Audrey Hepburn's Pearls: Part I

Chapter 83.1: 1968, Georgina

Chapter 83.1: 1968, Georgina

The door swung open suddenly without warning of a knock and I jumped almost out of my chair in fear in the living room. With my hand over my racing heart, a disturbing image materialized in the dark of the kitchen. But in a moment, light.

And what I saw.

"Oh my god, Paulie! What happened?! What- oh my god, are you okay?!" I unlocked my brakes and started to wheel as fast as I could to be by his side as Frankie practically heaved him through the door. Another image, of Miracle's face flashed in my brain but I couldn't think of her now. I'd seen her face because of course the connection was racing through my mind.

Paulie gave me a weak smile as he adjusted himself over Frankie's shoulder, slumped over with his eye half closed and blue-black. Frankie pulled out a chair for him by manuevering as if expert and slid him into it. Once in it, Paulie slumped over the red Formica table and heaved a giant sigh. 

"Can you get me some ice, Frankie boy? I've got a steak that I can put over this eye in the freezer, too. But I need ice for my nads. That is going to be sore in the morning. I think I lost one... Your cousin is a complete dick, you know that, right? I hope that's okay." He let out a low moan and promptly began drooling from his open mouth but he didn't seem to care. 

"What happened?! What happened?!"  I cried, wheeling to come to a stop right next to him, peering at his face really close and lifting his long brown bangs from his eyes to see him better. I noticed, looking at his drooling mouth, that there was a small red mark at the opposite corner of his lips. It looked like it stung. 

"Ohhhhh. Frankie's cousins had too much to drink. Its Wednesday, or can't you tell from these lovely clothes I'm wearing. They were all there, really faux macho boys all at the Caselottis' regular table. I guess it was a boys' night or something. There had to have been four or five of them. I don't know where they all came from. Mm, oww...wait..." He made a slurping noise, sucking drool back in and pausing. Then he went on. "They were celebrating something. I don't know. But they kept ordering vodka after vodka after vodka. I was so annoyed having to keep going back to their table with trays of the stuff, oh thank you, Frankie." He took a heavy bag of ice from him and I watched him shove it between his legs. His eyes closed sweetly then, but he continued on.

"Your cousin Miranda was there, too, right? Is her name Miranda?" Paulie opened his good eye and aimed it at Frankie who had his back turned, digging in the freezer.

"Melinda. She's married to Jon."

"Right, Melinda. She was there, too. She had a white wine spritz, but she didn't drink it. So, at closing they were all raving drunk except for her, all cherry cheeked and yelling and carrying on. Cha Cha was a bit scared by it, so Sasha took him home early. So it was just me and Genesis and Carl at the bar, and your cousin Antony started yelling at us to bring them beers and Carl was all, 'we're closed down, try the bar two streets down' and they were all, 'no, we own this motherfucking bar, you serve us goddammit' and all that shit. They started getting rowdy about it, so we went over there to try to explain it to Melinda because she was the only sober one but she told us to just give them some beers so they'd shut up. Carl wasn't about to, so I told them service had ended. That's when Antony told them I'm a 'faggot cocksucking queer' and they started getting in my face, saying stuff like I wasn't allowed to 'talk to them like that' because of my being a faggot, you see, and it kind of blew up from there. Next thing I know I'm on the ground with this little stick Antony on top of me beating my face and my nads are on fire. I guess he kicked me there first and I must have blacked out from it because I don't remember going down. Carl was on top of him in about five seconds and dragged him off but goddamn that kid. He's got some skinny-ass sharp knuckle shits. Fucking Antony. Fuck him. I can still hear Melinda screaming, though. Just screaming, not saying nothing. She's a bitch, too, sorry Frankie."