MIDDANGARD (A Lord of the Rings Fan Fiction)

Chapter 6: What Am I Doing Here?

Wil walked his horse up to the waiting attendant. Domino was a compact, solidly built horse – fast, yet evenly tempered. Domino, it should be added, was handling the day’s events better than Wil.

“I can't believe this is happening to me," Wil muttered.

“They’ve got the wrong guy. I can't handle this kind of pressure. I'm the family screw-up. Can't they see that? Cousin Tomaso or Cousin Bobio should be in my place. Their father, Uncle Alfredo, is missing, it’s true. But Alfredo is still considered to be the top dog in our family. One of his sons should have been chosen to wed this beautiful, sexy, powerful, intelligent, alluring woman... not me.”

You might say Wil had his doubts about the marriage. He felt out of his league.

Why had they picked him?

So what if Tomaso and Bobio were both married...

That should not have stopped them, he weakly rationalized.

So Fredo, his other uncle and Alfredo’s twin, was in his fifties and a celibate monk...

He still looked and moved like a 35 year old. And he was now the acknowledged leader of the clan since Alfredo, his twin, went missing.

So what if he was Snowflake’s godfather!

Wil, at 22, was taller than most of the Abbotamarco clan. Dark haired and fair skinned, he took after his Irish mother. She had been the apple of his father Berto’s eye. She had vanished more than five years ago, on the day the world got turned on its head. It was probably the best thing though, for she had recently been diagnosed with both brain and bone cancer. Even so, it devastated Berto.

You grow up quick when people are constantly trying to kill you. Wil was seventeen in 2015, when the shit first hit the fan. Luckily, most of his family had made the 'cut'.

There had been only two Goblers out of the entire extended family, a "Strega" wife and a mafia “Wanna-be”. All the kids were gone, of course. A few really nice aunts, uncles and cousins had also vanished. He had no idea why he remained and they were gone. It made no sense to him. But then, the last 5 years had been totally insane!

Riots, murders, famine, disease... big rats eating small cats...

No aspirin available after June of 2016.

“I just want to snuggle with my big, mousy-haired, sweet SoniaAndreavitch," Wil groaned.

SoniaAndreavitch was the affectionate name Wil had for his Brighton Beach Russian girlfriend; most people just called her Sonia. He had met her through his best friend, Luke Chenko, her cousin. The three were inseparable.

Sonia was small for a Russian. Being the runt of her litter, she was only able to carry 150 lbs of laundry at a time. Wil loved her pale brown- blonde hair, her light brown eyes, her big full lips, her small dainty ears and her straight but bold peasant nose. Her most common facial expression spoke not only of innocence but also of kindness, even if she did possess a wicked left hook. She was a year younger than her cousin Luke, but only two months separated her from Wil.

Luke was studying to be a non-celibate monk under the skillful guidance of Uncle Fredo.

Wil's uncle, a Zen Buddhist Jesuit Monk, taught spiritual enlightenment in the mornings, by the water’s edge adjacent to DykerPark, and advanced combat techniques in the afternoon.

Luke was exceptional, in the afternoons. 

Wil and SoniaAndreavitch would sit and watch them spar for hours.

I know this union is important for the safety of all Brooklyn, Wil thought, not for the firsttime. I know my Dad thinks I am up to the challenge. Hell, even SnowXX [Double X] keeps building me up in his public speeches. Problem is, Dad is looking at me through rose-colored glasses and the rest of them are simply deluding themselves. Cousin Tomaso and Cousin Bobio know the awful truth of it. They, unfortunately, know me. They know I am second string material, a cut below the class of the field. I can see it. Why can't the clan leaders?

On top of everything else, Wil had a head-banging, first class hangover!

Thanks to his friend Luke and SoniaAndreavitch, he had gotten drunk the night before. Sonia could be devious when necessary. She did not intend to go quietly into the night. In fact, with Luke’s Russian war club she had ventured into Manhattan’s Central Park and almost succeeded in splattering Snowflake’s brains into the Park’s secluded duck pond. Bloomfield, Randolf the Jew as the Russians called him, had foiled that rather feeble inebriated attempt. The Rabbi had then quietly sedated and sequestered the understandably belligerent girl on Horse Head Island out in the middle of Jamaica Bay.

“Poor SoniaAndreavitch,” Wil moaned through his massive hangover, “where will I ever find someone so irresistibly squeezable? So fun to be with, so easy to talk to, so good as a second baseman.”