key chain. He straightened it out, hooked the edge, maneuvered it inside the office door’s lock, twisted one way and then the other. A small click, and he was inside by the front desk. The cash box was locked, screwed down into the desktop marked with coffee stains and cigarette burns. Below a shelf lined with cans and jugs of windshield wiper fluid, WD-40, and antifreeze was a metal rack squared up with packs of cigarettes and candy bars. He reached in and grabbed four cartons of Camels and a box of Mars bars for Maria, found a paper bag behind the desk, and placed them all inside. He figured that wouldn’t settle the amount owed to him, but at least it was something.
Outside, the air smelled of asphalt and gasoline. His stomach growled and he felt acid crawl up into his throat. With only a few dollars in his pocket, he needed something to fill the hole; he hadn’t eaten much since the morning. He walked toward the lights of the North End, passed onto Prince Street, and
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