Buried Secrets
Sorry for the hiatus on this fic--real life seems to have caught up with me @ last, and free time is woefully short in demand. It occurred to me that the last time I posted an installment for this was nearly a month ago, and barring serious bodily injury or death, I will hopefully never go that long again B4 updating anything! NJOY!
HAPPY B-DAY FIONA! THIS CHAPPIE'S DEDICATED TO YOU, HON :)
*I do not own the BT series characters. They belong to a much-more talented individual. I am however, more than willing to take credit for characters/scenarios not featured in either the books or television series. Not making any money. No copyright infringement intended*
Chapter Four: A Simpler Time
“My life wasn’t always this complicated,” he began, and slowly settled himself into a more comfortable position in his chair. “In the beginning, life was actually fairly simple; I came from normal, salt-of-the-earth parents, went to Catholic school and attended church every Sunday, and had my sights set on being a schoolteacher once I grew up.”
The corners of his mouth drew up in a wry grin. “Well, once I grew older, anyway. As you probably noticed when you arrived, I still have a soft spot for the funnies and never did grow out of them like everyone told me I would. Ol’ Blue Eyes had the right idea when he penned that line about being young at heart. It is indeed worth every treasure on earth. I’m batting 82 and still feel like an 18 year old, and wouldn’t trade that feeling for the world.”
He paused momentarily and traced non-existent patterns on the glossy table top before him. Vicki suddenly found herself equally entranced by his actions, and attempted to focus in on what he was doing. There was enough natural light filtering into the room from the numerous windows surrounding them that allowed her to glimpse his reflection in the table’s surface despite her failing vision. His finger tips continued their random dance and his mirror-image mimicked the actions in perfect unison, staring hollowly up at him like a ghost rising slowly out of the abyss.
The day I start categorizing and describing my everyday observations in such purple prose, Vicki mused, is the day I’ve got to start keeping regular hours.
He traced one last curlicue and then let his fingers curl softly into a loose fist. He glanced up at her apologetically, and for the briefest of moments, the young man he once was seemed to peek out at her.
Terrific. Looks like “visual hallucinations” makes two votes for going to bed at a decent hour. Things are looking up and it’s barely mid-morning.
“Sorry about that,” he said indicating the table top, “but it helps me organize my thoughts better, and I want to make sure that I tell my story as accurately as possible and do appropriate justice to all of those involved.”
Vicki shrugged. “I go a few rounds with my punching bag.”
Lou’s eyebrows rose up in a mixture of amusement and admiration. “Well in that case, I stand by my earlier characterization of you as more like the Avengers and less like Kolchak. That admission speaks for itself.”
“To continue with the story, I grew up in a fairly normal Italian-American household. I came into this world on October 16, 1926 as the third and last child to mother Sophia and father Giorgio. I had two older siblings; brother Paolo who was five years older than me, and a sister, Teresa, who was two years younger than he. My father worked early mornings and late nights at a neighborhood market bagging groceries, and my mother stayed at home to take care of the children. We all worked more or less to help make ends meet, and I had my first paper route at age 10, which had been handed down to me by my brother.”
“My parents were immigrants who came to Los Angeles during the earlier part of the century and we lived in a section of town known then as Lincoln Heights, which was one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. The area had previously been home to some of the more illustrious and wealthy Angelenos, but the rapid industrial development along the banks of the Los Angeles River caused many of these families to pick up stakes and move elsewhere-usually to either Arroyo Seco, Mid-Wilshire, or the Mecca of filmdom-Hollywood.”
“Those families who had a tendency to live from hand-to-mouth like we did didn’t care in the least what went on along the river, and truth be told, we still had the million-dollar view that had initially enticed the original residents.”
“We may not have had the best of everything or handed down our clothes and wore them until they became threadbare, but we had each other; no matter how many times we went without some “luxury” that would be taken for granted nowadays, or came to fear the arrival of our landlord, we knew that no matter what life threw our way, we would always be a family.”
“I can still remember looking up at the bluffs bordering the river at the Victorian mansions that loomed up huge and empty above the more modest clapboard dwellings below, and found myself wondering what it would be like to someday live in a place like that. My brother Paolo didn’t share my curiosity in the slightest-he was far too concerned with the lives of the Saints and wished to enter the priesthood-but my sister, Teresa…well, she seemed to dream about that kind of lifestyle more than I did.”
Vicki couldn’t help but notice the note of bitterness that suddenly colored his voice at this latest mention of his sister, and his next words confirmed the suspicion that had slowly begun to form in her mind:
“She was such a wonderful girl-sweet, modest, without a selfish bone in her body. Her only personal fault-if it could be characterized as such-was that she aspired to be rich and famous like the actors and actresses that graced the silver screen in all the big movie houses. She was so enamored of that kind of lifestyle and longed to taste it so badly, that she forgot her surroundings entirely. The stars in her eyes ultimately made her blind to the filth and vermin that lurked beneath the glitz and glam of Hollywood. And it destroyed her-destroyed my family, and finally myself in the end.”