Perhaps all I needed was a tournament to win the heart of Andrius’s mom. I was confident in my hand-to-hand combat abilities against opponents like Paxton, Maine Ogden, the Barriston brothers, Lenny, and Silas. But Kader would surely defeat me in a joust; he rode horses every weekend when he played polo with his father. And he had all those weapons mounted on the walls of his house, and I don’t believe for a second that he didn’t take them down to practice. Yeah, Kader would prove to be a challenge, but perhaps he would be disqualified—there weren’t any knights in Iraq, right? Pierce Stone would be the final battle, my Black Knight. I’d use all of the weapons available on that one—broadsword, battle-ax, mace, flail, halberd. He could have as many squires as he needed. I wouldn’t even use a shield. Two swords! That’s all to win Mrs. Varnus—win the tournament and kill Pierce Stone. All that and a truncated rose, of course.
My father never let us go into Spencer’s Gifts, no matter how hard we pulled on his shirtsleeves. He would say the novelty store was for potheads and it was full of sex and vice, but I didn’t care about the sex and vice—unless they had posters of Suzanne Somers or Andrius’s mom—and only really wanted to watch the orange and purple lava lamp globs bounce against the glass. But Mrs. Geiger, our portal to the forbidden, let us frolic for a few savory minutes in the neon store after we filled our stomachs with Roy Rogers fried chicken and beef.
“There’s a lot about pots and the Grateful Dead teddy bears in here, Karl, and ways to ‘arouse your lover.’” I said as I opened a greeting card that popped out a “banana hammock” inches from my shnozole (translation: nose).
“Pot is a drug. Not like a Grecian urn, Vic, like in Hercules. I think it’s the same thing as mota. Ya know, like from the Offspring’s Ixnay on the Hombre.”
“I like Americana better.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“When are you going to your lake house?”
“Tomorrow morning. We’re staying there for two nights.”
“That’s the whole weekend!” Karl shouted as he pulled on the straps of dangling black lingerie.
“I know. I’m gonna miss you.”
“I’m gonna miss you, too.”
“Hey Karl, what’s a ‘vaginatarian’? Is that like an herbivore? Like a Brontosaurus?”
“Not exactly, Vic.”
“And now, my lovelies, you can have the green miracle cloth for only six easy payments of $9.99 and watch as the power of the Lord unfurls in front of your very eyes. Order now, my lovelies. Remember, you reap what you sow. Make haste.”
The shot cut to Tom Jones Cleaver waving his arms and stomping his feet in front of a raucous congregation that didn’t have many teeth between them. Everyone had this thing called a mortgage, but no one could pay for it. I didn’t understand how the heck the miracle cloth would give them money—it looked like the cloth my mother used to clean her glasses—but Pastor Cleaver would pull them up, one by one, onto the stage, and they would testify that after praying with the miracle cloth, they received a check from the bank for thousands of dollars. And they’d all shout, “Hallelujah!”
“Hello, my friend,” said my father as he stomped down the basement steps.
“Hey Dad, do you have a mortgage?”
“What’s that, pal? Oh, what crap are you watching? This guy is a such a phony.”
“But all of these people get money in the mail.”
“Vito, go to sleep. We’re leaving early for the lake house tomorrow.”
“Do I have to go?”
“‘Have to go’? Of course you do. What, you’re gonna stay here? Vito, family is the most important thing you have. You should want to spend time with your cousins. Remember, we come from humble roots down in Avellino.”
“But someone always ends up crying. And I won’t go in the water. I refuse. There are snakes. Can’t I just stay with the Geigers?”
“Basta (translation: enough, stop it). Go to sleep.”
The drive to the lake house took us to that part of Northwestern-ish New Jersey that was exotic the way a coastal elite finds the plains of Nebraska or the hokey down-homeyness of rural North Carolina exotic—for its “otherness.” From the wooden dock, I could see white houses dotting the water, surrounded by a mountain of green, as if the lake itself were an in-ground pool protected by a fence of trees.
“Remember to kiss your aunts and shake your uncles’ hands, and look them in the eye, capish?” (Translation: understand? Got it?)
I did shake a few uncles’ hands and kiss a couple of aunts, but I had to piss like a racehorse (the newest phrase Karl and George were saying) and rushed into the bathroom without completing the entire Ferraro roster. A lavatorial couplet was written in red Sharpie and taped to the wall next to the toilet. It read: If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.
Knocks berated the door. “Hey Vic! Hurry up, we want to get a Wiffle ball game going!” yelled my cousin Luke.
I left the bathroom, crossed the dining room, and with an earsplitting white-metal screech, slid open the screen door that led to the wood patio overlooking the lush lawn. Luke was already taking cuts with the hollow yellow bat that was forever associated with summers and lemonade and such lush lawns as ours. At only five, Luke could already hit the Swiss-cheesed Wiffle ball clear over the studded rock wall we designated as a home run. I couldn’t clear the wall until last Fourth of July weekend, exactly a year ago.
I could see Britney down by the dock, clutching Marlene. She was always so excited to see our cousins, but they ignored her—at least the girls did. I would hear my mom say things like “It breaks my heart” and “Why do they have to be so
