“Not Anthony…. Tony.”
Tito did not see the look exchanged between the two women and was relieved when Isabel agreed.
She heard the babies cry as she climbed the stairs to the apartment. She wondered why she had settled for this.
Her doubts were squelched when Nunzio handed her a crying Frankie. He immediately quieted. His tiny fingers touched her cheek then pulled her lower lip. Frankie laughed. He became her baby.
What Tony lacked in Isabel’s esteem, he made up for in everyone else’s. Frankie followed his brother everywhere. While Frankie was the smallest in his class, Tony was the tallest in his. Tony was staunchly protective of his brother.
The neighborhood was in transition. Their street was not right in Little Italy, but beyond an invisible boundary. Gangs were prevalent. There were Chinese gangs, Puerto Rican gangs, Black gangs, and a rag tag mixed group that Tony ran with. The other members were two or three years older, but Tony was the same size. Tony was a quiet kid. He attended an overcrowded Catholic school where his quietness was mistaken for politeness. He learned that people expected more from bigger kids. When he was five, he looked seven and so he learned to act seven.
His life fell into three spheres: At school he lived up to Tito’s pride and was good. In the streets he was bad, and at home he was both.
Frankie woke up. He listened to his father’s coughing. He thought of how Ma would move the tissues if she was mad at Pops. Frankie thought Tony was asleep and started to steal the blanket. Tony with a sudden, well-practiced move pushed him out of bed. The day had started.
**************************
4. October 1963
Lillian could feel Meg knocking on her head. Two-year-old Meg was scared to go downstairs to watch Saturday cartoons alone. Lillian sat up and howled. Meg had wet her bed again. The new baby was coming so Meg had been pushed out of the yellow crib. Meg had spent about an hour in her own bed before climbing in with Lillian. This was it. Lillian had to switch rooms. Maybe the new baby would be a girl, and Meg could share this room with her while Lillian moved upstairs to the long room on the third floor with Deidre and young Bridget. Lillian started to dress Meg, calling her Piggy Meggy. Year-old Brian was crying in the next room. In minutes, the joint was jumping.
Owen returned from hospital rounds at 9:30. Pregnant Bridget was getting their crowd started for the day. Young Bridget and Deidre were off to Greeley High School to ogle football players. Patrick and Daniel were leaving on a field trip with Scouts. Ann and Colleen were walking to a shopping center. Edward was playing with “the kids.” Lillian was going to a movie matinee for a classmate’s birthday.
“That leaves Meg and Brian, any takers?”
Young Bridget and Deidre slipped out, not convinced their mother was kidding. Owen and Bridget shared a long cup of coffee.
Lillian left the movie house in Bronxville and waited in front of the theater with her friends. It was Indian summer and October felt more like August. The giggling and shrieking of the other nine-year-olds were wearing on Lillian’s nerves. Lillian always felt older than her peers. She had what her father called a quick wit. In the latest note home, which was still in her book bag, her teacher called her a smart aleck.
The other girls were picked up, and only the birthday girl and her mother waited with Lillian.
Lillian assured them it was OK to leave. “My family’s always late. When they get to the car, one of the babies are wet or something. They’ll be here soon.”
Lillian walked up and down in front of the theater for an hour, watching the clock in the leather goods store. She balanced between fear and bravery. She hoped her parents would be apologetic, and she’d get off easy when she gave them the note.
By 4 p. m., she ferociously decided to walk home. She started in the right direction, but then took the road to Tuckahoe instead of the road to Yonkers. She was halfway there when she realized that instead of looking more familiar, things were looking stranger and stranger. She plowed ahead in her usual headstrong way.
The road came to the commuter train station in Tuckahoe, which was well known to her, but she didn’t have a clue how to get home from there. She saw the light turning green as a sign to go straight. She entered a neighborhood of three-story, attached, stone apartments. The stoops were filled with people speaking another language. Their voices went up and down, sounding like singing to her. Lillian was afraid to meet eyes with anyone, and so she stared steadily at the sidewalk. Dusk was falling, and so was her brave front. Two high-top sneakers obstructed her path.
“Keep your head up and your eyes open, Little Scared One,” the Sneaker Person said.
“Who’s Chicken, Mouth?” answered the side of Lillian that was in trouble at school.
“Hey Blondie, I’m not Lost.”
Lillian looked up into an olive face framed by greased-back black hair and centered by a crooked nose, and she started to cry.
“Now don’t cry. Jesus, one minute you’re tough, then you’re a baby.”
“I’m lost,” Lillian said.
“Obviously. Where did you escape from?”
“Tony, who is the little girl?” Tanta walked down the stairs. “You lost sweetheart?”
Tanta gently stroked her shoulder.
Lillian feared she would break down and steeled herself. “I was walking home to Yonkers and lost my way.”
“Yonkers. Uncle Nick lives in Yonkers. Where do you live?” Tony asked.
“Cassilus.” Lillian never took her eyes off Tony.
“Uncle Nick, where is Cassilus?” Tony asked his uncle, who was coming through the door.
“Cassilus is right up the hill from my place,” Nick said. He held back, seeing Tony playing big man.
Tony turned to Lillian. “You know Tuckahoe Road?”
Lillian nodded. “Sure.”
“I’ll take you home. Come on.”
Nick’s brothers came to retrieve him for their card game. Lillian listened in shocked silence to their bickering. While the kids fought in her house, the adults were always soft spoken with each other.
Tony called back from a half a block ahead. “You coming, girly?”
Lillian stopped listening and sprinted to catch him. “Does all your family live here?”
“Of course not. Pops, Ma, Frankie, and me live in the city. Uncle Nick, Aunt Karen, and their kids live in Yonkers, on Tuckahoe. My uncles Nunzio and Joe live upstairs, and Tanta, my grandmother, lives downstairs.”
“Your uncles must be close to their mother to live so close.” Lillian was surprised at how grown-up she sounded.
“Tanta isn’t their mother. She’s Ma’s mother. Nick, Pops, Nunzio, and Joe are brothers. You see Pop’s and Ma’s families both came from around Naples in Italy.”
He was a real greaser – tight, cuffed jeans, black tee shirt, Bryl Creem hair. Her brothers had leather jackets, but He was from the city.
“Are you in a gang?” Lillian had to know.
Tony stopped and looked at her, then smiled a little. “Yeah. Just six of us. The Chinese have big gangs.” He felt so cool.
Lillian asked if he had a girlfriend.
“Sure, I got girls, but a hem only ties you down,” Tony answered in his best Edward G. Robinson style.
“You’ve been watching too many gangster movies, Mad Dog,” she said, watching traffic.
Tony was stunned. If Frankie had said that, there would have been a fight. Tony started laughing. He told her about all the movies he and Frank watched from the sofa bed while their parents slept.
“I love movies. My oldest sisters have an old TV in the attic, and I watch movies with them all the time. Do you want to be an actor?”
“Lawyer, you know, like Perry Mason. But I’ll probably just be a cop. My Uncle Nick’s a cop. He’s made detective.”
“How come you won’t be a lawyer?”
“Pop’s a garbage man. He came from Italy. There won’t be money for college.”
“Oh.” She thou
ght a minute. “My grandparents all came from Ireland, and my father is a doctor.”
“Were they rich?”
“No, my father said they were so poor my grandmother had to tie a string to a piece of bacon and give them all a chance to chew. If they tried to swallow, she would yank it up,” Lillian recited trustingly.
“You believe that? Jesus, you’re gullible.”
Lillian stopped walking, realizing for the first time her father’s stories were just stories.
“Would you come on,” Tony said impatiently. Then he added, “Do your parents usually ditch you?”
“No never. They’d never ditch me. Something must have happened,” Lillian said, feeling her eyes tear over again.
“OK. Don’t start crying or nothing,” Tony said more softly.
They had entered Yonkers where every street is built on a hill or around a hill.
“This is Nick’s building,” Tony said, indicating a large apartment building. They walked up Tuckahoe Road.
“I live up the hill and around the corner. I can get home from here.”
“I’ve come this far.”
They started up Tuckahoe Road in silence.
“You an only child?” He spoke first.
She laughed, and then said, “My sisters, movies. Remember? I’m number eight of ten with another coming between Halloween and Thanksgiving.”
“Wow!”
“Sure.”
They turned onto Cassilus and started up another steep hill. Tony grew quiet. He felt outclassed. The houses were very large with new cars in the driveways. Lillian stopped in front of a house that made the Leave-It-To-Beaver house look small. It was aproned by a large scalloped porch with intricate white railings.
“Come on in,” Lillian said. Tony was uncomfortable. They sat on the porch stairs. A station wagon pulled into the driveway. Her father got out.
“Lillian, I’ve been looking for you. Are you all right?”
“Sure. I got lost. This is Tony. He brought me home.”
Dr. O’Dwyer smiled nervously at Tony, then said to Lillian, “Your mother had the baby today. Twins. Girls. They are early and very small, but they are strong.”
“Is Mommy OK?” Lillian asked, catching his nervousness.
“Your mother will be in the hospital for a week. She is very tired, but she’ll be fine.”
Lillian remembered Tony, but he was gone. She went down the front walk, he was halfway down the hill.
Tony thought about how grown up and gentle he had acted as he walked. He had seen a side of himself he hadn’t known.
***********************
5. May 1965
The O’Dwyers spent weekends at their summer home in East Hampton, but on this warm Saturday night in May they had stayed in Yonkers because young Bridget had her senior prom. The twins had screamed all night with ear infections, and now that their mother had finally quieted them, everyone was whispering and walking on tiptoes.
Young Bridget approached her father. “Dad, I’ve got to get my shoes for the prom. They are at Cross County. ”
Owen waited. “Are you asking me to take you?”
“Yes, Mom is asleep. I really need them.”
Owen, Bridget, and Deidre were joined by Edward, who needed a canteen for scouts, and Meg, who didn’t want to be left out.
Owen was relatively young and well on his way to becoming very well off. Owen’s brother was an accountant and was a financial wizard.
Owen was doing his fatherly duty, telling young Bridget, “You are eighteen and will probably have a little wine, but do not let that young man take advantage of you. If you need a ride home, call.”
He was trailing off when a car cut them off grazing the front end. He slammed on the brakes and tried to swerve but lost control. The car spun around and hit a granite bridge. The car behind could not avoid hitting the O’Dwyers. Their car exploded in flames.
Young Bridget’s date arrived in a rented tux at 7 p. m. with a corsage.
***********
6. October 1965-May 1967
Lillian started trick or treating by taking Brian up and down a couple of blocks. Then she met her friends, and they headed to the apartments where they could rake in the loot. Her mother’s rules were private homes only, but she figured each apartment was someone’s private home.
The girls worked their way down Tuckahoe Road. Lillian felt funny entering the building that Tony had identified as his uncle’s. Lillian never spoke of Tony, but she daydreamed about him constantly while she played the piano.
The trick or treaters worked their way to the fifth floor, where Tony answered a door. The other girls said, “Trick or treat,” while Lillian stood shocked. He was shutting the door when she finally found her voice and said, “Hi Tony. How are you?”
“How’d you know my name? Who are you?”
“Lillian. You remember?”
“Lillian, oh yeah. Little lost girl,” Tony said, more friendly now.
“Yeah.” Lillian answered, embarrassed. Then she added, “You visiting your cousins?”
“No. I live here now.”
“Lillian, come on,” one girl cried.
“Go on. I’ll catch up,” Lillian said, seeing the curiosity in her friend Eileen’s face. She turned back to Tony. “When did you move here?”
“About a month ago.” Tony stepped into the hall.
“How’s Frankie?” Lillian asked, grasping for something to talk about.
“OK. We go to Emerson JHS. Where do you go?”
“St. Clare’s. You know I spoke to my father that night. He said scholarships,” Lillian said, remembering something she hoped would interest him.
“What are you talking about?” Tony asked.
“Remember, you wanted to know how my father got to college and med school. He got scholarships from The Friendly Sons of St Patrick and The Hibernians.”
“Scholarships, huh? How’s life with a dozen brothers and sisters?”
“No. No, now there are only eight.” Lillian stepped back.
Tony asked, “How’s that?”
“No, no. Bridget and Deirdre and Meggy and Edward are d … gone with my father.”
“Gone?” Tony said, understanding after he said it.
“An accident. I’ve got to go…” Lillian ran past the elevators to the stairs. She couldn’t see clearly because she couldn’t think of her father without tears.
“Wait, I’m sorry. Sit.” Tony sat on the stairs with her. Lillian cried wiping her face with her Dracula cape. He watched.
“I’m such a jerk. It was months ago, and I still act like a jerk.”
“No. It’s OK .”
“Why’d you move here?”
“The family is here. And our neighborhood’s getting bad. Pops couldn’t take the stairs. Uncle Nick knew there was an apartment here. He lives downstairs. This place has an elevator.”
Lillian asked if his father had to commute to “the city.”
“No. He always worked for the city of Yonkers. He was a trash collector; now he’s inside at the incinerator. All my uncles work for Yonkers. My grandmother says when the della Robbias get a cold, Yonkers closes down. My Uncles Nunzio and Joe are ambulance drivers. Nicky’s a cop. Even Aunt Karen is a school nurse.”
Tony kept talking, giving Lillian time to recover. “You’re so concerned what I’m gonna do, what about you? What are you gonna be?”
“I’ll play piano and sing in a rock and roll band.” Lillian perked up.
“You mean like the Supremes?” Tony looked doubtful.
“Kind of. I’ll play piano, too, and without the girls dancing and going doo da in the background.”
“You play piano, or are you planning to learn someday?” Tony asked.
“I play, every day, sometimes for hours. My father got the piano so my brothers would have strong fingers and coordination, and they could be surgeons like he is … err … was. Only they hated piano, and I could do scales before my fifth birthday so he g
ot me lessons instead. I had lessons for six years, only I had to stop after … the accident. But I play every day. My old piano teacher gave me music to work on, and I play with the radio.”
She stopped, realizing she was rambling. He stared at her in fascination. They spoke for another half hour. Her friends had long since finished the building and moved on. He walked her home. She half hoped to see him come to the door every day for a month.
Tony had been lonely when he first moved to Yonkers, but he had made friends. He could never think of the laughing, crying chatterbox in the Dracula suit without smiling. A year went by before they met again.
Lillian baby-sat for two kids every day after school until their mother returned home from work at around 5:30. Their apartment was in a concrete high-rise overlooking the major intersection of Central Avenue and Tuckahoe Road. All the tough kids hung out at that intersection. Sometimes Lillian looked out the window and saw Tony, with some pretty girl. Lillian was painfully aware she was short and baby-faced.
Tony didn’t see her again until January 1967. He was walking to a shopping center to apply for a job. He was a few weeks shy of his fifteenth birthday, but he could pass for sixteen. It was an unseasonably warm days when everything melts into big puddles.
Lillian was walking to Cross County when she saw him a block ahead. She hurried, catching up with him on an overpass.
“Hi. Are you going to Cross County?” Lillian asked, as though they had seen each other the day before.
“Yeah. You?”
“Sure. I’m going to see Cousin Brucie at Wanamaker’s. You know Cousin Brucie, from the radio? And I’m going to buy a Rolling Stones record.”
“Yeah? You like the Rolling Stones?” Tony asked.
They talked about the Kinks and Jefferson Airplane and the Beatles while they walked to the record store together. He applied for a job while she looked through albums. He came over and scanned the 45s. He had a radio but had never owned a record. He almost settled on a Young Rascals record, but walked away instead. He was going to continue to apply. Lillian went after him.
He said, “See ya.”
But he turned around and said as an afterthought, “Lillian doesn’t fit you. It’s an old lady’s name. You’re a Lilly.”
A Yonkers Kinda Girl Page 2
