Maurice and the Magnificents

1. Late Summer, 1969

My father vanished— poof! —just like that.

It was a normal Thursday night (or at least what passed as "normal" around here,) and Dottie and I were making asopao de pollo, Pops' absolute favorite. Dottie had a bottle of Spanish cava chilling in the fridge, both of us ready for the party to begin. Pops had just been promoted to district manager at Rexall. Nice raise, company car, the whole bit. The man was usually as predictable as noodle soup—in the front door at 5:30—but not on this night. So we waited, and by 6:30, Dottie started to become concerned; he hadn't called and the chicken was getting rubbery. About eight, she started phoning around. There'd been some rain earlier in the day, and she was afraid maybe his car had slid off the road. I figured hey, no big deal, he'd just gone out with his pals to have a drink or two and lost track of time.

As it turns out we were both wrong.

On the phone, somebody at Rexall told Dottie that Pops had left early. Like right after lunch. Dottie hung up and then called the police, who seemed totally disinterested. "Relax, honey," she was told. "Sometimes a man just needs time to sort things out."

Shortly after nine, Dottie took the meal off simmer and scraped it all into the garbage. She made tuna sandwiches, and tore open a bag of chips, but hardly touched hers. Neither of us slept that night, but the next afternoon—following a two-and-a-half-hour nap—I looked out the window and there was his car parked in the driveway. I ran into the kitchen relieved, only to find that he'd never moved it from the parking lot the day before, and that Dottie had been called to come get it.

Almost two weeks went by before the police took things seriously enough to consider Pops a missing person. The Staten Island Advance even ran a story titled MISSING OR HIDING? and the article made us local celebrities for a while. There were theories. I heard a few of them tossed around the neighborhood. Everything from money laundering to flying saucer abduction.

My mom—that's Dottie—and I were starting to feel like a couple of earthquake survivors who can't find a missing kid. Tell us he's alive and we can breathe more easily. Tell us he's been found under the rubble, and we'll push on. Just tell us.

And then, as they say in the gangster movies, I discovered where he was "holed up."

The name my parents cursed me with was Udell Diego Morris. "Udell' after my father, "Diego," because it was my Puerto Rican grandfather's name. I guess I could have called myself "Dell," like my dad did, or "Junior," which I saw causing a lifetime of embarrassment, but I found my last name worked just fine.

I'd turned 16 in February and had just completed my sophomore year at St. Basil's High School. Catholic, just boys. Physically, I'd inherited the worst traits of both my parents while the more attractive ones had avoided me. I had my mother's wild brown hair, but not her smooth, tea-colored skin or her sweet singing voice. I was slapped with my father's wideset, lemur-like eyes, but denied his commanding height. In fact, I was a google-eyed shrimp. Five-foot-six, 118 pounds.

My mom, the former Dorothea Ocasio, was the winner of Puerto Rico's Miss Sugar title back in 1951. She'd always insisted on being called "Dottie," even by her kids. Kept her young, she claimed.

Oh. And I have this twin sister. Moe. Moe's story is kind of complicated, so let me hold off on that for a minute or two. Let me concentrate on Pops.

Pop's boss at Rexall was a man named Tim Dight, and shortly before he vanished, my father had begun referring to him as "The Man." Mr. and Mrs. Dight had become friends to my parents; they went out for dinner at least twice a year and our families exchanged presents during the holidays. The Dights had a 23-year-old son named Freddie, who'd lost both legs in Vietnam and now lived in some V.A. hospital upstate.