Night Train

(4)

          Jimmy D was another one like Dionisio who bought into the Carlito dream, the Goodfellas dream. That’s why he called himself Jimmy D instead of Jimmy D’Angelo. But I didn’t have to worry about Jimmy D knocking over a liquor store. He never would have done something like that. Jimmy D was an ineffectual dreamer, like me.

          Here we are standing on Broadway, in front of the Million Dollar Theater, Jimmy D in his buckskin jacket with the flowing fringe and a turquoise string tie, his ten-gallon hat, the long wavy gray hair, and his persimmon-sour expression. He scuffs the heel of his cowboy boot on the pavement, as if he’s trying to drive in a loose nail, then, popping his fingers, like he’s just remembered something:

          “Did you see how that barmaid looked at us? Like we was a couple of Fifth Street winos! Come on, let’s go to Maria’s. Maybe we can shake a couple of cunts loose. I never had this goddamn trouble in New York. The goddamn women in this fucking country think because they got a crack between their legs they fucking own the world. Boy, I’d like to take some of these bitches over to the Orient where life ain’t worth three cents.”

          That’s the way we usually started out our evenings. Then he’d tell me for the millionth time about the night he saw Sinatra at Jilly’s. Apparently it was the landmark event of his life:

          “I feel sorry for people who don’t drink, Old Blue Eyes told me. When they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day. Later on there was that concert in Vegas. I called him up. ‘Frank,’ I says, ‘I’d like to make that concert,’ I says. ‘Jimmy D,’ he says, “no problem. I’m sending you the tickets, baby.’ That’s what he said to me, man! Frank Sinatra!”

          Jimmy D had three main topics of conversation, “the goddamn women in this fucking country,” Frank Sinatra, and his stomach problems. The stomach business, with Jimmy D, wasn’t salmonella. It was shrapnel. Jimmy D did thirty years in the Army. We’d go to Cole’s for a few beers when his pension check came in. Another place we frequented was the China Cafe in Grand Central Market. We’d tip a few and then we’d go to Maria’s for the fish tacos or sometimes the siete mares, a fish soup with everything in it, shrimps, crab, lobster claws, fish chunks and scallops. Get it down and you’re set for the day, maybe even for a week.

Continue...