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I came to a quick stop and slanted my car in the parking lot in front. I opened the door to see maybe two people standing around the noon buffet. There was an old jukebox in the corner, the kind you saw in the seventies, and playing on it was the Eagles, “Take it Easy.” How could I take anything easy? I’d been shaking since I escaped from the Bonetti’s. Soon I was identifying with the song. “Four that wanted to stone me, and two who wanted to own me, and one was a friend of mine.”
In my case one wanted to stone me, that was Nico, and one wanted to own me and that was Dante, and Zoey was a friend of mine.
One dude was sitting alone eating at the counter, and the other at a table looking around. I eased up to the counter. “Where can I find the owner of this place? I’m looking for a job.”
“That would be me.” A man in his seventies with a clean uniform of white slacks and shirt reached for a cup, and handed it to me, and with the other hand poured me a cup of coffee.
“How much?”
“The coffee’s free. Do you want to buy the place because it’s for sale. My wife is sick, heart trouble, and I can’t run this anymore. I need to be with her.”
“I’m not interested in buying it. I just need a job. I can be here all the time if you need someone for the night shift too.”
I spotted a smile on his face as if I’d been sent to him by someone divine. And maybe I had because this place was perfect to hide out and become one of them. Although I didn’t know what one of them meant. Even in my own home town, I was always the one who stood out in a crowd or someone who had no friends, which was fine for me because I never felt a part of anything, so I did everything to fit in before I met Dante, and neither situation had turn out well.
“Do you have a place to stay,” he questioned, glancing around at me. “You can live in the back area. It has a bedroom and small kitchen and shower—”
“That would be great. I’ll take it and after you show me what needs to be done, then you can go home to your wife and take care of her.”
“Thank you, young man. I feel as if I can trust you. I have a nose for good people.” That might be true, but what he didn’t know was I could bring the worst kind of people down on me, and if he was anywhere around, then that could be the end for everyone.
With this job happening when I needed it, life had never been as sweet as it was now. I left all the craziness behind me and headed where I thought I had a good chance of disappearing where no one could recognize my face or see the desperation in my eyes, and it appeared as if things were going to work in my favor for a change.
Although as I meandered around town before I was to start my job the next day, I still found myself looking over my shoulders, behind my back, and seeing if anyone recognized me had become a daily occurrence. I lowered my head not to make eye contact with anyone in the drugstore and strip mall in this dusty empty town, then I returned to the coffee shop and happy to have some place to work and lay my head at night.
I’ve left all the getting in trouble in high school, I thought, staying out late at night fucking around and having my father put a tracking device under my truck where he could monitor my comings and goings. I felt like a... well, I didn’t know what the fuck I felt like then, but I knew how I felt now. Maybe then a caged animal who wanted to be free, but didn’t know how to escape.
Yet, I did escape from that small Midwest town to a large city when I turned twenty. Then my father couldn’t tell me what to do, and I didn’t have to dance to his music or conform to his way of thinking, which was fucked up to say the least. He’d say to me, “You don’t have to be like this. I know it’s your mother’s fault.”
Yeah, blame everything on mothers who just loved their sons and wanted them to be happy and wanted the best for them.
The next morning I was up and ready to work. The bell rang and the door opened to drag me out of my thoughts, because the locals were coming in for their morning cup of coffee, and some would stay until noon for a sandwich. However, I had to be here day and night and that was the way I wanted it.
After months of rising early and working late, falling into bed after a shower, I was finally at peace.
When the owner asked if I was interested in buying this shop as a part owner, where it was the only coffee shop in this small town in Texas where no one knew who I was—but thought maybe I was a fucked-up teenager with rich parents and money to burn, I said yes, and gave him cash. He was happy to get it because of his wife, and the place hadn’t made money in years.
The locals never questioned what I was doing here and why. That suited me just fine, because not only was I running away from the world, I was running away from a dangerous lover. Not to me, but he was just plain dangerous, and sooner or later it would have been risky being with him, and I was smart enough to get out of the relationship—sort of.
Chapter 11
Romeo
I still thought about Dante and whether he was still looking for me, or if he ever did. Did he want to kill me or make me his? I had fanciful ideas about a man I’d just met and had sex with only once. But once was all it took to turn my simple world upside down.
I had fucked up everything I touched back in my small home town living with my parents. That was my backstory in short. Hanging out with boys who discovered I was gay, and one night when it was revealed, I wasn’t just the cool tough kid who helped them work on cars, steal them, and race them all times of night around the neighborhoods where I got my street credit from bullet holes in my car, to trying to buy something to smoke and clear my head.
When the police pulled me over, I’d get all in their faces and they’d back down because my father was the mayor, and that meant nothing today, and where I was now, and less than nothing when I found myself in New York down and out, and I had accepted an offer from a handsome gangster named Nico Bonetti, and fell madly in love with Dante Bonetti.
When I fled South Dakota to New York and finally to Texas, I found myself here in this windy dusty town, an outpost for soldiers. I knew few people would know or care who I was, because Imperial, Texas was far from anywhere people cared about much of anything. Who I was and who I’d been, or would become was the last thing on their minds.
The people here knew I was way too young to have enough money to start a business where no one cared about what was going on in New York or New Jersey but me. All they cared about was their morning coffee, who bought a new truck, and the others wondered if they’d ever get the fuck out of a small town were the men outnumbered the women.
Those men and an occasional woman who strolled into my coffee shop appeared to be impressed that I’d been from coast to coast, as if they weren’t soldiers they’d hardly travel anywhere.
“Do you believe this, Romeo? Here’s a dude in one of the well-known Mafia families placing a notice in the papers for anyone who knows the whereabouts of one of his men. His bookkeeper.” He shuffled his paper and folded it in half.
That should have alerted me, but I’d forgotten everything I’d learned when I fled my father and ended up in New York. Then the dude broke out in a loud laughter. “Everyone heard the rumors that Mr. Bonetti is gay. Gossip is it’s his boyfriend, and the boyfriend took off with a lot of money that belonged to him and his family, and now he wants his money back. There’s even a price on his head. Imagine that, fucking a man, and then he wants you dead. I wouldn’t want to be the dude who crossed him.”
