No Sad Songs

by Frank Morelli

  I turn my head and give in to the strength of the bailiff as he forces me back behind the Crypt Keeper’s bench and pushes me through a small door that leads into an even smaller chamber. Uncle Nick, Doc Weston, and the Crypt Keeper are all seated in leather chairs beside a bulky desk. The monster bailiff escorts me to an empty folding chair. The big goon exits the chamber and, with the click of the door handle, all sound rushes back to my ears.

  “Thank you for being here,” the Crypt Keeper says, “to all three of you. This is a unique situation. One that can only be solved by a village and not an individual.”

  “Glad I can help,” Doc Weston pitches in. The bastard. When the hell did he arrive? From the looks of his wrinkled suit jacket and the loose knot on his purple and gold striped tie, he may have slept here last night. Man, it sure would be nice if somebody, anybody—my employer, my best friends, our family doctor (you know, the people you’re supposed to be able to trust)—were on my side. But I guess that’s not my fate. See, I’m a LoScuda—which apparently is Italian for “punching bag.”

  The Crypt Keeper shuffles a few loose pages on his desk and lifts his ancient, beady eyes to the rest of the chamber. “Mr. LoScuda,” he says, and both Nick and I cock our heads to the sound. The Crypt Keeper notices and raises a single, bushy eyebrow. “Young, Mr. LoScuda,” he says with a roll of the eyes. Boy, Nick really has some work to do in the lawyering department before he makes any appearances on freaking LA Law.

  “Son,” the Crypt Keeper continues, “I don’t recall a time in my career when my sense of justice has risen to the highest heights and then collapsed into despair in the course of such a short period of time.” His whole career? What are we talking? Centuries? “What you did was both noble and completely irresponsible; both heroic and highly illegal.”

  “Illegal?” I repeat.

  “You perjured yourself, Mr. LoScuda—an offense that could result in stiff penalties or even jail time if you find the wrong judge on the wrong day.” I look at Nick for a second. His eyes are wide with the panic he’s trying to hide. Or maybe it’s fear. Fear that he’s about to lose two of his family members in the course of a single morning. “But don’t worry, Mr. LoScuda. This particular court, though quite strict, plans to exhibit considerable leniency on your behalf.”

  “Doctor Weston,” the Crypt Keeper continues, “the court would appreciate your recommendations in this matter.”

  “Of course,” he says sitting up a little taller in his chair. He fixes a pair of black, wire frames on the bridge of his nose and averts his eyes from my glare. “Your honor, I’ve been treating Ernest LoScuda for the past two years.”

  “And young Mr. LoScuda has been the guardian you’ve dealt with during that time?”

  “For a portion of it. Gabe’s parents originated the patient at my office, but the young man has taken over since.”

  “And where are the boy’s parents at this—”

  “Dead,” I say in a hollow, lifeless voice that stops the Crypt Keeper mid sentence and attracts Uncle Nick’s hand to my shoulder. “They’re both dead,” I say again. “Car accident.”

  There’s a subtle change in the Crypt Keeper’s demeanor. His shoulders stiffen a bit and the beady eyes somehow appear softer and less rodent-like. “I’m sorry,” he says. “How long has it been?”

  “It will be a year this summer,” Uncle Nick says as he pretends to consult a handwritten note on his legal pad. Boy, Perry Mason better watch his back before he’s out of a job.

  “I see,” the Crypt Keeper says with a contemplative thumb tucked under his baggy chin.

  “This is an amazing young man,” Doc Weston says out of nowhere. “He’s taken on the role of caretaker in one of those tragic and unexpected twists life often throws us. And he’s succeeded even while continuing his roles as nephew and student, friend and employee.” Doc smiles at me. Maybe the guy’s not such a total bastard for showing up here. “But his grandfather … Ernest … his condition is, frankly, far beyond what can be managed by non-medical personnel.” Bastard!

  “How would you describe the patient’s condition?”

  “Ernest LoScuda is in the latter stages of Pick’s disease, your honor. All patients respond differently to the disease and to the pharmaceuticals used to treat it. This particular patient has lost most of his ability to communicate. His memory is compromised. He often becomes disoriented, and his fears—as I have witnessed first hand in my own exam rooms—are sometimes carried out in violent bursts or are acted out as flashbacks. There is little doubt that the incident involving Gabriel’s car and the hitand-run accident itself were products of Ernest’s disease.”

  “I see,” the old judge says again. “And how would you recommend I proceed?”

  “With Ernest LoScuda? I’d say he needs professional assistance. He cannot care for himself, and I fear there’s not a man in this room—myself included—capable of taking care of him without such assistance.”

  He looks at me. The traitorous bastard. I can feel all the blood and rage boiling in the tips of my ears. I kind of want to slug the guy for saying I can’t take care of my own grandfather; for making Gramps out like he’s a worthless lump of mud; for coming between me and my father’s wishes; for painting me as a helpless, little kid. But I’m resigned to my failure. I don’t even have the will to take a swing.

  “As for the young man …” Doc continues, but then he’s suddenly cut off.

  “I’ll take this, your honor,” Nick says. “My nephew is the only man … and I say ‘man’ in the truest sense of the word … he is the only man I’ve ever met who is basically flawless. He’s pretty much perfect. Strong-willed, thick-skinned, hard working, and persistent. He has all the traits a parent could ever wish for in a son. And his only true flaw is one that all of us—every damn one of us in this room—should aspire to achieve. He cares too much. Plain and simple, the kid cares too much. About his family. About his friends. About anyone or anything in need. You see, he does all this caring and working and worrying about all these other people, and if there’s a few seconds left at the end of the day, he might think about his own needs. But that rarely happens. He’s a good kid, your honor. He’s a good, freaking kid. But he’s an even better young man. Please, your honor, don’t punish my nephew for that.”

  Nick ends his sentence and there’s a layer of pristine silence, like silken fabric, that blankets the chamber. Freaking Nick. In spite of everything—the slovenliness, the drinking, the bad manners, and the fly-by-night attitude—I love the guy and I always will.

  The Crypt Keeper jots a few notes on a pad and then his eyes meet mine.

  “You’re a lucky man to have an uncle like this one,” he says. “You’re free to go, Mr. LoScuda. Congratulations. You are an impressive and puzzling enigma, and I wish you well. You may regain ownership of your vehicle from the impound lot behind the courthouse.

  “And what about Grandpa?” I ask. “Where can we get him?”

  I’m afraid to hear the answer.

  “Your grandfather will spend the night in custody at the veteran’s hospital. Doctor Weston has volunteered to keep a watchful eye. He will be assigned a temporary caseworker that will make observations over the next twenty-four hours, and then offer an official recommendation. The likely outcome? He will be assigned to an assisted living facility.”

  “No. That’s out of the question,” I say, as if I have any jurisdiction. “My grandfather can not—”

  “Mr. LoScuda, the only other alternative for your grandfather is jail time. That’s the reality, son.”

  The words strike my face like a heavyweight’s fist and, for a second, I think maybe they’ve knocked my teeth down my throat because my mouth feels all dry and the gums are all sore and swollen. There’s nothing I can say. I nod and rise to shake hands with all the gentleman in the chamber. “We’ll make arrangements for your grandfather and contact you with the information within the next forty eight hours,” the Crypt Keeper says. I thank him—tho
ugh I’m not all that thankful about the results—and leave his chambers.

  Only there’s a part of me I feel I’ve left in that room forever. Locked up where I can never get to it again. It’s the part of me that knows I’ve failed my mission. I’ve let my father down. I’ve proven that if a bullet is headed in your direction it’s best not to expect me to stand in front of it. It’s the part of me that can’t accept—will never accept—my grandfather as a beaten-down old man in a hospital gown. It’s the part that will lie awake in bed each night and wonder if Gramps got into the hospital commissary and swiped a six pack of pudding snacks, or if he treated the nurses to a one-man game of trench warfare in the recreation room, or if he also lies awake in his bed, miles away, and thinks of the grandson who took care of him all of those nights. Or if he can still remember that grandson at all. It’s like I’m saying goodbye forever to a man who hasn’t truly disappeared. And yet somehow he has.

  I squeeze Nick’s arm a little tighter and he leads me to the clerk’s desk to pay the fine. We don’t talk. Nick slides a short stack of fifty-dollar bills under the window. The clerk takes it and then slides my keys out in return. She points down a long hallway that culminates in a door. A thin beam of sunlight filters through a slim, rectangular window cut directly through the center of it. Nick and I continue our silent trek through the courthouse. We push through the door at the end of the hallway and into the outside world—an asphalt nightmare entombed behind random lengths of chain-linked fence and barbed wire, and covered in jalopies from here to the horizon.

  The Trans-Am is parked right in the front, but there’s something screwed up about it. Something is attached to the rear bumper that really pisses me off. It’s John and Sofia. They’re out here freaking waiting for me. The no good, traitorous, bastards. They sold Gramps and me down the river and now … what? They think I want to grab a slice of pizza with them or something? I walk right past them and slide the key in the lock.

  “Gabe,” John says, “what else were we supposed to do?”

  I try to ignore him. I try to get in the car without even acknowledging that either one of these traitors exist. But I can’t resist the urge.

  “How about anything other than what you both did in there?” John and Sofia both stare back at me, dumbfounded. It’s amazing. Suddenly they have nothing to say. All of Sofia’s sneaky, little insults and John’s sermons from the freaking mount. Where are they now?

  “You know what I thought you were supposed to do?” I ask them. I get nothing—not even the blink of an eye or the twitch of a lip. Nothing but absolute shock. So I answer the question myself. “You were supposed to be my friends.”

  I hop in the Trans-Am and slam the door before John or Sofia can build up the courage to respond.

  “Don’t worry,” Nick says. His voice is all muffled through the locked-down tee-top, and I can’t hear if John or Sofia say anything back to him. “He’ll come around,” Nick adds before he closes the passenger door. But I don’t think he’s right. I think Uncle Nick’s calculations are vastly off base.

  And, just to prove a point, I crank the ignition and put the Trans-Am in reverse. I watch in the rear-view as John and Sofia scramble out of the way—just like a couple of backstabbing rats.

  Gabe LoScuda

  English 4A – Personal Essay #7

  Mr. Mastrocola

  January 28

  My Crummy Kingdom

  For passion tempts and troubles me

  A wayward will misleads.

  And selfishness its shadow casts

  On all my words and deeds.

  — Robert Louis Stevenson, My Kingdom (5-8)

  I always hate when writers plug in a few lines of poetry or an overused quote at the top of an essay and hope beyond hope that someone with an IQ score that gets dwarfed by a half-dollar is the first person to read it. That way, the idiot might mistake the sage words of an established, professional writer for the ones vomited onto the page by a hack. It’s an awful ruse to pull on someone. What’s worse is it strikes me as selfish. I mean, Robert Louis Stevenson probably wasn’t planning to have Gilbert J. Pitsniffer from Mrs. Swanson’s third period class in Wichita, Kansas stealing his ideas a hundred years after he wrote the poem “My Kingdom,” but that’s how it is. We all like to lift each other’s glory, cup it in our hands, and then pawn it back off as our own. We can’t resist it. Stevenson knew that in the year 1913, and countless hack essayists have no doubt ridden the same wave ever since.

  Of course, I probably shouldn’t sit here and pretend I’m immune to this basic human weakness. I’m not. I’m just as guilty, maybe more, since my glory pilfering—my hairy streak of selfishness—victimized one of my dear friends instead of some faceless author who died half a century before I was even a sparkle in my father’s eyes.

  I doubt the victim I speak of would ever refer to me as a friend anymore, and I wouldn’t blame him in the least. His name is Carter Willis. He, John, and I spent most of our elementary years and part of middle school tooling around the local ball fields, riding bikes through the neighborhood, and visiting the municipal pool on lazy, July days. We were inseparable.

  John was the brains of the group, and Carter and I were the “athletes.” We were ballplayers with everything in common. We both played second base, had sloth-like moves to our backhand, hit for power like church mice, and worshipped Ryne Sandberg (why did the Phillies freaking trade him?). John was our resident statistician. Out on the sandlot, he’d keep a running tally of all our swings-and-misses, all of our booted ground balls, and every one of our arguments about who was better than whom. Carter and I were none too appreciative, because John’s patented status reports only served as daily reminders of how unlikely it was that either of us would stand an ice cube’s chance in hell of making the middle school team.

  So, when John would accost us on the other side of the chalk line with quips like, “Gabe, that’s your fourth strikeout of the day,” or “Carter, you only managed to field three out of ten ground balls cleanly,” he’d be met with all sorts of groans and grunts and shut-the-hell-ups. But our displeasure never stopped John from reporting. He was much too dedicated to statistics to blow a chance at making out with his precious numbers.

  By the time we’d climbed the educational ladder to the lofty heights of seventh grade, Carter and I figured we’d left some of our best baseball out there on the sandlot where stats and wins and gold glove plays were meaningless. It was time to lend our debatable talents to the team that bore our middle school crest on its jerseys. Plus, both Carter’s dad and my dad were shaking us down on a daily basis because they couldn’t bear to live in a world where their only sons had no connection to a sanctioned and organized ball club. Dad would remind me of this each time I loaded up my bag after school for another fruitless (according to him) trip to the sandlot.

  “It’s time to shit or get off the pot,” he’d tell me, which still kind of puzzles me because I can never see how dropping a deuce and playing baseball have any real connection—unless you happen to be a Mets fans (and for that I am sorry).

  Carter and I finally buckled and signed our names on the sheet Coach would post on the bulletin board outside the cafeteria. It read: TRYOUTS – NEXT WEEK! “That doesn’t give us much time to prepare,” Carter told me as he dotted the i’s in his last name.

  “We’re as ready as we’re gonna be,” I said. “It’s time to shit or get off the pot.”

  “Disgusting,” he said.

  “Yeah, well tell that to my dad.”

  We spent most of the weekend fielding ground balls off the fungo bat of John Chen (when he could actually make contact), and doing a drill we called “soft toss” where John would flip a ball at us from the side and we’d slug it into a section of chain linked fencing around the field. By Sunday afternoon, Carter and I felt as ready as ever. By Sunday night, I was ready to take Dad’s advice and get the hell off the pot.

  I was terrified. So I called Carter.

  �
��I don’t think I’m gonna show up tomorrow,” I said.

  “What? Are you wussing out on me, LoScuda?”

  “It’s a waste of time. I’m useless compared to the eighth graders.”

  “So am I,” Carter said. “But I’m showing up. And you should too.” “What’s the point?”

  “To show Coach you have what it takes … or at least to let him know you exist. Come on,” he said, “We can suck together.”

  “We’ll be the crappiest second base tandem in the Delaware Valley. Even worse than Steve Geltz and Juan Samuel.”

  “Well, probably not that bad.”

  We laughed a bit more and made fun of each other’s rag-armed throwing styles for a while and then we hung up. Carter always knew the type of treatment I needed to wipe away the fear and get motivated. What Carter didn’t know was the meaning of the word ‘selfishness.’ Because for him, the monster had never “cast its shadow on all his words and deeds” like it had for Stevenson, and as it would for me at the conclusion of tryouts.

  We toiled on the diamond all week long, running sprints from foul pole to foul pole, taking over a hundred swings a day off the tee, and fielding ground balls until our forearms and chests were covered in baseball-sized bruises. Carter would go out and get the best of me one day, and then I’d outperform him the next. We passed cuts on Tuesday and Wednesday, and had only one more to go on Thursday before that sweet blue and gold pinstriped uniform was folded up in our sports lockers.

  Each day, John would sit on the bleachers and compile statistics for everyone trying out. It was annoying, don’t get me wrong, but his maniacal scribbling did serve to make one thing clear: the real competition for a spot on the roster was shaping up between me and Carter, since the rest of the players—mostly older guys—were performing at a level that left our statistics looking pretty pathetic.