Hollywood is Newark, NJ with Palm Trees
Act IV
Fred reached the parking lot of his apartment complex, and stared out into the woods behind the building before heading upstairs.
“Hey, Fred. I heard,”
A sheepish looking woman said through the crack of a chained door across from Fred’s apartment.
“I’ll manage, Ms. Perez….,”
“They were on a witch hunt for ya’- if you ask me. No way you could’ve done all those things they say you did.”
“It seems that way,” Fred pushed his way into his apartment and closed the door behind him.
He picked up the suitcases he packed the night before and looked around the apartment. After a quick look-around, he cut off the light and dragged them out into the hallway.
When he closed the door behind him, the door on the other side of the hallway cracked open,
“All those things they were saying- like what you did with that girl, and then all the other rumors… I told the girls down at the market to hush, ’cause it ain’t true. ‘That Mr. Castellano’s a good Catholic,’ I told em’ that.”
Fred slid his bags past her and down the hallway, “Thank you, Ms. Perez.”
Beads of sweat formed on Fred’s forehead, as he pulled the bags down the steps and to the open doors of the van. He shoved the bags into the back, closed the doors, and hopped into the driver’s seat. Before taking off, he looked up at Ms. Perez.
She was staring down at him. Her shoulders slumped, and she was biting her bottom lip. Fred wanted to yell to her; tell her that everything she’d heard were lies and it would all be worked out soon. But it wouldn’t be.
He’d finally pulled the pin on the hand grenade that had been hovering over his life.
If he’d just fallen on hard times and everything ended abruptly, he could understand that. He’d dust himself off and start over somewhere else, like he’d always done. But this was a culmination of a lifetime of ‘Freddy Cee’ chasing down Coach Fred. He knew this wasn’t going to be an easy journey. Finding another job would be hard. It wasn’t as a result of burning bridges, it was more a result of refusing to maintain them and letting them structurally degrade over time.
He turned the key in the ignition and pointed the van south.
The tentative plan was to drive back to New Jersey. He still had some contacts there, and some people who owed him favors.
He reached into the glove compartment and grabbed a cigarette from a box he’d stashed the night before. The cigarette signified another failure as he lit it and pressed it to his lips. The smoke filled his lungs and the front seat of the van, then the back, eventually the whole car, lingering over everything.
Fred Castellano gave smoking up eleven years ago when his coaching career took off. He was thirty-five, and had just completed The University of New Jersey’s basketball team’s rise from obscurity to a national championship game, and he was worried about his image. Not long after that, the professional ranks came calling.
He found out early that the pro game wasn’t going to be as easy as he had anticipated, and after his second failed season in Detroit- the “problems” started. He had always been able to keep his personal demons at bay, like most people, but when the pressure started building up, the veneer cracked, and after that the demons didn’t look so bad.
After three seasons, Federico Castellano was divorced, out of the NBA, and almost out of coaching entirely, until he got an opportunity to coach at a small Catholic college in Upstate New York. The ball still went through the hoop, just not as often. The players weren’t as fast, and didn’t jump as high, but it was a job. He was grateful for a place to start over, for a while. But demons can be very persuasive-
After driving and chain smoking for hours, Fred had run out of cigarettes and gas.
“Can I get forty on pump two over there, and a pack of Kool’s,” Fred said to the gas attendant through the glass partition. The attendant slid the cigarettes through a hole in the partition, and Fred was on his way.
He hadn’t given his final destination much thought except heading in the general vicinity of Newark. When he arrived Down Neck late that Sunday night, Fred got a room at the Hilton, changed his clothes, and decided to reminisce a little. He walked from his hotel, down Raymond Boulevard to Ferry Street to Marcillio’s.
Getting a table might have been an issue if he was just anyone, but he was Newark’s own, Coach Castellano.
“I’m by myself,” Fred said to the maître d, looking past him to find an ideal place to be seated.
The maître d’ didn’t look up.
His nose was buried in the restaurant’s guestbook that he was scanning with his finger, “Do you have a reservation?”
“Uh, it’s me. Freddie Cee? You know, the ‘Coach.’”
The young man’s head remained buried in the book, “No Sir, I don’t see a ‘Freddie Cee’.”
“When do I need a reservation? Go get Marky. Hey Marky!”
An older gentleman walked up behind the maître d’ and put his hand on his shoulder, signaling that he’d handle this.
“Freddie, can I talk to you over here?”
Marky motioned to the corner by the front door.
“What’s up Marky? You know me. Let me get my table.” Fred slapped Marky’s arm.
He rubbed his arm and informed Freddie, “Yea, I don’t think I can do that.”
“What? Come on. When have I ever had to call ahead? All the business I brought in here,”
“I’m gonna be honest with you, I can’t have you in here, Freddie.”
“What?”
“Word travels, I’m sorry.”
“None of that shit is true,”
“I’m sorry, Freddie.”
“You know what, go fuck yourself! You’re gonna believe those mother fuckers over me!? Fuck this- everybody knows your half a fag anyway, and your wife fucks niggers!”
Marky pushed Freddie out the door and onto the pavement outside.
After sitting on the curb for about five minutes, glancing back at the restaurant every once in a while, he lit another cigarette and walked back to the hotel.
The rest of the week progressed in a similar fashion.
The sound of slamming doors had become an all too familiar sound. People seemed to be lining up to deny Freddie the second chance he so desperately sought. He expected this, maybe not to this extent, but he did, and after about five days he was checked out of the hotel and back in the van.
On his way out of town, he came to a flashing red light. He was staring at the people in the cross walk. It was a young mother and father holding the hands of their son as they crossed. The boy couldn’t have been any more than five, maybe six, years old. They waved at Freddie as they went by.
In the distance, he could hear horns blaring and people screaming.
There was only one solution, as much as it hurt him to do it. Freddie turned the van around in the middle of the street and kept heading south.
#
Father Paul Kelly started his morning with a coffee black and a cheese Danish from Tully’s on Main Street, every day.
After taking a long, eye-opening, drag from his cup, he leaned back in his chair and opened the paper.
The phone rang.
This wasn’t unusual at this hour, but Father Kelly’s reaction to it was. He stared at it. It persisted. He continued to stare until it stopped.
When the ringing stopped, he pressed the intercom, “Mrs. Holloway, please take messages on my calls for the remainder of the morning — only if it’s urgent — you know the routine.”
“Yes, Father. I have your mail here.”
“Okay, well whenever you have time, just bring it back.”
He hung up the phone and stared at the doorway leading to the front office, and was relieved when Ms. Holloway didn’t immediately walk through the door.
Father Paul Kelly had taken over as the head administrator of Middletown Catholic High School almost four years ago, when the Archdiocese had considered closing it due to declining revenues and rising expenses. It took a lot of work, and creative budgeting, but he was able to keep the school open and the community that it created together.
Two years had passed and decreased funding from Trenton and the Archdiocese, along with Father Kelly’s reluctance to raise tuition on his mainly working-class constituency, created a budget deficit that was becoming increasingly insurmountable. So in order to keep the school open, Father Kelly turned to a more creative way of funding the school. He had always been really good at math, and after a late-night prayer session he had an epiphany. He decided to put his ability to use, playing cards.
In the beginning, it worked pretty well. The supplemental income allowed the Father to do some special things for the staff. He even reinstituted the office Christmas party.
But as happens with all good things, it didn’t last. The rising costs of maintaining a crumbling building were catching up with the small monthly surplus he was able to achieve, so he decided to up the ante.
Father Kelly started to play in higher and higher stakes card games with shadier and shadier characters. Characters who had no qualms cheating the church.
At the end of the day, Father Kelly owed $50,000.00. That was two months ago.
Mrs. Holloway walked into the office with the mail, “Anything good, Father? Just bills?”
“Afraid so, Mrs. Holloway. Who’s that?”
Four very large men in suits filed into Father Kelly’s office and formed a semi-circle around his desk.
Father Kelly looked from man to man, “May I help you gentlemen?”
One of the large men sat down in the chair in front of the desk, “Morning Father,”
Ms. Holloway and Father Kelly looked at each other. He gave her a look that told her it was okay to leave, but on her way out she surveyed the men and her nose crinkled.
The door shut behind Ms. Holloway, and Father Kelly asked again, “Who are you gentlemen, and what are you doing in my office?”
The man in the seat took out a pack of gum and offered Father Kelly a piece, he declined.
“Father, you’ve been avoiding our phone calls.”
“What calls? Who are you again?”
“We called you this morning and you didn’t pick up. We knew you were here, so we decided to drop by.”
Father Kelly had formulated a good idea of what this meeting was going to be about and he shifted in his seat, “So, what can I do for you?”
“Father, you know why we’re here. Our boss would just like his money, but as we can see, you may not have it available,” the man said gesturing to the stack of bills on the desk.
Father Kelly said nothing.
The man continued, “So my boss has a proposal for you. It could potentially be very lucrative for all of us, you included. But most importantly, it’ll settle your debts.”
Father Kelly was wary of entering into any bargain with these men, but it had been his fault that everyone was in this mess, “I’m listening.”
The man slid a list over the desk with six names on it, “These kids are going to enroll in school here, and they’re gonna play basketball. That’s all you need to know, Father.”
“Are you talking about fixing high school basketball games, with a priest that you people cheated out of $50,000? Some nerve.”
Father Kelly could feel his neck turning red.
The man in the seat calmly stated, “I’m talking about paying a debt with a degenerate gambler, who fueled his habit with the church’s money.”
Father Kelly slammed his hands on his desk and stood up. The man in the chair stayed seated, but the three other men closed ranks, tightening the semi-circle.
Father Kelly sat back down, “What if I refuse?”
“Let’s not talk about that. Let’s talk about getting these kids in your school.”
Father Kelly sighed and his shoulders drooped, “Why here? You could do this at any school.”
“Private schools have a lot more potential for return on investment, and you owe us $50,000.”
“Six kids is a lot, that’s almost $60,000 for the year. Way more than I owe you.”
“We took that into account,” the man said scratching his chin, “So as long as you cooperate, we’ll handle some of your improvement projects around here, plus wet your beak a little.”
Father Kelly looked at the man. There was nothing keeping him from doing the deal. It wasn’t like there wasn’t precedent for it, they admitted kids they shouldn’t have all the time. They gave scholarships to kids who didn’t deserve them before, but never anything like this. He didn’t want to end up as a cliché, being perp walked out the front door of his school on national television. But, if it worked, it would be great for the school, and he could stop fraternizing with the worst kind of sinners.
He wanted some insulation.
“A scheme this big- you’ll need a coach if you don’t want to get caught. I can’t coach.”
“Don’t worry about it, Father. We know a guy.”
