“Where were you?”
“………” Diana shook in place. She did not know how to answer.
“I said where were you?” Mama Bianca said sternly in that raspy, deep, old world Italian accent. She observed her daughter - blood splattered all over her white button down shirt – torn and worth a mothers concern. Diana’s priorities might have been disproportioned. The heart racing fear mama outweighed the events that led to that ill-begotten bloody shirt.
The restaurant had been empty. They lived above it. Mama was waiting for her and accumulated enough rage to keep her awake after a long night of cooking in her successful restaurant in Park Slope Brooklyn. She ran the place entirely by herself. It was small yet well received and every dish was both cooked and served with the utmost care of an artist.
“I don’t know what happened.”
“What do you mean you don’t know what happened?” Mama used her hands a lot when she spoke.
“Mama, I swear all I remember was hanging out with Randy at…”
“Randy?” Her mother quickly cut her off. “What are you doing till midnight with a boy? You’re still a little girl. You’re not even 16 yet! Sometimes I wonder if your father were still alive if you would behave this way? And look at you! Look at your shirt? Did he hurt you? What is that? Blood? I can…”
“Mama please calm down.”
Mama's voice trembled – a combination of fear and worry. She rambled on as if excessively speaking would somehow release tension.
“Blood on you? Up til midnight out with boys? Are you on drugs? Did you take drugs? Did you commit a crime? Speak!” she snapped and reached the level of a parents voice you dread to hear.
“I was with Randy it was only about 6:30 and I was ready to come home and then I just blacked out mama. I swear mama, I don’t know what is happening. Should I go to a hospital? I’m scared.” Diana started to weep. Mama Bianca’s heart melted for her little girl in that moment. She lifted a chair off the table, then another and beckoned her daughter to sit down by tapping the seat cushion.
“No. Never a hospital. There’s nothing your mama can’t help you with. Do you think he drugged you?”
When I woke up he was gone and that’s not all. We were in his bedroom...”
Mama’s face was stern yet she held her daughters hand and caressed her back as she listened. It was then mama Bianca realized if she shut up for a minute her daughter can fill in the blanks. “And his room was splattered with blood on the walls when I just woke up. I don’t think he drugged me. I don’t know if I should call the police or…”
“No.” she gave her daughter a hug, tight. “No. we will solve this riddle together. Is that all?” “Yes. He wasn’t in the room. He wasn’t in the bathroom. I called out to his mom and dad and they didn’t answer. I don’t know if they weren’t home. I looked everywhere. Maybe there was a home invasion? Maybe I was hit in the head…”
“No. you’d have a bump. Look maybe we are worrying over nothing.”
“Mama there’s blood on my shirt and there was blood smeared all over the walls!”
Mama Bianca held her daughters hands and looked into her eyes. “Baby girl…maybe you fainted. Something awful might have happened. Perhaps you are in shock. We can go there together and figure this out. We will and then we will call the police if it seems like serious trouble. Okay?”
Diana nodded.
“You know a girl your age really shouldn’t be with a boy alone in a room that young.”
“Mama, now's not the time to…”
“Hey.”
“…….”
“You see, sometimes boys will flirt with young girls and young girls can flirt back but that’s where it should end. The boy has to impress YOU. He has to see if it okay with your mama or papa, God rest his soul, and meet us to see if we feel he is worthy of you. But you also have to wait til you are older my sweet thing.”
“Mama, that’s so old fashioned. I thought you were more cosmo than that. Things have changed.”
“Tut tut tut. No. We have our ways, in our culture and they are to be respected as we respect everyone else. Your mama and papa, God rest his soul, are the only people in the world who will love you above all others in your lifetime and when you have children you will learn that too. And we are never ever going to do anything to hurt you. If we do, it is an error, an honest mistake. No one is going to try their hardest to make sure their precious children are safe and taken care of and above all happy. When, not if, we find Randy, bring him and his family to the restaurant. Let mama see if they’re good people. If I do, maybe I’ll give you a break and trust you with him and trust him with you. Ok?”
“Ever think of dating again, mama.”
“I still miss him so much. I feel like I’m cheating. But I’d hand my reins over to you. You bring the next generation in. you have babies and bring life to our family. You’d have my blessing. I don’t need a man. sure I know I can date an eligible man of a certain age but, I did what I had to do. I'm not able to have children anymore so what’s the point? I trust you will do that. And I hope it is with Randy. But like I said bella, he and any other boy have to go through ME first and ask YOU out first or I will scare the boys away. I’m still strong enough to do that.”
“I can't believe we are talking about this when Randy and his family could have been killed and I was in so much shock I forgot.”
“Well I certainly hope not because it would be nice if your first love is…” mama Bianca stopped to take a deep breath as she stood up. Her little girl stood up quickly to hold her.
“Are you ok? Mama speak to me. I’m scared. This is the worst night of my life.” She began to tear.
“Take off your jeans, lower your pants.” She commanded.
“What? No!”
“Does it hurt?”
“What?”
“Your privates, do they hurt?”
“No why? You think I was raped?”
Mama shook her head and unzipped and unbuttoned her daughters jeans, not without protest. Almost instantly, she pulled down her daughters underwear.”
“Blood!” Diana screamed, “Oh my God no! Mama he raped me. I swear I didn’t have sex with him. I swear I didn’t. mama we have to do something…”
Mama Bianca began to smile.
“What?”
“It’s a full moon. The cycle.”
“What?”
“The cycle. The women in our village always went by the cycle of the moon, when that time of the month comes.”
“You mean?”
Mama chuckled and gave her a big hug.
“Now you can have babies sweetie baby bella! But the boys will come after you now. The boys will come but they have to go through me, straight to me you will bring them to meet me.” She rambled with tears in her eyes and hugged her daughter, squeezed her.
“Mama! My period? Then why is there…Holy shit! MAMA!” she squeezed her mother back.
“Full moon!”
“Full moon!”
“And they won’t catch me?”
“No, baby. Mama wouldn’t ever ever allow anyone to hurt you. Or trap you. We do things different now. With time comes change. We have our ways to…”
“How will they not know…wait he’s dead? I feel awful but…”
“Oh puppy love. It will pass. The police will find only K9 blood in the house, baby bella. Worst case scenario, shock. Claim shock.”
“So I killed him?”
“And his mama and papa. It's ok baby bella. They're our food. When they are worthy your mama will know and will scare away the rodents from the real men. Leave it to mama, she knows best.”
“You change?”
“At will. You will too. the first time is never easy. Jesus knows that I wish I was there for you. Come, basta, basta…” she led her daughter down the cellar stairs. High heels clicked on wood. Pigs roamed down freely but when they saw mama Bianca they all ran to a corner. Diana followed.
You never really know what is beneath the ground you walk on. You never really know who you are walking by. Above all, you never really know what’s on your plate in any restaurant, particularly when you cannot pronounce the name of the dish you’ve ordered or never even heard of it. You just never really know.
For the serious culinary expert, the restaurant business is a cut-throat grueling industry with ongoing fierce competition all year round. Food of all kinds is literally at your finger-licking fingertips in the city. Critics do not only candidly critique the dishes served. They also critique the atmosphere of the restaurant.
At Bistro di Bianca there was a dark cloud looming overhead that no one could possibly see. It was a deception to what true wickedness lurked within the confines. People from all walks of life were oblivious to the fact that the food was tainted with the spell of compulsion. The food was highly addictive. People from all walks of life couldn’t resist the temptation. The tantalizing aroma of the food was enticing; forcing people to line up around the corner in the first-come first-serve Bistro. The spell was cast.
Before she became the chef from hell, mama Bianca wanted to apply what she did best and do it better than anyone else. Her gift in her pack was conjuring. She developed a passion for culinary arts and a love affair with food. She could turn road kill into cuisine if need be. Human emotion is contagious and infectious. Mama Bianca obliviously stooped to the level of the “ordinary human” by adopting a competitive quality when “ordinary humans” challenged her. Mama Bianca was a bit hypocritical yet quite mad. She knew that she would always win. She was confident in her abilities. Truth be told, the lunatic of a Sorceress wanted any excuse to punish the humans she hated so. Being challenged was both insulting and welcoming like removing your hand from a flame.
An example of her early work was at a county fair where she entered a delectable pie. She and her competitor both won blue ribbons…for different categories. Her competitor won “Best In Sow”. That competitor was turned into a piggy pig pig by the mad Sorceress. Why did mama Bianca hate the humans so much? “They are empty vessels that know nothing about anything. They killed my husband. Your papa.” She tried to teach her daughter.
Overnight, mama Bianca claimed the entire city as her own territory. The Italian woman came to town and was quickly welcomed by hoards of people that corralled at her Bistro like cattle. Mama Bianca was the only chef and waitress of the Bistro. She worked alone. She designed the little Bistro herself; the cozy brick walls, the green table cloths, the cutlery and the candle centerpieces that emit dim light. Critics also bluntly critique the atmosphere of a restaurant. When she was given a “thumbs down” on the appearance of her Bistro, the critic went to the pen! And I don’t mean prison either. Trivial “bad” reviews were quickly put to rest.
Almost every night, the psychotic Sorceress, fueled by hatred for the humans, would go down to the gloomy, derelict basement of her Bistro. When the pigs heard the wooden steps creak as she approached, they all ran to one corner of the room. Pigs were not pigs. They were humans turned into swine. The swine in her basement were her collection of people that just simply pissed her off. Needless to say, no one should DARE challenge or insult the Sorceress. They each had a collar and a tag with the person’s first and last name on it.
She’d put on her white apron, grab a dull axe, violently hack the swine to pieces, and prep them for the next day. The basement was her personal slaughterhouse and no one knew the wiser. The people dining at the Bistro had no idea that they were eating pork that was once a fellow human. They slobbered over her food! She indulged their addiction to her cuisine like a pusher drug peddler. The control that mama Bianca had over these addicts made her feel terrific.
“I change at will but I always make sure I have a treat ready to satisfy that hunger. I had to be a sorceress in this day and age. We can doing anything bella baby. We are strong they, the pigs are all weak. You might still be hungry. We are known in our pack for our appetite.”
“No mama, we are known as a pack because of your reputation.” Diana grabbed the axe.
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