“I hope your family and the FDNY can live with it too, D. Guys get fired for that shit.”
He wants me to be happy for him. If I didn’t want him, I would be.
Griff walked into the parlor to stand at the bay window, looking down into the dark street. The room was furnished with hand-me-downs and junkshop
furniture. He counted to ten and breathed. He stil stank of smoke from that warehouse.
I’m acting crazy because I’ve been lying to him, and that’s not his fault
.
Up the block, a stocky Latino in his fifties was walking a pit bul. Actualy, the pit bul was walking the man, puling at its leash hard enough to yank his arm
out of its socket. A Korean delivery guy on a bike pedaled the wrong way up the street. A grumpy teenager was putting garbage in the cans out front of his house.
The night sky was cloudy over the other brownstones, no moon and no stars.
Nothing to do. Nothing to do
.
He heard Dante enter the parlor cautiously.
Griff had a sudden impulse to turn around and confess everything to his best friend right then: his lust, his panic, his grief, his hope…. He could feel Dante’s quiet confusion pulsing in waves from behind him—
G, what’s the big deal
?
Explain that one, genius
.
Stepping closer to him, Dante sounded cautious. “He doesn’t even seem, y’know, queer. I think he’s just in it for the money too. Seriously. This business is
like
all
profit.”
Griff kept his eyes on the street, his voice hard, his arms crossed so tightly that his forearms bulged against his chest. “Anastagio, he’s queer. I am here to tel you.”
“So? What? Are you prejudiced or something?”
“No!” Again Griff had the demented impulse to confess al, which he crushed. “No. But he is not running a gay porn website and watching straight guys pump
the stump ’cause he likes the pension. He wants to fuck you in your bony, hairy ass. While you sit here right now gloating over a couple hundred bucks, he is
thumping one out with ten milion other guys watching you do the same.”
If I had any balls, I’d be watching too.
“Fuck you. My ass isn’t hairy.” Dante managed to look genuinely insulted as he sat on the battered couch facing the window.
“Jesus.” Griff scratched his head hard with his hands—
scritch-scritch-scritch
. Why couldn’t he explain properly? He left the window and sat down on the floor, not against Dante’s leg, but close.
“I don’t know about his ass. He’s Russian, so maybe, but I’l never have to know. And it was eight hundred bucks.”
Griff could feel his brain boiling, scrambling for a solution to something his best friend didn’t see as any kind of problem. “I’m trying to look out for you, huh?”
Dante slid off the couch onto the floor next to him and bumped their shoulders together. He smeled like lemon juice and pepper. His arm was so warm
against Griff’s. “Thank you. Realy, G. Thanks. But I’m good. This is good. This dude runs a clean shop. Trust me.”
Griff wouldn’t budge. “Sure. But no way do I trust that ugly skinhead scumbag pimp. You tel him for me: if he fucks with you, if he lays one Russian knuckle
on you, your buddy is coming after him and someone’s gonna need a screen door to fish out the pieces.” He could feel the murder rising off him like heat on a
highway.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
He needed a drink and a think before he split open.
“Okay, Griffin. Okay. I promise.” Dante patted his shoulder with a cautious hand like he was facing a rabid dog, trying to smooth the psychosis into something normal. He raked a hand through his midnight curls and let out a ragged sigh.
Griff knew he sounded crazy. He sounded batshit, but he had to say it and he couldn’t stop himself. “You’re my brother, man. We both know they’re dickless insects taking advantage of you ’cause you’re in a jam. I fucking hate it. If I had the money—”
“You don’t. It’s fine. Don’t worry so much. Sheesh, you’re gonna have a heart attack. And then
I’m
gonna have a heart attack.” Dante pushed himself to his feet and offered a hand to help Griff up.
Griff stood, turning his back to him, determined not to apologize for giving a shit. “Your life needs an airbag. I swear, Anastagio, you should have come
equipped when you were born.”
Just then Dante leaned against him, brow between his shoulder blades for a moment, so tentatively Griff held his breath. His voice was almost sheepish. “Nah.
Everyone knows I was born defective. They didn’t instal you until later.”
Griff turned and looked at him in surprise, his face warming, not sure what to say, which didn’t seem to matter. The moment stretched awkwardly like they
were both waiting for the other to say something, do something.
He must know, right? Man up, Muir.
Dante smiled.
Griff blushed.
The doorbel rang.
SHANKED by the bell.
Griff felt like he was going to die of blushing. As if al that blood had drained out of his head until he’d black out with embarrassment or an overactive erection.
Dante puled the door open and found a tearstained Loretta pacing on the steps, gripping her daughter, who was four, maybe five years old. Nicole was
petting her mom’s brown curls, trying to calm her.
Join the party.
“It’s okay, honey. I’m okay,” Loretta lied, her voice hoarse.
Griff wondered why she was so upset and why she’d come over to her brother’s house on such short notice. But mainly, he wondered if he was going to be
able to talk like an adult person after what almost happened.
What almost happened?
“Hey.” Loretta’s smile didn’t reach her whiskey eyes.
Dante’s did. “Hey. C’mon in.”
Had Loretta heard anything out on the stoop? Had he said anything… bad?
Her eyes were puffy and her hands were shaking. “I didn’t mean to hijack your whole boys’-night-in deal.”
Griff choked. The place on his back where Dante’s face had rested felt scorched. “Uhh.”
Dante covered smoothly. “We were talking business. I got, uh, an investment I cashed in and Griff thought it was a dumb move.”
Loretta wasn’t listening to her brother teling something way too close to the truth. She headed back toward the cooking smels, and the guys folowed her.
Nicole squirmed in her arms, too old to be hauled around like that anymore.
Loretta and her husband Frankie had probably had another phone fight. He was under civilian contract in Baghdad, and Loretta hated him being gone so
much, but the money was great and his gig was nearly done. They were planning to buy a place with enough rooms for their growing family if he didn’t get blown into chowder. She had plenty of reasons to be upset.
In the dark hal that went past the unfinished dining room, Nicole finaly wriggled to the floor and took Dante’s hand. They al folowed Loretta into the steamy
kitchen.
“Are you idiots eating fish heads? Gross!” The horror on Loretta’s face was operatic, her corkscrew curls wild around a tragic, mascara-smudged mask.
Everything was so big and nutty with Loretta, al her reactions. She used tantrums like a sedative. Griff found it kind of endearing, but he knew that her
hysterics wore the family to a frazzle. For two seconds, Griff thought she was actualy about to open her mouth and sing a crazy aria about fish heads while waving a cleaver around her brother’s stainless kitchen. He smothered the smile that he felt creeping across his face.
“
What?!
” Loretta turned, wide-eyed, to glare at Griff, even more crazed now, even more like she was onstage at the Met wearing a horned helmet over her brown mane while a fish head palace burned down around her.
Griff couldn’t help but let the laugh out. “Nothing, nothing. No. We don’t eat the heads. Your brother’s making broth for the stew.”
Dante stirred the pot with a wooden spoon, then added a handful of black pepper. “Cioppino. Or cacciucco, depending on what vilage. Mishmosh fish soup.
Nonna used to make it.”
Griff nodded at her, his cheeks stil burning. “Cheap and tasty. It’s like one of my favorites. Whenever your brother makes cioppino, he lets me come over
and test for poison. Extensively.” He tried to smile so the lame joke would land and he’d start to feel normal again.
“Sounds like a total pain in the ass. Who can cook for that long?” Loretta finaly put her enormous shoulder bag down on a chair and leaned over the pot and
the sauté pan to take a deep breath of the savory steam: lemon and pepper. Nicole wiggled and sort of slid down her front, landing on the floor with sturdy little legs.
“Cioppino is poor people’s seafood. Junk fish, realy. And crab. Olive oil. Fennel. Tomato. Garlic. Some other bits which are seeee-cret.” Dante’s mouth
worked as fast as his hands juggled his ingredients, which was saying something. The pans hissed on the burner as he flipped the diced onions into the mix.
“You’re so effing irritating.” Loretta crossed her arms over her breasts, hugging herself. “Out of al of us, you’re the only one who could cook and the hottest, and you’re a dude.”
Griff knew that was a sore point with her. “It’s the firehouse. Dante cooks ala time so he gets practice.”
After wiping on the towel draped over his shoulder, Dante held Nicole up to the sink, washing her chubby hands with practiced ease. He’d helped a lot of
younger Anastagios do the same growing up. “It takes no time. The shopping is the longest part. And there’s more than enough, as long as we trank Griffin or chain him up in the garden.”
“Hey! I’m not that greedy.” But Griff smiled at the ribbing.
Dante smiled back with a wink. “You’re worse than that, my man.” After drying Nicole’s hands, Dante held her against his chest and kissed the top of her
head while she yanked on his long hair. “Nope. No hair in the soup.” He stirred the pot and tasted the wooden spoon, passing her off to his buddy. “Pester Uncle Griffin.”
Griff felt awkward holding a little person and looked it too, lifting her a little away from his body like a sack of broken glass. He couldn’t remember anyone picking him up as a child. It would never occur to him that someone would want to be picked up. It seemed so easy to drop them or hurt them. None of the
Anastagios present seemed nervous about the danger, so Griff looked at the kid to find out what he was supposed to do.
“Juice?” Little Nicole looked at Griff patiently, as if she knew she was talking to a giant halfwit.
Loretta rummaged in her overstuffed bag without looking, stil on autopilot; a juice-filed sippy cup appeared. Nicole claimed possession immediately and
slurped fiercely.
Thumpa-thumpa.
Dante was squatting in front of the refrigerator digging in one of the drawers, his lower back exposed where that old navy sweater rode up. He stood up holding yelow onions and another tomato in his caloused fingers.
Griff tried not to look at those beautiful hands. Or think about complete strangers watching Dante use them on himself on the Internet. He could smel Dante’s
hair and skin hovering there under the cooking. Getting the counter between them, Griffin plunked Nicole on a high breakfast stool and stood next to her to make sure she didn’t fal to her death or catch on fire or anything. He hadn’t been around smal kids even when he was a smal kid, so what did he know? Maybe this
was normal.
Nicole seemed hypnotized by the vegetables faling into slices under Dante’s flashing knife.
Griff was too, but for more embarrassing reasons; he coughed, wondering if his family had ever done this, just cooked in the kitchen while he watched as a
little boy. He didn’t remember it, but then it would have been a long time ago, so maybe. He hoped so, for his sake. Maybe when his mother was alive. Maybe he wasn’t a complete freak, raised by wolves.
“Dante, she ain’t gonna eat seafood. Right now, Nicole won’t eat anything but peanut-butter-n-banana on rye and chocolate pudding.” Loretta puled a
wrapped sandwich and a pint of Kozy Shack pudding from her bag and put them in the fridge.
“Bulsh—yes, she wil. Wanna bet?” Dante handed Nicole a raw squid to play with, which she did with glee.
“Wow-wow! Skish.” Nicole tugged at the little critter as if it were made of rubber, fascinated by the legs, petting the skin. “Cool.”
“Wow! S’like a little monster. Huh, Nicole? See the suckers?” Dante’s pirate smile widened as he turned to his sister. “See? Kids wil eat a boot if you make
them curious. Trust me.”
A smile stole across Griff’s face; seeing Dante like that made his heart do somersaults.
For a moment, Griff imagined that this was
their
kitchen, that Loretta had come to their house. He bit back the urge to lean over and kiss his best friend on the cheek.
Loretta took the little squid away before it went in her daughter’s mouth. “I pity the woman who marries you, Dante Anastagio.”
“Wel if you let
me
cook the boot, my wife would eat it too.” Dante boned the snapper and cod, which went into a sauté pan for browning. The kitchen
smeled like buttery seaside heaven.
Loretta started to pour a glass of wine from the bottle Dante was using for the stew, but he shook his head.
“Nah. That’s too sweet for drinking. G, you wanna…?”
Griff’s stomach rumbled. “I’l grab a bottle, and you want some beer for the fridge?”
Dante nodded thanks and started to ask Loretta what was going on.
Griff left them talking in low voices.
GRIFF clumped down the rough stairs into the celar where Dante kept his storage freezer and another fridge stocked with drinks for his parties. It was always
cooler down here, and a little damp. He knew exactly the Chianti Dante would want, and he also tugged out a twelve-pack of Guinness, but before he climbed the stairs, he paused.
He figured he should kil time so brother and sister would have a little time to talk. He put the wine and beer on the steps and sat down on a trunk labeled