Sins of the Father

by Vincent B Davis II

  He took one last moment to look at the lifeless corpse. For a man who had killed so many of Alonzo’s loved ones, he now looked as harmless as any dead thing. Alonzo opened the door, relieved that his sons hadn’t heard a thing, and he would never have to see any of them again.

  Castellammare del Golfo—July 22, 1907

  “Come on, get your things,” Alonzo said, bursting through the front door.

  “Now you want to talk? And you give a command? It’s been a month since you offered a single word to me, Lonz.” Rosa’s eyes were wet but not without the anger only attainable by a Sicilian woman.

  “Don’t fight me on this, Rosa. Get everything you can. I’ve got a horse and cart prepared.” The baby stirred in his crib and began to cry.

  “And where are we going?”

  “Trapani.”

  “Oh, are you going to send us off like you did Piddu?” she said, that famous anger rising.

  “No. I’m going with you.” A violent knock sounded on the door. Alonzo froze and looked out, but noticing it was only Turridru, he relaxed. “It’s unlocked,” he shouted.

  “Did you hear? I just heard,” Turridru said, teeming with excitement.

  “Yes, I’ve heard.” Alonzo continued to move around the dining area, gathering up the few things he considered essentials.

  “Heard what?” Rosa asked, to no response. “Heard what, Alonzo?” Her anger dissipated and was replaced by fear.

  “Just get your things, Rosa.”

  “Get your things? Why?” Turridru asked.

  “We’re leaving,” Alonzo said, shooting off to the bedroom, not stopping to see the baby.

  “Leaving?” Turridru laughed in confusion. “Lupe is dead. Why would you leave?”

  “What? Who? Lupe Armetta is dead?” Rosa said after gasping. Then she began to follow Alonzo’s orders.

  “Yes, and that is why we are leaving.” Alonzo tried to catch his breath, his eyes still darting around the room. “Go get the twins, Rosa. Tell them to pack a single bag each with anything they need.”

  “Don Consentino, why are you doing this?” Turridru tried to be respectful, but his irritation and shock were not disguised.

  “I’m done fighting, Turridru. I’m done toiling to keep my family safe, and I’m done burying my loved ones.” He didn’t want to explain himself any further, but Turridru refused to relent so easily.

  Alonzo ran up the stairs, his young companion following close behind.

  “The Armettas will take over the city! Your entire Borgata will be at risk,” Turridru pleaded.

  “I don’t have a Borgata anymore.”

  “What about us, then? Don Consentino, I beg you to reconsider! What will become of us?” Alonzo planted on his feet and turned to Turridru like an angry bull. He swept him up by the collar of his shirt and looked him in the eyes.

  “I have to look after my family. Do you think I want to leave? This is my home, the only place I’ve ever loved. But this has gone too far. Too many have died. Now the deaths of my people have been avenged. And I am leaving before more blood is spilt.”

  “Don—”

  “I will hear no more of it. We’re leaving. You could come with us, if you’d like?” Alonzo turned and continued his ascent of the stairs. Turridru paused and looked at the ground.

  “My father will never leave Sicily.”

  “No. He won’t. And he’ll likely call me a coward.” Alonzo finally stopped and looked back down the stairs at Turridru. “This is the only way. You must see that. If I am gone, the Armettas will have no one left to kill. This war can end.” Turridru said nothing else. “Come on, boys, hurry up,” Alonzo said as he entered their bedroom. “We’re leaving and we aren’t coming back.”

  Alonzo

  Little Italy, Manhattan—January 1, 1919

  It was probably two a.m. Alonzo was exhausted, but he wasn’t going to bed until his sweetheart was prepared to go with him. But she was still drinking.

  And, for once, he drank with her.

  Enzo and Vico weren’t there, and hadn’t been for some time. He knew where both of them were, but tried to forget it as much as possible. Vico was done with the war, he was sure, but Alonzo didn’t expect him to come calling when he got home. Enzo was probably out of jail too, but it didn’t matter. Alonzo wasn’t sure how he’d react if either of them did show up.

  He blocked the thought from his mind and turned up the radio.

  “Turn that down!” Rosa cried as she swirled her wine around in her glass.

  Alonzo had spent far more than was responsible on that little radio, so he had no intention of doing so.

  “On your feet, mio tesoro.”

  She rolled her eyes and feigned irritation until she laughed.

  “That’s my sweet girl, I knew you were still there. Come, then, on your feet.” He bowed his head and extended his hand farther. He delighted in her laughter until she drained her wine and accepted his hand.

  Alonzo pulled her close to him, drinking in the smell of her hair.

  “Do you remember how angry my father was when he first saw us dancing?” she asked.

  “We were just children. If he wasn’t scared of my father, the welts he would have caused would still be on my back, I’m certain.”

  “Maybe he was right,” she said, but he could feel her smile against his cheek.

  “All the belts in the world couldn’t have stopped me from loving you.” He pulled her in until she was close enough to feel his excitement.

  And he could sense a hunger in her too, one that had never really left but one she hadn’t allowed to emerge since they were young and without children.

  Something about the New Year’s spirit, perhaps, or at least New York’s.

  Alonzo reached an arm behind them to turn the radio up. Helen Kane’s “I Want to Be Bad” was on, and he was hoping it might give his wife some ideas.

  She was far too intelligent to be fooled by his subliminal tricks.

  “I can see what you’re doing, Lonz,” she said.

  “Your eyes are closed, dear.”

  “I can feel it. On my leg.” She laughed, and he laughed with her, but didn’t stop dancing.

  But then she did. The demeanor of the room shifted so drastically that he paused and almost sobered up in an instant.

  “What is it? I was only toying with you, dove.”

  “What do you think the boys are doing tonight?”

  He knew instantly what she meant. He’d hoped she wouldn’t mention it. It had been a long time since she last had. She wasn’t talking about Sonny and Antonello, as they both knew they were asleep in their room.

  “I don’t know, dear,” he said, meeting her eyes.

  “Do you think they’re happy?” she asked, displaying far more vulnerability than she normally would. He wanted to believe it was just the wine talking, but he knew better. It was another of the decisions he had made without her permission. At the time, he’d believed his wife would want to be spared the pain of having to make such a decision. And she had accepted what happened as dutifully as any Sicilian wife could. But it wasn’t resentment in her eyes now. It was simply fear.

  The same fear that was in Alonzo’s eyes.

  “I hope so, love,” Alonzo said. He tried to think of some way to apologize, or offer some sort of condolences, but he could never find the words.

  They continued to dance, but much more slowly now. And there was no longer any hunger.

  Enzo

  Little Italy, Manhattan—February 22, 1919

  There was just something about being a twin. Enzo felt like a part of him was missing the entire time he was locked up in Sing Sing, and it had nothing to do with the outside. Even after two years, he didn’t feel right without his brother there.

  At times, he’d wake up at night with bad dreams and cold sweats, and wondered if Vico was safe across the pond. That gut feeling used to be as reliable as if he had seen Vico suffering with his own eyes, but that connection had been dil
uted.

  He was even beginning to worry that Vico wouldn’t show.

  Enzo had been at the Spring Street station for half an hour, and had watched a dozen doughboys arrive and leave with their loved ones amid outbursts of tears and kisses. Enzo waited as calmly as he could, but patience had never been a virtue of his. He couldn’t help but check his watch, only to find that the hands had hardly budged.

  Every time a train arrived, Enzo would stand as tall as he could and shout his brother’s name over the din of the crowd, ignoring the looks he received.

  Vico’s letter said he would be there. At 3:30. Enzo had waited so long, and at 3:43, he didn’t want to wait any longer.

  “Don’t you recognize your baby brother?”

  Enzo started, then recognized the voice from across the parkway. “Vico.” He hiked up his trousers and ran across the rainy street to his brother. “Madonna mia, you really made it home.” Enzo felt himself choking up.

  “What, you weren’t betting against me, were ya?” Enzo wrapped Vico up in a big hug and shook him.

  “Just look at you,” Enzo said, but wished he hadn’t. He was suddenly aware that Vico had grown several inches taller than him, and while his brother’s chest and forearms had doubled in size, the only part of Enzo that had grown was his midsection. “What in the hell were they feeding you over there?” Enzo laughed, squeezing Vico’s bicep.

  “What in the hell were they feeding you in the pen?” Vico patted Enzo’s belly, and they both smiled. Enzo noticed his brother’s dialect had been diluted since they had last seen each other at the New York County Supreme Court two years before.

  “Come on, doughboy, let’s get you home and get some brown in your hand.”

  “I’d settle for a fag if you got one,” Vico said as Enzo hurried to give him a Lucky Strike and a lighter. “Look at this lighter. It’s got your initials and everything. Sing Sing must not have treated you so bad.”

  Enzo led him to a nearby tram that was headed for Brooklyn. “I made some friends on the inside. I’ll tell you all about ’em when we get to Williamsburg,” Enzo said as Vico stopped walking behind him.

  “You don’t want to stop by Mulberry? See if the family is in for the evening?” Vico said, readjusting the strap of the army kit bag on his shoulder.

  Enzo looked down.

  “They don’t want to see us, Vico.” They spent a moment in shared sorrow, without saying anything.

  “You think?” Vico finally said, tapping his cigarette out on the sole of his boot. “Alright, well, lead the way, then.”

  They boarded the tram, squeezing in between a few old Yiddish men and a German who reeked of sauerkraut.

  “So how was your sleepover in the clink?” Vico asked.

  “Eh, could of done it standing on my head,” Enzo boasted proudly. “I heard a bunch of horror stories on my way there about working in stone quarries and all kinds of bullshit. But if you play your cards right, and you make the right friends, life in Sing Sing ain’t so bad.”

  “Papà always made sure we knew how to play our cards,” Vico said. Both men smiled, but those smiles quickly faded.

  After their trolley arrived in Williamsburg, Enzo rushed Vico along to Sixth Street.

  “This looks a little familiar,” Vico said.

  “You betcha. I got us a place a story down from the place we were at before we got pinched. It’s perfect.” Enzo led the way to their old apartment complex and fumbled through his keys. “Here she is. I’m telling you, Vico, this one’s even better than the last. It doesn’t face the river, so you don’t gotta deal with that smell. And we even got a radio now, if I can get the damn thing to work.” He noticed that Vico had paused in the doorway and was analyzing the room from top to bottom. “Everything alright?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Vico remembered himself and stepped into their new domain, shrugging his bag off and stretching.

  “Just like the old place, huh? We can pick up right where we left off. But even better,” Enzo said, and Vico nodded. “And we got this too. How could I forget?” Enzo hurried to the refrigerator, and pulled out two bottles of beer, gesturing to them like a street salesman. “A toast to the war hero!” He slapped his brother’s rock-solid shoulders.

  “Salute,” Vico said, and Enzo echoed the cheers as their bottles clinked.

  “So, tell me, brother, how bad did you give it to those Krauts?”

  “We just did what we were supposed to,” Vico said, and shrugged.

  “Bushwa! Level with me, Vico. Did you get your hands dirty? Scalp any of those bastards?” Enzo grinned, but stopped when he realized that Vico wasn’t doing the same.

  “Everybody got their hands pretty dirty.”

  “Well, take a load off.” Enzo gestured to the sofa he had purchased just a week before. “You meet any of our guys over there? Those Jerries wouldn’t know what to do against a battalion of Sicilian men of honor.”

  “No, not too many.” Vico shrugged. “Not many guys like us were ready to lead the charge. I met one. He’s from Chicago.”

  Enzo eventually gave up talking about the war. The past was the past, he concluded. Time to look toward the future, and it was bright.

  “I gotta introduce you to these boys in Harlem. They aren’t like Bonventre’s crew. They wouldn’t leave us out to dry the way Bartolo and Francesco did.”

  “You met them in Sing Sing?”

  “You better believe it. Lots of our guys in there. It’s like a paid vacation.” Enzo laughed, ignoring the memories of solitary confinement as best he could. “They have lots of work for us. They’re on the up-and-up too. Part of a big crew, really going places. And—”

  Vico cut him off. “I don’t want any part of it, Enzo.”

  “What? Don’t want any part of what?”

  “Any of it. I’m done with all that.”

  Enzo was at a loss for words.

  “Yeah, you need some rest. I understand.”

  “No, Enzo. I mean ever. I’m not doing any of that again.”

  “You…you haven’t even met my guys. They aren’t gonna send you to another war, Vico.”

  “Enzo”—Vico’s eyes were weary and strained—“I know what it’s like to kill. And I know what it’s like to think you’re gonna die. I’m not doing it again.” Vico lowered his head and ruffled up his army haircut.

  Enzo clenched his jaw. His brother had never told him no before. Not in their entire lives. Before, Vico would have followed him blindly into the gates of hell if asked. Enzo felt like the soldier beside him was a stranger.

  “Hey,” Enzo said, waiting for Vico to look up, “was it worth it? Going to war, I mean. Was it worth it?”

  Vico thought and scratched at his temple. His Adam’s apple began to bounce like a yo-yo, and his chest heaved. Vico buried his face in his hands and wept.

  Enzo froze for a moment, but then leaned over and put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. It was all he could do. For the first time in their lives, Enzo didn’t know what Vico had been through, what he was thinking, or what he planned to do.

  Sonny

  Little Italy, Manhattan—January 28, 1920

  It had been over two years since Alonzo had kicked the twins out, but there wasn’t a day that passed that Sonny didn’t think about it. As the rumors continued to spread, Alonzo and Rosa were eventually forced to sit Sonny and Maria down and explain to them everything that had happened.

  Enzo had gone to jail. Vico had gone to war. They were both likely back home now, if they were still alive. But they hadn’t visited.

  It was all Sonny could think about when he was at A.C. Barbers and things slowed down.

  “Sonny, I’m talking to you,” Alonzo said. “Go to the back and grab some more hot lather, I’m running short.” Sonny put down the broom and dustpan and hurried off, his thoughts about Enzo and Vico unrelenting.

  “Here ya go,” Sonny said, handing his father a bottle of Johnson’s shaving cream, his father’s favorite.

  “Than
ks, Sonny Boy,” Alonzo said, patting his shoulder. He seemed older every day, but Sonny, now fourteen, was growing enough to keep up with him. Sonny had been working in the barbershop every day after school for years now, and was beginning to feel he was a peer to his father and his customers.

  Sonny was sweeping up hair and Alonzo was focused on his razor blade when a man entered. Everyone stood. Sonny wheeled around, confused about what was happening. Even Oscar’s client, half shaved and half lathered, stood up, hair falling all over his shoes.

  Alonzo was the last to notice.

  “Don Consentino,” the man said in Sicilian, the words smooth and confident.

  Alonzo turned and stared for some time.

  “Madonna mia.” Alonzo was in shock as he gave the man a hug and a kiss on either cheek, careful not to soil the man’s fine blue pinstripe suit with any hair products. They lingered for a moment.

  “It is good to see you.”

  “You too.” Alonzo spoke in Sicilian as well, and it seemed less labored than when he spoke it at home. “I guess I should call you Don Maranzano now,” he said, and nodded.

  “It has been a long time.”

  “Are you here for a trim?” Alonzo asked, the man in his chair already stepping away to offer his spot if Maranzano would like to go first.

  “That won’t be necessary. I just wanted to see you. I have just arrived in the States, but I plan to stay for a while. Some friends of mine are driving me around New York. It’s quite a circus, isn’t it?” He smiled, his teeth perfect and white. Sonny couldn’t take his eyes off of this Don Maranzano. He had a magnetic presence, and everyone else was paying him just as much attention. Most of the important men who had been visiting A.C. Barbers were identified by their fine jewelry and loud sack suits. This man wore nothing shiny but a watch and a wedding ring, but his demeanor identified him as someone to be listened to.