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“By eight months, Philip,” Ma reminded me.
“She’s been a real stinker ever since I informed her that her new boyfriend had the smarts of a hood ornament.” Which was a true statement. How Marco Giovannetti ran five furniture stores was a mystery that the French detective with the skinny mustache wouldn’t be able to solve.
“Philip, be nice to family. Nothing is more important than family. Where would we be if your aunts and uncles hadn’t taken us in when your father died?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Living on the streets,” I filled in by rote. “Fine, I’ll be nicer to Clarice, but I make no promises about her boyfriend. Also, since we’re chatting about things all nice and cozy, what the hell happened to my place back in the Glen?”
“A tub fell through the ceiling and into your living room. Did you have renter’s insurance through your cousin Larry?”
“Sure I do it’s just…pardon me just a second, Ma.” I laid down the phone, rose, and walked out into the garage and then outside where I stood on the curb and cussed at the sky for a good thirty full seconds.
“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” a fat guy driving a newspaper delivery van shouted at me.
“Every day. You kiss your mother with that face?” I yelled back. He gave me the finger. I double birded him, two middle fingers in the air followed by both hands chopping into my pelvis in the world-wide and well-known motion for him to suck it. The light changed, and the van sped off. Ah man, I fucking loved Queens. It brought out the very best in an expressive person such as myself. Barely a day went by that someone didn’t have something snide to toss out, which needed a comeback. Once I had the bad words purged, I went back into the body shop, slipped into the office, and closed the door on Clarice berating her brother.
“Okay, Ma, I’m back.” I sat down slowly, my gaze flicking to a wall calendar from a local parts store that went out of business in the late 80s. It was covered with a fine coating of dust but Bobby’s father had a thing for the young miss in the skimpy bikini holding up a can of body filler. “Someone needed to sort out a guy in a van. So, did the landlord say anything about my stuff?”
“You’re such a good boy.” I nodded because, yeah, I agreed. “All he said was that you should get to Watkins Glen so you could talk. Oh, and to contact your insurance carrier if you have one. You do have one, right?”
“Yes, Ma, please, I have renters through Cousin Larry, I just…” I had to take a moment. The thought of all my belongings being soaked through made me so freaking sad. “I’ll call him.”
“No need, your aunt Maggie is here now, and she got him on the phone as soon as the call came in.”
“Ah okay, well thank Aunt Maggie for me. I’ll be home shortly, so I guess I’ll head to Watkins Glen to see what’s what.”
“I made some food for you for the trip,” Ma said, and that made me smile.
Like she had to worry about her boy wasting away on the five-hour drive from one place to the other. Hell, I’d been home for three weeks and packed on five pounds already. Which was going to have to be worked off before training camp opened. Gone were the days of hockey players rolling into camp in terrible shape and hungover. Nowadays, most players spent the majority of their off-season honing their bodies to perfection or as close as one could get. A couple of years ago, I’d crested thirty years old so the honing was harder, but I was up for the challenge. I’d get my rump moving. I’d better or my mother and aunts would have me fed up like a fair hog and that would not secure my spot on the roster. Sure the fans loved me. Well, the home fans. And the team and staff all liked me. But performance was what kept you on the roster.
“Just pack up a little bit of your gnocchi and a slice of Aunt Mona’s torta caprice con le noci for the drive.”
She assured me she had me covered.
An hour later, I was toting several containers out of my mother’s rowhome. A home that I’d bought for her ten years ago with my first signing bonus with the Gladiators. I did not buy it outright—I wasn’t The Great One or anything—but I did have enough for the down payment, which got her out of that tiny place above my aunt’s bakery and into a home of her own. One that she shared with her mother, my grandma Rosie. Sure, it made things a little tight at times what with me paying rent in Watkins Glen and the mortgage on the place in Queens, but for my mother, I’d sell both my kidneys and a spleen to make her safe and happy.
Aunt Mona, a short, round woman with olive skin, ebony hair cut into a bob, and a temper as hot as her bakery ovens, handed me a box.
“Just something to nibble on the way,” she said, patted my cheek, and toddled off to her bakery across the street from where all five sisters lived. All in a row, next door to each other, with matching yard statues of the Virgin Mary in their postage stamp front lawns. I peeked inside the pink box to see a half dozen fresh cannoli.
I looked at my mother, who could have been Mona’s twin, just an inch shorter. All five sisters had the same build, looks, and lively personality, which is probably where I got all my charm. “What? You need to keep up your energy. By the way, Mona said Bentley came in today with his sister. I think you should call him up, Phil. He’s got a cute car and his mother is part of the prayer group at the church. Father Thompson thinks he has lots of potential, and he was a wonderful mule in the living nativity last year.”
“Ma…”
“Just saying. Now kiss me and get going. Watch the traffic leaving the city. It’s getting late. Grandma is going to be heartbroken that she didn’t get to say goodbye.”
“Where is she?” I asked after placing the treats in the front seat for easy access.
“She went on that bus trip to New Jersey.”
“Oh right, her and her love of one-armed bandits. I’ll get in touch with her once I get things settled.”
“Oh, and call when you get home.”
I kissed her cheeks, hugged her tight, and stared into bright, dark eyes brimming with love.
“I’ll call, I promise.” She patted my face before giving me a little nudge to my car. I’d left the big gas guzzling truck back in the Glen. This little Honda was a nice riding car, second-hand sure but clean and well-maintained, and it only had one bumper sticker on it. A fun one with a rainbow background that read IF ONLY CLOSED MINDS CAME WITH CLOSED MOUTHS.
Ma had bought it for me. She was the fiercest mother bear for her pan son that a queer kid could hope for. All of my aunts were allies as were most of my cousins. A few of my older uncles had issues, but Ma rode them down hard if they said word one about me being unnatural. Not that I needed her help verbally defending myself, but back when I’d been a dorky teen with pimples who liked to check out guys as well as girls she had protected me like a grizzly bear.
