The Tragic Flaw Read online

  She pulls up to an aged house, similar to all the others on the east side of town. But this one is well kept, and this is the one she calls home. In the spring, white and yellow roses and tulips and daffodils will bloom in the garden she and her grandmother planted many years ago. Old Mr. Johnson still comes by every Saturday morning to trim the hedges, edge the lawn, and flirt with both women of the house, young and elderly. All he asks in return for his services is a smile and lemonade, perhaps hot chocolate in the fall.

  Olivia smoothly exits her sleek coach, and looks all around to avoid rapists and carjackers. For extra security, she keeps a twenty-two-caliber Derringer in her glove compartment. This neighborhood has never been the safest.

  After opening the gate and climbing a short flight of limestone stairs, a glimmer of color to the left catches Olivia’s eye. She had thought all of the flower blooms had descended to the earth and withered, so she is surprised to see the moonlight illuminate a solitary yellow rose, surrounded by rocks and dead leaves.

  It is an intriguing end to her night, but she doesn’t ponder the rose’s tenacity for too long. Even under tonight’s gale, the rose manages to cling to life, for however brief as it may be.

  The strong breeze causes the large wood and iron door to swoosh as Olivia turns her key and gingerly opens it, passing the home’s four-digit address that lacks two numbers. The two-story house is dark and silent. The only sounds heard are the howls of the wind and the neighbor’s malnourished German shepherd.

  She gently walks up the staircase as she passes the bedroom of her sleeping grandmother. Olivia is always careful not to wake her; she knows she is a light sleeper.

  Last night’s tan boots are the only items out of place in her spotless bedroom. Unlike her life, there is extreme order and structure in her nighttime quarters. The room smells of expensive perfume and incense. Her white king-sized canopy bed looks heavenly.

  She takes a seat on her paisley-patterned chaise lounge to remove her boots. Olivia is disappointed to see an empty bottle of eye drops on the dresser, because her eyes are once again sore from sorrow. Her misery is worse than that of the inhabitants of Davis Inlet.

  “Why me, God?” Olivia questions in a low whisper. Her head is bowed, elbows resting on her knees.

  She stands, closes the bedroom door as it creaks, and locks it.

  The vanity mirror hasn’t reflected vanity in quite some time, and tonight, it reflects Olivia retrieving a coffee-brown glass vial from a drawer as she sits in an armless chair.

  Ancient Inca Indians used to chew the leaves for increased stamina and vitality, but tonight Olivia sprinkles the extracted alkaloid onto a mini hand mirror. Derived from erythroxylum coca, the white powder eases her nerves in a spectacular fashion, far better than her prescription Prozac.

  She snorts three thick lines, roughly a gram and a half. Hormones are instantly released from her brain’s pleasure centers and she cracks a fraudulent smile as new tears form in her eyes. She wipes her face and her nose and continues to smile, disingenuously.

  More pure powder flows from the vile onto the glass. Olivia emphatically snorts it. The drug-induced chemical reactions in her brain make her think she feels better.

  Once released, the substances in her brain aren’t immediately reabsorbed, so for a brief moment, Olivia forgets she has Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. She forgets she lost her academic scholarship when she stopped going to class. She forgets she dropped out of college. She forgets about her desire to have a family and a white picket fence. Her loneliness dissipates.

  In the midst of this amnesic episode, Olivia catches a glimpse of herself in the vanity mirror hanging over her dresser, and she stares at it. She loathes what she sees. So she stands and walks into an adjacent bathroom, opens the mirrored cabinet, grabs something, and returns to her seat. A floorboard creaks.

  Out of despair, Olivia has retrieved a small orangish-tan plastic bottle of Valium. The wind whips outside, and after some difficulty, she manages to open the junkie-proof cap.

  “Take one pill a day,” Olivia reads on the bottle, then laughs. “Do not exceed dosage.”

  Ignoring the warning, she dumps about twelve of the blue V-imprinted pills into her hand. As she eyes the medication, there’s a knock at her door.

  “Olivia?” her grandmother calls out in a muffled voice. “Are you okay in there?” It’s late, and Olivia is usually in bed by this time.

  “Yes, Grandmother,” Olivia answers. “I’m okay. You can go back to bed.”

  “Olivia?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can I come in?”

  Olivia thinks about it, but as she ponders her response, the doorknob turns and the door opens. It wasn’t locked after all, and her grandmother carefully enters.

  Embarrassed, Olivia begins wiping her face and in the process, the pills in her hand fall and scatter across the shiny hardwood floor. Together they make a clear and distinct musical clatter.

  Wise and tender, the elderly Juanita glances at the pills, now strewn all over the floor. She immediately grabs her troubled granddaughter and holds her tight, pressing her face into her heart. Olivia can feel it beating with unconditional love, and she breaks down, sobbing uncontrollably.

  “God loves you, baby,” Juanita says as she serenely begins rocking side to side. “He loves Olivia so much.”

  The twenty-seven-year-old begins wailing even louder.

  “Why?!” she screams at the top of her lungs. “Why?!”

  “He has a plan for you, baby,” Juanita reassures her broken granddaughter. “You just have to have faith. And baby, you are not alone, I’m here with you.”

  Olivia’s sobbing continues, and is now a low humming buzz. Her deep sorrow is infectious, and it causes Juanita to begin crying too. She wipes her eyes and cheeks, still holding Olivia tight.

  The wind rattles the house as the storm shutters smack against the exterior. And yet, the yellow rose outside remains Herculean.

  Chapter 7

  Cold wind whirls outside as Brad, Cicero, and Kam sit at a round table in a poorly lit Italian restaurant. For the past week, they’ve had a series of weighty business meetings, but this is without question the most momentous.

  The décor is authentic, but patrons rarely order the angel hair pasta or the sage and basil-powdered bruschetta. More than anything, it’s a meeting place. A debugged meeting place. A secure, family-owned meeting place.

  “So, Cicero, how’s your mother doin’?” the oldest and fattest man seated at the table asks. His mustache is bushy.

  “She’s well,” Cicero responds.

  “She was always a beautiful woman,” the man says. His Italian accent is prominent.

  “And she still is, Jimmy,” Cicero adds, smiling.

  The restaurant is quiet with the exception of water running in the back kitchen and some dishes clattering. Near the entrance hangs a large oil painting of infamous Cristoforo Columbo disembarking his ship.

  Jimmy wheezes. His obesity makes him struggle for every breath. Kam and Brad, both in expensive English-tailored suits, are silent. They’re focused, eyes penetrating.

  “Your father, God rest his soul, was a loyal man,” Jimmy states. “You know that?”

  Cicero nods yes.

  “Very well-respected,” Jimmy continues. “And I hear that you’ve made a name for yourself. That you’ve got a lot of your father’s good qualities.”

  Cicero nods again.

  Roaring flames crackle in the restaurant’s twenty-five-foot brick fireplace while three huge chandeliers made of blown glass hang from the exposed wood-beamed ceiling.

  “I also hear you’re good with the ladies.”

  Everyone at the table laughs, including two other Italian gentlemen, one of whom is slender and laughs louder than anyone else.

  “Yea, he has an Italian’s loyalty and a black man’s cock,” the thinnest man says. Everyone laughs again, minus Cicero. The thin man’s name is Pete, and his face is hard from year
s of alcohol abuse and stress. The type of stress brought on by federal indictments, warrants, murder, racketeering, extortion, prostitution, Internet pornography, credit card fraud, grand theft, and mayhem in general.

  “He can’t lose,” Pete adds. They all laugh again, and again, Cicero is silent. He eyes the comedian. Kam and Brad sense the tension, as does Jimmy, who jumps in with a timely comment.

  “You know, Cicero, it was unfortunate what happened to your father,” he says, talking with his hands. “But you know, that does happen in our line of work.”

  Cicero silently nods.

  “And, Cicero, what is this I hear you have a college degree,” Jimmy asks, totally switching gears. “I know we’ve lost contact for a few years, but is this true?”

  “Yea, I actually have two,” Cicero says, nonchalantly. “A bachelor’s and a masters in psychology.”

  Jimmy pauses and strokes his mustache. Then he looks at Cicero, much like his father or his mother would have.

  “Well, what the fuck are you doing here with us?” Jimmy questions. In front of him is a saucer of fresh garlic bread, drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and a pinch of rosemary, and baked portachini mushrooms.

  “Jimmy, why should I settle for fifty thousand dollars a year when I can make fifty thousand a week,” Cicero says, adding hand gestures to his words. He loves money more than he loves pussy. That, and the fact that he would rather kick, than be kicked, and slap than be slapped.

  “Look,” the fifty-seven-year-old Jimmy chimes in, “a degree like that is truly an accomplishment, for anyone, black or white. Lord knows my son is a good-for-nothing lazy piece of shit.”

  Cicero and Kam, who are seated next to each other, both grin as Jimmy continues kvetching about this son.

  “Really, Jimmy,” the other Italian man asks, smiling.

  Jimmy looks toward him and continues, “All he does all fucking day is shove that white shit up his nose, and blow my fucking money day trading and shit. And taking fucking trips to the fucking Ozarks.”

  Jimmy’s voice is deep and booming. It’s the voice of leadership. But he calms. His dialogue shows he has feelings for Cicero.

  “But, Cicero, you’re a grown man, so live your life,” he stops, then adds, “for as long as you can.”

  Cicero frowns.

  “No disrespect, Jimmy, but are you finished?” Cicero asks.

  Jimmy nods yes.

  “Good,” Cicero says. “We came here tonight because Brad and I have developed a new product, and with your blessing, we’d like to uh, market it.”

  The three Italian men look interested, and with that, Cicero looks at Brad and gives him the okay.

  Brad’s dark-gray suit flows smoothly over his frame as he reaches down and lifts a supple black attaché case onto the table. He pulls a small chrome-like circular disk out and opens it.

  In the disk is one small tubular tablet.

  “It’s a derivative of dopamine, the same chemical released in the brain when someone snorts coke,” Brad says, speaking tranquilly and confidently. His accent is not as thick tonight. He slides the tablet over to Pete, and Jimmy immediately demands it, then eyes it, carefully.

  Brad continues, “But this has a synthetic element, similar to Ecstasy, that further stimulates dopamine production and blocks re-uptake.”

  “So what the fuck does all this mean to me?” a skeptical Pete weighs in, snickering at Brad’s accent. Pete’s incredulous, but his opinion really doesn’t matter.

  Brad, unfazed, responds, “It means you can get heaven on Earth, Pete, without worrying about hell, ya got me? You see, there are no negative side effects. No coming down from this mountaintop. Not for some hours.”

  Jimmy grins, still fingering the tablet. Kam sees this and smiles, dazzling the room. His all-black suit almost blends in with his chocolate-colored skin. Cicero cracks a smile as well.

  “The best part about it is that it’s all natural, and right now, it’s all legal.”

  Now, all eyes are on Jimmy. And he takes a deep breath. On top of the fact that this guy owns three restaurants, two strip clubs, the car dealership where Kam and Cicero bought their cars, and a host of liquor stores, he’s very well connected. In fact, Jimmy maintains tax information for Kam and Cicero at a few of his legal businesses, so the federal government thinks they both have real jobs and they’re giving Uncle Sam his cut. Paying taxes like good Americans.

  “So you guys want to basically unleash a new plague on the Earth?” Jimmy asks.

  The air becomes still. No one moves. Cicero had never contemplated, not even for a second, the ramifications of this endeavor, even though he grew up in a time and place where cocaine and crack had ravaged a generation, and left countless youth orphaned, and sons murdered and imprisoned, even on his own block. Friends, neighbors and schoolmates: all casualties in the so-called war on drugs. Still, he had never thought about the potential consequences, the global, epidemic sort of consequences, of this effort. But his mind was made up.

  “I guess so,” Cicero answers frankly.

  Jimmy just nods. And though he has seen many things and is rarely shocked or dismayed, Cicero’s unrelenting dark heart, his callousness, surprises the aging Mafioso. And yet, he too, wishes to move forward.

  “May God forgive you, Cicero Day,” Jimmy states lightheartedly.

  “I don’t fear myths,” Cicero immediately replies. The group is momentarily silent, then Jimmy starts.

  “So, how much can you make off this stuff?”

  “No, Jimmy, how much can we make?” Cicero asks before taking a deep breath. “Well, with your initial financial assistance and national and international connections…”

  A mouse in a back storeroom is heard pissing on a cotton ball.

  “…billions,” Cicero finishes. “It’s the new and improved Coca.”

  Pete and his friend look at Jimmy, who has a straight face, and is still fingering the royal-blue tablet. He then spreads his mustache with a wide grin and begins to laugh.

  “With that kind of soldi, I can get some fuckin’ liposuction and get head from Jennifer Aniston!”

  Everyone at the table bursts into laughter, except Cicero. He wants this too bad to joke about it.

  “It’s gonna take us a few months to get, you know, things to make the shit and get everything together.”

  Jimmy nods.

  “But, Jimmy, do we have your blessing?” Cicero asks.

  Jimmy, in his three-piece hand-tailored suit, struggles to his feet and waddles over to Cicero, who stands up. Jimmy’s girth makes his expensive Italian suit look cheap, while Cicero’s all-black, single-breasted suit looks miraculous. Jimmy gives him a firm hug. Cicero firmly hugs him back though it is not in his heart. He didn’t grow up with a lot of affection, but he loves money. While both his parents loved him dearly, neither regularly embraced him. If they had, his life may have been different.

  Jimmy squeezes him tightly, then kisses him on the cheek.

  “Look at this kid! You gotta love him!”

  Cicero smiles and releases his grasp, as Jimmy follows.

  “Of course you have my blessing, and be sure you have my twenty percent,” Jimmy adds. Pete and the other gentleman laugh. Kam and Brad smirk, but they knew Jimmy’s help wouldn’t be free.

  “I’ll call my guys in Vegas, Chicago, and New York, let them know what’s coming, what to expect.”

  “Cool. It’s a deal then,” Cicero replies, as he firmly shakes the shorter Jimmy’s hand. As he smiles, Cicero thinks to himself that if he had to, he could kill Jimmy, and Pete, and his friend with his bare hands. It’s a thought many men have in the presence of other men, but Cicero’s thought, and most like it, is never mumbled.

  “So, C, you wanna fuck my wife too,” Jimmy jokingly adds. Everyone laughs. “’Cause Lord knows, I don’t want to!”

  Jimmy yells to a nearby waiter to fetch the best wine in the house. The young guido hastily scurries off to a cellar and is gone for several minutes.
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  As the search for the perfect year and grapes ensues, Jimmy pulls Cicero to the side, away from the others seated at the table.

  “Do that for me, Cicero, tonight,” Jimmy commands, as he stares Cicero in the eyes.

  “It’s done, Jimmy,” Cicero answers as the kid returns with two rare vintage 1972 bottles of Bernello red wine.

  “Good,” Jimmy says with a smile. “Let’s have a drink.”

  The two return to the table and Jimmy inserts a long, sterling silver corkscrew into the bottle’s top. It’s an old harvest, so he slowly removes the cork, then checks it for red streaks. Any sign of veins would indicate leakage, but there are none, so Jimmy pours the fermented fruit into a lead-free decanter. The six men indulge.

  The men stagger out of the restaurant a few hours later, after finishing the wine and ordering more drinks and cordials and beer. It’s now darker outside, colder. Biting wind whistles as it whips around the corner.

  Jimmy and the other gentleman pull their Dobbs hats over their eyes and take in the chilly night air. They wonder if the feds are watching them, equipped with night vision cameras, breaking in their new technology on Jimmy’s crew.

  Brad, Cicero, Kam and Pete all stagger out of the restaurant laughing.

  “So you really kicked this broad in the ass?” Pete asks Brad, astounded. Brad smiles and nods yes.

  “Unfuckinbelieveable,” Pete adds. “I need to come party with you guys.”

  Cicero jumps in. “Well, shit, Pete, you need to come with us right now!”

  Brad eyes Cicero, who’s still clinging to his snifter. Jimmy is a true epicure, and his taste in cognac is superb.

  “Oh yea?” Pete asks. “Where you guys headed now?” His voice is raspy from years of Cuban cigar smoking.

  “We’re going to meet up with these shakers and after that, go to my place to get fucked and sucked,” Cicero expounds.

  “Shakers?” Pete inquires as the cutting wind blows.

  “Strippers, man,” Kam clears up before firing up a fat blunt.

  “You fucking bullshittin’,” Pete asks while grinning.

  Shaking his head no, Cicero says, “I’m not bullshittin’. It’s going to be wonderful.”