Bad Games

42



August 2003



Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania

Penn Comprehensive Neuroscience Center

Philadelphia, PA.



Arty Fannelli, 27, and Jim Fannelli, 25, wanted to stand, not sit, when the neurologist came in to give them the diagnosis.

“Dementia?” Arty said. “You mean like Alzheimer’s?”

The doctor, a tall middle-aged man with thinning blonde hair and small rimless glasses, held up a hand and shook his head. “No, no,” he said. “Dementia is a rather generic definition, for lack of a better phrase. We ran a CAT scan and gave her several cognitive functioning tests. She did exhibit a few of the symptoms you had expressed concern about earlier, however I believe it’s far too early to give a diagnosis of something specific like Alzheimer’s.”

“So what does that mean?” Jim asked. “Does that mean she can get better if she takes medication?”

The doctor took a deep breath. “Well…sort of. There are medications we can try that may help her condition, however I feel obligated to be very frank and honest with you here. Your mother is only sixty-three years old. That’s a relatively young age to start showing the symptoms she’s been exhibiting.”

“Which means she’ll get worse,” Arty said.

The doctor looked at the floor for a moment before looking back up and saying, “Yes. But the point I am trying to get across is that because of the early onset—”

“It’ll come on faster and be more severe,” Arty said.

“Well, I wouldn’t have necessarily put it so succinctly, however—”

“It’s true though, right?” Arty asked. “I mean we’re all men here, doc. You don’t need to baby us.” Arty’s expression was ice.

The doctor’s face reddened. He nodded quickly. “Of course…I…it’s just that some people prefer more subtle ways of delivering this kind of information. You obviously prefer a more straightforward approach. ”

“Yes.”

The doctor nodded quickly again.

Jim and Arty exchanged looks. Jim looked on the verge of angry tears. Arty was still ice.

“I am assuming your father is no longer in the picture?” The doctor asked. His tone was like a feather.

“He passed away,” Arty said.

The doctor tried on a look of professional sympathy. “I see.”

“So what happens now?” Arty asked.

“Well, as I mentioned earlier, we should definitely try medication; but I would also consider looking into some sort of long-term-care community.”

“A rest home?” Jim blurted.

“In a manner of speaking,” the doctor replied. “A home where she can be watched and assisted as needed. At the moment she seems perfectly capable of performing most tasks, but there is a good chance her recollection of time and place will become distorted. She may also begin to struggle with remembering certain rudimentary domestic skills.

“Now keep in mind, this may happen soon, or it may not. It could be years from now before her symptoms progress to that point. But of course if they begin to develop sooner rather than later—which, as we just discussed, may be likely—it’s nice to have peace of mind to know she’s being looked after.”

“We’re going to look after her,” Arty said.

Arty’s tone made the doctor take a step back. “Great.” He swallowed and cleared his throat. “That’s even better. It’s obvious you care very deeply for your mother. Having family look after a loved one is always—”

“We’ll look after her until the day she dies.”

The doctor took another step back, turned and hurried towards a stack of papers on the white counter-top. Without turning back around he said, “How about I write that prescription for you now?”



* * *



Maria Fannelli wanted to know what the doctor had said. The boys lied to her.

“That doctor is full of shit, Ma,” Arty said. “He was going on and on about this and that, and none of it was making much sense. Right, Jim?”

Jim sat in the back seat of the car looking out the window, his mind somewhere else entirely.

“James?” Maria said.

Jim turned away from the window and looked at his mother. She stared at him from the passenger seat.

“Are you alright? Is Arthur telling me the truth?”

“Everything’s fine, Mom.” Jim spoke with no affect.

“There, you see?” Arty said, reaching out and rubbing his mother’s knee. “Now, the doctor gave us a prescription for some medicine he wants you to try.”

“Medicine for what?” Maria asked. “I thought you said he was full of s-h-i-t?”

“It’s no big deal, Ma; it’s just a precautionary thing. Jim and I will drop you at Alberta’s house, and you two can chat for a little bit while we get your prescription filled. Okay? Sound good?”

Maria turned and looked at Jim again, then back towards Arty in the driver’s seat. There was a look of uncertainty in her eyes. “Do you boys promise you’re telling me everything?”

Arty looked in the rear view mirror without moving his head. He caught Jim’s stare and the two shook hands with their eyes.

“Yes, Mom,” Arty said. “We promise.”



* * *



Jim began crying seconds after they’d dropped their mother off at Alberta’s house. Arty reached his right arm over towards the passenger seat and rubbed his brother’s shoulder. Jim punched the dashboard twice.

“Whoa, easy, bro,” Arty said. “We’ll get through this. I meant what I said in that office. We’ll look after her until the day she dies.”

Jim wiped his tears away and fell silent. He stared out the window, his eyes glazed, the passing view the visual equal of white noise.

“Hey,” Arty said. “Hey, you still with me?”

“I’m here,” Jim replied.

“What are you thinking?”

He said nothing.

“Jim?”

Still staring out the window he said, “I’m thinking someone else needs to hurt the way I hurt.”

“Will that make you feel better?”

Jim turned away from the window and looked at his brother. He didn’t have to say anything.

Arty nodded.

“But I want something different,” Jim said. “I don’t want any transients or whores.”

Arty raised a brow. “Careful, Jim,” he said. “Don’t lose me.”

“No one’s losing anybody. Just drive for a bit, okay?”



* * *



Arty had done as his brother had asked and drove for a bit. They headed west on route 30, venturing further away from the city until they began entering the affluent strip of the Philadelphia suburbs.

“Jim, this is the Mainline,” Arty said. “Rich a*sholes with a neighborhood watch for their neighborhood watch. We should turn around.”

“Get off 30,” Jim said. “Turn down one of these streets or something, I don’t care.”

Arty made a left off 30 at the next stoplight.

“Jim, it’s the middle of the afternoon in f*cking suburbia. If someone goes missing around here people will give a shit.” He paused, studying his brother’s profile to see if his words were having an effect. “If you want to do what I think you want to do, then we need to turn around and head back—”

“Stop,” Jim said. He didn’t shout the command, just spoke it aloud as though reading from a book.

Arty thought his brother was trying to shut him up. “Stop?”

“Stop the car.”

Arty silently obeyed and slowed to a stop alongside a long strip of residential curb. Enormous houses with lawns big enough to host professional soccer games stood regally in the distance.

“Jim, what are you thinking?” Arty asked. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Jim looked past his brother and out the driver’s side window. Arty followed his gaze. A young couple was walking ahead of them along the opposite side of the road. The answer was now clear.

Arty said nothing. Jim kicked open his door and ran across the street. The couple couldn’t have been more than seventeen—high school kids walking hand-in hand, treasuring summer love.

Jim punched the boy to the ground before the young man was even aware of what was going on. The girl screamed in horror but was instantly silenced by Arty who snuck up behind her and placed a hand over her mouth and an arm around her throat.

Jim was now mounted on top of the boy and punching into his face, shredding it with each sickening crack of bone on flesh. Arty looked on as he held the writhing girl in his arms, knowing a simple beating would not be enough for his brother—he would need much more.

Jim, as though honing in on his brother’s intuition, exceeded the mere beating and jammed both thumbs deep into the teenager’s eyes. The boy squealed in a pitch that was only matched by the girl being held by Arty.

“Jesus, Jim!” Arty laughed, his previous apprehension now gone as the violent contagion took hold of him, a common occurrence when his younger brother’s hysteria grew to epic proportions.

Jim pushed off the young man’s chest and leapt to his feet. He brought his foot high into the air and stomped down hard onto the blinded boy’s face, knocking him unconscious. A second and third stomp deformed the boy’s face and took most of his teeth out.

Jim looked up and grinned at Arty, his eyes wild, saliva dripping from his mouth—a pervert watching a porno.

The young girl in Arty’s arms was in absolute hysterics. Jim approached her with wet thumbs and wiped the gore from her boyfriend’s eyes onto her face.

“Time to go,” Jim eventually said with a breathless calm, the porno now finished, his load shot, the ritual nap after calling his name. Arty nodded, spun the girl around, and head-butted her square in the face with the force of a bowling ball down a laundry chute. The girl dropped to the ground as though her legs had been cut from beneath her, and the two brothers ran to their car and drove back to the city to meet their mother.