“Mrs. Colosimo hit me with her sterling silver tea pot, I think.”
Dad grunted at that. Then they started poking and prodding my butt, and Mom kept scolding me. Forceps were used to draw several wooden slivers from my ass, and then I was bandaged up. I explained these were from a coffee table, and I got a tetanus shot along with some penicillin. The cut on the bottom of my left foot was worse. They dug a shard of what appeared to be a tea cup out of that, and I needed four stitches to close it up. I was in almost as much pain when I left as when I got there! I was given a prescription for pain killers, sent off for X-rays, and finally escaped somewhere around midnight.
It was actually a good thing that my parents were there. I was in no shape to drive. Mom drove my car (Dad threw a blanket over the blood stains on the seat) and Dad drove me in his car. I had thrown away the bloody torn jeans and was dressed in hospital scrubs and slippers. We stopped at an all night pharmacy and got some pills, and then I went home. My parents followed me inside.
They watched as I went into the kitchen. I popped open the pain killers and read the directions. One every four hours. Screw that. I took two. Next I opened up my liquor cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Canadian Mist. I grabbed a few glasses. “Anybody want a snort before I go to bed?” I asked.
Mom was dumbfounded by my possession of liquor, my father, not so much. “You shouldn’t be doing that with those pills,” he told me.
“Carling! What are you doing?”
I was pushing my luck, but I just didn’t care anymore. I poured about a shot’s worth into one of the glasses and pushed it across the counter to my father, and then poured a second for myself. I raised an eyebrow to Mom, but she was in a state of high dudgeon and didn’t answer. I shrugged. I turned back to Dad. “Mud in your eye!”
“Same to you.” We both lifted our glasses and downed the whiskey in a single swallow.
“You two are both disgusting!” said Mom.
“Shirley, let it alone,” Dad said in a tired voice.
“Carl, I hope you’ve learned your lesson!”
What lesson would that be, Mom? Not to have a girlfriend who blabs about getting laid to her family? Or not to let her screw you in the living room? Or to run faster when being pursued by a homicidal father? I was too tired to argue. “Good night, Mom. Thanks for bringing me home. I really do appreciate it. Good night, Dad.”
“Well, I never…” she continued, but Dad took her by the elbow and led her out.
I had another shot and went to bed.
I woke up the next afternoon, after sleeping around 14 hours straight. My telephone was ringing, and I grabbed it rather than wait for it to go to record. Unfortunately it was my mother, and not Jeana. Mom wanted to know why I hadn’t answered her earlier calls (“Because I was asleep, Mom.”) and whether I should move home until I was feeling better (“No thank you.”) I’d rather move in with Mr. and Mrs. Colosimo than that!
I rolled out of bed and put my feet to the floor, only to be really woken up by a stabbing sensation in my left foot. I had forgotten my stitches. I gingerly hobbled into the bathroom. I looked about as good as I felt — like a week old sack of shit. Mr. Colosimo must have really tagged me with that roundhouse right, because in addition to my busted nose, I had a pair of black eyes, a contusion on my cheek, and a split lower lip. My ribs hurt like hell, and I was going to be limping for a couple of days. Being a black belt in aikido didn’t seem to count for much against a really pissed off father.
I brushed my teeth carefully, which still managed to cause my split lip to open up a bit, so I swallowed another pain pill. I had been warned against showering for a few days, and simply grabbed my robe and wandered out into the front half of the apartment. The answering machine was lit up, but the only thing on it were five calls from my mother. Nothing from Jeana.
I moped around the apartment for the rest of the weekend, on a subsistence diet of pain killers, beer, and chicken noodle soup. Were you aware that every single civilization in the world has some form of chicken noodle soup, and that every one of them is guaranteed by mothers to cure every disease known to man, up to and including cancer? It’s true. It wasn’t working on bruising, so I wasn’t moving around much.
I did hear from my father Sunday night. Mr. Colosimo called him at the house and demanded to speak to me, and when I wasn’t made available, threatened me, Dad, Mom, our family, our relatives, and Daisy the Dog with every manner of threat possible. Dad responded in kind, which Mom was happy to tell me had been very childish. I didn’t think a Sunday afternoon drive to see Jeana would be very helpful. Jeana didn’t call.
Monday morning I woke up early. I had classes and needed some time to prepare myself for school. I wrapped some Saran Wrap around my foot and managed a quick shower. I was able to replace the bandage on my face with a much smaller one, changed the Band-Aids on my ass, and somehow changed the bandage on my foot with a smaller one I could put a shoe over. I was still limping badly, but I could get around. My face still looked hideous, with the bruising now beginning to enter the really ugly green and yellow stage. Luckily, the split lip was mostly healed up. I got quite a few stares from my classmates.
By mid-week I still hadn’t heard from Jeana. I had tried driving by the house a couple of times, but they must have had her under lock and key. Her mother’s car was there, and the one time I parked and walked towards the house, I heard them arguing inside. I skipped out. Dad called me Wednesday afternoon to tell me a large box had arrived for me at the house. I went over and found it contained the clothing and shoes I had left behind at Jeana’s during my hasty departure. Also in the box was a forceful note in her father’s handwriting telling me to never show my face again around their house. A small envelope was the saddest item, since it contained the locket, tennis bracelet, and an ankle bracelet I had given Jeana, along with my class ring. There was no note from her. I declined the offer of dinner and took the box home with me.
I waited a day, just staring at the box, and at the envelope, and then called Ray. He had been dating Marianne Monroe for a few months, and Marianne was a friend of Jeana’s. Ray and Marianne had broken up, but he still had her number. I called her and invited her out to lunch on Friday. We met at a place over in Towsontown Mall.
“Wow! Jeana’s old man really worked you over, didn’t he?” was the first thing she said to me.
“You heard about that, huh?”
She nodded and grinned. “Jeana called me the next day and told me what happened. You look pretty gross.”
“Thanks. I actually look better now. Last weekend I looked grotesque.”
We talked about my injuries for a moment, and then I asked, “How’s Jeana doing? I’ve tried calling, but they’re screening their phone calls, and whenever I’ve tried driving by, one of her parents is around. What’s she said to you?”
Marianne rolled her eyes. “It’s not good, Carl. I think she’s been grounded for the rest of her natural life. They took away her car keys and one of her parents is staying at home with her until school starts. They’ve even been talking about sending her to a girl’s only Catholic boarding school.”
“Holy shit!”
“Yeah! You’ve got about as much chance of seeing her as you do of getting into a convent,” she said.
I shook my head. “Do you think you could get in to see her?” I asked.
Marianne’s eyes popped open at that. “Hey, Carl, don’t get me into this!”