A guy behind the counter was steaming milk for cappuccino, raising and lowering the metal pitcher with a flourish. Over his shoulder he saw Robert coming in. “Roberto!” he called out. “Paisan!” Then he saw Anthony and forgot what he was doing, and the hot milk foamed all over his hand.
“Nice haircut, huh, Rocco?” Robert asked, buffing Anthony’s head with his palm as though caressing a large brown nut.
Rocco gripped his scalded hand in a towel. “Where do you find these birds?” he asked.
Robert laughed and walked Anthony into the room. It was all the way it had always been, an Italian spaceship parked on a knoll above Boston Harbor. The golden tin ceiling spread like daybreak over the marble-topped tables. Gilded wrought-iron railings bordered stairs down to the dungeonlike basement room and up to the mezzanine, where spotlights shone on the painted diorama of a painfully blue harbor rimmed by mountains. Sinatra was singing “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” on a fluid-filled jukebox that bubbled and pulsed through the color spectrum like a giant Lava lamp. He’d been singing “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” the last time Anthony was here; he sang many songs in Caffè Vittoria. The jukebox was actually an urn containing Sinatra’s soul, along with the spiritual essence of Tony Bennett, Jerry Vale, and Vic Damone, all watched over by a black-robed Cardinal Law in a frame on the wall.
Several tables on the main floor were empty, but Robert liked the mezzanine. Anthony opened the small menu and stared at the categories of drinks—the coffees, digestifs, grappas, and cognacs. “Paisan, huh?” he said.
Robert poked him in the chest. “I’ve been inducted.”
“Into what?”
The inductee’s smile collapsed. “What do you mean, into what? Into the Order of the Sons of Italy.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“No, Antonio, I am not.”
“How the hell did you manage that?”
“I told you. I was inducted. The citizens of the North End have taken me to their breast.”
A waitress appeared at the table, a fortyish woman from a long line of Mediterranean forebears. Her hair was dyed a black not found in nature, but neither was it the black of the Rollerblade boy. Extreme though it was, hers still meant to convey the idea of human hair. “Grappa,” she said to Robert.
“Yes, Isabelle, thank you. And a Galliano for Antonio here.”
“I don’t drink sweet things like that,” Anthony said.
“He forgets,” Robert told Isabelle. “When his teeth were coming in, Dad would rub Galliano on his gums to ease the pain.”
Anthony looked up in surprise. “When did I tell you that?”
“This was when he was a baby,” Robert added.
“Oh, good,” Isabelle said. “I thought you meant recently.” She turned to Anthony. “Got a tooth coming in today?”
“No. I’ll have a beer.”
“In this hallowed place, Antonio?” Robert said. “A beer? Have a Galliano. For old times’ sake. For back when Dad used to soothe your gums.”
“You two are brothers?” Isabelle asked. “You don’t look anything like each other. Who takes after Dad?”
“All right, I’ll have a Galliano.”
“You didn’t put up much of a fight,” Isabelle said.
“You should have seen him in the hair salon,” Robert said.
“I wasn’t gonna say anything.” She wiggled Anthony’s good ear. “You could use a little something here. Complete the look. Silver, maybe with a stone.” The she slid her pencil behind her own ear and went away.
“That’s Isabelle,” Robert said. “Great lady.”
Anthony asked, “Did you meet Nuong because she cut your hair?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact I did. Isn’t that great?”
It was so great that it struck Anthony dumb.
“What’s the problem?” Robert said. “You don’t like Nuong?”
“No. I’ve always liked her a lot. I didn’t like her much today, though.”
“Ha! Perfect. You always were a fickle person.”
“I thought you always liked me.”
“I did, Antonio. I still do. That’s the point. I’m the rational, consistent one. You’re the emotional loose hubcap. You’re the runaway truck.”
Anthony looked away. His eyes fell on Robert’s handsome jacket. “That’s an expensive suit, isn’t it?” he said.
“Yes.”
“You’ve done well for yourself. The suits, the car, a store for your wife.”
“Most of my clients are prosperous people with a knack for major blunders. Those billable hours add right up.” He tickled the addition sign on Anthony’s head.
Down on the main floor, a tall, gray-haired man called up to Robert. He was at the foot of the mezzanine steps, honoring the jukebox with coin.
“Hi, Pasquale,” Robert said, waving back. “That’s Pasquale,” he told Anthony.
Pasquale pushed some buttons on the throbbing machine. Sinatra’s “Witchcraft” began to play.
Anthony breathed deeply and said, “I’m sorry I slept with Sarah.”
“You slept with her?” Robert said. His lips twitched and fluttered on his face, independent of his other features. It was disturbing to see. Even Orson Welles didn’t do that. “Were you tired?”
“I’m saying I’m sorry, Robert.”
“Hey, can I ask you something? I’m just curious. Who seduced whom?”
“She seduced me, I guess.”
“You guess? I always had the impression that Sarah intimidated you, Antonio. In fact, I had the distinct idea that she scared you to death. It must have been something when she came on to you. Fourth of July, huh?”
Isabelle arrived with their drinks. Anthony was playing dead, hoping the bear would go away. Robert raised his glass in a toast and sipped his grappa. “It was over between Sarah and me before you slipped in,” he said.
“What?”
“Finished. Absolutely. Had been for some time.”
“I didn’t know that,” Anthony said. “She never told me.” His hand was trembling, but he got the Galliano to his lips.
Robert winked. “I didn’t say she knew.”
Once, this would have been the most fascinating information in the world. It was amazingly irrelevant now. “Are you saying you’re not mad at me because I slept with her?”
“Sarah was a woman, you were a man. Should I be mad at nature? Besides, you behaved honorably toward Sarah. You practically married her, for God’s sake.”
“It’s a great relief to hear this, Robert.”
“Sure. Glad I could clear it up. One thing, though. You were not a man of honor with me, Antonio. Your closest friend. In relation to me, man to man, you behaved like a worm. No, you behaved lower than that. What’s lower than worms?”
“Slime, I guess,” Anthony said.
They fell silent in the blue light coming off the Amalfi Coast or whatever it was painted on the wall. Three or four tables away, a man’s voice said, very slowly, “Your…personality…bums…me…out.” No one said anything back. When Anthony lifted his face to see who these people were, a beautiful woman was looking down at his head.
“Check out the man’s hair!” she cried.
“Hello, Celeste,” Robert said. “You’re late.”
“I know, I know, I know!” she said.
“Celeste, this is Anything. Anything, Celeste.”
“Anything!” she exclaimed. She was possibly the most exuberant person Anthony had ever met. “Really? That’s great! What a great name! You mean, like, ‘Whatever’? ‘All options open’? ‘Total potential’?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Anthony said.
“He guesses!” she said. “He doesn’t know!” She pulled out a chair and sat down. “Why do I feel I’m interrupting something?”
“I’m afraid I’ve been giving Anything a little scolding,” Robert said.
“Welcome to the club, Anything,” Celeste said, slapping Anthony on the back. She was wearing
a dazzling vest with colorful yarns and bits of metal woven into it. Also a white silk blouse, a tiny red skirt, and the translucent black stockings women never wore anymore. The world’s great religions could probably be traced to the feeling Anthony had upon seeing her legs.
“So what time is it?” she said, and reached for Robert’s Rolex.
He pulled his arm away and hexed her with his fingers. “Whatever you do,” he told Anthony, “don’t let her near your watch.” Then he looked at the Rolex himself. “It’s three forty-five. You were supposed to be here at three.”
“We weren’t even here at three ourselves,” Anthony said.
“I know that, Anything. Don’t contradict me. I was allowing for Celeste’s affliction.”
“I can’t wear watches,” she explained, showing her wrists, each bereft of any timekeeping device. “My body stops them.”
Anthony laughed.
“It’s not a joke,” Robert said. “She’s afflicted.”
“One in a thousand people has it,” she said. “Our bodies put out a magnetic field or something.”
“I’ve never heard of this,” Anthony said.
“The old-time jewelers all knew about it. If you were one of these people, they didn’t even try to sell you a watch. It wasn’t gonna work, and that was that.”
“Well, then, it must not apply to battery-powered watches,” Anthony said. “Most watches today run on batteries. Just go get yourself one of those.”
“Nope, it applies to them, too. I even tried one of those calculator-watch combinations—the thin little business-card type? Got it to balance my checkbook with. The calculator part kept working, but the clock stopped dead.” She looked at Anthony’s wrist. “I could stop your watch right now.”
He took off his rubberized quartz chronograph, good to a hundred meters below the surface of the sea, and held it out by its strap.
“What did I just get finished saying?” Robert said.
Celeste extended her wrist. “You have to put it on me.”
“That’s part of it?”
“Sometimes.”
He fastened his watch to her wrist. If the jolt he got when he touched her skin didn’t stop the thing, nothing ever would. He looked. The second hand was still going.
Celeste leaned back to look Anthony over. “So what kind of trouble are you in, Anything? Besides wardrobe trouble, I mean.”
“Who said I was in any?”
“You’re getting scolded by Roberto here. That means you’re in trouble. Big trouble, probably. Believe me, I know. So what did you do, snuff somebody?”
“It was personal,” Robert said. “Anything is an old friend of mine.”
“Robert!” she said. “You have an old friend like Anything and you never even mention him?”
“He’s been away. He just got back.”
“Where did you get back from, Anything? Pluto?”
“The really funny thing,” Robert went on, “is that Nuong has been his stylist for years, and I didn’t even know it.”
“I love stuff like that!” Celeste exclaimed. She returned to Anthony’s head. “So what’s all this you got up here? Addition? Subtraction? What’s this one?”
“That’s infinity,” Robert said. “When did you drop out of school? Kindergarten?”
“Math was never my best subject. Wow, infinity,” she marveled, touching Anthony’s buzzed temple. She turned to Robert. “Nuong knows how to do all this? That little slip of a thing? What else does she know how to do?”
Robert and Celeste laughed naughtily through their noses.
“Don’t worry about Nuong,” Anthony said. “She knows plenty.”
“I’ll bet, Anything, if she’s been working on you.”
“Our country dropped bombs on her hut when she was growing up. She lived through that.”
Robert and Celeste sat there frozen for a moment. “She grew up in an apartment building,” Robert said finally.
“O.K., we bombed her apartment building,” Anthony said. To Celeste he said, “Robert helped.”
“The hell I did.”
“I meant with my hair.”
“Oh, that. Yes, I did help with that.”
Celeste leaned close to Anthony on her elbows and traced his multiplication sign with a fingertip. “If you really, you know, liked a girl…would you put her initials on your head?”
“Of course he would,” said Robert. “The pity is, there’s no one special in his life right now.” He drew closer to Celeste. “Anything has recently undergone a terrible heartbreak.”
“Not that recently,” Anthony said.
“Recently enough,” said Robert. “The pain is fresh.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Celeste. She put her hand on Anthony’s hand. “A disappointment like that can make a person brittle.”
“I’m not brittle.”
She laughed. “You’re reliving the goddamn war in Vietnam.”
Isabelle arrived to serve Celeste a drink she hadn’t ordered—Sambuca poured over three black espresso beans.
Celeste sipped this beverage. “I guess you’ve been told you look like Vincent van Gogh,” she said.
“He has,” said Robert.
“It’s a cruel look. Interesting, but cruel.”
“Anything in a nutshell.”
“He wasn’t a cruel person, though. I’ve read up on this. He was a sweet guy who just happened to look cruel by accident. That was his tragedy.”
“He was insane,” Anthony said.
“So goes the rap. You believe whatever you read, Anything? I love van Gogh’s paintings. I think his paintings are, like, the epitome of everything.”
“There you have it, folks,” Robert said.
Celeste laughed and punched him in the chest.
“Let’s see your stuff,” he said.
She had an oversized black leather bag, which she hoisted to her lap and opened to produce a pile of fabric swatches—rich, colorful fabrics with exotic patterns woven into them.
“Celeste owns a wonderful boutique up the street,” Robert said. “I buy all my clothes from her. See these?” he said, fingering the swatches. “These are the most choice fabrics”—he kissed his fingertips—“the newest weaves from the best Italian textile designers. You’ll never see these anywhere else in America. Celeste has a connection for these things.”
They were gorgeous fabrics, even Anthony could see that. “Are you having a suit made?” he asked Robert.
Celeste gaped at him. “You’d make a suit out of these?” She touched some of the pieces and turned to Robert. “Maybe he has something?”
“No, he does not have something. These are fabrics for draperies and sofas, Anything. Nuong and I are redecorating Shear Satisfaction. Celeste’s helping us.”
“Oh,” Anthony said. He watched as they leafed through the samples. “The blue one’s my favorite,” he threw in after a while.
Celeste backhanded him in the biceps. “That’s my favorite, too! I wasn’t gonna tell him till the end, see what he said.”
“The blue’s nice,” said Robert. “A little bright. I tend to favor the grays.”
“Tell me,” Celeste said, smoothing Robert’s padded shoulder. “Everything’s gray with this guy,” she told Anthony.
“Roberto!” a man’s voice called out.
At the foot of the mezzanine steps a middle-aged man with a big gut was beckoning Robert with his arm. His pants seemed to defy gravity, staying up despite being worn far below whatever could be considered his waist. The men in Anthony’s family wore their pants this way, too. Celeste looked to see who it was. The man winked and waved hello to her. Then he saw Anthony’s head and his smile disappeared. He squinted and craned his neck at their table. Anthony looked away.
“What are you doing with that goombah?” Celeste asked Robert.
“Don’t say that around here!” Anthony whispered.
“Oh, I know that guy,” she said.
Robert extricated himself from
beneath the small café table. “Anthony, this is my man,” he said. “I gotta go.”
Anthony pointed to Celeste. “I thought this was your man.”
“Oh, thanks a lot,” Celeste said. “Anthony.”
“Give him a lift home, O.K., sweetheart?” Robert said, kissing Celeste’s cheek. He gave her a business envelope and shook An thony’s hand. “Great to see you, pal. Call me, O.K.?” He put the fabric samples under his arm and went down to meet the man. They walked to the front door and out to the street.
The envelope had a window through which Anthony saw his ponytail. Celeste put it in her bag without looking at it.
“Anthony,” she said again, and stroked his engraved temple once with her palm. “So that’s the name your mama gave you, huh? Never suspecting you’d do things like this to yourself.”
“Yeah, that’s the name she gave me.”
Celeste shook her head. “We go through so much for you bums.”
Contrition with women came easily to Anthony, because of the nuns. He hung his head the way he used to as an altar boy. He had an overwhelming urge to tell Celeste something true about his life. He said, “Would you like to know something? I went to Woodstock.”
She looked as though he’d started speaking Vietnamese. “No kidding. Recently? The movie? The town? What? What are you telling me?”
“The event. The thing. Woodstock. I was there.”
“You were there.”
“Yeah.”
“And you feel I should know this.”
“I thought you might find it interesting.”
“You’re telling me you’re an older man.”
“No! That’s not what I meant at all.”
“Woodstock,” Celeste said. “I think I saw the movie. Maybe I just dreamed I saw it. Hey! You mean if I saw the movie Woodstock, you’d be in there?”
“I might be. I don’t know. I’ve never seen it.”
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