Most Precious Blood

by Vince Sgambati

  At 8:35 Frankie stopped serving coffee, picked up a stack of trays, and carried them to the room where two older men ran the dishwasher. One man with bushy gray eyebrows and a yellow Mets baseball cap asked Frankie about school, but Frankie kept his answers brief so he could get back to the dining area before Angel left.

  He meandered around tables close to where Angel sat, gathering trays, talking to guests, and trying not to appear obvious. He approached Angel, smiled and made some mundane comment about the weather. Angel’s breakfast plates sat on the table in front of him, and his empty tray was pushed to the side. Frankie pointed to the tray. “If you’re done with that, I can take it for you.”

  Angel spooned cereal into his mouth. “Sure, thanks,” he said. Milk dribbled from his spoon and caught in the stubble on his chin. He wiped his hand across his mouth.

  His backpack was under his chair, so Frankie couldn’t pretend to notice the Taormina button and comment about it.

  He took a few steps away from Angel, but then retraced his steps as if he’d forgotten something.

  “Didn’t I notice yesterday that you had a backpack with a button of Taormina?”

  Angel looked up from mixing jelly in his eggs. “Yesterday?” he said.

  “Yes, I worked Christmas dinner.” Frankie had never seen eyes as large and dark as Angel’s.

  Angel’s pouty lips spread into a broad grin. “I remember. You’re ham or chicken.” He pulled his backpack out from under his chair. “Oh yeah. This big one says Taormina. I got it at some feast downtown.”

  “San Gennaro,” Frankie said. He just about shouted San but Gennaro was barely audible.

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  Still holding the tray, Frankie slumped onto the chair across from Angel.

  “Are you okay?’ Angel said. Several men at the table glanced at Frankie, but then returned to their food.

  Angel was older than the boys in the cartoline postale and a bit older than Frankie, but there was something familiar about him, and Frankie imagined Gennaro rolling his eyes, and sighing. There you go, Francesco, making something out of nothing. Even if he’s hot and his name is Angel, he’s still a drunk in a soup kitchen. But Frankie dismissed thoughts of Gennaro.

  “My great-grandfather was from Taormina,” Frankie said. “In fact I wrote a story about it ... in a way, about him ... but fiction ... well, you know ...”

  Angel interrupted Frankie’s rambling. “You’re a writer?”

  “Yes ... kind of ... mostly short stories.”

  It was difficult to ignore the volunteers cleaning up around them, which is what Frankie should have been doing. Angel finished his coffee and wiped his mouth — this time with a napkin. He nodded. The corners of his mouth turned down and he stroked the bristles on his chin as if he were about to critique Frankie’s writing. A tattoo crawled up his forearm where his flannel shirt was rolled up and his thermal undershirt was pushed back. Another tattoo climbed up his neck, and Frankie wondered what else was beneath Angel’s flannel and thermal shirts. Maybe some tattoos resembled scars that traversed his chest and biceps. Angel leaned forward, took his tray back, and loaded it with his dirty dishes and silverware. Frankie didn’t want him to leave.

  “Do you like feasts?” Frankie asked, feeling like an idiot.

  “I guess so.”

  Only a few people, aside from Diana and her toddler, were still eating. The older woman sitting next to Diana fed the baby from a bottle. Gray hair peeked out from under her black wig. Her face was ebony and deeply lined.

  Frankie couldn’t think of anything witty or clever to say and started to feel as if he were being ridiculous. This is a soup kitchen, not a gay bar, he thought.

  “I should get back to work. Nice talking to you. I can take your tray.” He stood, but as he reached for the tray, his fingertips brushed Angel’s, and Angel looked down at their hands. Frankie caught a flash of the parched Sicilian landscape, dark eyes, pouty lips, and a strong, heavily shadowed jaw. His breath quickened.

  “You live in Manhattan?” Angel asked.

  If only, Frankie thought, but he said California.

  “You’re dedicated.”

  At first Frankie was confused, but then he realized that Angel was joking about Frankie traveling from California to New York City just to volunteer at the Kitchen. His humor made him more appealing and reminded Frankie more of Gennaro.

  “I see you met Angel.” Lenny was standing next to them with a bucket of soapy water and a cloth. “I’ll take that tray. You can start on the tables.” Lenny plopped the bucket in front of Frankie. Some of the soapy water splashed on the table. “See you tomorrow, Angel,” Lenny said, and walked back towards the kitchen.

  “Lenny’s a great guy,” Angel said. “Does a lot of things for people here that no one knows about. He’s helped me out a couple of times.”

  Frankie didn’t mention that Lenny was his dad. Instead, he repated that Taormina was the setting for one of his stories.

  “Yes, the one about your great-grandfather.”

  “In a way,” Frankie said. “Let’s say it was inspired by some pictures of him and some letters and ... well anyway.”

  Frankie wondered what Angel did after he left the Kitchen. Did he spend his day drinking? Riding the subway for hours? Sleeping in a library? Maybe he worked? Lenny said that a lot of the guests have jobs that don’t pay a fair enough wage. Or maybe Angel comes to the Kitchen for the company — something to quiet his ghosts.

  Meeting Angel felt fated, like discovering the cartoline postale and that maybe, of all people, Gennaro had something to do with it. Frankie meet Angel. You’ve both seen hell.

  “Do you know where Bluestockings Bookstore is?”

  “Yes,” Angel said. “I read a poem there a couple of years ago.”

  Hearing this, Frankie felt ashamed for thinking that Angel drank all day, or rode the subways for hours, or slept in a library, as if reading poetry set him above such behaviors.

  “You can close your mouth,” Angel said, laughing. “I was in a PTSD therapy group, and the shrink introduced us to an editor who wanted to publish a collection of stories and poems written by vets who had been to Iraq or Afghanistan. I agreed to give it a try.”

  “That’s great,” Frankie said, concerned that he sounded like Hannah or one of his professors.

  “Maybe not that great, but they had a good spread at the bookstore, and I made a couple of bucks, and maybe helped some people see how the bottom one percent are being fucked over by the top one percent.”

  “You sound like my father.”

  Angel smiled. “I thought Lenny might be your father. You look like him, except for your pretty eyes.”

  The blood rushed to Frankie’s ears and other places.

  “Don’t you have tables to wash? How about I see you tomorrow at breakfast?” Angel stood and picked up his backpack.

  Frankie also stood. By now volunteers were washing tables and folding chairs. “How about I see you tonight?” Frankie asked, startled by his own words.

  Angel’s black eyes narrowed. “Tonight?”

  “I mean, I’m reading some of my stories tonight at Bluestockings — 7 pm. Why don’t you come?”

  “We’ll see. I have to check my busy calendar.” He smiled, put on his jacket, threw his backpack over his shoulder, and Frankie watched him leave. He liked the way he walked away.

  Frankie scrubbed tables and thought of his years in therapy. After he had almost flunked out of his first semester at UCLA, Vi convinced him to seek help. A therapist said that Frankie was suffering from a form of PTSD. She said that his trouble sleeping, recurring nightmares, and phobias were the result of what had happened that night in Most Precious Blood. Frankie knew that the only reason he didn’t wind up like some of the guys at the Kitchen was because Lenny came to Los Angeles. They moved into an apartment together and Lenny stayed until Frankie was back on his feet. Frankie also knew that some credit went to Vi, who cared enough to know that he was
in trouble and pushed him to do something about it.

  But for the grace of my father, Frankie thought, and carried the soapy bucket back to the kitchen.

  39

  Frankie’s short stories spoke of life on 91st Avenue and 104th Street: browning garlic, simmering sauce, colored lights, arbors heavy with grapevines, lush gardens where roses and hydrangeas shared beds with ripening tomatoes and peppers, and of course the people with their admirable but deleterious sense of loyalty. Scratch through the veneer of fiction and you found real people, places, and events. But given Frankie’s imagination and sense of whimsy, reality was relative.

  An independent press published his collection, and his editor scheduled the reading at Bluestockings to coincide with Frankie’s Christmas visit with Lenny. This was his second reading in the East. His first was in Provincetown. He had introduced the collection at a literary festival in New Orleans last April, and since then he had read at colleges and bookstores in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

  Fortunately Hannah was right, and the turnout at Bluestockings was much better than Frankie had expected. He stood at a small podium, and folks sat on the floor cross-legged, making a u-shape around him. Behind them, every folding chair was taken. Lenny, Hannah, Angie, and Dan sat in the first row. Vi and Ina sat three rows behind them. They drove into Manhattan from Queens where they spent Christmas with Vi’s mother, who Frankie now called Bobute — grandma in Lithuanian.

  He met her four years ago after Vi’s father died. Vi didn’t offer an explanation for why she had postponed introductions until her father passed away, and Frankie didn’t ask. Bobute was a nice enough woman — short, stout, and spoke with a very heavy accent. Her face was heavily lined. Frankie assumed lined skin would be Vi’s fate, but hoped his Sicilian blood might spare him. Sometimes, Ina traveled East with him, and she either stayed with Bobute or Angie. At some point, Ina stopped asking Frankie to call Vi mom. Calling their grandmother Bobute was the unspoken compromise.

  Behind Vi and Ina sat Gennaro’s sister, Lena, and Johnny Pickle. They married soon after Big Vinny was released from prison. At their wedding, Big Vinny whispered to Frankie that he should have married Lena. “But Johnny’s a Jew and Jews make good husbands,” Big Vinny said. “And no Italian man would put up with Lena’s attitude anyway.” Frankie didn’t mention that Big Vinny had always put up with Lena’s attitude. She got away with saying things to her father that Michael and Jimmy could never. Only Gennaro had been favored more than Lena, but then Big Vinny was not the only one who favored Gennaro.

  Lena appeared as if she might give birth before Frankie finished reading, but Johnny was the one who looked exhausted. He had grown into his large ears, and was a nice looking young man who just happened to be in dire need of a vacation from the DiCicos, including Lena.

  Frankie didn’t recognize anyone else in the audience. There was no Angel. The first story he read was titled “The Feast of The Assumption,” and when he finished reading it, many in the audience wiped away tears. He followed with a light piece about snails. Now the reaction was smiles and occasional laughter. He read sections from two more stories. No yawns or rolling eyes. So far rapport with his audience was excellent, but he was nervous about the final story. It was the most revealing.

  He thanked everyone for coming and said: “The title of the last piece I’ll read to you this evening is ‘Leaving Taormina,’ which as you’ll notice is also the title of my collection.” Frankie held up his book to show the cover. Several people already had copies in their hands or resting on their laps.

  “It’s the story of a man who is about to emigrate from his small town in Sicily to America at a time when same-sex love was rarely spoken of or even acknowledged.”

  Frankie began to read his tale of Great-Grandfather Leonardo leaving Salvatore DiCico, although he changed their names, and when he neared the part where the lovers sought the shade of the citrus grove to share their last supper together, he looked up. Angel, his dark eyes framed by long lashes, the shadow of a beard accentuating his strong jawline, stood behind the final row of chairs. No cap, and at first Frankie barely recognized him with his tight curls trimmed close to his scalp, not much longer than the shadow of his beard.

  It was warm and Angel had removed his coat. Fastened to his olive green t-shirt was a button about the size of a silver dollar. His forearms were sinewy and heavily tattooed, his black eyes smiled, as did his full lips, and Frankie continued to read the part of his story that he had dreamt not long after Most Precious Blood — more discovery than creation.

  “Their hands were calloused and they led a donkey along rocky cliffs, down a dirt road, where they paused and shot stones from a precipice. Above them were buildings thirsting for whitewash and stacked like children’s blocks precariously clinging to a lush, sun-bathed mountainside. A tremble and they would come tumbling down.”

  He looked up, and Angel smiled knowingly.

  “They resumed their walk, coming upon a fork in the road where they bore left, away from the cliffs and down a steep slope until they entered the shade of a citrus grove, thick with the heady fragrance of lemon and orange blossoms. One man tethered the donkey to a tree and removed a burlap sack from off the donkey’s back. On the earth beneath wizened limbs, the other spread a modest feast of bread, cheese, olives, and a bottle of wine. They leaned against the trunk of a lemon tree; their shoulders kissed as they ate and drank and spoke in soft fatalistic intonations — Do this in memory of me.”

  Again Frankie looked up as if he were reading only to Angel, as if he were reminding Angel of the picnic they once shared. Angel nodded. Somehow Frankie was able to control the heaviness of his breaths, and he continued to read.

  “In this faraway place, to the distant, mythical sound of Pan’s flute, their tattered rags fell away, exposing their scars and bruises and their glistening bronze. One man licked the pearls of sweat from the hallow of his lover’s neck and they ... ”

  When he finished reading, he scanned the audience, which he had all but forgotten, and they appeared stunned. It can’t be my words, he thought. I’ve read this story many times. Though erotic, there were few explicit or gratuitous details. I’ve never had this response, he thought and felt embarrassed and exposed.

  A few people turned to Angel, including Lenny, as if they understood that Frankie had been reading to him. Then the applause began and the audience gave Frankie a standing ovation. His neck and face burned in appreciation, embarrassment, and longing.

  Angel also applauded. Frankie hadn’t felt as drawn to another person since Gennaro. And he couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow Gennaro willed this. He remembered his last visit to Tucci’s and how he felt while watching the falls, as if Gennaro had given him permission. For what? Frankie didn’t know. At the time, Lenny had suggested, permission to go on living.

  Permission to go on living, Frankie thought as he watched Angel applaud.

  40

  While Lenny waited for Frankie to read, he skimmed through a book titled The Italian Left: A History of Socialist and Communist Parties, and he told Angie that he might buy it as a belated Christmas gift for Big Vinny. She rolled her eyes. Books were categorized under labels such as Race and Racism, Class and Labor, and Activist Strategies. The stacks were on wheels and had been pushed aside, maximizing the limited space for the ten rows of folding chairs, which curved before a battered podium. Bluestockings was about 30’ by 30’, and the good turnout in such a small space made for a cozy reading.

  One street over from the bookstore was Orchard Street, where Vincenzo once argued with merchants about the price of Lenny’s Easter suit and the material for Filomena to sew the girls’ Easter dresses. Filomena told the children to stop fidgeting as the shop owner tickled them with a tape measure. This was before Tony was born. After he was born, Filomena had enough of sewing and they purchased all the children’s Easter outfits in Sears.

  Lenny reminded Angie of this bit of Lasante trivia and also mentioned that
Bluestockings rents its space for community events. “You and Dan, your fiscally conservative boyfriend, should have your wedding reception here. It will be like old times. You can buy your dress on Orchard Street and walk around the corner for your wedding.”

  Angie poked Lenny in the ribs and told him to be quiet as a young man who looked as if he were held together with industrial staples introduced Frankie. Someone turned off what sounded to Lenny more like Beelzebub scolding his minions than music.

  After introductions, Frankie began to read, and Lenny was transfixed. Frankie’s voice was confident and soothing, and though Lenny had read and reread these stories many times, this was the first he had heard Frankie read aloud. Frankie made frequent and lingering eye contact with the audience, which gave his prose the intimacy of a bedtime story. Occasionally his eyes wandered to the front door as if he were expecting another guest, and Lenny couldn’t help but think that Frankie was hoping for the resurrected Gennaro to appear.

  As he read “Leaving Taormina,” Lenny noticed Frankie’s glance towards the door turn soft as if eyes could sigh, and Lenny looked back to see Angel standing behind the last row of folding chairs.

  Each time Frankie’s eyes rose from his book, they met Angel’s, and the rest of the audience became voyeurs, an experience that felt oddly familiar to Lenny, like a memory without images or sounds — just a sense of déjà vu. The look in Frankie’s eyes and the longing in his voice were reminiscent of Frankie’s expression when Gennaro sang at The Feast of The Assumption and the sound of Frankie’s voice when they talked about the falls at Tucci’s, but there was something else, a memory Lenny couldn’t quite locate as if it had been misplaced, or even dismissed long ago.

  Frankie finished reading and looked at the audience. First silence, then one person and another and another applauded, until everyone applauded and stood. Some heads turned towards Angel as if he should also take a bow. And through all of this, the obscure memory sat on Lenny’s shoulder and whispered in his ear like one of those pesky devils that the nuns once warned him about. For the most part, he tried to ignore it.