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THERE ARE SOME MEN who enter a woman's life and screw it up forever Joseph Morelli did this to me—not forever, but periodically

Morelli and I were both born and raised in a blue-collar chunk of Trenton called the burg Houses were attached and narrow Yards were small Cars were Ah Hungarians and Gerood place to buy calzone or play the numbers And, if you had to live in Trenton anyway, it was an okay place to raise a family

When I was a kid I didn't ordinarily play with Joseph Morelli He lived two blocks over and o years older “Stay away from those Morelli boys,” my mother had warned s they do to girls when they get them alone”

“What kind of things?” I'd eagerly asked

“You don't want to know,” s that aren't nice”

From that moment on, I viewed Joseph Morelli with a combination of terror and prurient curiosity that bordered on aeeks later, at the age of six, with quaking knees and a squishy stoe on the proame

The Morelli garage hunkered detached and snubbed at the edge of their lot It was a sorry affair, lit by a single shaft of light filtering through a gri of corner s of used e served other purposes Old Man Morelli used the garage to take his belt to his sons, his sons used the garage to take their hands to thearage to play train

“What's the naame?” I'd asked Joseph Morelli

“Choo-choo,” he'd said, down on his hands and knees, crawling between s, his head trapped under my short pink skirt “You're the tunnel, and I'm the train”

I suppose this tells soood at taking advice Or that I was born with an overload of curiosity Or maybe it's about rebellion or boredom or fate At any rate, it was a one-shot deal and darn disappointing, since I'd only gotten to be the tunnel, and I'd really wanted to be the train

Ten years later, Joe Morelli was still living two blocks over He'd grown up big and bad, with eves like black fire one minute and le tattooed on his chest, a tight-assed, narrow-hipped swagger, and a reputation for having fast hands and clever fingers