Welcome to the Family

by Steven R. Schirripa

  To Nicky they looked identical. He pointed at one—his grandmother standing next to her husband's grave, her hand resting lightly on the headstone—and said, “I like this one.”

  “That one is good,” she said, and flopped the photo album open to the first empty page. There was already one picture pasted in. As his grandmother started fitting in the new one, Nicky saw that the old one was exactly the same shot: his grandmother, dressed in her best Sunday black, standing next to the grave of her husband.

  He turned the pages. The entire photo album was filled with pictures of his grandmother standing next to her husband's grave. Every picture was the same. Grandma on the left. Grandpa's headstone on the right.

  “Thank God you were here,” Tutti said. “Otherwise it might have been the first time in twenty-seven years that I didn't get a picture on my anniversary. It's a blessing having you around.”

  She kissed her grandson on the head.

  “And it's not so bad for you, either,” she said. “One week here, and you've already got a best friend, and a girlfriend, and you're a sports hero!”

  That night, Nicky sat in bed with his sketch pad, looking over the drawings he'd done already. There were sketches of his grandmother and his uncle Frankie, plus some of Donna. There were cartoony drawings of Tommy, and a scary picture of the yellow man. On one page were several drawings of Nutty—as a cop, as a baseball umpire, as a pilot.

  His grandmother was right, Nicky thought: it was a lot for one week. And she didn't even know the part about the counterfeit twenties.

  rankie was home. Sitting in his room, Nicky heard the front door open and felt the heavy weight of his uncle's steps coming down the hall. But when he went to Frankie's room to say hello, the door was closed.

  At dinner, Frankie didn't talk much. Grandma Tutti told him the story of Nicky's accident and made fun of the trembling Angelo. Frankie hardly smiled. After the meal, Nicky wanted to ask his uncle to take him to the Bath Avenue Social Club, to see if the guys were all okay, but Frankie didn't even suggest going out for an ice cream. Instead Frankie went out without saying where he was going or when he was coming back.

  That night there was a call from Nicky's mother. The cruise was a big success. They were having fun. Nicky's father was getting along very well with his boss—so well that the boss had invited Nicky's parents to join him at his summer house in St. Barts. “They're skeet shooting today!” she said.

  “Dad is skeet shooting?” Nicky asked. “Are you serious?”

  “Apparently he's very good,” his mother said. “Yesterday he hit two, uh, skeets. Also, here's some good news. The camp is reopening. You can still go!”

  Nicky thought about Noah and Chad and Jordan, and Camp Wannameka, and swimming and rowing. Then he thought about Uncle Frankie, Tommy, Donna, his grandmother's cooking, his uncle's gang, the man with the yellow skin, the twenty-dollar bills …

  “What's the matter ?” his mother asked.

  “Nothing,” Nicky answered. “It's great. I can't wait.”

  “Try to be patient,” she said. “Now let me talk to your grandmother again.”

  His mother and his grandmother made the deal. Nicky would stay another week. Then he'd be shipped off to Camp Wannameka.

  Grandma Tutti said, “Or he could stay here an extra week, if he wants.”

  Then she added, “Of course it's up to you.”

  After school the next day, Tommy grabbed Nicky's arm and said, “So, what are you doing tonight? You wanna hang out?”

  “Sure,” Nicky said.

  “Come get me around six,” Tommy said. “It's right around the corner—717 Cropsey Avenue. First floor.”

  Nicky told his grandmother he was going to spend the evening with Tommy Caporelli. She frowned, but said, “As long as your uncle says it's okay.”

  “Is he here?”

  “No,” Tutti said. “He's up the street, at the club. Go and ask him.”

  Nicky dashed to the Bath Avenue Social Club. Inside, his uncle was deep in conversation with Sallie the Butcher, Jimmy the Iceman, Oscar the Undertaker and Charlie Cement, studying some papers laid out on the table.

  Frankie looked up and said, “Hey! It's Nicky Deuce, the stickball terror of Bath Avenue.”

  Sallie the Butcher swept the papers into a pile and put them in a briefcase as Nicky approached the table. He stood up and said to Frankie, “We'll finish talking about this later, huh?”

  “Sure,” Frankie said. “But we need blueprints. I've cased the joint, but it's been a couple of years. We need to know about the exits and entrances, and how the crew gets in and out.”

  “I know a guy who knows a guy,” Charlie said. “I'll take care of that.”

  “Sit, Nicky!” Frankie said. “Eddie! Get him a sandwich.”

  Between bites, Nicky said, “Grandma says to ask you if I can hang out with Tommy Caporelli tonight.”

  “What are you guys gonna do?” Frankie asked.

  “I don't know,” Nicky said. “A movie or something.”

  “Sounds good,” Frankie said. “C'mere.” He pulled a bankroll out of his pants pocket and peeled off a twenty. “Don't stay out too late.”

  Nicky hit the street running, then ran back in and said, “Thanks for the sandwich, Eddie,” and ran back out again. He was a block away before he realized he hadn't even told his uncle about the phone call from his mother.

  Tommy's apartment was ten or twelve blocks from Grandma Tutti's. It wasn't that far away, but it was different. The houses looked older. The railings and fences needed paint. When Nicky rang the doorbell at 717 Cropsey, nothing happened. He waited half a minute, then knocked.

  Tommy came sprinting down the stairs and said, “Hey. C'mon in.”

  The apartment was dark, and it smelled like cooking oil and mildew. The wallpaper was peeling in the hallway, which led to a living room filled with worn furniture. Tommy said, “Come on out back,” and led Nicky through the kitchen. A man was sitting at a linoleum table, wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and smoking a cigarette. He looked up from the newspaper and said, “Who's this?”

  “My friend Nicky,” Tommy said.

  “You guys wanna watch some TV?”

  “Maybe later, Harvey.”

  The man grunted and went back to his paper.

  There were two ruined lounge chairs sitting beside a weedy-looking garden.

  “My grandpa's garden,” Tommy said. “He grows tomatoes and gagoots. I hate gagoots.”

  “What's gagoots?”

  “Squash,” Tommy said. “Whatta you call it—zucchini.”

  “I like zucchini,” Nicky said. “You can make rata-touille.”

  “You can make ratatouille,” Tommy said. “I don't eat any of that Mexican junk.”

  “Was that your grandpa reading the paper?”

  “That was Harvey,” Tommy said. “My mother's boyfriend.”

  “Does he live here?”

  “Sometimes,” Tommy said. “He comes, he stays, he leaves—it depends on if my mother's working.”

  “Why?”

  “'Cause most of the time she works two jobs, which means there's no one around to look after Gramps when I'm at school,” Tommy said. “You want a Coke?”

  “Sure.”

  Tommy went back inside the house. Nicky heard the refrigerator door open, then shut. Tommy came back.

  “No Cokes,” he said. “But check out that smell.”

  Nicky sniffed the air. “Somebody's grilling.”

  The two boys went to the fence at the back of the yard and stared through the slats. A man wearing nothing but a Speedo bathing suit was standing over a Weber grill.

  “Look at the stomach on that guy,” Tommy said. “Like he needs a steak.”

  The man left the Weber and went inside his house. Tommy stared through the fence. He said, “Wait here. I got an idea.”

  Tommy came back with a broom, a stickball bat, a kitchen fork and a roll of black electrical tape. He grinned and said, “Watch this. I'm
a genius.”

  He taped the stickball bat to the broom, then taped the fork to the bat. He said, “I'm going hunting. If you see that guy coming, say something fast.”

  Tommy got close to the fence, raised his steak harpoon and began lowering it toward the grill.

  Nicky, peering through the fence slats, saw the back door open.

  tie s coming!

  Tommy got the broomstick back just in time. The man in the Speedo came whistling across the yard, a beer in one hand, a plate and some tongs in the other. He set down the plate, poked the steaks a little and went back into the house.

  Tommy draped his harpoon back over the fence and aimed. Stretching his arms all the way over, he jabbed at the steak—and got it. He lifted his harpoon and the steak rose off the grill just as the man in the Speedo came back into his yard.

  “He's coming,” Nicky whispered, grabbing the steak in both hands as it came over the fence. “It's hot!” Tommy shouted. “Run!”

  When they were done eating, Tommy said, “That was the best steak I ever had. What a meal!”

  “You think that guy will ever figure out what happened?”

  “Not in a million years!” Tommy said. “We ate the evidence.”

  They went up to Tommy's room, and Tommy pulled a laptop computer from underneath his bed. “My prized possession,” he said, and turned it on. The BlackPlanet logo appeared.

  Nicky said, “How'd you get past the eighth level?”

  “Easy,” Tommy said. “You know when you're on the ice star? After you've destroyed the green ships, and there's the asteroid shower? You go Control X, Alt 5, and you get extra shields and rockets.”

  Nicky said, “That's not on any of the Internet cheats.”

  “No,” Tommy said. “I think I invented it.”

  Tommy jumped to the eighth level and demonstrated. “See? Control X, Alt 5, bada boom, bada bingo. Here.”

  Nicky took the joystick and blasted away. The ninth level dawned like a sunrise. Nicky said, “Whoa.”

  “That's what I'm talking about,” Tommy said. “Let's get out of here.”

  “Wait—is that the math homework?” Nicky pointed at a paper on Tommy's desk.

  “Forget that,” Tommy said.

  Nicky looked at Tommy's clumsy writing. He said, “This geometry problem is easy. But you need the formula. Just like getting the cheats on BlackPlanet.”

  “Whatever. I don't get it.”

  “'Cause you don't have the formula. Look,” Nicky said, and pulled Tommy to the desk. “You're supposed to find the area of a circle, right? The formula is pi R squared. Pi is three-point-one-four. R is two. So, what's two squared?”

  “It's four.”

  “Right. So what's four times three-point-one-four?”

  “Twelve-something.”

  “Twelve-point-five-six,” Nicky said. “So the area is twelve-something square inches. You work it out with a pencil and you're done! All the math stuff is easy, if you know the formula. You wanna do another one ?”

  “No—but thanks,” Tommy said. “That's the first time I ever understood a math problem. So can we go now?”

  When they were on the street, Nicky said, “Are we going back for more twenties ?”

  “More what?”

  “Twenty-dollar bills. The guy in the candy store? We have to give him his change.”

  “Forget it. I took care of that already,” Tommy said.

  Night was falling, and the streetlights were coming on. Old people sat in the windows and on the stoops. Teenagers ran in the street. Cars cruised by, filled with boys looking for girls, and girls looking for boys. Tommy led Nicky down one block and across another until they were in an alley behind a large building with no windows. Tommy had to search for a while before he found what he was looking for: a metal doorframe. He pulled a screwdriver from his pocket and grinned.

  “Here we go,” he said, and began to pry the door open. It popped after a few seconds, and Tommy grinned again. “After you.”

  “Wait a sec,” Nicky said. “Isn't this breaking and entering ?”

  “No,” Tommy said, and pushed Nicky aside. “This is going to the movies for free. Step aside.”

  Tommy disappeared into the blackness on the other side of the door. Nicky waited. It was breaking and entering. Unless they didn't get caught. Nicky slid into the darkness. He said, “Tommy?” and when Tommy answered, he followed.

  When they were inside, Nicky asked, “What movie is it?”

  “How should I know?”

  “You didn't check?”

  “What for?” Tommy said. “It's free.”

  Two people were kissing, fifty feet high, right in front of them.

  “Look at them,” Tommy said. “It's disgusting.”

  “That's Harrison Ford,” Nicky said. “I liked Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

  “This looks like Raiders of the Old-Age Home. It's stupid. Let's go.”

  When they were on the street, Nicky said, “How'd you know that door would be unlocked?”

  “I know a guy who knows a guy.”

  On the way home, they passed the bakery where Grandma Tutti bought her cannoli. Tommy said, “Let's go see what old man Capaldi has,” and pulled Nicky toward the back door.

  “Is he open?”

  “Capaldi is always open,” Tommy said.

  There were two men coming out the back door. One had a leather jacket slung over his arm. The other was carrying a toaster. He said, “Yo, Tommy.”

  “Hey, Mike,” Tommy said, and they went inside.

  The smell of damp yeast and baking bread was overpowering. Tommy led Nicky past two young men rolling out loaves of bread, into an office where Capaldi was doing figures on an adding machine. Capaldi looked up and grinned at Tommy.

  “Heya, kid,” he said. “What's shaking?”

  “Not too much,” Tommy said.

  “Who's your friend?”

  “This is Nicky,” Tommy said. “He's okay.”

  “You from around here ?”

  “I'm staying with my grandmother and my uncle,” Nicky said. “He's—”

  Tommy jabbed him with his elbow, then said, “You still don't got no bikes, huh?”

  “No,” Capaldi said. “But I got some computer games. Let me see ….”

  Capaldi glanced over his shoulder and around the room. Nicky saw that boxes of TV sets, blenders and CD players were stacked against the walls. There was a rack of perfume. There was a rack of suits. There were boxes of Adidas and PUMA shoes.

  “How about a wristwatch for your man Harvey?” Ca-paldi asked.

  “Very funny,” Tommy said. “You got any of that French brandy stuff?”

  “Sure,” Capaldi said, and went rummaging in a box. He came up with a bottle. “This ain't for you, right?”

  “It's for my gramps,” Tommy said.

  “Five bucks.”

  Capaldi took Tommy's money and said, “I'll keep a lookout for that bike.”

  “Get two,” Tommy said. “I could get Nicky to go for one.”

  In the alley, Nicky said, “What's with all that stuff? I thought he was a baker.”

  “He is a baker. And he sells stuff on the side.”

  “Is it stolen?”

  “Not at all. It's just stuff that people bring him. Maybe a couple of toasters fell off the back of a truck. Or someone found some CD players sitting around at the docks.”

  “So it's stolen.”

  “No, no,” Tommy said. “If it was stolen, someone would be looking for it. This stuff, no one is looking for it. It gets lost, and Capaldi finds it.”

  When they were back in front of Nicky's grandmother's apartment, Tommy said, “Listen. With Capaldi, I stopped you from telling him who your uncle was.”

  “How come?”

  “'Cause of what your uncle does,” Tommy said. “Not everybody thinks it's cool, what he does for a living.”

  “I understand,” Nicky said.

  “Not that have a problem with it,” T
ommy said. “I admire the guy. But some people, they got an attitude, see?”

  “Sure.”

  “Anyway, I'll see you.”

  Tommy waved the bottle of brandy and was gone.

  here were four postcards the following day from Nicky's parents. They were written from four different islands, but were all postmarked from Barbados, and they all said the same thing.

  We're having a wonderful time, the first one said. St. Kitts is divine! Beautiful beaches and clear water. You'd love the kayaking.

  It's wonderful here, the second one said. We're on St. Lucia. You've never seen such beaches! You'd love the papayas.

  From his father there was nothing. The idea of his dad trying to impress the boss—showing off with skeet shooting or bragging about winning some tough case— gave him a queasy feeling.

  “What's the problem here?” Uncle Frankie said when he came down to breakfast. “Did something bad happen?”

  “We had a call from Nicky's mother,” Tutti said.

  “Are they having fun on the cruise thing?” Uncle Frankie asked.

  “They've decided to stay an extra week,” Nicky said. “They want me to go up to camp, next week.”

  “You just got here!” Frankie said.

  “You want to call and tell them that?” Tutti said.

  Frankie thought for a second. “No. But why can't he stay here?”

  “They think he should be up at camp,” Tutti said.

  “And what does he think? Is anybody asking Nicky?”

  Frankie and Tutti turned to look at Nicky.

  “I'd rather stay here,” Nicky said.

  “There you go,” Frankie said. “Next time they call, you tell them, Ma.”

  Grandma Tutti rolled her eyes, crossed herself and said, “Sit down. Drink your coffee. I'll make some eggs.”

  Frankie left the house shortly after. Nicky walked out with him and said, “Are you going down to the social club?”

  “Maybe not today,” Frankie said. “I gotta see a guy about some stuff.”

  “Is it Mr. Capaldi?”

  Frankie gave him a long look. “Even if you know about Capaldi, you don't know about Capaldi. You understand?”

  Nicky nodded.

  “I'm serious,” Frankie said. “A lotta people think he's a good guy. In fact, think he's a good guy. But we don't do business with him. Unless it's to buy bread. Capeesh?”