WARNING:
To reiterate, most of this story will center on the subject of child abuse and
Tony’s past. Anything that happens in this chapter is on par with what
happened in the last one in terms of description, nothing worse yet for Tony.
Chapter
3 – Beginning to Understand
GIBBS: Your father teach you how to report?
TONY: Oh yeah. During
cocktail hour while I was pouring his Macallan18 – three fingers, one ice cube.
You know I had to report in about my day at school and just give him a sort of
a...
~ 1x16 Bête Noire
Marie opened the door to Tony’s room expecting to see him racing his Matchbox cars around the room, admiring his new Star Wars action figures, or lining up his G.I. Joes in some semblance of a battle. She didn’t expect to see the room as tidy as when she had finished cleaning it before moving off to vacuum, nor did she expect it to be seemingly devoid of one rambunctious eight-year old boy. She had almost closed the door to go off in a search for the wayward youth when she thought she heard the slightest of sniffles.
Stepping further into the room, she listened more closely before locating her query. Kneeling down and pulling up the bed skirt of Vinnie’s old bottom bunk, Marie found Tony curled in a small ball with a raggedy old teddy bear clutched to his chest. It didn’t escape the woman’s notice that the bear was also Vinnie’s.
“Tony, sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
“I was punished for Mother’s glass breaking.” The statement was interrupted by several sniffles and punctuated with a quiet sob. “It must have been my fault that she threw it at me. I don’t like being punished.”
The connection between the location of the broken glass and where Marie had found Mrs. DiNozzo sipping another mint julep finally hit home. “Oh, Baby. Come on out from there. We’ll get you cleaned up for the party and I’ll even let you have some of the chocolate cake before dinner. Come on now.”
Tony nodded and slid himself out from his dusty cave. Tear tracks were dried with the sleeve of her shirt. Tony’s eyes never met her own and that worried Marie. The boy in front of her had never been shy before with anyone, least of all someone who’d acted partly as his nanny for years. Surely his father’s angry rants couldn’t have done this much damage.
“I’m going to draw your bath and set out your clothes, okay Tony?”
The question was met without protest and with a small nod. If that hadn’t been enough to concern Marie, the fact that Tony seemed to jump out of his skin when she laid a hand on his shoulder to usher him to his toothbrush definitely was.
Marie used two fingers to lift Tony’s chin so that he would look at her. It was all the prompting he needed to burst into tears again and throw himself into her arms. Tony had been scolded plenty of times before. He was, after all, far more excitable than his older brother ever had been. But something about this new reaction caused Marie to fear something more severe than a raised voice had been the boy’s punishment.
Sitting back against the bed frame, Marie cradled her charge into her lap and stroked his hair until the sobs finally abated.
Taking a deep breath, Tony sniffled away the last of his tears and held his watch out to Marie. “Isn’t it bath time now?”
Marie kissed his brow and carried him into the bathroom, depositing him on the sink and getting out the bubbles. She heard his teeth being brushed and smiled softly.
“All right, young man.” Keeping her tone light and her attitude about bath time as normal as she could muster, Marie held an air of business about her. “I’m going to step out and get your suit while you hop in. I’ll be back in a few minutes for your hair. Make sure you wash behind your ears.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The sloppy salute and toothy grin soothed her fears and she left him to his bath.
~*~
The soapy water on the tile floor was evidence of Tony’s latest amphibious battle and brought an exasperated smile to Marie’s face.
“I thought we agreed that the bath water was supposed to stay in the…” she trailed off as Tony jumped and offered the quickest apology she’d ever heard followed by a soft plea to not tell his father. Automatically she assured him that this was nothing to concern his father with and began to clean the mess. As she finally drew back the bath curtain minutes later, she caught the first look at the punishment that had upset Tony and reduced him to such fear.
The boy returned to absently crashing plastic boats together and paying no mind to the woman behind him. The bar of soap had long been lost to the depths of his ‘ocean’ after the obligatory scrubbing of his ears. But none of that registered with Marie. The lines of bruising and angry red welts made her want to be physically ill or rip her employer limb from limb.
“Tony, did your Daddy do that to you?” She couldn’t imagine her late husband ever laying a hand on their daughter and it made her see red.
“I’m not s’posed to call him that.”
“He said that?” The red that she saw grew darker.
“Yes, ma’am. He said that I didn’t deserve to call him that – that I mustn’t call him something so informal. Just Father or Sir.”
“Did…did your father do that, then?” Marie tried to calm her voice lest the boy clam up, thinking he’d done something else wrong.
“Not most of it. The scary guard that I don’t like did most of it. Please don’t tell Father that I was crying. Please, Marie?”
“I won’t, Baby. I promise. Let me see that wash cloth.” Marie soaked the cloth and gently washed the sweat from Tony’s back, soothing him with the soft touch and gentle care. She had to wipe silent tears from her eyes before carefully soaping and rinsing Tony’s short hair.
“Get dressed, Bud, and I’ll find your shoes. Then we’ll get you that cake,” and anything else you ever want, she added the last thought silently.
~*~
“No, sir. The boy just doesn’t seem to have an eye for it. Give him a science problem or something to memorize and he’s a whiz. Those mystery books that he reads are well beyond his age level and he understands them well. He even has a tendency to figure out the end before the characters do. The boy’s extremely intelligent for his age, but math just seems to bore him. He’s a lot like his older brother was.”
“That’s exactly what I intend to drill out of his head. I will not have another one of those fiascos. I want to know how many math problems he gets wrong at the end of every session. I don’t want him focusing on those mysteries; he gets enough English classes at school. I want him focused on math and math alone. He will be going into the family business and being able to solve a cheap child’s mystery is not going to help him in my world.”
“Understood, sir.” The tutor sighed as he wondered just how much more difficult it was going to be to keep the youngest DiNozzo’s attention without the promise of a new book at the end of each week.
~*~
In the last few months, Tony had come to hate the chair in his father’s office more than anything else. He knew that being called to kneel in the soft cushions was tantamount to stuffing down pain and torment. He could never be sure exactly when his father’s mood would sour enough to land him there, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t done anything in the past few days to incur the man’s wrath.
“Report, Anthony.”
He had learned quickly that his father expected concise answers to his questions, and his daily recounting of school and his extra lessons was no different. Classes that interested Tony and kept his wandering attention on task were glossed over quickly despite his accomplishments, and more detail was given to what he was learning in math and history. Neither subject appealed to the boy, but he was intelligent enough to pick his battles. Discussing his science lessons was best left to talking with Marie as she tucked him in each night.
“And your tutor today; how did that go?” Tony groaned at the mention of the man. He had never minded the extra lessons before, always able to earn praise for his talents. But recently the lessons had taken the sole focus on math that had been requested, and Tony was rapidly losing interest.
“Fine, sir.” He couldn’t muster up a better answer than that without lying.
“No problems today?”
He thought about the session. He had gotten a few answers wrong, but if he wasn’t having some difficulty then there would be no reason for him to have the lessons, would there?
“No, sir.”
“Lying, worthless brat.”
The change in tone startled the boy and he tried to think of what could have gone wrong. He hadn’t spoken back; he hadn’t tried to leave early.
“Sir?”
“Seven questions wrong? Out of thirty? That seems acceptable to you?”
Tony’s head dropped to study the floor.
“Pour me another drink.”
When Tony had obliged him, the elder DiNozzo pointed to the chair while he sipped at the beverage. Shirt removed and placed on his knees, Tony listened for his lesson.
“No one with my last name,” the first blow fell and stole his breath. He hadn’t been expecting his father to use the cane he sometimes carried for show.
“Will disgrace me by being miserable at business.” A second jolt struck across his kidneys and pulled the first cry.
“Always knew you were weak, boy. But you’ll learn.” A third and fourth blow brought clenched fists and wrinkles in his school shirt.
“I do not accept a mere seventy-seven percent success rate.” A fifth strike tensed shoulders and forced tears.
“You are worthless to me, boy. Keep this up and you will never amount to anything.” The sixth silenced him as it bruised his shoulder blades.
“You will do better, won’t you?” The seventh blow brought tremors of fear. Was he allowed to speak during his father’s lessons?
“There. Seven for seven wrong. Put your shirt on, Anthony.” Tony may be only eight years old but he had already begun to notice that his name was only used before and after lessons, never during.
“Yes, sir.” Tony climbed down gingerly and buttoned his shirt over the bruises before turning to leave.
“Did I dismiss you?”
Tony froze; eyes wide. He hadn’t even thought about the usual abrupt dismissal, expecting it to come immediately after his shirt slid over his shoulders to hide his disobedience. He slowly turned as he fumbled with the last button. What else could his father want?
“You look a mess, Anthony. Your shirt is a disgrace. That is unacceptable. Come over here.”
Tony stood trembling in front of the man responsible for his existence. Tears traced down red cheeks and dripped off his chin onto the uniform shirt. He gasped as his father pulled him up to his tiptoes by the lapels and then ripped it open, scattering the buttons everywhere. Tony was spun around and the shirt was stripped from him.
“If you can’t wear your clothing with respect, then you don’t deserve it at all. Pick up those buttons and then you may walk slowly to your room. I won’t have you running around this house like some hooligan.”
Buttons were handed over and a curt dismissal was given. Tony pushed the door open as hard as he dared; he had liked that shirt.
The screech that accompanied the abrupt stop of the heavy door let Tony know that his day was only going to get worse.
“What happened?” Movement from behind the boy alerted him to his father’s path to rescue his wife.
Tony was already backing rapidly away from his irate mother when his father’s voice had him backpedaling towards the closest wall.
“The door. Him. Get him out of my sight. He’s not Vincent. I want Vinnie. Make that one go away.” His mother’s heavily slurred words dripped with disdain.
Tony judged the distances between himself and the door, himself and his father, and his father and the door. He had no chance of escape and hoped that standing still would earn him some sort of reprieve. The bruising grip on his arm caused Tony to gulp and try his best to keep his feet under him as he was dragged from the room.
The trip led away from the bedroom wing he was hoping for and frightened the boy. Where was his father taking him? He wouldn’t throw him out of the house would he? It had snowed that morning and Tony was hardly dressed for the weather.
As they passed the servant’s entrance from the backyard to the kitchen, Tony let out a short breath of relief. His ease was brief; however, as the door to the basement was thrown open.
Terror gripped Tony as he stared down into the darkness. Vinnie had petrified him with stories of what was down there, and he had never come within ten feet of the door before, never mind been down the steps.
“No, Daddy. No!” Not even fear of more severe punishment could stop the cry.
“Worthless brat. I am not your Daddy. Now shut your mouth and I’d better not hear another word from you until I come get you. Understood?”
“Yes, Father.” Tony stood stock-still at the door trying to screw up the courage to step through the portal when the bruising grip increased and the boy found himself tripping over his feet as he was tossed callously down the stairs.
Sharp pain raced through his arm and into his chest as he hit bottom and he looked up just in time to see the last of the light obliterated by the closing door. The sound of the bolt sliding home sealed him in his fears. Caught up in the claustrophobic darkness, Tony pulled himself up and slowly backed away from the stairs until he found the concrete wall. Sinking slowly to sit with his injured arm cradled between his chest and thighs, the boy laid his other arm across his knees and dropped his forehead to rest on that. The cold concrete soothed the hurts on his bare back and hot tears dropped to his knees until he fell asleep.
~*~
“I still think he should be in a hospital, sir. His fever hasn’t broken in two days and while I set the arm, we really should get x-rays to confirm proper placement.” Tony recognized the voice of his family’s doctor floating through the black haze that had engulfed him recently. Knowing that the doctor wouldn’t be down in the monster’s cave that he had been locked in, he fell back to sleep.
~*~
When he woke again, Tony was more aware of his surroundings. Soft white sheets and cream blankets covered him, and he could feel the smooth silk shirt that was part of his sleeping garb. Opening his eyes wider, he recognized that he was cocooned in the canopy bed that had been his before the nightmares had chased him to sleep in Vinnie’s room two years ago.
“Ah, Master Anthony. It’s good to see you back with us, child. You gave us all quite the scare.” The doctor smiled gently as he reached for the thermometer still under Tony’s tongue.
“Yes, Anthony, what were you doing hiding in the basement? Your father and I were frantic for three days looking for you.”
Tony glanced first to his mother and then to his father. The man’s face was clearly daring him to tell what had really happened. He would beat the damned honest streak out of his son one way or another. It wouldn’t serve him in the future as the next CEO.
The boy thought for a moment before answering. “I was trying to see if I could be quiet as long as Father thought I could.” The self-satisfied smirk that Tony had as he stared into his father’s eyes was the first of many he would wear as he grew up. “I must have fallen asleep, and then I don’t remember anything after that.”
~*~
The plaster around his wrist itched and constantly got in the way of Tony’s attempts to move his army men around the floor. Back in the room that was his sanctuary, the boy had been uncharacteristically quiet in the week following his rescue from the basement. He hadn’t seen Marie once since he woke up, and was worried that something had happened while he was hidden away. His mother had been relatively sober in that time and had taken to checking in on him, pointing to the bathroom when he should bathe and coming to get him herself for dinner. It was the closest Tony knew to his mother’s care in the past year.
“Thank God they found you.”
Tony’s head shot up at the soft voice, but a scowl crossed his features.
“Why didn’t you come for me?” He remembered most of the first two days of his imprisonment and remembered waiting for Marie to come pounding down the stairs to ease his tremors and fears.
“I looked for you, Tony. But when your father found out that I was concerned, he ordered me to stop and then had me driven to the airport to visit my daughter. I wanted to come find you, Baby. I did.”
Tony looked at the woman’s face and saw something that convinced him.
“I didn’t know you were down there, Tony. I swear to God I would have come for you if I had. Your father told me you were taken care of and that your mother wanted some time with you. I didn’t think he’d…he’s the one that left you down there, isn’t he?”
Marie was the first person who didn’t believe that Tony had gotten himself locked in that basement, and the trust that he had placed in her was once again strengthened.
“Everyone else thought I must have managed to lock that bolt on the outside of the door from down the stairs.” He looked up at the woman at the door and smiled softly.
“Locked yourself in, hmm? That would be a feat, now wouldn’t it? I brought you a piece of pizza if you’re hungry, Tony.” The peace offering worked for what it was intended and the ease at which the small boy forgave amazed her.
~*~
“Are you all right, sweetheart?” Tony was curled up on her lap a little while later with his ear resting over her heart. The steady beat did more to calm him than an entire week of the mother hen routine that his mother had been trying to emulate.
“I told them I don’t remember being down there,” the whisper was airy and nearly silent, “but I remember more than I want to.”
“What do you remember, Tony?”
“Why do you call me Tony? No one else does.”
Marie laughed gently at the evasion. It was neither subtle nor unexpected. “Because it’s what I’ve always called you. And it’s what your brother called you. Would you rather I called you Anthony?”
“No, ma’am. I don’t like being called that. I want to be Tony, just Tony.”
“You’ll always be Tony to me, Baby. Always. Now rest.”
~*~
He had told his parents, the doctor, and the psychologist that had attempted to ward off his insomnia that he didn’t remember anything after the first time he’d fallen asleep in the cellar, but the first time he’d even let his eyes drift closed was when the fever had taken hold of him. It was the parts before he fell asleep that made his memories of that particular punishment haunt his sleep for months afterwards. The sounds had been amplified by the darkness, and as he got sick from the cold lowering his immune system and making him vulnerable to the microbes living in the damp, his fevered mind conjured up several of the images from Vinnie’s stories.
Even now, though the adult in him laughed the occasional childhood nightmares back to where they belonged, Agent DiNozzo could still hear the growl the boiler had made, the footsteps the settling house had created, and the slithering that various kitchen carts had echoed down into that basement. His imagination had come up with some sort of cross between a bear and a dragon, and the beast still crept up on his sleep after harder days.
“How long have we been down here, Boss?”
Gibbs didn’t answer right away, just refilled the coffee mug and smiled ruefully. “Why, you got a hot date, DiNozzo?”
“Well, you know, there are a couple girls I could call, depending on the time.” The easy humor gave him a break from the memories. He honestly wasn’t sure how much of what he remembered was relayed out loud to Gibbs, and what simply passed by in a flash, but it was enough to know that he had a safe place to fight through them. The loss of time down here was a result of his deep introspection.
The head slap was expected at the barb, and with no one else around, it wasn’t granted the dramatics it would have required in the office to play down his pain threshold level. Anything to keep up with appearances.
“You kicking me out, Boss?” The tone was meant to be light, but Gibbs picked up on the guarded defense that it actually was. One day, the older man swore, DiNozzo would truly realize that he was welcome here at any time and for as long a time as he needed to squash his mottled upbringing back down behind the indomitable character that made him into a greater man than his father would ever be. It was an allowance that Gibbs didn’t make for many people, but Tony was definitely in a league all his own with the older man. He filled a void that had been empty for far too long, and even Gibbs didn’t understand how Tony had wormed his way in there.
“You’re the one who asked the damned question, DiNozzo. Wouldn’t be the first time we spent all night sitting here, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”
Tony smiled and nodded as he swallowed more of the bitter coffee. “Why don’t you mind?”
The question was so quiet that Gibbs wasn’t sure he’d even heard it.
“You tell me.” Too much touchy-feely would have DiNozzo doubting the authenticity or running for the hills – sometimes both. It was a mistake that Gibbs wasn’t ready to make again. He’d worked too hard to get back to this level of trust with DiNozzo after the last time he’d tried to explain.
Tony just nodded, stared at the drink in his hands, and changed the subject. “You know, this is the first basement that hasn’t scared the Hell out of me in years.”
“Maybe it’s because you already know the bear that lives down here.”
DiNozzo’s head came up so abruptly that it appeared to be spring-loaded. He looked into the older man’s eyes, soft with humor, and then down at the unfinished boat and allowed a smile to cross his own features.
“Hey Boss, how are you going to get the boat out of here when you’re finished?”
~~**~~