The Fight Within (28 page)

“Hey! Save some for us!” Colin chided.

Their father chuckled and scooped out a bit into his white stoneware bowl, grabbed a packet of half crushed oyster crackers from some carryout joint, and made his way to the tiny card table in the kitchen. The man plopped down in a chair that tilted to the left, along with the warped floor that had never been repaired after a terrible roof leak during a harsh winter several years earlier. The older man worked the crackers into a fine dust, smashing them to bits with the underside of his spoon, while occasionally throwing glances at the tiniest television screen Sean had ever seen. Grabbing two tan plastic bowls from the cabinet, Colin handed one to Sean, as if it were some gift. They lingered around the stove, shoulder to damn shoulder. The wondrous smell of the chili made his damn stomach flip.

“Ma’s chili is the best,” Sean declared as he scooted his brother out the way, pushing him to the side to help himself. He filled his bowl to the rim.

“It is,” Colin agreed as he elbowed him back. “Stop hoggin’ it and hurry up.”

“I am, stop rushin’ me.”

“Well you’re standing there takin’ your sweet sassy malassy time! I gotta go to work tonight.”

“And I’ve got class tonight, hold your damn horses.”

“That’s on the computer!”

“Doesn’t matter, I still have to be on time.”

After a few moments, they both sat themselves back in the living room with their mother. Chili bowl in hand, the woman kicked up her legs on an overstuffed pillow causing her pink, fuzzy house shoes to dangle on the ends of her wide, short feet. She smiled sweetly with her red painted lips, shooting Sean a syrupy glance, the kind laden with unspoken darling declarations as she geared up for something he wanted no damn part of. But…no words were shared. Thinking he was off the damn hook, he continued to stab the delicious food with his spoon, working it around and around in his mouth, until he caught her batting her lashes at him once more. Though he tried to ignore the lady dressed like a freshly sprung spring tulip, he had no doubt she was about to say some shit he didn’t exactly want to hear, and like the predicament of a confused cat stuck in a tree, there would be no way out of it.

“So Sean, Colin says you’re dating a nice girl.” She took a shy little bite of her chili as if she hadn’t just been sucking it down like her Dyson vacuum moments prior. She rolled the stingy serving about in her mouth, pausing to obviously savor her own craftsmanship, as if professing it the finest thing in the world.

“You big mouthed son of a bitch…” He shot his brother a stone-cold glare.

“Watch your language in front of ya mother!” Their father shouted from his kitchen man-cave, his mouth obviously full as he smacked between his words.

Colin looked straight ahead, no doubt proud of himself for starting this sordid mess.

“I met someone, Ma, but it’s nothing to report right now, okay?” He took another bite of his food and turned his attention back toward the television, refusing to get into the details. If he admitted the truth, that he was smitten with the damn woman, had fallen in love and thought about her the moment he opened his eyes in the morning, his mother would start calling caterers and floral shops, and her priest, too. If he just laid low, this may all blow over…but deep down, he knew better. Colin had planted the seed, and Ma would nurture the fuck out of it until it was Jack and the motherfucking Beanstalk in a nanosecond.

“Colin says she’s an interior designer.” He didn’t need to look at her. He could tell by her tone she was grinning from ear to fucking ear.

“Yeah…” He jammed his spoon into his bowl and took another hearty bite.

“Where does she live?”

“She’s from Brooklyn, Ma, but she lives in Larchmont Manor.” He turned toward her, finally accepting his fate.

Colin, I’m gonna beat your ass later… beat it real good.

“Larchmont Manor? Well, heavens!” The woman gingerly touched her chest as if she were some old southern belle ripped out of the archives of 1935. “She’s rich, huh?” The woman smiled so hard, the faint dimple on her left cheek looked suddenly deep.

“She’s doin’ alright, Ma, she’s doin’ alright.” He took another bite of his food, then shot a look at the nearby digital clock, and the assortment of strange ass cuckoo clocks too, now regretting the earlier admission that he could stay an hour more.

“Is she a nice lady, Sean?”

“Yes, Ma, she’s very nice.” He wanted to kill Colin, kill ’im dead, and bust him right in the center of his shit-starting face. His bastard of a brother stifled a laugh a time or two, but cloaked it by shoveling in another mouthful of chili, savoring the moment.

“Is she a good Catholic girl, Sean?” his mother asked seriously.

The woman would carry on about this sort of thing in years past. It ruled her mind, seemed pivotal in her decisions on who was a keeper and who wasn’t. No doubt he could come home and say,
‘Ma, I met a woman. She’s a mass murderer, masturbates in public, tried to set the inhabitants of a petting zoo on fire, and has slept with two hundred and thirty men, fifty-seven percent of whom were married …but she goes to mass every Sunday, dutifully.’

‘Oh that’s just beautiful, Sean! A nice Catholic girl! My dream come true! Tell her if she ever needs to borrow my gasoline canister for her next petting zoo trip, to just call!’

…And he knew she couldn’t freaking help it.

Though their mother was accustomed to each of her sons dating all sorts of women, she had a hard time with the whole religion thing. She wanted her boys to date nice Catholic girls and though she seemed to harbor no ill will toward Lydia, Colin’s girlfriend, Lydia
wasn’t
Catholic; she was Protestant, wore tight clothes, was half Italian and half French, and had a potty mouth that made Colin and Sean look like choir boys. That didn’t bode too well for Mrs. Mahoney.

“Ma, I honestly don’t know…we don’t discuss religion.”

“Well,” she took another bite of her food, her expression grim and tight, “you need to find out.”

He said nothing, just turned back toward the television, praying it was the end of the whole damn conversation.

“I hope you’ve stopped having premarital sex, young man. Have you fornicated with her, Sean?” she asked seriously, causing him to almost spray the chili out of his damn mouth like a fire hose. He swallowed down the stuff and glared at her, not believing his damn ears. It was true. As his parents aged, they became more child-like, lost their damn filter. He was one to talk, but geesh, he’d always been an ass; no sense in changing now.

“Ma!
Really
?! What would make ya ask me something like that?!”

She gave a slight shrug. “I’m hip. I know what’s going on in the world.”

Did she just say ‘hip’?! She’s wearing a moo-moo for God’s sakes!

“You’re a nice lookin’ man with a good head on your shoulders and nice hair, too. If you take after your grandfather, you’ll keep that hair.” She nodded, as if that was the very thing that kept him up at night. “If you’re going to do that sort of thing—which I don’t approve of, by the way!” Her eyes narrowed. “You just make sure you use protection until you get ’er down the aisle.” She pointed a finger at him, letting him know she meant business.

“Oh, Ma! Are you freakin’ serious?!” He slammed his bowl on the end table, suddenly losing his appetite.

“Ya don’t hassle Colin about this! Ya know he and Lydia aren’t just sittin’ around playin’ hopscotch and bakin’ cookies all day, right?! They live together in a one-bedroom apartment. Ghosts ain’t goin’ bump in the night, it’s
them
! We’re not kids, Ma!”

Colin burst out laughing and toppled dramatically to the side of the couch. Once he’d quickly regained his composure, he sat back, but barely.

“Hey, don’t drag me in this!” He seemed to suddenly realize he’d been thrown under the bus, backed over and ran over once more for good measure.

“Drag you into this? You big-mouthed bastard, this is all your fault in the first place.” Sean stifled a laugh; he was annoyed, but hell, Ma was kinda funny.

“Sean’s right!” their mother scolded. “You and your girlfriend shouldn’t be fornicating either, Colin Ryan Mahoney!”

“Ma, you told me that condoms were not God’s way, and birth control pills, too,” Colin stated matter-of-factly to their mother, but sarcasm coated his words like syrup on pancakes…as if he really gave a hot damn what Ma thought about it.

“I know, but…well, I can’t say… I just want Sean here to not be taken advantage of is all. He’s a single guy, a good catch, too.”

“Oh, and I’m not?!” Colin chuckled, but seemed rather serious all the same.

“Of course you are, Colin, but you’re settled.”

Settled? Settled with what?!

“Look Sean, keep condoms on you at
all
times.” She looked remorseful, as if God would pull her by her nightgown and penalize her later for using the ‘c’ word when no one was looking.

“Is this an insane asylum? I am thirty-four! There’s no need to have these talks with me now, okay? This is crazy. Let’s just drop it. You don’t see me asking about you and Dad’s sex life now, do ya? Ugh!” He grimaced as a slow burn of chili crept up his throat, repeating itself after the disgusting imagery tried to play out in his head, contaminating him so.

“Your father is a very attractive man,” she replied, seemingly unfazed by her son’s palpable discomfort.

“I think I’m gonna be sick!” It was hard to envision the two doing anything such as that. They barely kissed in front of him and his brother, but he had a sickening suspicion the two were still rather active, and it made him downright queasy.

At this point, Colin was a mess, dying of laughter right before his eyes. He shook like he was having a seizure, so much so, he had to place his bowl on the coffee table to keep from spilling it all over the damn place.

“Your mother’s right, Sean. Wrap that thing up! These broads will try to pin a baby on ya! I watch the T.V. shows, ya know?!”

“Yeah, because all the reliable information comes from gossip rags and talk shows. Everyone knows that Ann Curry competes with Wendy Williams for credibility. It’s a toss up!”

“Oh yeah?! Hardy har har, Mister Funnyman! We got a regular ol’ Conan O’Brien in the family, smart ass!”

“Conan O’Brien isn’t that funny, Dad. I’m deeply insulted.” Sean gripped his chest and put on a pitiful face, playing the role hard regardless of the fact that the old guy couldn’t see him.

“Yes he is…he’s funnier than hell!” his brother chimed in, looking at him with disdain as if he’d said the ultimate no-no.

“I used to change your diapers, and now you talk shit to me, Sean!” their father called out, seemingly stirring himself up to the point of anger.

“Kevin, when did you change a diaper?” his mother asked in almost a murmur, as if awaking from some dream.

“Forty-two years of service with the New York City Department of Transportation was all a waste of time Dad when you could’ve been finding out how some one-balled guy named Douglass, now known as Denise, fathered three sets of fraternal twins one passionate drunken night of unadulterated hedonistic heterosexual sex before the big change!”

“Keep making jokes if ya want, Sean, keep ’em comin’, but I know now what these young girls are out here doin’ to guys like you. It’s disgusting, a damn shame! Back in
my
day, if you got a girl in the family way, you knew it was yours, ’cause girls didn’t lie about things like that!”

“Ya don’t say, Dad…” Sean shook his head, wishing he were in his bed under the sheets with the pillow over his head…slowly smothering himself to death.

“There’s nothin’ but a bunch of tramps out here nowadays! You guys call ’em hos!”

“…Thank you for clearin’ that up.” Sean rolled his eyes. “The lady is a tramp!” he sang, snapped his finger and bobbed his head as if he were Frank Sinatra. “Yeah, the garden tools are on a rampage, Dad. Call Home Depot to round ’em up.”

“Just watch your step. They know you gotta nice insurance package and a stable job with the Sanitation Commission! They want a piece of the action!”

“Oh yeah, Dad? I’m so sure the interior designer I am seeing, whose house costs more than I’d probably make in my entire life, wants my one-of-a kind, rare medical insurance package. It’s the Holy Grail, I tell ya! It’s been a damn dream of hers since she was a little girl growin’ up in Brooklyn to sink her blood tinged fangs into a sanitation worker and get in on his policy! I shoulda seen this comin’!” He shook his hands dramatically, raising them up toward the ceiling, and pairing the gesture with faux expression of angst on his face.

“You’ll laugh now but cry later!” the old man roared.

“I’m the patsy she was lookin’ for, Dad! Everybody run! It’s too late for me, but you can make it! Go forth and survive!”

“This is your way, to laugh shit off. You prank and snicker, Sean, but I’m right and you know it!” The man’s voice rang out as if his words were tried and true.

“Wow!” He shook his head, sporting a huge smile. “You’re just a wealth of knowledge about the ladies. What would I do without cha, Dad?!”

Colin was now falling out all over the place, turning red in the face from the banter between his father and brother, carrying on as they often did.

Sean smirked, picked up his bowl and took another spoonful of his food, brainstorming ways to cut the visit short. Fuck it. No brainstorming needed. It was time to bail. He wolfed the rest of the delicious chili down, approached his mother, and kissed her tenderly on the forehead.

“Bye, Ma, I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Okay, honey.” She smiled sweetly and looked back at the television, drifting away as she often did when a program she enjoyed was on the air. He entered the kitchen, to find his father hunched over in a white tank top, glaring at the tiny television, his slightly cloudy blue eyes no doubt affixed to the screen. Smatterings of freckles lined the man’s pale shoulders and fleshy neck, along with a few wiry strands of hair that were begging to be plucked.

“Peace out, homie!” He grabbed his father from behind, causing the older man to play wrestle with him a bit before taking another bite of his food.