The Mafia’s Obsession

Alessio

20 years ago

“Happy birthday to youuuu!”

Everybody claps as they finish singing. Perched on my bar stool, I blow out my candles, all 10 of them, and look around at the friends I have celebrating with me. I feel like the coolest kid around. I’m not even a teenager yet, and half the guests at my party are grownups. These are men of honor. That’s what my dad calls them. And they’re treating me like part ofthe crew.

“Happy birthday, kid,” says Uncle Sal, clapping me on the back and stuffing an envelope full of cash into my hand. “You’ll turn out all right.”

I make eye contact with my best friend Dominguez, beaming. We love birthdays. His was last month, and he got a lot of envelopes. But I wasn’t jealous. My grandpa is the boss. I knew when my birthday came, my envelopes would be fatter than his.

“Is Nonno coming?” I ask dad hopefully, tugging his sleeve to get his attention.

“Look at that fucking piece of shit,” he mutters, staring across the bar at a man I don’t recognize. “Coming in here.” He nudges Uncle Sal. “You see this?”

Sal glances over his shoulder, then whispers something. My heart sinks.

“Dad?” I try again, hoping I can distract him. “Is Nonno coming?”

Uncle Sal ruffles my hair. “I don’t think so, kid. Your grandpa’s a very important man. He’s got business today.”

Dad makes eye contact with Sal, and I’m not having fun anymore. Dad scares me when he’s like this.

***

Dad lets me eat lots of cake, so I end up having a pretty good time. Most of the people leave, and Uncle Sal plays games with me until I get tired and fall asleep with my head on the counter.

When I wake up, I’m curled up with his jacket in a booth in the corner. I can hear dad talking to someone at the bar behind me:

“To be honest, Jackie, you’ve got a lot of nerve coming in here after what you pulled. It was me, I wouldn’t show my face.”Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

Someone puts a glass down hard. “You really gonna give me this fuckin’ shit? That motherfucker got what he was owed. Tell me like you would do any different.”

Uncle Sal’s voice. “All we’re saying is, it’s Andres’s cousin we’re talking about. Barely more than a kid. You really hurt the guy. You gotta show some respect.”

“And where was my respect when he was ripping me off? Thanks, fellas, but I’ll drink where I please. I ain’t paying nothing for that little shit, allrespectto you both. I’m glad he’s in the hospital. Maybe if it’s a long recovery, it teaches him a lesson.”

I sit up, almost choking on the cigarette smoke, just in time to see my dad smash a bottle into the back of the man’s head. He slumps forward, knocking over his beer, and dad keeps stabbing him in the back and shoulders with the jagged edges of the broken bottle. Sal rushes over to the door and locks it. The bartender is nowhere to be seen.

A horrified whimper escapes me. Now the man is lying in a growing pool of sickly dark blood, my dad standing over him, and I can’t look away from it. I’ve never seen anything like this before.

Uncle Sal runs back to dad and they kick the guy a bunch of times even though he’s already not moving. “There’s your fuckin’ respect,” Sal grunts.

Then they look up and notice me watching them. Sal shakes his head. “Sorry about this, kid. Your birthday and everything. Had to be done.”

“He’s old enough,” growls my dad, shirt painted red. It looks so much brighter on the white cloth than oozing over the tiled floor. “He’ll be a man soon.”

I keel forward and throw up.

***

“Yougotta make sure to leave all the pieces in different places,” my dad explains, his words punctuated by the dullthunkof his cleaver chopping through flesh and bone. “You get lazy, that’s how they catch you.”

Uncle Sal grunts, focused on his own chopping. “You listen to your old man. Don’t ever get sloppy. You want to be here a long time, mind your P’s and Q’s.”

My eyes are fixed on the floor of the wine cellar. I’m pretty sure I’ll retch again if I look up.

“You got that, kid?”

An arm lands in the bucket in front of me. I do my best to ignore it, lip trembling. “Got it.”

Dad walks over to me, and I wince. “Look at me, Alessio.”

I heed his words, knowing he expects me to be strong. My eyes snap reluctantly to his face and he towers over me, holding a severed foot.

“Do you know why we had to do this?”

I nod. All I want is for this to be over.

“No, you don’t.”

I say nothing. I’m not going to risk guessing wrong.

“Family,” my father growls, crouching down to my level. “You must always protect your family. Nothing is ever more important.”