by F. P. Lione
“This is my father, Lou, Mr. Cavalucci. I thought I introduced you to him,” Joe said, standing up. Joe may be the nicest guy I know, but don’t ever mess with his family.
Lou realized what was going on and said, “We better stop talking about baseball anyway. If my wife hears me I’ll never hear the end of it.” Lou smiled at me, and I could see the concern in his face.
“But this is great,” Lou went on. “I haven’t been to a block party since we left Queens. I’ll tell ya, I miss the old neighborhood.”
“See what you have to look forward to,” my father shot at me. “I don’t know why you’re moving all the way out to Long Island. You’re gonna hate it.”
“It’s nice out there,” I said. “It’s quiet.”
“Yeah, it’s quiet. It’s quiet sitting in traffic for three hours each way.”
“Dad, it’s not three hours, I’ll be taking the train,” I said.
“Plus, they did a beautiful job on the house,” Lou threw in.
“Yeah, well, I’ve never seen the house. I’ve never been invited.”
“Dad, you told me not to expect you to drive all the way out there.”
“Come on, Tony, if you invited me I would have come out there.”
I didn’t get this. All he did was complain that he wasn’t sitting in traffic all day to come visit me. I realized he was hurt that Lou had been to my house and he hadn’t, and I wished for the thousandth time he would just say what was on his mind for once. I was tired of trying to figure him out.
“You could come to our house,” Stevie said. I didn’t realize he was standing there listening. “We could teach you to play stoop ball with us.”
“And who do you think taught him how to play stoop ball?” my father asked Stevie, nodding at me.
“You?” Stevie looked surprised.
“Yeah, me. Where do you think he learned it?”
Actually, I learned to play it on the steps in the park where I also learned to play skelsie, strip poker, and quarters. I’ve never played stoop ball with him in my life, and I was surprised that he’d tell a flat-out lie like that.
My mother and Ron were watching the whole exchange, and I could see from my mother’s face that she knew he was lying.
I saw Vinny and Christie walking down from the corner. Even from where I was standing I could see Vinny looked mad. What I didn’t get was if everyone was so mad at me, why were they here?
“Hey, Vin,” I said, but he just threw me a nod.
I caught the look on Michele’s face.
“Are you all right?” I asked her quietly.
“This is so stressful, Tony. I’m so uncomfortable.”
“What do you want to do? Do you want to leave?”
“I don’t know.”
“Here he is.” My father’s face lit up. He hugged Vinny and kissed his cheek.
Christie and Marie squealed and hugged each other, something I didn’t get. They were pretty chummy lately; it was probably more that they’d teamed up with mutual dislike for Michele than that they actually liked each other.
“Vinny!” Grandma was out of the chair, throwing her arms around him.
I told myself it didn’t make me feel bad, but it did. Grandma started bragging about Vinny to Ron and Lou, how he’s a foreman now in the electricians’ union. Marie was talking about Vinny’s wedding hall and how beautiful it was.
Sure, Vinny was the golden boy now. Everyone seemed to forget what a psycho he was when he was little. Like when he put aspirin in the goldfish bowl at St. Michael’s and killed all the fish, and that he didn’t talk all through the fifth grade and the school wanted to call the shrinks in on him. Or that we used to find him standing in the middle of Bay Street dressed in army fatigues directing traffic with a whistle. I remember looking for him one night when my mother was passed out and my father was at work. He was standing in the middle of the street, serious as anything, holding his hands up to the cars, blowing his whistle. It was bizarre—he was ten years old and everyone did what he said. No one even hollered at him.
Michele was quiet, looking tense.
“I shouldn’t have had the block party,” I said. “I know better.”
“I’m sorry, Tony. I feel like this is my fault, that if you were with someone else they wouldn’t be giving you this kind of grief,” she said.
“I don’t know about that. I think the reality is we’re probably not gonna see them much anymore.”
It made me feel terrible, but it was true. I couldn’t be doing this to Michele and Stevie, and I couldn’t give up Michele and Stevie to make my family happy. I was reading something in Genesis that jumped off the page at me about a month ago. That never happened to me before, where I felt like something in the Bible was talking to me. It was when God called Abraham and told him he would make him into a great nation and bless those that blessed him. But that wasn’t the part. It was the part that said, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.” I wished my family could be like Fiore’s and just love each other. Instead, we’re so fractured and difficult.
Nick Romano got there next with his daughter. He looked good. He was wearing one of those black ribbed tank shirts that showed off his muscles. I guess he had a lot of time on his hands at FD, because he was tan and didn’t have an ounce of fat on him. His hair was short and spiked with gel, and he had a gold cross around his neck. I’d never seen his daughter before, and I don’t know what I expected, but she was adorable. She never stopped smiling. And she had long hair. Joe’s daughter, Gracie, was practically bald, and I didn’t know any other kids, but Romano’s daughter had dark hair halfway down her back. You could tell she was a little Staten Island Italian. She already had jewelry on—a ring, a bracelet, and pierced ears. Every time Nick introduced her to someone she’d say “Hi!” with this big smile on her face. She was dark like Nick, but her eyes were blue. It was funny, but to look at her, she could be Denise’s daughter.
“This is my friend Tony. Tony, this is my daughter, Alexa,” Romano said.
“Hi!” She smiled, and her whole face lit up. Happy kid. She wasn’t shy either. She went with Denise over to Stevie and Joe’s kids, and I saw her looking in the little pink stroller at Gracie’s gorilla. She reached in to pick up the gorilla, and Gracie stepped in front of her. I smiled, thinking Gracie was gonna be the one to give Fiore a run for his money. Then I saw him go over to talk to Gracie, and she took the gorilla out and handed it to Romano’s daughter, so maybe not.
“How’s it going, buddy?” I asked Romano. “You ready for tomorrow?”
“Yeah, can’t wait. I miss you guys,” he said. “What time are we leaving?”
“Are you driving out with me?”
“Yeah, I figured we’d leave straight from here.”
“The boat leaves Montauk at two. I think Joe said it takes four hours to get out there so they do an overnight trip. We should be fishing by six tomorrow morning, so try not to get too hammered tonight. If we leave here by eleven, we’ll get to Joe’s by twelve fifteen with no traffic. We should be out in Montauk by one thirty, one forty-five the latest,” I said.
Denise had gone inside and came out with her tray of Jell-O things. They were different colored Jell-O cut into stars and other shapes. She called the kids over and started giving them out. Romano’s daughter wanted a red star. Stevie wanted green. Gracie didn’t like the feel of hers and dropped it on the street.
“What is that, Denise?” Grandma asked, looking confused.
“It’s Jell-O. Here,” she said and handed one to her.
“I don’t want that.” Grandma waved it away. “Why would you make something like that, anyway?”
“Because the kids like it,” Denise said.
“Kids shouldn’t be eating junk like that. Give them some fruit or something,” my father threw in.
Denise rolled her eyes and turned around, almost knocking over Gracie, who was watching the other kids with the
Jell-O.
“Watch what you’re doing!” my father yelled. “You almost knocked the kid over.”
“She’s fine, Dad,” I said. “She’s got two older brothers, she gets knocked down all the time.”
“Denise has always been clumsy,” Grandma said to Marie.
“Like a bull in a china shop,” my father said, shaking his head.
“Hey, come here,” my father said to Stevie, who was sucking on his Jell-O. “Give me that.” My father took the Jell-O and put it on a paper plate.
“Why can’t I have it?” Stevie asked me.
“Dad, what are you doing?” I said. “He was eating that.”
“He can have it. I just want him to have something good for him first.” He got a fork and grabbed some roasted peppers and a piece of salami off the antipasti dish. He put them on a roll and handed it to Stevie. “Here, eat this and then you can have dessert.”
Michele saw Stevie with Grandma and my father and was practically knocking people out of the way to get over to the table. My mother moved in too, and Denise hovered, knowing what was coming.
Stevie took a bite and made a face. I grabbed a napkin and put my hand under his mouth because I knew he was gonna spit it out.
“Dad, he doesn’t like stuff like that,” I said, balling up the napkin and throwing it in the garbage.
Grandma made a tut-tut noise. “He’s picky, huh?” She looked at Michele, disapproval showing on her face.
“No, he’s not,” Michele said, “he just doesn’t eat a lot of the stuff you do.”
“He won’t eat anything!” Grandma said.
“He eats plenty,” I said.
“You gotta make him eat right, Tony, even if he doesn’t like it. We never let the kids get away with that, right, Marilyn?”
My mother’s eyebrows shot up. “We? Speak for yourself, Vince. You’re the one who ran the dinner table like the gestapo.”
“Remember, we couldn’t leave the table without finishing everything or he’d get nuts about it?” Denise threw in.
“Come on, Denise,” Vinny said. “Dad just wanted us to eat right.”
“Oh, please, you’re such a suck-up, Vin,” Denise said. “Dinners were horrible. Especially for Tony. Dad used to shove the food into his mouth and hold it shut until he swallowed it. It’s a miracle he never choked.”
“Tony didn’t like peppers and salami back then either,” my mother said to Stevie.
“Marilyn, weren’t you usually drunk by dinnertime?” Marie asked, smiling like a snake.
“Only on the weekends,” my mother said brightly.
“Yeah, there was only so much Sinatra we could take. If I was old enough, I’d have been drunk too,” Denise added.
“Yeah, it was Frank Sinatra’s fault,” Marie said dryly.
I guess I’d forgotten about that. Saturday was the day we’d all be together, but my father wanted to be out with whoever he was sleeping with at the time. The tension was so thick you could cut it. My father would start yelling at my mother over something, and she’d yell back. He’d stomp to the living room and blast Sinatra until she exploded. He’d leave, she’d drink, and then Denise, Vinny, and I would sit there like zombies until we were old enough to go out and drink ourselves.
A lot of times I’d be mad at my mother. My father would say he worked all week and why did she have to start with him on his day off. One day he said he couldn’t take it anymore and he was leaving. I got so upset I started crying. I must have been about nine or ten at the time, and I rode after him on my bike after he screeched his tires away from the curb. I saw his car parked at the bakery up on Bay Street and saw him talking on the phone. I don’t know who I thought he was talking to, but when I saw the look on his face I realized he wasn’t upset at all. At the time I was too young to realize what sexual banter was, and I heard him say something I shouldn’t have. He must have sensed me behind him, and when he turned around and saw my face, he started yelling for me to go home.
“No, it wasn’t Frank Sinatra’s fault, Marie, it was my fault,” my mother said. “I’m responsible for my drinking; it was my choice.”
“Yeah, well your choices affected all of us,” Vinny surprised me by saying.
“You drank to keep him with you,” Marie said. “He wouldn’t have stayed with you otherwise.”
“She drank to survive,” Denise said angrily. “Maybe if Dad didn’t cheat on her, she wouldn’t have drank.”
“That’s still not an excuse, Denise,” my mother interrupted. “But I appreciate you sticking up for me. I wasn’t the wife or mother I should have been because of it.” I saw Ron smile at my mother, and she smiled back, but it was a sad smile. “And I owe all of you an apology.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” my father shocked me again by saying. “We all make mistakes. It’s all water under the bridge.”
I wasn’t sure if he meant it or if he did it because he knew it was getting to Marie.
“I don’t want an apology,” Vinny said. “I’ll never forgive you for it.”
My mother looked like she wanted to crawl under a rock.
“What’s wrong with you?” I said. “Don’t talk to her like that.”
I didn’t know what was up with Vinny. I felt like I didn’t know him anymore and wondered if I really knew him to begin with. Last year after my mother came out of rehab she came to me, Denise, and Vinny to apologize for a lot of things, especially her drinking. I guess I expected Denise to be the one not to forgive her, but it was Vinny.
“Don’t tell me what to do, Tony.” Vinny got in my face. “You can’t make me forgive her. And it’s none of your business anyway.”
Michele panicked and tried to put herself between us. She pointed toward the corner and said, “Hey! Look who’s here!”
I looked up the street, and Vinny took a step back and picked up his beer, still glaring at me.
We turned to see the rest of my family bopping toward us. Aunts, cousins, and Uncle Mickey, complete with gold chains, toothpicks, and sunglasses, looking like mafioso famiglia.
“Will this make things better or worse?” Michele wanted to know.
“I don’t know, babe, it could go either way,” I said with a shrug.
12
My uncle Mickey, my aunt Elena, and their kids were there. There was my cousin Paulie, who we call Paulie Two Toes because of an incident involving fireworks and his mother’s macaroni pot, and his wife, Josephine, who we call Pina. Then there was his brother, Gino, who we call Brother because he’s Paulie’s brother, and their sister, Gina, who we call Little Gina because she’s the youngest, not because she’s little. Aunt Rose was there too. She’s Elena’s mother and Grandma’s sister, but there’s more competition than love between them. Uncle Mickey and Brother were carrying folding chairs, and Aunt Elena and Little Gina were carrying trays of food.
They were all dressed in black, except Brother, who was wearing a T-shirt that said, “Remember my name. You’ll be screaming it later.”
We spent the next ten minutes hugging and kissing with hands flying and talking goombah talk. Paulie’s the worst one. He can’t get through a sentence without saying, “capeesh,” “meengya,” and “fugheddaboudit.”
“Hey, Paulie.” I shook his hand while he pulled me in and slammed on my back.
“How you doin’, Tony?” He wiped the sweat off his forehead, his diamond pinky ring glinting in the sun. “Meengya, I need a drink.”
See what I mean.
“We have beer, mudslides, and tequila,” I said.
“How about we throw this in the freezer?” He held up a bottle of vodka. “And here’s the steaks I promised.”
“Toss it in the cooler.” I sighed. “The blue one’s for the booze.”
“Hey, Pina,” Denise said, kissing her. “Did you lose weight?”
“Please, from your mouth to God’s ears,” Pina said.
“Hi, Pina. Hi, Paulie,” Michele said, smiling at them.
“You!” Pin
a said pretty loud as she pointed. “I need to talk to you.”
“Me?” Michele asked, looking confused.
“Yeah you. What’s this I hear you won’t let Tony have a bachelor party?”
Now, Pina’s a big Italian girl with a big Italian mouth to match. All of a sudden everyone got quiet and all eyes were on Michele. I saw Michele’s brown eyes flash, and for a second I pictured the two of them rolling around on the ground duking it out.
“Pina, I really don’t think—”
That was as far as Pina was gonna let Michele go. “Sweetheart,” Pina said, shaking her head and pointing her index finger. “You need to learn how to handle this kind of thing and work it to your advantage. If you do this right, you’ll get whatever you want out of Tony.”
“Pina, mind your friggin’ business,” Paulie said.
“Now you want me to mind my friggin’ business, Paulie?” Pina said, head bopping, fingers pointing. “You’re the one who was so worried about Tony and said we should talk to him.”
“Meengya, I shoulda stood in bed today,” Paulie said. “Get me a drink.”
Michele’s stunned look was almost comical until I saw the cat smile on Marie’s face. I should have realized that this little get-together was the family’s way of showing strength in numbers and getting me to do what they wanted.
“We’ll talk later,” Pina said to Michele.
“I can’t wait,” Michele said, looking aggravated. “These people never stop,” she said to me. “I’m going to find Donna.” She started walking toward the swarm of people that were gathered around the face painter’s table.
I threw Paulie’s steaks, some burgers, and some hot dogs on the grill. I stood in front of the barbeque, keeping my eye on a fortyish-looking guy with gray hair and glasses who didn’t seem to be at anyone’s table. I’d noticed him earlier, over by the inflated slide, watching the kids going up and down the ride. I thought at first he was waiting for one of the kids, but none of them came over to him. Now he was standing by the face painter’s table, and I saw him talk to one of the little girls getting her face painted. He was smiling at her, and it looked like he was helping her pick out whatever she wanted painted on her face. I saw he didn’t leave with her, just stood there watching the kids. I didn’t like the looks of him; something about him bothered me.