OPEN WOUNDS

by

Tony

I swung my legs off the bed, sat up, and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. With the exception of the box springs and bare mattress that I sat on, my room was completely void of furniture. The glass in my bedroom window had been busted out for the better part of a year, and although it was morning, the summer heat had already intruded into my room with suffocating humidity. Since our ancient crumbling apartment building had been built in the 1920’s it was without air conditioning, and the only relief we had from the summer heat anywhere in the apartment was from a small noisy fan my mum used in the kitchen that was caked with grease.

From outside all was quiet and only the occasional rumble of a car engine could be heard as it accelerated up the road. I strained my ears. The absence of laughter or voices carrying the guttural dialect indigenous to the poorer towns and boroughs around the City of Pittsburgh told me that the neighborhood kids that I loafed with had not yet come outside to play. From across the hallway, the boisterous sound of my sisters arguing and my mum threatening them if they didn’t stop told me immediately that Jake was not home.

I emerged from my room and scampered across the hall to my sister’s room. My oldest sister Mindy was on the bed, humming loudly to herself while pretending to read an Archie comic book. Doreen was trying to scream over her to get a point across. The louder and more irritated Doreen got, the louder Mindy hummed to drown her out. Finally, her frustration becoming too great, Doreen rose from the floor where she had been reading her own Betty and Veronica comic book. She stepped menacingly towards Mindy.

“Wha’cha fight’n about?” I interrupted. They both stopped their bickering and looked over at me as I walked into the room. Mindy spoke first.

“Bra Bra, who ya think’s prettier, Betty or Veronica?” She asked, placing an emphasis on Betty’s name.

“I heard dat! I heard de way ya said Betty. Dat ain’t fair. Bra Bra always takes your side.” Doreen was increasingly agitated. Mindy, on the other hand, sat calmly on the bed looking at me and smugly waited for my answer.

“Betty’s way prettier,” I lied. “Veronica’s ugly.”

Doreen’s entire body quivered with rage. “I hate ya!” She spit. “I hate yinz both!”

The level of her anger put us both on guard.

“Yinz both make me sick,” she finally hissed pushing past me as she stomped out of the room.

Mindy and I looked at each other and sighed. We knew our sister, and we knew what she was capable of when she became this angry. Although Doreen knew she was over matched, we knew from experience she would be willing to chance a beating from us for the few good kicks or scratches she would inflict in return. Doreen and I were both considerably shorter than Mindy, but everyone said she and I were the same height. Doreen always insisted venomously that she was taller than me. Whenever I challenged her to stand back to back, she snubbed me by saying she wouldn’t put her head against my dirty hair if I were the last person on earth – she insisted she didn’t want to end up with head lice. She was five pounds lighter than me and wiry and when I was on good terms with her, she was a valuable ally to have on my side. On several occasions, she had come to my aid in schoolyard fights. Doreen was fearless towards any of the kids in school or our neighborhood, and could probably fight better than most boys her age. However, if anyone happened to get on her bad side, then they better be looking over their shoulder. No one could hold a grudge like Doreen. She was unpredictable, vindictive and downright dangerous. Mindy and I understood that for a little while at least we would have to be on guard because chances were that at some point during the day Doreen would probably try to exact retribution.

I can’t be sure why Doreen was different than Mindy or me. She was the middle child and my mum said that was the reason she was the way that she was - but I didn’t believe it. I think it had more to do with Jake.

Jake was my mum’s live-in boyfriend. He dominated every aspect of our lives and when he was home, we were wary about speaking above a whisper for fear it would invite a hard slap to the back of our heads. At six foot one, he was intimidating. He was a powerfully built man who roamed about the apartment usually wearing nothing more than a pair of boxers. He had cruel black eyes that were totally void of humor. His thick nose narrowed hawk-like in front of his naturally aggressive face and he blew it incessantly into a snot stained hanky he always carried with him. Like many Italians, his skin was dark and thick, and his huge forearms and massive biceps sported a number of vulgar tattoos that rippled and jerked when his muscles flexed. He was a man who had few friends and was hated and feared by most. For whatever reason he had a dislike for people and he rarely spoke to anyone. When he did speak, his voice was deep and threatening and commanded instant obedience and fear from my mum and my sisters and me.

I think it was the beatings that we frequently got from Jake that affected Doreen differently than Mindy and me. I guess Mindy and I viewed it as something in our lives that was beyond our control that we had to cope with as best we could, so we just accepted it. Doreen on the other hand could not seem to come to terms with it, and the fact that she could do nothing about it just plain made her mean.

It was like the puppies that our neighbor Rocco Deluca got a couple of years before. He named them Caesar and Max and would beat them for no good reason or for any little bit of mischief they got into. As the dogs grew, Max developed a genuine distrust for people, and would skittishly run away when one of us would approached the fence and only after considerable coaxing could we get him to come to us to be petted. Caesar on the other hand would walk right up to the fence and wait for us when he saw us approaching. Though most times he would wag his tail, there was no telling what he would do. Sometimes he would allow us to reach over the fence and pet him, yet other times he would unexpectedly and viciously lung at the fence too try to rip our arms off. This was kind of the way Doreen had become.

Our three-story apartment building faced out over the neighborhood. It was built of red brick that had dulled over the years. We lived on the third floor in the middle apartment and except for an old crazy man named Lloyd who lived next door to us playing his trumpet at all hours of the day and night, the rest of the apartments had long been abandoned and were in an advanced state of decay. There were two cement porches that ran the length of the building. The kitchen to each apartment opened up to the porches, and from one end, leaning over the wrought iron railing, the back of Costa’s store could be seen.

Unable to find any of my friends from the neighborhood, I retraced my path across the old graveled parking lot and headed for home. I glanced up at our apartment. The kitchen door was pried open with one of our wobbly kitchen chairs. I could see movement in our kitchen and as I got closer to the apartment building the song ‘The Duke of Earl’ drifted down from our kitchen radio to meet me.

The back of Costa’s grocery store was at the bottom of the black metal steps stretching two floors up to our apartment. The entire area was covered in sawdust. The butcher shop was located to the rear of Costa’s store, and there was always a thick layer of sawdust on the floor that filled the store with the tantalizing aroma of newly cut wood and fresh raw meats. Every evening the old sawdust was swept through the back door and replaced for the next day. Next to the backdoor, Mr. or Mrs. Costa had stacked empty boxes, the insides coated with wax smeared with a film of raw fat, ripe with the smell of freshly packed meats. There were also wooden crates pungent with the scent of salted fish, and plain boxes with the lingering smell of Italian cookies. I held these boxes to my face and inhaled deeply until my stomach growled. Hoping to find some hidden treasure like a ball of twine or unopened cookies that had been smashed in the box during shipping, I began to rummage through the cache of debris.

I set boxes and crates to one side as I dug into the pile. I found nothing worth keeping. I straightened to leave.

My head exploded with pain. Brilliant specks of white light flashed before my eyes. I dropped to my knees cringing in pain. The scenery around me began to blur. I pressed my hand against the top of my pounding head. A warm wetness oozed through my hair and fingers, down my face, and into my eyes. Squinting, I saw my hand covered in blood. I heard the faint clicking of hard shoes as they sprinted away on the cement porch above me. I couldn’t seem to focus. Everything was foggy. My heart pounded in my chest from panic and confusion. What had happened? I reached for the ground to steady myself. My hand brushed up against a large chunk of brick that lie next to me.

I heard someone whistling. The back door to Costa’s store opened, and Pete Costa wearing a butcher’s apron stepped outside carrying an empty box. He moved in slow motion and if it weren’t for the pain in my head, I probably would have laughed at his outlandish movements. He looked over at me, started to smile, but stopped abruptly. He rushed over, snatched me up in his arms, and started up the metal steps to our apartment.

“Josephine! Josephine!” He screamed.

My body went limp and it jerked and jolted as Pete climbed the steps. I felt nauseous. My mother’s voice sounded hollow and distant.

“Oh God, Oh God! What happened to “em?” She cried. I shut my eyes and the voices around me merged into one just before the blackness overtook me.

Someone was wiping my face. I opened my eyes and blinked them into focus. I was staring up at the large crack that ran through our living room ceiling. My mum was wiping me down with a wet rag. Someone had removed my blood soaked shirt and pants. They lay crumpled on the wooden floor near the couch. I felt my mum’s fingers gently parting my hair as she inspected the wound on my head. The panic from before had subsided. The last hint of fog melted away. Mr. Costa and my mum were talking.

“Are ya sure, Josephine?” Mr. Costa was saying. “Dat gash on his head is pretty nasty. It could use some stitches. It ain’t a problem. I could put ‘em in ne car an run ‘em over to de hospital.”

“Thank’s Pete, but I think he’ll be okay. De bleed’ns stopped an ‘nat.” She looked over at me worriedly. “If it looks like he ain’t no better in a couple hours, I’ll send one of de girls to come git ya.”

They both walked out into the kitchen. “Okay Josephine, I’ll be down stairs in ne store if ya need me, but don’t ya let’em sleep for the next few hours,” Mr. Costa warned.

His footsteps echoed across the linoleum floor in the kitchen as he made his way towards the back door. On the cement porch, they changed to a clicking sound before fading away down the back steps.

It’s funny the things that you think about in times like that. This was the only time I could remember hearing another mans footsteps, except for Jake’s, inside our apartment. Jakes footsteps were slow and deliberate and threatening. Mr. Costa’s footsteps carried a feeling of normalcy that had a calming effect on me.

My mum came back into the living room and knelt beside me. She wiped at the large gash on my head. Her hand was shaking. She noticed me looking up at her.

“Bra Bra, what happened? Who did dis to ya?” She asked.

“I dun’ know Mum, I was just stan’in ‘nar, and den my head started hurt’n an nats all I ‘member.” I answered.

“How ya feel’n now? Are ya still dizzy? Is your head hurt’n?”

I nodded. “A little.”

“God knows we can’t afford no hospital bills, but if we gotta git you to de hospital, den we will. Okay?” She feigned a smile.

“Okay,” I said.

I glimpsed Mindy over by the kitchen passage way. She had been crying and was clearly worried for me. I smiled weakly at her. Then I noticed Doreen standing on the far side of the living room by a window. She was staring at the floor. She was plainly scared, but it was not the same fear and concern I saw on Mindy’s face. Doreen’s fear carried something else. Something I had seen all too often before. My eyes followed hers to the floor and came to rest on her hard, buckled shoes.

Tony has been on active duty in the Marine Corps more than twenty years. He writes fiction and studied journalism for three years before enlisting in the Corps.

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