Frank Zafiro - Blood on Blood

I glanced over at the entrance to the room. An impossibly young priest with bushy brown hair but a red goatee stood near the door.

“Nothing, Father,” I said. “Sorry to disturb you.”

The priest smiled. “This is a house of God, my son. You’re not disturbing me at all.” His accent was prevalent, but lacked the thick brogue of the old priest who’d overseen my mother’s funeral all those years ago.

“You’re new,” I said.

He looked confused. “No, lad. I’ve been at this church for over six years. Do you not live in this neighborhood?”

I shook my head. “Not anymore.”

He nodded and walked toward me. When he reached my side, he read the nameplate. I realized I was still touching it and dropped my hand, strangely ashamed.

“Margaret Sawyer was your mother, then?”

I nodded.

“You know she is with her Savior now, don’t you?”

I smiled slightly and shook my head. “I know she was counting on that, Father.”

“And she can,” he said, his tone conversational. “We all can.”

“Okay,” I said. “Well, thanks, Father.”

The priest said nothing, but he held my gaze. Just as I was about to look away, he asked, “Why did you come here today, my son? What’s troubling you?”

I almost laughed. All that Irish Catholic guilt that pounds me every day and yet when I am face to face with it, it seems like a bad joke. What can this guy offer me? If he’s older than me, then it’s just barely. I bet he grew up in some Massachusetts suburb before he went off to seminary, too.

But he kept staring at me, so I finally said, “It’s complicated.”

“Most things are,” he answered.

I stood silently. I didn’t want to answer him. I wanted to leave. But you don’t just walk away from a priest like that. Not when he’s just doing his job. That was part of some code, too.

“I just wanted to sort through some things,” I told him. “See what my mother might want me to do.”

“Worrying about doing your duty, are you?”

I smiled humorlessly. “You could say that.”

He nodded slowly. “Duty is important. As long as it doesn’t overshadow God’s will.”

I rolled that through my mind a couple of times. While I was doing that, he reached out and squeezed my shoulder, then turned and strode away. He was out the large doors of the columbarium before I came to the conclusion that he was completely full of shit.

Duty is important?

Yeah, right. Because everyone else is so fucking loyal, I should be, too?

God’s will?

Jesus, father, I don’t even know if there is a God these days. If I hadn’t been forced to do the kneel, sit, stand, kneel, pray routine for so many years, I wouldn’t be so guilt-conditioned. That guilt runs through my veins with generations of genetic code pushing behind it. But that doesn’t mean there’s a God. Or that he has any particular will. Or that I should give a shit if he does.

I glanced back up at my mother’s blue and white patterned urn. I reached out and touched the marble.

“I’ll go,” I whispered.

For her, I’d go.

“I’ll give him back his one day,” I said. “But that’s it.”

Jerzy

I wake up like I’ve been shot in the ass, eyes wide open and sweating like a whore in church. Speaking of which, she’s laying right beside me, snoring softly.

Her back is to me and I prop myself up on an elbow to look around the bedroom. Where in the fuck am I? I see clothes laying all over hell. The sheets and covers are twirled and twisted.

Her apartment, yeah. Annie or Angie maybe. Yeah, I remember now. A little, anyway.

I look at the drapes of two small bay windows on the far wall and there is a little hazy light coming in but it’s still early. Don’t hear much traffic.

I swear I can’t sleep for more than a long nap anymore. Doesn’t matter what shape I’m in either, I wake up like some kind of psycho or something. Breathing heavy and all jazzed up. I think I dream too much. Can’t ever really remember them but it seems like I’m always running, about to get capped or caught and then bang, I wake the fuck up.

Like right now, I’m still drunk, too drunk to even have a hangover yet. I should be out cold, snoozin’ away for another two, three hours.

There’s something I’m forgetting here.

I swing my legs over the edge and stand up too quick, taking three steps sideways. I do the wide stance, hands on the hips routine to get my bearings.

There is something I need to check here and I look around the room trying to figure out just what the hell that might be.

Annie, or whatever the hell her name is, sighs and rolls over. Her blonde hair is hanging across her face but she’s showing everything else. Damn nice, and if I could just remember one single thing about last night it’d probably be even better.

My eyes stop on the leather jacket hanging off the edge of her dresser. I blink my eyes slowly like an idiot and it finally comes to me. That’s what is so damn important. I walk over to the dresser, real slow like, buck naked and doing the weave a little.

I pick up my jacket and knock over a bottle of hair spray or some shit. It rolls into a jewelry tree stand and almost knocks it over. I’m a fuckin’ mess.

Staggering away two steps, I’m holding the jacket out in front of me, looking like a punch drunk boxer.

I go back to the bed and spread it out. Reaching for an inside pocket I find it right away. The two stacks of money that Patrik had given me last night. All nice and neat, still banded. Fuck yeah, good deal. I turn to gather up my clothes but I remember something else.

I pat down the jacket, check all the pockets, turn it inside out and back again. Nothing. What the shit? Please tell me I didn’t lose that, spend it all or get it lifted.

“ Dzien dobry, ” she says from the bed. One hand has swept away her hair and she’s even hotter than I thought she was. “ Moj wielbiciel .”

“I’ll be your lover even more if you tell me where you put the rest of my money.”

She shakes her head no and cocks her head a little to the side.

“My money…my pieniadze ?”

She stretches, gives me the sleepy smile and then reaches over to me slowly.

I lean over to meet her but grab her by the throat and push her down into the pillow. I’ve been picked and tossed before but not this time.

She’s looking up at me all confused and innocent, with her eyebrows raised. I ease up on the pressure just enough to let her breathe then lower myself down on top of her. Kissing her roughly, I put the pressure back on again.

“ Pieniadze? ” I whisper it to her but it’s a threat as much as anything. I’m thinking she don’t look drunk at all. I’ve been had here. She either got it last night or someone ducked in here and grabbed it.

A big tear forms in her left eye and cascades down her cheek. She waves a hand slowly at me and I let off the grip a little.

“Money?” She chokes out. “Zadne pieniadze.”

“Well, then who the hell does have it?”

She just keeps giving me that sad, confused look.

“I’m going to really start hurting you now.”

“Please now, back to bed. Everything okay.”

I put the choke on her again but my phone starts chirping. Trouble is I can’t see it. I let up on her but get right in her face.

“You stay right there and I do mean right the fuck there, you understand? Don’t you move.”

I start tossing clothes and finally find it in my pants pocket on the fourth ring.

I don’t recognize the number.

“Yeah?”

“Hello, yes, is this uh, Jerzy Sawyer?”

The guy said Jerzy like he was trying to speak for the first time. Or he’s just a faggot, plain and simple.