My mom needed to be a mom.

Last place he wanted to be, sitting at our table, eating my mom’s lasagna, and not because Mom didn’t make kickass lasagna. She did.

It was just…

[Pause]

There were a lot of things that made Preacher McCade.

Doing that for my mom was one of them.

Doing what he did for Penny was another.

My sisters, both of them, had crushes on him. But it was candyland stuff. He was too old, he was in the band, he thought of me as a brother even when I didn’t know he thought of me that way, and they got that vibe. Chicks, they get those vibes.

So, they were his little sisters too.

So, when Nicky knocked up my sister Penny.

Yeah, that was not gonna go well for Nick.

Not with me.

Not with Preach.

No fuckin’ way.

[Off tape]

Nick Pileggi alleges McCade put him in the hospital.

No clue. Preach messed him up, all right. Asshole should have gone to the hospital, but don’t know if he did. After that, never saw the guy again, and I thank God for that.

You were there.

Fuck yeah, I was. Guy knocked up my fifteen-year-old sister.

He’s in my band, and he’s sneakin’ my little sister out of her bedroom window at night, takin’ her somewhere and bangin’ her?

[Shakes head]

Penny told me before she told Mom and Dad.

I sat there, holding her hand when she told Mom and Dad.

But Penny told me something she didn’t tell Mom and Dad, and that was that she told Nick she wanted him to use a rubber and he said he wouldn’t, and if she didn’t, he’d find someone else who would, without a prophylactic.

And she was into him. She really liked him. Convinced herself she was in love with him.

But he told her a guy couldn’t get off if he had to wear a rubber. Told her he needed it wet.

I’m serious about this shit.

She was fifteen, she believed his ass. Part, I figure, because she’d do anything to keep him. Part, I figure, because she was fifteen and hormones fuck you right up.

Nick told her, he pulled out, it’d all be good.

No problems.

Told her that’s the way everyone did it.

Yeah.

Nick.

A real peach.

He didn’t share that shit wide either.

[Shakes head]

And you got folks who don’t want sex education in schools.

[Scoffs]

[Quietly] Fuckin’ lunacy.

She told me, we told our folks, then I took off and told Preacher.

And we found Nick.

I knew what Preacher would do, that’s why I found him.

[Smiles]

Preach, he grew up down South, you know? He can be a gentleman.

He let me get my licks in before he took over.