Great Big Alleyway

Crime Fiction by Richie Narvaez

Felix turns his son forward so the whole subway car can see the boy’s sweet face. “I’m sorry to bother you,” Felix says, “but could you spare a dollar or a quarter to get me and my family something to eat?”

He and Little Felix nudge, slide, push their way down the long, gray car, every inch of its metal walls and seats ornamented in graffiti.

They stop at every person—most try hard not to look up, pretend not to hear under their Walkmans.

Felix and son go back and forth on the J train four times, end to end. They do good that day, enough to get a couple slices of pizza at Leo & Son’s.

Felix does a quick prayer over the food then hands a slice to the boy. “Don’t tell your moms,” he says, laughing loudly to himself. “Then she’s gonna say why I didn’t get none for your sisters and her. ‘Nyah nyah nyah,’ she goes. Right? ‘Nyah nyah nyah.’” He laughs again, but his son just wolfs the slice. “This is just for us, the guys, right? You can have mine. Daddy ain’t hungry now. I’m gonna drop you home and you tell your moms I’ll be back later.”

Outside the apartment building, Felix opens the front door to let his son in, then backs away to the edge of the sidewalk and whistles like a bird—tweeeee-twee-twee-twee!—to let his wife know the boy is on his way up.

Then Felix books to Havemeyer Street, down to Marcy Avenue.

Hours later, when he comes back to the apartment, Evie gets right in his face.

“Did you bring Little Felix on the train again? What did I tell you?”

“What do you want me to say, Evie?” He hands over what he has left of the money from the day. “I did good. Look, mami!”

“Nineteen dollars? Shhhiiitt. I don’t even wanna know what you did with the rest.”

“Come on, mami, give me a break! You always pushing me, and I’m doing my best, honest to God. Jesus!”

“I gotta go run and see my moms. Joselin and Little Felix ate, but the baby only ate cereal for dinner which means she’s gonna be hungry later, and I don’t want her to have cereal again because then she got nothing to eat in the morning.”

The baby, Julissa, waddles to him, lifts her arms. Felix picks her up, tosses her almost to the ceiling.

“If she throws up on you again,” says Evie, “it’s your own fault.”

Evie leaves, and the kids run around, smack each other, watch TV, pay him no mind. This is a good time. He needs it, he’s been waiting.

He goes into the bathroom, shuts the door, tries to hook the hook latch, always a pain in the ass, falls off, he hooks it again. There. He sits on the toilet lid, his knees hitting the wall on one side, the tub on the other. He gets his works ready, his old reliable syringe, cotton, lighter. Ties off with a slipknot, pumps his arm till the veins pop. He’s always had good veins. His mouth waters. As he feels the needle sliding in fresh and cool and sweet, he hears a squeak. The latch has come off again, or maybe he didn’t do it right, reaches, realizes the door is wide open and his three kids are staring at him just as the heroin hits.

* * *

Already the sun is out, the small room hot. The single bed barely fits in the bedroom, the door is an old sheet. He hears something about war in some place called the Falk Lands on the radio in the kitchen, wherever the Falk that is. He hears the kids, hears Evie moving pans around. It’s a tiny apartment near the expressway. The kitchen just fits a dining room table they got from Evie’s mom. There’s a stove, one cabinet. Next to that is another room with no door—they call it the living room because that’s where the TV is at. There’s an old pull-out sofa bed there, again from Evie’s mom, though there’s not enough room to open it. That’s where the kids are supposed to sleep, but most nights they pile in bed with Felix and Evie.

He thinks about going back to sleep when he realizes he’s smelling something he hasn’t smelled in this apartment for a long time: bacon.

When he walks out, the kids scream, “Papi!” and he kisses them, chews on their faces, laughs.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Evie says. “You ready to eat?”

He smells something else incredible . . .

“Bacon and pancakes? Did we hit the lottery? Goddamn!”

“Don’t blaspheme,” she says. “Well, you know, you brought in a little money. And my father called and said he needs your help on a job tomorrow.”

“Your father? That’s a miracle. He can’t stand me.”

Evie’s father does all these jobs, something at the airport, handyman jobs here and there, roofing, painting, but his biggest one is doing the numbers. Now that is a job, Felix thinks. Sitting down and waiting for people to call you just so you can take down their number and then you collect money from them. Easy money.

“He’s gonna give you a chance. Everyone deserves a chance. Anyway, sit down and eat. You’re gonna need your strength for tomorrow because I know my pops is going to make you work.”

“I’m not afraid of work. I’m strong. I’m a big man. I’m Superman!” Felix laughs and the kids laugh with him, their faces sticky with syrup.

The next day Felix is out on the roof of a beer distributor on Bushwick Avenue, and it’s hot as fuck and every goddammed roll of roofing paper weighs a ton.

“Hey,” Evie’s father says, “stop daydreaming. Go down and get another roll.”

Another roll? Goddam how many rolls does it takes to tar a roof? He walks to the edge of the roof, right by the ladder, and he stares down at the pavement two floors below. It looks so far down . . .

Don’t jump,” Evie’s father says. “It’s not high enough!”

Felix laughs, but it snaps him out of it, and he goes down the ladder, picks up another roll, and it’s not so bad this time, easy even. Maybe he’s getting used to the weight, maybe he’s getting stronger.

“Not bad,” Evie’s father tells him at the end of the day. “You earned a beer.”

Earned a beer? What is up with Evie’s old man? Felix ain’t gonna ask! So he drinks one, then two more. Now with a nice little beer high, he tells Evie’s father he’s gonna walk home since it’s turned into a nice day for once. But truth is Felix doesn’t mind having a little score before getting to the apartment. Man, he earned it. A little cash today, more tomorrow.

He floats down Roebling, toward Marcy Avenue, the little parks there. There’s no sign of his connection, but there’s his old friend Jimmy chilling out on a bench, smoking a cig.

Jimmy slaps him five, says, “Haven’t seen you in a long time, bro.”

“I got kids, bro,” says Felix. “I’m a family man. Don’t have time to just hang out, you know?”

Jimmy and him both flunked out of Eastern District High School. Nothing but a bum education anyway.

“How many kids you got?”

“Three. The cutest little motherfuckers you ever seen.”

“Three! Oh my god. Way to go, papi. I got two by Lefty and two with this lady from East New York. Nice kids, so far. You looking for Jesus?”

“Yeah. You seen him?”

“Five-O came around so he moved to under the train for now. You find him.”

Turning on Marcy Avenue he sees Father Francis—the old priest who did the ceremony at Felix and Evie’s wedding—standing on the stairs to the train. Felix waves, calls his name, but the priest doesn’t see him. Probably senile, maybe blind by now.

But not far ahead there’s Jesus on the corner, in the darkness under the subway stairs. He’s talking to some dude, finishing up business by the looks of it, and Felix could just float, slide right over.

But for some reason, Felix decides not to score, just keeps walking, can’t figure why. And this makes him feel good, really good, and he kicks up his step. Yeah. He decides instead to go to the cuchifritos and get some cuchifritos for the family. Yeah. They’ll be surprised, happy.

* * *

That weekend is Evie’s moms’s birthday party. Evie’s little brother Edgar is playing the Simon game on his lap, loud light-up shit. Felix could’ve sworn they took that a while back, sold it at the pawn shop on Grand Street. Parents probably got him a new one. Spoiled brat. Evie’s father is not there, because he’s with his other family. On the table is a heaping plate of pernil, also a huge lasagna.

Her older brother Rafael is there, eating up all the Spillsbury biscuits like a vacuum cleaner. He says, “So I heard you worked with my father this week? How did it go?”

“It was hard work, shit, man—excuse my language. But it was hard.”

“He had you working all week?”

“Naw. I couldn’t go the next day. ’cause of my back. I couldn’t move the next day, I swear.” Felix laughs. No one says anything.

He looks around, all of them with their hungry faces, not looking at him. No one there likes him. His kids do, but they’re in the living room, fed, watching cartoons. But these people here, they don’t say it but Felix can feel it, them looking down on him. They don’t understand. Only he does—and of course God. Only he and God know how it really is.

Evie’s mom says to me, “Felix, you cut up the pernil.”

“Who? Me?”

“Yeah. Go ’head.”

“You always cut.”

“You do it. You been working hard.”

“Go ’head, Felix,” says Rafael, cracking open a beer and putting it in front of him. “You’re part of the family.”

* * *

Saturday morning Evie makes him stay with the kids in the living room as she cleans the apartment. She gets into it, Briyo, bleach, ammonia, fucking sterilizes everything, and everybody better get out the way while she does it. He doesn’t know why she bothers, what with the hallway full of rats, roaches that get in no matter what you do.

The kids are glued to the cartoons, so Felix tiptoes across the sterile floor to the fridge.

“Watch the floor—it’s wet!” yells Evie.

“I can’t even feel it,” says Felix. “I just wanted some soda.”

“Don’t finish all the soda!”

“Okay, okay.” He takes the opportunity to book, walk the streets, the city, the jungle. He’s bopping along, sweating, not knowing where to go. He finds himself heading toward the parks on Marcy Avenue again, and there’s Jimmy, smoking a blunt. Perfect timing.

Jimmy gives him a big hug. That’s family, Felix thinks, that’s what real family feels like. People who are always happy to see you.

They get to smoking and chilling and Felix confesses that he needs money, secretly hoping that Jimmy will throw him ten bucks.

Jimmy says, “Remember the money we made during the blackout? We went to like three different stores and came out with like ten TV sets in a half hour and we made over $300 for one night’s work. You remember that?”

“Good money.”

“Yeah, bro. We need another blackout.”

Felix laughs but Jimmy just looks at him.

“Mira,” Jimmy says, “we got this thing, you know. We could use your help.”

“What thing?”

“You know the Commodore Theater?”

“Yeah, over on Broadway.”

“My boy Simon says he found a way to get in through the back. There’s a little opening on the roof with this bullshit lock that we can pop one-two-three.”

Felix laughs. “I don’t know, bro. I’m a family man now.”

“You said you need money, right? You want to make money or not? Fuck, bro. We can’t be sitting around waiting for another blackout. The money’s right there.”

* * *

When he gets home, Felix can smell Evie frying up chicken—one of his favorite meals. Maybe he is wrong. Maybe she really does love him love him.

Mouth full of chicken, he says to Evie, “You know the other day I saw Father Francis. I think he’s blind or something because the I said hi and he didn’t see me. And I was waving and shit.”

“Father Francis is dead, sweetie. He’s been dead since last summer.”

“No way. This guy must’ve been his twin!”

“Listen, ’pa. I used the last of our money to get this chicken. We got to pay rent, or else we have to go back to my mother’s house, and I don’t want to do that again.”

“You always on my back. I’ll find something. You know I’ll find something.”

She sucks her teeth. “You’re a broken record, man. Always spinning.”

“What do you want me to do? Go hijack a plane? Damn.”

“If that’s what it takes.”

“I’ll bring in money. I swear.”

“Don’t swear!”

“Okay. I promise! I promise I will bring in money.”

“Yeah, and then what will you use the money for?”

“What? What are you trying to say?”

“You know what I’m trying to say! You take that money and stick it in your fucking arm.”

“It’s my body. I’m here every day. You know, I never saw my fucking father. But me I’m here every day with my fucking kids.  So what if sometimes I need to go get a little fucking something for myself.”

She sucks her teeth, goes back to frying.

Later, they lay in bed, alone for once, and she has smoked enough of the spliff he got off Jimmy that she is feeling friendly again.

“I’m sorry, ’pa,” she says.

“Ain’t nothing to be sorry about,” he says.

The kids are in their room for once, the TV watching them. They’ll wake up in a few hours and pile on the bed. But for now—

“I’m sorry the chicken was raw,” Evie says.

“But it was still delicious,” he says, pulling her in for a kiss.

* * *

Four in the morning, Felix meets Simon and Jimmy two blocks down from the Commodore.

“What up, money?” says Simon, hands him a blunt.

Felix inhales, thinks of Evie, asleep at home, in a bed full of kids. He thinks of the empty fridge. He’s seen the ribs on his kids.

“You okay, Felix?” asks Jimmy, red-eyed, giggling.

Felix laughs. “Me? I’m good. Yeah, man. I’m solid.”

For no good reason, they run the two blocks down, right into and up a fence, climbing over into the driveway at the back Saint Paul’s Church. He ain’t no Six Million Dollar Man, but he surprises himself by jumping up and over, breaking no sweat.

When he lands on the other side, Jimmy and Simon stand there looking at him. Behind them is another fucking fence.

“You gotta be kidding me.”

“If it was easy everyone would be in here doing it,” says Simon.

The second fence leads to wall behind the back alley of the Commodore, the wall topped with barbed wire.

When Felix tries to climb it, his jacket rips. The wires tear into his arm, his leg. He wants to stop, but the others urge him on.

“I don’t think I can do it,” he says.

“Shut the fuck up and get down here,” Jimmy says.

With just a little more effort, he does it, and when he gets down, his coat rips on the side. Evie’s gonna be pissed.

The other guys are standing underneath a fire escape ladder. Now he sees why they asked him to be there. He is the tallest of the three.

Simon climbs up Felix’s back to reach the ladder. He climbs to release the fire escape latch, then slowly lowers the ladder down.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Jimmy says to Felix. “Move your fat ass.”

Up the fire escape, Felix finds himself on the steep roof of the church. He pauses at the edge. Six feet across is the roof of the movie theater.

Simon runs, jumps, makes it over easy. So does Jimmy.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.”

Felix backs up, starts to run. He thinks, I’m not going to make it!

Somehow he does make it, higher and farther than the others,which bugs him out. Wow. He’s fucking Spider-Man.

At the top of the theater roof a two-by-two square sticks up from the blacktop. Jimmy takes out a putty knife to cut away the tar. When he pulls away the square to reveal a ladder, he screams, “That’s right, motherfucker!” into the night. The M train rattles by like a thunderbolt, drowning out his voice.

They clamber down the ladder into blackness. Jimmy, the only one with a flashlight, leads the way like Saint Lucy right to the box office. There in the sacred glow of the flashlight is the cash register.

“Bust that shit,” says Simon.

Jimmy uses the putty knife to pry open the register. The drawer pops with a muted ring.

Inside—is a roll of dimes.

Five dollars’ worth of dimes.

There’s zip else.

“What the fuck?” says Simon. “Don’t tell me we did all this shit just to get five dollars.”

“There’s gotta be more money somewhere,” says Jimmy. He goes into a dark hallway. Felix and Simon follow the bouncing flashlight.

They almost bump into Jimmy, who stands in front of some door. “Here,” Jimmy says, and kicks the door open.

Inside there is a man with no pants and on top of him is a woman with not a stitch of clothes on.

“Is this a stick up or something?” the man says.

Jimmy pulls out a gun. “You damn right it’s a stickup.” He shoots the old man in the balls. The lady screams. He shoots her in the mouth.

Felix’s stomach goes cold.

Jimmy barks. “We didn’t come all this way for five dollars. Check his wallet.”

Felix wants to runrunrun, but he bends to get the man’s wallet, finds a wad of twenties, holds them like he’s never seen money before. Jimmy yanks the cash from him, but Felix holds onto two measly bills.

Simon yells, “We gotta book!”

All three race into the darkness, led only by Jimmy’s bouncing flashlight.

“Freeze there, motherfuckers!”

“Who the f—?”

“Go! Go! Go!”

A security guard somewhere in the blackness shoots.

Felix falls to the sticky floor and covers his head.

He hears Jimmy grunt and fall to the floor. Shot dead? Maybe alive?

Ahead, he sees light outlining what looks like the front door. He somehow gets up on jelly legs, slams into the lighted door at the same time Simon does. They shove shoulders to get past each other.

There’s another shot. Simon goes down—

—and suddenly Felix is out, out on Broadway, running underneath the elevated train.

He runs.

He’s got money in his hands. Ain’t much, but more than he had this morning.

He runs.

His apartment is only a few blocks, under the highway and then just two more blocks. But the blocks seem so long.

He runs.

The streets are quiet, not a car or soul in sight.

Except for Father Francis, who is standing on the corner, a little boy clinging to his leg to hide his face.

Felix’s eyes bug out but he keeps running.

He turns onto South Second, goes down the block, fumbles with keys, is in the door, jumps up the stairs.

Finally, Felix is home, and thank God, Jesus, and Mary, he finds his wife, his kids, all fed, clean, standing there, happy to see him.

Why they up so late though? The sun—the sun from the window bursts behind them and through them and all over. It’s already morning? He must’ve taken hours running. “I musta broke night,” he says and laughs. And his family laughs with him. Look at my beautiful kids. Look at my beautiful wife. Glowing. Everything is going to be all right. Everything’s cool.

* * *

The kids push open the bathroom door and see the needle sticking out of their father’s arm. Joselin says, “Papi, Papi. Wake up! Wake up! Papi, you gotta wake up.” Little Felix laughs, doesn’t know why. Only Julissa moves closer, lifting up her arms, hoping to be tossed into the air.

---

Bio: Richie Narvaez is the author of two novels, HIPSTER DEATH RATTLE, and HOLLY HERNANDEZ AND THE DEATH OF DISCO, as well as two short story collections, ROACHKILLER & OTHER STORIES and NOIRYORICAN. You can find him at his website. HERE.

Cover photo by The Yard

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