Most Precious Blood

by Vince Sgambati

  At first Frankie was surprised that Big Vinny knew about his trip to California, but then he remembered: He’s Big Vinny.

  “Yes, just a short visit.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not,” Big Vinny said.

  Frankie didn’t answer. Marie placed a plate of cookies on the table and joined them. “Soon I’ll call Goodwill to take Gennaro’s clothes,” she said. “But first I’ll let you pick out what you want. I’m not ready yet, but I’ll let you know when I am. Probably when you come back from your trip.”

  “Maybe you should let him pick out what he wants before he leaves,” Big Vinny said, but Marie didn’t answer.

  “There’s nothing ...” Frankie said. Then he paused and looked down at their reflections in the glass tabletop. “Maybe his leather jacket,” he whispered, but as soon as the words left his mouth, he remembered that Gennaro was wearing it Christmas night. Surely it had been ruined. No one spoke, just the sound of cups against saucers.

  “Marie, are you just going to leave those flowers die on the counter?”

  She jumped up from the table and, while she filled the vase with water and cut each stem with a paring knife, she spoke of Gennaro’s funeral. Some of the details Frankie had already heard from Angie, but he was glad to hear them again. Her voice was wistful as if she were simply thinking aloud, and it mattered little whether or not they heard her. Big Vinny and Frankie were merely the excuse for her to remember.

  Twice Big Vinny interrupted her. “Frankie doesn’t want to hear about all that.”

  Marie ignored him, and when he interrupted her a third time, Frankie spoke up. “Please go on, Mrs. DiCico. For some reason I like hearing about the funeral, and you’re remembering some things that my aunt didn’t tell me.”

  “Oh, I remember everything,” Marie said, and her comment sounded like an indictment, most likely directed at Big Vinny. Frankie wondered if everything included enough to put Big Vinny away for a very long time. He recalled Gennaro’s words from that November day when he and Gennaro walked along the beach at the Rockaways. “Things I’ve known, but didn’t know ... It’s like I’ve always known stuff about my old man and brothers, but I didn’t admit that I knew it.”

  After she finished arranging the flowers in the vase, she brought the coffee pot to the table and filled Big Vinny’s cup without asking him if he wanted more.

  “No thank you,” Frankie said when she looked at him.

  Since Frankie had mentioned that he wanted to hear about the funeral, Big Vinny remained uncharacteristically quiet, and the few times he spoke, Marie pursed her lips and stared at her jittery hands. She didn’t once look at him, at least not that Frankie noticed; however, Frankie’s attention was spotty. The swinging jalousie doors between the kitchen and dining room were a constant distraction, as if at any moment Gennaro might push through them. He’d be shirtless, his jeans drooping below his boxers, and he’d yawn and stretch, exposing the line of hair beneath his navel. The kitchen light would exaggerate the faint map of scars across Gennaro’s chest and on the undersides of his arms. Then Gennaro and Frankie would steal downstairs to the basement, where Gennaro had been napping on sweat-dampened sheets, and Frankie would inhale Gennaro’s musk and brush his lips along Gennaro’s salty scars and down beneath the band of his boxers. Gennaro’s breaths would deepen.

  Sitting at the table with Big Vinny and Marie, Frankie thought: Yes, Gennaro breathe, please breathe, deeper and deeper. He took another sip of coffee and nodded in agreement to whatever Marie said, and hoped that the DiCicos didn’t notice the rise in his jeans through the glass-top kitchen table. Don’t break the glass. He imagined Gennaro laughing.

  “It’s time for me to get back to the store,” he said, and he offered to help Marie clear the table, but she frowned and shook her head. He stood, held his jacket in front of his crotch, and bent towards Marie and gave her a kiss on her cheek while she pulled a tissue from her sleeve and dapped at her tears. Big Vinny also stood; he removed a sheet of paper from a corkboard on the wall next to the kitchen door.

  “Here, give Marie’s grocery list to your father. Lena or Scungilli will be by later to pick up the groceries.” Big Vinny pressed money into Frankie’s hand and hugged him.

  “An early birthday present,” he said. “Something for your trip.” Frankie didn’t return his hug. Big Vinny patted Frankie’s back and released him as if he understood.

  Frankie’s eyes followed cracks in the sidewalk, and he jiggled the change in his pocket as he walked home. Step on the crack and break the devil’s back. He recalled the childhood jingle and flicked at the bills that Big Vinny had given him. He pulled his hand from his pocket and looked at the wad of crisp 100-dollar bills. For years he had ignored Lenny’s rants about Big Vinny’s blood money, but now he felt Gennaro’s blood ooze through his fingers, more precious than all of Big Vinny’s filthy money. He crumbled the bills, stuffed them back into his pocket, wiped his hand on his jeans, rubbed them together, balled them into tight fists, and when he finally got to the store, he took a deep breath and stretched out his fingers against the cool glass door and pushed.

  “There you are, honey, we was just gonna leave.”

  Tootsie stood across the counter from Lenny while Tyrone pranced a toy unicorn with a long pink mane atop the bags of dry beans.

  Lately, each time Frankie saw Tootsie she looked a little different — slightly thinner, maybe slow weight loss after having the baby. She also wore less makeup and silver had replaced her plastic bangles, as if she were taking beauty tips from Angie. But Tyrone contrasted his mother’s new image with his pink nail polish, a red and yellow tam with matching scarf, and lime green rubber boots.

  “Hey, buddy!” Frankie returned Tyrone’s hug, which felt like a potion, and Frankie’s hatred for Big Vinny abated. “Nice unicorn. Where did you get it?” Tyrone smiled, gave his head a little jerk, and he and his unicorn wandered back to the land of dried beans.

  “How’s Marie?” Lenny asked. Frankie shrugged his shoulders and handed Lenny the sheet of paper. “It’s her list. Lena or Scungilli will come by later to pick up the groceries.” When he pulled Marie’s list from his pocket, Big Vinny’s crumpled 100-dollar bills fell to the floor.

  “You’re throwing your money away,” Tootsie said.

  He picked up the wadded bills and tossed them on the counter. “A present from the Don.”

  Lenny’s eyes flashed and he frowned. “Why don’t you and Tootsie go inside the house and talk for a while? The store is slow and Tyrone looks like he’s having fun.” Tyrone sat on the floor, lining snails up behind his unicorn. “If he gets antsy, he knows where to find you.”

  Tootsie and Frankie went in the house, but first Frankie grabbed two Manhattan Specials from the cooler — Tootsie’s favorite. They sat at the kitchen table, and Frankie handed her the espresso coffee soda and a glass, but she pushed the glass aside. “Don’t dirty a glass on my account. I’m fine drinking out of a bottle.” The bottle made a hissing sound when she twisted the cap. “Was it hard going over there?”

  Another hissing sound as Frankie twisted the cap off of his soda. “Mrs. DiCico’s a nice lady.”

  Tootsie nodded. “Yes, but it still took a lot of guts for you to do that.”

  Frankie’s eyes wandered from Tootsie to his soda to the chief clock over the window to the small plastic holy water font next to the kitchen door that no one had filled since Filomena passed. Lenny used to tell Frankie that Grandma put priest piss in it. Now the little plastic font was just another empty knickknack. Frankie’s eyes finally met Tootsie’s. “Gennaro and I weren’t just friends. I mean we were gay. I mean I’m still gay and being in his house made me miss him all over again, and I missed him when Dad and I were at Tucci’s and I miss him right now. I miss him and I love him and I hate him and it’s all mixed up and I’m all mixed up.” Frankie’s face felt as if it were on fire.

  Tootsie shrugged her shoulders. “Messed up or not, you were strong enough to go over his house.
That took balls.”

  Frankie slouched against the back of his chair as if he’d been punched. “I finally tell you that Gennaro and I were lovers, and all you say is that it took balls for me to go over his house.”

  “Honey, I always knew that you were in love with Gennaro, but I didn’t know if you knew it. So now we both know it, or know that we both know it, or whatever.” Tootsie took another swig of soda.

  “You’re the first person I’ve told this to. I kind of told my father, but not exactly, although I don’t really know what I said to him. I was on a lot of medicine in the hospital, and there were times I was really upset. Maybe I said more than I remember.”

  “Whatever you said to your father, don’t worry. He’s an okay guy. Not like the rest of the macho cafones on your block.” Tootsie belched. “Oops, sorry about that. I drank the soda too fast.”

  Frankie didn’t expect Tootsie to be shocked or have a problem with his being gay, but he expected a little more than a shrug and a belch. They both laughed and he told her about the trip to Tucci’s, and their moods turned somber as he described the house and how everywhere he looked he saw Gennaro.

  “Was that a bad thing?” Tootsie said.

  “Was what a bad thing?”

  “Seeing Gennaro wherever you looked?”

  He thought about that for a few moments. “No it wasn’t bad ... it just was ... kind of hard, but at the same time comforting.”

  Tootsie wore a faint smile when he explained that something in the falls made him believe that everything would be okay. “I can’t imagine how things will be okay,” he said. “I’m not even sure that I want it to be okay, but it was like the falls took the choice away from me. Like it was saying whether you want it or not, all will get better. I know it sounds weird.”

  “Sounds like faith and hope,” Tootsie said. “You know, believe something even though you don’t know it yet.”

  Tootsie had a gift for making sense of nonsense. “You’re too much,” Frankie said.

  She pressed the palms of her hands against her sides. “Too much! And here I thought I was losing weight.”

  Frankie laughed. “Actually, you have been looking thinner.” He found his way back to talking about being gay and his relationship with Gennaro, beginning with how he thought that the gas can explosion had been an omen, showing him that his feelings for Gennaro were wrong. “But then I met you. You once said that the first time we met in church was no accident. Well, I agree. When we first met I was filled with guilt, and watching Tyrone with his pink fingernails and playing with a Barbie doll made me feel like God was giving me another message. Not a judgmental message but a loving message. I’m not saying that Tyrone is going to be gay or anything, but ...”

  Tootsie smiled. “You don’t have to explain to me. Tyrone is gonna be who he’s gonna be.”

  “I guess it’s a little new for me to talk about this stuff. Even with Gennaro, I didn’t talk about this much. Especially with Gennaro. The first time we did anything, you know what I mean, was last August, and for the longest time he acted like nothing happened. Then when he finally came around to admitting that we weren’t just friends, he still denied that he was gay, and we found these pictures of our great-grandfathers, and I tried to explain to him that maybe ... never mind. What difference does it all that make now? Anyway, has my dad told you about California?”

  “Okay, honey, now you’re confusing the hell out of me. I know that’s not too hard to do, but how did we go from Gennaro denying that he was gay to pictures of your great-grandfather to you going to California?”

  “I know, I’m sorry. But this is how my head works lately, or doesn’t work. I’m all over the place.” Frankie didn’t explain about the cartoline postale, but he told Tootsie that Lenny bought him a plane ticket to Los Angeles. “I’m going stay with Vi and Ina.”

  “Wow!” Tootsie’s eyes opened wide and she pressed her fingertips against her cheeks, making her lips pucker like a fish.

  “Vi agreed to an open ended visit. You know, so I can see how I like it ... see how long I want to stay. When I’m ready to come home, Dad will buy me a ticket for the return flight.”

  “Well, I’m speechless.”

  “Good kind of speechless or bad?”

  “Just speechless.”

  “I mean, do you think it’s a good idea or a bad one?”

  “I can’t answer that one, honey, but I think it’s good that you want to try something new. That’s definitely a good sign.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It shows that you’re healing. See, the waterfall was right.”

  Frankie finished his soda and fiddled with the empty bottle. “The funny thing about healing is that you don’t really feel better, you just feel less.”

  They heard the door from the office to the dining room open and shut, and after the sound of shuffling rubber boots, Tyrone entered the kitchen. He went right to Frankie, threw his arms around him, and rested his head on Frankie’s shoulder while the unicorn’s horn jabbed Frankie’s collarbone. Frankie didn’t complain.

  “I know someone who’s going to miss you,” Tootsie said.

  Frankie pushed his chair back from the table so Tyrone could climb onto his lap. “Did you get tired of playing with snails?”

  Tyrone laughed and gave his head a jerky nod. The corners of his mouth were smeared with chocolate. “Something tells me that my dad gave you candy.”

  Tootsie stood and placed the two empty soda bottles in the sink. She was definitely thinner.

  “Tootsie, mind if I ask you a personal question?”

  “Ask me anything. You know that, honey.”

  “Is there someone new in your life? I mean a guy.”

  She turned away from the sink, and her eyes shot up to the left and her lips scrunched over to the right as if she were searching her thoughts for the perfect answer, and she chuckled. “There’s always a guy, honey.”

  “No, I mean a special guy. You look different lately.”

  “Oh that. I’m just trying on a new me. The old one didn’t work so good. Hope I’ll have better luck this time.” She struck a pose with one hand on her hip and her head tossed back. Her silver hoop earrings flashed against her black hair. “What do you think?”

  Tyrone jumped from Frankie’s lap, struck the same pose, and they all burst out laughing.

  “I think you’re both beautiful, but Tyrone’s green boots steal the show.”

  Tootsie glanced at the clock above the window. “Shit! Our bus will be here in a few minutes. Come on, Tyrone, or we’ll have to ride your unicorn home.”

  They left the house through the front door and down the stoop, rather than walking back through the store.

  “Tell your dad that I said goodbye,” Tootsie said. She kissed Frankie on the cheek, grabbed Tyrone’s hand, walked towards the bus stop, and called back over her shoulder, “See you soon.”

  “Don’t forget. I’m leaving for California.”

  Tootsie stopped and turned around. “You mean soon?”

  “Saturday.”

  “Oh no, no. That will never work.” She dragged Tyrone back to where Frankie stood at the bottom of the stoop. “You didn’t tell me this.”

  “But I just told you that I was ...”

  Tootsie shook her finger at Frankie and bopped her head back and forth like one of those bobble head dolls. “Don’t even try to tell me that you ...” Tyrone pulled on her arm as the bus drove up, stopped, and then drove away. “Cut it out, Tyrone. We’ll catch the next one.”

  “Come on in the store,” Frankie said. “My father will drive you home.”

  Lenny was writing a list of groceries from a phone order when they entered the store, and Tootsie ranted that Frankie hadn’t given her fair warning about his California trip.

  Lenny looked up from his pad.

  “Just as I’m about to catch my bus, your son tells me that he’s leaving for California on Saturday.”

  “That’s not exac
tly what happened,” Frankie said.

  “How are you just going to leave without saying goodbye?”

  Frankie rolled his eyes and shook his head. Lenny chuckled, put down his pencil, and asked Tootsie what she was doing Friday night.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just go to Alaska without telling my friends,” Tootsie said.

  “Well, if you don’t go to Alaska, we’re having a little 18th birthday combined with a have-a-good-trip party. My family’s coming. Why don’t you join us?”

  Tootsie flashed a look at Frankie. “Birthday! What else haven’t you told me?”

  Given that Frankie had just come out to Tootsie, he almost said not much, but instead, he explained to Lenny that Tootsie and Tyrone missed their bus and asked if he would drive her home before she drove them all crazy. They laughed, including Tyrone, who also jumped up and down and twirled his unicorn.

  For the second time that day, Tootsie kissed Frankie goodbye and grabbed Tyrone’s hand. “We’ll see you on Friday.”

  A few customers shopped, purchasing mostly staples like milk, bread, eggs, and butter, but business was sporadic, and Frankie was alone with his thoughts most of the time while Lenny drove Tootsie and Tyrone home. He felt conflicted about leaving. Having lost Gennaro and also Filomena, the thought of being without Lenny frightened him, as did leaving his home, including the store, which was really just another room in their house — maybe the most important room.

  There were the bedrooms, the kitchen, the living room, the dining room, the office, the breezeway, and the store and warehouse. All a part of home. Frankie wasn’t only leaving his father and home, but also a way of life. He forced himself to look forward to Los Angeles and getting to know Ina, but then he felt guilty about leaving Lenny.

  Just a little vacation. Stop being so dramatic. But he knew that it would be more than a vacation. It was a chance. The chance Lenny had lost. Lenny’s insistence that Frankie go away to college had always irritated him, but now he felt differently. Staying here would feel as if he were living at the end of a story, an epilogue, especially with Gennaro gone. Life would amount to little more than a retelling of what used to be or imagining what might have been. He wondered if that had been what his father’s life was like for all these years.