Previously: Animal is back on his beat following suspension and mandatory therapy after participating in an illegal raid on an East Village squat. His homelife goes a long way towards explaining who he is… and why he is.
Animal wakes, his head pounding. His sheets are soaked through, and the metal bed frame groans as he swings himself into a sitting position. He hates his twin bed. He hates his room. He grew up in this room, and everything about it makes him feel like shit.
He lights a cigarette and peers out the grimy window across the airshaft, hoping to catch a glimpse of the middle-aged woman in the next building coming out of the shower. It happened one time when he was seventeen, and he’s been hoping for another peek ever since. Nothing today. He sits there thinking about her anyway. He wonders if he’s still a little drunk from the night before.
He grinds out his cigarette and stands up.
The apartment is old and cramped, typical of the neighborhood—old tenements hacked up into smaller and smaller units over time. Animal’s bedroom is in the back, a 6’x6’ cube with an ancient radiator that bangs year-round. His parents’ room is in the front, any light the windows might let in negated by blackout shades. The kitchen is dominated by an old enamel sink, a World War II-era gas range and fridge, and a wooden table scarred by dozens of cigarette burns. If they’re not in bed, his parents sit here, spending their days listening to 710 WOR, chain-smoking Merit Lights, and drinking Sambuca.
They greet Animal with indifference as he pads out of his bedroom and into the kitchen. The stench of body odor and nicotine hits him full in the face. There’s something else too—rotting food, maybe, sickly sweet. Dirty dishes pile up in the sink.
He touches the side of the teapot and finds it still warm. He pours the water over some Folgers crystals.
“Johnny, that’s my water,” his mother says.
“You piece of shit,” his father’s already drunk.
“I’ll make more,” Animal says, filling the kettle. He strikes a match to light the range.
“Fucking asshole. Fucking piece of shit.” Animal turns and looks at his dad—a toxic old prick, one hand like a claw holding his Merit. The verbal abuse has nothing to do with the water. His father used to beat the hell out of him, starting when Animal was just seven years old. There were a lot of kids in the building back then, but Animal was the only one who got tossed down the stairs as punishment.
As the water heats up, Animal keeps studying his old man, who’s only fifty-eight but looks seventy. Still, he’s got some size to him—filled out in that way old guys sometimes do. He still looks like he could throw punches, do some damage, if not for the cancer eating him alive. If not for the bullet fragment in his head, courtesy of his own days walking the beat.
The kettle starts to whistle. Animal’s father goes into a coughing fit. The smell of piss hits him. Jesus fucking Christ, his old man’s pissing his boxers, right here in the kitchen. Animal shuts off the burner. He leaves his coffee in the sink, untouched.
“Water’s hot, Ma,” Animal says, heading back toward his room. His mother says nothing, just sits there immobile, her cigarette burning low, close to her fingers.
“Prick,” his dad calls after him. “Pansy.”
“Dad, take a fucking shower, all right? Don’t make Ma help you. You fucking do it yourself.” Animal suddenly feels the emotion rising, just like when he talks with Dr. Mackenzie. He stands frozen in the doorway of his bedroom, trying not to panic. He remembers her advice—to sit with the emotion. He presses the soles of his feet into the floor, feeling the solidity. He takes a few deep breaths, counts to four each time. He thinks about being tossed down the stairs. His neighbor heard the commotion and carried him to the ER.
“Forget where you are?” his father cackles, still sitting there, reeking of piss. His mother has disappeared into the bedroom.
I need to get out of here, he thinks.
Out on the street, Animal feels better. More than better—he feels alive. He feels like the man, the goddamn cock of the walk. On the street, he’s NYPD Detective John Angelo, plainclothes narcotics. He works his neighborhood hard, making no excuses for bending the rules when needed, for taking advantage of situations when they arise, for using a little insider knowledge to make his arrests. Alphabet City is overrun with savages and he’s the Animal. He’s the top of the food chain. Some days it feels like a game; other times, like a war. They’ve put a price on his head—five grand for whoever pops him. So far, no one’s had the guts to try.
Animal hits up the corner bodega for a drip coffee and practically inhales it. He gets another to take with him. The heat of the coffee makes him sweat, and the booze from the previous night starts seeping out of his pores. He makes a mental note to swing by Gloria’s before it gets hotter.
“YO, ANIMAL!” someone hollers from a passing car—an old Buick, no rims, more primer than paint. Not a player, not someone Animal needs to acknowledge. Just some locals messing around, unwittingly amplifying the legend of Animal. People turn to look. Animal’s on the block.
His standard uniform is black Levi’s 505s, the same jeans on that Stones album cover with the zipper and the dick bulge. He wears a white t-shirt under a gas station work shirt, three for five bucks at Canal Jeans. In the winter, he wears work boots; in the summer, Bruins. Animal’s service revolver is on his hip, his backup on his ankle, and his badge hangs around his neck on a chain. There’s no point in Animal trying to keep a low profile, so he makes sure it’s obvious.
The next time he hears his name, it comes from a police cruiser.
“Angelo.”
Animal steps off the curb and ducks his head to talk into the passenger-side window. “What’s up, boss?”
“Come by the house today, Angelo. That’s an order.” It’s Captain Sam Stewart, his superior. The house is the Ninth Precinct, over on East Fifth Street. Animal’s gut lurches.
“Something wrong?”
“You tell me,” Stewart says. He still hasn’t made eye contact, and Animal can see the little muscles in the corners of his jaw working.
“I got no fucking idea,” Animal says, and he mostly doesn’t.
“Well, I got IAD on my ass about you, ‘Animal,’” his boss says, heavy with sarcasm, “and they’ll be at the precinct at 1 today, expecting to talk to you.” Internal Affairs. Shit, what could they want? He did the time for the Pueblo raid. What else?
“Yeah, I can probably make that,” he says, trying to sound casual but failing. He clears his throat and tries again. “Yeah, 1 p.m., no problem.”
“Glad to hear it,” Stewart says. “Do you need directions, Angelo? In case you forgot where it is. In case that’s why I haven’t seen you in a month.”
If Captain Stewart were a corner kid, or one of his C.I. 's, or one of the academy recruits they sometimes send down for real-world exposure, Animal might give him a shrug and say, The streets are my office, whaddaya want? like he’s Pacino playing Serpico. But instead, Animal says, “I’ll be there,” and steps back quickly to avoid having his toes run over by Stewart’s peel-out.
He hears laughter.
He turns around to see a couple of teenage girls on a stoop, doing their best to keep their faces straight. Like they weren’t laughing at Animal just now.
“Empty your pockets.”
They groan but stand up and comply. Animal pegs them as students—NYU or Cooper, or maybe just kids from the suburbs coming into his hood to strut around, feel tough, go home with stories. One of them is wearing fucking army boots. Like Animal’s grandfather had.
Animal looks at the pile of junk they lay out for him. A couple of bucks, a disposable lighter, a tube of lip gloss, a bus pass for some town outside the city he’s never heard of, a pipe and a dime bag of weed. Animal takes the weed and walks off. The girls say nothing.
–
Animal keeps walking, his mind racing. Internal Affairs. The words echo in his head like a death knell. He paid for Pueblo—suspended, scrutinized, dragged through the mud. What else could they want? He runs through the last year in his head: the busts, the cash he skimmed, the evidence he planted, the dealers he roughed up. Half the NYPD is guilty of shit like that, though, so it’s gotta be something else.
Problem is, a lot of that’s a blur, a haze of adrenaline and booze and bad decisions. He can’t go to that meeting. Not blind. Not without knowing what they’ve got on him. He needs to get ahead of it. But how?
He thinks about his parents, back in that suffocating apartment. This is his family. There’s no one else, just the three of them in that shitty walk-up.
He can’t let IAD drag him down, strip him of his badge, his identity. Without the job, he’s nothing. Just another angry guy with a gun and a chip on his shoulder.
Animal stops at a payphone and dials Dr. Mackezie’s office. No answer. He slams the receiver down, frustrated. He needs to talk to someone, needs to figure this out. He lights a cigarette and leans against a wall. The neighborhood feels different today. He feels exposed, vulnerable. The $5k bounty on his head, he’s gotta take that more seriously, he thinks. He’s not invincible, all that’s just stuff he thinks about to pump himself up for the day. Five large is enough to make even the dumbest corner kid take a shot at him. He’s fucking lucky he’s still breathing, when you think about it.
Animal makes a decision. He’s not going to that meeting, not yet. He’s got a couple moves he can make, maybe find out what’s going on. So when he does meet with IA, he’s leveled the field a little bit.
He crushes his cigarette under his heel and starts walking. He’s got work to do.
##
Continues weekly.
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Loving the story.
Yeah, I think so.