KooKooLand Read online

  Shirley gave Jimmy a peck on the cheek, leaving a pink smear, pleased he was aiding in her matchmaking efforts. She dug into the brown bag on her lap and passed out sandwiches, Fritos, and sweet-and-sour pickles. The sandwich was my favorite, pimento loaf, which was like bologna but with olives stuck in it. I wondered how they got the olives into the meat, but I was glad somebody had figured it out. Virginia hated olives and began to pick them out and hide them in the tinfoil wrapping.

  As soon as I took a bite of the pimento loaf I realized I wasn’t hungry. A knob of fear was lodged in my gullet like a big, fat olive. I felt like that worried-looking cartoon clock on the screen that was now starting to sweat. There were only three minutes left. Three minutes till Blood Feast.

  I had a pretty good idea of what I was in for.

  One Sunday, a few weeks back, we had come upon a movie theater in Boston where Blood Feast was playing. The theater was located in the part of town known as the Combat Zone. The area was crawling with girls in skintight skirts who had eyes like sleepy raccoons and guys hawking “genuine Bulova watches” that were phony as a three-dollar bill. Jimmy told us we were lucky he was showing us around the big, bad city. Other families just got to go camping in the boonies and have their keisters chewed by fire ants. Or maybe to Disneyland, which was for patsies. Well, screw that. Jimmy wanted us to see the watering holes and strip joints he had frequented when he was in the merchant marine. He wanted us to see the real world, baby.

  “How else you gonna write the Great American Novel?” he had asked me.

  I didn’t answer him.

  I’d just laid eyes on a giant poster of a half-naked lady dripping blood. The poster was outside the theater playing Blood Feast.

  Jimmy saw the poster and let out a whistle.

  Shirley’s hand holding mine tightened.

  Virginia stared down at some garbage.

  Jimmy sauntered up to the ticket booth. The punk in the booth was reading a magazine. I caught a glimpse of a picture of a woman with breasts like pink birthday balloons stuck to her chest by static electricity.

  “What’s the lowdown?” asked Jimmy. “Just how rough is this picture?”

  “Oh, it’s rough, man. Real bloody. Like nothin’ you ever seen.” The guy suddenly noticed us. His mouth dropped open. “You can’t bring kids in here.”

  Jimmy didn’t like the sound of that.

  “Oh no? Who says I can’t?”

  “Read my sign,” the punk said.

  He pointed to a handwritten sign taped to the glass that said ADDULTS ONLY. I could see he wasn’t much of a speller.

  “Frick you and frick your frickin’ sign,” said Jimmy. “My brats love a good slice-and-dice, the bloodier the better. Don’t you, brats?”

  Virginia and I nodded, doing our best to look eager.

  The bad speller wasn’t convinced. “Look, this ain’t like any other horror movie. It’s eighteen and over. That’s it, over and out.”

  Jimmy’s tanned face grew a shade darker. He tore into the punk. He said he’d seen a lotta phony-baloney movies in his life. Ones where some hooker dressed like a nurse stood in the lobby to take your blood pressure afterwards but the blood in the movie looked like Karo syrup and he knew what he was talkin’ about ’cause he’d seen a lotta blood, for Chrissake, he’d been in World War II when the guy was crawlin’ around in diapers. So he wasn’t buyin’ that this one was so bad. He was goin’ in to judge for himself and we were comin’ with him. It was a free country, and no little pip-squeak in some rinky-dink booth was gonna tell him where to go. He would tell the pip-squeak where to go first.

  Finally, the guy hissed at him, softly so we wouldn’t hear, but we did. “Beat it or I’m callin’ the fuzz. You want your kids to see you get pinched?”

  Jimmy’s right fist clenched into a knot. I watched the eagle tattoo on his biceps fill with blood and look like it was about to fly away.

  Just then, a big cop lumbered by. He was carrying a large box of pastry. I recognized the box. It was from a bakery in the North End where we often stopped for boozy rum cakes and cannoli after we left the Combat Zone. The Dago Joint, Jimmy called it, ’cause of it being Italian.

  “Daddy, can we go to the Dago Joint?” I pleaded, hoping to distract him from knocking the guy’s block off.

  The cop overheard me and chuckled. Jimmy glared at him. He didn’t like cops. Not any cops. They were mostly Micks, he said. McMurphys, McMullens, and McMeatheads. You never saw a Greek cop, ’cause the Micks had it all sewn up. They acted like big shots, but they were really just a bunch of four-flushers in uniform. I didn’t know what four-flushers were, but they didn’t sound like very nice people. They sounded mean for not letting any Greeks like us work with them.

  Not that any Greeks would want to be cops anyway. They were too smart for that, Jimmy explained. Who the hell would want to be pounding the pavement in the dead of winter freezing your keister off when you could be in a café drinking ouzo or shooting the baloney at the bookie joint?

  The cop disappeared into a pizza joint.

  “Look at that lard-ass go,” Jimmy laughed.

  The cop did have a fat ass, but it didn’t seem right to point it out. Maybe he couldn’t help having a fat ass. It might be a glandular thing. Like my friend Tina, she had a glandular thing.

  “No wonder they can’t finger the Boston Strangler if that’s what they got for USDA prime fuzz around here,” Jimmy said.

  The ticket taker cracked up. He said he’d been sayin’ the same frickin’ thing himself. Then he leaned forward and gave Jimmy the lowdown.

  “Look, save your dough. This picture stinks,” he whispered. “Not enough bazookas.”

  “I love Bazooka,” I chimed in. “I can fit six in my mouth at once.”

  The guy laughed and said, “Hey, kid, me too.”

  Jimmy told the guy to quit making fun of his kid or he’d golf him one. Then he said never mind the frickin’ movie, he’d take his business elsewhere, that he wouldn’t be caught dead in that fleabag joint anyway. He might get bitten by a rat and have to sue them for every red cent they had.

  Then he turned away from the window and threw his muscley arms around the three of us.

  “I’m taking my dolls to the Dago Joint.”

  And off we went. We stuffed ourselves silly with rum cakes. Jimmy gave me the maraschino cherry on his. Then he took us to see Modern Times and we laughed ourselves silly. Charlie Chaplin played a poor working stiff in a factory, just like Shirley. Except Charlie made machine parts and Shirley made Foster Grant sunglasses, which were mostly shipped to KooKooLand ’cause that’s where all the sunshine was anyway.

  It was late when we headed back to the car, which was still parked in the Combat Zone. Everything looked scuzzier, but I wasn’t afraid. Not even of the Boston Strangler. I knew Jimmy, unlike that lard-ass cop, could take him. Take him blindfolded with one hand tied behind his back and on one foot. Knock him six ways to Sunday and still get home in time for supper. None of my friends in the projects had a father who could do that. Heck, most of them didn’t even have a father that I’d ever seen. If they found themselves face-to-face with the Boston Strangler they’d be sliced and diced like that lady in Blood Feast.

  I must’ve looked tired ’cause Jimmy suddenly lifted me up like I was no heavier than a skinned rabbit. He slung me on his back and I buried my face in the back of his sinewy neck. I didn’t even mind that his Wildroot was greasing up my forehead. A piggyback ride through the Combat Zone was a lot of fun. The raccoon ladies thought so too; they smiled and stepped aside. I was asleep by the time we got back to the car.

  Over the next few weeks, Jimmy checked the newspaper to see if Blood Feast was playing in our neck of the woods. Finally, he saw an ad that said CALL THEATER FOR FILM TITLE. The paper had a policy against printing the name of any movie it didn’t think people oughta be seeing. Usually it was a dirty movie. The paper let you know there was something smutty playing, but what exactly the smut was, y
ou had to get off your lard-ass and find out for yourself.

  Jimmy picked up the phone and called. Sure enough, his hunch was right.

  “It’s coming,” he teased us. “Blood Feast is coming.”

  For the next few nights he scratched at our closed bedroom door, pretending to be a maniac.

  “We know it’s you, Daddy!” I would shout.

  “Cut it out,” Virginia would add for good measure.

  He never let on it was him. He just growled and drifted away, leaving us to stare wide-eyed into the darkness, listening to our hamster, Squirmy, as his toenails clicked frantically on his hamster wheel.

  But now, the wait was over. Blood Feast was finally here.

  The cartoon clock on the drive-in screen was jumping up and down. Its alarm had just gone off. It ran off the edge of the screen and into the darkness.

  Shirley reached into the backseat and sprayed us with bug repellent. The mosquitoes were starting to come out.

  I peered between my parents’ heads. My heart was bumping against my rib cage like it wanted to follow that cartoon clock wherever it was headed.

  It couldn’t be that bad, I told myself. I had made it through Psycho, Homicidal, and The Sadist. Sure, I got scared, but then everything turned out OK. The bad guys got caught, shot, or, like Charlie in The Sadist, fell into a pit of poisonous snakes. The killers got what was coming to them and that made you feel happy. The worse they got it, the happier you felt. Happiness was always waiting for you at the end.

  That’s what I told myself, anyway.

  The movie began with some organ music that sounded like what they played at the ice-skating rink. I relaxed a little. Maybe there’d be some ice-skating in the movie. Maybe it’d be like the Ice Capades with a little blood thrown in.

  But there was no ice-skating. No flouncy skirts or bouncy ponytails. Just a blond lady coming home from work to an apartment kinda like ours. The lady took off all her clothes and got into a bathtub. Before long, a man appeared out of nowhere. He began stabbing the lady over and over with a carving knife that looked about a foot long. He stabbed her in the eye, pulling the eye right out of its socket and impaling it like a morsel of Greek shish kebab on a stick. Then he sawed off the bottom of her leg and cut out her heart.

  The lady’s heart filled the whole screen. It was a huge, drippy hunk cradled in the man’s hands like a kitten.

  I told myself it must be a deer’s heart or maybe a moose’s. But I didn’t know how they could make it look like it came out of the lady’s chest. And the blood looked real and sticky.

  “Wow,” said Jimmy. “This makes Psycho look like a Sunday school picnic with a bunch of frickin’ penguins.” By penguins he meant nuns.

  Virginia started to wail and slid onto the car floor.

  Shirley turned away from the screen, making a face like she was sucking on a sour ball. Her left arm flailed into the backseat, trying to locate Virginia. She patted her on the head.

  “Jim, maybe this one’s too much for them.”

  “Oh, c’mon, it’s just a movie.”

  He called back to Virginia, “It’s just a cow’s heart covered in Karo syrup. Don’t be a crybaby. Your sister’s five years younger, and she’s not blubbering.”

  On the screen, they were showing the dead lady’s face with one empty eye socket the size of a hole you’d dig to play marbles.

  “But, hell, they’re doing a pretty good job with the realism,” he said.

  He turned back to get my opinion. “What do you think, kiddo?”

  I agreed they were doing a pretty good job with the realism and said it was the best slice-and-dice ever.

  “See,” Jimmy told Shirley. “Don’t be a killjoy. Some of us have a movie to watch.”

  I kept my eyeballs glued to the screen, determined to prove I could take whatever the movie dished out.

  Virginia stopped crying but stayed on the floor where she couldn’t see anything. Sometimes she would put her hands over her ears if there were screams or if the ice rink music got a little louder.

  Now and then, Shirley would glance into the backseat to see if we were OK. Virginia would mumble that she was fine and I acted like I was too wrapped up in the movie to even notice her.

  It turned out the killer was an Egyptian caterer with a gimpy leg named Fuad Ramses. Fuad was cooking up a big feast for a party and he planned to serve humans, not hamburgers and hot dogs.

  Fuad had to collect a lot of body parts for the feast. After slicing and dicing the lady in the bathtub, he went after a girl making out with a guy on the beach. He cut out the girl’s brain but didn’t bother with the guy’s. I figured the guy’s brain must not be as tender and said so.

  “That’s right,” Jimmy said. “Men’s brains are tough and women’s are all soft and squishy and little Greek girls’ brains are the softest of all. They’re the best for eating, like a baby lamb at Greek Easter. So you better hold on to your head from now on or some maniac might try to snatch it.”

  “No maniac’s getting my head,” I snapped. “I’ll stab them in the eye first.”

  “That’s my girl,” he laughed.

  The next lady got her tongue ripped out, roots and all.

  “Aw, it’s just a cow’s tongue,” Jimmy said, sounding disappointed. “A human tongue would be a lot smaller.” Jimmy knew everything there was to know about body parts ’cause when he was my age he’d worked after school for Yanco the Macedonian Butcher.

  Finally, Fuad kidnapped a lady and brought her back to his place. He hung her up by her arms and whipped her until her back was a bloody mess. He didn’t seem to want any of her body parts. I figured he was just mad. Or maybe he wanted her blood for gravy.

  After that, the lard-ass cops were onto Fuad and chased him down. Like a numbskull he hid in the back of a garbage truck. The truck ground him up like a giant wad of hamburger meat. You’d never even know he was a person. He just became gunk like the muskratpossumchipmunk I’d seen on the road.

  It was the perfect ending.

  But something was wrong. I didn’t feel happy at all.

  I knew I’d never look at garbage trucks the same way. I’d steer clear of them so I wouldn’t trip and fall in or maybe get pushed in by some kids who were just goofing around.

  I knew every time I played marbles I’d see that lady’s eye socket in the marble hole.

  I knew from then on I’d be checking my bedroom closet for psychos every night and sleeping with scissors under my pillow.

  Jimmy winked at me in the rearview mirror.

  “Man, that was a kick in the chops, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah, Daddy. I wish we could see it again.”

  “That wasn’t really him in the garbage truck, you know. He pushed in one of the coppers instead and got away.”

  “He did not. He got all squished up. I saw it.”

  “No, he got away. You musta got all scared like a girl and closed your eyes for a second. He’s still out there. And guess who he’s coming for next?”

  “You!” I blurted out. “He’s coming for you.”

  He grabbed me around the neck. For a second, I couldn’t breathe.

  “No, he’s coming for you, little girl. He’s coming for you.”

  A Hearty Breakfast

  The next morning, Jimmy was going over to talk to Hank Piasecny, the millionaire, about setting him up with Shirley’s friend, the miserable, husbandless Shirley. I begged him to take me along. Hank’s daughter, Susan, often worked at Hank’s Sports Center in the summer, and I was hoping to make some headway on our friendship. Or at least get some Good & Plenty. Susan had once given me a box of those licorice nuggets and I had never forgotten it.

  Jimmy said I could come along to Hank’s if I hurried the hell up. I forced down the rest of my Rice Krispies that had long ago lost their snap, crackle, and pop. I drank every last drop of the sludgy sugar milk at the bottom of the bowl ’cause you didn’t waste food. Not when kids with big bellies that looked like they ate too
much were actually starving to death.

  Jimmy’s plate had only the faintest smear of egg yolk left on it. He had just finished the mess of food Shirley had made him, everything just the way he liked it. Three fried eggs—the yolks nice and runny, the whites hard, none of that goddamn slimy stuff in them—and six strips of bacon, not too crisp, but not too raw either, they should bend not break—and home fries with butter, onions, and green pepper—but not too much, not overdone or anything—and homemade bread—all warm and fluffy, not goddamn Wonder Bread like most lazy American broads slapped down in front of their husbands, but real bread like Greek wives made back in the old country, and the butter soft, not right out of the Frigidaire, where it would tear the bread if you tried to spread it, and coffee—strong but not too bitter, with two teaspoons of sugar, rounded teaspoons, and a little milk but not a drop too much.

  Shirley picked up Jimmy’s clean plate and exhaled.

  “I barely need to wash this,” she trilled, before plopping it into a sink full of steamy bubbles, the water scalding hot the way Jimmy liked it, the way it had been in the merchant marine.

  I brought my cereal bowl over to the sink and Shirley leaned down and gave me a sudsy hug. I breathed in her scent—lemon Joy and Johnson’s Baby Powder. Her soft curls, the color of Hershey’s cocoa, tickled my cheek. I hugged her waist, feeling her rib cage through her white summer blouse.

  I wished she could come to Hank’s with us. I didn’t like being alone in the car with Jimmy. If I was going to die in a fiery car crash I wanted my mother with me.

  But Shirley couldn’t come. She had to finish doing the dishes, wash some clothes, yank ’em through the wringer, hang ’em on the line, fry up a mess of mackerel, mash some potatoes, make a peach pie for Jimmy’s dinner, and then go to bed. She needed a few hours of sleep before she went off to make sunglasses at eleven that night.

  If she was lucky, she might be able to sneak in a few innings of the Red Sox game while Jimmy was gone. Shirley had grown up in a baseball-loving family but under Jimmy’s roof only boxing and horse racing—the sport of kings—were allowed. Baseball was the sport of lard-asses and the Red Sox were a bunch of bums.