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“You got good aim and I’m not even fucking around.” Tony playfully nudged Christopher as they walked towards the house. He was sweet to him when the other Tony wasn’t around. “You’re better than I was at that age.”
“Yeah? When can I get one of my own?”
“You gotta wait on that one.” Tony knew better than to trust him with his own gun.
“How long?”
“Don’t worry about it, when the time’s right I’ll get you one.” Tony was about to open the front door but stopped. “All right, just follow my lead here.”
Christopher nodded.
Tony opened the front door and they walked inside. “How’s English class coming along?” he spoke as if he’d just come home from school.
“They said I can’t spell nothing.”
“Can you act like a good fuckin’ student here?” Tony whispered, gesturing to Carmela in the other room. “I know you can’t spell nothing! She don’t need to know that.”
“Anthony, will you shut the door!” Carmela yelled over to him. “I don’t like it open with Meadow toddling around.”
He shut the door and they came into the kitchen, where she was folding laundry. They both said hi to her.
“You making dinner yet?” Christopher asked her.
“I’ll start on it soon,” Carmela sounded curt. “How was school?”
“…I learned how to spell better.” He forgot that she’d just heard him say he couldn’t spell anything.
“Really?” Carmela seemed impressed.
Christopher nodded.
“He’s a good kid.” Tony nodded too. “Really pulling himself up by the boot straps.”
She stopped folding laundry and looked at Tony. “I didn’t know you’d put yourself down as one of Christopher’s emergency contacts at his school.”
“You didn’t?” Tony wasn’t much better at lying than Christopher. “I guess I forgot to tell you.”
“You forgot. Isn’t that funny?” Carmela looked away from Tony and towards Christopher. “Just like how you forgot to go to school today. And any other day this week!”
“He needed some time off, he’s been very upset this week!” Tony acted offended by the implication. “His mother’s been–”
“Oh, pull the other one, Tony!” Carmela knew he was using that as an excuse. “When isn’t she?!”
“Chrissy, go upst–”
“You stay right there!” Carmela stopped him. “Don’t think I’m not blaming you for this too.”
“I’m not the adult here!”
“No, but you’ve got enough brains to say no to those two.”
“Hold on, hold on…” Tony gestured for her to stop. “Who two? What you inferring here?”
“You know damn well who I’m referring to. They thought he might’ve been in trouble, Tony. They could’ve called DYFS! And then what?”
“Carmela…. That’s why I put me down as an emergency contact.” Tony somehow thought that would calm her down. “So none of that would happen.”
“What did you say to ‘em?” Christopher wanted to know how much trouble he’d be in when he went back to school.
Carmela sighed, angry that they’d made her accessory after the fact. “…I told them you had the flu.”
They both looked happy with that.
“Wipe those smiles off your faces!” she yelled at them.
They tried to look serious.
“And they told me all about all those other days you’ve been absent. So you know what? I’m gonna be calling that school up every week til you graduate to make sure you’re showing up there!”
“He’s only got a year left, skipping some days really gonna make that much of a difference?”
“What do you mean he’s only got a year left? He’s in the 9th grade!”
“Did I say a year? I meant 3.”
“Don’t give me that, Tony! You want him to drop out of high school, don’t you?”
“Can I go watch TV?” Christopher was bored now.
“No! You keep your butt right there!” Carmela didn’t look away from Tony. “Don’t you want your own nephew to make a good life for himself?”
“Carmela, I did a semester and a half at Seton Hall and it was a waste of my time and my money. We didn’t get nothing we got by me reading books.”
“What about Meadow? Would you be happy for her to drop out of school at 16?”
“It’s different for her.” Tony shrugged. “She’s a girl.”
“What if we have a son in the future? Would you like him to be a high school drop out?”
“He don’t need to be, I already got Chrissy.”
“Jesus Christ…” Carmela massaged her temples. She accepted that there was no reasoning with him here. “Christopher, just go home! I’m not rewarding your bad behavior with a home-cooked meal.”
“But I don’t got no food at home!”
“Your mother can get you some.” Carmela went back to folding laundry dismissively.
“But I don’t got no mother at home!”
Carmela shook her head to herself. “You two need to come up with a new excuse.”
“I’m fuckin’ serious! She ain’t there.”
“Watch the latrine lip.” Carmela looked at him and paused what she was doing. “What do you mean she’s not there? Where is she?”
“I dunno… I haven’t seen her in a few days.”
Tony was also hearing this for the first time.
“Why didn’t you tell us she’d left you?!” she looked horrified.
He felt secondhand shame from his mother, even if she didn’t feel it firsthand. “…Can I stay for dinner or what?”
“Has she done this before?” Carmela knew he was being cagey.
“No, never.” He shook his head.
“Those terrible lying genes must come down from the Blundetto line, both of you are as bad as each other.” She would’ve laughed if it wasn’t so depressing. “Christopher, you have to promise us that you’re gonna tell us if she leaves you there all alone again.”
“Fine, I promise. Can I stay for dinner now?”
“You got a house key?” Tony asked.
“What do you think, Tony, he’s been climbing through the window for days?” Carmela said sarcastically.
“I can’t stay for dinner?”
“You’re staying for dinner.” Tony gestured for him to relax. “We’ll go to your place after, get your stuff and you can stay here til your mother gets back.”
Part of Christopher hoped that she’d never come back.
After saying that, Tony realized this was a great way to distract Carmela from the whole school situation. “…How long she really been gone for?” He subtly flashed 5 fingers under the counter, then 2.
“What?”
“How many days?” He did it again.
“Uh, a week.”
“You’ve been there by yourself for a whole week?! Christopher, why wouldn’t you tell us that?”
“I told you, he’s been very upset all week!” Tony had absolutely no moral qualms about what he was doing. “But you wouldn’t let me finish. And most them other days he was absent, he was taking care of his mother. Isn’t that right, Chrissy?”
“Yeah…” Christopher worked out what he was doing. “She’s like a vegetable sometimes. She don’t even move.”
“And be honest with us here, how long’s it been since you ate real food?” He held out 5 fingers.
“I’ve barely eaten nothing in 5 days.”
“Oh Jesus, Christopher! You must be starving!”
“I feel like my stomach’s eating itself.” That one wasn’t a lie.
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. Of course you can stay for dinner. You can stay here as long as you like.”
Tony tried not to show that he was happy with himself for pulling that off. “Come on, Chrissy. Help me look for some spare pillows.”
She nodded. “Go on, I’ll call you down when dinner’s ready. Wait!”
They both felt nervous when they heard that.
“Take these.” Carmela threw a bag of chips at him. “Tide you over til dinner.”
“Thanks.” Christopher opened them as quickly as he could.
They walked upstairs, holding back smirks until Carmela couldn’t see them anymore.
“You fuckin’ believe that?” Tony said quietly. “I can’t believe how lucky we got with this thing with your mother.”
“Lucky?” Christopher’s smile fell. “You know she really ditched me, right?”
“Yeah, that brings me onto something, why the fuck didn’t you tell me about that? I’m supposed to be your uncle, you think your father would want you to keep shit like this from me?”
“I dunno, T. I never met the guy.”
“Hey!” Tony pointed at him sternly. “Just ‘cause you don’t remember him don’t mean you never met him. Don’t forget that.”
“…How long you think dinner’s gonna be? I’m hungry as fuck, these chips ain’t gonna do nothing.”
“Jesus Christ.” Tony shook his head and walked away. “I’m talking to you about your legend of a father and you’re thinking about food.”
“You try eating hardly nothing for days.” Christopher caught up with him. “…I don’t get why she does it, Ton. She says she can’t stop herself but it don’t make sense to me.”
“Some people are just weak, Chrissy. They got no self control. They go about making excuses for themselves ‘cause deep down they know they’re pathetic,” Tony set Christopher up for a lifetime of self-loathing. “It’s a good thing you can’t understand, means you’re nothing like her.”
Christopher nodded.
Tony ruffled his hair and thought of a distraction. “You wanna see how to hide a gun?”
“Yeah.”
Tony opened the closet that had pillows in and lifted the ceiling tile to hide the gun.
“Shit, the ceiling?”
“Yeah, I’ll show you other places tomorrow.” Tony handed him pillows and shut the closet door. “Listen, Christopher. You wanna learn the business? Here’s a tip for you. Every cloud has a silver lining. And your mother being how she is, that’s our silver lining here.”
“How?”
“You know how many excuses we can get outta this? We gotta take full advantage, long as we can til Carmela catches on. We’re milking this thing for everything it’s worth.”
“What else we gonna say though besides this? I can’t think of nothing else to lie about.”
Tony had a brief debate with the angel and the devil on his shoulders. “…How you feel about getting a black eye?”