Tough Luck Read Online Free PDF Page A

for Mickey to use, and they’d drive down to Sheepshead Bay and take one of the boats. One time, Mickey caught a twenty-five pound striped bass. Well, he didn’t really catch it. His line got tangled with some guy’s line on the other side of the boat, and when the guy reeled both lines in, the fish was on Mickey’s hook. Mickey still looked at the picture sometimes—Chris and him standing in front of the fishing boat, both smiling, holding up the huge fish between them.
    The fishing boats pulled into the docks, and buyers from restaurants and fish stores all over Brooklyn lined up to buy the day’s catch. Harry bought some fluke, flounder, striped bass, porgies, bluefish, and blackfish. At about a quarter to seven, they headed back to the fish store, Harry listening to some radio station that seemed to play Frank Sinatra every other song.
    MICKEY AND CHARLIE unloaded the truck and then Harry left for the morning. Mickey had only gotten about four hours sleep, and it was hitting him hard. Even the Run-D.M.C. cassette Charlie was blasting on his boom box couldn’t keep Mickey from feeling exhausted.
    After putting ice on the stands, Mickey and Charlie washed the new whole fish and laid them on top of the ice, then they added the older fish they had stored in boxes in the refrigerator overnight. After they put out the shellfish in their own stands, they rested for a few minutes until the store opened for business at ten o’clock.
    All morning, and especially around noon, every time the bell above the door rang, Mickey looked over, hoping to see Angelo. But when the lunch crowd started thinning out, around one-thirty, Mickey knew Angelo wasn’t going to show.
    At around two-o’clock, Harry returned to the store and said to Mickey, “Well, I feel great. I went home and slept like a baby for four hours.” He stretched in an overexaggerated way and then went to the back of the store.
    Mickey was cursing Harry under his breath when the bell above the door rang and a girl walked in. She had big curly brown hair with short straight bangs and was wearing tight faded jeans and a white sweatshirt coming off of one shoulder. She might have been about ten pounds overweight and her skin was broken out on her cheeks, but she was still one of the best-looking girls Mickey had ever seen.
    “Why don’t you take a picture, it’ll last longer?”
    Mickey looked over his shoulder and saw Charlie standing there, smiling.
    “What are you talking about?” Mickey said.
    “Ah, come on, man, who you kiddin’?” Charlie said. “I know you was just checkin’ that girl out.”
    “What girl?” Mickey said.
    “What girl?” Charlie said. “That’s funny, man. Come on, what you waitin’ for, an invitation? Go talk to her.”
    “Why?” Mickey said.
    “Yo, just go for it, man. She’s still checkin’ you out.”
    “Sure she is.”
    “Why would I lie to you? Her eyes was just goin’ up and down, lookin’ at you like you a piece of prime rib on the rack. You gotta go take her order, anyway—why not get her phone number while you at it?”
    Mickey knew Charlie was just egging him on. The girl was looking at the fish on the stands, deciding what to get.
    “Are you gonna take the young lady’s order or are you just gonna let her stand there all day on her pretty little feeties?”
    Harry had come out from the back, and he was standing behind Mickey with his hands on his hips.
    Mickey noticed the girl’s green eyes.
    “Sorry, can I help you?” Mickey asked.
    “Yes,” the girl said, “can I have two pounds of flounder fillets and that striped bass right there?”
    She pointed.
    “You want the bass whole or in fillets?” Mickey asked.
    “Whole,” the girl said.
    “You want me to cut off the head and tail?”
    “Yes, please.”
    “You got it.”
    As Mickey was cutting the bass, he turned back toward the girl, looking at her legs in those tight jeans, wondering how she got them on, when he felt the pain in his right