The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter

by Tom Mendicino

  “Did you do what I told you to do? Is he gone?”

  “I was too busy today. I’m gonna do it. Right after the funeral.”

  “Whose fucking funeral, Frankie? Yours?” he hisses under his breath. “You can’t piss around with this kid.”

  Mariano must be telepathic; the timing of his text message is perfect.

  cum home te amo c u soon

  “After Easter. I’ll do it after Easter. I already made his basket.”

  The priest rolls his eyes, disgusted by his friend’s obtuse refusal to recognize the urgency of the situation.

  “You are fucking crazy,” the priest whispers, careful not to be overheard spitting obscenities on this solemn occasion.

  Frankie says a few more days won’t make a difference. Who knows? It’s the season of miracles, of transformation. Mariano seems sincere, promising to stay away from bad influences, to be a good boy and never be any trouble again. He deserves another chance before being banished to that firetrap flophouse on Snyder Avenue where Frankie had found him, sleeping in shifts on a dirty mattress he shared with other refugees from his home town, making little more than a subsistence living chopping vegetables and scouring skillets for cash under the table.

  The grieving daughters approach, ready to begin the prayers.

  “Are you coming, Frankie?” Jack asks.

  He follows the priest into the viewing room, kneels beside the dry-eyed widow and her distracted children, and tries to concentrate on the words of the Five Sorrowful Mysteries.

  MARCH 20, 2008

  Rain the day of the funeral, died happy the corpse, according to the old folk legend.

  Well, that miserable old fuck Sal Pinto must have waited until his very last day on earth to experience an hour of joy because it’s a goddamn monsoon out there. Michael’s stranded under the awning of Mastroianni’s Italian Coffee House, unwilling to ruin a perfectly good pair of Church’s Consuls trying to cross the torrent of filthy water flooding Ninth Street. A strong gust of wind tosses a metal trash can into the window of the spice shop across the street and a shard of glass shatters at his feet. He’s putting life and limb at risk standing out here and retreats into the safety of the coffee shop, where he’s greeted by the rich, earthy smell of freshly ground beans and Ol’ Blue Eyes singing “Strangers in the Night” to an empty house. It’s warm and humid inside. Sweat drips from his armpits, dampening his undershirt.

  “Oh my God, you almost gave me a heart attack! I didn’t hear you come in!” Carla Tucci wheezes as she emerges from the dark basement, cradling a cardboard box of paper cups in her arms. “You’re the last person I would have expected to find loafing in the middle of the morning, Mr. Big Shot.”

  “Very funny, Carla. Just get me a double.”

  “How about a cookie?”

  “I don’t want a cookie.”

  “Why not?”

  Because I don’t want an ass that could plug the Delaware Water Gap, he thinks as she turns her back, allowing him an unobstructed view of the enormous buttocks wobbling in her sweatpants.

  “So to what do we owe the honor today, Mikey? They don’t have Starbucks out there in that fancy place where you live?”

  She has the sarcastic tongue of a pulp fiction hash house waitress without the heart of gold. She’s always been a resentful bitch, even when she had a body like Pat Benatar. She’d peaked at sixteen, expelled from high school by the Sisters of Charity for getting pregnant. Life hasn’t been kind to her. The handsome sociopath she married left her with three kids to support before being sent up to Graterford Prison to do a twenty-year sentence for armed robbery.

  “Sal Pinto’s funeral is this morning,” he says. “You know what? Why don’t you bring me a couple of biscotti? This doesn’t look like it’s letting up any time soon.”

  He tries not to cringe as he watches her pull the cookies from the glass jar with her bare hand. Her nails are grimy, caked with black coffee grounds.

  “Why are you going to that old bastard’s funeral?”

  “He was my godfather.”

  Don Vito Corleone he wasn’t. He was just a cranky old son of a bitch, a real faccia di merda who never had a decent word to say about anyone. A cheap motherfucker, too, who resented having to slip a lousy dollar bill into Michael’s birthday card. Frankie’s godfather, Dominic Ferri, a gentle and generous soul, was always good for five bucks on his godson’s birthday and a twenty for Christmas. Frankie got a diamond-chip ring and a Norelco electric razor when he graduated from high school; that asshole Sal Pinto gave Michael his Sunoco thirty-year-service tie clip when he got his diploma from the Academy.

  But Michael begrudgingly concedes the debt he owes to Sal Pinto, the father of three daughters, without a son of his own to teach how to track the trajectory of a football as it sailed across the field and to precisely calculate where it was destined to fall to earth. Sal Pinto taught him how to block and tackle, the difference between the two- and three-point stance, the proper way to protect the ball, how to use his feet and shoulders for maximum effect. Sal Pinto took his responsibilities seriously, determined his godson would be tough, not a finook like his older brother. Michael’s father was Sal’s closest friend, but stubborn as a jackass, testa dura. He’d brushed off the barber’s protests that ball games were the folly of the medigan’, and signed Michael up for Pop Warner. And it was Sal Pinto who invited the business agent for the pipefitters union, who also happened to be the brother-in-law of the athletic director at Matteo Ricci Preparatory Academy, the most elite Jesuit institution of secondary education in the city, maybe the country, to watch Michael, fleet of foot for a boy his size, tear up the field playing youth football on a team sponsored by the Ninth Street Merchants Alliance.

  “The Mass starts at eleven. I’m a pallbearer.”

  The bell above the door announces the arrival of a pair of solemn little men bundled up in black overcoats more suitable to the depths of winter than the warmer temperatures of spring. They stamp their tiny feet and carefully shake the raindrops from their ancient homburgs. Their suits are clearly custom-made, the finest tailoring with perfect topstitching and cloth-covered buttons. They play a ritualistic game—after you, my dear Alphonse—and the younger (by only a few hours it would seem from their wizened faces) prevails, approaching the counter to order two cappuccinos, extra froth, and a bagel with cream cheese and grape jelly.

  “You sit down and I’ll bring it right over, Mr. Galante,” Carla says, almost kindly.

  The old fellows settle down at the table next to Michael. The elder, Mr. Angelo Casano, smiles and nods. He’s a neighborhood legend; the South Philly Review did a front-page feature when he retired at the age of eighty-seven as the oldest practicing undertaker in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He still makes himself useful, a window cat padding about the quiet corners of the family funeral parlor, always available whenever his son who now runs the business needs someone to collect the cash envelopes for the family of the deceased or to fill an empty pew at a Mass for a dearly departed who outlived his friends and acquaintances. He sits contentedly at the table, nibbling the corners of his bagel, a fleck of cream cheese in his mustache.

  “You heard about Filomena Constanato?” Mr. Galante asks, making conversation.

  Mr. Casano shrugs, engrossed in his bagel. After spending a lifetime in the service of death (and making a damn good living out of it), there’s nothing tragic or even sad about an old woman’s comfortable passing after a long, contented life.

  “What are you gonna do?” Mr. Galante sighs, a rhetorical question.

  “You know, I worked for her father when I was a boy,” Mr. Casano recalls, his voice barely audible. “He used to sell fresh-killed chickens at Ninth and Wharton. Cut off their heads right there on the street.” He laughs, daintily dabbing his whiskers with a paper napkin. “Paid me and my brother a dollar a day to pluck their feathers. Fifty cents each. That was big money back then. We thought we was rich! I could never eat chicken again aft
er that. Turkey neither. You never forget the smell of wet feathers,” he says, still wincing at the thought eight decades later. Michael smiles, amused by the delicate sensibility of a man who had spent his life draining the blood from cadavers and pumping them full of toxic embalming fluids.

  “How are you, Mr. Casano?” Michael asks the old man. “Do you remember me? Michael Gagliano, Luigi and Sofia’s boy.”

  “Of course. Of course.” He smiles, trying to place Michael’s vaguely familiar face.

  Not so long ago the old undertaker would have immediately recalled his name. He’d taken great pride in his ability to recognize the features of the generations of South Philadelphians he’d prepared to meet their Maker in the faces of their living descendants. He stares at Michael, seeming to recall that one of Luigi’s sons was a finook, but this young stranger is wearing a wedding band on his left hand. Frankie hates this man and refused to let him bury their father, though their grandparents and all of Papa’s wives had been entrusted to his able hands. At the height of the epidemic, the Casano Funeral Home had refused to accept the body of Frankie’s dear friend Michael Montello because the certificate listed AIDS-RELATED infection as the cause of death. It seems like a cruel and a cowardly act now, depriving a heartbroken mother of the comfort of a traditional viewing, but it was the time when newspapers and magazines were full of images of hollow-eyed, emaciated men, and otherwise rational people believed a handshake or sharing an eating utensil could sentence them to an early, hideous death. Michael, unlike his brother, remembers old Mr. Casano as a kinder, more considerate man.

  “So what the hell happened to your brother?” Carla asks as she gathers Michael’s empty cookie plate.

  “Nothing’s happened as far as I know.”

  “His left eye is practically swollen shut and his nose is the size of a grapefruit. He said he tripped on the curb. I’ve never heard of anyone falling on their eye.”

  Mr. Galante is helping Mr. Casano into his overcoat. The rain has let up enough for the short walk to the church.

  “I haven’t seen him. I didn’t make it to the viewing last night,” Michael says.

  “Well, he looked like he’d gone three rounds with Smokin’ Joe Frazier when he came in for coffee this morning,” she elaborates as he swallows the last of his espresso and makes his way to the door.

  Frankie’s waiting in the vestibule of Saint Catherine of Siena, impeccably dressed. His brother is truly their father’s son, able to keep a sharp crease in his trousers in a soaking downpour, his shoes spit-shined and gleaming. He’s wearing sunglasses in a dark and gloomy church.

  “What time did you get in last night? The widow Pinto is frantic, thinking you weren’t going to show,” Frankie greets him. “Why didn’t you answer my calls this morning?”

  “They re-routed us through Columbus Fucking Ohio. I didn’t get home until midnight. My battery was dead and I forgot to charge my phone.”

  Four neighborhood kids, pimply-faced vo-tech dropouts fresh out of rehab, wearing cheap suits and old black sneakers, pallbearers-for-hire, wait for their marching orders. It’s an easy fifty bucks, under the table. Some old geezer is buried every day and they can pick up two hundred, two fifty, a week if they’re willing to haul themselves out of bed and put on a tie. Young Casano doesn’t make them sit through the Mass and they’re free to grab a slice at the pizza shop across the street and shoot the shit until their services are needed.

  “It stopped rainin’. Tell Mr. Casano we’re going out for a smoke, okay, Frankie?” the scruffiest of the young fellows asks.

  “You have your gloves?” Frankie asks the boys as he hands Michael a pair of the white pallbearer gloves required by sacred tradition.

  Mr. Galante and old Mr. Casano cross the vestibule, arm in arm, and, creaking and croaking, bless themselves as they enter the nave.

  “Why the hell are you wearing sunglasses? The glare from the votive candles too much for you?” Michael asks, grabbing his brother by the arm.

  “I tripped on the curb crossing Christian Street. Went down on my face.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Michael says as he snatches the glasses off his brother’s face. Carla was right. Frankie looks like Quasimodo with a huge purple bruise almost sealing his eyelid to his cheek. His swollen nose is the size of a paperweight. “What the fuck did that goddamn kid do to you?”

  “Nobody did this to me. I told you. I fell on the street. You want to see what I did to my knees? Here. I’ll pull up my pant legs so you can survey the damage.”

  “Settle down, for Christ’s sake. You want someone to hear you? I was just asking.”

  “Straighten your tie. Jack’s about to start the Mass,” he says. “I told Sal’s daughters you’d say a few words.”

  “No fucking way. No one asked me to prepare a eulogy.”

  “Oh come on, Mikey. You’re his godson. Just tell some stupid story. About him taking you to a ball game for your birthday or something.”

  “You say a few words.”

  “He was your godfather, not mine. Besides, you’re a better liar.”

  You’re damn right, Frankie, Michael thinks. You bet your sweet ass I would have come up with a better story to explain a nasty black eye and a fucked-up nose than tripping on the sidewalk. But Frankie’s already halfway up the aisle, stopping to shake hands with Mr. Galante and, yes, even old Mr. Casano before he slides into the pew beside Sal’s daughters.

  Even Sal Pinto deserves better than this pitiful turnout, fifteen mourners, sixteen if you count the priest. Michael supposes he can come up with a few words for the occasion. Fuck it. Why begrudge the old son of a bitch a grand send-off? He’ll spin an inspirational tale of cross-generational bonding and affection, Tuesdays with Morrie with a South Philadelphia twist, the first act in the eventual canonization of the deceased. Sal Pinto’s daughters will dab their eyes with a tissue, grateful to learn their selfish and critical father had a kind heart and giving nature after all. Mr. Galante and Mr. Casano will lean forward in their pew, intent on hearing every word. And Frankie, well, Frankie will be rapt in his seat, beaming with pride at the easy eloquence of his little brother, foolishly assuming that the subject of bruises is officially closed, not suspecting Michael intends to buttonhole him in a quiet corner at the sorry little funeral lunch at the Speakeasy and subject him to cross-examination until he breaks down and admits it’s time his little Mexican friend is moving on, if not willingly, then with the friendly assistance of a few federal agents.

  The morning storms have swept through the area and a bright sun blazes overhead. The grass is wet from the drenching rain; Michael’s tempted to take off his shoes and socks and walk barefoot across the cemetery lawn. The graveside service was mercifully brief, with only Sal’s daughters, their children, a single resentful son-in-law, and the Gagliano brothers in attendance. The trek to the cemetery was a pitiful convoy of four cars, including the hearse, a mere shadow of the police-escorted processions of fifty vehicles Frankie and Michael remember from their youths. The prayers over, Sal committed to the earth, his youngest daughter says she’s driving Father Jack back to South Philly and reminds Michael she has something of her father’s she wants to give him at the funeral lunch.

  “Probably his retirement cuff links from the refinery,” he grumbles when he and his brother are alone.

  “I bought a couple of Mass cards in your name,” Frankie says.

  “What do I owe you?”

  “Ten minutes of your time.”

  “Please, Frankie,” Michael pleads. “Don’t ask me to do this!”

  “Mikey, there’s no way we’re coming all the way out here and not paying our respects.”

  Frankie snatches a fresh floral tribute off Sal Pinto’s grave.

  “My godfather’s gonna come back and haunt you for stealing,” Michael warns him with a laugh.

  “Fuck Sal Pinto,” Frankie snarls, sounding almost fierce.

  “Do you even remember where it is?”

  “Of co
urse. Jesus, Mikey, how long has it been since you’ve made a visit?”

  Visit is an odd way to describe a pilgrimage to their father’s grave. Visit implies a pleasant conversation over a cocktail or coffee and cookies, catching up on the latest news; it hardly describes staring slack-jawed at a granite tombstone, counting the minutes before you can leave without seeming disrespectful.

  “I don’t remember,” he says, knowing perfectly well he hasn’t visited the old man’s grave since Frankie forced him to do it on the first anniversary of Papa’s death.

  The long walk to the Gagliano family plot is downhill, which means a trek back up the driveway to pick up the car. He complains that they aren’t driving, but Frankie insists the walk will do them good.

  “So, are you going to tell me who did this to your face?” he asks, taking advantage of the forced march to extort a confession. “And don’t lie. Remember, I’m a prosecutor.”

  “I told you what happened. I tripped on a curb crossing Christian Street. Fell flat on my face,” Frankie swears.

  “Give me one good reason to believe you. I bet your priest buddy can tell me what happened.”

  “So what do you think?” Frankie asks, pointing straight ahead. “Impressive, huh?”

  “Jesus Christ, Frankie!” he gasps, his mouth agape.

  Impressive is one way to describe the garish monument that’s been erected in the center of the Gagliano family plot. A seven-foot weeping marble angel, a strange hybrid of a Biblical messenger and a minor god of classical myth, stands vigil over the graves of Luigi Gagliano and his many wives, brandishing a sword in one hand and a lantern in the other.

  “What the fuck!” is all he can say.

  “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d try to talk me out of spending the money.”

  “It’s . . . it’s . . .” he mumbles, finally giving up, a rare occasion when words fail him.

  Even in death, Papa remains the center of his own little universe, the bantam rooster surrounded by his hens. His first wife, Teresa, lies to his right in the plot she shares with the ashes of the grandson she never knew, Sonny F. Shevchek, LCP, a casualty of the Gulf War. Her daughter Paulina’s urn will be buried with her son and the sainted mother she’d lost when she was still a girl. Frankie and Michael’s mother, Sofia, sleeps at Papa’s left. Miss Eileen Costello rests at his feet, and Frannie Merlino lies next to her, interred after a protracted legal battle between Papa and her sister’s children, who fought to have her buried with her first husband in the Merlino family plot. Rubbing salt into the wound, Papa had also refused their request that he return an expensive watch that had once belonged to the late Mr. Merlino. Their marriage had been miserable, but the law was on his side as she had died as Papa’s wife and not as the widow of the man interred in a cemetery in Lansdale. Only Helen Constanza is missing, her daughter having cremated her body and scattered the ashes in California. There’s room in the plot for at least one more Gagliano, and Michael’s astonished to see Frankie’s name and date of birth already sculpted into the monument, the date of death to be inscribed in the future.