Page 31 of Kingpin
The two of them glance at each other like they figured I was going to say that and they’re amused I actually did.
“I don’t want to argue about it, especially since you’re leaving in a couple of days,” my father says. “We just want to make sure you’re doing this for the right reasons, and I don’t want to see you get hurt because you’re hoping to rekindle something you had when you were fifteen. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up because I don’t want you to be disappointed.”
“Ugh. Well, thanks for caring, but it’s not about that. I mean, come on, it’s been ten years. I’d be crazy to still be thinking about Dominic after all this time. I was a teenager. It’s just time for me to venture out on my own, and I want to do it in the place I loved the most as a kid, so that’s what I’m doing.”
I know they don’t believe me. It’s written all over both of their faces and sewn into their body language, but they don’t say it. They decide to drop the subject for now, and the three of us go back into the living room with the guests, where we spend the rest of the night reminiscing and ignoring the tension between us.
Dominic doesn’t get mentioned again for the rest of the night, but after the party’s over and I’m in the taxi headed back to my place, the truth about Dominic is all I can think about.
Of course I’ve been thinking about Dominic this whole time. It doesn’t matter that it’s been ten years. The way I felt about Dominic when I was fifteen is still the way I feel about him now. It’s not like we ended with some horrible breakup that made us hate each other. It ended against both of our wills. Neither of us wanted it to be over, and it just so happened, something horrible took place with his father right before we moved away. It’s not Dominic’s fault his dad died, and I don’t blame him for disappearing like he did. I probably would’ve done the same thing, and I can only imagine how terrible it must’ve been for him to lose his father and then lose me too. He had it rough, and I understand.
Over the years, I was always looking for him. I’d watch the news to see if there was anything big happening in St. Louis, hoping maybe I’d see his face on TV in the background, or I’d see his name pop up. Then again, I was hoping Iwouldn’tsee his name pop up, too. I was never naïve about Dominic’s life. Now that I’m twenty-five and I’ve learned a lot, I know Donnie Collazo was in the mafia, and I know Dominic was a part of that as well. It never changed the way I felt about him, though. If anything, knowing it just made me more interested in him. Strange, I guess, but I suppose that’s how love works. It never mattered what Dominic did, he always treated me with so much love and respect, and that’s all that’s ever mattered to me. I’ve known guys who were as nice as can be out in public, but they treated me like absolute shit behind closed doors. Dominic never did that.
There was a period where I was worried to death about Dominic, even though we hadn’t spoken in years. I was checking in on St. Louis like I always did—especially in the beginning—and some members of the FBI and St. Louis Police were really going after the Giordano family. According to the police, everything picked up when they found a guy named Alfonse Cestone in the Mississippi River. He had his hands and feet cut off. They even had pictures of the body on the internet. It was gruesome, and it was all the St. Louis PD needed to open up a case against the Giordano family.
After that, all hell broke loose. Donnie Collazo was next to go, in apparent retaliation for the Cestone death, then Sammy Cestone went missing. It was just hit after hit after that, in some war between the Giordano’s and the Cestone crew. The FBI got involved and got a couple of informants to snitch on some of the Giordano guys, and a lot of people either went to jail or died. After it all, St. Louis PD was basically shouting from the rooftops that they “Decimated the St. Louis mob.” They were proud of the mob’s collapse in their city, claiming all the important members of the mob were now either dead or in jail. But I never saw Dominic’s name. Not even once.
I scrolled and scrolled through headlines and articles, but I never saw his name. I even went as far as reading obituaries in the city, and I was relieved that I never saw him. I always knew that just because I didn’t see his name didn’t mean he’d made it out of all that drama unscathed. The mafia has a way of getting rid of people without them ever being found—just like Sammy Cestone—but something told me that didn’t happen to Dominic. He’s too strong for that, so I know he’s alive. I know he’s okay, and it fuels me.
A whole decade has passed, and Dominic Collazo is still on my mind. I’m not ashamed of it, and I don’t care what my parents have to say on the subject. So, I’ll board the plane in a few days, and I’ll fly back to the place where I left my heart, hoping the whole way that Dominic did survive the St. Louis mob’s collapse, and praying that he took my letter to heart. I don’t know anything for sure. Hell, I don’t even know if I’ll ever see him when I get back. But a girl can hope, right?
Well, I’m hoping.
