by Ws Greer
I use the towel to wipe the blood off the gun.
“It was good. Fun,” I reply, smiling as I chew. I make sure to keep my eyes on my plate.
“Yeah? He take you anywhere?” she asks, suddenly serious.
The smile melts off my face, but I keep looking down. I know she’s staring at me.
“Umm, nowhere special. We just hung out,” I reply.
I’m not stupid. I know why my parents aren’t together, and my father has told me plenty of times that there’s things I can’t say in front of my mother. My father hasn’t changed at all. The things he does when we’re together are the exact things my mother hates about him. It’s weird, because I know she still loves him, there’s just certain things she hates about him. Grownups are strange.
“Don’t lie to me, Dominic Giovanni Collazo,” she snips. Ugh, my full name. Now I have to look up at her, and she’s glaring at me with an expressionless face.
“I’m not, Ma,” I lie.
I look back down at my plate even though my lasagna is almost gone. I hear her take a deep breath, which is the signal that she’s about to give a speech.
“Listen to me, Dom,” she begins. I know how this goes, so I put my fork down and prepare to listen for a while. “I love your father, I really do, but I also know the truth about him. And I know you’re getting to that age now that you’re learning the truth about him, too. I know what your father does, and who he hangs out with, and I know it’s dangerous. He loves you, though, and I’m not gonna try to deny him his right to being your father. I’d never even think of doing that, but I need you to know something. Your father’s life might seem glamorous. He’s got a lot of money, and he knows a lot of people who fear and respect him. But what your father does isn’t glamorous, Dominic, it’s dangerous. Maybe you haven’t seen that much of it yet, but I know Donnie, so I’m sure you will. You have to be smarter than that. Make some friends the right way, and do something good with your life. I don’t want you to be like your father.”
“Why would you say that?” I snap. “My father is respected by everyone in St. Louis. They all know his name. Me? People treat me like crap at school, and I just let them get away with it. They laugh at me, they call me Ugly Dominic. Nobody likes me, Ma, and you want me to not be like Dad. I wish I was like him. He gets respect, but not me. I’d rather be like him than be like me.”
“Don’t say that, Dominic,” Mom answers, softening her tone now. “I know how rough school can be, and I know some kids are little shits, but you have to be above them, just like you have been. You’re better than those kids who are calling you names. Don’t bring yourself down to their level. Don’t let them bother you with their words.”
“Their words hurt, Ma!” I yell. I didn’t mean to, it just came out that way.
Both of us are silent for a moment, my words hanging in the air like a cloud above our heads. The tension in my mother’s face eases as she gets up from her seat and kneels in front of me. She takes my hand and looks me right in the eye, and I can see she has tears in hers.
“I’m sorry you have to go through that. Kids are brats, and their parents should teach them better. I can’t control that, but I can teach you better. Don’t let the hatred of others bring you down. You’re above all those kids who are mean to you. You don’t have to fight all the time. You win by being smarter than all of them. You’re gonna be the one, out of all those little A-holes in that school, to be somebody big. They might not respect you now, but I guarantee they’re gonna respect you later. You’ll see, Dom. I just want what’s best for you, that’s all. I want you to have a better, safer life than what your father has. Do you understand?”
A better life than my father has? A better life than the nice cars, and the money, and the women, and the respect of every man in the city? How does it get better than that?
I hear her words, but it does nothing for me. It’d be impossible to convince me that my father’s life is somehow bad. He has everything. I want everything he has, and I’m so tired of trying to be the nice kid my mom wishes I was. The things that I think aren’t nice. The things I want to do to those kids who call me Ugly Dominic aren’t nice. I’m not who my mother thinks I am, but I don’t want to break her heart by telling her that I’m more like my father than she knows. So, I hear her words, but I let them go in one ear and out the other. Just like my father would do.
“Yeah, Ma. I understand.”
Dominic
Friday. Everybody loves Friday, even me, but what I’m even more excited about is that I’m about to see Alannah again. She’s really been going out of her way to talk to me all week long. I don’t know why she does it, but I like it. In fact, I think I like her, but I’m not going to say anything about it. She gets enough crap from people just for hanging out with me, so the last thing I want to do is make her feel uncomfortable by telling her how much I like her. So, when she sits down next to me during lunch—for the fourth day in a row—I just smile at her and keep eating.
Okay, she’s here. Just stay cool, Dominic, I think to myself.
“Hi, Dominic,” she says as she sits. She’s wearing a pink shirt with a picture of NSYNC on it, and I instantly have a new hatred for Justin Timberlake. Her brown hair is so pretty, and it hangs over her shoulder like it was always meant to be there. She smells good, too, like flower scented perfume made just for her.
“Hi, Alannah. What’s up?” I reply, making sure I don’t let my inner thoughts slip out.
“Not much. Nothing but wishing I would’ve packed a lunch today instead of eating this,” she says, gesturing towards her tray. “Seriously, what the crap is this?”
“I think it’s meatloaf,” I answer, smiling. “Or, wait, maybe it’s lasagna. No, it’s a cheeseburger.”
She laughs, and now I smile because she’s smiling and I like it.
“You’re funny, and I think you’re right. It’s a combination of, like, ten different things. So gross.”
“Almost as gross as the picture on your shirt.” She looks down at stupid Justin’s face and gasps.
“Leave them alone,” she jokes as she hits me in the arm. I notice we’re getting some stares from people, but I ignore them. “You wish you had curly, Ramen Noodle hair like JT.” Both of us laugh, and I do my best to think about what my mom was telling me earlier this week. I’m trying to be nice, but the girls a few tables down from us are starting to get on my nerves with their gawking.
Alannah and I finish our food and get up together. We dump our trays and ignore the whole world as we walk outside. Our hands are so close together as we walk they’re almost touching. I really have to concentrate because the closer our hands get, the faster my heart beats. I don’t think she even knows how close we are.
The two of us walk to the center of the playground to a big, dome-shaped jungle gym and climb to the top. It’s not really that high, but it feels cool to be off the ground with the wind blowing around us. We watch the other kids coming out of the cafeteria, some of them grabbing basketballs and soccer balls to play with, others running over to the swings in front of us. Then, out strut the cool kids.
Lisa and Maggie stride in step, surrounded by a few other girls who are looking to get or stay on their good side. As they walk, they look at everyone else like they’re beneath them, like they don’t deserve to be on the same playground as the two of them. It’s annoying. I hate the looks on their faces and the closer they get to us, the more I wish I could make them cry for how rude they are to other people. Some people don’t deserve nice.
“You really hate them, don’t you?” I hear Alannah say. I look over and see she’s staring at me with a smile that looks more nervous than anything else.
“Umm, I don’t hate them,” I start. “They just aren’t very nice to people. Especially me. I’ve seen the way they’ve been treating you, too, since you started talking to me. It’s just not right, that’s all.”
I look at her, hoping my words have made her less nervous about the way I w
as glaring at the two of them. She smiles and turns her eyes towards the girls as they walk at a glacial pace across the grass like two predators stalking prey.
“Yeah, they haven’t been very nice, but I’m not worried about them,” she says. “I don’t care if they don’t like me.”
“Are you always nice when people are mean to you?” I ask.
“I try to be,” she begins, but she stops herself. “Sshh, they’re coming over here.”
I turn to find Lisa and Maggie glaring at us from below like we did something wrong by just existing. I take a deep breath and wait for them as they come closer and stop right in front of us. We’re looking down on them, which I find ironic. It’s something my mom would say. They’re literally beneath us.
“Are you two in love or something?” Lisa asks, giggling in a way that instantly annoys me.
“You obviously are,” Maggie answers for us. “I just don’t understand how you could like him so much, Alannah. He’s so ugly. Something must be wrong with you.”
Alannah sighs. “Nothing’s wrong with me,” she says. “I just don’t let people like you decide who I’m allowed to be nice to.”
“Shut up,” Maggie snaps. “You’re just too stupid to know that hanging out with Ugly Dominic makes you just as ugly as he is. So, now you’re dumb and ugly.”
“Yeah, you’re actually worse than Ugly Dominic,” says Lisa. “We’re gonna call you Dugly. Dumb and ugly.”
The two of them burst into laughter and lean over at the same time like two ignorant twins. I glance at Alannah, and I can tell she’s upset, especially when another kid comes over and they tell him their new nickname for her. He starts laughing too, then he tells one of his friends, and from this view above them all, I can see it spreading already. Before we know it, every fifth grader will be calling Alannah Dugly. I can’t let that happen. She doesn’t deserve this.
As I watch the tears make their way out of her eyes, I feel a new sense of anger in my belly. I’ve been mad before, but this feels different. I might be madder than I’ve ever been, but I don’t lash out, I control it as I lower myself from the jungle gym and drop to the ground. As I stand up, the two girls stop laughing. They look at me like they’re worried now, even taking little steps back as I approach them. They’re scared, and it makes me feel good. I like that they’re afraid. They should be afraid.
“You better not touch me, Ugly Dominic,” Maggie says, spitting her words at me. “I’ll go right to Mr. Bishop and have you suspended again.”
I lean in close so that my head is between both of theirs, and I can basically feel them holding their breaths.
“You think I’m dumb enough to touch you out here in front of everybody?” I begin, turning my head and making eye contact with them both. I make sure I whisper the rest, as I look into Maggie’s eyes. “You think I’d let people see it? Nah, I’ll wait until you’re walking down Thornton Street on your way home, like you do every single day after school. And when you walk past that alley, you know the one that looks dark even in the daytime, you’ll know you’re not alone. When you’re lying on your face in that alley with no one around to help you, you’ll know it’s because you started calling Alannah that stupid name. It’ll be your own fault, and nobody will see anything happen. So, how would you be able to tell Mr. Bishop then? How will you be able to tell anybody if I make it to where you can’t fucking talk anymore?”
The two of them look like their stuck in a block of ice together. They’re both frozen in time—barely blinking, barely breathing, unmoving.
I turn to the guy who was laughing earlier, because I’m sure he could hear what I was saying.
“What? You don’t think I’m funny? Or, do you only laugh when you know it’s hurting a defenseless person’s feelings?”
He doesn’t say anything, but I see him swallow hard. I don’t even know who he is, but I chuckle at him as I climb back up the jungle gym and take my place next to Alannah. She isn’t crying now, and that makes me feel better. The two of us watch Maggie and Lisa slowly step away from the jungle gym, and they keep walking until they’re on the other side of the playground, like they’re trying to get as far away from me as possible.
“Are you okay?” I ask Alannah.
She smiles. “I’m fine. What’d you say to them?”
“Just not to mess with you like that,” I reply. “I told them I’m not gonna put up with that crap anymore. You don’t deserve it.”
“Thank you, Dominic,” she says behind her beautiful smile. “You didn’t have to do that, though.”
“Yeah, I did,” I interrupt. “Look, I don’t like many people in this stupid school, but you’re the only one who has been nice to me. And you don’t do it because you’re scared, you do it because you want to. You’re a nice person, Alannah, and you don’t deserve to have people talking crap to you like that. Nobody’s gonna mess with you now—not while I’m around. Okay?”
She seems to take a second to think about it, then she smiles from ear to ear, and my heart does the same.
“Okay, Dominic.”
Dominic
“Do me a favor, remind me again, because maybe I have a bad fucking memory. Maybe I’m old and I have fucking amnesia or something. Remind me again; what’s today’s date?”
He knows what the date is. He didn’t forget, but I’ve been here enough times now to know how this is about to go down.
Lorenzo Solento, owner of Solento Deli, seems to have forgotten that he has to pay tax to my father. He didn’t have to be in this positon, he put himself here. It’s simple; the first of every month you pay the ten percent you owe just like everybody else, and as long as you do that, nothing bad will ever happen to you. Nobody can touch you, or they’ll have to explain to Donnie Collazo why they took money out of his pocket. Nobody wants to do that, so all you have to do is pay the tax. If Lorenzo would’ve paid his tax when he was supposed to, my father and I wouldn’t be here right now. But he didn’t, so it is what it is.
“Today’s the third,” I reply, but my father’s not really listening anyway. He’s just staring at Lorenzo.
“I gave you two extra fucking days to pay, and you want to stand there and expect me to accept your pitiful fucking apology,” my father snarls. “How long you known me, Lorenzo?”
“A long time, Donnie. Me and yous go way back,” Lorenzo pleads. I can see beads of sweat on his forehead, and he’s fidgeting with nerves. “You’ve always been real good to me, too. I’m really sorry about the inconvenience. Really, I am.”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” my father interrupts. He knows he can’t let Lorenzo get away with this. I know he can’t. I know he won’t. “You make me have to come down here on the weekend with my thirteen year old son to collect from you. I’d rather be at my fucking house getting my dick sucked in the bedroom while my son plays PS2, but instead we’re both here, and you’re apologizing. I’m not getting my dick sucked, my son’s not playing fucking PS2, and you’re apologizing.” My father glances at me. “Dominic, lock the fucking door.”
I do as I’m told, and before I can flip the sign from Open to Closed, I hear the sound of my father’s fist bashing into Lorenzo’s face. I whip around to see Lorenzo on the floor curling himself into a ball while my father kicks him in the back of the head. His body jerks with every stomp and there’s blood on the floor that’s smearing onto Lorenzo’s white jacket.
“You stupid fuck!” my father yells as he keeps on stomping Lorenzo’s face and head. “You trying to make a fool out of me? You think I’m gonna let some dumb fuck like you hold out on me? You pay just like everybody else does, you cock sucker!”
I watch my dad kick Lorenzo about twenty times before I start to feel bad for the guy. I mean, he really should’ve known better than to hold out on my dad, but sometimes people make mistakes and have to be taught a lesson. My dad has to make an example of Lorenzo so people know they can’t get away with not paying on time, but I’m starting to feel like he’s had enough alrea
dy. My dad’s still kicking, but the guy isn’t really doing much to cover up anymore. He might be unconscious already. I take a deep breath and decide to step in.
I jump in front of my father and slowly push him backwards. “Okay, Dad, he’s done. I think you knocked the fucking guy out already.” My father reluctantly backs away.
“Alright, alright,” he says, looking around me at the bloody mess on the floor. “Get the money off the counter.”
I turn around and walk to the counter where Lorenzo dropped the envelope full of cash when we walked in. As I reach for the envelope, I see a figure come running out of the back. It’s a boy—maybe a few years older than me—and he’s screaming as he runs towards me with a meat cleaver over his head. He’s ready to bash my head in, and my dad’s too far away to help, so I have to act fast.
He’s wild and out of control, so I let him swing the cleaver. He misses by a mile, and the momentum makes him tumble forward. As he tries to regain his balance and turn around, I reach back and punch him in the face. I hear a loud cracking sound and blood explodes from his nose, splattering all over the place. He drops the cleaver and falls to his knees.
“Stupid fucker tried to hit me with a meat cleaver,” I turn and say to my father. He looks at me with amusement, but doesn’t say anything.
I feel furious. I know this guy is probably related to Lorenzo—maybe his son or nephew—and he was just looking to protect him, but I was the one trying to keep my father from killing Lorenzo. I got him off of him, and this is how I’m repaid for being nice. This is what I get for showing remorse? This is why my father has always told me not to show remorse. He has always told me to bury my feelings deep down so I don’t even know they’re there, so when a situation arises, I can act without letting feelings get in the way. I should’ve listened.
I bend down and pick up the meat cleaver off the floor.
“I went out of my way to protect Lorenzo, and here you come with this fucking thing trying to kill me for it. Do I look like some kind of easy target to you? I’m Donnie Collazo’s son, you stupid fuck! You hear me? You better remember it forever. I’m Dominic Collazo.”
