Give every day the chance to become the most beautiful day of your life. – Mark Twain
Chapter 21
Tony Gallino got up and began pacing around the small room. The pizza delivery thug and the driver thug stepped back and let Gallino pass. Once he passed, they stepped forward, one on each side of the boys. Gallino made the circle clockwise four times. Each time he made the circle, he stopped behind his desk, turned and starred at Zeke and Mickey. He shook his head and started pacing. After his fourth pass. He stopped, turned toward the boys, placed his two hands palm down on the metal desk.
“You know what I should do with you guys? Do you know what I’m think I should do?”
Zeke kept quiet. Mickey didn’t. He said, “I don’t what you want to do with us, Tony. But if I were in your shoes, I’d tell Gus to make sure we get a free beer every time we come into this place. It’s not like we never been here before. People see us and they feel comfortable. They think two stand up guys like this place. Know what I mean?”
Gallino lifted his head and looked at the two thugs. “You see what’s happening here?”
Neither thug moved. They had no clue what Gallino was thinking and they didn’t want to be wrong.
“I’ll tell you what’s happening here,” said Gallino.
This made the two thugs happy, if they listened they had a good chance at passing a pop quiz.
“This is what’s happening. These two idiots are not idiots. See what I’m saying?”
Both thugs nodded, even though they did not see what Gallino was saying.
Gallino continued, “They are playing me. I do not like it when somebody plays me and I don’t know they are playing me. Nobody dares to do that, but these two, the did it. They played me like an accordion, which I used to play as a kid. This is not common knowledge, so do not say anything.”
The two thugs nodded.
“Gallino continued, “They suckered me into believing they were so dumb they would do me this favor and not look in the package. I, like a fool, believed them. I remember the lesson, Mario Zito taught me. He said, “Antonio, don’t believe nobody, even yourself. Because sometimes yourself lies to you.” Now I know what he means.”
The two thugs nodded.
“So, this is what I am going to do. First, I am going to leave the room while my two thugs mess up your face. Then I’m gonna come back to make sure they did it right. Then I’m gonna leave the room while the two thugs break your legs. Then I’m gonna come back to make sure your legs are broken. Then I’m gonna …”
Gallino paused his sermon on medical malpractice procedures the two thugs were going to inflict on Zeke and Mickey to answer his cell phone and its special ring tone, the Sinatra classic, All The Way. Gallino answered his cell, “Yah, baby.”
Gallino rolled his eyes while he listened to the phone.
“That’s not true, baby. Listen, I got work to do. Can we talk later?”
Gallino paused.
“Don’t you bust my smart TV. You already did? You got my laptop and you’re gonna take it to cops? I thought your sister was you. She tricked me.”
Gallino paused.
“She’s pregnant? She, I mean you, told me you were on the pill.”
A knock on the metal door interrupted Gallino’s phone conversation for a moment.
The pizza delivery thug answered the door. He turned to Gallino and said, “It’s Gus. He says it’s important.”
Gallino nodded to the thug and motioned with his hand to let Gus in the room. Gus entered and said, “Sorry to disturb you Mr. Gallino, but there are three women out there saying they’re going to newspaper saying you made unwanted sexual advances toward them.”
“I do that all the time, what’s their beef?” said Gallino. He realized he hadn’t covered the cell phone. The female voice on the other side of the cell phone connection was letting go with a series of colorful words that might make a hard boiled homicide detective blush.
Zeke said, “If I may, I believe I know a way of your predicament.”
Gallino said “What?”
Zeke answered, “Nonna put a curse on you. The only way to get the curse off is to apologize to her and Mickey and me. I’ll put in a good word with Nonna if you’ll take us to her house.”
Gallino threw his cell against the wall. He picked up a bottle of wine and threw it at Gus, who deftly sidestepped the errant throw and watched the vino splatter against the wall and the shattered bottled lay a mosaic on the floor.
“Okay, but I don’t like it,” said Gallino.
Will Nonna take off the curse? What’s in the package? What’s going to become of Zeke and Mickey?
If you’re like me, you understand writers have to write. I’m always trying to learn from the best. In this short YouTube video, Quentin Tarantino shares how he started writing dialogue. If you’re a writer, learn from the best.
We are all a part of every person we have ever met. – Alfred Lord Tennyson
Chapter 20
The pizza delivery thug and the driver, a tanned, dark wavy haired thug with a long beak, had Zeke and Mickey by an arm and ushered them into Lombardi’s. Gus was behind the bar washing beer glasses. Mickey glanced over, “Hey Gus, I don’t know where we’re going but can you bring me the usual.”
Zeke shrugged and didn’t say anything.
The boys were taken to a back room. Inside the room was a metal desk, three metal folding chairs. A photo of Ted Williams talking to Joe DiMaggio and another photo of former heavyweight champ, Rocky Marciano.
The driver thug, opened the folding chairs and placed them in front of the desk.
The pizza thug said, “Sit.”
Zeke said, “What’d we do? We done nothing.”
Mickey said, “Can I have my beer?”
The pizza thug said to the driver thug, “I think they’re too stupid to know what they done.”
“Don’t matter, stupid or not. They gotta deal with the consequences.”
“That’s right, you don’t do what Mr.G says, it’s like watching the Food Channel, time for a little fileting, and little grilling.”
“We gonna have a barbeque?” asked Mickey.
“Your buddy got air for brains, you know what I mean. You’d have better off if you hung around with smarter guys like me and him.” The pizza guy was careful not to use names.
Zeke looked up, “He’s a nice guy, he thinks different. We’re best friends. I’m doing okay with him.”
“You got a wise mouth and think you’re so smart. If Mr. G wasn’t coming, I’d smack you around and see how smart you was.”
“Pretty soon, your gonna be working for me. Maybe I’ll look for better talent,” said Zeke who then wondered why he said what he said.
“You gotta be driving down the wrong side Route 24 and you got a 16 wheeler heading for you and you can’t see nothing because you is more stupid than the stupid friend you hang around with.”
“He’s not stupid. How’d you like it if someone called you stupid. How would your mother feel?” asked Zeke. He wondered if were on a drug. He didn’t do drugs. Okay, he like beer. But drugs were out of the question. The wine, he thought. Nonna drugged the wine.
A knock on the door.
“Yah,” said the driver thug.
“It’s me, Gus. I got two beers for the guys.”
“What about us?” asked the driver thug.
“Mr. G didn’t say anything about giving you guys free beers. You gonna let me in?”
The driver thug opened the door, Gus walked in and over to Mickey. He handed him a bottle of a dark locally brewed beer. He did the same with Zeke. Then he said, “These are courtesy of Mr. G. He called and said he’d be a few minutes late.”
“What’s going on, Gus?” said the pizza delivery thug.
“Hey, I only work here. You wanna know what’s going on, ask Mr. G,” said Gus who left as abruptly as he came in.
The driver thug hollered, “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass. I told him. I don’t like his attitude.”
Zeke sipped at his beer. Mickey let his slide down his throat unimpeded by reflex mechanism. He didn’t stop to breathe. He didn’t stop to savor the taste. He just let it flow.
“How you do that?” asked the driver thug.
“I been practicing since I was a kid,” said Mickey proudly.
The backdoor to the room opened. A third thug with bulging pecs, huge biceps and a tight tee opened the door and held it open for Tony Gallino. Gallino walked to the desk and stood behind the chair just off to its right. The bulging pec thug walked over and pulled the chair out and motioned Gallino to sit down. Once he said, the bulging thug guy helped scoot Gallino in.
When Gallino was set, he looked at Zeke and Mickey and said, “I been nice to a point and now I want the right answers or I am not going to be nice any more. Do I have an amen, thugs?”
The three thugs said, “Amen.”
What’s going to happen to Zeke and Mickey? When will Nonna’s curse kick in? What’s inside the package?
Life comes at us in strange ways. It often comes at us in unexpected ways we never saw coming. When we recognize the gift life offers in the moment, I call it grace. To accept the gift and be grateful for it, is an ever greater outpouring of grace. Be inspired by this woman’s brief story of her gift. It may change your life.
I once asked a bird, how is it that you fly in this gravity of darkness? She responded, ‘love lifts me.’ – Hafez
Chapter 19
Zeke and Mickey sat on a sofa in Zeke’s apartment. A half-eaten bag of taco flavored chips sat on a scratched coffee table. The coffee table was courtesy of Zeke’s skill at dumpster diving. The lights were out, the shades pulled, the TV off. The boys were sitting silently, the only sounds were the pop of a beer can opening, the slurp of beer, an occasional burp, and the tossing of an empty Bud can toward a wire trash can ten feet away. The wire trash held four empty cans, eight empty cans were scattered on the floor nearby the basket.
Mickey nudged Zeke, “Can I talk?”
“You’re talking, Mickey. What do you want?” asked Zeke turning around and peeking out from behind the shade.
“You see anything?” asked Mickey.
“Nope. Nobody is out there,” said Zeke.
“Zeke, I’m going crazy. How much longer can we keep holding up in your place?”
“We’ve only been here a little over an hour. Take it easy. Give time for Nonna’s curse to work. Those things don’t work right away, they take a little time,” said Zeke.
“I’m starving. When I drink beer, I need food.”
“Have some more chips, it’s all I got, if I don’t count Frosted Flakes,” said Zeke.
“Can we send out for a pizza?” asked Mickey.
“With what? We spent the money Tony Gallino gave us,” said Zeke.
Mickey shrugged, “I been holding out, Zeke. I got a stash. I been saving up for a new PlayStation.”
“How much you got?” asked Zeke.
“If you think I’ve been taller the last two weeks, I been cheating a little. I keep the money I’m stashing in my right shoe.” Mickey untied his right shoe, took off his sock, stuck his hand in his sock and pulled out ten and ten ones.”
“That had to hurt, Mickey,” said Zeke.
“I only limped a little. But you never said nothing,” said Mickey.
Zeke felt a tinge of guilt. He said, “Go order us a pizza. Give a fake name so they won’t know who it is.”
“Gottcha. I’ll go in the other room so I won’t disturb anybody who might be watching us watching them.”
Five minutes later Mickey came back in the living room, “Anything going on?”
“I keep checking, the coast is still clear,” said Zeke.
Thirty minutes later, a knock on the door, “Pizza.”
“Wait a second,” hollered Zeke. Then he turned to Mickey, “Look through the peep hole, make sure it is the pizza delivery guy.”
“Okay,” said Mickey as he walked toward the door. He placed his eye against the peep hole. “He’s carrying a pizza box from Lombardi’s.”
“Lombardi’s? Are you nuts. Tony Gallino’s boys hang out there.”
“It’s okay, I didn’t give my right name,” said Mickey, then he opened the door.
A big burly pizza guy with a Lombardi’s pizza delivery shirt on said, “I gotta pizza for Pope Francis.”
Mickey said, “That’s me.”
The pizza guy handed Mickey the pizza, then stepped inside knocking Mickey and pizza aside. He pulled a gun and said, “Don’t do nothing stupid. You two gonna come with me. Mr. G wants to have a conversation with you.”
Mickey had stumbled to the floor, but still held the pizza box. He looked up at the pizza guy, “Can I take the pizza with me?”
Poor Zeke and Mickey, they’re in trouble now. Will Tony Gallino let them go? Will Nonna’s curse work in time to save the boys.
Know anyone who hasn’t been knocked down? Know anyone who hasn’t taken a hard blow? I don’t. Those who reach down and find their inner toughness, get up, shake it off, and become determined to make something good happen from what was bad. They have the courage to transform the moment into a beautiful, creative piece of human courage. You and I have the capacity to be that person. Dig down, dig deep, never quit. Turn the bad moments into good moments. This brief Ted Talk will inspire you to turn tragedy into triumph.
We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen. – D. H. Lawrence
