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  For my brother, Jeffrey

  You can’t trust Life to give you decent parents or beautiful eyes, a fine French accent or an outstanding flair for fashion. No, Life does what it wants. It’s sneaky as a thief. People themselves are sneaky. I am sneaky. I’m also a thief. Looking back at this last year, that’s the lesson I learned.

  Bronx, 1960

  WHAT’S GOING DOWN

  Richie O’Neill signals me from his apartment,

  which is directly opposite mine.

  He’s waving his dad’s Fulton GI flashlight,

  describing tight circles that beam

  directly into my bedroom window,

  hissing alert:

  Something important is going down.

  Just knowing he’s there, that I’m not alone,

  helps me get through

  so many days and nights.

  All I have to do is peek around

  the ugly purple thrift store curtains

  my mother hung.

  Even though she loves to sew,

  she decorated my room

  with “feel bad about yourself” drapes.

  Thanks, Mom. I do.

  LANDING GEAR

  Richie and I have a system:

  Horizontal swipes mean

  come down to the lobby when you can.

  But extensive, sweeping circles,

  like you might see on a tarmac

  when a plane’s lost its landing gear,

  mean emergency. Help. Five-star alarm.

  (I lost my landing gear a long time ago.)

  I open then close my curtains,

  signaling my departure.

  Then I grab my jacket;

  the lobby’s always cold,

  except in summer,

  when you wish to the Gods of the Bronx

  that it would cool off.

  But there are no gods

  here in the Bronx.

  MARRIED PEOPLE

  Richie and I both have parents

  who could compete to be

  the most unhappily married people

  in all of Parkchester.

  The most destructive, too.

  All of them thought that

  moving into this vast, planned complex

  of buildings—

  designed to be a retreat

  from the noisy urban streets—

  would make life easier.

  It’s pretty nice here;

  terra-cotta figurines

  decorate the tall brick buildings.

  There are oak, sycamore, and maple trees.

  And we have parks, baseball fields, playgrounds.

  Apartments have decent kitchens,

  good carpeting, sunlight.

  But, still, the city invades.

  Ambulances, fire trucks, burglar alarms

  shriek through the neighborhood.

  Lumbering buses, kids cracking bats

  against hardballs, street fights,

  loud radios blasting sports scores,

  girlfriends’ singsong scolding

  their no-good boyfriends—“chico malo”—

  zip around us at all hours.

  Nobody who lives in the Bronx can relax.

  WHEN YOU’RE FOURTEEN

  It’s the night before the first day

  of high school.

  I was hoping, for once,

  to be consumed with choosing an outfit.

  Like a normal kid.

  Entrances are everything

  when you’re my age.

  Sometimes my father,

  the globe-trotting Perfume Magnate,

  the proud self-made man,

  gives me the once-over.

  He looks at me as if I’m a possible model

  for a new scent he’s launching

  from his boutique company.

  He says, coolly, “You’re pretty.”

  I wait. It’s never that simple.

  “Not the prettiest,” he usually clarifies.

  According to him, this is a good thing

  because, he says,

  the ultra-gorgeous ones,

  like Merilee Stabiner and Jessica Levin,

  never bother to develop a personality.

  It’s creepy to me that he has these opinions

  about girls my age.

  That he’s obsessed with beauty.

  “But, Dad, my personality is problematic,”

  I object at those times.

  We both know problematic

  is a guidance counselor word.

  My mother calls me worse things.

  I say,

  “My so-called personality is too big

  for this house.

  Too big for my mother.

  And sometimes for me, too.”

  He nods.

  At least my father talks to me.

  ONGOING WAR

  So tonight, instead of concentrating

  on questions like should I wear

  a pleated skirt or a pencil-thin straight one,

  a coral sweater or a blue-green one,

  I’m descending in the elevator, deciding

  if I should tell Richie how things are going

  before or after

  I hear his tale of woe.

  Should I pretend

  that, with his flashlight, he interrupted

  only my clothing showdown?

  This would be a lie.

  I happened to see

  his signal.

  It reached all the way into our kitchen,

  where I was hiding out,

  trying to ignore the mayhem

  coming from my parents’ bedroom.

  Rat-a-tat phrases were firing

  from both sides of the ongoing war.

  There might as well be gunfire,

  might as well be blood seeping out

  from under their door.

  These angry nights

  are more and more frequent.

  EBONY PENCIL

  Lucky for me, I like to draw,

  which is why I was stationed

  at the kitchen table,

  furiously scratching a newsprint pad.

  Newsprint is cheap.

  You can make mistakes, experiment.

  I was using my ebony pencil.

  Once I really concentrate,

  I can escape, lose track of time.

  Obliterate sounds.

  Take a vacation from the hostilities.

  I was studying the geography of my gym socks,

  determined to understand

  why each sock has creases

  that fall a certain way.

  And the small mountains and shadows

  that make it seem

  like it is its own country.

  It’s more complicated than I thought!

  This everyday white cotton sock

  that I’ve folded hundreds of times

  becomes fascinati
ng! Compelling!

  I’m shading, erasing, trying to get it right.

  Loving every minute.

  Drawing calms me down.

  PROBABLY JAMES JOYCE

  I shoved the pad under my bed,

  rushed to the hallway.

  The elevator—belching from its old motor

  and stinking of macaroni and cheese,

  cigarette butts, stale beer—finally arrived.

  There are bits of old pizza crusts on the floor.

  A cheap-looking magenta lipstick

  lies missing its cap in the corner

  like a reminder of someone’s forced smile.

  In the lobby, the door creaks open.

  Richie’s sitting on a bench reading.

  He always has a book.

  Probably James Joyce.

  He’s obsessed.

  Then, there’s arguing from across the street.

  Richie slaps closed his paperback

  when he sees me.

  Some guy is yelling:

  “Get your hands off me!

  I’m a Vietnam vet, assholes!”

  “That’s my father!” Richie sputters.

  “Can you believe this is his life, Maisie?

  He was awarded the goddamn Bronze Star.”

  Everybody knows that Brian O’Neill

  came back a hero

  after he was injured in the war.

  “He was one of the very first

  sent to fight the Viet Cong,”

  Richie says mournfully.

  “Now he has night sweats.

  He wakes up shouting!

  My sister, Regina, gets freaked.”

  Richie omits

  that his dad goes on drunken rampages.

  I say, “I know, Richie.

  I just wish he didn’t take his demons

  out on you.”

  Together, we race to the lobby entrance,

  push open the heavy door.

  “Cocksuckers!” screams Mr. O’Neill

  a few yards away from us.

  Two men forcefully shove him

  against a police car. Richie goes pale.

  “Cocksuckers!” screams Mr. O’Neill again.

  “Asshole!” shout the cops.

  There’s scuffling. Yelps.

  Mr. O’Neill’s being arrested.

  Again.

  “I had to call the police.

  He was going after Regina,”

  Richie explains all raspy.

  “Well, you can’t have him

  hurting your little sister.”

  But I realize that to throw

  your dad in jail overnight

  must be humiliating.

  PASTEL PAINTING

  “It makes everything worse,”

  he agrees.

  Richie almost never discusses his mother,

  Caitlyn O’Neill.

  If she were a painting, she’d be pastel.

  It’s like her outline is blurred.

  She floats like a Chagall.

  A beautiful Irish Chagall.

  If I painted her,

  I’d draw her in a dark pencil,

  making heavy Braque outlines

  so you could see her more clearly,

  bring her back down to Earth,

  down to her life here in the Bronx

  so she could help her children.

  Lustrous green eyes,

  thin, elegant face.

  A person you’d probably see every day

  walking the streets of Dublin.

  I’d make her into a formidable presence.

  Someone who could hold the family together.

  Because Richie’s dad is a dish-flinger,

  a wall-puncher.

  I wonder if they have any plates

  left to eat off in that doomed apartment.

  Or if there’s a draft in every room,

  a wind blowing through every wounded wall.

  LIKE FIRST COUSINS

  Richie and I’ve known each other

  since I was in kindergarten

  and he was in third grade.

  Back then, I didn’t pay much attention to him.

  But lately, for the last two years,

  we’re like cousins;

  comparing notes about his dad

  and my mom.

  Sometimes we imagine

  putting them in the ring

  in Madison Square Garden

  and selling tickets.

  It would be a long fight,

  but we think we’d make millions.

  In the Bronx, we love a good battle

  in the boxing ring, on TV, or in the streets.

  Tomorrow or the next day,

  Richie and I will sit together

  and mumble our sad stories.

  CARTOON FACE

  “Will you be in school?” I ask.

  “Of course,” says Richie.

  “Senior year! I have to get into college.

  Or I’ll end up like my dad.”

  “You’ll never end up like him,” I say.

  “He has all that body hair. And a mustache.”

  I take a pencil out of my pocket

  and sketch a cartoon

  of Mr. O’Neill’s face.

  “I can’t believe you can do that!”

  says Richie.

  I push the elevator button.

  “See you tomorrow.”

  He tugs my sleeve.

  “Take this!” he says. “But don’t open it until later.”

  He hands me a plain white envelope.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s nuthin’. Honestly. Nuthin’ at all.”

  THUD

  Upstairs, from the hallway,

  I hear my brother, Davy,

  eleven, playing the piano.

  Well, it’s more like plinking.

  He has mad love for George Gershwin.

  He bangs out chords from

  An American in Paris almost every night.

  But it gets quiet.

  He must be reading the composer’s bio.

  He’s consumed by both Gershwin boys.

  I love that they’re Jewish.

  But Davy doesn’t care about that.

  Every note speaks to him.

  I hotfoot it inside

  to dry the last few dinner dishes.

  Davy gets up from the piano bench.

  “I can’t wait to get out of this place,”

  he says.

  “Which place?” I ask. “This apartment?

  The Bronx?”

  “Yes,” he says, and trudges off to his room.

  He has no desire to talk to me.

  I sit back down at my sketch pad

  and try to master rendering the tiny stitches

  on the heels of my socks

  when I hear something thud.

  It comes from my parents’ bedroom.

  Whatever it is,

  it rolls and crashes.

  I watch my pencil fall

  in slow motion onto the floor.

  I put my drawing pad down.

  Their fights tighten my stomach,

  make me grip my toes.

  I forget to breathe.

  I wonder: Maybe the police

  should visit our apartment

  after they finish with Mr. O’Neill.

  I get my brother.

  “Come on, Davy, let’s watch TV,” I say.

  It’s how we cope on nights like this.

  I turn it on, volume high.

  Davy slumps down next to me, and we sink down

  into the overstuffed turquoise couch,

  wanting to disappear.

  For this brief moment Davy and I

  are on the same side of the family war.

  KIDS VERSUS PARENTS

  My mother doesn’t strike Davy.

  Not once. Never. Ever.

  He’s safe.

  I get jealous of that.

  I am aligned
with my dad.

  At least he’s not a slapper.

  My grandma says I look like him.

  I have my dad’s brio, his boldness,

  and not in a good way.

  I’m his favorite,

  but being his favorite doesn’t help.

  Lately, on fight nights,

  instead of me and my dad

  versus Davy and Judith,

  it’s kids versus parents.

  Now Davy grabs my filthy

  black pencil–marked hand

  as if we’re pals.

  “It’s okay, kid,” I say.

  We both know that’s a lie.

  But what’s the big deal?

  It won’t kill me

  to be nice to him,

  older-sister style.

  A HIT MAN?

  Through the wall, Dad’s hollering,

  “You’re nuts, Judith!

  You need professional help!”

  My mother uses the bastard word

  a trillion times.

  I picture her staring at Dad with her one good eye.

  The blind one drifts and sees nothing.

  It’s scary if you don’t know she has no vision in it.

  And we didn’t know this for a long time.

  Now something else slams

  against the wall, shatters.

  I’m not sure if it’s a chair

  or someone’s head.

  This goes on and on,

  from the beginning of

  The Danny Thomas Show

  to the end of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.

  When my parents are like this,

  all I have is my brother.

  When I’m this close to him,

  I remember how innocent he smells.

  He was born easygoing and benign,

  unlike me, who, they claim,

  came out yowling and cursing

  like an Italian mafioso.

  My mother says I’m still like that.

  Like what? A hit man?

  But I’ve heard my dad say,

  “You’re the crazy one, Judith!”

  Once I overheard my grandmother tell her sister, my great-aunt Dalvinka,

  I was a difficult baby.

  Why do I have to know this?

  As if right from the start

  I wanted to cause trouble?

  I asked my gran,

  “If a mother blames her newborn

  for being colicky,

  should she be a mother

  in the first place?”

  She answered me in Hungarian.