Sins of the Father

by Vincent B Davis II

  Financial District, New York City—November 20, 1911

  Laurel wreaths and garlands hung from the rooftops of every building on Wall Street. Everyone passing them by struggled underneath the weight of their Christmas gifts.Sonny loved every minute of it. Everyone was cheerful. The general craze of Manhattan hadn’t dissipated, but it was certainly different around the holidays. No one passing by called them “greaseballs,” no one shot them disdainful glances or crossed the street when they saw the olive skin of the Consentino clan.

  Cars sped by, their lights mixing in with the sparkling bulbs on the decorated trees lining the street. Sonny had to point out every single one.

  “I want to find that Saint Nicholas fella. I want to check that out for myself,” Enzo yelled to his family. He really just wanted to go to Times Square and visit the Macy’s store he had heard so much about. Alonzo had brought the whole family to the Financial District for a day trip, but there were limits to what he could spend.

  “He’s real. I heard Sammy Bacchiega say he saw him last year on Christmas Eve!” Antonello fought for Enzo’s attention. He was still staying with them, and showed no signs of leaving. A month after Antonello had arrived at the Consentinos’ tenement, his father had disappeared. “Up and left,” his mother had said. Antonello continued to stay, to Sonny’s delight, while his mother moved in with her sister’s family and attempted to rebuild her life.

  Everything seemed to be going well. The Hook Hand had made no more appearances, his father seemed less stressed, and his mother was cheerful when she could get a full night’s rest, which Maria had been permitting a little more often after turning one year old that month.

  Aside from the throng of women marching, signs in hand that said things like “Vote Dry” and “Let Us Vote,” everyone seemed to be focused on nothing but the holiday season. People passed them by, ignoring the women’s hymn, “Give to the Wind Thy Fears,” and singing jollier tunes of their own.

  “Dad, who are those men over there?” Sonny asked, pointing across the street at some men gathered together. They were dapper, dressed in fine suits, white gloves, and homburg hats. They were all talking loudly, some of them waving around rolled-up newspapers and shouting at one another in refined English.

  “Those are Wall Street men. They work here,” Alonzo said. His breath cut through the frigid air. “They work with something called ‘the stock market.’”

  “Like with babies?” Sonny asked, causing Enzo and Vico to burst into laughter.

  “No, Sonny Boy, that’s the stork. The stock market is where… Well, they put money in big businesses, and if a company does well, they can make money in return.”

  “Businesses like the places we’ve been visiting?” Sonny’s gaze remained fixed on the wealthy-looking men, the lights now slightly less dazzling.

  “That’s right. It’s like playing cards. Legal gambling. It’s mostly reserved for the whites,” Alonzo said, disparagingly at first, before changing his tone. “What do you think about them?”

  “I think they must be pretty smart to do that.”

  “Yes, I bet they are.”

  “I want to have clothes like those one day.” Sonny finally broke his gaze, and, looking to his father, he found him smiling.

  “I bet you’re smarter than all of them combined. If you want to be one of those men, you can.”

  “Could I buy a car? And a house that isn’t like ours?” Sonny bit his lips, feeling he may have offended his father.

  “Absolutely. You can be anything you want. Remember that statue we passed on our way to America?”

  “Of the lady?”

  “Yes, that’s the one. You were very young when you first saw her. But that’s what I told you when we saw Lady Liberty. You can be whatever you want here.”

  “Can you?” Sonny asked. Alonzo thought for a moment and then scooped Sonny up in his arms, far slower than he had been able to just a few months prior.

  “What? Of course, I can! I am already what I want to be. I am a barber. Don’t ever be ashamed of what you are, Sonny Boy. You can be a barber, or a politician, or a soldier…anything. Just be proud of it.” He flipped the brim of Sonny’s wool newsboy cap playfully.

  Sonny didn’t laugh, though.

  Alonzo

  Castellammare del Golfo—November 4, 1905

  It was cool that evening, for the end of March in Sicily. Alonzo took advantage of the breeze at every opportunity. When the baby couldn’t sleep, he would quietly take him out on the porch, allowing his exhausted wife to sleep. Sonny Boy seemed to like it, his frown generally turning into a smile. His father’s powerful arms had that effect.

  Alonzo installed himself in a rocking chair and looked out over his land, which he had inherited when his father had died three years before. He listened to the chorus of the insects and watched his freshly cut lawn shimmer in the moonlight.

  He hadn’t been able to sleep in days.

  He blamed his weariness on the newborn in his arms, but in reality, it was just another excuse. He knew right from wrong, but he lacked clarity now more than ever. What was he to do about Piddu? A boy he barely knew, the son of a family that was now annihilated. What was one boy’s life going to matter if the war with the Armettas continued? Much more blood would be spilt, and it would likely pour from those he loved the most, namely his sons and his wife.

  He could hear his father’s voice in his head. “The wicked High Priest Matthias claimed it was better to give up one than many, and it was Jesus who died for his crime.” Devout Roman Catholic that he was, Alonzo’s father and his platitudes continued to educate him, even from the grave.

  Alonzo still couldn’t make sense of it all when he heard a rustle through the barley in the distance.

  He stood as gently as he could, so as to not wake the baby. He held his son in one arm, and reached for his pistol with his free hand. A figure materialized in the distance, coming quickly into focus as it grew closer .

  Alonzo hunkered down behind the wooden pillar supporting the porch and held his weapon out in front of him.

  “Lonz,” Came the voice of his brother, Giuseppe.

  “What the hell are you doing? I almost shot you!” Alonzo gritted his teeth.

  “It’s done.” He looked a sight. Giuseppe’s pant legs were torn, and blood was pouring from his knee. His face was covered in dirt and small cuts, his tie loosened and disheveled.

  “What is done?”

  “I killed him. I killed Lupo’s son. I avenged Uncle Umberto.” Alonzo was silent, his mouth agape. “Can I get some water, or wine… I feel like I just ran across half of Sicily.”

  “You killed him?”

  “Yeah, he’s dead. He was sleeping next to his wife. I shot him in the face.” He noticed the look of horror on Alonzo’s face. “No harm came to the woman. She rolled to the floor and took off screaming. But he’s dead. Blood everywhere. Now, come on, about that wine.”

  Alonzo remembered the soundly sleeping baby in his arms and began to bounce him. He was reluctant to let his brother inside, and he didn’t know why.

  “You’re sure he’s dead?”

  “Damn it, yes! And he isn’t rising on the third day. He’s gone, for good. I would have checked his pulse if I could. I tried to get away quickly and cut my leg trying to get out the window.”

  “The Armettas aren’t going to quit now.”

  “They never were going to quit, Lonz, you know better than that.”

  Alonzo rushed inside, moving quickly but attempting to remain light on his feet. He tucked Sonny back into his crib, then moved up the stairs, ignoring the creaking of the wood. Giuseppe followed close behind.

  “Wake up. Wake up,” Alonzo said, shaking Piddu. “Now.” The young man shook the cobwebs from his eyes and looked at them in consternation.

  “What’s going on?” he asked with growing fear.

  “You need to leave. You need to get out of this house. You need to leave now, and never come back.” Alonzo was al
ready gathering the few things Piddu had arrived with and throwing them into a burlap duffel. Giuseppe picked up the boy’s day clothes and tossed them onto the bed.

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “The Armettas want you dead, and they’ll be coming for you. You aren’t safe here, and neither are my sons if you remain.”

  “I…don’t understand.” Piddu lifted his mangled hand, which was still wrapped up in bandages. “They already did this. Why would they want me dead now?”

  “The men who orphaned and mutilated you are now dead,” Giuseppe said in a semi-hushed tone, “and the ones who are still alive want to sink you in the Tyrrhenian.”

  Piddu finally swayed to his feet and slipped on his clothes half-heartedly.

  “Go on, now.” Giuseppe pointed him to the door once Piddu had slipped the bag over his shoulder.

  “Where am I supposed to go?”

  “You’ll figure something out,” Giuseppe said, but Alonzo had already turned toward the stairs. He raced into his bedroom, ignoring the cries of his startled babe. Rosa sprang up from their bed like a catapult.

  “What is going on?” Her voice sounded worried but equally frustrated.

  “Go back to bed, Rosa. You need your sleep,” Alonzo replied. She generally argued with him on matters like this, but he spoke so firmly that she returned to her pillow and pulled the handmade quilt over her head.

  Alonzo shuffled through his dresser drawers until he found an old lockbox. He reached above the bedroom doorframe for the key and opened the box. He grabbed the contents and ran back to the porch.

  “Piddu!” he shouted, just in time to catch the boy before the stepped off the porch. “Take this.” He shoved all of the money in his hands into the boy’s bag. Piddu’s words caught in his throat. “Make for Trapani,” Alonzo said. “This should be more than enough to get you a ticket to America, and enough to sustain you until you can find a place to live.”

  Piddu shook his head, his eyes terrified.

  “You must go. There is nowhere in Sicily that is safe for you.” Alonzo recollected Lupo’s words: “You can begin a new life for yourself over there.”

  “But—”

  “No. Go and do not look back.” He watched as the boy paced to the dirt path adjacent to Alonzo’s garden, his heart still beating violently in his chest.

  “We will have to rally all of our male relatives,” Giuseppe said, lighting Alonzo’s cigar with the same matches he had just used to light his own. “Cousin Calogero and Carlo in Siracusa, Pietro and Giovanni in Marsala, and Papà’s old friend Tommaso would surely come home to fight with us.” Giuseppe picked bits of tobacco leaf from his teeth and thought deeply. “And Benedetto from—”

  “No,” Alonzo said and stepped toward his brother, shaking his head. “No more. No one else. We, me and you. We who started this will have to finish it. Our cousins and friends have all left Castellammare del Golfo for the very reason you wish to summon them home. You do not have sons, brother, but now I do. And I do not want them to live this life. I want them to get far away from here. And if they do, I will kill the man who tries to bring them back.”

  “Alonzo—”

  “Giuseppe. I will not change my mind on this.” Alonzo finally exhaled and placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “We will finish this. Together.” Giuseppe reluctantly nodded. They turned their gaze out to their father’s fields, and wondered about what might lurk in the darkness.

  Part II

  Enzo

  Williamsburg, Brooklyn—November 18, 1916

  Enzo fished through his hand-me-down overcoat for his cigarettes. At sixteen, he was old enough to make his own decisions, but he still didn’t like to smoke in front of his parents. His mother had stopped smoking when she had given birth to Maria, and thereafter now considered the smell sickening. His father said cigarettes were effeminate when compared to a pipe or a cigar, the Sicilians’ favored use of tobacco.

  He took every advantage of his time away from his family to smoke, drink, and play the street tough. He might not be as smart as his little brother, Sonny, or as well-mannered as his twin, Vico, but he fancied himself the toughest brother, always ready for a fight.

  Placing a Lucky Strike between his lips, he fumbled for a lighter and discovered in frustration that he had left it in his sock drawer back in Little Italy.

  “Hey, you got a light, pal?” Enzo said to a man loading a horse-drawn vegetable wagon, a cigarette dangling from his lips.

  “Yeah, sure.” The Sicilian shrugged and tossed him a book of matches.

  That was why Enzo came to Williamsburg anytime he could. Everyone was like him. Everywhere he went, there were Sicilians. Little Italy just wasn’t for him, he concluded. The Italians had warmed up to the Consentinos since they had arrived ten years before, but Enzo was less willing to mingle with them than his gregarious brothers were. Like his mother, he distrusted all Italians from the tip to the heel of the boot. Sicilians were the only ones he could trust, he had decided, remembering his great-uncle Giuseppe saying something like that back across the pond.

  “Come on, don’t use those. Here,” another man said, coming closer to him, an expensive silver lighter in hand.

  “Thanks.” Enzo tossed the matches back to the worker and accepted the light, trying not to seem too impressed with the man’s appearance. He was a well-built man in his early forties, wearing a freshly pressed gray suit with blue pinstripes, a fedora perched low on his head, and a snow-white pocket square in his overcoat. Enzo had arrived feeling like a prince in his new winter coat, but suddenly he felt underdressed. The man’s floral tie looked more expensive than Enzo’s entire wardrobe.

  The trolley Enzo had been waiting on to take him to his friend’s apartment pulled to a stop in front of him. He had planned on taking it, as he usually did with Vico when they visited Williamsburg, so they could circumvent the Jewish quarters that weren’t always very friendly to Sicilian intruders.

  Taking a second glance at the richly dressed man beside him, he decided he could catch the next trolley.

  “What’s your name? You aren’t from around here,” the man said, lighting a cigarette of his own. His voice was deep, manly, and guttural.

  “I’m Enzo. You know everyone in Brooklyn?”

  “In Williamsburg, yes,” the man said, taking a step toward the wagon and the men who were loading it. “Be careful with those,” he said to the workers. “Any of that spills, and you’ll answer for it.” They nodded anxiously. The expensively dressed man was clearly in charge.

  “Well, I’m from Little Italy.”

  “You have a last name, Enzo from Little Italy?” The man stroked his neatly trimmed mustache with the back of his forefinger.

  “Consentino,” Enzo replied with a hint of pride, as usual, but he wasn’t expecting the man to know the name. No one in Little Italy did.

  “Consentino? You kin to Alonzo Consentino?” The man’s interest was suddenly piqued.

  “He’s my old man.”

  “Really?” he asked, then returned his focus to his cigarette. Enzo almost began to walk away, thinking the man had nothing left to say. “I knew him back in Sicily.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yes. He was a fine man. Your grandfather was a mentor of mine in my early years. What is he doing in Little Italy? He doesn’t want to be with his own people? The Castellammarese are all in Williamsburg, or in Buffalo, Chicago, Milwaukee.”

  Enzo shrugged. “We go where the opportunity is.” The lie came easily to him.

  “He can cut hair in Williamsburg. I hear that’s all he is doing,” the man said with a tinge of disapproval. “My name is Vito Bonventre. You can call me Mr. Bonventre.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Bonventre. I’ll let my old man know that I made your acquaintance.”

  “No point,” the man said, now addressing him in Sicilian. “Your father knows where to find me if he wants my friendship. If you’d like to make more friends of your own kind, you know wh
ere to find me too.”

  “Yes, I do,” Enzo replied in Sicilian as well. He had kept up on his native tongue because his mother refused to talk in any other language in the home.

  “I could put you to work. Men like me can always use a strong, young Sicilian like yourself. Unless you want to be just a barber like your father.” Enzo stared back, perplexed for a moment, not knowing what the man wanted to hear.

  “I like spending my time with other Sicilians.”

  Bonventre nodded and slipped him a card. “This grocery is mine,” he said, and motioned to the place behind him. “Come back tomorrow. I’ll find some work for you.”

  “Carrying crates?” Enzo motioned to the men who were just now closing the wagon tailgate.

  “No. I think we can find something more interesting for you, if you’re tough enough.”

  “I am. Can I bring my brother?” Bonventre dropped his cigarette and stamped out the flame with his polished wing tips.

  “Makes no difference to me. Just don’t bring your father.” Bonventre winked and headed back into the grocer.

  Vico

  Williamsburg, Brooklyn—November 19, 1916

  “This is my kid brother, Mr. Bonventre,” Enzo said as Vico extended his hand.

  “I’m Vico. It’s nice to meet you, sir,” he said, declining to mention that they were twins. Mr. Bonventre accepted the handshake, his hands rough like mallets, and sized him up from head to toe. Vico shifted nervously and forced a smile.

  “So what do you have for us to do?” Enzo said. Vico could tell his brother was nervous, but Enzo was smiling like he was the proudest man in the world.

  “This is your brother?” Mr. Bonventre asked, turning to Vico.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re fatter than him.” It was Vico’s turn to smile, but he lowered his face to hide it.