The Brotherhood of the Grape

by John Fante

  “How is he?”

  Maselli flopped into a leather chair.

  “He’s out of danger now. The rest is up to him.”

  He bit off the end of a cigar and told me what had been done to lift him out of the coma.

  “He’s going to be okay, then?”

  “Hardly.” He lit the cigar. “Your father’s an alcoholic, you know. A diabetic alcoholic.” That seemed to amuse him. “How’s that for a dichotomy?”

  “I didn’t know about the diabetes.”

  “A borderline case for years. I kept warning him but he refused treatment. I finally got him on Orinase—that’s a pill, you know—but nothing helps if you’re smashed all the time.”

  “What about now?”

  “Insulin.”

  “And cut down on the wine,” I said.

  “Cut down, hell. He’s got to quit cold turkey. After all, wine is nothing more than grape sugar. Deadly. He’ll have to restrict his pasta too, and bread. He eats too much bread anyway.”

  “He’ll make it, Doc.” I said it routinely, the usual cliché.

  “I’m not so sure. Your father’s will to die is much stronger than his will to live.”

  “Wrong, Doc,” I insisted, the cliché again. “He’s got tremendous will power. You should have seen the way he hung in there, finishing that smokehouse.”

  Maselli frowned thoughtfully.

  “That smokehouse business troubles me. I mean, the way you say he botched it. Your father never built a crooked wall in his life.”

  “He was sick, worn out.”

  “He’s been sick and worn out and a borderline diabetic for years, but he always delivered, always did a good job. But this last one…I don’t know. Strange business.”

  I remembered the IOU to Ramponi, the way it must have humiliated the old man, but I didn’t mention it to the doctor, who suddenly opened up a spider’s nest of facts about my father’s health that left me stunned. Nick Molise had severe high blood pressure. His heart suffered from myocardial insufficiency. His liver was enlarged and malfunctioning. His kidneys had undergone cystic degeneration. He had a chronic bladder infection. His eyes indicated the onset of cataracts. And now, diabetes…

  Having said it all, Maselli seemed relieved, as if it should have been said a long time ago, as if shifting responsibility and disclaiming any guilt for the crumbling ruin. It left me depressed and I felt a tightening in my chest as I went to the window and watched the heavy night settling down, the dark trees on the hospital grounds, the slow-moving traffic in the foggy street beyond. Maselli bothered me. Why did he have to tell everything? He had kept silent all these years, now he was copping out. Why did I have to suffer too?

  “A matter of survival,” he said vaguely.

  “I’d like to see my father now.”

  “He’s been sedated. Come back tomorrow.”

  I walked out, down the stairs to the front office and outside, dreading the grim business ahead, my mother, her lamentations, her tears. Riding the bus back to San Elmo I considered not getting off, rolling right through that depressing town to the Sacramento airport and a flight home.

  How long had I been away now? Was it a month, a year? What had happened to my love for writing, the urgency of it? I groveled in self-pity. My father lay in the hospital, a dying man, and all I felt was a tragic compassion for myself. I was back at the Toyo Fish Company shoveling fertilizer, unloading trucks, I was at the Holy Ghost Mission eating bread and stew, I was in the Lincoln Heights Jail on a vagrancy charge. I was scum again, proletarian scum, the son of an ill-fated mason who had struggled all his life for a bit of space on earth. Like father, like son. Ah, Dostoyevsky! Fyodor could have come walking out of the fog and placed his hand on my shoulder and it would have meant nothing. How could a man live without his father? How could he wake up in the morning and say to himself: my father is gone forever?

  23

  THE LIGHTS were out and my mother’s house was in darkness as I turned into the yard, but I saw that the front door was open and I heard the creak of the rocker on the front porch, then my mother’s voice:

  “Is he dead?”

  There was no anxiety in her voice, no emotion, only a flat acceptance of what had to be.

  “No, Mama. I just came from the hospital.”

  “How is he?”

  “Okay,” I said, finding a bit of her face in the darkness. “Dr. Maselli’s with him.” I sat on the top porch stair and leaned against the post.

  “Ifs been coming,” she said. “I’ve known all along. Is it his heart?”

  “He’s got diabetes.”

  She rose and kissed a white rosary in her hand.

  “His father died of diabetes.”

  “How old was he?”

  “Young. Only eighty. When can we go see him?”

  “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Are you hungry? I made a meat loaf.”

  I followed her into the house. The meat loaf was in the open oven. It didn’t look appetizing, as if it had been prepared for my father, his supper, and I could not eat it. As I spread peanut butter on a slice of bread my mother came to the door. She was in a gray and blue dress with a black shawl over her hair.

  “I’m going to church.”

  “At this hour? It’s closed.”

  “Not anymore. Father Martin keeps the doors open all night.”

  “Go in the morning.”

  “Now. I want to pray.”

  “I’ll call a cab.”

  “No. I’d like to walk.”

  She left and I felt the peanut butter sticking to my mouth, and I thought of her walking seven blocks in the night, across the railroad tracks, past the lumberyard and out Pacific Street to the frame church in the Mexican neighborhood. I went after her.

  As I caught up with her and fell in step she did not acknowledge I was there, moving instead with other thoughts and quiet determination. How beautiful she seemed in that warm night along a dimly lit street of rundown houses, loving that tyrant husband in the hospital, her face like a dove, sweetly moving, reminding me of an old photograph of her in a large hat at Capitol Park in Sacramento when she was twenty, leaning against a tree and smiling, so precious then, so precious now that I wanted to take her into my arms like a lover and carry her through the church door.

  Though it was nearly midnight the church was not deserted. It reminded me of an Italian proverb: “If you see a crowd of women, the church is close at hand.” A dozen women knelt in the pews, all wearing shawls, old like my mother, most in prayer before the Virgin’s altar. My mother stayed at the back of the church, entering a pew and kneeling to kiss the cross on her rosary. I knelt beside her and listened to the old wooden edifice crack and wheeze after the heat of the day. There was a smell of layers and layers of incense and fresh flowers, like marriages piled on funerals, and leaping shadows on the walls behind tiers of vigil lights.

  Peace smoothed my mother’s face. She had not been married in this church, but her children had been baptized there and educated by the nuns of this parish. Her faith was nourishing her now, and from the way her lips moved you could see her sucking up the magic of the place.

  After an hour of kneeling beside her my bones ached and I sat back with folded hands. Presently she sat back too, the beads in her hands. I was very tired now, and sleepy, and I stretched out on the pew and closed my eyes. Her fingers stroked my hair and she drew my head into her lap and smiled down at me. The beads danced over my eyes as I fell asleep. We were there through the night, starting back to the house in the new day, along streets that asked about my father and why he was not with us.

  24

  AFTER BREAKFAST I telephoned Virgil and told him that the old man was in the Auburn Hospital. Without giving me a chance to elaborate he asked, “Is he drunk?”

  “He’s not drunk. He’s sick.”

  “How much is it going to cost?”

  “He’s very sick with diabetes. He was in a coma for five hours.”

 
“Diabetes?” He was relieved. “That’s not so bad. He’s on Medicare, you know.”

  “He almost died.”

  “So what? He’s alive, isn’t he?”

  “Barely.”

  After a silence: “Gee.”

  I told him Mama was having dinner for the immediate family at six and she wanted him there with the others. Afterward we would drive up to the Auburn Hospital and pay the old man a visit.

  “Can’t make it,” he said. “This is my bowling night.”

  “Don’t be a jerk,” I said. “For once let’s do something as a family. We owe it to Papa. You’re his favorite, Virge. I guess you know that.”

  It made him cackle.

  “That’s very funny, Henry, specially since his dislike for us is evenly divided.”

  “Will you come?”

  “What’s Mama cooking?”

  “What’s the difference. This isn’t a celebration, it’s a solemn moment.”

  “Veal with peppers, and I’ll show up.”

  “You got it.”

  Trying to contact my brother Mario was beset with the usual complications. Kids hollered in the background, and the television was on full blast. My sister-in-law answered.

  “Hello, Peggy. Is Mario mere?”

  “He’s asleep. You still around?”

  “Will you wake him, please. It’s important.”

  “What keeps you in San Elmo, Henry? Don’t tell me you’re writing a sex novel about your father and mother.”

  “Peggy, listen. Papa’s in the hospital.”

  “So he got flattened again. Good.”

  “He’s very sick with diabetes.”

  “Really? My aunt had diabetes. He’ll be okay. Just give him plenty of orange juice.”

  “Great idea, Peggy. I’ll tell Dr. Maselli. Will you please call Mario to the phone?”

  That was it. End of conversation. She left the phone off the hook and completely forgot me. For twenty minutes I sat by the telephone waiting, listening to children squalling, doors opening, dogs barking. I heard Peggy spanking the little girl’s ass, and the child’s shrieks. Then the fall of furniture and the wails of the boy. I heard Mario cursing and demanding his breakfast. He must have kicked the dog, for it yelped in pain. A brawl ensued, man and wife in combat, the thud of bodies, the breaking of dishes, the screams of children, the wild barking of dogs, the sputter of a truck engine, the howl of burning rubber, the clatter of the truck bed as the car ground its gears and spun off.

  An hour later I reached Mario at the railroad dispatch office.

  “When are we going to get together?” he asked.

  I told him about Papa.

  “Jesus,” he said. “That’s awful. At his age, too. Diabetes…what’s diabetes? Isn’t it some kind of venereal disease?”

  “Nothing like that, you dope. It’s an excess of sugar in the blood and urine.”

  “That’s right. I knew it had something to do with urine. Where did he contact it?”

  “You don’t contact it because it’s not contagious.”

  “That’s funny. Papa hates sugar.”

  “He’s better now. We’re going to the hospital tonight, all of us, and that includes you. Mama wants you at the house for dinner at six. Okay?”

  “I’ll come to dinner, but not the hospital. Old Nick hates my guts. I’ll only upset him.”

  “You’re wrong, man, dead wrong. Papa likes you. He told me so just the other day. You’re his favorite. Of all of us you’re the only one who tried to learn his trade. Me and Virgil gave up, but you were loyal, Mario, a good son. You did your best. You failed, but that’s not the point. You tried. He remembers that. He thinks you’ve still got the makings of a great bricklayer. He may not show it—you know how he is—but he’s crazy about you, Mario. He respects you. He barely tolerates me, and he doesn’t like Virgil at all. But you’re the apple of his eye.”

  His voice softened.

  “I like him too, damn it. Always have. Maybe we’ve had some battles, but I don’t hold it against him.”

  “Good for you, Mario. Forget the past. Come to the hospital with us. He’s an old man now. He may die any day. So make peace with him. Have a clear conscience. Let him know you love him as much as he loves you.”

  “I will, Henry. Maybe I could bring him something. How about a jug of Angelo Musso?”

  “He can’t have any wine.”

  “How about flowers. A plant.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe bedroom slippers.”

  “Perfect.”

  “And a robe.”

  “Fine.”

  “See you at Mama’s.”

  Suddenly I realized he was putting me on—and himself—that he had no intention of coming to dinner, or of buying his father a gift, or of visiting him in the hospital, for Mario was a dreamer who never followed through on his good intentions.

  25

  WE WAITED for him at dinner, seated around the kitchen table, Stella, Virgil and I, sipping wine, crunching slivers of carrots and celery while my mother brooded over her stove, tending the main dish, which was tripe, trippa Milanese, something plain and austere, in keeping with the grim occasion. She had set a place at the head of the table for her husband, a sort of homage to him, and his absence was heavy in the air.

  At six-thirty she walked out on the front porch to look for her wayward son. With folded arms she looked up and down the street before returning to the kitchen.

  “We eat,” she announced.

  The trippa Milanese was neither plain nor austere, it was wild and ravishing, squares of honeycomb tripe prepared with rice, bell peppers and tomato sauce, sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and seasoned with butter and spices.

  Virgil forgot his wish for veal and peppers and ate like a famished dog, swiftly clearing his plate and demanding more, a glutton at a feast rather than a concerned son about to visit his ailing father. He finished off with a vulgar belch, gulped down wine, and announced that the time had come to face reality, the facts of life.

  “Let’s take things in their proper perspective,” he said like the president of the Bank of America. “First, there’s the matter of our father’s insurance. Have any of you thought about it lately? Is it in order? Has anyone read the fine print?”

  Stella flung down her napkin.

  “Shut up, Virgil!”

  He stared innocently.

  “Have I offended someone? Am I not permitted a simple inquiry? In the banking business the approach is direct and to the point. Sentiment is ruled out.”

  “Papa isn’t dead,” Stella said. “He’s sick.”

  “You can’t run and hide from these problems.” Virgil smiled condescendingly. “Face them courageously, honestly: insurance, funeral costs, Mama’s future…”

  He might as well have punched his mother in the stomach. She got to her feet and staggered from the room. We heard her sob as she closed the bedroom door. Virgil shook his head doubtfully.

  “Nice going,” I said.

  Stella snatched up a slice of bread and flung it into his face. “You’re a beast!” she said. “You always were. I hate you!”

  He stared at his fingers as we sat there listening to Mama opening drawers and moving about in the bedroom. She came out dressed for the visit to the hospital. There was too much powder on her face and she was draped in that disreputable whorehouse coat of Aunt Carmelina’s. Dangling from her arm was a huge black patent leather purse.

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  “Must you wear that awful coat?” Stella complained.

  “I like that coat,” Virgil said, trying to make amends. “It looks nice on you.”

  “It’s cheap,” Stella said. She glanced at Mama’s feet. “Look at your stockings, all wrinkled.”

  Reaching beneath her coat and brown satin dress. Mama hitched up both stockings with one motion.

  “There.”

  “Oh, God,” Stella said.

  She brought Mama to the light of the w
indow, moistened a napkin with spittle, and dabbed away heavy blotches of face powder under Mama’s eyes and around her neck.

  “Try to look nice, for Papa’s sake.”

  “He don’t care,” Mama said crossly.

  We walked out to Stella’s Pontiac. Mama and Virgil got in the back seat and I sat up front with Stella. It was twenty miles to the Auburn Hospital. As Stella started the car my mother said, “Wait. I forgot to leave a note for Mario.”

  “What for?” Virgil said.

  “To meet us at the hospital.”

  “Forget it. He won’t show up.”

  “He might,” Mama said, groping about, having difficulty getting out of the car.

  “I’ll do it,” I said, stepping out.

  “Put the note in the refrigerator,” Mama said. “He’ll look for it there.”

  I went to the kitchen, scribbled the note, and placed it atop a freshly baked apple cobbler in the refrigerator.

  Then we drove to the hospital.

  26

  TWO BY TWO we trooped past the reception desk and down the glossy hospital corridor, Mama and Virgil, Stella and I. At the door to my father’s room we paused for a consultation. Mama was a little breathless. The powder had vanished from her flushed face and she pushed the fur collar away from her hot neck.

  “How do I look?”

  “You’d look a lot better if you took off that damned coat,” Stella said, reaching out to strip it from Mama’s shoulders. “I’ll carry it for you.”

  Mama relented and Stella bundled the coat in her arms. The brown satin dress beneath the coat looked shabby and wrinkled, as if it might have come from the Salvation Army or the nineteenth century. There were places where her underwear bulged and the dress hung crookedly, the hem on the bias.

  “Pull up your stockings,” Stella said.

  “Oh, he doesn’t bother with things like that anymore,” Mama said, but she nevertheless gave her stockings a hitch. All of us examined her critically. Poor Mama. Even Dior could not have improved matters. It was the way she stood there, kinda bow-legged, in somebody else’s dress and falling-down stockings and shoes mat looked too big.