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698. NuPlanetOne - 6/3/2006 11:33:04 PM “OK. I get it.” From nowhere my testicles were tingling like I had just been given the news. “You guys want the ring.”
“Depends.” Joe looked mildly confused but mostly cautious.
“Joe, c’mon, I’m further out of this shit than you are. You’re scaring me ova here. I’m not even sure I got that fuckin ring of his.” I found myself slipping into the vernacular of the corner.
“Hairs da deal,” He stood up close, not menacing, but like the guy he used to be. No pug. Pitbull.
“OK,” I half whispered.
“If you die with the ring on, and you wasn’t whacked, it stops there. It is collected and next to the initials inside the band The Ghost etches a double X. But, while you are still breathin, you can ask to pass it on. The members vote and dat decides if it’s allowed. Your brother gave up his ring and we OK’ed it. Almost unanimis. One veto. Fuck him! Look thru ya bruther’s shit closely. Along with the ring there will be a piece of tin that looks like a business card. On the front it will say Cabal Enterprises, on the back some numbers and a bar code. If you got the card and the ring…well, compadre, gabeesh?” His eyes twinkled like he had cornered an adversary. Then the pug returned. And it waited like it expected a biscuit.
If I tell you, I will have to kill you, echoed in my mind. But it all made sense. After my brother bailed me out of my jam he was hardly ever fully relaxed or as confident as before. Meanwhile, I never heard a peep from that other life. Even about money I owed. Nothing. Until Joe Basil waltzed through that back door. So that was it. My brother gave up his membership to save my ass. I remember the day he sat in my apartment and said, ‘Charlie, you can go away over this thing. This guy wants you taken for an appointment. So I fixed it. You gotta move. Start fresh.’ And by giving up the ring, he must have been an open target. I felt a love, and a desperate sickness swimming in my gut. I knew I had spent my life taking hits for that big shit, giving up stuff, always there at all the bottom outs. But this… he knew the only thing that mattered to these guys was some imaginary and ancient honor. And the only abuse of their earthly vow of honor was the passion and embrace of vengeance. You followed the sacred rules of omerta, but vengeance allowed for discretion, and the rituals of vendetta could be sanctioned if they didn’t threaten the silence. I stole a made guy’s woman. I knew too late. And I thought it was real. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. I never heard from her again. I got out, and now I knew how. I wondered if Sofina Maria was alive. She felt alive at that moment.
699. NuPlanetOne - 6/3/2006 11:33:45 PM “Yo, C. Come back!” Joe was looking at me just like he was before I went blank and wandered into my daze of recall.
“Ya, ya, capisco.” I focused. I tried to picture the lock box with its phone book covering mixed in with the phone books at the bottom of the end table along with the stack of newspapers. Clutter. It would take a dedicated ransacking of the place to happen upon it. They could get in the building easy enough, but it would take noise to get through that door. Sixth floor. 2 dead bolts, rods going into the wall. The latest thing in apartment security. It could be done, and just because I was paranoid at that moment, didn’t mean someone wasn’t out to get me, as the saying goes.
“Good. You bring me the card, I turn it in, then you can wear the ring,” Joe said precisely as if I was waiting all my life for the instructions.
“Why did this news take so long to find me?” I said as it dawned on me.
“Your brutha died, what, a little ova a year ago, right?”
“Right,” I said trying to look like I wasn’t paranoid.
“Well, while you was tuned out amico mio, big shit was goin down.” He was nodding up and down like I had slept through the apocalypse.
“Fill me in.” I lifted the proofing blanket and looked over at the timer.
“Well, feds, finks and people dyin. The Ghost was outta the country for 9 months. And he wasn’t knocked up. All business was on hold. It all cleared up when Tony Shish put the wheels back on. That’s why I got my ring. Then I get my orders. Now you been told. The game’s back on. New business, same old fuckin rules. Plus, you need the fuckin ring. There are people that will be lookin to finish old business. Like I said, The Ghost is breathin, so you’re safe.” He lifted the blanket where he stood and gestured down with a severe pug face.
“OK. It’s time. Spread out.” I peeled the proofing blanket up and off the dough. With three folds I tucked it away and had my bread paddle dusted with cornmeal and took hold of my pastry cutter. As I placed the loaves on the paddle I said, “Top oven,” and Joe pulled open the top tier. I slid four balls of down evenly spaced along the back wall horozontically.
“How the fuck they come off that smooth!” Joe jumped back because I was right back in with four more.
“Practice, so what about this oil, will you be able to get more?” I had twelve balls in and snapped open the second tier of the oven before Joe could react.
“Ya, I guess it can be had on the world web thing. And, a few tight-ass goodie shops can get it too. Shish tells me it is hand pressed by some Turk Doctor who is a afishanado, or a fish some-fuckin-thing about being a snob olive oil lover. Half the Olive oil outta Italy comes from Turkey, accordin to Shish. This Doctor dick-up-his-ass only makes a small batch and until he saw the dolla signs, he only sold it local. Now he’s expandin. I asked Shish for details, acetera. He said to go google it. Fuckin Turk bastid. I let it slide.”
“You crack me up Joe Basil, now scoot. I gotta get shakin.” I slid the paddle back up above the rack. I couldn’t wait for him to leave so I could collapse in private.
“OK Chahlee, have the card Tuesday when I deliver the tomatoes. Leave the rest to me.” He stopped by the door and stood there holding up his left hand. He wiggled the finger with the ring. “Never leave home without it.” Wink, pug face. “Ciao bambola faccia.”
Anyway, that was the idea. Use the incredible olive oil and build my scallop entrée. I mean, I had cooked up most of my ideas with even less time to play with, and shit, I had at least a half hour for this one.
700. webfeet - 6/6/2006 5:53:39 AM Bravo! More roses fly down from the third and the fourth rings. You would be crazy not to pursue this. A fishinado! You have the mob thing down beau-ti-fully. You have an insider source. I know it. No-one can just channel that. It's fantastico!
Um, excuse me. Doesn't anyone here have a pulse? 701. Magoseph - 6/6/2006 12:08:25 PM Web, I do, see this: Message # 19584 in thread 142 702. Macnas - 6/6/2006 2:31:16 PM What a great first thing to read after my few days away from the Mote!
If it was a book, I'd buy it. 703. NuPlanetOne - 6/10/2006 8:39:41 PM
Well then, I have decided it will be a book. Written entirely in here. Imagine how long that might take! Then, with the blessing of The Mote copyright police I will set off and option it out. Perhaps when I get my first huge advance, I will open my own Bistro and become fabulously wealthy! In any case, I will hopefully entertain you all as I plod along and actually fashion a plot somewhere amidst the food and fodder simmering on the surface. 704. webfeet - 6/14/2006 3:45:36 AM Yes, and I will look on, proud from my post as a part-time bookkeeper in a vacuum-cleaner company. Then, I will later wrap up my opus in a neat little parcel, and drink myself to death with Cherish and Roy and throw darts at my NuPlanetOne kewpie doll.. And, oh nevermind.
You have a very good ear for dialogue. And that is half the battle. 705. concerned - 6/24/2006 4:51:03 AM Say, what's a 'herione'? I've heard of 'heroines', of course. 706. Ulgine Barrows - 6/24/2006 9:54:14 AM yeah right, Let's get together on these 'heroines', of course.
Before we get much older
707. Ulgine Barrows - 6/24/2006 10:04:58 AM mmm
fuck me now
or fuck me later
strategy 708. webfeet - 6/27/2006 5:55:27 AM Well, ding dong dell..who do we have here?
I hope that wasn't a haiku. Because, if it was, I've never heard such a strange little melody put to music. Yes, yes it might actually be a haiku! Lovely, ulgine. Unprecedently lovely. 709. webfeet - 6/27/2006 6:08:58 AM I suppose I should be telling you all now. Get out your hankies.
No, no, I'm not not published, yet. What I'm doing is leaving the country Friday to spend ete en provence with belle-mere and it is highly unlikely that you shall hear from me for the entire summer! All those 4th of July Barbecues I will have to miss, oh, I can't stop sobbing. City heat inthe dog days of summer. Please, someone hand me un mouchoir while I dab my eyes.
Of course, I am landing straight into the jaws of death. But, what's a fool to care? There are tartes everywhere! And I can dance in the street every time her back is turned and dream under the parasol of a small cafe, in total silence.
710. alistairconnor - 6/27/2006 9:45:14 AM Middle of Aix en Provence if I am not mistaken?
Classy big village. Plenty of pretty fountains for the kids to splash around in. Though perhaps Aix is a bit prim and strait-laced to tolerate that.
I hope les grands-parents have enrolled the progeniture in a centre aéré, so they can tough it out with the locals?
Perhaps Clément is old enough for a week in a summer camp? That would be formative. 711. Magoseph - 6/27/2006 11:43:03 AM What I'm doing is leaving the country Friday to spend ete en provence with belle-mere and it is highly unlikely that you shall hear from me for the entire summer!
Why is the ordi’s sacrosanctity still in effect, Web?
712. webfeet - 6/27/2006 2:23:59 PM No-one plays in the fountains, alistair. Not even frogs. OH GOD WHAT HAVWE I SAID? UM, that's a big no no.
We're not staying in Aix the whole summer..keep in mind Aix is now akin to Burbank or Cheddar Cheese, WI as it's perhaps the 17th time I'll be going there since the magical yeear of 1998. I usually fall captive to its charms in the late evening
And all of Europe and 'The Americans' flying in for the 'Cezanne' exposition which took 20 years to get afoot, at the Musee Granet. Looking forwarsd to it. No really. An un air conditioned little museum smaller than the Frick with hundreds of world class breathers in my face as I bend to peer into each portrait, rubbing buttocks with Italians. Oh, alrite, it does sound like fun. I'm thirsty just thinking aboutit.
Cezanne is buried, incidentally, in the cemetary behind BM's jardin gardenc omplex and you can see just the tippy tip of Sainte-Victoire, if you stand at the head of that colline, in the distance. I expect someone is going to force me to go on a hike there.
And thenit's down to the sud-ouest to Pau and its environs to have a small reunion with the second-generation paysans and their off-spring in bm's Bearnais clan. Everyone is exceedingly polite and I am carted before them like a circus animal..for their entertainment. An American! In our living room!
This is going to sound mean, and by golly, it is. I deliberately picked out espadrilles that put my already tall frame at a good inch or so taller than usual.Normally I never wear any shoe with even the slightest hint of a heel. A tiny one, just to give a little grace to my ankle, but not really. I did this especially to vex BM. When she orders me around, she will have to look up to me!!! Can you believe anyone could stoop so low? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA 713. webfeet - 6/27/2006 2:29:27 PM Well, I'm awake now. There!
And mags, the ordinarteur is in theory welcome at any time for my use, except that it never seems to work when I go near it. And whathisface, phi phi my beau pere, can play the 'mad professor' and shake his head and shrug, but he is more savvy than he lets on. He has a fucking imac laptop for god sake.
Never works. Never. When I'm near it.
That doesn't mean that I can't try.
Now I have to go. My children are away, my husbandis in paris and I have been blissfully alone for 2 solid nights. And I have no time to waste. 714. webfeet - 6/27/2006 2:32:16 PM ...the valise is open and they're coming back today. 715. wabbit - 6/27/2006 2:44:09 PM I am already looking forward to your return and the host of stories I've no doubt you will have to share! 716. alistairconnor - 6/27/2006 3:42:37 PM I was only joking about the fountains. Sort of.
My kids would be up to their armpits, and I'd probably get a ticket from the municipal police. You should have seen them tearing across the Bridge of Sighs against the flow of traffic, fearlessly facing down finger-wagging Germans.
Well I presume they were Germans. Perhaps they were Swiss. Or Aixois. 717. arkymalarky - 7/1/2006 1:20:06 AM This remind anyone of a certain American short story?
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