Broke down. Hiding beneath the front porch. The Queens sunlight dimly filtering through - illuminating shafts of dust, rat shit, pigeon feathers and tinfoil gum wrappers. Fred is stomping around upstairs in a three-piece suit with a Windsor knot, the jacket off, anger concentrated in his mustache. His eyes as fierce the pulsing flames from the pizza oven at Rosati's where Donald would bicycle to after school in secret. His mother had been sick for years. Why would she leave her Scottish island for this? Away to the westward, I'm longing to be / Where the beauties of heaven' unfold by the sea / Where the sweet purple heather' blooins fragrant and free / On a hill-top, high above the Dark Island, she would sing, locked in the bedroom. "Fragrant and free." I'm not smart enough for him. How can I sit down and read words from schoolbooks with his eyeballs burning into the back of my head? He never stops. He's like a broken traffic light flashing red yellow red yellow red yellow. Donald wants to get on his bike with the big triangle seat and pedal to Coney Island, to Rockaway Beach - hell, to that big, empty beach on Long Island! Maybe he could spy his mother's Scottish island from there! The waves against the rocks were loud enough to drown out Fred's voice. It was magnificent and he felt alone, but briefly free.
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