Just Around the Bend

By Philip Palermo

Just Around the Bend is a look beneath the fanciful images of America to the brutal betrayal of Americans by the courts, the mental health system, schools, insurance companies, banks, and even the churches. From my fathers trial for murder for defending his sister against spousal abuse, to my own law practice, my life is the story of constant struggle to reach a peace that my mother once said was just around the bend. That long bend up the mountain has run from Pennsylvania where I was born, to Nevada, and then to California. The journey challenges every readers expectations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 11, 2003
• ISBN: 9781453582954

Philip Palermo

Philip Palermo is an attorney licensed in California, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, three states in which he has lived, and which are the settings for Just Around the Bend, his memoir. He is also a credentialed English instructor and college counselor. Recently he earned another graduate degree, an administrative credential in education, at The University of California Irvine. He and his wife, Frances, a legal secretary, live near the beach in beautiful Dana Point, California, which is just around the bend from Laguna Beach shown on the cover of the book. A sequel, Just Over the Mountain, is in the works.

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Copyright © 2003 by Philip Palermo.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Contents

Author’s Note

Prologue

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Author’s Note

This is a memoir and nonfiction. Joe Palermo’s actual trial was created however for dramatic effect. The underlying facts and disposition and effects are true.

Prologue

I looked up at Aunt Virginia through innocent eyes and she looked like a horror-stricken victim of Dracula in a black and white version of the movie. Her skin was extremely pale with black and blue bruises all over, mascara running from her eyes with her lipstick smudged across her face. She wore a dirty white slip, which made it difficult to tell whether she was bleeding or simply had material smeared across it. Behind her on the floor lay her husband, Camillo Colonado with his head blown off. I couldn’t really see much of Uncle Camillo because he was lying horizontal on the floor but there was plenty of blood splattered across the back wall and the dining room furniture, the carpet and everything in the immediate proximity of the body. A few minutes earlier, I had been playing with my dog in front of our house across the street. Daddy had come home after hunting with his friends, and Mom was making dinner. All of a sudden our family was cowering inside the Colonado residence with this shell-shocked woman who happened to be my Aunt Virginia.

She stood in front of us with her hands down to her side with the palms open, forearms slightly raised upwards as though pleading for help from God or supplication to anyone but no words came from her mouth. Instead, her haunted eyes looked out at us as if she was trapped behind some invisible wall.

I had never known the trauma of grief in my own short life and I wasn’t sure what to make of Aunt Virginia. But as I stood there looking at her, my mother put her arms around my shoulders and pulled me closer to her and I started to feel a strange sense of evil and foreboding. I didn’t want to be in that room close to the evil and the horror that had been there before me. I wanted to run as far away from the scene as possible. But there she stood, her black, wiry, curly hair sticking out from her head in all directions. A portion of the hair looked as though a hand had been stuck in it and left a permanent indentation. She was standing practically naked except for the slip and one of the spaghetti straps from the slip had fallen down below her shoulder. There was a wild, maniacal aspect to Aunt Virginia and her eyes seemed to glisten as she looked directly at me. They seemed to glow with the fire of the horror that burned inside of her and seemed to beckon me into her and that fire. I wanted to run as fast and as far from her as I possibly could but her gaze held me spellbound in that small,dark living room. She stood like a lighthouse broadcasting the terror and pain of life in our direction. I could feel myself being pulled into it almost as though I was a helpless ship about to be dashed against the rocks of an even more sinister world.

1

My dad, Joe Palermo, had decided to take me along on one of his famous hunting trips with Frank Marchionda and Tony Argento, two of his good friends from the steel mill. From where we were up in the hills above the river, you could see the steel mills in Beaver County as they ran alongside both sides of the Ohio River. Mom had argued that I was too young, but dad felt that the sooner I experienced things, the further along I would be. As we trudged along in the higher grass, I kept thinking about how I would brag to my sister, Virginia, when I got home. She would undoubtedly be on the porch serving tea to her bear and dolls. We lived in Monaca then, a small town in western Pennsylvania, along the Ohio River, about 15 miles north of Pittsburgh.

My father was a handsome, good-natured man and my mother was a pretty woman who loved her family dearly even though she had said that she was angry at dad when I, the second child was conceived. She got over it. She loved us deeply and was totally devoted to her husband and her family. I was part of the baby boomer generation born following the end of World War II. Like everyone else in the country, the Palermo family was getting accustomed to peacetime, including the end of hostilities in Korea and the tiny beginnings of the rise of corporate America. We lived in Steel Country, Beaver and Allegheny Counties. Pittsburgh was our steel capital.

I remember the day we bought our first television. It was like the day they brought home my younger brother from the hospital when he was born. You knew they were there to stay, and everyone oohed and aahed their approval.

People in Beaver County felt that they were in the middle of a boomtown era because of the many steel mills located in the entire valley. Men worked in the mills, bought homes, raised children, and would send their children to college all from what they earned in the steel mills. Dad was no different. He enjoyed his job as a shearman in the tin mill division of Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation, J and L for short. Unlike many of the other jobs in the steel mill, he had an opportunity to earn bonuses based on production and how much cold rolled steel he sheared into finished product.

Steel was king in the fifties and into the sixties. No one could foresee that down the road it would become practically extinct, become a smoke stack industry that died along with the big cars and the large steel fins being rolled off the assembly lines in Detroit. Steel fins that were made at J and L. To the contrary, people were happy to be working and still happy that America prevailed against the wretched Nazis of World War II. Once again, America had saved the world and itself from homicidal maniacs in Germany and Japan. There was a security in calling World War II the War To End War. The Europeans would never forget the debt they owed us and, of course, we had the bomb in case we needed it.

As my dad trudged through the woods with his two comrades in arms, he had a smile that looked like pure contentment. The three men were tracking a large ten-point buck. We had seen it dart through the thick underbrush and head off toward the edge of the mountain. I was panting out of breath as I walked fast to keep up but not making any noise stepping on dry wood or brush. They spread out hoping to flank the buck and tracked it toward the edge of the cliff hoping that it would stop and be trapped there. Dad enjoyed the hunting but he told me that he was thinking of giving it up because life was sacred after all, and that included animal life. But, these men didn’t play golf. They were steel workers. Most of them were first generation Italians whose parents had come from Italy and Sicily. They enjoyed hunting and a few drinks after work at Delshays or Matia’s cheering on the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Pirates. Spending time with their families was central to this life and to their families. In Monaca and Aliquippa, thousands of people were connected by bloodlines or friendship with relationships that went back to their parents’ immigration to America through Ellis Island. Dad, Frank, and Tony and most of their friends were all from Aliquippa and Joe hoped to move back to Aliquippa as soon as he found a home there to purchase.

I remember that after a rushed and tense jog after the deer that it stopped for a moment near the edge of the hillside and looked at us. I looked up at my dad as he sighted on the deer. He pulled his head back off the sight for a moment as another hunter took a shot at the deer and killed it. Dad smiled down at me and I knew that he knew what he was doing.

2

The hunt had been successful and we were driving down Iron Street in Monaca headed home. Across the street from our home was the home of my uncle, Camillo. Dad was sitting on the passenger side of the front seat looking out the window.

Looks like my brother-in-law has some company over at his house today, he said.

How are things with your sister these days, Joe? asked Frank Marchionda.

He’s a son-of-a-bitch, said Dad. Philip, you have a problem with that language, son? I nodded negative, of course. I liked it.

He still beats her though she covers up for him, continued Dad. I guess she’s afraid that I’ll make a scene, he said, as he lifted his arms up to the air as if God only could understand why. His mouth was curled up into a bitter line on his face as he seemed to think about his sister, Aunt Virginia.

Some of the guys down in the fourteen-inch mill were talking about your sister and Camillo, Joe, said Tony. It’s nothing new and I don’t want you to get upset. Tony looked over at Frank and he looked at Dad as though uncertain about saying anything more. But I heard that Camillo is still bringing these guys home to have, you know what, with Virginia.

Dad inhaled as though he had been hit with a board and had to take the hit and say nothing. I talked to her about that and she said there haven’t been any problems like that in a long time, said Dad. But he looked out across the street again towards the Colonado home with a curious look on his face.

Well, hell, what can a woman do today to earn a living? said Tony. He shook his head, looked out the window at nothing in particular and with eyebrows raised and a kind of quizzical expression on his face, he said, Well, the situation today is not much different than it was a hundred years ago, especially around here in steel country.

The hell with that, said Dad. Death before dishonor. You can’t live with a piece of merde and maintain any kind of life. I don’t know where in hell these women come from to put up with that kind of crap. She comes from a good family. It’s not like we were some peasants from the hills, you know, outside Palermo. Our family did well in Sicily and they’re doing well in America. She never suffered for anything.

Tony reached an arm over the back seat toward Dad as the station wagon pulled into our driveway. Dad half-turned around to listen to what he had to say. Hey, Joe, don’t let it eat you up. You know it’s the same old story. A woman falls in love with a good-looking man; he’s all prince charming when they meet and the courtship, and the la-de-da and all of that, you know? Then the next thing you know the honeymoon’s over, and she finds the prince is a frog and a son-of-a-bitch on top of that. I don’t know what to tell you. But if it was my sister, I’d have to kick his ass. I know you have been good about this; you warned him. And you don’t want to ruin your life by getting in a tussle with this guy. But, you know it happens with the women. I’m glad I’m a man is all I can say.

Dad had the door opened and was smirking and half grinning at Tony’s remarks. They had lifted the dark cloud over his head for a while anyway.

All right, you guys, said Dad as he waved to his buddies. I’ll see you at work tomorrow. Don’t run over anything on the way home, all right? Dad took his rifle in hand and was walking toward the house where he could see Gina serving tea to her dolls on the porch. He smiled down at me as I held on to his pant leg walking proudly for Gina’s benefit next to him.

Gina I said. We killed a deer! Dad, are we going to have deer for dinner?

Sure we are, son. Soon as Uncle Frank fixes up that deer we’re going to have a big dinner.

Is Uncle Frank and Tony going to come to dinner, Daddy? Gina asked.

Sure they are, Honey, and they’ll bring all the kids over so you can play, all right? he said. By that time, Gina joined us on the porch carrying one of her dolls in her hands. She had a beautiful smile. She had beautiful black hair, a lot like Aunt Virginia’s. Her good looks were a combination of the Sicilian and the Italian side of the family.

As they walked inside the house to find mom, Gina took Dad’s hand, and together with me holding onto his leg, we walked dad inside the house. Most of the homes in Beaver County were what they called company homes in the fifties. The big steel companies built these homes when they were first starting into business to provide housing for their labor force. The porches ran the entire length of the front of the home. They usually had large wooden swings on them and lounges. People sat out on their porches and neighbors walked through the neighborhood in those days. It was commonplace for people to greet their neighbors as they walked by, and perhaps stop and chat for a minute. People actually walked places, took buses, and visited each other freely. They knew their neighbors and spoke to them. During the holidays, it was common for people to stop by a neighbor’s home unannounced and without phone calls.

Escorted by us, Dad walked inside the living room of the house and then into the big kitchen where mom was. He placed his hunting rifle down against the corner of the closet near the telephone stand and went over to hug mum who was at the stove cooking. The radio was playing a familiar Proctor and Gamble’s commercial; Do you have a Proctor in the house? said the broadcaster.

Dad said, Ah, no, but we’ve got a helicopter in the house, as he rushed over and grabbed mom and kissed her. We were smiling at dad as he started to dance mom around the kitchen singing, We don’t have a Proctor, but we’ve got a helicopter. He finished his dance by kissing mom and hugging her.

Mom looked up at dad and smiled a look of mixed admiration and love. He smiled back at her in a mellow way, his brown eyes warm with affectionate feelings and thoughts toward her. Mom had told us stories about them dancing all over Beaver and Allegheny county when they were younger. They loved to dance. And, they were pictures of them in the bedroom all dressed up in fancy suits and dresses, sitting on the hood of one of those gangster looking sedans. They were all smiling big smiles in those pictures from back in the day. They had made a very dashing couple.

Mom wore her hair long and she had great legs to compliment her winning smile. She had kept the forties femininity into the fifties. She had all that forties grace and beauty from the tailored gabardine suits of the time to the short Eisenhower jackets and pleated skirts, to the high heels. Time and children had changed them outwardly. Dad always looked good in his pleated gabardine trousers and his favorite leather jacket. He especially looked good in the wide lapel double-breasted suits that he used to like to wear. My folks were a marriage of first love where the passion ran deep and true and the promise of a future together had turned into a pleasing reality. Even as the suits and heels were packed away in mothballs, the love still ran true.

How is my great white hunter doing? said mom to dad. Gina and I had camped out on the steps looking down at them.

I’m doing pretty well, honey. How’s my Betty Crocker? he replied.

I’ll have dinner ready in a few minutes, she said. Did you guys have a good time today?

We had a great time, but you know, I don’t have that hunter’s killer instinct these days. He stepped away from mom and extended his hands up towards his forehead as though he were trying to remember something or had lost a thought. I don’t know what it is but I just don’t get that same kind of pleasure from hunting that I used to get. Maybe I should take up golf, you think? He shrugged his shoulders and his eyes expressed curiosity about where the magic feeling had gone.

Dad started to walk away and said, I’m going to change these clothes, and take a quick shower. I’ll be right back, all right?

Okay, Joe, said mom and she turned back toward the stove as the telephone rang. Dad was already half way up the stairs when he stopped to see who had called on the telephone.

Mom was closest to the phone so she went to answer it. She wiped her hands quickly on the apron she had on and picked up the telephone. Her face turned serious suddenly at what she was hearing. She moved the phone away from her ear as though to get a clearer impression from the caller.

Joe! said a screaming terrified voice from the telephone. Joe, God, please help me, it’s Virginia.

Virginia, said mom. What’s the matter?

No sooner had mom finished asking Aunt Virginia what was going on, than Dad was already down the flight of steps and reaching for the telephone to take it from mom’s hands.

He took the phone in his hand and raised it to his ear. Virginia, is that you? What’s the matter?

Joe, it’s Camillo and those scum from the steel mill, Joe. He wants me to have sex with his friends, Joe, said Aunt Virginia.

Suddenly there was another voice on the line and Joe responded to the new voice.

Camillo? Camillo, you son-of-a-bitch, said Joe to Virginia’s husband. You’re telling me to go to hell? said Dad. You perverted son-of-a-bitch. No, no, my sister’s no Sicilian princess and you can’t do whatever the hell you please to her, law or no law, you bastard. I’m calling the police. If they won’t do anything, I’ll stop you.

Dad was grabbing the phone tightly and staring intently into the air as if he were focusing his words directly into Uncle Camillo’s face. If you hurt my sister, you son-of-a-bitch, you’ll pay, he said to Camillo. I told you before to keep your hands off of her you black dago bastard. I don’t know why she married scum like you. But whatever her reasons, I’m not going to let you hurt my sister. Do you understand me, Camillo? said Dad one more time.

I could actually hear my uncle’s voice because the phone was right below us where Gina and I sat on the steps that went upstairs, less then a foot away at the most. Both Dad and Uncle Camillo were yelling into the phone. Dad’s face was twisted in anger and worry for his sister.

What are you going to do about it, big-time Palermo from Plan Eleven? shouted Uncle Camillo. Where’s all your brothers and family to help you?

Put Virginia on the line, right now, said Dad.

We’re going to put her somewhere, big-time, but it ain’t going to be on no telephone. Mind your own business, said Camillo. We heard the click of the phone as Camillo hung up on Dad. We sensed it even before the phone went dead. Dad cradled his phone and looked down at his hunting rifle resting against the wall. He looked back at mom and up to us kids on the steps.

Mom looked up at dad, suddenly very frightened of what was in the air. Their eyes met for a second, steady and unfaltering.

Josephine, I’ve got to go next door, said Dad. He reached down and picked up the rifle and ran toward the living room and out the front door.

Mom stood in fear that her husband was in danger. Suddenly, out of the nowhere, evil had descended upon our house. She didn’t know what to do as she glanced at me and then at Gina who had moved to a corner with her hands up near her anxious face. Our happy and joyful day had suddenly taken a bad turn for the worse. Mom seemed like she could feel the evil as if it permeated the house from the riverside and just flowed through, out the front door behind her husband like an ominous cloud. Mom would later tell me about the history of spousal abuse that had been going on for some time. I would learn that Camillo was a rotten son-of-a-bitch. He had his dark good looks but he had a swarthy underside, which had revealed itself shortly after they had been married.

Dad had warned Camillo and told Aunt Virginia to leave him many times. It wouldn’t be for another thirty years that the term spousal abuse, domestic violence, or battered women syndrome would be heard and understood for the complex phenomena that it is. Mom stood there in middle of the kitchen, in the middle of the fifties, trying to find an answer to Virginia Colonado’s dilemma, one that would stop short of drawing her husband into serious trouble and destroying their family. But, Aunt Virginia’s failure to take action had now drawn my dad into trouble to defend her. Mom looked like she was tied in knots trying to figure out what to do.

As though awakening from a dream, mom snapped to, looked out the window listening to the screen door as it clanged against the doorframe, and immediately started going toward the Colonado house. She turned to us.

You two stay right here, do you hear? she said. We nodded our heads in mute agreement.

As she headed out the door and started to cross the front yard after dad, we headed out after her. She looked over to two men running out of the house hurriedly getting into their cars. Then she looked at dad standing at the front door looking their way as they ran away. The two men entered their car and drove away quickly.

I was shouting, Mom, I’m coming.

Uncertain of what to do and running out of time in which to do it, she waited for Gina and me to catch up to her. I placed my small hand in hers and we started up the stairs to the house. Even before we reached the screen door to enter the house, we heard Camillo’s booming voice from inside.

Get out of my house you bastard! Your sister is my property and this is my property. Get out of my house now, said Uncle Camillo.

Dad was standing inside the door looking at Virginia who was sitting on the sofa near one of its armrests. Her husband stood next to her and with his left hand he was grabbing her curly hair that almost covered his hand for its thickness and length. Her lipstick was smeared and some of it was on her white slip. Her makeup was running across her face and some of it was on her slip. There were tears still fresh on her face. Aunt Virginia looked like she was completely in shock, breathless, wide-eyed, and desperate. She had the look of a caged animal that had been beaten and was trying to retreat into the corner of the large sofa. When she saw her brother enter the house, her eyes lit up with hope that quickly turned to confusion when she saw the rifle he was carrying. Virginia’s shoulders sagged with a sense of relief when she saw her brother was there to rescue her. But, as she quickly pondered her confusion, she shook her head sideways as if an even greater danger was about to descend upon her. Torn in her confusion and pulled in different directions by her own fear of her husband and his friends, the rapists, she instinctually blurted out the need most pressing in her heart.

Joe, please help me. He’s a crazy son-of-a-bitch. I’m sorry, Joe. I’m sorry, Joe. I know I should have listened to you. Aunt Virginia tried to get up out of the sofa as if she could now move away from Camillo and the whole horrible incident by physically moving to her brother’s side. Camillo grabbed her by the hair and forcefully threw her back down into the sofa.

He screamed at her, You stay where you are, bitch, until I tell you otherwise. He looked straight at my dad, stared him evenly in the eyes with a cold steady look of hatred.

What do you think you’re going to do for your little sister? he sneered at dad.

Get your hands off of her, said Dad. Let Virginia come to me, Camillo, right now. Aunt Virginia now was totally confused and if not already hysterical, she began to tremble and cower with fear. She stayed seated, afraid to get up for the punishment Camillo would inflict on her, yet even more afraid of what would happen if she stayed with this beast any longer. She made a quick gesture to jump up and Camillo grabbed her by the hair, pulling her toward him and slapped her viciously across the face. Virginia fell back against the sofa and even as she hit the sofa dad started moving toward Camillo.

Camillo turned to face dad, his face red with rage against him. The hatred spewed out of his eyes as well as his lips as he leveled his gaze at my father. You take another step toward me, runt of the litter, and I’ll take that gun, shove it up your ass and blow your brains all over this house, he said.

Dad moved forward with the gun. Get away from my sister now.

Camillo reached out and grabbed the barrel of dad’s hunting rifle and tried to pull it out of his hands. Mom, Gina, and I were standing just inside the front door, rooted to the floor and paralyzed with fear. We could not believe our eyes. Only a few moments ago, which had suddenly started to seem like an eternity long passed, a lifetime ago, we were enjoying a pleasant, wonderful, secure day at home. Now we saw dad struggling against a monster who was tearing the gun away from his hands and set on killing him.

Camillo was swearing at dad as he tugged at the gun, trying to turn the gun around, and pushing the barrel towards dad’s face. He was trying to reach the trigger with his other hand and shoot dad. Dad’s eyes were wide with the shock and with the effort to withstand the attack from Camillo. Camillo was a big man who stood about six-foot-three. He towered over dad by almost a half a foot and outweighed him probably by seventy pounds.

Confident that he could overcome the smaller man, Camillo started wrenching the rifle back and forth as though he were trying to pull a nail out of a stubborn plank. Finally, in a furious jerk, Camillo pulled the rifle upwards towards himself, as though one more good yank would free the nail and he would be done with this nuisance standing in front of him. Just as he jerked the barrel up under his neck, his hand went down across the trigger firing a bullet through his neck and upward through the back of his head. He fell straight backwards like a tree that had been chopped down in the woods, and landed on the ground with a loud thud. The echo of the gunshot seemed to reverberate throughout the small house.

From the sofa Virginia just stared at her husband who had fallen backwards and landed slightly behind the armrest of the sofa where she was. She looked at him lying dead on the floor and her confusion once again caused her to tremble as she looked now at the dead man and then at her brother in disbelief at what had happened. She knelt down near her husband and touched his head, his cheeks, putting her fingers in the blood that had started to pool at the back of his head. She brought the blood up towards her face looking at it as if to let it register the death to her brain as well as her heart.

Dad turned toward us and we ran to him eager to gather him into ourselves again, eager to regain the peace that a half hour ago was ours.

His face was ashen white with the shock. His eyes showed disbelief at what had just happened. He stood there looking lost, looking like he was trying to remember something; trying to understand what had just happened.

Slowly he seemed to be regaining consciousness and he took his rifle, unloaded it and set it down on the nearby table in the living room. He walked back over to us as we huddled together staring at the beast on the floor.

Aunt Virginia turned from her position kneeling beside her dead husband and looked at her brother, Joe. You killed Camillo, Joe, she said. Her face resembled a movie screen on which conflicting emotions played were displayed. A look of anger crossed her face as she wrinkled her forehead and narrowed her eyes staring at her brother. Who’s going to take care of me now? she asked dad.

Then she turned her gaze back to her dead husband, stared at him awhile, touched his chest with her fingers and withdrew her hands as if in shock and fear. She rose to her feet and stepped away from him quickly as if afraid he might wake up and kill her. Dad walked over to Aunt Virginia’s side and held her. He drew her close to him as if to protect her from any harm, just as a father would hold his little girl.

Soon neighbors came into the front door and approached us uneasily looking at the body on the floor and then to dad and then to the rifle on the nearby dining room table. We could hear police sirens in the distance. Aunt Virginia moved away from dad and turned to face mom and me and Gina. She took a step forward towards us.

3

I looked up at my Aunt Virginia through innocent eyes and she looked like a horror-stricken victim of Dracula in a black and white version of the movie. Her skin was extremely pale but now had bruises about it, mascara running from the eyes with lipstick smudged across her face and her dirty white slip which made it difficult to tell if she was bleeding or simply had bleeding material smeared across her slip. Behind her on the floor lay her husband, Camillo Colonado, with his head blown off. I couldn’t really see much of Uncle Camillo because he was lying horizontal on the floor, but there was plenty of blood splattered across the back wall and the dining room furniture, the carpet and everything in the immediate proximity of the body. A few minutes earlier I had been playing with our dog in front of the house, Daddy had come home after hunting with his friends, and Mom was making dinner. All of a sudden our family was cowering inside the Colonado residence with this shell-shocked woman who happened to be my Aunt Virginia.

She stood in front of us with her hands down to her sides but with the palms open, forearms slightly raised upwards as though pleading for help from God or supplication to anyone but no words came from her mouth. Instead, her haunted eyes looked out at us as if she was trapped behind some invisible wall.

I had never known a trauma or grief in my own short life of five years and I wasn’t sure what to make of Aunt Virginia. But as I stood there looking at her, my mother put her arms around my shoulders and pulled me closer to her and I started to feel a strange sense of evil and foreboding. I didn’t want to be in that room close to the evil and horror that had been there before me. I wanted to run as far away from the scene as possible. But there she stood, her black, wiry, curly hair sticking out from her head in all directions. A portion of the hair looked as though a hand had been stuck in it and left a permanent indentation. She was standing practically naked except for the slip and one of the spaghetti straps from the slip had fallen down below her shoulder. There was a wild, physical, maniacal aspect to Aunt Virginia and her eyes seemed to glisten as she looked directly at me. They glowed with the fire of a horror that burned inside of her and beckoned me to her. I wanted to run as far away from her as I possibly could but her gaze held me spellbound and terror-stricken in that small living room. She stood like a lighthouse broadcasting the terror and pain of life in our direction and I could feel myself being pulled into it almost as though I was a helpless ship about to be dashed against the rocks of an even more sinister world.

The police entered the Colonado home and dad spoke to them about what had happened.

"My sister called me in fear. She said her husband was forcing her to have sex with other men. He’s abused her before and I came over here to save her,’ said dad to the officer. The officer looked at the rifle on the dining room table and then turned to him.

Why did you bring that rifle over here, Mr. Palermo? he asked.

I had just returned home from hunting and the rifle was still in the kitchen where I had put it when I came home and greeted my wife and children, said dad.

Dad had a look of concern on his face at