One: Nina

Cover Art by Nick J. Low

I was nine when I decided to kill him. That was the summer he bought the ice cream truck. ‘Pop Goes The Weasel’ played over and over again as he drove around the neighborhood. That was the summer Chooch told me about AnnMarie’s brother Tommy. AnnMarie was a few years older than us. Her brother was a junkie and a thief. I didn’t know Tommy, he disappeared when we were little. It wrecked her family but no one, not even AnnMarie, was surprised. We figured he stole from the wrong person and nobody questioned what happened to somebody who broke the rules like that. But they found his body that summer, bones rolled up in a carpet in Fresh Kills. Now, my guy didn’t deserve a carpet but he was garbage and Staten Island was a dump. 

After that, I couldn’t get the image of his dead body out of my head. It was the first feeling of hope I’d had since it happened to me. Suddenly it all made sense. He broke the rules, he had to pay. I didn’t tell anyone, not even Patti or China. When we hung out and went roller skating or smoked cigarettes down by the pier, I’d get quiet thinking about it. I was always wondering how I was gonna do it, where I’d put the body. They used to tease me. Even in a neighborhood built on secrets, I was considered tight lipped. I don’t want you to think I didn't trust them. If I’d told ‘em, they woulda been the first ones to help me. China woulda grabbed the trash bags and Patti woulda gotten the shovel. But they still saw me the way I used to be and because of that, there were times when I could see myself the old way too.

They called my family “neighborhood royalty”. They said I was “untouchable”. The irony of it makes my stomach turn. Thinking about it now, he probably knew that I was already hiding something. When children have the beginnings of a secret inside of them, what’s one more laid on top? What’s another pile of bones in the dump? What’s the difference between a graveyard and a grave? But I don’t want to get ahead of the story. 

***

It was July Fourth weekend 1977 and I was fifteen. It was historically hot that summer. There were blackouts and riots. David Berkowitz was running around with his .44 caliber pistol, shooting anyone that his neighbor’s dog told him to. The cops said he targeted brunettes so my sister D and some of her friends dyed their hair blonde that weekend. I hate to say it but her hair looked like shit. I wasn’t making out with anybody in a car so I didn’t bother changing. Besides, we were second generation Italian. We all had the same thick, black hair. There was no dye that could make it blonde.

My mother was sleeping when we tiptoed through the apartment that night. She slept most of the time and that was fine with us. When we cracked the front door open, I felt bad about how brassy D’s hair was, even in the low light. She saw me glance over. I tried to give her a reassuring smile. 

“It’s bad…” She said.

“No, it’s all right.” I said. I closed the door steadily until we heard the latch click. 

“You think?”

“Yeah.” We started to walk. 

“There’s more in my bathroom if you want.” She tugged my brown hair.

“No thanks.” I said. 

As we walked down the steps, D started talking about a guy she liked. “I just don’t wanna worry about some creep blowin’ our friggin’ brains out.” 

“I know. It’s crazy.” I said. She went on about the guy, how cute he was, where they met. I didn’t know which one she was talking about. D was the chattiest out of all my brothers and sisters. It was hard to focus on what she was saying. I was too busy thinking about the 227 steps between our apartment and his. I put my hand in my pocket and felt the pills I’d stolen from my mother’s medicine cabinet that morning. 

“Are you even listening to me?” She said.

I hadn’t concentrated enough to really listen to anything in years. My grades were shit because of it. “Sorry.” I said. “Go ahead.” 

She kept talking and I went back inside as we walked. 

He lived across the street, in a building three doors north of my apartment. After it first happened, I managed getting around by counting steps and cracks in the sidewalk. There were 123 cracks on my side and 108 on his but I never walked over there. 

I used to hate living on the same block as him. That changed after I heard about AnnMarie’s brother. I killed him a million times after that. He died bloody deaths, explosive deaths, poison deaths, gunshot deaths, strangulation, you name it. I was real about it. I knew it would take a long time before I was big enough to do anything and he would have no problem killing me. I could feel that in him. But there was no way I was going out like that. For a long time, I just had to watch and wait. 

He lived on the first floor over an empty storefront. He owned the building so he didn't have to worry about rent. He tried a couple of businesses in there: Pizzeria, Gelateria and an Arcade but he ran them all into the ground. It ended up being a hangout place, a trap to lure us. Somehow, people thought he was a good guy. He laughed and drank beer with the neighbors. He had people over to play pool in his basement. 

The storefront and the apartment had three big windows that faced the street. They were open when he was home. He watched the neighborhood like it was a sport. Pop mentioned that he had a family once but the wife left with the kids when they were little. God knows what happened there. I couldn’t believe she would just leave him for the rest of us to clean up. She should’ve warned us about what kind of mess he was. 228 steps later, D and I passed his building. I glanced over. The shades were open and we turned the corner. 

Grandma’s apartment was on Sullivan Street. She fed us and all of the neighborhood guys dinner from her place every night, whether we liked it or not. She lived above a little candy store. It wasn’t really a store. I mean they sold some stuff but it was mostly a front for my pop and uncles. Mary Milk and her brother Petie Black ran the shop and took numbers.

Me and D crossed over Bleecker where Petie was walking. Most people think that it was only men that gambled back then but there were a lot of women gamblers too. They just did it in secret. They balled their lotto numbers and cash into rolled up stockings and socks and threw them out the window. If you caught it at the right time, it looked like a ticker tape parade of dirty laundry.

One bundle came flying at D as we were walking down the street. Petie grabbed it before it hit her in the head. A large pair of nude underwear unfurled and hung from his thumb. A sad little piece of paper and crumpled bills fell to the sidewalk. We jumped back.

“Gross!” D shouted.

I looked at the old underwear. “Seriously who the f…” 

“Miss Fiorelli. You do this one more time and I’m not takin’ your fuckin bets no more.” He yelled as he tossed the underwear to the street. He picked up the cash and paper. “Whoa…nice hair. D. You dumb now that you’re a blonde?”

“Shut up.” She said and swatted him away. “And watch where you’re throwin’ your dirty friggin underwear.” D yelled up to the window where a large woman was peering over the fire escape. A cigarette dangled from her bottom lip. “You hear that Mrs. Fiorelli?”

“Dai raggazza.” She waved us off and disappeared behind the lace curtains. 

Inside grandma’s apartment, we were met with the smell of her sauce. D and me shared a look.

“I wish she’d stick to burgers.” She whispered. 

“I thought you hated her burgers.”

“I do.” 

I laughed. “How is an Italian grandma bad at making sauce?”

“Dove mi belle nipotine huh? My beautiful Nina…Diana!” Grandma shouted as she came around the corner. We said ‘hello’ in unison and made our way to the kitchen. My grandmother used to have little brown and green glass tinctures lining the windows in her apartment. There were all kinds of plants and vines growing around them. Some had wicker and macrame hangers. The bottoms were dark and rotten with water and age. There was a faint smell of green life and damp when she wasn’t cooking, which wasn't often. Looking at grandma’s windows, you’d never guess that New York City was on the other side of the glass. It felt like we were tucked away in the wild somewhere but I guess the city was its own kind of wild back then. 

Her apartment had creaky old floors. The spaces that didn't have plants had pictures. Most of them were of my pop and his brothers. There were a few of Jesus and a couple of the Virgin Mary. Grandma spoke in a singsong Italian voice that I took for granted back then. The accent and the language were pushed out of the neighborhood so everyone could be American. Immigrants were always looking for the next wave of immigrants to carry the burden of being shit on. It was considered a sign of success that our generation had no accent. 

We passed through the living room and said hello to the Lous. There were three of them: Baldy Lou, Fat Lou and Quiet Lou. The Lous looked up to say hello and then went back to their conversation. When it came to naming things, Italians weren’t creative. Everyone in our neighborhood had the same five or six names so we had nicknames for everybody. None of them were ever complimentary and they were always literal. There was one guy we called Iceman. Because he worked for my uncle, people came up with all these stories about what he did, who he ”iced”. Young kids that listened to that kinda shit ran from him on the street. But he was the ice delivery man. He delivered ice to every restaurant, butcher and grocer in the neighborhood. 

D and me helped grandma with dinner at night. We took the food to the dining room and set up the buffet. There were a lot of guys that night because of the holiday. People came in from all over for the fireworks show. My pop and his brothers set ‘em off from the rooftop of Saint Anthony’s rectory. Everyone in the neighborhood went. We could hear the voices multiply as the guys came in waiting for dinner. Grandma was ready for it. She put out a huge spread with everything from sauce to lasagna to hot dogs. She loved feeding people. No one ever mentioned that she was a bad cook.

D and me ate in the kitchen while grandma talked to the guys. We listened through the cracked door as the older ones spoke to each other in Italian. I looked at the clock on the wall as I finished my plate, two hours before the fireworks. Two hours until it was done.  It was complicated because I never flew under the radar back then. My pop had people looking out for us all the time. Other people tried to gain favor by telling him where I was, who I was with, what I was doing. In order to get it done, I had to make it look like any other day, any other Fourth of July. If you’re wondering whether or not I second guessed myself, I never did. He wasn't someone that could be fixed and I felt like it was my job to take care of it. He broke the rules, he had to pay. It was that simple. Besides, I wanted to do it. I wanted to watch as he realized that little Nina Gugino was going to take his life.

“I gotta go.” D walked over to the mirror by the back door and put on some pinkish lipstick. She made a face in the mirror and adjusted her bangs. She stopped and looked at  me in the reflection. “You really think it’s all right?” 

“Yeah, I do.” She smiled and walked out the door. “Don’t make out in a parked car.” I shouted as she left.

“I won’t” she shouted back. 

I waited until I heard her footsteps fade and grandma’s conversation continue. I grabbed a mortar and pestle from one of the shelves and took the pills out. I crushed them and poured the dust into a small baggie and put it back in my pocket. 

Grandma’s kitchen looked like a war zone after dinner. As the youngest, I always had to stay to clean it up. I didn’t mind. Me and grandma got along. She was dead set on teaching me Italian despite what the neighborhood thought. When it was just the two of us, we worked on little words and phrases. She was from Naples. Her family owned a couple of pharmacies. The medicine back then was mostly made from plants and herbs. She started by teaching me the names of the plants in her apartment. She would hold a leaf or a vine and make me repeat its name in Italian.

“When I work with your great grandfather at the farmacia, he show me all the medicine he make outta these plants” She would say. “Some are rare….like-a this one.” She held the arm of a little vine. “Giovanna is the name. Was a famous lady in Napoli. And that one is Bartucci...found in the hills outside of the place where my father was born...” She held one plant just below the leaf. “This…” She squinted her eyes, searching for the English word. “Come si dice questo qui my Nina?” She lightly shook the stem of the plant. 

“The stalk?”

“Si. In Italiano si chiama gli fusto.” 

She waited for me to say it. I repeated the word for stalk. “Fusto.” 

She went on about the stems of different plants but I kept thinking about her father. Uncle Pat told us that he killed himself. He said my great grandfather was forced to testify against the Camorra in Naples but they sent someone to threaten him the night before. He shot himself in the basement of his store the next day and Grandma found him after school. 

I always wondered if it bothered her, what pop and my uncles did. Not in the beginning when it was little shit, throwing a boxing match or running errands for the big shots. But later, after they took over the family. My uncle and the guys were as well known as any of them. Everyone was afraid of them. Maybe she was just happy to be on the other side of it.

“The fusto holds the power.” She said. “This one makes a sleeping potion molto potente. I make for Langeatella Fordanone.”

“The old lady?”

“Pssss…no old. She’s 68.” She hissed at me. 

“Sorry.”

She poured amaretto into a few little glasses, put them on a small tray and walked out into the living room. I went back to washing. A few minutes later, I felt a hard smack on the back of my head. “What’s up dyke.” A low voice said. I jumped. It was my older brother Varo. He grabbed a dish of lasagna and started to pick at the noodles. His T-shirt rose up, revealing a chubby white gut. 

“Grandma said she was saving that.” I said. 

“For what?” He fed himself another mouthful with his fingers. “She won’t remember.”

“Put it down.” I stepped forward. Varo had stopped growing by then and I was almost taller than him. 

He looked up. There was sauce on his chin. He smiled. A piece of oregano obscured his front tooth. “Whaddya gonna do about it dyke.”

I looked over, the kitchen door was still cracked open. “Don’t call me that.”

“You afraid she’ll find out?”

“You’re such an asshole.” 

“At least I’m not a faggot.”

“You sure about that?”

“What did you say?” His eyes changed. Whatever was in him that rattled around loose took over. I could tell he was gonna come at me. I considered it practice. 

Grandma walked in with a few plates and shouted. “Varo! Nina! Cosa fai huh? You are brother and sister not enemy of each other!” She dropped the plates into the soapy water. 

Varo’s eyes had already changed back. “She was making fun of me grandma.” He put his arms around her and leaned his head on her shoulder. Grandma kissed him on the forehead and shook her head at me a little. 

Varo grinned when she wasn’t looking. “I gotta get back to the church. Pop sent me over to tell you they got the table set up for us at Arturo’s…”

“Grazie Varo…” 

“Pop finally gonna let you hold his beer this year huh?” I said. 

He grinned. “Actually, I’m lighting the fireworks.”

“On the rooftop?” I asked. His grin fell flat. “Yeah…didn’t think so.” I laughed a little. 

Grandma pushed him out the door before he could answer.  When she came back I could tell she was irritated. “You have to be kinder to your brother Nina.”

“Why? He’s terrible to me.”

“He’s at the crocevia…” She grabbed a nearby cloth and started to wipe the stovetop down. 

“What does that mean?”

“It’s where he decide what kind of a men he gonna be. You gotta help him. There’s a piece of a bad men in him.” I stopped and looked at her. She kept wiping the stove down. “All men have the crocevia. They decide what kind of men they gonna be. Good men like your father or bad men like…” She stopped. 

“Like…who?” I was tense at the thought of what might come out of her mouth, whose name she might say.

“Like that man with the gun.”

I handed her a pot to dry and checked the clock. We had a little over an hour.  

If there was a crocevia, Varo already made his choice. He reminded me of an old watch pop used to have. He refused to get it fixed, even though it stopped on him all the time. When I’d say somethin’ about it Pop would laugh and hold it up to my ear. “It’s just a matter of time.” He’d say and I’d hear the ticking…tick…tick...tick. 

Grandma hung the pot in the overhead rack and pinched a white berry from a neighboring vine. “Do you remember this berry? This berry is for….” She kept talking but I tuned out. I was still thinking about Varo. I don’t know how long it took before I noticed the silence and felt her eyes on me. 

“What is it?” I asked. 

She looked at me with her head tilted, hand resting on her hip like a little teapot. “Your mind is not here today.” She said. 

“Sorry…” Something inside of me shrunk. I wondered if she could know.

“I have gli occhio my Nina.” She tugged at the skin under her eye. 

I felt my insides tighten. “I know.”

“You remember the story I tell you about the devil?”

“Grandma. All the stories you tell me are about the devil.”

“We live next to volcano, la bocca dell’inferno, Whadda you think we gonna talk about? She said. “You remember the story of the man from Ottaviano?”

“No.” I said. 

“He make a deal with the devil for a disguise…” I remembered and nodded. “You see? You must be careful my Nina. This crazy man with the gun say he speak to the diavolo himself!” A strand of silvery hair slipped out of her bun. “No one can make a picture of this men, this murderer? Fangool. You think it’s coincidenza?” She laughed. “No my Nina.” She tucked the hair back in. “Look at me.” I looked at her. “The diavolo hides the bad men. You must be careful.”

“I will.” I said. She studied me. I tried to keep calm. I wondered if she could see the devil in me. If somehow grandma knew what I was going to do. But if she did, she didn't say.

She gestured to the few things left in the sink. “Bene. Andiamo.” 

We finished and Grandma spotted someone outside the window. “Belhina is here.” She smiled and waved to her. “She going to the fireworks with you? I can make a place.”

My stomach lurched. It was time. “I dunno maybe.”

She tilted her head as she looked out the window. “Why she always look sad.”

I looked out. “She looks fine to me.”

“Children are still mean to her?”

“Not so much anymore.”

“Because you take care of her my Nina.” She grabbed my chin as I walked out. “My good Nina.” She said. I smiled against her thumb and forefinger. “You take care of everything. Who takes care of you?”

I kissed her cheek. “You do.”

“I try.” She stopped me and kissed my forehead hard. “I see you at the fireworks?”

“Okay.” I waved to the Lous as they finished their Amaretto. I could still feel the wet spot where her lips had been when I opened the door to the street. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. 

Lin was at the bottom of the stairs talking to Mary Milk. “Hey Nin.” She said.

I walked down to meet her. “Hey Lin, Hey Mare.”

“You girls goin dancin’ after the fireworks?” Mary Milk said. 

“No.” I said.

“D looks like she’s goin’ dancin’ with that hair a hers...”

“Yeah maybe. See you later.” We started walking in the other direction. Mary Milk could talk for days and we didn’t have time.

“Go dancin’! ” She shouted. “If you don’t you’ll regret it when you’re older...trust me.” She picked up the edges of her muumuu and swayed a little back and forth on the sidewalk. A kid giggled as he passed by her eating ice cream. 

Mary Milk slapped the cone out of his hand “The fuck you laughin’ at?”

You’re probably wondering who Belinha is. First of all, Lin and me weren’t really friends, we were partners. I mean I liked her okay but she was younger than me and we weren’t into the same shit. She was all pink shirts and French braids. Her grandparents paid for horseback riding camp upstate in the summer. I hated leaving the city for any reason. But for all our differences, we shared the same demon and the same desire to get rid of it. 

Lin was Portuguese. She lived down the street from me. Her full name was Belhina-Maria de Silva but she couldn’t run around with a name like that. She woulda been laughed outta the neighborhood so I started calling her Lin. We met a couple years before that summer. I was walking to school. Lin was outside her building across from his place. He didn’t usually come out in the morning but there he was. Fat gut, greasy shirt, cut off pants, wearing flip flops in the cold. He was smoking a cigarette and talking to a neighbor.

There was a puddle next to Lin when I walked by her that morning. I was still half asleep. I remember wondering if I should go back and get another jacket ‘cause I was supposed to go skating at the old garage with Patti and China after school. But then I realized it wasn’t raining. The puddle was coming from Lin. Then I saw the line of piss running down her leg. It never occurred to me that it might have happened to other kids. I thought it was just me, that something was wrong with me. By the time I saw her that morning, I had already started boxing lessons with Uncle Gio. I watched Kojak every chance I got and I imagined shooting him to fall asleep at night. But Lin reminded me of how I felt before all that and it filled me with rage. 

I grabbed her arm. “C’mon.” I said. 

She looked at me with huge brown eyes filled with tears that hadn’t fallen yet. I wanted to slap the shit out of her for making herself that vulnerable. Her mouth hung open. There was a string of spit from her top to bottom lip that bowed out when she exhaled. She tried to say something. 

“Don’t worry about it just come with me.” I said. I tugged her arm a little but she was too scared to move. “What are you waiting for, you want him to come over here?” She shook her head. Not like she was saying no - but like she was terrified of seeing him face to face. “He wants you to be afraid. You know that right? You gotta get over it.” He wasn’t looking at us, he was talking to the neighbor but I knew he saw us. “My apartment’s this way.”

“I know…I know where you live.” She said as she followed me down the block. 

When we got to the front door of my apartment I stopped. “Be quiet unless you wanna meet a real monster.” I said. We walked back towards my room on the thick, burnt orange carpet that I learned to love for shielding my footsteps. I put the chair under the doorknob when we got inside my room, fished my old uniform out of the closet and handed it to her.

She took off her skirt and I faced the wall. “You know him?” I asked. She didn’t answer. I turned to look at her after a quiet minute. Tears were running down her face. “Yeah. He got me too.” I said. Her eyes widened. “I know…I’d say he’s got some balls but I think he’s just a sick fuck.” 

I walked over to the window and looked out at the street. He was standing in front of his apartment, looking up towards my window. Lin was fully dressed in my old uniform by that point. There was something about it all. Seeing her like that. She reminded me of me back then and my stomach turned. I’d only planned to tell her about counting the sidewalk cracks and steps but I just said it. “I’m gonna kill him.” I said. She smiled and that’s how Lin and me became partners.

We waited to get out of earshot of Mary Milk. Whenever Lin and me talked about him we did it walking on the street so no one could hear us. That’s a trick I learned from my pop and his brothers when the feds started following them a few years back. 

“Where is he?” I asked. 

“Just put his stuff out on Houston.”

“Anyone with him?”

“Not yet. You have enough?” She said as we turned the corner onto Bleecker. 

“Yeah. Grabbed the last ones today.” I felt the plastic bag of crushed powder in my pocket. 

“How many you think it’ll take?”

“I dunno. Only a couple for my mom but she’s smaller and she drinks gin. I figure four…maybe five? I crushed ‘em all so we’ll see.”

We dipped into a little alleyway where there used to be a fruit stand until Mr. Fransit died a couple years before that. She handed me the bag and I rifled through it. I checked everything once and then I checked it again. It was all there. I zipped up the bag. 

“You ready?” I asked.

“Yeah.” She said.

By the time we got to our street it was nearly dark out and the sidewalks were empty. Everyone was on Houston. When we reached his building, the shades were drawn. Lin stood guard by the storefront while I picked the lock to the apartment upstairs. I heard the metal scratch. It felt like someone was clawing at my eardrums. Suddenly, I heard voices coming down the street .

“Did your sister dye her hair?” Lin asked. 

I looked around the corner and saw D’s brassy blonde head appear with some friends. She looked right at us but I couldn’t tell if she saw me. 

“Shit.” I whispered as I ducked back down and worked on the lock.

“Her hair’s too dark for that.” Lin said as she peeked around the tail light of an old Cadillac. “Maybe red but definitely not…” Boom! Lin was interrupted by the thundering sound of the first fireworks. The sky exploded into red and pink stars. I peeked out, D was crossing the street towards us. “Hurry.” She whispered.

“I’m trying. I think…yeah…got it.” I heard a click and pushed the door in. I went to the front window. A cat hissed and jumped off the ledge, making the blinds flutter. I peeked out just as D’s head turned toward the sudden movement. Another boom and the sky lit up a bright green. 

“Shit.” I said under my breath. “Go away D….” I whispered. She looked around. After a few moments, she turned and walked back to her friends. 

“That was close.” I said. 

“She’s gone?”

“Yeah.”

Lin looked around. “Where’s the bottle?”

“This way.” I walked to the kitchen. “Shelf by the sink.”

She grabbed the bottle of Cutty Sark. I took the powder out of my pocket. She unscrewed the top. We looked at each other. I opened the bag and poured the whole thing into the bottle. 

She smiled. “Here we go.” She said. I screwed the top back on and shook it. We watched the powder dissolve.

“He’ll drink some up here and then take the rest downstairs.” I said. 

“What if he wants something else?”

“He won’t. He’s been drinking this shit for years.”

We put the bottle away and looked around. The apartment hadn’t changed much. We stood on one of those old wrapped oval rugs in the living room. It was all the ugly shades of green, yellow and burnt orange. There was a piano against the far wall. I’d heard about that. Piano lessons came after me but before the ice cream truck. 

Lin exhaled a deep breath or maybe it was me. I don’t remember. “You okay?” I asked. Her face looked ashy. We stood there like that for a second.  

“C’mon…let’s go.” She said and started walking to the stairs that led down to the storefront. 

The steps were squeaky. We opened the door at the bottom. I could smell the stale popcorn from the popcorn machine he had. “Just like they have at the movies.” He’d  told me.  

I flipped a light switch. There were a couple of couches facing each other on one side of the room next to a big TV.  There was a pool table and a foosball table on the other side.  Pictures that neighborhood kids had drawn were stuck to the walls, paintings of people and animals and Washington Square Park. My eyes searched the wall, I was hoping it was gone but then I saw it. A few pictures down, there was a drawing of me and my pop that I’d made. Two wiggly stick figures holding hands. My stomach churned. I tore it down and put the crumpled paper in my bag. “We’d better hurry. He won’t stay for the whole thing if he’s setting off his own.” I gestured to the small stack of fireworks on the ground. 

Lin opened the closet by the door. “How will you see me flashing the light from there?” She asked. 

“I’ll keep the door cracked. As long as you’re right in front of the window, I’ll see. Just remember….”

“Don’t flash until he’s walked in the door. I know.” She said. 

“Right.”I nodded. 

She took a breath and looked around. “I’d better go.”

“Yeah, go. See you in a bit.”

“Ok.” Lin hesitated.

“I’ll be good Lin. Go.” She looked at me like she was gonna say something but she stopped herself and left.

I watched through the closed blinds. Every few seconds the fireworks flashed blue, red, yellow, pink and green. I didn't feel like I was in my body in that room. I watched myself take the sheet, knives, rope and duct tape out of the bag. I pushed the couches out of the way. My movements were fast and smooth. I’d thought about it every day and wondered for six years what it would feel like to be back in there. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle it, that I would feel too sick or too scared. But I didn’t.

When I was done I took out the blackjack club. The leather was smooth and worn. I put the strap around my wrist and stood in the closet with the door cracked open. I focused on the warm leather instrument in my hand and the business end that was filled with lead. My Uncle Gio gave it to me in secret after I’d asked for one on my tenth birthday. I remembered how he told me to hit the side of the head, right at the ear. Out of nowhere I thought of grandma and it made me want to cry but flashes of light broke my concentration. Three short bursts and a long beam before it turned off. Lin was there. He was there. 

My heart skipped and then started to race. I heard the door open and then footsteps overhead. A distant boom soaked the room in red. I heard the tinkling of glass above me and then a pause. Footsteps came down the stairs minutes later. My body tensed. I looked through the crack and saw him open the door. He was holding the bottle of Cutty Sark. He flipped the light switch. 

“What the…?” He looked around at the misplaced furniture and the sheet spread out on the floor. He teetered and some whisky splashed out of his glass.

I pushed the closet door open. I hadn’t been that close to him in years and I’d forgotten how he smelled of cheap cologne, booze and sweat. Another distant boom flashed blue outside on the street. 

“Hey Joe.” He turned and looked at me. I grinned. “Remember me?”