Most Precious Blood

by Vince Sgambati

  The moonlight cast ghost-like shadows along the low brick wall and the makeshift stage. It took him several seconds to steady his hand enough to light the candle, but when he finally did the smell of citronella and grapes hung in the humid night air and the light from the flame exaggerated the contrast between the hairs on his chest, the shadow of a day’s beard, and his halo of curls against his sweaty flesh, making his hair blacker and his skin paler like a figure in a Caravaggio painting. Lenny removed a slip of paper from his wallet and unfolded the small, yellowed note. Above the candle’s flame he read:

  Dear Lenny,

  I’m sorry, but I can’t do this. I know that you’ll make a remarkable father and a better mother than I could ever be. Regretfully, Vi

  He read the note several times, then refolded it, returned it to his wallet, and his thoughts drifted to Angelina Zeppole and her soft, pliant flesh like the dollops of dough that she dropped into the boiling oil. He blew out the candle and stumbled out of the yard.

  8

  The following morning, Frankie, Angie, and Lenny sat alongside Filomena’s bed, waiting for the ambulance to arrive. Earlier Angie had peeked into Filomena’s room where embroidered pillowcases and sheets lay undisturbed, and Filomena’s head lay peacefully against two pillows, but her chest remained still. Angie caressed Filomena’s hand, but the warmth had already left, and Filomena’s taffeta dress hung silent in her closet.

  Well-worn rosary beads hung abandoned on Filomena’s bedpost. So often had she kneaded them, while she mumbled Hail Marys and cooked or ironed or sat in the yard under the arbor, or years ago when she grieved losing Vincenzo and felt overwhelmed being left a widow to raise her children. A safety pin fastened the crucifix to the chain of crystal beads, and the crystals caught the morning light that reflected tiny rainbows on the faded, peony wallpaper.

  The paramedics said that there was no sign of suffering; she slipped away peacefully and never knew what happened. Several days later, the coroner’s report would state that Filomena Lasante died from a ruptured cerebral aneurysm. No one’s fault, the doctor said. Regardless, Lenny added upsetting his mother on the night before she died to his list of regrets.

  Within a few hours their home was filled with family. The festivities outside mocked their grief, but it was too hot to close windows. Angie and Lenny met with Lou Romano to make funeral arrangements. Irish met with Father de la Roza about the funeral Mass. Amelia and Tony made phone calls and attended to visiting neighbors.

  Sauce simmered on the stove and released the sweet vapors of tomatoes with herbs cut fresh from Filomena’s garden. Angie drained the al dente rigatoni. In the puff of steam, she resembled Filomena, a likeness Lenny noticed while he spooned ricotta into a large macaroni bowl, and Angie added the rigatoni to the ricotta, and then several ladles overflowing with sauce. She folded the mixture together with a wooden spoon and wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her wrist. Sauce splattered the front of her mother’s apron, and Angie pulled a tissue from its pocket and dabbed at the sauce.

  The family prodded and picked at their food. Conversation was somber, and punctuated with soft weeping. No one laughed. No one argued.

  Tony waved a fly away from the macaroni and cursed in Italian. Filomena would have frowned.

  After clearing the barely touched plates of food, the family again gathered around the dining room table for dessert, but the little ones appeared confused while seeking a lap to climb onto — the most coveted lap was gone. The tray of pastries courtesy of Panisi’s — tidy balls of baba rum surrounded by pasticiotti, sfogliatelle, and cannoli — sat undisturbed like the decorative pillows and sheets on Filomena’s bed.

  It was dark outside when Carmella Rosario knocked on the kitchen door and, despite Angie’s protests, insisted that the family step outside. “Out of respect for your mother,” Carmella pleaded tearfully.

  Lenny was the last to step out into the yard. The street was crowded with silent shadows. A solitary flame glowed before a large statue of the Madonna, while a shadow ascended the stage and stood next to the statue. Upon hearing the crystal clear first note of “Ave Maria,” Lenny recognized Gennaro’s voice, and cool water pulsed through his veins and bled warm from his eyes. Frankie pressed his face into Lenny’s chest. All of Filomena’s children, their spouses, and her grandchildren wept, as did many friends. Grief flowed gently from the yard, over the low brick wall, and onto 104th Street like an evening tide and, despite a few pauses when his voice began to crack, Gennaro completed his song then joined the Lasantes in their yard and was drawn into Lenny and Frankie’s embrace.

  By the following evening, The Feast of the Assumption had been dismantled and trucked away, and the Madonna returned to her plinth above a side-altar at Most Precious Blood. Inside Romano’s Funeral Home, flowers, mostly wreaths and baskets, filled the largest room, and at the head of Filomena’s casket stood a bleeding heart — dozens of miniature red roses formed a heart shape. Red satin ribbons bled from its center. On one of the ribbons were the words Beloved Mother.

  Filomena was dressed in a burgundy dress with a bolero jacket that she had bought to see La Traviata at the Metropolitan — last year’s birthday gift from Angie and Lenny. The lower half of the casket was closed (Filomena hated the look of a corpse’s feet pointing straight up) and blanketed with white roses, mums, and baby’s breath like a mantle of fresh snow. A ribbon curled across the blanket of flowers with the words Beloved Grandmother.

  One floral piece dwarfed the others — an arch of flowers above two golden gates with a lifelike white dove perched atop of the arch. Lenny explained to Frankie that it represented the gates of heaven and the dove was the Holy Spirit.

  “When I was a boy,” Lenny said, “funeral flowers resembled miniature parade floats — a wheel with a missing spoke represented the family member lost, or a clock with its hands pointing to the deceased’s hour of death. That was the world of the old-timers, your great-grandparents and, to a lesser degree, your grandparents and great-aunts and uncles. They had little use for tidy bouquets and tidy emotions. They threw themselves on the caskets and wailed and screamed in Italian. When Grandpa Vincenzo died, I had to lift Great-Grandma and Grandma off of his casket. One of Grandpa’s sisters fainted at the cemetery and almost fell into the grave.” Frankie grinned and Lenny chuckled. They sat in the first row of chairs facing the casket, along with Lenny’s siblings.

  “And it wasn’t just the women,” Lenny continued. “The men were just as emotional. Your Great-Uncle Cosimo, after a doctor told him that his wife had died, picked up a large statue of Saint Jude and threw it out of the hospital’s third floor window. Fortunately, no one was hurt, just a mess of smashed plaster.”

  At that they both chuckled.

  “Italians are crazy,” Frankie said.

  Lenny nodded and looked at Filomena’s profile. Oddly still. She was never one for naps or even to put her feet up on the couch or an ottoman. Even when she watched television she sat erect with her hands in constant motion as she crocheted another afghan or mended something worn or kneaded her rosaries.

  “Those old-timers grieved hard,” Lenny said, “but then they moved on with their lives and did what they had to do. They didn’t whimper at funerals and spend the next 20 years in therapy. Grandma acted as if the world had come to an end at Grandpa’s funeral, but the next morning she got out of bed, made us all breakfast, and opened the store.”

  Filomena’s wake, except for the occasional outbursts from her friends and the presence of the gate-of-heaven floral piece with the card Until we are all together again, the DiCico family, mirrored the more reserved ways of assimilated Italian-Americans — that was until Bruno Scungilli whispered in Lenny’s ear, and Lenny nodded and said: “Of course.”

  Big Vinny approached, followed by his family. He kissed Lenny’s sisters and brother, offering his condolences. When he reached Lenny, Lenny stood up and they embraced. Big Vinny collapsed into tears and caressed Lenny’s face between the p
alms of his wide hands and lamented in Italian. He paused, brought his fingertips to the shiner he had given Lenny two evenings before, shook his head and said: “Faccia brutta. Sometimes I can be such a gabbadost.”

  Lenny didn’t respond, and Big Vinny turned towards the casket. He leaned over it and kissed Filomena’s forehead while Lenny held his shoulders as if to keep him from falling forward, and then they knelt next to each other and bowed their heads. By now, everyone in the room was in tears, and the old timers wailed unabashedly as if Big Vinny had not only given them the permission to mourn like real Italians, but demanded that they should.

  Two days later, after a high funeral Mass at Most Precious Blood, a cortege of black limousines followed the hearse carrying Filomena’s casket past their store and home where it paused for a final farewell, and Lenny heard the whisper of Filomena’s taffeta dress. Then on to Saint John’s Cemetery where each mourner dropped a rose onto Filomena’s casket before leaving the gravesite, and Big Vinny drew flowers from the gate-of-heaven floral piece atop the mound of flowers next to the open grave. He placed the flowers before an adjacent tombstone where etched in pink marble was the family name DiCico. Even in death Lasantes and DiCicos were destined to be together.

  9

  It was 2:30 in the morning, but it felt more like noon — one of those hot summer nights when the day’s heat clung to concrete and brick like a tenacious memory. The air was thick with the smell of bread from Panisi’s ovens and as heavy as the six feet of dirt that weighted down Filomena’s casket. No breeze passed through Frankie’s bedroom window, only the cries of irritable cats and the racket of trains against steel tracks that came from the EL.

  Frankie lay naked on sheets damp and musky from his sweat, sat up too quickly, and his bedroom began to spin. He stumbled while he slipped on a pair of gym shorts, a t-shirt, and sneakers, and then he inched his way quietly past Lenny’s bedroom, down the stairs, and out the kitchen door. Once outside the yard he jogged down the block to Gennaro’s house, a short distance, but in the heat his t-shirt clung to his back, and by the time he reached the DiCico’s, his hair lay soaked and flat against his forehead.

  Lightheaded, he unlatched the wrought-iron gate and meandered through the maze of statues, praying that he wouldn’t become target practice for Big Vinny. He scooped up several white pebbles from the base of the dueling penises’ fountain and tossed the smaller ones at the top windowpanes of Gennaro’s second floor bedroom. No Gennaro, so he tried a larger pebble. Crash followed by, “Shit!” Gennaro appeared at the open window. “Are you fucking crazy,” he whispered. “You smashed my mother’s plant.”

  “Sorry.”

  Gennaro disappeared back into the house. In a few moments, the cellar door rose, and Frankie tripped down the concrete steps into the basement past Gennaro who with one hand lowered the cellar door and with the other held out the remnants of the fallen Blessed Mother planter. “Look what you did. It was my mother’s favorite.”

  A china nose, a section of blue veil, and the praying hands. Again, Frankie apologized. Gennaro’s frown slowly turned into a grin until he fell against Frankie laughing. Frankie was only too glad to follow Gennaro’s lead. They pressed their fingers to each other’s lips to shush their laughter.

  “Aside from vandalism what brings you out so late?” Gennaro said.

  The mood turned somber when Frankie explained that no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t stop thinking about his grandmother.

  “That sucks,” Gennaro said.

  “It’s like I’m not paying close enough attention. Like she’s there but I keep missing her, like I didn’t look quick enough. I hate it. I know she’s not in that damn casket, but she has to be some place. Maybe heaven? I don’t know. That’s what she would say, but I don’t want her to be in heaven. I want her to be here with us.” Frankie leaned against the pool table. It was dark except for the lights from the fish tanks. This was the first time since the accident that Frankie had seen Gennaro shirtless and without bandages. Gennaro’s burns had healed, leaving a slight topography of knolls and streams further defining his sculptured pectorals and the underside of his biceps.

  Gennaro placed his hands on Frankie’s shoulders, and Frankie brought his fingertips to Gennaro’s chest and lightly traced the sinuous map of scars. “Does it still hurt?” he asked.

  “Na, it’s a lot better. I could have climbed that stupid grease pole last week, but my mother worries too much.”

  Frankie’s eyes met Gennaro’s. “That was a terrible night,” Frankie said.

  Gennaro’s hands slid from Frankie’s shoulders down to his chest and stomach, and then pulled at Frankie’s t-shirt. “You’re soaked,” Gennaro said. Frankie’s breaths quickened, and he stretched up his arms as Gennaro lifted the t-shirt until its thin, drenched cotton tore free from Frankie’s shoulders.

  The fluorescents over the fish tanks cast a surreal glow, and the aerators and filters murmured a bubbling hum. Gennaro dropped his boxers and Frankie did the same with his gym shorts. Denial had been so much a part their friendship that despite their naked bodies and full erections, Frankie half expected Gennaro to laugh and say this was all a joke, but then Gennaro took Frankie’s hand and led him away from the glow and the bubbling hum and into the darker, quieter bedroom where the V of mirrors reflected their awkward passion. Their shadows rose and fell, expanded and contrasted along with their muffled moans until they lay still, but for only a moment, and then Gennaro rolled away from Frankie, shifted himself to the edge of the bed and sat up with his feet planted on the floor.

  Frankie lay there staring at the shadow of Gennaro’s back. He didn’t ask what was wrong. He knew that they had just slipped back into denial, as they had done over the years when they wrestled but never acknowledged that they were engaged in anything but wrestling even though their bodies told them otherwise. Words unspoken had long been a part of Lasante-DiCico relationships, but Frankie and Gennaro brought it to another level. Frankie knew this was how they would deal with love making, or more accurately not deal with it. It wasn’t Frankie’s choice, but he knew better than to force Gennaro to acknowledge something he wasn’t ready to acknowledge.

  After that night Gennaro moved his bedroom to the basement, and Frankie stayed over more frequently with the unspoken pledge of what happened during the dark hours in the DiCico basement stayed in the basement while during the day they acted as if nothing had changed, and Gennaro continued to play out his role of Casanova, flirting with but no longer seducing every new girl he came across.

  Come September, Lenny ruled that Frankie had to be home on school nights, but that didn’t keep Frankie from occasionally sneaking out for an hour or so after Lenny was asleep.

  10

  School had been in session for several weeks, and the Democratic Party was promising America its first African-American president, while 91st Avenue was transformed into what resembled an on-location set for a crime show. Police officers, unmarked cars, detectives, federal agents, TV news vans, and crews converged upon 91st Avenue and the sidewalk before Big Vinny’s club. Yellow crime-scene barricade tape blocked pedestrians from passing. But unlike a movie set, no adoring fans crowded behind cameras waiting for celebrities to appear. Instead, neighbors kept their eyes lowered and their mouths shut.

  Doug Turner and Lenny glanced out of the front store windows through the fine drizzle, but neither of them acknowledged that anything out of the ordinary was taking place across the avenue.

  In between bites of lunch, they spoke of the vice presidential debate.

  “Can you imagine Sarah Palin being a heartbeat away from the presidency? Lord help us if that happens.”

  Lenny nodded, but he was distracted by the two plain-clothes detectives who had just left Big Vinny’s club. They held newspapers over their heads to stay dry as they crossed 91st Avenue and approached the store. The younger of the two opened the door and allowed the older detective to enter the store first. The senior detective — a baldi
ng man with a bulbous nose — inhaled and smiled as if recalling a long-lost olfactory memory.

  “You make heroes here?”

  “Yes,” Lenny answered.

  “You got mortadella?”

  “Yes.”

  “Make me a mortadella and provolone hero.” He scooped up a handful of dry fava beans and let them fall through his stubby fingers back into the burlap sack. “You don’t see these kind-a stores no more except in lower Manhattan. Even there, things are changing. Chinatown has just about wiped out Little Italy.”

  Lenny thought it ironic that this detective shared Big Vinny’s nostalgia for intact Italian neighborhoods, especially if he was the one who at 6:30 this morning had escorted Big Vinny in handcuffs from his house to a police car.

  The chatty older detective pointed to the hanging provolones and prosciuttos. “When I was a kid, we had a lot of these kinda stores in Brooklyn. Now you got all these shitty convenience stores and dollar stores. I don’t know why they call them dollar stores. You can’t buy nothing in them for a dollar, even though nothing they sell is worth more than 50 cents.” He leaned toward his younger partner. “Ain’t you getting nothing?”

  “Do you have hamburgers?” the younger detective asked. He resembled the Howdy Doody puppet Lenny once rode on the back of his Radio Flyer tricycle.

  “No, sorry,” Lenny answered, and glanced at Doug who swallowed the last of his sandwich.

  “Hamburgers!” the older detective roared. “That’s all kids today know how to eat. Look at all the good stuff in that case. And you order a goddamn hamburger. Does this look like a fucking McDonalds to you?”