asconian's blog

 The gang bosses, face to face out of the city, the Jones and the Hatfields did not touch each other. Not out of peace: out of intelligent fear. The patriarchs greeted each other at the face with the same face they wore when they buried their own. When they spoke, they did it on a beach, and they ended up covering each other’s faces with dirty, hard slaps. But the sons had not inherited that prudence. The beach was stone. An ugly hour. Wind coming in from the side. Two Mercedes a hundred meters apart. 

No one else. Tony got out first. Fifty years old, broad shoulders, the neck of a man who had never left the gym or the trade. Paul came straight at him, the same age, the same build, the same expensive watch and the same hands made for dirty work. They stopped two steps apart. 

“Your son is eating my port,” Paul said. 

“Yours is eating my streets,” Tony answered. 

“And if you take one more step, Paul, I’ll bury you right here.” 

“You don’t bury me. You threaten. Same as always.”

 Paul hit him with a slap. Dry. A boss’s slap. Tony gave him one back, just as dry. Their cheeks went red. Neither reached for a gun.

 “My pup wants war,” Tony said. 

“So does mine. They’re twenty and they think they’re immortal.” 

Another slap. Paul. Another. Tony. It was no longer an insult: it was protocol. The body speaking so the city would not burn. With their faces red…blood from their noses.

“If we move the families,” Paul gasped, his jaw hot, “this ends. Both of us. You know that.”

 “I know. That’s why we’re here and not in a warehouse.” Another slap. Another. They grew tired of hitting each other with an open hand. They stood face to face, breathing through their noses, wiser than their sons precisely because they had already seen what one extra corpse costs.

 “They want to kill each other,” Tony said. 

“Then let them kill each other. Without us. Without witnesses who will tell it any other way. If one walks out, one walks out. If both walk out, we go on as we have.” Paul wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “A garage. At night. No guns. A dogfight. 

We don’t go in.” Tony nodded. “And if one doesn’t get up…” 

“Then one faction leaves the city. But today we are not going to break the city over two fighting dogs.”

 They looked at each other. They did not shake hands. Not yet. Each turned toward his own car. 

“Goodbye, you bastard,” Paul said.

 “Goodbye, you son of a bitch,” Tony answered.