Chapter 33

Andrea took the job at Leroy’s club, a swanky uptown cocktail joint with a live jazz band. The club was called Air, and it was Leroy’s pride and joy. He owned three establishments in New York and half a dozen more in New Jersey. Even though Air wasn’t the most profitable venture, it was his most exclusive, and therefore his preferred place of conducting business, which was his real source of income.

Leroy was a hardened underground kingpin, one of the most wealthy and dangerous men in New England. He had connections in the Mexican cartel, Chicago, Houston, and Atlanta. The Italian mob bosses and he had dinner together regularly. They had an understanding that as long as both sides complied with the agreement they had negotiated, that Leroy would have full permission to distribute cocaine throughout New York as long as he didn’t dabble in the other markets. His business and associate’s business, like The Rooster, not only cleaned his money, but the mob’s as well.

Paul Halman’s control over The Rooster was being threatened by Leroy’s pressure to take over.

He had already forced Halman to sign over twenty percent of the bar to Leroy. It was only a matter of time before he controlled the rest. Paul had fallen out of favor with Leroy after his stunt at the poker game, but Leroy knew that a man living in fear that you can control is far better than a dead man.

As July and August’s heat gave way to the cool, mild weather of September, Jesus and Andrea experienced many changes. Jesus’ new position at The Ridgeland Post forced him to work overtime hours during the day. He became increasingly invested in his work. After all, it was a lifetime dream of his. Jesus’ notoriety and status in the company quickly grew as it became apparent that he had a naturally powerful literary voice, a creative imagination capable of capturing the minds of his readers, and strong, dependable work ethic. He took pride in his work, in the culmination of abstract ideas into succinct articles that would draw a reader’s attention and capture their hearts.

Stars and John became his closest friends, particularly John. Every evening he would stop by The Rooster after work and clear his mind of all of the rampant thoughts in his head, and John, with the help of alcohol, would help him make sense of the work. He met Paul, who regarded him highly and complimented him profusely on his column in The Post.

“It’s one of my favorites,” Paul said. In reality, he always skipped over opinion pieces for hard news, but he wanted Jesus to feel welcome. Jesus was good business, and became friends with some of the other regulars at The Rooster. He began to familiarize himself and settle into the big apple.

Jesus began attending protests and marches for peace with regularity, and became intimately politically involved with the anti-war effort. He was careful to never explicitly express these notions in his writings, but instead hide them behind layers of meaning, setting up the arguments one could use to condemn the war without outright saying it He became the de facto voice of the beatnik movement in the press, and as a result, The Ridgeland Post went from being despised by young college-aged intellectuals who were tired of having their friends go off to war only to come back dead, changed permanently, or not at all, to being praised for being the only major news publication in New York willing to take the risk, and the numbers reflected it, their declining subscription rates evening off and rising. They set the precedent for other newspapers to begin running similar opinion pieces. All things considered, Jesus had done more for the anti-war movement in a short period of time than any other member had done in a lifetime.

Jesus began to have a new group of friends, starting with Stars and Lily. His friends were University students and young professionals, bent on intellectual pursuits and invested in creating a new artistic Renaissance in New York. He began to be invited to exclusive parties, and to use LSD to open his mind to new possibilities and viewpoints. He even met Andy Warhol at a penthouse and almost dropped acid with him, until Andy decided it wouldn’t sit well with the cocaine and brandy already in his system.

At first, Andrea would accompany him to each of the protests, marches, parties, and meetings he attended, but over time, and for multiple reasons, he increasingly often attended them without his paramour. Jesus was heavily invested in the movement, whereas Andrea only had a fleeting fascination with the aesthetic of the whole affair. Even though she preached love and universal acceptance, she secretly felt indifferent about the issue. She supported Jesus in what he did, but that was just all it was, support. She wasn’t affected like Jesus was. Their work schedules also became a problem. Jesus would usually work long hours during the day, and by the time he would get home, Andrea was just getting ready to leave for work. It made it very difficult to spend time together, even more difficult to attend events and parties together. The opposite work schedules created distance in the couple, and despite their deep love for each other, it became inevitable, that they , like any couple, would experience arguments and hardship. The third reason is that Andrea picked up a cocaine habit, financed by her now high-paying job and her generous clientele, she began using cocaine with steadily increasing regularity, until she was snorting a gram or more every day.

Jesus never developed a taste for cocaine. He had always associated it with Rodrigo’s awful actions and taken that as a reminder that it wasn’t something to be trifled with. He stuck to weed and acid. He didn’t, however, mind Andrea’s cocaine habit. She was responsible with it, as responsible as one could be, and never spent more than she could afford. Despite these issues, the couple remained very in love and very attached to one another. They were partners in life, as close as a married couple.

In mid-October, Jesus received a phone call. It was Winston. He hadn’t heard from or seen Winston since they stayed with him in Chicago. Jesus had tried to reach out to him, even considering to take a bus back to the Italian neighborhood in Chicago where Winston had rented out of previously, but ultimately decided against it. There was no guarantee that he would still be there, in fact the more Jesus thought about it, the more unlikely it became to him. O’Neil hadn’t been any help in locating Winston, but he was helpful in other regards, like finding Jesus and Andrea a more expensive, one bedroom apartment closer to their jobs. It even had a working elevator, and up that elevator rode a blonde, fedora adorned man dressed in unreasonably warm attire, arriving at apartment 3A in Highland Estates, where Jesus and Andrea had staked their claim. Jesus and Andrea’s apartment was minimalistic, mostly because their expensive rent note didn’t leave much income left for expensive furniture and home amenities.

However, what they did have was well maintained and kept clean. Jesus was wearing a simple black Tshirt and blue jeans.

“Winston, it’s good to see you. It’s been ages,” Jesus said.

“Likewise, son. It’s a nice place you have here. I like what you’ve done with it,” Winston walked inside and made a show of looking around the place.

“Tell him you miss him,” Said the voice in Jesus’ head.

“He abandoned you,” Said another. Jesus ignored them. Of late, he had been more present in his life.

“Back from Chicago?” Jesus asked.

“No, I’m just visiting. Guessing that you’re not working at Lucardo’s anymore, unless you’re better at managing your money than I am,” Winston said.

Jesus got him up to speed with his and Andrea’s work situation, explaining the popularity of his column in The Ridgeland Post. For some strange reason, he felt a compulsion to impress the father figure, despite the fact that he had been largely absent from his life.

“Air? I wouldn’t have pegged her for that kind of woman,” Winston said. It wasn’t the answer Jesus had expected.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, have you ever been there?”

“No,” Jesus admitted, “If I go out, I usually go to The Rooster.”

“The Rooster, bah, That’s one I haven’t heard in a while,” Winston said.

“You know it?” Jesus said.

“Very well. A bit too well.”

“It’s right across the street from my job at The Post,” Jesus said, “I’m there mostly every night.”

“So then you must know John and Paul,” Winston said.

“Yeah, of course. John is one of my best friends.”

Winston laughed, “What a strange world we live in. I know John Letters pretty well myself.”

“Looks like we were destined to run in the same circles,” Joked Jesus.

“I hope not.”

“Me too, honestly.”

There was a moment of silence between the two. “Shit, we’ve been standing this whole time. Sit down, make yourself at home. Mi casa es tu casa,” Jesus said, putting himself to rest on a chair in the living room. Winston chose the couch.

Jesus told him about the political movement and the work they were doing in the anti-war effort.

Winston listened patiently without comment, seeming preoccupied with something else.

“I think Andrea and I will get married next year. Just a courthouse wedding, nothing huge,” He said.

Winston changed the subject, “Tell me again how you met John Letters.”

Jesus told him about the first time at The Rooster with Scott and Joe, and the subsequent march and arrest with John, Stars, and Lily.

“I’ve got a little story to tell you about our mutual friends. I don’t know if it means anything, but it’s been on my mind. It goes without saying that this stays between us. You should not even tell Andrea,” Winston said.

“Andrea’s at work. You can go ahead.”

“Again, I don’t know if it matters at all, but I feel like you should know. Especially since you already met Leroy.”

“Yeah, I met him.”

“Well, you might not know that I work for Leroy.”

Jesus’ eyes widened in surprise. Tall tales surrounded that man. Leroy was like a ghost.

“Tell me, Jesus,” Winston said, “Do you know how to play poker?”