The Book of Duels (16 page)

Code of Conduct: Frato v. Greene

In White City Park Beach, Cleveland, Ohio
,

November 26, 1971

“Big” Mike Frato, 37,

Garbage Man, Husband, & Father

 

M
e and Danny go way back, used to be best pals, named my son after him and he called his Mike after me, but I didn’t work my fat ass off day and night to build a company so his goons could strong-arm me, take my hard-earned money, and not kick a thing back—I got fourteen kids to feed and now he wants to be one mouth more, but it ain’t Danny’s mouth got me riding shotgun with a pistol in Palladino’s Riviera, creeping up behind him as he jogs in this park, my hand hanging out the window, wind burning my knuckles a deep purple—the cracked vinyl dashboard crimson against the white exterior of the car and the world and the sky—I told Danny
No
, and
Hell no
, so last month he sent Art, his right-hand man, to blow up my house with a bomb, but Art got the chickenshits and ratted me their plan, and he must have spilled to Danny too, because three nights later Art exploded all over my Susan’s car, our children rattled from their nearby sleep—blew one of Art’s shoes into our neighbor’s Douglas fir and it hung there like some sort of Christmas ornament.

I’ve always loved the trash business, moving what’s unwanted to somewhere far off—in my first year driving a garbage truck I found a dead guy’s maggot-filled corpse in the hopper—I told the cops and they pinned it on some made guy from Youngstown and my dad said,
Don’t go getting your nose all wet
, and,
A dead man ain’t got no name
, but what does he know about being a man, that deadbeat who ditched us ten kids and now comes groveling for cash once or twice a year—my mom, she worked three jobs to keep us under one roof and always told me,
A real man don’t need no gang because he can always do for himself
.

“Unkillable” Danny Greene, 38,

USMC, Gang Leader, & Single Father

 

F
ive hundred push-ups, five hundred sit-ups, two hundred pull-ups, and enough squats to burn my thighs and now I’ll run ten miles more—I need to punish myself so I can punish others—and later the Bushmills will taste even better as it burns the back of my throat—the whisky’s my final vice—I’ve gone vegan except for the fish-oil pills, and instead of cigs, there’s tofu and spinach, beans and carrots, and there’s no more speed just exercise and vitamins and the thrills of fists and bones—keep the pasta away, stay slim and strong and flexible, because you have to be nimble, Danny boy, in this line of work—stay strong as my ancestors, those Celtic warriors, ’cause soon as I rest some Guinea’s gonna put his bullet through my ear or a bomb in my car—my Saint Jude medal flapping against my Adam’s apple can protect me only so far—breathe, man, fill your lungs with the searing air and feel the blood in your veins—the thin snow crunches under my sneakers, the wind burns my face red, I am freezing and winter’s only just begun—my lips are chapped and I remember, as a longshoreman, the pain of shoveling tens of thousands of pounds of grain in bitter cold like this, until I saw the sit-down job was the way for me—in a window up on the hill I see an Irish angel, stark red hair and emerald negligee, and she is staring straight at me and she will be my guardian as sure as my name is the Unkillable Danny Greene.

I hear a car humming behind me—I know there’s someone in it who wants to see me dead but good luck with that, lads, because I may have been born with no name, “Baby Greene”
it says on my birth receipt, but damn it all if I haven’t earned my name by now—I spring through a row of boxwood bushes on the side of the road, hit the ice-hard ground, and duck and roll as they trained me in the Corps, pull the piece from my waistband, and come up firing—yes I believe in charm and luck and a host of superstitions, but sometimes you have to make things happen your own damn self—I pushed the button on Art’s bomb but I was around the corner when it went off, so maybe it was bad timing or faulty wiring or his own fuckup—staring at these two dead men now, my heart racing but my hand steady as a shillelagh, I know I’ve just killed another close friend but who wouldn’t call either self-defense?

Cathy Summerall, 36,

Unemployed, Single, & Mother of One

 

H
e’s coming up the hill toward me, same as every morning, nine o’clock sharp, with that body and them muscles and his butt tight in green track pants, you bet I’m gonna watch him run—the snow falls all around but never seems to touch him—his breath comes in clouds and those ruddy cheeks and strawberry-blond hair remind me so much of Joey and his beautiful mechanic hands, always black-nailed and smelling of diesel, resting on my shoulders, a comfort at my mother’s grave, the press of those hands on my hands as we buried my father, and later, he would squeeze my entire bicep in one hand and when he’d let go, the blood would rush to my skin and I would immediately miss his touch—Joey’s lips on my lips deep kissing in White City Park Beach, the feeling of him spooned up against me, his hand cupping my growing belly—little Tyson swelling in my body, pressing against my bladder, and the pressure of giving birth, a pain beyond pain that I recall as if through a veil of gauze, and now the pressure of rent due on the first and Joey, that sad sack, doing a hard ten for stealing Snap-on tools from the Triple M—Tyson needs formula and Tyson needs diapers and maybe the rumors about this running man are true, that he gave turkeys to every beat cop in town and two to each orphanage—maybe this Danny Greene can float me a loan for a few bucks, and for his faith and interest I could pay back his interest and faith with a good old-fashion lay.

I’m leaning against my front window, the cool glass against my cheek, when a long car pulls up behind him with a
man hanging out the window—Danny does a somersault into the winter gem, and when he comes up, I hear two pops, like swatting flies with a rolled-up newspaper, smoke rises from his pistol like the breath from his lips, and I see holes and spidered lines across the front windshield and blood spattered all over the side of the door and down into the white snow and the car careens into my apartment sign and stops, the horn blaring in the silence, and I am frozen as the ice on Erie, watching Danny lean into the driver’s window, shaking his head grim-like, and he looks up and sees me and I catch myself smiling in the reflection of the glass, the cigarette smoke twirling languid between my two fingers that caress my collarbone and I know the gossip is true—the beatings, the bone breakings, the bombs—I know now he’s going to need me too and now I want him even more.

It’s a Family Affair: Sellers v. Sellers

In Dr. Matthew’s Office for Couple’s Counseling, Dubuque, Iowa,

September 20, 2006

Louise Sellers, 8,

Third-Grade Daughter of Warring Parents

 

T
his place smells like Lysol and there are no toys or books and on the one TV they’re showing
This Old House
and the sorrow sob starts to bobble my chin and I’ve cried all week and no one has cared—not Mommy, not Daddy—because show and tell was Monday and last Sunday night I was sitting in the tub singing “Ducky Duddle” when all of a sudden,
Oh gripes, it’s tomorrow
, so I hopped from the tub all lickety-split, pruned and wet and sudsy, but Mommy’s door was shut, like always, and Daddy was looking over numbers, not listening to me—I tried to tell him how important the assignment was and all he came up with was our science experiment, which I thought was a dumb idea but what else could I do? He took down from the window sill the glass jar where we kept the carrot chunk and the roots were all white and going everywhere like if an octopus’s legs were made of lightning and it did look pretty cool—
You can show them how their food grows; that’s interesting, isn’t it, dear?
—I was happy to show it off at school but when the bell rang and I got to class and I pulled the thing out, Marcy Dungee said,
Eww, what’s that?
and Monica Dowell laughed and Melissa Dunhill said,
That looks like your hair
, and Misty Duncan snorted and shook her long red curls and pulled a Cloe Bratz doll from her Hannah Montana backpack and Melissa her Game Boy and Monica her new ruby bracelet that sparkled all bedazzled and Marcy her whatever and then Tommy Ewland said,
What, are you, like, poor or something?
and Marcy said,
Ewwwwww
, again, but this time with that nose whine she does so good, and my chin started bobbing and I buried my head in my arms down on my cold desktop so no one
would see my lips shake—it wasn’t like last year when Tommy’s little brother was run over by the school bus and I made sure everyone saw me crying the most so they’d know I was Tommy’s best friend, and the tears ran down my face and I made a big show of wiping the snot on my velour sleeves and leaving the tears on my face so everyone could see how truly sad I was but this past Monday I felt as if some weird bird had pecked out my guts and I blame it all on my stupid dad and my stupid mom too.

I hear her start to yell and cry and I hop down under the big wooden table and grab my knees and curl them to my chest and rock back and forth like I do at home whenever I am scared—like during big storms or when in the middle of the night you wake up and it’s just too quiet and the only sound you can hear is your own heartbeat and you think,
When will this ever end?