My mother always had the best luck. She is humble and will never admit it, but it’s true. She cleaned out catlick bingo halls all over the filthy rich archdiocese of Philadelphia. Much to the chagrin of the regular widows, widowers and serial monogamists in attendance – not to mention the neurotic, blue-haired nuns that cackled out the letters and numbers, dry mouths always too close to the microphones. These nuns always had names like “Sister Theodora” or “Sister Cecilia.” Some sisters they were; one minute they were paddling your soft, lily-white catlick bum; the next, awarding you with a stiletto sharp letter opener for winning a spelling bee with a word such as “chthonic.” But back to my mother and her golden fingers, her German-Irish luck. The lady could turn a cheap scratch ticket wheat penny into a crisp c-note before the latex dust settled. She had it, you know, the touch, the stroke, in idiosyncratic Atlantic City casino patois, she was a whale.

So, when she won an all expense paid, all inclusive, two week trip to Florida that summer, nobody was too surprised; well, except for her anyway. All it took was a five-letter, two-syllable word “goofy” and a well-timed phone call to the local golden oldies record station. JACKPOT! We were on our way. The sponsors rolled out the big red carpet, thick enough to drown in. Slick black stretch limo to the airport, deluxe accommodations in one of Orlando’s most exclusive hotels replete with every conceivable amenity and a cross-shaped swimming pool, Chicago roll of cash, free meals, the whole ever-loving nine yards – easy.

My father was most excited about the free Volvo rental that was waiting for him in Florida; you would have thought the thing had tits on it or something. You see, he had been driving this battered, bile green hornet hatchback for well on three years. My mother affectionately called it “Tuberculosis on Wheels.” The neighbors joined her and cracked jokes on it too. It looked like a giant, humiliated tick; it should have been quarantined for Lyme disease, unsafe for the streets their children played on.

We arrived at the airport unfashionably early in incredible style. My mother and father looked like a Hollywood couple – Hollywood , Fla. not Cali. They deposited me and my little brother Michael at the food court. Michael was six and I was twelve. They gave us money for pizza and pops and told us to stay put there until they were finished ironing out flight details at the airline counter. I quietly ate my slice of pizza and listened raptly, as Michael gave me a geography lesson on Florida. He was a quick study with geography and meteorology, even at that age; spent days ogling maps and watching the weather channel, idolizing John Hope. Michael was babbling on about Lake Okeechobee, how gators couldn’t move their tongues and other insignificant yet strangely fascinating Floridian shit, when something not unlike a riot began.

It all started with this hulk-sized Down syndrome manchild. He was shitting a werewolf over in the shadow of the super pretzel machine; going berserk over the lack of French’s yellow mustard – they only had Gulden’s spicy brown. He kept on shrieking “W-W-Wanna have pressel w-w-with F-F-Frenchies muss-serd”, ad nauseam/infinitum. The flabbergasted vendor had clearly given up trying to apologize for the missing mustard; he was cautiously backing away. Then, without warning, the handi-capable Hulk lifted the entire super pretzel machine and mercilessly slammed it into the ground. His strength was astonishing. The kind of hideous, inhuman strength you sometimes hear about on the evening news: “Mother rescues pinned baby by lifting entire Pinto off the ground…more news @ 11.” The machine made a beautiful sound when it hit the ground, an explosion of sparks, salt, glass, dough and spicy brown mustard. Then security came and crashed the party on a tiny, cherub-of-justice (it really said that on it), golf cart; they seized the rogue Hulkster, he didn’t seem to care, he was now prattling on about how the Phillies ruled and how the Mets were gaylords, they could suck it good, he said.

My brother was already doing impressions. Giving me gale-force fits of laughter until my nose hemorrhaged cola all over the table. We were all about schadenfreude, long before we ever even heard of the word – a German word, of course. My parents missed the spectacle entirely. My father was over at the ticket counter pretending to be some half-assed cross between Classy Freddie Blassie and Mike Hammer era Stacy Keach; charming the Morgan Fairchild-esque blonde behind the counter, making her look all dizzy – which didn’t seem too hard. My mother was oblivious to this. She sat napping on one of those quarter massage chairs, the kind with the mini black & white TV attached to its arm.

Then the woman without a face sat down across from us. The day really got strange then. Somehow her face had been erased; burned off, scraped off, I still don’t know. Something catastrophic and unspeakable had obviously happened to her. Her features were now crudely drawn on; exaggerated to Mrs. Potato Head proportions. A countenance not dissimilar to a five and dime Halloween mask – the type my brother and I once caught our older cousin Danny masturbating into. I now realize many years later that she looked like a dead ringer for Edith Massey, the egg woman in the crib, from John Waters’ disturbingly brilliant film Pink Flamingos. She sure sounded like her too; emitting helium squeals as she ate tropical colored wedges from her tiny fruit salad bowl. My brother had covered his eyes with his hands, truly frightened by this strange, almost mythical creature. I, though, couldn’t look away. I kind of liked her. I thought it might be cool to wear a different face every day; then, at day’s end, shake it up and off – a soft etch-a-sketch erasure. The more I thought about it, the more the possibilities thrilled me. I was trying to express this to my horrified brother when a strange, shady looking man approached us at the table. Right away I knew he was bad news.

He was tall, pale and gaunt, sweating profusely. He had a toilet seat hairline – let me explain that – classic, horseshoe shaped male pattern baldness; the gleaming bald spot seemed to be shitting a greasy ponytail down his neck, pink with prickly heat. He had a molestache too and was wearing a hot piss yellow Jimmy Buffet “I’m a Parrot Head” t-shirt and candy-striped biker shorts with black stockings and brown sandals; Nambla regalia, I didn’t call it that then, but I shall now. He was munching on a foot-long chili dog and looking directly at my little brother. I could tell Michael was ready to say something smart; he had no filter, a natural born wiseass – god bless him – he was biting his lip, raring to go.

“Do you and your friend wanna see my monkey? He does magic tricks over there in the bathroom,” the guy said, gesturing towards the men’s room.

Now, growing up in a blue-collar city with young liberal parents, I knew the ruse right away: this scumbag was either a slimy pederast trying to proposition us or a half-baked moonie. I remembered an episode of Donahue I watched with my mother one afternoon. It was a show about women defending themselves against would-be rapists. The first thing they said to do was yell “NO!” but somehow that thought got all tangled up with thoughts about another show I watched with my father, it was about preventing bear attacks by yelling “NO BEAR!” My lungs were set to blast an all-alarm “NO BEAR!” when my brother addressed the gangly pederast, “I knocked your monkey cuckoo and now your monkey is dead, Mr. Tampon!” I punctuated my brother’s definitive statement with a violently loud “NO BEAR!”

This got my father’s attention and even woke my mother up. Dad was moving like O.J. Simpson across the concourse and within seconds was up in the would-be perp’s face.

“What did you say to my kids?” my father demanded, turning red as a beet picker’s hands, then he added, “You fucking pervert!”

Then he thunderclap slapped the ever-loving shit out of Mr. Tampon. It was a WWF-level bitch slap, dramatic and devastating; we were proud. The pathetic Mr. Tampon fell quickly to the floor, where he trembled and spit out masticated hot dog and bloody teeth – fist cuisine. My mother came rushing over, Ba-Gock-Ing, that’s the sound she makes when she’s upset and screams. A shrill chicken on the chopping block type sound – you’ve got to hear it – truly blood curdling – she could have made a killing on the Hammer Horror sound stage.

Suffice it to say we finally did make it to Florida . I arrived feeling so much older. I’m sure Michael did too. I think we had both grown up some on the way. We had a fine time down there. We took in all the sights and sounds. Visited all the obligatory tourist destinations; spent entire days carelessly swimming in the cross-shaped pool, conferred with larger than life cartoon characters, until we were sick for home. Until we felt that magic, known only in childhood or the first week of a love affair, begin to wane. We adhered to my parents rule about not discussing the ignominious airport events.

About two and a half years later, we were sitting in the parlor watching the late news with my father. There was a breaking report about a homicide at the airport. A man had been shot point blank in the head, had died instantly, and a suspect was in police custody. In the upcoming weeks, more details leaked out. The dead man had a long criminal record of sexual assaults on young boys. The gunman’s seven year old son had been heinously assaulted sexually by this predator. He found him there, at the very same airport we spent that strange day in, and decided to forgo the American Justice System.

I’ll never forget the day they finally showed the dead man’s familiar mug on the news, the way my father looked at us and smiled, then raised his fist and shouted “Fuck Yeah!” with tears in his eyes.