All The Young Punks Pt. 38

"Joe lost a sister?" Simon asked.

Pops looked in his rearview mirror at Tina. She put her hands on his shoulder.

"It's okay, Pops. We'll explain it to him later."

"Explain what? Is that his sister?"

"Yes, Simon," Tina put her hands on his. "When he was eleven."

"How old was she?"

"Just shy of her ninth birthday."

"Bloody hell. What happened?"

"She was run over by a car," Pops said. "Right in front of his house."

"Fuck."

"And Joe was standing right there," Sal added

"Eleven feet away," Tina said softly.

The car went dead silent. They watched Joe turn and slowly walk back, his hands jammed in his pockets, head down. When he reached Tina's car, she was waiting with Sal under his umbrella.

Joe parked on Dean Street down a ways from Anthony's Ristorante, a building owned by Tony Mancuso, and leased by his cousin, also named Tony Mancuso. Pops was their best customer. He was very close to cousin Tony. Tina opened her car door to find Simon offering her a protective umbrella.

Joe got out on his side and looked over the roof of the car. "Where the fuck did you get an umbrella?"

Simon smiled. "I'm British, brollies are assigned at birth." and walked off with his girl.

The food at Anthony's is first-rate, but it's not an upscale place. It's a family restaurant with a very small bar. John Senior took his plate straight to Tina and sat down to meet her for real. She made him laugh.

"Joe left Providence thinking he was getting away from you Italians and he finds me. All he does is break my balls about being Italian and Catholic." She turned to Joe. "He has a love-hate relationship with us."

Joe leaned in. "Just for the record, John. My girl does not have balls."

When his plate was empty, John Senior motioned to Joe to come closer. They leaned in. "Before you leave town, come to my office. I have something for you."

Joe scrunched his nose, a mildly confused look. "What are you..."

"Just come to my office. We'll discuss it there."

--- GARBAGE CITY ---

Tina was not pleased when Joe informed her he was staying behind, but he gave her a passenger to keep her company for the drive home, Simon. He had taken the train up.

"Look, T," he explained. "I canceled all our factory gigs. I have the next six weeks off. I'll be down soon. I have to talk to Sal. I'm worried about him. We have to deal with some shit."

"What shit? It's over."

"It's never over for the ones left behind. Sometimes the worst comes after the dead are buried."

After a week of dealing with the aftermath of Johnny's death. Joe returned to NYC to deal with business. The Young Punks' second record, Industrial Art, was released after Johnny's funeral to no fanfare.

"We could have delayed the release," Marty said. "You had it all planned. The record would hit the stores the day you began the factory tour."

"And I decided it doesn't matter," Joe said while looking at his menu. "Did the promotional materials go out?"

"Yes."

"That's good enough. Our college radio friends have the record and vinyl is at the record shops. We're fine. After the holidays I'll push the record."

"You're taking six weeks off for a death in the family?" Stan asked.

Joe stared over his menu. His partners earned a lot of good will coming to Providence, but a week later they were burning it by pestering Joe over his decisions.

"Look," he met their eyes. "From where you sit it seems like we're losing valuable time. You don't have to go out there," he pointed toward the world. "and slap on a fake smile. We're not ready. Sal's a fucking mess."

Walking home from the subway, Joe had to walk in a zig-zagging route around trash piling up in the streets of Greenwich Village. The New York Sanitation strike was making life difficult on the street. After a week, trash was piling up and New Yorkers were on edge. Back in 3C, Joe was examining the new record with Tina.

"It's funny," she said. "When I took this photo of the band I didn't know thousands of people would see it."

"You did great, T. Everything is perfect. I love how you extended the brick wall behind us beyond the photo to the edge of the jacket."

"It's actually not a great photo," she confessed. "When you picked this one I was disappointed."

"I get it. The lighting is crap, but you made it work."

The black & white photo of the band Tina had taken in the back alley of Tommy Guns was not perfect. Tina got creative, using paint to color outside the lines extending the brick beyond the photo and to color the shadows created by the poor lighting. It was her trademark technique, painting over her photography.

Like the first record, all print was done in a simple lowercase font. This became a theme of the band and the Guerilla label. As Joe put it, "Everything we do is small scale."

The back of the album and inside sleeve had photos of the hulking CIC factory complex in Providence; brick, hundreds of windows, thousands of panes of glass, many broken, and the boiler plant smokestacks. Joe felt the industrial theme was perfect for a punk record.

Days later Tina was upset that Joe was going back to Providence, cutting his stay short.

"You said you had six weeks off and you'd be here."

"That was before this place became Garbage City. It's fucking disgusting, T. You can't even walk on the sidewalk. I'm on the street and do you think the drivers give a fuck? I had to jump into a pile of trash to avoid getting run over by a truck."

"So I have to live in the trash while you run off?"

"Sorry. I'd rather be in a place where they collect the trash. When they clean this shit up, I'll come back."

The strike lasted until December 17th, two and a half weeks. When Tina reported to Joe that the sidewalks were clear. He returned just in time for the holiday.

Joe and Tina now had a Christmas tradition. For the second year, they enjoyed a festive eve at the Costello home in Brooklyn where Mrs C, the Christmas Fairy Godmother, hosted the extended family. After midnight, they drove four hours to Providence where Jeanie was waiting. The moment they walked into the kitchen she greeted them with a smile. It was Christmas morning in the Theroux home.