Page 7 of Married with Mayhem

“Monte is a good boy,” my mother decides.

I’m glad she’s calming down but I stifle a snort of laughter. Monte Castelli is nobody’s version of a ‘good boy’.

“Sure he is,” I mutter.

“And he understands the way things are. He knows the family. He’ll protect you.”

“Of course he will, Mama.”

She sighs. “You should apologize to your uncle.”

“What on earth for?”

“Vittorio worries about you.”

I’m glad she’s not here to see the way I’m rolling my eyes. Mafia bosses are infinite control freaks. I ought to know. I’ve been stuck with them my whole life. Arguing does no good. The best way to deal with them is play nice and hope they move on to some other target instead of making your life hell.

“Please tell Uncle Vittorio that I’m very sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused. I hope he forgives my reckless indiscretions.”

“You will be careful,bambina?”

“Yes. I love you, Mama.”

Ending the call with my anxious mother is a relief. It could have gone a lot worse.

Now all I need to do is beg Monte Castelli to let me crash on his couch for tonight. Or maybe for a few nights. I’m not sure how long this disaster will take to sort out. As reality sets in, my nerves, which were already frazzled, whirl into a cyclone.

Monte and I haven’t exactly been in close contact since I left New York. From what I’ve heard, when Monte’s not haunting his father’s Lower East Side pizzeria he’s prowling around the underbelly of the city doing illicit shit with the rest of the mafia thugs. I have no guarantee that he’ll even answer my call.

I hope he will. Yes, I think he will. Somehow I have faith in Monte.

Yet if I wait any longer, I’m sure I’ll talk myself out of this idea.

With a deep breath, I scroll to Monte’s contact information and click the green phone icon. The sound of my pounding heart is louder than the ring tone.

The seconds seem to stretch on endlessly before he picks up.

2

MONTE

There’s never a shortage of people pissing and moaning about ‘summer in the city’ but I’ll always pick this place no matter the season. After spending a week in the soupy humidity of central Florida, a heave wave in Manhattan doesn’t feel half bad.

However, living two floors above the family business can be inconvenient at times. My father notices everything. This time I was lucky enough to hustle upstairs and get cleaned up before facing the judgement of Salvatore Castelli. My dad’s frown of disappointment can be more powerful than a bomb.

I still look like I’ve been through some shit. And Ihavebeen through some shit. But after showering and holding a bag of frozen peas to my swollen cheek for twenty minutes I’m borderline presentable.

Many of these old tenement buildings have been gutted on the inside and remodeled but this one probably looks about the same as it looked in the year 1920. The stairwell is dim, grimy and narrow. And there’s new artwork. Some asshole spray painted the words FUCK ME CANDY in three-foot-tall drippingwhite letters at the top of the landing. All that’s missing is a horror movie soundtrack as I jog down the steps.

The sense that I’m deep in a cave disappears when I push open the door that leads straight out to Orchard Street. I’m greeted by a blast of sunlight, a flurry of honking horns, and some old guy wearing only a filthy loincloth while screeching the lyrics ofTwinkle Twinkle Little Starat passing traffic.

God, I fucking love New York.

The Lower East Side may not be the most trendy corner of the city but it’s my favorite. Just a short walk away from here is the fabled Little Italy, which has shrunk over the years but still exists.

The lore of this neighborhood is built into my soul. The street I’m walking on might look ordinary now, but at the dawn of the twentieth century it was smack in the middle of the most densely populated square mile on earth.

Though my home address as a kid was a small three bedroom house in a scrappy Queens neighborhood, I feel as if I grew up here instead. The building where my family has owned a pizzeria for three generations will forever be my home base. Gino’s Pizzeria is best known for its hefty calzones and outstanding thin crust pies. The place has scraped by through the decades and is now regarded as a neighborhood landmark.

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