Most Precious Blood

by Vince Sgambati

  All the siblings held fast to their opinions, and their discussion became heated until Filomena said: “American politicians are better than that jackass Silvio Berlusconi,” and then told them to change the subject.

  The front of the store and house faced 91st Avenue, but the yard extended across the back of the house and warehouse open to 104th Street, which gave the family a clear view of a large section of the feast, especially the makeshift stage where Netti Squalanti sang “Funiculi, Funicula.” Rhinestones dangled from Netti’s earlobes, peeked out from under her generous second chin, and disappeared into the cleavage between her even more generous breasts. Her twin brother, mirroring her corpulence minus the exposed cleavage, accompanied her on his accordion. The audience sat in rows of folding chairs, donated from Romano’s Funeral Parlor.

  A low brick wall, capped with ornamental wrought iron, separated the Lasante’s yard from the sidewalk. Just outside the wall, a hedgerow of old women sat on wooden stools or metal folding chairs like sentries guarding the Lasante property. Two women wore simple housedresses; several were dressed more conspicuously, wearing brocade dresses and hand-crocheted shawls even though it was a humid August evening; some were dressed all in black, including black stockings rolled at their knees. One woman yelled: “Veni qua, Filomena! Come sit with us. Let the young ones do the work.”

  “Beh!” Filomena said as she waved her mottled hand, pursed her lips, and scrunched her shoulders — all sign language for they’ll mess up without me.

  Scrolled metal frames, strung with red, green, and white lights, arced above the street and stage, creating a Felliniesque mood. Two teenagers kissed while leaning against the low brick wall.

  “Oooh!” One of the sentries shouted. “Cut it out, Theresa, or I tell you mother.”

  The girl blushed and pulled away from her boyfriend, but Filomena glanced over her shoulder and reprimanded Ninella for teasing the young lovers. “Mind you own business, you old buttinsky. You don’t know what your own granddaughter is doing.”

  Another woman, Carmella Rosario, also sitting along the wall, chimed in: “If the granddaughter is anything like her grandmother was, we know exactly what she’s doing.”

  Laughter, “Mama mia’s! Dio Mio’s!” and signs of the cross followed Carmella’s jibe. Even Ninella enjoyed the fun made at her own expense. By now, the Squalanti twins were bowing and blowing kisses from the stage to an appreciative albeit distracted and noisy audience.

  Lou Romano, the MC and neighborhood undertaker, before introducing the next performer, reminded neighbors that the folding chairs they sat on were a courtesy of his funeral parlor.

  Carmella poked Ninella. “Business must be slow, grazie Dio.” The old women giggled like naughty children.

  “And now . . . I know you have all been waiting for this moment.” Lou took a deep breath. “Our very own Mario Lanza . . . Gennaro DiCico.”

  Like magic, the crowd hushed. Filomena slapped the palms of her hands on the plywood table. “Now we take a break,” she said, and turned her chair around to face the stage. Frankie pressed his fingers to his lips to silence his younger cousins. One cousin stuck out her tongue and climbed onto Filomena’s lap. Tony exchanged places with his wife so she could enjoy Gennaro’s singing, and he watched the twins. Carmella and Ninella poked a tall skinny man sitting in front of them; the man immediately removed his hat and slouched down in his seat.

  From the stage, Gennaro flashed his winning smile; his teeth, eyes, and close-cropped curls reflected the colored lights. “Grazie, Signor Romano. I only hope that I can do justice to the great Mario Lanza.” Gennaro’s muscles flexed beneath his tight t-shirt. Lenny glanced at Frankie, whose eyes were riveted on Gennaro, and sighed.

  Like Big Vinny, Gennaro was dangerous, but he was more charming than his father and as sweet a talker as he was a singer. He knew how to get his way with most anyone. He reached for the microphone, lifted it toward his parted lips, and seduced his audience with Lanza’s signature Neapolitan folk songs, arias, and vintage songs from 1950s movies.

  His rendition of “Torna a Surrinto” and “Paglicci: Vesti la giubba” evoked a tsunami of cheers, whistles, bravos! and applause, but when he sang “Because” and “This Is My Beloved,” the audience became serene. Young lovers, husbands and wives, parents and children, and even friends held hands or embraced — some dabbed tears away from the corners of their eyes.

  The crowd yelled: “Encore! Encore, Gennaro DiCico! Bellissimo! Come un Angelo!” Frankie more than shared in the crowd’s enthusiasm. Lenny didn’t have anything against Gennaro. With a different father, who knows? Maybe he would have been another Mario Lanza, but Big Vinny was his father, and because of that Lenny feared for Gennaro, but more so for Frankie. He tried but to little avail to dismiss his suspicions about Frankie being in love with Gennaro. Regardless, he took a deep breath and joined the crowd in their applause.

  7

  The feast had shut down for the night, and the Lasante assembly line was replaced by Frankie, Gennaro, and Johnny Pickle playing rummy at one end of the plywood table, and Angie, Big Vinny, Bruno Scungilli (called “Scungilli” because his favorite pasta dish was spaghetti with snail sauce), and Lenny at the other end, sipping Chianti from jelly glasses and snacking on slices of ricotta salata and sliced peaches. The rest of the Lasante family had gone home, and Filomena sat with her friends near the short brick wall between the yard and 104th Street.

  Except for the few vendors lowering their awnings or sweeping up, the street was dark and still. Some vendors slept on cots inside their stands, but most drove home to other sections of Queens, or to Brooklyn, Staten Island, or lower Manhattan, knowing that Big Vinny’s “eyes” — including a few local cops who earned healthy tips during the Feast — would keep a close watch. You could have left your wallet bulging with cash in the middle of 104th Street and it would be safer than in a bank — one of the perks for having Big Vinny as a neighbor, although Lenny was loath to admit it.

  “So, Angie, how’s the house?” Big Vinny asked.

  “Good. It’s a nice place to live.”

  After her divorce, Angie bought a brownstone in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan — a symbol of her liberation from a bad marriage, though Filomena claimed it was Angie’s way of saying: Don’t expect me to move back here with you. It turned out to be a rather lucrative symbol since property values in her neighborhood skyrocketed soon after she purchased her house.

  Big Vinny complained about the Feast not being what it used to be, and Gennaro mimed sliding a bow across the strings of a violin.

  “Strunzo, this is how Mario Lanza shows his father respect? You’ll be singing castrati if you’re not careful.” Big Vinny said and downed a glass of wine.

  “Too many outsiders,” Big Vinny argued as he poured another glass. “No more people from the neighborhood.”

  “Most of the people at the Feast were from the neighborhood,” Lenny said.

  “You know what I mean, the old neighborhood. When we were kids maybe you had a handful a Micks, a few Polaks, two or three Jews, but it was mostly Italians.”

  Johnny Pickle was Jewish, but he appeared not even to hear Big Vinny’s complaints. He was more focused on the card game and yelled: “Rummy!”

  Lenny lifted a slice of ricotta salata between his thumb and pointer finger. “Most of the old neighbors moved, Vinny. They were smart enough to get the hell out of here.” Lenny took a bite of the cheese, glanced at Angie, and shook his head as if to say Here we go again, and sure enough, Big Vinny persisted.

  “A feast is supposed to be Italian. We knew everybody back then. Now I look around and I don’t know half of the people. Too many strangers.”

  Scungilli clasped his hands as if he were about to pray. “Times change, Big Vinny. You want only Italians? Go to Italy. Even there, I hear they got all kinds a people now. At St. Gennaro’s Feast — I went last year — they got Chinese people selling egg rolls and chop suey. What kind a feast sells Chinese food?”r />
  Big Vinny nodded and slapped the palm of his hand on the table; jelly glasses bounced and wine spilled on the checkered oilcloth. “Exactly!” he said. “Imagine selling Chink food at a feast. Egg rolls don’t go with pasta. Minchia, they’re not even Catholic.”

  “Chinese people or the egg rolls aren’t Catholic?” Lenny said. “And since when did you get so religious?”

  Angie laughed. “Didn’t Marco Polo bring the noodle back to Italy from China?” She scanned the group as if she were lecturing her university students. “Big Vinny would have scolded Marco Polo for mingling with strangers. Now where would we be without spaghetti?”

  “She’s got a point!” Scungilli cried. “Madonna mia, I’d be dead without my spaghetti.”

  Everyone laughed except for Big Vinny. Like a cartoon villain, he swelled to twice his size. “Well now.” Big Vinny sucked his fingers as if they were covered with sauce. “We can always eat collard greens,” he said with a smirk. “Maybe Lenny’s lunch buddy Prosciutto could teach us how to make ‘em.” Lenny’s friendship with Doug Turner had long stuck in Big Vinny’s craw.

  “So whaddaya think, Lenny?” Big Vinny was like a dog on a bone, he just wouldn’t let it go. He swept his right hand across the table, spilling a glass of wine. “At next year’s Feast, we give Prosciutto his own booth, and he’ll teach us all how to cook chitlins? After all, us wops don’t know nothin about cooking.”

  Scungilli tried to change the subject. “So, Angie, how’s your writin goin?” Angie was a professor in Women’s Studies at Barnard and fairly well published, but Scungilli’s idea of reading material was the daily picks at Aqueduct Racetrack. His question about Angie’s writing was an obvious ploy to diffuse the tension, but Big Vinny was relentless.

  “Minchia!” Big Vinny shouted. “What’s happening to this neighborhood? First Hard Luck Lenny is taking soul food cooking lessons, and now Bruno Scungilli is becoming a feminista. No one’s happy just being who they are.”

  “And you get to decide who we are, Don DiCico?” Lenny snapped.

  “Oooh, cut it out. You’re gonna spoil a beautiful night,” Scungilli pleaded, followed by collective pleas from the other adults, including Filomena.

  But Big Vinny wasn’t about to let Lenny’s “Don DiCico” crack slide. “No! Better your buddy Prosciutto . . . that N . . .”

  Lenny cut him off before he could finish. “Vinny, it’s time for you to shut your big mouth and go home.”

  Big Vinny jumped up to take a swing at Lenny, but Scungilli stepped between them and caught a punch to his shoulder.

  Filomena rushed to the table. “Two grown men — what kind of example are you setting for these boys? Grow up, both of you!” Angie pulled her out of harm’s way, although both Big Vinny and Lenny would have punched themselves before they’d hurt Filomena.

  Their fists flew while the few remaining street vendors and some neighbors jumped the brick wall to break up the fight. Scungilli and two other men restrained Big Vinny. Frankie and Gennaro grabbed Lenny.

  “Get your hands off of me,” Big Vinny ordered. Like a human chameleon, he changed back to stoic, cool Big Vinny DiCico and smoothed his starched white shirt, straightened his tie, and ran his thick fingers through his black, patent leather hair.

  “That’s always been your problem, Lenny.” Big Vinny’s tone was flat, his mannerism perfunctory. “You put strangers before your own. Strangers don’t have your back. Not the way I do, but you never understood that.”

  The small crowd that had gathered in the yard cleared the way for Big Vinny to leave. He paused and removed a handkerchief from his pants pocket and dabbed at his nose. Spots of blood stained the white of his handkerchief and shirt.

  “Just one more thing.” Big Vinny talked into the air without looking at anyone, but loud enough for everyone to hear, as if he were making a proclamation. “You’re no better than us. With your fancy words and your books and your high opinions. You think you’re better than us . . . always have . . . but you’re no better than us. Tomorrow and the day after that you’ll still be slicing salami.” Lenny allowed Big Vinny this final blow.

  Gennaro gave Angie, Filomena, and Lenny a kiss goodnight. A few moments earlier his father and Lenny had exchanged punches, but as any of the adults would have said, especially Big Vinny, It didn’t involve the kids. The kids must show respect. Gennaro gave Frankie a hug. Their old men fighting was nothing new.

  After Big Vinny left, Filomena said: “Just once, I’d like that my supper doesn’t sit on my stomach like a rock. Never a dull moment.” She gave each of her friends a peck on the cheek.

  “Go in the house, Filomena. Let the young ones clean up,” Ninella said as she waved then closed the gate to the yard.

  Neighbors ambled along 104th Street, waddling arm in arm — shapeless shadows passed under the occasional spot of a streetlight — and up their front stoops and into their homes. Street vendors vanished under lowered awnings. Frankie, Angie, and Lenny picked up chairs while Filomena wiped up the spilled wine with a paper towel.

  “Ma, you go to bed. We’ll finish cleaning up here,” Lenny said.

  “Lenny, you know he’s pazzo. When he starts, just go in the house. You can’t win with him.”

  “Don’t worry, Ma. Tomorrow Vinny will have forgotten all about this.” And for this Lenny was right. In the morning, a Lasante could have asked Big Vinny for anything, and he would give it, no questions or strings attached. Anyone else, he would seek revenge.

  Filomena hugged Lenny and planted a kiss on his cheek. “You are better than him, and he knows it,” she said and blew a kiss to Angie and Frankie.

  “Angie, you stay here tonight. Too late to take the subway.” The swish of Filomena’s navy blue taffeta dress with tiny white polka-dots sounded like a parting whisper as she turned away from her family and went into the house.

  Soon after, Frankie and Angie also went up to bed. Lenny puttered around in the yard, working off some of the steam from fighting with Big Vinny. His comment, “. . . you’ll still be slicing salami,” had struck a nerve.

  Once inside, Lenny sat in the kitchen with his elbows pressed against the cool enamel-top table, and he drained the last few drops of Chianti from the bottle. It was a hot night and he had removed his shirt, packed it with ice, and held it against his eye where Big Vinny had landed a good punch. Lenny wasn’t slim, but he had the solid build of a workingman and, except for a few gray hairs in his thick black curls, he looked younger than his 50 years.

  You will be the first Lasante to go to college. And what a brain God has given you. You will show the way for your sisters and brother. Lenny remembered how his father would boast about his grades to salesmen and customers. No more Lasante grocers; my children will be educated.

  Lenny was so lost in the memory of his father’s words that he didn’t notice Frankie until he heard the sound of the refrigerator door. In the refrigerator’s glow, Frankie’s green eyes reminded Lenny of Vi. His mother’s eyes, but more noticeable with Frankie’s olive complexion, he thought. He was tempted to say: I know you’re scared to leave home, but there’s nothing here for you. Instead, he said: “Can’t you sleep?”

  “Just thirsty,” Frankie answered and shrugged his shoulders.

  “It’s hard to believe, Son, that this year you’ll be a senior. Time to start thinking about college applications.”

  “I’m half asleep, Dad. Please don’t start.”

  “All I’m saying, Frankie, is . . .”

  Frankie slammed the bottle of juice down on the kitchen table. “I don’t want to talk about college again. I don’t want to make any promises about not looking back. I know you lost your chance, but if you want to get out of here, go. Suppose I don’t want to go to college? Leave me alone.”

  Lenny’s brown eyes went wide and, for the first time in his life, he feared he might strike Frankie. He took a deep breath and tried to keep his voice low not to wake Filomena or Angie. “Oh, you’re going to college,” he said.
“I’ll be damned before I watch you waste your life sucking up to Gennaro the way Scungilli sucks up to Big Vinny — like a slobbering lapdog.”

  “I’m nobody’s lapdog!” Frankie growled.

  “Then stop acting like one.” Lenny sniffed at his shirt in disgust and pointed to his swollen eye. “Is this what you want . . . to spend your life stinking of cheese and fighting with bums?”

  Frankie leaned in a little too close to Lenny, as if he were trying to threaten him. “You know, Big Vinny is right,” he said. “You do think you’re better than everyone.”

  Lenny grabbed Frankie’s wrist. “No, not everyone,” He fought back tears and could see Frankie was doing the same. “It’s time to go to bed, Frankie, and we’ll talk about this tomorrow . . . Now, did you forget something?”

  Frankie tried to pull away, and the veins in Lenny’s hand and forearm appeared as if they were about to explode. He feared that he might very well snap Frankie’s wrist in two, but Lenny wasn’t going to be disrespected, especially not by his son and in defense of Big Vinny.

  “You’re upset, but I’m your father.” Lenny’s voice remained calm. “Now! Did you forget something?”

  Frankie kissed Lenny on the cheek, and Lenny released his grip. Frankie spun away and left the kitchen.

  Instead of dwelling on what just happened, Lenny thought of old neighborhood friends and classmates, now professionals with large homes on Long Island or upscale apartments in Manhattan. A few occasionally returned to the neighborhood to visit an aging parent, and when they did, they stopped in the grocery store, each of them expressed the same sentiment: You were the best of us, Lenny. Next he saw his father clutch at his chest on the grocery store’s sawdust-covered floor and recalled the death rattle that quashed his ambitions. “No, you’re not going to turn into me,” he muttered, and then made a fist of the hand that had grabbed Frankie’s wrist and shoved his chair away from the table, stood up, stumbled out of the kitchen into the yard, and sat at the plywood table beneath the grape arbor.