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Johnny had wanted food. He had dragged Charlie with childish exuberance to the closest place they could get fresh tomatoes and an obscene amount of garlic. Charlie had paid for it all after he insisted on only the necessities even though Johnny had protested oregano was a staple. It was 95 cents, for Christ’s sake. Sure, he doesn’t cook, but 95 cents for a bit of seasoning? Salt and pepper would do, he told Johnny, who complained and threw a fake punch, but they were laughing when they got back anyway.
Now, Charlie looms over Johnny as he adds the cheap Italian sausage they found to the pasta sauce. Johnny checks over his shoulder for at least the fifteenth time. He’d laugh at Charlie’s overbearing surprise if only it wasn’t stealing his attention from the task at hand.
“I didn’t know you could cook,” Charlie says, grasping at Johnny’s tweed sports coat as if the sauce will explode if he so much as looks at it funny. The smell of garlic and onion and the rich, ruby red color is beyond belief coming from Johnny’s hands alone. “The temperature on the stove is too high, ain’t it?”
“It’s fine,” Johnny drawls with a smile. Charlie doesn’t loosen his grip. “Put the pasta in the water, will ya? And add some salt.”
“How much?”
“It don’t matter.”
“It does.”
“How ‘bout a pinch?”
“A teaspoon?”
"Wha?”
“It’s a way to measure things.”
“Wha- I know, Charlie. Jus’ put the pasta in. Please?”
He sighs and pours the angel hair in the boiling water. With a teaspoon of salt. With two teaspoons of salt. He looks at the third teaspoon of salt in his hand, then glances at Johnny, who instead of taking care of the sauce is looking out the small kitchen window. It isn’t much of a view. It’s dark out, and even if there wasn’t a thick blanket of clouds, the stars would be impossible to see beyond the lights of the city.
Charlie puts the salt back and turns off the radio, which was spewing the same Lesley Gore song for the past half an hour anyway. The music is replaced by blaring car horns and the raucous laughter of the neighbors two doors over. Sure, it’s muffled, but there’s no true silence in New York. Not even in church. There, anyone can hear confessions in the nave and spoken prayers may as well be broadcasted live on television. Charlie’s sure the confessional priest hears his insistence to do his own penance rather than say a Hail Mary or two… or ten.
“Johnny. You gotta stir the sauce,” he says. The broken silence drags Johnny back.
“Take it easy, Charlie.”
“Did you pay Michael?”
“Aw, that don’t gotta matter now, do it? I’ll pay ‘im later,” Johnny says. Charlie grips Johnny’s jacket and spins him so they face each other. “’Ey, c’mon Charlie.”
"Johnny, you were meant to pay ‘em Tuesday. I can’t keep holdin’ him off for you,” he says. Johnny’s gaze drifts down in what Charlie prays might be shame, a tinge of remorse. Charlie sighs – Johnny’s attention slips through his fingers like sand. After agonizing heartbeats and quickened breath that still seems all too slow, he snaps back to looking Charlie in the eyes.
“Don’t tear your hair out. I’ll take care of it,” Johnny says with a chuckle, hands raised in what Charlie knows is a fake honesty, a way to worm his way out of Charlie’s ire. And though Charlie knows the innocence is a charade, his grasp on soft woven threads loosens to let Johnny go.
Johnny’s smile falls once Charlie turns his attention to straightening his silk tie, which hadn’t even been that messed up in the first place.
“’Don’t tear your hair out’,” Charlie mutters with a shake of his head. “When you’re down who even knows how much… How am I meant to – meant to keep you afloat?”
Johnny bites at his nails once picking at them no longer does the trick, both things Charlie has only ever chided him for, but Charlie is too busy pacing, pausing, and starting again to get him to stop. Johnny aches to just tell Charlie to ask his uncle for the help, but Charlie seethes when he brings it up, even though the idea is worth a shot. Trying something new would be better than staying in the cycle of whatever the hell this is. Charlie’s just too chicken to confess he can’t solve everyone’s problems alone.
Charlie made the mistake of vouching for Johnny in the first place. He knew Johnny was a screw-up and just couldn’t help himself, so now, maybe now, he’ll learn.
“Johnny. You’re gonna pay Mike anythin’ you got tomorrow, and I’ll talk with him, okay?” Charlie says. Johnny shrinks. It’s just another insistence that’ll stick in his mind until he gives in, but it’s pointless. He’s done. He swears that he’s done listening to Charlie, God, Charlie with the sweet face, sweet voice, with words that will always hit their mark on a long dead target.
He finds himself with everything to say, yet none of the right words come out. Telling Charlie to stop wasting his time lingers on the tip of his tongue. Instead, Johnny pastes on a smile and goes back to the sauce, which started to burn at the bottom of the pot. It’s nothing unsalvageable, though a little basil and rosemary and oregano would go a long way.
Charlie wraps his arms around Johnny’s waist, warm and firm, and rests his head on his shoulder. He’ll have to drain the pasta before it turns to mush, but Charlie’s secure, and this time he doesn’t quite mind the heavy, entwining embrace.