I Woke Next to the Corpse by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Freddie Murkatelli

When Freddie Murkatelli was 16 years of age, we were in the same seventh or eighth grade grammar school class. I had previously been in his acquaintance through our attendance at the same 17th Street school, the basketball games there, and the higher level basketball games held at the Police Athletic League (PAL) on 23rd Street, which I may never elaborate upon as it’s a long ass story, and probably of no interest to anyone, other than the only tomato slag who ever frequented the rude boy joint; Linda Smith. That broad was absolutely gorgeous, and she used to come there by herself from 4th Street, and to tell you the truth. I don’t even think she knew all that much about basketball, but just seemed to have a shifting and redeeming super fluidity of favorite players.

But anyway, back to Freddie. Like I said he was 16 and biding his legally required time in school, but who gives a fuck, and I only thought about that kind of crap when I was sufficiently bored like when “Fibber McGee and Molly” was not on the air. His most distinctive physical feature was a well-rounded ass and his most distinctive light and airy feature was his reputation for being the toughest kid in school. Some of his friends called him

“Poopy,” but I wouldn’t dare. In later years Freddie was to

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become a strong arm enforcer for Giuseppe "Joe the Boss"

Gottinito, specializing in spook operations.

So, you know, as a result of my having been forced by Prontnozicki to kick Prontnozicki’s ass the day prior, Murkatelli and I started the play fighting shit and we were actually smiling at each other at the outset, and like most always in play fights, we started out slow. Fucking crowd ain’t paying a nickel, so if they got a problem with that they can fuck off to somewhere else. But, like most always the pace picked up, roughly proportionate to the time elapsed, adjusted by the off-the-graph lulls, sometimes induced by an exchange one whacked participant wants to use to take some time to re-assess their strategy.

I Woke Next to the Corpse