When the World Was Young

by Tony Romano

  She glanced at the baby, checking to see if he was safely strapped, and began to stumble away. After a few steps, she slowed down and called out over her shoulder, “I’m sorry about your brother.”

  Victoria had once relished the sound of her voice in the confessional, the way the words took on a velvet weightiness amid all the polished wood before they spilled across the tissue-thin curtain. In order to hear this, to feel the gravity of the words, she had to speak in a hush, in a near whisper, and then she’d forget that anyone was listening and recite the list of venial and mortal sins she’d committed in the days since her last confession, primarily sins against her family and friends, disobeying one and acting meanly toward the other. Until that Saturday afternoon she had never considered mentioning impure thoughts. Not that she had none. She simply took matters into her own hands in those cases and added a few Hail Marys to her penance, which is what the priest would have prescribed anyway. Besides, giving voice to those thoughts would have given them more substance.

  But this time the impure thoughts were different. She was sixteen. Eddie’s hands had traversed her body, his fingers slowly penetrating her as they pressed up against each other in the backseat of his car. Which is not the thing that bothered her. It was the yearning for what would come next that consumed her with guilt. She imagined the priest falling off his stool with a thud as she revealed her dark passions. And if she cloaked her desires in the pat phrases of the nuns at school, Father Ernie or one of the others would recognize her voice and write an entire sermon about the body as temple, and everyone in the parish would glare through her from their pews because they would know she was the one.

  Her mother probably already knew. Angela Rosa’s questions as Victoria tried to leave the house had become more insistent lately—How long will you be? How can I find you? Will Darlene the puttana be there? Then she’d lay into Victoria about finding new friends, corner her in the doorway before she left, and finally demand that Victoria honor her mother. Or she’d never leave the house. Her eyes would bore into Victoria and her voice would turn shrill, as if she could will obedience with her screeching.

  Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Bless me, Father for I have sinned. Bless me, Father, for—The window of the confessional slid open. “Bless me, Father,” she whispered. “It has been five weeks since my last confession. I’ve been mean to my mother. I can’t help myself, I guess. She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand anything.”

  Father Ernie’s confessional voice scratched through the flimsy screen. “Go on,” he said.

  “I disobeyed her, you know. Went somewhere she told me not to.” She heard the rustling of his cassock. “Also, impure thoughts. And I stole something. I took a cigarette from my dad’s shirt pocket.”

  “Go back.”

  “I disobeyed my mother. I had to.”

  “The other one.”

  “I took one cigarette. It’s okay that my dad smokes. He started when he was twelve. But I can’t have one cigarette. That makes a lot of sense.”

  “Impure thoughts. Tell me about that one.”

  “I know that’s a sin, Father. I’ll say three hundred Hail Marys. Really I will. Anything you say.” She tried to sound sorry but didn’t feel it and wondered now why she’d come at all.

  “Are they just thoughts?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  Father Ernie let out his familiar exasperating sigh. She knew she could wait him out, but Darlene would be at the school steps in a few minutes. “I have to go, Father.”

  “Just awhile longer.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t…I can’t—” She stepped from the kneeler, the creaking loud in that small space, and slipped out of the confessional. In a single motion, she dipped her fingers in the bowl of holy water, crossed herself, and then pushed through the mahogany doors without looking back.

  At the church parking lot she saw that Darlene hadn’t arrived yet and slowed her pace. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flurry of movement behind her. Father Ernie in his confessional vestments, his arms pumping wildly, glided toward her.

  “You’re a fast one,” he called, slightly winded. “I guess the Jesuit sisters didn’t fill you in on protocol. You confess, I give you penance, and then you leave.” He leaned his head back toward the church. “Why don’t we try again?” A trace of pleading hung at the edge of his short breaths.

  She refused to meet his eyes. “I have to find Darlene. I don’t have time. Really.”

  “Darlene will wait.”

  “And this is kind of strange,” she said, pointing to his cassock flapping in the October breeze, “talking in the parking lot like this.”

  “Because this is still confession? Since you didn’t finish. Is that what you mean?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just strange.”

  “Forget confession,” he said, catching his breath. “Let’s just talk.” He unzipped his cassock and draped it over his arm. “You could have said less. You wanted to talk. Now finish.”

  He was right, of course. She’d kept the depth of her desires hidden even from Darlene, which felt like a kind of betrayal, and now she needed to tell someone.

  “I don’t have time to get into it,” she said.

  “What’s the boy’s name?”

  Her eyes followed a winding crack in the asphalt. A gust blew a few stiff leaves across the crack. “This is not exactly the kind of thing you talk about with a priest in the middle of a parking lot, if you know what I mean.” She could use a cigarette, she thought.

  His eyes swept from the rusting spire of the church back to her. “So forget I’m a priest. I’m just another person. Someone who doesn’t want you to do something you don’t really want.”

  “Everybody knows what I want all of a sudden?”

  “What you want changes.”

  “Especially at my age? Is that what you mean?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Well, maybe I’m old enough to—to decide what I want. Why doesn’t anybody ever think of that? My mother thinks I’m four and my dad listens to whatever she says, like he’s afraid of her or something. Anthony and Freddy, they give me these looks, like, ‘What’s wrong with her?’ Santo’s the only one lately—but it’s not like he…”

  “What’s the boy’s name, Vicki?”

  Victoria studied him, the way he stood there like a rake. If he got rid of the priest gown on his arm and someone handed him a cigarette, and if he combed a dab of Brylcreem into his regiment of hair, he’d look like one of the guys hanging on the corner.

  “Why do you want to know?” she asked. “Are you going to check up on him? Check him out? Make sure he’s safe for me? The last thing I need is another brother.”

  “If you’d step back for a minute, for a second even. Cut through to the honest to God truth and…how do I say this…” He moved his cassock to his other arm. “This is about your brother, isn’t it? This is about Benito. This is your way of—”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I think you’re feeling—you have this heightened sense of fairness I’ve always admired. You’re able to take the long view. But if something happens to throw off your”—he used his hands as scales—“your sense of right and wrong, then you want to lash back. It’s stamped all over your face. After a while you walk around thinking, ‘What’s the difference?’ Am I right?”

  Her hands shook and she ached for the calm of a cigarette.

  “Believe it or not,” he said, “I know that recklessness. It weighs you down, pulls you away from yourself.”

  “Like I know who I am.”

  “That’s a good one. Vicki Peccatori doesn’t know who she is. If that’s what you want to keep telling yourself, then maybe…”

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t have come out here?”

  “I didn’t come out here to be your conscience.”

  “Then why’d you come out here?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe be
cause I like you. Because I know what it’s like to walk around aimlessly, thinking that a certain thing is going to make everything all right.”

  “What’s wrong with wanting a certain thing?” she said.

  “Certainty nearly always disappoints us.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He rubbed his tight forehead, examined the scuff marks on his oxfords.

  “Listen,” he said. “Running around is not going to change anything. It’s not going to ease your grief. It’s not going to get your mom off your back. It’s probably not even going to bring you any closer to this boy you’re thinking about. That’s my guess at least.” He tugged on the band of his wristwatch. “If you won’t tell me who he is, will you at least tell me why you’re interested in him?”

  “He makes me laugh.”

  “Crazy Willie makes you laugh, too.”

  She thought about what Eddie would say. Ballbuster, he’d say. Though not to a priest. And never to her. He said things like that to others to perform for her, it seemed.

  She grinned. “He takes care of me.”

  “Does he?”

  “He does.”

  “Gives you cigarettes?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Treats you right?”

  “Sure.”

  “A good guy?”

  “I guess.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “I don’t know. He’s good enough.”

  “You want to run around with someone who’s good enough? You’re going to settle for good enough?”

  “He’s not a priest.”

  “He could do worse.” Father Ernie scratched his chin, as if wondering how to proceed. “Does he stay out of trouble?”

  She shrugged, hoping he’d take the shrug as a yes.

  “So you’re dating a hoodlum. Is that what you’re telling me? A hoodlum who makes you laugh.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to be my conscience.”

  “Someone has to do it.”

  “Yeah, and I get the priest.”

  “So you think you’re going to reform this boy? Is that it? You’re going to save him?”

  She looked for Darlene. Where the hell was she?

  “Tell me one thing,” he said. “What’s the rush?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Because I’m a priest?”

  “Yes, actually.”

  “Then explain it to me. Why is a sixteen-year-old running around with a—how old’s this guy?”

  “Nice try, Father.”

  “Ah, he’s older, too. So why’s a young girl like you running around with an older guy who’s probably ready to move a lot faster than she is? Where is the rush?”

  “I should’ve just confessed,” she muttered.

  “I’m glad you didn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Nine times out of ten it’s all rote in there anyway. People aren’t contrite. They just want to feel better.” He shook out his cassock, pulled it around his shoulders, and zipped it. “I can see you’ve made up your mind about this boy. I can have you say ten rosaries, but that’s a temporary wash. And you know it. When you decide you want to talk, let me know. I’ll pray for you.”

  He’d kept his head down, and his entire weight seemed to slump with each word. She wondered if there was something tactical in his resignation.

  “Thanks, Father.”

  “You can take care of yourself. I’m fully aware of that. But…” He shook his head. “Let me know what I can do.”

  “Thanks.”

  He pointed to the school steps. “Your friend is waiting.”

  He walked away without his customary wink. She suddenly yearned for the wink. She yearned for the customary teasing that followed. If I weren’t a priest…

  On Thursdays, after putting in a four-hour shift at Mio Fratello, Santo would stroll down to the Erie Street social club to play a few hands of five-card draw in the burgundy-washed light of the old storefront. He loved squeezing the cards open one by one and taking in the shimmer of the red and black suits as they fanned out near the end of his cigarette. With each drawn card Santo’s breaths became shallower and his worries dropped off like spent matchsticks. And it didn’t matter what he caught. Missing an inside straight gripped him the same as finding three of a kind unfolding before him. He wondered whether the shimmering and the flashing he sensed when he gambled matched Uncle Vince’s jittery rush for a drink, whether one obsession was the same as another. He’d been thinking lately that obsession ran in the blood—his uncle with his drinking, his father with his women. Even Mama with her kitchen life. All of them were plagued with the same narrow scope that blurred their own nagging worries for a while.

  Even cards, though, couldn’t stop Santo from thinking about Ella Paolone. He hadn’t ventured toward Hubbard Street in over a week, not since talking with her, but her face was imprinted in his mind. Anyone vaguely resembling Ella would cause him to pause and do a double take. He thought he saw her pass Mio Fratello one time, which would have been remarkable, he felt. Another time he was sure she’d disappeared into the church, her dark hair lilting, shielding her eyes. When he followed her inside to steal a closer look, she turned out to be twenty years older and a few pounds fuller than Ella.

  Sitting in the club now across from Pooch, he thought about Ella’s last words to him, kind words about his brother. Pooch dealt him an ace, a jack, and a king. Sorry, she’d said. She’d meant it to sound tender, Santo knew, but the words had come out flat. Her eyes were full and sad, though, which was how he wanted to remember her. After she walked away he had stood there on the sidewalk for a long while before turning back toward Grand. His last two cards were fours. Eddie opened for a quarter and drew two. Johnny C wanted one card. Santo threw away the pair and looked to fill out his straight. He knew it was stupid to throw away a pair, but from the looks of it, catching another four wasn’t going to help him anyway. On his left, Tony drew three cards. Tony was twenty but already soft in the middle.

  “Asshole Pooch,” Eddie said. “You deal like shit.”

  “You just better have openers,” Pooch said. “You cuntlap.” Playing cards was about the only time Pooch seemed comfortable with himself. The only time he stood up to Eddie.

  “Yeah, you cuntlap,” Tony said.

  Tony had a habit of repeating the latest cut and then laughing freely, as if this were the most clever thing he’d ever heard. Johnny C didn’t say a word. He studied his cards through hooded eyes, tugging nervously on the sleeves of his T-shirt.

  The cop’s wife from upstairs, Eddie’s cousin, walked by outside with her hair made up, and Pooch said, “I wouldn’t mind going to pork city with that thing.”

  “She’d hurt you.”

  “Not to mention her husband.”

  “Then hurt me,” Pooch said.

  Santo drew a ten and a seven but didn’t fold immediately, thinking he might be able to bluff someone out. But when Eddie and Johnny C both stayed, he tossed his cards in the middle. He’d been playing for twenty minutes now and hadn’t come close to a winning hand.

  “Not my day,” Santo said. “Might as well just throw another sawbuck in and you assholes can split it up.”

  “Make it a C-note,” Pooch said. “The way you’re going.”

  “Yeah, a C-note,” Tony said, and snorted.

  “Why don’t you shut the fuck up, Tony?” Eddie told him.

  Tony turned to Eddie, then back to Pooch. He wouldn’t back down. “Yeah, shut the fuck up,” he repeated.

  “Who you talking to?” Eddie asked.

  “All of youse. Every one of youse shut the fuck up.”

  Eddie shook his head and dragged on his cigarette and let the smoke blaze out through his nostrils. “You’re so fucked up you don’t know you’re fucked up. You pissant.”

  “Pissant,” Tony mumbled.

  Santo pushed himself from the table and stepped outside. There was a chill in the air now, a marked c
hange from when he’d walked in. He peered down Erie, thinking he might walk clear down to Hubbard Street and look for Ella Paolone. And then he saw them, his sister and Darlene leaning against a fence in the middle of the block. They’d been gazing at the club and when they saw Santo they huddled closer together, talking back and forth. It wasn’t until Santo shrugged, asking them with the shrug what they were doing there, that they moved toward him. He stepped from the door and met them midway.

  “Dinnertime?” he said.

  “No. Just walking around,” Victoria said.

  They still had their white blouses on from school and they’d replaced their pleated skirts with jeans.

  “How you doing, Darlene?”

  She smiled at him, her red lipstick bright.

  “So what are you two doing here?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing, huh?”

  “We’re looking for someone to play double Dutch with,” Darlene said. She studied her chewed nails. “How’s about a cigarette?”

  Santo had a couple of puffs left on his and offered it to her. Darlene puffed twice and dashed the butt under her shoe. “Eddie in there?” she asked.

  Victoria’s brow tightened and she shot Darlene a stony look.

  “Eddie who?”

  “Eddie Eddie.”

  “What do you want with Eddie?”

  “We need to ask him something. That’s all.”

  Santo thought he’d given up protecting his sister, but here it was again, the old urge to shove someone. He felt his fist wadding up.

  “He’s playing cards. Taking everyone’s money. He’s not coming out of there.” And there was no way any neighborhood girls were going in.

  “It’ll just take a second,” Darlene said. “Can you get him?”

  “Why don’t you go home and watch TV or something. Red Skelton’s coming on.”

  Behind him he heard Tony calling. “Hey, Santo. You in?”

  Santo waved him away. “Deal me out,” he shouted. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Tony disappeared and Santo turned back to Darlene. “See you later, huh. I have to go win my money back.”

  “So you’re a loser,” Darlene suggested. “Is that what you’re saying?”