Fortunately the ducks began to fly in, drawn by Jimmy’s quacking.
“Come to Daddy, Daffy Ducks,” he whispered as he picked up his rifle.
Before the day was over, he had shot a mess of ducks. I tracked them down wearing Jimmy’s waders, which were ten sizes too big for me. All except for one. I searched and searched for the last one but couldn’t find it. Jimmy said the poor duck was out there suffering because I was a dummkopf, and sent me out to look some more.
But that goddamn duck had disappeared and I cursed it and wished I could do the same.
Finally, Jimmy called me back and grabbed the waders from me. He sloshed around for a long time, but he couldn’t find the duck either. He came back, disgusted.
“It’s all your fault that poor thing is in agony,” he spat. “I shoulda shot you instead.”
Guts
When we got home, Jimmy and I plucked the ducks over a garbage can on the front stoop. Then Jimmy gutted the ducks in the kitchen sink and I burned off their pinfeathers on the stove. The smell of burning duck flesh filled the apartment. It was getting late and I was getting worried I’d miss Halloween altogether. Trick-or-treaters were already banging on our door. Virginia passed out some penny candy that Shirley had bought from Uncle Barney, and Jimmy gave the kids a real scare by waving some real guts at them.
Finally, all the ducks were dressed and Jimmy let me go get dressed. I leapt up the stairs two at a time, afraid all the good candy would be gone by the time I got out there. I yanked on my princess costume, ripping one of the sleeves in the process and calling myself a dummkopf. Normally I would’ve woken up Shirley and gotten her to safety-pin the sleeve, but there was no time to waste.
I ran into the bathroom and tried to wash the dried blood off my hands. But the blood was caked under my bitten nails and didn’t want to come off.
Then it occurred to me. With my ripped sleeve and bloody hands I could be a different kind of princess. A killer princess. That was my costume. That’s who I told myself I was.
Virginia handed me an old pillowcase and took one herself even though she said she was too old to trick-or-treat.
And off we went into the night. We ventured out of the projects into the neighborhoods with real houses. Houses with cozy front porches lit by smiling jack-o’-lanterns. Houses where the good loot was.
Fortunately, there was still lots of candy out there. And cinnamony cider and homemade doughnuts and creamy hot chocolate, all handed out by ladies in frilly aprons and men in woolly sweaters who looked like they belonged on Leave It to Beaver. I trick-or-treated like a maniac, racing from door to door to door screaming Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat as fast as I could, so I could get on to the next house, and the next. My ratty old pillowcase got so full, it started to rip.
“Oh no,” I moaned. “Some old bat musta slipped a couple of goddamn apples in there.” I rooted around for the offending healthy snacks, found them, and tossed them into the bushes.
But the damage had been done. My pillowcase had sprung a leak.
“Why don’t you put your candy in with mine?” suggested Virginia.
“No way, stealer,” I shot back.
“Well then, we better get home before you lose it all,” said Virginia. “Besides, Hitler’s gonna kill us if we stay out much later.”
So we turned and headed back to the projects. I had to cradle the pillowcase in my arms all the way home. Like Hansel and Gretel, I left a trail behind me.
But there was still plenty in the pillowcase when I got home. I emptied my loot onto my bed and organized it into candy groups. I stuffed my face with Sugar Daddies, Sugar Babies, Baby Ruths, 3 Musketeers, candy corn, candy cigarettes, Turkish Taffy, Charleston Chews, Good & Plenty, Good & Fruity, and Chuckles. I ate so much candy my stomach felt like one big Sugar Baby. Suddenly I realized all those Chuckles, Good & Fruity, Good & Plenty, Charleston Chews, Turkish Taffys, candy cigarettes, candy corn, 3 Musketeers, Baby Ruths, Sugar Babies, and Sugar Daddies were on their way back out.
Dizzy with nausea, I scrambled down from the top bunk. The swaying bed made me feel even worse. I crept down the stairs and stumbled out the back door into the night.
Dropping to my knees on the dewy grass littered with candy wrappers, I puked out my whole frickin’ Halloween haul.
And nothing tasted sweet coming back out.
No Thanks
The next day I peeled the ghosts and goblins off of Miss Morrissey’s classroom windows. My second-favorite holiday was over, but at least we were in the home stretch heading toward my favorite holiday, Christmas.
First, though, we had to get through Jimmy’s least favorite holiday. Veterans Day was his least favorite ’cause he said merchant mariners had been given a raw deal. The government didn’t consider them veterans even though more of them died in World War II than any other group of servicemen. Jimmy said the day made him feel like plugging every government pencil pusher in Washington and strangling them with an American flag. But usually he just went hunting instead.
After peeling the battleships and soldiers off of Miss Morrissey’s windows, I stuck up the Pilgrims and Injuns. As far as I was concerned, Thanksgiving really only had pie going for it. Otherwise there was just turkey that, according to Jimmy, was dry as an old turd. No self-respecting Greek would eat it, he said, but since YaYa and Papou were trying to be like Yankees, we had to go over to their house and pretend.
Every year, while Jimmy and Papou handicapped the horses, Shirley and YaYa cooked till they were red in the face. Then YaYa would set the table and wouldn’t let anyone help. Normally her fancy gold dishes resided in a locked cabinet and you spent the rest of the year admiring them behind a glass door. But on Thanksgiving and Greek Easter the dishes came out and YaYa was a nervous wreck. Jimmy would snatch a plate off the table and toss it in the air like a Frisbee just to drive her nuts.
That year I was really dreading Thanksgiving. Ever since Halloween I’d had an awful ache in my guts and never felt like eating. For days I plotted how I could make an entire Thanksgiving dinner disappear from my plate without Jimmy or Papou seeing that I wasn’t eating and force-feeding me.
I was worried sick and feeling sicker by the day when a maniac killed the president.
Miss Morrissey broke down crying when she told us. And then most of the kids in the class broke down crying. And I knew somewhere Susan was crying and Tina and her mother and the pope and all the Catholics in New England. I wanted to be like them, to be crying right along with Susan. But I just sat there, confused. I didn’t know the president. I didn’t think about him constantly the way Tina did. He didn’t even seem as real to me as Howdy Doody. I had bawled my head off when Howdy went off the air a few years before. I had even bawled my head off for mean old Squirmy Two. But somehow I couldn’t squeeze out even one lousy tear for the president.
Cry, dummkopf, cry, I ordered myself.
I put my head down on my desk and pretended to bawl so Miss Morrissey wouldn’t think I was a heartless heathen.
Through my phony sobs, I heard her say we were getting dismissed from school.
I coulda jumped for joy. My stomach was killing me and now I had an excuse to go home and crawl into bed.
Or that’s what I thought, but I should’ve known better.
“I don’t want any blubbering or bellyaching about any president going on in this house,” Jimmy barked at Shirley and Tina’s mother, who were sitting at the kitchen table doing just that when I got home.
“Men die every day, real men on merchant ships. Kennedy’s just one man, no better than any other, and worse ’cause he was a bleeding heart.”
He looked right at Tina’s mother and smirked.
“Now he’s a bleeding, bleeding heart.”
“God should strike you dead!” shouted Tina’s mother. She jumped up and ran out our front door.
“God didn’t protect the president,” he called after her. “You remember that the next time you’r
e in church listening to a bunch of Catholic mumbo jumbo.”
As I watched Tina’s mother run across the street, I knew she wouldn’t ever be bringing me to church again and I was probably going straight to hell.
After she left and for most of the weekend, Jimmy took a powder. There was nothing on TV except people talking about the president. No Sylvester cartoons. No Three Stooges.
“Frick the president. And frick that idiot box,” said Jimmy.
He grabbed his rifle and the Racing Form and slammed the door on his way out.
“He’s the only person in the whole world who isn’t miserable about the president,” sobbed Virginia.
“Maybe he’s right,” I said. “The president is just one person and people die all the time. What about those women the Boston Strangler killed? Don’t you feel bad about them too?”
“You’re just like him!” Virginia shouted at me. Then she grabbed her coat and took a powder too.
Shirley went up to her bedroom and I could hear her blubbering. I made her a highball and brought it up. She hugged me tight until I squirmed away. She told me she was exhausted and had better get a few hours of sleep before work. She didn’t wanna nod off and get her hand mangled in one of the machines like had happened to somebody else on her shift.
“Maybe they’ll cancel work ’cause of the president,” I suggested, hoping she’d stay home and I could finally work up the courage to tell her about my stomachache.
Shirley looked panicked.
“God, I hope not. We need the money,” she said.
She took a big slug of the highball.
“Life goes on, I guess.”
“Why didn’t God protect the president?” I suddenly asked. “Does that mean there’s no God?”
Shirley guzzled down the rest of the highball.
“Maybe God was asleep, honey. Just like Mommy needs her sleep.”
I took the hint and twenty-three skidooed. I went back downstairs and turned on the idiot box. I sprawled in front of it, holding my aching belly. Unlike Jimmy, I couldn’t get enough of watching people be miserable about the president. Watching other people’s pain seemed to take my mind off my own.
Most of all, I wanted to know everything about the maniac who pulled the trigger. Was he big and hairy? Small and weaselly?
Did he have any pip-squeaks like me?
When they finally showed the guy, it turned out he was small and weaselly and looked like a million guys I’d seen hanging around Hank’s. I wondered if he was a hunter too. I wondered if he’d murdered the president for being a bleeding heart or just for the fun of it.
The next day another maniac shot the first maniac.
“Everybody’s going kookoo!” shrieked Virginia, and it sure seemed that way.
When Jimmy came home from hunting, I told him a second maniac had plugged the first.
“Yabba dabba doo,” he said. “Maybe now they’ll put your cartoons back on the air.”
But that didn’t happen, not right away. First we had to get through the Kennedy funeral. Jimmy sure as hell wasn’t gonna stick around for that. So off he went hunting again.
I sat glued to the idiot box. I searched the crowd for any glimpse of Caroline Kennedy. I tried to imagine how she must feel, having a father who was dead. I wondered if she’d ever wished him dead like I’d wished Jimmy dead. Probably not, since she was a good Catholic and I was a heathen. And, besides, her father had gotten her a pony named Macaroni and a puppy and I only had a lame racehorse that I couldn’t even ride and a cat that tried to run away from home every chance he got.
After the funeral, the cartoons came back on, but I didn’t feel much like laughing and neither did Jimmy.
“Nothing’s funny anymore,” he said.
A few days later we got dressed up and headed over to YaYa and Papou’s for Thanksgiving. Well, only Shirley, Virginia, and I got dressed up. Jimmy was still wearing his hunting clothes and wouldn’t change even though Shirley had starched and ironed a white shirt for him.
“I’m not wearing that cardboard straitjacket. No broad tells me what to wear. Not you, not my old lady, not Ava Gardner,” he said, and Shirley quickly put away the shirt.
“You look fine,” she chirped.
“Yeah, well, you don’t,” he said. “Change that goddamn dress. I can see your knees when you sit down. You wanna embarrass me in front of my old man?”
We waited while Shirley tried on dress after dress, demonstrating how much of her knees showed when she sat down. Finally she found something droopy and black that passed the test and we were off.
I had hidden the snow globe in my purse, hoping for the chance to finally give it to Susan. Jimmy had mentioned she was home from college and spending Thanksgiving with Hank, Doris, and Terry at Hank’s old house.
“Maybe Hank and Doris will get back together,” said Shirley when she heard about the Piasecny holiday plans.
“I hope not,” said Jimmy. “I sure as hell hope not.”
I asked Jimmy if we could stop by Hank’s old house after we ate our dried-out turkey.
“We’ll see how the stupid day goes,” he said.
When we got to YaYa and Papou’s, Jimmy drank a bunch of highballs. Like me, he didn’t seem to feel much like eating. He pronounced the turkey a frickin’ turkey, the sweet potatoes too sweet, and the stuffing too goddamn salty.
“Don’t start,” warned YaYa. “We’re trying to have a nice day even though the president’s dead and you’re dressed like a bum.”
“Nice? What’s so nice about it?” Jimmy sneered, draining his highball and then shoving the glass at Shirley to make him another. “Thanksgiving . . . my ass. Thanks for nothing! What does anybody have to be thankful for? Being kicked around and then kicking the bucket?”
“Quit whining,” growled Papou. “I pity your poor wife, having to listen to that.”
“Go ahead, take her side. Everybody else does.”
“Shut up!” bellowed Papou.
“I can say what I want. It’s a free country—ha ha ha—haven’t you heard?”
“Shut your mouth or I’ll kick your ass!” yelled Papou.
“Try it and I’ll deck you!” Jimmy yelled back, making a fist.
“You’re crazy in the head! You ought to be locked up!” screamed YaYa.
“Get out of my goddamn house,” boomed Papou, grabbing the carving knife slicked with turkey fat and coming at Jimmy.
Shirley choked down a scream. Virginia started to cry.
“You don’t scare me! I’m not a frickin’ kid anymore!” shouted Jimmy.
“Don’t hurt my daddy!” I yelled at Papou.
Jimmy whipped around. I saw a flash of fist and ducked. He threw his arm around me.
“My goddamn kid sticks up for me better than you ever did,” he snarled at YaYa.
“I should’ve killed you before you were born!” screeched YaYa.
“I wish you had,” spat Jimmy.
And we got the hell outta there.
For once, I didn’t have to clean my plate.
“What about going to Hank’s?” I asked when we got in the car, hoping I might get repaid for standing up for Jimmy.
“Susan doesn’t want to see your ugly face,” he barked. And nobody said another word all the way back home.
Comfort Food
Over the next few days, Jimmy got more riled up. Any little thing could set him off.
One night when he was half-lit, he decided my bangs and Virginia’s bangs were too goddamn long. He sharpened a pair of scissors on the steel rod he used on his boning knives and came at us.
“Look at me. I’m Raymond. I’m a little fairy,” he said in a high-pitched voice, doing an imitation of YaYa’s best friend’s son, a beautician who often did YaYa’s hair.
I scrunched my eyes closed, afraid he’d jab out my eyeball. He ended up hacking our bangs so short that Virginia and I thought we looked like a couple of retards. We had to scotch-tape our bangs at night to try to stretch t
hem out.
After that, a neighbor’s dog got Jimmy all worked up. Since dogs were banned in the projects, the neighbor kept the animal cooped up in his apartment. The dog was barking at night and keeping Jimmy up, and Jimmy threatened to plug the dippy mutt and its owner. Boozer Eddie said he had a better idea and came over to discuss the situation.
“Stuff some lye in a hunk of deer meat,” he said. “And then feed it to the son of a bitch when the owner is gone. I did it once and it works real good. The mutt keels over foaming at the mouth like the son of a bitch ate a bar of soap. That’s what the owner thinks, boo hoo, and no one knows a goddamn thing.”
“The mutt’s locked up all day. How you gonna get the meat to him?” asked Jimmy.
“Toss it through the mail slot,” replied Boozer. “Special delivery for Big Mouth.”
They both cracked up, like they were talking about a cartoon dog getting a stick of dynamite through the mail slot.
I didn’t think it was funny at all. Not that I liked that yapping mutt myself. I didn’t even like to walk past his apartment—I was afraid he might get loose and chew my face off. But still I didn’t want to see Big Mouth poisoned. If they were gonna kill him, I didn’t want the poor mutt to suffer.
Anyway, I thought they were just kidding around.
But a few days later, the barking stopped. I told myself the Snitch had probably reported the dippy dog to the office. I told myself the owner had probably brought him to a nice farm in the country like where lame ole Victory Bound was now. I told myself that wherever he was, Big Mouth was better off ’cause at least he wasn’t cooped up anymore.
Once the barking stopped I prayed with all my might that Jimmy would cheer up. But God must’ve been napping again, ’cause things only got worse. Things got so bad Jimmy didn’t even wanna go hunting.
Hank called one morning while we were having breakfast and told Jimmy to go out and shoot a few things and he’d feel better. Jimmy said the only thing he could shoot that would make him feel better was himself or Shirley. Then he hung up and shoved some breakfast dishes on the floor.
KooKooLand Page 19