The Wrong Side of the Grass

The Wrong Side of the GrassStephen Solomita One“So, what do you think?” Mike Tedesco asks. “Should we contact Noah, put in a request for the ark’s blueprints?”The question’s valid because it’s raining so hard that cars parked on the opposite curb might be apparitions climbing out of a misty hell. There’s no wind, a small blessing, and the rain falls in straight lines that shimmy back and forth, opening and closing, the dance of a billion veils. Just fifty feet away, the facades of the bow-front townhouses are at times invisible, as if they’d been ripped from time and space. Tedesco might be looking past the edge of a flat earth at an empty universe beyond.That’s not the weird part, though. The weird part is that Tedesco’s talking to a dog, and not his own dog, but a large pit bull, a stray male that’s decided to huddle next to Mike in a shallow doorway that offers minimal protection from the downpour. Dark scars, long-healed, crisscross the dog’s head and shoulders, testament to his time in the pits, and to what must have been victories.“You got used up,” Tedesco says, his voice barely audible over the pounding rain. “Used up and dumped out.”The dog whines softly and wags its stubby tail. Fighting dogs are usually gentle around human beings, and this one proves no exception. His whole life has been about training and fighting. Now he’s worthless, not good enough to breed, not good enough to feed. A lightning bolt obliterates the gloom, followed in less than a second by thunder sharp and close enough to make them both cringe, man and dog. For just a second, time freezes, every drop of rain suspended in a lingering afterimage that reveals a face in a window across the street. Then the dog begins to shake, and Tedesco reaches out to trace a long scar running from ear to ear. Calmed by this small show of affection, the dog arches his head, mouth opening, tongue lolling. For Tedesco’s purposes, the rain is a blessing. He knows this, and he’s additionally pleased with the eighty-degree temperature—if it were ten degrees colder, he’d be shivering. But he’s soaked through and through, from a full head of curly hair tucked beneath a Yankees ball cap to the soles of his large feet. His clothes offer no protection, nor do his four-hundred-dollar Armani sneakers that are being ruined by a sheet of water that flows down the steep hillside, washing sidewalk and roadway alike.Another flash of lightning, another crash of thunder. Tedesco removes the blue Yankees cap and shakes off the puddle accumulating in a fold at the top. He’s not a baseball fan, not at all. The cap is designed to conceal his features from a security camera mounted on the facade of St. Luke’s Church. The camera’s almost a block away and unlikely to produce a recognizable likeness, especially with the rain, but Tedesco’s spent time in prison and has no wish to return. Better safe than sorry.“The good with the bad,” he tells the dog. “Today, we eat the bear.”Tedesco’s always been an optimist. In his heart of hearts, he knows there’s nothing he can’t accomplish, as he’s certain that his past failures have resulted from bad luck or betrayal. Both elements played their part in the five years he spent upstate, but that was long ago when he was young and foolish. He’s a lot smarter now, or so he believes. The dog sniffs at the pocket of Tedesco’s jacket. Despite the rain and the plastic wrapper, he’s discovered an unopened bag of pretzel sticks Tedesco bought last night. Tedesco shakes the pretzels into his hand and offers them to the dog. The animal’s not gaunt—that will come later—but he takes this small soggy offering without hesitation. Again, he whines and wags his tail.Maybe he’s hoping I’ll take him with me, give him a home, Tedesco thinks. That’s not going to happen, of course. Tedesco’s agenda is set and it doesn’t include the company of a seventy-pound bulldog. Nor can he imagine bending over to scoop the poop. That’s for suckers. That’s for the assholes who crowd into subway cars every morning and every afternoon, sharing one another’s stink. And for what? A paycheck that doesn’t pay the bills? The privilege of doing the same thing tomorrow?One thing sure, Vladimir Putin doesn’t scoop poop. Neither does Bill Gates or Jay-Z or Beyoncé or even Crash Patterson, a notorious dope and coke dealer who lives only a few blocks away.Tedesco’s crouched in a gentrifying West Harlem neighborhood called Hamilton Heights. To his right, at the bottom of a steep hill, Harlem is a flat expanse stretching all the way to the East River. To his left, the hill continues up to Amsterdam Avenue, the crest of a rocky palisade that runs along the Hudson River from West 72nd Street to the northern tip of the island. This early in the morning—it’s not yet six o’clock—only a few cars pass, wipers flashing madly as they fight the downpour and the incline.The cell phone in Tedesco’s pocket, a burner to be sure, gives off three quick beeps. Tedesco’s groin tightens in response. The package is on the move. He stares into the rain, toward West 154th Street on the other side of the island, less than a mile away. A truck loaded with a thousand cartons of cigarettes has just pulled out of Legrand Transportation’s small warehouse. At the end of the block, on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, it will turn south. On West 141st Street, three blocks from Tedesco’s position, it will turn west to come straight at him. The trip will take between four and six minutes, depending on the lights. Tedesco knows this because he timed the run so many times that he’s lost count.Tedesco takes the burner from his pocket and taps in a number. It’d be a big joke if the phone shorted out in the rain. Talk about shitty luck.