Chapter 8: Truth or Consequences

"Said Colt 45 and two Zigzags,
Baby, that's all we need
We can go to the park after dark
And smoke that tumbleweed.
As the marijuana burn we can take our turn
Singin' them dirty rap songs."

Luigi woke up in a cold sweat, petrified in a fetal position atop his bed. The rhythmic drums and clapping of "Colt 45" echoed in his depleted mind. Glancing to his left, he spied Mario's closed eyes and perspiration-covered hair lying next to his. Although his brother was propped in a semi-sitting position on the floor, the bed was low enough to drop his head on part of Luigi's pillow. Fatigue quickly turned to horror at the dawn of Friday morning. He was unsure of what time it was, but judging from the full sunlight illuminating the window, Luigi guessed that it was at least eight o'clock in the morning. Feeling the need to empty his bladder, he carefully pushed back the covers on the side furthest away from Mario's fully-dressed sleeping form and slipped soundlessly from the mattress to the bathroom.

Having relieved himself, he flushed the toilet, then braced himself against the counter next to the sink. What the hell happened? He received no text or voice messages from his iPhone except from Daisy. How did Mario know?

Before he could ruminate further, he heard frantic rustling and a moan outside the bathroom. "Lu-Luigi?" the familiar voice gasped. "Luigi!" he screamed, pounding on the closed door.

He unlocked the door with a shaking hand and stepped back, allowing the man to barge inside. Mario staggered toward him, then suddenly stopped a foot shy, as if unsure of his surroundings. They stayed still for several minutes; Mario's blue eyes remained unfocused.

"Mario?" asked Luigi uncertainly.

His younger brother's question seemed to draw him back to the present. He glanced at his brother with a mixture of relief and confusion. With each trembling step, Mario closed the distance between them and wrapped his thick, muscular arms around Luigi, burying his head in the crook of his little brother's neck. Closing his eyes and letting remorse burn hotly in his chest, Luigi delicately returned the bruising embrace. Exhausted from the past four days, Mario's extra thirty pounds dragged Luigi to a seating position on the linoleum floor. He refused to let his brother go, holding the man's lanky body and rocking them slightly.

"M-Mario?"

The older plumber neither said a single word in response nor changed his positioning. Luigi tried gently to put some distance between them, but Mario thwarted every attempt and, like an anaconda, pinned him harder to his chest, squeezing him. The younger brother gasped, then cried out as a long-buried memory surfaced, one of a shellshocked Mario enfolding a numbed, teenage Luigi in his arms. He suddenly heard a wince and then a growl; realizing that it came from his older brother, Luigi rasped his name again. This time, Mario was responsive, leaning away to give him a few inches of space.

"C'mon, bro, let's get you cleaned up. You probably need some food in your stomach, too," said Luigi, attempting to redirect his emotional energy. "Also, what about your ribs? Do they still hurt?"

Mario did not answer, as his attention was fixated on his sibling. Luigi tried to examine his torso by reaching for his soiled shirt to lift it, but the older man viciously slapped away his hand.

"Mario!" insisted his younger brother in a quiet, yet tone.

Blinking several times, his blue eyes finally focused and then allowed his brother to inspect him. Underneath his shirt were brown and yellow patches of skin. He was neither coughing nor wheezing, though he seemed physically weaker than normal.

"C'mon, you need a shower. Badly," Luigi said.

Twenty minutes later, Mario was sitting dazedly on Luigi's bed, bare-chested, towel wrapped around his waist, and smelling considerably better, though his five-day shadow continued to grow on his weary face. His younger brother had taken his fetid clothing and put them in the washing machine downstairs. He waited five minutes before the apprehension returned. As he launched off the bed to search for Luigi, he heard footsteps up the stairs and relaxed when he saw him enter with a heaping plate of cheese, prosciutto, bread, and broth. Setting it in front of him, Luigi murmured, "Mangia." Taking a piece of asiago between his fingers, Mario began to nimble on it like a small child. After several minutes, he remembered that his stomach was legendary in the neighborhood, like his Abruzzese grandfather's, and ravenously swallowed the food. Once he was sated, Mario looked at his brother with a mixture of emotions – confusion, fear, and relief.

"Luigi?" his voice cracked on his name.

"Yeah, I'm here, bro."

"W-w-where have you been? What happened?" he asked uncertainly.

Guilt and dread slammed into Luigi's chest like shards of glass. That was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, one that he did not want to answer. He still did not know how he had not received any messages or calls from anyone except for Daisy. He knew that he needed time to think and process, preferably with a lit cigarette, without Mario hovering or asking him too many questions.

Just as Luigi was about to tell Mario the best lie that he could come up with at the moment, they both heard the front door open and the worried chatter of three distinct, yet familiar voices, two male and one female.

Motherfucker, thought Luigi as he heard them coming up the stairs. Yoshi crashed into the room, his eyes widening at the sight of his missing friend and, marching rapidly to him, pulled the younger plumber into a shaking hug. Peach and Miles then entered the room, with the stunned woman going to her partner and cuddling him in relief and the blond-haired youth leaning against the doorframe, eyes blank and perplexed. Luigi observed their disheveled appearance; while not as detached as Mario, none of them were well-groomed, wearing casual clothes of varying cleanliness, nor had they slept more than a few hours over the past five days.

Yoshi shook his head in disbelief, his brown eyes sparkling in joy and gratitude that his best friend was healthy and alive. "Where the hell have you been?! Who took you?" he demanded.

Luigi opened his mouth, then hastily shut it. This was worse than he had thought.


As a stalling tactic, Luigi suggested that they allow Mario to get dressed and they would wait downstairs. Reluctantly, Yoshi agreed, and the two Brobot boys followed Luigi down to the living room while Peach stayed to help and comfort the wearied Mario. As the three young men were sitting silently in wait of Peach and Mario, a sixth figure suddenly entered the house. Laying his frightened blue eyes upon his nephew, the pale Giuseppe gasped, then exhaled audibly, which caused an episode of coughing and wheezing. After relaxing his lungs enough to quiet the cough, he walked into the living room to face the formerly missing Luigi squarely but neither said anything nor approached him.

Luigi bit his lip. An already bad situation was rapidly descending into the deepest pits of Hell. Although he might be able to come up with a lie plausible enough to convince Peach, Mario, Yoshi, and Miles, it would take a miracle on the order of Jesus's resurrection to satisfy Uncle Joe. He could feel those blue eyes probing his every movement, like they had done numerous times when he was a teenager. Two sets of footfalls came down the stairs; Peach escorted the more cognizant Mario into the room. Mario independently chose to sit next to Luigi on the couch while Peach and Miles sat in various chairs. Yoshi and Uncle Joe stood, the latter's eyes never leaving the sitting form of his youngest nephew. No one spoke, not even Giuseppe, still in shock at Luigi's mysterious re-appearance.

"Okay, so I'll start," announced Yoshi to the silent room. "Where the hell have you been?"

Luigi felt five pairs of eyes on him. He had no time to formulate a plausible story, especially as he did not fully understand what had happened. All he knew was that five worried people who had likely spent five days and nights searching for him wanted answers. Immediately, he ruled out telling the truth. Who would be sympathetic to him being abducted to California, only for him to enjoy the experience, and gladly going to work for Lucas? After all, he could have reached out to someone in public and borrowed a cell phone to call Mario, even if none of them actually cared. Even if Mario never did the same. Left with no good alternatives, he decided to stay quiet.

"Well?" he demanded, tone becoming angrier. "Did … Did Matusz do something to you?"

No answer.

Yoshi spun on his heel, biting his lip in anger, as Miles looked on blankly and Peach and Mario exchanged confused, worried, and almost incredulous glances. Uncle Joe crossed his arms, glaring at his taciturn nephew.

"Why won't you answer us?! Who took you?! Was it that fuckin' Fat Tony and his goons?"

No answer.

"Jesus, did … did they threaten you? What did they do?!" yelled the Japanese desperately to his friend. At Luigi's continued silence and avoidance of their piercing gazes, Yoshi strode to him and latched onto his shoulders, shaking him slightly. "Just tell us, man. We can help. Mario will …"

"Mario will do what?" exploded Luigi, rising from the couch. The suppressed anger that he had begun to feel in California unexpectedly boiled to the surface. Yoshi stood to match his height. "Look at him! He's already got bruises already from god-knows-what! What next?!" Distraught, Mario turned away from his brother, staring at a point on the floor in front of him. Luigi steadied himself for what he would say next. "Know what? I've finally learned the hard lesson of keeping my mouth shut. Just leave me the fuck alone. It's not like I received a single goddamn text from any of you! So stop pretending like you give a shit."

Everyone stared at Luigi like he had grown the six heads of a Hydra. Mario began to vibrate in rage, his hands balling at his sides. A second later, he ran from his spot and stomped into the laundry room. The group in the living room overheard the clinking and clanging of an incensed man ripping through the washing machine, then a frustrated scream and a slam when the search failed. The man stormed out, then darted upstairs to look in Luigi's room. Dumfounded, Yoshi took out his cellphone, opened the screen, and shoved it in Luigi's face. The younger plumber read the frantic texts from Yoshi asking and pleading with him to respond. As the blood drained from Luigi's face, Mario came running at full speed down the stairs and threw his cellphone at his brother's head. Miles covered his mouth in horror. Giuseppe advanced on Mario to stop him from assaulting Luigi further.

"Hey!" shouted Peach. "Basta, Mario!"

Mario said nothing, seething in fury. Peach grabbed her boyfriend and pulled him away from his brother. She eased him in the Lazy-Boy and whispered in his ear to calm him. Luigi rubbed the side of his head, stunned and moaning from his brother's violent reaction. A sob escaped his throat; as he tried to leave the living room, Giuseppe blocked his path and forced him to sit back down.

"You're not leaving until we get an answer," barked Uncle Joe. "We have been looking five days for you. Five! You weren't here or anywhere in Brooklyn, Queens, or Staten Island for five days. Did these guys keep you in a dungeon or something? Just show you your phone for shits and giggles? Because in a city of ten million people, I find it very hard to believe that you couldn't call us! So, let's start again, Pinocchio, where were you?"

A tearful Luigi glared at Giuseppe, then stared forward. Both of them simultaneously remembered this maneuver of stubbornness and obfuscation, when a sixteen-year-old Luigi had committed to lying about his whereabouts to Joe and Lucia. In the month after he came to live with them in Eltingville, Luigi ran away seven times, forcing Giuseppe to spend less time in his shop and more time covering the shoreline of Staten Island and, occasionally, the dark alleys and bus stations of Brooklyn and Newark. Giuseppe was successful five out of seven times; much to his chagrin and pride, Luigi learned from and improved with every attempt, successfully escaping the last two and returning days later. Eventually, Joe grew tired of chasing him; he superglued his windows shut, reinforced them with oak so that he could not break out, and placed a lock on his door at night. The angry teenager hollered, swore, and screamed for three days. Although he had to endure incredulous glares from his wife and daughters, by the fourth day, Luigi calmed down and never again tried to run away from home.

Joe shook his head in disgust. "You're twenty-fuckin'-eight. This shit didn't work when you were sixteen, it sure as hell ain't gonna now."

"There's more," interjected Miles delicately. Normally, Joe would have been irritated at the interruption, but he wanted Luigi to know what he believed Miles would share. The timid Miles looked at the older man, who gestured at him with his hand to go on. "Luigi, your phone. Well, I, uh, tried to locate you by locating your phone. According to your GPS, the last ping was in the water just below the Verrazzano."

Horrified, Luigi's head snapped to look up at Miles. His body went slack against the back of the couch, and his skin color changed from pale to absolutely pallid. Beginning to hyperventilate, he pushed past Giuseppe, ran into the kitchen, and vomited into the trash can. As he spat the last of the previous night's sweet and sour pork in the garbage, Luigi groaned in disbelief and anguish. It had to be the phone. Something's wrong with the phone.

"Just imagine how each one of us felt when we saw that," sighed Joe. "That you were dropped off or jumped off a fuckin' bridge, then taken away by the currents and straight out to sea. No body. No nothin'. I couldn't even bear to tell your zia that you were gone. I had to fake shaving, eat normally, just so I didn't alarm anyone. The thing is, Luigi, I think she believed it." Starting to hack and wheeze, he collapsed in Luigi's spot on the couch.

Luigi glanced surreptitiously at the five people. Giuseppe seemed to have aged ten years in the past five days; Peach was silently crying as she rubbed Mario's back, the latter clenched his jaw in despair and ire; Yoshi gripped his black strands of hair in anguish; Miles observed Luigi emotionlessly. Shame and self-disgust flowed through Luigi's body. How could he have ever thought that they did not care about him? Embarrassed and mortified, he left the living room to climb the stairs to his room. He did not deserve to be in their presence. Entering his room and closing the door, locking it, he soon heard a commotion and angry voices erupt. Luigi recognized Mario's booming tone, refusing to listen to Yoshi's and Peach's attempts to calm him as he tried to go upstairs to make his brother answer them. Eventually, Joe yelled at Cristina and Yoshi to take Mario to Manhattan; she, Joe, and Yoshi forced him out despite his threats and tearful protests.

In the upheaval, Miles managed to slip away and tiptoe upstairs. Knocking at Luigi's door with the secret signal that they had developed as kids – a series of knocks based on the Fibonacci sequence – he nervously waited several seconds before the door unlocked and opened enough to let him inside. Relocking it once his friend glided past, Luigi retreated to his bed, laying down and away from Miles. The blond boy flopped on the empty side in his clean blue jeans, long-sleeved black shirt, and tennis shoes and lay on his back. They stayed like that for what seemed like hours, neither moving nor speaking.

"I won't ask what exactly happened because I'm not sure that I want to know," began Miles. "I … I don't get why you didn't receive our messages or texts. I also don't understand why your GPS showed … Your tech skills are sufficient enough to have …"

"I didn't," said Luigi tearfully.

Miles watched his best friend for several moments, then nodded slowly. "This is too much of a coincidence. iPhones can malfunction. But they usually involve data corruption or theft, not manipulation. Something or someone wanted us to find that GPS ping. That never sat well with me."

"Miles, this isn't your fight," murmured Luigi. "Go home. Forget me."

The blond engineer rotated ninety degrees to lay behind Luigi and reached out to turn him. Grudgingly, Luigi moved his body to face his friend, still refusing to look at him. "You and Yoshi have been my best friends for seventeen years. I don't want another best friend."

"I fucked up," gasped the plumber.

"Yeah," Miles agreed. "You did fuck up. But even computers need to be given the correct instructions to generate the right output. Your input was corrupted."

Luigi chuckled through his tears. "Good to know that I'm a dumb box."

Miles shrugged. "We're all dumb boxes. Where's your phone?" Luigi gestured over his shoulder to the desk. The blond slid off the bed, walked over to desk, picked up the phone, and brought it to Luigi. Laying back down, he ordered, "Open it, please." Luigi entered the code and then handed it to Miles, who began checking the phone settings, App Store menu, as well as the memory for any abnormalities. "Spock's head on a cracker," he swore quietly. "Nothing immediate. But I'm sure it's there! Um, I need your phone for a few hours, maybe a day. I'd need to take it to my lab to run it in quarantine. I'd ask you to come with, but it's in Manhattan."

"I asked Daisy to let me know if she wants me to get her at the airport. How will I know? Also, she's gonna be pissed if I can't call her tomorrow. I already missed lunch on Wednesday," mumbled Luigi weakly.

"I'll be able to read any messages. I can email you about anything important," replied Miles.

He shook his head. "Miles, this is my fuck up. It's not a good idea to get involved."

Miles stared directly at Luigi. "I'm already involved, Lou. I hacked into a cell tower to find you. That's kinda illegal. I've done worse, however. I also kept something from Mario and the others. Initially, I discounted it as interference or even a malfunction, but given your hesitancy to say what happened, I now think it was legitimate. There were one ping before the weird GPS result: one quick buzz at LAX on Monday. Is that where you were? If so, how did you manage to get on a plane without anyone noticing?"

Luigi managed to utter, "H-how did? No, wait, why didn't you tell the others?"

Shrugging, he answered, "As I said, I didn't know if it was legit. The living room told me that it was. Why did you just take off like that? Was it because of Mario?"

"No. What happened to Matusz and Ferenc?"

"I don't know," said Miles. "All I know is that Mario threatened Fat Tony at Bowser's bar, saying something about a deal that was made years ago, and that he broke it. Tony insisted on his mother's life that he hadn't. That he never would. He said that he'd deal with them if they did something to you. Do you know what that was about? And don't deflect this time."

He frowned and closed his eyes briefly. "No." At Miles's raised eyebrow, he insisted, "It's the truth, Miles. I honestly don't know. I try to stay as far away from those guys as possible. The only fucking reason why I frequent that place is because of Mario's need to be GI Joe."

"Okay, I just got one more question." Luigi wordlessly raised his eyebrows. "Joe had a point. Why didn't you reach out to us? To me? W…Was it because I almost spilled the beans about Daisy? I mean, I'm sorry, I didn't mean any harm by it. I know that I should have been a bit more careful around Mario, but I hadn't realized that you…"

"Miles," interrupted Luigi with a firm voice. "It wasn't that. Not even the slightest. Honestly, I've been asking myself that very question." He rolled on his back to look up at the ceiling. "I guess … I guess I wanted someone to care about me beyond Mario's hero bullshit. It was juvenile, and I know that I hurt everyone." His voice tore at the last word, tears beginning anew. "And I'm so fuckin' sorry. I genuinely didn't know about my phone pinging the Verrazzano, man. But I'm so tired of being in the background. My life … my job … even you guys at times … everything just revolves around Mario and Brooklyn. Sometimes, it's Uncle Joe. I didn't fully realize it until these past couple days."

The blond nodded, taking a few moments to absorb and process what his friend had said. Like Luigi had done, he flipped on his back. "I get it. Growing up, everything was about my brother. My brother's got ADHD and needs extra attention. My brother got into another fight at school. My brother's gonna get himself killed climbing El Capitan. My brother's gonna climb Everest, yada, yada, fucking, yada. To this day, I'm not even sure if my parents know I exist. That's why I'm so grateful that I found you guys. Lou," he called to him. Luigi twisted his head to him. "Just don't shut me out. You've done that enough lately."

A few minutes passed in quiet. Luigi disturbed the heaviness of their conversation by singing, "It's hard on a fella, when he don't know his way around. If I don't find me a honey to help me spend my money …"

"… I'm gonna have to blow this town," resumed Miles off-key, still gazing at the ceiling.

"Here it's another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody. I got some money 'cause I just got paid. How I wish I had someone to talk to. I'm in an awful way," they finished together.


Luigi's iPhone clutched in his hand, Miles came downstairs to the mostly empty living room, save for a slumped figure sitting upright at the end of the couch, narrow fist against his curly hair, and thick-rimmed glasses balanced on the edge of his Roman nose. His long, narrow, blue-jean covered legs were stretched out in front of him and were crossed at his ankles. The middle-aged man suddenly looked up at the blond boy and straightened his posture.

"Mario's gone?" inquired the boy timidly.

"Yeah, Yoshi and Cristina took him back to her place in Manhattan. It's better for him not to be here," answered Joe in his normal, matter-of-fact tone. He gestured upstairs with his head. "Called Sal and let him know that Luigi turned up. I take it that you were up there with him?"

Miles glanced down to the floor and nodded. "Yes."

Joe pointed to the door to indicate that they should move outside so that Luigi would not overhear the conversation, which Miles did unenthusiastically. Opening the door to the porch, Giuseppe let the hesitant Miles out to the sunny exterior and small concrete steps, then closed it behind him. "Did he say anything to you?" At Miles's silence and avoidance of eye contact, he added, "Don't you lie to me, son. I need to know."

The blond studied the stern Giuseppe's face. He and Luigi spent years lived in a fearful respect of this man, who took over the day-to-day or week-to-week supervision of Mario and Luigi when Mario Senior was on shift and then again after his death. Miles was never quite sure of his observations, as computers and machinery came more naturally to him than analyzing the emotions and motivations of human beings, but he always sensed an envy of Mario Senior and an almost obsessive interest in his youngest nephew. He vividly recalled a screaming match in English and Italian between Mario Senior and Joe after the fourteen-year-old Luigi had been accepted to both Stuyvesant and Brooklyn City High. Overwhelmed and sensitive, the adolescent ran crying out of the house and, as the eleven-year-old Miles and half the street overheard from outside, Mario Senior screamed in English, "He's my fucking son, not yours!" Even now as a twenty-five-year-old PhD student, he did not understand what Mario Senior had meant, though he knew it was significant, since Giuseppe stormed out of the house soon afterward. For several months following Luigi's father's death, Luigi was left to linger with the Sicilians on 65th Street. He also never knew why Giuseppe did not immediately intervene. Thus, Miles developed a certain distrust of the man's motivations.

Deciding to risk his life, Miles took a deep breath and questioned the elder man in a cautious voice. "Why? With all due respect, sir, Luigi's twenty-eight, as you pointed out earlier. He didn't do the right thing, but doesn't he have the right to fix his own mistakes?"

Giuseppe raised a salt and pepper eyebrow at the younger man's reasoning. "And where do you get off telling me about my nephew?" he spoke with an edge.

"He's my best friend," answered Miles carefully. "You, Mario, Yoshi, those around him tell him constantly to grow up, to be a man. He's trying to do that."

The older man closed in on Miles, towering over him by an inch or two, his navy blue hoodie almost obscuring the short man's vision. "How?! How is it being a man to disappear for five days and not say what happened to him?" he hissed. "Stay out of this, kid. He's my nephew!"

Something burst in the twenty-five-year-old's chest. "I won't! I don't have anyone else!" he screamed back at Giuseppe, who recoiled in shock at the normally introverted youngster's emotional outburst. Tearfully, he whispered, "I wish … I wish he were my brother instead of my own! So how can you say that I should stay out of it?! If you wanna kick my ass for talking back, fine! But that won't change anything."

Joe stared at Miles for several moments. Over the years, he had gotten to know the few friends that Luigi had in childhood and adolescence: Yoshi, who like Luigi, had been the resident outsider in Bensonhurst and overidealized Mario; Miles, the somewhat immature, yet gentle-hearted and honest cervellone who could converse with his nephew on an equal intellectual level; and Logan – or was it Lawrence – who was nothing but demented and toxic. He had not known the latter as well as the other two. If he had found out about him sooner than the end of Luigi's sophomore year, he would have taken his brother's cousins-in-law to family court, and Luigi would have been home, safe,in Staten Island well before Logan-Lawrence managed to latch his vulture claws into him.

Screw his brother's last will and testament. Of all of the dumb ideas that his fratello had conceived of in his relatively short life – 9,457 to be precise – and in addition to being his last, sending Luigi to live with the Sicilians was by far the worst.

"Okay, kid," he conceded, coughing and wiping his mouth with a handkerchief that he kept in his back pocket. "That his phone?" The kid nodded. "I assume you're gonna take a look?" Another nod. "Okay, good. Here's how this is gonna work, Miles. You'll tell me what you find, and not a single detail missing. Got that? You already have my cell number. Call me the second you have something." As Miles slowly turned to leave, Joe held up a hand to signal to him to stop. "We both know Mario's gonna harass you for information. He'll be aggressive about it, too. You'll need to lie to him. That's … not your strong suit, I know. Normally, that's a good thing. No one needs a man who tells lies. But sometimes, you gotta lie about certain things to protect your family. When the time's right, I'll tell him. Understand?"

Miles eyed him suspiciously, then blinked his assent to the plan. Both would need to trust the other. Giuseppe then wordlessly went back inside to the brown couch and sat down to wait out his errant nephew.


A few hours later, a devastated Luigi turned the handle of his bedroom door and ambled down the stairs to stillness on the ground floor. He wrinkled his noise as he could smell the acidic and rancid stomach contents that he had emptied into the trash can earlier that morning. Glancing up at the clock in the kitchen, he sleepily noted that it was a little past two o'clock. Opening the refrigerator, he grumbled as nearly all of the remaining food had or was in the process of spoiling. Desperate for a task to escape the mental replay of the morning's events, the aggrieved plumber started to clean out the fridge shelves. He did not hear the man wake up in the living room and walk to the threshold into the kitchen. After he tossed the last of the wasted food in the trash can, he fastened and tied the garbage bag. Luigi lifted and then dropped it upon seeing a jaded Uncle Joe leaning against the frame.

"What … what are you doing here?" he questioned. "I thought you went back to Staten Island."

Joe stared at him. "Yeah, well, you thought wrong. It's not the first time in so many days," he bit out sarcastically.

"Look, Zio, I don't know what else to say. I can't explain what happened with my phone. So, if you want to be angry and leave, that's your right. Now, excuse me, I gotta take this out before it starts stinkin' up the place." As Luigi moved past his uncle to open the front door and lay the trash just outside of the fence in the alleyway next to the brick house, he could hear steps marching angrily toward him. Coming back up the porch stairs, he felt himself pulled into the house by his green tee-shirt and the door slammed behind him.

"You think it's that easy?" yelled Joe. "Oh, yeah, that's right. 'Hey, Zio, I can't talk about nothin,' so fuck off.' No, it ain't that easy, kid!"

"Why can't it be?!" cried Luigi. "Why? We're oil and water, and you've spent the better part of my entire fucking life reminding me! Mario or, hell, Cousin Maria's a closer match than I. Well, bene, I admit it; I'm the family FUCK UP, the family disappointment. Happy now? I'm no longer the sixteen-year-old delinquent that is such a burden on your family, so you can wash your hands of me!"

"No, I'm not happy," snarled Giuseppe. "And I will never do that, no matter how much you think you deserve to be punished for whatever the hell happened. Never, do you fuckin' understand me? Never!" His face briefly softened. "You're my brother's son, nipotino. But Lucia and I helped Gabriella change you, feed you, held you when she started to get sick, while the great 'Jumpman' was putting out one fire in the Bronx or another in the City. Your father wasn't there for your first word – 'chiddu.' I was. I bought you your first gyroscope. I remember when you started playing with my old balance ruler when you were eighteen months old." He inhaled deeply, then recommenced in an almost hushed tone. "When Miles found that GPS ping at the Verrazzano … I have seen and experienced the worst shit imaginable, Luigi Gabriele Masciarelli, but that was the first time that I knew despair. Do you get me, kid? So I will never 'wash my hands of you.' Mai nella mia vita."

When he finished, Giuseppe saw that his nephew hid his face with both hands, sobbing audibly. He abruptly sank to his knees; the older plumber approached the curled up form and sat down next to him. "Mai nella mia vita," he vowed to the anguished Luigi.

"Mi dispiace, zio," he gasped between sniffles.

"I know," Giuseppe replied tiredly. "You didn't know about the phone. But I'll say this: it takes a real man to ask for help when he's in trouble. Whatever it is, Luigi, whatever happened, you're not doing anybody, least of all yourself, any favors by holding on to it."

Luigi did not reply, instead sniffling like a child. He knew that neither Mario nor Giuseppe could know his whereabouts during the past week. If Mario found out about Lucas, he would try to confront him directly, which would only end in disaster; if Uncle Joe discovered Lucas's reappearance in Luigi's life, he would certainly disown his nephew, regardless of the mai nella sua vita, and then he would have no one. Maybe that was his penitence. What he needed at the moment, however, was a cigarette and time away from everyone to think through the next steps. Wiping his tears with the back of his hand, Luigi slowly rose to his feet. He walked to the kitchen, plucked his car keys from the counter, and, as Uncle Joe watched helplessly, left the house.

Luigi took a long drive to Crescent Beach Park, his favorite hiding spot near Eltingville. Whenever he would get into an argument with Uncle Joe and felt the need to leave the house, he would steal some of the day-old French bread that Aunt Lucia liked to use for breadcrumbs and bring it to the eager mallards. He would sit on the docks among the dense sea shrubs and chat with them for hours, describing his heartbreak and unfairness at losing both parents so young, his alienation from his friends back in Brooklyn, how his zio and zia did not have a fucking clue as to how close he was to making one final trip to the Brooklyn Bridge, and how Mario cared more about terrorists in Afghanistan than his only brother. After Mario returned stateside post-amputation, Luigi spent his free hours with the ducks to process the near-loss of his last immediate family member. As he smoked the long-desired Marlboro and tossed some of his grapes to the ducks, he could not resolve the current day and week's events with the history of being told to behave like a good Italian boy, support Mario in his fight for their freedom, and continue the family legacy of becoming the newest card-carrying member of the union. He did as they asked and faded into the background. California and dancing with Daisy at the club were the first and second times in thirteen years when he felt like he was important to the universe.

Neither time did he respond to his family's texts.

It was roughly seven o'clock in the evening when he returned to 17th Avenue. Opening the door, fresh groceries in hand, he flicked on the light to find an empty house. Strangely, he was thankful for the time alone. Putting the fruit and vegetables into the produce drawers and the orange juice and milk in the side of the door, he closed the refrigerator. Too emotionally exhausted to cook, he flipped through the various menus on the kitchen counter, eventually settling on Thai. An hour later, Luigi's dinner arrived, and he took his Vegetable Pad Thai to his room. Closing his door to check his email, he dejectedly sank in his chair as he received no email from Miles regarding the phone issue or any message from Daisy. For the first time in years, he lamented not having a landline telephone. He finished his spicy noodles, then reached for his old Intro to Infrastructure textbook from Broken and Shitty High. Smiling, he remembered one of his and Lucas's more notable antics. Their sophomore English teacher was a smug EdD (not even a PhD) from Columbia who made the mechanical engineering majors' lives hell by grading their papers harsher than the other students and harbored an open dislike for the department chair of the budding robotics program, his mentor, Dr. Omaya. In revenge for having publicly mocked one of the mechanical engineering majors, Luigi and Lucas broke into her computer, gleefully reset her permissions with a cacls command – read and write all folders and files – and notified their fellow students via AOL message. The next morning, the bitch found all of her lesson plans and materials corrupted or deleted and her desktop image of Langston Hughes replaced with the close-up of an unknown porn actor's giant shlong. Cracking open the book, he immersed himself in the labs and computer terminal. At around midnight, he decided to call it a night; he took a quick shower, brushed his teeth, and climbed into bed.

Saturday was spent in a similar way; no one called or came by the house, not even Mario. Luigi felt that it was just as well; the side of his face still ached from his brother's assault by cellphone. Early in the morning, he received an email from Miles confirming that Daisy's Sunday evening flight to LaGuardia would arrive at a little past five o'clock. He took the liberty to text for Luigi that he would be there, and that she should email him at his personal addy due to phone difficulties. Miles also reported that messages and texts started to arrive as one would expect just past midnight, although none of Yoshi's, Mario's, Joe's, or his original messages were retrievable, and that there was no known malware on his cellphone. He recommended either to wipe the entire phone, which would be risky without assistance from his service provider, or buy a new phone and transfer the data, including any potentially hidden malware. Cursing inwardly, as he was only a year into his current phone plan and was reluctant to spend seven hundred dollars out of pocket due to a conjectural hack, Luigi decided to take the risk and replace the phone in a month if the problem persisted. By the tone of the email, he knew that his friend suspected a sophisticated phone hack. But unlike Miles, he also knew that Lucas was the likely culprit, particularly since he had the skills and had made him surrender his phone upon landing in Los Angeles.

Nonetheless, all of this was circumstantial and pure conjecture at best.

After all, what would Lucas have had to gain?

Luigi spent hours analyzing and re-analyzing that very question, only to give up by dinnertime. Alone again for the rest of the evening, he did the same as the previous night – poured through his Linux textbook and scanned his Algorithms book that he had used in Omaya's class – and went to bed at around midnight.

On Sunday morning, he received a forwarded email from Daisy with her flight information as well as a flirty picture of her with the caption, "Looking forward to tonight with my handsome boy from Bensonhurst." Grinning, he emailed back, telling her to expect dinner and a movie post-pickup from LaGuardia. About the same time, he heard a Fibonacci-sequence knock at the front door. Running downstairs, he unlocked it to reveal a tired Miles who was wearing part of the same outfit from Friday. Handing him the cellphone as he walked into the house, the blond began to fidget distractedly, which immediately signaled to Luigi that something was troubling him.

"What's wrong, Miles?"

"You got something strong? Like whiskey?" he asked nervously.

Luigi went into the kitchen and grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniels sitting on top of the refrigerator. Fetching two glasses, he poured a little of the amber liquid into each and handed one to Miles who downed it in one gulp. Placing it in front of Luigi to indicate that he wanted more, the Italian instead set the bottle on the counter and looked at him in concern. "Spill, Miles. What happened?"

Miles stared at him seriously. "Mario came by my apartment in Chelsea early this morning. He must have left Peach's place on Madison Avenue. I've never seen him like this, Lou. He just sat on my couch for, like, thirty minutes without saying a damn thing. Then he asked me if I knew anything about what was on your phone. I said no. Then he left. I don't think he bought it. Also, I couldn't find any malware on your phone, though everything that I know about tech is telling me that you got hacked at some point. Your bank card and IDs functioning?"

Luigi nodded. "Yeah, I checked my bank this morning. Nothing out of the ordinary."

"I looked for twenty-four hours straight, man. Didn't find a damn thing, and that says something. Whoever did this has a lot of skill. Normally, I'd say you should tell Mario, but the problem with hackers is that they can be anyone and anywhere. They may not even be in the country. And even so, there's the problem of explaining where you were. But this was definitely not Fat Tony or his thugs."

Downing his portion of J.D., Luigi stared into the living room blankly. The situation was growing weirder and weirder by the minute. He suspected Lucas's involvement, but the motivation was unclear. What was clear to him was the need for discretion and to keep Mario out of it. "Miles, say nothing for now. Not even to Uncle Joe." At the blond's unvoiced protests, he held up a hand. "I mean it, Miles. Say nothing. This … This could all be our imaginations running wild."

Miles glared at his best friend. "No, this isn't. This is fucking dangerous. This wasn't the run of the mill opportunist looking for a freebie. This was deliberate."

"Yes!" growled Luigi. "I know that, Miles! But we don't know who and we don't want to tip our hand. If we tell Mario, then he'll just go to Fat Tony. Then he fights Mr. Universe and ends up in the hospital or worse. If we tell Joe, then he'll go to the cops. Cops can't handle this shit. Or they may just ignore it. I don't want to involve anyone who doesn't need to be involved."

The blond huffed in disapproval, but finally agreed. "Fine. Let's do it your way. But if this gets dangerous …"

"… Then I'll go to the police myself. Okay? First, though, we need proof."

Miles bit his lip anxiously, then gave Luigi a bear hug. "I hope you know what you're doing, Lou."

The young plumber smiled. "Always."


Luigi waited excitedly at the United Airlines passenger pickup for his beautiful lioness to arrive. He checked his watch for the fifth time in five minutes. It was 5:45 pm; though it was still daylight, the sky had clouded over and become colder. In the backseat of his red car was a bag of groceries – white wine, pasta, capers, garlic, olives, a can of Cento, white onion, tomato paste, chili flakes, olive oil, basil, oregano, tapenade, and a dark chocolate bar – which he had picked up from the local supermarket in Bensonhurst after spending a couple hours on his programming and algorithm labs. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of auburn and a small, orange suitcase with wheels. The passenger door opened to a grinning Daisy Abravanel. He returned the grin and popped the trunk. Just as he unbuckled his seatbelt to help her, she shouted, "Stay there; I got it." Daisy easily lifted her piece of luggage into the trunk, shut it, and then climbed into the cab. Closing the door, their lips met in a happy and heated kiss. Sneaking his tongue into her mouth, Luigi drew her body into his. Breaking for air, he tucked his head into her neck while she sighed contentedly.

"I missed you," he murmured into her soft skin, pressing his lips there. "So much."

"Me, too," she replied, raking her fingers through his silky brown waves. "I thought about you every day."

After five minutes of embracing each other, they separated and Luigi re-fastened his seatbelt to start the drive to Carroll Gardens. They chatted pleasantly about San Francisco and her flight back to New York during the twenty-five minute trip, slily exchanges flirty grins and touches. Luigi parallel parked next to her brownstone, turned off the engine, retrieved her luggage from the trunk, and locked the car. Despite Daisy's protests, he insisted on carrying both her suitcase and the groceries. She unlocked the door and let him inside. Taking the suitcase from him, she headed upstairs to her room while Luigi made his way through the large, yellow-walled parlor and into the large kitchen. Turning on the lights, he saw a wooden chef's block and rustic wooden stools in the middle of the space; above it hung several copper pots and pans and stylish lights. The older countertops and sink had been renovated within the past couple years, as the decoration was of the 2000s instead of the 1950s. Tasteful white and China blue-leaf patterns draped the walls which accented long, rectangular windows. Slipping off his black poufy coat and dropping it on one of the stools, he set the groceries on the countertop to the left of the stove and then unbagged each item. Selecting one of the chef's knives from the wall, Luigi began to chop up the onion and garlic on the wooden cutting board.

As he hummed to himself, Daisy walked into the kitchen and stopped next to Luigi, who beamed at her presence. She had changed out of her black jeans, turtleneck, and coat into black yoga pants and a yellow form-fitting tee-shirt. Although Luigi focused on chopping, he had noticed the swell of – in his opinion – her perfectly-sized breasts and gently swallowed.

"Looks like you're handy in the kitchen," she purred with a flirty grin.

He chuckled, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his thick, long-sleeved black shirt. "Yeah, nah. My brother usually does the cooking. Like most New Yorkers, I'm a takeout addict. I'm making one of my few dishes fit for consumption."

Daisy glanced at the finely chopped garlic and onions while Luigi set the knife down and reached up for one of the copper sauté pans. Putting it on one of the burners, he added a liberal amount of olive oil, and turned on the heat to medium. She watched with interest as he grabbed the board and, with the knife, scraped the garlic and onions into the pan.

At her raised eyebrow, he replied, "I promised you pasta. So … pasta alla puttanesca."

She burst out laughing. "Why, Luigi Masciarelli, are you calling me a whore?"

Luigi's blue eyes widened. "What?! No! No!" She continued to chuckle as he recovered his breath. "No, Jesus, no. I mean, yes, it has that term in the name. Do you know what it actually means?" Her brown eyes full of mirth, she gestured for him to explain. "Well, the dish comes from Southern Italy – post-war. Story goes that it was nearly close at a restaurant, and a bunch of guys came in, asking for a late-night meal. Almost out of everything, the cook just threw what he had in a pan. Puttanesca is an idiom for, like, shit. As in, 'We're just throwin' shit in a pan.' Thought it was appropriate – I'm just throwing shit in a pan."

Daisy giggled. "So Shit in a Pan for dinner? Hmm, I like it." She gestured at the white wine bottle. "Did you want me to open that?"

"Uh, sure," he replied, draining the olives, slicing them, and then tossing them along with the capers and chili flakes into the sauté pan. Daisy withdrew a silver wine bottle opener and proceeded to carefully, yet easily, uncork the wine. Leaving it on the counter to breathe, she reached behind Luigi to open the cupboard with the glassware, accidentally on purpose pressing her fabric-covered breasts to his back, which made him close his eyes in a mixture of pleasure and arousal. As she set the wine glasses next to the bottle, Luigi sluggishly lowered his gaze to her ass, allowing her to catch him in the act. She hummed in approval. He fetched a deep pot, filled it with water, and placed in on the larger range to boil. Then he finished preparing the sauce with the remaining ingredients – the can of Cento, tomato paste, chili flakes, basil, oregano, black pepper and coarse salt from her spice rack, and tapenade – and covered it to simmer.

"Want some music?" she asked in a low voice.

Luigi nodded wordlessly, his gaze transfixed on her shapely ass, as she switched on her AirPlay speakers and connected her iPhone. A Latin, almost Tejano-like tune came through as Daisy began to sway her hips back toward him. She seized the willing Luigi's hands as he matched her movements.

"What's this?" he asked after a minute.

"Delícia, Delícia. Assim você me mata, ai se eu te pego," she sang along with the male singer. "It's from Brazil," she finally said, "Michel Teló."

Luigi stepped forward, placed his hand on the small of her back, and brought her closer to him. "What's it mean?" he whispered in her ear.

Grinning, she murmured against his lips before kissing him, "What you just did." He responded by gradually backing her up against the island and deepening the embrace. Her fingers snaked through his hair as he moved his lips down her jaw and neck. They heard a hiss and then a bubbling noise. Loudly groaning at stopping just short of third base, Luigi separated from the disheveled Daisy and quickly went to the stove, turning off the heat from the sauce before it burned. Covering the pan to keep the contents warm, he moved it to the smallest range in the back. He checked the water which was still to boil and sashayed back to his waiting girlfriend, capturing her lips with his again and sliding his right hand down her back. As he was about to move it upward to cup her breast, he felt her body freeze up and tremor fretfully. Fearful that he had hurt her, Luigi immediately broke away, panting, "Are you okay?"

Gulping, she bowed her head. "Yeah. I'm-I'm sorry, I …"

He tilted her chin with his fingers, drawing her gaze to his. "No. We have all the time in the world, sweetie. I can control myself. If it's not something that you're comfortable with, then I don't want to do it. Period. When … if you're ready, I'll let you come to me, my lovely lioness."

Nodding, she murmured, "It's not you, it's … God, I don't know how to even …"

Luigi smiled. "Then don't. I'm still here. I'm still looking at your ass. I don't think I could ever quit. 'Cause that ass … That ass is pure poetry."

Daisy snorted boisterously while lowering her gaze to control her hormones. "You're going to write sonnets about my ass, Petrarch?"

He nonchalantly shrugged as he went to put the pasta into the now boiling water. "Hey, someone's gotta! It'll be entitled, 'Daisy's Amorous Ass.'"

The now-smirking Daisy walked over to the wine and poured a tiny bit into each glass. "Probably a bit less? I dunno …"

"Probably a good idea," agreed Luigi, covering the spaghetti pot. "Where's your colander?"

"Just above the stove, I think," she answered. "It's actually my friend's apartment. I'm renting it from her while she's studying in Berlin for the year. I don't cook that much. I frequent the cafés near Columbia instead."

Retrieving the item from the cupboard up and to the left from the stove, Luigi placed it in the sink and replied with a smirk, "Except for Yael's cookies."

Daisy raised her arms in a victory sign. "I did end up pilfering a few. My Papai, too. She was not pleased, but hey – cookies are meant to be eaten. What about you?"

"Oh, my brother made lasagna for us last week. Uh, well, us meaning his girlfriend, her chauffeur, my friend, Miles, and I."

"Hold up. Chauffeur?" she probed, crossing her arms. "Is she loaded or something?"

"As a matter of fact, yeah. She – Cristina – comes from old money in Venice. My brother, Mario, has been with her since, like, 2007. She moved to Manhattan to be closer to him."

The auburn-haired woman raised her eyebrows and slouched against the ivory kitchen drawers to consider the information. "Huh, seven years. That's a while; that's marriage long. But she doesn't live with you and Mario?"

"No," replied Luigi carefully. "Don't ask me why; even I don't know." Unexpectedly, he felt his back pocket vibrate and jingle, indicating that he was receiving an incoming call. A frowning Luigi voiced a "Sorry" and took out his iPhone. The caller ID from his address book displayed "Mario." Letting it go to voicemail, he texted, "I'm out for dinner. BB at 10 or 11-ish." Quickly turning off his phone, he slipped it back into his pocket. "Sorry about that."

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah," said Luigi, waving his fingers dismissively. "It's just Mario. Probably wanted to ask where the laundry detergent is or something."

Daisy chortled. "Let me guess – you do the housework."

Shutting off the stove range, he picked up the boiling water and pasta and drained them into the colander. Though the steam obscured part of his facial expression, he nonetheless griped, "Don't get me started. And believe me, Cristina sure as fuck won't do it, not that I can blame her. The guy's a fuckin' slob." Luigi shook the remaining water from the pasta; unloading it from the colander into the warm sauce, he mixed them together, making sure that each strand was coated equally. Using a pair of tongs, he curled pasta in the middle of two plates, and handed one to her. "Et voilà: pasta alla puttanesca. I added tapenade because, you know, as a vegetarian, you don't eat anchovies. I hope you like it."

Daisy picked up a fork and curled the spaghetti around it delicately. As Luigi watched intently, she took a bite. Her eyes brightened from the mild heat and salt, then closed in pure pleasure. Beaming, Luigi spun the noodles around his fork and began to eat in earnest. "Well," she started, chewing the last bit, "I think I like eating Shit in a Pan."

"Good, 'cause you're on dish duty."

After they finished dinner, both Daisy and Luigi cleaned up the kitchen and put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. They subsequently relocated to the yellow-walled nineteenth-century parlor room, where they sat curled up on the cream-colored sofa. Bookshelves filled with science, sociology, and literature books of different thicknesses and sizes gave the walls an extra bit of color – greens, blues, oranges, black, and browns. As the sun had set, a few rays of twilight illuminated the room with a warm glow. Luigi daintily fed his princess pieces of the dark chocolate as she relaxed in his arms. The rich baritone of Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness" played soothingly from the AirPlay speaker which Daisy had moved from the kitchen.

"You never cease to amaze me, Luigi Masciarelli. As an Italian guy, I'd have thought you'd be into Bobby Darin, Sinatra, or Tiziano Ferro," she murmured.

He kissed the top of her head. "Hmm. Actually, I do like some of Darin's songs. Same with Ferro," he whispered, rolling his r to mock the Roman accent, "Hate Sinatra. Blech, fucking no. But they're nothing compared to Redding, Sam Cooke, Springsteen, Burke, Aretha, or the Great Satchmo. Nope. No way in hell."

"So you like old stuff," concluded the purring lioness against his chest.

Luigi held out another piece of dark chocolate which she gratefully accepted. "Yeah, I guess that's true. Oldies but goodies. I mean, I grew up on this music. I don't remember much of my mother. She died when I was very young. But my Pops, he wasn't the typical Italian in the sense that he listened to soul music. Not exactly into Sinatra, if you know what I mean. When he was off shift, he would play Redding, Cooke, Springsteen, James Brown. Sometimes, my uncle Joe would come by. They'd just sit in the living room, not say a word to each other, and play records. I'd sit on the stairs and listen."

"Hmm," she voiced. "My father played a lot of Fairuz when I was a kid. Still does when he wants to relax. The benefits of being both Brazilian and North African. Arabs – Jewish, Muslim, Christian – all of their souls are touched by Fairuz. Ofra Haza, too. Then I kinda branched out into ska music, Brazilian pop, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I went through an Avril Lavigne phase when I was a skater girl in high school. Now? No. And then there's Los Lobos."

Luigi's eyes widened in pure delight. "You like Los Lobos?!"

Daisy grinned. "Uh, yeah, dude. I'm from California! But all in seriousness, they're underrated. I remember watching that movie about Ritchie Valens – La Bamba. Must have been, like, nine or ten, and I just loved the music."

"Me too, and for the same reason." Luigi planted a feather-light kiss near the edge of her mouth. She twisted in his arms to face him and, for the third time that evening, their lips met. As he promised her in the kitchen, he let her take the lead; she sat up and straddled his hips so that she could better access his lips and stroke his sideburns. He slowly snaked his arms around her torso, placing his palms flat and reassuringly against her back. They stayed in this position for what seemed like hours. When she ended the make out session, Luigi was alternatively shocked and disappointed that it had only lasted twenty minutes.

He wanted more, so much more.

Breathing harshly, Daisy murmured while stroking his cheeks with her thumbs, "I … I really like you, Luigi Masciarelli. I'm not ready for us … to go to bed. Not yet. But I'm just … I'm so confused. I'm usually such a reserved person, yet it goes out the window with you."

"What do you need, sweetie?" he asked tenderly.

Leaning her forehead against his, she replied, "I … I don't want you to lose interest or think it's a lack of attraction because I … I'm not ready." She sighed. "When I was at Oxford, there was a guy. My first year. I was eighteen, and he seemed so exotic, so exciting. But he, uh, liked to drink a lot. He'd take his frustrations out on me. Physically and emotionally. I got out of that relationship. Lots of therapy afterward. Still."

Luigi's eyes became a dark indigo of indignation and disgust. How dare anyone lay a hand on her. The mental image of him dismembering her ex-boyfriend alive with a pipe saw was interrupted by Daisy's worried and embarrassed face. Blinking and swallowing, he responded, "Daisy, that wasn't your fault, and I hate the limey fuck that did that to you. But it doesn't change anything. I'm not going anywhere. Remember what I told you at the club – you tell me to fuck off. Daisy, you're … I'm just happy to be near you."

"Luigi, you have the right to tell me to fuck off, too," she insisted.

Taking her hands into his, he leaned back to look at her. "That's true. But that's not a good enough reason for me to do so, not in the slightest. I won't lie. I want you. I want to please you. But more importantly, I want you to want me. And besides your perky ass, I'm interested for other reasons. I-I … You're the first girl – person of either gender – I've met who knows Petrarch and can also discuss Maxwell's Equations, who has pretty good taste in music, who has a family life, and her own hobbies. Who knows Kung fu shit. That's any guy's dream girl. And you … you're with this schmuck plumber. I've never wanted to be more worthy of someone."

Otis Redding's voice trailed off on the final notes of "These Arms of Mine" as Luigi's words hung unanswered in the air. He stared in her unreadable amber orbs and, for the first time that evening, felt butterflies in his stomach. Good going, schmuck, he chastised himself. You all but told her that you wanted a long-term relationship. She's probably scared shitless and wondering why this asshole plumber wants to get with her. Just as he was about to excuse himself from her apartment in shame, full feminine lips slammed upon his, beginning another make out session. Somewhere in his Wernicke's area, the part of the non-lizard brain that comprehends language, he passively heard, "That's what I needed, sweetie."


A little past ten o'clock, a whistling Luigi jogged up his porch stairs and slipped his key into the lightless house. In case Mario was sleeping, he quietly shut and locked the front door. Then he leaned against it in the dark. He did not know whether to yelp in victory or quiver in panic. That night, he and Daisy became "an official item." The woman for whom he had pined for the better part of four months liked him back. It sounded so puerile, as if he had approached her at the school lockers to ask her out to the arcade or the prom. Luigi was convinced that either he had a guardian angel or the Almighty Himself favored him, as there was no other reason why a woman like Daisy should give him a single minute of her day. Closing his eyes, he replayed the last make out session which was nothing less than heavenly.

He would need to buy extra Kleenex and a stash of fresh condoms.

Creeping up to his room, he opened the door and reached for the light switch, but the lamp on the table abruptly flicked on to reveal an infuriated Mario, who was propped up in his bed. His arms crossed and normally azure eyes an ice blue, the elder brother was dressed in black boxers and a white tee-shirt. Luigi froze, knowing that, like with a wild animal, any movement or remark could cause an altercation.

"Buonasera. If it isn't the Invisible Man. Where were you this time? Dinner takes several hours? Not even in motherfucking Italy!" Mario spat.

"Mario …" started Luigi.

"Fuck your excuses. Just shut up!" he yelled, getting up off the bed to pin Luigi against the wall with his body.

As those icy blue eyes stared up at him, the taller brother's form shook in fear. "Knock it off, Mario! You're scaring me!"

Mario chuckled bitterly. "I'm scaring you? I'm scaring you? I'm scaring that's rich. You disappear without a trace for five days, I receive a GPS signal that you jumped off a goddamned bridge, then you reappear without any explanation, and I'm scaring you. Then you disappear again. And I'm. Scaring. You."

"Yeah," exhaled Luigi.

"Huh, well, okay," the elder plumber pretended to muse. Then a moment later, he screamed, "I don't give a flying fuck!"

"Mario, please," mouthed the younger brother, a single tear rolling down his cheek.

The blue ice melted somewhat at the sight of his crying brother, and he pulled back, allowing a gap for Luigi to escape into the opposite corner. Sinking numbly to the edge of Luigi's bed, Mario closed his eyes and tried to drown out the soft whimpers behind him.