Toscotti's War

By Tony Marconi

During Tony Toscotti’s first year of college in the mid-1960s, his passion for scholarly pursuits—and for his first love Margaret—are completely and utterly squashed. The circumstances point to one responsible party: God, driving Toscotti to declare his own personal war on the Almighty. A novice combatant, Toscotti soon finds himself in unfamiliar territory, coping with a Vietnam-era Army boot camp, training as a helicopter pilot, and trekking Arctic and Antarctic trails blazed by polar explorers Franklin and Shackleton—ultimately discovering an elixir he believes could be the trump card in his crusade against Yahweh.

Toscotti’s best friend, Randy Chesterfield, a self-described prisoner of war, chronicles the saga while being held incommunicado by government forces intent on apprehending Toscotti’s secret weapon to use for their own purposes. Along the way, Randy must confront his own justification for enlisting full-force in Toscotti’s War.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: Dec 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662916922

Book preview

PART ONE

Skirmishes

Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge.

—Paul Gauguin

PROLOGUE

Chesterfield, Randall William. The Fourth. Warrant Officer One, RA 36801629. DOB: March 19, 1946.

Distinguishing characteristics? Just one: Feed me regularly, or I’ll start to turn green. I need plenty of water, too. Light’s necessary, but I’ll get exceptionally horny if I’m left out in the sun too long.

click

I realize you want my story straight, and I’d like to cooperate. But if I don’t tell you this part, the rest won’t make any sense. Besides, you can always fast forward to what you want to hear later. Right now, you’re kind of stuck with the way I do it, so sit back and relax.

click

I’ll probably be turning the tape recorder on and off like that while I gather my thoughts, so get used to the clicks. Don’t worry, though. I won’t leave a damn thing out. You’ve got my word.

Just remember the deal: I tell you everything, and you leave everyone else alone. Except Tony, if you can find him, since I can’t seem to convince you people that you’re wasting your time. The only one who’s going to be around when they fish his body out of the pack ice ninety-three years from now is me. The rest of you are mortal, and it’s your own fault.

click

I suppose it really doesn’t matter what promises you make me. I know damn well you’ll get Nick’s side of this on tape, too. And Sabatino’s and Fisher’s. And Beth’s and Jerry’s and anyone else I name. But don’t forget, mine’s the most reliable. At least 97.4 percent of the time, and you can verify that if you want. Dr. Roush did the research on me back at Southern Illinois University in ’66. Wrote it up nice and neat and published it in The Journal of Science. The Harvard team did the follow-up. Same results. My auditory recall is 97.4 percent, give or take a tenth. Even months later, I can tell you verbatim everything I’ve heard.

It’s not a photographic memory, because it doesn’t work on written stuff, unless, of course, someone reads it to me out loud. I’ve got to hear something to make it stick. So, everything I tell you comes from firsthand experience, or it was something told to me by Tony or somebody else, and I’m just reporting what I’ve heard.

Accurately.

Ninety-seven-point-four percent of the time.

The other 2.6 percent is just as likely to be pure bullshit because I hate gaps. I usually fill in the blank spots with whatever sounds good to me at the time. Makes me feel like there’s still a creative edge to my personality.

Hope you’re okay with that. Too bad if you’re not, ’cause that’s just the way it’s gonna be.

click

There’s another reason my report’s going to be the most definitive on file. I have dreams that come true. Not all my dreams. Just the ones that have the odor with them. I don’t know exactly how to describe it, but it’s always the same sickening sweet scent—like an overly flowery perfume with something stale mixed in—not unlike morning-mouth, only wild and cold. And it comes at the end of the dream. I wake up, remembering every detail, and I know it’s going to happen.

That’s how I’m sure Tony will be found alive in ninety-three years. Well, he’ll be in a kind of suspended animation, but they’ll thaw him out of the ice, all right, and he’ll have his canteen with him.

You’d better get used to waiting for it.

click

Yeah, I thought you’d want to hear more about those dreams. And the answer to your question is no—nobody’s ever done any research on them. I wouldn’t cooperate if they tried. But I’m perfectly willing to tell you about the first time I realized I was having one.

I was four years old, and I’d spiked a fever that had everyone stumped. White blood cell count was up to 45,000, and all of the cultures were coming back negative. Antibiotics didn’t do a thing. No other symptoms of the leukemia that was going to hit me sixteen years later.

My folks had me in a private room at St. Anne’s in Chicago, and Dad flew in some big-name hematologist to try and figure out why I was still frying at 105 degrees after three days. I’d been hallucinating, they told me later, but the only thing I remember clearly was seeing Santa Claus walk into the hospital room, sweating like a pig. That didn’t strike me as odd, because it was August, and I was perspiring heavily myself. He handed me a Howdy-Doody doll and told me I had been very ill, but I was going to be okay now. Then the odor came, and I woke up and saw my mother leaning over me, looking upset.

A nurse came in and took my temperature. Ninety-nine and a half, she said. It’s broken.

My mother hugged me and cried. I cried, too, because I thought I’d busted the thermometer. The next day my father walked in, wearing a Santa Claus suit and sweating like a pig. It was August, after all. He told me I’d been a very sick boy, so he’d made a special trip from the North Pole to bring me a present. It was a Howdy-Doody doll, just like in the dream.

Ho-ho-ho! he said.

Ho-ho-ho, what’s this, I thought.

click

As I said, that was the first time I remember a dream happening. They’ve come to me on and off ever since, but I don’t have any control over when they’ll show up. Or what they’re gonna be about. The one thing I know for sure is that my life changed a hell of a lot once Tony started appearing in them.

That was during our freshman year at Carbondale. Check your files there. Find it? At SIU. That’s where I met him. Random room assignment. Kind of a colossal cosmic joke, throwing the two of us together like that. I mean, we had nothing in common.

Well, to be fair, there were probably damn few students on that campus I would’ve been compatible with. After all, I was in college only because my father insisted I go, though if he’d been there to meet Tony those first few weeks of fall quarter, he might have made me pick another school. I mean, Toscotti was enough to frighten any over-protective, upper-middle-class parent into a coronary. Even I had my reservations about him at first. How was I to know I’d come to owe him my life and that I’d literally follow him to the ends of the Earth? After all, he was hardly what anyone—including himself—would ever have thought of as a hero.

But let’s be honest about something here: Heroism usually begins by accident. So, for that matter, does a legend. At the very least, they’re both nudged along by impersonal factors such as coincidence and poor planning.

Tony Toscotti didn’t start out being brave. I know this for a fact. Unlike John Franklin, he hadn’t intended to go to the Arctic in the first place. Certainly, he wouldn’t have ventured there a second time if it weren’t for his overwhelming desire to get revenge on God. And get the government off his back.

Which is exactly my point: There’s a great deal of difference between having guts and being pissed off. Sir John was endowed with courage. His name has been immortalized in the annals of polar exploration. But he is very much dead.

Tony, on the other hand, responded to a pettier passion. As a result, for the next century, he may only be remembered in a few government files and transcriptions of these tapes. Not a very favorable comparison to Franklin unless you know that Toscotti will live just about forever.

Well, it only goes to show you that even the Bible can get it right once in a while. Ecclesiastes 9:4. A live dog is better off than a dead lion.

Better than a dead god, too, I suppose. Especially from the dog’s point of view.

Woof, woof.

Let’s get on with this.

CHAPTER ONE

The way Tony told it, Sabatino was crazy. If he hadn’t been, his army buddy, Nick Toscotti, would not have believed in God and neither, likely, would’ve his son. And if Tony had not believed in God, wooly mammoths would still be unavenged. Not that they’re in any position to appreciate it, unless, of course, there’s an afterlife for elephants and some nether-plane from which they can peer out and observe the cosmos. If such conditions do exist, you can bet they’re laughing their hairy asses off.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. As it was, it would be years before Tony’s dad would look back at the stockade incident and pinpoint it as his own particular Damascus Road. Faith was the farthest thing from Nick’s mind at the time. Sex and survival, in that order, headed his list of priorities, and Sabatino had certainly taught him more about both of those than either the Catholic Church or U.S. Army were ever going to. Which is why Nick considered the Battle of the Bulge to be nothing more than a pain in the ass.

He said so to Sabatino during the intensified training course they were thrown into right after the first German assault hit the Ardennes. I’m told those were his exact words.

It’s a goddam pain in the ass.

Sabatino grunted. He always grunted when they did push-ups, especially in the rain. Nick accepted the sound as an affirmation, and he turned his head toward Fisher.

It really is a load of shit, Phil.

Fisher was too red-faced to reply. They had already done a million repetitions, and the drill instructor didn’t show any signs of being tired.

Look, Nick went on, I got into this goddam army to fight the Krauts. I trained like a son of a bitch. Shot expert. Volunteered for the paratroops, and would’ve made it, too, if it wasn’t for that looie gettin’ pissed ’cause I stole them pies from the mess hall. So he sends me here to screw me over, right?

From the corner of his eye, Fisher snuck a look at Toscotti. He wasn’t even sweating. He never did. At eighteen, all this exercise was still a game to him.

Nick kept talking. But was I satisfied to sit the war out running a stupid projector for a bunch of asshole officers and their Limey buddies?

Watch it, wop, Fisher croaked.

Nick frowned. "Sorry, Fish. British buddies. But they’re all assholes, all the same. Officers!"

Rest, the DI called.

They dropped, belly down, onto the wet ground. Nick never missed a beat in his soliloquy. I tried to get transferred. Twice. But what’d I end up with? The same old shit, that’s what. Lots of maybes and no damn orders. Bastards!

So what’s your gripe, Nick? Sabatino had caught his breath. Now you’re gonna get your chance to kill Krauts. You ought to be elated.

Nick shook his head. Three months ago, great. Now—

Now my cousin Gwen’s screwing his brains out, Fisher interrupted. The Chicago kid’s hung up on English poontang. Finally found out tail beats tear gas.

Nick resorted to the standard reply he used when annoyed. "Va fangul," he said.

Sabatino chuckled. Fuck yourself, kid. What’s the matter? You scared of getting your ass shot off?

I ain’t scared of nothing! I’m just tired of stupid people making stupid decisions about my life. ’Specially without at least asking me for an opinion.

Fisher nodded. Uh-huh. I can see President Roosevelt now. He pushed his glasses down on his nose and jutted his chin forward. I wonda’ what the Dago would do now?

Fuck Roosevelt.

Funny—that was his next line about you, kid.

And quit calling me kid. You guys ain’t so old.

We’re over twenty-one. You should live so long. Sabatino shaped his finger and thumb like a gun and pointed at him.

Fisher sighed. Well, you’re right about one thing, Nick. This whole set-up sucks. They know damn well you can’t put a guy with ten days’ training up against seasoned German soldiers and expect him to make it. We’re just bodies being thrown in to slow ’em up a bit. He chewed his lip. The kid’s right, all right. It pisses me off.

Sabatino shrugged. Yeah, but at least they’re giving us weekend passes before we go. That’s forty-eight hours. You got a chance to drink yourself to death or fuck yourself to death. Either way’s better than getting shot.

Shit, Nick said. Dead’s dead. What’s the difference?

Sabatino spat. You wanna know the difference? Ask your dick.

Apparently, that was Sabatino’s philosophy of life in a nutshell: Ask your dick.

Admittedly, it wasn’t a profound dogma, but there was a certain pragmatic simplicity to it. So when the promised weekend passes for their company were canceled ten days later, Sabatino consulted first his dick, then his friends, and decided to go AWOL. But being a moral man, he also set a limit on the time they’d be over the hill.

Just forty-eight hours, he explained to a somewhat reticent Fisher. They promised us that much. So we take the forty-eight and turn ourselves in. That way they can’t get too sore or press charges.

What the fuck you mean, they won’t press charges? We’re deserting. In wartime. We could get shot.

The Krauts are gonna shoot us anyway. This way we’ll at least get a little more pussy before we go. He lit a cigarette with his Zippo, looking at Nick over the flame. What do you think, kid?

Toscotti nodded. Sounds good to me. Besides, I already got the passes. He pulled a small pad of paper from his pocket. All we gotta do is fill in our names.

Fisher’s eyes went wide. Jesus Christ! Those are signed. Where’d you get ’em?

I got friends. Nick wriggled his fingers. Ten little pals.

Fisher shook his head. I don’t know. We’re scheduled to ship out in a couple of days. They’ll be watching us real close.

That’s the beauty of it, Sabatino said. We go right into town, bold as brass, then take the first train to London. We get there and split up. You and the kid go see your family. I meet my broad at her place. Day after tomorrow, I swing by your cousin’s, we get back on the train and report to ops. Say we’re sorry. Won’t do it again. May we please go fight now, sir?

Fisher kicked at the ground.

You’re a lunatic, Antone, you know that? He ran a hand through his hair. But you’re probably right. These bastards don’t give a damn about us one way or the other as long as they fill their replacement quotas. Okay, count me in.

Nick ripped two slips off the pad. Phil took one and stared at the signature. I can’t figure it, kid. How’d you get the colonel’s name on blank passes?

He’s gotta sign for stuff at the club all the time. I see the way he does it.

You mean these are forged?

Nick visibly puffed with pride.

Beautiful, Fisher groaned. Fuckin’ beautiful! I hope the MPs are as dumb as I am.

click

Actually, they weren’t. All that dumb. The MPs, that is.

Fisher was the first to hear the word.

They’re pulling passes. No one gets off base. He found his friends and relayed the rumor.

But Sabatino’s dick was already in high gear and not to be denied. There was a way around the guards at the gate. The motor pool depot lay just beyond the perimeter of the camp in a compound all by itself. If they were returning a jeep for one of the officers—

And where are we supposed to get the buggy, Antone?

It’s a big base. Somebody must’ve left one parked somewhere.

That was the last straw for Fisher. He bowed out. Stealing himself for a few days was one thing. That might get his superiors a little upset. But a jeep? They were a lot more scarce than soldiers. A man could go to jail a long time for taking one of those.

Nick had no such reservations. He even volunteered to do the procurement because he knew Sabatino didn’t have a driver’s license.

They said their goodbyes behind the mess hall, just after dark.

Look me up on the front, Phil said, pulling out a Lucky Strike and handing the rest of the pack to Sabatino, who accepted the gift with a nod.

Keep your ass down, he growled. And dig that hole twice as deep as you think you need to.

Three times, Nick chimed in. We’ll all be sharin’ it in another forty-eight.

He tossed a mock salute as they pulled away.

click

After passing the motor pool, Toscotti cut the lights and proceeded to take a diversionary route down a series of farm paths that ambled in what he believed was the general direction of London. An hour and a half later, he mounted a hill and saw the lights of a village about a kilometer away. At the depot, a freight train was beginning to throttle up. He pulled the jeep behind a hedgerow and they ran like hell, managing to scramble into an empty car just as the engine cleared the yard.

Sabatino lay on his back panting as Nick looked around anxiously.

So what do you think? We headed the right way?

Who the fuck cares? the older man wheezed. We’re gonna end up somewhere, and as long as the booze ain’t watered and the women have holes, that’s good enough for me.

Sure—

’S matter, kid? You worried about what’s-her-name?

Gwen.

Oh, yeah, Gwen. Poor little Gwenny. All alone in her big empty bed, waiting for the Yank that never came.

Lay off, will you?

Jeez, she’s really got you pussy-whipped.

Like hell, she does. It’s just that I was counting on seeing her. I’d kind of like to say goodbye in case we really do get our asses shot off.

Sabatino noticed the look on his face and stifled a wisecrack.

Okay, kid. It’s okay. I guess, in a way, you’re kind of lucky to have someone like that. With me, if my girl ain’t around, there’s plenty more pussy to pick from. One’s as good as another.

He sat up and stared at the fog-kissed fields.

It’s a crapshoot, Nick, he said, almost gently. Maybe this time we threw a seven. Maybe we’ll end up where we wanted to go all along.

Toscotti leaned back on his elbows and gazed at the sky. Occasionally, he caught a glimpse of a star, shining through breaks in the clouds. He thought about something a teacher had told him a long time ago, how the light he was seeing now had started out from a distant sun millions of years ago, traveling for eternity across a universe that was infinite and cold and nearly empty.

He felt small.

Do you believe in God, Antone?

Sabatino sighed.

Still worried about dying, kid?

Maybe. But don’t you ever wonder what happens after—you know. If there really is a heaven or hell?

Sometimes, I guess. But I figure it’s mostly a crock of shit the priests and nuns keep feeding everyone. ‘Do what we say, or you’ll be damned forever.’ He snorted. You want hell? Just think about what we’ve been training for.

But maybe it gets worse.

Burning fires? Devils poking you with pitchforks? Sounds like boogey-man crap to me. Something to scare little kids with, don’t you think?

I suppose. Nick sounded hesitant. But you never really know, do you? I mean, it’d be nice if it was true. Part of it, anyway. Like maybe God is watching out for us, or at least that He has some kind of plan that’d make sense if we could figure it out.

He frowned.

But I don’t see it. I mean, I keep trying to understand how people can be so sure about religion and stuff when the world’s as fucked up as it is. It’s not like acting holy and saying a bunch of prayers is earning the Bible-thumpers any special favors.

Sabatino chuckled.

Ain’t that the damn truth? When I was a kid, I had a lucky marble that worked better than all their hallelujahs and amens put together. It was a red Peerie Boulder. I made a wish on it once and it came true.

What’d you ask for?

To go to the movies. Saturday matinee, but who had money? So I rubbed the marble and begged it to send me a nickel. ‘Please, please,’ I said. ‘It’s only five cents.’ Then, I looked down, and what do you know? Right there on the sidewalk in front of me is a dime. I’m telling you, Nick, Lady Luck was giving her ass away that day.

Toscotti’s head bobbed up and down in approval.

Yeah, I know what you mean. That’s the way it has to work if anyone’s gonna convince me. Let me ask God for somethin’ just once and then get it on the spot. No waiting ’til He got around to it, no extra praying or money in the collection plate. No damn candles to light or rosaries to say. Nothing. Just, ‘Hey Lord, I need a Jack to fill this inside straight,’ and bang; there she is. I’m telling you, Antone; that’d make a believer out of me in a second.

Sabatino barked out a laugh.

I think you’d be better off rubbin’ a marble. Or maybe your little Gwenny’s behind. That way, even if you don’t get the miracle you’re looking for, at least you’ll end up with a worthwhile consolation prize.

click

Nick felt himself being jostled. Wake up, kid. This is your stop.

He opened his eyes, still feeling the rhythm of the rails beneath him. How long was I out?

’Bout an hour. Guess what town we’re pulling into?

London?

Not yet, but better for you. Reigate. Fisher’s people are over in Dorking, ain’t they?

Uh-huh.

Look at the map. Sabatino flicked on his lighter. Just a few miles west. Get ready to jump at the next road.

What about you?

I’m going on. If my girl ain’t home, I’ve got a lotta whores to pick from in town. I’ll be on the train when it pulls into the Dorking station Sunday night. Nineteen hundred or so. We can travel back first class.

click

Although it was almost two a.m., there were still lights on in the house. That didn’t come as a surprise to Nick. Gwen’s grandparents often kept late hours.

He knocked and heard the scuffling of feet in the hallway. A woman’s muffled voice asked,

’Ooze there?

It’s me. Nick.

The latch slid back, and the door swung open. A little old lady in a bathrobe stood smiling at him.

’Ere now, it is Nicky-boy. Come to see Gwenny, no doubt. She shook her head. But at such an ’our. Don’t they teach ’em ’ow to tell time in the Army?

Uh, I know it’s late, but see, they’re sending me over in a couple days, and—

O’ they are, are they? Then what’re you standing out there for? Come in, and I’ll go fetch ’er.

Do you think she’ll mind me getting her up?

The old woman patted him on the hand.

I can’t see why she would. I expect it’ll be more fun for you both if she’s awake when you crawl into bed.

Nick blushed. After all these months, he still wasn’t used to the casual attitude Gwen’s people had about sex.

He followed her to the parlor, and he saw Gwen’s grandfather, Bill, slouched in front of the fire in an easy chair. There was a half-empty liter of rum on the floor by his foot.

Look ’ooze ’ere, luv, Grandma cooed as she ushered their visitor to the sofa. Pour ’im a drink while I go get Gwenny. They’re shipping ’im over, ’e says.

Bill lifted the bottle by its neck and offered it to him.

So, mate. You’re really going? Let’s drink to your crossin’. Then we’ll ’ave another to your ’ealth.

Nick took a long pull, coughed a little as he swallowed, then took another.

Thanks, he said, handing it back. Maybe I can bring you some Champagne from France the next time I come.

That’s the spirit, boy! The old man laughed and gulped a swig. Always believe in tomorrow, and to ’ell with the bloody odds!

Nick fidgeted. It was obvious that Grandpa was already four sheets to the wind and would probably be unfurling a few more before the night was through. He watched Bill guzzle a long swallow, and his eyes wandered to the ceiling. Gwen’s room was directly overhead.

Hurry, damn it, he thought. Get down here before the old geezer starts to sing.

click

Time was running out for Nick faster than he knew. When he and Sabatino turned up missing at midnight bed check, the CQ logged it immediately. A call to the local MPs put their names on the round-up roster, and their files were checked for priors. Both men were listed. An arrest stemming from a fight behind a London pub. They’d been released within hours after they gave addresses of where they’d be staying for the duration of their passes. Antone had put down his girlfriend’s, and Nick gave them Gwen’s.

When the notification of their desertion reached the London barracks, it was o-two-fifteen. Less than twenty minutes later, a team was sent to check out the apartments near the local brothels. Another was dispatched to Dorking.

All routine. All very effective.

click

In the meantime, Bill had started on a song.

Then up through the Bay to Lancaster Sound. We sail for glory with Franklin.

Nick groaned inwardly. From the look on the old man’s face, he knew there was a story on the way.

And never turn back ’til the Passage be found. We sail for glory with Franklin.

Gwen’s grandfather swayed to the rhythm of the chantey, pausing between stanzas to swallow a bit more rum. He eyed Nick as he lowered the bottle from his lips.

It was a grand adventure, he said, offering the liquor over. The implication was clear enough. They were going to be here for a while yet.

Lots of men was wanting to go, what with the double pay and all, but they only picked the heartiest. I was one of them. In me prime, so to speak, being only thirty-two.

Nick sighed. Like it or not, he was going to hear this account. Might as well act interested.

So, how long ago was that?

Why, back in ’45, of course. Sailed with Sir John, we did. Just like the song says. Looking for the Passage. A hundred twenty-nine strong, and only me still here to remember.

The kid did some mental subtraction.

C’mon, Bill. That’d make you a hundred and thirty-one years old.

Grandpa puffed up. And not looking a day over fifty, neither. Serves the rest of ’em right for leaving ’Enry and me for dead like that, what with us busting our bleedin’ arses to get back to the ships.

Nick kept playing along. Get back to who?

Why, our mates, of course. Who else? The flippin’ Eskimos?

Nick shook his head. I gotta say, Bill, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Who was this Franklin guy?

Good Lord, son! Don’t they teach you Yanks nothing in school? ’E’s the one what was supposed to discover the Passage. Up through Canada, all the way to the Russkies.

A seaway across Canada? Let me guess: He didn’t make it.

Not by ’alf, he didn’t. Got us caught up in the ice, then went and died. Food started going bad. Me and ’Enry Biggs got sent out to look for more. By the time we come back, they was all gone. ’Enry’d ’ad enough. Stayed to die. I walked out. Shacked with some Eskimos for a couple of years then shipped ’ome on a whaler out of Port Leopold.

I guess that made you a hero, didn’t it?

Like bloody ’ell it did. From the first, the cap’n of that scow called me a liar. Thought I was a jumper name of Edwin. Wanted to put me in irons, ’cept ’e needed the extra ’ands. Swore ’e’d turn me over to the ’thorities when we put in at Liverpool. I wasn’t waiting for more of the same from the admiralty, so before we docked, I went over the side. I come back ’ere to live, and nobody’s been to look me up since.

But wouldn’t the captain of that whaler have reported you, anyway?

Ha! Bill barked. Probably did try to tell a tale on this Edwin bloke. By then it was getting widespread rumored how everyone with Franklin was figgerd dead. So no one’s looking for someone name ’o Bill Nichols. My first wife, Lucy, got the idea to cash in on the policy we took out just before I left.

Insurance?

Man’s gotta take care of ’is own, I always say. Once the Navy said there was no survivors, the company was perfectly willing to pay. So why should I tell ’em different? Let them believe what they want. Besides, ’ow am I supposed to get work anymore if I’m already dead? Too much trouble to prove otherwise. See what I mean? That money made it easy to retire from the sea permanent.

But—

Toscotti’s reply was interrupted when a girl of about seventeen stuck her head into the room. She wore a smile and a very thin nightshirt.

Uh, Bill—

Nick started to ease toward the edge of the sofa. The old man put a restraining hand on his knee.

I know, son. She’s a killer to see, that one is. ’Specially when she’s parading around like that. But pull your eyes away a minute and mind me, boy. I got a reason for telling you what I did.

In spite of himself, Nick turned his gaze from Gwen. Nichols raised a cautionary finger.

It’s about what’s ’appening now what with you going over and all. Just remember that they’re all bloody switched. All of them. There ain’t one that’s sane on the best o’ days.

Who? The Krauts?

Them, too, for sure. But I’m meaning the ’thorities. Startin’ with the next stripe up and going all the way to Roosevelt and Churchill. Don’t believe a thing they says that you don’t ’ave to. Even if they tell you it’s rainin’ and you’re getting wet, don’t believe ’em. ’Alf the time they’re lyin’, and the other ’alf they’re too dumb to know. Trust only yourself, boy, and you be the one what comes out alive.

Nick rose and nodded appreciatively. Then with Bill’s advice under his hat and a last swallow of booze on its way to his belly, he pranced to the hall and took Gwen in his arms.

click

Now, there’s an old saying about nice guys finishing last, and that night Nick was trying his hardest to be decent. He had, in fact, thrown himself headfirst into the task, which is probably why he failed to hear the commotion at the front door or the sounds of the MPs forcing their way in. Contributing to his auditory impairment were Gwen’s soulful expressions of gratitude and satisfaction. Thus, his first awareness of being placed under arrest came when he was rudely separated from his task by a pair of rough hands jerking his shoulders back.

He fell unceremoniously to the floor and jumped up swinging. Big mistake. A baton connected to the side of his head, and he went out like the proverbial light.

Nick found out later that Sabatino had been taken with much less trouble. By the time he arrived at his girl’s apartment, the MPs were already waiting. Running not being one of his favorite activities, he surrendered on the spot.

Which made what happened at the stockade all the more inevitable, I suppose.

click

By the following afternoon, the two men found themselves in front of an unsympathetic battalion commander who had, by then, filled his quota for replacements at the front. With hardly a glance up from his desk, he signed the papers that transferred the prisoners to the barbed-wire enclosure that was serving as the stockade.

The corporal in charge of their punishment squad looked as though he’d broken starch only five minutes before they’d arrived. His boots were spit-shined and his belt buckle polished to a blinding gloss. Even his rifle stock shone.

Sabatino hated him instantly.

His feelings toward the non-com failed to improve when the little bastard lined them up in pairs and started running them a hundred yards across the compound and back again. By the time they’d completed the third return, this exercise was getting pretty old.

To Nick, it was still a game. He’d yet to meet the set of stripes that could match him pace for pace in a physical drill. Consequently, he felt no particular malice toward the gung-ho yo-yo who seemed bent on double-timing them to exhaustion.

But the matter of his interrupted business with Gwen was quite another thing. The totally unexpected invasion of his privacy—especially at that particular moment—had struck him as being remarkably insensitive, even for the Army. He was seething in indignation and only needed the slightest motivation to express his dissatisfaction over the way he’d been treated. Midway through their fourth lap, Sabatino gave it to him.

Hey, kid, he wheezed. This is for shit. Let’s stop before we drop dead.

Nick looked around. Being at the end of the column, this strategy didn’t seem to pose any problem. They’d hardly get trampled. On the other hand, the corporal was dogging their steps, and he was armed. So were a number of other guards who stood at fixed intervals around the perimeter of the compound. This might not be the most opportune moment to tell Uncle Sam to piss off.

Sabatino sensed his hesitation.

C’mon, dammit. What’re they gonna do? Shoot us?

There was an edge to his voice that should have been a red flag. Maybe it was just a lack of sleep. Or maybe lack of pussy. For Sabatino, either one would’ve done it.

Nick shrugged. What the hell—

They slowed to a walk, which allowed the corporal to discover just how crazy Sabatino really was. Angered by this blatant disregard for his authority, the squad leader trotted up behind the older GI and pushed him forward with the butt of his rifle.

Without warning, Sabatino whirled, wrenched the weapon from the non-com’s grasp, and shoved the barrel under his chin.

Back off, he snarled, the veins in his neck popping out. Leave us the fuck alone.

A half a dozen guards swung the muzzles of their M-1’s toward them.

We’re dead, Nick thought. Oh, God, please. I don’t wanna go like this.

He was to remember that prayer forever after.

click

I don’t know whether or not you’re given to a belief in divine intervention. If you aren’t, you can just chalk up what happened next to good luck. But you’ll never convince Nick that it wasn’t a case of the Almighty at work.

click

The stockade was under the command of a major named Charles Grierson. This man had risen to his present rank mainly by default. When there wasn’t anyone else left to put in charge of something, the Army promoted good ol’ Chuck. Well, let’s face it: With a war on, sometimes you have to make do with what you’ve got. Particularly when what you’ve got is the son of a congressman. Not too bright a son, I might add, but the key word is congressman.

So Grierson had job security as long as daddy kept getting re-elected. All the same, the brass wasn’t being any too hasty in advancing junior’s career. He had been a captain forever and had only received his O-4 rating a month earlier when he was assigned to this jail duty. The consensus among his immediate superiors was that there wasn’t too much in four square acres of barbed wire that Charlie could screw up. But for an accident of timing, they might have been proved wrong.

Grierson had enjoyed a prolonged breakfast that morning, lingering over a second cup of coffee as he daydreamed about being awarded his next promotion. When he finally noticed the time, he rose from the table and wiped his mouth hastily, rushing for his office. He stepped through the stockade gates just as Sabatino was grabbing the corporal’s rifle.

Charlie saw the other guards take aim, and an image of his cushy military career ending in a court-martial flashed through his mind. He threw his arms out and ran toward the prisoners, shouting frantically, Hold your fire; hold your fire!

Sabatino took in the moment.

Nick looked as if he were about to crap his pants. The corporal seemed to be in the process of doing so. Several of the MPs had assumed firing positions, and from the side of the yard, a major was screaming something at them about not shooting. This seemed like as good a time as any to get a grip on himself.

Sabatino lowered the weapon and surrendered it to its owner.

The color came back to Nick’s face. They weren’t going to die! Thank God! The words he had spoken on the train came rushing back to him.

Let me ask God for somethin’ just once and then get it on the spot. That’d make a believer out of me in a second.

Yeah, thank God—

The seeds of his faith had been sown.

click

CHAPTER TWO

In April of 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage. The word went out that he was diddling his mistress when it happened. Blew a fuse in his brain, so to speak. Eleanor probably blew her top when she found out. We can only surmise what the mistress blew.

This put Truman in charge of the country, which worked out well for a large number of military misfits, including Sabatino and the kid, whom Harry S. pardoned. Several months later, Nick returned to the States, honorably discharged. Shortly after that, he married a girl he had gone to school with and begat Tony.

Unwittingly, he also begat a war on God.

I was there the day Nick’s son declared open season on the Deity. Formally, I mean. Up to then, there had been an unspoken internal struggle raging between the Lord and Tony’s libido. The Lord was losing.

I know what you’re probably thinking, but please, don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to downplay my role in what happened later just because you’ve got me in custody. On the contrary—I wish I could claim more credit. But it takes a certain kind of person to pursue vengeance with the zeal Toscotti dedicated to the task, and my upbringing simply didn’t prepare me for it half as well as his did. I mean, just look at our parents.

My mother, having married who she considered to be the perfect man, dedicated herself to ensuring that her one and only offspring would be made into his likeness. Tony’s mom, on the other hand, knew her husband’s flaws all too well. Having been raised in a good Italian home, Francesca had clung to most of the traditional values her immigrant parents had carried over from the old country. From the first, she was determined that her son—who, due to complications during delivery, would also turn out to be an only child—was going to be raised in a household dedicated to the Faith.

Nick wholeheartedly felt he should support his wife’s decisions when it came to raising their son, but he felt very little compulsion to live up to Francesca’s moral standards himself. At first, he harbored the illusion that, as man of the house, he’d be given some slack, but apparently she would tolerate no deviation from the Church’s teachings—for any of them.

She made that clear the first time Nick stayed out on a Friday night playing poker with the guys.

The seventy dollars he’d won didn’t make a bit of difference to her.

"Tu se pazz’! she yelled at him when he tried to hand her the cash. You must be crazy if you think I want that kind of money in my home."

"No’ mi rompere i coglioni, he snapped back. If I need my balls busted, I’ll put ’em in a vice myself. You think the grocery man cares where this came from? The doctor? They just wanna be paid. Besides, I won it fair and square."

Gambling!

There was a whole sermon in the way she said that word, and Nick didn’t want to stick around to hear it. He stuffed the wad of bills into his pocket and stormed out the door. When he came back a few beers later, calm and conciliatory, Francesca knew she’d made her point.

Actually, it was one of the few she ever had to press. The fact was, Nick never much questioned his wife’s views on how their home should be run. His firm belief in the Divine had been set by his narrow escape from death in the stockade, and he knew he owed God something for intervening. So if Francesca wanted to shape their only begotten son in the image of the Lord, it seemed that the least he could do was back her up.

As for himself—well, faith was one thing, but he was much too preoccupied with putting food on the table to worry about religion. Although a high school dropout, he’d used the GI Bill to train for a chauffeur’s license. This allowed him to get a job as a truck driver, putting in long hours on the road and trusting Francesca’s judgment to keep hearth and home intact while he was away.

At which she did a credible job. The way Tony told it, only once or twice did her instincts lead her astray. Not that Catholic school kindergarten, per se, was a mistake. But Santa Maria A’ Dorrato, or Saint Mary the Addled as Tony would come to call it, ended up providing a far different kind of educational experience than the one Francesca had intended.

The school was run by Sister Agnes Brauhoff, a no-nonsense refugee from a Hitler youth group. She had taken a vow of chastity, but in her case it was no big deal, because she’d always hated men. Age made no difference. Little boys would grow up someday and try to dominate the members of her sex—unless she could teach them not to even think about it.

At Santa Maria’s, kindergarten was an all-day affair. Children were dropped off at eight-thirty sharp. Mothers were not permitted beyond the vestibule in the church basement where classes were held. This was intended to reduce the amount of crying inevitably displayed by what Sister Brauhoff termed the mama’s boys.

By eight-forty, the kids were lined in rows of two and marched up the stairs for Mass. There the priest walked around the altar, reciting prayers in Latin. None of the five-year-olds spoke Latin. None of them gave a damn about anything the guy in the funny robes was doing. But Tony learned very quickly that when he was kneeling during the Elevation of the Host, his back was to be perfectly straight. If it sagged so that his bottom could rest against the pew behind him, a black-draped arm snaked out from the aisle and pulled him forward by the hair.

And his name was taken down.

Nine-thirty; Mass over. Return to the basement. Time for morning corrections. Everyone whose name was not on Sister’s shit list was herded in front of a curtained stage and told to sit on the floor. Little girls who had misbehaved during worship services were punished by being forced to face the wall so they couldn’t see what was happening to the naughty boys.

In the wings were racks of garments left over from parish rummage sales. Sister Brauhoff would line up the offending male children and hand each of them a dress. They were then ordered to the front of the stage and made to strip to their underwear and change into whatever vestment she had given them. The rest of the kids chanted Shame, shame, double shame before retiring to their tables for crayons or storybooks.

click

I’m not bringing this up just to point out there was a sick nun running a school in Chicago during the fifties. There has undoubtedly been the occasional pervert in every field of human endeavor since the dawn of time. No, the important thing wasn’t that Tony’s kindergarten teacher suffered from some kind of psychotic hang-up. What mattered was the lesson he learned from her about dealing with authority—divine or otherwise.

Only, he didn’t think of it as a lesson at the time. It was more in the nature of terror. Like something in a dream that you can’t see but you know wants to get you, so you try anything you can to get away. But sometimes the thing overtakes you, and you wake up screaming, soaked with pee.

That’s how he explained what it was like the first time Sister Brauhoff pulled him backstage with the other boys. Only he didn’t wet his pants. He crapped them instead. Pure fright, you see. And when he took off his trousers, the whole runny load spilled out of his drawers and dribbled down to the floor, making rough and tough Agnes almost puke; feces being the one thing in life—other than men—that she’d never had the stomach for dealing with.

So, she had to clean him up and wash out his clothes and give him another pair of pants to wear home with a note explaining that he’d had an accident in school but leaving out the part about what caused it. She was very put out with him for all the inconvenience.

She was also very slow to recognize defeat.

The next morning, Agnes tried for revenge. She watched Tony almost exclusively, waiting for some violation of the rules.

But the little guy was onto her. He was careful not to talk to anyone in line. His back ached but remained rigid as he knelt during Mass. He even resisted the temptation to look over his shoulder when he was sure Sister’s eyes were scrutinizing him for defect.

Still, there was no controlling for accidents. On the way downstairs, the child behind him stepped on the heel of his shoe, causing him to stumble.

That’s it! the cowled creature shrieked triumphantly. I’ve had enough of your disruptions for today.

Even at the age of five, Tony understood the nature of injustice well enough to be indignant.

Instead of fear, he felt outrage.

As Sister dragged him by the arm to the stage, an image of her, fuming and retching the day before, flashed through his mind. He smiled inwardly and strained for all he was worth.

The kids had extended recess that morning. It took half an hour for the matron of Santa Maria A’ Dorrato to pull herself together and clean things up.

In the days that followed, Tony became aware of his teacher’s reluctance to complain when his rear end rested on the pew during Communion.

Perhaps the old girl didn’t want to risk waking it up again.

click

I’m not trying to suggest that any single incident could account for Toscotti’s total contempt for the laws of God and man, but kids do pick up on things. Like what’s important and what isn’t—and how adults respond to a situation.

Take my dreams, for example. When I was six years old, I had one that I thought my parents would like to hear about. It concerned an accident I was going to have on the playground that day. Some fifth grader would throw a rock at one of his friends. He would miss the target and hit me instead. In the head. It wasn’t going to hurt that much, but they’d take me to the emergency room for a couple of stitches, and I’d get to eat chocolate ice cream when we got home. Seemed like a decent trade-off to me.

I told dad about it at breakfast.

I’m going to go to the hospital today, I said, shoveling a spoonful of corn flakes into my mouth.

The Wall Street Journal shuffled a little. Nothing serious though, I reassured him.

He mumbled something as mom came to the table with a plate of toast.

What’s not serious, dear? she asked.

The cut on my head.

What cut? Where? She started to part my hair.

It’s not there yet. I dreamed I was going to get one at recess.

Randall, honestly!

My father peered from behind the paper. What, dear?

Not you; your son. Said he dreamed he was going to get hurt at school.

Nonsense. The boy just wants to stay home. Probably has a test or something.

No, I don’t, I protested. I was just telling you what I dreamed.

Father folded the Journal and reached for his coffee.

Son, he said, after a last glance at the front page, an overactive imagination can get you into trouble. Remember that. Now, I think we’ve had enough foolishness at the table for one morning. Finish your cereal. The bus will be along soon.

That, by the way, constituted the kind of parental advice I came to expect whenever I tried to explain anything to my folks. And the extent of their belief in me. Even after what I said came true, they chalked the whole thing up to coincidence. Dad went as far as to suggest that I might have deliberately staged the rock throwing just to prove that my prediction was accurate.

Which is the sort of thing that made me envy Tony’s relationship with his father. Nick Toscotti may not have spent a lot of time at home, but at least he made an effort to give his son some practical, down-to-earth training while he was there.

Like the time he came in from work and stripped to his jockey shorts, throwing his clothes over the back of a kitchen chair. He grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and strolled casually to the living room where his favorite spot on the sofa awaited him.

Francesca was helping Tony build a tower out of blocks. She frowned as her husband entered the room.

Nick! The windows are wide open! The neighbors can see inside.

He barely glanced at the raised shades.

I don’t care if the goddam walls are made of glass, he growled. This is my house. Anyone don’t like it, they can kiss my—

Nick!

Foot.

She glared and turned back to the blocks. Tony looked up at him and smiled.

Ass, Nick mouthed silently, pointing to his rear.

Tony giggled and hid his face from his mother.

click

Perhaps if I had had a father like that—you know, a guy who’d have told people where to shove the things he didn’t like—maybe I’d be the one you goons are fishing for now.

Then again, maybe not.

Given our particular temperaments on the day the hostilities commenced, Tony was definitely more prone to strike the first blow. Thanks, of course, to Margaret Grayson.

He’d met her the summer before he started high school. His first view into the world of class distinction, though he was too smitten with love to recognize the economic forces at play. Up to that time, there wasn’t anything to remind him what side of the tracks he actually came from.

Shortly after his graduation from Sister Brauhoff’s kindergarten, the family transplanted itself to a hiccup on the map some thirty miles west of Chicago. That was Merriville, population 2,356. Francesca had seen the effects of the city streets on her husband, and she was determined to provide a better life for her son.

In the city, they had been poor, living in a two-room apartment, supplementing Nick’s earnings with what at that time was known as relief. They ate a lot of potatoes.

As country folk, they would still be poor, and they’d still eat a lot of spuds. But now they could have a garden and supplement their diet with a greater variety of vegetables. Meat was a twice-a-week phenomenon.

The homestead was on an acre of land surrounded by sections of adjoining farms. Improvements included a seven-hundred-square-foot shack, subdivided into four rooms with an outdoor pump and a two-seater outhouse. That was a lot more square footage than the family had been living in, and the price was right. It was free.

Nick had won the deed in a game of five-card stud. It was the only spoil of gambling Francesca ever accepted. It was also one of the few he ever told her about after she’d rejected that seventy-dollar peace offering he’d made the first time he stayed out playing cards.

The community’s only educational facility was the Sarah Watson School, serving students K through eight. A run-of-the-mill lockstep, replete with teachers who understood the importance of conformity and who saw the classroom as a factory for instilling that virtue in their pupils.

Tony was regarded as a marginal student, one who might make it in life. On the other hand, he could just as easily make it to jail. No one was taking bets. There were just too many contradictions in the boy to allow for an accurate prediction.

To begin with, he never took a book home or paid the least bit of attention to what was going on in class. Yet, in each subject, he managed to squeak by with the lowest possible passing grade. His instructors invariably complained to each other that he always had his face buried in an adventure novel, and as fast as they’d take one away