“Once he graduates, I’ll drive up with him but only after you guys have completely settled in.”
Ray smiled. “The door will always be open to you and Frankie.”
Kenny nodded. “I know that. And if you need anything, don’t hesitate to let me know.”
“I have everything I need, Kenny. A loving wife, wonderful kid, and another on the way. Now I wouldn’t mind you becoming godfather to my son or daughter, but first you have to be baptized.”
“The day I find a woman I want to marry, I will allow you to put water on me. Then after I have kids, you can baptize them, too.”
“Sounds good, Kenneth.”
Kenny knew Ray was serious when he called him by his full name. “Now go and drive carefully. You’re carrying precious cargo.”
He watched Ray help his wife into the minivan and then his son, waiting until they’d secured their seat belts, then rounded the vehicle to get in behind the wheel. He watched as it vanished from sight, then walked over and nodded to Frankie.
“Let’s go, buddy. I have to get you back before six.”
Frankie slowly nodded. “I don’t know why, but I thought you would be the first one to marry and have kids, because you didn’t chase as many skirts as me and Ray.”
“Chasing skirts is tiresome, Frankie. I can honestly say that I’m ready to look for a special woman to marry and start a family.”
“How special does she have to be?”
“Special enough to put up with me. The older I get, the more set in my ways I become.”
“That’s because you don’t mind your own company,” Frankie said, as he walked with Kenny to where his friend had parked on the street in front of the Torres house.
“I can’t fight with myself, Frankie.”
“That’s the difference between you and me. I can’t stop fighting with myself. It’s as if there’s a war going within me that I sometimes feel I’m losing.”
Kenny draped an arm around Frankie’s shoulders. “You’ve been winning the battles these past three months, so you’re not losing.”
“Three down and nine to go,” Frankie drawled.
“You’re going to make it, brother, even if I have to drive more than a hundred miles to come see you every week instead of twice a month.”
“That’s not necessary, Kenny. I have to confess, this is the first time in years that I’ve been clearheaded enough where the cravings have stopped.”
Kenny wanted to tell Frankie that although people who are addicts may change their behavior, they will relapse if they don’t change what’s going on in their heads. “Good for you. Let me know what you want to listen to on the way back.” Kenny had established a ritual of playing music instead of talking whenever he was in the car with Frankie, because he didn’t want to slip into the role as a counselor. They were lifelong friends, and that’s the way he wanted and liked it.
CHAPTER36
February 5, 1987—Woodlawn Cemetery—the Bronx, New York
Kenneth Russell ignored the sleet beating down on his bare head as he stared at the mound of fresh dirt covering his mother’s grave. He still hadn’t come to grips that she was gone, and he’d never see her again. His only solace was that she’d been buried close to Francis Michael D’Allesandro. It had been her wish to be with him in death when it hadn’t been possible in life. It was the second week in the new year when he picked up the phone to call Justine to let her know she was about to get her wish. He’d met the woman with whom he believed he wanted to share his life and future, but when she didn’t answer the phone, he became alarmed, because she hadn’t scheduled any trips until later that summer.
He continued to call her, then decided after leaving work to stop by his mother’s apartment. When he walked in, he found her on the kitchen floor, her breathing shallow. Forcing himself not to panic, he called 911 and asked the operator to send an ambulance. When the EMTs arrived, theywere able to stabilize her enough to transport her to the nearest hospital. Kenny alternated praying and pacing until a doctor told him Justine had suffered a stroke from an undiagnosed aneurysm, and they would have to wait to see if she would recover.
Kenny took a leave of absence from his job and spent every waking moment at his mother’s bedside. Ray had come down from Connecticut to be with him for several days, but it was Frankie who’d never left his side. They were truly brothers to the end. One day merged into the next when he’d go back to his apartment to shower and then fall into bed to sleep for at least four hours before getting up to return to the hospital.
One morning when he walked in, he felt a spark of hope. Justine had opened her eyes. She was trying to talk, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying, so he bent down until his ear was mere inches from her mouth. She kept repeating the same phrase; then he understood what she was trying to tell him.
I want you to pay the bitches back for ruining my life. I don’t care how you do it. Just do it!
Kenny didn’t know who thebitcheswere his mother was rambling about. Then the machine monitoring her heart stopped. She flatlined. Seconds later, the room was crowded with doctors and nurses, as they tried to resuscitate her. He stood outside the room, and the last word he remembered was the doctor calling the time of death before he collapsed on the floor weeping uncontrollably. He was still sitting on the floor when Frankie found him, managed to get him up, and take him to the hospital chapel, where they sat side by side, not talking for a long time.
The next few days were a blur when he had to make funeral arrangements for his mother. He found an envelope inside the desk she’d used when they lived in the tenement, with typed instructions for what she wanted if she were to pass away before him. She wanted a graveside service, and she had included a paid invoice for the plot, signed by FrancisMichael D’Allesandro. It was obvious they’d discussed wanting to be buried next to each other.
