It’s a Sunday and nobody bothers me, so I sleep until noon. I’m a little disoriented when I wake up to my tastefully decorated bedroom with its sturdy oak furniture. I throw back the plaid bedspread that’s pulled up to my chin. My first instinct is to reach for my Otherworld headset and get the hell out of New Jersey. I don’t own a car, but thanks to the game, that won’t matter much anymore. Then I remember I already have plans today.
I get out of bed and rifle through an old box at the back of my closet until I locate the Speedo I wore to swim meets back in elementary school. I strip out of my boxers and pull it on. Then I unlock my bedroom door and head down the hall. I pause at a mirror in the living room to make sure my junk is safely tucked away. The Speedo covers just enough to keep me from getting arrested. It’s a pretty good look, I gotta say. Pasty white skin, wild black hair and three days’ worth of untrimmed scruff. I figure I’m ready for action. But before I get down to business, I take a moment to admire my nose.
My grandfather was blessed with the same giant schnoz. From what I’ve read, the thing was legendary. If he’d lived two hundred years earlier, they’d have sung songs about it. But his heyday was the sixties, so his nose inspired a nickname instead. They called my grandfather the Kishka. For those of you out there who consider French fries an ethnic food, a kishka is a sausage. A rather unattractive sausage, I might add, with a shape that’s either phallic or fecal, depending on your level of maturity. And yet, by all accounts, the ladies loved my grandfather. They say it’s probably what got him killed.
I never saw the nose in person. In fact, I wouldn’t know anything about it if it weren’t for a book I found in the Brockenhurst library called Gangsters of Carroll Gardens. My mother grew up in that part of Brooklyn, but to hear her tell it, her childhood was all fresh cannoli, backyard garden parties and upscale bat mitzvahs. So imagine my surprise when I’m thumbing through the book and come across a picture of the Kishka. I don’t know who he is at that point. I’m thirteen years old, and I don’t even recognize my grandfather’s name. I just know he looks exactly like me.
Stop here for a minute and imagine tumbling down that rabbit hole. By the time I hit bottom, everything made sense. My entire life, I’d always suspected that some critical piece of information was being withheld from me. For years, I was convinced that I couldn’t possibly be my parents’ biological child. I knew in my heart of hearts that one of the cleaning ladies had given birth to me in a broom closet and my beautiful, small-nosed mother had graciously taken me in. Whenever one of the maids smiled at me, I’d always wonder if it might be her.
Now I knew. Armed with a picture of a gangster I’d never heard of, I started to dig for the truth. I found part of it in a box tucked away in the attic. Inside were four Brooklyn high school yearbooks. I flipped through one, and there she was…Irene Diamond. I didn’t recognize her at first. All through high school, she looked nothing like the woman I know. I never would have guessed the girl was my mother if it hadn’t been for the kishka set in the center of her face. Irene Diamond had the same damn nose I see every time I look in the mirror. I’d love to know how much her father paid to have it fixed.
When I was younger, my mother used to watch me when she thought I wasn’t looking. She’d try to smile when I caught her, but I could tell she was horrified by what she saw. It used to upset me. Now the cosmic justice of it all cracks me up. She’d been running from the nose her entire life—and it ended up on her only son’s face.
I may have cracked a little the day I found those yearbooks, but I didn’t fall apart. And I never mentioned my discovery to my parents. Even then, I knew secrets had power. I knew my mother had hidden her true identity for good reason. Nothing would have given me more pleasure than shouting the truth from the rooftops. But I figured there would be a day when my mother’s secret would come in handy. So for the past few years, I’ve kept it tucked away safely for future use.
I love looking at my nose now. The afternoon sun streaming in through the living room windows really sets it off. The giant gilded mirror in front of me is one of a pair that my mother tells dinner guests she purchased on her honeymoon in Paris. I don’t know where she got the mirrors, but I’ve seen snapshots of her honeymoon in Orlando. The room in the background looks like Marie-Antoinette might waltz through at any moment. But the kishka on my face is there to remind me I don’t belong to this world. I’m the grandson of a two-bit gangster who broke fingers for the Gallo crime family and is probably buried at the bottom of the Gowanus Canal.
“Oooh!” a lady squeals behind me. Then I hear the sound of footsteps rushing out of the room. Some new staff member, probably. The rest of them have been warned about me. I’m not sure what they’ve been told, but I doubt they’d be shocked to find a six-foot-three-inch kid with zero muscle mass and a giant nose standing in his old elementary school banana hammock in the middle of the formal living room.
“Sorry,” I call out. I didn’t expect anyone inside to see me. The house is rarely empty, though you can wander through it for hours without running into a soul. Don’t get the wrong impression—I generally wear clothes when I wander. But today I have a special treat in mind for the neighbors.
It’s still a bit nippy when I step outside, but spring has sprung. Across the street, the neighbors’ newly planted rosebushes are blooming. The buds started opening last week, which is why I’m here now, nearly naked on a chilly afternoon. The flowers are fuchsia, a color my mother calls vulgar. As soon as they began to reveal themselves, my mother petitioned the homeowners’ association to have them uprooted. Since she’s the president of the association—and a ruthless attorney—her petitions always pass. How about that? It’s the American Dream in action. Irene Diamond started life as the daughter of a small-time crook, and now she’s in charge of nature.
The people across the street are new to our neighborhood. Last fall, they moved here from Singapore to work for one of our local tech conglomerates. Unlike my mother, they haven’t spent years forming alliances over hors d’oeuvres, which means they lack what my parents call leverage. But they’re friendly to me, so I’m going to give them something to complain about—something that will embarrass Mommy Dearest enough to keep her lips sealed at the next meeting of the homeowners’ association.
I drag a chaise from the side of the pool behind our house. Its legs gouge muddy tracks in the pristine grass all the way to the front yard, where I position it perfectly—not far from the street and just across from the neighbors’ living room windows. I’ve worked up a sweat, and my pasty skin glistens as I lie down on my stomach. I wedge the back of the Speedo between my butt cheeks and try to assume an artistic pose. No sense in being vulgar.
My eyes are closed and the warmth of the sun is spreading over my skin when the first car approaches. The driver hits the brakes near the mailbox.
“Hey, crazy!” someone shouts. I recognize the voice. It belongs to a girl from school. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” I call out. “I’m getting a tan.”
“Put some clothes on, you pervert!” shouts a second voice.
“Nobody wants to see your hairy butt cheeks, Simon,” screams a third. I open my eyes a crack and see three girls from school hanging out of a car. One of them is already tapping away at her phone. Their friends will be arriving soon.
My butt cheeks aren’t quite as furry as they’ve been made out to be, and apparently lots of people would like to see them, because the traffic on my street goes nuts for the next thirty minutes.
I don’t pay any attention to the hoots and catcalls. Crossing ice fields and getting blown to smithereens for hours on end was exhausting. I got about five hours of sleep, but I’ll need more if I want to go back in tonight. I’m just drifting off when I hear a car pull into my drive. A few seconds later, someone’s thrown a jacket over me.
“Get up and get inside.” It’s my mother.
I open my eyes. She’s looming over my chaise, and she’s pissed as hell.
“The people across the street are threatening to phone the police,” she hisses.
“Hi, Mom,” I say with a yawn. “You look stunning this afternoon.”
She does. Her black hair is pulled into a fancy knot, and she’s wearing a silk dress in a very tasteful shade of pale blue. Her painted lips are pressed together beneath her perfect nose.
“Now, Simon. Or you’re going to jail.”
I sigh and sit up, tying her jacket around my waist. “Aren’t you overreacting? I’m sure the neighbors will forget all about this unfortunate incident if you let them keep their vulgar roses.”
“Those people are not who you should be worried about,” she says. “My accountant just called to ask if the six-thousand-dollar charge on my AmEx for video game equipment was a business expense. You stole my credit card, Simon. One more word from you and I’m dialing your probation officer.”
This is unexpected. The accountant must be new. The old one didn’t ask questions.
I’m fully clothed and sitting on the living room couch when my father gets home. He’s dressed in Easter egg colors and there’s a nine iron in his hand. Apparently I’ve interrupted a golf game. He walks straight through the room without even acknowledging me. A few minutes later, he’s back, and he’s got my new headset, gloves and booties. He drops them all in a pile on the floor.
I wince when I hear a crack. “Come on, Dad,” I groan. “Do you know how hard it was to get all that stuff? Only a couple thousand of those headsets have even been made. That one’s going to be worth a fortune someday.”
“This heap of crap cost six thousand, three hundred and fifty-six dollars?” he asks.
Not exactly—I bought two sets of gear. I only kept one for myself. “It’s not crap,” I say. “It’s the newest virtual reality technology. I was on a wait list for that headset—”
“So it’s a video game,” my father says. If you didn’t know him, you wouldn’t think he was that angry. But I’ve spent eighteen years with Grant Eaton, and I know all the warning signs. He’s about to blow sky-high.
“It’s revolutionary—”
“It’s over.” He lifts his nine iron over his head and brings it down hard on the equipment. He repeats the same motion at least three dozen times, until his face is bright red and he’s out of breath.
I’m finding it pretty hard to breathe too. My last chance to spend time with Kat is just a pile of plastic shards. “I can’t believe you—”
“You’re eighteen now,” he interrupts me. He’s holding the golf club like a baseball bat and panting so hard that I wonder if he’ll keel over. “One more incident like this, and your mother and I will no longer be able to help you. If I were you, Simon, I’d spend a lot more time in the real world.”