Toni Piccolo – Head of the Piccolo Crime Family
When I finally say I love you to any man and really mean it, it will be like a defeated general who's lost all his troops, surrendering and handing his sword to the enemy.
Why am I thinking of that quote here, now? In a club, where I’m looking for something to take my mind off things. Off my family, the Piccolos, and our business – which are pretty much the same thing these days.
I read “War and Peace” years ago, and right now, all I’m looking for is one night of forgetting.
I let the fishing hook of my gaze slide around the room, pause on a few possibilities. A minnow of a boy with a tangle of hair and a confident smirk. Maybe. Then there’s a goldfish slinking around the dance floor, all hip thrusts and gyrations. Or even the whale of a man at the end of the bar, a tall and broad beast.
They’re all eyeing me hungrily, and I can’t blame them. This dress, this front-zippered, red-velvet-tits-to-ass dress was made for sex, and that’s what I bought it for.
I stride to the bathroom, giving each of the men a moment of my glance in turn. I’ll think about who to choose while I check my hair. They all look like good prospects – but tonight, I don’t want good, I want great. Who knows the next time I’ll get away from my family again. Even escaping to this bar, which is a five-minute walk away, wasn’t easy. I had to wait hours until Carlos finally left the house.
As I brush my hair with long pleasing strokes, I glare at the smile working its way onto my face.
How did I let it get to this point? To the point where I’m so cooped up in our stupid old house that I relish even getting out to a public washroom?
My brush hits a snag in my hair and I yank down, but the snag holds. Stuck here, the questions attack me:
How long will Papa be sick?
How long am I going to have to be in charge?
How long am I going to have to hide so that no one knows that I’m Toni, momentarily in charge of the infamous Piccolo family?
The brush’s bristles wrench through the hair tangle and the answers tumble down:
Probably not much longer now. He’s a fighter, Papa Piccolo. He’ll be better in no time.
So, I’ll be free soon. ‘Til now, I’ve only had to keep business running as usual, not a big deal, except…
I glance up then away, away from the horror already manifesting itself on my face. Carlos tried to keep it from me, as it were; I only found out by accident. And yet, I can’t seem to get it out of my head, what that sick bastard Clarence let slip.
I tuck my brush in my bag and stride out of the bathroom.
That’s enough hair-brushing and soul-searching for now. Now, I’m ready for some good old forgetting.
No sooner have I sat down at the bar then the minnow slides up beside me.
“You’re beautiful. What do you drink?” he asks.
“Sex on the beach,” I say.
He grins, thinking he knows exactly what I mean.
Really though, I like my alcohol tasteless, like an extra yummy juice.
Just how you liked the family business, reaping its rewards while ignorant of what was really going on, a voice in my head says.
When the drink is set before me, I down it in one gulp.
“Whoa,” the minnow says, “You must be really thirsty.”
I stare into his eyes, smile and purr, “You have no idea.”
“A drinker. I like that,” the goldfish says in a heavily-accented voice, putting another Sex on the Beach on my other side.
I let my smile slide over to him, take the straw with one hand and suck up my deliverance for tonight, my fingers playing with the straw.
Tonight’s going to be a good night, I can tell already.
When the whale appears behind me with two Sex on the Beaches in hand, I’m hardly surprised.
What follows is an all-you-can-drink competition where I lose track of the empty glasses, the men get on first-name shoving basis, until all three of them fuse into one man, goading me into more drinks, tugging me to the dance floor with a hand around my waist, snaking hands around me.
Finally, I stumble to the bathroom, stare at myself in the mirror.
This is fun, but eventually I’m going to have to choose.
I tilt my head at my reflection, hoping she has a better idea than I do.
Who am I going to choose?