“Fine. In the meantime, what’s the harm with meetin’ Tony?”
I had already come to the same conclusion. “What does he do?”
“He’s in construction. Some union job.”
“There’s money in that,” I said.
“There’s money in a lotta things,” she said. I didn’t need to ask Janice what she meant by that. Italians had their fingers in numbers and other gambling activities, and in other vices that most thought were illegal only because the government said so. Whether or not people participated, vices were accepted. That was Bensonhurst.
But that wasn’t necessarily Tony, I thought. After all, he was half Dutch and maybe he just wasn’t involved. “I’ll check him out,” I said. “So long as I’m with you.”
“You won’t be sorry,” Janice said as the dessert arrived.
“With Tony or the baklava?” I cracked, and we both giggled.
“And when we’re done eatin’, I’m dyin’ to show you the heels I picked out at Sugar that Richie is going to buy me,” Janice said. Two-hundred-dollar shoes were just one of the many things that were out of my league. I couldn’t imagine owning a single pair, let alone the dozen or so that Janice had. And what are such heels if not accompanied by the clothes and jewelry to match? I thought. Janice wore the finest designer jeans, form-hugging tops, and slinky dresses from Italy. Her clothes may have been “Brooklyn chic,” but they were expensive nonetheless. And she had enough gold and diamonds to open her own store. It would be some time before I could contemplate having such things. Until then, I decided, I would be grateful for the thrift clothes that Grandma tailored for me with her sewing machine.
We finished eating and made the detour to Sugar before parting under the N train nearby. A stretch of local streets, which were conveniently located under the train tracks. They were nicknamed early on “under the N.”
“I’ve got to get home,” Janice said. “Richie’s gonna call.” We hugged and Janice headed for the staircase while I turned to walk the fifteen blocks home.
On the way, I decided to make a detour of my own. Our Lady of Guadalupe was just a few blocks out of the way and I hadn’t stopped in for a while. Although I didn’t understand much about the saints and Catholic rites—Mom didn’t know enough about them, didn’t attend services, and couldn’t afford to send me to the Catholic school that was adjacent to the church—I always felt good there and always felt that the more I learned about faith, the better off I’d be.
The warmth of the church’s desert-sand brick and Spanish tile roof embraced me as it always did when I approached. I bowed my head at the ten-foot crucifix outside the entrance and went inside.
I dipped my middle finger into the holy water that was on a stone pedestal and crossed myself as I’d seen others do long before. A handful of parishioners who were spread out in the cavernous, dimly lit church sat or knelt in silence. In the sanctuary, at the other end from where I stood, a woman shuffled around the raised altar, tending to flowers and the items that were a mystery to me. I took a few steps on the checkered marble floor and sat down in the last pew, as was my custom.
My eyes scanned the chapel. I thought about my hopes that were as high as the beamed ceilings far above my head. I’m building a bridge, I said to myself. Piece by piece. The towers were in place, and people like Father Rinaldi and Mr. Wainright were the support cables for the road I was building that would take me across.
My eyes came upon the Blessed Mother statue to the left of the altar. Hail Mary, full of grace. Our Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. She’s supporting me somehow, too, I thought.
The annual Feast of Santa Rosalia, a large outdoor street fair during the last week of August, was Bensonhurst at its best. Natives showed up in droves at sunset on the Saturday night of Labor Day weekend and strolled with broad smiles up Eighteenth Avenue from Sixty-sixth to Seventy-fifth Street. They stopped at crowded sidewalk stands to eat heros, pizza, Italian ices, and cannoli, and to drink cheap Chianti. Women who lived in the apartments above the stores stood in their doorways and tried to be heard over the music playing on loudspeakers and the street noise as they gossiped and nagged their kids. All along the avenue, old men with leathery skin sat on rickety folding chairs and had wrinkled brown paper bags at their feet and Cuban cigars clenched between their stained teeth. Beat cops mingled with the crowd and ignored minor infractions, anticipating a contraband cigar and a sip or two of whiskey as a clandestine reward when the evening came to a close. Live and let live was everyone’s motto. The cops and italianos had been sharing this territory for many years. As long as the residents didn’t bother anyone as they pursued their pleasures, they would be left alone.
The corner of Sixty-eighth Street was so crowded, Janice and I had to watch where we stepped as we squeezed through the crowd. The heat of the sun still radiated from the dark macadam that seemed to have a perpetual oil slick on it, sort of like the hair on most of the local guys. That was just one of the many things endemic to Bensonhurst, I thought, as was the smell of diesel fuel, the vibrations of the elevated subway, the tattoos on chests and arms, and the sound of screeching cars.
As Janice and I made our way along the avenue that had been closed off for the feast, we inhaled the aromas of sausage and peppers on hot, crispy Italian bread, and of family-recipe tomato sauces that steamed over bowls of spaghetti and meatballs, bracciole and stuffed ravioli. The mixture of so much garlic and onions made my mouth water.
Italians liked eating better than anything in the world, but then again, so did Jews. Food is the one thing that both cultures are equally enthusiastic and insatiable about, I thought, and it probably was the only thing that my Jewish mother and Italian father didn’t argue over during the years he was running wild with his friends.
Food bonded me to Grandma Ruth, too. We talked whenever I helped her prepare ethnic specialties such as potato pancakes and blintzes. Grandma always had plenty to say, and our conversation always revolved around the same topics.
“That no-good Italian ran out on your mother,” Grandma had said. “What could she do? I tell you, my Samelah, you marry a Jew, you hear me?”
“Oh, so a Jewish guy will never leave me. Right, Grandma?” I replied.
“Right. They stay with the family. Look, now you have no father. He punished you, too, see?”
“Yeah, well, I’d rather have been abandoned by him than learn firsthand who the hell he really was.”
“Watch your mouth,” Grandma chastised me then. “Don’t get like your mother, always swearing and cursing through the house. Consider yourself lucky to have better prospects.” After she said that, Grandma Ruth looked at me with tender eyes. “So, bubelah, any boy got your heart yet?”
“I’m waiting for the right one, Grandma.”
“Good. You don’t want to do what your mother did. Don’t be in such a hurry and give milk without making them buy the cow first.” Grandma wiped her brow then. “Oy! Your mother, she never listened to me and look where that got her!” She fumed silently for a minute as she always did after bringing up bitter memories, and then switched to our favorite subject as she stirred the potato pancake mixture. “Did you write today?”
“Yes, Grandma. I did,” I responded. I made notes in my journal every day and often used the portable typewriter Grandma had given me on my fourteenth birthday to write poems and stories.
“Mechayeh. I’m proud of you. Write yourself out of this story and into a better one.” I glanced at the ceiling and sighed when I heard Grandma’s words. That’s exactly what I intended to do.
“I wish Grandma could give you some money to bring to the feast tonight. I’m dying for one of those sausage-and-pepper, give-ya-heartburn heros, but my gallbladder would just act up again,” Grandma had said as she started making patties. “Maybe another time, sweetheart. You go and have fun. But run your m
other’s bath first. She’s feelnish git.”
Mom seldom felt good. Our humble circumstances would have been easier to take if she didn’t exacerbate her poor health with her cigarettes and alcohol and drug addictions, and if she and I had a normal mother-daughter relationship. Like when I was five years old and she had a man waiting in the other room and came in to quiet me. I was still in a crib at this point, go figure. I see it ever so clearly, her putting a cigarette out on my arm. I am constantly reminded of that night when I gaze upon my scar. Don’t really know what made her do it, but I do know she never did something like that again. To get back at her, I began a nasty habit by the time I was seven. I hated when my mother would bring home different men and, for spite, I would pee on the carpet in her bedroom. After a while we all noticed the weird smell, until I got caught in the act by one of mom’s suitors. All I wanted was her attention, her love. To notice that she had a daughter who was trying to love her. I didn’t want other men around her. I wanted her for myself, but she didn’t feel the same. It was what I had to accept. I often wondered as I grew older what it would have been like to have two normal parents, although one could wonder how I would have turned out.
“Hey,” Janice asked as she shook my arm at the feast. “Where are you?”
“Right here,” I replied.
“Like hell you are. Off in your writer’s mind again?”
“Sorry. Let’s get some zeppoles.”
We worked our way to a makeshift counter and I parted with a couple of precious dollars. A black-haired, thin woman with dark, sunken circles around her eyes grabbed hot, greasy balls of dough with a pair of tongs from a deep fryer. She tossed them in a brown paper bag and sprinkled them with powdered sugar before handing the bag to us. God, were they good! They always reminded me of the funnel cakes at a carnival when I was a little girl. I bit into the piping-hot dessert treat and smiled broadly as grease saturated my napkin in a few seconds. My grandmother’s blintzes, as cheesy and light as she made them, did not match a zeppole for taste.
Giggling and talking with our mouths full, Janice and I licked our fingers and made our way through the crowd, waving to friends along the avenue. This was such a tight-knit neighborhood, held together by a shared culture, the Catholic faith that was almost universal there, and the mobsters who provided security as they went about their clandestine business. Everyone knew everyone and kept a watchful and sometimes critical eye on one another. News about every event, whether significant or trivial, spread rapidly through an informal grapevine made up of inhabitants who gathered day and night in small, impromptu groups on their stoops.
The Feast of Santa Rosalia was a public celebration of a common heritage Italians felt in their hearts and expressed in their homes every day. They reveled in their traditions and the opportunity to display their pride together. Whatever differences and disputes that existed within and between families were forgotten during the week that united all.
Janice and I shuffled between the happy people who stood and gesticulated on the crowded avenue. Father Rinaldi saw us through the crowd and waved, signaling us to join him in front of the church raffle booth. The priest stood out in the throng, and it wasn’t just his black suit and white collar, I thought. He was tall and lean with a full head of perfectly cut dark hair, and his broad smile exposed teeth that were as pure as his soul.
“It’s a shame such a hot-looking guy isn’t available,” Janice said on our way over to him.
“Tell me about it,” I said as we neared the popular clergyman. I could never understand why a priest couldn’t love God and be married at the same time.
“I could do him,” Janice whispered.
“Janice!”
“Wouldya blame me?” She giggled and I couldn’t stop myself from doing likewise.
“You girls enjoying yourselves?” Father Rinaldi asked.
“Sure,” we replied.
“How’s your mom, Sam?”
“So-so.”
“I’ll keep her in my prayers.”
“Thanks, Father.”
He placed a hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes. “Haven’t seen you in church in a while.”
“You missed me a few days ago, Father,” I said. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Good,” Father Rinaldi said, and he slipped a raffle ticket into my palm. “Now go have some more fun.”
“We will,” Janice said. She took my hand and we melted into the crowd again.
“I guess Tony’s not here yet,” Janice said when we reached the corner.
“Maybe you missed him in this wall-to-wall crowd, Janice,” I said.
“Not a chance,” she said. “Believe me.” She took my hand and led me across the street to a coin-toss game booth that was manned by her mother’s best friend, Rose Gallo. A tossed nickel, landing and resting in the center of a glass ashtray, would win a stuffed animal like a spotted giraffe, a huge black bear, a lion with a fuzzy mane, or a gangly legged zebra with a yellow bow tied around its neck that hung high up on the side wall. The coin toss was popular and the guys lined up to nab a prize and be a big shot for their girls. We stood behind the boys as they played, Janice in a red halter top and khaki chinos and me in tapered lime green pants and an off-white tank top that covered my modest breasts and tiny waist. I grabbed my hair in my hands and held it off my neck to cool my skin in the heat of a muggy late-summer evening where there wasn’t a breeze to be had.
“Ya don’ have to show off, Sam, to attract these guys,” Janice teased. “They’ll be all over ya anyways.” Janice knew that I took great pride in the mane that framed my brown, almond-shaped eyes and kewpie-doll lips and cascaded down my slim body almost to my hips. I had been told more than once that my hair was just like Cher’s, which had made me proud. After all, who had better hair than Cher? I wondered. As if the DJ had heard my thoughts, her voice boomed from the PA system,
Half-breed, that’s all I ever heard
Half-breed, how I learned to hate the word
Janice wrapped her arm around my waist as we sang along with Cher with a few others who were doing likewise. As the words I knew so well flowed from my mouth, I thought about how music was a large and constant part of Bensonhurst life for both young and old. Sinatra and Bennett were mainstays for our parents’ generation and we didn’t look down upon their style as we embraced contemporary artists such as Donna Summer and the Bee Gees. We loved to dance in time with the upbeat tempo of a new sound and we knew every word to every popular song.
Janice let go of my waist when the song ended and stood with her shoulders back and her head high amid the celebratory crowd. She knew how to carry herself in any situation and I just loved her inherent classiness. Janice never exhibited the awkwardness that most young women did; instead, she presented herself with the confidence that I shared but kept to myself for the most part.
Janice’s looks matched her sophistication. Her hair was the same color as mine but shorter. Her round, brown eyes looked intelligent, as if she actually stopped to think before she gave an opinion—a rare quality in the passionate, outspoken, and aggressive Brooklyn neighborhood where Janice and I had been born and raised. I knew that she judged herself as too overweight, but I liked my best friend’s developed body, with her mature breasts and rounded butt, that got every guy’s attention when we walked the streets of Bensonhurst.
Janice had gone steady with Richie Sparto when she was a junior in high school and that continued after she had graduated in June. I had dated a few boys but hadn’t gone steady with anyone yet. Even though I had other interests like reading and writing, when groups of girls got together every now and then, it was all about boys as we spent afternoons or evenings giving ourselves facials, dyeing and teasing our hair, and doing one another’s nails. Girls compared boyfriends and talked about other guys—which ones were exciting, which ones were dangerous, who was a nerd, who had brains, who was cheating on whom, and who was the most likely to make a good husband. I always enjoyed tho
se free and easy hours and I was sure all the girls did, especially those like me who had questionable relationship role models and a bickering home. Life could be hard in Bensonhurst, particularly for families that scratched to make the rent each month. I lost myself during those primping sessions and dreamed of luxury and sweet times with the “perfect” man.
The Bonti family’s two-bedroom apartment, within walking distance from Janice’s, was less than modest. Mom had a small bedroom to herself while Grandma and I shared another. There was one bathroom that had balky plumbing, a tiny living room, and a narrow kitchen. It was there that we huddled around a horrible black Formica dinner table with tubular metal legs to eat and kibbitz next to the stove, on which a pot of tomato sauce and a pot of chicken soup often sat side by side. Over time, cooking aromas infused the kitchen’s walls, and although broken furniture was taped and glued rather than replaced, it was home and there was love there. Despite my disadvantages, I did have a place to call home.
Janice tugged at her tight slacks as we walked onto the next block. She may have needed to lose a few pounds, but she looked bigger than normal beside my tiny frame. I mean, I couldn’t have weighed more than ninety-five pounds, soaking wet. Janice vowed that by the time I graduated, she would lose enough weight to fit into a slinky white dress for my ceremony. But that was three years off, I thought, so what difference did an extra cannoli make right then?
“Look, there’s Dara,” Janice said as she pointed to her classmate Dara Celentro, a voluptuous blonde (from a bottle, of course, where many otherwise dark-haired Bensonhurst women also found the shade they felt attracted and pleased men) with light brown eyes and high, teased hair, and wearing jeans so tight it was a miracle she could walk. The word on the street was that her pants were down more than they were up, so walking wasn’t a priority for her. Known as the biggest slut on the block, Dara was dating “the Son,” who was, in three words, tall, dark, and sexy. Not to mention powerful. Dara wouldn’t be taking her pants down for anyone else as long as she was with Vin, and no guy would dare mention he had slept with Dara before Vin hooked up with her. For the previous six months, Dara had fallen under Vin’s spell, becoming more and more withdrawn and reclusive because he demanded that. Occasional black-and-blue marks on her arms and chest (she swore she tripped or fell down some steps or walked into a door or got hit by an errant baseball) suggested the method Vin used to keep her in line. Everyone knew Dara was being battered, but nobody interfered because of Vin’s dad, Tino Priganti. Mom and Grandma made me promise that I would never go with a guy who did not respect me. They also made me promise I would never, ever date a man who was associated with the mob.
Brooklyn Story Page 3