Life with My Sister Madonna by Christopher Ciccone Read Free Book Online Page B

the manager’s office, ordered to empty my pockets, and the Zen falls out. I am caught and fear my father’s wrath more than anything else.
    Next thing I know, I can hear over the PA system, “Is there a Mr. Ciccone in the store?” Within a moment, my father is in the manager’s office. He looks at me, says, “You stupid little shit!” and yanks me out of the store.
    In the car, he doesn’t say a single word to me, but I know I am in big-time trouble. I am shocked when he does nothing. I suppose he knows that I haven’t stolen for myself, but because I wanted Madonna to have her Christmas present.
    I realize that it would be heartwarming if I claimed to have stolen the perfume for my sister because I loved her so much, but that isn’t true. I didn’t then really love her at all. In fact, I hardly knew her. I felt alienated from her, alienated from my whole family. I was not a bad child, not a good child, just quiet, and watching, always observing.
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    I N 1972, THE whole family takes a road trip across America in our dark green van. True to form, Madonna makes sure always to squeeze herself into the front bench seat, between our father and Joan, practically pushing Joan out of her seat.
    Each of us is allowed to bring as many things as we can that will fit in a cardboard Rolling Rock case—Rolling Rock was my paternal grandfather’s favorite beer—with our name on it. The girls paint flowers on their boxes; I paint mine with red, white, and blue stripes.
    At night, my father and Joan sleep in the van, and we kids all sleep in a dark green army tent that reeks of mold and mildew. We drive for hours and hours, and the whole trip is a free-for-all. We visit the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore, the Black Hills of South Dakota, the Hoover Dam, and Yellowstone National Park. When we get to California, Joan suggests driving along Santa Monica beach, but the van gets stuck in the sand. We are all tired and irritable.
    Luckily for us, nearby surfers come to our aid and explain to my father that by letting air out of the tires we will widen their surface contact with the sand and the van can be dislodged. We do and it works.
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    L OOKING BACK , I suppose our grand road trip across America is another example of my father’s educational ideals, which include exposing his children to their country. He also believes in the virtue of hard work. When I’m twelve, one morning during summer vacation, he opens the front door, pushes me out, and says, “Don’t come back without a job.”
    I wander around Rochester for hours until I come across a sign at a local country club looking for caddies. I get the job, train for a week, and on my first day at work, I walk out because my employer treats me so badly.
    My father, too, has more lofty ambitions for me. In fact, his dearest wish is that all his children become attorneys, engineers, or doctors. Fortunately for Madonna and me, he isn’t opposed to the arts either. Thanks to him, all us Ciccone kids have piano lessons. And when any of us admit that we have artistic ambitions—albeit slightly reluctantly—he encourages us to live out our creativity. I’m surprised by his somewhat laissez-faire attitude toward our career choices. Then I learn from my father’s mother that my father’s brother Guido, a talented painter, was forced by his wife to jettison his ambition to become an artist and work in the steel mills instead. Consequently, he was deeply unhappy for most of his life. Clearly, my father witnessed Guido’s unhappiness and vowed that none of his children would suffer in the same way.
    Naturally, my father, a deeply private yet even-natured man, never discusses Guido’s sad fate. On the surface at least, he is repressed and not in the least bit comfortable with emotions, and will never delve into them—his own, or anyone else’s. However, as time goes by, he will relax more,