They can hear the swell of cheers uptown and, in the distance, see the headlights and beacons of the patrol cars leading the approaching caravan. The cops are in a good mood as they quickly throw up the restraint lines, trying not to dampen the enthusiasm of the fans pressing into the street, trying to get a first look as the convoy appears in the distance.
“Dad, I can’t see!” Danny shouts, fighting the tears of disappointment welling in his eyes.
His uncle and the priest hoist him even higher, up onto Michael’s shoulders, giving him a catbird-seat view of the gelled spikes and balding crowns of the crowd and an unobstructed view of the parade as it creeps along the boulevard.
“Dad, get closer,” Danny pleads as they step off the curb and into the street, propelled by the crush of bodies at their backs as the faithful press forward, needing to be closer to their heroes. The cops grow tense as the flatbed trucks carrying the team approach. Their smiles are less genial; their eyes scan the crowd, anticipating catastrophe, and their ears are pricked to pick up any ominous threats in the deafening noise. But the chubby-cheeked little officer directly in front of them, no taller than the minimum height requirement for the force, is less of a killjoy than her fretting colleagues, letting Michael and Danny inch ever farther from the safety of the sidewalk.
Women of all ages act like frenzied girls. They squeal and blow kisses, pledging eternal fealty. The crowd is chanting, howling, and yelping, happily making noise. Old men make the sign of the cross, unembarrassed by the tears streaming down their cheeks. The players look more like awestruck Little Leaguers than jaded millionaire athletes; they seem mesmerized, maybe even a bit intimidated, by the furious passion of the millions who’ve gathered on the streets to pay tribute. Danny starts bouncing up and down on his father’s shoulders. Michael can hear him shouting at the spitfire centerfielder who’s tossing cheap red Mardi Gras beads to his rapturous fans.
“Step back. Please step back, people. Please,” the mini-cop finally warns, fighting a losing battle. The crowd has advanced too far to retreat now, just when they are so close. “Let’s go, folks. Step back on the curb.”
She’s not even pretending to be friendly now, but the beast, once unleashed, refuses to be tamed. Michael lurches toward the rolling truck, fighting to keep his balance and to not lose his footing in the surging mob.
“Dad! Dad!”
He reaches up to grab Danny’s wrists, to steady him on his shoulders, but the boy lunges forward, nearly breaking his father’s neck and dropping him to his knees. Michael lifts his head just in time to see the newly anointed World Champion laughing as he gives his son a thumbs-up, clearly impressed by Danny’s clean snatch of a string of beads he’d dispatched from the truck.
And then, in a flash, it’s over and the frenzy passes like a wave, rambling down the boulevard. The parade disappears as quickly as it had arrived. Everyone is suddenly quiet, not quite certain about what to do next. The younger kids decide to follow the celebration and chase after the last truck. The older folks fold their chairs and linger, trying to decide where to go for lunch.
“This way, guys! Over here! Smile, Danny! Say cheese!”
Frankie’s going crazy with his camera.
“One more, Mikey. Come on. Look happy! Good God, you look like you’re about to break into tears.”
The celebration has ended, and Michael is overcome by a crushing sadness. He knows this is the last time he and his brother will share a milestone in their lives. He’s dreading the day he will put Frankie on an airplane with a one-way ticket to his sub-tropical paradise. Princeton, New Jersey, little more than an hour’s drive, is the farthest they’ve ever been apart. He’d expected it would be Frankie who would be suffering pangs of anxiety, since Michael has a wife and a son and Frankie has only Michael. He’s proud of his older brother’s courage to strike out on his own, but he’s also hurt that Frankie seems to be counting the days until his flight is announced, as if he were a prisoner who knows he’s about to walk through the door of his cage. Frankie will be fine in the coming days and weeks. It’s Michael who is unsettled by the rapidly approaching separation.
“Are you crying, Dad?” Danny asks, bewildered and bit frightened.
“It’s just the dust blowing in my eyes, buddy. Come on, the party’s over.”
“This is great! Take a look!” Frankie boasts, proudly offering the camera screen for their approval.
Ah, the wonders of digital technology. There’s no need to finish the roll, send the film off to the lab, wait a week to confirm you’ve captured the perfect Kodak moment. It’s a terrific picture, a classic shot of father and son. Danny’s waving his magic beads above his head. His face is wild with excitement. The game is over and he’s the winner of the grand prize! His mouth is wide open; you can count all of his teeth. He’s shouting something at the camera, a message for the world. Michael assumes this will be the moment Danny cherishes decades from now whenever he thinks about his dad. In the years ahead events of this day will recede into a foggy and vague recollection. But he’ll always have this picture and, after Michael is dead and gone, he’ll marvel at the image of the man his father had once been and he’ll remember there was a time he believed his dad was the strongest, bravest, and smartest man in the world.
Michael would be puzzled if he knew that, years from now, Danny will keep a different photograph, copied and enlarged from a fading Polaroid, in a frame on his bedside table. Father and son will remain close after the boy reaches manhood, and Danny will be devastated when Michael dies unexpectedly at the age of sixty-seven from a massive coronary, three days after laying his brother to rest in the family plot. Kit will divide his ashes, keeping half to be mingled with her own, the rest to be buried in an urn at the foot of Frankie’s grave. Danny will find the photo, one of dozens, in a worn manila envelope while going through his uncle’s papers. The harsh lighting shrouds the serious young boys in mystery. He will never know who took these strange pictures or what they mean. Only his father and uncle could answer his questions and they are both gone. Every image is the same. Frankie and Michael stand side by side, handsome boys in crisp white dress shirts and dark ties, solemnly staring at the lens. Danny will choose a portrait where his father has nearly caught up to his uncle’s height, on the verge of outgrowing him, the balance between them about to shift. But at that moment, frozen in time, the younger brother still tightly grips the older’s hand, afraid of losing him, as if Frankie could step outside the frame, leaving Michael behind and on his own.
GRATITUDE
Casey Fuetsch, Rachel Klayman, Steven Salpeter, Monique Vescia, Paula Reedy, Karen Auerbach, Tova Diker, Annsley Rosner, Della Capozzi Payne and Danny Payne, Brian Corbett, Sharon Sorokin James, Lori Biondi, Diane Brown, Elliott Stein, Charles Honart, John Szubski, Daryl Levine and Carl Pelizoto (DL Salon), Mariel Freeman and Matt Derago and the staff of Shot Tower Coffee, Oliver Gallini, Peter Guido Valentino, Louis Pizzitola, Michael Burke, Burke & Payne (Philadelphia Barber Co., LLC), Larry and Jessie Mele, Shannon and Franco Sciotto, Rocco Sciotto, Terry Dougherty, Herta Ginsburgs, Janet Fries, Frank Chernak, Jean Kozicki.
The late Jerre Mangione, teacher and mentor, first encouraged me to write about our shared heritage.
Mitchell Waters conjured up Billy Wilder to come to my rescue.
Sarah Russo’s enthusiasm is infectious and her energy and savvy never cease to amaze me.
Glenn Gale has the uncanny ability to visualize my ideas.
Above all, my peerless editor, John Scognamiglio, embraced the idea of this novel from the outset and encouraged me to follow my instincts. Without his unwavering support and generosity, this book would never have seen the light of day.
My parents believed that marriage is for life. They taught me well. So finally, to my marito, Nick Ifft.
Please turn the page
for a very special Q&A
with Tom Mendicino!
How did you come up with the idea for The Boys from Eighth and Carpe
nter?
The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter was inspired by my experience doing neighborhood canvassing during the 2008 presidential primary election. The campaign touched a raw nerve and exposed the usually dormant racial and class tensions in this rapidly gentrifying section of the city. I wanted to explore that dynamic in the context of a single family, and the completed novel focuses on the domestic narrative and the relationship between the Gagliano brothers.
You grew up in Philadelphia and still live there today. Is the neighborhood in the novel based on the one where you once lived?
Setting the record straight, I grew up in a housing development in a working-class community near Pittsburgh. (The Gagliano brothers travel to a nearby town to visit their half sister Polly in the novel.) I currently live in the neighborhood that is the primary location of the book. The Ninth Street (or Italian) Market area is struggling to maintain its traditional ethnic identity as newer waves of immigrants arrive and Lego-land construction proliferates. But the community continues to maintain its unique character and, for better and worse, change comes slowly, enough so that my mother, in her typically blunt and outspoken way, once remarked, “Well, you didn’t get far, did you?” Papa’s cronies and wives are all based on members of my extended family, and the dialogue is their words as I remember them. Fortunately, unlike Frankie and Michael’s abusive tormentor, my father was a very gentle man who never once raised his hand to me.
Are there any aspects of your personality in Frankie and Michael?
People wrongly assume my first novel is semi-autobiographical. In fact, the adult Michael is the closest character to myself I’ve written, with the possible exception of Charlie Beresford in the KC, At Bat trilogy.
Which brother was your favorite character?
That is an impossible question to answer as I can’t see one existing without the other. I love them both, and each drives me crazy.
How did the writing of this book compare to your first novel, Probation? Was it easier or harder?
Probation was far more difficult because you lose the freedom of the omniscient voice when writing a first-person narrative. It was perfect for that novel, which is really a confessional, but I doubt I will use it again.
How do you feel about the way Italians are portrayed in films and TV? Do you think there are stereotypes? When people hear “Italian” they instantly think of The Godfather or The Sopranos. Does that bother you?
Hell, no, it doesn’t bother me. My father was born in 1921 and had vivid memories of cross-burnings by the Klan who believed “the dagos” were stealing all the good railroad jobs. His generation of children of immigrants couldn’t assimilate quickly enough to distance themselves from the stigma of being “a wop” and “a guinea.” My father and his brothers began pronouncing Mendi-CHEE-no as Mendi-SEE-no to appease the medigan’. My great-uncle by marriage actually changed his family name from Camparoni to Rose.
Flash-forward four-plus decades and my old man is handing me his copy of The Godfather, proclaiming “this is a great book” and insisting we make the long trek into Pittsburgh to see the movie at the Warner Theater the opening weekend. The crime sagas of Puzo and Coppola, Scorcese and David Chase mythologize the Italian-American immigrant experience on an epic scale, and today Michael Corleone and Tony Soprano are as much cultural icons as the cowboys of the “Old West” were in the early to mid-twentieth century. It’s gratifying that John Wayne has been deposed by James Gandolfini.
Who are some of your favorite Italian-American authors?
I have to acknowledge my first mentor, the late Jerre Mangione. And I would like to take the opportunity for a shout-out to the great, sadly neglected John Fante, whose reputation needs to be restored. Ask the Dust should be mentioned in any conversation about the Great American Novel, and Wait Until Spring, Bandini and 1933 Was a Bad Year are books I deeply love.
What does being Italian mean to you?
Just to clarify, I’m not Italian. I’m Italian-American. My mother was of a different ethnicity, and, but for the Roman Catholic Church, I might be writing about kilts and haggis and be a practicing Presbyterian. Being Italian-American to me means plaster saints in the bedroom, baccala, Sinatra and Dino, Sunday dinners at one in the afternoon, a simmering pot of sauce so thick you could stand a spoon in it, superstitions and talismans and an irrational suspicion of cats, Mass cards, the old man cross-examining suspects in the theft of the last sheet of his gabagool, three-to-fives and seven-to-nines, my mother’s gnocchi, the Easter vigil, a grandmother who made Livia Soprano look like the Blessed Madonna, rigot, Catholic school uniforms, the Christmas manger, and an unbreakable bond with your maddening family, no matter how hard you might try.
What’s next for Tom Mendicino? Have you started working on a new novel and, if you have, can you tell us anything about it?
Travelin’ Man and Lonesome Town, the second and third novellas in the trilogy continuing the story that began in KC, At Bat about the improbable relationship between an aspiring professional ball player and his Ivy-bound school mate, are being published simultaneously with The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter. At least once a week I announce I’ve given up writing and intend to spend my time watching an endless loop of Spartacus, Blood and Sand reruns. But before I make good on the threat, I’ve completed a first draft of a novel following the members of an extended Italian-American family through a single summer weekend and lately have been intrigued by the idea of a man with a troubled past assuming another identity to attempt a fresh start in a distant city.
A READING GROUP GUIDE
THE BOYS FROM
EIGHTH AND CARPENTER
TOM MENDICINO
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The suggested questions are included to enhance
your group’s reading of Tom Mendicino’s
The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Why does Papa have such contempt for the medigan’? Why does he behave so abusively toward his children, particularly Frankie, his eldest son? Can his treatment of his sons and daughter be reconciled with his supposed piety?
2. At various points in the novel Frankie comments on the similarities between Michael and their father. How is Michael like Papa and how is he different?
3. How different would Frankie’s and Michael’s lives have been if their mother hadn’t died? Would there have still been such a strong fraternal bond? How did the arrival of Miss Eileen impact their lives? Would Frankie have eventually grown to accept Miss Eileen and return her love?
4. What is your impression of Father Parisi and why does he become so attached to the boys? What was the reason for the Polaroids and what do you think he did with the photographs?
5. Michael is clearly unsettled by his gradual awareness of his brother’s homosexuality. How did Frankie being gay affect their relationship in late adolescence and, subsequently, as adults?
6. Michael is obviously a highly intelligent and driven man. What motivates him to succeed?
7. Why would Frankie become Papa’s caretaker after suffering years of abuse at his hands? Why does Michael hate his father so intensely?
8. Is Frankie merely unlucky in love, or does he seek out destructive relationships? When does he realize Mariano’s interest in him is mercenary, as was his relationship with Charlie Haldermann? Why is he unwilling to cut the boy loose?
9. How much of what Frankie knows of Mariano’s background is true? Do you believe Randy is actually his brother? What is Mariano’s role, if any, in the methamphetamine operation?
10. Why can Michael never be completely comfortable with his wife’s patrician family? Is he making incorrect assumptions and misjudging their intentions, or do they intentionally or unintentionally condescend to him?
11. Does a deathbed promise to a mother he doesn’t remember fully explain Michael’s decision to protect his brother? What other reasons would he have to willingly jeopardize the security of his wife and son by becoming an acces
sory after the fact?
12. Is Michael’s refusal to allow the house at Eighth and Carpenter to be sold outside the family rational?
13. Kit has spent her life in quiet rebellion against her parents and their values. What are her insecurities and how would they explain her pursuit of Michael? Is it simply Michael’s commitment to fidelity that persuades her to agree to walk away from their home and suburban life?
14. Which brother will more easily adjust to their separation? How do you see their relationship changing after Frankie’s move to Florida?
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
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Copyright © 2015 by Tom Mendicino
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