Marie made a noise like the engine on the truck her brother Tomasz drove for Metzger’s Meats. She pursed her lips and leaned over to ask Gabriella how she would feel if her precious Victoria brought home one of them as a husband.
All Gabriella and Marie had in common was the fact that their husbands were brothers. On politics, on child-rearing, even on religion, they were forever twanging each other’s last nerve. Maybe especially on religion. Marie had a painting or statue of the Virgin in every room in her house. The Sacred Heart of Jesus inside her front door was a sight that shocked and fascinated Victoria, the large red heart, with flames shooting out the top and barbed wire crushed around its throbbing middle. (“Those are thorns,” Aunt Marie snapped. “If your mother cared about your immortal soul, you’d go to catechism like Bernard and learn about Jesus and his Crown of Thorns.”)
Gabriella wouldn’t allow such images in her home. She told Victoria it was pagan to worship the heart of your god: “almost a cannibal, to want display the heart—barberica!” Gabriella didn’t think like this because her father was a Jew; after all, her mother, and her aunt Rosa—who like Gabriella had migrated to Chicago from Italy—were Catholics. It was more that Gabriella despised all religion.
When Father Gribac from St. Eloy’s came to visit Gabriella, to demand that she have Victoria baptized, to save her daughter from eternal torment, Gabriella told him, “Religion is responsible for too many torments people suffer here in this life. If there is a God, he won’t demand a few drops of water on my daughter’s head as proof of her character. She should be honest, she should always work her hardest, do her best work, and when she says, ‘I will do this thing,’ she must do that thing. If she cannot live in such a way, no water will change her.”
The priest had been furious. He tried to talk to Tony Warshawski about Gabriella.
Peace-loving Tony put up his big hands and backed away. “I don’t try to come between my wife and my daughter. If you were a married man, Father, you’d know that a mother tiger protecting her young looks tame next to a mother human. No, I’m not lecturing my wife for you.”
After that, Father Gribac glowered at Victoria whenever he saw her on the street. He tried to tell Marie to keep her own son away from the den of unbelievers, but Bernie Warshawski—who was usually as placid as his brother Tony—told the priest not to meddle in his family.
The sisters-in-law lived only four blocks apart; they needed each other’s help in keeping an eye on two of the most enterprising children in a wild neighborhood. Tony and Bernie suspected, too, that Gabriella and Marie also needed the drama of their arguments. True, Gabriella gave music lessons, Marie worked in the Guild of St. Mary, but both led lives of hard work; they needed excitement, and recounting each other’s monstrous deeds or words gave their lives a running drama.
The summer of 1966, there’d been too much excitement for anyone’s comfort. Although today’s riots were almost ten miles away, on this sticky August Friday, all the mothers had canceled their children’s lessons with Gabriella: better keep them locked inside than run the risk of a stray cherry bomb flying in. At five o’clock, Gabriella walked to Marie’s house to collect Victoria.
Marie was chopping onions for stew: even on a hot day she made a cooked meal for her husband and son. “Bernie works on the docks, he needs to keep up his strength,” Marie said when Gabriella recoiled from the steaming kitchen.
In the attic, Boom-Boom and Victoria moved to the top of the steep staircase to listen to their mothers.
“Antony needs to keep up his strength, too, but not with roasted pork when it’s ninety degrees outside. They are big men, Bernard and Antony. Oh, if only he does not get hurt today!” The last sentence came out as an anguished plea.
“Our people will protect him,” Marie said. “Father Gribac is going to the park with some of the members of the church, to show solidarity.”
“They are the ones I worry about!” Gabriella cried. “I have seen those faces this summer, the hatred, the words on the signs! I thought I was back in Italy watching the Fascists attack my father, when I saw the photographs in the paper.”
“Oh, the press, the press,” Marie said. “They just want to make good Christians look bad. They try to make the police look bad, too, when they’re trying to protect our property.”
“But in Birmingham, the police, they are going against little black girls. Is that right, to send a large dog onto a small child? Besides, here in Chicago, Antony, he tells me the police have the strictest orders to protect Dr. King and all the marchers.”
“Yes, I heard Tony say that, and I can’t believe it!” Little flecks of spit covered Marie’s mouth. “The police! They’re collaborating with these outside agitators, instead of looking after the community. They should know that the community isn’t going to take that betrayal sitting down!”
“Marie!” Gabriella’s voice was quiet with fury. “What happens if this community attacks my husband, who is, after all, your own husband’s brother, what then? What will Bernard do if Antony is injured in such a way?”
The smell from the kitchen, roast pork and onions, came up the stairwell with their mothers’ voices.
“That smell makes me sick to my stomach,” Victoria said.
She got up from the floor and went to the window, her Brownie camera dangling from her wrist on its leather strap. She had turned ten a week earlier and the camera was a special present from her parents; she took it with her everywhere.
Boom-Boom started to argue with her about the smell, just to be arguing, but Victoria cut him short.
“Your uncle Tomasz just drove up. Have you seen his car? White convertible, red leather. He’s got the top down.” She opened the screen to stick her head all the way out the window. “What is it? A Thunderbird?”
“Buick Wildcat,” Boom-Boom joined her. “He talked about it last Sunday at dinner.”
Tomasz got out of the car, stroking the steering wheel as if it were a dog or some other living creature. The cousins watched him disappear around the side of the house.
“How could he afford it?” Victoria asked. “Metzger’s fired him last week.”
“That was a crock,” Boom-Boom said. “It never would have happened if Commie King hadn’t come to town.”
“But Uncle Tomasz was stealing from Metzger’s,” Victoria argued. “It’s what Papa said. How could that be Martin Luther King’s fault?”
“He was not stealing!” Boom-Boom fired back. “Uncle Tomasz was framed by the janitor, and he’s a nigger like King and all those other Commies. Now that King is in town, they think they own everything.”
“Boom-Boom! Mama says that’s the worst word to say, worse than God damn it or any other swearword.”
For a moment, the cousins forgot the argument downstairs in their own fight, which degenerated quickly to punches. Although Boom-Boom was a year older and bigger, he was also the one who’d taught Victoria to defend herself, which she was ready to do at a moment’s notice. It was only when he tore her shirt at the collar that they stopped, looking at each other in dismay: what would Gabriella say when she saw the torn shirt, or Marie when she saw the bruise on Boom-Boom’s shoulder?
Over their sudden silence, they heard Uncle Tomasz say to Aunt Marie, “Better enjoy that pork roast, Sis. Won’t be more where that came from for a while.”
“See?” Victoria hissed. “What did I tell you?”
“Nothing. You told me nothing! Everyone at Metzger’s got cheap meat for their families; it was a—a, I can’t think of the word, but Dad told me it was like an extra job benefit. I’m going down to look at the car. Uncle Tomasz will let me drive it around the block, you just watch. But no girls allowed!”
“No girl wants to ride in a stinky stolen car,” Victoria shouted as her cousin thundered down the stairs.
She stayed at the open window, watching her cousin jump over the door into the driver’s seat. She wanted to ride in that car so bad, almost bad enough to make up with Boom-Boo
m. But Mama had explained why the words of hate were wrong and dangerous.
“Carissima, you will never know Nonno and Nonna Sestieri because the Fascists arrest them, send them to prison for no crime, only for being Jews. My mother, your nonna, she was born as a Christian, but after my papa was arrested, she started lighting lights on Friday night, as Jews do everywhere. We had no money, no candles, nothing, but she found axle grease and rubbed it on old cardboard circles and set them to light, to say to the neighbors and the Fascists, I will not bend to your hate-filled laws.
“She sent me into hiding the day before they came for her. Both of them, they were sent to Germany to die. And it all started with hateful words and spitting and throwing rocks and making people drink a bottle of oil in the night. It starts with name-calling and ends with death, always. That is why we do not use ugly words when we talk about the Negroes or Dr. King, because our own family was murdered and it started with ugly names.”
“I will not bend to hate,” Victoria shouted out the window, loudly enough for her cousin to hear her.
Boom-Boom didn’t look up but honked the horn and turned the steering wheel, twiddling the radio dial, even though the engine wasn’t on and he couldn’t make it play. He pushed a button somewhere on the dashboard and the trunk popped open. Victoria wanted more than ever to go down and see how the magic trunk worked.
Uncle Bernie came up the walk just then and stopped to talk to Boom-Boom. Victoria couldn’t hear what they said, but she thought her uncle looked worried, maybe even a bit angry. He slammed the trunk shut and went around the back and in through the kitchen, which is how they all came and went in the neighborhood.
Victoria heard him greet her mother and her aunt, and then tell Tomasz that they needed to talk. He took his brother-in-law out into the tiny hall that connected kitchen to front room. Victoria went back to the stairwell and lay flat to listen to them.
“That car, Tomasz, that set you back more than a buck, didn’t it. I ran into Lucco on the bus this morning: he said Tony is very unhappy with you.”
I bet he is, Victoria thought. Her father hated people like Uncle Tomasz stealing and acting like they were kings of the mountain instead of working hard and being honest.
“What’s Tony got to do with it?” Tomasz tried to sound brave, but Victoria could tell from his voice he was nervous.
“He thinks you got rid of more meat than just the roasts you brought home to Marie,” Uncle Bernie said. “He thinks you owe him something. That car is going to be a red flag to him. If I were you, I’d return the car before Boom-Boom gets a scratch on it, and I’d make nice with Tony.”
“Why should I be afraid of Tony?” Tomasz said. “Did he stand up for me when that nigger janitor ratted on me? I’m going over to Marquette Park, which is where he said he’d be, and I’ll teach him a lesson about loyalty he won’t forget in a hurry.”
Tomasz’s feet pounded through the downstairs and out the front door. Victoria heard the door slam and ran back to the window, in time to see Tomasz shove Boom-Boom over to the passenger seat and take off.
“Vittoria! Vieni! Usciamo!” Gabriella called up the stairs. Come, we’re leaving.
If she stayed to argue with her mother, Gabriella would order her point-blank to stay home, in which case, even if Papa was in danger, Victoria would have to stay home. But you didn’t grow up in South Chicago without knowing exactly what a grown man meant when he said he was going to teach another man a lesson. Victoria needed to get to Marquette Park and warn her father.
She slid her legs over the windowsill, lowered herself so that she was hanging over the tiny roof that covered the front doorway, and dropped. She shinnied down the pillar to the ground, ran to the side of the house where she’d left her bike, and took off.
2
Even half a mile from the park, Victoria could hear the screaming: ten thousand throats open in hate. The cops at the intersection, uniforms wet under the hot sun, were so tense that they shouted at everyone—old women asking what the trouble was, even a priest riding up on a bicycle—the cops shouted at them all, including Victoria Warshawski darting under the sawhorses that blocked Seventy-First street.
She had ridden her bike the three miles to Seventy-First and Stony, where she’d chained it to a streetlight. A number 71 bus was just coming along, and she climbed thankfully on board. Her torn shirt was soaked with sweat; her throat was hoarse and dry. She had eight-two cents in her pockets. If she used thirty cents on the round-trip fare, she’d have plenty to buy a Coke when she found a vending machine.
Seventy-first Street was blocked off half a mile from Marquette Park. Cops in riot gear were diverting all traffic, even CTA buses, in a wide loop around the park. Traffic was jammed on Western Avenue in both directions. The cops told the bus driver that no one was allowed off the bus until it got to the far side of the park, but while they were stuck in the intersection, Victoria forced open the back door and jumped out.
When the cops at Western Avenue yelled at her, she was afraid they might be friends of her dad’s. If they recognized her, they would make her leave the area before she found him. Still, she couldn’t help turning around, to see if they were calling her by name. When she turned, she saw something that shocked her into immobility.
Uncle Tomasz’s white convertible pulled into the intersection. Uncle Tomasz was at the wheel; another man, a stranger to Victoria, sat next to him. She stood on tiptoe, trying to look into the backseat, but her cousin wasn’t in the car.
The stranger was blond, like Tomasz. Riding in the open car had boiled both their faces bright red, as red as the wild shirt the stranger was wearing. At first the officer tried to stop the car, but the stranger pulled out his wallet. The cop looked around, as if checking to see who was watching. He took a bill out of the stranger’s wallet, then moved two sawhorses so the Wildcat could drive through.
The uniformed man was taking a bribe. This was terrible! Tony Warshawski talked about this over and over again, the people who tried to give him money to get out of traffic tickets, and how wrong it was, it gave everyone on the force a bad name.
Victoria took a picture of the cop moving the sawhorses and then of Uncle Tomasz and the stranger. Tomasz must have gotten someone to help him find her father. The two men would gang up on Tony and kill him, and then some evil cop would take a bribe to pretend not to see that it had happened.
Victoria started running. She couldn’t beat the convertible to the park, but she had to get there as fast as she could, to find her father before Tomasz and his partner did. Even before she entered the park, she realized this was going to be nearly impossible. The crowds were so thick that a child, even a girl like Victoria who was tall for her age, couldn’t see around them. She had to fight her way through them.
People were holding up signs with horrible words on them. One said king would look good with a knife in his back, but the others! They said things that you were never supposed to say about anyone.
Victoria used her elbows the way Boom-Boom had taught her and pushed her way through a massive wedge of people. They were yelling and screaming and waving Confederate flags. Some of them had sewn swastikas to their clothes or painted them on their faces. This was also very bad: people with swastikas had killed Nonno and Nonna Sestieri.
Even as she looked for her father, Victoria realized she couldn’t tell her mother the things she was seeing—swastikas, people calling Martin Luther King by a name worse than a swearword. She hoped Tony wouldn’t say anything, either. It would upset Gabriella terribly; Victoria and Tony had a duty to protect Gabriella from any further unhappiness in this life.
As she moved farther west into the park, Victoria saw a group of teenagers turn a car over and set fire to it. The people near them cheered. Six policemen in riot helmets ran to the teenagers, who spat at them and started throwing rocks and bottles.
Victoria pushed through the cheering mob to where the policemen were using their billy clubs, trying to arrest the boys wh
o’d set the fire.
She tugged on one officer’s arm. “Please, I’m looking for Officer Warshawski, do you know him? Have you seen him?”
“Get back, get out of the way. This is no place for a kid like you, go home to your mommy and daddy.” The man pushed her out of the way.
“Tony Warshawski,” she cried. “He’s my dad, he’s working here, he’s a cop, I need to find him.”
This time the men ignored her completely. They couldn’t pay attention to her—the crowd was protecting the boys, throwing rocks and cans of Coke at the officers. One can hit an officer in the head; the crowd roared with laughter when the soda spilled into his eyes, blinding him.
“The niggers are on Homan,” someone shrieked. The whole mob swerved west, chanting, “Find the niggers, kill the niggers!”
Victoria followed them, her legs aching, a stitch in her side making her gasp for breath. She couldn’t pay attention to her pain, it would only get in her way. She had to find Tony. She elbowed her way past the screaming adults. One of them put out a hand and grabbed her, so hard she couldn’t wriggle free.
“And where are you going?”
It was Father Gribac. With him were half a dozen people she recognized from her own neighborhood, two of them women carrying bags of sugar.
“I’m looking for my dad. Have you seen him?”
“Have you seen him, Father. Doesn’t your Jew mother teach you to respect your elders?”
“You’re not my father!” Victoria kicked him hard on the shin; he let go of her shoulder, swearing at her in Polish.
Victoria slithered away. The crowd was so thick that the priest couldn’t move quickly enough to catch up with her.
Love & Other Crimes Page 25
