She was the Last of the Coojettes. That’s what Rob called her. Rob was my mother’s cousin. My father’s nickname for Rob was The Moron. Rob worked as a postman. My father worked as a truck driver for Budweiser. Rob and my father both liked to play the horses and spent a lot of time at OTB. They sometimes went to Aqueduct or Belmont together. They were both, in the eyes and mind of my mother: degenerate gamblers. My mother had divorced my father for this and various other reasons some years ago. Rob had gone out with Christine, the Last of the Coojettes, for about a year, then Christine broke up with him and returned to her ex-husband, Tony, who used to beat her. Christine then got back with Rob six months later, mostly because, as she had told my mother, Tony had broken his promise to never lay a hand on her again. Christine started living with Rob. Rob lived in the same upstairs apartment in which he had grown up with his mother, Terri, and his sister, Gina. Terri had died from lung cancer a half-dozen years back. Gina now lived with her girlfriend, Tracy, in Coney Island. The rest of us lived in Bensonhurst. Rudy, Rob’s uncle, who lived in the downstairs apartment, owned the house. Rob called Rudy, Fruity Rudy, because he was gay, though he wasn’t openly gay in the way that Gina was. Gina was just Gina. Rob’s other nickname, the one used by my mother and Helen, a childhood friend of Rob and my mother: Beluga. They called him Beluga because he was rotund and getting more rotund with each passing year. He laughed when my mother and Helen referred to him as Beluga. He called them The Ditzes. My father called Rob, The Moron, because, as my father said: He’s a moron. He never explained why, or what exactly made him moronic. Chrstine was called the Last of the Coojettes, because she had maintained a look popular among Brooklyn women in the 80s: hair, spray-sculpted high and dramatic, a cross between cotton candy and a bird’s nest, skin-hugging denim jeans, stiletto heels, a consortium of clinking bracelets, gold hoop earrings, and a kaleidoscopic mask made of eye shadow, mascara, eyeliner, blush, and two-tone lipstick. Many women had abandoned this “coojette” look after the 80s, but not Christine, who preserved it into the Aughts, into her forties. The last time I saw Rob was three days ago. I stopped in at OTB to see if my father was there, so I could borrow money from him. Rob said he had been in earlier but had left about an hour ago. Couldn’t stand the losing anymore, Rob said and laughed. Rob both talked and laughed as if he had a frog-inside-a-bottle-inside-his-throat. When I asked Rob who things were going with Christine, he snapped—She left me and went back to Tony. If she wants to get knocked around again, that’s her business. I’m through with her. Those two deserve each other. I told Rob I was sorry and asked him if he knew where my father had gone. I think he said he was going to Lucille’s, Rob said. Lucille was my father’s new girlfriend. She worked at OTB and her nickname, at least among the guys that hung out at OTB, was the Red Devil. That, because of her red hair and what they considered her nasty disposition. I rode the B64 to Lucille’s apartment, found my father there, and was invited to stay for dinner. On the sly, I asked my father if he had $100 he could loan me, but he said he was broke. I lowered my request to $50. Still, he was broke. During dinner, Lucille asked me how my mother was doing. Fine, I said. She still dating that moron, what’s-his-name, my father said. Lucille nudged my father’s arm—Don’t be such a jerk. Jimmy, I said, and yeah, she’s still dating him. The term moron made me think of Rob and I told my father that Christine had left him to go back to Tony. How many beatings does that girl need before she gets it, my father said. Lucille nudged his elbow again, this time harder, and with a glare in her eyes. My father looked at her—What—then turned back to me—Anyway, Rob’s a moron, so whaddya expect? I said nothing and cut into the chicken cutlet I was eating. When my father was married to my mother, and Tony was married to Christine, and they were neighbors and friends, I suspected that my father and Christine were having an affair. Why I thought this, I have no idea. I used to wonder what would happen if Tony found out and confronted my father. In a fight, who would win? Cheater or not, I saw my father as the good guy, and the idea of Tony winning the fight made me feel sick inside. That was a long time ago.
John Biscello 