The Intersection: Fatso Joey

Charlie threw the cat on the table again and the table tipped over, so Ramone finally lost his temper. Beer bottles, ashtrays and the radio crashed to the floor as the cat bolted, eyes wide open and ears pinned back, while Ramone grabbed for Charlie, a skinny and slippery fellow, who immediately made for the door.

"All right, all right," Fatso Joey warned, but he was slow and diabetic, so it was no good. Ramone had finally had it with Charlie, and now he was chasing him out the door.

Ramone caught up to Charlie just as Charlie was rushing down the stoop. Charlie went face first into the wheel of a parked car after getting shoved from behind. There was a subway exit on the corner and a crowd of people poured out onto the street to see Charlie and Ramone wrestling on the curb. The crowd was just beginning to notice the fight when Fatso Joey finally banged through the door, drunkenly waving his pistol around and blasting a volley of bullets into the night sky.

"All right," he yelled, and the people who were making their way up the street from the subway deliberately turned around and headed in the other direction.