KooKooLand (29 page)

Shortly after, a Manchester cop arrived in his cruiser. The two coppers
approached the store and peered through the window. They saw Hank weaving and falling down. They rapped on the window. Hank snatched a rifle and struggled to load it.

The trooper knocked on the window one more time.

Hank shouted at them to get the hell out of there. To show them he meant business he kept trying to load the rifle, and this time it looked like he might succeed.

“We better get out of here. He's a crack shot,” the Manchester cop warned the trooper.

They took off toward the corner of the building. A shot rang out from inside the store. Moments later, they heard a loud thud. Then silence.

The cop quickly radioed for more backup and an ambulance.

The two coppers crept back toward the entrance and peered through the window again. They could see Hank lying on the floor. It didn't look like he'd shot himself. It just looked like he'd passed out.

The coppers didn't bust down the door. They waited until more coppers arrived. When the new guys got there, they decided someone oughta drive over to Doris's to see if she had a key to the store.

And when that someone got to the house on that freezing December morning he found Doris and John, all hacked up.

Meanwhile, back at the sports center, the other coppers discovered that a guy who worked at a nearby gas station had a set of keys to the store. The coppers unlocked the door and found Hank wasn't all that bad off. He came to and was taken to the hospital to get his bloody noggin stitched up.

A makeshift courtroom was set up in Hank's hospital room. Hank knew most of the guys there—the judge, the clerk, the chief of police. Shortly after noon, Hank was charged with killing his former wife, Doris Piasecny, and a man she had taken a shine to, John Betley. As fate would have it, Hank's longtime lawyer, a guy who had gotten him out of scrapes before, was the cousin of the man he had just murdered. Hank expected the guy to represent him anyway, but the cousin wanted no part of it. So Hank was left that morning without a lawyer. Or, as Jimmy described it, without a goddamn shyster. The judge entered innocent pleas for Hank, giving him time to find himself a new lawyer.

Hank didn't seem worried about losing his lawyer, or about anything else for that matter. When he was handed copies of the murder charges, he flipped them onto the foot of the bed without even glancing at them. As the clerk began to read the charges, he cut the guy off and asked if it was really necessary
to read through all that stuff about the murders.

The chief of police put his hand comfortingly on Hank's shoulder and let him know there was no way around it. So the murder complaints were read and Hank sat there fidgeting and gritting his teeth like he couldn't wait to get it over with.

A newspaper photographer wanted to snap some photos, but the chief wouldn't allow it. At least he spared Hank that embarrassment.

When it was all over, Hank asked for a cigar and somebody lit one up for him. I figured men smoked cigars in that hospital all the time when someone was born. I don't know if anybody had ever smoked one after someone died, but I guess there was nobody or nothing stopping Hank from doing it.

T
he next morning, Hank was transferred from the hospital to the Valley Street jail and I trudged off with Tina to the Temple Market. Tina pumped me for information about the murders and I told her what I'd heard Jimmy and Shirley discussing over breakfast.

“Some people say Hank cut off the guy's Down There and put it in Susan's mother's mouth.”

I demonstrated how Jimmy, as a joke, had pretended to stuff his Jones breakfast sausage down Shirley's gullet.

“
Eeewww
!” shrieked Tina.
“Now I'm gonna have to say a million Hail Marys.”

“Don't be such a baby,” I said. “It's no worse than what I saw that killer in
Blood Feast
do.”

“You think you're so tough! Just wait till Hank breaks outta jail and shows up at your house. He'll chop up your whole family. Sylvester even.”

“He's not getting out, numbskull. They're gonna lock him up and throw away the key, probably. And, anyway, if he does bust outta jail and come around, I'll just plug him with Jimmy's .22.”

“I know one thing. He's going straight to hell. He'll be down there with Lee Harvey Oswald and the Boston Strangler and Judas and all the other bad men.”

“My father says what Hank did is all the pope's fault 'cause the pope won't let people get divorced even if they hate each other's guts.”

Tina's face got all red like a big blister.

“Your father's goin' straight to hell for saying that! And for all the bad things he said about President Kennedy. I bet President Kennedy's up in heaven right now helping God make a list of who's good and who's bad and your dad's on the bad list.”

The way Tina described it heaven sounded just like the North Pole, which made sense since hell was hot, so heaven hadda be cold. God sounded like Santa Claus and President Kennedy was like an elf.

Picturing heaven as eternal Christmas, I could suddenly see it a whole lot
clearer. And I knew it was where I, who cherished Christmas above all other days, belonged.

It made sense that Jimmy, who hated Christmas more than Ebenezer Scrooge, would be going to hell. It was kind of comforting to think that if the dummkopf cops didn't nab him, an all-knowing God would. The only thing was, I didn't wanna be stuck down there with him.

“Do you think there's any chance I'm goin' to hell too? Or is it just men down there?”

Tina looked very serious.

“Girls can definitely go to hell. Unless you become a good Catholic you're gonna be frying down there with Hank.”

“How do you know that?”

“The priest and the nuns and my mother said so.”

“How do
they
know?”

“They just do. They're grown-ups.”

“My father says it's all a crapshoot and nobody knows what happens when we die.”

“He's a big liar who's going to hell. How can you believe anything he says?”

As much as I liked to consider myself smarter than Tina, I had to admit she had a point.

“I'm not going to hell,” I blurted out. “Starting today I'm gonna be the best Catholic in the whole world.”

“Ha. You won't be better than me. I got a big head start.”

“I'll catch up. I'll beat you. You'll see.”

“Yeah, how you gonna do that when your father won't even let you go to church?”

“God
knows
he won't let me go. 'Cause God knows everything, right?”

“Yeah,” Tina admitted grudgingly. “Maybe God'll give you a dispensation until you grow up. But then you'll have to go to church a hundred times more to make up for it. Until then, you better pray a lot. You better pray like a maniac.”

“I am a maniac!”

I grabbed an icicle and pretended to stab Tina. Stabbed her all over just like Hank had done to Doris and that guy unlucky enough to cross his path.

When we got to the Temple Market, Horrible Heddy had her snout buried in the
Union Leader
, devouring every detail of the murders. I was afraid she'd remember what I'd told her about being bosom buddies with Hank, but she didn't seem to have a clue about my association with the madman she was reading about. Not until Tina opened her big trap.

“Her father's best friends with that maniac,” she reminded Heddy.

Heddy looked up from the paper, annoyed.

“Yeah, tell me another one. . . .”

“Her father says Hank cut off the guy's you-know-what and fed it to the lady like a sausage,” Tina blurted out.

Heddy nearly fell over.

“Holy Christ!”

“It's a sin to take the Lord's name in vain,” Tina sniffed.

“The papers don't say nothing about nobody cutting off anybody's you-know-what.”

I figured now that the cat was out of the bag, I might as well try to impress Heddy with my inside knowledge.

“That's 'cause the coppers are covering up for Hank. My dad says half of 'em been deer hunting with Hank and the other half wish they'd been.”

“Yeah, well, that ain't gonna save him.”

“My dad says he'll beat the rap.”

“Dream on. They're gonna lock him up or string him up, one or the other.” She shook her head. “It just figures you project kids would know a lunatic.”

“I never met him,” Tina protested. “And I never want to. He might stab me in the eye.” She demonstrated with a Tootsie Roll what Hank might do to her.

I suddenly felt bad for Hank, felt the need to defend him, if for no other reason than that he was Susan's father.

“He didn't mean to do it. He was probably just trying to scare Doris. Anyway, she drove him to it.”

Heddy got as cold as that icicle I'd tried to stab Tina with.

“I heard enough outta you. Buy what you're gonna buy and beat it. And don't show your puss around here again.”

Tina started to tremble. “Me too?”

“You're all right. But not your little friend. Anyone who defends a murderer isn't welcome in this establishment.”

On the way back to the projects Tina volunteered to buy me my candy until I was eighteen and could get to another store.

“She can't keep me outta there,” I insisted. “If she tries to keep me out, her store'll get hit with Jewish lightning.”

“The Jews don't make lightning,” Tina said. “God does.”

“Jewish lightning isn't real lightning, dummkopf. It's when people burn stuff down on purpose, like the Jews do all the time, even more than the dagos, so they can collect the insurance money.”

“I never met a Jew,” said Tina. “I guess I never want to 'cause they killed Jesus.”

“They all live in the North End where the rich people are,” I said. “My father cuts their lawns. They give good tips at Christmas even though they don't believe in it.”

“If your father gets one of those Jews from the North End to burn down the Temple Market, you'll all go to hell with Hank.”

“He won't get a Jew to do it. He'll get a dago 'cause they torch stuff to teach people a lesson, not for money. And anyway, I won't go to hell 'cause I won't be the one doing the torching.”

“But God will know it's your fault, dummkopf.”

“But it won't be my fault. 'Cause here's the thing. God says we gotta honor our mother and father, right?”

“Yeah, that's true,” admitted Tina, starting to look uneasy.

“So if my father sends me to the store for a pack of Luckys, I gotta go, right? 'Cause I gotta honor my father. So, I go to the Temple Market and Heddy won't let me in. When I come home with nothin' I gotta tell my father the truth—I got thrown out 'cause I was stickin' up for Hank. Well, you know what happens next? My old man calls up some dagos and
kaboom.
I didn't do anything wrong. I honored my father
and
I told the truth. So I'm in the clear, right?”

“If you put it that way, I guess you're in the clear,” said Tina. Then she started to look miserable. “But I don't want the Temple Market to burn down. Then my mother won't have anywhere to buy food and my whole family will starve to death.”

I could see Tina had a point. Her mother didn't own a car, so she was stuck doing all her shopping at Heddy's puny joint. Tina's mother had tagged along with us to the A&P a few times, but that hadn't worked out so well. Jimmy had swerved around every corner extra fast just to scare her and she squeezed my arm so hard I got a bruise. And now that Jimmy had bad-mouthed the corpse of President Kennedy, I knew nothing would get her back in our car. Not even starvation.

“Then I guess if my old man sends me for Luckys,
you'll
have to go in and buy 'em,” I conceded.

“Maybe after a while Heddy'll forget she kicked you out. Just don't ever bring up Hank in there again.”

“I'm not the one who bought him up. You did.”

“I did not.”

“You did too.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

We kept at it like that all the way home. But I was right and I knew it and I was glad to see even a good Catholic like Tina lied once in a while.

That night Jimmy got some good news. Hank had hired a big-shot lawyer to replace the one who was the cousin of the guy he killed.

“He's got Stanley Brown in his corner. He's going for a knockout,” Jimmy crowed to Shirley, pretending to sock her in the jaw. Stanley Brown was the law partner of some mucky-muck Jimmy did landscaping for. The mucky-muck was OK in Jimmy's book 'cause he liked to shoot the baloney and once told Jimmy he was such a good talker he oughta have been a lawyer himself.

“Hank's gonna beat the rap,” Jimmy insisted. “You wait and see.”

The next day, Monday, was the beginning of the last week of school before Christmas vacation. The temperature was below zero. It was only a short walk from the projects to school, but I thought I was gonna have to get my nose amputated by the time I got there.

Billy from the Projects was waiting for me when I arrived.

“My mom told me your old man's friend sliced up a bunch of people with a sword.” He pretended he was Zorro, making the sign of the
Z.

“Maniacs don't use swords, dummkopf. They use butcher knives. Big, bloody butcher knives.”

“I never knew anyone who knew a maniac before,” he said. “You're lucky. You got a racehorse and a new TV and you know people who kill people.”

“Wanna touch me?” I bragged. “Maybe some of it will rub off on you.”

Billy from the Projects reached out and grabbed my freezing hand. I felt a jolt of static electricity and yanked my hand away.