Chapter 22: Turn Off the Light

Somebody yanked the cord, and the dark came down.

Men shouted.

Chair legs scraped, and a gun cocked, and then another, all around me in the blackness.

I felt Teo's body cover mine against the table.

"Nobody fire," said my father.

It was the voice from the stories.

It was low and even and patient, the voice that had sat in this room for eleven years of Fridays and told frightened boys what a family was.

The shouting stopped.

"Corrado."

"Ignazio." My uncle's voice came from the middle of the room, high and thin. "Turn on the light."

"No. You'll hear me from here, the way every boy did."

"Brother-"

"Every man along these walls answered it once, in this dark. Tonight you answer it, in front of them."

Silence.

Somewhere a man breathed hard through his nose.

"You drew your gun in front of the family," my father said. "You have it in your hand now. I can hear the metal in your sleeve."

"I drew it to protect you."

"Then you will not mind where it points."

Another silence.

The dark pressed on my eyes until colored lights swam in it.

"Tell me where it points, brother."

"At the floor."

"Say it again."

"At the floor, Ignazio!"

"Your voice moved," said my father, quietly. "You are not where you were standing."

A shot cracked in the room.

It was deafening.

The flash lit everything for a thousandth of a second, white and flat, like a photograph.

I saw my uncle standing with his arm out straight.

I saw the gun, pointed at the head of the room.

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