Flood Abatement Read online

  When Thom saw Nick drive away, she made her call. She filled the Columbian in on Nick’s protestations. She did nothing to hide her uncertainty about his ability to follow through with the cash. After all Nick was a legend in his own mind, but she assured Lucerio of her commitment to pick up wherever Nick might leave off. Lucerio told her that they would talk again about ownership of the film, should Nick fail to meet his demands.

  Chapter 18

  Stan Chubistuski had been in and out of prison fifteen of the past thirty years. At forty-eight he was on the make to collect on his personal retirement plan. From the second floor window of his apartment building he’d watched the Lapinski house for two weeks. He even chatted up Frances, the old bag living in that dump. As he was about to make his move, the damn Sheriff came in and started tearing down houses.

  He watched her hold off the cops for an entire day. Yesterday, between the old bat and some good looking young thing, the cops got all they could handle for a few minutes. It was better than watching wrestling at the South-side Armory.

  Stan expected the police to move the old girl’s stuff out immediately, but for a single cop, most everyone drove away after the tussle. When he cleared out, Stan was going to break in, but the screw didn’t leave until early evening. In short order, Stan strolled out the side door of the two-story, cream brick building. By the time he made it to the sidewalk some bozo and the hottie from the morning’s tumble pulled up to the house in an Olds convertible. No sooner were they on the porch than the cop returned and chased them off.

  Back in his apartment, Stan watched a local cop put yellow tape around the house. An hour or so later the bastard drove off. Stan ate a can of Vienna sausages and let another half an hour pass before he went out for another try to get into the house. He was in the bushes behind the building when he heard voices, then he saw two people, a man and a woman, run to the back door. They unlocked it and went in. From the flashlight the guy used, Stan figured the woman was the hottie from this morning. Well, he would wait.

  Stan dozed and almost missed the reappearance of the cop. He saw the guy in the streetlight and recognized him. Damn, he needed a smoke. Later the couple came out of the house and jogged away. The hottie was limping. Baby, let me kiss it and make it better.

  Now it was his turn. The hundred and thirty-two pound ex-con picked the old lock on the back door and went in the basement where he played a light under the dryer at a low pile of freshly disturbed concrete. “God damn! Son of a bitch!” They’d dug it up! He heard someone climb up the front porch stairs and all five foot five inches of him froze. This was just too fuckin’ much! When he heard the car pull away, Stan left the Lapinski house and went back to his apartment to rethink the situation.

  He burst through the backdoor of his second floor walkup and sucked in a big breath. Immediately, he wished he was back outside in the bushes with the mosquitoes. His old man, Leon, sat at the kitchen table in his underwear eating chicken noodle soup fro a dented sauce pan. A fan blew the hot air around the room. The light over the sink glistened off the lower half of a can of Old Milwaukee. Stan grabbed the beer and downed it in one swallow.

  “Hey,” the old guy said. “Get your own god damn beer.”

  With a smirk and a nod Stan went to the refrigerator. Inside were four cans of beer and a jar of peanut butter. “You want a beer, Leon?”

  “Sure, I’m gonna have to get up in the middle of the night to piss anyway, might as well make it worth while.”

  Stan sat at the kitchen table with the older version of himself and opened their beers.

  “I don’t see you carrying anything. Where’s the stuff?” Leon asked.

  “In the house.”

  “I thought …”

  “Hey, it was like the fuckin’ freeway out there.” Stan relayed the comings and goings at the house. “So, we’re gonna wait a little longer.”

  Chapter 19

  Rhonda and Bernie hadn’t said a word to each other on the short run back. The adrenalin rush from the break-in made words difficult and actions dangerous for him.

  “Come inside,” she said when they reached the front walk to her sister’s house.

  “Naw, I’m gonna head home.”

  A man and a woman in their early thirties sweating under the street light in what amounted to their underwear, wicked. She was his brother’s wife. Well, ex-wife. But, once they were Catholic. Ah the hell with it! God, she owned a body that the Stones sang about.

  “Come in for a lemonade or ice tea or something,” Rhonda said.

  There was that “something” again. He could use a drink of water. Yeah, it would be okay. He could handle this. “Sure.”

  She bumped into him and slid off when they walked through the kitchen door. He looked over her shoulder as she searched the open refrigerator. She stood up and turned around pressing her boobs against his dirty, sweat streaked chest.

  “Ah … nothing there,” she said.

  He looked down as all the blood in his brain headed south.

  “How about some water?” Rhonda rasped.

  “Great.”

  The phone rang.

  Somewhere in the back of his brain someone was yelling “Danger,” but the pleasant pain of the tug-o-war in his jock strap was more powerful. He leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth. What the hell, the divorce was almost three years old.

  The phone rang again.

  She let out a small squeak and grabbed him around the neck as the refrigerated air chilled them. She leaned back and he kissed her throat.

  “Upstairs,” she hissed as he continued to examine her neckline.

  The phone rang a third time and the answering machine picked up the call. A nasal voice came through the tinny speaker. “This is a call from the State Correctional Institution in Lancaster, California. Will you accept charges for a call from … Ryan Keagan.”

  People told Bernie that the most important erogenous part of the body is the brain. Well, nothing gets your brain off of sex with your former sister-in-law faster than a reminder of her ex. Shit! The call seemed to have the same effect on Rhonda. She shook her head and gave him a twisted smile at Ryan’s message. Damn.

  Bernie still held her, but the passion was gone. “I’d better go.”

  She nodded as he helped her stand. When he reached the front door she said, “Too bad.”

  He looked back and smiled.

  “See you tomorrow?” she asked.

  “See you tomorrow.” He watched her answer the phone.

  Chapter 20

  Bernie sat in the car and tried to remember exactly when he met Rhonda. It was probably in 1950 or ’51. For a long time she was just one of the forty-some kids in his class at St. Anne’s Grade School.

  The first time he had any recollection was a rare second grade art class. Half the group was doing finger painting. She stood across the table from him wearing one of her father’s old bowling shirts over the uniform, blue and red plaid jumpers. A red barrette held her dark hair in a ponytail. She asked for the green paint and he handed it to her.

  The next time they spoke was in fourth grade. A buddy of his and he wrote a play and they asked her if she wanted one of the parts. Rhonda turned them down for some reason he never remembered. He and Jerry were very disappointed, but they got a consolation prize. She came up to them on the walk home and thanked them for asking her.

  When school let out for that summer Bernie spent most of his time at Hart Park. His mother paid his older brother, Ryan, twenty-five cents a day to take him along. The local rec department hired college kids to run programs that looked a lot like all day recess just to keep the Baby Boomers from driving their mothers crazy.

  The boys went early in the morning when it was cool, because their mother wanted them home during the heat of the day. With good reason, all mothers were afraid of polio. They kept their kids resting and away from crowds during hot weather. If you caught it, the best you could expect was to be crippled like Roosevelt, but more
than likely you were going to die, soon.

  That first day of summer vacation the boys rode their bikes up Menomonee River Parkway to the park. Ryan said, “Keep outta my way and don’t get lost, butt-head.” They dumped their bikes in a rack next to the stone building. Ryan ran off to a bunch of buddies while Bernie wandered around.

  He decided to go over to the basketball courts where the older boys were running ball-handling drills with some college guys. He took a seat in a shady patch of grass between the asphalt and the street. Bernie was at the point where he knew that he was having a really bad time. The dullest thing he could think of was another game of box-hockey or maybe watching Ryan play basketball.

  “Crap.” He picked up a small stone and threw it onto the blacktop playground.

  “Hi, Bernie,” she said.

  He twisted around and found Rhonda standing on the sidewalk behind me. She wore a white T-shirt, new blue Jeans and pink Keds. Embarrassed by his language he jumped up. “Hi … ah … How are you? What are you doing here?”

  She pointed across the street at a small, white, clapboard house. “We, me and my brother and sister, spend days over at my Nana’s house.”

  “Who?”

  “My Nana.” She smiled. “My grandmother.”

  She stepped up on the grass, not a foot from him. “You wanna play some box-hockey?”

  He could smell the Rice Krispies on her breath. “Sure.”

  He was never sure how may games they played, but he doesn’t remember winning any. His brother came in after a while to shag him home.

  Rhonda walked them to the bike rack. “Maybe your mom will let you stay at my Nana’s.”

  Ryan jumped on his bike and rode across the playground while Bernie walked his beside Rhonda. “I’ll ask her for tomorrow,” he said.

  “Hey, butt-head, come on,” Ryan yelled from the sidewalk.

  Bernie kept walking with Rhonda until he reached his brother, then jumped on his bike and rode home. Ryan was mad, but Bernie didn’t care.

  Their mother wasn’t very positive about Bernie staying away the entire day, but with a phone call from Nana and some strategic whining by Thursday she agreed. He rode to Nana’s by himself the next morning, because Ryan didn’t have basketball on Fridays.

  The last six weeks of the summer flew by. At first Ryan gave him some ribbing about having a girl friend. Bernie told him she was a friend who just happened to be a girl. While he kept company with Rhonda he got to know Nana. She pushed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch with the occasional Oreo.

  Chapter 21

  A large public swimming pool was a ten minute bike ride from Nana’s. It was in Hoyt Park just off the Menomonee Parkway which ran for miles through the Milwaukee area. During the summer between Bernie’s 7th and 8th grade, a flock of kids from the area would go swimming. A sidewalk ran beside the road all the way to the pool, but there are many more interesting bike trails that wound through the undergrowth next to the Menomonee River. Bernie and Rhonda took the trails because those were more dangerous. They were indestructible.

  On the afternoon of August 2nd, they rode their bikes over the trails while the rest of their group stuck to the sidewalk and street. The two of them stopped after racing over a favorite patch. She was fast and not easy to beat, but he did that day.

  “Ha!” Bernie sagged over his handlebars.

  “Get you next time.” Rhonda stopped beside him.

  They panted together until they both heard the yelp. He thought for a second, trying to determine where the sound of pain came from, but she was off like a shot. Without time to call out, he was after her. As they rode, the yelp came again to their left and she veered toward it. He skidded as he tried to turn and lost sight of her. In a moment he could hear her shrieking, “Leave him alone, you piece of shit.” He redoubled his efforts and peddled madly toward the sound. Rhonda screamed. He rounded a turn and saw an older boy kneeling on top of her. Behind them a dog struggled as it hung by its collar and leash from a branch. She screamed again and the bigger kid hit her. The next thing Bernie knew he was tumbling in the dirt with the attacker. The other kid overpowered him in moments. The boy collapsed just as he pinned Bernie. As he squirmed out from under his assailant, Bernie saw the red wound at the boy’s temple. With a blood stained rock in her hand, Rhonda stood a step or two from them.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  Bernie nodded and she ran to release the dog. The animal bolted away as the two grabbed their bikes and peddled like mad for the pool. The pair were skinned up and shaken as they joined their friends on the water slide. Rhonda and Bernie said they crashed when anyone asked about their bruises.

  The next day, Rhonda and Bernie sat on a picnic table on the parkway and he held her hand as she cried.

  “You didn’t kill him,” he said in his confusion.

  After a gulp of air she said, “I don’t care if I did. The bastard was torturing that dog.”

  She was back to normal in a few minutes. It was nerves, he guessed. That’s what his mother always said when he found her crying. Bernie offered Rhonda his clean handkerchief, but she used her own.

  “Thanks for saving me,” she said.

  “Well, you saved me too,” he replied. “Guess we saved each other.”

  “And the dog.”

  “Yeah.”

  She kissed him on the cheek and hopped off the picnic table. “Let’s see if Nana has any popsicles.”

  His mother used to kiss him like that too when he found her crying. He guessed it was just part of the nerves and went with Rhonda to see what Nana had.

  When Rhonda’s family moved to LA the following June Bernie was hurt and he thought she was, too. They wrote a few times then it stopped. Now, she was back in his life for the third time.

  Chapter 22

  State Street was still damp with morning dew when Anton Kolichek maneuvered the rig carrying his D-9 bulldozer toward the flood reclamation area next to the Menomonee River. He drove slower than he normally would have, because his mind wasn’t really on the job. Yesterday, the doctor told him he had diabetes, but it could be controlled by changing his diet. Change his diet! Change his diet! His mother, and now his wife, had fed him the same things for all his fifty-four years. On top of that the little pip-squeak of a doctor demanded he lose forty pounds. Forty pounds!

  Anton parked the rig on 72nd Street across from the little white frame house they were going to turn into landfill. He adjusted his jeans just below his protruding front porch and re-stuffed the tails of his short-sleeve shirt into his pants. The faded, blue plaid shirt began to come out as he walked around the front of the cab to meet with the foreman from Caroni Demolition, his employer.

  The City Engineer and Jimmy Caroni, the snot nose son of old Carmine, were sitting at a picnic table between their respective pick-up trucks. Movers were filling up a van as the demolition crew watched and waited. A hot looking chick and some guy in a suit stood next to an Olds convertible and glared at the workers. It was all pretty grim. The only conversation was one of the movers complaining about the weight of some suitcase. Just after nine the van pulled away from the old white frame house.

  “We gonna’ do it today, Jimmy?” Anton asked.

  Jimmy looked at the City Engineer and grinned. “Unload the Cat and knock it down before anyone stops us.”

  “Good,” Anton said. “I feel like wrecking something.”

  Chapter 23

  Stan woke with a start. His old man stared down at him with his rawhide face and a three day growth of beard. Not as scary as the guys in the pen, but disturbing nonetheless.

  “Get up, jerk-off, the cops are here already,” Leon said. “Where’s your shit-for-brains brother?”

  “He was talking about some chick yesterday. Probably stayed the night.”

  “Even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then.”

  Stan scratched his groin. “What time is it?”

  “Seven.”

  “Okay, I’m u
p. Go keep an eye on ‘em while I go to the john.”

  The old guy was looked out his bedroom window. The breeze off the river smelled fresh, but the sun was out. Just like yesterday the temperature would climb and the humidity right along with it.

  Over the noise of a flushing toilet Stan asked, “What’s goin’ on?”

  “More cops and the wrecking crew, but they’re all just sittin’ around waitin’.”

  Stan nodded as he combed his thin hair with his hand. “Anything for breakfast?”

  “I went to the store and got some stuff, but you better eat fast before something happens here.”

  In the fridge Stan found eggs, baloney, bread and grape jelly. The pan on the stove was still greasy from Leon’s breakfast. Stan used it to get to work on his own.

  A cop car was at the house on 72nd , one door down from Chestnut when the moving van pulled up. Stan kept an eye on all the activity as he ate his breakfast out of the pan over the kitchen sink. The movers and a deputy stood around talking until a U.S. Government car rolled up and a tall guy in an Army Corps of Engineers shirt got out. He led a little parade up to the front door of the house and let everybody inside.

  Stan decided to get a closer look. He wiped the last of his eggs from the pan with a piece of jellied bread, as Leon called, “Get a move on. Things are starting to happen.”

  A midnight blue Olds convertible skidded to a stop in front of the house as Stan was crossing the open ground between his apartment and the action. The woman in the passenger seat jumped out and limped toward the government man. Holy shit, the babe from last night! The guy driving the lead sled got out and walked up behind her.

  Stan heard the woman yell something about “attorneys at your office” and “injunction.” The government guy said “just following instructions” and “didn’t know anything about any injunction.” The movers began loading old lady Lapinski’s stuff into the truck. A folding lawn chair rested against the side of another abandoned house. Stan used it to sit in a side yard and watch the goings on. Things got boring quickly as the couple and the guy from the Corp stood around watching the movers load the truck.