Mufalda sobbed; she had been close to her cousin Joe, though he was almost twenty years her senior. He had always been more like an older brother to her than a cousin. How unexpected. How utterly unexpected. Joe was one of the constants of Mike’s circle, one of those people you assume will always be there. They’ve always been there. Mike shook his head. Joe was a fine man, a gentleman; he had been most respectful to the Creas over the years. His loss would be deeply felt.
“He’ll be at Friscolanti’s,” Mufalda said, wiping her tears.
Mike stared off into space.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes,” Mike said, distracted.
“Go get your dark blue suit on. Visitors will be received after two o’clock.”
Mike nodded. Dead. Dead. Just like that. One moment among the living, then death, then nothing. He took a final bite of pear and gathered up his napkin and scraps.
At Friscolanti’s they were seated in the family section with a few other relatives. Joe’s wife, daughters, and sisters occupied chairs adjacent to the casket, all of them in black. Vince, Joe’s son, a small, neat young man, stood behind his mother, weeping.
How awful to lose your father, thought Mike; especially when he happened to be a good man. His own father had died at the age of fifty, a hard death, enduring stomach cancer for a year before succumbing, venting invective on his family. No wonder Mike’s mother was the way she was. The man had dummied her, shaped her into something like himself. Mike was twenty then, engaged to Mufalda, but with no prospects. He recalled the black shroud that seemed to flutter around them. Nothing was right back then, and he hadn’t been able to see beyond that dark fabric. Such was life in Racalmuto, their hometown in Sicily. He believed that coming to Canada had saved his life.
Mike’s son Che Che showed up after a while without his wife Rena. The two never appeared in public together. She was a cross, dumpy little woman with big haunches. When Che Che first brought her around Mike was taken aback. He thought his son could have done better. Che Che wasn’t a brain surgeon but he was tall, hardworking. Probably like the old man in the bed, Mike thought. Anyway, he wouldn’t suffer from jealousy. Mufalda had been a looker when she was young—Mike’s jealousy had been tested on more than one occasion because of that. He wasn’t considered in her league, and perhaps he wasn’t, but he had been determined. And back then Mufalda had pitied him to some extent.
Che Che wore a pale blue suit that looked inappropriate, insubstantial. His wife must have chosen it. Further, he had grown a goatee that made his face look long and sombre. Che Che stood almost two metres tall. He was a mule of a worker and provided well for his wife and three children.
After he paid his respects to the Garzos, Che Che joined his parents.
“Sad, eh, cousin Joe?” Mike intoned.
“What can you do? Ma, how are you?” He leaned down and kissed her cheeks.
“I’m fine, son,” she said, peering at him. “That hair on your face is not you. Shave it off. A moustache, okay. But that stuff. Your father shaved his off. You didn’t notice?”
Che Che’s eyes widened.
“Pa—”
“Shut up.”
His son’s mouth clacked shut, but his eyes widened further.
Mike felt like belting him. He wasn’t too big to be belted, that big salami.
“Che Che, are you coming Sunday for pranzo?”
“No, Ma. I told you we were invited to Rena’s mother’s.”
“When’s the last time you came, ah?”
“Leave him alone,” said Mike laughing to himself. “He has responsibilities.”
“Who asked you, you harelip?”
They were interrupted by the appearance of Grace, Mike’s daughter. She was with her husband Lillo, a three-hundred-pound obstacle to Mike’s felicity. Grace had always been ample, but perhaps encouraged by her obese and gluttonous husband, she had let herself go. Mike grimaced whenever Lillo came around; he held his tongue to maintain peace, but in his view Lillo was a pathetic slob of a man. Pathologically lazy, he had been on Worker’s Compensation three years running for a variety of questionable ailments.
“Mind yourself,” Mufalda whispered.
“What?” he said. He glanced at his son, standing there with his mouth agape. “What are you gawking at?”
“Nothing, Pa.” Che Che blinked. Then he put his hands in his pockets and pretended to admire the ceiling.
Mike endured an entire hour seated next to the fat slob Lillo. He reeked of sweat and garlic. He bored Mike to death yapping about his sciatic nerve, irritated due to a bulging in his spine, how excruciating the pain was, how the codeine pills he took constipated him and he hadn’t shit in two weeks, two weeks. Mike bolted to his feet.
“What is it?” Mufalda asked.
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Well then go, for crying out loud.”
“Dad, you shaved your moustache!” Grace cried from the folds of her fat face.
Mike ignored her and his wife’s dry cackling, and made his way to the bathroom. He ran into Domenic Carbone in the foyer. The insufferable old codger was bawling like a child.
“Poor Joe,” he blubbered. “Poor, poor Joe . . . ”
Poor you, thought Mike. His number was almost up, and he knew it. The man had already survived three heart attacks. It was only a matter of time. Yet he wasn’t ready for death. How sad. Mike wondered if he was ready, if he would be ready. He wasn’t afraid of it, like Domenic. But what could one think? If Mike were to die now would his life have seemed worthwhile? His children were doing well— except, of course, Grace, though her two children were beautiful. Che Che was spanking, three kids, nice house, and so on. Francesca had married a barber on the dwarfish side, but he was a solid little fellow, respectful, honest; they had a gorgeous daughter, and a son. Carmela had married an opera baritone and lived in Milan, at the moment pregnant with her first. What more could a man want? He and his wife were fine, as fine as two people could be after thirty-five years of marriage. Thinking about all this gave him a headache.
In the washroom he tried to pee, but had no desire or need. He washed his hands and wet his hair a bit. His roots showed. His upper lip looked fleshy. So what could you do? he thought. You get old, you get ugly. What could you do? At least he wasn’t fat. Mike had worn size thirty-six pants for thirty years. Not bad considering how much he ate. Walking did the trick, kept him fit. For thirty years he walked to and from the Otis Elevator plant on Burlington Street where he toiled as a janitor. He never got his driver’s license, never felt the need. He still walked, though not as much. Yes his pants were a little snug, but so what? If he had to buy a bigger size, so be it.
So many people, he thought, when he sat down again. Joe was popular, well-liked. Mike knew his own funeral wouldn’t draw this kind of turnout, no sir. And he didn’t care one way or another. He sat away from Lillo this time, under the pretense of exchanging a few pleasantries with Mimmo Sinicropi, Joe Garzo’s brother-in-law. Mimmo didn’t care much for Mike, and Mike knew it. But he liked to talk to him, just to get under his skin a little.
“Mimmo,” he whispered.
“What?”
“That suit?”
“What about it?”
“Is it brown?”
“Brown?” Mimmo wore a look of annoyed puzzlement. Obviously his suit was black. He crossed his arms on his chest and raised his chin.
“Sorry,” Mike said. “It looked dark brown. Like a chocolate. Nice.”
“Mike, your voice carries.” Mimmo nodded at the assembly of mourners.
“Of course, sorry.”
He turned around and faced the casket again. Then he felt his thigh being pinched. He had to swallow a yelp. Mufalda. Was she crazy? Her face was a black-eyed mask of evil.
“What?” he said, bewildered.
“Quit making a fool of yourself.”
“But what did I do?”
“Ssst,” she said, crossing her lips wi
th a finger.
Mike shook his head and felt his ears reddening. Sometimes he hated that woman, hated her sharp senses, hated her righteousness. He retched inwardly, containing his bile. That’s what life was—at least for a man—containment. If you were not a rich man, you were measured by containment. A rich man could shave off his moustache and suffer no one to bother him about it, and perhaps silence anyone who did bother him about it.
Mike’s eyes grew heavy and in short order he dozed off. He dreamed he was eating fruit with Joe Garzo and Domenic Carbone, both of them toothless, muttering things to him that he didn’t understand. What? he kept asking. What?
He felt a pinch again, and this time he almost fell out of his chair. Jesus Christ!
“You disgust me,” hissed Mufalda. “Come on, get up. Get your carcass up. It’s time to go. Unless you want to sleep with Joe.”
“Okay, already.”
“Never mind okay. Never mind.”
And on the way out of the funeral parlour, and on the whole way home Mufalda didn’t let him forget his indiscretions. He didn’t bother defending himself. If he was guilty, so be it, let her rail. He simply thought of other things, like the mule he used to have back in Sicily. The mule was stubborn; the mule was rude. But Mike liked the mule because it refused to be anything but itself. That mule spoke volumes with its eyes, with its brays. Thinking about little scenes like this made the nagging nothing.
At home Mike found a slab of leftover lasagna in the refrigerator. Glutinous and so cold it made his teeth ache, he still ate it with gusto. Mufalda entered the kitchen grimacing.
“You didn’t even heat it up?”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
Mike didn’t answer. Mufalda snorted and exited the kitchen. He finished eating and retreated to the bathroom where he applied dye to his hair, restoring the dark lustre he so fancied. One of the reasons he had shaved his moustache: it had become difficult to coordinate the hues. I’m a simple man, he thought. I’m not a complicated man. I don’t need complications in my life, not now.
The next morning he went downstairs to the kitchen, loaded up the espresso pot, and put some milk on the stove to make cafe latte.
He stared out the window: it was a sunny day, the birds out in force, the trees greening. It was nice, a happy scene. But not more than a minute passed before his chin trembled and his eyes moistened and, despite his efforts to stop himself, he found himself weeping. Mufalda entered the kitchen and seeing the milk sputtering from the pot started shouting at Mike. He regained his composure and tuned her out.
Mike took Francesca’s son Norbert to the park one morning. He was a four-year-old with blubbery arms and legs and a rather sullen disposition. He lacked the spark of Mike’s other grandchildren, dragging his thick legs around and kicking up sods.
“What are you doing?” Mike barked.
“Nonna . . .”
“Never mind Nonna. Behave.”
The boy looked at him with large brown eyes positioned close. The cheeks dew-lapped over the jaws, the upper lip was elongated, almost unnatural.
Mike started.
He decided right then to grow back the moustache. He should never have shaved it off. What a can of worms its absence had opened. It wasn’t fair.
Mike visited Grace that afternoon, hoping to avoid Lillo, who was supposed to be at the physical therapist. But after only an hour at Grace’s, Mike’s espresso half-finished, the big slug showed up limping and whining. Mike gnashed his teeth. It wasn’t fair.
“My back, my leg.”
“What happened?” Grace asked.
“At the therapy—”
“You injured yourself?”
“I did, I really did this time. I’m fucked, Gracie, I’m fucked.”
“You want to go to the hospital?”
“They can’t do anything for me!” he shouted.
“Honey, I was just saying.”
“Well don’t! Hey, Mike, what brings you here?”
“Just visiting my daughter and grandkids.”
“More and less than what you bargained for, haha.”
“The kids will be home soon, Daddy,” Grace said.
“Good, that’s good,” Mike said.
Lillo hobbled to the refrigerator and opened it. He took out a stick of sopressatta salami and began gnawing.
The kids came at last and Mike spent time with them while Grace cooked a meal and Lillo took a nap on the chesterfield. That fat bastard, thought Mike. Could a man get luckier?
“Daddy’s got a boo boo,” said Pina, the littlest one. She had warm blue eyes like her mother.
Her sister Antoinette, the dark one, said, “Daddy always has a boo boo.”
“Yeah,” Mike said. “Daddy’s a big boo boo.”
The children chuckled.
Grace whipped up a fabulous pasta a la carbonara. She made a kilogram of pasta for them and yet at meal’s end Mike was still hungry. Why? Simple. Lillo ate about half of it himself. Mike tried to load up on bread and apples afterwards, but it was no use.
“What do you mean, you’re hungry?” Mufalda harped later, when she saw him rooting around in the refrigerator. “Grace called and said you guys demolished a kilo of pasta.”
“Lillo,” he said, barely able to tongue the name out. “Lillo, the pig that he is, was in form today, yes. He was in form. He could have been filmed. Genius.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Genius.”
Mufalda shook her head. “Eat, eat all you want. Don’t let me get in your way.”
“Don’t you worry about it.”
“I won’t.”
“No you won’t.”
His wife looked like the ugliest woman in the world at that moment. And no doubt he looked like the ugliest man in the world to her, judging from the expression of revulsion that made her so ugly. Mike lost his appetite and sat at the kitchen window for a time, gazing out, content in his way. So long as you didn’t think too much you could float through it like a turtle in a tub.
“Mike? Are you okay?” Mufalda asked.
“What?”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
She huffed, turned around, and marched out of the kitchen.
xsI’m fine, thought Mike. We’re all fine.
But what were these tears? Staring at the trees made him cry. Staring at the blue sky made him cry. The birds. That’s all.
Life is odd, Mike thought the next morning as he washed up. One day you cry. One day you laugh. You have kids. They have kids. You die. They mourn, then they die. But that’s okay. If that’s what it is, so be it. Why kick and scream? Why be afraid like Domenic when no matter what, you wind up like Joe? And why give yourself headaches by dwelling on things too deeply? It’s easy to blubber and bow. But here we are. It’s not as if we have many alternatives. He didn’t want to think about it beyond that; maybe it was too painful. No, not painful: unnecessary.
He put coffee and milk on and stared out at the trees. He stared at the trees a long time. The milk boiled over.
Mufalda entered the kitchen. She didn’t say anything. She cleaned up the mess and said nothing while Mike continued staring at the trees.
Mike went to visit his mother the following morning. She was in coruscating form. Today she targeted Mufalda with her vituperations. Mufalda hadn’t visited in weeks. What was the problem? Was she avoiding her for some reason? Nice thing, a daughter-in-law avoiding her mother-in-law. There’s no more religion, people are pigs.
“Ma—she’s been . . . her cousin Joe died. You know that.”
“Joe? And I’m next. Joe didn’t die alone. He didn’t die like a dog. One day you’ll come, son, and you’ll smell the stench of rotting flesh and that stench will belong to my maggoty corpse. And then what will Mufalda say?”
“Ma, you’re being ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous? This morning I had blood in my stools. Black blood. You know what that
means, don’t you? Black blood?”
Mike bristled. “I’ll take you to the doctor.”
“Doctor? What will the doctor do? He’ll put a glove on and stick it up my ass and then tell me I’ve got a few months to live. Nice job. You should have been a doctor, Mikey, heh.”
His mother’s eyes gleamed like onyx pebbles. Who was this woman? he wondered. I don’t know her. Why am I trying so hard? I can’t win. And then it seemed so amusing to him, the entrapment, the hopelessness, and he started laughing. He covered his mouth. His shoulders shook. You couldn’t alter the variables by much in the final analysis. And it was funny, a grand joke, the grandest conceit.
“Why are you laughing?”
Mike regained his composure, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief.
“Idiot,” said his mother. “I gave birth to an idiot. Go home, Mike. You’re boring me.”
“How about I make us a coffee first?”
“You think I need you to make me a coffee?”
“Fine,” he said. “Fine. I’ll go home.”
He left his mother there, her mouth open and her eyes closed and her hands balled into small grey fists. He walked home with a nice chopping stride, swinging his arms. Before he reached his front door he felt a pain in his chest. He put his hand over his heart. Maybe he was being called up, maybe the ticker was ready to conk out. But maybe it was just stress: visiting his mother stressed him right out. He mounted the porch stairs, wishing she would just die already.
But no, once inside he hated himself for thinking of her death. She had suffered plenty in her life, and perhaps had every right to be the way she was. He hadn’t been the most dutiful son. And if she were to die, wouldn’t he miss her, even at her cruelest? Yes, he would miss her. Nothing could ever change the fact that she was his mother, that he had sprung from her loins. That’s everything I am, he thought. Something that fell out of her, something she voided.
He sat by the kitchen window and stared at the trees.
He was lucky. He was lucky to have the house around him, and the trees outside, green against the blue of the sky.
Mufalda quietly entered the kitchen. She put on a pot of coffee.
Black Rabbit and Other Stories Page 2