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I left Queens with one hand on the wheel and another sliding into the pink box of cannoli. Maybe the sugar would make the upcoming mess in Watkins Glen less horrible. A man could hope.
***
Yeah, nope, the sugar did not help at all.
I stood in the drenched living room of my once lovely first floor apartment with my jaw hanging open. My landlord, a burly fellow named Bruce who wore Crocs with socks while sporting speedos—which sight was worse between my ruined apartment or Bruce in a speedo was up for grabs—took a bite from the meatball sub he’d bought at the corner mart.
Sauce dripped to the carpet. Not that it mattered much since half of the carpet was soaked while the other half was trapped under a tub in the basement below us.
“Ma didn’t say Mr. Fullbright’s tub went through my floor as well,” I said as I peeked down into the basement from my living room. My recliner, entertainment center, and TV laid in a rather large murky puddle beside a badly dented washing machine.
“I didn’t tell her,” Bruce said around a mouthful of bun and meatball. “No sense upsetting her. She’s such a nice lady. She still single?”
I shot Bruce a dark look. “This is what we’re talking about now? How about we focus on the mess we have here and not my mother’s availability, which is not at all.”
“Not at all available or not at all single?”
“It’s the same thing. Okay.” I took a deep breath. “What exactly happened?”
“Mr. Fullbright fell asleep in the tub while filling it up.”
My eyes rounded. “Old Mr. Fullbright came down through the floor with the tub?!”
Bruce nodded. “I could hear him yelling all the way across the street. When I ran over, he was sitting in the basement, holding onto the sides of his tub, naked and wet. He shouted at me to get him a towel before I called emergency services.”
“Holy Mary of the blessed bathtubs,” I whispered as I marveled at the fact that a ninety-two-year-old man could take such a ride and not be hurt. “Well, okay, as long as he wasn’t injured the rest can be fixed. You called the cops, right?”
“Yeah, and they came out to help Mr. Fullbright out of the basement since the door was blocked by a bathtub.” He took another bite of his sub as he spoke. “Ended up having to call the fire company so they could hoist him out. Everyone was here by then, watching, and saw his bare ass.”
I scrubbed at my face. “Okay, so this is a pickle. I have no place to live until this mess is cleaned up and fixed. We have a month until training camp starts. You think this will be ready for me to move back in within thirty days?”
Bruce gaped at me, a chunk of meatball falling from his open mouth down into the hole in the floor. It hit the puddle with a tiny splash.
“Uhm a month. Hmm, well, probably not,” Bruce finally replied. “The minister was here. You know the one from the tabernacle where all you gay folk go?”
“I’m not gay, I’m pan.” I got a blank look. “Right, sure, I’m gay. What about Pastor Gabe?”
The Greco charm was being stretched to its limits right now. Honestly, was it so hard to grasp that some people dated other people solely on what they held in their hearts and not their genitals? If I didn’t like this place so much, I’d slap Bruce in the face with his own half-eaten meatball sub. That would be what Grandma Rosie would advise me to do.
“He said to contact him if you had trouble finding a place for temporary housing. What with it being summer and all, plus the racing fans coming in for the big run over at the speedway in two weeks.”
“Okay, I can do that. I need to take pictures for my insurance company,” I informed my landlord.
He bobbed his head and then left me to my own devices. Which included eating a few more baked treats for pure comfort, taking pictures out the wazoo, and gathering up what I could cram into the back of my Honda.
Clothes mostly, personal stuff like trophies and various hockey-related paraphernalia. The cops had cordoned off the two-story house, but I’d been given permission to go in and take pictures as well as get my stuff. The gas company was worried about a bent pipe in the basement. Guess steel clawfoot tubs and gas pipes don’t play well together. The gas was now off, obviously, but things were a hazard for sure. Once I had the important things, or what I could carry, I wiggled into my small car, sighed at the evening sun slowly sinking in the west, and made my way to the Open Arms Tabernacle.
Even though Pastor Gabe wasn’t a priest, I figured God still listened to him better than he did me when I prayed, so maybe he could swing a miracle or two and find me a place to crash for the foreseeable future. I was a fun guy. Ask anyone. I bet anyone in this town would be happy to have me as a roomie for a few months.
When I turned the key, my car made a clicking noise but didn’t roll over. I tried numerous times, to no avail.
“You have got to be freaking kidding me,” I grumbled as I glanced skyward. “Hey Jesus, I know you got bigger things to do than worry about some mook from Flushing with a bad alternator but if you could just toss maybe a blessing my way, I sure would appreciate it. So would Ma and Grandma Rosie since they talk to you a lot more than I do. Amen, oh, and keep an eye on Cousin Enzo and his lazy eye. Last time we talked, he had walked into a phone pole. ?Course he had a pirate patch over his good eye. He sneaks a little of the holy wine on Sundays, but that ain’t no good reason for him to get plowed over by a Little Debbie snack truck. Amen.”
A sharp rap on the driver’s side window startled me out of a good year of life. I blinked through the dirty glass to see Pastor Gabe and his son smiling at me. I looked skyward once again.
“Now that was fast work,” I whispered and rolled down my window.
Chapter Two
