by Tony Romano
“You got a mouth on you sometimes, you know that?”
“Yeah, and I can go for another cigarette. My own.”
“You call me a loser and now I’m supposed to fork over a smoke?”
“Let’s go, Darlene,” his sister said.
“Hold on. Like he’s gonna miss one freaking cigarette.”
Darlene looked over his shoulder then, her eyes widening, and Santo turned to see. Eddie stood at the doorway of the club, running a comb through his slicked-back hair that didn’t need combing. He remained rooted there, as if expecting the three of them to come to him, but no one moved. After a while he tucked the comb into his back pocket and swaggered toward them.
“Never mind,” Darlene said. “Maybe Eddie can spare one damn cigarette.”
Santo wanted to slap her. Just once. For the mouth on her. And because Vicki wouldn’t have come around on her own, not here. They’d established an understanding, the three of them. Eddie could talk to Victoria when Santo wasn’t around. But they all had to pretend that nothing was going on. When Santo and Eddie were together, Vicki’s name never even came up. And when Santo was with his sister, Eddie didn’t exist.
“What’s the good word?” Eddie said.
“Cigarette’s a good word,” Darlene said. “How ’bout a cigarette?”
Eddie pulled a pack of Chesterfields from his shirt pocket and handed a cigarette and a book of matches to Darlene.
“Want one, Vick?” Eddie asked.
“No, she don’t want a smoke,” Santo blurted.
“Oh, no?” Eddie said.
“No, they were just going,” Santo said to no one. “So why don’t you go already?”
“What’s the hurry?” Eddie said.
Darlene leaned into Victoria and muttered, “The loser’s gotta win his money back.” Victoria looked at her and flashed a reluctant smile back.
Santo wanted to ignore it. She’d said it soft enough for him to ignore. But the way she’d said it, with the unlit cigarette poised at the corner of her mouth, and using his sister against him like that, tore into him. White heat radiated around his eyes and his temples throbbed. He took a half step toward Darlene and snatched the cigarette from her mouth and crumpled it and slapped the shredded tobacco to the ground. “And Darlene don’t need no smoke neither.”
“Hey—”
“What the fuck you do that for?” Eddie said.
Santo grabbed the Chesterfield pack from Eddie’s curled fingers and crumpled those, too. He let the pack drop from his fingers and roll to the curbstone. “I told you they don’t need no cigarettes. That’s why, asshole.”
Eddie took a step toward his cigarettes on the curb, then turned to Santo, standing chest to chest with him now. “What’s your problem?”
Santo wanted his warm breath out of his face. He shoved him, his hands thudding against Eddie’s chest, sounding more like a punch than a shove. Eddie had to shuffle back to avoid falling, and Santo marched toward him. “They don’t need your fucking cigarettes, I said.”
This would be the end of it, Santo thought. Eddie would make some smart remark to save face because that’s what Eddie did. Always dodging. Sidestepping. Keeping the upper hand with his wide smirk. But this time Eddie glared back and poked Santo in the chest and said, “Don’t you ever fucking push me again. You hear me?”
Santo reared back and drilled him, the punch landing on the fleshy part of Eddie’s chest.
“What are you doing?” Victoria shouted.
Darlene stepped up behind Santo to pull him back by the shirt, and Eddie got a shot in to the stomach. Santo doubled over and pulled away from Darlene’s grip and rushed Eddie and shoved him with both hands. “You prick,” he blared. He reared back again and landed a right on Eddie’s jaw. He felt movement there and a stinging in his knuckles. There was a flurry of wild jabs from both sides then and blood smearing the front of their shirts and Victoria and Darlene wailing for them to stop please stop and the guys from inside the club rushing out finally to break them apart.
“You guys gone fucking crazy?” Pooch said.
“Yeah, you fucking crazy?” Tony repeated.
Santo leaned over and caught his breath. “I told you they don’t need your fucking cigarettes.” He straightened up and said, “Let’s go.”
But his sister and Darlene were already up the block, two houses ahead of him, moving fast.
He thought about the jacket he’d left inside the club, a maroon windbreaker draped over a folding chair near the door. He’d leave it. Give them something to think about. They could burn it, the assholes.
None of Eddie’s jabs had hurt much, but his arms burned and pulsated and he could barely lift them. He tried to shake off a dull ringing in his left ear.
Eddie spit on the ground, checked his jaw, and headed back toward the club. “Crazy fuck,” he said.
Only then did Santo start walking in the direction of his sister and Darlene, wondering what he’d say to them when he caught up. He was fighting over a cigarette? Over a stupid smoke? Because Darlene had called him a loser? Because he was a loser? He couldn’t explain, not so that anyone would understand. Even his sister who’d seen it all wouldn’t get it.
He tasted blood on his tongue and spit out a dull red glob. That prick Milano. He glanced at the rawness of his knuckles. He’d never hit anyone in the face before. He thought he might feel regret, but smashing Eddie’s jaw brought a kind of relief. He wouldn’t have to pretend anymore. Eddie was a piece of shit and Santo didn’t have to let his sister anywhere near him. Even if it took more raw knuckles.
Since June he’d assumed that Eddie had something on him, that Eddie could make trouble for his father. But now he understood. Santo finally understood. All along he’d been protecting his sister. Because on her own, Victoria wouldn’t piece it all together. And this is what that bastard mother-fucker Eddie had agreed to the first time they’d met at the club—to leave Victoria in the dark. But that would change now. Santo would talk to her himself, tell her everything. He needed someone else to know.
For three days she avoided him. Wouldn’t pass him the bread at dinnertime. Wouldn’t look at him when he spoke to her. On Sunday morning when her mother and Freddy were gone to church and her father was out walking and Anthony slept, Victoria charged into his room and turned on the light overhead and pulled the pillow out from under his head. She hoped he’d been having a pleasant dream, running through a field with Brigitte Bardot maybe or just beginning to embrace her.
Santo made a few guttural noises and shielded his eyes. “What,” he grumbled, tucking the top of his head under a corner of the bedspread. This angered her more and she took hold of the corner and ripped the entire covering from the bed in one swipe. An instant of panic surged through her followed by relief when she saw he had on a pair of boxers.
“Get up,” she said, surprised by the authority in her voice.
Santo moaned. “Whata…What time is it?”
“Time for you to get up, Santo Peccatori.”
“You my mother all of a sudden?”
“Call me what you want. But I’ve got a few things to say to you. And I better not have to say it ever again. Are you listening?” She waited for him to lower his hands from his eyes and glance in her direction. “If you ever embarrass me like that again, I’ll…you’ll be sorry. I don’t need you, I don’t want you acting like I need you to protect me or something. Who the hell do you think you are?”
Santo scratched his head. “You’re sixteen.”
“I don’t care if I’m twelve. You better butt out.”
He rubbed his eyes and sat up and stared at his feet.
“I mean it, Santo.”
He peered up at her, one brow arched. “Or what? You’re gonna tell on me?”
“You’re such a—”
“Go ahead, you got names for me? Fire away.”
She had names, all right. But she’d imagined this exchange going differently. She’d expected Santo to fall o
ver himself with apologies.
“Mark my words,” he said slowly. One of Eddie’s expressions.
Victoria ignored his wagging finger and tried to cut him off with an icy glare.
“You keep messing with Eddie,” he said, “and you’re gonna have your own names.”
“And that’s any of your business? What’re you worried about, that people will start talking about Santo’s sister? What they’ll say about you? It’s all about you, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s all about him. There’s only one person that Eddie Milano’s interested in. And that’s himself.”
“Is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“And you’re any different?”
“I am.”
She was surrounded by people who thought they saw more than she did, who knew her interests better than she did. Her mother, Lupa, her other brothers, Father Ernie, and now Santo, who’d been leaving her alone. What they didn’t understand, every one of them, every day of her life, was that their warnings pushed her closer to the things they cautioned against. They were stupid not to see this.
“So tell me. How are you any different, big shot?”
“I’m not a piece of shit, for one.”
“Yeah, you should know.” She moved toward the doorway, wanting to be as far away from him now as she could. “You only see him when he’s with the idiots at the club. That’s why you think that. You all act like idiots when you’re together.”
“Trust me on this one. A royal piece of shit. That’s all he is. He doesn’t care about you.”
“Santo the expert. Maybe you should go on What’s My Line?”
“For this you wake me up?”
“So go back to sleep. I’ll just rip your eyebrows out when you’re sleeping. Would that be better?”
“What the heck do you want from me?”
“I want you to promise.”
“What?”
“To butt out.”
“To butt out.”
“I mean it,” she said.
“You mean it.”
He got up and headed toward the hallway, scratching at his pelvis. She thought of crossing her arms and planting herself in the doorway, but she knew she already lost what little advantage she’d held. He hadn’t cowered as she’d expected. As he neared her she stepped aside.
“Son of a bitch,” she said.
He stopped. “What makes you think he even wants to go out with you anymore after what happened? You think he’s going to want to be looking over his shoulder every time he’s with you?” He waited and glared at her and shook his head. “That coward.”
Whatever had first attracted her to Eddie welled up in her now. Eddie wasn’t only forbidden fruit. Eddie was older and dangerous and took her away from her nooselike family and her dreary neighborhood and the routine of her life for a while, and he made her feel oddly safe at the same time. She didn’t care that he wasn’t perfect. She could change that. People changed.
She let her brother pass and called him a son of a bitch again and walked through the kitchen and down the porch stairs. The streets seemed more deserted than usual for a Sunday morning, people sleeping late or holed up in church. She wished it were night so she could wander off toward Erie and wait for Eddie to appear and they could take a long ride together in his aunt’s boat of a car and she’d let him do whatever he pleased finally.
She reached the end of the block, worrying about running into Mama and Freddy returning from church, then spotted her father turning from their alley. When he saw her he ambled toward her.
“Good girl. You’re going to church?”
“Yeah, Papa.”
“That’s nice. Santo and Anthony, they’re still sleeping?”
“I think so.”
Her father’s hair had gone from a shimmering silver to a street-snow gray since June. He seemed more distracted, even forgetful lately. But he walked with confident strides and smiled easily, and she felt ashamed to admit that she didn’t worry about him. He had his business, with Santo and Uncle Vince watching out for him; he had Mama, who cooked and cleaned for him, who never once objected to his strange devotion to a buxom film star. Victoria barely thought about him at all, her own father.
“That’s good,” Agostino said. “They need sleep.”
For the first time she noticed the deep circles under her father’s eyes, this man who’d lost a son five months ago. She wondered if he ever had the same thoughts she did, if he ever wished that God had taken him instead.
“I better go. Okay, Papa?”
He gazed just beyond her. “Yeah yeah. You go. You pray for me.” His voice seemed to be calling out from some other time.
He kissed her lightly on the cheek, reminding her of girlhood days when he’d pick her up and they’d dance together in the apartment, gliding from one far end to the other. When he got to the threshold of the dining room or the kitchen he’d leap into the room and swing her around and land with the most nimble of feet, and she felt she could stay in his arms like that forever, her fingers wrapped at the back of his neck, his shaving smells filling her. After a few dances he’d become winded and put her down and they’d waltz together for a few minutes more until the radio announcer broke in with a few words of station news. After that the spell would be broken, but he’d keep her hand and they’d walk through the neighborhood, father and daughter. He’d have her imagine they were walking through his village in Italy, and he’d describe the mountain ranges they’d see, the olive trees they’d pass. She’d stare up at the catalpas and the maples and imagine groves of them dwarfed by mountaintops, and the shingled houses before her would recede as she squeezed Papa’s hand, her thumb pressing into the cleft of his warm palm.
As she grew older something happened between them. Something wedged them apart. In her memory, it happened overnight, though she knew this couldn’t be. She started changing, and her father didn’t know what to do with her, how to hold her, what to say to her. The pudgy hand he once reached for was no longer there. In its place was this new hand with delicate fingers. Overnight, their dancing days fell behind them like stiff pages in an ancient photo album.
She watched him walk away and wanted to return to the safety of his arms. She wanted to tell him everything so he would keep her at his side and protect her from all the imperfect men in the world. She wanted to glide in his arms again and feel the softness at the back of his neck, take in his barbershop smells. But as he turned into the gangway of their apartment building and disappeared, she knew that those desires would be muffled soon by other more pressing urges she could barely control.
December 1957. The first Christmas without Benito. No one had bothered to haul up the tree from storage in the basement, its silver spindles leaving the familiar trail in the narrow stairwell. Santo remembered the ornament Mama had picked up last year from one of the dime stores on Chicago Avenue, “Baby’s First Christmas,” his only Christmas. The spot in the living room where the tree would have gone, centered before the window, seemed gaping, another reminder to Santo that he had to leave, start anew. He had some money put aside, enough to last three or four months in an apartment of his own, and if he could find a job, a real job, he’d be fine beyond that. But he needed a safety net.
He got to the store early and found Uncle Vince seated at a table near the window. The bell above the door jingled, and Vince tossed the Daily News onto the table. He gazed at the darkening sky. “Reading newspaper,” Vince said. “Is like…what they say…masturbate.” He made a quick stroking motion with his left hand. “Like masturbate.”
“That’s the first thing I think of,” Santo said.
“Every day I read. And every day nothing change.” He pushed the paper away from him with the tips of his fingers, as if it were soiled. One of the headlines read SOVIET MISSILES READY TO FIRE AT U.S. BASES. Another story highlighted Eisenhower’s recovery from a mild stroke, accompanied by a diagram of the exact spot the stroke began and its allege
d progression. In a tiny photo next to the illustration, Nixon looked on perplexed.
Vince heaved a sigh. “Ah, mio Santo. Como stai, eh?”
He’d been at the bourbon. Santo sank down across from him, wondering if it was possible to smell bourbon oozing out of a man’s pores. “I’m good, Uncle Vince. How’s the hip?”
Vince shrugged and said, “Right now. No too bad. Before. Whew.” He shook his right hand and mimicked a wince. “Why you come early? I no need?”
“Nothing to do, I guess.”
“And mio fratello?”
“I don’t know. He’s probably out walking somewhere. Maybe he went to the show.”
Santo had followed his father during a recent snowfall. He’d kept his distance, retreating at the slightest turn of Agostino’s head. His father walked past the houses and the hot-dog stand on Ashland, and the A&P farther down, and stopped at the entrance of the Hub movie theater on Chicago Avenue. He reached into his trousers for a wad of bills and leaned toward the hole in the ticket window to say something to the girl and thumbed through his money to locate the right bill as Santo had seen him do a thousand times. Yet his father seemed like a stranger to him. Which wasn’t an unusual reaction for Santo—seeing his father as a blur. But this was different. All the mystery was stripped from him. He became an ordinary man paying for a movie ticket on a weekday afternoon. Santo felt partly relieved but mostly disappointed by the ordinariness of the moment. His father had nowhere else to go.
When he saw his father swallowed by the darkened interior of the lobby, a thought suddenly occurred to him. He had tried to dismiss it as paranoia, a product of being a Peccatori. And he felt embarrassed by his suspicions. But he couldn’t stop himself. He thought, Maybe Ella Paolone will show up.
The corner Woolworth’s had a silver-rimmed clock that jutted out from the second-story sandstone, and Santo had waited a full ten minutes before heading back to work.
“Some a time…I worry about your Papá,” Vince said. “He change. Non è facile per perdide un figlio.” It’s not easy to lose a son.
“I know,” Santo said. And before he could stop himself, he muttered, “He lost more than a son.”