KooKooLand (25 page)

Cry, dummkopf, cry, I ordered myself.

I put my head down on my desk and pretended to bawl so Miss Morrissey wouldn't think I was a heartless heathen.

Through my phony sobs, I heard her say we were getting dismissed from school.

I coulda jumped for joy. My stomach was killing me and now I had an excuse to go home and crawl into bed.

Or that's what I thought, but I should've known better.

“I don't want any blubbering or bellyaching about any president going on in this house,” Jimmy barked at Shirley and Tina's mother, who were sitting at the kitchen table doing just that when I got home.

“Men die every day, real men on merchant ships. Kennedy's just one man, no better than any other, and worse 'cause he was a bleeding heart.”

He looked right at Tina's mother and smirked.

“Now he's a bleeding, bleeding heart.”

“God should strike you dead!” shouted Tina's mother. She jumped up and ran out our front door.

“God didn't protect the president,” he called after her. “You remember that the next time you're in church listening to a bunch of Catholic mumbo jumbo.”

As I watched Tina's mother run across the street, I knew she wouldn't ever be bringing me to church again and I was probably going straight to hell.

After she left and for most of the weekend, Jimmy took a powder. There was nothing on TV except people talking about the president. No Sylvester cartoons. No Three Stooges.

“Frick the president. And frick that idiot box,” said Jimmy.

He grabbed his rifle and the
Racing Form
and slammed the door on his way out.

“He's the only person in the whole world who isn't miserable about the president,” sobbed Virginia.

“Maybe he's right,” I said. “The president
is
just one person and people die
all the time. What about those women the Boston Strangler killed? Don't you feel bad about them too?”

“You're just like him!” Virginia shouted at me. Then she grabbed her coat and took a powder too.

Shirley went up to her bedroom and I could hear her blubbering. I made her a highball and brought it up. She hugged me tight until I squirmed away. She told me she was exhausted and had better get a few hours of sleep before work. She didn't wanna nod off and get her hand mangled in one of the machines like had happened to somebody else on her shift.

“Maybe they'll cancel work 'cause of the president,” I suggested, hoping she'd stay home and I could finally work up the courage to tell her about my stomachache.

Shirley looked panicked.

“God, I hope not. We need the money,” she said.

She took a big slug of the highball.

“Life goes on, I guess.”

“Why didn't God protect the president?” I suddenly asked. “Does that mean there's no God?”

Shirley guzzled down the rest of the highball.

“Maybe God was asleep, honey. Just like Mommy needs her sleep.”

I took the hint and twenty-three skidooed. I went back downstairs and turned on the idiot box. I sprawled in front of it, holding my aching belly. Unlike Jimmy, I couldn't get enough of watching people be miserable about the president. Watching other people's pain seemed to take my mind off my own.

Most of all, I wanted to know everything about the maniac who pulled the trigger. Was he big and hairy? Small and weaselly?

Did he have any pip-squeaks like me?

When they finally showed the guy, it turned out he was small and weaselly and looked like a million guys I'd seen hanging around Hank's. I wondered if he was a hunter too. I wondered if he'd murdered the president for being a bleeding heart or just for the fun of it.

The next day another maniac shot the first maniac.

“Everybody's going kookoo!” shrieked Virginia, and it sure seemed that way.

When Jimmy came home from hunting, I told him a second maniac had plugged the first.

“Yabba dabba doo,” he said. “Maybe now they'll put your cartoons back on the air.”

But that didn't happen, not right away. First we had to get through the Kennedy funeral. Jimmy sure as hell wasn't gonna stick around for that. So off he went hunting again.

I sat glued to the idiot box. I searched the crowd for any glimpse of Caroline Kennedy. I tried to imagine how she must feel, having a father who was dead. I wondered if she'd ever wished him dead like I'd wished Jimmy dead. Probably not, since she was a good Catholic and I was a heathen. And, besides, her father had gotten her a pony named Macaroni and a puppy and I only had a lame racehorse that I couldn't even ride and a cat that tried to run away from home every chance he got.

After the funeral, the cartoons came back on, but I didn't feel much like laughing and neither did Jimmy.

“Nothing's funny anymore,” he said.

A few days later we got dressed up and headed over to YaYa and Papou's for Thanksgiving. Well, only Shirley, Virginia, and I got dressed up. Jimmy was still wearing his hunting clothes and wouldn't change even though Shirley had starched and ironed a white shirt for him.

“I'm not wearing that cardboard straitjacket. No broad tells me what to wear. Not you, not my old lady, not Ava Gardner,” he said, and Shirley quickly put away the shirt.

“You look fine,” she chirped.

“Yeah, well, you don't,” he said. “Change that goddamn dress. I can see your knees when you sit down. You wanna embarrass me in front of my old man?”

We waited while Shirley tried on dress after dress, demonstrating how much of her knees showed when she sat down. Finally she found something droopy and black that passed the test and we were off.

I had hidden the snow globe in my purse, hoping for the chance to finally give it to Susan. Jimmy had mentioned she was home from college and spending Thanksgiving with Hank, Doris, and Terry at Hank's old house.

“Maybe Hank and Doris will get back together,” said Shirley when she heard about the Piasecny holiday plans.

“I hope not,” said Jimmy. “I sure as hell hope not.”

I asked Jimmy if we could stop by Hank's old house after we ate our dried-out turkey.

“We'll see how the stupid day goes,” he said.

When we got to YaYa and Papou's, Jimmy drank a bunch of highballs. Like me, he didn't seem to feel much like eating. He pronounced the turkey a frickin' turkey, the sweet potatoes too sweet, and the stuffing too goddamn salty.

“Don't start,” warned YaYa. “We're trying to have a nice day even though the president's dead and you're dressed like a bum.”

“Nice? What's so nice about it?” Jimmy sneered, draining his highball and then shoving the glass at Shirley to make him another. “Thanksgiving . . . my ass. Thanks for nothing! What does anybody have to be thankful for? Being kicked around and then kicking the bucket?”

“Quit whining,” growled Papou. “I pity your poor wife, having to listen to that.”

“Go ahead, take her side. Everybody else does.”

“Shut up!” bellowed Papou.

“I can say what I want. It's a free country—ha ha ha—haven't you heard?”

“Shut your mouth or I'll kick your ass!” yelled Papou.

“Try it and I'll deck you!” Jimmy yelled back, making a fist.

“You're crazy in the head! You ought to be locked up!” screamed YaYa.

“Get out of my goddamn house,” boomed Papou, grabbing the carving knife slicked with turkey fat and coming at Jimmy.

Shirley choked down a scream. Virginia started to cry.

“You don't scare me! I'm not a frickin' kid anymore!” shouted Jimmy.

“Don't hurt my daddy!” I yelled at Papou.

Jimmy whipped around. I saw a flash of fist and ducked. He threw his arm around me.

“My goddamn kid sticks up for me better than you ever did,” he snarled at YaYa.

“I should've killed you before you were born!” screeched YaYa.

“I wish you had,” spat Jimmy.

And we got the hell outta there.

For once, I didn't have to clean my plate.

“What about going to Hank's?” I asked when we got in the car, hoping I might get repaid for standing up for Jimmy.

“Susan doesn't want to see your ugly face,” he barked. And nobody said another word all the way back home.

O
ver the next few days, Jimmy got more riled up. Any little thing could set him off.

One night when he was half-lit, he decided my bangs and Virginia's bangs were too goddamn long. He sharpened a pair of scissors on the steel rod he used on his boning knives and came at us.

“Look at me. I'm Raymond. I'm a little fairy,” he said in a high-pitched voice, doing an imitation of YaYa's best friend's son, a beautician who often did YaYa's hair.

I scrunched my eyes closed, afraid he'd jab out my eyeball. He ended up hacking our bangs so short that Virginia and I thought we looked like a couple of retards. We had to scotch-tape our bangs at night to try to stretch them out.

After that, a neighbor's dog got Jimmy all worked up. Since dogs were banned in the projects, the neighbor kept the animal cooped up in his apartment. The dog was barking at night and keeping Jimmy up, and Jimmy threatened to plug the dippy mutt and its owner. Boozer Eddie said he had a better idea and came over to discuss the situation.

“Stuff some lye in a hunk of deer meat,” he said. “And then feed it to the son of a bitch when the owner is gone. I did it once and it works real good. The mutt keels over foaming at the mouth like the son of a bitch ate a bar of soap. That's what the owner thinks, boo hoo, and no one knows a goddamn thing.”

“The mutt's locked up all day. How you gonna get the meat to him?” asked Jimmy.

“Toss it through the mail slot,” replied Boozer. “Special delivery for Big Mouth.”

They both cracked up, like they were talking about a cartoon dog getting a stick of dynamite through the mail slot.

I didn't think it was funny at all. Not that I liked that yapping mutt myself. I didn't even like to walk past his apartment—I was afraid he might get loose and chew my face off. But still I didn't want to see Big Mouth poisoned. If they were gonna kill him, I didn't want the poor mutt to suffer.

Anyway, I thought they were just kidding around.

But a few days later, the barking stopped. I told myself the Snitch had probably reported the dippy dog to the office. I told myself the owner had probably brought him to a nice farm in the country like where lame ole Victory Bound was now. I told myself that wherever he was, Big Mouth was better off 'cause at least he wasn't cooped up anymore.

Once the barking stopped I prayed with all my might that Jimmy would cheer up. But God must've been napping again, 'cause things only got worse. Things got so bad Jimmy didn't even wanna go hunting.

Hank called one morning while we were having breakfast and told Jimmy to go out and shoot a few things and he'd feel better. Jimmy said the only thing he could shoot that would make him feel better was himself or Shirley. Then he hung up and shoved some breakfast dishes on the floor.

Sylvester took off like a bat outta hell.

Jimmy went to get his rifle.

Shirley yelped at Virginia and me to go upstairs to our bedroom. We were too scared to leave her down there alone and only went as far as the living room.

What had set Jimmy off was that Shirley had been late getting home from work. She said she was working overtime, but Jimmy was convinced she'd been cheating on him. Shirley told him to call Foster Grant and check the time she punched out and he told her he'd punch
her
out. But then he went ahead and called. Sure enough, the woman said Shirley had worked an hour later. But Jimmy wasn't satisfied. He said maybe Shirley had gotten the woman to lie for her. He said women were like that. He said they stuck together like two pieces of dirty flypaper.

Jimmy returned to the kitchen with his rifle. Virginia and I snuck closer and crouched in the hallway. I slipped Jimmy's rat-shooting pistol out of the closet and hid it behind my back.

I couldn't hit a rat at thirty feet, but I figured I could hit him at ten if my hand would stop shaking.

Please God, don't let me miss. Please God, don't be asleep. Please God, do something.

I edged forward and peeked into the kitchen.

Jimmy was pacing around, crunching the broken dishes under his rubber hunting boots and tracking egg yolk across the floor. The rifle dangled at his side. Shirley was huddled next to the stove.

Jimmy started ranting about
The Honeymooners
.

“You know what Ralph Kramden says. ‘To the moon, Alice.” Well, forget
the moon. You're going past the moon. You're going to goddamn Pluto. You're going into the great goddamn beyond.”

“Jimmy, I was working late. I promise—”

“You promise? You promise, what? Not to be a whore? How's that possible? That's not possible. 'Cause you are a whore. So how can you promise to be something you're not?”

“I'm not— I didn't—”

“Don't contradict me. Don't you ever contradict me. I'm the man in this house. Do you see another man in this frickin' house? I'm the only man in this house. I'm the only man 'cause you couldn't even give me a frickin' son. You couldn't even do that right. You're useless, you know that? Nobody would even miss you if I blew your frickin' brains out.”

Right about then Hank walked through the door.

“Jesus Christ,” he said when he saw Jimmy, Shirley, and the broken eggs.

“I told you I'm not going hunting,” Jimmy announced.

“Gimme the goddamn rifle,” Hank growled.

Jimmy shook his head, pointed the gun at Shirley.

“They're all alike. Shirley, Doris, the whole bunch of them,” Jimmy said.

Hank snatched the rifle from him.

“Sit the hell down, Norris!” Hank barked like a drill sergeant.