With a Bang by Nick Di Carlo

I never liked Patsy Renzi. Always thought he was sleaze. But I had to put up with him through most of my youth. He was a friend of my uncle Santo and owned a hole-in-the-wall appliance store down the street from Santo’s Texaco station. The gas station sat on a large corner plot and did a good business while the appliance store languished just short of the dead end, so I rarely saw anybody buy even a toaster, much less a washing machine from Patsy. I liked to call him “pasty” since he was a light-skinned Italian, not swarthy like the rest of us. But Patsy, like my uncle, was connected with numbers racketeers and thieves. So, periodically, inventory got moved in and out. Still, Patsy never seemed to have any money, never seemed capable of anything more than bullshitting his way through life and asking Uncle Santo to bail him out of one mess or another. 

When I was twelve, I started working weekends and school vacations pumping Texaco hi-test, changing oil, and answering the payphone when that total nutcase, Chickenhead, called in with racetrack bets and numbers. After I got my license, I’d make the occasional rounds to pick up betting slips at mom-and-pop stores and diners and such. But when I went to college, Uncle Santo told me to leave all that behind, to become something, someone he never could have become. I gave it a shot. Then LBJ escalated the war, and I got diverted.

A few years later, I returned home, returned to college. I fell in love. Man, did I fall. Got engaged. Set the date. New Year’s Eve.

On a Sunday afternoon, I took my fiancée, Mila, to Uncle Santo’s house to tell him the news. Patsy Renzi was there, slouching at the table behind a bottle of cheap Scotch Santo set in front of him. Patsy hadn’t aged well and looked more disreputable than ever. His skin tone has gone from pasty to ashen. Broken as he was, that didn’t stop him from eyeballing Mila. 

I stepped in front of him and blocked his view. I wasn’t a skinny kid anymore, and I let him know I wouldn’t put up with any shit from him. 

He looked down at the table and poured himself another shot.

Uncle Santo turned to Mila, hugged her and said, “How are you, sweetheart?”

“Look,” she said, and showed him the modest diamond on her finger.

“When’s the big day?”

“New Year’s Eve,” I said.

To which Patsy piped up, “How’s that for starting the New Year off with a bang?”

Mila, a relatively sheltered Italian Catholic girl looked puzzled. “What does that mean?”

I reached across the table for Patsy Renzi, but Uncle Santo stopped me. 
“He didn’t mean nothin’.”

“Bullshit. You gonna let this scum talk like that in front of Mila?”

“I’ve got to stop you. You need to understand the guy ain’t right and let this go.”

“That’s it? You defending him?”

“I’m just asking not to start something here.”

“I’m about to finish something.”

“Mila,” Uncle Santo said. “Please take him outside and help him cool down. We’ll work this out later.”

Mila, still puzzled, asked, “But what happened? What did he mean?”

“He didn’t mean anything, sweetheart. Please—take this.” He put a wad of bills in Mila’s hand. “Get him out of here, go someplace nice for dinner tonight. You two kids enjoy yourselves. Get away from us old people.”

Mila and I exchanged vows at 8 p.m. on New Year's Eve, then had our reception at Diamante’s Ristorante, which would have been closed for the holiday, but Dom Diamante put on a feast as a favor to Uncle Santo.

We spent our wedding night in a ritzy hotel suite.

I woke up early the next morning.

“Where are you going?”

“Business. Back to sleep.” I slid my Colt .45 ACP under my belt.

I broke into Patsy Renzi’s house, found him snoring on his couch. Grabbing a hunk of hair to tilt his head, I stared into his bloodshot eyes. I jammed the Colt’s muzzle under his chin. “How’s this for starting the New Year off with a bang?”

​© 2025 Nick Di Carlo

About the author:
Nick Di Carlo has taught writing and literature in traditional and nontraditional settings, including maximum security correctional facilities where Lawrence R. Reis, author of Wolf Masks: Violence in Contemporary Poetry, noted: “Dr. Di Carlo quickly gained the respect and cooperation of the inmates. The men in his classes recognized many similarities between their experiences and his. Those experiences, often dark and sometimes violent, inform and power Dr. Di Carlo’s own writing.”