KooKooLand (24 page)

But nothing came to me. Everything was quiet.

That's when I realized something was wrong. There was no sound coming from Squirmy Two's cage. No creaking of her hamster wheel. No angry chattering. No scratching of her nasty little claws.

I looked down and saw Squirmy Two lying in her cage. Her tongue was hanging out and any dummkopf could tell she was dead. Immediately I wondered if it was my fault. Had I killed Squirmy Two? Had I neglected to feed her 'cause I was afraid to go near her cage? Had she died of loneliness 'cause I never played with her? Had she died 'cause I wished Jimmy dead?

She was mean and I didn't like her, but even so, I started to cry.

H
unting season was upon us. But even that didn't seem to cheer Jimmy up. Hank had invited Jimmy up to his hunting camp near Canada to get away from it all and I was hoping he'd go. It was like a vacation for me when he did. I could watch all my favorite TV shows, the ones Jimmy had banned. Shows like
The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet,
in which the father wore a necktie, or, as Jimmy called it, a noose. But Jimmy had a million reasons that year why he didn't feel like going to Hank's camp. It was too goddamn far. The other hunters who were going were a bunch of ding-dongs. And Jimmy always got stuck cooking for the ding-dongs and butchering their deer since he was the best goddamn cook and the best goddamn butcher in the bunch.

So Jimmy stayed put.

Then he regretted that he'd stayed put and felt even worse.

He became convinced he was dying. At first, he thought he had spinal meningitis and had me and Virginia tap on his spine to see if it hurt. When that didn't pan out, he thought he probably had the Big C. So he dragged me with him to see Dr. C, who had finally gotten his license back. Dr. C told him he was sick all right, sick in the head, and gave him some tranquilizers—black-and-green capsules called Librium—that Jimmy washed down with his highballs. But they didn't seem to make a lick of difference.

He tried watching some of his favorite TV shows,
The Three Stooges
and Sylvester and Tweety cartoons, hoping to cheer himself up. He made me watch with him 'cause he said only wackos laugh alone. Normally, every time Sylvester said “sufferin' succotash,” we would both crack up. But not this time. Instead, Jimmy just sat there pointing his .22 at Tweety and pretending to blow him away.

When cartoons didn't work, Jimmy decided eating some of his favorite foods might make him feel better.

“Maybe if I had some brains . . . ,” he said to Shirley.

So Shirley fried up a whole mess o' crispy brains. YaYa had taught Shirley how to make all of Jimmy's favorite foods. Glands. Intestines. Spleens. Stuff
normal Americans chucked out and, as far as I could tell, only Greeks and movie cannibals like Fuad Ramses ate. Jimmy kidded YaYa that Shirley's brains made hers look sick, but YaYa didn't think that was funny. She said Jimmy's fresh mouth made
her
sick and that his two brothers beat him by a mile.

But it didn't really matter whose brains Jimmy ate. He said the tranquilizers had screwed up his goddamn taste buds and everything just tasted like spit.

All this time Jimmy was miserable I was dying to sneak back to church. I wanted to say a few Hail Marys to make Jimmy feel better in order to make up for wishing him dead. But I didn't think I could risk it. In his miserable state, if he caught me going to church, there was no telling what he might do. So instead I coughed up fifty cents for a collection Tina said the church was taking to give Thanksgiving turkeys to poor people. It hurt to give away so much dough, but Tina said God would like me better, so I did it.

With less money to spend on candy, I was really looking forward to Halloween. Jimmy said I didn't need a costume that year, I could go as Dracula, and waved his fang fingers in front of his mouth.

“He doesn't mean to be mean,” insisted Shirley. And she went out and bought me the prettiest princess costume she could find to make up for it.

I couldn't wait to show off that costume at the school Halloween party, but when the day came, Jimmy kept me home to go duck hunting with him. He said I wasn't gonna be learning anything that day and we'd be back in plenty of time for me to go trick-or-treating. He said trick-or-treating should be enough Halloween festivities for any person for one day.

Shirley hugged me extra tight before I left. I knew she was worried about me going with him. But she said she couldn't make a fuss about it 'cause he was sick in the head right now and might go off the deep end if anybody got on his case.

“We have to act like nothing's wrong and do what he says and make sure he knows he's the man of the house. That's what Dr. C says. OK, honey?” asked Shirley.

“But what if he wants me to race him across the highway or swim in the freezing ocean or eat a dead duck's eyeball?”

“He's not
that
crazy,” she assured me, but I could tell from her fake smile she wasn't that sure.

“Don't worry,” I said, reassuring her instead. “I'll be OK.”

I raced Jimmy to the car and lost by a mile and we headed off to kill some ducks.

We got to the coast in record time and hunkered down in the canoe at
Norris Point. That's what the wardens had dubbed that particular jut of land. They called it that 'cause Jimmy owned the goddamn place. He shot as many ducks as he pleased, screw their kill quotas, and they could never catch him.

I'm like the Road Runner, Jimmy said. I always get away.

Meep meep, dummkopfs.

The wind was howling in my ears. My eyes and nose were dripping frozen tears and snot. I wiped them both on my sleeve when Jimmy wasn't looking. While we were waiting for some ducks to swoop in, Jimmy had a few highballs and asked me if I thought my mother was cheating on him like no-good Doris had cheated on poor Hank.

“If you ever see a guy in the house, you have to report it to me. You're like my deputy. Get it? I'm deputizing you,” he said.

I nodded, not wanting the job.

Then I thought, I hope she is cheating. I hope she leaves you for a North End doctor who isn't sick in the head and who takes me to church. Better yet, I hope she moves to KooKooLand with Doris, Susan, and me and marries Ozzie Nelson after he divorces Harriet.

“You can't trust any woman,” Jimmy continued. “They're all as flighty as these ducks.”

He began luring the ducks to him with his duck call.

Quack quack quack.

“All women are capable of cheating.”

Quack quack quack.

“It's in their genes.”

Quack quack quack.

“Even YaYa cheated on Papou when I was a kid.”

Quack quack quack.

“Poor Papou never knew. All these years I've kept it on a stone wall.”

I wasn't sure if what he was saying was true or if he was just wacko. YaYa seemed as scared of Papou as I was. I couldn't picture her cheating on him.

Fortunately the ducks began to fly in, drawn by Jimmy's quacking.

“Come to Daddy, Daffy Ducks,” he whispered as he picked up his rifle.

Before the day was over, he had shot a mess of ducks. I tracked them down wearing Jimmy's waders, which were ten sizes too big for me. All except for one. I searched and searched for the last one but couldn't find it. Jimmy said the poor duck was out there suffering because I was a dummkopf, and sent me out to look some more.

But that goddamn duck had disappeared and I cursed it and wished I could do the same.

Finally, Jimmy called me back and grabbed the waders from me. He sloshed around for a long time, but he couldn't find the duck either. He came back, disgusted.

“It's all your fault that poor thing is in agony,” he spat. “I shoulda shot you instead.”

W
hen we got home, Jimmy and I plucked the ducks over a garbage can on the front stoop. Then Jimmy gutted the ducks in the kitchen sink and I burned off their pinfeathers on the stove. The smell of burning duck flesh filled the apartment. It was getting late and I was getting worried I'd miss Halloween altogether. Trick-or-treaters were already banging on our door. Virginia passed out some penny candy that Shirley had bought from Uncle Barney, and Jimmy gave the kids a real scare by waving some real guts at them.

Finally, all the ducks were dressed and Jimmy let me go get dressed. I leapt up the stairs two at a time, afraid all the good candy would be gone by the time I got out there. I yanked on my princess costume, ripping one of the sleeves in the process and calling myself a dummkopf. Normally I would've woken up Shirley and gotten her to safety-pin the sleeve, but there was no time to waste.

I ran into the bathroom and tried to wash the dried blood off my hands. But the blood was caked under my bitten nails and didn't want to come off.

Then it occurred to me. With my ripped sleeve and bloody hands I could be a different kind of princess. A killer princess. That was my costume. That's who I told myself I was.

Virginia handed me an old pillowcase and took one herself even though she said she was too old to trick-or-treat.

And off we went into the night. We ventured out of the projects into the neighborhoods with real houses. Houses with cozy front porches lit by smiling jack-o'-lanterns. Houses where the good loot was.

Fortunately, there was still lots of candy out there. And cinnamony cider and homemade doughnuts and creamy hot chocolate, all handed out by ladies in frilly aprons and men in woolly sweaters who looked like they belonged on
Leave It to Beaver
. I trick-or-treated like a maniac, racing from door to door to door screaming
Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat
as fast as I could, so I could get on to the next house, and the next. My ratty old pillowcase got so full, it started to rip.

“Oh no,” I moaned. “Some old bat musta slipped a couple of goddamn
apples in there.” I rooted around for the offending healthy snacks, found them, and tossed them into the bushes.

But the damage had been done. My pillowcase had sprung a leak.

“Why don't you put your candy in with mine?” suggested Virginia.

“No way, stealer,” I shot back.

“Well then, we better get home before you lose it all,” said Virginia. “Besides, Hitler's gonna kill us if we stay out much later.”

So we turned and headed back to the projects. I had to cradle the pillowcase in my arms all the way home. Like Hansel and Gretel, I left a trail behind me.

But there was still plenty in the pillowcase when I got home. I emptied my loot onto my bed and organized it into candy groups. I stuffed my face with Sugar Daddies, Sugar Babies, Baby Ruths, 3 Musketeers, candy corn, candy cigarettes, Turkish Taffy, Charleston Chews, Good & Plenty, Good & Fruity, and Chuckles. I ate so much candy my stomach felt like one big Sugar Baby. Suddenly I realized all those Chuckles, Good & Fruity, Good & Plenty, Charleston Chews, Turkish Taffys, candy cigarettes, candy corn, 3 Musketeers, Baby Ruths, Sugar Babies, and Sugar Daddies were on their way back out.

Dizzy with nausea, I scrambled down from the top bunk. The swaying bed made me feel even worse. I crept down the stairs and stumbled out the back door into the night.

Dropping to my knees on the dewy grass littered with candy wrappers, I puked out my whole frickin' Halloween haul.

And nothing tasted sweet coming back out.

T
he next day I peeled the ghosts and goblins off of Miss Morrissey's classroom windows. My second-favorite holiday was over, but at least we were in the home stretch heading toward my favorite holiday, Christmas.

First, though, we had to get through Jimmy's least favorite holiday. Veterans Day was his least favorite 'cause he said merchant mariners had been given a raw deal. The government didn't consider them veterans even though more of them died in World War II than any other group of servicemen. Jimmy said the day made him feel like plugging every government pencil pusher in Washington and strangling them with an American flag. But usually he just went hunting instead.

After peeling the battleships and soldiers off of Miss Morrissey's windows, I stuck up the Pilgrims and Injuns. As far as I was concerned, Thanksgiving really only had pie going for it. Otherwise there was just turkey that, according to Jimmy, was dry as an old turd. No self-respecting Greek would eat it, he said, but since YaYa and Papou were trying to be like Yankees, we had to go over to their house and pretend.

Every year, while Jimmy and Papou handicapped the horses, Shirley and YaYa cooked till they were red in the face. Then YaYa would set the table and wouldn't let anyone help. Normally her fancy gold dishes resided in a locked cabinet and you spent the rest of the year admiring them behind a glass door. But on Thanksgiving and Greek Easter the dishes came out and YaYa was a nervous wreck. Jimmy would snatch a plate off the table and toss it in the air like a Frisbee just to drive her nuts.

That year I was really dreading Thanksgiving. Ever since Halloween I'd had an awful ache in my guts and never felt like eating. For days I plotted how I could make an entire Thanksgiving dinner disappear from my plate without Jimmy or Papou seeing that I wasn't eating and force-feeding me.

I was worried sick and feeling sicker by the day when a maniac killed the president.

Miss Morrissey broke down crying when she told us. And then most of the
kids in the class broke down crying. And I knew somewhere Susan was crying and Tina and her mother and the pope and all the Catholics in New England. I wanted to be like them, to be crying right along with Susan. But I just sat there, confused. I didn't know the president. I didn't think about him constantly the way Tina did. He didn't even seem as real to me as Howdy Doody. I had bawled my head off when Howdy went off the air a few years before. I had even bawled my head off for mean old Squirmy Two. But somehow I couldn't squeeze out even one lousy tear for the president.