“Yo, you said you always wrap it up, right?” asked Tank as he spotted me on the bench press.
“Yeah, Maria doesn’t let me get within a foot of her box without a condom on.”
“Six… seven… come on, get it, get it. Eight, good. Yeah cuz, then there’s nothing to worry about.”
If only it were that simple. After my set, I rushed to the boys’ locker room and yakked my pink and red creatine pre-workout shake into the toilet. Me, a father? I still had a learner’s permit, for Christ’s sake, and might be headed to play quarterback for USC or East Stroudsburg!
Maria made me wear a condom and pull it out the moment I started to come—if she caught me loitering back there during the finish, she’d drop her hips and phlunk, I’d pop out. Then it was time for meticulous checking—the tip, any leaks? Any cracks, breaks, or snaps? Tie it tight and ball it up in toilet paper—NOT in the toilet! Could you imagine? “Mr. DiMonica, your pipes are clogged from copious amounts of balled-up toilet paper filled with condoms. Is there any chance your niece might be banging the high school quarterback?” Nope, we disposed of our sins as meticulously as the Mafia—there’s a pile of my used condoms the size of The Intrepid floating down the Passaic River.
I gargled and spat and splashed some water on my face before I met Tank waiting for me outside the locker room. We hopped in my white ’96 Jeep Cherokee (my parents bought it from the Geigers for my sixteenth birthday) and we headed for downtown Millburn.
“Yo, you better not get her pregnant,” Tank said, rolling down his window. “Her uncle is in the Mafia.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“No, cuzzo, I’m serious. The Mafia, the mob, La Cosa Nostra (translation: this thing of ours), ’Ndràngheta, Camorra…”
“Fuck off.”
“He’s connected, man. Look at me. Nose tilt.” Tank tilted his nose. “On the arm.” Tank patted his arm. “The Five Families. He’s a goomba (translation: compatriot, comrade, brother-in-arms; see also: paisano), a three-piece-suit warrior, a wise guy, a real gangster. Not like those mulignans with the bandanas and tilted pistols. Capone, Gotti, Luciano, Gravano.”
“Are ya done?”
“Tony-fucking-Soprano.”
“He’s a dentist.”
“Yeah, okay, a dentist. Sounds like a front to me.”
“So he went to dental school and was ranked a top dentist in the state—I saw his picture in New Jersey Monthly—just so he would have a cover for his mob activities?”
“Yup. He’s fooling you and the FBI.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Just better hope that pregnancy test comes back negative, paisan. I wouldn’t want to end up in his dental chair.”
I dropped Tank off at Soleil Sands and parked in front of Jabie’s apartment building on Millburn Ave. My mind began to wander as I pictured the giant man—Mr. DiMonica was the first baseman for the 1981 Arizona State national championship team—curling over me in the dental chair, his breath seeping through the mask as his brooding frame blocked out the light. Maybe he is in the Mafia? Mobsters and dentists are completely comprised of sadists. Maybe that’s his title: The Dentist. A Hitman, a Punisher, a hired excavator who uses his chisels on the roots of a rat. “What’s this? Little Jimmy is talking to the Feds? Take him to The Dentist.” “What’s this? Vito Ferraro’s used-condom island blocked the shipment of Barolo? Take him to The Dentist.”
I could hear my father now: “Vito! Italian-Americans have been fighting that stereotype for generations! Any successful Italian man is automatically labeled a mobster. Ya know, my grandfather—your great-grandfather—came from humble roots, all the way from Avellino, and set up a barbershop in West Orange. Papa had twelve brothers and sisters who all lived above the shop over on Eagle Rock Avenue.”
Jabie appeared in front of the car and got in on the passenger side.
“Yo, wuttup?” he asked.
“Wuttup?” I responded.
“Yo, is Maria pregnant?”
“What? No. I don’t know. What? How do you…”
“I really hope she isn’t. You know her uncle…”
“Don’t fucking say it.”
We grabbed a couple of monster joes from the Millburn Deli and picked up Tank from the tanning salon. I could see Joey’s car parked on the street as I pulled into the DeVallos’ driveway.
“What the shit is he doing here?” Tank said as he popped out of the Jeep.
We followed Tank as he rushed down the outside path that led to his bedroom door.
“What the fuck, Carina?”
I hurried to the door and peeked over Tank’s shoulder and was inundated with a plume of smoke. Joey had his lips suctioned to a bubbling bong, and I had to step over Sonny, whose eyes were open but not moving, on the floor as I entered the room.
“Why the shit do you guys have to turn my room into the opium den? And… oh, come on, Jesus, Carina. Can you put a shirt on?”
Tank tossed a t-shirt that was draped over his computer chair at Carina, who let it fly across the bed without even attempting to catch it.
“This is so fucked. Where’s Mom? Don’t you have class today? Why can’t you move out? You’re fucking in college. At least these two stoonahds (translation: idiots, dumbasses, jackasses) don’t have anything better to do.”
“I only have a morning class on Fridays. My school is only fifteen minutes away. And… what was the last one?”
“Mom?”
“I don’t know where Mom is.”
I went to grab a can of Axe body spray from Tank’s bathroom, as Maria would cut me off for a week if she thought I was smoking weed, but the door flung open and Michaela stumbled out and plopped on the couch.
“Hi, Victor,” she said, her eyes unable to completely focus on mine.
Meat Loaf’s uplifting vocals erupted from my phone.
“Dude, that is a lame-ass ringtone,” said Jabie.
“It’s Meat Loaf and it’s our song, so shut up.”
“Mhmm.”
“Hey, can you make sure she’s okay?” I nodded toward Michaela. “I gotta get this.”
I left
