Sons and Princes by James Lepore

parents’ immigration and citizenship papers, their marriage license, Rose’s recipe books and a bundle of aging greeting cards tied in a faded red ribbon, he put in a small box, which he placed in the back seat of the Saab.
    The house needed to be swept clean, but he decided to first attend to the garage. There he found a neatly organized workbench and much more in the way of tools, including the typical power tools found in men’s workshops all over America, than he expected. On Carmine Street, there was a hammer, a couple of screwdrivers and a pliers in a kitchen drawer, and that was it. Joe Black had apparently needed something to do in his retirement. Chris took a hammer from a hook on a peg board. The weight of it in his hand pulled at his heart.
    After the gunning down of Ed Dolan, Sr., Chris put the professional Joe Black outside the pale, and, thereafter, never fully admitted the father Joe Black into his life. He survived by suppressing both his love and his hatred for the man whose blood flowed in his veins. The hammer reminded him of the father he never knew. He decided to box up and keep all the tools, and while doing this, he came across an old cake tin with something heavy in it. Inside, he found a 44. Ruger in an oiled pouch, a box of full clips, and an envelope with fifty-five hundred dollars in cash in it.
    Joe Black did not speak about what he did for a living. He had dinner with his family most nights, took them occasionally to Coney Island or Jones Beach, and even went to Chris’ track meets. On the days he killed people, he acted no different than on the days he didn’t. Hefting the Lugar, Chris thought of Jimmy Barsonetti, a man who, if there ever was one, deserved to die. He knew in his bones not only that he deserved to die, but that the truest justice comes at the hand of the victim, or his family. Had this been Joe Black’s code? On the one chance he had had to ask that question, Chris had been too young, and too paralyzed by the weight of Joe Black’s persona to speak up. He “followed orders” his father had said, but what happened when the orders he received were evil? What did Joe Black do then? That was the question Chris had never asked, afraid of what the answer would be. He had never given his father the benefit of the doubt, and now he wished he had. He might be looking for that benefit himself soon from his own children. He replaced the gun and carried the tin out to the Saab, where he put it under the front seat. As he was doing this, he heard a car pull up. Turning, he saw Teresa in the driver’s seat of her Mercedes SUV, which she had double-parked next to the Saab. Tess was in the passenger seat next to her.
    “Hi,” Chris said, looking into the car through the passenger window, acknowledging first his daughter and then his ex-wife. “What’s up?”
    “She wanted to help you,” Teresa answered.
    Tess got out, approached Chris and kissed him on the cheek, then turned to say goodbye to her mom.
    “What about dinner?” Teresa asked.
    “We’ll go out someplace after we finish here,” Chris replied.
    “Not too late. It’s a school night.”
    Chris and Tess watched as Teresa pulled into the driveway, then backed out and drove off.
    “What happened to your tutoring?” Chris asked when she was gone.
    “I cut it short.”
    “Who was it with?”
    “Rory Peterson.”
    “Was that a good idea?”
    “All she wanted to do was talk about boys anyway.”
    “I guess there’s no chance she’ll be tested on that subject.”
    “At my high school, you never know.”
    They worked for the next two hours, Tess sweeping down the entire house and cleaning the kitchen and both bathrooms, while Chris finished in the garage, and then cleaned out the basement. He was finished before Tess, and decided to go out for pizza, stopping on the way back to pick up a bottle of red wine. The tiny Cape Cod-style house had a wide and handsome front porch – its best feature – and there they