Love or Honor Read Online Free PDF Page B

Chris got a call from his father, telling him to come into the city. Chris tried to get out of it, but George insisted, so Chris took the subway in from Astoria and met George at his coffee shop near the Times Square stop. George was watching for him, and when Chris arrived, George told one of his helpers that he was going to take the rest of the day off. Chris was astonished, and a little aggravated; whatever George had called him in for was going to take the rest of the day. “What’s going on, Pop?” he asked grumpily. “Why did you make me come in?” George said nothing, but led him outside, over to Broadway, then up Broadway to the Don Allen Chevrolet showroom at 58th Street. “Pick out a car,” George said.
    Chris was stunned. He knew his father was serious, because his father was always serious. Still, he felt dazed as he looked around the showroom. He couldn’t keep his eyes off the red convertible, and he was just wondering if he dared mention it when his father, who had been watching him, spoke quietly. “You know something?” George said. “I like that red car, don’t you?”
    Chris watched his father pay cash for the car, $3100. George sat in the front seat as Chris drove home. They didn’t talk much; Chris was only thinking of showing off his car to all the girls. His father didn’t lecture him about his driving; even going over the Queensboro Bridge, George didn’t say, “Be careful.”
    With not the slightest desire to go to college, Chris floundered around. Using a forged cabaret license, he played drums at a strip joint on West 52nd Street, earning five dollars a night, telling his father he was playing at school dances. At home he practiced till his hands blistered and bled; he taped them and kept practicing. He had his union card—Local 802—but work as a freelance musician was so sporadic that when somebody suggested, “Why don’t you get a hack license?” Chris thought, why not?
    He drove a cab from three o’clock in the afternoon until three o’clock the next morning. He hated the way passengers treated him as a subordinate, the way they ordered him around. “Don’t drive so fast! Don’t drive so slow! Make a right! Make a left! Hey, what are you doing? ” Sometimes people would peer at him and say, “You don’t look like a cab driver.” Usually he didn’t respond, though he wanted to yell, “You’re right, I’m not really a cab driver, I’m a musician!” He didn’t, because he thought it was none of their business. If somebody pressed, he said he was married, with a wife and five kids, and was working to put himself through law school. He enjoyed making up bizarre stories, but he hated the job so much that at the end of two weeks he turned in his hack license.
    When George put him to work in one of his restaurants, it was a disaster. As a cashier, Chris couldn’t keep the tapes straight. As a waiter, he was so careless that customers complained. As a potato peeler, he was so bored that he paid some bums on the street a few dollars to come around to the back entrance and peel the potatoes for him.
    When a guy he knew said he needed a drummer for a jazz combo, Chris thought it was the start of a solid musical career. They were booked at the Copa Lounge two nights a week—only big names played on weekends—and Chris loved it, though he didn’t think much of Julie Podell, the owner. Podell wore a big ruby ring that he would bang down hard on the table when he wanted service. Chris thought Podell was a mean SOB, so he made it a point never to have a drink at the Copa. Instead, he’d go down the block to Chez Joey to have a drink and listen to the waiters sing opera. But the Copa was an interesting, lively place. Lots of off-duty cops came around, and so did flashy guys who wore diamond pinky rings and spent money so lavishly that Chris