Fandom: Houston Knights
Series: Other Authors
Rating: PG
Title: Uncle Joey and Purple Levon
Author: JoeyPare
Standard Disclaimer: Houston Knights belongs to Jay Bernstein and Michael Butler and Columbia Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended. This is fan fiction, written out of love for the shows. I am making no money off this. I have no money so please don't sue me. Any original characters who may appear in these stories are the property of the author.
Levon stared at the five-year-old who sat hovering over a western coloring book, busily coloring a pair of cowboy boots. It wasn't bad enough that his partner's cousins had once again interrupted a day off, but they had left a kid behind. And not just any kid, but Michael Anthony LaFiamma III, a little smarty-pants who talked your arm off at any given moment.
Levon knew his partner; Sergeant Joseph Anthony LaFiamma had a soft spot for kids. That was evident at Chicken's Christmas party last week. Now a week later, wild Mikey III was back in their life.
Levon gawked at himself in the full length mirror that was on the wall next to Joe's spiral staircase, he was still trying to figure out how he let Carol talk him into getting dark lavender jeans to go with the purple shirt that he bought. God, I look like a Hollywood cowboy! Like a damn tourist!
"La-Fi-ah-ma? Ain't your cousins a bit overdue for picking up Mikey?" Sergeant Levon Lundy bellowed across the room to his partner, who was dicing raw potatoes on a large apple-shaped cutting board in the kitchen.
" Levon, I like your outfit," Joe answered without looking up from his task. "They said they'd be back around three and it's...."
"Uncle Levon is with the outfit, too?!" Mikey asked, looking up from his coloring project.
"It's three-thirty!" Lundy cut in sharply, leaving the wall he was leaning on, to walk over to a stool at the breakfast bar. "Don't you think they're taking advantage of you?"
"Yeah, they are!" LaFiamma growled, laying the knife he was using on the cutting board. "And I told them to take their time. They don't get out of Chicago much, don't have much time alone. Would you believe it? They actually envy me... ME... being down here away from the family! What difference does it make if they get here at three or four, or hell, five even? "
"Humph...." Levon mumbled turning away from the Italian to look at the innocent Mikey intent on his coloring, keenly aware of the drone of some song Mikey was playing over and over again on a small Walkman next to him.
"Carol's right, Levon, you are a purple person. That color really looks great with your blond hair. You should wear it more often." With the LaFiamma grin of innocence, Joe went back to his task of making potato soup.
//Purple person? Purple people eater! Purple people eat people?// The words of the song he was playing all mashed together in Mikey's brain spreading one thought like a brush fire - purple people eat people. The youngster dropped his crayons and stared up at Uncle Levon. Mikey swallowed hard as Lundy smiled at him and began to walk into the living room.
"UNCLE JOEY! DON'T LET HIM GET ME!" Mikey screamed at the top of his lungs as Levon knelt down on one knee to see what the boy had been coloring on so earnestly.
"Wha?" Lundy gasped, startled by Mikey's outburst.
Mikey pushed past Levon knocking him into the coffee table. "Dang, LaFiamma, what is wrong with this kid?"
"DON'T LET 'EM EAT ME? DON'T! PURPLE PEOPLE EAT PEOPLE!" Mikey screeched running full speed into the kitchen just as his parents opened Joe's front door and walked into the apartment.
"MOM, MOM! LEVON'S A PURPLE PERSON... DON'T LET 'EM GET ME!" Mikey yelled pointing over his shoulder to a stunned blond detective kneeling on the floor, rubbing a couple of aching sore spots from hitting the coffee table wrong.
"Whoa! What is going on?" Matthew LaFiamma asked, closing the door behind his wife as she set her shopping bags down on the floor.
"Uncle Joey's cutting up potatoes....and... Uncle Levon's a purple people ...and... well... Mom's knows purple people eat..." Mikey blurts out, clinging to his father's right leg.
"Mikey, that is just a song that I play... that is something someone made up, just like the stories you and Dad make up when you go to bed," Annette LaFiamma explained, picking up her frightened five-year-old, and holding him close.
"He's.... not gonna eat me?" Mikey quizzed quietly, feeling safe in his mother's arms.
"No, he's not going to eat you." Matt answered gently, giving his son a fatherly pat on the top of the head.
"You are not cutting up potatoes to cook me?" Mikey questioned, his face going into the famous LaFiamma pout, looking over his mother's shoulder at Uncle Joey still standing in the kitchen.
"I'm making potato soup, remember? We looked for the recipe together," Joe replied, leaving the small kitchen, and walking around to his cousin and nephew.
"Levon is a purple person, because he looks good in purple with his blond hair," Joey explained quietly.
Mikey's head jerked back and he shoved himself out of his mother's arms, a knowing look on his face. "An.. an..Mom's a blue person cause she wears blue. An.. an I'm a green person cause I wear green, and..."
"AND.. you got!" Joey chirped, extending his arms around the dancing five-year-old. "Now don't you think you need to go and apologize to Uncle Levon for shoving him into the table."
Annette LaFiamma was not aware of Lundy's presence until that moment. Her flashing black eyes moved from her son to the cowboy grimacing as he slowly got up off the living room floor.
"You are hurt," Annette said, concern in her voice as she stepped through her family to walk to Levon's side.
"It's nothing. No big deal," Levon croaked, wincing a bit when he stood straight.
"Come on, into the laundry room, let's have a look," she said firmly, pointing to the door next to the wall telephone.
"It's nothing... I been hurt worse plenty of times," the blond answered gruffly.
"Then you ARE hurt?" Annette demanded staring into his blushed face.
Levon gave his partner a pained look. Much to the blond's chagrin, however, Joey came back with, "She is a physician's assistant, Levon, she will not leave until she has a look at you."
The corners of Matt's mouth were beginning to curl before his wife and Levon reached the laundry room door. Joey faked to the refrigerator, opening the door pretending to look for something he needed. No sooner had Lundy closed the door then the two LaFiamma cousins began to roll in laughter. Joey swiftly moved out of the kitchen and into the dining room where his weight lifting gear was set up. Holding his hand to his mouth, Matt joined his cousin, only allowing the laughter to roll when he was around the corner and out of sight of the kitchen. Smatters of Italian burst between the laughter.
"Dad?!" Mikey said quietly following the two men in the dining room. "I was bad, wasn't I?"
Joe and Matt stopped and stared at the culprit who started it all. "Bad?" Matthew LaFiamma asked.
"Bad? Heck no, Michael Anthony LaFiamma, the third," Matt replied, a broad grin spreading across his face. "You are... the best! You're right, Joey, this kid is something special."
"What are you boys doing in here?" Annette asked, as she emerged from the laundry room her eyes darting from face to face.
"What about, Levon, is he all right?" Joey questioned, still finding it hard to suppress his grin.
"I don't think his ribs are broken. Cracked maybe. I told him he needs to have them x-rays just to be safe. He said he'd think about...."
"Don't worry, Nett. I'll see that he does - right soon too." Joey replied watching his slightly embarrassed partner gritting his teeth in an attempt to put his purple western shirt back on.
Mikey turned from his dad to stare at the bruise forming on Lundy's rib cage. "They ... they --- are --- here!" Mikey stammered pointing to the bruise. Then staring at his mother, the boy began backing away, "its MOOOMMM! She's the people eater!"
It was Joey who grabbed the youngster around the waist, slung him up over his shoulder and deposited him on the edge of the breakfast bar. Solemnly, Joe looked into the blue eyes of the newest LaFiamma male and said, "Purple People Eaters are pretend. Just like you pretended to be a cowboy when you were riding Uncle Levon's horse. That bruise on Levon is the same as this bruise you have on your leg."
"I knooow! And that came from Mom tooo! She gave me the bruise cause of what I did. 'cause I wet my pants. 'cause I was bad. But.... But she didn't go into the room with a belt so how did she give him the bruise unless she tried to bite him?"
Red flags of child abuse went through Joe's system like a house on fire. Doing a half turn he stared at his cousin's wife. "You beating this kid just because he's not trained yet?" He asked, his voice, jaw, tight and controlled.
"Joey, it is not what you think." Annette LaFiamma answered defensively. "He goes for days with no problems and then..."
"He is only five!" Joe growled back at her, blue eyes flashing green.
"He should be holding it by now! All the books say that...." Nett continued, stepping forward.
"You're raising this child by what some damn book says!?" Joey gasped, his nostrils flaring wide in anger. "Hell, Matthew, what kind of a woman did you marry that beats kids because they wet their pants."
"Joey, we all got beat as a kid, you know that." Matt answered, not condoning what his wife did, but not saying it was wrong either.
"Yeah... we got beat," Joey acknowledged grudgingly, his voice low. "We got beat on the butt, on the back with belts, boards, paddles, whatever our dads, uncles had in their hands when we were caught doing something wrong. But never where it showed! Never on the legs... the legs that had to carry us to school or to work. The rest of your body could hurt like hell but your legs still worked, you could run, you could get away. Matthew, he's five for chris'sake! None of us got beat that early ---- none of us!"
Levon knew before Joe even said it, that his partner was going to insist on keeping the kid for a couple more days just so he could be checked over.
"Joe," Levon said, speaking quietly, deliberately, ambling between the cousins, "you said Matt and his wife wanted a few days to themselves. Why don't you and Mikey come out to the ranch for the rest of the week? I know it would do you some good to get out of the city, and Mikey really liked..."
"Can I? Huh, Mom, can I?!" Mikey babbled, his head whirling with horses and cows and cowboy boots, not concerned with what his Uncle Joey and Dad were arguing about.
"Your place? For three days?" LaFiamma questioned in disbelief, all his partner had done all day was to gripe about the kid.
"Didn't you say they wanted a second honeymoon? Well, now's the time, and they won't have to worried about Mikey 'cause he'll be with us."
"Levon, I know you mean well," Joey said shaking his head, " but you...."
"LaFiamma, Joe. We practically had to peel the kid off my horse last year. And we didn't have a camera, so we couldn't take pictures of him. You got a camera, a good one, you could...."
"YEAH, YEAH YEAH!" Yelped Mikey wiggling free of Joey's hand and jumping off the counter onto the floor. "Pictures! I can take pictures of me on the horse and show them to Rico! He didn't believe me last year when I said I rode a horse. DAD! DAD! Can I? Can I?"
"DAD? MOM?" Mikey cried loudly, dancing in circles.
"You're going to have him checked over by Social Services, aren't you?" Annette asked, looking squarely into the changing LaFiamma blue eyes in front of her.
"No," Joey replied quietly, "Just a doc we know," nodding to his partner. "He can do it while Levon's having his ribs x-rayed.
"Pur-ple Le-von! Pur-ple Lev-on!" Michael III sang, "I'm staying at Purple Levon's."
It was Matt who broke the silence between the adults. "You got yourself a deal, Joe. Three days from now, we will be back to pick up our son. And take some pictures of yourself too. Lots of people back home asked how you were last year, this year I'd like proof of what I said too."
"All they have to do is come down and see for themselves," Joey answered back, the words catching in his throat, except for Matt, Annette and Mikey, Aunt Theresa was the only other family member who had ever visited him in Houston.
"Joey ---- the family doesn't feel secure outside of Chicago. You know how paranoid they are outside their own territory."
"Yeah, I know. I know they wrote me off long ago. The day I dropped out of University of Chicago Law School and decided to become a cop is when my status with the family changed."
"That took a lot of people by surprise, even me. You were so gung ho when you came home from the Marines, man. I guess we all misread the signs, you never did plan to be part of the outfit, did you?" Matt LaFiamma asked, looking at his cousin. They had grown up together. Been through childhood hell together. Inwardly he was glad Joey had chosen not to be in the outfit, but with his wife present he didn't dare express his true feelings.
"I played the game for a while, but no --- I never planned to." Joe answered soberly, stepping forward to embrace the man, his cousin, his friend.
"Uncle Joey you were .... A MARINE! A SPIT POLISHED GUN TOTING SHARP SHOOTING MARINE?" Mikey questioned, eyes wide open, remembering a commercial he saw on television this morning.
"Yeah, I was one of those," Joey said smiling, picking up his nephew and giving him a hug.
"You were a Marine?!" Levon asked softly from behind him, soaking in all the tidbits about his partner that he had learned in the last hour.
"Uncle Joey, Pur-ple Levon wasn't listening again, was he?" Mikey said in a sing-song voice. "Come on, we got to get to the 'otel and get my stuff for the ranch."
"He was more than 'a marine,' Levon," Matt began, "he was in the Elite...."
Joey straightened fast, releasing Mikey from his hug, no words were spoken but the look on Joe's face to his cousin shut Matthew up fast. If Levon didn't know better, his partner was prepared to silence his cousin for good if he said anymore.
Matthew clamed up instantly, then asked Levon, "Write out the directions to your place, and we'll drop some things by this afternoon, Levon. I know Mikey loved riding your horse last year, it was all he talked about for a month. And take some good pictures of Joe too, lots of us worry about him being down here."
"Sure, no problem," Levon replied walking to the edge of the counter where Joe kept a telephone pad. LaFiamma was a Marine, he thought to himself as he began to draw a map to the ranch. And not just A Marine, but in an elite group. And being beat when he was a kid. I wasn't in the Marines but I sure know what it's like to be beat with a board.
Finishing the map, Levon turned and walked back to Matt LaFiamma. "This should get you there with no problems. And you might think about next year, of just sending Mikey down for a week and you guys taking off for Bermuda or somewhere."
Joseph LaFiamma's jaw dropped to the floor unable to speak. [What is with this damn blond? One minute he is complaining about the kid, the next he is inviting for a week.]
Ignoring the looks from the two grown LaFiamma men, Levon turns his attention to Mikey. "So, Mikey --- I'm purple. You're green. What color do you think we should make Uncle Joey?"
"BLACK! Dad says Uncle Joey looks really good in black."
Joe's head twisted sideways to look at his cousin. "Well, you do!" Matt groused, "everyone says so. Your black jeans, motorcycle boots, that black shirt you always used to wear, that chained belt you brought back with you from Germany. You do! Mikey's right... black!"
THE END