Chapter 36
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.
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 the bitches were 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 Francis Michael D’Allesandro.
It was obvious they’d discussed wanting to be buried next to each other.
“Let’s go,” Frankie said in his ear. “You’re going get sick standing out here, and I’ll be damned if I want to go to another funeral any time soon.”
Kenny nodded. It was less than three months ago that Frankie had buried his Nonna. Gianna D’Allesandro had never recovered from losing her eldest son, saying over and over that mothers weren’t supposed to bury their children.
“I’m ready.”
Kenny knew he was kidding himself, because he refused to believe his mother was gone and never coming back. He would miss talking to her several times a week or stopping by to watch her favorite television shows with her and occasionally bringing over food when she didn’t feel like cooking.
Frankie followed him in his car as they headed across town.
Kenny could remember, as though it was yesterday, when his mother didn’t want him to go East Harlem, and much to her chagrin, he’d made the neighborhood his home.
He’d come to love the energy that came from residents speaking languages he understood.
He was able to segue from English, to Spanish, and Italian with equal facility.
There were times when he’d walk into the restaurant’s kitchen, slip on an apron, and assist the cooks after he’d been away for months.
He maneuvered into his assigned space outside his building and parked.
His mailbox in the lobby overflowed with mail he hadn’t picked up in days.
Kenny gathered magazines, bills, and junk mail and walked to the elevator.
The doors opened, and he walked into the elevator, punching the button for his floor.
The elevator rose swiftly, stopping on the twelfth floor.
He made his way down the carpeted hallway to his apartment, and he opened the door to the ringing of the telephone.
Picking up the receiver on the entryway table, he mumbled a greeting as he slipped off his boots.
“Kenneth, it’s MacKayla.”
At any other time, he would’ve enjoyed listening to MacKayla Harrison’s sultry voice, but he’d just buried his mother, so he wasn’t up for chitchat. “Hi, MacKayla.”
There came a pause. “Is something wrong?”
“No. I’m just tired,” he lied.
He’d met the high school teacher at an afterwork mixer he attended with some of his coworkers.
She was his boss’s sorority sister, and they’d hit it off within minutes of being introduced to each other.
After a couple of drinks, they exchanged telephone numbers with a promise to keep in touch.
They played phone tag, and with Kenny spending so much time in the hospital, he wasn’t inclined to return anyone’s call.
“Look, Kenneth, if you don’t want me to call you, I don’t have a problem forgetting your name and number.”
“Please don’t,” he said quickly. “I buried my mother today, so—”
“I’m so sorry,” she apologized, stopping his words. “Call me when you feel like talking.”
“Thank you.”
“Is there anything you need?”
Kenny wanted to say yes. Her. But he didn’t know her like that.
They’d only met once, and it was enough for him to know there was something special about her.
“No, but thanks for asking. Please be patient with me, because I’m going to be busy cleaning out my mother’s apartment.
Once that’s done, I’ll call you, and hopefully, we can get together. ”
“You know where to find me. And again, I’m sorry about your loss.”
“Thanks, Mac. Talk to you soon.”
Kenny hung his damp topcoat on a hook of the closet in the entryway, not bothering to close the door.
Even though he turned the heat in his place to the highest setting, he was still chilled.
He hadn’t bothered to draw the wall-to-wall drapes, because he liked the river views and watching the change of seasons.
The apartment was as quiet as a tomb, so picking up a remote device, he turned on the stereo and tuned it to a station playing cool jazz.
He would celebrate his thirty-fifth birthday later that spring, but lately he was feeling much older.
There was a time when Kenny believed he would have his life together by that age.
That he would be married with children, and maybe even purchase a house in the suburbs where his children would attend good schools, and not be exposed to some of the social ills that befell city kids.
After a shower and a mug of hot chamomile tea, he got into bed and slept soundly for the first time in weeks.
The incessant chiming of the phone woke him before dawn, and Kenny quickly picked it up. “Hello.”
“Kenny, the FBI are here with a warrant to arrest me.”
“What!” Now he was fully alert.
“Look, I can’t talk, because if I don’t open the door, they’re going to knock it down. I’m entitled to one call to my lawyer. I’ll tell him to call you with all the details. I …” There was only the sound of a dial tone. Frankie had abruptly hung up.
Kenny knew he couldn’t go back to sleep. He wondered why the FBI would want to arrest his friend? What had Frankie gotten into?
He knew Frankie had been addicted to cocaine, but since graduating from the drug treatment program, he’d managed to stay clean. He ran a hand over his face. “What the fuck were you doing to have the feds come after you?”
Kenny wanted to call Ray to let him know their brother had been arrested, then decided to wait until Frankie’s lawyer called him to let him know what his friend had been charged with.