Kissing Cousins by Barry Rachin (black male authors txt) 📕

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"Don't want to end up like my old man." Phillip gently tapped a nail into a penciled mark on the plywood. Draping a chalked line over the head of the nail he moved to the middle of the floor and held the powdery string over a parallel mark while Katy lifted vertically and snapped the line.

"What happened to him?"

"Married a shrew who sent him to an early grave," he shot back morosely.

There was a brief moment of silence before Katy, in typical fashion pulled an outrageous prank. The girl farted. Intentionally. She let loose with an obscenely silly expression of disdain for Phillip's moody digression. "Geez! Lighten up, Cousin Phillip!"

Coming up behind him, Katy snaked her arms around his waist, pulling him close. Her breezy playfulness coupled with the vulgar, low-brow shenanigan’s took the sting out of his diatribe. Earlier in the week when Phillip was trying to engage her in another serious conversation, the girl jumped on his back - literally - demanding a piggyback ride. Katy was hedonistic, impulse ridden, a scatterbrain with the attention span of a flea, a live-by-the-seat-of-her-pants sprite born to kiss, hug and tease her way through life with never a heartache nor solitary misgiving.


The construction company – eight, beefy carpenters and a crew chief arrived the third week in August and, with a hydraulic crane, the rest of the logs were set in place, the roof raised and shingled.

"This calls for a celebration.” Uncle Ned was staring at the finished shell of his log cabin. “Saturday night at the Boneyard Grille." The Boneyard was a quasi-respectable rib joint that catered to locals and a handful of bikers who tended to rowdiness, especially on the weekends. They served pulled pork, blackened catfish, steaks and an assortment of Cajun-style chicken dishes. "Eight o'clock," Uncle Ned slapped Ned on the back. "My treat and bring your appetite."

The weather stayed dry straight through Thursday when wind-driven thunderstorm pelted the ground into a muddy mess. Uncle Ned and Phillip drove over to Tony's Pizza for an early lunch.

"Buon giorno, paisano!" the olive skinned man behind the counter looked up when they entered the eatery. "Whatchawanna eat for lunch?"

"And good morning to you," Uncle Ned returned. They placed their orders and settled into a booth near the front of the store.

"And wheresa ya lovely dotta?" Tony asked.

Uncle Ned's expression darkened. "Katy went out bar hopping after work... came home skunk drunk. She's home sleeping it off."

"Marone!" Flexing his wrist, Tony made a tipping gesture with his right hand. "Too mucha da vino,"

"Yeah, too much vino, Jack Daniels, vodka and God knows what else."

Five minutes passed. It was still quite early, and they were the only customers. Behind the counter, the owner was jibber-jabbering with a coworker in a guttural tongue that was impossible to pigeonhole. Phillip leaned closer over the table, "What's that weird language?"

"Arabic. Our Italian host, Khalid Mohammed, took the long way here via Southern Lebanon." In response to Phillips baffled expression, Uncle Ned noted, "We got to talking one day when business was slow, and he told me his whole life story." The owner of Tony’s Pizza emigrated from Lebanon in nineteen eighty-three after the Israeli invasion. The IDF ran Merkava tanks through the tiny hamlet where he lived, jets raining cluster bombs down on the olive and fig trees. The commercial building that housed his falafel business was leveled. "Khalid's Pizza Emporium - that was his first choice, but then someone pointed out the potential liabilities of such a name what with nine-eleven, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Uncle Ned waved good-naturedly at the man behind the counter and Khalid Mohammed - aka Uncle Tony - rewarded him with a toothy grin. In truth, the slim man with the bushy moustache and classic, Mediterranean good looks could have easily passed for Italian, Sicilian or Greek. "The colorful, inflections… that’s just a harmless ruse," "In another half hour when the lunch crowd arrives, he stops talking Arabic altogether in favor of the Italian shtick." Uncle Ned began chuckling as though at some private joke. "It's great for business and really quite funny when you think about it."

An Arab falafel hawker managing an authentic Italian pizzeria - nothing was ever what it seemed to be. When the lunchtime crowd reached its peak, did Khalid launch into an a cappella version of Oh Sole Mio?

"Cluster bombs… a modern-day version of napalm. Nasty stuff!" Back outside in the parking lot, the older man kicked at the wet ground with his work boot and rubbed his stubbly chin with the heel of his hand. "Of course, the Israeli invasion of Southern Lebanon was a classic example of the tail wagging the dog," Uncle Ned added, "with the army running amok while the Jewish government acted as little more than a rubber stamp for religious fanatics and their messianic policies."

"How's that?" Phillip was having trouble following his uncles fracture commentary.

"For two thousand years, dating back to Hagar and Ishmael,” his mind teetered off in yet another obscure perambulation, “they've been going at it. Nothing ever changes." The older man moved several steps further away from the truck. "There's something I've been meaning to tell you about my daughter." He winced, as though whatever it was he had to confide carried a steep price. "What I'm gonna say about your Cousin Katy is in strictest confidence, and I would hope that -"

Before he could make his way to the central point, a cell phone began to twitter insistently and Uncle Ned fumbled about in his back pocket. A window supplier needed to recheck dimensions for all rough opening. Uncle Ned climbed back in the cab of the Ford 150. There was no more mention of Lebanese restaurateurs conducting business under false pretences or Cousin Katy's personal affairs. Back at the worksite, Uncle Ned disappeared into the camper in search of the building plans. When he finally emerged, Phillip said, "Cousin Katy… there was something you wanted you tell me?"

"Not now," his uncle was in no mood for small talk. "I got to get back to the supplier with hard figures or the windows won't ship."


They were wedged in a booth at the Boneyard Grille having finished eating almost an hour earlier. Uncle Ned wagged a finger in the general direction of the bar where Katy was sipping a beer and commiserating with a fat, bearded man wearing a Harley Davidson dungaree vest. An elaborate series of tattoos extended from the biceps to the wrists. The hairy biker cracked an earthy joke and Katy, decked out in a tank top and cowboy boots doubled up in laughter. "Now there's a social deviant interviewing for a job in the abstract," Uncle Ned fumed, "and my damn fool of a daughter’s buying up every counterfeit word of it!"

Both Phillip and Uncle Ned had been drinking gin and tonics to celebrate the completion of the first phase of his 'Grand Scheme'. The man sipped at his liquor. "My daughter... heart of gold but a first-class dope!"

Interviewing for the job in the abstract. Earlier in the day, Phillip shot by his mother's place. He hadn't seen or talked to the woman in almost a month. Flying to Miami in the morning, the butcher was taking her on a ten-day cruise of the islands. The former Mrs. Peters bought a new wardrobe at the Chestnut Hill Mall, had her hair and nails done. Phillip had never seen his mother, who shed twenty pounds in anticipation of the adventure, looking so svelte. On the other hand, Murray - that was the butcher's name - looked decrepit. "Everything turns to shit," Phillip muttered.

"What’s that?" Uncle Ned cupped a hand over his ear.

Between the tank top, cowboy boots and old-maid-librarian, dark glasses, Phillip couldn't decide if his favorite cousin was infuriatingly cute or a few months early for Halloween. "That Harley Davidson tub of lard...” The sight of Katy at the bar making goo-goo eyes with a three hundred pound degenerate left him so distraught Phillip couldn't even finish the sentence.

"Talk's cheap," Uncle Ned shot back gruffly. "Why don't you get off your schoolteacher's ass and do something about it?"

"Like what?"

"I dunno." He raised his glass and waved it in the smoky air. "Ask my daughter out on a freakin' date… marry her, copulate and raise a dozen latchkey brats."

With Uncle Ned’s last, outlandish remark Phillip's brain was virtually shutting down. "They got a two-syllable word for that abomination, and it begins with the letter 'I'."

"Katy's not my biological daughter, you idiot!" Uncle Ned rubbed his eyes with the tips of his calloused fingers. "Her mother was married and divorced before we ever met. She’s the byproduct of a previous marriage and no blood relation to either one of us."

What happened after that was a dizzying blur of noise, mayhem and buffoonery. Phillip staggered to the bar and said something to the beefy biker who promptly, climbed off the stool and punched him on the side of the head - a single chopping blow. Phillip's legs turned to spaghetti al dente and he ended up on the floor in a heap. The biker, who never even broke a sweat, conveniently slipped out the side door without paying his tab.

Five minutes later, when Phillip finally came to, Uncle Ned helped him up to a sitting position. “I’m okay now.” Staggering to his feet, he almost toppled over a second time.

“What with the liquor and the fight,” Uncle Ned relived him of his car keys, “you’re in no condition to get behind the wheel.”

"I can give him a lift home," Katy volunteered. "It was all my fault.

On the ride home Phillip sat with his throbbing head mashed up against the passenger side window. "You knew all along that we weren't related by blood."

"I was in kindergarten when my mother met your uncle."

Reaching his apartment, she asked, "Do you have any cocoa mix, Phil?"

"Yes, why do you ask?" Even in his debilitated state, it hadn't escaped notice that Katy omitted the familiar prefix and foreshortened his name by half.

"Maybe I should come up and fix you a cup of hot chocolate." Reaching out she ran a fingertip over the bruised skin. "That's a nasty bump." She lowered the hand letting it come to rest on the side of his neck. "I'm coming upstairs, Phil, to get you situated… however long it takes."

Phillip didn't quite grasp what Katy meant by the tail end of the previous remark. “Well, I really am in an awful lot of pain, and a cup of hot chocolate might help set things right."

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