The Piker Street Drop and Other Pieces

By Ed Fiorelli

Overview coming soon

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483678801

Ed Fiorelli

Ed Fiorelli, Ph.D. was born in New York City and is currently Associate Professor of English at St. John’s University. In addition to publishing a number of academic essays, he enjoys writing short stories, some of which have been previously published in literary magazines in the U.S. and Canada and which appear here for the first time in one volume He and his wife Maria have three children and four grandchildren.

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Copyright © 2013 by Ed Fiorelli.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 09/11/2013

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

The Piker Street Drop

OBIT.

John C. Noodnik, entrepreneur

Jeffrey Simian, life-long resident

Famous soldier of fortune dead at 102.

Millionaire businessman, air victim

Noted author and adventurer dead at 73

Professional dog-walker and inventor

Blocked

The Hollow Tree

Sketches from Homelife:

      Selected Writings from Ward No. 6

1. Fun Times

2. Good Old Schooldays

3. I will be good from now on

4. A Three-Star Dining Experience

5. With a Song in My Heart

6. A Boy and his Dad

The Gabriel Lux Program Program, or, Satan and the Seven Deadly Sins: A morality play for radio

The Great Divide

What’s in a Name?

The Place of Bad Woods

1 An ecological history of Staten Island

2 The enduring Greenbelt

Mozart’s American Connection: Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749-1838)

Two Parodies Excised from the Novel, Mozart’s Rabbi:

1. The Correspondent

2. The Critic

Dissertation Absracts

Other works by Ed Fiorelli:

Brazzi and Company, short stories

Mozart’s Rabbi, a novel

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My special thanks go to:

James Rossi, who co-authored sections of The Place of Bad Woods which first appeared in The Conservationist Magazine, July, 1983 and whose photographs enhanced the original essay.

Lenore Miller who first put me on the track in finding the essay.

Megan Ciotti who graciously searched the New York State Conservationist archives and sent me a copy.

Maria Fiorelli, the pearl of great price, who read the entire typescript of the book and made invaluable suggestions.

THE PIKER STREET DROP

Sixth in a series

Squatting on the back parking lot of a burger joint on Piker Street, the used clothing and shoe bin was too high for Brazzi to reach into easily and pluck a garment worthy of his taste. His gorge rose when he discovered that they had installed a new bin, tamper-proof. Now you had to open the chute to drop in the clothes; there was no way to crawl inside, like in the old days, when the bins were obligingly accessible and you could drop in for a visit and take your time selecting something nice. Things were a lot tougher now. There was no such thing as a free lunch, or so he’d been signaled by some elderly passerby wagging his finger in admonishing disgust as Brazzi stood by the bin, poised for a plunge. Brazzi scowled and flipped the old fart the bird, feeling guiltless, vindicated by his recollection of the time he and Madam Goulegrossa strolled into the Holiday Inn pretending to be guests and partaking of their complimentary breakfast.

No, the country was going to hell in a hand-basket when clowns like that old fart made it hard for an enterprising fellow like Brazzi to retrieve stuff nobody wanted. From the very beginning of his free-shopping career the Piker Street drop had been his favorite, evoking pleasant memories, reminding him of the prize booth at Boozer’s Arcade where the amateur treasure-hunters succumbed to the mirage of loot so easily seized by the simple manipulation of an overhanging claw.

Manipulating now not a mechanical claw but a filched garden rake to which he had taped a flashlight, Brazzi stood on his toes, holding the rake in both hands, trawling among the heaps, the beam of light playing off odd angles and weird shapes. With a little practice and some sound luck, he might even hook onto a pair of shoes just his size.

Unlike the chump-change goods offered at Boozer’s Arcade, the pickings here were first class. At the Piker Street drop he didn’t have to acclimate himself to the orgiastic aromas of unwashed, abused laundry. Here, so different from other neighborhood drops, he needn’t endure the occupational hazards of soiled underwear, bloodstained frocks, gnawed leavings of a maggoty provolone hero. The Piker Street drop offered quality, convenience, privacy. Once getting used to the rake and flashlight, his natural athletic skill—how many times had he eluded the cops as they chased him over fences?—would take charge and he would be able to shop at leisure. No rushing to snatch wildly at an article and getting the hell out before being seen. No holey socks, spotted ties, pants with broken zippers, mammoth bras, brashly-hued shorts likely worn by circus geeks. He noticed only one car—a Lincoln—parked at an angle at the other end of the lot. A bulky form was behind the wheel and Brazzi guessed the driver to be asleep. He thought he knew enough about people who drive Lincolns to assure himself that the fellow didn’t park there to fetch a burger. There was a hulking form in the back seat, jittery and tossing about in a frenzy, but Brazzi couldn’t make out what it was.

He kept an eye on the Lincoln as he trawled. On his third pass he felt a resistance on the rake and began to draw it towards him. The beam from the flashlight picked up something dark-colored but it wasn’t until he got the thing close to the chute and began hauling it up that he saw it to be a sport jacket. Aside from a stain on the left sleeve and a pair of missing buttons, the jacket was pretty snazzy. You had to close your eyes to minor details in this business, and the cigarette or cigar burn on the lapel was no sweat; a magic marker just the right shade of brown, artistically applied, would turn the trick; the sartorial effect would mollify even the fastidious Madam Goulegrossa.

For all her faults—like referring to him as her boyfriend or threatening after a few beers to write his memoirs—Madam Goulegrossa wasn’t a bad sort. He could live with her attempts to take care of him in her own motherly way. On the other hand, her attentions were a mixed bag. She could be a real pain in the ass. Take that time last week when he dropped into her apartment after being caught in a cloud burst. It had rained so hard he was soaking wet before he had a chance to steal a proper umbrella. But Madam G. wasn’t listening, clicking her tongue, grabbing a bath towel and scouring his head until his scalp got raw.

His shopping done for now, no luck in trawling for a pair of shoes, he contented himself with the jacket. He stuffed it in a plastic shopping bag he had pinched from a sleeping homeless man and headed home. He noticed that the Lincoln was gone. He guessed the driver had probably awakened, hung-over, and cleared out. Brazzi’s own vehicle was parked near the drop, partly shielding him from the gaze of on-lookers or busy-bodies wanting to horn in on his claim. The car was really Madam Goulegrosa’s which he had cleverly wheedled from her time and time again, always bewailing the fact that his ‘72 Valiant was on the fritz. He preened himself on his ability to borrow her car so easily. She had never refused him, though lately he was growing wary of her compliance, beginning to suspect her unfailing generosity as some kind of ploy, some trick, some would-be snare. In the meantime he had her car at his disposal and the only sensible thing was not to look a gift horse in the mouth but be on guard against any subtle, ominous attempt at a deeper intimacy.

He reached his building and went first to Madam Goulegrossa’s place just down the hall. His timing was right on the money; Madam Goulegrossa was standing at the ironing board in her robe, pressing her skirt, the garment’s breadth enveloping the entire length of the board. In the next instant Brazzi’s outrage bloomed when he saw his favorite khaki pants hanging neatly pressed over a doorknob. The presumption of the woman! He didn’t want his pants pressed. They were perfectly okay wrinkled in all the comfortable places and precisely fitted to his liking. Now she had gone and ruined them.

What the hell… he muttered.

Madam Goulegrossa glanced at him.

Relax, my man, she said. I thought they needed a sprucing up.

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