annashay 
by Salvatore Difalco
IF ROBBIE MAKO BUGS ME AGAIN, I’m going to kill him. I swear to God. I’ve had enough. On the way home from school he stopped me and told me I looked like a dog. Usually he called me a wop and dago and how I should be deported back to Sicily, as if I come from Sicily. I was born in this country just like him. And if anybody looks like a dog, he does, with his pit bull eyes and thick neck.
‘Doesn’t he look like a dog?’ Robbie said to his stupid buddy Sandy Duval, a right prick, that skinny fuck, standing there laughing like a hyena. If Robbie wasn’t with him I would’ve fucked him up. Then Robbie spat in my face, a real hork, and they both walked off laughing their heads off. I swear, if I had a piece that second I would’ve capped both their asses.
My father doesn’t get it. ‘When I was your age anybody crossed me I’d show them who was boss.’ What, back in the old country? When you were riding around on a mule? Big help. Like I’m going to show Robbie Mako who’s boss just by snapping my fingers. He’s bigger than me and he knows how to fight. For all of his yapping, my father has never even taught me how to fight. I’ve been told I fight like a girl. Mind you, some girls at St. Lawrence Elementary, like Brenda Maddick and Edith Fingernagel can fight better than most guys. But most girls, like my sister Angie, are not very good. If I ever have a son I’ll make sure of one thing: that he doesn’t fight like a girl. Or at least that he fights as good as Brenda Maddick or Edith Fingernagel.
‘What are you gonna do?’ my buddy Angelo asks me, blinking behind his Coke bottle glasses.
He’s an even bigger weakling than me. I can probably take him, but we’ve never had a reason to fight. ‘I dunno,’ I say. ‘But I really wanna hurt him.’
‘My brother has an aluminum baseball bat.’
‘Nah. What if he takes it off me, then I get the beating.’
‘Did you see in Death Wish, how Charles Bronson put a roll of quarters in a sock. Then he whacked a dude in the face with it. Really messed him up.’
Angelo smiles and rubs his hands together evilly as he says this. I’m sure he’d like a piece of someone. He’s as tired of being bullied as I am. I consider his idea. First I have to get a roll of quarters. That’s about twenty dollars. That would mean stealing twenty dollars out of my mom’s purse or my dad’s wallet and that would mean a serious beating if I got caught. Even if I didn’t get caught, I’d have to go to the corner store or the bank to get a roll of quarters. They might ask questions. There has to be an easier way.
My mother wonders what’s up with me at lunch. I barely touch my spaghettini with tomato sauce. I tell her I have problems. Big problems.
‘What kind of problems can you possibly have?’
My mother has a pretty face and blue blue eyes—rare for Sicilians—and when she smiles like she’s smiling now I have to smile back because she makes me feel good.
‘This bully at school,’ I say.
Her smiles disappears. ‘Did he hurt you?’
‘Ma…’
‘Tell me what happened.’
But I don’t even want to discuss it with her because she’ll just ask what I did to bother this boy, or that I should talk to the teachers about it, or that I should treat him with kindness like Jesus would. But instead my mother leans over and says something that surprises me.
‘Listen,’ she says, breathing hard, her lips tight. ‘If this boy…if this boy hurts you again, you have to tell me.’
Her tone kind of scares me. ‘Ma, it’s okay. He didn’t really hurt me.’
‘Nobody bullies my son, do you understand?’
‘It’s okay, Ma. I’ll be okay.’
‘But you’ll tell me.’
‘Yes.’
And then what does she plan to do? It’s not that simple. It’s not the same as my father getting involved. That would be a whole other thing. I know my father can handle himself. He’s built like Bruno Sammartino. My mother can be really mean at times, but most of the time she’s a nice lady. And she’s not very big. All I can think of is Robbie hurting her if she goes up to him and says something. Then what?
Next day I run into Robbie Mako again and stupid Sandy Duval. They don’t just taunt me this time, they beat me up. My nose is leaking blood and my eyes are all bashed up. When I get home my mother yells when she sees me.
‘Who did this? Tell me right now? Who did this?’ My mother asks me these questions as she takes a wet cloth and dabs the blood off my chin and nose. She’s really pissed off. Her eyes look like they could burn through a wall.
My mouth’s full of blood and I have trouble speaking. My mother gets me to rinse my mouth out with water and spit in a bowl. Finally I tell her Robbie Mako’s name. I don’t even mention Sandy. Robbie did most of the hitting. My father’s not home from work yet, and I wonder what he’ll do about this. I’ve seen him lose his temper. It’s not pretty. He can go full Sicilian when he’s mad. But it doesn’t get to that. My mother grabs my arm and leads me out the front door.
‘Take me,’ she says.
‘But I don’t know where he is.’
‘Take me to his house.’
His house? Man. I don’t know about going to his house. Robbie’s big brother is a biker and his folks are welfare drunks.
‘Ma, it’s not a good idea. We should maybe call the cops.’
‘What are they gonna do? You think they care what goes on in the north end? They don’t care. We have to settle this business on our own. No one else is gonna help.’
Reluctantly, I tell my mother where Robbie lives. It’s about a ten minute walk from our house. I have no idea what she plans to do, if she’s just going to talk to his parents or say or do something to him, if he’s even there.
When we get to his house, an insulbrick bungalow with a badly bowed roof, he’s on his porch with his father screaming and scrapping. It’s like a hockey fight. They’re really swinging at each other. But Robbie’s old man, longhaired and lanky, connects with a wild right and decks Robbie. I think he’s done with him, but then he lifts his right leg stomps him in the face with his boot.
I look at my mother, who’s shaking, and say, ‘Come on.’
Right at that moment, Robbie’s father spots us.
‘You wanna piece of this, too!’ he shouts. ‘Fucking wops! Fucking DPs! Go back to your own country! Fucking assholes.’
We continue walking and don’t look back. I can hear him cursing behind us.
At home, my mother is quiet. She goes into the kitchen, switches on the old Victrola radio, and starts peeling some potatoes for dinner. I want to say something to her but I don’t know what. When my father comes home from work she hugs him, something she rarely does.
We sit down to eat. My father asks about the bruises on my face.
‘I had a fight,’ I say.
‘Did you make a good showing of yourself?’
I look at my mother. She slowly blinks her eyes as they well with tears. Tears roll down her cheeks. My father grasps her hand and holds it for a moment.
I don’t really understand what’s going on. I don’t know if my mother is sad for me, or us, or Robbie, or the whole mess of things. But she’s nice to me that evening and nice to me for the rest of the week. Robbie doesn’t show up to school. When Sandy Duval taunts me at recess, I chase him out of the schoolyard with my buddy Angelo.
oOo
Poet and storyteller Salvatore Difalco lives in Toronto, Canada. His work has appeared in many print and online journals, including Cafe Irreal, Heavy Feather Review, and Gone Lawn.
