Skells

by F. P. Lione

  Michele transferred the title of her house into both our names. I didn’t make her do it, but she wanted the house to belong to the two of us. Now every time I’m at the house, I feel like I’m home, that feeling you can never get from living in an apartment. It only comes from having your name on a deed and having a lawn to mow.

  The thing Michele was talking about happened Sunday night. We were getting so caught up in all the excitement of building the house and getting married that things started to get a little heated. We didn’t do anything bad, nothing I hadn’t done behind the handball courts at the park on Tompkins Avenue, but Michele got upset about it.

  Stevie was asleep downstairs and we were up on the second floor, walking through the rooms under construction. Somehow we wound up wrestling and rolling around on the plywood floor of what would soon be our bedroom, and I got a little carried away. She did too but came to her senses before anything could happen.

  I was half kidding about getting married in the biblical sense; honestly I’m having trouble seeing that there’s anything wrong with it. I’m waiting out of respect for her and for God, but sometimes my heart isn’t in it.

  I heated up the sandwich and washed it down with a soda. I charged up my cell phone and grabbed my Bible before climbing into bed. I set my alarm clock for 7:00 and picked up the Bible.

  The next thing I knew, my alarm was blasting, and I knocked my Bible onto the floor when I hit the snooze button. I hit it three times before dragging myself out of bed at 7:27. I took a shower, shaved, and got dressed before I went out to the kitchen to call Michele.

  The light was blinking on my answering machine, and it showed I had two messages. I had my door closed, but I must have been in such a deep sleep that I didn’t even hear the phone ring.

  “Tony, it’s Grandma,” a voice said after a couple of seconds. “It’s about four o’clock. I want you to come over to go over some stuff for the party. I made chicken florentine and spaghetti marinara tonight, so come for dinner.”

  I debated whether or not I should go. I’d been avoiding Grandma, but there was nothing in my fridge and I love her marinara sauce. The machine beeped, and Denise’s voice came over the line.

  “Tony, it’s Denise,” my sister said. “I’m at Grandma’s; she wanted me to come and see the centerpieces she got for your engagement party. Um,” she cleared her throat, “they’re definitely interesting, but you probably need to see them for yourself. Try to stop by before you leave for work.”

  I didn’t care what the centerpieces looked like. I called Michele, who sounded stressed when she answered on the third ring.

  “Hey, everything alright?” I asked.

  “Stevie’s ear hurts and he’s running a fever,” she said. “He’s been cranky since I got home, and his fever’s up over 102.”

  “Did you give him Tylenol?” Other than giving Tylenol, I was clueless what to do with a sick kid.

  “Just now, but he has to see the doctor. I don’t want to wait—the last time this happened, he perforated his eardrum.”

  “When did that happen?” I asked, not remembering it.

  “It was when I first met you; I don’t know if I told you about it.”

  “Is that serious?”

  “The doctor did an ear test and his hearing is fine, but I’d rather it doesn’t happen again. I called the doctor, and I’m waiting for him to call me back. I’m hoping he’ll call something in tonight, and then I’ll get someone to take Stevie in the morning.” She sighed. “I can’t take off tomorrow.”

  “If you want, I’ll bang the day and come out in the morning and take him,” I said.

  “No, my mother can take him. Save that for when we really need it. I just hate for him to be sick when I’m not here,” Michele said, and to be honest, I hated for him to be sick when I wasn’t there either.

  “Can I talk to him?” I asked.

  She put him on the phone but he sounded miserable, so I only stayed on for a minute.

  “I’ll leave my cell phone on. Let me know if you need me to come out there,” I said before hanging up. We didn’t pick up the conversation we were having this morning, which was fine with me. Stevie being sick was more important than that. I didn’t mention that I was going over to Grandma’s. Michele was aggravated enough without worrying that my family would be poisoning me against her.

  I packed my bag for work and grabbed my cell phone and a clean uniform out of my closet.

  The sun was just starting to go down and the sky was clear with streaks of pink as I drove up Clove Road. The parking lot of my grandmother’s six-floor, rent-controlled apartment building was pretty full. The property was taken over by a building management company in January, and they started charging tenants for parking spaces. My grandmother didn’t drive, so she had no spot. I parked in 4A’s spot. I knew 4A didn’t have a car but still had a parking spot, and I wondered if the building managers were making good on their posted threats to tow cars unauthorized to park there.

  I buzzed 1C from the lobby, looking up into the camera in case Grandma had her TV tuned to the lobby station.

  The station lets the tenants see who’s buzzing them before giving anyone access to the building. When they first installed it, we all sat around Grandma’s living room watching everyone who came through the doors. Until people realized there was a camera there, they sniffed their armpits, picked their noses, and pulled at their pants that were riding up.

  The door buzzed, and cooking smells hit me as I entered the lobby. My grandmother’s apartment is three doors to the right off the lobby, and she was out in the hallway in her housedress and slippers when I turned the corner. I could hear her TV blasting and wished for the thousandth time that she’d get a hearing aid.

  She caught me in a bear hug and her hair spray stuck to the side of my face as she pulled away, like it always does.

  “You never come see me anymore,” she said, making me feel guilty. “You’re losing weight.”

  “I’m trying to.” I patted my stomach.

  “You’re too skinny,” she scolded.

  “I’m a hundred and eighty-five pounds, Grandma,” I reasoned.

  She shook her head. “I knew you lost weight!”

  Denise was setting a place for me at the table, and I didn’t realize until I came all the way into the room that my father was there. I should have realized he was there by the way Denise was dressed—she does it to provoke him. She wore jeans slung low on her hips, a belly button ring, and a short white T-shirt. Her long dark hair was ironed straight, and her blue eyes were accented with black eyeliner.

  “Hey, Denise.” I kissed her cheek. “Hi, Dad,” I said.

  He was also wearing jeans, but his were with a tight black shirt and work boots. He had his arms folded over his chest, and he was watching Everybody Loves Raymond. He looked at me and nodded and turned back to the TV.

  I looked at Denise, who smiled and arched an eyebrow. I gave her a “What’s going on?” look, hoping I wasn’t going to regret coming here.

  “Come and eat,” Grandma said, her answer to any uncomfortable situation. I looked around the apartment. The bathroom door was open, and the room was dark.

  “Where’s Marie?” I asked, not that I cared. It was more curiosity.

  “She’s in Florida with her sick mother.” Denise accented the word Florida with a smile. “Isn’t it sad that her mother’s sick?”

  My father looked at Denise, his eyes deadly. “Since when do you care where Marie is?”

  Denise ignored him and said, “What a good daughter, going all the way to Florida to take care of her mother.”

  I looked back and forth between the two of them, feeling the muscles in the back of my neck bunch. I didn’t care that Marie was gone, but Denise obviously knew that Marie was somewhere she shouldn’t have been.

  My father took a similar trip right before he left my mother for Marie. He said he had to go to Florida with one of his buddies from work whose father was dying. They h
ad to clean out the house and transfer him to a nursing home in Tampa. My mother saw my father’s credit card bill a couple of weeks later and for the first time in her life opened his mail. She saw the charges for two plane tickets and a week’s stay at a resort in St. Maarten.

  “That’s enough, Denise,” Grandma warned. “Where Marie is doesn’t concern you.”

  Denise ignored her too.

  “Will she be back in time for the party?” I asked. Marie not at my engagement party would be the only gift I’d ask for.

  “She’ll be here; she’s flying in on Friday,” Grandma said as she put out a small platter of chicken over sautéed spinach and a plate of spaghetti with marinara sauce. She filled a wooden salad bowl with lettuce, tomato, and olives with oil and vinegar and gave it to me with half a loaf of Italian bread.

  “I can’t eat all this,” I said, taking a bite of the chicken. “I want to lose some weight before the wedding.”

  “Whose wedding?” my father asked, still watching TV.

  “My wedding.”

  “Your brother is getting married first, and if you had any respect you’d let him and Christie have their time. Instead, you make everyone go through the expense for another wedding a month later. I don’t know what the big rush is,” he said as he shook his head in aggravation.

  That’s what I love about my family, anything could set them off. I put my fork down and silently counted to ten.

  I looked over at him. “If it’s a problem for anyone, they don’t have to go.”

  He waved his hand at me. “How are they not gonna go? Do you think your grandmother has the money for two weddings in one year? It’s bad enough she’s paying for the engagement party, and who knows if Denise will even have a job by the time the wedding rolls around.”

  “I didn’t ask Grandma to pay for an engagement party, Dad. I don’t even want an engagement party. I didn’t ask anyone for anything,” I said, running my hands over my face to calm down.

  “Don’t worry about me, Tony,” Denise said. “I wouldn’t miss your wedding for anything. And nobody told Grandma to throw an engagement party, she did that on her own. If she keeps wearing her red underwear when she plays the lotto, she can pay for the wedding too.”

  I looked at my father. He was staring at Denise with his face set in anger. Even though he was mad, I could see it was bothering him that Denise wouldn’t talk to him. I could see Denise was happy about it, and I wondered for the millionth time why I couldn’t have a normal family.

  My father gave me a hard look and went back to watching TV. I thought about when we were here Christmas Eve and he talked for the first time in his life about being in Vietnam.

  I was born on the Marine base in West Cherry Point a couple of weeks before he shipped out to Vietnam. It was during the worst part of the war, late 1969 and 1970. I wanted to believe that whatever it was about him was a result of being in Vietnam, but the atrocities of war didn’t seem to bother him as much as me and my sister did.

  He was in Vietnam at the time when we had the most casualties and the country here at home despised our efforts there. He didn’t keep in touch with anyone from the war and never played up the fact that he was there. Everything I know about Vietnam I’ve seen in movies or read in books. I never associated my father with the Vietnam vets—I just couldn’t conjure up a picture of my father smoking a joint and listening to Jimi Hendrix while firing away at the Vietcong.

  I’d like to think it was the war that hardened him and not something in our bloodline he might have passed down to me. I prayed to God right there that I wouldn’t turn out to be anything like my father. I never wanted to feel anger and resentment toward Stevie; I love him and I always want to be close to him.

  “Eat, Tony,” Grandma said. “I’ll get one of the centerpieces and show you.”

  I started to eat again while Grandma went into her bedroom. Denise got her pocketbook, took out a piece of paper, and started writing something down. She pushed the paper toward me, and I read “Bobby Egan’s off this week too!!!”

  “Not now, Denise,” I said. I ripped up the piece of paper and got up to throw it in the garbage. I’m sure this was adding to why my father was so mad. It shouldn’t surprise him, Marie’s just sticking with whatever worked for her before. If she did this to her last husband, why should my father be any different? Marie was making a fool out of him, and I made the decision right there that I was gonna tell him. It wouldn’t be tonight; I’d go see him alone.

  “Here it is!” Grandma announced, carrying a ceramic birdbath about the size of a basketball. It was red, with bluebirds and flowers on it, gaudy as anything.

  “Wow,” I said, nodding.

  “That’s not the best part.” Denise’s smile was devious. “Show him, Grandma.”

  “It’s a fountain!” Grandma said, flipping the switch on the bottom. It made the sound urine does when it hits the toilet, followed by birds chirping. “It’s battery operated, double A’s.” Like I needed to know what kind of batteries it used.

  “That’s something,” I said for lack of anything better to say.

  “And it’s red, to help keep the malokya away,” Denise added.

  “What is wrong with you?” my father yelled at her. “You don’t know when to shut your mouth!” He shook his head.

  Denise ignored him again. “Tony, did you know Grandma thinks Michele put the horns on her Christmas Eve and made the new building managers raise her rent?” Denise held up her hands. “Huh? I think you should know the extremes the family is going to so your wicked fianceé doesn’t blast us all into oblivion with her malokya superpowers.”

  “Is that true, Grandma?” I asked quietly.

  “Yes, Tony, they raised me the day after Christmas,” she said quietly.

  “No,” I said patiently, “is it true you think Michele had something to do with it?”

  She shrugged. “Do you think it’s a coincidence that she left here mad Christmas Eve and two days later my rent got raised?” She looked like she was actually waiting for an answer.

  “One has nothing to do with the other,” I insisted.

  She didn’t look convinced. “I don’t know, Tony. After I started wearing red underwear and the two horns, I’ve been winning money from the lottery. I won another two hundred last week,” she said as she pointed her finger at me, “and I know the cashier didn’t like me and was putting the horns on me. Lucy Dellatore from the dry cleaners can tell when someone is putting the horns on you, and she said she never seen it so bad with me. So don’t try and tell me it doesn’t work!” She was slapping the back of her right hand into the palm of her left hand as she talked.

  “I’m gonna go to work now,” I said, getting up from the table.

  “You didn’t finish your dinner,” Grandma said, raising her voice.

  “I’m not hungry anymore.” I put my napkin next to my plate, stood up, and kissed my grandmother’s cheek.

  “Ya see, Denise.” Grandma turned on her. “You always have to start trouble.”

  Denise tried to look innocent.

  “Grandma, did you get those red”—I gestured with my hand—“bird things because you thought they’d keep Michele from putting the horns on you?”

  “Tony, I didn’t mean it that way. Denise should learn to keep her mouth shut.” She shot Denise a look.

  Denise smiled.

  “Don’t blame Denise,” I said as Denise’s eyebrows shot up. “Walk me out?” I asked Denise. “Go see Dr. DelGrecco, Grandma. I’m sure they have medication for this kind of thing.”

  “That’s not funny, Tony,” Grandma said, putting her hands on her hips.

  “I know.”

  Denise grabbed her pocketbook and followed me out the door.

  “What’s with you?” I said once we were in the hallway. “I’m sick of all the two-facedness in this family—smile in your face, stab you in the back,” she spat.

  “I’m telling Dad about Marie and Bobby Egan,” I said, holding the d
oor open for her.

  “Go ahead, he won’t believe you,” she said.

  “Why wouldn’t he believe me?” I asked, annoyed.

  “Because he doesn’t want to believe it, but he knows. Plus he knows we hate Marie, and he’ll use that,” she said.

  “You think he knows? How?”

  “Trust me, he knows. Deep down they always know.”

  “I thought I told you to stop stalking Marie. Why would you call to check on Bobby Egan?” I said.

  She shrugged. “Just to see if my instincts are right.”

  “Your instincts are right—marie’s a snake, and we’ve already established that she’s cheating on Dad.” I kissed her cheek. “Stay out of it. I’m telling Dad after the party on Sunday.”

  “Be careful tonight,” she said.

  “I will.”

  Traffic was backed up on the Staten Island Expressway, so I went through Jersey, taking the turnpike into the Lincoln Tunnel. I had left Grandma’s at nine, and even with backtracking on the expressway and going through Jersey, it was only five to ten.

  I parked on the sidewalk on 36th Street and threw my new yellow parking plaque in my windshield. I wasn’t worried about getting a ticket; our precinct self-patrols 35th and 36th streets between 9th and Dyer, so the DOT can’t tag me.

  Rice and Beans pulled up in an RMP, and I talked to them for about twenty minutes before going into the precinct to change. I went down to the locker room and changed into my uniform and spent another twenty minutes cleaning out all the crap in the bottom of my locker. I tossed useless paperwork, old thank-you letters from the district attorney’s office letting me know how a perp pled on a case or how much time they got. I threw out old Polaroids of perps, a letter from a woman I gave a ticket to asking me out, and arm patches from cops around the country who visited the city and sent me stuff from their commands. I found a birthday card from two years ago from my old girlfriend Kim, saying we’ll be together forever, and a camera a perp asked me not to voucher and promised to pick up but never did. I saved pictures of myself and other cops from my drinking days, some in the bar on 9th Avenue, others around the precinct. I didn’t want to throw them out—these were guys I worked with, and once in a while one of them dies and I wish I saved the picture.