The sun shone white and hot like a baking disk of camembert as it crept over the horizon. And much like camembert, the morning also gave Mr. Monelli an acute bout of diarrhea. His eyes snapped open and he leapt out of bed, dashing towards the bathroom. As he expected, the door was locked.
“Damn it Sal, open the door!” said Mr. Monelli, the tension in his bowels reaching a pressure on par with the Cuban Missile Crisis.
In a blur of greased hair, half chewed toothpicks and black leather, Salvatore Monelli emerged from the bathroom. The fumes from an industrial sized barrel of hair product made the air shimmer and bend in the morning light. With one final glance in the mirror, he vacated the bathroom for his protesting father and was already in the kitchen by the time Mr. Monelli had slipped on a pool of hair grease, shattering his pelvis.
Mrs. Monelli stood dutifully at the stove, her back turned. Sal strolled in, slowly chewed a toothpick and took his place at the table.
“Hey Ma, where’s breakfast?” said Sal, checking his reflection in the toaster.
“Right here, Sal” said Mrs. Monelli, turning to her son.
Sal flashed his mother a toothy grin, tilting his jaw slightly for maximum bicuspid exposure. Mrs. Monelli’s eyes grew wide at the sight of her sons’ outfit.
“That a new jacket, Sal?” she said. A vein pulsed on Mrs Monelli’s temple.
“Yeah it is, what’s it to ya?” he replied nonchalantly.
“That’s the eighth one this month, Sal.” she started through clenched teeth. “Your father had to refinance the house for your jackets. Maybe we reduce your spending an-”
“Aw Ma, you are too square!” said Sal, sending Frosted Flakes flying with a kick of the table. “I’m outta this flophouse!”
Sal shot up from his seat and made for the doorway, his mutterings drowned out by the crunch of hundreds of toothpicks underfoot.
“Where do you think you’re going?” said Mrs Monelli. Veins continued to criss-cross their way along Mrs. Monelli’s forehead, giving her face a striking resemblance to the Nazca Lines.
“To the milk bar to see Betsy. Would ya lay off?” he shouted down the hallway.
“You can’t, you lazy mope! She’s been drinking eight milkshakes a day at the milk bar with you. She has diabetes now!” said Mrs Monelli, her voice climbing another six octaves. She began to hyperventilate as her husband stumbled down the stairs, pelvis askew.
Mr. Monelli could see the situation escalating, just as it had three weeks ago when Sal had traded Mrs. Monelli's wedding dress for two really good licks of a creamsicle. He tried to calm his wife, gently patting her on the back and cooing soothing words at her to no avail. She frothed and foamed at the mouth in a fit of conniptions, mad with rage. Mr. Monelli panicked as his wife's body began to twist and jerk, overcome with unadulterated fury. Thankfully, Mr. Monelli had the wherewithal to glance a blow across her temple with a nearby tire iron, knocking her out cold before she did some real damage to herself.
Betsy was nowhere to be seen at Jolly's Milk Bar. In fact, Jolly’s milk bar was deserted entirely except for Sal's buddies Joey and Vinnie. It was not a complete shock given: a) the high ratio of lactose intolerant kids in town, b) Mr. Jolly’s refusal to make fruit smoothies on account of him claiming smoothies were the grease that oiled Lucifer’s wheels, and of course, c) that unfortunate polio outbreak in the girl’s bathroom.
Sal slid into a booth next to his friends. The three boys each took turns regreasing each other’s hair and Sal let out a brooding sigh. He opened the jumbo carton of toothpicks in his pocket and put one in his mouth.
“Ma really rustled my jimmies today fellas,” he said.
“Aw Sal, don’t let her rattle your cage. You know she’s only joshing,” said Vinnie, vigourously chewing three toothpicks at once. Joey, who now had over forty toothpicks in his mouth, made only a light gurgling noise.
‘No one understands me’ Sal thought, sipping his third malted milkshake of the day. 'Don’t go and see Betsy. Don’t race your car down the old airstrip. Don’t auction off my war medals to buy sparklers. That’s the man talking, always keeping me down.’
Outside the window, long wispy clouds peppered an azure sky, watching the world beneath rumble to life. White cirrostratus fingers reached out and beckoned from the horizon, calling Sal towards an ever-stretching meridian. Sun shone through the trees by the road, spraying a million white-hot specks of light onto the asphalt. To someone looking out at the world, it would appear as though some long forgotten god had wept through the night, splashing white tears from on high. Sal was focused on the waitress with huge jugs however and didn’t see it.
“Let’s shake the scene boys,” said Sal. “We have class.”
Joey, whose mouth was more wood than flesh at this point, nodded in agreement.
The 3pm bell rang, signalling the end of another long day at Middleton High for Peter Blumm. Blumm was the zit-faced heir to the Blumm Toothpick empire, which had just made the largest IPO in Wall Street history despite only have one store in a small Idaho town. Analysts were stumped. And Salvatore Monelli did not care for him one bit.
Sal had tracked down Blumm near his locker and stalked him, doing his best impression of a coyote hunting his prey out on the desert mesa. Unfortunately, this meant Blumm had run into a tunnel while Sal chased him, only for Sal to run headlong into a cliff and discover the tunnel was in fact painted on. Now he was really steamed. He ran up to Blumm and grabbed him roughly by the shirt.
“Well is it true, punk? Are you trying to razz the berries of my favourite gal?” said Sal, lifting Blumm up and pushing him hard against the locker.
“I- I don’t understand!” blurted Blumm.
“I hear you been arguing with my Betsy. What are you, cracked? Trying to get fresh or something?” said Sal, who had now attracted a crowd.
“It was the debate club! That’s the point!” said Blumm.
The grease dripping onto his face from Sal’s hair was beginning to get into his eyes. The crowd booed and threw garbage in Blumm's general direction.
“A wise guy eh?” snorted Sal giving Blumm a First Nations peoples of North America burn. “Who wants to see this square get creamed?!”
Blumm whimpered and the crowd roared in amusement.
Sal flicked Blumm between the eyes with a loud thwaap. The crowd began chanting his name and a teacher ran past to give Sal a really sweet high-five.
“Now how about you put an egg in your shoe and beat it?” said Sal as he flexed his biceps. Several girls in the vicinity fainted.
Sal dropped Blumm back into his wheelchair. With a firm boot, he sent him careening down the hallway as students and teachers alike roared in orgasmic raptures. Principal Nguyen led a slow clap as Betsy ran over to Sal giggling. Or rather, she ambled due to her low blood sugar at the time. Sal smiled and stared deeply into Betsy’s eyes, but only to check his own reflection. It was good to be bad.
Artwork by János Huszti