Wait Until Spring, Bandini

by John Fante

  At five o’clock, bored and exhausted, they were finished. Sister Mary Ethelbert lined them up for final inspection. Arturo’s toes ached from bearing his full weight. In weariness he rested himself on his heels. It was a moment of carelessness for which he paid dearly. Sister Mary Ethelbert’s keen eye just then observed a bend in the line, beginning and ending at the top of Arturo Bandini’s head. He could read her thoughts, his weary toes rising in vain to the effort. Too late, too late. At her suggestion he and August changed places.

  His new partner was a kid named Wilkins, fourth-grader who wore celluloid glasses and picked his nose. Behind him, triumphantly sanctified, stood August, his lips sneering implacably, no word coming from him. Wally O’Brien looked at his erstwhile partner in crestfallen sadness, for Wally too had been humiliated by the intrusion of this upstart sixth-grader. It was the end for Arturo. Out of the corner of his mouth he whispered to August.

  ‘You dirty –’ he said. ‘Wait’ll I get you outside.’

  Arturo was waiting after practice. They met at the corner. August walked fast, as if he hadn’t seen his brother. Arturo quickened his pace.

  ‘What’s your hurry, Tall Man?’

  ‘I’m not hurrying, Shorty.’

  ‘Yes you are, Tall Man. And how would you like some snow rubbed in your face?’

  ‘I wouldn’t like it. And you leave me alone – Shorty.’

  ‘I’m not bothering you, Tall Man. I just want to walk home with you.’

  ‘Don’t you try anything now.’

  ‘I wouldn’t lay a hand on you, Tall Man. What makes you think I would?’

  They approached the alley between the Methodist church and the Colorado Hotel. Once beyond that alley, August was safe in the view of the loungers at the hotel window. He sprang forward to run, but Arturo’s fist seized his sweater.

  ‘What’s the hurry, Tall Man?’

  ‘If you touch me, I’ll call a cop.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that.’

  A coupe passed, moving slowly. Arturo followed his brother’s sudden open-mouthed stare at the occupants, a man and a woman. The woman was driving, and the man had his arm at her back.

  ‘Look!’

  But Arturo had seen. He felt like laughing. It was such a strange thing. Effie Hildegarde drove the car, and the man was Svevo Bandini.

  The boys examined one another’s faces. So that was why Mamma had asked all those questions about Effie Hildegarde! If Effie Hildegarde was good looking. If Effie Hildegarde was a ‘bad’ woman.

  Arturo’s mouth softened to a laugh. The situation pleased him. That father of his! That Svevo Bandini! Oh boy – and Effie Hildegarde was a swell-looking dame too!

  ‘Did they see us?’

  Arturo grinned. ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘He had his arm around her, didn’t he?’

  August frowned.

  ‘That’s bad. That’s going out with another woman. The Ninth Commandment.’

  They turned into the alley. It was a short cut. Darkness came fast. Water puddles at their feet were frozen in the growing darkness. They walked along, Arturo smiling. August was bitter.

  ‘It’s a sin. Mamma’s a swell mother. It’s a sin.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  They turned from the alley on Twelfth Street. The Christmas shopping crowd in the business district separated them now and then, but they stayed together, waiting as one another picked his way through the crowd. The street lamps went on.

  ‘Poor Mamma. She’s better than that Effie Hildegarde.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘It’s a sin.’

  ‘What do you know about it? Shut up.’

  ‘Just because Mamma hasn’t got good clothes …’

  ‘Shut up, August.’

  ‘It’s a mortal sin.’

  ‘You’re dumb. You’re too little. You don’t know anything.’

  ‘I know a sin. Mamma wouldn’t do that.’

  The way his father’s arm rested on her shoulder. He had seen her many times. She had charge of the girls’ activities at the Fourth of July celebration in the Courthouse Park. He had seen her standing on the courthouse steps the summer before, beckoning with her arms, calling the girls together for the big parade. He remembered her teeth, her pretty teeth, her red mouth, her fine plump body. He had left his friends to stand in the shadows and watch as she talked to the girls. Effie Hildegarde. Oh boy, his father was a wonder!

  And he was like his father. A day would come when he and Rosa Pinelli would be doing it too. Rosa, let’s get into the car and drive out in the country, Rosa. Me and you, out in the country, Rosa. You drive the car and we’ll kiss, but you drive, Rosa.

  ‘I bet the whole town knows it,’ August said.

  ‘Why shouldn’t they? You’re like everybody else. Just because Papa’s poor, just because he’s an Italian.’

  ‘It’s a sin,’ he said, kicking viciously at frozen chunks of snow. ‘I don’t care what he is – or how poor, either. It’s a sin.’

  ‘You’re dumb. A saphead. You don’t savvy anything.’

  August did not answer him. They took the short path over the trestle bridge that spanned the creek. They walked in single file, heads down, careful of the limitations of the deep path through the snow. They took the trestle bridge on tiptoe, from railroad tie to tie, the frozen creek thirty feet below them. The quiet evening spoke to them, whispering of a man riding in a car somewhere in the same twilight, a woman not his own riding with him. They descended the crest of the railroad line and followed a faint trail which they themselves had made all that winter in the comings and goings to and from school, through the Alzi pasture, with great sweeps of white on either side of the path, untouched for months, deep and glittering in the evening’s birth. Home was a quarter of a mile away, only a block beyond the fences of the Alzi pasture. Here in this great pasture they had spent a great part of their lives. It stretched from the backyards of the very last row of houses in the town, weary frozen cottonwoods strangled in the death pose of long winters on one side, and a creek that no longer laughed on the other. Beneath that snow was white sand once very hot and excellent after swimming in the creek. Each tree held memories. Each fence post measured a dream, enclosing it for fulfillment with each new spring. Beyond that pile of stones, between those two tall cottonwoods, was the graveyard of their dogs and Suzie, a cat who had hated the dogs but lay now beside them. Prince, killed by an automobile; Jerry, who ate the poison meat; Pancho the fighter, who crawled off and died after his last fight. Here they had killed snakes, shot birds, speared frogs, scalped Indians, robbed banks, completed wars, reveled in peace. But in that twilight their father rode with Effie Hildegarde, and the silent white sweep of the pasture land was only a place for walking on a strange road to home.

  ‘I’m going to tell her,’ August said.

  Arturo was ahead of him, three paces away. He turned around quickly. ‘You keep still,’ he said. ‘Mamma’s got enough trouble.’

  ‘I’ll tell her. She’ll fix him.’

  ‘You shut up about this.’

  ‘It’s against the Ninth Commandment. Mamma’s our mother, and I’m going to tell.’

  Arturo spread his legs and blocked the path. August tried to step around him, the snow two feet deep on either side of the path. His head was down, his face set with disgust and pain.

  Arturo took both lapels of his mackinaw and held him.

  ‘You keep still about this.’

  August shook himself loose.

  ‘Why should I? He’s our father, ain’t he? Why does he have to do that?’

  ‘Do you want Mamma to get sick?’

  ‘Then what did he do it for?’

  ‘Shut up! Answer my question. Do you want Mamma to be sick? She will if she hears about it.’

  ‘She won’t get sick.’

  ‘I know she won’t – because you’re not telling.’

  ‘I am too.’

  The back of his hand ca
ught August across the eyes.

  ‘I said you’re not going to tell!’

  August’s lips quivered like jelly.

  ‘I’m telling.’

  Arturo’s fist tightened under his nose.

  ‘You see this? You get it if you tell.’

  Why should August want to tell? What if his father was with another woman? What difference did it make, so long as his mother didn’t know? And besides, this wasn’t another woman: this was Effie Hildegarde, one of the richest women in town. Pretty good for his father; pretty swell. She wasn’t as good as his mother – no: but that didn’t have anything to do with it.

  ‘Go ahead and hit me. I’m telling.’

  The hard fist pushed into August’s cheek. August turned his head away contemptuously. ‘Go ahead. Hit me. I’m telling.’

  ‘Promise not to tell or I’ll knock your face in.’

  ‘Pooh. Go ahead. I’m telling.’

  He tilted his chin forward, ready for any blow. It infuriated Arturo. Why did August have to be such a damn fool? He didn’t want to hit him. Sometimes he really enjoyed knocking August around, but not now. He opened his fist and clapped his hands on his hips in exasperation.

  ‘But look, August,’ he argued. ‘Can’t you see that it won’t help to tell Mamma? Can’t you just see her crying? And right now, at Christmas time too. It’ll hurt her. It’ll hurt her like hell. You don’t want to hurt Mamma, you don’t want to hurt your own mother, do you? You mean to tell me you’d go up to your own mother and say something that would hurt the hell out of her? Ain’t that a sin, to do that?’

  August’s cold eyes blinked their conviction. The vapors of his breath flooded Arturo’s face as he answered sharply. ‘But what about him? I suppose he isn’t committing a sin. A worse sin than any I commit.’

  Arturo gritted his teeth. He pulled off his cap and threw it into the snow. He beseeched his brother with both fists. ‘God damn you! You’re not telling.’

  ‘I am too.’

  With one blow he cut August down, a left to the side of his head. The boy staggered backward, lost his balance in the snow, and floundered on his back. Arturo was on him, the two buried in the fluffy snow beneath the hardened crust. His hands encircled August’s throat. He squeezed hard.

  ‘You gonna tell?’

  The cold eyes were the same.

  He lay motionless. Arturo had never known him that way before. What should he do? Hit him? Without relaxing his grip on August’s neck he looked off toward the trees beneath which lay his dead dogs. He bit his lip and sought vainly within himself the anger that would make him strike.

  Weakly he said, ‘Please, August. Don’t tell.’

  ‘I’m telling.’

  So he swung. It seemed that the blood poured from his brother’s nose almost instantly. It horrified him. He sat straddling August, his knees pinning down August’s arms. He could not bear the sight of August’s face. Beneath the mask of blood and snow August smiled defiantly, the red stream filling his smile.

  Arturo knelt beside him. He was crying, sobbing with his head on August’s chest, digging his hands into the snow and repeating: ‘Please August. Please! You can have anything I got. You can sleep on any side of the bed you want. You can have all my picture show money.’

  August was silent, smiling.

  Again he was furious. Again he struck, smashing his fist blindly into the cold eyes. Instantly he regretted it, crawling in the snow around the quiet, limp figure.

  Defeated at last, he rose to his feet. He brushed the snow from his clothes, pulled his cap down and sucked his hands to warm them. Still August lay there, blood still pouring from his nose: August the triumphant, stretched out like one dead, yet bleeding, buried in the snow, his cold eyes sparkling their serene victory.

  Arturo was too tired. He no longer cared.

  ‘Okay, August.’

  Still August lay there.

  ‘Get up, August.’

  Without accepting Arturo’s arm he crawled to his feet. He stood quietly in the snow, wiping his face with a handkerchief, fluffing the snow from his blond hair. It was five minutes before the bleeding stopped. They said nothing. August touched his swollen face gently. Arturo watched him.

  ‘You all right now?’

  He did not answer as he stepped into the path and walked toward the row of houses. Arturo followed, shame silencing him: shame and hopelessness. In the moonlight he noticed that August limped. And yet it was not a limp so much as a caricature of one limping, like the pained embarrassed gait of the tenderfoot who had just finished his first ride on a horse. Arturo studied it closely. Where had he seen that before? It seemed so natural to August. Then he remembered: that was the way August used to walk out of the bedroom two years before, on those mornings after he had wet the bed.

  ‘August,’ he said. ‘If you tell Mamma, I’ll tell everybody that you pee the bed.’

  He had not expected more than a sneer, but to his surprise August turned around and looked him squarely in the face. It was a look of incredulity, a taint of doubt crossing the once cold eyes. Instantly Arturo sprang to the kill, his senses excited by the impending victory.

  ‘Yes, sir!’ he shouted. ‘I’ll tell everybody. I’ll tell the whole world. I’ll tell every kid in the school. I’ll write notes to every kid in the school. I’ll tell everybody I see. I’ll tell it and tell it to the whole town. I’ll tell them August Bandini pees the bed. I’ll tell ’em!’

  ‘No!’ August choked. ‘No, Arturo!’

  He shouted at the top of his voice.

  ‘Yes sir, all you people of Rocklin, Colorado! Listen to this: August Bandini pees the bed! He’s twelve years old and he pees the bed. Did you ever hear of anything like that? Yipee! Everybody listen!’

  ‘Please, Arturo! Don’t yell. I won’t tell. Honest I won’t, Arturo. I won’t say a word! Only don’t yell like that. I don’t pee the bed, Arturo. I used to, but I don’t now.’

  ‘Promise not to tell Mamma?’

  August gulped as he crossed his heart and hoped to die.

  ‘Okay,’ Arturo said. ‘Okay.’

  Arturo helped him to his feet and they walked home.

  Chapter Six

  No question about it: Papa’s absence had its advantages. If he were home the scrambled eggs for dinner would have had onions in them. If he were home they wouldn’t have been permitted to gouge out the white of the bread and eat only the crust. If he were home they wouldn’t have got so much sugar.

  Even so, they missed him. Maria was so listless. All day she swished in carpet slippers, walking slowly. Sometimes they had to speak twice before she heard them. Afternoons she sat drinking tea, staring into the cup. She let the dishes go. One afternoon an incredible thing happened: a fly appeared. A fly! And in winter! They watched it soaring near the ceiling. It seemed to move with great difficulty, as though its wings were frozen. Federico climbed a chair and killed the fly with a rolled newspaper. It fell to the floor. They got down on their knees and examined it. Federico held it between his fingers. Maria knocked it from his hand. She ordered him to the sink, and to use soap and water. He refused. She seized him by the hair and dragged him to his feet.

  ‘You do what I tell you!’

  They were astonished: Mamma had never touched them, had never said an unkind thing to them. Now she was listless again, deep in the ennui of a teacup. Federico washed and dried his hands. Then he did a surprising thing. Arturo and August were convinced that something was wrong, for Federico bent over and kissed his mother in the depths of her hair. She hardly noticed it. Absently she smiled. Federico slipped to his knees and put his head in her lap. Her fingers slid over the outlines of his nose and lips. But they knew that she hardly noticed Federico. Without a word she got up, and Federico looked after her in disappointment as she walked to the rocking chair by the window in the front room. There she remained, never moving, her elbow on the window sill, her chin in her hand as she watched the cold deserted street.

  Stran
ge times. The dishes remained unwashed. Sometimes they went to bed and the bed wasn’t made. It didn’t matter but they thought about it, of her in the front room by the window. Mornings she lay in bed and did not get up to see them off to school. They dressed in alarm, peeking at her from the bedroom door. She lay like one dead, the rosary in her hand. In the kitchen the dishes had been washed sometime during the night. They were surprised again, and disappointed: for they had awakened to expect a dirty kitchen. It made a difference. They enjoyed the change from a clean to a dirty kitchen. But there it was, clean again, their breakfast in the oven. They looked in before leaving for school. Only her lips moved.

  Strange times.

  Arturo and August walked to school.

  ‘Remember, August. Remember your promise.’

  ‘Huh. I don’t have to tell. She knows it already.’

  ‘No, she doesn’t.’

  ‘Then why does she act like that?’

  ‘Because she thinks it. But she doesn’t really know it.’

  ‘It’s the same.’

  ‘No it isn’t.’

  Strange times. Christmas coming, the town full of Christmas trees, and the Santa Claus men from the Salvation Army ringing bells. Only three more shopping days before Christmas. They stood with famine-stricken eyes before shop windows. They sighed and walked on. They thought the same: it was going to be a lousy Christmas, and Arturo hated it, because he could forget he was poor if they didn’t remind him of it: every Christmas was the same, always unhappy, always wanting things he never thought about and having them denied. Always lying to the kids: telling them he was going to get things he could never possibly own. The rich kids had their day at Christmas. They could spread it on, and he had to believe them.

  Wintertime, the time for standing around radiators in the cloak rooms, just standing there and telling lies. Ah, for spring! Ah, for the crack of the bat, the sting of a ball on soft palms! Wintertime, Christmas time, rich kid time: they had high-top boots and bright mufflers and fur-lined gloves. But it didn’t worry him very much. His time was the springtime. No high-top boots and fancy mufflers on the playing field! Can’t get to first base because you got a classy necktie. But he lied with the rest of them. What was he getting for Christmas? Oh, a new watch, a new suit, a lot of shirts and ties, a new bicycle, and a dozen Spalding Official National League Baseballs.