by Lamb, Wally
Thad is the baby’s father. It’s pretty complicated, but I guess I owe you an explanation, if you’re even still listening. . . .
Dominick, I was never honest with you about Thad and me. To begin with, he’s bisexual, not gay. I guess you’ve probably figured that out by now. He told Aaron about the baby yesterday, and Aaron kicked him out of their place. Another thing you never knew was that Thad and I didn’t meet each other at work, like I told you we did. We’ve known each other for a long, long time. Do you remember me telling you about my mom’s half-brother that came to live with us out in California? And how him and me were fooling around when everyone else was at work? Well, that was Thad. I was only twelve when it all started, and Thad was nineteen. He’s always looked younger than his age. I was just some stupid kid; I didn’t know what I was doing. Well, I sorta did and sorta didn’t. But, like they say, he kind of got in my bloodstream or something. Maybe because I was so young. . . . I just never could get over him. He was in the Navy back then—I think I told you—and then he got transferred to Portsmouth. That’s where he began “experimenting” with guys. Started going to these bars and stuff. He used to call me up and tell me about it—all these descriptions of what him and some guy had done together. He’d call right after I got home from school, before Mom and Phil got home from work. He’d say, “Do you want me to tell you what we did next?” And I’d go, “Yeah, tell me.” Then I’d get off the phone and have dry heaves because I was so upset. It got so I couldn’t eat or anything. I missed him so much. I used to beg him on the phone to send me stuff—his fingernails and things—and that was all I ever wanted to eat. It was so sick. But that’s how it’s always been with me and Thad. It’s like a sickness.
Yours and mine isn’t the first relationship this has ruined. When Denny, my second husband, found out about Thad, he went crazy. Ronnie, my first husband, never even found out. Which was good, because Ronnie could get real mean. It’s just that . . . Well, do you remember after I got arrested up at the Hills? And I was seeing Dr. Grork? He kept telling me I needed to get Thad out of my life and tell you about him. Come clean. Dr. Grork said it was a big risk, but that I really had to take it if I ever expected to really get some of the things I’ve always wanted. . . . But I couldn’t do it. I tried to, Dominick, but I couldn’t. I guess I was afraid it was gonna wreck my chance to be Carol Brady. Which is a big joke, I see now. I know he’s not good for me, but I can’t let go. Sometimes I hate him. You’re a hundred percent better person than he’ll ever be, Dominick. He’s very manipulative, very controlling. That’s what Dr. Grork kept telling me, and he was right. . . . It’s not you, Dominick. It’s me. Thad and me are like a disease.
I’m not proud of what I have to tell you next, Dominick, but I guess I need to tell you. I don’t expect you to understand, or to forgive me, because I don’t deserve it. I just hope you don’t hate me too much. Maybe someday you can forgive me. Because I really, really broke your trust. . . .
I let him watch us, Dominick. When we made love. It happened twice. I said no for a long time, Dominick, but finally I gave in. . . . He used to beg me. He really got off on it. Thad’s had a crush on you all along. The first time was just . . . I don’t know. I just finally said all right. It felt weird. . . . And the second time, he set it all up, told me what he wanted me to do, which way to turn and everything. He was like a movie director or something. . . . He never taped us or anything—I didn’t mean it like that. Both . . . both times it was on a Friday. He’d get there before you came home—Fridays were one of the times when you and I would get intimate. Our pattern or whatever. So . . . he hid in my closet with the door open a little. He told me that the thought of you catching him was part of the excitement. Part of the thrill.
I didn’t want to do it, Dominick. It made me feel awful. I was a nervous wreck with him hiding in there. But he begged me. Got mad when he wanted to do it that second time. He said he was going to leave me. Move away and not tell me where he was going. And so I said I’d do it, but that was it. Just that one more time and no more. . . . I know it was a huge betrayal. I’m so sorry. I don’t expect you to forgive me, Dominick, but at least now you can say, “Good riddance to bad rubbish. I’m glad I got rid of her. She was sick.” Which I know I am.
Tomorrow, I’m giving my notice down at Hardbodies. Thad’s already quit. I know you’re going to be in the hospital for at least another week and I’ll be out of the condo by then. Out of your hair—me and this baby. Don’t worry. I’m not going to rip you off or run out with your stereo or anything. I already have enough to feel guilty about. I told Thad he can’t even come over to the condo. He’s staying at a motel until we leave.
We’re . . . we’re probably going to drive cross-country. Or else I may drive out there by myself. I’m going to stay with my mom and Herb in Anaheim at that motel they’re managing. Mom said I can stay there for free until after the baby’s born and then we’ll see. It depends on what Herb wants. . . . I don’t know what’s going to happen with Thad and me. I really don’t. He’s still talking about starting up a catering business and having me be his bartender. I don’t know. Maybe after I’m a mom, I’ll have the guts to tell him to leave me alone once and for all. . . . I know he won’t make a very good father like you would have. If it’s a boy, I know you would have taken him to Little League, and Cub Scouts, and all those things. I can’t see Thad ever doing anything like that. He’s too selfish for one thing. I really wish so much this baby was yours. . . . I’m not looking forward to living with my mother again, but she can probably help take care of the baby after it’s born. Especially if I go back to work, which I guess I’m gonna have to do. No kid of mine is going to have to go into Safeway and eat groceries in the aisles that we can’t even pay for.
I’m not sure, but I might put in an application at Disneyland. To be a cast member. Maybe that woman is still there who told me I’d make a perfect Cinderella. I still remember her name. Mrs. Means. Maybe by some miracle, she still works there. Still remembers me. Maybe I’ll end up waving at little kids in the Festival of Lights parade and they’ll go, “Look! It’s Cinderella!” Thad thinks I should do it. It might be a stepping stone, he says, and he could be my manager.
Dominick, I know you’re going to get better, and that you’ll find someone who’ll make you happy, because it’s what you deserve. I’m sure you hate me right now, which is totally understandable. I hate myself. But no matter what you think of me, I’ll always be glad we were together for those almost two years. I was watching this program once? About Paul Newman? And someone on that show said how Paul Newman was a “real quality person,” and that’s what you are, Dominick. A real quality person. Just remember that we had some good times, too. Especially in the beginning. I’m so sorry I betrayed you. And that I had to lay all this on you while you’re so sick. But when you told me the baby couldn’t be yours, I didn’t know what else to do. . . . I’m probably the last person you’re gonna want to talk to once you listen to this, but if you want to get ahold of me, I’ll be at the condo for a few more days and then, by the end of next week, I’ll be driving out to my mother’s, which the number is in that Rolodex thing of yours.
If . . . if you’re worrying about AIDS or HIV because of Thad—his lifestyle or whatever—don’t worry. He’s very careful about things. Aaron’s a fanatic about not taking any chances. So that’s one less thing you have to worry about.
Dominick? I’m sorry I always acted so jealous about your brother. If I ever had a brother or sister, I’d want them to be as loyal as you are. In my personal opinion, you’re fighting a losing battle, but that’s your business, not mine. Don’t forget to take care of yourself instead of everyone else.
I love you, babe. Just don’t . . . please don’t hate me. Okay?
I didn’t hate her. I didn’t even hate him. I just lay there, looking at my ugly purple foot, which should have hurt but didn’t. I didn’t feel a thing.
“You know what kills me about this show?�
� Felice said from across the way. “Wherever she goes, someone’s always getting knocked off.”
I reached up and pulled off the Walkman’s earphones. I’d listened to that tape twice, hoping it would make some kind of sense, but it didn’t. I wasn’t outraged, though. I wasn’t hurt. I wasn’t anything. “I’m sorry. What’d you say?”
Felice pointed up at the wall-mounted TV. “Jessica Fletcher there. Murder, She Wrote. She goes shopping; there’s a stiff. She goes to visit some friend of hers; there’s another one. She goes off on vacation. Boom! When’s the last time you went out someplace and ran into a corpse? She’s like the Grim Reaper or something.”
I’d wait until I got home, I decided. I’d have to. And I wouldn’t leave any mess—something someone would have to clean up afterward. Leo, or Ray, or some poor slob on the rescue squad. . . . Because I wasn’t angry like that bastard, Rood. I was just tired—just wanted to stop fighting and give in. Go with it. . . . I could hobble out to the garage, stuff rags in the cracks on the sides of the door.
Gentlemen, start your engines. That’s when I remembered about the truck. I couldn’t carbon monoxide myself out of existence. I’d totaled the truck.
Pills, then. They’d send me home with painkillers, right? I could take them all at once with a bottle of . . . what did I have in the house, anyway? I still had that Christmas bottle—that Scotch one of the wholesalers had given me? Booze and pills. That would do it. Rid the world of Dominick Birdsey, the loser’s loser. The bad twin.
“She’s like a corpse magnet,” Felice said. “I tell you one thing. If you ever see Angela Lansbury coming toward you, start running the other way quick.”
Was the fact that the Duchess had hidden in her closet and watched us make love any more weird than the fact that my brother had hacked off his hand in the name of peace? Any more strange than the fact that the Wequonnocs were about to ascend—rise from the ashes? Any more fucked up than the fact that America was getting ready to fight another war with gung-ho kids too young to remember anything about Vietnam except Rambo? . . .
That was the big joke, wasn’t it? The answer to the riddle: there was no one up there in Heaven, making sure the accounts came out right. I’d solved it, hadn’t I? Cracked the code? It was all just a joke. The god inside my brother’s head was just his disease. My mother had knelt every night and prayed to her own steepled hands. Your baby died because of . . . because of no particular reason at all. Your wife left you because you sucked all the oxygen out of the room, so you pretended she was the one in bed with you while you screwed your girlfriend and her boyfriend hid in the closet, watching. . . . Hell, why couldn’t she go out there and become Cinderella? . . . Let go of my ankle, Ray. I’m ready to float away. Ready to cut my brother down from that tree and carry him to the Falls and throw him over the side. Jump in headfirst, after him. Because it didn’t matter. It was all just a joke. Riddle me this, Batman. What’s the point? And the answer was: there was none. Pain pills and Scotch—that was how I’d do it, because there was just no point at all. . . .
“Hey, here she is,” Felice said.
Who? Angela Lansbury? Had she come for the corpse already? But when I looked over at him for clarification, he was staring at the doorway. Beaming.
She was wearing a turquoise suede jacket with fringe, a tan cowboy hat, tan boots. I didn’t recognize her for a second or two and then, Jesus Christ, I did.
“Get over here, Annie Oakley,” Felice said. “Give your old hound dog a kiss.”
Instead, she approached the foot of my bed. “Long time no see,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Been years, hasn’t it? How’s my grandfather doing?”
She lifted up a bulky plastic bag—the head of John the Baptist, except it was rectangular. “He’s all yours,” she said.
“Is he? And now I suppose you’re going to tell me I owe you—”
“No charge beyond what you’ve paid me already,” she said. “And by the way, you have my condolences.”
She held Domenico’s bulky manuscript in front of her, at arm’s length, and let go. It thudded onto my bed, just missing my injured foot.
31
The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings
8 July 1949
I, Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, was born sixty-nine years ago in the mountain village of Giuliana, Sicily, lu giardino dello mondo! I am the descendant of great men and many would say that when I look into the mirror, greatness looks back! Nonetheless, my life has been marred by sadness and tragedy. Now old age afflicts me with aching in my joints and rumbling bowels and weakness in my knees. But my mind remembers!
My beloved wife, Ignazia, a buon’anima, gave me one daughter but failed to honor me with sons. My daughter, Concettina Ipolita Tempesta, is too homely to marry (harelip) and so she stays home to be an old man’s nuisance. From that red-haired girl with the rabbit’s face, Tempesta blood spills wasted to the ground, like wine from a cracked jug. The proud name of Tempesta dies when I die.
If God has not blessed me with sons, He has at least given me the gift of keen memory. I tell my life story to keep alive the name Tempesta and to offer myself as a model for Italian youth to imitate! May the Sons of Mother Italy who read these words learn from them the path to prosperity and may they never be cursed, as I have been, with frightened rabbits underfoot or with skinny, goddamned monkeys!
As a boy, I grew up in the fearful shadow of Mount Etna, the great and terrible vulcano that brought my grandparents to ruin. Alfio and Maricchia Ciccia, my maternal grandparents, were proud landowners. Their hazelnut and almond groves were destroyed in the year 1865 when lava spewed from the western rim, choking life from the trees that had provided their livelihood. Four days later, the earth itself cracked open, killing my grandfather and his three sons. As Etna’s cursed vomit cooled, it armored the Ciccia land with porous black rock. Worthless! My grandmother, crazy with grief, ended her life with poison soon after.
The only surviving member of the Ciccia family was the youngest child, Concettina. She had been playing alone in a field with her rag dolls when the lava began rushing down the hill after her. Scooping up the dollies in her arms, she ran to a nearby cedar tree to save herself from the vulcano. As she climbed up amidst the leaves and branches, she dropped one of her little dolls. With foolish bravery, the girl came down again, intent on saving her little friend made of rag and sawdust, but as she reached into that hateful hot stew from hell to rescue the popa, little Concettina burned the skin of her right hand severely, dropping once again the foolish doll, which sank back into the lava and was carried away. Somehow, Concettina held on and managed to elbow and claw and climb the tree again. From the highest branches, she screamed and screamed until it was safe to descend. For the rest of her life, Concettina wore on her right hand the reminder of her foolish attempt to rescue that worthless toy—a pink, shiny scar like a glove. As a child, I would stare at that scarred hand as I heard, over and over, the story of how little Concettina had saved her life but lost her popi di pezza. That damaged hand, with its more normal twin, held and fed and slapped me as I grew. Concettina, a buon’anima, was my beloved mother.
Orphaned at the age of eight after her own mother’s self-poisoning, Mama was given to an old widow, a seamstress and lacemaker whose duty it was to dress the altar and the statuary at the little village church, including the famous Statue of the Weeping Vergine, famous throughout all of Sicily. The old woman taught my mother her painstaking craft and Mama herself became a skilled lacemaker. Sadly, as she grew to womanhood, she was often seized with screaming fits and strange dreams. She claimed, as well, that she could hear the voices of moths—those fluttering creatures which, she believed, were the souls of the dead who had failed to attain heavenly light. Instead, they swarmed around the counterfeit light of earthly things. The moths spoke to her—pleaded with her—Mama insisted, so endlessly that she sometimes had to lock herself in her room with the window bolted an
d the candles extinguished to be rid of their begging.
In 1874, Concettina Ciccia became the wife of my father, Giacomo Tempesta, a sulphur miner. Papa’s work took him away each week from Giuliana to the mines, nine or ten kilometers into the foothills of Etna. With his fellow miners, he would travel back each Saturday to the village, where he would bathe and feast, then lie beside his wife on their finely embroidered sheets. It was on such a Saturday night in the year 1879 that my humble father became a hero.
According to the story first whispered by my mother to the village women and then repeated by those loose-tongued crones, Papa was lying awake after sharing a passione with his wife that was to result in my fortuitous conception! Etna had been asleep for several years, but that night Papa heard the faint first rumbling and hissing of the awakening vulcano. He rose from his bed and ran to the home of the buck-toothed magistrato, the richest man in Giuliana. There, Papa unfastened the bell from the magistrate’s cow and ran through the village, ringing and shouting, awakening the citizens of Giuliana so that they could rescue themselves. Some say my mother, too, saved lives that night. She ran to the nearest tree and screamed like a siren!
For his heroism, my father received a medaglia from the King of Italy. It arrived by way of the magistrato’s official mail. Even before Papa could hold it in his hands, that goddamned buck-toothed magistrato bit the medal and determined it was solid gold, marking it forever with the impression of his horse-like teeth. Later, he presented the marred medaglia to my father at a formal ceremonia in the village square. At the time of this great honor, I was merely a seed in the melon of my mother’s belly, but the village women agreed that the alignment of my conception with Mount Etna’s eruption indicated that my destiny was to be a great and powerful man! I was now, in addition, the unborn son of a hero!
My mother presented her husband with three sons. Sons of Italy, marry wisely! Male heirs are the greatest gifts a woman can bestow! I, Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, came into this world on 11 May 1880 and my brother Pasquale was born two years later under more ordinary circumstances. My brother Vincenzo was born in 1883.