Tales of the Tarantula

by Frank Terranella

  Am I?

  I am a lover whose never been kissed.

  Am I?

  I am a fighter who’s not made a fist.

  Am I?

  If I’m alive then there’s so much I’ve missed.

  How do I know I exist?

  Are you listening to me?

  Are you listening to me?

  Am I?

  The song reaches a crescendo with the sniper’s key question – “Am I?” – and then the song returns to the narrator’s voice as the shots begin to fire out with the “words” of the sniper’s “conversation”:

  The first words he spoke took the town by surprise.

  One got Mrs. Gibbons above her right eye.

  It blew her through the window wedged her against the door.

  Reality poured from her face, staining the floor.

  Chapin gives us a momentary relief from the tension as the music changes, and we hear a person who dated the shooter being interviewed:

  He was kind of creepy,

  Sort of a dunce.

  I met him at the corner bar.

  I only dated the poor boy once,

  That’s all. Just once, that was all.

  And then Chapin gives the microphone back to the narrator who tells the rest of the gruesome story:

  Bill Whedon was questioned as stepped from his car.

  Tom Scott ran across the street but he never got that far.

  The police were there in minutes, they set up barricades.

  He spoke right on over them in a half-mile circle.

  In a dumb struck city his pointed questions were sprayed.

  He knocked over Danny Tyson as he ran towards the noise.

  Just about then the answers started coming. Sweet, sweet joy.

  Thudding in the clock face, whining off the walls,

  Reaching up to where he sat there, answering calls.

  Thirty-seven people got his message so far.

  Yes, he was reaching them right where they are.

  They set up an assault team. They asked for volunteers.

  They had to go and get him, that much was clear.

  And the word spread about him on the radios and TV’s.

  In appropriately sober tone they asked “Who can it be?”

  And then it’s on to another person being interviewed about the shooter:

  He was a very dull boy, very taciturn.

  Not much of a joiner, he did not want to learn.

  No no. No no.

  The tune again changes and we hear the voice of the shooter:

  They’re coming to get me, they don’t want to let me

  Stay in the bright light too long.

  It’s getting on noon now, it’s goin’ to be soon now.

  But oh, what a wonderful sound!

  And now the music gets sweet, with a cello in the background, as we hear the shooter recalling how he was denied the love he needed:

  Mama, won’t you nurse me?

  Rain me down the sweet milk of your kindness.

  Mama, it’s getting worse for me.

  Won’t you please make me warm and mindless?

  Mama, yes you have cursed me.

  I never will forgive you for your blindness.

  I hate you!

  And now the shooter’s reverie is over as he turns his attention back to the situation at hand:

  The wires are all humming for me.

  And I can hear them coming for me.

  Soon they’ll be here, but there’s nothing to fear.

  Not any more though they’ve blasted the door.

  Chapin then returns to the narrator who gives us the finale to the story as the shooter gets his answer:

  As the ‘copter dropped the gas he shouted “Who cares?”.

  They could hear him laughing as they started up the stairs.

  As they stormed out on the catwalk, blinking at the sun,

  With their final fusillade his answer had come.

  The music comes to a full stop and we end the song with the last thoughts of the shooter:

  Am I?

  There is no way that you can hide me.

  Am I?

  Though you have put your fire inside me.

  Am I?

  You’ve given me my answer can’t you see?

  I was!

  I am!

  and now I Will Be

  I WILL BE

  The shooter has his answer. He was, and now he will be remembered forever.

  I wanted to draw attention to this classic work by Harry Chapin both because it deserves more recognition, and because it shows that mass shooting is not a new phenomenon in the 21st century. Certainly the number of incidents has escalated in the years since the U.S. Supreme Court found an individual right to firearms in the Second Amendment. And the number of incidents has escalated since the dawn of the Internet. The internet has done much to fuel extremism. Now there are more lonely, angry people who feel powerless, and there are more guns for them to use to act out their frustrations.

  I think that any effective action to reduce the number of mass shootings has to address both the conditions that make people want to commit these horrible acts, and the ready availability of weapons to do it. I pray that people from both sides of the political divide can come to some agreement to do this soon. It is literally a matter of life and death.

  The Feast: The next generation

  September 2019

  Traditions and families go hand in hand. Once you have done anything as a family more than once it becomes a tradition. And so it is that on Labor Day Weekend my family traditionally heads to my hometown of Lodi, New Jersey and the annual St. Joseph’s Italian Feast.

  I was first taken to the Feast when I was a child. I am pretty sure my father was also taken by his parents as a child. You see my grandfather was one of the founders of St. Joseph Church in 1915. It was a church founded by and for Italian immigrants. It still had services in Italian in the 1960s. These immigrants brought all their religious traditions with them from the Old Country including an annual Festa de San Giuseppe complete with all the great Italian foods. Evening entertainment featured a range of Italian music from the tarantella to Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Rossini.

  One of the most memorable features of the Feast was the procession through the streets of Lodi with the statue of St. Joseph to which people would pin their donations to the church. The statue was proceeded by a small band playing music that was later memorialized in The Godfather.

  For Italian immigrants, all of this brought a little bit of their native country to their adopted country. It celebrated their heritage and also brought some first class food, drink and entertainment to their new home.

  And just as my father grew up with this annual Feast, I did as well. And from an early age, my children were also introduced to the Feast. This weekend, for the first time, my grandchildren, who live in Vermont, were treated to the Feast experience with rides, pizza and zeppole. Bryce and Caroline enjoyed it all. They didn’t know they were continuing a century-old, five-generation family tradition, but I did. And best of all, my pregnant daughter Jennifer was with us, and so my new grandson got to hear the sounds of the Feast (and sample the food indirectly) a hundred days before he is expected to be born. Talk about early indoctrination!

  My grandfather would be amazed and I think very proud that the event he helped start in 1915 is still bringing his family together. The Feast reminds the Terranellas where we came from and why immigration and immigrants have always been a very positive thing for this country, the present sentiments of our government to the contrary.

  The circle of life is demonstrated once again

  September 2019

  A few months ago, on Father’s Day, my daughter Jennifer let me know that I would be a grandfather once again. Since then, we have found out that the new child is a boy. Mother and child appear to be doing quite well as I write this.

  Jennifer and her husband Rich,
like all first-time parents, are excited and just a little nervous about what to expect on the day the baby arrives. I can’t give Jennifer any tips, but I do have one for Rich. Bring food. Why? Well here’s my story.

  It was October 1987 and I was sitting in the maternity ward awaiting the arrival of my daughter, Jennifer. Her mother was in labor, but things seemed to be progressing slowly. We had experienced a long labor for our first child and it looked like this one was going to be the same. So after about five hours, Pat told me to go and get some dinner. Unfortunately, it was now passed closing time for the hospital cafeteria, so I had to get in my car and go out to find something.

  I was not familiar with the food options in the immediate vicinity of the hospital, but I knew a place where I could get a slice of pizza quickly two towns away. And since the nurse had assured me that it would be several hours until anything would start to happen, I had no qualms about taking the 10-minute drive. So I drove to the pizza place and had my dinner.

  Of course, soon after I left, the doctor came in and, seeing how slowly things were progressing, he gave drugs to my wife to speed up the labor process. This ended up causing some distress to the baby and so my wife was quickly wheeled into the delivery room. I learned later that they sent someone to look for me, but I was nowhere to be found in the hospital.

  A few minutes later, I sauntered back to Pat’s room and found it empty. In a panic, I ran to the nurse’s desk and asked where my wife was. The nurse’s eyes opened wide with recognition. She jumped up and got me a gown and mask. As I struggled to quickly put it on, she said “Follow me!” and started running down the hall. I had to run to catch up to her, adjusting the makeshift scrubs as I ran. She turned right into a nearby room, and I ran in after her, actually skidding on the waxed floor when I made the turn. As I ran past the doctor, I could see the baby’s head emerging. In a minute or so, it was all over. I had a daughter.

  I went alongside my wife and squeezed her hand. “I made it,” I said. And then I apologized for not being there. I explained that the cafeteria was closed and I had to go out for food and that things had been going so slowly and I would never have left if I had known. Pat smiled and reassured me. “But you made it,” she said.

  Since Jennifer was our last child, I never got another chance to redeem myself. So now I tell my story to expectant fathers, hoping to spare them from similar folly.

  There’s nothing more joyous than the birth of a child

  And now it is that very baby that will be giving birth in a few months. The thought makes me feel old, but it also makes me feel hopeful. Babies are our future. They continue the bloodline. They give us the sense that there is still time to perfect the human race. As each generation passes the baton to the next, the hopes of the older generation ride on the younger. Maybe in this child’s lifetime we will find a cure for cancer or ALS. Maybe this child will be part of the team that does that.

  As the sand in the hourglass of life gets closer to empty for me, I am thankful for the promise of a new life just beginning. I can’t wait to meet the little guy.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Frank Terranella grew up in an Italian (mostly Sicilian) ghetto in Lodi, New Jersey, and has been a writer for as long as he can remember. He’s contributed articles to The New York Times, and the New York Daily News. He began his professional writing career with the Gannett newspapers in White Plains, New York, where he worked as a daily newspaper editor for four years before deciding (upon the launch of CNN) that there was no future for the newspaper business. He attended law school at night to earn a parachute out. But even after leaving the world of journalism in the rearview mirror, he kept writing. Frank wrote articles for legal publications, and even did a stint with Simon & Schuster as a tax newsletter editor. He’s been paying the bills by working as a trademark attorney with an intellectual property boutique firm in New York since 2000. This book is a collection of articles Frank has written over the last seven years, all and more that can be found on his blog “Tales of the Tarantula“: www.tumblr.com/blog/frankterranella.

  Photo credit: Patricia H. Terranella