This Little Piggy Belongs to the Devil

By Vincent Palazzo

Twins brothers Colin and Connor’ died in a tragic house fire, The family was devastated by their deaths but their grandfather took the loss worst of all. Grandpa could not make it to their funeral. Breakdowns come with a price. After his release from the "Happy Hotel for Naked Old Men" he worked hard at healing, at facing the terrible loss he and his family suffered. At moving on. That was the goal. Head doctors always have goals and Grandpa was doing well...until one unexpected slip, an accident really, sent him spiraling in an entirely different, decidedly darker direction. He became obsessed with “making things right”, with fixing things. Somehow he understood that only he could do that. Only he could make things right...and the cost didn't matter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vincent Palazzo
• Release date: Oct 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310776250

Vincent Palazzo

Vincent Palazzo is the author of two thrillers, "This Little Piggy Belongs to the Devil" and "Auf Wiedersehen, Lampione" as well as a collection of one act plays, "Monkeyshines...& Other Unnatural Acts". He has also published several short stories and commentaries on his blog, "Rants...Raves...Reality". He lives and works in the Adirondacks with his family.

Book preview

THIS LITTLE PIGGY

BELONGS TO THE DEVIL

a novel by

Vincent Palazzo

Mycroft Press

Bolton Landing, New York

Copyright © 2015 Vincent Palazzo

All rights reserved.

Distributed by Smashwords

All Rights Reserved including right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium currently existing or invented after publication. For information regarding permission, contact author at: Vincent Palazzo, Mycroft Press, 4375 Lake Shore Drive, Diamond Point, NY 12824

This Little Piggy is a work of fiction. References to actual events, real people, living or dead, and/or real places are used fictitiously. Any other names, places and/or events are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, places or events is purely coincidental.

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

for Hope and Mackenzie

CONTENTS

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Epilogue

Tell me something, killer. What sets me free? What sets me free?

- Israel Horovitz, It's Called the Sugar Plum

ONE

1.

I have lived in a good many places. For the longest time I gave in to wanderlust, saw myself as Jack Kerouac, bought a 1970-something Olds 88 convertible, named it Gypsy Dreamer, and drove to Florida with my wife up front, the kid in the back, the wind in our hair and the southern sun burning our shoulders. The car suffered critical system failures in Jacksonville and we flew home on an airline that no longer exists. Our son grew older, the Gypsy Dreamer faded from memory and that long list of places I longed to visit…well, I cut and pasted that list into my will with instructions to leave me, or, at least, my ashes in places I've never been. In time, I…excuse me…we settled in Bolton Landing, an idyllic hamlet in the Adirondack Mountains where we raised our family and became a decidedly different, but generally happy, family. In many ways, it was a charmed life.

2.

On September 9th, my son Clark turned 35 years old. We planned a surprise and rounded up the usual family and friends. His best friend, George Garrison, handled the Surprise! arrangements, flying in from Santa Monica to take Clark fishing on Lake George. He loaded the boat with innumerable cases of beer, enough fishing equipment to make it look real and the smallest container of worms I had ever seen. George, who had never baited a hook in his life, refused to spend money on something he never intended to touch.

They set out to the south of town, while we (parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, kin and friends of all shapes and sizes, four generations in all) set sail for one of the islands just north of town. It was the largest and most impressive flotilla since the D-Day invasion…for those of you with the imagination to construct the image. Every imaginable balloon, banner and bunting filled our holds along with enough beer, wine and gin to give Eliot Ness an orgasm. It was a picture perfect day and a great time was had by all.

Somewhere between picture perfect and great time the cell rang. My Hi-di-ho! Are you lost? stuck in my throat; my smile froze to my face in some sort of bizarre cartoon rictus. A voice, a woman I did not know, informed me that my son Clark’s twin sons, my grandchildren, Colin and Connor perished in a house fire. My ex-daughter-in-law and her newest live-in boyfriend both survived what firefighters later described as an inferno. I cannot blame the firemen; two of their own were flown to a downstate burn unit. One later died there. They did their best.

Time lost all meaning for me at that moment. Minutes, hours, days, weeks and now years have all melded together into an incoherent stew. I cannot sort it out. I know this story begins when I walked to the pier and met my son’s boat. I told him as gently as I could and he punched me in the face as hard as he could. I know it, this story, ended tonight. The in-between…all of it…is spin art. I cannot trust any of it.

3.

I did not make it to the funeral. Breakdowns will do that to you. I was sitting at the dining room table, just sitting by myself, replaying the phone call and fingering the thickening scab on my lip, sitting with a glass and a bottle of Jack, one filled more than the other, when the doorbell rang and a neighbor presented me with lasagna. She was younger than I by two decades, two decades and a smidge, in a dress she put on to pay her respects, and tears streaking her cheeks.

I don't know what to say, she croaked, the baking pan extended towards me.

It was there my mind turned left.

Was the sex that bad? I asked taking the pasta and sort of shoving it across the table. A pile of condolence cards exploded before the traveling platter. To my decaying consciousness each remembrance took flight like so many handfuls of confetti floating before a macabre parade. Some fell on the floor; the lasagna stopped short of that fate settling an inch or two from the edge. I remember wishing it would fall, wanting to know the sound it would make.

My neighbor, Janet, I think it was Janet, did not notice. She was already responding to my response to her, I don't know what to say cliché.

You shouldn't make me laugh.

I don't want to you laugh. I want to satisfy you. Family honor. You understand.

And just like that, without another thought, I started peeling off three day old clothes. I struggled out of a t-shirt stained with liquor and god knows what else, exposing sixty year old flab and sag. I went straight to work on the pants without noticing that condolence had left the building. Janet's expressions changed rapidly from confusion to revulsion to terror. I do not recall sympathy; I don't recall much of anything. I just kept talking.

I'm sure I can do it again. Twice if we need to, but I will probably have to sit.

I watched unchanged boxers flutter down my legs towards the floor and spent some time studying a rather sad and decidedly unthreatening dick. I remember admiring my gray corona and thinking I wasn't as bald as people thought. When I looked up Janet was gone.

One hour later, so was I.

4.

George went back to California a couple of days after the funeral. I believe he really didn’t want to go. He became part of the furniture, as my wife liked to say, back when he and Clark played little league ball, and part of the family well before the boys went off to college. But he had his business to consider, a girl he dated seriously, and some club girls he dated less seriously. He called Clark every day and spoke to me whenever the hospital let calls through but, in the end, life goes on. That's what they tell me, told me: life goes on.

It was not until later, much later, in fact, that I realized how good a friend George Garrison was.

5.

I have not been fair to my wife. When the doctor first suggested I start doodling in these notebooks as a strictly voluntary exercise that I could bring in and show him on a regular basis (there is nothing therapeutic that is actually voluntary), I resisted. But, I would wake up in the morning with these thoughts and questions about the ex-daughter-in-law's current fuck buddy and they started to grow into little mind plays that, at the time, made sense…keep in mind I was in a mental hospital…and if they made sense then maybe they were worth remembering, so I started writing them down. Who knows, maybe I could get my hands on a World War II Spitfire, fly over his house, machine guns blazing and put enough lead into him to keep the bastard off airplanes for the next hundred years. Perfectly reasonably hypothesis but not the point right now. I have filled numerous notebooks mentioning my wife several times, but not once have I introduced her or even referred to her by name.

Brenda, darling, I apologize.

6.

Brenda was a New York City girl if you consider Staten Island the city. I can't speak for most people but Brenda's father shunned the rest of the city. He was a little man with a fiery tongue and a pulpit in the shadow of the Fresh Kills garbage dump, a mountain of refuse that grew taller and more aromatic with each truck that crossed the bridge from Brooklyn - from people who can't pick up after themselves and think it's okay to litter in someone else's backyard! To his mind, images of seagulls picking at the detritus delivered endlessly from the borough across the bay was proof the forces of evil had gathered and the invasion was nigh. I was from Brooklyn. Across the Bay. The vanguard whose coming was predicted or at least expected. He didn't have any use for me, a reality Brenda vehemently denied. She wasn’t very convincing. For my part, I definitely did not like the Island; they charged a massive toll on the bridge that I had to pay every time I visited Brenda. Dates off the Island doubled the toll effectively limiting the where and whats. I was a student on a budget. Back when I met Brenda, the toll was the equivalent of two beers at my local pub - four on Miller Nite.

I discovered Brenda in Strand Booksellers sitting on an unpacked box of books halfway down a very narrow aisle of poetry. Back then, she was tall, thin and beautiful. I'm phrasing that badly; at sixty-two she is still tall and beautiful. When I saw her for the first time, though, when I turned into that aisle and spied this woman sitting at complete ease resting against the stacks, a copy of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets in her delicate hand, my reaction was immediate. Wow! I'd had that reaction only once before. In the Museum of Modern Art. I turned a corner and almost stumbled onto Song of the Vowels by Joan Mir(. It was one of those stop-dead-in-your-tracks life affirming moments. I have not seen that painting in thirty-six years and yet each time I think about Song of the Vowels I recall everything about it. I remember the artist’s name because I can perceive it scrawled on the nameplate at the bottom of its simple wooded frame. Even better I can experience that same sensation by simply visualizing it. Wow! This time I think I said it aloud; maybe it slipped past my lips as a gasp or a whisper. Whatever it was, she looked up and smiled.

Would you like to get past? she asked with a wink and a giggle. I'm sure I blushed.

I'm fine.

Instead of reading alone, we discussed Eliot over coffee at Starbucks.

7.

I still cry with fair regularity. People still ask me the how you doing question when they pass me of the street or stumble into me at the movies or the supermarket. They still have that look on their face when they ask the question. I ran into the boys' fifth grade teacher at the launderette. It was a Saturday and Brenda and I were both assigned busy work by Brenda. This woman, Ms. Ellington I think her name was, but Ellington might have been my fifth grade teacher, took both of my hands in hers, interrupting my fluff and fold time to ask, Are you okay?. There were already tears in her eyes. I shrugged, starting my now pat we’re fine/one day at a time speech but this teacher was not a one sentence type of gal.

I just can’t imagine what you are going through. I mean, those boys were angels, just angels. They made my classroom. We can all feel the difference. The kids feel the difference. You know, they wanted to split them up - the administration, I mean - but they worked so well together, they were just better together. My class is just not the same without them…

Try living in my house. There were a couple of choice, very uncomplimentary terms that followed but my thick skull quarantined them for my own private amusement.

…They were so energetic and funny. My god, they made me laugh so hard I would cry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be crying. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry when I saw you. I mean, about the children. I promised I wouldn’t cry about the children…

I bet you cry whenever SpongeBob burns a krabbie patty. Expletive deleted.

…I’m supposed to be consoling you but…

It was surreal. I found myself comforting her, patting her hand, giving the one day at a time speech to her.

There were a lot of wrinkled clothes that day.

Brenda hates ironing.

8.

I look my age and maybe a little more. Maybe there is no maybe about it. I have gained a good deal of weight - those days as a distance runner ended a long time ago - and the gray doesn't help. More than one person has offered me the senior discount; no one has ever extended that dubious honor to Brenda. She may have picked up a few pounds over the years but somehow she's managed to add it all to her breasts. They are considerably more substantial than they were at first feel thirty plus years ago. I may be sixty but as guys go, I still notice a good set of tits.

Brenda was always the volatile half of our partnership. She was gregarious, outspoken, energetic and, for want of a better word, explosive. She was on the prowl for fun in all quarters with all people. I, on the other hand, was quiet, reserved and, for want of a less accurate word, withdrawn. I craved the dark corners of a bar, preferring noon, to evenings standing four deep shouting for a beer, the staple of college kids on a date with empty pockets. When the music started, she was always first up to dance whether there was a dance floor or not. She moved, slithered and gyrated, enticing, even begging me to join her but I always watched from afar enjoying the show from an entirely male perspective. Imagining the two of us gliding to the music while surrounded by nothing but the soft cushions of my couch was as close to dancing as I ever got. At the end of the song, and sometimes the end of the evening, standing was simply out of the question. For the longest time, my inventions served as company on the long ride home to Brooklyn and comfort when I was home alone. Brenda grew our relationship a lot slower than I did.

Brenda also brought most of the anger to our equation. She was volatile, with a short fuse, a quick temper and a long memory. She was just as likely to chastise a waiter for forgetting the salad or ridicule another driver for failing to signal - even though I was doing the driving - as I was to say that's okay or it doesn't matter. I was the people make mistakes we can fix it guy; she was definitely a what the fuck’s wrong with you type of girl. I do not know if the planets aligned to bring us together - maybe it was a karmic joke - but I suspect Brenda's stubborn streak had something to do with keeping us a couple. More importantly, I have no idea how (or even why) I am still alive.

From that day at the bookstore, Brenda established goal posts that defined our relationship. In a way, it was like one of those insipid video games - another thing I never did - that demand you acquire a golden key before entering the next realm. Sex was the only big-ticket item on the hands-off list. It wasn’t fear or morality or virginity - she freely admitted giving that up in High School, a little factoid that drove me further round the bend - or even her minister father, who I have no doubt owned a gun and considered himself the island’s first line of defense against the advancing, penetrative multitudes from Brooklyn. I discovered early on that it wasn’t revulsion at being touched; Brenda welcomed the closeness and the intimacy of my hands and was free, even adventurous with her own.

The truth about Brenda: she was as voracious as she was gregarious. The day I crossed the fifty-yard mark - to continue the metaphor - was not the best day of my life, it was the beginning of an extraordinary life with a passionate, amazing partner. In