"Jesus, aren't we fancy?" Frank chuckled, mostly to himself. "And all this time I thought you were just a lowly high school teacher busting your ass for twenty-five grand a year, like all the other marks."
Joseph shook his head. "That didn't take long, did it? It seldom does."
"What are you talking about?"
"They've gotten to you."
"Who?"
"You know exactly what I'm talking about."
Frank rubbed his eyes. "I didn't come here to argue, Dad."
"Those like myself who, 'bust their ass for twenty-five grand a year,' as you so eloquently put it, are far from being marks." Joseph opened the lid on the grill, checked the coals, then slammed it shut and looked directly at Frank. "For the most part, we're honest, decent, hard-working people who prefer to earn a living instead of stealing one, which by the way is significantly more than I can say for Vincent Santangelo and the rest of his charming family."
"You don't even know Vincent."
"I don't know Charles Manson, either, but something tells me he's not the sort I'd like to sit and have a chat with."
"You don't know anything about Vincent."
"He's a Santangelo, Frank. That's all one needs to know." Joseph grabbed a spatula and a platter of meat and headed for the grill. "I'm infinitely familiar with his kind. I grew up around them."
"So did I."
Joseph momentarily froze then put the platter down on a small plastic table next to the grill. "Now you listen to me. Your mother and I had to decide between a house in the suburbs or a college education for you. In the final analysis it wasn't much of a decision. We stayed in the neighborhood and banked the money necessary to get you a decent education. Our salaries simply wouldn't allow us to do both. Am I supposed to apologize for that?"
"That's not what I meant," Frank said quietly.
"We believed that in the long run, providing you with an opportunity to get out of the neighborhood was of far greater importance than our upward mobility," Joseph said, dismissing Frank's statement entirely. "But you never took advantage of our sacrifice, never wanted to get your degree. No, you were going to rule the world with a completion certificate from a one-year technical school."
Frank dropped his cigarette to the cement and crushed it beneath his shoe. "I didn't mean for us to get into all of this. I just wanted to tell you what was happening, that's all. I'm starting a business – people do it all the time – and I was hoping somebody might actually be happy for me. I should have known better."
"I admire your drive, son – sincerely I do – but there's a right and a wrong way to do things. You're a grown man, you understand what I'm saying."
"I understand perfectly," Frank told him. "I just don't agree."
Joseph began positioning hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill. They sizzled and smoked, and he stepped back a bit and waved at the air with his spatula. "I think the heat may be a bit high."
"Safe bet," Frank muttered.
Once he'd gotten things under control Joseph stepped away from the grill, closer to his son. "Your grandfather worked for forty years in a mill."
"I've heard the story."
"Then there's certainly no harm in sitting through it again, is there?" Joseph offered a stiff smile. "He worked for forty years in a mill. I don't ever remember him doing anything else. From the time I was a small boy my father always seemed old to me; always look so tired. All the man knew was work and family. There was nothing else in life for him – no hobbies or other interests particularly – only getting up at the crack of dawn each day and going to work in that hellhole. To him, a man wasn't really a man if he didn't properly support his family. Even as a child it seemed unfair to me that we didn't have more. Someone who worked so hard should've had more. Of course, my father wasn't an educated man – never made it beyond the third grade and spoke broken English until the day he died. Still, he was far from stupid. There's often great wisdom in simplicity, Frank."
"Just ask me, I'll tell you."
Joseph ignored the wisecrack. "It's a shame he died before you were born. I think you'd have gotten along famously with him."
"I wish I'd known him."
"When I was growing up in the neighborhood the opportunity to become involved with certain unsavory people was always an option. A lot of kids I grew up with went that route."
"What's your point?"
"That the decisions we make often determine the course the remainder of our lives take," Joseph said through a heavy sigh. "I was never a tough kid, couldn't fight a lick. I used to get the hell beat out of me on a regular basis. I was one of those kids who read the Charles Atlas stories on the back cover of comic books and dreamed about transforming myself from a ninety-pound weakling into a muscle man who could easily overpower his attackers and leave with the beautiful girl on his arm. But I knew the real answer couldn't be found in some comic book fantasy. Across the street and down the block were all those men with the expensive suits and big cars. Their girlfriends and wives wore mink coats, fancy gowns and all sorts of flashy jewelry that in those days you generally only saw in the movies. Those people never looked tired or old, yet they had all the things my father was killing himself to attain. I wanted to be like those men, and wondered for a time if my father was nothing but a fool."
Frank sat in one of the chairs on the patio. "Dad, look – "
"Please," he insisted. "Here me out." Joseph sipped his wine cooler and then continued. "When I was twelve or thirteen – somewhere in there – my father caught me associating with some boys he felt were a bad influence. He sat me down, and in his own way explained that there was only one thing in this life no one could take away from you. What you've got up here." He pointed to his temple, watched for a reaction from Frank. "Knowledge, intellect. Unless you give them away, only time can steal them from you.
"Even after all his years of hard work," he continued after a moment, "my father still couldn't afford to send me to college. I had to rely on scholarships and grants. I could have done a lot of things with my life, Frank, but I chose to teach. I chose to spend my life trying to instill in young people how important the pursuit of education can be. Maybe that makes me a mark as far as your friends are concerned, but I believe it makes me more of a man than any of those goons can ever hope to be. I'm certainly neither rich nor famous, but I am at peace with myself, son. I'm able to look myself in the eye without being ashamed of who or what I am."
"Believe it or not, I'm familiar with the concept."
"I didn't mean to imply – "
"No, of course not."
"You're impossible to talk to." Joseph returned to the grill and flipped the burgers. "If I didn't care, I'd say nothing. I wouldn't even bother to – "
"Have a little faith in me, Dad. That's all I ask."
Joseph turned and faced him. "I think that's all either of us are asking."
The slider opened suddenly and Connie poked her head out. "Is it safe?" she asked in an ominous voice.
Frank stood up as Joseph grunted something unintelligible. "We're through, Mom. Come on out."
Connie and Sandy joined the men on the patio, and like a storm cloud passing overhead Joseph's demeanor reverted back to its usual neutral mode.
Another conversation began, but Frank's thoughts could not have been further away.
CHAPTER 7
The hotel room was on the first floor and offered a view of a vast parking lot and a truck-stop diner beyond. Unaware or just careless, Vincent opened the heavy drapes halfway, catching himself in the warming, early morning light. The abundance of black hair that stretched from his chest down to his thighs all but obscured his very white, flaccid penis. Vincent scratched himself, momentarily startled to remember that he was not alone.