C. Anthony Martignetti - Lunatic Heroes: Memories, Lies and Reflections

Praise for

Lunatic Heroes

If you never were a kid from an Italian-American family growing up in Boston, now is your chance to live, vicariously, the tribulations and tortures and triumphs of a life that, because it is true, does not need to be likely. Miracles and monsters abound in Anthony Martignettis memoir Lunatic Heroes: the powerlessness and tiny victories of childhood, the unbreakable bonds of family, the struggle with a Catholic world, the wary embrace of Buddhism and of peace. Beautifully, honestly, sometimes fiercely told, these memoirs are, like Martignetti himself, unique.

Neil Gaiman

Author of many books, including Coraline and The Graveyard Book; winner of many awards, including Newbery and Carnegie Medals for literature.

A powerful piece of writing and of inner observation and, of course, redemption.

Thoughtfully described, heartbreakingly honest, Anthony Martignetti tears open his own life to show the birth pangs and blessings of compassion.

Jack Kornfield, PhD

Author, The Wise Heart

In Anthony Martignettis stories, every word is as urgent as a suicide.

Steven Bogart

Guest Director, American Repertory Theater

Artist in Residence, Southern New Hampshire University

These beautiful stories invite us into tender, uncertain settings; they grip the heart, and then leave us redeemed through a fuller embrace of our flawed humanity.

Anthony Martignetti abides in a courageous, compassionate place where most of us forget we actually live.

Christopher Germer, PhD

Author, The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion

Martignetti hungers for one thing in all his stories: truthhowever absurd, painful, or wonderful it may be. His characters shine with the unmistakable spark of humanity, and by the end of the collection feel as real as that old friend, or rival, or torturer in our own lives. The difference is, after rolling through the waves of hurt, laughter and love in these powerful stories, we see themand ourselves more clearly than when we began.

Ana Hebra Flaster

Commentator, NPR's All Things Considered

Contributor, The Boston Globe and Boston Globe Magazine

Its a mad, mad world in Anthony Martignettis Lunatic Heroes , a 1950s and 60s childhood presided over by a pantheon of familial deities ranging from the ditzy to the deranged. Martignettis tales are thick with the smear and scent of a time gone bya world somehow resurrected and burnished with the authors affection, honesty, and ardent memory. A revelation!

Chip Hartranft

Translator of The Yoga-Sutra of Patajali

Lunatic Heroes

Memories, Lies and Reflections

C. Anthony Martignetti

Introduction by Amanda Palmer

3 Swallys Press Digital

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

www.3swallyspress.com

Copyright 2012 by C. Anthony Martignetti

First Edition 2012

Digital Edition 2014

All rights reserved

Digital ISBN 978-0-9882300-3-3

1-Memoir 2-Short Stories

This ebook is produced by 3 Swallys Press, Boston, USA

To Keno, Bullfrog, Carl, Ray, Stevie D.,

Jackie, Joe, Nonno, Mikee, Carol, Joey, and

all the Lunatic Heroes who have lived and died with me.

Thank you for saving me within an inch of my life.

Contents

I want to thank Amanda Palmer, whose long friendship, regular encouragement, support, and confidence led to the creation of this book. We were at a bar in Boston a couple of years ago when she said, I really love your stories, and you need to get them out. I said, Yeah, ok.

Knowing that I was just saying that to placate her, she said, You have to want to do it or it wont happen. I will help you. I think it was the earnestness with which she spoke those last four words that started a shift.

Then, she married Neil Gaiman, and I became so jealous of his raging success and amazing stories that I decided to actually give it a shot.

My friend, Nivi Nagiel, who has walked through every step of this process with me... each word, comma and agoog . She has made me feel these stories are worth sharing and she never, ever lies, due to a constitutional incapacity. She would very much like to lie, but simply cannot. Also, she loves me despite knowing me.

Paul Trainor, my mucker, all around great talent and the entire IT team. His reading, editing, designing and energizing this book was deeply needed and is appreciated. When we part, hes always saying to me, Be lucky. I got really lucky when we met and became friends.

Shawna McCarthy, who was sent by an American God to edit these stories. I think she liked them.

The Souled Out Artists writers group, for their help and collaboration, and out of which many of these stories emerged.

And, as always, the bottom line, my wife, Laura Sanford, who encourages me in all things. Without doubt, she is the best person Ive ever known at loving. And the only one I can imagine who would stay married to me for twenty-seven years. Thank you, my dearest dear.

Thanks to all of you who have listened to me read stories over the years and urged me to do more with them... and to those erudite friends who endorsed this collection with their blurbs.

With you, I am more than nothing.

C. Anthony Martignetti, 2012

Anthony moved in next door when I was nine. He was in his thirties.

Ive been trying, since then, to explain to people exactly WHAT he was (and is) to me. He wasnt quite my friend, wasnt quite my parent, wasnt quite my teacher.

I usually fumbled around describing him to people by mumbling the words mentor, guru, best friend, but mostly found myself satisfied with this particular run-on: Anthony moved in next door when I was nine and taught me everything I know about love and knows me better than anybody and we still talk almost every single day even if Im in Japan, variations of which I still use when trying to describe a relatively indescribable relationship.

He loves telling the story of one of the first interactions we had, soon after he moved in. It was a winter night, after a big snowfall in our little suburban neighborhood, and he and his wife were hosting a dinner party.

I ambled across my lawn over to his and started pelting his window with snowballs. I thought it was funny. He sort of did too.

He came to the door.

I want a snowball fight, I said.

I cant, he said. But Ill get you back later.

And he returned to the dinner party, back into the warmth and fire and wine of the adult world behind him.

Then, according to the story, I returned to his house about twenty minutes later, and started pelting their giant picture window with snowballs for a second time.

He came to the door again. What the hell?

You said youd get me later, I said. Im here to get gotten.

Amanda, its been twenty minutes, he said. I meant later... like... tomorrow.

I dont actually remember this happening. But I know the story by heart, because hes told it so many times.

I also dont actually remember the first time I hugged him, but he tells that story too.

I was probably fourteen by that time, and our relationship had evolved from occasional snowball enemies to full-on pals.

He claims we were standing in his driveway and something had happened that merited a hug. But we had never hugged and I was, according to him, into the idea... but wasnt used to hugging. So I leaned my body against his, he says, like a falling pine tree, letting my head rest on his chest while my body kept a terrified distance.