-= Crazy Now =-

(Untitled)

Chapter 1

      We were living like shmucks now. Sorry, dirt-poor, suburban shmucks. We were the epitome of white trash. And Papa would slap me every time he hears that from me. He would slap me so quick and so hard I thought it never happened at all. Then I feel a sudden tingling between my eyes and I smell the sickening yet almost sweet scent of copper as my nose starts to bleed. One time, he hit me so hard that I swallowed one of my front teeth. But I always forgave him. Papa loves me and he never did mean to hurt me, I knew that, so I always forgave him.

      I had let it pass because I knew I was wrong. It was my fault. I was the rebel. I was the bad seed. Because I wanted to go back to the good life.

      It seemed only like yesterday when I was still in our house just outside of Chicago, my schoolbooks laid out in front of me on the living room carpet, telling my sister Connie to go play with Paul somewhere else. If she didn't, I would take the fleshy part of the inside of one of her thighs between the tip of my thumb and the first joint of my middle finger and squeeze with my pointer and then get up to close the door after a crying and limping Connie with a curious Paulie waddling after her. Uncle Paulie, the original Paulie as they say but I doubt, taught me that trick to clear my view of any creepy lowlifes in class, but it's also been very effective with clearing my workspace.

      Mama could never really see why I wanted to spend so much time in the living room where everything save for the sofas was extremely expensive, extremely fragile, and so extremely frustrating to clean up when I break them, than my own room. I didn't either, but I know now. I didn't want it because I had it and didn't care. I didn't really care if a hurricane suddenly passed through it, breaking everything. I didn't care if somebody built a meat shop in it. I didn’t care if Papa started to hide bodies under my bed or in my closet. I really didn't care if my room, and my house as well, all of a sudden blew up and burned to the ground. I didn't care because I knew that if that ever happened, we would just get up and have a new room built, have a new house built and top it off with a small pond in the garden even. I had everything I needed, wanted, didn't need and didn't want and I didn't care.

      But now I do, because I have nothing. Not even the privacy of my own room, because we couldn't afford to live too conspicuous lives and probably because we probably couldn't afford it anyway. The government took all of our stuff. I didn't ask questions when they moved the rugs or the stoles out; I just stared. And until now, that is all that I do.

      Most of the time, I stare at Papa's lip curling as he skims through the classifieds, looking through the jobs that he didn't even imagine he would need to take in his lifetime, that he was too good for, but was technically totally unqualified for. Tony Genovese was too good for some blue collar job, too good for the train that he'll probably have to take to get to his lousy job, and too good for the people he'll have to deal with from now on if he wanted to stay anonymous and alive. But although I knew that he might have felt that way, I knew my father enough to know about his uncanny grasp of life and how to get what you want out of it. If you want it, he had told me once, eye-to-eye, then there is nothing stopping you from taking it, not your enemies, not your friends, not even yourself. Screw your goddamn conscience. Won't feed you if your stomach was eating itself already. That was it, my lesson in life. Not your conscience, not your family, not even your pride. My father, the very personification of the words "I did what I had to do." Honestly, I would have understood if he sold Connie or me to some yellow schmuck to help make rolls for him to sell in Chinatown. Papa had to eat; if I didn't like the situation, I'd just have to find a situation where he won't have to resort to selling us to Chinks. Reason with him, maybe. Or run away. Or use a gun. He'd do what he has to do and I figure I would, too. That's how I knew that Papa wouldn't buckle to the challenges ahead. He'll take a lousy job if it would help make our lives in this whitewashed neighborhood a little better, even if it meant biting your tongue nine to five to keep the job. I admire Papa for that, being responsible and determined, Tony the Model Patriarch, Tony the Machine, Tony the Wiseguy, Tony the Saint.

      Sometimes, though, the only side of Anthony Genovese that I see is the man who has lost all his hope, the man trapped in his own despair, eyes clouded over, probably lost again in his own world, the world we used to live in, still trying to figure out how, how it happened, what happened to him, how, for one moment, we were chasing each other across Connie's room, tickling each other senseless, and coming to a full stop and just staring at the wall in the next. I, on the other hand, had never given it much thought. I think that there really isn't any use, crying over spilled milk. What I did was I was thinking of ways of how to get back into the family. I knew that it was impossible, but the thought kept me sane for at least a couple of months before I finally did also submit to the hopelessness that everybody else in my family was already wallowing in. I regret not taking action, any action, while I was still pretty determined, but time does rob man of the fire in him. Now, even though I still do want to do something, anything, to be able to live a real, full life like I did once, I don't remember the feeling that I used to have, that burning strain in my temples that locked my jaw and made it tremble at the same time. All I could come up now is a sad thought or two about the past that I'm not even sure now that I had once. That was, until I met Glenn Church.

      At least that was what he said his name was when I shook it out of him behind the school. I was walking through the hall at around three thirty one Monday when I spotted him for one moment, just one moment, looking at me by the lockers. It was just the briefest moment, but I didn't think twice and grabbed him by the forearm, taking advantage of his obvious surprise, and led him back through where I came from as a hundred blond heads turned to see more of the action. I didn't say anything though, until we reached the barren spot in the schoolyard where they kept the old Roosevelt statue, leaning against the wall. I led him under there and gave it to him.

      "Who sent you, you little fuck?" He was six inches taller than me, but you could never underestimate the element of surprise.

      "What- I-" The palest blue eyes I have ever seen wildly scanned my face. "I wasn't- I was- I was just-"

      "You were just spying on me, you punk! And don't tell me that you have no idea of what I'm talking about because I know you. I'd recognize your kind from a mile away."

      I guess that got him worked up because the next thing I knew, I was the one pinned to the wall, staring up at old FDR's buns.

      "And what kind is that?" Wild eyes. Wild, wild eyes.

      "The dreaming white trash, I know you. No matter how well they dress you up, I can smell your kind from a fucking mile away. The shoeshine boys, the paperboys, the valet-parking boys, the one that delivers the hot rolls to the local Italian. Everyday you see them sitting around talking business, playing cards all night long, slutty women with the biggest breasts you've ever seen on their laps and you think."

      It was getting hot under Roosevelt's stone buns and I was whispering hoarsely to Wild Eyes's pale chin. "You think, 'Hey, I think I'd really enjoy doing this for the rest of my miserable, useless life, too.' Then. Then one day you walk into them while they're pulling tablecloths over some guy who looks like he swallowed a gun. And maybe he did." Sweat started to bead the pale chin. "Then you think: This is the life for me.” I tilted my head testily. “So, what did they do, huh? Ask you to lock the door behind you and grab the extra shovel in the cellar? Did they treat you to some lobster after that? Or maybe it was something more... Sicilian?"

       Wild Eyes roared and I thought I was going to black out as I felt myself roughly lifted off the ground by the straps of my pack. I wished I hadn't said a single word I just did and started to fumble for my Swiss knife in my back pocket. I was as good as dead, I thought then. He had lifted me so that we were looking at each other eye-to-eye now. Wild eyes, wild eyes...

      "What do you want?" He was yelling directly into my face. "I'm just doing what they told me to do, okay? I don't care who you are or what you think of me-" Pale blue orbs seemed to be looking for something in my black ones as they danced above his pale nose. Our noses were almost touching already. Then he let me go. For one moment, I ran out of things to say.

      "Ah, fuck it." He scratched the back of his head as he turned to leave. "They'll get to you anyway. You can go tell your dad if you want; makes no difference. They'll get to you anyway."

      My heart skipped a beat. I had to make a decision fast. I grabbed his arm and pulled firmly. I hoped that the strength of my grip would conceal the trembling in my voice. "No, no they won't. They won't get to us if you don't tell."

      Wild Eyes scoffed and a lock of his dark hair fell over one eye. "I thought you knew how this thing worked. That was a stupid suggestion, Marie, and you know it. It is Marie, right? I'm Glenn Church, by the way, even if it's too late."

     "But- but you can stall. I know you can stall... for a week at the most, I know. You can tell them you don't have a definite routine yet. We had a special school week or something. You can tell them something!" It was my turn to flash the wild eyes now. The burning in my temples were returning. My jaw felt taut and my mind whirled as I tried to get the words out. "You have to stall... I can't..." Was I starting to hyperventilate then? Maybe. The pale blue eyes stopped dancing now, cool beans. And he was smiling, too. Or smirking, for that matter.

     "Oh, come on, for what?" His eyes rolled back in laughter. "As you said, I am the paperboy that saw Paulie keeling over when he saw the headlines of what I was bringing him one day. Caught him in time and got offered a job, and I know that I am going to be doing this for the rest of my life." He leaned back and propped a hand on Theodore Roosevelt's molding left butt cheek. "I'm looking at a guaranteed lifetime supply of money and power here, you know. What could I possibly help you for?"

     I closed my eyes and counted to ten. When I opened them, Wild Eyes/Glenn Church had taken his hand off the statue and was giving me a puzzled look. How sweet and sincere. I knew Papa would understand and would probably even be grateful for what I was going to do. What I was wondering about was what Franklin Delano Roosevelt would think of my thinking that I could save my family by dropping my backpack on the ground inches from my toes and slipping to my knees as I pulled the boy that I had only known ten minutes ago towards me by the belt buckle.

     So maybe, I didn't shake it out of him.

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