“Damn right. Too many moving parts.” Reno wiped his own penis, rinsed the cloth and tossed it down the laundry chute, and then lifted Trina into his arms again. She smiled. They kissed again.
But then his cell phone began to ring. Given the enormity of his business interests, he didn’t have the luxury of ignoring his calls the way Trina could. He set her on her feet, and headed to her office to answer it.
Trina headed into her office too, and went to her purse to see who had tried to phone her. When she saw that it was the new private school, the school with K-12 that allowed them to have Dommi and Sophia at the same location, her heart pounded.
But Reno’s was already pounding when he looked at his Caller ID and saw that it was the school that was phoning him too. He quickly answered. “Yes, hello?”
“Is this Mr. Gabrini?” A female’s voice from the school was on the line.
“Yes, this is he. Are my children okay?”
Trina, realizing the school was on the other end, hurried over to Reno. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“They’re fine,” the administrator said. “Both of your children are fine.”
“They’re okay,” Reno said to Trina. “How can I help you?” he said to the caller.
“Although they’re fine,” she said, “we do have an issue.”
Reno frowned. “What kind of issue?”
“Perhaps if you can come to the school and meet with the principal, he can discuss it with you further?”
“Yes, I can come to the school.”
“We attempted to reach your wife. She should come too.”
Reno and Trina looked at each other. “When does he want to see us?” Reno asked.
“He suggests right now,” the administrator said.
“We’re on our way,” Reno said, ended the call, and then there was a race to put on their clothes, and hurry downstairs.
Oprah and Jamila were both downstairs by now, and Oprah was concerned. “Is everything alright?” she asked.
“I’ll call you later,” was all Trina had time to say as she and Reno hurried out.
Jamila looked at her cousin and smiled. “See. He put it on her just like I said. Now she’s half crazy!”
Trina wasn’t half crazy, but she was all terrified. “I’m driving,” she announced as she and Reno ran to the nearest car, which was Reno’s Porsche illegally parked at the curb.
“Like hell you are,” Reno responded as he flung the passenger door open for her, and ran around the car to the driver’s side. Trina didn’t argue with him, although she wanted to. She got in the passenger side and buckled up. Reno got in the driver side, and drove off. Trina reached over him as he drove, and buckled him in.
Reno flew through the streets of Vegas so fast Trina was holding onto the door handle. She would have gotten them there. Maybe not in as fast a way as Reno was getting them there, but infinitely, she felt, in a safer way. But they arrived at Biltmore Academy, the prestigious school their children had just started attending this school term, and hurried into the main office.
What did Dommi do now, they both were thinking as the secretary walked them down the hall to the office of Alistair Karash, the school’s principal. But when she opened the door, and they saw Sophia, rather than Dominic sitting in a chair against the wall, their collective hearts dropped.
“Sophie?” Trina asked worriedly, and hurried to her baby.
“Mommy!” Sophia said as she jumped up and ran into her mother’s arms. Trina lifted her, although she was getting too heavy for her.
Reno, knowing it too, went over and took Sophia from Trina and lifted her into his arms. She was light as a feather to him. “You’re okay, baby?” he asked his daughter.
She nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said.
Reno looked at Karash, who had risen from behind his desk. “What’s going on here? What’s happened to my daughter?”
“Perhaps you and your wife can have a seat?”
The last thing Reno wanted to do was sit down, but he had already promised Trina, on the ride over, that he would not make any scenes. Trina sat in front of the principal’s desk, and Reno, with Sophia in his lap, sat beside her. The principal sat down too.
“I invited you here,” Karash began, “because of some disturbing comments your daughter made to one of her teachers.”
Reno and Trina glanced at each other. Sophia wasn’t living in what anybody would call a normal household, and had probably witnessed more than any little girl should have to, but they tried with all their might to keep her exposure at a minimal. Did she witness something or heard a disturbing conversation without their knowledge?
Reno looked at Karash. “What kind of comments?”
“She said that, whenever she misbehaves, she is placed in closets that have no lights.”
Reno and Trina both frowned. “What?” they said in unison, and then looked at Sophia.
“She said she often has no food to eat, and relies on her brother to, quote unquote ‘sneak’ her some food whenever he bothers to.”
“What the,” Reno said and lifted Sophia’s head from his shoulder. “You told these people that?” he asked her.
Sophia was near tears, and Trina knew it. She took her out of Reno’s arms, and put her into her own. Sophia laid her head on her mother’s shoulder and closed her eyes, as if there was no safer place.
“I didn’t call the authorities,” the principal continued, “because she began talking about how you, Mr. Gabrini, have to take out your enemies when they misbehave.”
Reno didn’t bat an eye, although his heart was hammering.
“And how you, Mrs. Gabrini, had to, as she put it, ‘beat down’ a woman she called Aunt Valerie after her aunt lied on Mr. Gabrini.”
Trina was terrified. How in the world did Sophie know about that?
“She didn’t know what the lie was about,” Karash continued, “but she said she believe it had something to do with her big brother Jimmy whom, she said, is, as she put it, ‘a Mafioso in his own right too.’ Like her Uncle Sal, she said, and her Uncle Tommy. And somebody she called ‘Mick the Tick.’”
Reno and Trina could only look as if they had no clue what the principal was talking about. Lord, they were in trouble now!
But Karash, a new principal, didn’t seem to think so. “That’s when I knew,” he said, “she was telling tall tales. Mick the Tick? I knew he had to be a figment of her imagination. So I’m sure she’s been watching too much television. And then she admitted to me that the stories she told, especially about the closet and lack of sufficient food, were not true. Didn’t you tell me that, Sophia?”
Sophia looked at her principal and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Why did you make it up to begin with?” Karash asked her.
Sophia hesitated, and then spoke up. “Because Mommy’s always so busy, and Daddy’s never home, and when he is home he’s so cranky. And when Mommy’s home she’s sad.” Tears appeared in Sophia’s big eyes. “They don’t love me anymore,” she said.
“Oh, baby,” Trina said heartfelt, and held her closer.
“That’s not true, Lexie,” Reno said, grabbing on her too. “We love you with all our hearts!”
“I’ll give you guys a moment,” Karash said as he stood up and began heading toward the exit.
“Could you get our son also?” Trina asked.
“To go home for the day?”
“Yes.”
“Will do,” the principal said, and left the room.
Reno and Trina allowed Sophia to have a good cry. But they looked at each other. They always wondered if they were shortchanging their two youngest children, given their lifestyle choices and busy schedules. But now they knew they were. And they also knew, as they comforted their youngest child, that it had to change.
“What did I do?” were Dominic’s first words when he arrived in the principal’s office. “I didn’t do nothing.”
“What kind of English is that?” Reno asked.
> Dommi waited for him to correct his English, but Reno wasn’t sure what the right way to say it was. Just that he knew Dommi had said it wrong!
And Dommi, being Dommi, called him on it. “Well?” he asked. “What’s the right way, Daddy?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Reno said. “Just don’t say it that way again.”
But when Dommi saw where tears had been in his baby sister’s eyes, his heart dropped. “What’s wrong, Sophie?” he asked, and hurried to her side. “Tell me who hurt you and I’ll hurt them.”
“Dommi!” Trina said as if she was shocked by his behavior, although she wasn’t. But the principal was in the room.
“What’s wrong, Sophie?” he asked his sister again.
“I lied on Mommy and Daddy,” Sophie said as Reno put her on her feet and he and Trina began standing up.
“You lied about what?” Dommi asked.
“She claimed your big brother had gangster tendencies,” the principal volunteered, “just like your Uncle Tommy and Uncle Sal and some other uncle she called Mick the Tick.”
Dommi frowned, about to spill the beans. “What are you talking?” he asked. “She wasn’t---”
“Crying anymore,” Trina quickly interrupted. “We know. Now let’s go.”
Dommi was confused. “But . . .,” he started.
“But nothing, boy,” Reno said, hurrying him out. “Let’s go.”
“What did I do wrong now?” Dommi asked, mystified by his parents’ sudden urgent need to leave.
“You didn’t do nothing,” Reno responded, without realizing he had repeated the same language he criticized Dommi for using.
And Dommi caught it. He smiled. “You said it, too, Daddy,” he said as his parents thanked the principal and then hurried their children out of the office. “You said the same thing I said!”
“Fuck it,” Reno said under his breath, as he ushered Dommi out.
Once outside, Reno and Trina sighed relief, but only just.
“That was close,” Trina said as the foursome made their way to Reno’s car.
“You’re going to have to homeschool these kids, Trina,” Reno suggested.
Trina smiled.
“I’m not kidding! They’re gonna do to us what the FBI, the CIA, and the ATF weren’t able to do.”
Trina was puzzled. “What are you talking about, Reno?”
“Thanks to these diarrhea-mouthed kids of ours, your black ass and my wop ass is gonna be in prison, with Sal, Tommy, and Mick right along with us, if we aren’t more careful. That’s what I’m talking about!”
“Don’t forget Jimmy,” Dommi volunteered.
“Boy, if you don’t shut the fuck up,” Trina said between clenched teeth.
“Just get your ass in the car,” Reno said to Dommi too, with equal venom.
Dommi smiled. He knew his parents were angrier by what he was about to say to Principal Karash than what he’d just said. “Yes, sir,” he said, and got in.
Once all four were in the four-seater Porsche, with Reno behind the wheel, Trina on the passenger seat, and the two little ones in the back, there was a hesitation.
Trina looked over. “What is it?”
Reno glanced through the rearview at his little girl. Then he looked at Trina. “Let’s do something as a family,” he said.
“Yeh!” said Sophia.
“Like what?” asked Dommi, as he buckled his sister in.
“Like something,” Reno said. “Something fun.”
“The Carnival with all of the rides,” Sophia suggested excitedly.
But Reno quickly squashed that. “No, no, sweetheart. No carnivals.”
Trina, knowing how much Reno hated those carnival rides, smiled.
But Dommi wasn’t feeling it, either. “Yeah,” Dommi said. “Nobody wants to get on none of those stupid rides.”
“Then where?” Sophia asked him.
Dommi was quick on his feet. “I’ve got it!” he said excitedly. “We can go to the Fun House, Daddy.”
“The Fun House?” Reno asked. “What’s that?”
“It’s a neat place where you get to see the freaks.”
As soon as they heard that word, Reno and Trina both turned around in horror, looking at their son. Their first thought was bed action. The kind they sometimes engaged in themselves. If that was Dommi’s thought too, they knew they were in a world of trouble. They knew they were the worse parents ever!
“Freaks?” Reno asked him. “What kind of freaks?”
“You know,” Dommi said. “Like the swamp man, and the bearded lady. Freaks like that.”
“Oh!” Trina said, relieved. “He means carnies, Reno. Not the other kind.”
Reno sighed relief too. “That’s where you want to go?” he asked Dommi.
“Yes, sir. It’s fun.”
Reno wanted reassurance. “None of those stupid rides though?”
“None,” Dommi said. “It’s a house you walk through and watch the freaks come to life.”
“Stop calling them that,” Trina said. “They’re circus performers who happens to have some deformity. That’s not to be made fun of.”
“Then why are they working in a place called the Fun House?” Dommi asked. “And why do they let their bosses call them freaks? They should call it the Serious House with Unfortunate Deformed People. But that’s not what they call it. They call it the Fun House with freaks!”
Trina looked at Reno, to help him get Dommi to understand. Reno just shook his head as if his son was a lost cause in that department, and put on his sunglasses. “Forget about it,” he said, and drove them to the Fun House with freaks.
“More like the fake house,” Trina said when she realized what they were getting.
It started at the box office. The lady behind the window said the Fun House would be fifty bucks per head, regardless of age. Reno removed his sunglasses and gave that woman a piece of his mind. But she wasn’t even fazed.
“Don’t yell at me,” she said. “I just work at this rat hole.”
“Just pay the lady,” Dommi said, anxious to get inside.
Reno paid the lady, albeit with profanity-laced reluctance, and they entered the house.
The first “freak” was the two-headed man. Dommi couldn’t wait to see that one. Sophie was scared. She stayed close to her father. Only she had nothing to fear, as far as Reno and Trina were concerned, when they entered the room. The two-headed man was really a one-headed man with a fake head on his shoulder wrapped up in a curtain so that the customers couldn’t see that it was not joined to his body. Reno and Trina looked at each other.
Trina smiled. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said.
“Ain’t this some shit?” Reno agreed, smiling too.
But the kids, Dommi and Sophia, were amazed. Dommi was suspicious too, but he chose not to pursue it. He could disassociate that way sometimes. He was able to allow the excitement of seeing something strange and Sci-Fi-like to overrule his sense. So Reno and Trina didn’t rain on their parade. They moved on.
The next exhibit was the Blade Man. “His entire body,” the announcer said, “is made up of the sharpest blades this side of living. He doesn’t have flesh, he has blades! Come one, come all and see this incredible freak!”
“You mean come and see this unfortunate deformed person,” Dommi said to the announcer.
The announcer looked at the biracial kid as if he wanted to turn him one color or the other. “Just keep it moving,” he said to Dommi.
“I’ll keep it moving on your skull,” Reno said to the announcer, “if you talk to my son that way again. Feel me?”
The announcer was quick to agree. “Yes, sir. I most definitely do feel you. Didn’t mean anything by it, sir.”
“Just watch yourself next time,” Dommi said.
“Boy!” Reno said, and pushed him into the room. “Keep it moving!”
The Blade Man proved deceptive too. His “blades” turned out to be scissors and they were all rigged to stick
out of this fat suit he wore that looked like a big lady’s nightgown. He growled at the children and threatened to cut them up “like hamburger meat,” and Sophia ran back out. But Dommi was fascinated and wanted to stay.
“I’ll take Sophie to a less scary room,” Trina said, and hurried behind her daughter.
Reno was stunned that Dommi didn’t see through these so-called acts. It was all fake. Every bit of it. But Dommi just stood there, staring at the Blade Man, even as he kept snapping at him with his scissors and threatening to do him harm.
What Dommi really was doing was waiting for the opportunity. “Growl, growl,” the man kept saying as he did everything in his power to scare Dominic. By the tenth growl, Dommi saw his opening. The man had relaxed his limbs, which made his nightgown even bigger than when he was in his I’m trying to scare you pose. And Dommi reached down and tugged on the gown as hard as he could. The gown fell to the floor, revealing a regular-looking guy in briefs and a t-shirt. Reno laughed. Dommi laughed. The Fun House officials asked him and Dommi to leave their premises.
Trina and Sophia came out to the car shortly after. Reno was leaned against it with his arms folded. Dommi was leaned against it with arms folded too.
“We got thrown out, Mommy,” he said happily. “I exposed them for a fraud and they wanted us out of there!”
“I know, baby,” Trina said. “They came for me and Sophie too.”
“What did you guys see?” Reno asked her.
“The swamp man.”
“Was he real?” Reno wanted to know.
“Hell no,” Trina said. “Just some straggly-haired cracker with mud on his face.”
Reno laughed, and they piled, once again, into his Porsche.
But instead of taking them home, Reno decided to take them to a place they hadn’t gone in years: to Chuck E Cheese’s. And all four had a ball.
Dommi was especially pleased. “All this,” he said as he played like there was no tomorrow, “and we got out of school early too? I’m in heaven!”
Reno and Trina laughed, and even Sophia laughed too, as both parents committed to never have their children starved for their attention ever again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Reno Gabrini: When His Woman Cries Page 9
