“Listen to me.” He took hold of both of Frankie’s arms. “You don’t know anything about who killed that cabdriver. All you saw was Gennaro write something on his arm, and the police already have that information. You don’t know anything else. Have you ever mentioned what you just told me to anyone else?”
“Only Gennaro,” Frankie said. He was startled by the rage in Lenny’s voice and the sharp pains where Lenny’s fingers pressed like vices into his forearms, which reminded him of how Gennaro clung to him Christmas night.
“And did Gennaro ever mention anything to you about the cabdriver?”
“No. He didn’t say anything, even after I told him that I saw what he did.”
“You don’t know that he did anything,” Lenny said.
“I mean ...” But Frankie lost his train of thought. Someone knocked on the storefront window.
“Okay, we’re done with this conversation for now, Frankie. Remember you don’t know anything that the police don’t already know. You didn’t see anything. You didn’t talk to Gennaro about this. There was a lot of confusion at the block party. You didn’t see anything. Now I have to open the store. You go inside for the rest of the day. Your stomach is off and you have to rest.”
“But ...”
“Do what I’m telling you to do!” Lenny’s face was red. He lifted his apron and wiped the sweat from his brow.
Frankie felt confused, as if he had done something wrong, but he followed Lenny’s orders and, as he climbed the steps up to the breezeway, he heard Lenny tell someone that he had locked the door because he had to take a quick leak.
Frankie spent the rest of the day in Lenny’s room, curled up on his father’s bed, staring at one television show after another. Eventually the daylight shining through the slats of blinds dimmed and disappeared, and the only light in the bedroom came from the small television. He reread Ina’s card numerous times and stared at the photograph. He didn’t know how long he had been asleep when Lenny finally woke him.
32
The salesman looked from the open newspaper on the counter to Lenny’s shaking hands.
“Are you okay, Lenny?”
Lenny stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Just a little jumpy,” he said and nodded towards the newspaper. “Whenever something comes up about this, it brings that whole night back again.” In Lenny’s peripheral vision the store darkened and went flat and he heard a faint grumbling. He struggled to focus on the salesman.
“I read that article this morning,” the salesman said as he pulled at the knot of his tie, which appeared to be girdling his thick neck. His face was flushed from the cold, and he brushed snow from his leather binder and placed it on the counter. “If you ask me the punk is getting off easy.”
“At least there won’t be a trial. I’m thankful for that.” Lenny closed the newspaper and pushed it aside. “Now what bargains do you have for me? I know I’m low on olive oil.”
Despite the steady flow of customers throughout the rest of the day, it was impossible for Lenny to stop thinking about what Frankie had said. In the hum of the slicing machine he heard What else might Frankie be concealing? And in the customers’ faces he saw Lasantes always know more than they let on about the DiCicos. Nine months had passed since Big Vinny’s block party and seven months since the arrests, but this was the first time that Frankie had mentioned anything to Lenny about seeing Gennaro write the cabdriver’s license plate number. There will no longer be a trial regarding Christmas night. Frankie won’t be questioned. Lenny thought these words over and over like a mantra, but it was a small consolation, given that Michael and Jimmy would eventually be brought to trial for the cabdriver’s murder, and maybe even Big Vinny. Frankie might be called to testify at that trial or at least questioned. Lenny spent the day dropping groceries, miscounting change, asking customers the same questions over and over. More than a few customers asked him if he was okay. Some mentioned that they had read the newspaper article. They shook their heads, clicked their tongues, made signs of the cross, and Lenny took long, slow breaths and told himself Frankie won’t be questioned.
The day dragged. At 9 p.m. Lenny locked the door and turned out the lights. The kitchen was undisturbed, so he assumed that Frankie hadn’t eaten. He heated leftover minestrone soup, cut several chunks of Italian bread, and brought the tray of food upstairs to Frankie. The sound of the television came from his bedroom. He placed the tray on his dresser, lit a lamp on the nightstand next to the bed, and turned off the television. Frankie woke as Lenny rolled a small area rug out of the way and pushed an easy chair across the hardwood floor.
Frankie propped himself up against the pillows, stretched, and yawned. “Guess I fell asleep.”
They ate in silence, blowing steam from their spoons, until Frankie drank the remaining soup from his mug, placed the mug on the nightstand, and handed Lenny the picture of Vi and Ina. “I got this in the mail today.”
Lenny held the picture under the lamplight. “Did Vi send it to you?”
“No, Ina. And she sent me a birthday card.”
“You made quite an impression on that little girl.”
Frankie opened the card and held it out to Lenny. “You can read it.”
“Smart kid. Quite a letter for such a little one.” Lenny’s anxiety lifted and his breaths came easier. He could hear Filomena say that when God closes a door he opens a window, or something like that. Whether it was God’s doing or not, Lenny was thankful for Ina. She gave Frankie a window to the future.
“Funny how things work out,” Frankie said.
“How’s that?” Lenny said. He dunked a chunk of bread in his soup.
“I was just thinking about when you said that you wanted me to go visit Vi instead of finishing out the school year.”
Frankie’s voice had a slight edge. Lenny felt Frankie was being unfair, as if he were to blame for what had happened to Gennaro or at least glad that it had happened, but he was too tired to be defensive.
Frankie slipped the card into his pocket. He stood and gathered the empty dishes. “I’ll bring the tray downstairs. I know I’ve been sleeping on and off all day, but I’m still tired. Since we’re going to Tucci’s early in the morning, I’ll read a little and try to get back to sleep.”
Though Lenny wanted to, he didn’t suggest that Frankie accept Ina’s invitation. He remained quiet as Frankie left the room. Sometimes the best a father can do, especially with a teenager, is to just shut up and wait.
Lenny looked at the picture of Vi and Ina and briefly wondered if a friend or a new lover had taken the picture, but he dismissed these thoughts, tossed the picture on the nightstand and undressed for bed. In the morning, they planned to drive to the Catskills. He had told Frankie earlier in the week about Tucci moving to a nursing home and that Big Vinny was going sell the house and land. Frankie was sad to learn of Tucci’s decline and surprised that Big Vinny owned Tucci’s place. Gennaro had never mentioned this to him. “Maybe Gennaro didn’t know,” he said. “Or maybe he half knew. Seems like there was a lot of half knowing about stuff, even among the DiCicos.” Lenny didn’t respond.
Rather than open the store Sunday morning, they left early to avoid heavy traffic. They had hoped to visit with Tucci at the nursing home, but his sister discouraged them from doing so. She explained that her brother wouldn’t know who they were, and she was concerned that Frankie had already been through enough. “Better to remember Rocco as he was,” she said on the phone.
The morning was cold but clear. Frankie wore his headphones and slept for most of the drive, while Lenny nursed a thermos of strong coffee, and his thoughts vacillated between concerns about Frankie and recalling his last visit with Tucci. It was the Sunday before Filomena died. The old man had repeated himself a little, but otherwise he seemed healthy and his memory, at least when he reminisced about old times, was sharp. He had looked disheveled and the inside of his house was a mess, but no more than usual. The outside of the house was also in disrepair, but L
enny was still shocked when he and Frankie turned into Tucci’s driveway. The doors and windows on the first floor were boarded up. The porch roof was flecked with shards of glass as if tears had been shed from the shattered second story windowpanes. Tiny cedars grew from lose gutters and moss coated much of what was left of the worn siding. Nature seemed anxious to reclaim what Tucci had borrowed. Frankie stretched and removed his headphones.
“Holy crap!”
Tucci’s absence made the already forlorn house appear wretched. Without an open door or window, or Meatball barking, or Tucci sitting on the porch, it was just an old broken down shell, like a deserted car on the side of the road, except instead of rusted metal, Tucci’s house was a heap of rotting wood.
“Should we just go home?” Lenny asked.
Frankie ignored the comment and got out of the car. He zipped up his jacket, turned away from the house and headed down the path to the falls. Lenny followed him under the skeletal branches of deciduous trees where ferns lay brittle and brown against rocks and soil, but the spruce and hemlock were green, and Lenny remembered Frankie and Gennaro playing in the woods, turning fallen tree limbs into swords. Gennaro was the king and Frankie his knight — of course. Lenny saw them dart among the trees — Arthur and Lancelot without Guinevere, and now Lancelot was without Arthur. Whatever Gennaro may have felt for Frankie, Lenny believed that Gennaro would have married, fathered a brood of little DiCicos, and Frankie would have become another DiCico secret. It was true that Lenny had wanted Gennaro out of Frankie’s life, but not like this.
When they finally reached the falls, it was as dazzling as the house was depressing, a luminous life force framed by snow and ice sculptures behind a screen of mist.
“It’s beautiful,” Frankie said.
The last time Lenny had seen such an expression on Frankie’s face was the night of the Feast of the Assumption when Gennaro sang Mario Lanza’s songs on the stage across from their yard.
Frankie eyes were locked on the falls while he raised his voice so Lenny could hear him above the crashing water. “Gennaro and I didn’t come back here last summer — I mean after the explosion. We were here the day before, but we never came back. I wonder if he knew that his father bought the place. Maybe. Guess there was a lot I didn’t know. Maybe a lot Gennaro didn’t know too, or at least he pretended not to know. He told me something like that once when we walked on the beach.”
It was difficult to understand all of Frankie’s words above the fall’s thunder, but Lenny felt his stomach tighten with talk about knowing but not knowing regarding Big Vinny’s involvements. He didn’t interrupt.
“Gennaro wanted to get away. Join the Army or something. I was afraid that he’d get himself blown up again ... you know like he did the night of Big Vinny’s block party. Only this time it would be for good. I don’t have to worry about that now.”
A mini double rainbow arced across the falls’ icy spray, and Frankie took Lenny’s hand, and the feel of it so overwhelmed Lenny with emotion that he feared if he allowed one tear to escape there’d be no stopping them.
Boulders and rocks can handle a winter thaw. They erode slowly over hundreds of years, but people can survive only so many tears. He inhaled, and the air smelled of winter’s reluctant yielding to spring. Before such a force of nature, Lenny’s regrets and worries suddenly felt minuscule. Right now Frankie was safe like the little Frankie who once held Lenny’s hand as they crossed the winding roads in Central Park from one playground to another. The past couldn’t be changed, and worrying about the future was futile.
Almost an hour had passed when Frankie squeezed and then released Lenny’s hand, and Lenny turned from the falls and watched Frankie disappear back into the woods. He followed him, and as Tucci’s house came into view, so did Lenny’s concerns.
The falls gave Lenny only a brief respite, but once in the car, he mentioned that maybe this trip wasn’t such a good idea.
“No, it was good,” Frankie said. “Remember how I said that I didn’t want anything for my birthday?”
“Did you change your mind?” Lenny said. He turned the key in the ignition.
“Yes. What do you think of a plane ticket to L.A.?”
“If it’s what you want ...” Lenny backed out of Tucci’s driveway and tried to sound nonchalant.
“Really?” Frankie twisted his lips and rolled his eyes.
“Okay,” Lenny said. “I admit it. It’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time.”
Maybe something about the falls had motivated Frankie to give Los Angeles a chance. Whatever the reason, Lenny was grateful, almost giddy, and he struggled to keep the smile from his face, as if being too happy might jinx Frankie’s sudden change of heart.
After two hours of driving to the soothing monotony of windshield wipers clearing mist, he asked Frankie if he was hungry.
“No, I’ll eat when we get home.”
Again they fell into silence, except for the swish of the wipers. There was much that Lenny wanted to say, but again he feared that if he showed too much enthusiasm Frankie might change his mind about Los Angeles. As they approached the Tappan Zee, Lenny said: “So you’re doing okay? I mean with seeing Tucci’s place and all.” He turned the heat down in the car.
“I’m good,” Frankie said, but he stumbled over his words, and his voice cracked. “I know this sounds weird, but I wish I had gone to Gennaro’s funeral. Not that it would change anything.” He paused for a few moments, looked out the window. “Being at Tucci’s kind of felt like a funeral. You know like saying goodbye to someone or something, but seeing the waterfall didn’t feel like an end kind of goodbye. Goodbye is too permanent a word. I know I’m getting too weird for you. Gennaro would tell me to stop reading into everything, which is kind of funny because while I looked at the falls I felt as if Gennaro gave me some kind of permission, even though I don’t know what he was giving me permission to do.”
“Maybe to go on living?” Lenny said. Frankie stared at Lenny, and from the corner of his eye, Lenny caught Frankie’s expression turn light, dark, then light again from the headlights of passing cars.
“Maybe,” Frankie said. “I hadn’t thought of that. Now you’re the one reading into stuff.” Frankie put on his headphones and rolled his jacket up under his head. “You see a lot of sky from this bridge. Gennaro didn’t like the night sky, especially in the country. I hope he likes it now.” Frankie continued to speak of Gennaro in a dream-like distant tone. His eyes closed and his voice drifted. The headlights grew brighter and more frequent. Frankie punctuated his words with yawns until he fell asleep.
Once home, Lenny called Vi. She was more than willing to have Frankie visit. She would turn her office into a bedroom for him. There was a couch that opened into a bed and closet space and good ventilation and Ina would be thrilled. Lenny was touched by Vi’s enthusiasm. “Just don’t paint Disney characters on the walls,” he said. “Remember he’s turning 18 in a few days.”
Vi chuckled, but then her tone turned serious. “His birthdays were always difficult for me, especially after Ina was born.”
“Well, that’s all changed now,” Lenny said.
“We’ll see. I have a lot to make up for.”
Lenny didn’t console her, or tell her that all would be okay, though for Frankie’s sake he hoped that it would. He said that he’d check into flights and get back to her.
“Thank you, Lenny.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank the waterfall,” he said and pressed end before Vi could respond.
33
Soon Frankie would leave for California, so he no longer put off paying his respects to the DiCicos. He declined Lenny’s offer to go with him, but while at the florist buying tulips for Marie, then walking down 104th Street, unlatching the gate to the DiCicos’ yard, and even while meandering through the topiaries and garden statues, he thought to nix the idea of a visit and go home.
He held out the bouquet of red tulips when Marie answered the door, but she didn
’t seem to notice. Instead of taking the flowers, she hugged him and pulled him into the kitchen towards a kitchen chair. There was the familiar smell of strong, fresh-brewed coffee. Marie was a chain coffee drinker, especially since she quit being a chain smoker.
“Sit, sit,” she said, and she sat next to him and petted his arms as if to assure herself that Frankie was real. Her eyes were filled with tears, but she didn’t cry.
“Look at you,” she said. She let go of his hands, pulled a tissue from her sleeve, and blew her nose. “Lena told me how good you were healing. I wanted to see for myself, but I ... and no cane. She said you were walking with a cane, but no more.”
“I only used the cane for a few days after I first came home,” Frankie said. “My leg doesn’t even hurt.” Frankie didn’t mention the persistent tingling and numbness. He removed his jacket and let it drape over the back of his chair.
Marie pressed her fist against her lips, reminding him of the night of the fireworks explosion. He placed the slightly mangled red tulips on the glass-top kitchen table, and thought to take her hand, but he felt too embarrassed. She took a deep breath, lowered her fist, and spread out her fingers to gather the tulips. She smiled and her eyes widened as if the flowers had miraculously appeared.
“How beautiful.” She stood. With one hand she clutched the flowers, with the other she opened a kitchen cabinet and removed a red glass vase. Her posture stiffened, and Frankie’s stomach tightened as Big Vinny entered the kitchen. Frankie tried to stand, but Big Vinny pressed his hand down on Frankie’s shoulder.
“Don’t get up.” Big Vinny kneaded Frankie’s shoulder, and Frankie resisted his urge to retract.
Marie pushed the vase aside and took three cups and saucers from another cabinet. She filled each one with coffee and placed them on the table without looking at Big Vinny.
“So you’re feeling good enough to take a little vacation. That’s good. That’s very good,” Big Vinny said, and he took a seat next to Frankie.
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