Darth Vader couldn’t intimidate him, but the fierce little commando isn’t so tough and ornery when he finds himself nose to chin with an odd-looking creature who resembles a canary-yellow Easter Peep.
“Danny, this is my friend Mariano. Mariano, this is my favorite nephew, Danny.”
“I’m your only nephew!” Danny insists, recovering a bit of his lost bravado. He’s cocky and bursting with blustery self-confidence whenever he feels safe and secure, but shy and reticent among the unfamiliar and unknown. Kit and Michael have agreed to meet Mariano for dinner or brunch on a few occasions, but, being responsible parents, they believed it would be too confusing for Danny to deal with his uncle’s new relationship until they were satisfied that young Mariano wasn’t just some fleeting infatuation. There’d been hard feelings at Thanksgiving and Christmas. But Frankie’s unwillingness to come out to the Nook and blow out the candles on his birthday cake and his obstinate refusal to accept a solo invitation for Easter had broken Kit’s resolve. She’d insisted her stubborn husband concede to the inevitable. Frankie and the boy have been a couple for more than a year now and it’s time to welcome the young man into the family circle. Danny’s curious about this odd-looking visitor, a dead ringer for a Bakugan Battle Brawler. Clearly not a kid, but not quite a grown-up, this Mariano is something in between, like a Jonas Brother, with his tight clothes and spiked, gelled hair.
Michael’s almost as dumbstruck as his son. It’s worse than expected. The invitation was a mistake, no doubt about it.
“Mariano, you remember my brother, Mikey.”
“Michael,” he corrects him, introducing himself, reaching to shake the young Mexican’s undamaged hand.
Mariano’s palm feels boneless, a plush lily pad that wilts under the slightest pressure. The kid isn’t masculine enough to be called handsome. Striking, that’s how Michael would describe his appearance, like an oil portrait on a gallery wall that forces you to stop and admire, demanding your attention. Michael squints into the daylight, assuming his eyes are playing tricks, but, no, he’s not mistaken. The young man is wearing makeup, eyeliner and mascara. His hair is the unnatural color of fool’s gold and his manner is either shy or haughty, it’s hard to tell. He mumbles, looking down at his feet, when forced to utter a simple greeting. He covers his mouth with his bandaged hand, self-conscious, obviously ashamed of the pitiful condition of his teeth.
“Happy Easter,” Michael says, trying to sound sincere.
Michael had stood his ground as long as possible. To say the kid and his brother are a mismatched pair, a dress sock and a sweat sock, black wool and white cotton, would be an understatement. They’re pieces of a different puzzle. Nothing fits. The whole fucking idea of this boy taking up residence, installing himself as the lady of the house at Eighth and Carpenter, once the home of the imperious and demanding Papa, doesn’t feel right.
“Were you in a fight?” Danny asks his uncle.
“Of course not. Do I look like a fighter, Danny? I fell.”
Maybe, for once, Michael ought to give his brother the benefit of the doubt. Frankie could be telling the truth when he swears the kid poses no threat to his physical well-being. It’s hard to believe this Mariano could have bloodied his brother’s face with one marshmallow fist.
“The baskets are still in the car. I could use a hand,” Frankie says before Danny grabs him by the wrist to drag him to his bedroom to admire the pair of toxic guinea pigs he persuaded his mother to buy him for Easter.
“How bad is it?” Kit asks as her husband wanders into the kitchen.
“Bad.”
“On a scale of one to ten?”
“Let’s put it this way. He must have stolen his shirt from an ice dancer and his hair looks radioactive. And I’m pretty sure he’s on a first-name basis with Estee Lauder.”
“Jesus.”
“Maybe your father won’t notice.”
“Michael, that boy is a guest in our home. As is my father. And he’ll treat Frankie’s friend with dignity and respect or he’s welcome to leave.”
His father-in-law, who’s been sipping from a tumbler of Maker’s Mark since the backyard Easter egg hunt, has become a disciple of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. The Judge once had been a deeply practical man who’d taken great satisfaction in knowing his favorite child had the wits to end up with one of his Tastykakes, an olive-skinned South Philly kid with a high IQ and unlimited prospects, the Note Editor of the Penn Law Review, rather than an anemic member of the Philadelphia Club whose highest ambition was to sing a solo at the Orpheus Club Christmas concert. He’d even respected his son-in-law’s decision to choose public service over the generous offer to join the storied Philadelphia white-shoe firm where the Judge had been managing partner before being appointed to the federal bench in the first term of the Reagan administration.
The old man’s got nothing but time on his hands since declining cognitive functions forced him to resign his lifetime appointment on the bench. The hours of his day are consumed by his obsession with right-wing conspiracy theories like the Clinton Body Count and, more recently, Obama’s indoctrination by Muslim jihadists at an Indonesian madrassa. He’s taken to the Internet since the neurologist ordered the confiscation of his car keys and is the author of daily e-mail blasts soliciting funds for crackpot organizations. His latest favorite is something called American Sentries that wants to build a fifty-story impenetrable steel wall from the Pacific coastline to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. He’ll either detonate or collapse into an alcoholic stupor when he finds himself seated next to Pancho Villa at the dinner table.
“He’s your father. I’ll let you inform him of the house rules.”
“Frankie, they are beautiful!” she gushes, looking over Michael’s shoulder as Frankie and Danny enter the kitchen, laden with bounty to celebrate the Resurrection of Our Lord. “Don’t move,” she says abruptly.
He obeys without question. Men of all ages respond instinctually to the voice she uses to insist that Danny clean his ears and brush his teeth and that her husband tuck in his shirt and straighten the knot in his tie.
“What happened to you?” she asks.
“I tripped on the curb and went down on my face.”
“You should have seen him a few days ago. His nose was the size of Bozo the Clown’s. I told him he ought to sue the city,” Michael says, still skeptical of Frankie’s explanation of the mystery bruises.
“Why would I sue? It was my fault for not paying attention.”
“Doesn’t stop the good people of the city of Philadelphia from hiring some ambulance chaser with his face and phone number on the side of a bus to extort a few bucks from the treasury for their pain and suffering. One of those better be mine,” Michael says, eyeing the baskets.
The Easter Bunny arrives every year bearing marzipan Paschal Lambs, solid chocolate crucifixes and bunnies, heaping mounds of jelly beans and buttercream and nougat eggs in shiny foil, all of it artfully piled on a heap of bright pastel straw in cheerful spring colors. Danny and his father rip off the cellophane wrappers, making short work of Frankie’s meticulous creative efforts. Their greediness is exasperating and Kit chastises the two of them.
“My God, Michael. I don’t know who is worse, you or your son. You didn’t even give me a chance to get a picture!”
Scottie saunters into the kitchen, enticed from her bedroom by the promise of peanut butter eggs. Kit snaps the neck of an ill-fated bunny and pops it in her mouth.
“Take this basket away from me! This candy is going straight to my hips.” She laughs, giving Frankie an affectionate hug.
“Michael, you ought to leave for Miss Peterson’s now,” she says. “And stop and pick up another pint of heavy cream on your way. The expiration date is next week, but I don’t like the smell of this,” she says, wrinkling her nose as she sniffs the lip of the carton. “Remember to give her a dressing drink before you put her in the car. Maybe she’ll fall asleep before she and my father can start a political
debate.”
“I’ll come with you, Michael,” his stepdaughter says, an unexpected offer.
Her friendly smile as she buckles her seat belt is ominous. She even asks permission before changing the radio station. She’s over her high school girl crush on that irritating little girl who sang that ubiquitous ode to Tim McGraw and is now an enthusiastic fan of hip-hop. Just last week she lost an epic battle with her mother over attending a concert by a rapper with the ludicrous name Ludicris.
“Did she tell you?” she asks as the disc jockey launches into his moronic patter.
“Did who tell me what?” he asks.
“Doozy.”
The Italian son in Michael, Papa’s boy, will never understand the casual nonchalance with which the children of his wife’s tribe refer to their parents by their given names. His son may have Anglo-Saxon blood in his veins, but he will never call his mother Kit or, God forbid, Doozy, in his father’s presence.
“Did she tell you about my father? He’s getting divorced again.”
The news is hardly surprising. Scottie’s father is too arrogant and reckless to conceal his serial infidelities from his wives. Kit loathes him, wishing him dead on occasion, offended by his complete disregard for the damage he wreaks on the people in his life, first and foremost his eldest daughter.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he says.
“It’s okay. I don’t care,” she insists, her bravado ringing false. Michael is very conscious about keeping his eyes on the road ahead, knowing she would be mortified to be seen fighting back tears. They ride in silence, listening to Top 40 radio.
Kit and Michael have sworn that Danny’s childhood will be different from that of his half sister. He’ll grow up secure, knowing that he’s loved, the center of their universe, protected, his innocence preserved as long as possible. He’s nine years old and has never even heard his parents argue. The worst thing Danny has suffered in his happy life was a broken heart when they were forced to find his beloved golden retriever a new home when he experienced a severe allergic reaction to dog hair.
“Michael?”
“Yeah?”
“Who do you think Doozy would rescue if both Danny and I were drowning?”
“She’d go down saving both of you.”
“Do you think you and Doozy will get a divorce someday?”
“Scottie. There are few things in life you can be certain of. But one of them is that your mother and I will not be getting a divorce.”
“That’s because you’re a dago,” she declares, trying, without success, to get a rise out of him. “Dodie says dagos never divorce no matter how much they hate each other.”
Michael is tempted to, but refrains from, revealing the sordid marital history of her grandmother and his mother-in-law’s own misguided commitment to her nuptial oath.
“Good try, but I’m not taking the bait this morning, Scottie.”
“Dodie says dagos spoil their kids.”
“Dodie didn’t know my father.”
“Was he a bastard like mine?”
“In a different way.”
“You’re not a bastard.”
“Thank you for acknowledging that.”
“But you’re a real jerk sometimes.”
“Well, I guess I’ll have to try harder to live up to your expectations.”
“You’re not that bad. I’d probably pick a dago if I got to choose my father,” she says before turning her attention to an incoming text.
Eleanor is raring to go this afternoon. She’s almost pleasant in the car, full of cheerful criticism of Michael’s route between the two domiciles and his waste of expensive fossil fuel. He persuaded her to have two sherries before they embarked (not a difficult task), hoping she would doze off after he strapped her into her seat. She’s wide-awake, completely absorbed in an NPR broadcast of an ancient memoirist reading a selection about a wartime Easter celebration in Provence. But he should have been less generous with the alcohol. The obstinate old cow refuses to wear the adult diapers Kit bought her and the car reeks of piss. He does a half-assed job wiping down and sanitizing the leather seat, knowing he’ll need to do it all over again after driving her home after dinner.
He washes up in the utility room, his heart sinking when he hears the raucous commotion of loud voices. He tosses aside the towel and rushes into the house, preparing to throw himself into the middle of the fracas and act as a referee, separating the combatants and sending them to their corners. He’ll issue a stern warning of dire consequences if the parties don’t sit down, shut up, and learn how to behave like civil human beings. He’s surprised to find Kit in the kitchen, preoccupied with pulling baking dishes from the oven. Her mother is tossing a salad, and Frankie is calmly slicing a Virginia ham.
“What’s going on in there?” he asks, shocked by this calm in the eye of the storm.
“You forgot the whipping cream, didn’t you?” Kit accuses him.
“Just add a couple of tablespoons of vanilla extract,” Dodie advises. “You won’t be able to taste anything else.”
“How thin do you want these slices?” Frankie asks.
“Dodie, go check on Miss P and see how’s she’s doing,” Kit insists.
It sounds like 8.5 on the Richter scale and they’re blithely going about their business in the kitchen, ignoring the catastrophe in the next room. He throws up his hands and enters the lion’s den, determined to keep the battle troops from pulling his house down around their heads. Three generations of Ballard-Morris-Scotts and the visitor from South of the Border are gathered around the video screen, hard at play, whooping and shouting as they run up their scores in a round of Rock Band. The volume is jacked to earsplitting levels. His father-in-law is pounding the drumsticks and Kit’s jug-eared, thick-browed brother Henry is picking out the bass line. Danny’s on lead guitar, tossing his head and wagging his tongue, and the Mexican kid is wailing at the top of his range, hitting the high notes and mumbling the words, his English too rudimentary to master the lyrics of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit.”
The day went better than expected, almost a complete success. Mariano was unfailingly polite and, once he was comfortable in strange and intimidating surroundings, he demonstrated the charming and considerate good nature Frankie has been insisting he possesses. He’d helped Kit and her mother clear the table and load the dishwasher, then offered to serve Dodie’s coconut Easter cake, a Pugh family tradition, at dessert. Before they left, Kit promised Frankie to arrange a meeting with an immigration specialist in her Center City law firm about Mariano’s dilemma. The permanent residency project is back on track and moving full-speed ahead. The whole family is on board, Michael begrudgingly so. He still intends to run a fingerprint check (he’d quietly confiscated the microphone the boy had been using—thank you, Rock Band), on the sly of course, nothing reportable to immigration authorities, just to make sure Mariano is on the up-and-up. But Mariano’s passed an important test today and a celebration is in order. On the drive back to the city, Frankie surprises his young boyfriend by suggesting they go dancing. The shop is closed tomorrow and they can sleep late in the morning. But first there’s a question he’s been putting off, one that needs to be asked.
“Why don’t you ever talk about your brother, Mariano?”
“You no ask, Frankie.”
Frankie’s relieved by his calm, nonchalant response. Surely he’d be nervous if he had something to hide.
“I have three sister. Two brother. Two sister and brother in Puebla. Sister and husband in New Jersey.”
“And Randy?”
“Randy in Baltimore with his baby. You and me talk about Randy before when I go see him.”
It all sounds perfectly reasonable to Frankie. He wants to know everything there is to know about Mariano’s family. But it can wait until tomorrow. Or the next day. Mariano’s already happily preoccupied, shimmying in his seat to a new release, undeniably catchy, by some improbably named singer called Lady Gaga, pumping
up his adrenaline in anticipation of a night on the dance floor.
“Dad, my stomach hurts.”
“Are we watching a video, pal?” Michael asks as Danny shuffles through the discs, looking for Transformers, his favorite. “How much candy did you eat?”
“Not too much.”
“Go poop if your stomach hurts. You’ll feel better.”
It’s Michael’s one-size-fits-all solution for every childhood complaint.
“I don’t have to poop. What are you eating?”
Danny’s caught him red-handed with a big chunk of a marzipan lamb in his palm.
“Can I have some?” he asks.
“You don’t like this kind of candy,” Michael insists.
“Yes, I do.”
“You always spit it out of your mouth.”
“I won’t.”
Michael pinches off a big piece of the rump for his son. Soon enough there’s nothing left of the sacrificial lamb but the sugary paste beneath their fingernails.
“Dad, can I ask you a question?”
He’s clearly not completely absorbed in the careening Autobots wreaking earsplitting havoc on the television screen.
“Sure.”
“Is Mariano a boy or a girl?”
“He’s a boy, Danny. You know that.”
“Why are he and Uncle Frankie friends?”
Michael thought the day was too benign to be true. He tosses a fistful of jelly beans into his mouth and slowly cogitates on how to answer the question in a way that’s honest but won’t overload his son with information a nine-year-old is too young too process.
“I know why, Dad. It’s because Uncle Frankie is gay,” Danny announces, growing impatient.
“Then why are you asking?” Michael’s eager to change the subject before the inevitable twenty questions begin. “Now either watch the movie or go up to bed.”
Kit enters the room with a glass of wine for herself and a tumbler of small-batch bourbon for her husband.
“I think you’ve earned a reward today,” she says, settling on the sofa next to her husband. “Oh God, Danny. Transformers? Again? Run upstairs and tell your sister to stop texting for one hour and join us.”
The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter Page 22
