S.L.U.G.: a Joey Cucuzza Conundrum

first published in Gabba Gabba Hey, a Ramones Anthology.

This is one of my most personal stories, and my favorite Joey C story. It introduces a new recurring character, dives deep into ‘80s nostalgia, and my time working at the docks. Let me know what you think in the comments.

S.L.U.G.

A Joey Cucuzza Conundrum

by Thomas Pluck

Stately, slender Joey Cucuzza was out in the dockyard for a broken container seal when he got the call. He let his phone ring in his pocket to piss off everyone involved. The yard foreman. The security manager.

Usually these visits were perfunctory, bullshit to satisfy management. Seals were tracked like registered mail. Everyone who touched the container was in the system. If someone broke a seal to rifle a container, they’d gotten the nod from bigger fish upstream.

But not this time.

“You gonna answer that?” Chimento said, examining the cut plastic ring like he was Sherlock with a flat top.

Chimento was the security manager for the company that operated the terminal on these piers. Joey was the union hiring manager, assistant to the dock boss. No union labor got hired without his approval. Which meant he had a lot of people kissing his ass.

And also that he dealt with a lot of bullshit when one of his workers did something stupid, like cut a seal and leave it hanging from an open shipping container door like a runny nose.

Joey took his phone from the pocket of his camel hair coat. The autumn wind coming off Newark Bay ruffled his styled, salt and pepper hair. The screen said “Ma.”

Maddone, was more like it.

He sent her to voice mail. Bring bread from Vitiello’s on Sunday, I’m making cavateel and broccoli. That, or somebody died, like your sixth cousin from over in Big Tree, which didn’t have a tree no more, but a bus depot, and the buses parked too long by the corner and could you do something about it, mister big shot at the port?

Vaffanculo to that.

Joey snapped his fingers at the yard foreman, who was playing on his own phone. They had the area coned, but ninety-foot-tall straddle carriers—moving gantries that stacked and moved shipping containers like Lego blocks—rolled past them at speed. Step out of the yellow lines, and they’d cut you in half.

“Frankie. What’s missing from the box?”

Frank Fournier put his phone down. “We’re waiting on the bill of lading. And DHS. They got their fingers up our ass.”

Homeland Security had a shack with mirrored windows at the exit. You could never tell when they were there or not. Most of the time they were playing video games, but they liked to hassle the foreign national sailors on the ships. The sailors loved going to the local outlet mall and spending money, but DHS acted like they were all terrorists, even though they had to pass through Customs to step off the ships.

“Scusi, Chim.” Joey stepped around the barrel-chested security man to peek inside the container.

“What, you think the citrullo left their Waterfront card?”

Joey pulled on a pair of Solo Classe kidskin gloves, and gave him the Italian salute.

There was a gaping hole in the stacks where boxes were moved. Usually if something was stolen, it was smuggling. A pallet marked on the bill of lading as linens that were actually counterfeit Gucci purses—tourists in Chinatown still ate that shit up—with maybe heroin or banned Chinese phones stuffed inside. A smuggler operating without his boss Aldo’s say-so was not to be tolerated.

Joey pushed a loose box aside. “Minghia.”

The thief had left something.

A dark, dainty, pedicured foot dangled between two boxes. Joey had seen his share of bodies, but even a refrigerated container—which this was not—would have stunk like a butcher’s shop if there was a body in it, living or dead, for the overseas voyage.

No stink. This croaker was fresh.

And blue.