LOVE AT FIRST DATE
Chapter 14: The Almeidiator
"OVER theeerrrrre..." Michelle sang out loudly in the key of R from her corner in the kitchen, saving Tony the trouble of articulating the primary item on his mental list of grievances; opting, instead, to silently stare at his Dad, in a blind fury, and allow Michelle's condition do the talking for him.
"You're doing a perfectly smashing job, darling," Amanda supportively chirped in her future grandchild-manufacturer's direction, immediately regretting her poor choice of words as Michelle proceeded to break yet another 50-caliber machine gun from the World War II P-47D Thunderbolt fighter model kit sitting in her lap.
"THANK yoooooooooooooooouuu," she sing-sang at the top of her lungs, always responding whenever spoken to, Tony had been noticing, but in a robotic, automated sort of way. It was as though she were wholly oblivious to his parents' presence and merely responding with the routine courteousness programmed into her by her upbringing.
As Michelle belted out another stanza of the popular World War I song — only two words of which she appeared to know— Tony noticed his Dad subtly lower his head and stare into his scotch, lips pinched as if efforting to suppress an inopportune grin. Though traditionally the epitome of self-discipline and control, Jim Almeida couldn't help himself. He fully realized the gravity of the situation and was just as outraged as his son over the events that had led to Michelle's present state of temporary insanity. But not even Jim Almeida's legendary poker face could remain intact at the sight of the enchanting, curly headed, porcelain-faced woman who was having the time of her life singing a World War I song to a World War II model kit, corralled in the corner of his son's kitchen like a new puppy that wasn't quite fully housebroken yet.
"Sorry, son," Jim apologized in his signature low, steady, relaxed voice to his visibly discomposed son. "It's just that she's, ahh... She just seems so, uhh… "
"Contented?" Amanda cautiously offered in a small, timid voice, gazing toward the kitchen entryway where her beloved husband and infuriated son stood side-by-side with their backs to her.
"Stoned outta her face, y'mean, don't ya, Ma?" Tony turned and rabidly frothed in the direction of the couch where his mother sat, trying her best to look innocent. "This isn't working, Dad!" he swung back toward his father and vehemently objected. "She's talking! You said she wouldn't talk!" he fumed, face muscles twitching as his eyes rocketed back to the criminal, took aim, and fired off another shock-and-awe barrage of icy daggers.
"Sweetheart, please," Jim Almeida turned and patiently implored his wife, arching an eyebrow to gently remind her of the bargain he had struck with their son after she'd initially been denied entry into his apartment. Jim kept his eyes solidly fixed on Amanda for a moment longer until she had exhaled a dramatic sigh of defeat and obligingly, though begrudgingly, re-crossed her arms and legs and returned to brooding in silence.
Amanda Almeida was getting it from all directions. Not only was her son absolutely livid but her normally unflappable husband, though concealing it well on the outside, was inwardly furious with her for having ridden on the back of Peter's motorcycle again — and without a helmet, to make matters worse. Thanks to Miriam and her big mouth, who'd spilled the beans to Jim down at the clinic earlier, Amanda could still hear the earful of statistical data he'd factually cited on the drive over, replete with the percentage of passengers hurled into early graves at the same rate of velocity as cycle operators themselves. Amanda was fully aware of the dangers, of course, but until someone developed a helmet that didn't completely flatten and annihilate one's coif, she would just have to continue double-spraying and taking her chances on the open road.
Tony stewed in frustration. He was always glad whenever his Dad decided to pay him an unannounced visit, but wished he hadn't seen fit to bring his Mom along with the intention of hashing out the problem and mediating a peaceable resolution. Tony yearned for a one-on-one, man-to-man conversation where he could speak freely and frankly about his Mom's interference in his life. No matter how inadvertent, unintentional, or even well-intentioned her actions were, Tony's relationship with Michelle was too important to risk having it compromised by his Mom, and he needed his Dad to throw a leash on her, as only he was capable. Jim Almeida, who ruled with a velvet fist both corporately and domestically, was one of those rare men who could achieve a desired result with little more than an arched eyebrow and a stern look. Rarely did he raise his voice because he somehow never had to. Though quiet, mild-mannered, and even-tempered in demeanor, he radiated a forcefulness that reeked of authority; his pores oozed strength and intestinal fortitude; and his eyes, which always transmitted warmth, kindness, and tenderness at first glance, contained a message — a word to the wise — at second glance. It was a missive that conveyed different things to different people in different ways, but it was clearly a note of caution. Like signs that said "Beware of the Dog" and "Warning: Harzardous Materials." Only Jim Almeida's eyes said things more along the lines of "Beware of being fired if you ever do something fiscally suicidal like that again," and "Warning: Failing English Lit a second time can and will be hazardous to your health." His missive to Amanda said "Caution: I own scissors and know how to use them on your credit cards," which is all it ever took to get her back on the straight and narrow.
Glancing down at Michelle, Tony shuddered at the thought of how easily a disastrous outcome could've resulted if his Mom's druggie girlfriend's tolerance level had been just a little higher and Michelle's a little lower. But at least he wasn't quite as worried as he had been before his Dad roused Max, the Almeidas' family physician, out of bed for a house call "just to be on the safe side." Max had checked Michelle's vitals and assured Tony that although she appeared to have chug-a-lugged what must have been a goodly dosage of the barbiturate sedative that had been added to the spring water, she was in no real danger; rather, in layman's terms, Michelle was high as a kite and would eventually fall into a nice, sound sleep; then awaken in the morning feeling a little on the groggy side. Upon Max's departure, Tony's worry had promptly transformed itself into pure, unadulterated, fire-breathing fury.
"How 'bout we all calm down for a few minutes," Jim Almeida requested in a soothing, sedate tone, delivering a few firm pats against his son's back. "Trust me that your mother feels just as badly about this as anyone."
Her husband couldn't be more correct: Amanda indeed felt perfectly awful and wholly responsible for the condition her future daughter-in-law was in. She'd had no idea that her girlfriend Joyce was back on "the stuff" again. Had she even the slightest inkling that Joyce was traveling around with them, craftily sipping from a bottle of barbiturate-spiked spring water to maintain her "high" throughout the day, Amanda would have promptly dropped her from their coterie like a hot sour-cream-and-endive-stuffed pomme de terre.
But now was not the time to try to convince her son of that. Now was the time to sit quietly and allow her husband to get her out of this perfectly horrible mess, as he always did. Jim Almeida, fortuitously, had always had a uniquely calmative effect on their son and more influence over him than anybody else had ever even come close to: including Pop. Despite the fact that Tony had grown up spending considerably more time in his grandfather's company, he had always clearly recognized his Dad as his ultimate authority figure, role model, and last word. Amanda nevertheless used to worry about Pop's influence over her young, impressionable child, particularly during those early, critical formative years and specifically regarding how much of Pop's more notorious, less desirable attitudes, biases, and "blue language" might be rubbing off on him. A memory sprang to mind of a particular evening when Tony was only barely three years old, and Amanda had been at her wit's end from trying to cajole, threaten, plead, bargain, and bribe him out of the bathtub. She had tried simply everything, from pointing out the wrinkles on his fingertips, to threatening to deny him of his Play-Doh for a week, to trying to lure him out with a Twinkie: all to no avail.
Like clockwork, Pop had come storming out of his room and up the hallway, hollering, "Geeziz H. Christmas! Get the hell outta that tub before my head explodes from any more of this bleeding-heart liberal negotiating!"
Before Amanda could blink, Tony had rocketed from the tub and into the towel she had been waving at him, like a bullfighter, for the past ten solid minutes, amazing her yet again by how obediently he'd respond to his grandfather's requests as opposed to her own.
"Ya don't negotiate with a three-year-old, for cryssake, Ruskie! Ya kick his ass!" Pop had gone on to bellow, always only too happy to share his child-rearing techniques, the likes of which would've sent Dr. Spock spiraling into a dead faint, Amanda had always been convinced.
"I don't believe in beating toddlers, darling," she had politely responded.
"Nobody's talking about taking a baseball bat to the kid, for cryssake, Ruskie!" her father-in-law had roared back, shaking his head in utter dismay at his political opponent's peace-love-and-Kumbaya belief that reasoning with an unreasonable child would somehow yield a desired result. "Ya gotta whack him one every now and again. That's all! Show him who's boss, for godssake. The way you're always negotiating with the kid, like he's your business partner, you're gonna end up raising a fag if you're not careful!... Worse, a liberal fag!" as if there were any other variety in Pop's book.
"I highly doubt homosexuality will ever be directly linked to holding perfectly reasonable discussions with one's mother at an early age," Amanda had assured him, struggling to get her impatient son into his Dr. Dentons as he gallantly fought to free himself, anxious to get on with the more important business of playing with his grandfather.
"Y'wanna know how many fag serial killers grew up having 'reasonable conversations' with their mothers? Huh, Ruskie?" Pop had challenged her statistical knowledge, fully prepared to concoct the percentages right there on the spot, as he always did, but electing to simply throw his hands up this time and storm back down the hall to his room, muttering all the way.
"Hold still for Mommy, darling," Amanda had gone on to implore her frustrated three-year-old, holding him gently by the wrist while she labored to get a comb through his freshly washed tangle of thick curls. "No, no, darling, put the Twinkie down. That was only if you had gotten out of the tub when Mommy had asked... Darling? No... No... What did Mommy just say... Take the Twinkie out of your mouth, darling..."
"For the love o' mercy, give the kid the damned Twinkie!" Pop's voice had promptly thundered up the hallway. "If Balonie was sportin' an Afro and living in the ghetto, you'd be crawling across cut glass to serve it to him on a silver platter — and stuffing his pockets full of the cash ya libbie-socialists pilfer outta my pension check every damned month!"
"Language, daaaaaarling!" Amanda had pleasantly sung out as a gentle reminder that young, innocent ears were listening.
Later, Amanda had cited and counterpointed each of Pop's epithets and socially biased statements as she'd put her son to bed, repeating her spiel all over again while dressing him in the morning, just to assure herself that the message was getting through: that he wasn't to use a disparagement, like "fag," to describe a homosexual; nor was it fair to accuse someone of communist tendencies and treasonous activities simply because of differing political views and party loyalties.
It was a tedious and time-consuming task, and all Amanda could do to hold her three-year-old's attention. But she had nonetheless persevered over the years, beginning when Tony was only two and, out of frustration, had called her a "pinko" after she had forbidden him to scuba dive in his kiddie pool in the midst of a lightening storm.
Gazing down at Michelle in the corner, Tony's eyes winced in pain as she switched over — for God only knew what reason — to the theme song from Gilligan's Island, slurring out the lyrics at top volume as though she were afflicted with a hearing disability and unable to judge or control the decibel level of her own voice.
Dropping his chin to his chest and clawing his brow, Tony's mind raced back to their arrival at the restaurant earlier that day, when Michelle had been so concerned about making a good first-impression with his parents, one or possibly both of whom she had assumed was slated to be her "surprise." A pang hit him in the heart as he thought of how eager he, himself, had been for his Dad to meet Michelle, confident of how instantly impressed he would be, not only by her beauty, but by how exceptionally sharp and bright she was.
"... a THREE HOUR toooooouuuurrrrr," Michelle jauntily belted out for the fourth or fifth time over and above what the lyrics called for, conspicuously fighting to stay awake to enjoy her "high" as long as possible, and obviously incognizant of the damage she was doing while freeing the model pieces from the plastic webbing they came attached to.
"Ya sure don't see a head full of curls like that everyday, I'll tell ya," Jim Almeida genially remarked with the savoir-faire of an accomplished host, his expertise in idle chit-chat spanning the course of nearly forty years.
"I can't wait for you to meet her, Dad" Tony proudly gushed. "I mean, for real... when she's... y'know…"
"Herself again," Jim Almeida diplomatically filled in the blank.
"She's so smart, too, Dad. You're not gonna believe how smart she is," Tony assured him.
"Well, I'd say she'd have to be a great deal smarter than smart to be entrusted with so much responsibility in an agency so vital as counter-terrorism," his Dad affably conjectured.
"COOKiiiieeeeeee," Michelle hollered out like a mental patient, thoroughly engrossed in trying to squeeze glue from the cap of a Bic pen and wondering why she couldn't get even so much as a drop to come out.
Only too eager for the opportunity to get more food into Michelle's stomach, Tony shattered another of Mrs. Sanchez's cookies to smithereens inside the lid of box to save Michelle the time and trouble, then grinned into her hazy, glassy, half-mast eyes and cooed some sweet words about how quickly she was detaching the pieces.
"Noooooooooooo nippers," Michelle proudly pointed out, though this time in a deep, low voice that vaguely resembled a foghorn, which she had decided to switch to for reasons Tony didn't even want to know.
"And to think I ever doubted your abilities," he smiled warmly, followed by a silent prayer to God, the testosterone overlords, Pop, and anybody else within celestial listening distance, that Michelle be mercifully allowed to awaken in the morning with the mother of all blackouts.
"Ya sure don't see a face like that on the street everyday, either, I'll tell ya," Jim Almeida pushed ever-amiably onward. "'The face of a china doll'... That's what they used to call skin like that, back in my day," he added, determined to keep the atmosphere as light and genial as possible in anticipation of the inevitably messy conversation that lie ahead.
"The professor and Mary Ann, darling!" Amanda helpfully called out after Michelle had inserted a doctor, lawyer, and Indian chief onto the island and appeared to be stumped on the lyrics that followed.
"She's talking again, Dad! I told ya she wouldn't honor the agreement!" Tony fumed, instantly snapping back into anger mode at the mere sound of his mother's voice, as if someone had thrown an "on" switch.
"How about if I breathe? Is breathing in accordance with the agreement?" Amanda scowled under her breath, irritated that her husband was making her do penance by denying her a martini, leaving her with absolutely nothing to do with her hands.
Jim Almeida cocked his head and raised an eyebrow to his wife again, wondering if he shouldn't have gone with his first instincts, after all, and shown up on his son's doorstep alone. He knew there wasn't a woman on Earth who could possibly be more loving or devoted to her offspring than Amanda Almeida. But he had always known, from the very start, that she and their son were predestined for a lifetime of explosive run-ins, simply given their keenly different personalities and dispositions, not to mention their opposite genders.
While Amanda was the epitome of daintiness, femininity, and all things pink, she had managed to give birth to her polar opposite: a natural-born, dyed-in-the-wool rough-houser with an insatiable appetite for anything male-oriented, dirt-based, and testosterone-driven. If Tony had had his own way growing up, he would never have taken his first bath until he had reached dating age, Jim Almeida thought to himself. His room would've been a veritable menagerie of ant farms, worms, snakes, lightening bugs, and pet rodents. Never would he have felt a need or desire to comb his hair, put his toys away, hang up an article of clothing, kiss or speak to a female relative, or expand his tastes beyond his childhood staples, with the exception of a full box of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese when he felt like going gourmet.
He would've lived on his stomach in the dirt, waging a new bloody battle with his plastic army men everyday. His tree house would look like a palace; his room, like a cyclone had hit it; and the world would've been his personal urinal. Undeniably and simply put, Jim Almeida's son was all-boy, born to a mother as girl as it got, and with whom he stood as much of a chance coexisting harmoniously as Al Capone would with Martha Stewart.
"I love your huuuuugeness," Michelle decided to bellow out, not quite certain if she had remembered to mention it before.
Jim Almeida looked down into his scotch again and chuckled softly, almost proudly, while Amanda dropped her head into her hands and groaned.
"Isn't that sweet, darling? She loves his cuteness," she tried chirping to her husband, in the world's lamest, most dismally failed attempt to pretend she had misheard Michelle.
Tony clawed his forehead for a mortifying moment. As a fresh surge of anger washed over him, his brain warp-sped back to the very first time his Mom had driven him to an apex of fury like this, after she had accidentally killed his beloved pet hamster, Laura, in an ill-fated attempt to operate a vacuum cleaner. Devastated, Tony had moved into his tree house and refused to come down for two entire days and nights. Even Pop had been unsuccessful in persuading the inconsolable six-year-old to climb back down and rejoin society.
Not knowing what else to do, and emotionally traumatized herself, Amanda had finally placed a tearful call to her husband in Germany, compelling him to cut his business meeting short by a few days. By the time Jim had touched down at LAX, Pop had already exhausted every surefire tactic in his arsenal and was down to rhyming his invectives in a last-ditch effort to lift his distraught grandson's spirits.
"Your commie mommy didn't mean it, Balonie! It was a clear–cut case of accidental homicide!" Pop had called up to him from the base of the tree, swearing on his John Birch Society membership card that his Mom had only been trying to spare their housekeeper, Rosa, from an overload of work once she'd returned from her two-week vacation; that the Leninist-feminist was just trying to clean the bottom of the cage to enhance the comfort and beauty of Laura's living environment; that the well-intentioned nuttsie-ruskie had no way of knowing about the Electrolux's revolutionary new and improved dual-action suction technology, given the commercial-free commie public broadcasting channel she was always watching and calling donations into.
"You know those libbie-socialists when they're on a mission to 'help' somebody. They always find a way to bollix it up... Just look at the Welfare system, if ya don't believe me!" Pop had all but begged him. "They're like a bunch of vicious Saint Bernards, those ruskies are — like some kinda socialist Boy Scout troop from hell! And it's not like they can even help themselves, Balonie! They were just born that way!"
But Tony had been too consumed with grief and fury to even respond, preferring to hunker down and wait it out in solitude until his Dad eventually returned from his business trip, whenever in the world that might to be. He knew that his father was the only one who could understand his pain, since he was the only person alive who knew that Tony had named his beloved hamster after Laura Ingels, the girl on "Little House on the Prairie," with whom he was secretly and deeply in love. Tony hadn't told anyone; not even Pop. His Dad had simply guessed it one night while putting Tony to bed after the show had ended, explaining that he had been able to read it on his face.
Tony's first reaction had been one of stark fear, thinking his Dad would tell his Mom and that word would invariably sweep through the neighborhood; that his classmates would mercilessly tease him, just as they did his classmate, Michael Richter, who'd made the sorry mistake of outing his feelings for Mary Tyler Moore.
But much to Tony's great relief, his Dad had said that matters of the heart were personal and sacred, and that his secret would be safe with him and just between the two of them. When he and his Dad had then proceeded to talk a little about girls in general, Tony had been amazed by the amount of knowledge and insight his father appeared to have on the subject. The way he had articulated the kind of feelings a guy can get for a girl, it was as though his father possessed the power to not only read his face, but his mind as well.
Sitting alone in his tree house, with nothing but tearful memories and a box of Fig Newtons he'd grabbed from the pantry on his way out the door, Tony took heart in knowing that his Dad would instantly recognize the inherent perverseness of Laura Ingel's namesake having been mowed down in the prime of her life by, of all people, his own Mom — who'd never really liked Laura, Tony couldn't help but ponder. Whenever he would hold his beloved pet out for his Mom to see, she would always have nice, sweet, complimentary things to say, but only from across the room, or with her back pinned up against the wall and a wild look in her eye; like she really didn't care for Laura at all and was only pretending to, for reasons Tony could never quite figure.
Perhaps she was jealous of Laura for consuming so much of his time — time that his Mom wished she could be spending with him, instead. Perhaps she had hatched a plan to do away with Laura, so she could have him all to herself again, like Tony had seen many a murderess do in the black-and-white movies Pop liked to watch. Tony couldn't be sure, but neither could he simply dismiss the possibility. The murderess was always the last woman anyone in Pop's black-and-whites would ever suspect capable of such an act. But love makes dames do crazy things sometimes, as whichever-detective-who'd-solved-whatever-murder-case would always say at the end of the movie before hitching up the collar of his trench coat, lighting a Lucky Strike, and heading out into the dark and lonely rainy night.
The haunting possibility that his own Mom could be one of those dames had crept into Tony's mind for the umpteenth time when, out of nowhere, he'd detected the unmistakable aroma of his Dad's Old Spice cologne wafting up through the floorboards. Sticking his head out the tree house door to be sure it wasn't just wishful thinking on his part, Tony saw that his father was, indeed, on his way up to join him, not even having bothered to change out of his business suit before scaling the tree.
"Please, sweetheart, go back in the house and try to stop crying," his Dad had called down to his Mom in the yard below before crawling through the tree house door, military style, on the elbows of his $5,000 Bijan suit.
Tony hadn't realized just how badly he'd truly felt until his father was on his knees and extending his arms to him. Tony's flying leap into the warmth and safety of his Dad's Old Spice-saturated bear hug had perfectly coincided with an overwhelming flash-flood of heartsick tears and debilitating, gulping sobs. He was a wreck, but found instant solace, as he always did, swallowed up in his Dad's thick, muscular embrace.
He remained inside the safe bear-hug haven trying to collect himself while his Dad spent a few quiet minutes extending his heartfelt condolences for his loss. In a gentle voice, he had assured Tony that Laura was in a spectacular place now, with a thousand celestial hamster wheels to play on whenever she wished, and as far as the eye could possibly see. His grandmother Almeida would be only too happy to look after her, too.
"You never knew your Grandmother Nalda, but she was one of the great hamster-lovers of her time," his Dad had guaranteed him.
Tony had listened intently to everything his Dad said, drying his face on his tie and nodding his head in understanding and acceptance. After his sniffling had finally subsided, he had hesitated at first to pose the haunting possibility that Laura's accident may not have been such an accident after all, but his father had eventually convinced him to spill his guts.
"C'mon, chief, you can't really believe that," his Dad had responded in a gentle, reassuring tone. "You know your mother could never even hurt a fly."
"But love makes dames do crazy things sometimes," Tony had quoted the black-and-white detectives word for word with a quavering voice and eyes cast downward, nervously fiddling with the thick gold watch on his father's wrist. "One of them even fooled Charlie Chan, and she was pretty like Mommy, and good," he had elaborated, another round of tears threatening to fall as he recounted how shocked even Charlie Chan's Number One Son had been — not to mention Pop and himself — after the femme fatale had been exposed.
"Ah, that kind of thing only happens in the movies," his father assured him with a confident scoff. "Besides, you know your Mom better than that... You've seen how she makes me scoop spiders up and put them outside, so they can find their families again, instead of just stomping on them, right? And your Mom hates spiders, doesn't she?"
His Dad had made a good point, Tony thought as he'd nodded in agreement. What with the shock of Laura's death throwing him into such emotional upheaval, he hadn't even thought to consider his Mom's well-documented spider-relocation record.
"If I know one thing about your mother, it's that she would rather die herself than ever do anything that would hurt you..." his Dad had rested his case, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a twin-pack of Twinkies with a thick, blue satin ribbon that his Mom had tied around it. "Pop says she's been crying her eyes out for two whole days now... She feels just horrible about what happened to Laura..."
"I LOVE YOUR huuuuuuge—"
Tony felt his brain suddenly being sucked back through the time warp at a harrowing speed.
"Yes, honey, yes... thank... thank you," he sputtered, cutting Michelle off in a panicky sweat and feeding a larger cookie chunk into her mouth this time, hoping to stifle any other compliments she might've been planning to pay him.
"Her feet look a little cold, if you ask me," Amanda reticently pointed out.
"Nobody asked ya, Ma," Tony growled under his breath.
"Perhaps a pair of those nice thick, white socks you like to play basketball in, hmmm?" she suggested. "Shall I just grab them from your drawer, darling?"
"You just stay put, Ma," Tony snarled a little louder this time, watching his mother dare to rise up from her makeshift prison.
"Yell at me as much as you wish," Amanda firmly snapped, unable to contain her maternal concerns a second longer, "but you shouldn't have her parked on a cold floor like that! Check the floor, darling," she pleaded with her husband.
"Unless the apartment below is an igloo, which I highly doubt, the floor is just fine, sweetheart," Jim Almeida calmly assured her, freshening his glass with the vintage McCallans single-malt scotch he'd brought from the plane.
"One step, and I'll put you right out that door, Ma!" Tony threatened, watching his Mom's eyes locking onto their target. As she began to charge, Tony swooped in with the agility of a panther and whisked Michelle into his arms, sending the box of model pieces shooting across the kitchen floor in the process.
"She'll have frostbite by the time you even think to put a pair of socks on the poor thing! At least let her sit on the couch with me, where it's warm!" Amanda angrily gnarred.
"She falls off the couch because of you!" Tony informed her at the top of his lungs. "Why do ya think I have her on the floor in the first place!"
As he drained the last sip of the velvety 1926 single-malt from his glass and watched his eight-year-old son and nine-year-old wife war with each other, Jim Almeida thought back to his days in the steamy jungles of the Mekong Delta, conducting black-ops psychological warfare missions as a Beach Jumper with the Navy's Amphibious Ready-Group forces. He wished he had known Amanda Almeida back then. He could've eliminated so many more Vietcong simply by telling Amanda that a cold front was moving in, then air-dropping her behind enemy lines with enough pairs of nice, thick white socks for everyone and letting her rip their throats out after they invariably refused to put them on.
"You... sit back down," Jim directed his wife, aiming a finger at the couch as he wove his way through the slew of airplane parts and cookie chunks around his feet. "You... clean this up before somebody slips and breaks their neck," he instructed his son, nodding down at the kitchen floor.
Eyes still icily glued to his mother, Tony transferred custody of Michelle to his Dad, then sank to his knees and snatched the empty box lid from the floor, suddenly feeling a newfound appreciation for federal premeditated homicide laws.
Jim Almeida patiently waited until both rabid warriors were in their respective spots before moving to the table and nudging a chair away with his foot. As he settled in, with Michelle slumped and splayed like a rag doll in his arms, he felt a pang tug at his heart as her head clunked hard against his shoulder and made a home for itself against the side of his neck.
"I loooooove your..."
Tony's breathing stopped as Michelle geared up to compliment his father this time.
"...Old Spiiiiiicccce," she said with a woozy yawn.
"Why, thank you, there, little lady," Jim Almeida chuckled warmly as Tony safely exhaled. "Brains, beauty, and a nose for fine cologne," he winked at his son, who'd been razzing him for decades about his drugstore-purchased aftershave, with the safety warning on the back that read: "Flammable. Do not apply near flame or while smoking."
"This one's putting up some fight trying to stay awake... aren't ya, huh?" his Dad smiled at Michelle. "Don't be getting too fond of that stuff, or we'll be signing you into the Betty Ford Clinic with the rest of Mrs. Almeida's girlfriends, won't we?"
All heads suddenly and simultaneously turned at the unexpected sound of the doorbell. Jim Almeida threw his son a curious frown, angling his watch to indicate how late it was: well after midnight.
"Shall I see who it is? Or would you like to get the gun first," Amanda sarcastically bleated, already on her feet and halfway to the door.
"If it's any of your criminal girlfriends, don't you dare let..."
"Darling!" Amanda sang out in pleasant surprise, swinging the door wide open.
"Hi, Mommy," Olivia chirped, breezing on air into the living room.
"I thought you and Gerald agreed to keep Petey company down at the clinic," Tony looked up in surprise.
"We were, but then the doctor came out and told him that Sarina's carrying twins, and he..."
"Twins?" Amanda gasped, reeling back on her heels, not quite sure that she had heard right.
"...and he passed out and hit..."
"Twins?" Amanda gasped again in disbelief, clutching her pearls and stumbling back another step.
"Yeah, Mom..."
"Passed out and hit what?" Tony asked.
"His head. How's Michelle doing?... Hi, Daddy..."
"Is Peter all right?" Amanda gasped, this time in horror.
"Hi, baby girl," Jim Almeida warmly replied.
"Is Peter all right?" Amanda repeated in horror, fearing the worst.
"Sure, Mom. It was just his head," Olivia answered before turning her attention to her brother down on the kitchen floor. "Pete was in the middle of calling her about the twins when he fainted," she explained, pointing a thumb at their shell-shocked mother, "so I figured I'd save ya the trouble of calling and telling me to come over and get her."
"Darling?" Amanda spun in her husband's direction, wild-eyed, as she hurriedly scrambled for her purse.
"Go," Jim Almeida said, knowing clear-well that between Pete's clunk on the head and the news of Amanda's grandtwins, there wasn't a man or godly force that could keep his wife away from the clinic.
"Bye, Daddy..."
"Bye, baby. Remember to swing back and pick your old man up on the way home, y'hear?"
"I will, Daddy... Bye, Bruce," Olivia giggled, waving to her Saint Bernard down on all fours in the kitchen and swinging the door closed before he could respond.
"Well, there's a pleasant surprise," Jim Almeida remarked, loosening his tie now that his wife was gone.
"Yeah, Pop must've heard my prayers," Tony sighed in relief, gazing at the empty couch and wallowing in the sounds of silence
"A pleasant surprise, meaning your sister," his Dad clarified with both a grin and frown. "Since when are you two on speaking terms again?"
"Things have been getting better," Tony cryptically reported, laying the box lid of model pieces on the table and relieving his Dad of Michelle.
"I wish the same could be said about you and your mother," his Dad said with a compassionate grin, sifting through the box and conducting a quick damage assessment. He then got up and rummaged through the kitchen drawers, locating the small tube of model adhesive that Tony had hidden from Michelle. "Out of curiosity... did ya know that you revert to about the age of eight when you and your mother go toe-to-toe?" he asked.
"That old, huh... It always feels more like five to me... Six, maybe, when I'm making an effort to conduct myself maturely," Tony self-deprecatingly acknowledged his father's point. "I'll tell ya, Dad, I don't know how ya do it sometimes. I mean it. Where in the world do ya get your patience..."
His Dad chuckled, mostly to himself, as if harboring some secret formula for marital success that he really should be sharing for the good of all malekind.
"I'm serious, Dad. All the outrageous stunts she pulls, and I can't remember you ever raising your voice to her. Not even once."
His Dad smiled and reflected for a moment while surgically aligning the two cracked pieces of the P-47D's dorsal fin with the same saintly display of patience Tony had just alluded to.
"Well, I guess it's got a lot to do with all the little thankless things she does day after day. The stuff that goes by unnoticed," Jim Almeida said with a fond smile, his eyes squinting throughout the delicate mending procedure. "I've always personally noticed those things," he expounded, "and I guess when ya look at them all together, they just always tend to outweigh that one occasional egregious stunt she pulls every now and again."
Jim paused briefly to steal a glance at his frowning son, who didn't seem sold on either the explanation or the concept.
"Y'know, there's a lot more to your mother than that flighty, Bel Air-socialite veneer you tend to focus in on," he continued. "You should try delving beneath the surface a little more often, chief. Ya might find somebody under there you've never even met before."
"I don't focus only on the lunacy, Dad. I see the good stuff, too," Tony assured him. "I think ya just see me angry with her so often 'cause she creates more grief for me than anybody else in her life."
"Oh, I don't know if you can really say that until you've walked a couple of decades in my shoes," Jim Almeida said with a hearty chuckle. "Y'know how many important clients that woman's lost for me over the years?"
"I wouldn't even wanna guess."
"More than a few... More than a few," Jim Almeida fondly flash-assessed, moving on to study a fracture in the Thunderbolt's bubble top. "Remind me to tell ya someday about the pork-stuffed wontons she served the Israeli Defense Ministry's number-two man when I was pitching a subcontract a few years back. Your dear mother cost me $204 million that evening," he grinned.
"See, Dad? That's what I mean. How can you laugh about something like that? I'd have been screaming. They would've had to lock me up."
"Oh, I wasn't laughing that night, believe me, chief — but I wasn't screaming either," his Dad enlightened him, "because two-hundred million? That's nowhere near as much as she's helped bring into the company over the years, hosting and charming countless other clients into the fold. So it wouldn't be very fair of me if all I ever focused on were the ones she's lost for me, now, would it?"
"Nah, I guess not... when ya put it that way."
"It's a good way to look at things, son — in prospective. Ya might wanna try it the next time. Put your anger on hold. Ask her something about herself. You can always blow up at her a little later, if you still feel the need."
"I hear what you're saying, Dad, but really... I really don't focus exclusively on the bad stuff. Like, awhile ago, I was thinking about the time she killed my hamster — remember? And that blue ribbon she wrapped around the Twinkies?"
Jim Almeida smiled fondly, recalling the incident well. Cutting his meeting in Germany short to get his son out of the tree house had cost him a great deal more than $204 million; not that he had any intention of ever letting him know it.
"See? I remember the nice stuff. I even distinctly remember recognizing at the time that she used a blue ribbon 'cause she knew it was my favorite color," Tony said, resting his case.
"Well, now that ya mention it, that event is a perfect example of the point I'm making, " his Dad said. " I remember your mother doing a bit more than tying a ribbon around a pack of Twinkies back then."
Tony felt ashamed that he'd actually had to think for a second before recalling the funeral arrangements his Mom had made for Laura. It was the gesture, in fact, that had warmed his six-year-old soul and ultimately compelled him to forgive her, right there at the gravesite. At least half the Almeida clan had dutifully turned out in full and proper attire, not by his Mom's invitation, but her insistence. Tony hadn't come to learn the fine details, or fully appreciate all that his Mom had gone through to organize it so quickly, until he was in his teens and had asked his Dad about it.
It had been a funeral just as fine as any human Almeida had ever received, with a wake in the living room prior to the backyard burial, and a tasteful reception following, replete with a string quartet playing soft, reverent music throughout; including a dirge-like rewrite of the "Little House on the Prairie" theme music, which his Dad had requested, explaining to his Mom that it was simply a tune he had noticed Tony humming a lot.
He remembered his Dad dressing him that afternoon and explaining that they had to wear their dark suits because it was a symbol of mourning. Pop, however, had defied tradition and worn his VFW uniform, just in case he was somehow able to change his daughter-in-law's mind about the three-gun salute he'd volunteered to organize and participate in.
As the grieving widower of sorts, whom Laura had left behind, Tony had been the center of attention the entire day, sitting on a wing-backed chair and somberly receiving the guests, each offering him words of consolation before moving forward to file past the open casket situated on a pedestal a few feet away. The casket had consisted of the fine cherry wood box that held his father's cufflinks, spare change, and other small items, but which his Dad had said he'd be honored to have serve as Laura's final resting place.
Tony remembered how badly he had felt for his Uncle Emmanuel that afternoon, who'd stood before Laura's casket with his head bowed low and his shoulders heaving hard, up and down, obviously driven to wrenching tears by the sheer sadness of it all. It was years later that he came to learn that Uncle Emmanuel had actually been laughing uncontrollably and had consequently found himself in the doghouse with Aunt Beth for having committed the egregious crime of disgracing the family. Uncle Emmanuel had also gotten himself into big trouble with his Mom later, when he'd burst out laughing while she was recounting the gruesome details of the vacuuming accident. It had been weeks before his Mom had come to forgive him, and only after Uncle Emmanuel had written her an apologetic letter, swearing he had been drunk at the time.
The blue ribbon sparked reminders of little things that his Mom also used to do for his beloved grandfather. Tony recalled a time when he was about four years old and sitting on Pop's bed, watching him getting ready for his big date with Florence, a lady who came by Mrs. Schmidt's house every Thursday afternoon to groom her twin Mexican Chihuahuas, Juan and Two.
"Some 'babe,' that Florence is, wouldn't ya say, Balonie?" his grandfather had asked in a hungry-sounding sort of growl, carefully combing and re-combing what few strands he still retained on the top of his head. "One hell of a rack on her, too, huh, kid?"
Tony remembered enthusiastically nodding his head in wholehearted agreement despite having no idea what a "rack" was, though assuming that it had to be something good, given how many times his grandfather kept bringing it up, just as he did whenever "I Dream of Jeanie" was on TV.
"Pray your ol' Pop gets lucky tonight, huh, kid?" his grandfather had said on his way out the door, transferring Tony into to his Mom's arms in exchange for the bouquet of flowers in hers, which she had hand-picked from their garden and tied a blue satin ribbon around. Tony remembered his Mom balancing him on her hip and swaying back and forth as she reassured Pop that all women preferred hand-picked flowers to store-bought ones.
"Ya sure this bow isn't gonna make me look faggy, Ruskie?" Pop had nervously double-checked, wondering if something a little more macho, like electrical tape, might have been a better choice.
"Relax, darling. Florence will view it as yet another perfectly thoughtful gesture on your part," Amanda had calmly explained. "And women never throw satin ribbons away. So she'll tuck it into a drawer somewhere, and every time she happens upon it, she'll think of you."
Tony recalled how glum he had felt watching Pop excitedly climb into the front seat next to Lou, already knowing how boring the evening ahead was going to be without his grandfather around.
Taking Pop literally, Tony had included him in his prayers that evening, wrapping up with "...and please let Pop get lucky tonight." But his Mom had said that it wasn't proper to ask for something like that and insisted that he promptly apologize to God. Later, when his Dad had come in to kiss him goodnight, Tony had asked for his take on the matter, not quite sure who had it right: his Mom or grandfather.
Jim Almeida, with the wisdom of Soloman, explained that both of them had been half-right; that it was okay for a man to ask God to "get lucky," but only on the night he was planning to propose marriage to the love of his life, when a guy needed all the luck he could get.
Tony had gone on to experience one of the most restless, fitful sleeps of his life that night, tossing and turning and awakening every hour, or so, positive that Pop's request for a "get lucky" prayer could only mean that he was planning to propose marriage to the love of his life and live with Florence instead of with him.
"What, are ya outta your mind, Balonie?" Pop had roared the following morning at the breakfast table after finally getting Tony to come clean with why he was being so quiet and sulky. "First off, ya only get one 'love of your life,' and that was your blessed Grandma Nalda, may she forever rest in peace, amen. Second, if I ever even thought about marrying another lady, your blessed grandma, may the angels be with her, would reach down from Heaven and smack me in the back of the head so hard, I'd be lucky to remember my own name. Not to mention, once I got up to Heaven myself and joined your Grandma Nalda, God rest her soul, I'd never hear the goddamned end of it... And third of all, after ya been married to a lady like your grandma, may the Saints protect her, there ain't another lady alive that could take her place in a million years. So don't you be losin' any more beauty sleep over some gal ever ropin' in this old footslogger, ya hear me, kid?"
Tony had never felt so relieved or elated in his life; nor so surprised when his Mom had suddenly burst into tears, compelling his Dad to sigh and lay down his holy Wall Street Journal long enough to comfort her back to normality.
"These blubbering bleeding-heart ruskies!" Pop had shaken his head in utter amazement. "You'd think they all attended the same commie college and graduated with honors in Weeping, or something!"
But the major thing that would always stand out in Tony's mind, and for which he would always be eternally grateful to his Mom, was how tenderhearted, maternal, and fiercely protective she had been with Pop in his later years, when he'd begun slipping into his "second childhood." While another daughter-in-law might have suggested, or even insisted, that plans be made to eventually put Pop away in an appropriate facility, his Mom would never hear of it.
"He's simply going through his second childhood and well-deserves to," she would promptly and ferociously reply in Pop's defense to anyone crazy enough to even so much as broach the subject; or, for that matter, to even call Pop's early Alzheimers by it's actual name. As far as Amanda Almeida was concerned, Pop had honorably served his country, then selflessly labored on the docks to give her dear husband Jim a good home, secure upbringing, and an excellent education. Indulging Pop's orneriness and providing him with an equally happy and secure home-life in his twilight years was the very least Amanda felt she could do in return. If Pop wished to chase the cat around in the yard at two o'clock in the morning, or spend all day gazing out Tony's bedroom window, waiting for him to return from school, or stop to chit-chat with a shrub on occasion, mistaking it for an old Army buddy, then so be it.
When the time had eventually arrived for Pop to require a little assistance with such things as getting dressed in the morning and remembering his way home from an afternoon stroll, Amanda had simply hired a "companion" for him: a lovely, understanding, remarkably patient and tolerant young African-American caretaker who didn't seem to mind a bit when Pop addressed him as "Sambo" instead of his name, "Samuel." Nor did he seem to mind being referred to as a welfare recipient by Pop no fewer than twenty times a day; nor Pop's daily diatribes, insisting that Samuel "get over slavery and find a damned job," despite the fact that Pop was Samuel's job.
Whenever Amanda wasn't able to find a stand-in "companion" on Samuel's days off, she would simply take Pop along to her various functions and engagements, without a care as to what anybody thought or said about it. She had even sacrificed her precious Garden Society membership in the process and was mortified when she and Pop made the society pages the next day. Tony remembered his Dad telling him the story years later, with tears of laughter in his eyes: Apparently, during the introduction of the Garden Society's guest speaker, His Royal Highness Prince Maria Emanuel of Saxony, Pop had bellowed out at the top of his lungs, "Go back to Germany, ya fat Nazi!" only to further horrify the Society members by yelling out "fag!" every time Prince Maria's name was spoken.
Later, when the Chairwoman had insisted that Amanda Almeida promise never to bring her father-in-law along to another meeting, Amanda had risen to her feet, tossed her membership card to the floor, and regally exited the room on Pop's arm and with her head held high, proudly and loudly huffing, "I'll have you know I've been thrown out of far, far better societies than this before!"
Tony would also always be eternally grateful to the powers that be for having allowed Pop to die of a heart attack in his sleep before the insidious Alzheimer's disease had progressed to the point where Pop might not have been able to recognize him anymore. That would've slayed him, Tony had always known of himself.
"Y'know what I never understood?" he said to his Dad, who by this time had made noteworthy progress repairing and assembling the model parts. "Remember how Mom would never just ground me, but Pop, too, whenever we got into trouble?" he asked. "What in the world was that about? I never understood why Pop even indulged 'the commie' and went along with it. I mean — he was never exactly fond of Mom, as I recall."
"Your grandfather?" his Dad chuckled slyly. "Your grandfather adored your mother," he said, feeling his son's eyebrows raise and mouth fall open without even having to look.
"Uhh… y'sure we're talking about the same guy, Dad?" Tony asked in amazement, thoroughly startled by how uncharacteristically naive and uninformed his father was with regard to the rancor that had existed between his own wife and father, right under his own roof. "I mean, all Pop ever did was snap and growl at her. Those two were arch-enemies the entire time I was growing up... Or arch-rivals, at the very least."
Jim peered down at the cockpit's splintered canopy mooring and smirked.
"I'm sure it must've looked that way to a young guy, but Pop — well, he had a heart about the size of China, and at least three-quarters of it belonged to your Mom."
Jim Almeida glanced up with a Cheshire grin, noting his son's speechlessness. "You hadn't even been born yet when your grandmother Almeida got sick," Jim rewound, beginning at the beginning.
"Nalda, y'mean? Your mother?"
"My mother. Right. But from Pop's perspective — well, that was his beloved wife lying there, on her deathbed," Jim Almeida explained. "And it wasn't one of his own two daughters who took care of her for all those months she was dying, either. That was his daughter-in-law — your Mom. This perfect stranger I'd brought home one weekend and introduced to him as my wife. Don't ever do that to your mother, by the way," his Dad paused and injected, his eyes making a momentary Freudian pit stop at Michelle before parking themselves on him. "Ya listening to me?"
"Uh-huh," Tony nodded attentively, reading the sign in his Dad's eyes that said, "Warning: Don't even bother trying to hide anything from me 'cause I can still read your face as clearly as I did back on that prairie, with the little house and that Laura Whatzername girl..."
"So your mother — this perfect stranger — was the one who saw Pop's wife through her final days. And without anyone having to ask her, either. She just took it upon herself. That's the kind of stuff I was alluding to before — about there being a lot more to your Mom than what's lying around on the surface."
Jim Almeida's words trailed off as he paused to smile to himself, his face illuminating with the same familiar glow Tony had seen a million times before. It never ceased to mesmerize and amaze him that, even after so many years of marriage, his parents were still be so conspicuously and demonstrably infatuated with each other.
"I never knew about any of that," Tony sheepishly admitted. "Pop never talked about her. Nalda, I mean."
"Yeah, well, probably because it damned near killed him to lose her, the poor guy," his Dad tenderly reminisced.
"So then — See, I don't get it, Dad. I mean, if Mom did all that for Pop's wife, and Pop was so grateful and loved her it, then why was he always, y'know, yelling at her and calling her a commie, and stuff? Like he couldn't stand her?"
"That..." his Dad chuckled in fond memory. "That was all nothing but hot air and bravado. Just Pop's way of reestablishing his authority. Rebuilding his pride — his ego. Your mother always knew that," his Dad explained. "Pop was a proud man, y'gotta remember. This tough longshoreman, working the Brooklyn docks. And here he was, with a daughter-in-law he didn't even know, at the weakest, most vulnerable point in his life, with his dear wife dying and his heart breaking, seeing her in pain like that... Did ya ever see Pop cry?"
"Never," Tony said without hesitation, shaking his head as a slightly more defined and varicolored portrait of his grandfather and mother's relationship began to emerge.
"Well, that's about all he could do in Nalda's final days. And then after she was gone — geezsh," his Dad somberly reflected, leaving Tony to fill in the obvious. "He had one helluva fight with depression, let me tell ya. And whose shoulder do ya think he did all his crying on — this big, tough, proud world-war vet?"
Tony nodded, appreciating how damaging it must have been to Pop's ego.
"Y'gotta imagine how foolish the guy must've felt, too, realizing how badly he'd misjudged your Mom in the beginning —treating her like she was some kinda Jezabelle who'd led me astray from my studies. And then to have this she-devil turn out to be his own personal lifesaver —his rock. He never would've gotten through those days without that Mom of yours, chief," his Dad guaranteed him. "She stuck like glue to him through that god-awful depression. Moved him right in with us when we bought the house in Westchester. She never even discussed it with me," his Dad said, with a soft chuckle. "I came home one night and there's Pop, all settled into his own room. All his old furniture set up exactly the same way he had it in Brooklyn. Your mother even matched the old wallpaper. 'Vintage,' they were calling it by then. Cost me a fortune," he grinned, shaking his head as he mindlessly affixed the newly repaired wing fairings to the Thunderbolt's body.
"And so that's how Pop eventually recovered from the depression?" Tony asked, delighting in the tender expression on his Dad's face. "By moving in and starting up a new life with you guys?"
"Nahh," his father replied with a sly smile. "That's where you came in, chief..."
Tony felt his throat suddenly clutch and a surprising flash of moisture instantly coat his eyes, overwhelmed by the impact of his Dad's words. The thought that his arrival into the world had played such a key, pivotal role in his grandfather's recovery had astonished, elated, bewildered, and floored him all in the same second.
"If ya thought Pop was grateful to your mother for what she'd done before that point, well... Let's just say that the old man was her slave for life after she had cooked you up," his Dad elucidated, pausing to pat his son's cheek upon noticing his glistening eyes. "Me? I got no credit at all. You'd think it was a case of immaculate conception. I was just the guy who paid the bills," he mused, with a self-deprecating smirk.
"I never knew any of this, Dad," Tony said, rocked by the bevy of emotions banging around inside him. He suddenly felt was a little shallow, as he had always assumed and characterized his Mom to be, and a little foolish, too, like his grandfather must've felt upon realizing that he just may have possibly misjudged Amanda Almeida a bit.
"So all that grumbling and snapping at Mom—"
"That was always music to your mother's ears, chief," his Dad surprised him. "That was her barometer—her way of gauging Pop's 'emotional recovery.' As long as he was yelling about her liberal views and child-rearing practices, and acting like his old cantankerous self again — the way he was when your mother first met him — well, nothing made her happier. To her, it meant was that Pop was doing okay again... Your mother's a pretty remarkable woman when ya look a little closer — if ya can even find her under all those Tiffany trinkets and Givenchy suits and those Jimmy Shoe shoes, or whatever the hell that guy's name is " he summarized, wrapping up his Almeida History: 101 class and rising to his feet.
As Tony lowered Michelle into the bed, reassuring himself for the umpteenth time that she wasn't going to slip into a coma, Jim Almeida set the fully assembled P-47D Balls-Out Bubble-Top Thunderbolt atop his son's dresser to dry.
"Michelle's not gonna believe it when she sees — Geeziz," Tony paused, staring at his Dad for a second. "Ya think she's gonna remember — y'know — this whole night? Gilligan — and Mary Ann? Geeziz..."
"The Skipper, too," his Dad reflected.
"The millionaire... and his wife," Tony added, unable to arrest an ensuing burst of laughter .
"God, I hope not, the poor little thing," Jim Almeida replied in all sincerity, unable but to heartily laugh along. "If she even remembers anything about the model, just let her assume she assembled it herself. If the good Lord sees fit to take her memory away, who are we to interfere with the grand plan... "
Tony agreed, going in for an Old Spice-drenched bear hug as the buzzer sounded, signaling Gerald and Olivia's arrival downstairs.
"Look, uhh — if she presses you for details about tonight, just nod your head a lot. Keep things vague. As long as ya don't deny or confirm anything, or give her a direct, definitive answer, technically you won't really be lying. That's how your mother always does it," his Dad assured him from experience, draping an arm over his shoulder as they walked to the door. "You bring her around to the house soon, and we'll do this right, y'hear?" he added, tightening his tie and slipping into his jacket before heading out the door. "Anything you, uhh... ya wanna share with, chief?" he asked with a sly grin, casting his eyes back toward the hallway, in reference to Michelle, whom he had more than a sneaking suspicion would soon be joining the family.
"Nothing you haven't already picked up on," Tony artfully replied, cryptically and unofficially confirming his father's suspicion, and not even wincing, as he normally did, when his Dad planted a firm hand on one cheek and a classically sappy, infamously gushy Jim Almeida kiss against the other.
As Tony peeled his clothes off and snuggly molded his body up against Michelle's, he considered his Dad's suggestion that he put his anger on temporary hold the next time his Mom makes him crazy, and change the subject to something about her, instead. Something related to her early Almeida days; like, what she remembers about Nalda; what had inspired her to "stick like glue" to Pop throughout his "worst of times"; where she had found the patience for Pop in the first place; why everybody in this entire family seemed to have been born with a patience gene, except for him.
He could ask his Mom for a more detailed accounting of Pop's battle with depression; how long he'd been afflicted with it; how long it had taken to transition out of it after this newborn of hers had arrived on the scene — this infant savior, of sorts; a wonderous ray of sunshine, enlightenment, and hope, evidently; this remarkably gifted cherub, blessed with supernatural curative powers, or so it would seem; this exceptionally handsome infant, with the pictures to prove it, who blossomed into a poster boy for above-average intelligence, as report cards would appear to suggest; this remarkably fine figure of a man — a testament to masculinity, sexuality, and huuuuuuugeness, as some have been known to remark at the top of their lungs; this one they call Anthony Almeida, better known and loved by all as Tony Almeida. TonyBalonie, if you will. The kid. The chief. The CTU Director. The Sperminator.