One Way Street chapter 1

I nearly dropped my cell phone attempting to parallel park the car. My Malibu would barely squeeze in between the white Lexus and the cherry-red Dodge Charger, so I spent 5 minutes with my cell pinned between my shoulder and cheek driving ahead and back, six inches at a time. When I finally threw the shifter into park, I realized I was breathing heavily.

I don’t handle stress real well. Normally, I favored grinding my teeth until chips of enamel dotted my tongue during a stressful moment. Every once in a while I would launch into a curse-laden tirade, but I usually did that when no one could actually hear me. I needed people to think I was in total control at all times.

Between the challenge of parking and the dolt on the other end of the phone, prattling on about nothing important, I was pretty frustrated. I hadn’t had any lunch yet either so my restless stomach wasn’t helping.

“Uh huh,” I assented into the phone for the fiftieth time. At some point I needed to cut this caller off before he wasted any more of my life. The sun was settling in behind the row of buildings sitting perpendicular to the street where I had parked. Its rays blinded me making my phone call all the more annoying.

“I see. Well, I wish I had more time to consider your problem,” I said, “but I really need to run…” The caller ignored my hint and continued to ramble.

“That’s it,” I thought to myself. I grabbed my keys and got out of the car. I walked around the rear of my Chevy to get my bag out of the trunk. Siren wails caused me to look up quickly, but the sun made it almost impossible to see at first.

“Stop or I’ll shoot you, kid!”

Shielding my eyes with one hand, I moved to the sidewalk to avoid the police car that I couldn’t see just yet, but I knew it was coming the wrong way down a one-way street. I could hear the engine rapidly accelerating in a lower gear, the transmission about to shift. That’s when I saw the outline of people running down the sidewalk toward me.

They closed the distance so fast, I stumbled back against the side of my car as the cop and the perp ran past me. The squad car roared by a second later. I felt a slight burning sensation in my right ankle, but it receded into my subconscious as I watched the police car abruptly cut left and run up over the curb. The cop hit the brakes but still hit an apartment building with enough force to deploy the airbags.

The runner ran smack into the car, his chest and face slapping the warm hood. The cop that gave chase expertly applied his handcuffs, ending the pursuit. The guy driving the squad car opened door and slid onto the street holding his nose. Blood leaked from under his fingers, dripping off his chin.

My ankle reminded me that it was injured and I crumpled slowly to one knee. Now that the excitement was over, I tried to remember what had happened to my ankle. I remembered stumbling into my car but I didn’t think I turned an ankle. I pulled up my pant leg when I saw the bag under my car.

A dull black handle extended from the mouth of a brown paper bag. The lower half of the bag was stained, as if it were wet. Forgetting the gash on my ankle, I reached my left arm under my car, and grabbed the bag when something hard connected with my shoulder. I dropped the bag and slammed onto my back, tumbled completely over, coming to rest face down on the pavement.

I pushed up from the concrete and looked up at my assailant. The sun had fallen behind the row of buildings on Cale Street. I got up as fast I could, my chin scuffed from smaking the sidewalk.

            “You don’t want no part of that,” he said. “Get up outta here.” A lanky teenager wagged his finger at me as he stepped towards my car. He wore baggy jeans, a black Atlanta Falcons jersey, and a cap angled to one side.

“That’s my car,” I said getting to my feet. He thrust his palm into my chest, pushing me back a two steps.

“I told you what to do, man. Now get.” He placed his right hand under his jersey and held it at his waist. The threat of a gun froze me in place.

“Hi, DaShaun.” We both looked over to see a smiling cop with a bloody face standing close to the teen, DaShaun. He jabbed his nightstick into the kid’s stomach. I heard all the wind go out of him just before the cop cracked him across the back of his neck. DaShaun went down in a heap.

“Double-crossing us, D? We waited for you for an hour,” the cop explained as he put handcuffs on his dazed captive. “When you didn’t show, we decided to check out your crib. You guys are really stupid. Now where is it?”

DaShaun couldn’t manage more than a series of deep coughs, his eyes rolling in their sockets. “How ‘bout you think it over in the back seat before you go for a ride.” He dragged DaShaun away.

The other cop now approached me. “Are you alright, sir?” he pointed at my shoulder where a large, dirty boot print decorated my white shirt.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I think that kid wanted to steal my car or something,” I said.

“Sir, did you see that scumbag I was chasing drop or throw anything? This is very important to our, uh, investigation.”

“I really couldn’t see much when you guys were coming down the street. The sun was so bright coming off the top of the buildings, I didn’t figure out what was going on until you passed me by.”

“So you’re saying you didn’t see anything else?” The cop stepped closer, one hand coming to rest on the grip of his gun. “You’re positive about that? Take your time and think hard.” Keeping his eyes locked on mine, the cop dropped to one knee and then took a peek under the car. He stood up and took another step closer to me.

I looked away for a brief second but was drawn back to his eyes. His brows creased in displeasure.

“Where is it?” he hissed in my face. I could smell alcohol on his breath.
“I didn’t see anything officer. If I did, I would have told you,” I lied to him, not altogether sure why.

“I have your license plate, guy, and that means I can find you,” he jammed his index and middle fingers repeatedly into my chest as he whispered, “any...time…I…want.”

I nodded, knowing if I said anything it would come out sarcastically and he would beat the hell out of me. There wasn’t a soul in these row apartments that was going to rush out to the aid of a stranger being knocked around by the cops.

It turned out to be the right choice. He jogged back to car. His partner had cleared the airbags, stopped his nose from bleeding, and had both prisoners in the back seat. They roared off, continuing the wrong way down the one-way street.

I examined myself for a minute, making sure none of my wounds were serious, and they weren’t. I became acutely aware of how silent the street was or had now become after what had occurred with the cops. I looked from door to window to balcony and didn’t see anyone stealing a glance in my direction.

I decided that I need to do two things first. Get the bag and clean the cut on my ankle. I understood why the cop didn’t see it when he knelt down to check. When DaShaun kicked me the bag fell against the inside rim of the passenger side, rear tire. I reached around pulled it out. I heard a sloshing sound. I saw that that the black handle was connected to a cloudy, glass sphere filled with a foul looking liquid. I saw a large crack in the sphere and made the connection to the wet bag.

I picked it up carefully and headed in the general direction of the office I was originally going to visit. My ankle started to throb with each stride I took toward Cale Street, suggesting the damage might be worse than I thought. I was about to turn left onto Cale when a rusty screen door swung open, nearly hitting me. A woman dressed to young for her age with dyed red hair leaned out from the doorway.

“Get in here, quickly. They are waiting for you.”

I didn’t stop but slowed my pace and said, “Are you talking to me?”

“Yes, you fool,” she said, “Turn that corner and those friendly policemen you met earlier will be taking you for a ride. Stop walking!” 

My body obeyed though I never had seen this woman before in my life. I resisted the urge to peek around the corner and instead, found myself walking into the doorway. The woman closed the screen and interior door. Since the corridor was only wide enough for one person, I walked in slowly, waiting for directions from my hostess.

“The room at the end of the corridor, quickly now,” she instructed me. I could her chewing gum as we walked. A dimly lit but tidy kitchen held a small table with two chairs, the usual appliances, and an odd, three foot high door beside the fridge. I could tell by the marks on the floor that the fridge normally blocked the door, but had been recently slid aside to reveal the portal.

“You guessed where we are going, I see,” she said. “Please watch your head inside. There are many low beams with hooks and nails and things poking out ready to hook your clothes or catch an ear.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you until you answer some questions.”

“We don’t have time for this…”

“I don’t even know your name.”

“Maybe not, but I know what is inside that paper bag you’re carrying. There are people outside my door who would do such things to you,” she shuddered, “death would be a blessing. So unless you have a longing to find out what they are, we should be moving.”

I nodded to show I would do as she said, still unable to comprehend who would want this cracked fishbowl on a stick that badly. We ducked into the corridor behind the fridge. I heard a footstep on the kitchen linoleum and looked back over my shoulder in time to see someone close the door behind us. I heard the fridge scraping back into place.

“Don’t bother with that. Keep moving,” she ordered. I couldn’t believe I was really doing this.

Surprisingly, I was able to come up out of a crouch and needed only walk stoop-shouldered to avoid the ceiling and occasional beams. A series of dusty light bulbs spaced too far apart illuminated the corridor of wood studs. We were behind the walls of the buildings I had parked alongside. I couldn’t believe how quiet it was. “In this city, I didn’t think there were spaces this quiet,” I mumbled aloud.

After some steps up and later back down, we made our way to a set of gray double doors with no handles to turn or push. My guide stepped forward and knocked loudly on the dented metal. She wrapped an irregular pattern three times over. I knew it must be some kind of code. “Where the hell am I?” I asked myself.

Swinging silently outward, the doors released a wave of foul smells, most notably, rotting garbage and human waste. Two men wearing blue coveralls and caps directed me into the back seat of a jet black Lincoln with tinted windows. I looked back for my guide but the doors had already closed.  My head jerked back as the car sped out of the alley.

There was no way to keep track of the route the driver selected. It felt like we doubled back on our route several times. I don’t ever feel carsick or seasick, airsick. You name it, I can handle it. But this ride through the Bronx was turning my stomach. The combination of the hot garbage smell glued to the inside of my nostrils and the tablespoon of bile that leapt onto my tongue had me doubting if I could keep breakfast down.

My suffering ended abruptly when the Lincoln eased into a tight driveway behind an impressive stone church “St. Michael’s?” I guessed. We parked beside a gray laundry service truck that must have been repainted fifty times to cover the graffiti artists' work through the years. Once out of the car and standing in the driveway, I felt disconnected from the city where I lived and worked.

Surrounded on three sides by the soaring blocks of stone, including a smaller building that probably served as the home of the resident priests, I might have been transported to deep within the Vatican. No sirens, horns beeping, rap music blasting, just a muted hymn emanating from the church. The silent men in the coveralls showed me to an ornately crafted door with a small, stained-glass window carved in the shape of a crucifix. The door led into the back of the church. They didn’t follow me in, but I noticed them getting into the laundry service truck instead of the Lincoln.

As I passed soundlessly down a dim hallway along a crimson carpet, I frowned outwardly when I realized how passive I had become over the last hour or so. Why was I blindly going along with these people? I morphed from being prepared to fight DaShaun over the right to my car to a docile sheep carrying a paper bag. Granted, I felt better now that I was inside a church, but this was really out of character for me.

I wasn’t allowed further time for introspection. Blocking further passage in the hall was a stout priest wearing the simple black shirt and pants of the Catholic order. He appeared to be a Hispanic man in his early fifties. He wasn’t tall but had broad shoulders and a full head of black hair. He struck me as being compact and powerful, though time had encouraged his chest to start sagging toward his midsection. I came to a stop and he closed the distance, placing both hands on my shoulders.

“So you made it,” he said smiling, “I am Father Gilberto. I am very happy to meet you. Please, come to my office and we can relax.”

His voice sent reassuring sensations into my brain. I replied dully, “Thank you, father,” and lurched along the carpet. We entered a door with an arched frame. Father Gilberto showed me inside and indicated a chair opposite his desk for me. He then closed the thick door, cut perfectly to match the curvature of the door frame.

Opulent wood decorated every facet of father Gilberto’s office. Hi desk, armoire, the molding, trim around the windows, a pair of massive bookcases all gave me the impression of power and wealth. “Father must know how to use this room to his advantage,” I thought, and noticed how long he was taking to settle into his chair behind the desk. Movements so deliberate to allow me to absorb my surroundings fully.

I then noticed an array of framed pictures and newspaper articles featuring father Gilberto on the wall behind him. The priest was photographed either shaking hands or standing arm-in-arm with past mayors like Ed Koch, David Dinkens and Rudy Guliani, borough officials, Al Sharpton, George Steinbrenner, Cardinal O’Connor, and other local personalities. The framed articles all ran headlines like, “Hero Priest Rescues Orphans” or “Limitless Generosity of St. Michael’s” and “Priest Has Cleaned Up His Streets”. Father Gilberto was more of a local legend than a spiritual advisor.

I remembered seeing a news clip of him after the blackout in 2003. One pocket of tenements in the Bronx near his church didn’t get their power back as quickly as the others. The heat that August was oppressive, so father Gilberto had ushered them all into his church, arranged donations of food and water be delivered by local merchants. He convinced the local YMCA to open their doors for use of their pool and showers and the laundry service that handles his priestly vestments and linens for the rectory to do the same for these people for an entire week.

I didn’t watch the eleven o’clock news all that much, but father Gil was one of those community figures that didn’t let a couple of months pass without doing something newsworthy that the networks or the papers flocked to en masse. My brain functions resumed their usual patterns now and I began to inwardly analyze what was happening.

Father Gil must have been observing closely. He chose that moment to dive into conversation. “So you must be wondering what in the blazes is going on here, eh? Well I will say you are one lucky fella today. Those cops you ran into are some of the worst sort I’ve ever seen in this city. If you ask me,” he said leaning across the desk and lowering his voice, “they’re not even real cops.” I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

“That’s right. I mean what would a police officer want with a wet paper bag wrapped around a dirty water globe? Am I right?” he asked.

“Father, I don’t know what you’re talking about or what’s in this bag, but I do know I want to get rid of it and just get back home.”

“Where’s home, young man?”

“Queens,” I said.

“Working up here?” Father Gil asked.

I nodded. “Yup. And after what’s happened today, I think I should just head back home.”

“I don’t blame you. Let me have that thing.” Father Gil reached across his desk with both hands. I passed the wet bag to him, happy to be rid of it. I was surprised to see how gingerly Gil handled it. He placed it on a wire metal rack on the credenza behind him.

“You’ve done a fine service for the faithful of my church and for me. And though I am grateful, I have one favor to ask of you.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Do you know where the local precinct is?”

“Yeah. The 47 on Laconia.”

“Well,” Father Gil said, “I would like you to deliver something for me. You see, I have a dear friend who lost his brother, a fellow cop on September 11^th and I, uh, have a gift for him. I’d bring it myself but I have so much to attend to here and I just know he’ll be emotional. I’d rather talk to him afterward. Give him some time to compose himself you see.”

I found myself nodding and before I could verbally agree, Father Gil was rising out of his chair, shaking my hand. “God bless you, son. The Lord favors the selfless and today you have truly been that.”

Father Gil handed me a small package wrapped in rough brown paper, tied with a shoelace. I’m sure he noticed the furrowed brow that made up my what-the-hell-is-this-face because he spoke quickly.

“I know. Not much of a wrapping job, but what's inside is what counts.”

We exchanged a few pleasantries and then I was out that back door again, the men in coveralls waiting. This time we rode in the laundry truck. I stood in the spacious back section just behind the driver and passenger seats. Metal racks lined the inside of the truck. They were stark empty but they gave me something to hold onto for the ride.

In ten minutes we were back at my car. I stepped onto the street and looked back into the van's passenger window. Father Gil’s man looked at me with all the expression of a flounder and then the truck moved off. I walked over to the car. There was a ticket on the windshield, pinned like a mouse under a lion’s paw flapping helplessly in the breeze. I shook my head and grabbed the ticket. “It figures,” I muttered to myself.

I drove to the 47^th precinct. I parked illegally and put the ticket back on my windshield. Entering through the faded front door, this building reminded me of a dilapidated school. It probably was a tired, old school that had become overcrowded and the city claimed it in order to add a police precinct without putting up a new building. I left my package with the duty officer sitting behind the bullet-proof glass. As I turned to leave, I heard him page the cop whose name was written across the front of the box.

I got back to my car, grabbed the ticket and hopped in the seat. I needed to get home. A stiff drink was in order after the day I had. An explosion rocked my car. I looked over my right shoulder, witnessing the precinct house burning. Flames blasted from every window and door. The roof collapsed seconds later.