Bloodbrothers Read Online

Marie ran back to the car. Albert walked over to his father and lay down next to him. He crossed his legs and put his hands behind his head like Tommy.

***

Going home everybody was silent. Tommy was angry that nobody was crazy about his present. Stony thought about Mott the Bear. Albert wondered if dead people had to eat.

"Tommy?" Marie looked at him.

"Yeah?" he sulked.

"Long as we're here, could we see Mama?" Marie's voice was thin and sad, cutting off any wisecrack Tommy wanted to make.

"O.K.," he said, after he'd driven half a mile. He turned off the highway at Paterson and drove through a residential area until he hit the entrance of Saint Ambrose Cemetery.

"Stop a minute." Marie got out of the car, walked into the monument and flower shop and came out with a small cross of lilacs and tiger lilies. Tommy drove into the cemetery past clusters of gravestones that jutted out of the earth like rotten teeth.

"I'm gonna stay in the car," Tommy mumbled. Marie didn't answer but got out and walked to her mother's grave. She was weaving slightly like a stunned cow. Tommy watched her for a while, then turned around to his sons. "Go with your mother." He nodded in her direction. Albert was sleeping with his head on Stony's lap. Stony pretended to be asleep. Tommy sighed and lit a cigarette.

Marie walked to the gray headstone and carefully placed the floral cross on the earth at the base. Her head was spinning as it did every time she came here. She knew her mother was watching her in heaven. She touched the carved lamb on the top of the stone and read the epitaph for the millionth time in the last six months:

Farewell my husband and daughter dear.
I am not dead but sleeping here.
As I am now you soon shall be.
Prepare for death, and follow me.

Marie sank to her knees in the soft earth—grass staining her hot pink slacks. Her face contorted into a trembling pout. She raised her fingers to her lips as if in prayer. "Oh, Mama." She closed her eyes.

Fifty yards down the path Tommy De Coco sat restlessly, wishing his wife would hurry the fuck up.

***

Sunday afternoon sunlight splashed the walls and furniture as Chubby De Coco lay on his back like a beached whale in his blue-striped boxer shorts on the sheetless king-size bed. He was wearing enormous headphones, listening to the best of Henry Mancini. His eyes were closed and he was smiling. A frosty mug of beer sat on the night table within easy reach. Phyllis was at her mother's and would be gone until dinner. He was happy.

He took off the headphones after a while and pivoting himself on his ass swung his legs over the side of the bed. He reached for the mug, finished the beer, yawned and made his way to the bathroom. The bagginess of the boxer shorts made his legs look even thinner than they really were but the elastic waistband was taut.

He stood over the toilet and pissed, holding his dick with both hands. He hated the way Phyllis decorated the john with gold Florentine wallpaper, gold ceiling paper, a gold furry toilet cover, a fake brown wood sink, a shower curtain with brown, gold and crystal beads like a Chink whorehouse. The whole house looked like a whorehouse as far as he was concerned.