The Greatest Show

by Michael Downs

  These mornings, Pop, somehow, became bearable—even interesting. Franco noticed that when Pop breathed through his nose, broken flat by a right cross in ’47, the nose made a little whistling noise. He saw how Pop’s hair curled in the spots where his daily dab of petroleum jelly had been sweated or washed or wiped away. He marked that Pop said, “Well—” and clapped hands before lifting himself from a chair. Franco looked at his own hands and wondered how long before his thumbnails would grow so thick and his palms so callused. This daily interest in his father, the mystery of Pop, persisted until someone—Denise, Mom, a neighbor out to walk a dog—interrupted, and Franco bolted from the porch to shower and pick out clothes for school.

  Then it was summer and school ended, and Pop asked Franco whether he might like to join in the run.

  “Get up a little earlier,” Pop said. “I start with calisthenics. Might get you in good shape come football season.”

  They began the next morning in the cellar with one hundred jumping jacks. Then Pop unfolded gym mats, and they each counted off fifty sit-ups and forty push-ups, which Franco could only finish by taking them in groups of ten. On the front sidewalk, father and son stretched. Then they launched themselves into the city.

  To Goodwin Park where they followed the lane around its edge for a mile, then up the hill they had tobogganed in long ago winters.

  Then Cedar Hill cemetery where they rested that first day near the monument of Samuel Colt the gunmaker, and later by that of J. P. Morgan, whose name sounded rich. When they crossed a pond with lily pads, Pop pointed out deer and a heron and wild turkeys.

  Along Fairfield Avenue with its houses of many windows and porch columns and sprawling yards. Down the hill at a bushy blue hydrangea on White Street, then home. When Franco asked why they only ran through the South End’s pretty places, Pop said, “You want to run through a dump?”

  After a few days, Franco could finish the loop without stopping. Then Pop ran faster, so Franco did, too. Then faster again. Franco met every new push, ran stride for stride with his father, panted when he panted, breathed easy when he breathed easy, rolled his neck mid-run as Pop rolled his neck. Franco kept secret how he sensed himself grow taller each morning, faster and stronger, running alongside Pop and becoming someone who could parade among the monuments of great men and be applauded.

  One Sunday, Pop ran straight at the White Street hydrangea.

  Franco turned as usual, then doubled back. Did Pop forget? The next block then. But Pop turned the wrong way, heading farther from home. Franco sprinted to catch up but drew no closer than to see the dawning sun shine off Pop’s sweaty skin, to see the colors of his shorts and T-shirt. A left turn. A right. Nearer West Hartford. Now Pop added distance between them. Franco grunted and picked up his pace. His knees shivered each time a foot slapped concrete. Pop ran through neighborhoods Franco didn’t recognize, along streets he’d never visited. Franco shook his face to keep sweat from his eyes. A leashed dog snarled and charged as he passed its yard; all Franco heard was his own panting. Pop added more distance. Now he turned a corner and Franco couldn’t see him anymore. Now he could. Across railroad tracks. God damn! Shit! Franco’s lungs swelled bigger than his chest. Franco’s lungs turned to stone. What was Pop doing? What was he thinking? Franco hated Pop but couldn’t let him go. He did not think to stop. He did not think to turn home. He chased, he stumbled. He fell forward, step after step …

  Pop stood outside a diner, waiting. He grinned. Franco gasped, “What the fuck?”

  “Don’t use that language with me,” said Pop, but his tone sounded easy, happy.

  Franco doubled over, leaned with elbows on his thighs. His stomach was in his throat. Pop took him by the shoulders, straightened him up. Franco couldn’t focus his eyes, couldn’t stand, couldn’t lie down. Pop’s breath felt hot on his skin. Pop looked into Franco’s eyes, and Franco tried to blink him away but couldn’t. Pop said, “What a warrior.” He cupped the back of Franco’s head with his open palm, pulled his son near. “It embarrasses you,” he said, “that I love you. Okay. But listen. You chased after me. You followed when I went the wrong way, and out here, away from your friends and sister and mother, I can tell you this. You love me. And I love you that much and more, Franco DiFiore. That much and more.”

  Franco opened his eyes. Lights flashed and Pop’s face looked blurry, then clear. Franco blinked hard, then looked again. Yes, Pop was crying. He had never seen Pop cry. Pop made no effort to hide his tears. He said, “French toast and bacon?”

  After breakfast, Pop put a coin in a pay phone. “You better come get us,” he told Mom, “or Franco will miss Mass.”

  Franco did not miss Mass. And he ran with Pop through the summer. Then in August the football team started its annual two-a-day practices, and Franco pleaded exhaustion and skipped the morning run. After practices fell off to one a day, Franco still slept late. Pop ran alone.

  Franco turned sixteen. That fall, on a Friday night, he showered and shaved and slapped his cheeks with aftershave. He dressed in a fake silk shirt and black dungarees. He knotted the laces of his shiny leather shoes. He gargled mouthwash, and when he spit in the sink it was a spit of disgust. He was unhappy. No one in the DiFiore family was happy.

  He’d had plans: a community dance sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. A night for joking with pals and flirting with Catholic girls from the public schools. But then the telephone rang, and it was the Gentinos inviting Mom and Pop for cribbage, and Mom accepted, and then Franco had to explain that he had plans, too, and so he couldn’t hang out with Denise the way he usually did when his parents went out for an evening. Denise lifted her arms as if beseeching God and complained. “I’m a high-school freshman,” she said. “Why can’t I be trusted on my own?” But Mom and Pop didn’t trust her, and they told Franco to stay home, which Franco complained about until he found himself begging to bring his kid sister to a dance. Imagine that.

  Mom and Pop talked it out. They didn’t like their decision; they worried that Denise was too young for her first dance. But all right.

  When the time came to leave, Franco went to fetch Denise from her room. He knocked, but she didn’t answer. He called upstairs and down and from the back porch. No reply. He circled the house, looked up and down the street. Now he looked over to the Nardis’ yellow house, the rain-sodden couch, the dented gutters, the weeds that choked its gardens. Dominic’s window. A light there and from the kitchen. Damn. Maybe it was true, what the girl from Denise’s confirmation class had whispered in his ear.

  At the Nardi front door Franco didn’t knock, because he wanted to surprise them. Knock, and they’d run away. He popped his knuckles, then turned the knob.

  How many years had it been? He stepped through the unlocked door and into darkness. The house was not what he remembered, and it was not like his house, which Mom kept well lit, which smelled of garlic and teenage-girl perfume and fabric softener. The odors of this house spoke of ashtrays and sweaty shoes. The only light came from the back of the house, a narrow and harsh sliver that stabbed into the living room where he stood. It cut across a coffee table, across Mass cards and prayer pamphlets that were creased open, reaching finally to illuminate a birdcage in the corner. The yellow-and-red bird inside called chirr-ip chirr-ip and pecked at seed on the tinny cage floor. Franco pulled the door behind him but didn’t close it, reached into his pants pocket, reassured himself that he had the jackknife he always carried. Somewhere a radio played at a cozy volume, a familiar voice asking, “Anybody want to give blood? Anybody? It is in short supply. All types, but especially B-negative and O-negative are needed.” The bird scratched at its feed. Chirr-ip! Chirr-ip! Franco thought of the dance, of letting public-school girls touch his curly hair, of lighting their cigarettes. He stepped toward the brightness, careful with each footfall so he wouldn’t stumble in the dark. He walked on his toes to keep his leather heels from tapping.

  He didn’t recognize her at first, because he had never seen his si
ster sitting on a kitchen counter, blouse dangling though still tucked into her skirt, bra shiny in fluorescent light, the cup of the bra, the lift of her breast. She looked beautiful and perfect, his sister: her back arched, dark hair loose and bouncy, skin pale, her neck long and muscled and still bearing the thin gold chain and crucifix she’d received for her confirmation. She whispered. She whimpered. Breezes from deep inside her crossed the lips she offered him.

  Who was blue-jeaned and shirtless, hunched over her like a skinny, hairless dog with its face in a bowl, growling, and pressing his fingertips into her skin …

  The lovers broke their grip and looked at Franco as one, as if the roar in his brain had been loud enough to distract them. Denise shrieked and dropped off the counter out of view. Dominic did not act so startled. Had he even looked surprised? He leaned against a wall. He took a cookie off a plate left on the counter. As he chewed, he slid his already unfastened belt free of its loops and wrapped the leather around his right fist so the metal buckle lay across his knuckles.

  “Franco,” he said. “Not a word, buddy. Not to me. Not to Denise. Not to your old man. Not to nobody. Not now. Not ever.”

  Franco said, “We’re going to a dance. She’s supposed to come with me to a dance.”

  “Didn’t I say ‘not a word’?”

  “You need to come with me,” said Franco to Denise, who had edged back into view, still bare-shouldered. She shook her head.

  Franco turned to Dominic. “We’re late already,” he said, distressed by the pleading in his voice. “The dance started. She’s got a ten o’clock curfew.”

  Dominic smashed his belted fist into the plate of cookies, crumbs and shards everywhere. “Didn’t I say ‘not a word’?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” said Denise.

  “You know Pop’s rule.”

  “I know all of Pop’s rules.”

  Dominic laughed. “Don’t go in the Nardi house,” he said, jeering, and he lifted his open hand as if it were the grasping claw of a Halloween monster. “They’re scary, those Nardis. OoooooOOOOoooo! Now here comes Franco the hero to rescue his sister. We’re fine, buddy. I’ll get her back by ten. Meet us for a grinder at Franklin Avenue at half past nine. My treat.”

  “Denise, you don’t want this. C’mon. This isn’t right.”

  “Go away!”

  “You’re outnumbered, cowboy,” said Dominic. “Best run git the sheriff.”

  Franco flipped him a middle finger, then headed for the door. In the living room he stumbled in the darkness, grabbing a doorknob and yanking it. A puff of cool air hit him, but there was no street, only stairs to a basement.

  “Wrong door, hero,” said Dominic, and he pointed across the room.

  Dominic and Denise arrived late to the grinder shop, too near curfew to order a sandwich. Franco played with the wrapping paper of his Italian-sausage-hold-the-fried-onions, watching through the shop window as Denise did not kiss Dominic good-bye but instead swiveled her hips in a way that suggested more than kissing. Franco stepped outside. The streetlights hummed.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Dominic said. “Here’s a couple of bucks for the grinder.”

  “I’m not afraid of you,” said Franco.

  “Yes you are. But for now Daddy’s got your back.”

  At home, Franco followed Denise onto the porch, the two of them passing Pop’s book, face down, the spine cracked. In the kitchen, Pop sat at the table paying bills. Denise poured orange juice over ice and lied about where they’d been, how they’d driven around in Joey Rome’s Impala listening to the car radio, how they stopped for grinders, then walked to Bulkeley for the dance but were glad to keep curfew because Franco noticed a gang of Irish boys there, and you know those Irish boys: They’re trouble.

  Franco looked at her as if she were trouble, and Pop must have noticed because after Denise left the room he said, “You’d miss her if she was gone.”

  “I don’t think so,” Franco said, but he remembered Pop talking about his own sister, the one who had died in the fire, and he knew Pop had reasons for what he said and did that Franco might never understand. Pop said, “It’s important you look out for Denise, keep her out of harm.”

  Franco said nothing, but later, after staying up late enough to watch test patterns on TV, he paused by Pop’s door and listened to him snore, not an easy rhythm but an off-pace, sudden and violent snatching at air. The sound kept Franco awake through the night.

  Dominic lay on a couch in the Nardi basement, working an imaginary throttle and gearshift, crowing about this guy Evel Knievel—“Yeah, that’s his name”—a motorcycle daredevil who jumped cars. It was November 1967. Senior year. Franco listened from a nearby easy chair that had been patched but still leaked stuffing, and he tossed a baseball from hand to hand. They’d become friends again. Denise had a new boyfriend, and Dominic and Franco forged a truce over cold tequila and their shared plans for life after high school, which were no plans. They had in common small paychecks: Franco from his work as a night janitor for a machine-screw company; Dominic from a part-time job at a motorcycle repair shop. They greased their knuckles together on Dominic’s motorcycle, a cheap, wimpy, broken-down British bike that they could get to run every fourth or fifth day. They called the bike Mrs. Vovonovitch, or Mrs. V. For his assistance, Franco received rights to Mrs. V three nights a month. Now and then he convinced a girl to join him for a ride.

  In the Nardi cellar that night, Dominic drank tequila out of a jelly jar and chased it with a can of beer. They could hear above them voices from a television, Mr. Nardi watching My Three Sons.

  “No shit,” Dominic told Franco. “This Evel guy cleared sixteen cars at a show in California. He’s gonna jump fountains at a hotel in Vegas on New Year’s Day. I can see me in that life. Black leathers. A helmet that shines in the sun. Badass boots.”

  “Can you wear that stuff in Vietnam?”

  The night before they’d eaten Chinese takeout, and when they read the fortunes from their cookies, each of them added “… in Vietnam” to the end. Generosity and perfection are your everlasting goals in Vietnam. An unexpected windfall will be yours in Vietnam.

  “Maybe if we get tattoos they won’t take us,” Franco said. He tried bouncing the baseball off the concrete floor of the Nardi basement.

  “Are you shitting me? I want to go.” Dominic reached into the drawer of a nearby table. He pulled out a handgun, checked the magazine. “Shoot me some gooks.”

  Franco had never seen a gun in the hand of someone he knew. He stopped tossing the baseball and pushed back into his seat. “How’d you get that?”

  “I know people,” Dominic said. “I bought it last summer after the craziness in the North End. Better to be prepared.”

  “They weren’t mad at you,” Franco said. “They rioted because of the cops.”

  “Everybody’s mad at everybody. Way of the world. So I’m ready. I’m always at the ready. That’s how you grow up when your old man is weak.” He sneered at the ceiling. “You have to be strong yourself. You wouldn’t know that. Your old man is strong. So you grew up weak.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Dominic giggled. “I’ll bet I can take your old man down with a squeeze or two of this Big Bertha.”

  Franco smiled back at Dominic, a smile he hoped said, “You’re crazy, and I’m not playing,” but he pressed his feet hard against the floor as if ready to leap.

  Dominic returned the pistol to its drawer. “I’ve got keys to the shop,” he said. “Let’s take a joyride. Find bad guys.” He sneered that same sneer. “For old time’s sake. Whaddaya say?”

  Some rich guy had brought in two motorcycles and given the shop a blank check to juice them. “Honda Scramblers,” said Dominic as he and Franco circled the bikes. One motorcycle shone blue, the other red. A little wing marked the left and right of the fuel tank. Chrome fenders. Twin exhaust pipes. The bikes leaned forward like greyhounds.

  “Three-oh-fives,” said Dominic. “We lengthened t
he swing arms, lowered everything so there’s about four inches of clearance. Put on new struts. Souped up the engines. They’re hot rods on two wheels.” He handed Franco a leather jacket out of a closet. Franco fingered the collar.

  “C’mon,” Dominic said. He zipped his. “No one will notice. We always take bikes on test drives, make sure everything runs smooth.”

  “What about helmets?” asked Franco.

  “More fun without them.”

  The bike lurched forward under Franco, yanking away from him when he touched the throttle. “Sensitive son of a bitch!” he shouted. Dominic grinned, then led them away from the shop toward downtown’s high-rise lights.

  They dawdled as Franco grew accustomed to the machine. Old Mrs. V whispered when she ran, but the Scrambler screamed. Franco was still toiling herky-jerky with the Scrambler’s throttle when Dominic started to launch himself from red lights turned green, cranking fast enough to lift the front tire, then leveling out at the posted miles-per-hour. He wove in and out of traffic, and Franco strained to stay with him, pushing his speed as far as he thought he could, then pushing it more, faster than the law allowed. Then they ran easy through the city, the night air cold, the engines hot, and Franco imagined the envy of people stuck in clumsy cars or forced to walk—so slow—while the lights of storefronts and crosswalks flashed in his peripheral vision, fleeting constellations, and Franco riding the rocket.

  Downtown now and Dominic slowed near a curb, then eased the bike up over it. He pointed to Constitution Plaza, the concrete business park raised over the ruins of the ghetto the DiFiores had first called home. “Been a while since you played here, huh?” yelled Dominic. They filled the air with silver exhaust as they rode in circles around concrete water fountains, slalomed between saplings, spun donuts and jerked out of them into straight roaring thrusts, hot rubber tires leaving tracks on the clean concrete and a smell so strong they could taste it. Now and then they paused near each other and howled, then hurtled off again.