Sal could hear the music before he made his way into the kitchen.  And there was Tommy, leaned over the center island checking his phone messages, sipping coffee, and listening to Barry Manilow tunes.

Sal shook his head as he sat at the island across from his brother.  “You have a fucked-up taste in music,” he said, and began pouring himself a cup of coffee.  “Barry fucking Manilow!  You should be ashamed of yourself.”

Tommy grinned. “Better than those head bangers you love to listen to.”

“What head bangers?” Sal asked.  “I listen to good wholesome American music, like Green Day.  Your ass prefers Doris Day!”

Tommy laughed again.  “Fuck you, Sal,” he said.

Sal grinned and sipped from his cup of coffee.  “How’s Grace?” he asked.

“Still asleep.”

“Wore it out last night, didn’t you?”

With any other man, Tommy and Sal would never dream of discussing what they did to their wives the night before.  But they discussed it with each other.  “I took care of her,” was the way Tommy put it.  “What about you and Gemma?”

“I banged the shit out of her,” Sal said graphically.  “Did it again this morning, too.  She’s just waking up to a very wet bed.”

Tommy smiled and shook his head.  “You’re messy, Sal!”

“Takes one to know one, sweetheart,” Sal replied.

Then there was a pause in their conversation as their smiles waned.

Until Sal looked at Tommy.  “What do you make of that guy?” he asked him.

“The grandfather?”

“Yeah!  He couldn’t stand Reno’s old man, although Uncle Paulo was his son, too.  But because he couldn’t stand his own son, he doesn’t want to have anything to do with Reno.  That sound crazy to you?”

“Sal, we hail from a crazy, fucked-up family.  Have you forgotten that fact?”

Sal laughed.  “I did for a minute there!”

“Besides,” Tommy continued, “Reno doesn’t want to have anything to do with him, either.  The less he’s involved in his father’s side of the family, he said, the better.”

Sal nodded.  “That’s how I used to feel, too, to tell you the truth.  Reno’s old man was nuts, but ours took the cake.  Or, I guess I should say yours.”

A sad looked appeared in Tommy’s eyes, and he sipped coffee rather than deal with it.  The idea of Sal anything but his full, total brother was weird to him.

“But what about this grandfather?” Sal asked.  “What you think of him as a person?”

“Not much, to tell you the truth,” said Tommy.  “I don’t trust the guy.”

“You know I don’t!” Sal said, agreeing with his brother.  “There’s something fishy about him that turns my stomach.  I can’t stand his smiling ass!”

“He’s a character, alright.”

They both sip coffee, as Barry Manilow sang At the Copa, Copacabana with so much gusto that Sal rolled his eyes.  Tommy laughed.

Then they quieted down again.

“You remember when we were little,” Sal asked, “and people were always trying to break us up?”

Tommy nodded.  “I remember, yeah.”

“It was as if they were afraid that separately we were no big deal, but together we were a force to reckon with.  You remember that? It used to be so strange to me!  Even Mom used to try and break us up.  And Dad especially.  Your dad, that is.”  Then Sal scrunched-up his face as if that reality was still distasteful to him.

Tommy saw his displeasure.  “We’re brothers, Sal,” he said.  “Full stop.  End of conversation.  And we will always be.  I don’t care what they claim.”

“We have the same mother,” Sal said, “so that’s good.  But what if it’s true, Tommy?  What if this Neeco joker really is my old man?  What am I supposed to do about that at this late date?”

“You’re going to have to deal with it,” Tommy said.  “But that won’t change our relationship.  We’ll still be brothers.”

“I just don’t want any of those fools out there making like our relationship is different just because we have different fathers.  I know it matters in the world, but it doesn’t matter to me.”

“Me either,” said Tommy.

“I don’t want that label,” Sal said.  “Not when it comes to you.”

Tommy knew what Sal meant.  It was a hurtful thing for him, too.  For most of their lives, they only had each other.  That was their saving grace.  The fact that, despite their father’s hatefulness, and their mother’s neglectfulness, they still could cling to each other.  They were brothers.  They weren’t like the people they came from.  They never wanted any clouds around their relationship.

And they fell into silence again.  Barry Manilow’s song went off, and Bette Midler, singing Silbar and Henley’s Wind Beneath My Wings, came on.  And as it played, the brothers listened to the words.  And Tommy, feeling as if he was vicariously saying those very words to Sal, kept taking peeps at his younger brother.

It must have been cold there in my shadow.
To never have sunlight on your face.
You were content to let me shine.

You always walked a step behind!

I was the one with all the glory.
While you were the one with all the strength.
A beautiful face without a name.
A beautiful smile to hide the pain!

Did you ever know that you're my hero?
And everything I would like to be.
I can fly higher than an eagle.
For you are the wind beneath my wings!

Sal looked at Tommy.  He saw tears in his sibling’s eyes.

“We’re brothers,” Tommy said again.  “Always and forever.  And don’t you ever forget that!”

Sal nodded, with a determined look in his own eyes, and placed his hand on top of Tommy’s.