Of Wolves and Men

         
Ch. 1

                He ravaged her again, feeling her moan as he came releasing the animalistic grasp between them, he fell onto the bed, breathing steadily. The young woman lay beside him; her breasts and a portion of her midsection vaguely reflected in the moonlight that cut through the blinds in sharp streaks of twilight.

         It was a great fuck. The perfect ending to a night of playing. Though no feeling came close to the astounding rush that came from playing a concert, the woman would come close. It was his love for the music that brought him small renown in Mayburry allowing him to play an occasional show and bed the ‘sophisticated’ matrodies that wandered down from the uppercrust Westside estates. Walking off the stage in the iron of confidence and having any beautiful woman in the hall at his feet was always spectacular. Any siren dressed in elegant garments and shining jewelry worth enough to feed the average Irish or Italian immigrant family for a month. These ladies were American royalty, baroness of the oil tycoons and steel companies. Their husbands were robber barons in true spirit, taking what they wanted when they wanted, and the what always surprised Vincenzo was that their wives did much the same. They dressed like ladies of finesse, but that was just a skin to wear, a façade of elegance to appease the world that expected such restraint in the higher class. In all truth, they approached him told him when and where with a blunt animalistic fire in their eyes. Some even went as far as to hand him room keys. The victims of the great sword of music.

              He could still hear the beautiful sound of the piano in his head. Playing those keys, renditions of Beethoven and Bach and Finding that perfect sync between the music and the soul within minutes. That sync was the key to any performers success and Vincenzo Marci found it in every show. He was gifted, blessed with the highest art: music. Any instrument he had ever played since he was 8 years old had come natural. The violin, his first, had entranced him as a youth. His teacher told him of the great Stradivarius violins and the composers that mastered them and were apotheosized in their wake. He’d dreamed of becoming as great as those composers. But his love for the violin ended as soon as he began playing the piano. No other instrument came closer to the soul than the keys of a piano.

         
         A powerful knock came in the air, distilling the darkness that massaged his worn eyes.

         “Vincenzo.”

         The voice came from beside him, weak and frail.

         “Vincenzo, did you hear that. I think someone’s at the door?” a pause coincided with the question. Vincenzo turned his gaze to the woman next to him. His eyes adjusted quickly to the dark world and he could see her eyes fill with fear at the next obvious question. “ Do you think it’s him?”

         Vincenzo let his head fall back on the pillow. “Your husband?”

         The knock came again, a little harder than before. Vincenzo turned back to her. “I thought he was in Europe?”

         “France. He told me he would be there for a couple of…” she trailed off, losing her words as a the thought of her husband standing behind the door 10 feet away engulfed her thoughts.

         Vincenzo gave off a small laugh. “Don’t be afraid. There is nothing to be afraid.” He kissed her on the forehead, rolled to the side of the bed and onto his feet. Another husband, he’d dealt with them before. Most finding out by a random tip, others well aware of their wives adultery waiting with a few guys to break the back of the man who broke his wife in. No matter, he would take care of it.

         He walked to the large wooden door, using the tendrils of light from the blinds as a beacon for his footsteps. Undoing the heavy wooden door, he felt uneasy. It was a weird feeling. Usually he was always relaxed, only before a concert did he actually feel a genuine sense of what doctors called ‘anxiety’. But this feeling that he had must have been just that, because for an instant his mind halted his actions, keeping him solidly in place. He turned his head back to the woman, thinking that about her shallow fears.

          He opened the door, letting the candle light haze fill the room. A man stood on the other side of the threshold dressed in the usual attire: Brown vest, trousers and the familiar top- hat. He was runty, maybe 5’8 and had a young face slender face.

         “Yes.” Vincenzo said. He looked at the man’s hazel eyes looking for a sign of antagonism. But his doe eyes were clear, humbly set between a round pug nose and small forehead slightly eclipsed by a widow’s peak.

         “Vincenzo Marci?”

         He shook his head.

         “I… I am sorry to bother you but,” He paused, his lips juggling with the next set of words. “I loved your show, I think you could be the next Bach.”

         “Thank you.”

         The two men looked at each other for a second. The man spoke again, his words jumbled and his praise for Vincenzo’s work lost in redundancy after the seventh mention of the word ‘marvelous’. After a minute or so he took a breath, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. The nervousness on his face perverse like the blunt stink of horse manure.

         “Thank you. I really appreciate it.” He stuck his hand out and the small man jumped on the gesture, grasping Vincenzo’s hand between both of his hands in a feverish shake.

         Vincenzo smiled. He thought of the woman’s husband and how it would’ve been less awkward dealing with him. Fans were always that way. So full of exaltation and unfounded love for someone they’d never spoken with. That was the affect of the music, undying love with no effort or equality needed. He turned away but as he tried to release his hand, he found the little man still shaking it.

         “Thank you.” He said giving off that charming Italian smile that he’d mastered through the years. “Gratis.”

         “No, thank you Vincenzo.” The man smiled revealing a set of yellowish teeth.

         Vincenzo shook his head, looking at the set of crooked yellow teeth. The vibe of anxiety came over him again. He looked harder at the man’s teeth and saw them moving. The round yellow ends began to extend into languid tips, starting from the outside until moving toward the eye teeth that grew into serrated fangs. The doe eyes that held such humility, washed with emotionless ire. The hat fell to the floor and Vincenzo was on his back. The blood already fresh on his lips. The air in his throat bound by the clawed grip of the marauding man that held him down.

         He could faintly hear the screaming of the young girl, the cries non-existent to the blood coming from his forehead. He kicked the man off him found his feet and reached for the sheathed knife on the dresser. The man moved with him. He grabbed the handle popped the blade and swiped in a quick backhanded motion. The man stumbled back, holding the blood from his throat in vain between his hairy fingers. The gurgling sound coming from the beast drowned deeper in blood. Vincenzo leaped forward, shooting under the beast’s frail guard and inserting the 6 inch steel blade above the left pelvic bone. Done. He withdrew the knife nonchalantly, his face never once giving off shock or anger.

         He turned to the woman. Her screaming filtering into his head for the first time. She stared at him, the fear causing her body to shake, her small breasts vibrating. Vincenzo smiled, approaching the bed tentatively. He leaned across the sheats, until he was inches from her face, the blood from his wounds still flowing. Reaching a hand he lifted her chin gently to his own and gave her a kiss.



         The man laid his hand down. “Flush. Have you got the sand?”

         The man across from him laughed, scratching the side of his beard which clung to his thin, boyish face oddly. “Shit, Rolly, thought you would have known me better than that.” He put the 5 cards down revealing a 9 of hearts, 10 of spades, jack of clubs, queen of hearts, and a King of spades. A royal flush.

         “Ya, my dad always said he was the seed of royalty.” He smiled, his yellowish teeth glaring under the unkept beard. His hand reached out in a s snake-like gesture to collect a pile of red and blue chips in the center of the small table.

         “Kreamer, you card counting bastard!” The large figure next to him uttered. He threw his hand in the center of the table discarding the 5 cards with disgust. “That’s the 4th pot you’ve taken. When you goin to quit da cheatin’?”

         “I don’t cheat. I just win.” He smiled after the last proclamation.

         “Bullsheet.”

         “I’ve played fair this whole night.” He began to stack the chips in perfect pillars of 10, segregating the red 2 dollar chips from blue 4 dollar chips.

         The large man lit a cigar. The white smoke puffed from his lips coming out in clouds as white as the old mustache that hung under his nose. 

         The man across from Kreamer laughed. “Rolly, tell him bout what happened at Poline’s.”          

         The large man took a few puffs of his cigar until letting it rest in between his lips on the left side of his mouth. “What?”

         “That story you told me about the hookers and the shoemaker.”

         A smile came to the large man’s face. It didn’t suit his size neither did his small squinty black eyes that peered out like two shining marbles. “Get this Burton,” He paused removing the cigar. “ That shoemaker at the corner of Howard and Maine--”

         “--The small guy with the bifocals?”

         “Ya, that be him. Anyway, I’m at the butcher shop roun noon and Jenna, that English hooker from Poline’s, the short blonde with the large breasts, comes running up to me, saying some crazy loon started a fight at the house. So I drop what I’m doin’ and run the fuck over there.”

         Burton shuffled the cards and dealt them. He looked up at the large man; his eyes large blue stones that only an Irish womb could bear.  “So what, you beat the fuck out the shoemaker Rolly?”

         “No, not quite,” the large man took a few puffs of the cigar. “ I get there, literary kick open the fucking door of Poline’s brothel. I see guys lying everywhere, chairs broken, glass on the floor, hookers spread in the corners like mice, look up at me like I’m Jesus Christ or something.”

         The other two gave off grunts of laughter, holding the five cards in their hands with reserve. Kreamer threw in a 2 dollar bet.

         Burton raised an eyebrow, shocked by the initial bet yet quickly cleared his face. Tell nothing. Show nothing. He raised throwing in 4 $2 chips and 1 $4 dollar chips.

         “So I walk in, fists at my side, looking for some big bastard to toss with. Next thing I see is Poline with her arm roun’ the shoemaker. I say ‘what the fuck is goin’ on here’. And you know what she tells me?”

         “What?” Burton looked up for an instant throwing in a card and replacing it with a fresh one.

         “This little guy beat em’ all. So I stop, look roun’ the place and count six of these guys and look back at this little shoemaker and I swear if I didn’t nearly pissed meself with laughter. This little man beat down all six by himself. I couldn’t believe it. But that’s not it. You remember the Duncan Boys?”

         Burton shook his head. His face down with locks of reddish hair in his view of his hand.          

         “It was them.”

         “No sheet?”

         Rolly shook his head with a smile. “I still can’t believe it.”

         Kreamer laughed aloud. “You always come for war Rolly, but you always find a farce. Yet me or Burton walk down an alley to take a leak and we get Lucifer’s angels and a pitch fork straight up the ars.” The three men laughed along playing out the hand. Red and blue chips switched hands. Curses were exchanged. Stories of favorite hookers, from breast size, fat or thin, white, black or Chinese were argued over furiously down to birth marks on the shoulder or hip. The beer came as well, the 4th seat at the table.

         After a few hours Kreamer walked across the bar to the counter to get another pint when Daniel McDonough came up to him. He turned to the boy, looking the youth over through glazed eyes. Each time he saw Daniel it was all business. The boy was the errand boy and messenger for the gang. The kid’s face possessed a boyish youth that always struck Kreamer.

         “What do you want boy.”

         The boy made a gesture to move his lips.

         Kreamer let off a small burp. He could see the worry in the boy’s face and was angered by it. The bane of any young male is emotion. They show it on their face like the worst poker hand. Anger, sadness, pleasure and worry—the last one obvious in the boy’s deeply carved eyebrows and pressed lips.

         “Vincenzo wants to meet with you at the St. Micheal’s.”

         Kreamer’s face shot back. “What?” His eyes became alive with new clarity. He stopped his lips from jumping ahead of his mind. St. Micheal’s was the local catholic church. Vincenzo despised religion ever since the fire.

         “You sure?”

         “He told me to tell you. He wants everybody in the courtyard of the church. He demands all his ‘lieutenants’.”

         Kreamer and the boy talked for a few more minutes. Kreamer shook the boy’s hand and the boy disappeared leaving Kreamer to walk back to the poker table.

         Burton looked up at Kreamer. He could tell by his face their would be no more pints. No more chips to win or lose. Looking at Burton he saw the same understanding. The three men arose hearing the words that Kreamer didn’t need to speak. They headed out the exit of the bar, walking into the open street of Shetton Lane. The dirt road beneath them held the stench from the morning horse shit. Kreamer lead the way, holding his black duster closer to his body as the knives of the Mayburry winter hit his skin.

         Father Raymond raised the sacramental waiver signifying the body of the lord, breaking it in half. The lines of people formed in the aisle ways leading up to the altar. Full church of sixty or so people, mothers or Irish, English, German. Children 6 and up, their accents still heavy as if they’d just arrived from Europe the day before fell into place with discipline unusual for their age. The Priest blessed the wine and bread, offering both in a tender timidity to each knelt worshipper. Then when the worshippers returned to their seats, he put the shining chalice of wine to the side. He places the bread away, underneath the sacramental table, sheathing both under a cotton cloth. He doesn’t take any for himself. He grabs his bible, looks over his flock lit by the pearing sunshine of the stained glass and reads the final prayer before dismissal.

         “Our father who art in heaven, hallow by thy name.
           Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
           On earth as it is in heaven
          Give us this day, our daily bread
           Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those
           Who trespass against us,
           And lead us not in temptation
           But deliver us from evil”
         Until the final Amen.

         The doors of the church closed with the last guess. Father Diaz takes a breath. It comes heavy as usual, caught between his lungs and heart. He closes his eyes reciting the niacin creed, a catholic prayer of Christ’s crucifixion and rise to heaven. The Hail Mary next, asking Mother Mary to save his soul and the sinners of the world. Then any prayer, any word to relieve the pain. He then walks to the altar, his head a drum of energy, barraging each action like a thousand arrows raining down on him. He finds his podium, lays a hand on the oak siding and takes a breath. Another Sunday for his soul. He looks at the stand on the pedestal grabs his bible.

         “Father.”

         He turns. Scanning the rows of pew, he sees a boy no more than 18 seated in the third row.

         His eyes intent. "Daniel.”

         The boy stands from his pew walks to the end of the aisle and stops. He turns his head scanning the church. “I always liked the beauty of the catholic church.”

         The priest steps down to the main floor of the church. He holds his hands at his sides with bible firmly held in his right hand. “What are you here for Daniel?”

         “I don’t mean any disrespect father, but I thought you would understand my presence by now.” He looked at the priest intently closing the space between them. “I’ve come like before yesterday and after today to inform.”

         “Of what?”

         The boy looked down. “Vincenzo was attacked.”

         “The news, boy?”

         “He was attacked at Canton Theatre in one of the back rooms. The attacker got past the boys and posed as a young fan. He surprised Vincenzo, and nearly got fully transformed before Vincenzo could kill him.”

         “Vincenzo’s been attacked before, I don’t understand why you would make the journey across Mayburry Park to tell me such trivial news.”

         The boys face lit up. “It isn’t trivial in the least. His face was slashed--”

         “Face?” the father stopped him.

         “His face.” The boy reaffirmed.

         The father’s eyes lit up. “I won’t condone anything.” The father turned away and walked toward the back dormitory of the church.

         “Father.” The boy said, walking quickly after him. “We can’t let it go. Not this. The disrespect would make the gang look weak.”

         The father kept walking ignoring the boy’s words.

         “It would me disgrace for the whole gang.”

         “Maybe it should.” The father turned to the boy. The dark brown in his eyes burned, turning black like the fire of hell had charred the life from them. “Maybe it’s time all the gangs from the old countries die off.”

         The boy stood quiet.

         The father turned away sharply and walked to the dormitory with his head down. The fury in his chest raging like the deepest maelstrom in the lake of fire. His words were the greatest lie he’d told.

         “Father!” the boy yelled from across the floor. “Vincenzo wanted me to tell you one more thing.” The boy paused looking as the priest stopped by the large oak door of the dormitory. “Please.”

         The father turned his head, glancing at the boy with one eye. “Yes.”

         “Vincenzo wanted to know if ‘it still burns. Everytime you touch the water.’”

         “Leave.” The priest looked away without another word and went through the door of the dormitory, slamming it as he entered.

         
         The father looked at himself in the mirror. His bare chest exposed under the soft glow of the candle. The scars were still there. The markings he had imbedded in his chest that night of pain. He stuck his chest out retracing each jagged line from the left to the right. ‘FORGIVENESS’ that was his life now. That is all he wanted. He lifted his gaze back to his eyes and the scraggily face they belonged to. He lifted a hand feeling the scars underneath his heavy thick brown beard. He brushed a hand through his long hair looking over his thick locks for in the dark sallow of his reflection.

         “Lizzy.” He looked away from his dark eyes and blew out the candle. Walking toward his bed through the darkness like he always did, he sat down on the small single. Grabbing for the covers he pulled back the thin sheets and stuck his body under the fold. The night was cold, like it always was and the sheets never offered much heat to distract from the breath of ice that clung to the outside windows and filtered into his quarters with such impunity; a devil that had filtered into his heart. He closed his eyes, focusing and trying to find the peace within his head through all the chaos and distortion of memories, fear and anxiety. Some nights it wasn’t there at all. The peace and that blank part of his mind that held no emotion, no trace of the past, present of future. But it seemed to be getting smaller by the day. The memories and the dreams got bigger with each night absorbing the snippet of sanity he had hid his mind in.