Chapter 11

We were pushed. Stretched beyond ourselves. Ellora Patil was exactly the right person for two 13 year old kids who already had Bachelors and Masters degrees in English Literature ... and we'd done it in less than a year.

We turned 14 in May. It was Tuesday. We took the day off from engineering math.

"Ellora?" we said like the twins we are.

She looked up from her desk ... we had our heads in the door. "Happy Birthday!" she said.

We both looked crestfallen ... we wanted to surprise her ... instead it was us.

"We're taking the afternoon ... celebration."

"You're up to speed ... graduation is June 16 ... try and make it back for that." She laughed. "See you tomorrow in class."

"Yes, Dr. Patil. We will be there ... probably hungover ... but we will make it."

We could hear her laughter all the way down the hall ... and the door was closed.

We celebrated with a pizza at Il Forno ... in the kitchen ... with the hoods. Those guys knew the damnedest stories about the most influential people ... and they were a great deal of fun.

Antonio asked after Grandmother Austin.

"Tony, she died this past winter in her sleep at home and in bed. I miss her," Grace said.

Lou wiped a tear, "I hadn't heard. She ... and her sisters ... had the voices of angels ... and brewed the best beer. The town wasn't the same after the raid."

"Whoa, Lou ... what's this?," I asked. "Beer? Grannie?"

"Oh yes," he confessed, "The farm was the perfect cover. The wheat was barley ... all fifteen acres."

"Really?" Grace had a great big grin. "Do tell, Lou."

"Your dad used to ice-skate to Windsor on weekends and carry pints of Hyrum Walker back to Detroit. He wore a huge coonskin coat with hundreds of pockets inside. All the college kids wore them damn coats. You could hide a Thompson under one of them fucking coats and not get caught.

"Him and Adele would run a load up to Ann Arbor and sell it to the law students and the frats ... that was when he was an undergrad."

I nodded... 'Gee, Daddy.' I thought.

"You know Detroit was run by the Jews?"

"We studied about the Purple gang when we were in the seventh," said Grace.

"Your dad had an 'arrangement' with them.

"Ya see, Detroit went dry before the rest of the country did, because our fair but misguided state adopted a state law, the Damon Act of 1916, which prohibited liquor starting in 1917. The state went dry in '17. I still think so many Michigan youngsters joined the Army to get out of state."