BACKSPACE

“Nothing is immutable.”

OF MADMEN & MENTORS

1. Brooklyn, New York.
2. 1955

Frankie ‘Three Fingers’ Ballutti came to and found himself blind-folded; ball-gagged, and hog-tied to what he figured to be a table. His head was pounding like a jack-hammer, his mouth was as dry as the Sahara, and his stomach was bubbling like Ol’ Faithful just before an eruption. He prayed that he wouldn’t get sick, because he would definitely choke to death on his own vomit and that would put a crimp in his plans of dying at a ripe old age in his sleep.  

He had no idea where he was. Hell! He didn’t even know when he was! The last thing he could recall was throwing back a few shots of bourbon in his favorite haunt, The Last Oasis Bar and Grill on Avenue U in Brooklyn, when a tall, slinky blond, with legs straight up to her chin, sat down and started making with the small talk. She told him her name was Ann Marie, which was not saying much since eight out of ten broads strolling up and down Avenue U were named Ann Marie. Anyway, this blond dame slides up onto the barstool next to Frankie and starts droning on about this and that. At first, her monologue was kind of on the light side, but after a few drinks, the subjects became a little more serious. She finally got around to when somebody just walked right up to her cousin, while he was having Sunday breakfast with his wife and three kids at IHOP in Long Island, and put a bullet in the back of his unsuspecting head. Then the killer turned the gun on his family. That was seven months ago and the cops were no closer to finding out who did it now than they were five minutes after they arrived at the crime scene. 

Frankie remembered the shooting. It was Tommy Bola and his family who were bumped off. Damn shame. Tommy was a big hearted, honest guy. He was the only of Don Carlo’s four sons who didn’t want anything to do with The Family Business. All the guy wanted to do was make his money on the up-and-up from his three men’s clothing stores in Manhattan and pay his taxes. He wanted a normal life for his wife and kids. He wanted bake sales and proms and Sunday dinners at home. What he got was a bullet in his skull and a dead family for all his efforts.

As Frankie listened to the blond rattle on, his head started to spin, and then the world went black. 

Wherever here was now, it was cold and damp as a flooded basement in January. He suddenly grunted as loudly as he could and listened. The sound echoed a few times. Well, at least he new the place was big and empty. Maybe an abandoned warehouse? If that was so, then he could be in any one of the warehouses that littered the docks on the Westside of Manhattan. He started trying to figure out who could be responsible for his present predicament, which wasn’t going to be easy since he had made a lot of enemies over the years.  He was thinking it could Joey ‘Three Trips’ Garruccio. The guy hated him enough to have him hog-tied ever since Frankie had to slap Joey around in front of his girlfriend at the Captain’s Cabin restaurant over in Sheepshead Bay last year. Or it could be Nicky ‘Two Nickels’ Pentangelo. Nicky swore he would get Frankie when he found out that Frankie was playing slap and tickle with his wife. But this didn’t seem to be the style of Joey or Nicky or anybody else he knew, though. Far too elaborate. Most of the clowns who wanted him dead would’ve simply came up behind in that bar and just put a bullet in his skull while he sipped his bourbon. They lacked imagination and were basically lazy. None of them would’ve gone through all the trouble of having some slinky blond slip him a Mickey. 

This was all too weird.

He suddenly heard a door open and close, and then the sound of heavy footfalls echoing their way towards him. Since they were long strides and heavy footfalls, Frankie figured it was a man. A big man. His pulse quickened with anticipation with every elephantine clomp. And despite the cold, tiny beads of sweat formed on his forehead and then ran down the sides of his face like baby roaches. His mouth somehow managed to get drier, causing the ball to stick to the roof of his mouth, which was making it difficult to breath. He tried to dislodge it with his tongue, but couldn’t. 

Suddenly, Frankie felt the man removing the tape from his mouth in one quick yank. Frankie shot the ball out like a cannon and it bounced into the darkness. 

“FUCK! THAT SHIT HURT!” he bellowed, and then grimaced from the pain in his dry, sore throat and the jack hammer pounding in his head. 

    “Bet that hurt more than the tape, huh, Frankie?” the man said just above a guttural whisper.

Frankie didn’t recognize the voice. Of course he figure whomever it was would naturally try to disguise it. 

“I’m not going to ask that stupid question that every body asks in the movies, ok?”

“And what stupid question is that?” the man asked, genuinely confused while removing the blind-fold. 

The sudden bright light from the over-head spot hurt Frankie’s eyes. He started to rapidly blink while attempting to focus on his host’s face, but all he could make out was a big, black silhouette. 

“The Who-are-you? one,” Frankie replied just above a hoarse whisper. 

“Right. That one. Well, my name wouldn’t mean anything to you, anyway.” 

Frankie licked his dry lips and carefully swallowed.  His vision cleared enough to see that the big man was dressed completely in black and wore a black mask that totally covered his face. 

“It’s a little early for Halloween, ain’t it, pal?”

“Why I wear this mask is the reason you’re here, Frankie,” the man replied in a tone that was laced with despair and pain. “Do you really want to know why you’re here, Frankie?”

“Well, yeah. I kind of get curious when I’m slipped a Mickey, snatched, blind folded, ball-gagged and then strapped to a fucking table,” Frankie said sarcastically.

The man suddenly turned and walked into the darkness.

“Where the fuck are you going?!” Frankie yelled and winced. The fire in his throat and jack-hammer in his head reminded him not to do that again.

The man walked back into the light carrying a wooden stool, placed it about three feet from Frankie and sat down. “I have a story to tell and I just wanted to make myself comfortable. Before I begin, would you like something to drink?”

“Yeah. Water would be nice.”

The man slid off the stool and walked into the darkness and returned in a few minutes with a quart-sized bottle. He placed the bottle on top of the stool and then came around and squatted beneath the table where Frankie’s head was positioned. The man pulled a couple of levers and then lifted the end of the table upward until Frankie was in a nearly upright. He then retrieved the Gatorade, removed the cap en route to Frankie. “I thought this would more refreshing than water,” the man explained as he brought the bottle to Frankie’s parched lips. “Drink slowly.”

Frankie looked into the man’s eyes. They were the bluest eyes he had ever seen. Sinatra would’ve killed for those eyes. Frankie also saw something he didn’t expect: Pain. 

Frankie started to drink. Just a few sips at first, but the cold liquid was soothing to his raw throat and those sips soon turned into gulps. He nearly emptied the bottle before the man pulled it away.

“Feeling better?” the man asked. The pain had spread from his eyes to his tone.

“Yeah. Thanks,” Frankie gratefully replied.

The man replaced the cap, set the bottle down on the floor and then returned to his perch. “Now. Where was I?”

“You have a story to tell,” Frankie reminded him.

“Right. Ok. Here goes: On September 13th, at precisely 4:00 PM, a man, by the name of Carl Avery, was struck by a car on the corner Union Street and 7th Avenue in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. He was rushed to Saint Elizbeth’s Hospital, where he survived his injuries. There he met a nurse, by the name of Cynthia Richton. They dated, fell in love and were married six month later. They had a son, Richard, who, as an adult, joined the Fire Department of New York.  After eleven years on the job and three days after his thirty-third birthday, Richard and his company responded to a fire in a 20-story high-rise in Crown Heights, where he saved 10-year-old Shameeka Williams from her burning, third-floor bedroom window. Shameeka survived with minor burns and smoke inhalation. She grew into an A+ student and was accepted into Harvard Law School, where she met and fell in love with another student by the name of Patrick Hanlon. They married after passing their respective bar exams and set up a family law practice. They had two children: William (name after Shameeka’s father), and Caitlin (in memory of Patrick’s deceased mother). William joined the firm as did his children, but Caitlin had an astounding aptitude towards mathematics and science; she was recruited, by a representative of MIT, six months prior to her High School graduation. Upon graduation from MIT (majoring in Quantum Theory) she was offered an associate professorship, of which she gladly accepted. She eventually met and married a colleague, by the name of Bryan Rabinowitz. They had three children. The youngest, Ruth, went on to become the leading mind in the field of Genetic Engineering. She and an associate (both employed by an research outfit called Biotech) successfully developed a muta-genetic agent, that, in fifty years time, was responsible for the death of 97% of the world population and allowed nothing but human deformities to born one hundred years after that.” 

With the conclusion of his story, the man removed his mask to reveal his grossly disfigured face.

Frankie was taken aback. “Whoa!” he exclaimed with blatant disgust.

“Now you know,” the man mumbled as he replaced his mask.

“But what does your little fairy tale have to do with me?” Frankie asked, obviously not believing a single word of the disfigured man’s fantastic tale. 

The man let a heavy sigh of relief. “Today is September 13th and it’s 3:59 PM.” 

“But what does that have to do with me?!” Frankie asked again, his voice showing signs of panic.

“You would’ve been the one driving the car that struck Carl Avery.” 

The big man looked at his wristwatch, then suddenly winked out of existence, except for the mask, which bounced into the darkness.   

THE END

BACK SPACE

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