Made Man Dante

by Liliana Rhodes

  My stomach churned and my face started to burn. I shifted in Dante’s lap trying to cool off, but it wasn’t the fireplace that was making me hot. My guilt was burning me, punishing me. I wanted to run away again and forget it ever happened and start fresh, but I knew what happened with Ron would continue to haunt me.

  “I lied to Momma one day,” I said, unable to look at Dante. “I told her I was going to Coney Island again, but I was going to Ron’s apartment. We talked about renting some movies and spending the day together, something we weren’t allowed to do at my house.”

  Slowly everything got hazy as my memory took over. I wasn’t in Dante’s penthouse anymore. It was five years ago and I was seventeen again.

  Five Years Ago

  It was a hot and humid summer day. I never liked wearing shorts, but the subway was like an oven and there was no way I was going to take the ride in jeans. I wore an outfit I had just bought, a white t-shirt with red stripes and a pair of shorts. Wearing shorts meant I stuck to the plastic seats of the subway, but it was better than dripping with sweat.

  As I stepped out of the subway, every pore in my skin screamed at me to turn back. Ron didn’t live in a very nice neighborhood, but it was the middle of the day, so I figured I was safe. I ignored my gut, which kept urging me to get back on the subway and go home, and followed the directions to his home.

  Ron lived in a brick apartment building where each apartment had a private entrance. Outside, the grass had worn away, leaving dry brown spots and exposed dirt. The sidewalk had crumbled and there were only a few areas of full concrete to walk on.

  There was no one around and my head was yelling at me to go home. The streets were so quiet and empty, I thought I was the only person alive there.

  I rang the doorbell and waited for someone to answer, but nothing happened. Just as I was turning to head back towards the subway, I heard a voice from inside yell for me to come in.

  The dark brown door taunted me from behind the screen door. The tarnished brass knob waited for me to turn it. Time was moving so slowly, it felt like minutes had gone by in only a matter of seconds. I forced myself to put my hand on the tarnished doorknob and turn it.

  Stepping inside the apartment, I was surprised by how small it was. I could see everything from the doorway. It couldn’t have been more than a one-bedroom apartment Ron was living in with his mother and younger brother. The dining room area had a couple of twin sized beds and dressers, reminding me of a dorm. I guessed that was where Ron and his brother slept. The apartment was filthy, as if it had never been cleaned.

  Ron was lying on the couch, the small TV on in front of him. His eyes were half closed as if he had just woken up. I looked around the apartment again, still not moving from the doorway. The apartment smelled weird, not like anything I had ever smelled before, so I couldn’t place it. My head kept telling me to run, but I still didn’t listen.

  “Where’s your mom and your brother?” I asked, looking around again. “I thought they were going to be here.”

  I would have never gone to Ron’s home if I knew we were going to be alone. It just wasn’t right and I wasn’t that kind of girl.

  “They went shopping,” he mumbled. “We’ve got plenty of time alone.”

  My feet were rooted in the doorway. The doorknob was still in my hand. Slowly, my eyes registered little things in the room.

  On the floor in front of the couch was an orange glass bong. I only recognized it because Terry loved watching Cheech and Chong movies on TV.

  The coffee table between him and the TV was a mess. My eyes caught a cigarette burning in an ashtray. Next to that was a thin purple box I recognized as the tissue to clean eyeglasses. It was something I remembered my dad using for his glasses years ago.

  Ron stood from the couch and was slowly coming towards me. I gripped the doorknob harder, not sure what I was so scared of. I wished I wasn’t there, but I still couldn’t move.

  Something else popped out at me from the coffee table. It was a square piece of aluminum foil, maybe three or four inches wide. The foil looked burnt in several spots and there was something on the middle of it. Next to the foil was a plastic Bic lighter.

  “I gotta go,” I said as I pushed the screen door open to step outside.

  “You’re not going anywhere. You owe me.”

  He grabbed my arm hard and pulled me back inside as he slammed the door shut. He started dragging me towards the bedroom, but I pushed at him and managed to break loose. I ran towards the door, but he tackled me onto the floor…

  Present Day

  I blinked hard and was back with Dante. His brow was low, as were the lines by his mouth. He knew what happened that day. I didn’t need to tell him any more.

  “What happened when you got home?” he asked.

  “My mother was in the kitchen cooking. It was in the back of the house, so I was able to enter through the front and go upstairs to my bedroom without her seeing me. My shirt was ripped and my clothes were stained with dirt so I threw them away and took a long shower. I never told her.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it was my fault. I lied to her. I went to a boy’s house when I knew I wasn’t allowed to.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Dante said as he held me tighter.

  I shook my head. “I changed after that. I told Mimi about a week later and she didn’t believe me. I thought it had to be my fault if my own sister didn’t seem to care. After all, it wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t go there. I even stayed with Ron for another couple of months because I blamed myself. But when it happened again, I broke up with him. After that, I didn’t care. Ron was right, I was a slut. I was too afraid to say no.”

  Dante looked into the fireplace. I could tell he was thinking. His jaw clenched like it did when he was angry and I wondered if this was it, if he was going to tell me to get out.

  “He did it again?”

  I nodded. I remembered how much things had changed for me. How broken I felt. How I shut down and wanted to die. I had even lost my faith in God.

  “When I went to All Saint’s the following year, I did it mostly to get away. I didn’t know what else to do, but everything was a reminder of how broken I was. At least that’s how I felt. No one seemed to notice. It was while I was at All Saint’s that I found myself again.

  “I was helping with some local ministries and I realized that what happened might have changed me, but it made me stronger. I wouldn’t be who I was today if it wasn’t for the things that happened to me, good and bad.

  “That doesn’t help the guilt or the shame I still sometimes feel, but it’s getting better. I hate him. I never wanted to return to Brooklyn because of the memories and the guilt of what I did kept coming back. After five years, I thought I was getting past it, but seeing Ron the other day brought all those horrible feelings back.

  “It felt good to hit him,” I said. “I know it shouldn’t have and I know I should turn the other cheek or whatever, but there were so many times I would daydream about killing him or his being dead…”

  My words drifted to a stop. I couldn’t help it, but I was smiling. Was there something wrong with me that the thought of killing the man who caused me so much pain in my life felt good? I didn’t care. There was nothing wrong with imagining it.

  “Is everything okay between us?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Dante said as he kissed my forehead. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

  “I don’t know. I guess with everything going on with my family and then Ron, I thought if you knew, you wouldn’t love me anymore. You wouldn’t think I was the perfect good girl you’re always saying I am.”

  “You’ll always be my angel. And you are my perfect good girl. Nothing could ever change that.”

  He smiled softly at me, his eyes locked onto mine. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have him.

  “I love you, Gia. But now that I know your secret, I really need you to know mine. There’s more I think you sho
uld know.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Dante

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, Gia,” I said. “I don’t want to lose you, but I need to make some decisions that I don’t know if you’ll accept or not.”

  “What kind of decisions?”

  “I need to tell you some things. I know you heard some of it from my friends that night at Luigi’s, but you don’t have the full picture. You need to understand some things about me and about my family so that you can decide if you really want to be a part of this or not.”

  “Of course I want to be a part of you and your family,” she said. “There’s nothing that could change that.”

  “You’re in danger again. You might always be in danger as long as you’re with me. And I will always be a target. That’s not a normal life, Gia.”

  “Normal doesn’t always mean good.”

  “Well, normal is all I ever wanted,” I said. “When my friend Tony died all those years ago, I realized how abnormal my life really was. I thought it was normal to have whatever I wanted and bully people into following orders. Losing Tony made me realize it wasn’t.

  “We were young, we thought we were invincible. I was a lot like my brother Roman back then, hotheaded and impulsive. I never thought about what we did. We were only teenagers, but we had a lot of power and we abused it.

  “None of that matters though, it’s in the past. What’s important is that when Tony got shot, that bullet might as well have gone through each of us. We all changed. Some of us, like Sal, decided this life was exactly what they wanted. I realized it wasn’t.

  “It’s not normal to have your friends or family get shot or killed. After Tony died, I saw the other side. I saw happy families who didn’t have to worry about what territory they might be doing business in. Families that didn’t worry about what might happen when they left the house.”

  “I wanted more than a Mafia life. I wanted to one day have a family and to take trips with them. Teach my kids how to play catch. But being in the Mafia, that’s not really possible.”

  “Of course that’s possible.”

  “No, not when you’re a Gambino. Not when you’re a part of them,” I said. “I tried separating myself from the family. I stopped doing the work I was asked to and sure, it pissed off a lot of people, including my father, but I needed to get away from that life. It was too hard though. No matter what I did, I found myself right back where I started. I knew I had to get away if I didn’t want to be a part of the family business, so when I was eighteen, I joined the Army.”

  The fireplace crackled, and I glanced over to see the final photo melt and shrivel from the heat. Those were the last of my memories of the normal life I had. My life as something other than a Gambino.

  Ten Years Ago

  “Come on, Dante,” Pete said. “I’ve heard there are a lot of hot girls at this place. You can’t stay on base all the time.”

  Pete was my roommate in the barracks. He was lanky with freckles that covered his face and a little too large of a space between his front teeth. He was from Savannah, Georgia and when he got really excited his accent deepened, making it harder for me to understand him. At that moment, he couldn’t sound more Southern if he tried.

  “I don’t need to meet anyone. I’ll hang out here like I always do. You go and have fun,” I said.

  “Oh no, Dante,” said Mike, our neighbor from across the hall. “You have to come. I’ve seen how the girls look at you. You’re the only one who can work the buzz cut.”

  Mike patted his short, spiky hair. He was dark-skinned and built like a brick house. He was as tall as I was and was from a suburb in Ohio. Mike was my best buddy there and the only one who knew what my last name meant.

  The club we were going to was in a small building attached to a bowling alley. During the week the club was a casual restaurant, but on the weekends they had a DJ come in and cleared the dance floor of any tables. The large bar was the first thing we saw as we entered the darkened club.

  We sat on bar stools and ordered beers as we looked around. On the dance floor, lights flashed to the beat of the music from the DJ’s booth. There were less than twenty people on the dance floor.

  “Pete,” Mike said. “I thought you said this place had a lot of hot girls. There’s hardly anyone here.”

  “It’s early,” Pete said. “Give it time.”

  I was nursing my beer when Pete and Mike started doing shots. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a girl standing to the side of the dance floor, laughing with her friend. Her smile lit her entire face. Her strawberry blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was dressed in nurse’s scrubs. In her hand was a plastic cup.

  I was used to girls coming on to me when I was home. Any time I had been out, my friends and I had a line of women looking for our attention. That was part of being a Gambino. But the past two years of being in the Army taught me my last name didn’t matter to anyone outside of New York. I was finally living a normal life.

  I left Mike and Pete without saying a word and made my way over to the girl, keeping an eye on her to make sure I didn’t lose her. As I approached her friend, a woman with short blonde hair noticed me and looked me up and down before nudging her friend.

  “Hi,” I said. “Do you want to dance?”

  She smiled as she looked me up and down. “Air Force or Army?”

  “Army,” I said, confused as to why she would ask.

  She giggled and turned to her friend, who nodded.

  “Thanks. I knew you were Army,” she said, grinning. “The guys here are usually one or the other since you practically share a base. I figured I had a fifty percent chance of winning, and now Claudine is buying drinks for the rest of the night. I’m Marianne. I’ve been on my feet all day, so sorry, but I don’t want to dance. But if you want to sit and talk, that would be cool.”

  We walked over to a small table with wooden chairs and green padding on the seats. Claudine ran into someone else she knew and left us alone. Marianne and I spent the night talking and by the end of the night, I was sure I was in love.

  “I have to get home,” she said. “I have an early morning.”

  “Can I get your number?”

  “Like you’re going to call,” she said, laughing.

  She gave me her number and I called her the next day. We started dating and saw each other almost every day. When her roommate didn’t mind, I’d stay over at her place. Other nights she would sleep over in my bunk. Everyone loved Marianne and I fell deeper in love everyday. She was my first love.

  ***

  The phone rang in mine and Pete’s room, but I didn’t bother to answer it. It was 8pm and Marianne was at a concert with her friend Claudine. No one else ever called me on that line. Pete stumbled in from the bathroom we shared with the guys next door. His towel was wrapped around him, water dripping down from his head as he gave me a dirty look.

  “Hey, it’s not for me,” I said.

  “Hello?” Pete said as he answered the phone. “He’s right here.” He put the phone down and shot me a look. “It’s for you.”

  As I picked up the phone, I began worrying that something had happened to Marianne. Why else would anyone call me?

  “Dante? It’s Sergeant Walls.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Pack your things, we’re going to Afghanistan.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight. Meet us at EOD. We take off at 2300.”

  I was shocked. We were leaving in less than four hours. I needed to see Marianne. I had to get a hold of her. I dialed her number hoping she would answer, but she didn’t. I left a message on her voicemail and hoped she would check it soon.

  We had been dating for five months and we rarely spent the night apart. The one time we weren’t together, I was being deployed.

  Wearing fatigues, I got to EOD and everyone was packing their equipment. We were briefed about the land mines and homemade bombs they found that we needed to deactivate
. It was a simple mission and I looked forward to doing my duty, but I had to see Marianne before I left.

  I called her again and just before the call dropped into voicemail, her voice came on the line.

  “I just heard your message,” she said. “How long are you going to be gone? I have to see you.”

  “You can’t,” I said. “It’s too late for visitors. I don’t know how long I’m going to be gone. At least a few months.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At EOD. We’re packing up.”

  “I’ll be there in 20 minutes.”

  Thirty minutes later, Marianne’s red sports car pulled into the EOD parking lot. She had been there before for barbeques and I had shown her some of the gear we used for practice. I had no idea how she managed to convince the MPs to let her on base, but I didn’t care. She was there and that was all that mattered.

  I drove her car as we held hands, following Sergeant Walls’s Jeep to the airplane hangar. Inside, the large plane was being loaded with our stuff as well as smaller planes and tanks. I didn’t care about any of that though. I just wanted to spend my final minutes with Marianne.

  She was sitting down in a row of grey and blue seats, staring at the carrier planes, when I took her hand. Her face was pale and I could see the shine of tears in her eyes. I tried to get her to look at me, but she kept turning away.

  “I don’t want to cry in front of all these people,” she whispered. “I know you’ll be back, and look at them,” she said as she pointed to a couple with two small children. “They have it much worse than me and they’re not crying.”

  “They’ve been through this before. I’ve been lucky. I’ve been here two years and was never deployed.”

  “I just can’t believe that just like that, you’re going to be gone.”

  “I promise I’ll call whenever I can. I love you, Marianne. Maybe when I get back we can get a place together.”