The John Fante Reader

by John Fante

  The house was not paid for. It was his enemy, that house. It had a voice, and it was always talking to him, parrot-like, forever chattering the same thing. Whenever his feet made the porch floor creak, the house said insolently: you do not own me, Svevo Bandini, and I will never belong to you. Whenever he touched the front doorknob it was the same. For fifteen years that house had heckled him and exasperated him with its idiotic independence. There were times when he wanted to set dynamite under it, and blow it to pieces. Once it had been a challenge, that house so like a woman, taunting him to possess her. But in thirteen years he had wearied and weakened, and the house had gained in its arrogance. Svevo Bandini no longer cared.

  The banker who owned that house was one of his worst enemies. The mental image of that banker’s face made his heart pound with a hunger to consume itself in violence. Helmer, the banker. The dirt of the earth. Time and again he had been forced to stand before Helmer and say that he had not enough money to feed his family. Helmer, with the neatly parted grey hair, with the soft hands, the banker eyes that looked like oysters when Svevo Bandini said he had no money to pay the installment on his house. He had had to do that many times, and the soft hands of Helmer unnerved him. He could not talk to that kind of a man. He hated Helmer. He would like to break Helmer’s neck, to tear out Helmer’s heart and jump on it with both feet. Of Helmer he would think and mutter: the day is coming! the day is coming! It was not his house, and he had but to touch the knob to remember it did not belong to him.

  Her name was Maria, and the darkness was light before her black eyes. He tiptoed to the comcr and a chair there, near the window with the green shade down. When he seated himself both knees clicked. It was like the tinkling of two bells to Maria, and he thought how foolish for a wife to love a man so much. The room was so cold. Funnels of vapor tumbled from his breathing lips. He grunted like a wrestler with his shoe laces. Always trouble with his shoelaces. Diavolo! Would he be an old man on his death bed before he ever learned to tie his shoe laces like other men?

  “Svevo?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t break them, Svevo. Turn on the light and I’ll untie them. Don’t get mad and break them.”

  God in heaven! Sweet Mother Mary! Wasn’t that just like a woman? Get mad? What was there to get mad about? Oh God, he felt like smashing his fist through that window! He gnawed with his fingernails at the knot of his shoe laces. Shoe laces! Why did there have to be shoe laces? Unnh. Unnh. Unnh.

  “Svevo.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll do it. Turn on the light.”

  When the cold has hypnotized your fingers, a knotted thread is as obstinate as barbed wire. With the might of his arm and shoulder he vented his impatience. The lace broke with a cluck sound, and Svevo Bandini almost fell out of the chair. He sighed, and so did his wife.

  “Ah, Svevo. You’ve broken them again.”

  “Bah,” he said. “Do you expect me to go to bed with my shoes on?”

  He slept naked, he despised underclothing, but once a year, with the first flurry of snow, he always found long underwear laid out for him on the chair in the corner. Once he had sneered at this protection: that was the year he had almost died of influenza and pneumonia; that was the winter when he had risen from a death bed, delirious with fever, disgusted with pills and syrups, and staggered to the pantry, choked down his throat a half dozen garlic bulbs, and returned to bed to sweat it out with death. Maria believed her prayers had cured him, and thereafter his religion of cures was garlic, but Maria maintained that garlic came from God, and that was too pointless for Svevo Bandini to dispute.

  He was a man, and he hated the sight of himself in long underwear. She was Maria, and every blemish on his underwear, every button and every thread, every odor and every touch, made the points of her breasts ache with a joy that came out of the middle of the earth. They had been married fifteen years, and he had a tongue and spoke well and often of this and that, but rarely had he ever said, I love you. She was his wife, and she spoke rarely, but she tired him often with her constant, I love you.

  He walked to the bedside, pushed his hands beneath the covers, and groped for that wandering rosary. Then he slipped between the blankets and seized her frantically, his arms pinioned around hers, his legs locked around hers. It was not passion, it was only the cold of a winter night, and she was a small stove of a woman whose sadness and warmth had attracted him from the first. Fifteen winters, night upon night, and a woman warm and welcoming to her body feet like ice, hands and arms like ice; he thought of such love and sighed.

  And a little while ago the Imperial Poolhall had taken his last ten dollars. If only this woman had some fault to cast a hiding shadow upon his own weaknesses. Take Teresa DeRenzo. He would have married Teresa DeRenzo, except that she was extravagant, she talked too much, and her breath smelled like a sewer, and she—a strong, muscular woman—liked to pretend watery weakness in his arms: to think of it! And Teresa DeRenzo was taller than he! Well, with a wife like Teresa he could enjoy giving the Imperial Poolhall ten dollars in a poker game. He could think of that breath, that chattering mouth, and he could thank God for a chance to waste his hard-earned money. But not Maria.

  “Arturo broke the kitchen window,” she said.

  “Broke it? How?”

  “He pushed Federico’s head through it.”

  “The son of a bitch.”

  “He didn’t mean it. He was only playing.”

  “And what did you do? Nothing, I suppose.”

  “I put iodine on Federico’s head. A little cut. Nothing serious.”

  “Nothing serious! Whaddya mean, nothing serious! What’d you do to Arturo?”

  “He was mad. He wanted to go to the show.”

  “And he went.”

  “Kids like shows.”

  “The dirty little son of a bitch.”

  “Svevo, why talk like that? Your own son.”

  “You’ve spoiled him. You’ve spoiled them all.”

  “He’s like you Svevo. You were a bad boy too.”

  “I was—like hell! You didn’t catch me pushing my brother’s head through a window.”

  “You didn’t have any brothers, Svevo. But you pushed your father down the steps and broke his arm.”

  “Could I help it if my father … Oh, forget it.”

  He wriggled closer and pushed his face into her braided hair. Ever since the birth of August, their third son, his wife’s right ear had an odor of chloroform. She had brought it home from the hospital with her ten years ago: or was it his imagination? He had quarreled with her about this for years, for she always denied there was a chloroform odor in her right ear. Even the children had experimented, and they had failed to smell it. Yet it was there, always there, just as it was that night in the ward, when he bent down to kiss her, after she had come out of it, so near death, yet alive.

  “What if I did push my father down the steps? What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Did it spoil you? Are you spoiled?”

  “How do I know?”

  “You’re not spoiled.”

  What the hell kind of thinking was that? Of course he was spoiled! Teresa DeRenzo had always told him he was vicious and selfish and spoiled. It used to delight him. And that girl—what was her name—Carmela, Carmela Ricci, the friend of Rocco Saccone, she thought he was a devil, and she was wise, she had been through college, the University of Colorado, a college graduate, and she had said he was a wonderful scoundrel, cruel, dangerous, a menace to young women. But Maria—oh Maria, she thought he was an angel, pure as bread. Bah. What did Maria know about it? She had had no college education, why she had not even finished high school.

  Not even high school. Her name was Maria Bandini, but before she married him her name was Maria Toscana, and she never finished high school. She was the youngest daughter in a family of two girls and a boy. Tony and Teresa—both high school graduates. But Maria? The family curse was upon her, this lowest of all the To
scanas, this girl who wanted things her own way and refused to graduate from high school. The ignorant Toscana. The one without a high school diploma—almost a diploma, three and one-half years, but still, no diploma. Tony and Teresa had them, and Carmela Ricci, the friend of Rocco, had even gone to the University of Colorado. God was against him. Of them all, why had he fallen in love with this woman at his side, this woman without a high school diploma?

  “Christmas will soon be here, Svevo,” she said. “Say a prayer. Ask God to make it a happy Christmas.”

  Her name was Maria, and she was always telling him something he already knew. Didn’t he know without being told that Christmas would soon be here? Here it was, the night of December fifth. When a man goes to sleep beside his wife on a Thursday night, is it necessary for her to tell him the next day would be Friday? And that boy Arturo—why was he cursed with a son who played with a sled? Ah, povera America! And he should pray for a happy Christmas. Bah.

  “Are you warm enough, Svevo?”

  There she was, always wanting to know if he was warm enough. She was a little over five feet tall, and he never knew whether she was sleeping or waking, she was that quiet. A wife like a ghost, always content in her little half of the bed, saying the rosary and praying for a merry Christmas. Was it any wonder that he couldn’t pay for this house, this mad-house occupied by a wife who was a religious fanatic? A man needed a wife to goad him on, inspire him, and make him work hard. But Maria? Ah, povera America!

  She slipped from her side of the bed, her toes with sure precision found the slippers on the rug in the darkness, and he knew she was going to the bathroom first, and to inspect the boys afterward, the final inspection before she returned to bed for the rest of the night. A wife who was always slipping out of bed to look at her three sons. Ah, such a life! Io sono fregato!

  How could a man get any sleep in this house, always in a turmoil, his wife always getting out of bed without a word? Goddamn the Imperial Poolhall! A full house, queens on deuces, and he had lost. Madonna! And he should pray for a happy Christmas! With that kind of luck he should even talk to God! Jesu Christi, if God really existed, let Him answer—why!

  As quietly as she had gone, she was beside him again.

  “Federico has a cold,” she said.

  He too had a cold—in his soul. His son Federico could have a snivel and Maria would rub menthol on his chest, and lie there half the night talking about it, but Svevo Bandini suffered alone—not with an aching body: worse, with an aching soul. Where upon the earth was the pain greater than in your own soul? Did Maria help him? Did she ever ask him if he suffered from the hard times? Did she ever say, Svevo, my beloved, how is your soul these days? Are you happy, Svevo? Is there any chance for work this winter, Svevo? Dio Maledetto! And she wanted a merry Christmas! How can you have a merry Christmas when you are alone among three sons and a wife? Holes in your shoes, bad luck at cards, no work, break your neck on a goddamn sled—and you want a merry Christmas! Was he a millionaire? He might have been, if he had married the right kind of woman. Heh: he was too stupid though.

  Her name was Maria, and he felt the softness of the bed recede beneath him, and he had to smile for he knew she was coming nearer, and his lips opened a little to receive them—three fingers of a small hand, touching his lips, lifting him to a warm land inside the sun, and then she was blowing her breath faintly into his nostrils from pouted lips.

  “Cara sposa,” he said. “Dear [?? 34]wife.”’

  Her lips were wet and she rubbed them against his eyes. He laughed softly.

  “I’ll kill you,” he whispered.

  She laughed, then listened, poised, listened for a sound of the boys awake in the next room.

  “Che sara, sara,” she said. “What must be, must be.”

  Her name was Maria, and she was so patient, waiting for him, touching the muscle at his loins, so patient, kissing him here and there, and then the great heat he loved consumed him and she lay back.

  “Ah, Svevo. So wonderful!”

  He loved her with such gentle fierceness, so proud of himself, thinking all the time: she is not so foolish, this Maria, she knows what is good. The big bubble they chased toward the sun exploded between them, and he groaned with joyous release, groaned like a man glad he had been able to forget for a little while so many things, and Maria, very quiet in her little half of the bed, listened to the pounding of her heart and wondered how much he had lost at the Imperial Poolhall. A great deal, no doubt; possibly ten dollars, for Maria had no high school diploma but she could read that man’s misery in meter of his passion.

  “Svevo,” she whispered.

  But he was sound asleep.

  Bandini, hater of snow. He leaped out of bed at five that morning, like a skyrocket out of bed, making ugly faces at the cold morning, sneering at it: bah, this Colorado, the rear end of God’s creation, always frozen, no place for an Italian bricklayer; ah, he was cursed with this life. On the sides of his feet he walked to the chair and snatched his pants and shoved his legs through them, thinking he was losing twelve dollars a day, union scale, eight hours hard work, and all because of that! He jerked the curtain string; it shot up and rattled like a machine gun, and the white naked morning dove into the room, splashing brightly over him. He growled at it. Sporca chone: dirty face, he called it. Sporcaccione ubriaco: drunken dirty face.

  Maria slept with the drowsy awareness of a kitten, and that curtain brought her awake quickly, her eyes in nimble terror.

  “Svevo. It’s too early.”

  “Go to sleep. Who’s asking you? Go to sleep.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Time for a man to get up. Time for a woman to go to sleep. Shut up.”

  She had never got used to this early morning rising. Seven was her hour, not counting the times in the hospital, and once, she had stayed in bed until nine, and got a headache because of it, but this man she had married always shot out of bed at five in winter, and at six in summer. She knew his torment in the white prison of winter; she knew that when she arose in two hours he would have shoveled every clod of snow from every path in and around the yard, half a block down the street, under the clothes lines, far down the alley, piling it high, moving it around, cutting it viciously with his flat shovel.

  And it was so. When she got up and slipped her feet inside of slippers, the toes aburst like frayed flowers, she looked through the kitchen window and saw where he was, out there in the alley, beyond the high fence. A giant of a man, a dwarfed giant hidden on the other side of a six foot fence, his shovel peering over the top now and then, throwing puffs of snow back to the sky.

  But he had not built a fire in the kitchen stove. Oh no, he never built a fire in the kitchen stove. What was he-a woman, that he should build a fire? Sometimes though. Once he had taken them into the mountains for a beefsteak fry, and absolutely no one but himself was permitted to build that fire. But a kitchen stove! What was he—a woman?

  It was so cold that morning, so cold. Her jaw chattered and ran away from her. The dark green linoleum might have been a sheet of ice under her feet, the stove itself a block of ice. What a stove that was! A despot, untamed and ill-tempered. She always coaxed it, soothed it, cajoled it, a black bear of a stove subject to fits of rebellion, defying Maria to make him glow; a cantankerous stove that, once warm and pouring sweet heat, suddenly went berserk and got yellow hot and threatened to destroy the very house. Only Maria could handle that black block of sulking iron, and she did it a twig at a time, caressing the shy flame, adding a slab of wood, then another and another, until it purred beneath her care, the iron heating up, the oven expanding and the heat thumping it until it grunted and groaned in content, like an idiot. She was Maria, and the stove loved only her. Let Arturo or August drop a lump of coal into its greedy mouth and it went mad with its own fever, burning and blistering the paint on the walls, turning a frightful yellow, a chunk of hell hissing for Maria, who came frowning and capable, a cloth in her hand as she twitte
d it here and there, shutting the vents deftly, shaking its bowels until it resumed its stupid normalcy. Maria, with hands no larger than frayed roses, but that black devil was her slave, and she really was very fond of it. She kept it shining and flashily vicious, its nickel plated trade name grinning evilly like a mouth too proud of its beautiful teeth.

  When at length the flames rose and it groaned good morning, she put water on for coffee and returned to the window. Svevo was in the chicken yard, panting as he leaned on his shovel. The hens had come out of the shed, clucking as they eyed him, this man who could lift the fallen white heavens off the ground and throw them over the fence. But from the window she saw that the hens did not saunter too close to him. She knew why. They were her hens; they ate from her hands, but they hated him; they remembered him as the one who sometimes came of a Saturday night to kill. This was alright; they were very grateful he had shoveled the snow away so they could scratch the earth, they appreciated it, but they could never trust him as they did the woman who came with corn dripping from her small hands. And spaghetti too, in a dish; they kissed her with their beaks when she brought them spaghetti; but beware of this man.

  Their names were Arturo, August, and Federico. They were awake now, their eyes all brown and bathed brightly in the black river of sleep. They were all in one bed, Arturo twelve, August ten, and Federico eight. Italian boys, fooling around, three in a bed, laughing the quick peculiar laugh of obscenity. Arturo, he knew plenty. He was telling them now what he knew, the words coming from his mouth in hot white vapor in the cold room. He knew plenty. He had seen plenty. He knew plenty. You guys don’t know what I saw. She was sitting on the porch steps. I was about this far from her. I saw plenty.

  Federico, eight years old.

  “What’ya see, Arturo?”

  “Shut yer mouth, ya little sap. We ain’t talkin’ to you!”

  “I won’t tell, Arturo.”