Page 1 of On the Ropes
Dean
Ileaned back against the wall outside my neighborhood bar and called the same damn number for the tenth time this week. I knew the recorded message by heart now: Thank you for calling the City of Philadelphia’s after-hours hotline. Please listen to the following menu of options.
I tipped my head back and hit 5. It was supposed to send me to a cheerful operator who would help with my “property emergency.” All I’d ever gotten was an endless phone tree maze. I scowled, turned my head as the automated music filled my ear.
It was a hot July night in South Philly. People were either drinking beer on their front stoops or drinking beer in the bar behind me. The sound of the baseball game filtered out onto the block.
Thank you for your patience. We are experiencing longer than usual wait times.
I caught the attention of two guys walking across the street, still in their suits from whatever job they had uptown. What they were doing in this neighborhood, I had no fucking clue. Their watches flashed, their suits looked tailored. Even their teeth looked too white. I probed the back right of my jaw where two of my own were missing. A consequence of going nine rounds with Ricky Hernandez when I was nineteen years old.
I pressed the phone hard against my ear as they whispered to each other. Their wariness was obvious, even from here. People gave me a wide berth in this neighborhood. It didn’t matter if I was just on the phone, standing on a street corner.
I was still Dean the Machine even if I was a quitter.
A rough-sounding voice suddenly came through. “Yeah, this is Fred. What’s the emergency with your city property?”
I shifted on my feet, startled someone had finally picked up. “Uh…sorry. I’ve been calling about a vacant lot on my block. The one at Tenth and Emily. City tore down my neighbor’s house a year ago. It’s just been sittin’ there.”
Fred coughed. “Okay. And?”
“And…I want to know what the city plans on doing with it. ’Cause right now everyone on my street has to live with an abandoned lot that’s turning into a neighborhood dump.”
There was grumbling. Some clicking noises. “I don’t know what to tell ya, pal. Based on what I’m seeing here, there’s no movement. And no interest.”
“No interest in what?”
“Doin’ anything about it.”
I raked a hand through my hair. “So, the city wants…what? A trash heap filled with rats on a block with kids running around?”
Fred made a frustrated sound. “I don’t know what this city wants, okay? I’m just the guy who reads the reports, and this report right in front of me, on my computer, is saying they wanna let it sit there.”
My shoulders twitched. My right hand curled into a fist. Uncurled, slowly. “What do we do in the meantime?”
There was a beeping sound and a few rustling papers. “I don’t really know, and it’s not really my problem. No offense.”
“Okay,” I said through gritted teeth. I’d spent the past week glaring at the empty space on our street. Being in a boxing ring was awful on a good day and absolutely brutal on a bad. But at least I knew how to handle my opponent. How to get what I wanted from him.
Now I couldn’t even get some underpaid city employee to listen to me.
“Hey,” Fred said. “The zip code for this lot. It’s where I grew up too.” His voice dropped. “I’m only saying this because I’m guessing you and me went to the same school. But I ain’t ever seen this city move fast to clean up anything in that zip code. Have you?”
I looked down at my running shoes. The sidewalk was cracked. Uneven. “No.”
“What’s your name, by the way?”
I hesitated. I wasn’t in the mood. “Dean,” I said. “Dean Knox-Morelli.”
He barked out a laugh. “Are you shittin’ me?”
“I am not.”
“Me and the guys used to watch you down at Snyder’s Tavern, off Oregon Ave. You know it, right?”
It was one of the bars in the city with a dedicated following of boxing fans. Place was packed for every match. It used to be I could walk in there any night of the week and drink for free. I wasn’t welcome there anymore.
“Used to know it, yeah,” I said.
