Reddpath

Albie and Margharita Marciano took too seriously the biblical decree to be fruitful and multiply. No sooner were the nuptials completed than they got busy procreating. The fruits of their furious efforts sprang forth a mere nine months after their wedding date in the form a daughter they named Fiona, who later renamed herself Ginger after the ship-wrecked and breathy glamor-girl played by Tina Louise on the television series Gilligan’s Island . Albie was a science teacher at the local middle school, during an era when it was still legally defensible to physically assault students who didn’t do what they were told. Father accumulated a well-worn reputation for strong-arming and bitch-slapping errant pupils. Margherita was a frazzled mother and housewife. She escaped the pressures of child rearing by watching soap operas and Downy commercials. Both parents came of age during the Great Depression. The lessons of those days seared my parents in different ways. For Albie, it l...

Miles Zusman sat down at his desk that night and went to work on some new position papers. He was trying to find the words to galvanize the Arizona electorate. He would do that by appealing to their fears, which was the best way to get people to show up at polling stations. Politicians had long since given up on the power of positive thinking. They didn’t give a shit what Norman Vincent Peale had to say about that. You could always count on people being pessimistic by nature. There was plenty to fear — such as immigrants, taxes, overregulation, the repeal of the Second Amendment, watching the Social Security trust fund run dry, being the victim of a violent crime, homosexuals and the general coarsening of society. The antidote to all their fears was so obvious: policies such as low taxes and big prisons. Miles also had some legislative proposals under development, including a bill to further promote solar energy, an industry in which Arizona, with all its intense sunlight...

We were given one day off and it was back to practice. Roman Hoyt didn’t want any let-up. After a titanic battle against Puget Sound we were battered and bruised. There were blisters on the soles of our feet, contusions on calves and thighs, black and blue marks, hip pointers, sore and dislocated ribs, hyper-extended joints, twisted ankles, strained knees, loose teeth, pulled muscles, jammed fingers and cracked toenails. Our movements were tentative and compensating. If we had lost the game the pain and anguish would have been three or four times more agonizing. I went to the far end of the gym and lowered myself to the floor with great effort to begin stretching. Alonzo Croft was heading my direction. He was looking better than most of us. He didn’t get much playing time and hadn’t sustained many injuries, though I detected a slight limp. When he noticed that I noticed the limp he accentuated it, taking his injury from an ankle sprain to a dislocated knee. He kept coming and he...

The address given to Vinny by sergeant detective Clyde Jablonsky led us to a historic section of the city’s downtown. The area was full of badly aged buildings from the turn of the century. They were constructed of red bricks whose color had been faded and stained by decades of punishment from inclement weather and air pollution. The windows were so opaque you could not begin to see what was taking place inside. Some windows were cracked and taped over. The ridges of many buildings were lined with pigeons that defecated freely, scorching the upper portions of the once majestic structures with stark white streaks of bird shit. In some areas, moss and ivy had sprung to life and were migrating up the walls. Tiny shards of broken glass glinted in an almost ornamental way along the sidewalks. Why the city had not taken more care in preserving its historic roots defied explanation. Vinny pulled his Jeep Cherokee to the side of the road, wondering why this hot- shot investigator was ho...

Miles Zusman would never get elected to Congress without a campaign war chest. He needed to raise donations. Even more important than that, he needed people to raise money for him. If that was every going to happen he needed the support of the state Republican Party. He drove 100 miles south to Phoenix, the temperature rising with each passing longitude, to introduce himself to the head of the Arizona Republican Party, a pudgy man named Charlie Quakenbush. Dark and romantic notions about life in politics filled his head as he walked in the door. The chest was puffed because Miles Zusman had used self-talk to tell himself an endless stream of nice and impressive things about himself. It was a technique that worked well in the past en route to job interviews, public speaking events, blinds dates and such. Quakenbush projected a cool air of authority. Aspirants came through his door daily, and Miles was just another warm body looking for a higher station in life. They all ar...

Ringo was a problem child from the time adoring faces peered into his incubated crib on the day of his birth and prophesized that he would one day become President of the United States. Not only did he lack any interest in the nation’s top job, Ringo didn’t want to be employed at all. He was flat-out allergic to work. When, later in life, he discovered that a disease known as chronic fatigue syndrome existed, he immediately claimed that as his affliction. Subsequent medical tests for auto-immune disease proved that was not the case, leading us to conclude what we had assumed all along — that our brother was simply lazy. Exertions of all kinds were avoided so fervently that he expended more energy evading work assignments than would have been required to actually complete the task. Happiness would have been to spending his life sitting in front of the TV set watching sports programming and sponging off the Marciano family welfare system. Alas, parents and siblings organized sever...

Coach Roman Hoyt gathered us at center court to give instructions about our afternoon practice. His mustache was still greasy from lunch and his tear-gas breath was blowing us backward with the smell of grilled onions. Hoyt was flanked by assistant coach Johnnie Eureka, who was dribbling a basketball while Hoyt droned on, and trainer Danny Fazlow, whose sour expression showed he was having yet another bout of acid reflux. Hoyt notified us that it was time for a full-intensity scrimmage game, the starting five versus the “B” squad. Our opening game against Yukon State was just a few weeks away. The scouting report on Yukon State was that the team was short on talent and speed. They compensated for these deficits by being extremely physical, which was an especially gross experience for opposing teams because the boys from the Yukon had excessive body hair and bulbous foreheads. They were men reminiscent of an earlier geologic era. “They’re slow but powerful,” Hoyt said. “Th...