Page 67 of Cocky Jerk

“Satan.”

Leaning back on my haunches, I roughly comb my fingers through my hair. The pounding on the door continues and I mutter a curse before turning back to Antonia. Anger flashes in her eyes and she gives me another nudge with her foot.

“A woman is banging on your door at eight o’clock on a Sunday while your head is between my legs. Care to explain?”

“Sure,” I say, rising to my feet. “Why don’t you go put on a pair of panties, so my mother doesn’t see how wet your pussy is when I open the door. Oh, and while you’re at it, do you mind grabbing me a pair of shorts? It’s been a while since my mother has seen my ‘peeschadiel’ as she likes to call it.”

Her eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets.

“Your mother is here!?” she shrieks, jumping to her feet.

“Marco, I know you’re in there! Don’t make me call the super.”

“Oh my God,” Antonia hisses. “Look at me.”

“Still naked over here,” I say, waving a hand down the length of me. “At least you got a shirt. Smart move. I get it now.”

“I can’t meet your mother.”

“Well, you can and you’re about to…so again, panties. Now.” I turn back to the door. “Coming!”

Or at least Antonia would’ve been if you hadn’t decided to show up.

I would have been next.

By some miracle of God, Antonia springs into action and scampers into my bedroom. A pair of basketball shorts come flying out of the room and I hurry to grab them. Shoving my legs through them, I make a dash for the door.

If only I paid attention during the religious instruction classes, she made me take for six years, I might be able to send a prayer up to the man upstairs. But instead of learning the Hail Mary, I was making googly eyes at the sixteen-year-old student teaching the class.

Maybe this is my penance for that.

Pulling open the door, I swipe my hand over my mouth.

You know that saying, ‘do you kiss your mother with that mouth?’

We’re about to find out.

“Mom, what a surprise!”

“Oh, cut the crap,” she says, smacking me in the head with her purse—a Louis Vuitton knock off she scored on Canal Street. Luckily, she completed the transaction before me, and Richie raided the place. Imagine having to arrest your mother for buying a fake handbag in the back room of a fruit market. Actually, that probably wouldn’t be the issue, that would come when I had to tag the bag as evidence. She’d kill me before she’d part with her Louie. Fake and all, that thing is her most prized possession.

She gives me another whack to the head, and I make a mental note to get a CAT scan. I’ve taken a couple of hits in the last two weeks it’s probably not a bad idea.

“I got a call from Father Murphy this morning.”

“It’s eight o’clock. What time did he call you?”

“Never mind that,” she scolds. “He was crying.”

I’m having a hard time following this story, partly because Antonia is probably freaking out in my bedroom, but also because I’m trying to understand why a priest is calling my mother early on a Sunday morning, crying when he should be preparing for mass.

“Isn’t it a little too late for him to regret the vow of celibacy?”

“You broke the statue of Santa Rosalia!” she shouts before she switches to Italian and calls me everything from a disgrace to a stupid piece of donkey shit. At least I think it’s a donkey. My Italian is a little sketchy. She stops in the middle of her rant and sniffs me.

Uh oh.

“What the hell is that smell?” she asks.

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