Autumn’s martyrdom gave way to the tyrant of winter; it felt as if the sun had left us. The enthusiasm for school I had in September had faded with the season. I dreaded Sunday evenings. Not even Nana’s sauce or meatballs or braciole could lift my spirits. I stopped writing stories; I cried at night.
The standard Sunday dinner battle between my father and sister took place as I joined my family at the table.
“How can you eat them like that!” my father shouted. “You’re a Ferraro. We come from very humble roots down in Avellino. It’s in your blood!”
Britney hated pasta sauce and would only eat her jumbo raviolis with butter and grated parmesan cheese.
“That’s the way she likes them,” said my mother.
“Okay, okay, I won’t fight it. But finish those up, because it’s almost homework time.”
“No.”
“Yes, Britney, your brother does his homework… right? Vito, you do your homework?”
“Yeah.”
“See, Vito does his homework—Vito, stop playing with your hair—and you have to do yours.”
“Will you stop calling him that?”
“It’s… it’s not right for a woman to read…” Britney started, quoting Beauty and the Beast. “Soon she starts getting ‘ideas’ and ‘thinking.’”
“No movie talk,” said my mother. “Use your own words, honey.”
“Britney, if you don’t finish your ravs, you won’t get dessert.”
“No!”
“Okay then. No dessert. You get moonAtz.” (Translation: nothing, nada, zilch.)
“Vic, honey, are you feeling okay? You look pale.”
“You didn’t get that Southern Italian skin. Must be your mother’s side.”
“I’m okay.”
“Go take a hot shower, you’ll feel better.”
Hot showers, those were my mother’s panacea. At the first sign of the sniffles, we were sent to the shower and then made to bundle up.
I took my shower and put on my sweatshirt and went into the basement to watch the Packers play the 49ers. I liked Steve Young and Jerry Rice, and for Christmas I got both of their jerseys—Steve Young in red and Jerry Rice in white. On Christmas morning I rushed down the steps to the basement and tripped and fell into the mountain of gifts that sat under the tree. It didn’t even hurt. I started opening one while I was still lying facedown on the carpet. The whole pile, all of them, were mine, mine, mine. God, that made me feel good; that made the winter warmer, and I forgot about the sun for a few hours.
“Where’s your jersey?” asked my father. “We just got you two 49ers jerseys for Christmas. Go get one on.”
“But Mom said to bundle.”
“You can put it on over your sweatshirt. They’re big enough.”
“Okay.” And I started back up the stairs.
“I don’t know why you can’t be a Giants or Jets fan like your father!” he called up after me.
I put on the white Jerry Rice jersey, #80, and headed back downstairs. Our basement was a multi-level, multi-roomed part of the house. My mom had an office full of desks and computers. My family had more computers than anyone I knew—we didn’t even know what she did at her job. The main room had a couch and the Lay-Z-Boy where my dad fell asleep every night in front of this giant, thick television we got from my aunt and uncle out in Mendham that had a crack in the bottom of the screen. We always had to let it load for a few minutes to allow the black-and-white fuzz to calm down; if you needed to watch something at 9:00, better turn it on by 8:55.
The second part of the basement had a two-step decline. There we kept a billiards table that we also got from the same aunt and uncle; there was also a space down there, with more TVs and video games, that Tony, Karl, George, and I filled up with farts until midnight. There was a little bathroom covered in vintage posters from Mexico and Guatemala that were leftover from the old lady who lived there before us and were still there the day my parents sold the house in 2016. And at the end of it all was the laundry room, a deep and dark place where shirts swayed from the clothesline like bodies in a noose. If I had to get to the refrigerator to get my dad a beer or take out braciole from Corrado’s to thaw, you can believe that I brought a weapon with me.
The lighting was dark, and the walls were made of tawny wood—the whole basement looked like it had been in a ’70s porno. The walls were covered in my father’s degrees: bachelor’s, master’s, doctorate. My mother didn’t go to college, and she wore it like a badge of honor: “Haven’t done too bad for a girl with only a high school diploma, huh?” she would say. We still didn’t know what she actually did, but she brought me to work one time and showed me this giant white room with thick bundled cables crisscrossing into giant black machines—it reminded me of something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. And above the couch, my father left space on the wall for me: “That’s where we’ll put your awards, Vito. It’ll be great.”
I curled up in the corner of the couch with the heavy, soul-soothing blanket that was ubiquitous among basement dens. I could hear Britney screaming all the way from her bedroom: “You are such a disease!” she shouted, quoting Home Alone. My mother made her do all of her speech homework from the therapist in Westfield every night, and every night there were screams and tears and the gnashing of teeth over crumpling paper. But my mother refused to accept the quick fix of drugs that so many of the other parents used to render their children mindless zombies (as in the original, obedient creatures devoid of free will, personified in White Zombie—not the face-eating, brain-munching nightmares of George A. Romero).
My father turned up the volume on the game—Brett Favre had made a theatrical scramble before getting knocked out at the one-yard line.
“Next year that will be you, pal. You excited to start football?”
“Yeah. That will be phat.”
“What? Fat? What do you mean, my friend?”
I had heard Tony say it before and didn’t really understand what it meant. Tony was always saying cool things like “phat” and “spaz” and “sick” and “psych,” but I didn’t know exactly when to use them, and he wasn’t there to help explain. I considered calling Karl—the Geiger’s were #9 on the speed dial—if my father continued to inquire about my budding cool syntax.
“Oh, um… it’s like…”
“Oh, it’ll be so great, Vito. I loved playing football. You’ll love it too. Let me see your hands.” I flashed my hands like I was a mime in front of a wall. “You need big hands in football. Okay, they’re getting there. What position do you want to play?”
“I want to be a punt returner, like Deion Sanders.”
“Deion Sanders! He’s such a jerk. What do I say? No jerks. What about a quarterback, like one of these guys—Steve Young or Brett Favre?”
“I guess.”
“You guess… Trust me, Vito, you’ll be a great quarterback. Papa was a quarterback. He’ll give you some lessons when we’re up at the lake house next week. Okay? Okay. Show me your hands again.”
It was too cold on Monday, so we had to have recess in the gym. I hated recess in the gym because I couldn’t play football; I couldn’t run away from Pierce Stone.
Pierce Stone knew I saw him tinkle himself in the woods the day we went searching for Hell. But instead of being nice, he resented me for it and used it against me, as if I had been the serpent emerging from the earth.
“Hey Ferraro, I heard your dad is coming to give a talk at school.”
I had no idea that he was coming in for a talk. He didn’t say anything to me this morning while I had my farina—I hated the stuff; it reminded me of alien brains. I usually waited as long as I could before eating it, staring at the slab of butter on top until it melted into that translucent yellow slush.
But my father was always doing stuff like this, according to my mom. One time he didn’t tell her until
a week before that we were having the family over for “the vigil”—what my family called Christmas Eve. That week I thought they might get a divorce.
“I dunno,” I said, flipping through one of the stories I had written before my indefinite hiatus from writing. It was about an orc who teams up with a Jedi to kill a tremor king terrorizing a city—I dreamed big back in autumn.
“What the heck do you mean, you dunno? It’s your dad.” I didn’t say anything. “I’m going to see my dad tonight, at his fort,” he continued.
“Your dad has a fort?” I said, looking up from my story. “Is he a general? Does he have soldiers?”
“Yeah, my dad has a fort. It’s just for guys, though. My mom isn’t even allowed there.”
“Well, of course. Where is it? Does it have a drawbridge and… and a moat?”
“No, no moat. It’s in this place called Hoboken. There aren’t even houses there, just blocks of connected doors and windows, but my dad seems to like it. He says he doesn’t have to go to Penn Station to get to work anymore.”
“Hell isn’t in Penn Station, ya know.”
“Well crap. Of course not, Ferraro!” And he stomped away.
That afternoon my father did in fact come to Glenwood to give a talk. We all had to cram into rows in the multi-purpose room. I had to squint to see the small screen of the TV they rolled in on the beat-up beige cart.
“Many of you may already know my son, Vit… Victor. Where are you, pal?” I raised my hand, face red. “There he is,” he said, pointing. Michaela Silves, the girl who wanted to suck my lips off, blew me a kiss. I got redder. “Okay, everyone, today we are going to talk about ‘good touch’ and ‘bad touch.’”
Pierce Stone and the Barriston brothers snickered in the back row.
“Pssst, Ferraro,” whispered Miles Barriston, following orders from Pierce Stone, who was egging him on as quietly as he could. “Sshh, shut up, okay, okay… I heard you like the ‘bad touch.’”
Uproar.
“MILES BARRISTON,” said Ms. O’Donnell in that gritty, lock-jawed voice perfected by public school teachers across the country. “Quiet down this instant.”
I grew redder still as Michaela fluttered her eyes at me. Oblivious to the commotion, my father went on about what kind of “touches” were appropriate from teachers, coaches, etc. In the early ’90s, when we were still living in my old town, a few of the girls on the high school soccer team let one of the gym teachers touch them so they didn’t have to go to class. When it became public, my father was immediately in the crosshairs, because he was in charge of hiring and firing the physical education staff. Between the hearings and meetings and councils, I barely saw him that autumn. My mother thought he would end up crashing into a ditch driving the hour home on those late nights. But after the pedophile was fired and there wasn’t any link between him or any other teachers or my dad, everything went back to normal. Thankfully, a spree of burglaries had been happening around the same time in the “Poet’s Section” of town (where the streets are named things like Byron, Tennyson, and Wordsworth) that deflected attention from the high school. So my father gave this talk every few years to each of the elementary schools to keep the board off his ass.
“Psst, Ferraro,” started Miles Barriston. “This talk is boring as hell.”
I didn’t like Miles Barriston; he was the kind of kid who put his whole mouth on the water fountain spout.
“I swear, Ferraro, if your dad doesn’t stop talking I’m going to diiiiiiie.”
I turned my head toward where they were sitting and said, “Then you will find Hell.” And then I turned it back so Ms. O’Donnell wouldn’t see. I had to squint at what I thought was probably a fat coach wrapping his hands around a young boy’s waist as I ignored Michaela’s blown kisses.
Tom Jones Cleaver only appeared on TV really late at night. I would usually fall asleep before his program, but if I drank too many pouches of Capri Sun or bottles of Stewart’s Root Beer that Tony and George had snuck over from the Geigers’, I would stay up late and watch Pastor Cleaver talk into his bedazzled microphone. He had such big teeth, and they were so white—he probably never drinks root beer. His curly black hair with two silver streaks running along the sides reminded me of a skunk, or my Uncle Angelo.
His church in Texas was much bigger than Saint Rose of Lima over on Short Hills Avenue, where my father took me, my brother, and sister each Sunday. My mom stopped going to church around the time Britney was born; she went to Catholic school in Philadelphia and says she’s prayed enough for one lifetime.
“Can you feel it?! Can you feel the warmth that is the coming of the Lord?” Pastor Cleaver called into his bedazzled microphone.
His “flock” and “lovelies,” as he called them, stood in their pews and stretched out their arms, grabbing at the air.
“Come here, my lovely. Tell me, tell us your pain and how the miracle water has healed ya.”
A young woman who looked like she had just lost her baby teeth went trotting up to the stage from the flock. “Pastor Cleaver, I had four tumors in my skull here and doctors didn’t want to operate no more. So I called ya up, and I ordered ya water, and glory be to God, I’m healed. Lord Hallelujah!”
“Hallelujah!”
“Hallelujah!” echoed the flock.
He was always touching people on their faces and chests. He would close his eyes and repeat these words I didn’t understand: “Eeeek tal’alla mande, eeeek tal’alla mande.” And then he would pull his hand off their faces real fast and jump back as if he just saw a spider, and the “lovely” would convulse and fall to the ground. Sometimes men would jump out of wheelchairs and start dancing, and the “flock” would cry and shout.
In between the screaming and calling and speaking in tongues, the program would cut to Pastor Cleaver sitting in a big white chair with a pixilated fireplace lit behind him. A telephone number would sparkle across the bottom of the screen: 1-800-555-HEAL.
“I know you’ve heard it before, but here it is again, my lovelies. Call this number now and receive the miracle that is the power of the Lord. You will reap what you sow. There it is, say it with me now: you will reap what you sow. Call now, my lovelies, make haste.”
I didn’t call Pastor Cleaver. I changed the channel to Nick at Nite even though there weren’t any cartoons on. I liked the old shows like Cheers and The Cosby Show—Mr. Cosby seemed like a nice man who wouldn’t hurt a fly. But my favorite was Three’s Company, the one where this guy lived near the beach in California with two girls and had this weird landlord who was always wearing a robe. Chrissy, with her bright blonde hair, was my favorite.
I would’ve done anything to live near the beach on an island. It wouldn’t even need to be one of the popular islands, like where Paxton Shaffer went on vacation. It could be any island; it just needed sun and sand and big palm trees. But we never went to any islands or even California. During the summer we would spend a week with my father’s side of the family in Stone Harbor and the subsequent week in Ocean City, for my mom. She grew up spending her summers there, escaping Philadelphia for a few months every year—her uncle still has a house on 1st and Atlantic Avenue.
Pierce Stone said that Ocean City is full of Philly trash, but it always seemed clean to me. I didn’t know how Philadelphia garbage could reach the Jersey Shore anyway.
“Vito,” my dad called from the top of the steps. “You still awake, pal?”
When I heard my dad’s voice, I flung onto my side and closed my eyes. He came down the steps into the basement. I was amazing at pretending to be asleep. I loved to pretend I was asleep when I was in the car. It’s how I found out that my cousins wouldn’t play with Britney when we were at the lake house and that Mr. Geiger was a millionaire. I was oddly proud of my skill.
“Hello, my friend.” He sat at the foot of the bed. For all he knew, I was deep in a dream, in a galaxy far,
far away. But he continued, “What did you think about your father’s talk? Hmm? Hey, Vito, you awake?” I was absolutely nailing it, possibly my best performance yet. “What you got on here? Is that Three’s Company? That Suzanne Somers was really something, huh?” Still nothing; I was a rock. “Okay then, see you tomorrow, my friend.” And he rubbed my shoulder and turned off the TV.
Mum Mum, my grandmother on my mother’s side, always taped paleontology documentaries for me. She found it strange that a seven-year-old indulged in such dry footage but perpetuated anything that didn’t include spinning hedgehogs or marauding orcs.
I had a growing library of VHS tapes chronicling the various discoveries of our earthly predecessors. The dino and its dig site were written in red Sharpie on the sides of the tape: Brontosaurus—Wyoming, Allosaurus—Colorado, Archaeopteryx—Offenbach, not far from where my mother’s family was from in Germany.
But this time the VHS tape didn’t have an old British man with a gray beard talking into the camera as he crossed desolate Mongolian steppes. Instead, it was a claymation video with a generic orange dinosaur—a Tyrannosaurus, I suppose—that was crying and crying and crying and screaming this high-pitched, blood-curdling scream, declaring that he didn’t want to die. A voice had been narrating the video; it had been a nice video with nothing controversial or inspiring of note, but the voice wouldn’t give the wailing dino solace of any kind.
“I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! Ahh ha ah ahhh!” I had the blanket up to my nose, curling myself into the corner of the couch. What the heck was Mum Mum thinking? “I don’t want to die!”
“It must happen,” said the sonorous voice from the black.
“I don’t want to die!”
WHOOOOOOOM!!!
And the dinosaur and the trees and everything around them vanished.
“And that was the end of the dinosaurs.”
Credits.
“Mom!!!”
My mother kicked back her chair and swung open the door to her office with her reading glasses tilted at the bottom of her nose. “What? What is it? What happened?”
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