One by One. Nicholas Bush

it seems as though he has planned it all out from day one. To start with, he tells me he will call my father and vouch for me having been away without my father’s express permission because I was locked out, which sometimes happens. He says that he and Greta will soon be heading to Italy for a week and will send Giovanni to live with me during that time. Giovanni would otherwise have stayed home with Adriana.

      I tell him that my father will never accept this, but Francesco tells me firmly that he will. Francesco never seems to question anything. He speaks firmly, and is unwavering about how things are, have been, and will be. Francesco then proceeds to dial my house number and before I have a chance to react, he is speaking with my dad. They’ve only met once, the previous summer when the whole Russo family came to see me while I was on lockdown, and even stayed for dinner. Everyone was polite, but the parents certainly never hit it off as friends.

      I listen quietly to Francesco as he tells my dad he needs a favor from him. “I need to ask you to look after my son for a week while we’re away and see to it that he behaves. Your son has turned into a good boy and I want Giovanni to become more like him . . . Will you please teach my son some good manners? . . . Okay, ciao . . .” Then he yells out, “Adriana!” She appears in the doorway within seconds. “I need you to stay with a friend next week, okay? Pick whomever you like best.”

      Adriana happily thanks him and when she closes the door, it’s us men again, having a good old-fashioned sit-down. Francesco says, “Giovanni, I want you to find out how bad it is. Act like you are not even there. I want you to protect him. If anything happens, call me.”

      “Yes, Papa. I will.”

      After speaking with Francesco, I am in better spirits and head upstairs to chat with Greta as Giovanni has a final word with Francesco, who soon appears and informs me that Giovanni will be escorting me home to stay the few extra days before he and Greta leave for Italy. Giovanni and I giddily pack his things into a large backpack and a small suitcase.

      For a few days nothing happens, and I am totally ignored by everyone in my family. Then Francesco calls to say he and Greta are leaving and asks if everything is okay. It was okay for those few days, but then the abuse resumes. My father drinks that weekend, and early Saturday he proceeds to demand that Giovanni and I scrub the rims of his car tires until they shine, using only a bucket of soap and water. Without the proper polish, though, we don’t achieve the effect that my father desires and so he ridicules our progress. Giovanni asks how much longer we have to do this and I sigh because I don’t know. It’s exasperating, but the truth is I’m relieved to have my situation seen by someone who might have the power to help me. Everything seemed so hopeless before. Giovanni is not happy with the answer; he throws down the rag, kicks over the bucket, and loudly refuses to comply with my father’s demand.

      My father walks out onto the deck and the two of them begin to fight. He’s amused at first, but the situation escalates quickly, “You’re going to do exactly what I tell you to—”

      “No, we’re not! We haven’t done anything wrong, and you can’t treat us like this! We’re not gonna do it! Are we?” Giovanni glances at me.

      I stand up and sheepishly and add, “I’ve had enough, Dad.”

      At these words my father spikes his glass onto the concrete stoop, shattering it, and like a defensive lineman rounding a corner toward the quarterback, charges at me at in full sprint. I’ve never seen him so enraged. I stand frozen as Giovanni hurls himself between me and my father, bouncing off him like a pinball and landing hard on the driveway pavement. My father’s arms swing upward, his open hands hitting me from underneath, upending me. I land on my head, upside down, on the driveway. My father then sits on me and begins slapping me open handed, with the front and back of his hands, across my face.

      The next thing I know, Giovanni is charging into my father from the side, knocking him off me. Turning his rage on Giovanni, he quickly climbs on my friend, cursing him and striking him repeatedly in the torso. My mother rushes outside at the commotion and begins screaming. “The neighbors are going to call the police! Stop it! Get off him!” she shrieks at the top of her lungs in a panic as she tries to pull my father off Giovanni. Finally he lets go and she walks him inside, along the way consoling him as if he’s a child who has fallen off his bike.

      Giovanni is breathing heavily, and we sit on the pavement catching our breath and watching my parents console each other as they head back into the house.

      Once they’re inside, Giovanni stands up and says, “I’m calling Papa.” I’ve never seen him so upset. He runs to the other end of the house, not waiting for me to follow.

      I slowly get up, gather the rags and bucket, and then walk around the house to the garage, where Giovanni is already talking on a cordless phone he must’ve grabbed from inside. The conversation must have been short because as I turn the corner I see him going back inside the house to hand the phone to my father and then walk back outside to join me. We stand silently and listen through the closed door separating the interior of the home from the garage. I’m embarrassed by my father, but I also want the world to know what he’s really like.

      My father speaks to Francesco in a hushed voice, “Yes, I understand. That’s right—boys will be boys. No harm, no foul. Sure, I can do that. I will, you too.”

      He hangs up, and then I hear my name called, so I open the door and walk in. My father looks at me, his eyes fire red and his face flushed. “Why don’t you take Giovanni home now, since you boys don’t seem to like it here.” The words are an order, not a question.

      In an instant Giovanni is off, gathering his things and leaving my father and me alone.

      “After all I’ve done for you, you don’t appreciate me. You can just stay over there for all I care. That’s right, why don’t you stay there? And don’t you ever come back!” My mother comes in while my father is screaming and starts crying while he continues on with a frantic, irrational, and accusatory monologue.

      When Giovanni enters the foyer with his bags, he opens the door without saying a word and lets himself out, giving me a look and a half-smile as he passes me, as of to say, We did it, we won. At this, I erupt with what has been stored inside me for months. I let my father know how much I hate him and that I never want to see him again and that I wish he were dead. To which he replies, “What did you say?”

      “I said I hate you.”

      He looks at me perversely. “Good,” he says, looking satisfied.

      We walk out and I’m angry, scared, confused, and sad. We go to Giovanni’s house and Francesco ushers us in, as if saving us from a murderer on the loose. It turns out that Francesco and Greta hadn’t gone to Italy—in fact they’d never even planned to. The whole thing was a ruse in order to catch my father in the act.

      Francesco speaks to me loud and clear, and tells me I’m to live at the Russo house from now on. He says, “Now you’ll never have to see that fucking motherfucker again” and waves his hand to the side, as if my father is a fly he’s swatting away. He says he wants me to understand that sometimes you have to lie in order to make the right thing happen, which in this case was to catch my father red-handed in his drunken and abusive rage. He looks at me firmly, man to man, and says that if he hadn’t convinced me that he and Greta were leaving the country, then knowing me, I would have fought with my father, said, “Fuck this,” stayed at the Russo home for a short period of time until my father cooled down, and then let the cycle repeat itself. He says what’s happening is not okay, not normal—things I’ve long suspected.

      With mixed emotions I thank him, all while wondering what he told my father, because he ignores my questions about the specifics of their conversation. I’m speechless and filled with questions no one will answer. The way Greta and Francesco seem to know more about what is going on in my life than I do can be frightening. Sometimes when it really feels like they’re reading my mind, my hands shake and I can’t bring myself to make eye contact. I go silent at these times and I wonder if they notice and think I’m the weird one, or if they just brush it aside. As soon as I can, I escape to play drums or get stoned.

      As