When I got us out of the club, the president of the motorcycle club that owned the gun range was waiting for us. Jack Parrish and Victor Pastore worked together on several occasions, creating an alliance that benefited the streets they both loved.
Victor eventually showed up at the safe house, informing us that his organization was at war and no one was safe. He sent us to Florida, handed me Nikki’s life and told me to keep her safe. He didn’t mention he was sending me to the fucking Golden Girls. I discovered that shit when I pulled into the fucking retirement community and Vic’s sister greeted me wearing a goddamn negligee and his mother tried to shoot me with a rifle.
Even now, well over a year later, I’m standing on top of my roof, nailing down the shingles and I’m still haunted by those lunatics. Lifting my shirt up to wipe the sweat from my forehead, their voices ring in my ears.
“I swear to God, Bert, you drive like a snail on a Percocet. Get me the hell out of this car,” Gina’s voice taunts.
“I floored it on the Belt Parkway,” Bert, Gina’s seventy-year-old boy-toy argues.
“Forty miles per hour is not flooring it,” Gina shouts.
I must’ve been in the sun for too long because I hear a car door slam shut, like they weren’t miles away in the sunshine state.
“Ma, we’re here. Ma! Oh for Christ’s sake, plug in your hearing aid.”
“Grab my gun,” Red shouts. Big Red, Gina and Vic’s four foot eleven mother with fire engine red hair.
“You let her take her gun? What does she need a gun for?” Bert asks incredulously.
“You’re on our soil, boy,” Red argues. “You need to be prepared for a drive-by. Grab the gun! Shit, we forgot the cannoli’s.”
“The house looks different,” Gina comments. “Oh, hot damn! Look who it is!”
No.
No fucking way.
Come on!
I lean over the edge of the roof and I’m pretty sure my eyes fucking explode in their sockets as they land on the fucking circus parked in my driveway.
Gina’s beehive hairdo was extra fucking high, teased two feet in the air as she bats her fake eyelashes and waves up at me. I guess I should be grateful the fucking lady wasn’t wearing a bra and bloomers like the last time I saw her. Red was waving too—waving a gun.
Bert, that poor bastard was unloading the fucking car. Unloading the fucking car!
This must be what having a stroke feels like.
“Nikki,” I shout, pulling at my hair. I move to back away from the edge, desperate to erase the image of ‘Sophia and Dorothy Petrillo’ from my brain but my jeans catch on one of the nails I hadn’t yet hammered down. I tug my leg free, lose my balance and nearly falling off the fucking roof. In a last ditch effort to save my ass, I grab onto the gutter.
“Oh my God! We have a jumper,” Gina shrieks. “Mikey, baby, please! Gina’s here, we’ll get through it.”
“I’m not jumping off the roof you whack job! I saw you and I fucking slipped,” I call down to her.
“That is the sweetest thing I ever heard,” she says, elbowing Bert in the gut. “How come you never did that?”
“Hang off a roof?” Bert asks confused.
“Nikki,” I shout again. Where the hell is she?
“Jump, boy! Big Red’s got you,” Red yells, dropping her straw bag and tucking her gun into whatever cleavage she has left. She spreads her arms wide as if she is going to catch me before Gina pushes her aside and copies her stance.
“I’ve got him!”
“What the hell is going on?” Nikki questions.
I peek down at her, watching as she freezes in her tracks and takes in the fucking festivities.
“Aunt Gina. Nana. What…what are you doing here?”
“We’re here for the party,” Gina exclaims, looking over her shoulder before bringing her eyes back to me. “Mikey, did your ass get tighter since the last time I saw you?”
“What party?” Nikki asks.
“Hey, Princess, think you can help me get down from the roof before we ask the crazies anymore questions?” I holler, banging my forehead against the gutter in frustration.
“Sorry, babe! I’ll go get the ladder.”
“Boy don’t need a ladder. I’ve got my arms wide open ready to catch him,” Red insists.
The mother and daughter duo continue to bicker over who would be my savior as Nikki comes back, dragging the ladder behind her. She and Bert prop up the ladder along the side of the house and I worked my way over to it.
“Easy, baby,” Nikki calls as she holds the ladder in place and I start my descent. I did contemplate staying up on the roof thinking that a sun burn was safer than the fate that awaited me down below.
Stepping off the ladder, I turn to Nikki.
“What are they doing here?”
“I have no idea,” she hisses, plastering a smile on her face turning back to her relatives. “What a nice surprise.”
Bullshit.