Big Mike: Black Comedy Excerpt No. 10 — Lightning Strikes Twice

So now Anna’s womb is swept clean. The only people who know that her uterus had hosted, albeit briefly, an embryo were herself, Tree, and the doctor who wielded the broom.

Joey, of course, can’t be bothered with the comings and goings of his mother and sister, occupied as he is by TV, Ripple, the pursuit of Snickers bars, and chronic masturbation. It isn’t until Monday evening when he becomes conscious of the fact that his mother is absent. He is walking around the kitchen like a lost dog, wondering why dinner isn’t on the table. When Al comes home from work, he informs his son that if he’s hungry, there’s leftover lasagna from Sunday in the Frigidaire.

Joey’s Second Favorite Pastime

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Joey pulls the big glass casserole out of the Fridge, sets it on the kitchen table, pulls back the tinfoil cover, and proceeds to eat the lasagna cold.

“Jeezchrist!” Al says. “Getcher self a dish and warm it up, fer chrissakes!”

Joey mumbles his reply through a mouthful of meatball and braciole. “I ain’t got time; I’m hungry.”

“Gavone,” Al says, as if the Sicilian dialect is his first language.

Al pours his first Dewar’s and soda of the evening. Joey says, “When’s Ma comin’ home,” or words to that effect, his articulation profoundly affected by another monumental forkful of lasagna.

“Tomorrow night.”

Silence follows, broken only when Joey asks, “Where’d d’ey go?” to which Al replies not at all. Fortunately for both of them Joey doesn’t press his query.

Al wouldn’t have become the successful businessman he is had he allowed himself to be distracted by issues such as what his wife and daughter are doing in Denver for a day and a half. (Add to that selective awareness the fact that Al’s brothers-in-law were more than pleased to commit arson to help expand his client base, and there you have two of the pillars of Al’s success.)

Frankie and Louie Ranalli’s Calling Card

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Joey forgets that he wondered why his mother is absent before he even swallows the lasagna he had in his mouth when he asked the question. Al forgets his wife is not around after his second scotch and soda has sent him snoring in his recliner with the ten o’clock news still on.

***

It is Tuesday morning, three weeks after Tree and Anna’s trip to Denver. Anna fixes herself some raisin bread toast as Tree sips her black coffee and flips through the Sun-Times. The radio is on, as usual, with Paul Harvey tut-tutting something or another. Tree and Anna have not exchanged a single word since the Denver trip. In fact, the last word spoken by one to the other was when Tree said to her daughter (who was in the hotel shower at the time) “C’mon, we’re gonna be late” fifteen minutes before they left for the abortion clinic.

Anna spreads Nutella on her toast. She thinks, I despise Paul Harvey. Her feelings are reinforced within seconds. “Are we going to hell in a handbasket?” Harvey asks. Of course, anyone who’s ever listened to him speak for three and a half seconds knows the answer already. “The so-called sexual revolution has turned American women into pill poppers — the birth control pill, that is. According to the latest statistics issued by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in Washington….”

Anna rolls her eyes. She sneaks a glance at Tree who seems to be engrossed in Kup’s Column. Relieved, Anna sighs — too soon, though.

Tree’s Got A Better Idea

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Tree flips the page grandly and loudly. “These damned dames wanna stop having babies, I got a good idea for them. They oughta stop lifting their skirts for every bum that comes along,” she pronounces.

The tips of Anna’s ears become red hot. “Ma!” she ejaculates.

“What?” Tree asks. “Got a guilty conscience? Who said anything about you? Can’t I say anything around here anymore?”

“Stop it, Ma.”

“Stop what?”

Anna slams the uneaten half of her raisin toast on the kitchen table. It flips end over end a foot and a half in the air and tumbles onto the floor, face down. Tree peeks around her newspaper and looks at the piece of bread on the floor below, calmly — too calmly for Anna’s tastes. She wants Tree to say a word, just one word. But Tree won’t take the bait; she’s already made her point.

Anna picks up her books and notebook, slings her purse over her shoulder and announces, “I’m not picking it up.” It’s a minor victory but it’s all she’ll get today. With that, she slams the back door behind her.

“Me neither,” Tree whispers to herself.

When Anna comes home late that afternoon, the piece of toast is laying precisely where she left it in the morning. Tree is grating Romano cheese over the sink. Anna stares at her mother in awe. The woman had gone about her business for an entire day, all the while sidestepping that friggin’ piece of toast.

Anna slams her book, notebook, and purse on the kitchen table. She rips a couple of sheets of paper towel off the roll and hunkers down to wipe the Nutella up off the floor. After ten hours the chocolate streaks have dried hard. Anna must wet some paper towels and work the streaks. As she does this, Tree serenely continues to grate her Romano, saying nothing. She doesn’t need to, her big victory trumping Anna’s little one.

Tree Wins

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***

Chet remains blissfully unaware that Anna’d been pregnant for a few weeks. She thought briefly about telling him but decided against it. Such a complication might jeorpardize their new relationship, Anna reasoned.

In fact, the entire pregnancy scare and resultant brooding, confession to her mother, and jaunt to Denver all happened so quickly that Anna could will herself to forget the entire episode at certain times. For instance, on the afternoon of December 17th, as she and Chet engaged in another fireworks moment in his bedroom, this time with the Rolling Stones’ “Under My Thumb” playing on his AM/FM.

And, really, isn’t it too much to expect that Anna should have been overly concerned that another of Chet’s hardy little flagella-ed packets of DNA might find its way to the right fallopian tube wherein it would find another nice fat ovum? Honestly, what were the chances of that happening so soon again? The answer on the afternoon of December 17th, 1967 in Chet’s Albany Park bedroom is 100 percent.

The next month, after the New Year, on a Wednesday, Anna takes another morose stroll away from Circle Campus. She finds herself — surprise! — staring into the same hole in the construction canopy surrounding the John Hancock Center muttering, mantra-like, “It can’t be. It can’t be.”

But it could. And this time, Anna couldn’t tell Tree.

“It can’t be. It can’t be.”

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Now what? Join us Sunday for the next installment of Black Comedy.

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