TEENAGE WASTELAND

BY ASHLEY DAWSON

Tottenville

The crowd started throwing shit at the stage when the band lit into "Heart of Glass." Angry chants of "Disco sucks!" bounced off the low roof, cutting through the percolating synth rhythms and lush purr of Blondie. Sunny hopped up and down, bouncing in time to the music and catching glimpses of Debbie Harry and her band dodging gum, spit, bottles, and various other projectiles. What was the band thinking, she wondered, performing this disco version of their song at CBGB's, the mothership of punk music in NYC?

The crowd surged ominously toward the stage. Sunny felt the song's beat all the way down in her stomach, felt its rhythms transporting her through the skyscraper jungle of Manhattan like an elevated subway on speed, but she realized how sacrilegious the band was being with this new, amped-up version of "Heart of Glass." Her magic Manhattan carpet ride got bumpy as she collided in midair with Totò, her cousin, who was bouncing even higher than her and yelling through the din at Jimmy Destri. Blondie's keyboard player, Destri was one of the prime movers steering the band toward the electro-sound that was shaking their bones silly.

Sunny and Totò had grown up running into the older Destri, whose given name was James Mollica, on hot summer days in Brooklyn. Standing onstage with his hair coiffed in a Beatlesesque New Wave mop, he didn't look much like the Jimmy Mollica she'd seen drenched in sweat, hauling the towering Giglio statue of the Madonna of Mt. Carmel through the streets of Williamsburg with a hundred or so other guys, but she still felt some kind of loyalty to him. Besides, there were Totò's feelings to consider. Pogoing there beside her, he was all smiles. Who really cared whether Blondie was playing punk or disco? All that mattered was that she and Totò were dancing together at CBGB's, in the heart of the East Village. At seventeen, they were finally making it out of Staten Island, just like Jimmy Destri had escaped from Brooklyn. Fleeing the island's claustrophobic suburbs, messed-up families, and time-capsule fashion sense. About time, Sunny thought.

 

* * *

 

Later, as the ferry carried them home across the dark waters of the harbor, Totò's enthusiasm for the band's new direction bubbled over.

"Ain't Jimmy's new synth cool? Sounds just like Kraftwerk!"

"Yeah, I guess," Sunny replied, "but I kinda miss the anger."

"Whad'ya mean, the anger? There's loads of anger in stuff like 'Heart of Glass.' It's all about being screwed by a boyfriend."

"I know, but Debbie Harry don't exactly sound angry," Sunny said. "She sings like she's a freaky robot or something."

"Yeah, okay, but that's the whole point, ain't it? I mean, she's been screwed over so much that she's kinda hollow inside."

"Maybe, but I figure Blondie is just trying to cash in. Next thing they're gonna be singing 'Stayin' Alive.'"

"That's total bull. Besides, disco gets a bad rap. It's not all about dickheads like Tony Manero . . ."

"Yeah, the other night I saw the Corleones at Studio 54."

"Oh, fuck you," Totò said with a grin, "you can't swallow all that Hollywood crap. There's a whole lot going on that those assholes don't know nuthin' about."

"You're only saying that cuz ya got a crush on Jimmy Destri."

Totò made a grab for Sunny, who was already convulsed with giggles. She slid quickly down the graffiti-scarred wooden bench, leaving Totò pummeling the air. Overcome with laughter, the two splayed out on the hard seats of the sparsely populated night ferry. Totò's laugh suddenly turned into a sputtering cough, which shifted into a wracking paroxysm.

"What the fuck, Totò, what's the matter with you?" Sunny gasped.

Too convulsed to reply, Totò staggered toward the bathroom. Sunny caught up with him and stuck her head under his arm to offer support. The two lurched into one of the open stalls of the men's room; Totò put his head down and started puking.

"Fuckin' kids these days," a wino pissing in an adjoining stall groused.

"Eat me, asshole!" Sunny yelled back, as she held Totò's head over the filthy john.

Gradually the shudders that had wracked Totò's body died down. When he'd recovered enough to stand up in front of a sink and splash cold water on his face, Sunny turned on him.

"What the hell's the matter with you, Totò?"

"I dunno. I ain't been feeling so hot lately. But it ain't what you think. Ever since Vito died, I swear I been off the stuff."

"You better not be lying to me, Totò."

"No, I swear, it's something else, like I can't breathe. Maybe I shouldn't go in the clubs no more, but I swear I can't smell nothing in there, cigarettes or anything, my nostrils been so eaten up by the shit smell waftin' off the dump."

Just then, a crackling metallic voice announced that the ferry was about to dock at Staten Island.

"Yeah," Sunny replied, "it's a bitch livin' in the city's asshole."

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Sunny's dad pounded loudly on her bedroom door.

"Annunziata Cacciatore, you get your ass up outta bed. I don't care if you stayed up all night, you still gotta come to mass. Jesus Christ, it's Pasqua!"

"Va fan' culo, Dad. It's too friggin' early!"

"Jesus! If it weren't Easter I'd smack you upside your head so hard. You get your ass outta bed and get some clothes on, Annunziata. And I don't want you wearing no dog collar, neither! Get some decent clothes on for a change."

Sunny dragged herself out of bed and over to her closet. There wasn't much in there that wasn't black or leather. Her dad would flip out if she wore any of her street clothes to church, but she wasn't about to go dressed like she was heading to her First Communion. Or, on second thought, maybe that was exactly the look she wanted.

Sunny pulled her old communion dress out of her closet and over her head. Not half bad, she thought, looking in the mirror. The white lace trim on her dress suggested a virgin innocence completely at odds with her tightly sheathed body. I like to keep them on their toes, she thought, without really thinking who the them was.

Sunny was lithe and tall like a boy, and scared off most Staten Island guys with her ripped-up clothes and Dr. Martens. She teased her black hair up into a billowing Siouxsie Sioux coif, layered white foundation over her face, and finished things off with a thick smear of coal-dark eyeliner.

Her dad was just finishing his breakfast when Sunny came down the stairs. His mouth dropped open.

"Madonna! There's no way you're going to church like that, young lady."

"Whaaat! But Dad, it's my communion dress."

"I know, but that was four years ago. You're busting out all over it."

Sunny gnashed her teeth. Her dad was getting more conservative every year. It was as if he wanted to take all his anger at the counterculture of the last ten years out on his daughter, grinding her down into a Catholic schoolgirl Barbie doll. Life with him was becoming impossible.

Seeing Sunny smoldering, her dad called for backup: "Toni, get a load a this!"

Sunny's mom stuck her head into the kitchen. "O Dio!" she blurted out. "You look ridiculous. But we don't have any more time. We gotta hurry up or we'll miss the procession."

"No way. I'm not taking my daughter out looking like that."

"We don't have time to argue, Pippo. Senti, we gotta go now or we won't make it."

"Non mi frega, Toni, there's no way in hell we're gonna take Annunziata to church dressed like some kinda puttana."

He grew more and more red in the face as he argued with his wife. Sunny was left standing in the middle of the room while the two of them argued backward and forward, their voices rising and their vocabulary veering toward scatological Italian. In the middle of a tirade about his honor as a father that involved multiple references to his dick, Pippo suddenly choked and began coughing. Hacks wracking his body, he lurched toward the bathroom.

"Che cazzo, Pippo?" Sunny's mom yelled. "What the hell's da matta with you? This is the third time this week. Get your ass outta that bathroom."

"What's going on, Mom?"

"I don't know, Sunny, he's been coughing and getting sick for a few weeks now. You know him, though, of course he's trying to act like it ain't nuthin'."

"Wow, that's exactly the same thing that happened last night to Totò."

"Your cousin Totò is into some bad stuff. I'm not surprised he's sick."

"That's not fair, Mom. Totò doesn't do that anymore. Besides, last night he said he thought it might have something to do with the stink off the dump. Maybe dad got sick from the same smell."

"Look, Sunny, that's ridiculous. Your dad puts on a mask every time he goes to work. He couldn't smell a raw onion if you held it right in front of his nose. Besides, I'm gonna kill Pippo long before the Fresh Kills cough gets 'im. Pippo," she yelled, "you get your ass outta that bathroom! We're gonna miss communion at this rate and I ain't gonna burn in hell cuz of you!"

 

* * *

 

Around midnight, Sunny woke to a rain of pebbles on her window. She pulled on a leather jacket, slid down a drainpipe, and followed Totò into the dark alleyway behind her house.

In a heavy whisper, Totò told her the news: "My dad said he heard something's going on over at Fresh Kills. When I tol' him I been feeling bad lately, he said lots of other people been sick too. But I couldn't get him to say anythin' else, he just got real sad and stared off into space an' shit. I say we check the place out. You in?"

Sunny still remembered how confused she'd been as a young girl when Totò's dad Enzo started growing his hair out long. Enzo went over to Vietnam a year after his older brother, but he came back earlier and even more messed up in the head than her dad. Sunny's dad and Enzo had long shouting matches about 'Nam. Eventually, they stopped talking to one another entirely.

When Totò and his brother Vito were younger, their dad would often be gone, traveling around the country protesting the war. After the troops came home, Enzo still wouldn't settle down. He kept his hair long and refused to take a job working for the city like her dad and so many other men on Staten Island. He was unemployed for a long time, his wife left him, and Totò and Vito spent a lot of time with their grandparents. Totò went through a rough patch, and his brother Vito went completely off the rails. But now Enzo owned a small guitar shop and was trying to make things right with Totò.

"Yeah, sure, I'm in," she said.

It was a chilly night, winter not yet having loosed its grip on the city. The moon was scudding between clouds, casting a silver light on the leafless trees. It looked like a thin coat of snow had just fallen on the island. Totò and Sunny walked away from her pale blue two-story house in Tottenville, down Lighthouse Avenue, and then cut off the road and headed across the Jewish cemetery toward Fresh Kills Landfill.

Sunny's dad had worked for the Department of Sanitation for years, so she knew something about the history of garbage on the island. Fresh Kills was opened after World War II. It was only supposed to stay open for twenty years, but dumping is a hard habit to kick. Fresh Kills was still accepting hundreds of tons of garbage every day. It seemed like her dad had a job for life at the dump.

As they climbed through the jagged teeth of the chain-link fence that surrounded the place, Sunny whispered to Totò, "Ya gotta watch your ass. There's packs of wild dogs on the hunt at night in here."

"Yeah, lots of fresh-killed meat around here, I guess."

"No, wise-ass, that name means the place was filled with fresh creeks."

"Ain't too fresh no more."

"No shit, Sherlock."

"Oh man, it stinks!"

"Yeah, shit buried in Fresh Kills don't stay underground for very long," Sunny said.

"Hey, I think I hear something."

As they climbed over a rise in the rolling landscape created by decades of accumulated garbage, Sunny and Totò were blinded by a half-moon of arc lights. When their eyes had adjusted, they saw a couple of huge yellow bulldozers moving across the reeking piles of waste like giant prehistoric insects. The stench was overwhelming, hitting like a swift kick to the head.

"What're they doin' workin' here at night?" Sunny whispered.

"Looks to me like they're digging holes."

"Oh yeah, you're right, but what the hell for?"

Sunny and Totò crouched and looked down into the garbage valley until their legs as well as their lungs were ready to give. Just as they were about to walk back down toward the fenced-off perimeter of the dump, a truck came rumbling up the access road, its running lights a piercing red in the near total darkness. It pulled off the road and headed toward the brilliant circle of light where the bulldozers were at work. Sunny and Totò held their breath as the truck pulled up alongside one of the holes dug by the bulldozers. The bed of the truck cantilevered slowly into the air, and some sort of dense liquid began pouring out into the hole. The acrid smell of garbage, which had begun to recede as their senses grew accustomed to the reek, became overpowering. It was as if someone had flung acid into their faces.

After the truck had emptied all its foul liquid into the hole, one of the bulldozers pulled up with a jerky motion and began to push piles of garbage into the hole, gradually burying the sludge under a mountain of junk. All evidence of the truck's dark contents was soon obliterated.

Communicating with hand gestures, Totò and Sunny turned away from the infernal scene and headed back toward the hole in the fence through which they'd entered Fresh Kills. As they walked back across the cemetery, their lungs filled with relatively clean air.

"What the fuck's going on, Sunny?"

"I dunno. I don't get why they're dumping shit at night, and why they're bringing it in trucks. Usually all the garbage comes in on barges during the day."

"Whatever that shit was, it stank even worse than the rest of the dump."

"Yeah, that's the truth. Must be some evil stuff."

"Just thinking about it makes me wanna start pukin' again."

"My dad's been coughing too."

"What're we gonna do about this, Sunny?"

"I dunno, Totò, I dunno. You think I should talk to my dad?"

"Well, he works at the dump, right? Perhaps he knows about what's going on at night."

"Yeah, and even if he don't, maybe he can find something out. Okay, I'll talk to him."

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Sunny crawled out of bed at what felt like the crack of dawn. Her dad was busy putting on his heavy overalls when she stuck her head into her parents' bedroom. Sensing her presence, Pippo stopped dressing and turned toward his daughter.

"You going to school today dressed in your pajamas or what?" he said, an amused glint in his eye.

"Nah, Dad, I still gotta get ready for school. I wanted to talk to you about something."

"O Dio! Don't tell me you're pregnant."

"Naah, course I ain't pregnant! I wanted to talk to you about Fresh Kills. Some kids told me that they heard weird noises coming from the dump at night. And it's been stinking even worse than usual recently. You know about something strange going on there?"

Pippo's dark eyes flashed, all signs of amusement suddenly draining out of his face.

"Sit down, Annunziata."

Oh shit, Sunny thought. Now I'm really gonna get it. He's gonna take out all his shit on me, as usual. Don't dress that way, don't listen to that crap music, don't cut Sunday school.

It was worse than the Ten Commandments. Ever since her dad came back from Vietnam, he'd been obsessed with how he and his buddies who stayed to fight the gooks had been betrayed by the hippies and his sack-of-shit brother. He lashed out at anyone who questioned the hell he'd gone through and the sacrifices he'd made. Now that Sunny was no longer a cute little innocent kid, he was starting to see her as in league with the Great Betrayal as well.

"No, there's nothing strange going on at the dump," Pippo said. "I been working there for twenty years, and the place reeks worse every year. After a while, though, you don't smell it too much. So don't worry about me or Fresh Kills."

"Yeah, but Dad, it's not just you that's sick. Totò and a bunch of other people are getting sick. Shouldn't we do something if the dump is leaking poison into the neighborhood?"

"Listen, Annunziata: I don't want you nosing around there, okay? It's not just that the place stinks. Fresh Kills is like an iceberg. There's a lot more to it than meets the eye. You don't want to start digging up trouble. That's an order. Stai zitta, capisci?"

"Okay, Dad, I hear you," Sunny replied. She did her best to put on a sweet smile as she stood up to walk out of the bedroom. I shoulda known it's no use talking to him, she thought. Never question authority—that should be her dad's motto. He's just like all the other idiots on this island, Sunny thought. A buncha sheep. 'Cept he's worse: he probably knows how fucked up the situation is, but he's too chicken to do anything about it.

 

* * *

 

"Wha'd he say?" Totò asked when Sunny arrived at the playground, where they and the other students of Tottenville High waited before the first bell rang, summoning them to morning assembly. He, Sunny, and the rest of the punks always hung out in a corner of the playground as far away as possible from the other kids, with their elaborately blow-dried Farrah Fawcett and Leif Garrett hairstyles, their atrocious leisure clothes, and their spine-chilling love of the Bee Gees.

"He told me to shut up about Fresh Kills."

"Wha?"

"Yeah, he said there wasn't anything funny going on there, and that I should stop talking about it."

"No way. But what about his cough?"

"I get the feeling he's scared of something. It's like he knows something's up, but he don't wanna let on."

"I hate to say this, Sunny, but maybe there's a reason he ain't talking. Maybe he ain't scared. Maybe he's on the take."

"What're you talking about, Totò?"

"I mean, don't get offended or nothing, but we both know that the garbage biz is pretty mobbed up."

"No, Totò, he can't be a part of that."

"Look, I ain't saying he's a made man. I mean, you know how things work around here. You wanna keep your job or your business, you gotta learn to be a little cooperative. Sometimes you gotta learn to look the other way, or to take a little kickback that makes you part of the whole thing. You get dirty once, and you can't never get clean."

"I can't fucking believe it. If he did that, then he's even more of a jerk than I figured he was."

Maybe this was the explanation for the glint of fear she'd seen in her dad's eyes. Maybe he was terrified of what was going on at Fresh Kills, but also part of it. While the thought didn't make her feel much more sympathetic toward her dad, it did make her really angry. Who, she wanted to know, was screwing around with her dad? Whoever it was, they were victimizing not just her dad, not just her family, but Totò and the rest of the people living near Fresh Kills too.

"Listen, Totò, I wanna find out what the fuck's going on at Fresh Kills. I don't care what my dad says. Can you meet me again tonight?"

"Sure thing, Sunny."

"What about a car? Can you get us a car?"

"Yeah, I think my dad will probably lend me his. But we better not fuck it up. He'll fucking kill me. He don't give a shit about most things, but he really loves his Camaro. We ain't gonna take it into Fresh Kills, are we?"

"No, Totò, we ain't going driving through the dump. I wanna find out where those trucks are coming from."

 

* * *

 

That night, Totò parked his dad's Camaro on a dark stretch of Arthur Kill Road near one of the main feeder roads to the dump. He and Sunny slumped down in the seats and waited for something to happen.

"Hey, Starsky," Sunny said eventually, wiping some of the fog that was accumulating on the windows off with her sleeve, "it's starting to get cold in this fuckin' jalopy of yours."

"Yeah, I don't know 'bout you, Huggy Bear, but I'm getting cold and sleepy."

"We been sitting here for hours. Detective work ain't all it's cracked up to be."

"Right on, I'm bored stiff."

"Yeah, me too."

They sat for another hour or so, their shivers the only thing keeping them from drifting off to sleep. Suddenly, Totò snapped awake.

"Hey, Sunny, wake up, I see some headlights."

"Oh shit, you're right. It's one of the trucks. Start the fucking car. No, wait, don't start it. Wait until the truck goes by."

"Make up your mind, why don'cha?"

Totò turned the ignition key but kept the Camaro's lights off. The truck pulled out of the feeder road and onto Arthur Kill Road. Totò turned the lights on and drove off after the truck, which was headed toward the expressway.

"Don't get too close to them, okay, Totò?"

"Course not. Hey, check it out, they've got outta-state plates."

"Holy shit, you're right. So whatever they've been dumping, it ain't from around here."

"Jesus."

"Yeah, looks like we're not just the asshole of New York City. Looks like someone else is shitting on us too."

As Totò followed the truck up onto the narrow steel span of the Goethals Bridge, the industrial landscape of northeastern New Jersey rolled out before their eyes. A fairyland of glinting white lights sprang up in front of them as they sped toward the oil refineries and tank farms clustered along the shoreline of Elizabeth. Driving down the far side of the bridge, they could make out a forest of snaking pipes running for miles through the refineries, illuminated by twinkling lights strung along every inch of them, as if to demonstrate to the heavens how much energy they could pump out. Above it all hung many tongues of blue flame, burning off waste gases and belching fire and smoke into the atmosphere.

"Holy crap, looks like Christmas in hell," Sunny whispered.

"Amen, sister."

"I had no idea that we lived near all this shit."

"Me neither."

The truck barreled along the densely intertwined roads leading to the New Jersey Turnpike. Just before hitting the highway, it took a sharp right and drove down a small backstreet near the entrance to the sprawling port. The truck turned into a large lot surrounded by a high fence, to which were affixed neat white signs emblazoned with blue letters: Refinement International.

"Whadda we do now?" Totò asked as he pulled the car over down the block from the lot.

"I say we try to find out more about what they been dumping," Sunny replied.

"You crazy or what?"

"Well, you just wanna go home after we came all this way?"

"Okay, okay, but don't tell me I didn't warn ya."

They got out of the car and walked along the fence. It was impossible to see through the canvas that covered the wire mesh. There was a gate at the entrance through which the truck had driven; it was still open. There, on the other side of the lot, was the truck. Sunny and Totò looked around the yard but couldn't see anybody. After watching awhile, they decided that the driver must have gone into the office building, which stood on the opposite side of the yard.

After a quick whispered consultation, Sunny and Totò headed over to the truck. Totò went around to peek into the cab while Sunny looked into the back of it. They had just met up on the far side of the truck and were about to head back out of the lot when a loud voice stopped them in their tracks.

"Who the fuck are you and what're you doing here?"

Two men were moving fast toward them from the office building. The one who had spoken was big and burly, and was dressed in a suit.

"We ain't doing nothing, mister," Totò blurted out. "We was just looking for a place to be alone."

"Just looking for a place to be alone, huh? You planning on getting some action tonight, huh? Well, let's take a look at your girlfriend."

The two men were now standing right in front of them. The suit walked up to within a foot of Sunny while his partner, a short guy dressed in jeans and a nylon jacket, hung back.

"Oh man, she's pretty weird looking. What's with the spiky hair? You put your finger in an electric socket or something, sweetheart? And why're you dressed like a boy? Not very attractive, I must say, but I bet your pussy is still sweet. Say, my friend, I'm sure you wouldn't mind sharing some of that sweet poontang, now, would you? What you think, Joe, shall we sample this funky thing's merchandise?"

"Sure thing, boss," the short guy said, "even if she is kinda scrawny."

Totò lost it and made a run at the suit, who saw him coming and punched him hard in the stomach. Totò reeled backward, into the arms of the suit's partner, who grabbed him from behind, threw him onto the ground, and started delivering a series of thudding punches to his head.

"Now, where was I before I was so rudely interrupted?" the suit said, as he advanced toward Sunny. "Oh yes, I was speaking admiringly of your pussy. I'm sure you don't want to disappoint my great expectations, do you now? So, let's get down to business, shall we?"

Sunny stood still, paralyzed by fear. But just as he reached her, she yelled "Stronzo!" with eardrum-popping volume and swung her steel-capped Dr. Marten–clad foot up into his kneecap. The suit screamed out in pain and toppled over. Sunny stepped back and delivered another carefully aimed kick to his stomach. The suit's high-pitch screeching turned into a deep groan.

Sunny wheeled around just in time to see Totò leap onto the back of the short guy, who had stopped punching him and was coming over to help his boss. Totò couldn't see much since his eyes were already swelling up from the punches, but he did momentarily distract the guy. Sunny cocked her leg back and delivered one more kick, this one straight to the man's groin. He howled and crumpled to the ground.

Sunny grabbed Totò by the hand and dragged him out of the yard and down the street. As they approached the Camaro, she grabbed the keys out of his pocket, pushed Totò into the passenger seat, climbed in, and gunned the car's engine. They took off back toward Staten Island in a screech of burning tires.

"Oh fuck, they sure kicked the shit outta me," Totò moaned as they flew back across the Goethals Bridge. "But I gotta hand it to you, you really saved my ass."

"Don't mention it. Those assholes really had it coming to 'em. They didn't even know what we was doing and they still wanted to fuck us up!"

"Fuck you up, more like it."

"Well, they won't be trying that stunt again anytime soon."

"Yeah, you were so cool! They really picked the wrong chick to fuck with. Watch out, muthafuckas: she's got DMs and she ain't afraid to use 'em. So cool! Oh shit, I'm bleeding all over my dad's car. He's gonna fuck me up even worse than those guys did."

"Don't sweat it, Totò. I'll explain to him. I have proof that we weren't just fuckin' around. Check this out!"

Sunny took a small plastic container out of her jacket.

"What the fuck's that? You gonna show him that you been eating yogurt for your diet or something?" Totò quipped, and groaned as his joke brought a painful smile to his face.

"No, dipshit, I scooped some of the liquid from the back of that truck into this yogurt container. This is all the evidence we need to bust those sons a bitches."

"Jesus! Nice move, Sunny, but get that shit away from me."

 

* * *

 

Two days later, Sunny was standing in the usual corner of the playground waiting for the morning assembly bell to ring. Today she was alone. She didn't feel like shooting the bull with the other kids. Debate about the merits of Patti Smith's collaboration with Springsteen on Easter or even about the death of Sid Vicious, so significant just a week ago, seemed pretty tame in comparison with what she'd been going through. Like a giant toxic whirlpool, Staten Island had sucked Sunny back in, but it left her even more alienated from everyone around her than before.

And Totò was still out of school. His dad had been pretty cool about the blood in his car when they explained what they'd found at the dump. Turned out he was actually pretty worried about Totò's cough, and angry at the authorities for not doing anything. Typical fucked-up way they treat people, he'd said. Then he started railing at the government for dropping Agent Orange on the Vietnamese and dumping heroin and other shit here in the States. Damn, he really is like the complete opposite of my dad, Sunny thought. But Enzo didn't have any good ideas about who to turn to. And Totò wouldn't be back in circulation for a week or so while the bruises on his face healed.

Sunny's fear that the suit from Jersey would track her down somehow was starting to fade, but she was still feeling really jumpy. She had all the evidence that she needed to bust Refinement International, or whoever was behind it, but she didn't have any way to figure out what was really in that yogurt container, which she'd been keeping at the back of the fridge, hoping none of her family would accidentally eat it. And even if she could figure out what that pungent black liquid was, who could she tell about it? Even if her dad wasn't involved in any way, Totò was probably right that the local authorities in the Department of Sanitation were on the take. Despite having come so far in such a short time, Sunny felt totally stuck.

The assembly bell rang and Sunny started toward the school auditorium for another day of mindless tedium. She hadn't gone more than a few steps, though, when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned and found a man in a dark suit and tie standing a few feet away from her. No, not the same suit, not the same guy, she thought. The man smiled at her.

"Hello, Annunziata. I'm a friend of your dad's. I and my associates would like you to talk to you about what you've been up to lately."

"Do I have any choice?"

"No, mi dispiace, cara, you don't."

Sunny walked slowly over toward the black car indicated by her dad's "friend."

The two got in and drove in silence for about fifteen minutes. Sunny tried to sit like a statue as her mind flipped backward and forward between white-hot rage and blind terror. Come what may, she wasn't going to let this asshole see what was going on inside her.

After the car pulled up outside a place called Joe and Pat's Pizzeria, the guy in the black suit took her into the joint and led her over to a table near the window, where another man, also wearing a suit, was sitting. He pulled out a chair for her and asked if she'd like something to eat or drink. Sunny declined and sat waiting to hear some sort of explanation. The driver strolled out of the store.

The man who'd been waiting for her in the pizzeria began: "Hello, Annunziata. My name's Rocco. I'm a friend of your dad's. You don't need to know anything more about me. But I want to know more about you. I hear you've been doing some investigations at the dump recently?"

"Did my dad tell you about this?" Sunny asked, her anger barely in check.

"No, but we have our ways of getting information about matters in the community."

"Okay," Sunny said, knowing that it wouldn't make much sense to lie about the basics, "I found out that a lot of people in my neighborhood were getting sick. I figured it might be related to Fresh Kills somehow, so I checked it out one night. What's it to you?"

"I'm askin' the questions for now, Annunziata. What did you find during your investigation?"

"I saw some trucks dumping stuff."

"That's all you know?"

"Yeah, that's all I know at the moment, Rocco. Why do you care?"

"Let's just say that it's a matter of territorial integrity, Annunziata."

"What?"

"My associates and I like to take care of the people who take care of us. We don't like anyone else comin' in an' messin' with La Cosa Nostra, with our people and our business, if you understand me. We got wind recently that someone has been dumpin' somethin' at Fresh Kills. Bad stuff. Really bad stuff. Cyanide, naphthalene, and all kinds of other very unhealthy chemicals. Now, we like to think of Fresh Kills as part of our garden, even if the rest of New York City believes it belongs to them. We admit, there's a lot of unpleasant material in that garden of ours. But there are limits. And we like to make sure those limits are properly observed, you get me?"

"Sure," Sunny replied, "I get you."

"So we want to know who's behind this dumpin'. We don't know yet, but we heard that you might know. Is that true, Annunziata?"

Sunny's heart leaped into her throat. How much did these guys really know? Were they wise to her trip to Elizabeth? She decided to gamble.

"Well, I saw that the trucks had outta-state license plates."

"And that's all you know?"

"Yeah, that's all I know."

"Okay, but just in case you learn anything else, let me leave you my number. Remember, Annunziata, we're only trying to protect you and the other good people of this island."

"Thanks, Rocco. I'll be in touch if I find out anything else."

"Va bene, Annunziata. Ma stai attenta, be careful. Garbage is a dangerous business."

"So I've heard."

Rocco got up and sauntered out of the pizzeria, leaving Sunny staring at the opposite wall. What the hell was she going to do? Had her dad ratted her out because of some kind of twisted desire to protect her? Should she confide in these genteel thugs? The idea of turning to them to save the neighborhood from the shit at Fresh Kills was ludicrous. After all, they were the ones who helped make sure the place stayed open all these years in the first place. But where else could she turn?

As her thoughts became increasingly agitated, her eyes slowly came to focus on a headline in a copy of the New York Times lying on a nearby table: Love Canal Is Extra Tough on Children. She walked over to the table, sat down, and began to read. The article told the story of a toxic waste dump in upstate New York. Local authorities had built a school on top of land sold to them by a chemical company, and now kids from the community were starting to get sick. Local women were having miscarriages and giving birth to kids with horrible defects. The article talked about a housewife, Lois Gibbs, who'd demanded that the government pay for people to be relocated from homes built near the dump. When she got no response, she started organizing the community. Gibbs, the article said, had held government officials hostage, feeding them milk and cookies for days and demanding that they release information about the waste buried in the community. She'd even formed an organization to push for what she called environmental justice. She was a real fighter.

Sunny looked up from the paper. Her mind gradually settled. She knew where she was going to send her toxic waste.