Eggplant Alley (9781593731410)

by Cataneo, D.

  “What? Tell me.”

  “Mind your own business.”

  Nicky thought that was sound advice, especially for this time and this place. He thought they should engrave those words in stone, at the entrance to Eggplant Alley.

  For supper that night, Mom served pig intestines, with fresh banana bread for dessert. Seven loaves of banana bread were scattered on surfaces around the apartment. The loaves cooled and scented the air.

  After dinner, Dad sat at the table and stirred instant coffee. He spoke his first words since reading Roy’s letter.

  “What’s the matter with that kid, anyhow? Why would he say something stupid like he wants to get into combat? It’s a mystery. Did he say he’s bored? Bored? He should just do his job.”

  Nicky thought, “Sure, Dad. Do as you say, not as you did, right?” Nicky had heard the stories from the war. He knew about Dad’s strong urge to fly B-17 bombers. He knew Dad looked wild-eyed at the leather-jacketed pilots on the recruiting posters and quit high school and volunteered for the Army Air Corps. Dad wanted to be in the thick of the war, in the middle of the action, in flak-covered skies, in lumbering crates battling sleek Nazi fighter planes. Dad was turned down because of a bum eardrum and no college attendance. Dad told Nicky that story. Dad told Roy that story. A million times. Why didn’t Dad remember that story?

  Mom passed the night wrapping banana bread in double layers of tinfoil. She tried to fit seven loaves into a box only big enough for six and muttered, “If I called her, I’d call her to tell her what I think of her. Call her. Sheesh. Margalo the magnificent. The girl who keeps her sister locked up in the house.”

  Dad sat with the television going. The Yankee game was on, but Dad wasn’t watching. Nicky knew this, because a Yankee struck out with the bases loaded and Dad didn’t flinch. Usually Dad would holler at the screen, sputter about the bums of modern-day baseball, and grumble reverently of the Great DiMaggio. Now Dad’s eyes weren’t even aimed at the television. Not even close. Dad’s eyes were focused on the coffee table, at a spot near the metal Holiday Inn ashtray, squarely on the letter from Roy.

  The Horrid Hippie Margalo 18

  Nicky gazed the TV Guide, the latest edition, the one with the actress Ann-Margret on the glossy cover, and felt a strange airiness in his chest. The only other time he had felt this was at first light on Christmas morning.

  Ann-Margret, pictured from the waist up, wore a wispy dress that was so low-cut, Nicky thought it could be a nightgown. Her magnificent red hair cascaded onto her bare shoulders and her face was turned to one side but her eyes looked directly at Nicky as he stared back at her. He had come across the TV Guide two days earlier, and ever since he could not pass by the magazine rack next to Dad’s easy chair without rummaging for a look at Ann-Margret. He studied her face with same sensation he had when he first saw the top-of-the-line Rawlings B-4000 baseball mitt in the glass display case at Gimbels.

  Ann-Margret’s lips were the color of Bazooka bubblegum. And those eyes. Nicky could not tell if they were green or blue. This time he locked onto them and decided they were blue. On the spot, he decided he preferred women with blue eyes. He searched his memory. Noreen Connolly had blue eyes. She sat in front of him in social studies and he recalled looking into her eyes as she swiveled in her desk to pass back test papers. Mrs. Murray might have blue eyes. There was also an alley cat with blue eyes that frequented the garbage cans outside Popop’s. Nicky gazed at Ann-Margret with a sad and pleasant longing and then he remembered another woman with blue eyes and he felt something drop inside him.

  “Margalo,” Nicky said, spitting out the name like a sip of curdled milk. He pushed the TV Guide back into the rack and decided the lovely Ann-Margret must have green eyes after all.

  No one in the family knew exactly when Roy and the horrid hippie Margalo started going out. The best guess was they hooked up during the long, hot summer of 1967. Mom and Dad, and even young Nicky, first sensed her presence around then.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with that kid,” Mom would say, before they all found out the answer—the horrid hippie Margalo.

  Roy was not his old self. He was turning into someone else. He completely lost interest in the old things. No more Monopoly, water balloons, smoke bombs. No more trips to the roof, walks to Popop’s for baseball cards, throwing the squeaky toy for Checkers. The only old game that seemed to interest Roy was stickball—he still spoke wistfully about that, at least—and stickball was extinct.

  By the end of that summer, Roy’s Roger Maris–style crew cut had disappeared for good. His head became overgrown, like an untended garden. Before long he had a mop-top, in the style of the early Beatles. Dad no longer said “Hi, kid,” to Roy. His standard greeting to Roy became, “Get a haircut.”

  Dad and Roy fought endlessly over Roy’s hair. When Roy’s sideburns started to creep south of his earlobes, they fought over those, too. During one battle, Dad compared his haircut to that of Moe of the Three Stooges. Roy yelled at Dad and called him a dinosaur. They shouted in each other’s faces. Roy was eating a banana during the yelling and shouting. Roy gestured wildly with his hands, and a hunk of banana broke off and found its way down the front of Dad’s favorite sports shirt. Dad and Roy didn’t speak for two weeks after the Banana Incident.

  During this silent, cold snap, Roy came home one early evening and emptied a large brown bag of brand-new 45-rpm records onto the coffee table. Dad was reading the Daily News in his easy chair and did not look up. Previously, Roy had purchased exactly one record in his life—“The Ballad of the Green Berets.” But today he had gone on a record-buying spree. There were at least twenty records spread on the coffee table. They cost at least 79 cents each. The old Roy would never blow that much cash in one place.

  Nicky wandered to the coffee table.

  “Whatcha got, Roy?”

  “What does it look like? Don’t put your greasy fingers all over them.”

  Nicky read the record labels out loud.

  “ ‘Peppermint and Polka-Dots,’ by the Ajax Dream Factory.

  “ ‘Bullfrog Betty Gotta Jam,’ by the Funkadelic Limited.

  “ ‘Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby,’ by Flysie and the Gnomes.”

  From behind his Daily News, Dad made a growling sound.

  Roy clicked on the old hi-fi, a 1950s model, the turntable and single speaker encased in a fake mahogany cabinet. He threw back the lid, slid one of the new records out of the sleeve, and placed the record on the turntable. The aging hi-fi popped and hissed and Roy’s song came on, and right away the Eisenhower-era needle skipped.

  “They call me mell … BIP … they call me mell … BIP … they call me mell …”

  Dad crumpled the newspaper into his lap.

  “What the heck is THAT?” he said. “And why is it up so loud? Lower it.”

  Roy bumped the hi-fi with his knee to unstick the needle and said, “It’s a record. My record.”

  The needle skipped again. “That’s right slick … that’s right slick … that’s right slick …”

  “Stupid crappy hi-fi,” Roy said.

  Dad bounded from his chair and reached into the hi-fi cabinet. He grabbed at the record and there was the horrible screech of needle across vinyl.

  “Your record,” Dad said with a smile. “My hi-fi.”

  Roy bellowed, “You ruined my record!”

  “That record was ruined the day they made it,” Dad said.

  Roy slammed the apartment door on his way out.

  “What’s gotten into that kid?” Dad said, because this was before everyone knew the answer—the horrid hippie Margalo.

  Another day, Nicky was alone in the apartment when Roy came home and walked into the kitchen, giggling. He was giggling like a little girl who was handed an oversized lollipop. Nicky had never seen his big brother giggle.

  “What’s so funny?” Nicky said, eager for a good joke. Roy always heard the best jokes.

  “Don’t you see it? The linoleum. It … is
… so … cool,” Roy said, his voice throaty. This was followed by more giggling.

  “What do you mean?” Nicky said. He looked at the linoleum, which was a faded black-and-red checkerboard pattern. It had been in place since before Nicky was born.

  “So … cool,” Roy said, looking down with Nicky. “I like floors. Way better than ceilings, you know?”

  “What’s that smell?” Nicky said, sniffing, trying to identify the odor that was a mixture of Old Spice and wet grass and heavy perfume.

  “Do we have any cream soda? I had three cans of cream soda and I want another. Have you ever noticed the girl on the White Rock label? I mean, really noticed her?” And then Roy slowly walked from the room, giggling and trailing the strange scent. Nicky wondered what on earth was wrong with him, because this was before anyone could guess—the horrid hippie Margalo.

  Mom was the first to get a look at her. Mom was walking up Mayflower on a bright fall afternoon. Walking down Mayflower on the opposite sidewalk were Roy and a girl.

  “Hanging on to each other like chimps at the zoo,” Mom reported.

  “What did she look like?” Dad wanted to know.

  Mom shrugged. “Her hair looked a little messy.”

  Like the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, Mom struck early in the morning, at breakfast, when Roy was sleepy and off-guard.

  “So who’s the dame?” Mom said, stirring coffee, clanging the spoon.

  “Huh? What dame?” Roy said through a froggy throat.

  “The one you were glued to, over on Mayflower Avenue yesterday afternoon.”

  Roy’s face reddened. The muscles in his jaw clenched. But he coolly went on eating Frosted Flakes. And he clammed up like a Mob witness. The only information Mom could extract was that the girl was named Margalo and she was from “around here.”

  For Mom, that was something to go on. At least now she could place a name on the foreign presence that had invaded their lives, lengthening their son’s hair, twisting his taste in music, poisoning him against the old ways.

  One day Mom came into the kitchen as Roy was eating a hoagie. The sandwich had unfamiliar wrappings.

  “Where did you get that?” she demanded.

  “The May-Po Luncheonette. On the other side of Radford Street.”

  “All the way over there? For a sandwich? What’s wrong with Lombardo’s?”

  Mom paused.

  “Ohhh, is that where your friend Mangalo told you to get your sandwiches?”

  Another day, Mom was sorting laundry and while emptying Roy’s pockets, she discovered a book of matches from a place called Louie’s Italian Restaurant in south Yonkers.

  “You have to go all the way up there to eat? Where is this Mango going to lead you next, Timbuktu?” Roy did not stop wandering far from home, but he was more careful about matchbooks.

  By the winter, Roy had developed an oddball habit. By way of greeting, he no longer said the standard “hello.” Instead, he said, “Hey-lo.”

  “Hey-lo, everybody,” Roy said, passing through the living room.

  “Hey-what? What’s with that crap?” Dad said, scowling around the corner of the Daily News.

  “Three guesses,” Mom said from the ironing board.

  Mom and Dad and Nicky wondered what Roy would pull next.

  Then came the Blue Castle hamburger incident.

  Dad hated Blue Castle hamburgers, and he had brought up his sons to hate them, too. No one knew what grudge Dad held against the bite-sized burgers. It was probably another instance of Dad reading a horror story in the newspaper, probably about some kid who ate a Blue Castle hamburger and dropped dead. That kind of story stuck with Dad forever. After reading a story like that, Dad was more likely to eat a hand grenade than a Blue Castle hamburger.

  And on this particular winter evening, Roy came through the apartment door, dripping rainwater, a half-eaten Blue Castle burger in one hand, a Super Max sack of Blue Castle hamburgers in the other hand.

  “Hey-lo,” Roy called with his mouth full.

  Dad said, “What the? Jee-sus. Get those out of here!”

  “Why?” Roy shrugged. “You don’t have to eat them.”

  “What, are you trying to kill yourself?”

  “You’re nuts. You should try one yourself. They’re quite tasty.”

  “Tasty?” Dad said, bewildered, staggered by one thing after another. No one in the family ever uttered the word tasty.

  “Three guesses where he got that,” Mom noted with a smirk.

  Roy tossed a hunk of Blue Castle burger to Checkers. Dad exclaimed, “Now he’s trying to kill the dog!”

  It was clear Margalo was not going to fade away like Roy’s other fleeting passions (roller skates, the harmonica, painting-by-numbers). So Mom needed a closer look at her, and she demanded one. For months, Mom pestered Roy to bring the girl home.

  She nagged Roy.

  She badgered Roy.

  Roy cracked. Out of total exhaustion, he threw up his hands and waved the white flag. He surrendered, and the deal was struck. Margalo would meet the family at Easter dinner.

  All that week, Roy had a severe case of the jitters. He jumped at the sound of loud noises. He talked in his sleep—fearful mumbling. He complained of a nervous stomach and unleashed unusually long, anguished farts from his bed at night. On the morning of the big day, he grimly left the apartment to fetch Margalo and he looked like a boy on his way to the gas chamber.

  The apartment was spruced, primped, and buffed for the special occasion. The rugs were crisscrossed with fresh vacuum tracks. The tables smelled of oil. The plastic slipcover was off the couch.

  Dad set up the “dining table” in the living room. The dining table consisted of a sheet of plywood placed across Roy’s old Junior Play-Town Ping-Pong table. The contraption was then covered by a tablecloth. Dad was the mastermind behind this arrangement. Each time he put it together, he set his hands on his hips and marveled, “Now, that’s using your noggin.”

  Dad was transferring wine from a screwtop jug to a glass decanter and Mom was arranging pink mints in a serving dish. Mom instructed Nicky to get the fancy napkins she had picked up at Walgreens. “They’re in the kitchen,” she said. Nicky went to the kitchen and rummaged in a paper bag on the floor and found a box of Kotex brand sanitary napkins. He opened the box and was impressed. He figured it didn’t get any fancier than individually wrapped napkins. He was placing them near each plate on the table when keys jangled in the lock.

  The door opened and an unfamiliar female voice sounded softly from the hallway. Roy and Margalo walked into the living room.

  “Hey-lo, everyone,” Margalo said with a small wave.

  Margalo had blue eyes and chestnut hair, straight and parted in the middle. Her hair ended in a pert flip at the shoulders. She was slightly shorter than Mom. The top of her head only reached to Roy’s chin. She wore an orange-and-lime-green blouse of a swirly design, and a teensy, pure white mini skirt.

  Roy mumbled introductions. Margalo smiled brightly, and the corners of her mouth slipped under her hair.

  Dad gazed at Margalo and kept pouring until wine glubbed up the neck of the glass decanter and overflowed onto the coffee table and cascaded onto the rug.

  Mom squawked. Dad said, “Sonavabitch!”

  “I’ll show you the rest of the apartment,” Roy said, heavy with despair. “It won’t take long.”

  Mom worked a rag into the wine stain and hissed, “Did you see that skirt?”

  “What skirt?” Dad said.

  “She doesn’t look so evil to me,” Nicky said vacantly.

  Mom said, “Looks can be deceiving.”

  Mom and Margalo were unlikely to get chummy, but a stroke of fate made the idea out of the question. It was just bad luck that Mom was banging pots and pans in the kitchen while she inquired about Margalo’s family.

  Margalo said, “It’s just me, my father, my brother Eugene …”

  And Mom clanged a skillet onto the stovetop as Margalo continued
, “plus my setter, Martha. She’s three.”

  Later events suggested Mom mistakenly heard, “plus my sister, Martha. She’s three.”

  “And what is your family doing for Easter?” Mom said, stirring gravy.

  “Father and Eugene are going to the movies,” Margalo said.

  “Uh-huh,” Mom said. “What about Martha?”

  “She’s home.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “You could have brought her,” Mom said, wrinkling her forehead. “We have plenty of food.”

  “Oh, no,” Margalo said. She chuckled daintily. “My goodness, she’d be a total nuisance. Running around, knocking things over. Drooling, scratching, begging for food.”

  Margalo shook her head at the thought. “Martha can be a total pest,” she said, and she giggled. Mom stared, bewildered, not at all pleased with this coldhearted girl, standing in her kitchen, giggling, wearing a mini skirt.

  Nicky, who was planted near the kitchen table, stared at Margalo, his lower lip hanging open, and he didn’t hear a word said by anyone.

  The other dinner guests, Aunt Serafina and Uncle Dominic, arrived and kissed and hugged everyone including Margalo. Within minutes they all sat around the makeshift dining table.

  “What are these?” Aunt Serafina said, letting an unwrapped sanitary napkin dangle from her thumb and index finger.

  “Nicky, Jesus Christ, are you brain-damaged?” Mom said. “Give me those.”

  “Very nice touch,” said Uncle Dominic.

  “I’m sorry,” Roy said to Margalo, and Mom gave him a hard look.

  They all got started on the food. They dug in and steadily ate, course after course. They ate through the cold cuts and cheeses and roasted peppers and black olives and marinated artichokes and fresh bread from Orzo. They ate through the ravioli. They ate through the lasagna. Mom was the only one who moved from the table, relaying dishes and platters back and forth to the kitchen. By the time the ham hit the table, all eyes were glassy and every forehead was sweaty.