Bloodbrothers

Richard Price

Description

A “vigorous, tough” novel that “dramatizes so well the awful power of family,” by the New York Times–bestselling author of The Whites and Clockers (The Atlantic Monthly).

Eighteen-year-old Stony De Coco has to make a choice: either join his father in the tightly knit world of New York’s construction unions or take off and find his own path. But Stony’s family is not about to make that choice easy. As he struggles to protect his little brother, Albert, from their dangerously unbalanced mother, and to postpone the difficult adult responsibilities that await him, he finds hope in a job working with children at a hospital—a job that promises not to make anyone happy but Stony.

“For all of its surface violence, blunt language and brute realism,” this story of working-class life in the Bronx ”is a most subtle book. A sharp portrait of coming-of-age, in sorrow and in strength” (The Washington Post Book World).

“Richard Price is the greatest writer of dialogue, living or dead, this country has ever produced.” —Dennis Lehane

Sujets

• Complex
• Society
• Crime
• Contemporary
• Truth
• Coming of age
• Growth
• Family First
• Domestic
• Happy Endings
• Lively
• Against the Odds
• Realism
• Adulthood (film)
• Page Turner

Informations

• Publié par: Open Road Media
• Date de parution: 15 avril 1999
• Nombre de lectures: 3
• EAN13: 9780547971124
• Langue: English

Extrait

Contents
Title Page
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
First Mariner Books edition 1999

Copyright © 1976 by Richard Price All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [e-mail] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

www.hmhco.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Price, Richard, date. Bloodbrothers / Richard Price, p. cm. "A Mariner Book." ISBN 0-395-97773-8 1. High school graduates—New York (State)—Fiction. 2. Teenagers—New York (State)—Fiction. 3. Family—New York (State)—Fiction. I. Title. PS 3566. R 544 B 58 1999 813'.54—dc21 99-15176 CIP

eISBN 978-0-547-97112-4 v2.1117
For John Califano, a true Bloodbrother, in love and friendship, "you know how we do..."
To Sabrina Di Benedetto
To Ellen Joseph and Carl Brandt for their enthusiasm and encouragement
To Cubby
To Lord Buckley
who am I

I rather think about bein Mighty Mouse and flyin through the air an like that. But now... they askin me questions—what I dream about and what I think about and what about my mother my father an like that. Man you start thinkin about things like that an it give you the sweats like a junkie...

Man—you ask Why should I be me—how I get to be me—why am I me here and not someplace else—and you just end up scared like you was walkin down a empty street at night. So scared it running out you ears...
The Cool World by Warren Miller
1
A WARM SOUR CLOUD wafted across to Tommy's side of the bed as his wife rolled over in her sleep. Tommy De Coco lay on his back smoking a Marlboro and staring at the green metal Venetian blinds. One of the slats was bent and let in some early-morning sunlight. 7:30.
"Tommy, don't..." He turned his head. Marie was talking in her sleep again. She lay on her stomach and he stared at the brown and white freckles that made her back and shoulders look like salami. Tommy ditched his cigarette and put his arm behind his head. He absently massaged his dick under the covers. Four blocks away church bells rang.
Sunday. Family day. No matter what he did six days a week, on Sundays Tommy De Coco was a family man. And this Sunday he had a big surprise for his family.
His hand smelled from that oily shit inside Trojans. His pubic hair was still damp. He debated getting out of bed and taking a shower before Marie woke up and got a downwind whiff. Tough titties. What could she do? Yell? Scream? He'd crack her so goddamn hard she'd shit teeth for a week. Tommy sniffed his fingers. Fuck it. He rolled out of bed and headed for the shower. Goddamn stuff stinks anyway.
…
Seventeen-year-old Stony De Coco woke up to the hissing of the shower on the other side of the wall. Raising himself slightly he saw that his brother, Albert, was still sleeping, his head obscured from Stony's vision by the chest of drawers between their beds. He pulled a Marlboro from beneath his pillow. Sunday. Shit on toast. Family day. His old man would make everybody get in the goddamn car and he'd drive around the whole goddamn Bronx looking for a G-rated movie. And Stony couldn't bitch either because his old man had thumbnails as big as clam shells and if he gave Tommy any bullshit he would get a flick behind the ear that would sting like a bastard.
…
Eight-year-old Albert De Coco lay in bed listening to his older brother smoking. He was afraid Stony was going to get lung cancer if he kept smoking every morning. Albert was nauseated like every time he woke up. The idea of eating made him even more queasy and he hoped Marie wouldn't force him to eat like last Sunday. Then he remembered she threatened to feed him like a baby if he didn't start eating more. A chill settled over his skeletal body.
…
Marie De Coco was dreaming about her mother again. This time Marie was a little girl and her mother was very old and shriveled like she looked before she died and she was caressing Marie's cheeks with fingers of cold blue wax and crooning to her, "Pretty, baby, pretty, baby, see how pretty, baby," and ran those bloodless fingers down over Marie's eyes and across her lips and Marie shut her eyes and rested her cheek on her mother's marble-smooth palm. Then her mother took her hand and led her through a long hall. "Come see how pretty, baby, come see how pretty." And Marie saw a mirror at the end of the hall. "Look how pretty, baby, see?" She pointed a finger at the mirror. Marie looked to see how pretty she was and screamed—she had no reflection.
She awoke with a start, but she couldn't move beyond that initial jerk. She knew she was awake but every muscle in her face and body was frozen. She couldn't move and she couldn't breathe. She could hear the bells from Immaculate and she could hear the shower in the bathroom. She was paralyzed. She couldn't even open her eyelids and her lungs were collapsing. She tried not to panic. She knew by now she had to concentrate. Relax. She had no breath in her lungs and couldn't open her mouth to scream. Then with a great inner wrenching she bolted upright in bed. Her lilac nightgown was damp with sweat. Marie was a kid when she first got these attacks. Her father had them also and he told her that if anybody touched her when she was awake and paralyzed like that she would die of a heart attack. Marie rubbed her nose, grunted and lit a cigarette.
…
When Tommy stepped out of the shower he heard Marie banging around in the kitchen. He cursed. He liked the dinette to himself for a few hours Sunday mornings so he could read the News, have a few smokes, a few cups of coffee, listen to the radio. He dried his blue black hair vigorously, wrapped a purple towel around his waist and leaned close to the mirror to inspect his new Fu Manchu. In the last year he had grown six different kinds of face hair including muttonchops and a real handlebar, but he liked the Fu Manchu best of all—it extended down each side of his mouth to his jaw in two thick black lines. He had to smile. That chick last night said, "Oooh, look! It's Jack Palance!" Chubby got jealous until she said he looked like Jack Palance too. Chubby looked like Jack Shit as far as Tommy was concerned. Jack Palance. He touched his high cheekbones, his rocky chin.
"Daddy, can I get in?" Albert's voice on the other side of the bathroom door jolted him out of his reverie. "I gotta pee."
Tommy opened the door and brushed past his son without looking at him.
…
"Hey, Thomas Junior!"—Tommy winked at Stony—"pass me the salt." Stony's fingers were greasy with butter and the shaker slipped onto his father's plate.
"I don' wanna eat any more." Albert had three Lucky Charm cereal bits glued with milk on his chin. He had only taken three spoonfuls.
"What?" Marie stared at him severely. "Don' wanna eat any more, hah?" She nodded and narrowed her eyes. "Don' wanna eat any more?"
Albert stared at his cereal.
"Where'd we go yesterday?" she demanded, not looking at him.
"Doctor Schindler," he answered meekly.
"What?"
"Doctor Schindler."
"I can't hear you."
"Doctor Schindler."
"I... can't... hear... you!"
Albert shut his eyes, lightly opened and closed his hands, his fingertips touching, then springing away from each other. Stony was about to jump up and smash his mother in the face when Albert blurted, " D—Doctor Schindler! "
Tommy looked up surprised for a second, then returned to his eggs. Marie lit a cigarette. Albert looked up at her mascaraed plumpness through the snaky haze of smoke.
"And what did Doctor Schindler say?"
"I weigh too little."
"How little?"
Albert's eyebrows were raised and his lips shaped words that wouldn't come. His stomach spun viciously. Tommy got up from the table, grabbed the News and split for the john.
"Where the hell you goin'?" Marie barked.
"I gotta take a crap. You mind?" Tommy shot back. She dismissed him with a disgusted wave of her hand. "Why don't the hell you leave the kid alone!" Tommy shouted, his face turning black. He held the paper in a giant fist.
"You know how much he weighs? Do you give a shit?" she shouted back. They were both standing. Albert started crying. Stony touched his brother's shoulder, made a funny face at his parents and winked at him. Albert rubbed away some tears with the heel of his palm. "Tell your father how much you weigh," she demanded.
"Fif—fifty-five."
"You're goddamn right." She glowered at them both. "And what am I gonna do with you this summer if you don't gain twenty-five pounds by June?"
"Puh—put mum—me in-na hospital."
"And what do they do to skinny boys in a hospital?" she pushed.
…