“How you livin’, Cap'n?” This is Ernesto, a Dominican b-boy from around the corner. He’s got a ridge of scar tissue that runs from the bottom of his chin up to his left earlobe.
I used to coach Ernesto at the gym, and I'd drill him on how to work the bag from his shoulders out. But that ended when he took up with a half-Irish, half-Puerto Rican devil girl who didn’t want to see his face get all smashed up. Irony is that Ernesto got his scar when that selfsame angelfaced honey came after him with a box cutter a month ago. She had been hearing voices, he said.
“Hey, Ernie. How’s the midway treating you?”
“Shit, a jayo’s a jayo, Ellie.”
“You got that right, kid.” I call him “kid,” but Ernesto’s probably in his late thirties. Me, I’m into my late fifties. Anyway you look at it, it’s early morning on Coney Island and we’re both already late. Are you?
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