Eggplant Alley (9781593731410)

by Cataneo, D.

  “E vero,” Dad said gravely. The only time Dad spoke Italian was on Cherry Street.

  Barella muttered and told the same sad story he told the last time Nicky was there, and the three visits before that. So many black people were moving into the neighborhood and so many white people were moving out, he barely had enough customers to keep up business.

  “I had to let go of Enzo,” he said, thrusting the scissors toward the unused barber’s chair, narrowly missing Nicky’s ear with the thrust. “I couldn’t cut the coloreds hair even if I wanted to. I can’t cut that hair. It’s like wool.”

  Barella snipped and muttered and exhaled and Nicky choked on the smells of coffee and salami on Barella’s hot breath.

  The door opened, the bell tinkled, and Frankie “The Pimento” Cabrone strutted into the shop.

  “Hey, Frank-EE,” Barella said, perking up. He rested his hands on Nicky’s shoulders. The Pimento was the neighborhood bookmaker, and he used the pay phone in the rear room of Barella’s to call in his illegal bets.

  “Cheechi,” the Pimento said to Barella. “I got some stuff you may be interested in. Watches.”

  “Bring ’em by,” Barella grunted.

  Barella poised his scissors and comb, ready to resume cutting. Emboldened by the pause, recalling the scent of green apples, Nicky said quietly, “Um, please leave it a little longer than usual on top.”

  “What?” Barella said, leaning his ear closer to Nicky. “What did you say? I didn’t hear you.”

  “I was wondering if you could leave it a little longer than usual on top, so I could have a little something to, you know, comb.”

  Barella rested his hands on Nicky’s shoulders again.

  “Hey, Salvatore,” he called to Dad. “What have we got here, another one who wants to wear the hair like a girl?”

  “Eesh,” Dad said, disgusted. “Another one to give me agita. He didn’t even wanna come down here today. I had to drag him.”

  “What’s the matter with you?” Barella barked in Nicky’s ear. “Don’t you want to look like a man? Why do you kids all want to have your hair looking like someone dropped a mop on your head?”

  “I just thought …”

  “You thought. Hey Salvatore, he thought. These kids. Muddun, these kids. Imagine if you told YOUR father you refused to get a haircut!” With each syllable, Barella slashed a piece out of Nicky’s hair.

  Dad sat back in his chair, rubbing his chin. Nicky wished Dad would spring to his defense. But Dad just sat, rubbing his chin. Nicky suspected Dad’s mind was on something else. Nicky imagined Dad was thinking about this day, Roy’s twentieth birthday, and remembering old days and the cake he brought home from Orzo’s on Roy’s first birthday; and the tin milk truck on Roy’s fifth birthday; and the cowboy hat and cap gun on Roy’s seventh birthday; and the Mercury Space Capsule model kit on Roy’s eleventh birthday.

  While Barella snipped with a vengeance, Nicky looked at the empty seat next to Dad, the one in which Roy would sit after his haircut. Roy always went first. Roy would fidget and watch Nicky’s turn in the chair, making faces and blowing bubbles with the free gum Barella handed out to kid customers.

  “Whatsamatta with these kids?” Barella muttered, swiveling Nicky’s head forward and clipping with gusto. “No sense of responsibility. They dress like girls and grow beards and run around like crazy people. Kids today. Hanno un atteggiamento ostile.”

  “You bet,” Dad said.

  From the rear seats, Junior pointed a bony finger toward Barella and piped up, “My grandson. The other day. He throws a banana at my son when he tells him to get a job.”

  Barella started the electric clippers and went to work on the top of Nicky’s head.

  “Hey, tell me about it,” Barella said, speaking up over the buzzing clippers. “What a world, huh? That’s what I took a Kraut bullet in the foot for. So the coloreds can take over, our kids can throw bananas in our face and wear their hair like Ish Kabibble.”

  He threw up his hands, pinching Nicky’s jawbone with the clippers.

  “We slaved for them. What for? Huh? What for? What for? I’ll tell you what for. So your kid can wear his hair like Ish Kabibble and my kid can buy a Japanese car. Did I tell you that? Anthony went out and bought one of them Jap cars. Like a Chevy ain’t good enough for him.”

  Barella resumed work, grinding the electric clipper into Nicky’s head.

  “This is good, Nicola. You’re gonna get a good old-fashioned haircut. Like a man,” Barella said, calming down.

  When Nicky and Dad got home, Mom examined Nicky’s hair, which looked like it had been cut by a drunken monkey with garden shears.

  “Heavens to Betsy, what did Barella do to you?” Mom gasped.

  “He can wear a hat,” Dad said.

  A Taste of Blue Castle 32

  After church on Sunday, Nicky lit a candle and prayed for miraculous hair growth. Record-breaking hair growth. Hair growth eligible for Ripley’s Believe It or Not. He had only six days. Six days before his next visit to the Only House With Trees. Six days till the next afternoon with Margalo, the treasure of a girl who adored boys with long hair.

  Like all bad haircuts, this haircut had staying power. Nicky read somewhere that hair grows faster while you sleep. So he went to bed directly from the supper table on Wednesday night. Mom suspected illness and awoke him to take his temperature.

  On Thanksgiving, Nicky wondered if turkey promoted hair growth. He ate two helpings.

  The Saturday after Thanksgiving arrived. It was the day of his visit with Margalo. That morning, Nicky ran straight from his bed to the bathroom mirror. His head was still a hacked-up mess. He hurried to the hall closet and dug out his wool winter cap. He would simply have to wear this wool cap with a snowflake pattern. Maybe Margalo would take it as some sort of hippie statement.

  Wearing his hat, Nicky walked down Summit toward Mayflower. He sweated hard. Temperatures in New York that day were shattering records. The man on the radio said highs should reach the low seventies.

  Nicky knocked on the massive door to the Only House With Trees. He looked at the stone lions and the stone lions looked back with amused eyes. Margalo opened the door.

  “Hey-lo,” she said. She studied Nicky’s face. She smiled. “What’s with the hat?”

  Nicky shrugged.

  “You’re going to broil in that,” she said, as they walked through the big house, across the thin rugs, past the musty books, to the big kitchen.

  “I just feel like wearing it,” Nicky said. It was the best he could come up with.

  “That’s cool,” Margalo said. She lifted her chin and assessed the hat. She nodded. “Let your free spirit fly.”

  Nicky nodded dumbly.

  “Let’s do homework,” Margalo said.

  Nicky tried to concentrate on algebra, but he was hot in the hat. The wool itched his scalp. He was also strongly distracted by the smell of green apples from across the kitchen table. Margalo was tip-tapping a political science term paper on an orange portable typewriter. Nicky secretly watched her. He could not keep his eyes on his workbook. She stopped typing and sucked on her lower lip, deep in thought. She chewed on a pencil. He watched her teeth press into the soft, yellow wood. She nodded at the paper in the typewriter carriage, and tip-tapped faster. Nicky felt empty, deep in his stomach.

  He tried to say something. “You are a great typist,” he said. “You could be a professional secretary.”

  “Ugh. Perish the thought,” Margalo said.

  “Yes, perish it,” Nicky agreed.

  Late in the afternoon, purple clouds rolled in and the temperature plummeted. Nicky’s head no longer itched.

  “I’m famished,” Margalo announced, tossing her pencil on the table. “What do you say we go pick up some hoagies?”

  “I could eat a horse,” Nicky said. He felt hungry and festive.

  “We’ll need coats.”

  From the breezeway, Margalo grabbed a man’s corduroy jacket. She wo
re it over her blouse and flared blue jeans. For Nicky, she produced a worn army field jacket. The jacket was embroidered with a peace symbol; an upside-down American flag; another flag, with a yellow star, same as the flag tacked over Eugene’s mattress; a button that recommended, STOP THE WAR NOW.

  Nicky said, “Is this yours?”

  “This is Eugene’s,” Margalo said.

  “I don’t think it’ll fit me.”

  “Roll up the sleeves, it will fit.”

  “I don’t need a coat.”

  “You wear a hat, but you don’t need a coat. That makes sense. Put it on. There. It looks great on you.”

  “Maybe Eugene will need it.”

  “He’s skiing in Vermont for the weekend. Let’s go.”

  Margalo and Nicky walked down Mayflower toward Broadway in the cooling night. Nicky hunkered deep into the field coat, trying to stay warm, hoping to stay unrecognizable. What if Mom or Dad happened to see him, hippie girl at his side, hippie coat on his back? Nicky shuddered. He did not want to imagine that one.

  “What flag is this?” Nicky said, examining the coat.

  “I believe that is the flag of the National Liberation Front.”

  “Whazzat?”

  “You know. The Vietcong.”

  Nicky didn’t say anything. Now he calculated the chances of running into Mom and Dad, the way a swimmer calculates the chance of sharks.

  When they hit Broadway, Nicky veered to the right toward Lombardo’s. Margalo walked to left.

  “Come with me,” she said.

  “Where?”

  “The May-Po Luncheonette,” she said proudly.

  Nicky shrugged and followed her. They passed under a streetlamp, and the bulb burned out as they walked.

  “Make a wish,” Margalo said.

  Nicky clenched his eyes shut. He concentrated, then relaxed. “There.”

  “What was your wish?”

  “If I say, then it won’t come true.”

  “That’s only for birthday candle wishes. What did you wish? You can tell me.”

  Nicky could do nothing but tell the truth.

  “I wished that Roy comes back in the spring and we play stickball together just like the old days.” It was the first thing that popped into his head, so the words spilled from his mouth. But immediately he worried about Margalo’s reaction. He would have preferred to say he wished for something more noble—peace on earth, goodwill toward men, mandatory recycling of bottles and paper.

  “I know it’s silly,” he said, shrugging.

  “No way. That was a sweet wish,” Margalo said.

  Nicky and Margalo passed a mailman, in uniform but without a mailbag. The mailman wore a crew cut straight out of the good old days. As he walked by, the mailman sucked on a cigarette and flickered his red eyeballs across Nicky’s jacket, then glared at Nicky and Margalo with pure hate.

  “Rotten creeps,” the mailman muttered.

  “Fascist pig,” Margalo snapped.

  Nicky wanted to call after him, “Mister! This is not my coat! I am NOT one of Them!”

  They stopped at the curb to cross Radford. Nicky said, “Where is this place, Timbuktu?”

  “It’s worth the walk. They make the best hoagies,” Margalo said.

  They crossed Radford Street and continued to walk south. Nicky felt like he was strolling across the face of the moon. He was only six blocks from Eggplant Alley, but he had never walked this far south on Broadway before. This was his first time on foot past Radford. There was no reason to walk down here. It would be like going all the way to Shea Stadium to see the Mets when the Yanks were right here in your backyard. Why bother? Everything you needed was within four blocks of Eggplant Alley—Popop’s, Lombardo’s, Mary’s Bakery, the A&P, the Paramount Movie House, Tom Thumb Toys, Izzy’s Used Autos. Now Nicky was strolling past an Ernie’s Bakery, a Super Shop, an RKO theater, a Sam’s Chevy. Strange places, with strange goods and services, with strange people on the sidewalks. And across the street, Nicky saw the periwinkle neon of the strangest place of all—the Blue Castle hamburger stand.

  “Home of the killer hamburger,” Nicky mused silently. “So that’s where it is.” Nicky shivered to imagine Roy actually walking in there, actually eating those hamburgers.

  Nicky and Margalo reached the May-Po Luncheonette. The green awning was rolled up tight, the windows were dark, the neon sign advertising Kent cigarettes was switched off. A placard on the door informed, SORRY! CLOSED. COME AGAIN! Margalo tried the door anyhow, the way disappointed people do.

  “Bummer,” Margalo said. “They make the best hoagies.”

  “Lombardo’s makes pretty good hoagies, too.”

  Margalo wrinkled her nose. “Yuck, Lombardo’s. Grease,” she said.

  Nicky shrugged. “Yeah. Yuck.”

  They walked back the way they came. Margalo said, “I am starving.” And Nicky could see the next development coming, like a runaway train, like a fly ball to the face, like the papers being passed around for an algebra test for which he did not study.

  “Hey,” Margalo said. The winking neon from the Blue Castle reflected in her eyes.

  “Oh,” Nicky said. “I dunno. I really don’t like Blue Castle hamburgers.”

  “Have you ever tried them?”

  “Well, sort of. No.”

  “Silly. Then how can you know? They’re quite tasty. Come on, I’ll buy you a bag. My treat.”

  “Nah. You know, I’m not hungry.”

  “You lie. You said you were starved.”

  “All this walking kinda killed my appetite.”

  Margalo placed her hands on her hips. She set her mouth. She locked her eyes onto Nicky’s.

  “What is it with you Martini boys?” she said. “I practically had to drag Roy into trying Blue Castle. You would have thought I was trying to get him to eat live slugs or rat poison or something. And then he LOVED them.”

  Nicky watched her lips as she spoke. He thought they resembled soft little red pillows. He smelled green apples on the cool air. He felt powerless. And he followed Margalo across Broadway, into the Blue Castle.

  They stood on line. Nicky looked out through the glass at the street. He half expected Dad to burst through the door, yelling “Stop!”

  Margalo ordered two sacks of the tiny, bite-sized burgers. One sack for her, one sack for Nicky. She insisted they eat the burgers on the spot, at the counter that rimmed the outer wall of the restaurant. “We don’t want them to get cold,” she said.

  They sat at the window, where every passerby on Broadway could see. Nicky unwrapped a Blue Castle burger. He held it. He sniffed it. He eyed it.

  “Honestly, just eat it,” Margalo said. “You’ll love it.”

  Nicky took a small nibble, then a bite. He waited for wrenching gut pains, twitches and spasms, death. He bit again. He chewed and he did not want to love it, he was appalled at the thought of loving it, but he could not fight the sensation. He loved it.

  He said to Margalo, “Tasty.”

  Nicky and Margalo walked home by way of Radford. They passed Ludlow Park, shadowy and sinister in the night. Nicky was anxious to move along. He imagined dozens of muggers and drug fiends following them with beady eyes. His legs crawled with the urge to put some distance between them and the wretched evils of Ludlow Park. He knew if there were trouble, it would fall to him to defend Margalo, to the death.

  But Margalo stopped walking. “Look,” she said. “How sad.”

  At the edge of the park, on a battered wooden bench facing the sidewalk, under a cracked lamp light, an old black women huddled inside a frayed cloth coat. She held a purse tightly in her lap and a paper bag at her side. From inside the sack the woman produced a peanut, which she held out for a squirrel. The squirrel tittered on the dirt near her worn sneakers. The squirrel placed one claw on the woman’s leg, and carefully plucked the peanut from the woman’s hand.

  “I didn’t know squirrels came out at night,” Nicky said, who was frightened by squirrels a
nd their potential for rabies.

  “This one does,” said Margalo. “I see that poor old woman here whenever I pass by this time of night. Every night around six thirty, she’s here. That squirrel is probably her only companion.”

  “It’s sad,” Nicky said.

  “It’s beautiful,” Margalo said.

  “It’s beautiful,” Nicky said.

  “She has nothing. She has been denied all the dignities of life. Yet she finds the time and compassion to come here and feed that squirrel.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Nicky said.

  “It’s sad,” Margalo said. “Look at the scene. The woman has such dignity. But we as a society can’t match her dignity. We consume and discard. I was just writing about this today in my polysci paper. And because of our piggishness, we force her to sit in garbage. Look at that.”

  Margalo was right. Behind the bench where the woman sat, on the ground all around her, the hard-packed turf was littered by scores of bottles, cans, and newspapers. The debris stretched out far into the darkness. It was like a garbage dump. You could not take a step without tripping over a bottle or can.

  “Look at that,” Nicky said. “Somebody should do something about that.”

  “Somebody,” Margalo said. “Always somebody.”

  Margalo stared straight into Nicky’s face. His head itched again under the wool cap.

  “Always somebody else,” she said.

  Nicky could see Margalo’s breath in the cold air, a lovely delicate cloud in the night. He was startled by the blue of her eyes, even in the dim light. A breeze stirred. Nicky caught a whiff of green apples and Blue Castle burgers. His mind clicked and whirred wildly. Beautiful, heartbreaking notions began to form.

  “One person can make a difference,” Margalo said.

  “So can two people,” Nicky said, his throat dry. “Why not us?”