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Late afternoon in the Bing, and everything’s glossed over with a bright, sleepy haze, yellow light the color of old paper trickling through the blinds as the sun edges closer to the horizon. The shadows are long, and tired.
Tony’s smoking a cigar with Silvio, watching Paulie rack up some balls at the pool table. Feet propped up on a chair, Sil behind a scuffed wooden desk, working at his calculator, flipping through some sheets of financials with occasional irritated hm-s. Business hasn’t been very good, lately, Tony reflects; they keep telling themselves that whores and gambling are recession-proof, but so far that hasn’t seemed to be the truth. They haven’t had a decent honest-to-God bachelor party come in in weeks. The envelopes that get passed from hand to hand to hand are starving, growing thinner.
Business is bad, worldwide—that’s the news. Business is bad, and Tony’s bad, and he’s halfway to falling asleep in his seat, head lolling to the side, continually feeding himself the cigar to keep himself alert.
He’s waiting. They all are.
Chrissy left this morning to feed a bullet into the head of a man in Newark, or so he’d promised. Derek—the degenerate gambler—isn’t really connected, but he kind of is through some distant cousin of Carmine’s, so the situation needs to be handled delicately. Carmine can’t find out. Tony gnaws on the end of his cigar and exhales smoke, stomach curdling with some undigested nausea. Would’ve been nice to see Melfi today, maybe she would’ve had some advice to—
The door opens, and Chris walks in, clean and dressed in a leather jacket and black designer sunglasses that he doesn’t take off once he’s inside.
“Check it out.”
Chris reveals a cage from behind his back with a flourish with an honest-to-god—
The cigar almost falls from Tony’s lips.
Chris cocks his head to the side and grins. “Ain’t that some shit?”
“Chrissy, what the fuck,” Paulie says after a moment, struck dumb. “Is that a fucking parrot?”
The parrot is gray all over, like it’s been set on fire and hasn’t yet shaken off the soot. It blinks out at the stunned crowd from its wire cage with beady, intelligent eyes, black pupils lined with white. It readjusts its wings self-consciously.
(It was quite a thing, when those ducks visited—)
“I had to take it with me. These things are smart.” Chris shakes the cage a little before he sets it down on a desk, eyebrows lifting over his sunglasses. “It saw me whack Derek. Starin’ at me the whole time, repeatin’ shit.”
“Get the gun,” the parrot squawks, on cue.
There’s another minute of stunned silence. Then:
“That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard,” Paulie snaps, as if he can’t hold his indignation back any longer. “Kidnapping a parrot—Jesus. Are you fuckin’ high?”
“Get the gun, get the gun,” the parrot repeats.
“I’m not, but even if I was, that’s besides the point,” Chris says, frowning. “It can fuckin’ talk. Ade made me watch a movie once where they put a parrot on a witness stand, and I know it’s crazy, but why risk it, eh? What if a group of detectives comes by and uses it as a clue?”
“That’s some Nancy Drew shit,” Silvio remarks, to Tony’s left. Lips curved down in their usual mean-mug frown. “That shit don’t happen in real life.”
Tony bursts out laughing.
Everyone turns to stare at him, but he can’t stop himself. He laughs so hard and so long that Silvio starts tentatively joining in, chuckling like he’s more concerned than anything else.
“You’re worried Polly McParrot is gonna testify against you?” Tony cries out, almost wiping away tears, now. “Larry Bird’s gonna rat you out?”
“Suppose she’ll do anything for a cracker,” Paulie joins in, tentatively nodding along.
“Get the fuck outta here.” Ah, Jesus—Tony slaps a hand against his thigh and fights to catch his breath. “What did you want us to do with it, anyway? Whack it?”
Chris scratches at the back of his neck and glances to the side. “I thought we could rehome it. Or somethin’. I don’t know!” he protests.
“Shoulda slit its throat,” Paulie says, matter-of-fact.
“Oh!” Tony starts, his smile fading. “What the fuck, Paulie?”
“It talks, but it’s an animal, Ton, it don’t got a soul.” Paulie grimaces. “Hard to think of a better rat to get rid of. With the exception of a former friend of ours.”
“Animals do got souls. Jesus Christ!” Tony spits. He gives Paulie an indignant glance to the side at the reference to that former friend currently lying at the bottom of the ocean, wrapped in trash bags, and stands and makes his way over to the cage to get a closer look. He tries to release a breath sticking in his throat—
(four dollars a pound)
—and attempts a wavering smile at the bird, slotting his fingers between the iron bars. “What about cats and dogs and things?” he calls over to Paulie. “You sayin’ dogs don’t have souls?”
“Is Dexter ill?” the parrot squawks.
It tilts its head to the side, blinking, studying Tony with a lilt of curiosity. And—Tony finds himself smiling back, a flush of warmth settling over him. Quite a thing, seeing an animal speak like that. Like a little baby learning to talk.
“Pie-O-My’s got a soul,” he insists, waggling his fingers at it. Something about the parrot strikes a chord in him familiar to the one he’d felt while petting the racehorse’s soft muzzle, down at the stables. Both beautiful, innocent creatures, he thinks, marveling at the spark of intelligence in the parrot’s eyes. Something childlike about it. “What’s this one’s name?” Tony starts suddenly, looking up at Chris.
“Dexter,” Chris intones.
“I guess that makes sense.” Tony shrugs, heart tugging slightly as Dexter claws at his perch and squawks something more unintelligible. Awh… hello… hello… hello… Is Dexter ill?
“We should get him some water,” Tony says. He jerks his head over his shoulder at Silvio. “Come on, get him a bowl or somethin’. He’s probably thirsty.”
“Animals ain’t meant to talk. I don’t like it,” Paulie says again, dark eyes growing bigger. He tosses his pool cue aside and walks away from the table. “Fuck it. I’m goin’ to the crapper. Speaking of, that thing’s gonna fling its shit all over the place,” he goes on, sticking a stubborn finger in the parrot’s direction, leveling a glare at it.
“Paulie,” Tony starts, exasperated.
Dexter cocks his head back and meets Paulie’s eye across the room. “Paulie,” the parrot repeats, clear as a bell.
Paulie pales a little, stumbling back a step. Chris lets out a bark of laughter.
“See, that ain’t right,” Paulie insists, jabbing his finger at it again. “That ain’t what God intended. Jesus. It knows my name, fuckin’ shoot it. Fuckin’ rat with wings. Probably got diseases and shit, too, who fuckin’ knows!”
“Derek was lookin’ after it!” Chris protests, still laughing. “Gettin’ it vaccinated ‘n shit, throwing away fuckin’ thousands of dollars of our money!”
But Paulie’s already out the door, swinging it shut behind him.
“Maybe AJ would like a pet,” Tony muses to himself, out loud. He grins over at the parrot and sinks to his knees, getting down to its eye level. “Hey Dexter. Say ‘Paulie,’ again, eh?” he smirks, winking over at Silvio. “Say ‘Tony.’”
“Paulie,” Dexter repeats.
“Now say Tony.”
“Paulie, Paul… Paulie…”
“We’ll work on that.” Tony pats the top of the cage affectionately, beaming as he straightens back to his full height. Okay. Maybe this could teach AJ some responsibility—they could use taking care of Paulie as a trial run, like, for life. For his only failure of a male heir having kids someday. God knows the kid needs some direction; something to tie him down besides for those goddamn video games. Maybe he should’ve done this kind of thing years ago, given AJ a fish or something.
He can already hear Carmela’s complaints: I’ll be the one that ends up taking care of it, Ton, and—okay. Maybe they’ll only try it for a week, see what happens. Rehome it afterwards, if necessary.
“You gettin’ him that water?” Tony asks Silvio again. Silvio rolls his eyes up to the ceiling and sighs.
“What?” Tony snaps.
“You, ever since meetin’ that horse…” he says, shaking his head.
Tony has no idea, for a while, what he means.
—
“...I’m afraid expulsion is the only answer! It’s the opinion of the entire staff that he’s criminally insane!”
“Hey Ade!” Chris calls over the sound of the television, blurring through some old black and white shit on cable. An old lady pleading to the school principal for her junkie fuck of a son, some kind of PSA about drugs. Funny how that shit always seems to come on when he’s about to take some H.
“Ade!” he shouts again.
“What? What is it, Christopher?”
Adriana emerges from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. She’s been reheating a pizza; too tired to cook tonight, she says, and she’s preparing for her shift at the Crazy Horse. She’s been tired most of the time, lately. There’s black bags hollowed out under her eyes. And a bruise on her cheek from—
(It doesn’t matter—)
“You would not believe some of the crazy shit I saw today,” Chris chortles, running the burnt spoon in his hand over a lit candle. The tiny rock of heroin inside starts to dissolve, and the water boils, running dark with the H like a spoonful of maple syrup. Makes his stomach turn over, sometimes.
“Oh, so you’re talking to me about work, now?” Adriana crosses her arms, for some reason pissed off about this. “You never talk about work.”
“You know what I fuckin’ do, Ade, c’mon. What’s with the fuckin’ attitude?” But she doesn’t answer, and he sighs and sets down the spoon, takes up his syringe. Old, practiced motions, a habit he doesn’t want to admit to himself. “I was just gonna tell you somethin’ funny.”
“Funny how?”
“Well, there was this fuckin’ parrot that—”
He glances over, and sees her concentrating more on the syringe than on him, as he sucks up what he can. Her eyes blank, unfocused,
(A bruise on her cheek from—)
(adriana ‘m not a fuckin’ junkie ‘m not)
“Nevermind,” Chris says, swatting a loose hand at her. “If you’re not gonna fuckin’ listen, why bother.”
“I just don’t wanna hear about your work. That’s all.” Adriana shakes her head, not looking at him, folding her arms around herself like she’s freezing. She shivers. “Makes me nervous. I worry about you, baby.”
“Jesus. You need to stop with that shit. Every time, lately,” Chris grumbles, rolling his eyes. All this morbid shit—whenever he opens his mouth around her, she goes on and on with the grisly scenarios. What if something happens to you? You already got shot, what if… Maybe we should go somewhere. California has those redwood trees, and the sky there is supposed to be as clear as anything at night… You remember our fourth date when we went out to the ocean, and you told me you’d never seen so many stars? Yeah, well, that was North Jersey, this don’t even compare. California’s got a million of ‘em. They’ve got Hollywood, like you like, and I was watching a movie the other day that—
“Rannygazoo, let’s have a tune,” says the television. Or something like that. The words all slur together as Chris pulls a makeshift tourniquet tighter across his bicep with his teeth, clenching around old rubber, retracing some bite marks from the times before. “And when I count three—”
“How’re we gonna have a stable marriage if we don’t commun… communicate,” Chris says, a pleasant numbness tingling through his limbs after he injects the H, and feels the coolness of it rush through his veins. Sweet, heavy bliss. He slumps back against the couch, eyes fluttering open and shut. He could just… sleep… for a while, like this. Never wake up.
The thought almost makes him smile, as a velvet blanket lowers itself over his mind and softly smothers it. It’s over, The End. Cut to Black. He can’t think anymore. He’d been angry about something, but now a thin shadow is moving at the edge of his vision, and Adriana is gone.
—
He was white as a sheet—
“...so AJ had to get rid of the parrot,” Tony finishes with a sigh, patting his hands against his leather armchair.
Melfi cocks her head to the side with a knowing glance. She always has this pouting-baby look when she’s listening to him that curls her lips, and makes him feel like he’s six years old again. Like his mother with her calculating eyes, turning over answers to questions the way she’d sharpen her knives for the weekly meat deliveries. Subtle shrieks of metal on stone, flashing angles of steel.
Italians and their meat. He’d been warned all his life.
(four dollars a pound)
“I know what you’re gonna say.” Tony speaks louder, cutting her off before he knows she’s about to speak. “Another bird, like the ducks, I know. But is it a crime to care about a living, breathing little creature? Want to give it a good home?” He flings an irritated hand at her, then lets it drop. “AJ wasn’t up to the task, because apparently African Greys need four hours of playtime a day or somethin’, they’re quite needy. Kinda like him, sometimes, so I thought it would fit.”
He smiles, but it fades as he remembers AJ shouting at Dexter to shut the FUCK up after a half-hour of repeating get the gun, get the gun, get the gun. He’d almost slapped the kid. Maybe his father would’ve done it back in the day, called it an act of love.
“It was quite an intelligent thing, that creature,” Tony says softly. Making an effort to paste on his smile again. “You could see it, in its eyes. It could recognize me. Reminded me of the kids when they were babies, the way they’d look up at their mother.”
“You think it trusted you,” Melfi says simply.
“Well, what other choice did it have?” Tony looks down at his hands, fidgeting with his wedding ring.
“Did that feel good, Anthony?” Melfi pushes, adjusting her clipboard on her lap. “Being implicitly trusted, without judgment or scorn?”
“There’s not that much trust in my life, I guess.” He shrugs, still looking down. His ring catching the light, spun in gold. “For obvious reasons that I won’t get into.”
He doesn’t mention that Dexter was there when Chrissy murdered his owner, get the gun, and then Dexter was eagerly accepting pellets from Tony’s hand the day after, and he hadn’t felt the least bit guilty. Didn’t feel anything but happy, laughing as Dexter had pecked at them—until he started to whine and fuss and make silence-shattering squawking noises at three in the morning, making Carmela turn over and press a pillow over her head. For the love of God, Tony.
(get the gun get the gun get the)
(four dollars a pound)
He can feel his breaths getting shorter, the familiar tightening in his chest, vision swimming—
“Anthony. Are you alright?”
Melfi’s voice, coming back into focus as the tightening slowly unwinds, and his heart slows from highway-speed back to something manageable. “Jesus,” he says, sniffling, not able to stop the tears as they spill down, hot and humiliating. He shakes his head and swears under his breath. “Oh Jesus fucking Christ. Fucking birds.”
He snags a wad of Kleenex from the tissue holder that Melfi pushes toward him, swiping at his wet cheeks.
“He was just like… a little baby,” Tony croaks. Then shakes his head; she won’t understand. Nobody ever does. They’re only animals, they say, like that should disqualify them from giving a shit about anything innocent in this miserable fucking world—
“He made me laugh,” Tony says. “For once, he made me fuckin’ laugh like I wasn’t the sad fuckin’ clown.”
“Like you weren’t laughing on the outside, crying on the inside,” Melfi says, leaning forward. Sharp green eyes intent. “You felt like you were laughing on the inside, too. This bird reminded you of your innocence, and that of your children. Not unlike the ducks,” she says, and then she says something else, and Tony stares past her at the wall and starts dreaming of a drink. And Pie-O-My, and feeling her hot breath heave against her stomach, and Carmela out in the backyard with a flashlight at night, unraveling the money from its plastic in the padlocked box next to the pool, and ramming his face against a brick wall, over and over and over again.
—
And he also made false teeth—
“Oh, you know. Avalanches above, business continues below us,” Johnny Sack is saying, blowing out a string of smoke from between his lips. A white cigarette stuck in the corner. “Little Carmine kicks up a fuss, everything continues on as normal. Nothin’ to worry about, from our end.”
“Yeah, nothin’ here, either,” says Tony.
Things are still tense. Johnny’s forgiven the ten-pound-mole wisecrack made about his wife, it seems, but bad business has only stirred things up that they both would like better buried: Frelinghuysen Avenue, some minor arguments between the lower guys jacking trucks on the street. A shipment of suits that was supposed to go to Carmine’s ending up at Tony’s. Oh well—the damage had been done, he’d promised to pay for the suits.
They’re walking through Johnny’s backyard, sinking wet snow through Tony’s thin shoes. He balls up his fists in the pockets of his trenchcoat and tries not to notice the chill.
“There was something, though,” Johnny brings up suddenly, with a knowing glance. They stop, and face each other. “Carmine has this kid, Derrick. Second cousin of his. Moved out to your part of Newark a few years ago.”
Derrick is—was—actually the son of that second cousin, but Tony doesn’t bring that up. “Oh yeah?” he says instead, raising his eyebrows.
Johnny plucks the cigarette from his lips and exhales a thin stream of smoke. Burning the air with that acrid nicotine-smell, and Tony tries not to react, this close.
“He’s dead, Tony.” Johnny’s gaze levels with his. “Got shot in his living room. The feds are around, asking questions.”
“Well, that’s a shame,” he says, without bothering to cover his sarcasm. “Please send Carmine my sympathies.”
“I will.” Johnny pauses, flicking a bit of ash from his cigarette off to the side. He sighs. “All this death, lately. Certainly doesn’t help anything.”
“Yeah, it’s a shame.”
“You’d think things are peaceful, on the outside looking in. But people keep dropping dead.”
There’s a wistful air to it that Tony doesn’t quite understand, as he looks past Johnny into the sparse woods circling his property. Dark, bare trees, snow stirred by the wind, powdery waves of it dropping from the branches with dull creaks like the bends of a boardwalk beneath his feet. The sky is a blank shade of gray that borders on white, pressing down from above.
Tony almost thinks about smothering his mother. The white coolness of the pillow—something that didn’t happen, something that he shoves aside now and forgets.
“Well, I gotta get back inside,” Johnny sighs again, eventually. He throws down his cigarette butt and grinds it into the snow with his heel. They reach over and hug and clap each other’s backs, knocking the wind and snow from their coats. “Ginny’s making a roast. It’s a cheat day, for her—she works hard on all her dieting, she deserves it.”
“Yeah, have a good time with that.” Fat fucking cow. Tony draws back with a smile and another pat, swiping some invisible specks of dirt from Johnny’s shoulder. He looks up—a few soft, bloated snowflakes have started to circle down from the sky. He steps away from Johnny and keeps squinting at the gray veil of clouds swirling overhead.
“Guess I better go before my car gets buried,” he says.
“Yeah, see you around, Tony.”
They part ways, two sets of footprints arcing away in the snow, Tony wiggling his wet toes and wishing he’d brought a proper pair of boots. Should’ve known better than to assume that Johnny would let them take their meeting inside. New York’s been in a bad mood, lately.
But then, so has everyone.
—
“Well, look who it is!” Ralphie says, grinning and clapping Tony on the back. “The man with the golden eyeball! Mister Horse Whisperer himself!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Tony says, trying not to grin too much under the weight of the compliment. Feels good, though. “How’s Pie doin’? Over that thing with her right hoof?”
“Lois says she’s great,” Ralphie comments, already looking past Tony for a drink. “‘Course on that last race, I didn’t think she’d do it, but you knew.” Ralphie levels a knowing finger at him, shaking his head. “I doubted, but you knew.”
“I guess,” Tony admits. Great, now he’s really beaming. You want to get to the heart of a man, compliment his horse—Ralphie’s horse, he corrects mentally. Not technically his, but she might as well be.
“How you doin’, T?” Ralphie asks, and then they have to start maneuvering over to the bar and talking business. Problems with the unions, same old shit. Ralphie looks tired. His toupee is sticking worse than usual to his forehead, and he’s sweaty, like he’d already had a couple lines of coke before he’d finally decided to show up.
Tony doesn’t remotely like Ralphie, but business isn’t about who you like, or what you really want. He sits down at a table with him and Silvio and Patsy and a few other guys laughing and making jokes (hopefully not about Ginny Sacrimoni’s fat ass) and watches, strangely hypnotized, as the girls spin around their poles at the Bing. The loudspeakers are playing “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” The blonde up front with extensions down to her ass is twirling with one leg up and the other crooked around her pole, spinning a delicate white heel. Like a Cinderella with faker tits.
Chris shows up an hour late, plucking another pair of black sunglasses from his eyes, and complains about traffic. Patsy laughs so hard at something behind them that his gin-and-juice runs down his chin, slapping at his thigh. I’m sorry, T. Tony stands up and tells the room that he needs some air, then goes and grabs another drink at the bar instead. He throws it back, blinking, the room running in and out of focus. The song seems to—to blur together, and squawk, and make him think of Dexter the Parrot.
Get the gun get the gun get the gun
(four dollars a pound)
“This scotch sucks, Georgie,” Tony says, slapping his glass back on the bar with a thunk. “Pour me another one.”
“Sure thing, T. Sorry.” Georgie shrugs, and pours. There’s another fat fuck, trying to seem tougher with ripped sleeves and tattoos. Everyone gaining weight nowadays, the weight sticking around, making problems. Even Tony looks in the mirror sometimes and doesn’t quite process what he sees—in his mind, he’s still that seventeen-year-old kid, barreling into the other kids in front of him on the football field. Knocking fucking heads.
But things change,
(four dollars a pound,)
“Oh, what the fuck’re you doin’ with the ice, there?” Tony complains, as Georgie reaches into the bucket with his hands.
“I’m wearin’ gloves,” Georgie protests, raising them. “What’s your problem, Tony, I ain’t done nothin’ wrong.”
(get the gun get)
Tony’s up on his feet and breaking his glass over Georgie’s skull before he can process what’s happening, breathing harder, slamming into his back with his fists and kicking when Georgie crumbles, pieces of glass strewn about the floor. “He’s disrespectin’ me!” he shouts to Silvio, running over. Tony spits on the ground. “Weasley little fuck. Can’t even make a fuckin’ decent scotch, eh? The fuck, Silvio?”
“I’m sorry, Ton,” Georgie groans, slumping over.
“Take him to the hospital,” Tony snaps at two kids from Chris’ crew lingering in the corner—where they should be, out of sight. He tosses a few hundreds in their direction. “Spare no expense for this dirtbag. And I don’t want to see him here for another fuckin’ month, Sil, make him take… I dunno, take bartender classes!”
“T…” Silvio trails off, frowning at him deeper than usual.
“You’re lucky you’re not dead!” Tony snarls down at him. “‘I ain’t done nothin’ wrong,’ you take that shit outta here!”
A distant set of doors opens, Georgie leaves, prodded forward by the young guys. Tony turns and sees everyone staring at him. Patsy’s still laughing, the sick miserable fuck.
Tony slumps into a seat—any seat, doesn’t matter—and rubs at his eyes. He’s so fucking tired, lately. Been sleeping too much, since he heard about Gloria.
“Okay, T?” Chris is there at his elbow to ask, suddenly, and he startles. Chris is quiet; the kid can creep up on him sometimes.
“Yeah.” He nods, and knows he has to give the room an explanation, so he fumbles for one. “Coupla problems with AJ at home. You know, stupid kid shit.”
“He’s a good kid, T. He’ll get back on his feet,” Sil says gently, though Tony doesn’t think he’s ever had more than a five-minute conversation with him. If he had, he’d see exactly the kind of “good kid” that AJ is. The kind that got everything fucking handed to him and still got expelled.
Tony stares down at his hands, fidgeting. Great—his palm is bleeding, and he still doesn’t have a decent fucking drink. It’s a thin wound; he can hardly feel it, even as blood drips onto the black wooden countertop. Maybe AJ needs therapy. Could ask Melfi about it, the next time he’s there. What he really deserves is a swift beating with a belt, but—then again, he’s walked out of Melfi’s office more than once feeling dazed. Whoever the therapist ends up being, they’d better be stricter than that bitch she’d sent Meadow to.
Lights flash around him, red and pink and green. He rubs at a tightness growing in his chest.
Get the gun. Get the gun.
That boy needs therapy.
(Now when I count three—)
—
The night after, he finds Carmela in the dark, drinking a glass of water. Meadow next to her. They’re talking in hushed, whispered tones; giggling together like schoolgirls.
“What? What is it?” Tony drops into the seat across from them, smiling. “It’s two in the mornin’.”
They stop laughing long enough to catch their breaths and face him, lips furrowing to hide their grins.
“What’re you doing up?” Carmela asks him. Her eyes are shining, like there’s life in them for the first time since… Since he’d gotten her the sapphire ring, maybe. Such a long time ago.
“Couldn’t sleep.” He raises his eyebrows at them. “Apparently, neither could you.”
“I went straight here from a date in the city,” Meadow says, shuddering. “It was horrible.”
“He was a philosophy major,” Carmela says, giving Tony a significant glance.
“He talked about Plato’s Allegory of the Cave for like thirty minutes and started hitting on the waitress, I mean, I don’t even think he got the point of the story. It’s not that the people in the cave see shadows on the wall and assume they’re real, it’s that people can come into the cave from the outside world and show the prisoners what’s really real, and—”
“Whoa, he hit on the waitress? In front of you?” Tony makes a fist. “You tell me the name of this guy.”
“He tried to talk her into a threesome,” Carmela sighs. She takes a long sip of her water. “On a first date.”
“You tell me his name,” Tony repeats, but Meadow only snorts back at him.
“Don’t worry,” she says, eyes flicking up to meet his. Dark, dark—like his mother’s. He smiles back, comforted. “I know someone that’s gonna slash his tires later.”
Carmela clears her throat. “I was just telling her that we don’t condone that kind of behavior in this house—”
“Really.” Meadow’s eyebrows shoot up. “You’re gonna tell me that, sitting at the same table with—”
“What is everybody doing?” AJ says, appearing at the foot of the stairs with a yawn. “It’s the middle of the night. Did someone else die?”
Probably someone out there, somewhere. “Go back to your room, AJ,” Tony barks, anyway.
“Swear I haven’t had a decent night of sleep since we got that fucking parrot,” he mutters, but he turns to leave, as ordered.
“Whoa! Watch the language, young man,” Carmela snaps. Then rounds on Tony, at the sound of AJ’s footsteps retreating. “But honestly, what were you thinking with that thing?”
“Yeah, Dad.” Meadow’s nodding along. “When he called me about it, I was, like, really confused.”
“It was a friend’s,” Tony insists, not for the first time. “I was doin’ him a favor. I thought AJ could handle it.”
Carmela and Meadow look at each other—and Meadow starts laughing again, hysterical; slapping her palm against the table, almost falling out of her seat.
“What, are you drunk?” Tony asks her, and Meadow doesn’t answer with anything intelligible.
“Yes.” Carmela answers for her. She pats Meadow’s hand, brow crinkling with concern. “She should go to bed. She’s got an appointment at the optometrist’s at eight tomorrow. It’ll be your own fault when you’re hungover for that, by the way,” she tells her daughter with a long sigh.
“Can you drive me?” Meadow slurs at Tony.
“Sure, honey,” he says. He reaches over to ruffle up her hair, and she giggles. “Got some work to do, but we can stop on the way. Now, come on—your mother’s right, we should all be in bed.”
He stands, and looks out the glass sliding doors to the pool. It has an unearthly glow in the moonlight, rippling lines of blue reflecting off the trees and the pool box with its bundled money and bird feed locked away inside.
He flexes his fingers, feeling out the bandaged cut on his palm.
He tries not to think about the ducks.