InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Son of the Mob ❯ Meet the Family ( Chapter 2 )

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I was about four when I first stated to realize that my family wasn't like the families of some of my friends at preschool.

Mom is bundling me out of the house to catch the bus when I turn and ask, "Where's Daddy?"

"He's sleeping Inu Yasha. You'll see him when you come home for lunch."

I point up and down the street. "But all the other daddies go to work. They drive their cars, or they take the train into the city."

Here's what she tells me: "Your father's in the vending machine business. He works different hours because you never know when a vending machine's going to break."

That's her explanation for why Dad has to run off at two o'clock in the morning on urgent business. I honestly used to believe that somewhere there was a jammed-up soda machine, and my dad had to rush off in the dead of night and fix it. Hey, I was four.

Brothers Vending Machines, Inc. is the name of the company. I always thought that was pretty strange, considering dad's an only child. But even though he has no brothers, there were always lots of uncles around. I made a list once. I was up to sixty before I gave up. And some of the names! I have an Uncle Fingers, Uncle Puke, Uncle Shank, Uncle Fin, Uncle Pampers, and Uncle Exit. I have two uncles named nose- Big-Nose and No-Nose. I even have an Uncle named Uncle. Everybody calls him that, except his real nephews, who call him T-Bird.

Seven years old: I wake up for a drink of water and find blood-spattered towels in the bathtub. Scared out of my mind, I run to my parents' room to find the light on and a little meatball surgery in progress. There's plastic sheeting over everything. My uncle Carmine lies facedown on the bed, crying and whimpering. My dad sits on him to hold him still, while my mother digs at him with tweezers.

"Aha!" she exclaims, coming up with a tiny misshapen object covered in gore.

Uncle Carmine screams bloody murder.

"Shut up, Carmine!" orders my father. "If you wake the kids, the next one's going in your head!"

They tell me it's a kidney stone, but I'm not fooled.

My teacher, Mrs. Metzger, confirms my suspicion that kidney stones don't come from your butt cheek.

The peculiarities begin to mount up. The sudden "school camping trip" where none of the other kids are from my class. And where, one day, I open my Cracker Jacks at snack time and find a box full of cut diamonds. Everybody else has a ball while I sit in the cabin, guarding my cache of "snacks," afraid to open anything else. I have to be evaluated by a psychologist after that, because I'm so obsessed with my food.

When I get back to my school, none of the kids in my class have gone on any camping trip. They think I've been out with strep throat.

Dad says special cleaners were working on our house while I was away, so he had to get rid of the Cracker Jacks because it's so messy. Those guys must have been pretty lousy cleaners, because they cut open every teddy bear in my closet.

Stuff like that.

By this point, Sesshoumaru has already told me, "Dad's mobbed up." Back then I assumed it just meant he had a lot of friends.

He's such a fun father. While all the uncles ignore their kids, Dad always finds time for Sesshoumaru and me. He teases us, and cracks great jokes, and we always get tons of presents. There are these fun little rituals, too. Every night before he shuts the lights in the den, he'll look up and address the fixture: "And a special good night to you, Agent Numb-Nuts." Or he'll call into the garage, "We're going out to dinner, Agent Needledick. Should I bring you a doggy bag?"

As a kid, I thought it was a riot. It's only now, years later, that I realize Dad's talking to real people. FBI agents, to be specific. Our house was-and still is-always bugged.

I'll never forget the day that it sank in that people are out there listening. Every burp, every trip to the can, and worse-preserved on tape by federal agents. Home sweet home.

At least I understand now why Dad flips his lid the day I accidentally open up that suitcase full of bearer bonds. "What's this, Daddy? It looks like some kind of money."

The father who never so much as smacked my behind clamps a death grip on my mouth with the strength of the jaws of a great white shark.

"It's play money, Yash. Like Monopoly."

Uncle Cosimo, who's in charge of the suitcase, cuts our lawn for the next three summers.

Think what a terrible burden it is for a high-school kid: if you say the wrong thing in the privacy of your own home, you might end up sending your father to prison.

One day I corner Mom in the laundry room, where the roar of the washer covers our conversation. "I know what Dad does for a living."

She nods. "He's an excellent provider. Thank God, vending machines are a profitable business."

"Oh mom," I complain. "Don't treat me like an idiot. I know he's in the Mob."

She stares at me, shocked. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"Come on Mom. I know you know!"

I've got to give her credit, She never retreats an inch. Either that or my poor mother is so dumb, she really believes, twelve years ago, my Uncle Carmine passed a kidney stone through a bloody hole in his left buttock.

My mother can serve a sit-down dinner for fifteen guys in four in the morning with ten minutes advance notice. Our basement is filled with food just in case the Mormon Tabernacle choir stops by in the state she prefers all her guests to be in-ravenous. And her cooking is great, if a little heavy. Not just in your stomach. Try carrying it. A Tupperware container of Mom's lasagna weighs twice as much as anybody else's.

That's not to say that Mom and her meatballs are all meat and no balls. I remember once there was this guy, Kouga, a real young Turk on Uncle Shank's crew, who had some kind of issue with Sesshoumaru. This was right after Sesshoumaru dropped out of school to join the business, so he was about my age now, and no where near as tough as his current put-Jimmy-Ratelli-in-the-trunk self.

Dad absolutely refuses to intervene on his son's behalf. "If I mix in, you'll never command any respect on your own," he says. But Sesshoumaru keeps getting pushed around. A few weeks later, Uncle Shank and his guys are over at the house and Mom asks Kouga to "help her" in the kitchen. They're alone in there together, and suddenly there's the most God-awful scream coming from Kouga. He leaves in a hurry, and we order Chinese food that night-and event so rare that it should come with skywriting and fireworks.

"I thought we were having chicken potpie," I say.

"The potpie," she tells me, "is totally out of commission."

I don't push it. Totally out of commission is a phrase Mom uses to describe things that are gone, finished, and never to be seen again on this Earth. Although, in this case, I do see the potpie again. There it is, in the garbage, dish and all. The crust is broken in a perfect handprint. Coincidently, Kouga walks around with a bandaged hand for six weeks. First-degree burns.

The incident is never mentioned in out house, but from that day on I realize Mom has a titanium backbone to go with her heart of gold. And if food is her medium, it can also be her message. Where family is concerned, no body messes with Mom, not even her powerful husband.

Kouga never bugged Sesshoumaru again. A few months later, he stopped hanging around Uncle Shank and his crew. They say he moved out west.

Miroku, who is turned to stone in the presence of Dad, Sesshoumaru, or any of the Uncles, always has plenty to say when we're alone. "Don't you ever watch Mafia movies? Do you have any idea the kind of chicks those guys get? I defy you to show me one gangster with an ugly girlfriend."

To say that Miroku has a one-track mind is an insult to one-track minds.

"You're practically a Mob prince," he pressures on. "There must be some way to use that to rustle us up a couple of dates!"

"That is never going to be a part of my life!" I vow. "I've had it out with dad, and he knows exactly how I feel."

He looks at me in awe. "Really? What did he say?"

It was less than a year ago. Dad doesn't say anything at first, and it isn't just because of our latest FBI eavesdropper, Agent Bite-Me. We're in my father's basement workshop, the one room in the house that's guaranteed safe. With unfinished concrete walls and floor, there's virtually nowhere to hide a listening device. It's Sesshoumaru's job as Dad's apprentice to sweep the tools and equipment for bugs twice a day. That includes the Universal gym, and the woodworking area. A lot of conferences take place there, and a lot of uncles make their way down the basement stairs.

He sits me in a rickety, lopsided wooden chair that rocks precariously on the concrete floor. Why the well-to-do Taishos have such a piece of crap in their upscale home? Because it's an Inu Taisho handmade special. For years, Dad has been talking about not working so hard, scaling back his day-to-day involvement in the business, stopping to smell the roses, blah, blah, blah. Uncle Sal recently died (actually, I think he had help) and it reminded Dad that life is short.

So my father threw himself into his new hobby with the intense determination that characterizes everything else he does. And he had to be maybe the crappiest carpenter on the planet.

But he doesn't know that. He's Inu Taisho. Who's going to tell him? I've seen some of the toughest motherfuckers in the tristate area oohing and ahhing over a napkin holder that would languish on the shelf of the 99-cent shop.

"So," he begins, "you're not interested in the vending machine business."

I start to argue, but decide, What's the point? We both know what we're talking about. "Yeah, vending machines," I say. "It's a little tough for my tastes."

Dad breathes a heavy sigh. He knows I don't approve of his line of work, but I think he always hoped I'd grow out of it. As if obeying the law is a silly phase some crazy kids experiment with, like smoking cigars, or riding motorcycles. "A man has the right to choose his own destiny," he acknowledges. "So now we know that you don't want. Tell me what you do want."

My mind goes blank. He smiles, as f he's expecting that. "When I was your age, Yash, we had nothing. So I was the most motivated guy in the world to get out there and do better than my old man. With you it's different. You've got a great deal here-nice house, room service, new car…" I drove a Porsche back then (sixteenth birthday present) until the cops came and took it away to give it back to the guy who really owned it.

"I've got ambition," I interrupt. "I just hadn't figured out what I'm ambitious about yet."

"The law's a nice career for a kid with the gift of gab," he suggests. "You can never have too many lawyers."

"You've got Shippo," I remind him. Mom's brother. He just started working for Dad.

My father shrugs. "Shippo's my brother-in-law. You're blood."

"You don't get it," I insist. "I don't want to be involved, period. I don't want `vending machines' touching my life in any way."

He looks amused. "Too late. You think we'd live the way we do if I was in any other business? You're already in it, Yash. Right down to the clothes you wear, the food you eat, your allowance…" He pauses. "What you say makes sense. If you're not motivated by what I do, then fine. But you're seventeen years ld now. It's time to get motivated about something."

That's classic Dad-reasonable, sensible, supportive. People who meet him outside of the business find it hard to believe that this classy, soft-spoken gentleman is who he is. It only becomes clear when you see how the uncles tiptoe around him, the fear in peoples faces when they hear his name, the scrambling that goes on when he asks for something. It's only at those times that I realize that the great guy I call Dad is a man who runs a criminal organization that operates by means of violence and intimidation. And I really, truly, honestly want nothing to do with it.

The funny thing is that, for a Mob boss, my dad is considered the most ethical man alive. He really is Honest Inu Taisho.

Sesshoumaru says the word on the street is if you deal with Inu Taisho, you'll never get ripped off. Conversely, if you rip off Inu Taisho, you'll never deal again anywhere. Not in this life.

The word on the street is very important in that business, especially for a guy like my dad, who isn't famous at al outside his own circle. He keeps a pretty low profile. Most of the kids at my school have no idea that my family is The Family. The only time Dad even made the papers was after the famous gangland assassination of Mario Calabrese in 1993. The cops are sure that my father ordered the hit, but they were never able to pin it on him. They just assumed he did it because with Calabrese out of the picture, Dad was able to take over as the vending-machine king of New York. Dad won't say anything about t one way or the other, not even to Sesshoumaru, who joined him in the business shortly after that.

It didn't take long for Sesshoumaru to develop a reputation much like my dad's. Sesshoumaru's quiet, polite and deadly. When the doorbell rings, he's the last guy you want to see standing there, except maybe Uncle Edge.

Sesshoumaru has plenty of enthusiasm for his job. Maybe too much, as Ratelli could tell you. So Dad brought over one of his top young guys and made him Sesshoumaru's partner. Keeper would be a better word. Myouga Youkai used to be in charge of loan-sharking on Long Island's North Shore. If he's upset about being reassigned as nursemaid to a homicidal maniac, it doesn't show.

He isn't one of the uncles. I guess he technically counts as a cousin, although we're not related. I kind of wish we were. Of all the guys who work for my dad, I like Myouga the best He's such an awesome person that every now and then I have to stop and remind myself that he's a criminal.

When I get arrested because my sixteenth-birthday present turns out to be hot, the uncles think it's the funniest thing that ever happened. Sesshoumaru's all for letting me spend the night in jail. Wiseguys can't seem to understand that there's a whole other life out there that has nothing to do with The Life. But not Myouga. When the uncles look at me like some exotic species of Gila monster because I'm passing up a chance to work for my father, Myouga never judges me.

Who do you think bails me out and takes me home that awful night? And while Sesshoumaru and the uncles act like being hauled away in handcuffs is all in a day's work, Myouga really understands what a terrible experience it is for me.

Even Dad doesn't think it's such a disaster. "Don't worry, Yash. We'll get you another car."

I lay down the law. No more stolen cars. I'll buy my own car and pay for it with my own money. They don't yell at me, exactly. But they look at me as if `m suggesting we barbecue Mom on a rotating spit.

"Yash." Sesshoumaru says. "Do you have any idea the kind of junk you can afford?"

"Maybe. But it'll be mine. And nobody's going to take it away from me and use words like grand theft auto."

Myouga sticks up for me, even with Dad there. Not a lot of people have the guts to do that. And a week later, he finds a friend of a friend of a friend, who just so happens to have a nice little Mazda Protegé with only forty thousand miles on it.

I'm so proud of myself. "I can't believe I'm getting this for three thousand bucks!"

"You're not," says Myouga. "Listen, you didn't hear it from me, but your father slipped me a few grand to make sure you got something decent."

I blow up. Poor Myouga. Bad enough he's got Sesshoumaru to deal with; now Inu Taisho's other son is going nuts on him.

But he's patient. "Take the money. He's your father. Let him help you out."

"I don't want to touch anything from my father's business."

He looks me squarely in the eye. "Your whole life is paid for by your father's business. The clothes on your back, the bed you sleep in at night, your mother's cooking. Your father's business is the reason you can afford to stand here and be so high and mighty about your father's business. So, as we say in your father's business, forget about it."

Obviously, I buy the car.

My father always has a special smile when he sees my Mazd, even though it looks pretty lame next to the parade of limos and Beamers and Mercedes that are always coing and going at our place. Ray says Dad still disapproves of the way I got it-you know, legitimately.

But maybe that's what he likes about it-that his younger son did something he disapproves of.