Desert Sky Genie

From his kitchen window Jack watched clouds collide with the mountain, their shadow robbing the town of color. For the first time in his life he looked to the sky for entertainment.  He grew up in Hell's Kitchen where there was no sky. It was buried, painted over with valleys of concrete and steel. Now, from his new cabin home he watched clouds dance with mountains. He'd only been there two weeks but he was already known around town. The retired cop from New York. He went to Ginger's Diner every day for breakfast. He looked forward to another day on his front porch reading a book about the Cold War.  

The collision of clouds and mountain was so dramatic it seemed odd there no sound. It was quiet. So quiet that small sounds traveled far. A car door slam could be heard a mile away.

He stared at the neighbor’s home down the hill. It had been still for weeks. They’d moved to Austin, Texas where everyone was moving. He’d noticed a Suburban SUV with New Jersey plates parked in the driveway. This raised an eyebrow. “People from New Jersey don’t understand quiet,” He said to himself. 

At 1pm a moving truck arrived. There were now 2 SUVs one with two kids and a poodle. “Fuck,” he whispered to himself. On the second SUV he could see a small sticker but couldn’t make it out. He got his binoculars. After some adjustments to focus it was clear. It was an Italian flag. His new neighbors in this oasis of quiet contemplation were Italian Americans from New Jersey, perhaps the most unquiet people on earth. This he knew because his ex-wife was an Italian from New Jersey.

The barking began at 7pm and did not stop. It was constant. The dog barked at everything and at times barked at nothing. “Can a dog lose it’s voice?” he wondered/hoped. He looked up “dog laryngitis” on Google. He had bigger problems. They had some workers come out to set up a trampoline. Kids, a dog and a trampoline. “Have kids ever quietly enjoyed a trampoline? Of course not,” He figured. It would be louder than Manhattan. He had that feeling he’d get when he wanted to hide but knew he should charge forward, to confront these obstacles to peace. So, he drove down to meet his neighbors to assess the situation.  

Mrs. Cielo answered the door and invited him into the house where kids and a poodle ran around moving boxes and shot each other with Nerf guns. They sat down for a glass of lemonade. She was a music history teacher who had taken a job at the community College. Her name was Flora and she was beautiful. She said her husband was taking a nap. They talked about New York and this new town that was near to perfect in her mind. She was done with suburbia and her husband’s work allowed them a new start in the desert. In their chat he noticed some walls. Some fortified areas of vagueness. She was hiding something but he couldn’t figure out what. Her napping husband sounded like a mystery person, maybe even a mystery to her. Her description of him was like the often cloud covered town…without color.

The desert quiet he grew to know and love was all over now but he supposed he’d get used to it. But who were these people…something was familiar? They probably reminded him of home, the personalities, the affect. “No.” a voice said. A voice he hadn’t heard since he was walking by a bank closed in the middle of the day in Brooklyn a year before. Something was off the voice told him. As he was walking out the front door of the Cielo home he saw something…someone. Among the pile of unopened boxes, one was open. Framed family pictures from trips and home. He got a look at the husband.  It was a face familiar. A face from the world of La Cosa Nostra, he was sure of it.

It took twenty minutes of browsing mafia family case files online when it hit him. He’s “The sheep.”

Giancarlo de Roccia, famous in Brooklyn. Known as the “white sheep” of the de Roccia crime family. No one really believed it but he was the only male member of the de Roccia family, who was legit. The Feds had followed him for years, convinced his appearance of legitimacy was a disguise that concealed a bigger and wider criminal enterprise. They found nothing. He owned 3 dry cleaners in Brooklyn and 1 in Manhattan. No ties to drugs, racketeering or money laundering. Jack wondered what he was doing there in the desert. A dry cleaners in Taos? Maybe. He didn’t really care. Maybe Flora became elusive in their chat because he mentioned he was a former New York cop. Maybe she was embarrassed about marrying into a family that had been in gang wars since the 60s. He didn’t think she should be embarrassed, it could happen to anybody. They changed their name and moved west, an American thing to do.

That night and for every night following the barking poodle was brought in to the house at 6. The yelling kids also disappeared at the same time. Under the moon and stars the desert looked blue. Jack listened to the night from his porch. “I wonder if the Cielos hear the coyotes yelping and wailing in the blue desert. They were a long way from the Jersey Turnpike.”

Breakfast at Ginger’s was always a treat. There were regulars. Ranchers, some police, the owners of some shops in town and a collection of artists and academics from the college. From his usual booth he saw de Roccia walk in. de Roccia scanned the restaurant like he was looking for someone. He walked towards Jack. “I think I’m your neighbor.” He said with a smile. He put out his hand, “I’m Mike Cielo.” After a handshake Jack asked Cielo to join him. Surprisingly he obliged and sat down. He may not be a gangster, Jack thought but he wore the same look. A smile that looked warm but leaves you cold like there’s no one really there, behind the smile. His presence made the temperature drop in the room a couple degrees. They were getting some looks, mainly because Cielo/de Roccia was dressed like a mobster, an Adidas track suit and gold chain.

“I had a great chat with your wife yesterday, while you were napping. Great to have a young family in the neighborhood.” He lied as best he could. Cielo grinned but seemed to be waiting for more. He was using silence to get more from Jack. This was something Jack would do when interrogating a suspect. He decided to play along instead of unwittingly entering into a staring contest. “So, Flora said you moved here for work. What kind of work?” “I don’t know…probably open a dry cleaners. It’s all I know how to do. More professional people are moving to the area and I think coyotes ate my fucking dog last night.” Jack felt like he had been pistol whipped. “Jesus, the poodle?” “Yeah,” Cielo said in a cold whisper. “People must drive twenty minutes to Taos to get their dry cleaning. If I can get the apparatus and equipment installed at a reasonable price I’ll definitely do it.” Jack hadn’t talked with someone this nuts in awhile, he was trying to get his footing. The only people who were this particular type of crazy were contract killers and members of the NYPD Bomb Squad. “What do you think?” Cielo asked. Jack thought for a second, “Well, you wouldn’t have any competition-“ “No, about the coyotes. You think there’s a lot of them?” “Well, yeah they’re out there. Maybe get a full grown German Shepherd. And see if you can get used dry cleaning equipment from a place that shut down around here.” Cielo looked Jack in the eyes. There was a long pause followed by a glance around the restaurant. “Flora said you’re NYPD. I want you to know that world isn’t me. My family back east aren’t here. Not at all.” Jack looked confused but wasn’t. “Ok,” he said with a slight smile. To Jack, Cielo seemed as sincere as a sociopath could be. Cielo seemed to relax a little.  

Jack decided Cielo was okay, nuts, but okay. He dressed, talked and walked like a Soprano but all he talked about was the dry cleaning industry. He was kind of a nerd in that way. “The killer is in there,” Jack imagined. “It’s dormant but there, in the DNA, the hundreds of years of Sicilians killing each other over vendettas and goats.” But, so far as he could tell this guy just wanted to make a killing cleaning and starching dress shirts with some suit alterations offered as well.

There was a house down the street from Jack that was used as an airbnb. Most of the time it was empty but occasionally some people would stay for a week. Over Christmas time there were 12 college aged guys that stayed there. They were loud. Shooting guns, blasting music and being complete assholes in general. Jack walked over to tell them to shut up but they wouldn’t answer the door. Now, in March for their Spring Break they had returned. This time they had dirt bikes and golf carts that increased the scope of their awfulness. They were skeet shooting off of the back deck, shots too close to the Cielo home. “Those fucking bastards.” Thought Jack. Flora Cielo called. She told Jack that she was going to bring the boys some snacks and tell them that they were shooting at her home and must please stop.  

It didn’t go well. Jack was standing in his driveway when Flora was walking back home. She was visibly shaken. “Flora…what did they do?” Flora could barely speak, she managed to say, “Those boys are not gentlemen.” She kept walking down the hill to her home. Jack decided he might have to kill a bunch of college kids. An hour later, a text from Cielo. Jack, those college shitheads said some things to my wife. Not good things. I’ll go see them tomorrow.” “Do you want me to go with you?” Jack asked. “No.” Cielo replied.  

At approximately 3pm the day after the college boys verbally harassed Flora Cielo, Mike Cielo paid the home a visit. He had with him a small box. The box was a New York Yankees baseball box.  A present for them. After ringing the doorbell and waiting, the boys inside did not answer. So, he left the box with a note attached. Within a half hour all 5 carloads of young men left speedily out of the desert community. The Cielo family left for Breckenridge for the week that night. Jack called Mike Cielo that night, “I gotta know. What did you say to them?” Cielo told Jack that he didn’t say anything to them. “When the coyote ate our poodle Genie I found her head just outside the fence, so I saved it and put it in the freezer.” “Sweet Christ,” thought Jack. Cielo said he simply left a small box containing the severed head of Genie with a note that said, “The desert is big and you are a long way from home.” Hearing this, Jack was delighted, amused and horrified. “What’s the matter you, you damn psycho, you couldn’t get a horse head to put in their bed?” He asked. A reference to The Godfather. After a long pause Cielo replied, “No…that would be crazy. Genie did good…she made them disappear,” said Cielo with no hint of a laugh. “Jack, can you do me a favor?” asked Cielo. “Sure, Mike. What you need?” “Jack…I need you to get the head for me. It’s in that house somewhere, I doubt those idiots took it and I don’t want the owner to find it.” Jack stared at the phone. “Uhh, you want me to get the dog head?” Jack asked. He looked out the window at the airbnb house and tried to calculate how long it would take to recover the tiny head of a poodle. “Jack…I’m just kidding, I’ve got the head, I’ll see you next week.”  

With the college kids gone for good and the Cielos in Colorado, the quiet returned. Jack imagined it always does. When the party ends, the thunderstorm moves on, or a coyote’s howls grow more feint and disappear into the blue of night, the desert is quiet and still.