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Augie’s Revenge

by Anthony F. Bruno

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A week before the Fall semester, my brother Dominic, second in the family to attend college, worried about his upcoming abnormal psychology course.

“What’re you afraid of?” I said. I was the first in the family to attend college and had never taken the course.

“Stuff locked up in my unconscious, you know, demons, and stuff . . .” he said.

“Come on, Dom, you’re watching too much public TV. It’s just another course.”

“I’m not sure, what if it turns out I’m nuts?”

“Nuts, what nuts, everybody goes through that in abnormal psych, don’t worry.”

“Well everybody doesn’t come from a family like ours.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean having somebody like Augie as a first cousin,” he said, referring to Augustino, my Aunt Guiseppina’s five-foot, two-hundred-pound son who, making a third try at 12th grade, disrupted the food chain wherever he went.

“That’s Augie, Dom, not us. Plus, a cab hit him in the head, he’s in a coma for two days. You wonder why he thinks Irish people put horses in his cellar?”

“It’s not just the horses. How about honking in that priest’s face at confession, they called the cops, he got arrested.”

“But that’s Augie, you think we have his genes?”

“His mother and our mother are sisters, we don’t have his genes?”

“I mean his genes for being nuts, we don’t have crazy genes, we have sane genes. Look, forget Augie, how bad could it be, one semester, 15 weeks, bang, it’s over.”

“Well . . . I don’t know . . . ,” he said.

By the thirteenth week in the semester, Dominic was diagnosing family members.

“Marie, you have a neurosis,” he said one evening in December over a steaming plate of macaroni and beans.

“And your nose is the size of Detroit,” she said.

“Now see, that’s hostility, you’re defensive about receiving feedback . . .” he said.

“Pass the gravy, you!” interrupted my mother, “Your sister works, what do you do, you talk.”

“Mom, these are unresolved sibling rivalries, we have to . . .”

“Give me a break, you think you’re a psychiatrist or somebody?” said my sister Madeline.

“Dom, you think you’ll get rid of those pimples soon?” said my youngest brother Jimmy.

“This is a dysfunctional family, I read about it in . . .”

“Dominic! Quit the moon talk and eat!” said my father.

We finished the meal in silence.

After dinner, Dominic grabbed me and said, “I have to talk to you.”

“What’s up?”

“The final assignment in abnormal psych. I have to interview a psychiatrist and do a report on it.”

“What’s the problem?”

“When I think of sitting across from one of these guys looking in my face, trying to read my mind, that shakes me up,” he said.

“Dom, for a smart guy like you to worry about a shrink reading your mind, I mean, come on, what’s the big deal?” I said. None of us had ever met or seen a psychiatrist, and, except for Augustino, no one in the extended family had, either.

“Talking’s one thing, looking eye to eye with one of these guys is something else. And where do I find a psychiatrist to interview?” he said.

“Look in the phone book.”

“What should I look under?”

“Psychiatrists. Wait a minute, wait a minute, call Augie, find out who he goes to,” I said.

“Yes, perfect, yes, I’ll go see Augie’s shrink, swell, the guy’ll figure here’s another one from the nutso squad, he’ll spot me a mile away.”

“Just get his name from Augie, call him, level with the guy, tell him you’re in a course, you need an interview, take a chance,” I said.

Dominic thought a moment.

“It’s due in ten days, I have to make a move. You really think I should ask Augie’s shrink?” he said.

“Why not? What’s the worse that could happen? The guy’s going to lock you up for being Augie’s cousin?” I said.

“Jeez, maybe they will . . . you don’t think . . . ?”

“I’m joking, get it over with, get the name from Augie, set it up, be a man about it!” I said.

The next morning Dominic called Augie.

“Augie, it’s cousin Dominic. I need a favor.”

“I’m broke,” said Augie, chewing on something.

“Not money. What’s your psychiatrist’s number, I need to talk to him . . .”

“I didn’t do anything to that puppy, you got that, it was some Irish guy from uptown . . .” Augie said.

“Calm down, I have to interview the guy for school, all I want is his number to interview him.”

“It’s not about me, right?” said Augie.

“Right.”

So Dominic telephoned Augie’s doctor the same day.

“You should have heard the guy, he was down to earth, like a regular guy,” he said, a smile across his face.

“When’s the appointment?” I said.

“Friday morning at Philly General,” he said, “only minutes away by subway and El.”

“Way to go, Dom!” I said.

That Friday morning, Dominic put on one of my father’s white shirts, at least two sizes too large, and wore a paisley tie he found under his bed, an unopened present from a previous Christmas. His hair—a naturally wiry mass destined never to be in fashion—was combed straight back.

“What’s with the hair?” I asked.

“I have vasoline and hair spray on it to keep it down,” he said. “How’s it look?”

“Looks fine,” I said. It looked like a shiny helmet from a Flash Gordon episode.

“So am I ready, or what?” he asked, buttoning his pea coat, and tucking his psych book and notepad under one arm.

“Look sharp, be sharp, Dom, knock him dead,” I said.

“I’m scared to death, I got the hiccups at five o’clock this morning, my eye’s twitching,” he said. Then he turned and headed for the subway.

At the hospital, Dominic found the in-patient reception desk on the eighth floor and asked for the attending psychiatrist.

“I’m here to interview the doctor, I’m not here to be interviewed,” he said to a clerk reading a newspaper. Without looking up, the man pressed a buzzer and motioned with his thumb toward a heavy metal door behind him.

“Thanks,” said Dominic as he walked through, saw the name on the first door to his left, and knocked.

A youngish man in his thirties—wearing wing tips and exuding an unmistakable mid-western optimism—answered the door and, extending his hand, said, “Hi, I’m Doctor Lance Vanderweil, please call me ‘Lance’, you must be Dominic Bruno.”

Seized by the doctor’s friendliness, and relieved that Lance did not have a beard or a couch in his office, Dominic conducted the interview with an unfamiliar sense of competence. As they finished, Lance stood and shook hands with my brother.

“OK, Dominic, now to get out of here, backtrack through the metal door, past the clerk, throw a quick right through the double doors and you’ll see the elevators.”

Continuing a family tradition of routinely asking for but never listening to directions, my brother, overcome with euphoria at having survived a once-dreaded experience, sailed past the clerk and made a quick left through double doors with small windows.

As soon as he pushed through them, the doors locked automatically behind him, and he turned to face a long center isle with metal beds on either side and, at the far end, another set of double doors.

At once, some fifteen residents walked toward him, buzzing as though he were some celebrity, a new face, a guy with a tie, probably some official, some big shot.

“Hey Doc, you got a smoke?” said a large man with one sharp yellowed front tooth.

“I’m on parole, you a lawyer?” said a tiny wrinkled man wearing an eyepatch, and sticking his hands, as he spoke, inside my brother’s jacket.

Others pressed against him slowly, deliberately, until he backpedaled into the doors.

“I’m not in here, I mean, I’m looking for the elevators, I . . .” Dominic sputtered the last words.

A man with no eyebrows and the letters “USMC” tattooed on his forearm closed in. “Hey Mack, I’ll trade you these pants for that jacket, is it a deal or what?” he said, exhaling high octane nicotine fumes that nearly choked Dominic.

Holding his breath, my brother said, “It’s a deal!”

Handing over the jacket, Dominic marched down the aisle toward the opposite set of double doors. Everyone fell into ranks behind him, walking with the precision of a string band.

“Hey pal, nice shirt,” someone said, and a hand reached in, gripped Dominic’s shirt cuff, and, in one motion, tore it from wrist to shoulder.

“Watch it,” Dominic hollered, as another hand gloved into his pants pocket, causing him to twist around and face the platoon. The guy with the eye patch smiled weakly, then pulled Dominic’s inside pocket out, ripping the right pants leg down to the knee.

Dominic broke into a gallop, reached the doors at the far end of the aisle and banged on the small windows. “Hello, hello, anybody out there, hello!”

The residents shouted, “Hello, hello, anybody out there, hello.”

“No, you guys shut up!” Dominic shouted, hearing the back of his shirt shredding.

He banged on the window, this time with his fists thundering against the thick glass. The crowd followed, pounding, thumping, causing the whole room to vibrate.

Two large attendants clad in white, thick keys at their hips, appeared and pushed their faces to each of the small windows.

“What’s the problem, dirtball?” said the shorter attendant.

“I’m in here . . . I . . . turned . . . I’m not . . . I’m in here by mistake,” said my brother, his nose widening as he leaned it into the glass.

As the attendants exchanged glances, the residents in one voice screamed, “We’re in here by mistake!”

Dominic shouted, “Not them, me!”

They hollered, “Not him, us!”

The taller attendant said, “Listen maggot, if I come in there I’ll shoot you so full of Thorazine you’ll wake up next year!”

Hearing this, my brother, his tie askew, his hair returning to its pre-vasoline-with-hair-spray look, his eyes widening like floodlights, arched way back and bellowed, “I’M NOT CRAZY!”

Right on cue, the chorus behind him hollered, “I’M NOT CRAZY!”

Lance, hearing the commotion, rushed to the door.

“What’s going on?” he said.

“Some loon flipped out,” answered the shorter attendant.

Dominic, seeing Lance, screamed, “Doctor, it’s me, it’s me, Dominic Bruno, help me, Jeesuz . . .!”

Lance’s face lit up and he said, “Quick, open the door, get that kid out!”

As the attendants unlocked the double doors, the crowd—led by Dominic—surged forward like commuters trying to get the last subway seat. The taller attendant pressed the doors back, pinning Dominic at the waist, so that now his upper body protruded out, the other half still in the ward. The smaller attendant grabbed Dominic’s wrists while, on the other side of the doors, residents grabbed his legs. They tugged him back and forth several times, grunting and gasping.

Lance joined the attendants. The shorter one hooked his arms underneath Dominic’s shoulders. Shrieking every three seconds, Dominic, still bent at the waist by the partially opened doors, flailed his arms like propellers. A resident yelled “Assassins!” and hurled the psych book and notepad over my brother and into Lance’s forehead.

Lance said, “Listen up, listen up, on the count of three, One, Two, Three, PULL!”

At that instant the patients released my brother’s feet, the doors slammed shut, and Lance, Dominic, and the two attendants hurtled backwards, like a ruptured balloon, skidding on the recently waxed floor. A shoe came off, and Lance’s keys lodged just underneath his ribs, causing him to scream as they crashed into a metal trash container. There was cheering and whooping from behind the locked doors.

More attendants rushed to them and two policemen arrived. Dominic stood up, one shoe missing, then bent down to retrieve his book and notepad. Lance, holding his right side, told the assembled group, “Everything’s fine, please return to your duty stations, everything is fine.” The right lens of his horn-rimmed glasses was completely shattered.

Wiping spittle from one corner of his mouth, and smoothing down pieces of his torn trousers, Dominic, straightening up, said to Lance, “Doctor, it appears I made a wrong turn.”

Without a word, Lance took Dominic by the arm and, flanked by the attendants and the police, escorted him to the elevators as residents cried out, “So long, Amigo” and others sang, “Thanks for dropping by, pal.”

Ignoring the stares of other subway riders, Dominic tried to cover his bare leg with the text book and pretended to read from his notes.

Augie, wearing a baseball cap, Hawaiian shirt and overalls, was encamped on the front step eating popcorn as Dominic reached the house.

Scrunching his cinderblock face into a frown, Augie stood up to his full five feet and sang out, “Holy Moses what happened to you, Dom?” as my brother pushed past him.

“Nothing, Augie, nothing, move out of the way, will you!”

“What happened to you, your clothes, you ripped that shirt, hey, whose shirt you got on, it’s your father’s, right?”

“I can’t talk now,” Dominic said, “and how come you’re here, anyway?”

“I’ll tell you why I’m here, Mr. Big Shot College Man. I’m here to make sure that shrink doesn’t get funny ideas about the family I’m from, you understand?” said Augie. “I don’t want him to think I come from a nutso family.”

“Now why would he think that, Augie?” said Dominic, climbing the steps. “I mean just because you peed on those pretzels you sold at school, why would the guy get that idea?”

“Hey, Irish kids peed on those pretzels, did he tell you I did?”

“It never came up, Augie.” Dominic opened the front door then slammed it shut behind him, rattling every window in the house.

Hearing the noise, I called out from the kitchen, “Hey Dom, is that you?” and walked towards him. “How’d it go . . . my God, what happened to you?”

“Nothing. Nothing happened. It went swell, it was wonderful,” he said, as he turned and threw his psych book through the parlor window.