Children of Vice

by J. J. McAvoy

  “Very distant relatives of my mother,” Ethan said, not looking up at me as he concentrated.

  “Very distant or not,” Marco said to me, “we’re still the only relatives Bloody Melody ever acknowledged.”

  “Bloody Melody?” It sounded like a bad horror movie.

  Ethan snickered. “My mother’s nickname. Apparently the Irish gave it to her after she married my father. And it stuck on the count of the fact that my mother was, well…not slow to use her fists.”

  “Ha!” Giovanni scoffed. “Or gun. How many times did she shoot your father? Twice, correct?”

  “Your mother shot your dad?” My jaw opened as I looked at him.

  Ethan made a face. “I was hoping no one would ever tell her that. She is already temperamental as it is, and my mother left her the gun.”

  “Hey!” I frowned, turning back to the guys. “She sounds like a hell raiser.”

  “She was. May she rest in peace,” Giovanni said seriously as did almost everyone else in the shop, everyone but the kids, far too young to know her. And I remembered the letter she’d left me, where she said, You are now the head woman of this family. Act like it and make them talk about you as they talked about me.

  I realized why Ethan had asked me if I could do it. The more I found out about his mother the bigger her heels became.

  “So your mom was Bloody Melody. Did your dad have a nickname too?” I didn’t ask that. Instead, Gabby stuck her head back out.

  We all just looked at her for a moment before looking back at Marco, who took a deep breath.

  “His name was the Mad-Hatter,” Marco spoke through his teeth. “And I used to think it was because the man thought of the most insane ways to harm people, but now I’m thinking it must have been the stress of parenting.”

  “Can’t be,” Gabby said back smugly. “If it were, you’d have a nickname too, right, Dad?”

  Ethan paused from cutting the boy’s hair to laugh, actually out loud, in public.

  “Get back in there and do your science homework!” Marco pointed his clippers at her.

  “Science is boring!”

  “GASP!” I put my hand over my heart, and she turned to me. “Science is amazing. What are you talking about? You can create almost anything through science. When I was nine, I won the science fair by creating an incalescent voltaic receptacle to hasten the growth cycles of potatoes.”

  “A what?” her father asked before she could. And not just him. Everyone else was confused too. Even Ethan looked at me for a quick second.

  “It was like an umm…” I tried to think. “It was a greenhouse that made potatoes or any other vegetable grow faster.”

  “Oh…” They all said like a light bulb clicked in their minds.

  “See? Look at that. At your age people were already creating incalescent voltaic receptacles,” Marco said to her, making her pout.

  “I can’t gift to people who hate science,” I told her, crossing my arms.

  I heard her gasp. “Uncle Ethan…”

  “What the wife says goes,” he said, snipping the back of the boy’s hair with two different scissors.

  She hung her head and turned around, marching back to her homework, but before she got there she turned to him.

  “Do you have a nickname, Uncle?” she asked.

  The whole room seemed to have frozen, everyone a little stiff, everyone a little wary, glancing at each other. Ethan, on the other hand, simply spun the boy in his chair, wiping him down before taking the cape and neck tape off.

  “I do,” he said to her when the boy got up, checking his hair. “It’s Mani di forbice.”

  “Cause you cut hair?” she asked him even though I didn’t understand.

  “Sure.” He nodded at her.

  She thought about it for a little bit. “It’s kinda long but cool, I guess. Dad, I’m going upstairs to call Mom!”

  She waved at me as she ran back into the back.

  “Mani di forbice?” I asked him as an older man sat in the chair, pointing to his chin for a shave.

  “Scissor hands,” Giovanni answered when he didn’t.

  “Oh.” I understood if he worked here why that would fit. But I also understood from the way they reacted, and from the way Ethan wasn’t communicating anymore, that it was much deeper than that. He told me we’d go out so I could find out more about his past, so I wasn’t going to back down.

  “Why, though?”

  Giovanni was the only one speaking now and it wasn’t as cheerful as it had been earlier. “Rumor has it that when he was young he went to confession with his family for the first time. The priest told him to confess his sins to the Lord, and Ethan said he was sinless and would only confess when he was no longer sinless. They got into a long argument until the priest could no longer remain with him and left. Ethan, sensing something was wrong with the irate priest, followed him into his chambers, where he found the priest was breaking his vows of silence. He was trying to use Ethan as a way to get information on his father and mother in order to save himself from prosecution. He was a child molester. Upon discovering this, Ethan stabbed the priest with two blades, one a gift from his father, and the other he was holding for his brother. When they found him, he stood over the priest, holding both blades, covered in blood, and confessed to God his sins then.”

  “As far as I see it, any man touching children deserves to die, and it isn’t a sin,” Marco muttered under his breath, shaping up the edges of a man’s forehead.

  My eyes shifted to Ethan, but it was as if he wasn’t here anymore. He just carefully glided the razor up the man’s neck, who either had balls of steel or didn’t believe the “rumor.”

  “What happened after that?”

  Marco shrugged. “The church was closed for a few hours, but news broke he was a pedophile. Everyone was furious with the detectives who tried to use another child as bait. Other people were so terrified of him they blessed themselves when he walked by. His mother made him work for her afterward. People got used to him being around, but no one ever let go of the name Ethan Mani di forbice Callahan.”

  I looked at Ethan, who still pretended not to hear or care that they were talking about him.

  Feed his dark side, enjoy being there with him. Don’t change him. I made him and he is perfect. There is nothing to change. Melody’s words came to me.

  “Bloody Melody and The Mad-Hatter,” I said aloud, spinning slightly in the chair. I made it obvious I was thinking. “That follows together so nicely. How the hell am I going to find a name that flows with Mani di forbice?”

  That was the only time Ethan paused, standing up straighter, his green eyes piercing into mine so intently I had to look away from him at Giovanni.

  “Great names are given. You can’t choose them yourself,” Giovanni said to me.

  It was then I looked back at him.

  The man who’d loved me since we were children.

  The man who’d pulled me out of the pit of hell and sat me on the right seat of him.

  The man I was falling more and more in love with as each day passed.

  “Give me a name.” If it was something people would still call me even after I died, I wanted it to be from him, no one else.

  “Belladonna,” he said, still staring at me.

  “Ivy the Belladonna Callahan,” I whispered to myself and then smiled, nodding happily.

  The Belladonna and the Mani di forbice.

  The beautiful poison and the duel blades.

  ETHAN

  “She’s real special that one, isn’t she?” he asked me as I swept around his chair. Pausing, I glanced as she and Gabby went over her homework. She sat in my chair spinning slowly, flipping through old photo albums, while Gabby wrote down whatever it was she said. She looked far too happy just seeing pictures, but then again Ivy was a person who loved the little things.

  “She is,” I finally replied, but changed the topic to more serious matters. “Do you all have everything you need?”
<
br />   He grabbed his Birch Leaf tea and sat in his chair, relaxing. “No. But what I need isn’t something you give. The rest of the family is good. I’ve heard Dona has made an impression with people in Chicago.”

  “She is my mother’s daughter.” I knew she would, which is why I left her to it.

  He nodded sipping, but cringed at the taste, his face bunching up even more. “I just remembered I hate tea.”

  “But you hate the pain more,” I reminded him, sweeping under his feet.

  “I do.” He sighed heavily before taking another bitter sip, cringing once more. “Porca miseria…” he cursed under his breath before reaching into his jacket and pulling out a flask. He checked over his shoulder before he poured it in and shoved it back into his hidden pocket.

  “I’m sure your doctor would be pleased,” I said sarcastically, bending down to sweep up the hair.

  “Screw him and cancer,” he muttered to himself, drinking.

  Emptying the dust bin into the trash can by his table, I placed the broom by the wall and leaned against his work station, thinking of how to phrase what I needed to say to him.

  “Just come out with it.” He waved at me, proving just how well he knew me at this point. “I’m guessing this has got something to do with the chaos happening in the city?”

  I nodded. “I’m going to need something from you.”

  “What can an old dying man give you?” He snickered, drinking.

  “Your life.”

  He coughed into his cup, shocked, and due to this condition once he started he couldn’t stop, causing the tea to spill a little.

  “Grandpa?” Gabby looked at him, but he waved her off. Taking the cup from him, I handed him a napkin.

  Taking it, he wiped the corners of his mouth and looked up at me. “Seeing as how I’ve always been loyal to you and your mother, I’m guessing when you say my life—”

  “I need you to die,” I said clearly. “I want many things, Giovanni, and the path to get it starts in blood.”

  “And so why not mine.” He rested his elbow on the armrest. “At least you’re polite enough to ask first…or do you have a backup?”

  “I trust in your loyalty.”

  “You trust no one.” He chuckled and nodded to where Ivy was sitting but not looking at her. “Does she know your plan?”

  I didn’t answer because it was none of his business.

  “Exactly. We should have called you il burattinaio.”

  “We don’t pick our names.” Besides, the only way to be a puppet master, as he put it, was to make sure no one realized you were pulling the strings to begin with.

  “Have you set the day you’re going to kill me then?” he asked, glancing up at his shop.

  “It won’t be me.” I pushed off the counter, placing my hand on his shoulder. “But I’ll give you time, of course. The information will be set the usual way.”

  I tried to lift my hand from his shoulder, but he put his over mine. “I’ve always wanted to ask you something, Ethan.”

  “Go on.”

  “The burden on your shoulders, how do you carry it so well? In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve seen you sacrifice whatever is necessary for the bigger picture. Each time unflinching and unwavering in determination. What is it that makes you such a warrior?”

  “I was born a warrior. My name keeps me one,” I answered him but didn’t wait to hear his response, already walking toward Ivy and my chair. I took off my uniform and hung it up for the last time, then took my coat.

  “You looked happy working at his shop.” Ivy smiled, rising up, holding on to the photo album and finally looking at me, and when she did her smile faded as if she could read my mind. Turning from me, she gave Gabby a one-armed hug. “Good night, Gabby. I hope I helped.”

  “Yep, your wayyyy is better than my teachers.” She hugged back, releasing her and moving to me. “Bye, Uncle! Come more.”

  I patted her head. “Why don’t you come to Chicago?”

  “Uncle, I’m a kid. I can’t go by myself,” she said as if I were stupid.

  “Fine. We’ll wait for your list to come in your place,” I said to her, taking Ivy’s hand and walking toward the door.

  “Bye, Giovanni, thank you for the stories.” Ivy smiled at him, and he nodded, waving us off.

  Neither Ivy nor I spoke until we got into the car.

  I glanced at the window with his name upon it. Giovanni walked to the sign on the front window and flipped it to Closed.

  “They are…normal,” she whispered. I understood what she was implying.

  “By some cousin to a cousin we were related,” I whispered, starting the engine. “I didn’t understand why my mother wanted me to work for them. She only mentioned them once before I started to work. And she mentioned them as if they were so distant they were the afterthought of an afterthought.”

  “Did you ever understand then why she made you work there?”

  “Because my mother…saw the big picture,” I said, pulling onto the street. “Make Italians see her son was still one of them. Make them get close enough to see how dark my heart could get. Make them respect me. Make them fear me. Let me see how much they were jealous. But also to remind me, that if I were meant to be a barber, I would have been one. I was born into my family not theirs. My name is a constant reminder of that. If I felt like my life or path was so burdensome, to ponder why everyone else wants it so badly.”

  It took me much too long to realize that.

  Glancing down and placing her hand on my thigh, I looked at her as she said, “Gabby. I like her.”

  “Like no one but me.” It would be easier.

  That was the cruel fact of life.

  The weak will die.

  The strong will live.

  I made sure we, the Callahans, were always strong, at any cost.

  TWENTY-THREE

  “If I am an angel, paint me with black wings.”

  ~ Anne Rice

  ELEVEN DAYS LATER

  IVY

  “Today, while high on what police are calling the Cocktail, a batch of heroin that was mixed with various drugs, a middle-aged man walked into oncoming traffic naked and—”

  Click.

  “The Cocktail, the highly deadly drug sweeping the city claimed the life of an innocent pizza man who arrived at the house of two users, only to be beaten to death—”

  Click.

  “This drug contains only about 2 percent of actual heroin, giving users that similar high but causing them to crash much faster. When they do they often get very violent—”

  Click.

  “What is the government doing? Where is the police? People are dying out here! The bus driver who drove into a local McDonald’s was the last straw. My kids and I are staying home. You don’t know who’s on that trash—”

  Click. Ethan pressed the button on the remote once more, as I lay on top of him, listening to his heartbeat. He wasn’t even watching the screen. His eyes were closed, his hand with the remote dangling off the couch lazily.

  “Doctors across the city have reached out to other states for the drug naloxone, commonly used to reverse the effects of an overdose due to heroin or other various types of painkillers, such as morphine, oxycodone, methadone, and fentanyl. However, many states have refused, due to a growing fear this is just the beginning and the deadly cocktails will spread to other parts of the country—”

  Click.

  “Police say they have a lead on the drug dealers behind the Cocktail, though no other details can be shared at the—”

  Click.

  “How much longer?” I asked him.

  “As long as it takes,” he replied.

  I sighed, sitting up. “Ethan, Rory waved at me today. She waved. And I wanted to break her little hand. You told me to wait and I’ve waited. However, she’s not getting punished by this. I need to do it.”

  His eyelids lifted slowly and he glanced up at the ceiling. “You’re right.”

  “
I am?”

  “Yes. Now let’s go grocery shopping,” he said, beginning to sit up, and I moved so he could.

  “Is that code for something—”

  “It’s code for the fridge is empty and we can’t live on kettle corn, alcohol, and sex,” he said, pulling me off the couch.

  I smiled. “Then we can talk over what we’re going to do.”

  Before he could reply the doorbell rang. The first time since we’d moved in.

  “Stay here,” he said to me as he walked out to the living room. But being the nosey person I was, I stuck my head out to see. At the front door he slid the panel beside it, opening the camera, then relaxed. He opened the door and stepped aside, allowing Wyatt, who was still dressed in his burgundy scrubs, into the house. Wyatt stepped inside, his hair disheveled, circles around his eyes.

  “Where is the alcohol?” he asked us.

  “Kitchen.” I pointed, and he walked there, helping himself.

  Ethan started heading back toward the living room when I got in front of him. “What are you doing?”

  “Going to listen to the news—”

  “Your brother is in there and he looks like shit.”

  “And?” he asked.

  I wanted to kick him.

  “And he obviously came because he wanted to talk—”

  “I doubt it.”

  Again I stepped in front of him. “If you don’t open that door, I swear, no sex, no alcohol, no kettle corn.”

  “Is that a code for something?” he mocked me, so I punched his arm.

  “Go—” I stopped when Wyatt walked out holding a bottle of scotch, Ethan’s scotch, drinking from the bottle with one hand and holding the bag of kettle corn in the other. Ignoring us, he walked into the living room, slipped out of his scrubs, and sat his ass on the couch comfortably. Reaching for the remote, he switched to a random movie and just watched, eating and drinking quietly.

  “I think he’s broken,” I whispered to Ethan.

  “He’s hiding,” Ethan corrected, moving to the living room, pushing Wyatt down to the floor to lie back down on the couch. Wyatt didn’t even argue. He just kept eating.