Shorts: "Dicky and the Hat" by Mike Baker

Dicky and the Hat by Mike Baker   *     *     *     *   RICHARD’S FATHER SILENTLY MOUTHED the words “Please kill me” into the unstable air between them. Richard blinked, mentally stumbling his way back into the diner’s chaos and thrum. Richard had trust issues—especially with his own imagination. He sat across from his dad Arturo watching the old man meticulously cut up his fried eggs and then eat them, one piece at a time. He met his dad at the State Street Diner every morning for breakfast even though Richard never ate breakfast and the idea of his dad, knee deep in the beginning stages of senility, navigating there from eight city blocks away—gave Richard the yips. His dad insisted. Richard was a soldier for Ducky Fiumara, a capo in the Genovese Family, and did a number of things for walking around money but his main job was killing people which you’d never say out loud. You definitely wouldn’t say “wack” either, unless you were an asshole who spent his time pimping or doing hold ups. Mostly, he and Ducky didn’t say anything, there wasn’t even a nod. Sometimes it felt like telepathy. Richard had coffee with Ducky and the way Ducky sugared his espresso let Richard know who needed to go. Richard took care of it and that, as they say, was that. Richard’s dad had never had to do that kind of work. He’d been an accountant for Ducky’s father and then for Ducky after Ducky’s dad retired. The senility didn’t start until after Richard’s dad retired. Thank god. They didn’t talk about the senility either because as rotten a dad as Richard’s dad had been, he was still his dad and he couldn’t bear to think of the man as less than he’s been, let alone say the words to his dad or make dad acknowledge it. “You don’t eat enough Dicky and your eyes look tired. You’re wacking off too much at night. You never could stop doing that when you were a boy. Filthy goddamn habit.” Richard clenched up. He knew, or he believed, his dad couldn’t help it but Richard was a made guy unlike his dad and even his dad busting his balls was almost too much. “How’s the garden these days Pop?” His dad took a bite of eggs. They dribbled a little down his mouth. “What did you say?” “The garden, how is it?” “Have you called you sister?” “What Pop?” “Your sister, are you deaf, have you called her?” “No Pop.” He hadn’t talked to his sister in two years. Not since she moved to Connecticut, and she’d moved to Connecticut to get away from Richard, who she hated. She hated the old man but like Richard, she couldn’t admit it. Not really. “Pop, we’re having Christmas dinner at Aunt Johnny’s this year, you gonna come?” Aunt Johnny was his mom’s sister and she hated Arturo and his dad hated her but Richard had to ask. “No, I’m going to the VFW, they got a thing for veterans. Bring a cake for me from the bakery by the house.” He meant Richard’s childhood home, his dad lived in a home for poor old people and that place, the bakery, had been gone for 20 years. His dad spit a piece of eggshell on his plate. “fuck’n greaser in the kitchen did that on purpose because we’re Italian.” Richard cringed. This had been a neighborhood diner when he was a kid but the neighborhood had changed as family’s moved in with the steep increase in rents and upscale real estate. Guys like Richard learned to navigate. His dad’s generation, not so much. Richard needed to leave. Ducky wanted to see him in there early. Ducky didn’t have many rules but one of the few was not ever being late for a meeting with Ducky, not ever. You could feel safer fucking up a piece of work than being late. Shit happened on jobs but being late for a meeting was disrespect and that did not fly with Ducky. He watched his dad dip toast in his eggs and crunching down on the greasy yellow toast, bits and crumbs blew out of his mouth. The way his dad ate breakfast disgusted Richard. His dad disgusted Richard. Doing the kind of work he did, self-control was how you stayed out of jail. It was how you stayed alive. You took your time; you were under control. His dad had never been 100% under control. His dad worked long hours, tracking someone else’s money and he couldn’t make mistakes because these people only had one answer for mistakes but afterward, when he came home, he got sloppy. His dad had had an assistant once. The assistant was young with three kids at home. One day Ducky called Richard’s dad into the Office and asked him point blank about a ledger. It was one of the assistant’s ledgers and Richard’s dad said he’d rather not say. Ducky said someone was in trouble, the assistant or Richard’s dad. That meant exactly one thing. His dad said the assistant had either been sloppy or he was stealing. And considering the size of the assistant’s family, Richard’s dad said it was probably stealing and maybe it was the assistant. You make choices in this life but it’s really only one choice. You chose to live or you chose to die. Whoever did it, and only the old man knew, the old man chose his own ass. Fuck the assistant. All Ducky said was thanks and Richard’s dad went back to work, sitting right next to his assistant. The assistant’s entire family got murdered that night. The police, people around the neighborhood, all said it was Puerto Ricans robbing them because they were all cut up but who knows? Richard knew, even then, who did it. Everybody knew who did it. Richard’s dad came home drunk and before Richard could even get a word out, his dad laid into him with his belt and its buckle, and then went to work on his mom and sister. You’d think Richard would have gotten him back when he grew up, when he started working for Ducky but even now, if his dad pulled a punch as a joke, Richard flinched a little. Watching the old man eat, he made up his mind. The old man needed to die. He wasn’t sure when but this had to stop. He couldn’t do it though, kill his own dad. He probably would hire some Puerto Ricans and then kill them afterwards. “I got to go Pop. I got to go see our boy.” That meant Ducky. His dad always called Ducky “Boy” since he had worked for Ducky’s dad and what grown man would allow himself to be called Ducky? “Whatever Dicky. See you tomorrow.” Richard got up, paid for him and his dad, looking back at his dad sitting crumpled and old. Richard decided to let it all go, let the old man die natural, and headed out the front door, the door’s tiny bell jingling as it opened and closed. Richard’s dad watched Richard leave and then nodded at a man sitting a few booths down. The man got up, left a couple a bucks on the table, and headed out the door after Richard, the tiny bell jingling, a newspaper covering the throwaway gun palmed underneath it. Fin

Mike Baker lives in North Florida with three feral cats, a couple of asshole racoons, a possum named the Colonel and a chihuahua named Chloe. He is, most days, catholic whether he wants to be or not.

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