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    Hell's Kitchen Requiem
    Hell's Kitchen Requiem
    Hell's Kitchen Requiem
    Ebook137 pages1 hour

    Hell's Kitchen Requiem

    By Brian Flon

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    About this ebook

    'Hell's Kitchen Requiem' is a 25,000 word short novel designed for those sitting on a train, plane, or bus with an
    e-reader, looking for something that moves like a knife through butter, and which refuses to compromise its milieu with forced political-correctness. The book is written in the first-person, past-tense, from the perspective of an
    Irish-American mobster recently paroled from prison, who arrives in New York City seeking to settle an old account, but who finds in the process something that has eluded him for the whole of his miserable existence: Love. The Real Thing. The kind of thing that is incompatible with everything he has stood for in the past, and everything he expected from what was left of his future.
    Dialog-driven and filled with humor and pathos, 'Hell's Kitchen Requiem' takes no prisoners. Not in its language and not in its unflinching commitment to honesty. There isn't a single false word in the book, no faking or posing of any sort. And no sentence needs to be read twice.
    A rarity in today's bland and derivative marketplace, 'Hell's Kitchen Requiem', with its no-holds-barred and straight from the gut brand of storytelling, provides a very special and unique two hours worth of reading time.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateMar 1, 2014
    ISBN9781483522784
    Hell's Kitchen Requiem

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      Book preview

      Hell's Kitchen Requiem - Brian Flon

      life.

      (1)

      I got out on a Friday in June. I was told to report to my parole officer within 48 hours, which had about as much chance of happening as me getting laid by Beyonce.

      The guard at the gate smiled at me as I walked by and said, See you soon, Flynn.

      I was about to say, Fuck you, Kowalski, but if there was one thing I had learned from 5 years in a cell, it was to pick your spots, and this wasn’t one of them.

      I smiled back, waved goodbye.

      Then I caught a bus for New York.

      Lucky me. A pedophile named Hank, also paroled on the same day, took the seat next to mine. He thought he had found a kindred spirit simply because I remained silent as he outlined his plans to snatch ten-year olds from their mothers. Then he suddenly asked me if I thought Jesus might actually be God, because, he admitted, if that were the case, he was fucked.

      I told him that the only person who knew for sure was Mary Magdalene, and she wasn’t talking.

      Heh, heh, heh, he said.

      I turned away, tried to sleep.

      Hey, Flynn…

      Yeah?

      You wanna get some pizza when we hit the city?

      Only if you keep your mouth shut the rest of the trip.

      He did so, and I was forced to share a pie with him at Penn Station, which, I must say, tasted good, damn good. Real food, shit, I’d forgotten what it was like.

      After we were done he shook my hand and said, Good luck, dude.

      He wore a smile which foretold all the pain and the sorrow awaiting the parents of his future victims.

      So long, Hank, I said.

      (2)

      I took a room on West End Ave. Two nights for one Ben Frank. Communal toilets. Lots of Germans. A shithole.

      I tossed my duffel bag, then showered. A dude with a blonde buzzcut and a tattoo of the Iron Cross on his shoulder was standing at one of the sinks, brushing his teeth.

      Good evening, he said.

      Not if you’re a Jew, I said.

      He beat it out of there.

      I toweled off, went back to my room.

      Clicking on the cheap little cell-phone I’d bought at Duane Reade, I left a message for Liam O’Connell, my old ‘boss’.

      Then I lay down and closed my eyes, but all I could see was my mother dying alone, her body carried off by strangers.

      I got up, lit a cigarette, headed out.

      (3)

      I found a dive on Amsterdam, The Emerald Isle, and took a seat at the end of the bar.

      The scene was mostly old-timers, ready to keel, with a few pseudo-tough guys dressed in frayed flannel shirts and wearing Rastafarian-knit caps, which looked dumb as shit on white dudes.

      Eventually the barkeep arrived.

      What’ll it be? he asked.

      Jameson’s, neat, and a Guinness.

      He nodded, poured.

      I paid him. 13 bucks. 13 bucks for a Jameson’s and a Guinness. Man, it had really been a long time.

      I downed the whiskey, took a pull off the Stout.

      Then my cell rang.

      I took another swig, clicked it on.

      Yeah?

      Fuck, you made it.

      Damn straight I made it. You owe me 20 grand.

      There’s a lot more than that waiting for you, lad.

      I ain’t killing any cops, Liam.

      He laughed.

      Come see me tomorrow, he said, then was gone.

      I got up, went to the toilet.

      It reeked of vomit, piss, and Clorox, an all-too-familiar stench. The dude at the other urinal looked me over and said, You wanna give me a blowjob, faggot?

      What, on your three-inch Irish dick?

      He took a wild, drunken swing at me, missed.

      I threw an elbow up into his mouth, bullseye.

      He dropped to his knees, spitting out blood and teeth.

      I watched as the horrifying recognition of what lay up ahead slowly dawned on him.

      Then I zipped up, left him there weeping.

      (4)

      I caught a gypsy-cab up to Harlem. As I got out a dude wearing a hoodie waved me over.

      Good weed, man, he said. Real good.

      Yeah?

      Fuck, yeah. Skunk.

      Okay, I said. I’ll take a dime.

      ‘Dime’? Shit, ain’t no dimes anymore, man. Where you been, fuckin’ Mars?

      A bit farther out. Attica.

      Yeah? he said, pumping my fist. Just out of Riker’s myself.

      That ain’t lock-up. It’s pre-school.

      He pulled off his hoodie, showed me a scar running from his eye to his ear.

      ‘Pre-school’, huh, dog?

      Okay, maybe kindergarten.

      He smiled.

      You’re okay, dog. For a white-boy.

      Thanks. I’ll list you as a reference on my resume.

      Know what? I’m gonna do you a solid. Give you an extra-large quarter.

      That’s mighty white of you.

      He handed me the bag. I slipped him the cash.

      Next time you’re around, he said, be sure to ask for Reggie.

      Next time I’m around, you’ll be back on Riker’s.

      He shook his head.

      Not me, dog. Ain’t no stone-age motherfuckers puttin’ me back in no cage.

      Right on, dog, I said. Eldridge Cleaver would be proud.

      Who? he said.

      (5)

      There was this bodega, on 115th Street, where the only things on the shelves were chips, and you picked up a bag, walked up to the counter, and handed over 50 bucks.

      In return, you got not only the chips, whose expiration date was probably two years earlier, but a half-dozen Oxycontins, the 60mg kick-ass ones.

      I walked in and followed the routine, except I figured that, like everything else except maybe 12th Avenue pussy, the price had now doubled.

      The clerk, a young Mexican dude wearing a Yankees cap, looked at me and nodded as I dropped a Benjamin on the counter.

      He snapped it up, put it into the cash-register.

      Then he pulled out a brown paper bag from under the counter, put the chips in, said, Thank you, hombre. Anything else you need?

      Penelope Cruz’ cell-phone number.

      He laughed.

      Sorry, hombre.

      I shrugged, split with my pills and stale chips.

      (6)

      Cobain was croaking out ‘Pennyroyal Tea’ through the headphones of the old Walkman I’d won in a prison-yard poker game. ‘Unplugged’ was the only tape I had, that and ‘Who’s Next’. I can’t tell you how many fucking times I listened to those 2 albums while lying on the mattress in my cell.

      Now I was sitting on a creaky wooden chair in yet another 8x10 rathole. Kurt sounded the same, bummed, real bummed, but I was feeling better, the Oxy kicking in now, along with the weed and the pint of Guinness I’d bought at a bodega on Broadway.

      Then I heard a knock at the door, loud enough to pierce the music.

      I got up, walked over, opened it.

      Two young German girls were standing there, grinning slyly.

      Hi, one of them said.

      The other just stood there.

      What can I do for you ladies? I asked.

      Do you perhaps know, the one doing the talking said, where we might purchase something to smoke?

      I might be able to help you out. But first you have to answer a question.

      Yes?

      Is it true what I’ve heard? That German girls have no nipples?

      They stopped grinning.

      Thought so, I said, and closed the door.

      (7)

      Finally, I slept, my first decent sleep in 5 years.

      I got up, headed over to one of those cafes that charged college kids with trust-funds a small fortune

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