A Taste of Cucuzza

An excerpt from an upcoming Joey Cucuzza story.

Joe Cucuzza stomped on the brakes and felt the shudder of the Alfa Romeo’s anti-lock kick in like the jolt of the jittery wooden Asbury Park roller coaster that terrified and exhilarated him as a child, right before the car’s nose crumpled against the Jayne Mansfield bar of the box truck in front of him and the air bag delivered a knockout punch.

Angry voices in the dark. Was that how it ended? Like being trapped in the dark, waiting for the old man with his belt to give you the final beating? Like the fucking end of the Sopranos. He would have laughed, if he wasn’t scared shitless. Was he paralyzed? Dying?

He wondered if that’s what Lou Pellegrini felt as his life drained away.

They whacked the poor schmuck right in his driveway.

That’s how you went out in the life Joey chose: like that jerk-off Tony Soprano, right in front of your family, as you stuffed your face with onion rings at Holsten’s like a cafone.

He and Aldo had argued a lot about the ending of the show. Whether Tony died or not. It made his partner so angry that he’d pulled off one of the handmade sheepskin slippers he’d bought him for their anniversary and hurled it at the plasma TV screen.

“What the fuck kind of ending is that?”

Joey thought it was obvious. But like Aldo, the guys at the port—those in the life, and those not—refused to stop believing.

“The screen went black,” Joey said. “What do you think that means?”

“But the music kept playing,” Aldo said.

Just like how he felt now.

It all started with the fucking election.