Burial of the Dead

PLOTS - 2

******

Officer Talmadge is flat-out, fuck-you pissed. He sits in Moraski’s car with the newspaper and the sports section and Sunday’s scores and wonders where he’ll get the money to pay Gemelli who runs everything out of his head. As the wise-guy said: You bet; you lose; you pay. Fuck you, where’s my money. Talmadge is also pissed with Moraski – pissed they’re still jerking each other off over this old woman who lived longer than his parents and who died with enough money to buy half of Hartford twice. He picks up the Styrofoam cup with the Donut-Wholes label and curses the chief or the commissioner or the mayor or whoever it was who laid their hands on Moraski’s head, making him a detective before he was due, as if he were some kind of quota-prize, some kind of one-armed transgender queer Nigerian Jew, jumping him ahead of other guys who deserved it more. He’s got no gut for this, Talmadge says to himself, thinking how Moraski’s got no instinct, no sense of people, let alone any feel for the street. He’s not a bad guy, Talmadge thinks, but when they make an okay-guy a detective and the guy’s not up to the job, all you get is one of those check-off-the-boxes guys who thinks he can get things done without having to get his hands dirty. The old lady was old, Talmadge says to himself, and Doc Frawley signed off on it. Let them read the will and get on with it, because good people are getting shot up every day. Drugs are flooding the streets. Kids who used to watch cartoons are shooting each other with automatic weapons, and nobody’s doing a thing about it, especially if the best Moraski can do is harass Sully with useless bullshit.

Talmadge tosses the paper on the dash; it slides to the floor. He kicks it and sips the last bit of coffee sloshing over the bottom of his cup. Outside across the street three black kids stand huddled against the April chill. They’ve got the baggy pants with the crotch hanging down to their knees, the football parkas, the stocking caps. They’re talking, though nobody would know it, mouths barely moving, not needing to move, talking nonetheless, and Talmadge can’t imagine what they’re talking about unless it’s about him, the white cop sitting in the unmarked car in a bad neighborhood, sticking his white nose where it does not belong, checking them out, watching them, watching the neighborhood, fucking up their business, scaring off the assholes who come in from the suburbs for a little baggy of this, a little slip of that. Talmadge tries to imagine the sound of their voices when they speak English that’s not English anymore, lyrical and tough sounds, punctuated in a perpetual shorthand, repetitive, insular, a kind of descriptive genius, as threatening as it is accurate and unknowable. Those fuckers are up to no good, Talmadge thinks, the prejudice cascading like temper, and he wonders how long Moraski’s going to take when the dirty glass door to Harry’s bodega opens from the inside and Moraski appears with a brown paper bag and a newspaper, standing there, his be-all-you-can-be buzz-cut, blonde and flat, shining in the sun.

Moraski passes the black kids and one kid makes a move. Talmadge, with the instinct of a kind of cop no longer valued, reaches for the gun under his jacket until the picture develops and the scene clarifies and one kid holds out a cup and a second kid reads something from a yellow sheet of paper. Moraski stops, listens, waits. The kid reading the paper finishes and Moraski says something and hands the third kid his package so he can get his wallet. Then Moraski takes out a few bills, stuffs them in the cup, pats one kid on the shoulder, says something else, laughing, all four of them laughing.

“What was that all about?” Talmadge asks as Moraski gets in the car and sets the coffee on the seat.

“They’re collecting for a youth center; that Bishop Ravezzi’s behind it.”

“He’s the communist,” Talmadge says.

“Whatever he is, he’s doing some good for these kids.”

“You gave them money?”

“Sure I did. Maybe you should too.”

Talmadge looks at Moraski like he’s nuts, like he’s so freaking naïve he doesn’t know he just gave it up for three kids who don’t give a shit about youth centers or communist Bishops.