Masters of Illusions (22 page)

“It was a slip.”

“Which?”

“The first thing.”

“And the second?”

“No one’s ever kept anything from you, Margie.”

“You’re lying on both counts.”

“Martha’s been in town.”

“Yeah, but we talked baseball.”

“That must have been rich.”

“She said she likes Mike Greenwell better without the mustache.” Margie put down her beer so she could keep to what she was
there for. “Uncle Chick, I thought you and Charlie had some sort of genes thing. An ethnic Italian thing. Or some mental problem
with psychopathic compulsion mixed in. But you don’t. He does, you don’t. There’s more going on that nobody’s ever let me
see, a lot more.”

Chick put his arm around her shoulders. “Margie,” he said, “Charlie’s father was a piece of shit.”

“Jesus, that’s the one thing I do know. I was fortunate enough to have met him, remember?”

“Yeah. I remember.”

“So what’s that got to do with what I’m saying?”

“Charlie took it the hardest.”

“Took what the hardest? His father’s being a shit?”

“His father’s abuse.”

“Emotional abuse.”

“Yes.” But then Chick sighed, and that made Margie cringe, but she kept on.

Margie said, “He took it harder than his brothers took it?”

“No. His father gave it to him the hardest. Charlie took the brunt.”

Margie knew that “took the brunt” wasn’t metaphor. The time had come for her to go past that. Past the term
emotional abuse,
which had become her catch-all term for all the denial going on in her husband’s family. She’d never wanted to go forward.
She’d been too afraid of what she’d find. The fact that she never wanted to hear had given Charlie’s family great relief.
And she had used that relief as an excuse. But what she had given Charlie was the crutch of all crutches. No more. Margie
wasn’t going to go through the rest of her life without finding out what base on balls meant.

Chick drained his beer. While he chugged, Margie said, “Palma told me you protected Charlie from his father. So tell me; just
what exactly did Denny try to do to Charlie that you had to protect him from?” She used the same tone as if she was asking
him what he’d had for dinner.

“Palma told you the truth. The old man never laid a hand on those kids because of me and my brothers.”

“What did he do to them instead?”

His chin dropped to his chest. Looking down into his empty glass, he said, “Imagine owing your life to someone who hated you.
Imagine that it’s your father. Imagine that your father wanted nothing more than to hurt and hurt and hurt your mother. And
the best way he could hurt her was to terrorize you. What the old man did to Charlie, over and over again, was hand him a
lollipop. And when Charlie went to put the lollipop in his mouth, his old man yanked it away. To make Palma suffer agonies.”

“Uncle Chick,” Margie said, “that’s real pretty. But would you forget the lollipops. Could you make it as unpretty as possible
so I can stay with this?”

“I saw him trip Charlie once.”

Chick rubbed his eyes with his thumb and fingers. Margie’s stomach was beginning to get an empty pit feeling, even though
it was half full of Coors. She would have to bear it. So she waited. Chick said, “The kid was about two. Running around with
all the other kids at the park. On the basketball court. The big ones were teaching the little ones. The old man put his foot
out. We all ran to pick up Charlie. He was bleeding. His nose, his knees. You know how kids bleed when they fall on their
faces.”

Margie was going to say yeah, but nothing would come out.

“Through the blood, Charlie stared at his old man. The old man was standing a few feet away, smiling at him.”

He stopped telling Margie.

Rage filled up the rest of her stomach. But her rage was not directed at Charlie’s father—not toward the man whose name Chick
could not even bring himself to say out loud. And she had no rage for Chick either because Margie guessed that that was probably
the last time Denny O’Neill physically hurt his son. The rage was toward someone she never expected to feel even a bit of
anger toward. Margie said, “And where the hell was Palma? Where was she when her husband was tripping his baby?
Her
baby. Where was she while she suffered her agonies? At home eating? Telling herself that her brothers would never let her
husband lay a finger on him? Or was she there?”

The chin went up. “Palma loved her kids.”

“Yeah, well, don’t we all? But where was she when all the kids were playing and Denny O’Neill tripped their two-year-old onto
a basketball court? Made of poured concrete like most basketball courts, I suppose. Where was she when he made her baby bleed?”

“He was like that to everyone, not just Charlie.”

“Sorry, but Charlie took the brunt of it, remember? Where was Palma when Denny tripped Charlie?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Jesus Christ. She was there, goddamn it. She was right there!”

Now Chick shouted. “If she wasn’t there, he wouldn’t have done it.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Margie! What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“
Charlie
is what’s the matter with me.
Charlie.
He’ll never be okay, Chick. Never. Let’s get him out. He’s going to snap, you know. I can see it. So we have to start somewhere.
With Palma.”

“And what the fuck good would that do?” He caught himself. “Margie, I’m so sorry.”

“Chick, tell me more. Tell me everything.”

“I shoved him down a flight of stairs.”

“What?”

“Right afterward. I shoved the old man down the cellar stairs. Down to the concrete. So he’d know I saw. Broke his wrist.
I was hoping he’d break his leg so he wouldn’t trip anyone for a while.”

“Why didn’t you hope he’d break his neck?”

“Murder two.”

This would not become a joke. Margie raised her voice. “And why didn’t you admit to yourself that it didn’t work? That it
didn’t stop him? That he kept right on tripping that child?”

“He didn’t.”

“Psychologically.”

“He knew that I respected my sister. He wouldn’t cross the line.”

Cross the line. Code time. Familial codes that were becoming more and more repugnant to Margie. But she was not at the bar
with Chick to fight him. She said, “Charlie’s father took his circus ticket from him.”

“Yes.”

“You know, when I first met Charlie, he told me he had a ticket to the circus. I thought it was a joke. Why did he want me
to think that?”

“Because he didn’t want you to know his pain. I mean, what with yours. Margie, I dropped them off at the bus stop that day.
Couldn’t take them myself because I was going on duty. Charlie was about to bust, he was so excited so see the circus. But
the old man came along, took the ticket, and sent Charlie home. I’ve decided that God works in mysterious ways.”

“God saved him from the fire so that his father could kill him slowly?”

“His father maybe saved his life, Margie.”

“No. If his life was saved, it was saved through extenuating circumstances—the bad luck of being an abused child.”

“All comes out in the wash though, doesn’t it?”

“You just keep right on telling yourself that, Uncle Chick. You and your whole goddamn family.”

Then Chick took Margie in his arms and held her because she started crying. She’d cried more in the last few days than she
had in all her life. Except when she was six months old.

Margie went home. Maybe she’d find hope there, amongst all her books, surrounded by pages with comforting stories that weren’t
real.

Charlie got off at eleven and when he came home, he made an omelette for them. The whole Hartford Fire Department makes great
omelettes. With provolone cheese. While they were eating the omelette, Margie couldn’t help herself. She said, “Charlie, I
want to be your psychiatrist.”

He said, “That’s what you’ve been.”

“I think I’ve been your drug.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You depend on me the way your father depended on alcohol.”

He turned, faced her, handed Margie a knife, and opened his shirt. He said, “You want to slash me a little deeper?”

Charlie was not the kind of idiot who made gestures like that, who’d say stupid things like that. She apologized. For herself
and for him. Then she said, “I want to know what’s inside your head. I need to know, Charlie, why you’ve had to do this circus
stuff For all this time.”

“I don’t have any secrets. The reasons are simple. Sometimes, Margie, reasons can be just plain simple.”

His soothing answers would not work with her anymore. “
We
like to think that, Charlie, but the thing is, what you’re saying is just not true.”

“You used to admire me for what I’m saying. Now you tell me I’ve been lying to you for twenty-five years.”

“I admire you for so much. I still do. But now I know there’s more than what I used to think. But listen. Maybe it really
is simple—a different kind of simple. Like revenge.”

“Okay. Revenge, too.”

“Revenge for what?”

His face became full of the need to speak. He didn’t.

“Charlie, tell me what you’re feeling right now.”

“I don’t know what I’m feeling.”

“Yes, you do. Say it.”

“Panic.”

“You’re feeling panic right now?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me what panic is. I’ve never felt it.”

His face changed. To astonishment. Charlie was astonished that panic wasn’t a common, everyday feeling. He said, “It’s the
feeling you get when you’re a small kid, and an adult is going to hurt you and there’s no escaping.”

Some kind of little moan came out of Margie. She swallowed. She said, “I’m sorry I’m making you feel like that. What did he
do to you?”

“No, Margie.”

“Go ahead, Charlie. Tell me. No adult ever tried to hurt me when I was a kid. I don’t know anything about not being able to
escape. Tell me.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too. Go ahead.”

“He didn’t hurt me.”

“What did he do then?”

“He’d grab hold of my wrist, pull me up to his face, and say: ‘You’re a fucking little shit, and I hope you get hit by a Mack
truck.’”

Tears sprang into Margie’s eyes. She said, “How old were you?”

He looked away. Out of frustration. She wasn’t getting it. They both could see that. So he tried again. “Margie, I was every
age. That was the just the refrain. He said other things, things like that, all the time, every day, just loud enough for
my mother to hear. Then he’d say to her, ‘Come on over here and give me a kiss.’”

“But she wouldn’t.” Margie’s voice was sharp.

“Of course she would. If she didn’t, what would he do to me next?”

Margie took his hand and hung on. She hadn’t wanted to touch him before in order to tough it out. She’d tried to do it alone.
But she needed him. And all she could say was, “I don’t understand.”

“You’d never understand. You weren’t there.”

“That’s right.” Margie pulled away because she would get too weak. “I wasn’t. So you have to tell me more. Tell me about your
mother.”

“My mother was a saint.”

Margie looked up into his eyes. She could not let herself respond, but there was no choice. She forced herself to speak. She
said, “Come into the living room with me.”

He did. He didn’t ask why. He followed her. He thrived on the trust he had in her. His melodramatic comment about her slashing
him reflected a sudden loss of trust. Now he was in that panic he’d described. She was going to hurt him, and he couldn’t
escape. Margie wished she were dead.

In the living room there was a little Victorian mirror in a corner. Margie put Charlie in front of it. She said, “Look at
you, Charlie. You’re not a kid anymore. Your father can’t hurt you anymore. You’re a grown man. A strong man.” She was rambling,
but if she took time to think of what she was saying, she’d stop.

“You can take the truth. You have no choice, anyway. Because I’m not going to let you have a choice anymore. Face up to your
mother. Get pissed at her. That’s what you need to do. She wasn’t a saint, she was in a trap like you were. But she was an
adult, not a child. Get pissed at her. For keeping you in that trap with her. Get pissed at all this shit about Chick protecting
you. He didn’t protect you, did he?
Did he? Did he?”

Charlie smashed his fist into the mirror. Margie had never seen Charlie so much as swat a fly before. She’d never seen him
cry, either. First he punched the mirror with his fist, and then he started sobbing.

Margie ran to the phone. Dr. Spinelli, their family doctor, took care of lots of kids so he was used to being woken up at
midnight. Later, as he picked the glass out of Charlie’s knuckles with his tweezers, he looked up over the magnification glasses
and said, “I’m better at stitching than I am at this part.”

Charlie said, “Will I be able to work?”

“Sure. In a few days. No tendons cut.”

“Good.” A few days to Charlie meant tomorrow.

“Glad you punched a mirror instead of whoever you got this mad at. Fixing broken jaws is even harder than picking glass out
of someone’s hand.”

“Yeah.”

“The other guy’s jaw, of course. You’d have put him away.” Charlie didn’t say anything.

While Dr. Spinelli stitched, he said, “They got doctors for anger, too, these days.”

Charlie didn’t say anything.

“Tough being a fireman. Tough job.”

When he left, Charlie said, “I’ll tell it to you, Margie. Just to you. I need you.”

She reached over and patted his wrist above the bandages. “Okay. But I’m going to tape all the windows. Like in a hurricane.”

He smiled across the table at her, though he tried to hide his gratitude so as not to pressure her. But he did say, “I don’t
want to lose you,” because he couldn’t help but be honest. That was his nature.

“I know,” Margie said.

“I’m sorry we haven’t had a normal life.”

And now it was Margie’s turn to remain silent. He waited. He said, “Can we talk at the beach? Can we rent a cottage at the
beach for a week?”