The Monstrological Society Presents – The SkunkMobile

So, these Monstrological Society stories usually follow the pattern of some event happens to my Dad and then he comes home and tells us some twisted story from that fantasy world he liked to hang out in.

Tonight’s story is different…

As most of you know my Dad worked for the Queens Zoo as the Janitor. He could have gone into the Family business of being a Mobster. Everybody in the family loved him for his sick, twisted mind.

As a kid he would tell horror stories to his Uncle and his father and they would listen in awe. Sometimes, they took notes, and then they “actualized” some of my father’s more macabre ideas.

For example, my father came up with an idea of taking people and jamming them into little kids swings in the park. You know, the kind that you would never be able to get out of if you were an adult. Anyway, he was telling some weird story of adults being trapped in these kids swings by a madman, and then within a week “friends” of the family were found frozen to death in these  child swings. It made the front page of the papers and it showed how the corpses, (all five swings were filled with stiffs) had to be cut out of the swings.

My Dad was upset with his father and his Uncles for using his creative mind to destructive uses. They swore up and down, that though they liked the viciousness of both the story and the “actualization,” they had nothing to do with it.

Still, my father never told his father or Uncles another story. By the time my brother and I came around, I guess he figured it couldn’t hurt, and so began a lifetime of thinking about the world in weird ways.

Now, for some thinking in weird ways is a problem, but our father’s stories got my brother and me to think about the world very optimistically, no matter how depressing the world could get.

In fact, my brother and I both love when terrible shit happens to us. We call each other and tell the horrible story to each other and think about things that lie in the nooks and crannies of our dark minds. Our wives look at each other like we’re nuts when they hear us talking about losing a finger, and then wondering how that might mean a different way of playing the guitar or typing…(my brother lost a finger in a sword fight, but that is another story.

Anyway, I know you guys are waiting for a horror story that my Dad told us, but unfortunately  that is not what you are getting tonight.

Don’t leave just yet. I found a special tape recording of my brother telling the true story of my father getting skunked with a couple of his brothers after they were kicked out of the house by our mother.

Apparently, our Uncles had commited a crime and came to hide out with us Upstate New York. It was summertime, and we went to the country for a couple of weeks vacation in August. Our Uncles were drunk and showed my brother and me the big bag of money and a couple of guns. Anyway, I’ll let my brother’s transcriptions tell the rest of the story. He must have been six years old. I am two years older.

“Daddy, came back into the house stinking. Now, Mom already removed him from the house for stinking drinking with his brothers.

Mommy said,”Remove yourself from this house. You have been skunked.”

“Don’t I know it.”

Mommy and Daddy had been fighting before Dad went out and got skunked. It was never easy to tell what Mommy and Dad were fighting about. Fights were in some other language. I mean it seemed like it was English but my older brother and me just looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders.

Now, Dad came from people who did things that would be criminal, except they mostly never went to jail. That was their argument that they weren’t criminals, “Criminals are people in jail. We have never been convicted!”

My Mom said something about “Being involved.” I guess cause they were stupid and showed my Mom the bag of money and the guns.

She said,”Get out of the house with your crumbs!” and my Uncles went back to the car in the rain with their bag of money.

So, then Dad felt bad that his brothers were out in the rain and when his meat sauce was done he went out there in the rain to give them something to eat.

They were in the car and drinking brown liquor. Dad almost had a heart attack when he saw what his brother was doing. He was drinking from the bottle and petting a skunk.

Uncle Mort did not know that he was petting a skunk. He thought he was petting  our outdoor cat Maki. That was no Maki. That was pure skunk. Daddy tried moving backwards from the car, but his brother Sol saw the food and opened the door and then everybody got gassed

 

Daddy stood in the pouring rain looking at Mom through the porch door kind of weepy, but it was hard to tell if he was crying or if it was just all the rain in his face.

Mommy threw a bar of soap at Daddy. Daddy and his brothers scrubbed in the torrential rain.  I don’t know what torrential rain is, I just heard the funny smiling guy on the news say it.

My Uncles were washing the money and their guns too. My brother and I were laughing. I remember a little pee coming out.

Anyway, it felt like the “Wizard of Oz” outside. There were lakes and ponds where there never were before.

Dad and his brothers were covered in soap. Dad tried walking back into the house, and Mom stopped him.

“First of all you still stink, but I was kicking you out of the house anyway.”

My Dad looked really sad and kept talking and talking.

My Mom kept saying,”Aha, aha, aha, aha… No, you can’t come in here with your dumb family. I’m sorry the car smells and there is nowhere for you to go because nobody is a criminal yet.

Then for the first time, my big brother and I got upset. We watched our Dad’s great meat sauce walk to the door. Mom was handing over the pot of dinner for Dad to be washed in it.

My brother and I grabbed the pot and screamed,”No! No! We’ve been waiting for meat sauce all day.

Mom took out two servings of meat sauce for us.

We watched our Uncles and Dad and a bag of money take a bath with the meat sauce. Is was kind of disgusting but we liked it. At one point my Uncles got into a fight and they were slipping around in the rain and the meat sauce, we liked that.

We even liked it when Dad and his Uncles were allowed into the house and they smelled like burp.

Dad said,”Call the Insurance Company and see if the car is covered for skunk.”

Mom handed him the phone.

The skunk was still in the car and we all made eye contact.

 

 

 

The Monstrological Society Presents: Uncle Busterella In Cutting Up Jackies

Very infrequently Uncle Busterella was left to tell us a bedtime story. We never knew what Uncle Busterella was talking about but we loved his stories anyway.

I guess I should backtrack. Dad always told us stories to keep us shut up. Our Mom had a little baby  girl and we lived in a railroad apartment. So, Dad’s job was to keep his two sons, me and my brother shut up. He told us horrifying tales that kept us up half the night, but frozen silent.

Very rarely, Dad wasn’t available to tell us stories. Usually, it was to help out his family correct a problem his brothers started. Such was a problem one summer afternoon, on a fishing expedition with Dad’s brothers.

 

Uncle Busterella and Uncle Bent were still sleeping when dad took us on the row boat early one morning to go fishing.

My six year old brother went to wake Uncle Busterella,”Come on Uncle, we’re going fishing.”

“That’s O.K. You go dunk worms with your Dad.” He rolled over and went back to bed.

 

Later on, on  the lake, my brother caught a corpse and reeled it in.

Dad was furious,”Buster doesn’t know how to take a vacation!” We rowed back to shore. Neither one of us understood exactly what the corpse was of. It didn’t quite look human. It was all bloated and its face was half missing.

 

Our Dad told us that we caught a floated Alien.

 

My brother and I looked at each other. It sounded like one of his stories, but Dad didn’t really lie to us. We had to go with the “Alien Story.”

 

You boys can’t tell anyone about this Alien. Your Uncle Busterella works for the Government and he is in charge of eliminating Aliens.

 

My brother and I just looked at each other and nodded.

 

Defensively, Dad continued,”If creatures from other countries were found by the public, there would be a panic. Your Uncle eliminates panic.”

 

Dad looked at our disbelief and said,”Go outside and play.”

 

Instead of going out and playing, we ran under the bungalow and listened in at my Dad yelling at Uncle Busterella,”What is business coming into my fishing trip with my vacation with my boys. “

 

We tried to understand Uncle Busterella’s explanation as to why this Alien floated. He talked about fireworks and how he was innocent. The Alien was shaking him down on his fireworks business and Uncle Busterella was not having any of it. He apparently wrapped firecrackers around a roll of dimes and exploded it in the Aliens mouth.

“That’s why his head  looks like swiss cheese. The guy turns out to be an Alien Agent. If I had known he was an Agent, I would never have blown so many holes in his head.”

 

We still hid underneath the floorboards and heard Dad turn his attention to Uncle Bent,”And what do you have to say about all this?”

 

“I’m an innocent bystander. I got the roll of dimes for Buster, but I had no idea about any of this.”

“Well, the two of you got to take care of the Alien much better. Go sink it properly will you. I’m gonna drive back to the city and  talk to Dad about this situation. Take care of the boys after you take care of the corpse.”

 

Uncle Busterellla laughed,”It will be my pleasure to tell the boys another “Cutting Up Jackies” story. I still haven’t told them about the people who broke out of the mental hospital and ended up dressing like clowns at the circus.”

 

My brother and I gulped. This was going to be a weird night of hanging out with Uncle Busterella and Uncle Bent.

 

end part 1

 

 

The Monstrological Society Presents: She May Not Kill Me Yet – Part 2

Dad laid down on the beach with his arms and legs extended,”Draw a large circle around me and then get driftwood and put it around the line. I am going to tell you a ghost story.”

Uncle Matt looked at Uncle Rick and said,”Kinky.”

Uncle Rick said,”He has always had a flare for the dramatic.”

All the kids gathered wood for the fire ring. Each Cousin came over to my brother and me and said,”I like your Dad’s stories but there is a Wildlife Serial killer, so I hope he realizes we’re all on edge.”

I explained to my Cousins that when our Dad is nervous or angry, the stories get weirder and scarier. Don’t forget our Dad works at the Zoo and loves animals.”

Cousin Danny said,”I’m gonna shit myself.”

I heard Uncle Rick tell our Dad to take it easy, but I could tell that Dad was already in his Monstrological Society storyland. Uncle Rick and Uncle Matt started the fire ring and all the cousins lays in rows around the fire in our sleeping bags. The waves crashed loud and the wind howled. Dad began.

There was a King who sent his men to battle. His Kingdom won the war but the King was upset by how many of his soldiers died. He kept second guessing himself about the War. Could it have been negotiated with the other Kingdom.

 

The King lost his confidence and there was mumbling throughout the land. Another Kingdom took this as a sign of weakness and began to challenge the borders. The King took too much time to make decisions and lost battles. He remained in the Castle isolated till he heard that his main General had died in a battle.

 

The King dressed as a pauper and went to a Gypsy in the hopes that she may help him regain his confidence. Unfortunately, the Gypsy recognized the King and saw this as an opportunity to get all the Kings powers and become a powerful Sorceress.

 

She told the King to meet her in the Cemetery and Crematorium at Midnight. There she will bring back the dead who will give him back his powers and help him with his problems.

 

That night at Midnight the King met the Gypsy at the Cemetery and the Crematorium.

She asked,” And what brings you to me.”

 

The King not knowing that the Gypsy knew who he was said,”I was once a rich and powerful man, now I am indecisive and in rags. I wish to become rich and powerful again.”

 

The Gypsy said,”Grind up the bones which did not become ashes at the Crematorium. Get the fat off of the newly dead. “

 

The King went and got bones and crushed them. He got fat and made candles with the bones. The Gypsy told him to make a circle with the bones and fat and start a fire. He did. Then she told him that if he wanted to regain his powers back he should go to the hanging trees and bring a corpse back to her and she will make an incantation and he will get his powers back.

 

The fire was started with the bones and the fat. The Gypsy made an incantation from inside the circle using the Kings sword. She said something like this,INCANTATA FORCIBO FORTUNA!”

 

Immediately, the Dead began to rise from their coffins. The Cemetery came alive with the sound of gurgling and screaming. Skeletons danced towards the King who was not scared at all.

 

The Gypsy said,”Go to the Hanging trees in the distance and cut down the corpse of a criminal which was hung today. Their fresh death will give you answers to your problems.”

 

The King went to the Hanging trees and looked and the criminals which had recently been put to death. They now wriggled and moaned from the Gypsy’s incantation.

 

He looked at these poor rotten fruit hanging and just as he was about to cut one down he turned around and saw the grave of his trusted recently dead General. He said outloud, “This Gypsy has asked me for a criminal because she thinks that I was once rich from being a criminal. She does not know that I am King. I will bring back the corpse of my trusted General. He will be able to guide me in regaining my confidence back.”

 

The King dug up his General and began to carry the corpse over his shoulder. The Corpse whispered in his ear, “She may not kill you yet, but she will.”

 

She knows who you are and plans on tricking you. She asked you to pick a criminal from the tree because she plans on turning that corpse into a God. They will make a deal, he will get riches and she will get your power. She will chop off your head into the circle with the demon and she will ask for your powers and he will give it to her.”

 

She will ask you to throw the corpse into the circle and then lay down on your stomach  and put your head across the fire. She will then cut off your head and make her deal with the demon. Tell her you really are the King and that you have never worshipped anyone. Tell her to show you how to lay down on your belly and worship another God. When she demonstrates to you how to do that, cut off her head.”

 

Thank You General, and how will I get my confidence back to know how to fight wars or not to.”

 

“You already have your confidence back. You chose me instead of the Criminal she wanted you to choose.”

 

The King brought his trusted dead General to the Gypsy. The demons danced around the ring laughing and spinning. The King confessed that he was the King and that he did not know how to worship anyone else. The Gypsy threw the General into the ring and then confessed that he did not know how to worship. When the Gypsy laid on her belly with her head in the ring, the King grabbed his sword and cut off her head. The General Corpse picked up her head and ate it.

 

The General wiped the blood and crushed skull from his mouth,”
And now King, what wish do you want. I can grant you anything for freeing me from this Gypsy’s incantation?”

 

The King almost made a mistake and wished for confidence but instead said,”I wish to always remember how you were a brave soldier and even in death helped your king and his Kingdom.”

 

The spirit of the General rose high above the circle and said,”Thank You, my King.”

 

The dead returned to the ground and the King returned to his Kingdom. Wars were won and lost but the king never was scared of his decisions.

Dad’s story was done

 
We saw flashlights heading on the beach towards us. Uncle Rick got out his gun. Uncle Matt got out his knife. Some of the cousins whimpered.

 

Park Rangers came over to the men and everybody put away their weapons

“A Ranger said,”We caught one the women responsible for killing the Wildlife.”

 

One of the women?,” Uncle Matt said. “Holy shit?”

 

Uncle Rick said,”Be funny if it turned out to be our wives.”
All the men and the kids looked at each other for a moment and everybody realized that Uncle Rick that night was the winner of the scariest story ever.

 

The end

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Monstrological Society Presents – She May Not Kill Me Yet

“I’m ignoring you because I want you to stop talking,” our Mom said in response to Dad insisting that he and his brothers take all eight boys for a camp out on the beach in Montauk.

 

Our families rented a house on Long Island every year for a week, and one night we all hiked to the beach with our fathers and had a camp out.

“The boys have been looking forward to this night all year. They have been asking me to tell a really crazy ghost story to them and their Cousins and just cause there is some kind of Wildlife Serial Killer on Montauk right now, should not affect a great night of a bomb fire, and ghost stories.”

 

Everybody stood around listening to our Mom and Dad ping pong an argument about sleeping on the beach. Our Uncle Matt was there picking his fingernails with a kitchen knife, our Uncle Rick was waxing a surf board , their wives sat with folded arms and the all the kids sat around praying that they be allowed to sleep on the beach. Of course, both my brother and I spoke about how we were a little nervous that some  maniac was out there killing animals in sadistic ways and leaving them around to be found by beachgoers.

 

The argument continued, “Take the boys after they find this nut. He’s out there gutting and skinning animals and stretching out their intestines. It’s frightening. Aren’t you boys scared of going out there?”

 

My cousins, my brother and I all shook our heads “No,” even though we were all a little weirded out by the killer.

 

“How do you know that he won’ t start cutting up the kids.”

 

“So, we’ll take the dog with us,” our Uncle Matt said.

 

Everybody laughed as his wife Hazel said,” He’s cutting up animals, and you want to take the dog with you.”

 

“He’s cutting up wildlife animals like seagulls and driving nails through turtles. He hasn’t harmed a single domesticated animal.”

 

“You are a sick bastard,” my Aunt Hazel said dragging on a cigarette. You and your macho brothers have always got something to prove. You think you are going to take this stupid puppy to the beach and he is going to protect you?”

 

All eyes turned to the Lab laying down full out with his tail wagging and dusting the kitchen floor. He looked around at all the eyes on him and looked concerned. Drool dribbled.

 

“What if he confuses the dog with being a wolf? our Aunt Kristen said.

Uncle Mick laughed and stopped waxing his board,”I know karate and I’m taking the gun.”

 

“Uncle Matt said,” And let’s not forget that I just got back from Vietnam.”

 

All eyes turned away from the dog and were now looking concerned at Uncle Matt. It was the summer of love and things were strange all over… All the Cousins, all boys ranging in age from 5 to 11 were excited to have the sleepover on the beach. Of course, all this talk of the Wildlife Serial killer was making the night more exciting. It was like riding on a roller coaster that just was fixed after a fatal accident. My brother and I knew we would be all right, but still we were pumped

 
“I have had to kill with my bare hands,” Uncle Matt said pointing his shaking hands in front of him.

 

 

Our mother looked at Dad and said,”If this Wildlife Killer comes and hurts any of these boys, make sure he guts you three boneheads at the same time. Cause if something happens, you won’t want to live to see what I’m going to do to you.”

 

 

We were lined up to make the quarter mile walk to the beach. We had our backpacks, flashligths, comic books and marshmellows ready.

“Can’t you just do this in the back yard.”

 

“No, it has to be the beach. We did this growing up with our Dad.”

 

“So, this is really for you then?” my mom said.

 

 

Uncle Matt set us up in a military formation. We were all a little jittery as we looked up at the deck at our mothers who were smoking cigarettes and shaking their heads in disapproval.

 

“And they better not come back with so much as one mosquito bite,” our Aunt Hazel  said.

 

“We’re going, end of story,” our Uncle Matt said. And so began our journey.

 

As we walked to the beach, our Uncle Matt gave us reassurance, “If we run into this deranged nut, don’t worry. If you piss yourself or even shit yourself, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I saw that many times in Vietnam, and fortunately we are all in swimsuits and have the ocean to wash up in. “

 

My younger brother turned to me and whispered in my ear how he already knew it was o.k. to piss himself.

 

“Don’t piss yourself, unless you have to. We’re here in the woods before we get to the beach.”

 

“I don’t want to pull out my dick.”

 

“Why not?”

 

I don’t want the Wildlife Serial killer to think my dick is an animal.”

 

Everybody laughed and I think a couple of cousins laughed so hard they pissed themselves.

 

As we got towards the beach everybody started to gather wood for the bomb fire. The eldest Cousin Denny came over to me and slugged me on the arm, “Your Dad’s ghost story can’t be as scary as your mother. She gave me the heebie jeebies with her talking about the Wildlife Killer.”

 

“Yeah, she can be scary in a different way.”

 

Uncle Matt walked up from the water, “We’re going to move a little further down. Some bloated creature washed ashore.”

 

“Did the Wildlife Serial Killer kill something?”

 

No, this looks like an alien or something drowned. Nothing to worry about,” our Uncle Matt reassured us.

 

 

End part 1, I’ll finish this story tomorrow. See ya

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Monstrological Society Presents- “I Can’t Wait To Meet My Monsters”

When I was seven years old, I shared my room in The Bronx with my Uncle who was in transition from a hard life. He constantly read, but he bought more books than he could read in a day…

My room was littered with lurid covers of books from when paperbacks had lurid covers of sexy women for staid topics.  I would look at all these books and I started to file them onto my shelves. I was the seven year old librarian.

The books I filed on a special shelf were all the Horror classics. I loved looking at the covers from Frankenstein, Dracula, and Phantom Of The Opera. I told myself that one day I would write a Horror book that would have some sexy woman on the cover screaming with some greenish blood creature lurking above her.

I don’t usually write Horror stories.  I have played around with my Horror ideas in “My Monstrological  Society” stories. I love writing this series. It is about a father of three who tells his young boys a made up on the spur of the moment Horror story, in order to keep them quiet in a household that has a new baby girl in it. I probably started writing these stories about five years ago.

Maybe I have already written about “My Monster” – a story that will make me proud to put on that top  shelf with those famous Horror icons I already mentioned. One day I will re-read my stories, and see if there is any one monster I’ve created who I feel deserves a cover with a sexy girl screaming at him, but for the moment, I wanted to tell you about why I am so confident that my monster stories are going to just get better and better right now.

I have sleep apnea… It means I snore and while I sleep I stop breathing. Now, when I found out I stop breathing, I wasn’t so concerned, but what I was concerned about was that I stop dreaming. The Apnea wakes me up during REM. For a long time, I have not been having my dreams, which means that I haven’t been having my nightmares.

For a man who wants to write a classic Horror fictional character, this was dramatic news. I knew that in order to write a Horror icon, I would have to start having my nightmares again. I went to a sleep study which confirmed my darkest fears: my sleep apnea was not allowing me to have my nightmares I counted on in order to get ideas about a Horror character.

Pure living nightmare for me. I needed to get to sleep and have bad things happen in my dreams. I knew they were there and that it was just a matter of not stopping breathing while I slept. The best way that I can describe not dreaming because of Apnea is that it is similar to drowning. Remember that time you were a kid and you sucked in the swimming pool water cause some other kid held you down for too long; all you could think about was getting back up above the water line so that you could gasp and breath in some fresh air? Well, that is where I find myself now and my dreaming. Finally, with my CPAP machine, I can breath in air and dream my dreams.

Unfortunately, a lot of my dreams are pleasant. Still, the dark ones are surfacing, and I am sure eventually I will dream my classic Horror vision. What will my tale be about?

I think my monster will be hungry. I think he will want to eat out of his problems. I’ve always liked Cannibals, but of course we already have Hannibal, so I probably will skip this monster.

I’ve only had the machine for a week now, so I don’t know exactly what to expect from my nightmaring. Still, I do expect greatness… I think I just came up with a Monstrological Society story title,” May All Your Nightmares Seem Long and Relentless.” It is about a gypsy who curses a boyfriend of a woman. The woman believes in the Tarot, the boyfriend does not. He starts having such terrible nightmares that he decides he will never go back to sleep.

I’m tired, I think I’ll go take an napnea.

But first a waking nightmare moment from the new story, ” I Can’t Wait To Meet My Monsters.”

The water rising. It is inevitable that I will drown. I am in a tank filling up; like Houdini in some escape project. I don’t have the key or the answer. I know I will die.

The audience wants me to die. They don’t really want me to escape. It is like people who go to a race rally; there is the darkside present that just makes people want to see someone die in the name of entertainment.

My death will make people happy. They will feel more alive than they have ever felt before. I decide to drink the water, I pretend that it is lemonade on a hot day.  It is alright to die. I can see them through the fish tank. They are pointing and laughing. I die.

When I’m dead, I sink to the bottom of the tank. I open my eyes and see the key hidden in the coral. A crab guards the key. I scream at the crab and get the key.

“Now I have the answers,” I tell my dead self. “Too bad I’m already dead.”

“Just cause I’m dead doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t find out who killed me.”

{I always did like D.O.A.}

The Monstrological Society Presents: The Legend Of Don Pancho

“And then everything changes,” is how every Don Pedro story  started. It wasn’t Don Pedro who would say this. It was always his sidekick who told the story from on top of  Don Pedro’s stagecoach. Don Pedro did not ride a horse, he preferred sitting in the stagecoach as Pancho drove him from adventure to adventure.

 

Every story would begin, “And then everything changes, and not for the best or worst but because that is what happens in life.”

 

Pancho would sit on the stagecoach and stop the horses to feed them. Inside the stagecoach, Don Pedro would be singing his songs of love and revolution to a woman or to believe it or not a wild creature that was eating goats called a Chupacabra.

 

(to be continued)

The Monstrological Society Presents:Make Up Of A Nightmare Or Painting Dinosaur Eggs On Easter Sunday

“If you want to know what death is, just try to remember what you were doing, before you were born… I mean even before you were in your mother’s womb growing.”

My brother and I looked at each other. We knew that Dad was in rare form and we were going to get a good weird story out of him that night. t

My brother and I knew that Dad was doing illegal stuff again. I mean he was mostly a legitimate blue collar guy who worked for the City at The Queens Zoo, but he also  came from a solid traditional Mob family, who every now and then  twisted the screws in him to help them out. Lord knows what was going on. It looked like Dad was helping his family move Dinosaur eggs. I mean maybe they were ostrich eggs, but they were huge eggs that looked ancient. Our Dad was sneaking them in every night for a week. He’d come in and tell us our scary story and then our Uncle would climb up the fire escape and sneak into the house, and then they were taking these humongous eggs and painting them in polka dots and stripes and burying them in the backyard.

My brother and I still shake our heads about that one, and we saw all kinds of crazy shit. Sometimes, we would listen to the stories our Dad told us at night and see if we could figure out how the Monstrological Society story fit in with aspects of his real life. Even though he told us made up stories off the top of his head, we almost always knew some aspect of the story was about his daily life; those stories were cloaked in demons and monsters from the real characters he was dealing with at the Zoo and with his Mob family. We like to think anyway. Then again, Dad was like fluid. He was not an easy man to grab ahold of and understand. He was loving, but he was twisted…

My brother and I were so amazed at the insanity of these large dinosaur eggs being snuck into our homes and then brought into the backyard all week to be painted in either stripes or polka dots. Then those guys were burying the eggs in the backyard.

We almost wanted to wake our Mom up, not to rat on our Dad but to find out what the hell these guys were doing, but Mom was kind of sick and she was still nursing the baby, and so we didn’t really think we should wake our Mom up with her being sad all the time to ask her what the hell Dad was doing with his mobster family who he hardly ever really talked to, and ask her why the hell they were painting dinosaur eggs or Ostrich eggs and burying them in the backyard.

Anyway, our Dad came into the room sweating after a week of schlepping these big eggs, and then painting them and buring them. He told us this story as our Uncle went creeping back down the fire escape into the blackness.

“This story almost does not need to be told. Everybody knows it. It is called,’Make Up Of A Nightmare.’ It is the story of a young woman who likes beautiful things, and she loves the idea of making people look beautiful. She becomes a make-up artist and goes to Hollywood. For years, she makes people look gorgeous. She becomes the number one expert in taking a tired old hag of an actor and turning him into a robust leading man… And then it happens, she falls in love with a tired old hag of an actor who she makes beautiful everyday for a movie. She is not sure who she has fallen in love with. Has she fallen in love with the man, or her ability to make him look gorgeous.  The man treats her like shit after a while. He never really treated her well. He was in love with how beautiful she was able to make him look. His chin was strong, his wrinkles went missing.’ “

“They started fighting and when it came time to do his make up, she started making him look older and uglier. He lost the acting job but not before he made sure she would not work in Hollywood anymore. She couldn’t find work anywhere. She got a call that her Grandmother was dying and she went and visited her.

Her Grandmother said on her deathbed,’Don’t cry. If you want to know what death is, just try to remember what you were doing, before you were born. I mean even before you were in your mother’s womb growing . That is where I am going back to and I am alright with that.I was dreaming way before I was born, and I shall continue dreaming way after I am dead.’

She died and the young woman went back to Hollywood and started to do make up for Horror movies, and she was quite successful and happy…

She even got to do horrific make up for her ex, the hag actor who got her fired and black listed. Oh she enjoyed turning him into a Frankenstein and even won an award for her make-up skills. One day, she fell in love with a young man who she was supposed to turn into a Vampire. She did a half assed job, and he was cut from the movie, but they lived happily for eternity.”

“Dad, what kind of ending is that. The story was going good and then you freak us out with love stuff.”

“One day, you will have to tell your sister stories, if your Mom or me are not around.”

“Where you going?” my brother sat up in bed.

“I don’t plan on going anywhere, but you never know when I might be called out of town.”

“You work for the City Zoo. They are not sending you out on expeditions to Africa to pick up Curious George.”

Our Dad said,”Shut-up” and we knew that he didn’t want to talk about the possibility of doing time for the crimes he helped his family with. We also knew that if he were arrested, he wasn’t going to be ratting on anyone else. And we also knew that he said “Shut up” because our mother had become distant and he was afraid she was going to wonder and wander off the planent.

My brother couldn’t help himself,”Why did you paint dinosaur eggs and bury them in the backyard?”

I was afraid my Dad was going to get real angry. Instead, he smiled out of the corner of his mouth and said,”That’s your nest egg boys.”

That Easter, those eggs were unburied and on the Italian float… Dad and our Uncle waved at those eggs which were heading to Rome and the Pope. Lord knows what the real story was.