PART ONE:
maddox kane
Chapter One:
"Behind Blue Eyes"
I
“Any true Cubs fan knows about the Curse of the Billy Goat; the curse that basically said that we’d never win another pennant or play in a World Series ever again. Most people say it’s just another one of those silly urban legends. Just make-believe. But my father was there, and he saw the look in Billy Sianis’s eyes, and he said he wasn’t playing around. This Curse is no fiction tale. This is true. True blue, baby. So, please; let me enlighten you --”
“No, no, no. Fuck that! I don’t wanna hear anymore of your whacked baseball conspiracy theories,” Sam Roberts interrupted.
I looked at him with irritation. “Will you just let me talk, Sam? David is new here, and he needs to know this stuff.”
David Wilks looked up from his biscuits and gravy food tray and said, “Yeah, I don’t mind. Ain’t nuthin better to do until breakfast is over anyways.”
I smiled and said, “Good, that’s what I want to hear! Okay, to start off about the North Siders; they were established into the National League in the year of 1876. But, they were called the Chicago White Stockings first, and then the Colts, the Orphans, and finally starting in 1901 and up; the Chicago Cubs.
“He was William Sianis; a Greek immigrant from Paleopyrogos. He owned this tavern by Wrigley Field, which is now ironically called the Billy Goat Tavern. Well, one day this fucker decides to bring his pet goat, Murphy, to Game 6 of the 1945 World Series between the Cubs and the Detroit Tigers, which he had two box seat tickets for that at the time had only cost $7.20 a piece. They were allowed onto Wrigley Field and even paraded about on the outfield before the ushers intervened and led them off the field. After a heated argument, they were permitted to stay in the stadium occupying the box seat area.
“Before the game was over it started to rain. Billy and Murphy were ejected from the stadium on the command of the Cubs owner at the time, Phillip Knight Wrigley, due to the objectionable odor of wet goat. Sianis was so pissed off that he threw a fucking curse at them; stating that the Chicago Cubs would never win another pennant or play in a World Series ever again because they had made fun of his goat, and subsequently left America to go whine to his family back in Greece.
“So, we lost the 1945 World Series, which caused Billy to write a letter to us saying ‘who stinks now?’ What a little bastard, right? Well, we haven’t won a championship since 1908. It's the longest title drought in all five of the major American professional sports’ leagues, which includes the NFL, the NBA, the MCS/MISL, the NHL, and of course the MLB.
“We have not appeared in a World Series since 1945. All thanks to a fucking billy goat.”
“Dude … “ David said, amazed, “I have one question; how can you remember all that shit?”
“Well … it isn’t shit,” I told him, “it’s history. And the remembering part? Well, that’s easy; I’m a Cubs’s fan. I bleed Cubbie Blue.”
“That ain’t everything,” Sam said, suddenly getting into the conversation. “This muthafucka right here used to be on the team.”
David looked at me in amazement. Yeah, it was true, but only for a year, and that was ten years ago, too. “Really? No shit?” he asked.
“Yep, no shit here.”
“Holy crap, man! I’m talkin to a star here! What made you stop?”
“Got pulled over with a couple kilos of coke in my trunk.”
“Oh … that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“Yep.” Wow, this guy was a real genius, wasn’t he?
“What position didja play?”
“Relief pitching mostly.”
“Oh, that’s cool.”
There was a silence then, as we ate more of our prison breakfast. The food was shit, but after ten years you got used to it. David soon broke the silence by reminding me of how amazed he was that I could remember all that information. To tell you the truth, it wasn’t really that much to remember, but I wasn’t going to be rude to this kid.
“Well,” I said, ”I figured I should know that info; every Cubs fan should know it.”
“Yeah, I guess so. But I’m a Sox fan.”
Tension built up in my muscles, my fist tightened around my spoon. “Oh … well in that case …” I drove the end of the plastic spoon through David’s eye. Blood squirted all over our breakfasts and he put his hand to his freshly made wound. I knocked him to the ground by driving my elbow in his mouth. Everybody started cheering, either for me or just for the sake of violence. I leaped on the top of him and began pounding my fists into his face.
“Hey, hey! What the hell?”
A guard by the name of Eric Pegg swung his nightstick at my jaw, knocking me off of David. “What the hell is going on here?” he demanded.
I spat out a glob of blood and pointed at David. “Fuckin Sox fan!”
“Oh …” Pegg said, “well in that case …”
II
While in the pen you get certain cravings. Kind of like a pregnant broad. Now, these cravings … it’s a never-ending list; comfortable beds, family, home cooked meals, McDonalds, baseball, sex, drugs, TV, music, etc … it just goes on and on. You don’t crave cigarettes, though. Smokes are the easiest thing to get in the joint. That’s where the cigarette companies make all that dough; if you aren’t a smoker and you get sent to the big house, you’ll most definitely come out a smoker.
My craving wasn’t any of those, though. Mine was Butterrum flavored Lifesavers.
The day I was to be let out of Stateville Prison was the day I almost got sent back in.
I was standing in front of a desk protected by a glass like cubicle. In the middle there was a small open window where people could exchange items, presumably your personal effects from when you got locked up. This fat guy with a rat like face and Elvis sideburns approached the window with a giant clear plastic bag. His nametag read ‘Geebob’.
“One pair of socks, white. One pair of combat boots, size 10 ½, black. One set of boxers, white. One set of jeans, size thirty-four, light blue. One jean jacket, light blue. One baseball cap, Chicago Cubs, dark blue with a red capital C stitched on the front, fitted. One wallet, light brown; containing picture identification and a total amount of fifty-two dollars, American.”
“Wait,” I said, “is that all?”
“Yes. Now you can take your clothes and get dressed in that bathroom over --”
“No, you just wait a minute. I had an unopened pack of Butterrum Lifesavers, I remember that. Jesus, I’ve been dreaming of that since the first night in here. I know I had them, so cough them up.”
“Sir, there was no Lifesavers in your personal effects --”
“No, that’s bullshit, I remember them clearly!”
“Sir, tone your voice down --”
“No! You probably ate them, didn’t you? You disgusting waste! I should kick your ass right here and now!”
III
I didn’t kick his ass.
I should have, though. But truth be told, I just went in the public lavatory and changed into my old, 1998 street clothes. Afterward, it took me about a half hour to walk to a gas station, and oh God did it feel good to be out in the fresh air! To finally be on the other side of the fence, it’s just great, man. When I got to the gas station I snacked on some Butterrum and then pigged out on some burritos, pizza and soda. The clerk was some teenager with piercings in every hole of her face, even the forehead and cheeks. The first thought that crossed my mind was that really must hurt. When I left the Speedway I realized I didn’t have any more money left for cab fare; so I began walking. Even though there was snow on the ground I didn’t mind.
IV
It felt so good to be out of Stateville, out of a cell and back into the real world. I was still kind of thinking about that teenager with all those damn piercings scarred to her face. I sure hoped Kristie wasn’t like that. Man, I haven’t seen her in ten years. Was she still Daddy’s little angel? Still the same six year old girl who begged for piggy-back rides and tea parties? The same girl who used to laugh at the silly faces I’d make? The same baby with the ticklish toes?
I still remember when Sheryl brought Kristie to Stateville for a visit. I snapped at Sheryl, I asked what kind of nerve did she have bringing a goddamn seven year old to a maximum security prison. I yelled and yelled at her, and if I wasn’t chained to the table I might have beat her to death, I was just so angry. I still remember the fear in little Kristie’s eyes, her beautiful bright blue eyes. Just like her old man’s; Cubbie Blue. That was nine years ago.
Before I got locked up I sold cocaine and heroin to a mob boss named Vincent King. I even used some of the substances for my own pleasures. I didn’t pay for it, of course. I was careful not to steal too much. I’m pretty sure he never caught on. But, I had soon built up a tolerance for the stuff. I remember stumbling in late at night on countless occasions, stoned and drunk, and passing out on the living room floor. Waking up the next morning to find little Kristie, my sweetheart, drawing on my face with black permanent marker, sitting up too fast and puking all over my own lap. Too lazy to change into a clean set of clothes I’d just lay back down and fall asleep, the stank of vomit filling the house. Sheryl would cry herself rivers in the bathroom all the while threatening to slit her wrists; but ultimately she would end up numbing the pain by popping Vics. When we sat down at the dinner table nobody said much of anything; the television drowned out our sorrows.
Trying to kick the stuff was hard work; I was in the process of withdrawing when Sheryl and Kristie made their little visit to Stateville. That was mostly why I had snapped so harshly. Sure, there was a rehabilitation program within the prison, but it was still a painful process. I thought I was going to die plenty of times; tearing the skin off my bones and pulling the hair out of my scalp. That’s why I barely have any hair now; at first I had pulled it out -- but then I noticed I looked a lot better bald, so from then on I shaved it. Believe it or not but I actually used to have a head like Joey Ramone.
Well, now I was clean; a completely new person. Out of crime, drugs and alcohol. Cigarettes, Butterrum and love were my only addictions now. Prison had transformed me into a better man. I was free.
Or so I thought.
V
Sheryl basically stabbed my heart on the second visit to Stateville. This time she substituted Kristie with a pile of divorce papers. I broke down crying and begged her for another chance. I told her to wait until I got out; I’d be a new man, I promised.
She didn’t buy it, though.
I refused to sign the papers, and that was the last I saw nor heard from her again. I still loved her, same with Kristie.
VI
I discovered in a phone book that my wife and daughter lived in some apartment; Sheryl had taken back Lander to being her last name. What a bitch! What was wrong with Kane? Nothing that I could see.
Did Sheryl know that I was free? Did she still hate me? I made my way up the apartment steps with caution. Would Kristie remember my face? I sure did her’s. I had dreamt about it every night for the last ten long years. It was the only thing that kept me from committing suicide.
The door swung opened after my knocks and a model stood in front of me. Medium height, long black hair, perfect skin, she stood there wearing blue jeans and a black tee-shirt that had the word SEETHER printed in white on the front. She wasn’t wearing any shoes nor socks, which revealed her black painted finger and toenails. Her dark lipstick went perfect with her angel-like face. The blue eyes told my it was my little Kristie, all grown up. My sweetheart.
“Hello?” she said, in the sweetest of sweetest voices I had ever heard. Tears started rolling down my cheek, I was frozen still. “Um … can I help you?” I knew then that she did not remember me.
“It’s me. It’s Daddy, baby,” I said. She gave me a really confused look. “Don’t you remember me? I used to have a bunch of hair?”
We didn’t get to say anything else because right then Sheryl walked by, looking exactly the same as ever. Except her stomach; she was pregnant. Her facial expression alone told me that she had no idea I was out of Stateville. “Kristie, honey,” she said, “go to your room. Now.”
“But, Mom, uh …”
“I said now.”
“Okay, fine, whatever.” Kristie gave me one final once over and stormed off into what I guessed to be her bedroom.
I stood outside the door and Sheryl stood inside the apartment, just staring at each other. Finally the silence was broken by my wife. “I’m calling the police.”
Anger filled my veins. “Why? We’re still married, aren’t we?”
“That doesn’t give you the right to break out of jail,” she muttered, as she left the door and went to find a phone.
“Break out? Sheryl, baby, do the math. It’s been ten years, I’m free.”
I noticed her eyebrows change into a discomforting situation. She always did that when she tried to think really hard about something, it was pretty cute. “Okay, you didn’t escape,” she finally said. “Fine, I don’t care. Get out.”
“No,” I said firmly. What the hell was wrong with her?
“Yes! This is my house and I said to get out!”
“Well, I’m your husband and I said no.”
“Hahaha, that’s a joke. You, a husband? Ha! Me and Craig’s been savin’ up, Maddox. We finally have enough to take your ass to court,” she said. I noticed that she wasn’t going for the phone anymore, just looking at me with hatred in her eyes.
“Who the hell is Craig?” I asked.
And just to answer my question, a man in his stained underwear came walking out of the bathroom. I could smell the whiskey on his breath from all the way across the room. “Who the fuck is this?” he spat out.
“I’m Maddox. The Husband.”
“Aw, so you’re the asshole I’ve heard so much about. Don’t got any china white around here, ya junkie.”
“Yeah? Well, from the needle marks infesting your arms it looks like you do.”
“Why you sonofabitch who da hell do ya think you are!” Craig exclaimed. He leaped at me, but it only took one strike of the fist to knock him out cold. I examined his limp body on the floor. Pathetic.
When I looked back up I noticed that Sheryl had gone into the kitchen. She was now grasping a knife in between her sweaty palms and pointing the tip of the blade towards me. “Get the fuck out of this house right now!!!”
“Hush, honey, you don’t wont to upset the neighbors now do you? I’m a clean man, Sheryl, just like I promised I would be. I’m sober, and I’m not going to go back to my old habits. Never again, baby.”
“Hahaha, yeah right! Like I haven’t heard that one a thousand times! And even if it were true, I love Craig. I do not love you anymore, I never did.”
Never? Ouch, that hurt. That really touched a nerve. “This comes from the lady who used to pop pills like they were jellybeans?” I laughed.
“Yeah, only to put up with your ass!”
My eyes observed the needle marks along her arms. “What about the smack?”
“I never did that shit with you, and you know it!”
“You’re arms tell a different story,” I whispered.
“Just fuck off already!” she screamed in a fit of hysteria. “Nobody wants you here, nobody loves you. Just get the fuck out of my life!”
Where did that come from? I just wanted to be a father again and she had to ruin it? Why? I didn’t bring any harm, I came in peace.
“Is it because I shaved my head?” I asked.
“GET OUT!!!”
“Fine,” I said, “but I will be back, and I will talk to my daughter.” I saw a pen and a legal pad lying on the coffee table next to me. Without putting much thought into it I quickly picked it up and jotted down a phone number -- don’t ask me how I still remembered it. I ran into Kristie’s room; she was sitting on the edge of her bed with her hands gripped tightly against the bed sheet and tears balled up in her eyes. I tossed the notebook on the bed and said, “You may or may not remember me, but I am your father. Call me on that number in a couple of hours. I love you, sweetheart.”
