KooKooLand (33 page)

“You look good. You don't look wacko to me,” Jimmy kidded him.

“I'm not as wacko as you, greaseball,” said Hank.

“Same old Hank!” Jimmy laughed, sounding relieved.

“I gotta talk to you,” Hank said to Jimmy. “In private.”

They moved off to the side and Hank began to whisper to Jimmy. I wondered if he was giving Jimmy the lowdown on what happened that night, whether he actually cut off the guy's Down There and put it in Doris's mouth. That's what I was hoping to find out.

After a few minutes, Jimmy came back over to us.

“I gotta go run an errand for Hank. You girls keep him company,” he said.

Shirley looked panicked.

“I don't know what to say to him,” she said.

“He's still Hank. He's the same son of a bitch.”

“I'm afraid to be alone with him.”

“Don't be an idiot. There's dozens of people around. He's not gonna slice and dice you and the pip-squeaks.”

“Can I come with you?” I begged.

“Nah, Dracula. Stay with your old lady.”

“I don't know what to say to him,” Shirley repeated.

“Just butter him up. Tell him he looks like a million bucks. You know how to do it.”

“I'll try,” squeaked Shirley.

“Don't try,” snapped Jimmy. “Do it.” Then he left and drove off the premises.

“Let's get the hell out of here,” Hank said to us.

We went outside and sat on a bench with him. I tucked myself behind Shirley so she could shield me if Hank went berserk. Virginia pretended to be fascinated by a nearby stump.

Before Shirley could start buttering Hank up, he started buttering her up.

“You're a sight for sore eyes,” he told her.

“Oh, I look like a fright,” protested Shirley. “But you, you look like a million bucks,” she said with the same frozen smile she wore so often around Jimmy. “You don't look sick or anything, Hank.”

“I'm not sick, so why would I look sick?” he asked with a slightly threatening tone that made me scrunch closer to Shirley.

“Of course you're not sick,” she said quickly, looking flustered.

“I'll tell you one thing, the crap they serve for food around here could make anybody sick. I sure could use some of your deer stew. Bring me some the next time.”

“Of course. I shoulda brought some today. I didn't think. I'm so stupid.”

Hank suddenly reached out and stroked Shirley's hair.

“You got hair like Doris.”

Shirley nearly choked.

“I shoulda done it up better. I was working all night.”

“Jimmy shouldn't let you work that night shift. A woman shouldn't be out at night. You could run into a nutcase like me.”

Shirley stiffened up even more. “Oh, Hank, you're not a nutcase.”

“I'm just kidding, Shirl. Lighten up, OK?”

Shirley forced out a little laugh.

“I'm slow on the draw, Hank. Jimmy tells me that all the time.”

Hank pulled out a cigar.

“Gimme a light,” he commanded her.

Shirley rummaged through her purse and came up with a book of matches. As she lit Hank's cigar I could see she was trying to keep her hand from trembling.

One of the other patients, a jittery-looking guy, rushed up to Hank and Shirley with two cups of coffee. Shirley took the coffee politely, but she looked like she was scared the nutcase might have spit in it or something.

“Can I get you anything else, Hank?” the guy asked. “Anything else you need?”

“Nah, beat it,” Hank said, and gave the guy a tip.

Soon after, Jimmy returned from his errand.

“I got the milk shakes,” he said loudly to Hank.

Yabba dabba doo. At least I was gonna get something outta being forced to spend the afternoon with a maniac.

“Where is it?” asked Hank.

Jimmy nodded in the direction of the parking lot.

Hank stood up.

“Let's take a little stroll,” he said.

We all followed Hank. None of the nurses or attendants gave us a second look. Nobody seemed to care that Hank was slipping away. When we got to the car, Jimmy jumped behind the wheel. He told Shirley to slide next to him to make room for Hank, and make it snappy. Virginia and I scrambled into the backseat.

“Where's the milk shakes?” I blurted out.

“Shut up,” said Jimmy. “Don't make me have to tell you again.”

“I guess you were convincing,” Hank laughed. “Nobody can bullshit like a Greek.”

Suddenly it hit me—we were kidnapping Hank.

I pictured us screeching out the front gate and Jimmy having a shoot-out with some coppers and me taking a bullet right in the breadbasket.

But Jimmy didn't even turn on the car. He just pulled a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of vodka out of a paper bag and told me to hand him a couple of those free tumblers that were on the backseat.

Then he passed Shirley an unopened bottle of ginger ale and told her to do the honors, because she made the best goddamn highballs in the world, always the right amount of whiskey and not too much ginger ale to water them down.

Hank was having vodka, straight up.

“Where's the bottle opener?” asked Shirley, doing her best to orchestrate mixing drinks while sandwiched between Jimmy and Hank.

“Check the glove compartment,” Jimmy told Hank.

Hank opened it and found the bottle opener. He handed it to Shirley.

Then something else in the glove compartment caught his eye. He reached in and pulled out a large knife I had never seen before.

“That's a real beauty,” said Hank, holding it out and admiring it as I held my breath, afraid he was gonna stab my mother and then me and maybe Virginia too if she wasn't fast enough to get away.

“A guy came into my old man's beer joint last week and was selling it,” said Jimmy. “It's the real McCoy. A Nazi knife.”

Hank turned the knife over and I saw there was a swastika on the handle.

Hank ran his hand along the blade of the knife.

My stomach knotted up so bad I had to bite my lip to keep from going in my pants.

I knew Jimmy would yell at me if I asked to go to the bathroom, so I held it in. Held in all the shit that seemed to want to come out.

“I wish I had a dozen more of those,” said Jimmy. “I could sell 'em and make a killing.”

“I'd buy one,” said Hank, still admiring it.

Finally he put the knife back in the glove compartment.

Jimmy made a toast to his seafaring brother and they started talking about the merchant marine.

But I couldn't stop thinking about that knife.

I knew what a swastika was. Several months back, Jimmy had shown me a book about Nazis. He told me he admired them 'cause they were military geniuses.

If they were so smart, how come they lost, I had asked, feeling pretty smart myself.

Hitler made one wrong move, he said. He never shoulda invaded Russia. He made one wrong move and all of history was changed.

But you wouldn't have wanted him to win, would you? He was a bad man, wasn't he?

Don't believe everything you hear, kiddo. Some people would call your old man bad too. But those people are a bunch of milquetoasts. They do what they're told and are led around like a donkey with a ring in its goddamn nose. Other people like your old man and Hitler are leaders and outlaws and they're respected and feared and they don't win no popularity contests.

But didn't Hitler kill a lot of people?

He didn't kill as many as they said. That Holocaust is overrated.

What's a hollow cost?

Hitler killed a few Jews. Boo hoo hoo. He also killed a bunch of Lithuanians, Russians, and Poles. Hell, a lot of goddamn Greeks died too, but they're tough and don't go around bellyaching about it all the time like the Jews. The Jews, they're weak people. Look at them. Most of them wear glasses. They wouldn't even see the enemy until it was too late. You need good eyesight to be able to defend yourself. Like me. I got better than 20/20 and that's why I'm a goddamn crack shot and nobody's ever gonna mess with me.

Virginia wears glasses, I said. Does that mean she's weaker? I didn't let on that my own eyesight wasn't so hot lately and that I often found myself squinting at the blackboard in school.

Yeah, Virginia's weaker than you even though she's older. She don't have your moxie.

He took a hit off a cancer stick and then said, the Jews are smart though, I'll give 'em that. If anybody's gonna come up with a cure for the Big C, it'll be a goddamn Jew.

Maybe Hitler killed the Jew who was gonna come up with a cure for the Big C, I said.

Jesus, leave it to you to come up with that. I hope you're not turning into a bleeding heart.

I'm not, I said, I'm not. But really, I wasn't sure.

“So, what about Doris?” I heard Jimmy ask Hank, and that snapped me right out of thinking about Nazis.

Jimmy was peering around Shirley to get a better look at Hank.

“How're ya doin' with all that? You got your head on straight?”

Hank took a slug of booze and turned toward Jimmy. With his face in profile, I could only see half a smile.

“All my troubles are six feet under,” he said, sounding pretty carefree.

Jimmy grinned.

Pretty soon Hank slipped the bottle of vodka in his pocket and said he hadda get going. A whole lotta other people were coming to see him.

Jimmy offered to bring him a bottle anytime, but Hank said he had it covered. The attendants would get him whatever he wanted.

Hank gave Shirley a good-bye kiss. She smiled with gritted teeth.

As we drove away from the hospital, Jimmy was high as a kite.

“He's crazy, my ass,” he said. “Crazy like a fox.”

Then he sang the theme song to
Zorro
.

Zorro, the fox so cunning and free . . .

Usually, I sang along with him. But that day I just didn't feel like it.

A
fter that, hunting season rolled around and something wasn't right with Jimmy's rifle. He really needed Hank to take a look at it. He just didn't trust anybody else not to screw it up. So, Jimmy drove the rifle up to the nuthouse with me riding shotgun. When we arrived, Jimmy went to get Hank and I moved from the front seat to the back to make room for him. I wasn't so nervous about seeing him this time.

Hank didn't too look happy to see us or to be messing around with Jimmy's gun. He told Jimmy the gun was shot and said Jimmy was too much of a cheap Greek to buy a new one. Jimmy told him he was a stupid Polack, the gun was a sweetheart, and he better not mess it up. They had a few drinks and Hank fixed the gun up almost as good as new. Word got around that Hank was back in business, and other hunters brought their guns up to the nuthouse.

Hank kept seeing the headshrinkers and they thought he was almost as good as new too.

Jimmy, on the other hand, was not doing so hot.

He began seeing a headshrinker of his own. He didn't let on to Hank or his hunting buddies or even to Dr. C, his Greek doctor. It was a big secret and we had to keep it on a stone wall.

A Yankee doctor had been the one to tell Jimmy to see the headshrinker. Jimmy had gotten friendly with the guy while trimming his arborvitaes. Before long, Jimmy was showing up at the doctor's office all the time, certain he was dying of the Big C. The doctor thought a headshrinker might be able to convince Jimmy of what he kept telling him—that he was as strong as an ox except in the noggin department.

At first Jimmy said he wouldn't be caught dead going to a headshrinker.

I'm not crazy, he insisted. I'm sick.

The Yankee doctor said he didn't think Jimmy was crazy or sick. He just thought Jimmy was reading too damn many medical books from the library. He said Jimmy knew more about the Big C than most doctors and that it was a shame he wasn't cutting out tumors instead of clipping hedges.

Finally Jimmy agreed to give it a shot. He started going to a headshrinker in Massachusetts so nobody would find out about it. Sometimes he took me along to keep him company during the long ride.

On the way home after one of his appointments I asked him what went on with the headshrinker. He said he talked about what a raw deal life was. And about how YaYa had made him less of a man by not giving him a rifle when he was eight. And about how Papou had made him a goddamn hypochondriac by letting his appendix burst, which nearly killed him.

Your goddamn parents screw you up, he said. They screw you up good. But you still gotta respect them. Remember that the next time you feel like sticking a shank in my breadbasket.

I said I would. I'd respect my parents. I knew that's what the Greeks believed and the Catholics too. It's what Susan had to do. She had to respect Hank even though he had stabbed her mother in the breadbasket. She had to keep going to visit him and act like nothing had happened.

Jimmy kept going to the headshrinker, week after week, and it seemed that, like Hank, he was getting better too. Christmas season of 1965 rolled around and he didn't complain about it nearly as much. He even bought Shirley a present. A ladies' Timex from Uncle Barney that I hoped wouldn't stop ticking and end up in the bottom of a drawer like mine had the previous year.

Unfortunately, Jimmy's good mood didn't rub off on Virginia. She got even more down in the dumps after Christmas than usual. She started cleaning our room constantly and washed her hands all the time. She walked around with soapsuds on her hands, rubbing them until the skin cracked and bled.

Jimmy said she took after YaYa, who was so clean she washed every can of goddamn corn that came in the house. He said YaYa had screwed Virginia up when she took care of her when she was little just the way she had screwed him up.

He told Virginia to quit washing her mitts or he'd chop 'em off and feed 'em to Fuad Ramses.

So Virginia stopped hand washing and started shoplifting.