THAT TIME I WAS A STOOL PIGEON

Eddie Two-Nose said to those fat greasy mooks around the table, “Johnny the Scar is gettin’ fifteen to twenty for making those old ladies box each other. So he’s fucked. What I want to know is… which one of you scumbags finked?” And he pointed at us with his large index finger, and his large pinky finger too, so that we would all marvel at the enormous golden pinky ring set around it. Which we did.

Eddie was your classic greaseball, slick-haired and short-tempered, with a golden chain around his neck nestled in a tuft of greasy black chest hair. Eddie sure was an ugly motherfucker, but he was also very sweaty. He continued to browbeat us with his heavy brow.

We’d been playing poker, me and the boys. There was Petey Shine-shine and Vinnie the Mule and Jimmy Sugar and Ol’ Peg Leg Paulie. I only had a lousy pair of twos and the smoke from Petey’s cigar was making my eyes water. I said, “Hey, ease off with that thing, will ya?”

Petey, a tall dick-nosed wop with a broad forehead and stooped shoulders, said with a stupid grin, “Why? Afraid it’s gonna kill me?”

“No, you stupid fuck,” I said with murder in my eyes, just like a real old-fashioned paisan, “I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you!” This kind of psychotic outburst would have been totally out of bounds in any ordinary and decent social setting, but we were in a room full of Italians. And they loved it. Some of them clapped me on the back. One of them gave me his watch.

But I really didn’t have any business being there. The truth is I wasn’t really in the mob, or la familia as they liked to call it, and actually I couldn’t remember how I’d even gotten into the building, or what I was doing at that table.

I’d never really understood the game of poker. I kept asking for cards and expecting someone to give them to me, even when they told me to stop asking. I thought getting all even numbered cards two hands in a row was pretty neat but no one else seemed to care. I’d throw poker chips onto the table whenever there was a lull in conversation, and twice asked the gang if we wouldn’t be better off playing something like gin rummy, a game I also didn’t understand.

And now here was Eddie Two-Nose with a loaded .45. Evidently this Johnny the Scar was an important figure around here, and Eddie wanted answers no one seemed able or willing to give. Even the great lummox that was Vinnie the Mule, nearly three hundred pounds of wet salami stuffed into a blue tracksuit, didn’t want any part of it. The fat fuck couldn’t even look Eddie in the eyes.

“Nobody talked, huh?” Eddie said. “I find that very interesting. Seein’ as how it was only the ugly mugs in this room that knew about Johnny’s connection to the old lady boxing ring in the first place.”

Peg Leg Paulie, the youngest and by far greasiest of us, said, “Well, maybe not, Eddie. I mean what if one of them old ladies–”

Eddie shot Paulie through the lungs. Paulie spat up blood all over his sweat-stained wifebeater shirt and keeled back in his chair. “Hey, what the fuck?” Petey Shine-shine said. “He owes me fifty gabagools!”

“So take it out of his wallet,” Eddie snapped, and announced to the rest of us, “And it wasn’t no old ladies. It couldn’t be. None of them ever survived long enough to talk. That was the whole point of an old lady boxing league, as I understand it. Didn’t even have to pay them, really. It was brilliant. You know not a single one of them ladies ever made it past the first round? Not one.”

“That’s their fault,” Jimmy Sugar said, scratching at a heavy white sideburn. “No conditioning.”

“Boxing’s mostly cardio,” Petey said, rummaging through Paulie’s clothes.

“That’s what I said,” Jimmy said.

“I know.”

“Shut up,” Eddie said. He pointed the pistol at the Mule. “Vinnie… you been awfully quiet. You got anything you want to get off your chest?”

“Yeah,” Petey snorted. “About two hundred pounds.”

Vinnie exploded. “Hey, fuck you, Petey!” He grabbed Petey by the collar with his many-ringed ham fist and made like to cave in his head with the other. “I’ll fuckin’ kill you!” Vinnie shouted. “I’ll fuck your motha!”

“Fuck you,” Petey shouted back, brandishing a switchblade. “I’ll fuck YOUR motha!”

Eddie slammed his fist into the table. “Nobody’s fuckin’ anybody’s motha till I get some answers over here!”

“Alright,” Jimmy Sugar said, the wisest and most wrinkled of us all. “Let’s everybody just calm down and have some ziti.”

And Vinnie said, having totally forgotten his desire to commit murder not one moment earlier, “When the fuck are the breadsticks gettin’ here?” He looked impatiently around the Olive Garden.

Our waiter, a sawed-off fourteen year old with a pimple on his nose, was all the way across the restaurant trying to placate a table full of senior citizens. “It’s not always like this here,” he was telling them, and quietly turned up the knobs on their oxygen tanks.

Eventually the manager paid us a visit, prompting a whole lot of very Italian-sounding “Ohs!” and “This guy!” He was a short balding man with glasses and a reddish brown mustache. For some reason he wore a suit.

“Hey, fellas,” he said with a bootlicking smile. “Do you think you could maybe keep it down a little? Maybe put out the cigars, put some of these guns away?”

“Get a look at this guy’s duds,” Petey Shine-shine said, pinching the man’s fabric. “What is this, tweed?”

“Ooh la la,” Jimmy said, chuckling. “Very fancy.” The boys all had a good laugh at the manager’s expense, who by now realized it was foolish to have ever expected any form of cooperation. Then Eddie pointed his gun at the guy and threatened to murder his entire family, and he left us alone. A while later a bottle of wine was delivered to the table, free of charge.

“Now that’s more freakin’ like it,” Vinnie the Mule said. “A little respect.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Eddie Two-Nose said. “Now back to business. I know it was one of you guinea motherfuckers who squealed, and I want to know who it was right now so I can shoot you in the face with this gun.”

“How do you know you didn’t already get the guy?” Jimmy Sugar said. “What if Paulie was the rat?”

“Who?” Eddie said. Jimmy motioned toward the corpse. “Oh, yeah. No, that was different. I killed him for different reasons.”

“Italian reasons?” Petey Shine-shine said, just to be sure.

“Of course,” Eddie said. Again he aimed the pistol at Vinnie. “Enough stalling, you fat fuck. Did you talk?”

“Hey, what are you singling me out for?”

“Don’t fuck with me, Vinnie. I know you had it out for Johnny ever since he muscled you out of the boxing thing.”

“It was my idea, Eddie! My idea! He knows I love workin’ with old ladies! It was always my dream! So I told that fuckin’ gabagool to sit on my fist and spin! But I told him to bafangool to his face! I ain’t no fuckin’ rat.”

“First of all,” Eddie said. “Watch the language. There are kids in here.” Then he made the sign of the cross for some reason.

“Yeah, Eddie,” Petey said, “But you was just–”

“Never mind what I was doin’,” Eddie said, slapping Petey upside the head. “As for you, Vinnie, I hear what you’re saying. And I respect it. And I respect you. And I’m hearing that you respect me. I always liked you, Vinnie. You was always someone I could respect. That’s why it’s such a shame that I’m about to make pastrami out of your brains.” But before Eddie Two-Nose could pull the trigger, I stood up, having heard quite enough.

I was pretty sure I had it all put together now, and was ready to share my theory. “Eddie,” I said. “I got it. It’s me. I’m the rat.”

“You?” Eddie said. “What the fuck are you talkin’ about?”

“It’s me, Eddie. I mean… I think it is.”

Eddie leaned forward. All of them did. Eddie said, “Oh, now this I gotta hear…”

“There really isn’t much to tell,” I said. “It’s actually very simple. Clearly, at some point I must have ratted out Johnny the Scar, and then later felt so guilty about it that I gave myself amnesia.”

“Oh, really?” Eddie said sardonically. “And just how did you accomplish this psychological feat?”

“By creating a split personality,” I said. “I became a different guy completely just so I wouldn’t remember. For example, I no longer like cheese.”

“OH!” Eddie and Petey and Vinnie and Jimmy gasped, as well as several other patrons.

“I know,” I said. “It’s crazy. But I think I’m just a salad guy now. And maybe the occasional smoothie.” I shrugged.

“Mama mia!” Vinnie the Mule said, slapping a hand to his big balloon cheek. “This is like some kinda spacey sci-fi Matrix shit or somethin’!”

Jimmy petitioned his dead mother to protect him. “Gabagool,” he whispered.

“That’s why I’ve been so bad at poker all night,” I explained. “I mean usually I’m a real king ace, a real jack of queens, right?” No one could disagree.

“You know, I thought there was somethin’ off about you tonight,” Vinnie said, wagging his fat finger. “Like maybe you was dealin’ with a massive head wound or somethin’.”

“Yep,” I said. “And I assume that’s also why Jimmy called me a retard earlier.”

“I didn’t call you a retard.”

“Oh, no?” I said. “Well, thank you.”

Petey Shine-shine shook his head. “You know, I never liked science fiction,” he said. “I’m more of a Coen brothers guy.”

“Oh! What’s the matter wit’ you?” Vinnie said. “Ain’t you never seen Star Wars?”

“Of course I seen Star Wars,” Petey said. “I friggin’ love Star Wars. But Star Wars is not, strictly speaking, a work of science fiction. Star Wars is in fact a fantasy.”

“On your motha!” Vinnie and Eddie and Jimmy said, drawing their weapons and aiming right for Petey’s thick skull.

“You think we’re into some kinda pussy dragon shit?” Eddie Two-Nose asked his dear friend of forty years. “Some fuckin’ wizard with some fuckin’ glass crystal ball shit? Dwarves? Fuckin’ dwarves, motherfucker?”

And Petey went on to explain, “I’m simply saying that the underlying elements present in Star Wars, such as knights and monsters and a mythic quest to save a princess, as well as a quasi religious order practicing magic, are all very much things one would traditionally find in a classic work of–”

Eddie shot Petey dead. We all did. Between the four of us we put thirty-six holes in him that night, one for every Star Wars film.

They hadn’t even cleared Paulie’s carcass out of the way yet. The service in this place was a joke.

Jimmy Sugar assured the other diners, “It’s okay, folks. Keep eating your pastramis and your raviolis. Just taking care of a little family business over here. Nothing to worry about. And if I see one cell phone light up I’m gonna shoot out your fuckin’ eyes!” Jimmy fired his pistol into the air again, three, maybe six times.

Eventually we all sat down.

“Okay,” Eddie said to me, his pistol trained for my head. “I appreciate your honesty. But you know what this means, don’t you?”

“Not really,” I said.

Eddie pulled back the hammer. I stared down the barrel. My life flashed before my eyes, which because I was only a split personality didn’t take very long. It was pretty much just me sitting in an Olive Garden.

Then Eddie cracked a smile, and Eddie laughed. He said, “It means you are one sick fuck, Johnny!” He slapped me hard on the arm and threw his head back in laughter. Everyone did. Even me.

“Johnny?” I said. “Yes, Johnny… Oh, I’m Johnny the Scar!”

“You sure are, you dumb son of a bitch!” Jimmy said.

“Oh! Oh, so I’m going to jail!” We all had a good laugh about it, and later I got some phone numbers from those old ladies. “You could have been a contender,” I said to them. “Heck, you still could be. Do you ladies like punching each other in the face?”

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