The Domino Effect

by Andrew Cotto

  We scored our bounty from the sea and walked the main avenue of our old neighborhood. Pop nodded or smiled at some of the people we passed on the street, stopping to talk with a few. We didn’t recognize most of the people, though, which was weird, because we used to know everybody. We walked past familiar buildings that didn’t seem to know us anymore. I could still feel it, though, that same concrete under my shoes, the asphalt in my veins.

  The people were a little darker than us, and there seemed to be more of them. More cars, too. The metal garbage cans on some corners spilled over with trash. I heard music, and the only time you heard music before was when someone got married, or that time in ‘86 when the Mets won the World Series. Almost everybody spoke in Spanish. People were out on the street, shopping and mixing it up, just like we used to. I got sad thinking about the way things used to be. I missed my home.

  My thoughts vanished, on the spot, when I saw these three girls coming down the sidewalk. They were about my age, and had dark hair and dark eyes and soft-brown skin. They wore down jackets over pleated Catholic school skirts and nylon socks up to their knees that were red from the cold. With locked arms, smiling and laughing, they came closer and closer. The one in the middle stared at me. She was beautiful in a friendly, exotic way. When they passed, she said something I couldn’t make out, but it must have been funny because all the three of them girls cracked up. She turned her head between her two friends and smiled back at me. I thought about chasing after my very own “Rosalita,” until Pop came back and pulled me along. At the end of the block, Pop went into a place to pick up lunch. I stayed outside the shop, across the street from the string of two-family A-frames, each with a little porch and patch of concrete inside a low iron fence. I looked at our old house.

  I remembered running from our door, jumping down the steps and hopping the fence to join the pack of kids waiting for me. I remembered my mother on the porch, talking and laughing with the neighbors and the ladies in the window above the pastry shop across the street. I thought of all the hours in the alley beside our house, playing catch with Pop until it was too dark to see. I smiled, thinking Pop had it right — it is important to remember.

  Next to the sandwich shop was an open door. It used to be an insurance office or something, but the sign was gone and someone inside worked on a ceiling panel. Across the room, four old guys sat around a card table slapping down dominoes. Music came from a radio. I couldn’t make out much because of the dark, but in the light of the doorway sat a little kid. He had some pieces from the game that he slowly set up. He balanced the first piece on its end. Then, not too far away, he lined up the second. Then, the third piece, he placed just right. He paused for a moment before knocking them all down: bop, bop, bop. He did it again and again, and I kept watching. After a few turns, something struck me. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah.”

  I realized, right then and there, that those pieces were like people, and if one falls down or stays up or doesn’t do anything at all, it affects somebody else, which affects somebody else, and so on, and there you have it. On and on. Good or bad or whatever, it was why Pop always said to do the right thing, because it goes down the line, just like the effect of dominoes falling. I started to think of all the things I had done or hadn’t done, and the effect of all those things, good or bad or whatever, when Pop poked his head out of the shop door.

  “You coming in or what, Pal?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m coming.” And just like I used to, I followed my father, right in line: bop, bop.

  People from all five boroughs came to Vito’s Latticini for sandwiches, homemade cheeses, sausages, you name it. Cured meats hung from the ceiling and the shelves were lined with fresh pastas and sauces and imports from Italy. Through the glass in back, you could see the guy making the cheese, stirring the steaming tub with a wooden paddle. The salty smell filled me with sweet memories. I had lived across the street all my life, and worked there, on and off, since the 4th grade.

  The Mozzarella Sisters, as Pop named them long ago, came from behind the counter to greet us with kisses and hugs and questions, always questions, about how well we’d been eating and behaving. I hadn’t seen them in years, and they went crazy over how much I’d grown, how handsome I’d become. With flour-dusted hands, they tugged and stabbed and barked at me, like Italian ladies do: tough like that, but always with a ton of heart. I missed the sisters. I missed my job and the smell of their shop.

  After they got done with me, they moaned a little about the changing of the neighborhood but, to tell the truth, they didn’t seem all that much worse for the wear. They brought us some justmade mozzarella, which Pop asked them to put on top of the roast pork sandwiches he’d ordered. We took our bags, said our goodbyes, and rode home in silence on the bus.

  Back at the house, the cod was left to soak, and the six other types of fish were all stored proper, before we spilled our bulging Vito’s bag on the kitchen table and got to work. Oh man, the taste of that roasted pork, cut thin and slathered with gravy and mushrooms over the mozzarella — I felt like rubbing it on my chest.

  “You got all your college applications in?” Pop asked after a few sloppy bites.

  “Yep,” I answered from a full mouth.

  I’d gone to the guidance counselor after Thanksgiving. We’d talked about my grades and extra curricular activity, my other interests and whatnot, and I’d left there with a handful of college applications.

  “Tell me the schools again?” Pop asked.

  I went down the list for the umpteenth time since he’d cut the application checks.

  “How come I didn’t hear St. John’s on that list?”

  “I’m not going to St. John’s, Pop.”

  “Why not? It’s a good school, and it’s right here near home. I went there, your mother went there, for two degrees, no less. They owe us.”

  “Hey, Pop,” I said. “I didn’t have a bad time today, but that doesn’t mean I want to be around here again.”

  “You wanna go back to school next week?”

  “Yeah,” I choked.

  “Then do yourself a favor and send off an application to St. John’s.”

  “Whatever,” I said, dropping my sandwich to the plate.

  “I’ll tell you another thing,” he said, wiping his hands. “I don’t care where you get in. I’m not sending you away again unless I think you’re ready.”

  “What?” I asked, my head starting to spin.

  “You heard me,” he said, taking a bite.

  “You can’t do that!”

  “Who are you talking to with that tone?” he asked, chewing slowly.

  I cursed under my breath. Pop swallowed his food.

  “Ascoltame,” he told me to listen in Italian, tugging on my earlobe until I jerked away. “I lost the argument with your mother about sending you to sleep-away at this private school, and the results on that aren’t in yet, but come the end of this year, if I don’t think you’re ready to be away from home again, at college of all places, then you’re not going, simple as that.”

  “What will I do?”

  “You can do lots of things,” he shrugged. “Go to St. John’s or another school around here, get a job. There’s lots you can do. This is America.”

  “Come on, Pop,” I begged. “You can’t do that.”

  With his elbows on the table, he laced his thick fingers. “I don’t know what they’re telling you over at that school, but going away to college is a privilege, OK? In fact, going to college at all is a privilege. I had to do time in the service in order to go, and your mother had to wait until she was a grown woman. So if you think you’re going just because your parents can afford it and some school says they’ll take you, you’re way off the mark.”

  My drowning dreams and burning intestines forced me to make a face.

  “Make that face if you want,” Pop said, “but you have to earn the right to go to college, and I don’t care what the other kids are doing. That’s betw
een them and their parents. What happens with you is between you and me and your mother.”

  Another face wasn’t going to help me any, so I put my head on the table.

  “Hey,” he said, taking my chin in his powerful grip. “I believe in you, Danny, you’re a great kid, and I know you had some tough times, but you gotta get over them or them memories are gonna eat you up. Capisci?”

  I slowly removed his hand from my face, though I had to admit, it felt good there. I sat back and frowned.

  “You’re doing alright, Pal,” he said, nodding. “Just keep it up.”

  “How do you know how I’m doing?”

  “It’s my job to know these things,” he said with a wink. “Now help me with this food.”

  After some silence around the table, I asked Pop if he thought I was a decent enough human being to go away — for one night — to Connecticut. He laughed and said I was. We finished our sandwiches together, like we had a hundred times before, and I couldn’t help thinking back to when Pop was my hero.

  Chapter 11

  I fidgeted for three hours on the train, flipping through magazines. As I got closer, the seaside and the coastal towns relaxed me enough to establish some sort of cool as I stepped into the arctic air. I squinted, trying to adjust to the blinding light.

  Brenda waited under cover in the center of the open platform. She had on a tan cowboy hat and a massive down jacket. It felt like I hadn’t seen her in years.

  “Hey, Sweetie,” she sang. “I can’t believe you’re here!”

  “Me neither,” I said, giving her a hug. “I’ve never been to the North Pole before.”

  Our breath came out in huge clouds, and it seemed like everything around was ready to shatter from the cold.

  “Come on,” she said, taking my arm.

  We climbed into a shiny black Jeep Wagoneer and slammed the doors. Brenda started the car and the dashboard lit up like rocket ship. The Bangles played.

  “You got a CD player in the car?”

  Brenda nodded.

  “You got any other CDs?”

  She shook her head. I blew into my hands and rubbed them together in front of the vents.

  “Here, I have something for you,” Brenda said. She lowered that “Manic Monday” song and motioned to a small package on the dashboard.

  “I thought we weren’t doing gifts”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s nothing really.”

  Inside the package — covered with red paper and wrapped in a green ribbon, was a black wool hat. She snatched it away to put on my head.

  “Ohhh!” I laughed as I looked in the rearview mirror. “You’re a riot, Bren.”

  “I know you don’t like hats, but you could really use one, especially with this cold snap we’re having.”

  “Right now, I’d wear a helmet if you had one.”

  She put the car in gear and left the station. In her town by the sea, a flock of seagulls swam above the storefronts lit with holiday decorations. A policewoman directed traffic without a whistle. We crossed a drawbridge and drove through winding streets with Indian names. Stone walls curved in front of white-washed homes.

  Brenda turned down a lane where I could see the ocean through the trees. The setting sun shot a streak of orange across the horizon. We pulled around a circle at the end of the block and straight into the driveway of the wooden house at the end. Nice place. Two levels with a good-sized lawn out front and a basketball hoop over the garage. A giant wreath hung on a bright red door.

  “Hi,” Brenda announced to the living room. “We’re here.”

  “Why, hello thaire,” her mom chimed in a blistering Boston accent. When she darted into the room, my first thought was that Brenda must be adopted or something, because her mother was a mousy little thing with dark hair and eyes. She had on a tomato-stained apron over a silk shirt and black pants.

  “Pleasha’ to meet you, Dan,” she said shaking my hand.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Divine,” I said. “Thanks for having me.”

  “Of casse,” she insisted. “Don’t think of it. Now come out of this foya’ befoua’ we all freeze to death.”

  Brenda hung up our coats in a nearby closet then took me up the short flight of stairs to a hallway that branched off into three bedrooms and a bath. We left my things in her brother’s room. Then we went to where Brenda slept. Her double bed had a purple shag comforter piled with stuffed animals. A shelf on the wall held a bunch of trophies. There was a poster of a waterfall with a rainbow over it, and one of a kitten covered in spaghetti. UConn paraphernalia had been spread around. Her desk was lined with framed photos, which I immediately scanned for the presence of boys.

  “Whatcha’ looking for?” Brenda asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, straightening up. “Nothing.”

  “Good,” she said, approaching me.

  We kissed in the middle of her room. It felt so safe and private and completely overwhelming that I cupped her backside and baby-stepped us toward the bed.

  “Oh, no,” she insisted, pulling away. “Relax, mister.”

  “You started it.”

  “We better go back downstairs,” she said. She looked sad, like maybe she regretted bringing me into her home.I followed her down the hall.

  In the kitchen her mother stood over a cast iron pot, folding in ingredients from a platter piled with fish. It was a big kitchen with plenty of cupboards and shiny appliances.

  “What are you making, Mrs. Divine?” I asked, leaning into the granite counter by her side.

  “This is Portuguese fish soup,” she said, her head held high. “We have it every New Yea’s fa’ good luck.”

  “You’re Portuguese?”

  “That’s right, my fatha’ was a fishaman from Fall Riva, Massachusetts.”

  “No kidding,” I said, now understanding the little bit of Mediterranean in Brenda’s eyes and skin. I thought maybe I’d been imagining that.

  “So, what’s in the soup?” I asked, crossing my arms.

  “Well, we have mussels, clams, squid, shrimp, some cawd’, of casse.”

  “Cod? You mean baccala?”

  “That’s right!” she said. “You famila’ with baccala?”

  “I’m Italian on both sides. I’ve had it at least once a year since I could chew.”

  “Of casse,” she said. “You have it on Christmas Eve with yoa’ seven fish, right?”

  “It makes my father crazy.”

  “Not a fish lova?”

  “Well, it’s more all of the rigamarole, like he would say. All the cleaning and soaking and everything.”

  “Don’t I know it,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Then there’s all the courses, which is tough on me, being the dishwasher.”

  “I’m shooa,’” she laughed.

  “But it’s tradition,” I pointed out. “And that’s important.”

  “That’s right,” she agreed, swiveling her head to look me in the eye. She had this natural warmth that made you want to be hugged or fed by her. Or both.

  “Hey, you should give me this recipe,” I said. “All we need to do on Christmas Eve from now on is have some soup, and then we can send everybody home.”

  “I’d be happy to help, Dan.”

  She called me Dan. That cracked me up.

  “Thanks,” I said, counting with my fingers. “But we need one more fish. Do you put anything else in?”

  “Just chorizo sausage, afta’ the fish is cooked.”

  “Perfect,” I declared. “Sausage is Pop’s favorite fish.”

  While her mother laughed at my unbelievable wit and charm, Brenda eyed us from the other side of the kitchen, sipping a soda. I winked, and we shared a moment interrupted by the slam of a car door. Brenda straightened and waited for her father. He was a big guy with a big head of curly golden hair. His face was a paler, rounder version of Brenda’s.

  “Hi, Daddy,” Brenda sang, rising on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. “This is Danny.”


  “How are you?” he asked with a flat tone before crushing me with a he-man handshake.

  “Fine, thanks,” I said, fighting the urge to shake the hurt out of my hand.

  He brushed past in a denim shirt and, a mustard-colored work jacket under his arm. He had on construction boots, but they weren’t dirty.

  He took a beer from the refrigerator, stooped down to kiss his wife at the stove, and walked into the giant family room that covered the whole backside of the house. There was a swoosh-and-pop of a can tab opening, followed by the sound of scrunched leather.

  “Don’t get too comfa’table,” Brenda’s mother called out. “Dinna’ will be ready in a minute.”

  We ate around a table in the corner of the family room. Brenda’s brother was away skiing, so I sat in his chair. The soup was good, and I hoped for some of that luck it was supposed to bring. Her father told me about the building supply & home heating oil company his family had owned for three generations. Mrs. Divine told me how she had met her husband, cleaning and cooking at his fraternity house at UConn. The conversation moved along from school to New York to the fact that they had a party to attend that evening. That got my attention.

  “So, where we going anyway?” I asked Brenda after we’d seen her parents off in their party clothes. The kitchen clock read 11 p.m.

  “It’s a surprise,” she said. “But you might want to bring your new hat.”

  “Why don’t we just stay here,” I suggested, looking around the family room with its big, blazing fire, comfy couch, and giant TV.

  “I want to be alone, Danny.”

  “We are alone.”

  “Yeah, but my parents aren’t far, and my father’s not much for parties.”

  “Alright,” I agreed. “So where we going?”

  “Go get your things and you’ll find out.”

  We bundled up and left through the sliding back doors, down the steps of the deck into the quiet night. The sky was clear and it seemed less cold than during the day. Everything was still. After crossing the stone wall that bordered their backyard, we walked the woods, guided by the moonlight shining through the trees. I wondered what bulged in the knapsack thrown over my shoulder.