by John Fante
‘Your Papa’s right,” she soothed. “We didn’t have any garlic in the house that night, so Papa used salt. It was his own idea.”
“Garlic?” I looked into Mama’s large green eyes. “Why garlic?”
“To put in the keyhole.”
“Is that suppose to bring babies?”
“Not plain babies—boy babies.”
That stopped me cold. It brought a triumphant sneer from Papa.
“Look who’s calling his Papa ignorance! He don’t know nothing.”
I swallowed wine, said nothing.
“The same with Tony and Jim,” Mama said.
“Garlic in the keyhole when they were born?”
“Both times,” Papa said.
“And Stella?”
But I already knew his answer:
“No garlic, no salt, no nothing.”
He would argue, so I kept still. He filled my glass again.
“I only went to the third grade,” he mused. “But you—you’re supposed to have a big education, high school, two years of college, and you’re still a kid. You got lots to learn.”
I was not so ignorant as he imagined. I had learned plenty in that family, ever since childhood, all sorts of priceless learning handed down from generations of Abruz-zian forebears. But I found much of this knowledge difficult to use. For example, I had known for years that the way to avoid witches was to wear a fringed shawl, for the attacking witch got distracted counting the fringes and never bothered you. I also knew that cow’s urine was simply marvelous for growing hair on bald heads, but up to now I had no occasion to apply this information. I knew, of course, that the cure for measles was a red scarf, and the cure for sore throat was a black scarf. As a child, whenever I got a fever, my Grandma always fastened a piece of lemon to my wrist; it lowered the fever every time. I knew too that the evil eye caused headaches, and my Grandma used to send me out in the rain to plunge a knife in the ground, thus diverting the lightning from our house. I knew that if you slept with the windows open, all the witches in the community entered your house, and that if you must sleep in the fresh air, a bit of black pepper sprinkled along the window sill caused the witches to sneeze and back off. I also knew that the way to avoid infection when visiting a sick friend was to spit on his door. All these things, and many more, I had known for years, and never forgotten. But you live and learn, and the garlic-and-salt treatment for the marriage bed was something else again. My Papa was probably right: I wasn’t so smart, after all. Still I had strong doubts about Joyce’s pregnancy beginning that night last November on Mama’s studio couch.
Lunch was over. Papa pushed back his chair.
“Get your hat.”
I never wore a hat. He meant that I should follow him. We went down the porch steps to the street. He poked inside the mailbox, drew out a dry cigar butt, and lit up. The smoke hung so motionless in the quiet air that he had to brush it with his hand. Heat filled the mighty sky, blue and vast and endless. To the east the Sierra Nevadas raised proud heads, the snows of last winter still upon them.
The street before the house was deserted. Ten years ago San Juan had been a hustling town with packing sheds and importance as a grape center. The state highway used to run right through the business center, but the war came and the highway was rerouted, so that it skirted the town now, and the town was slowly dying. The highway was beyond the peach and hop fields now, and tourists swept past and never knew that beyond the orchards lay a community of six thousand.
“Where we going?”
Without answering he started up the street. We passed three small homes and then there were no more houses, only the broken asphalt with weeds forcing their way through the cracks, and vineyards on both sides of the road, fanning off to the north and south, thousands of acres of muscats and Tokays, a sea of green silence.
“Where we going?”
He walked a little faster, until we came to a place where the road turned and went downhill. This was Joe Muto’s land. I recognized the white-topped markings of his fence posts. It was the edge of the Muto vineyard—uncultivated, shrouded in a disordered growth of scrub oak, manzanita, and the last of what had once been a lemon grove. Everything grew wild here, three or four acres which, for one reason or another, Joe Muto had not planted to grapes. My Papa stood before this mass of green confusion and swept it with a gesture of his cigar.
“There she is.”
He went plowing through the weeds and I followed. In the very middle of the plot, on a promontory overlooking the whole area, he stopped to open out his arms.
“Here she is. What I’m dreaming about.”
He bent down to pull up a clump of wild poppies. They came, roots and all, the black tenacious soil hugging the roots. He crushed the roots in his fist, and the warm wet soil was molded to the shape of his hand.
“Everything grows here. Plant a broomstick, she’ll grow.”
I saw the meaning of it all.
“You’d like to own this, Papa? You want to buy it?”
“Not for me.” He grinned and kicked the ground. “It’s for the baby. This is where he’s gonna live. Right here.” He kicked at the earth again. “It’s what I’m dreaming about. You and Miss Joyce and the little boy. Me and Mama down the road. Big place. Four acres. For you. For your children.”
“But Papa…”
“No buts. I’m your Papa. All that junk you write. You got money?”
“I got a few dollars, Papa.”
“You got two thousand dollars?”
“Yes.”
“Buy it. I talked to Joe Muto. He’s my paisano. He won’t sell to nobody but me.”
What could I say to this man—my Papa? What could I say to this work-wracked face, hardened by the years, softened now by his dream, moving about with his feet on his dream? There was the blue sky and the old lemon trees, and the tall weeds purring like an old love at his legs; and they were there already, his grandchildren, breathing that air, tossing in the grass, their bones fed by this soil that was his dream.
What could I say to this man? Could I tell him that I had bought a house in that jumbled perversity called Los Angeles, right off Wilshire Boulevard, a plot of ground fifty by a hundred fifty, and teeming with termites? Had I told him, the earth would have swallowed me, the sky would have crushed me.
“Let me think about it, Papa. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Now I’ll show you something else.”
I followed him back to the road, wondering how I should break the news…For he had to be told about the house in Los Angeles. He should have been told long ago. Yet there had been no deliberate concealment. I had simply forgotten to mention it, no more and no less.
We walked back to the house and I could feel his joy. He lit a brand-new fresh cigar and led me to the drawing board on the barrel under the fig tree. Here were the plans for the house he proposed to build on those acres.
They were beautiful plans. A stone house it was, the stones free for gathering from a field not far away. There were three fireplaces, one in the kitchen, one in the living room, and one out of doors. It was a long L-shaped ran-cho, a one-story house with a tile roof.
“Last a thousand years,” he said. “These are twelve-inch walls, full of steel tie rods.”
“Fine, Papa.”
“I’ll build it for nothing. You help me. I got my pension. I don’t want any more.”
“Yes. Fine.”
Yes, and yes, and yes. Until he had explained the last stone and beam, until he was very happy, sucking his cigar and drinking wine. Then the afternoon coolness drifted through from the green vineyard seas and he was sated with so much talking. He rolled up the drawings, put out his cigar, laid the butt in the crotch of the fig tree, and stretched out on the lawn swing. A great and wonderful peace shone on his face. No happier man lived on this earth. He closed his eyes and slept. Had he died at that moment, he would have gone straight to paradise.
One thing about your Mama: nothing you
do alarms her. If I had walked into the kitchen and told her that I had just slit Papa’s throat, she would have answered, “That’s too bad—where is he?”
I found her at the table, shelling peas. It is so easy to talk to your Mama; even the things she doesn’t understand, she makes herself understand. Sitting there, I laid out the whole situation about the house in Los Angeles. No recriminations; she did not sigh, nor cluck her tongue, nor admonish me on what I should have done. She shelled peas and listened quietly as I told her why I had come to San Juan, and how, under the circumstances, I was afraid to tell Papa I already owned a house.
“I’ll tell him. Don’t you worry about it.”
But I didn’t want to be around when she told him. “I’ll take a walk downtown.”
“Don’t you worry.”
I rose to leave. She stopped me. Something bothered her.
“You and Joyce. Do you sleep American style?” She meant, did we sleep separately?
“Now that she’s pregnant, we sleep American.”
“What a shame. The baby won’t know you.”
“We’ll get acquainted after he’s born.”
“Sleep Italian style. You don’t understand about babies. It’s lonely down in the womb. He’s there, all by himself. He needs his father.”
I didn’t want to discuss the matter with my mother. “I’ll be back at seven. You tell Papa everything as soon as he wakes up.”
It was five blocks to downtown. I walked down familiar elm-shaded streets and through empty lots I had traversed since I was fourteen. That was the year we moved to San Juan, refugees from Colorado snow and hard times. I saw so many people I had known in the old days, and they all knew about the baby. My father had been everywhere these past weeks, spreading the news. From front porches they shouted their good wishes, asking of Joyce, for she was a native of San Juan; her parents were buried in the local graveyard. People stopped me on the street, pumped my hand, made schmaltzy jokes, and went away laughing. Fatherhood was a very impressive business in San Juan. I had a rare sense of importance. Down in Los Angeles they worried too, not about the wife and baby, but about your ability to pay hospital bills. Our friends were more shocked than pleased when they learned Joyce was pregnant.
For two hours I loafed around. I drank beer at the Tuscany Club, and shot a game of pool with Reed Walker at the Sylvan Oaks. Reed was postmaster; he had been Joyce’s beau in high school. Not one person I met that afternoon was unaware of the coming child, not even Lou Sing, down in the faded brick buildings that comprised San Juan’s Chinatown. We sat in front of Lou’s herb shop and played chess, his many children shouting and playing in the street. At seven o’clock it was still daylight. The marquee lights went on at the San Juan Theater.
Suddenly I was imbued with the spirit of Joyce, lonely for her. The town had done it, the knowing that she had played in these streets as a little girl, and I was full of quick obscure desire. I went to a pay station and telephoned her long distance. I told her my mission had been a failure, that I was coming home as soon as possible. She asked of the town, how it looked.
“Remember the pepper tree in Mother’s back yard?” she asked. “Is it still there? Have they cut it down?” I told her I’d walk over and find out.
“My first doll is buried under that tree. She died of knife wounds—scalped by the Indians.”
“A horrible death.”
“Her head was all broken in. The dog did it. I cried and cried.”
I hung up and walked down Lincoln Street to the place Joyce had lived as a child. The house had been torn down years ago, and the city now used the land for parking bulldozers, scrapers and street-repair equipment. The pepper tree was still there. I stood under it, touched the trunk. I was very lonely for my wife. Ants crawled in the bark of the tree. I picked off two small red ants and put them in my mouth and chewed and swallowed them. Then I walked back to Mama’s house.
Papa wasn’t there. The table was set in the kitchen—plates for three of us. Seated at the window, Mama was reciting the rosary. Twilight dimmed the room. She smiled without speaking, indicating that she had spoken to Papa. I waited for her to finish the beads. Dinner warmed on the stove: liver and bacon, peas cooked in onion, spinach and cheese. I sampled everything, drank a glass of wine, and waited. She told the last bead, kissed the cross, and put the rosary in her apron pocket.
“What’d he say?”
“Nothing. Not a word. He just walked out.”
“Where is he?”
She rolled her eyes and rocked her head. Papa was on the town, drinking to forget his troubles.
“I don’t blame him, Mama.”
“He took ten dollars.”
“What’s the difference?”
“He’ll drink brandy. He’ll spend it all.”
“Good. He has it coming.”
“Oh, I’m not worried. I said the rosary. He’ll be all right. But he’ll spend ten dollars.”
I took out my wallet and gave her five new twenty-dollar bills.
“I can’t take it,” she said. “You’ll need it for the baby.” She folded the money and put it inside her blouse. “I really shouldn’t take it. I don’t know what’s come over me.” I knew of course what would happen to that hundred. The moment I left town she would air mail it to my brother Jim, who was having a rough time in Susanville.
She served my dinner. She had me alone, all to herself, and I prepared for it, feeling it coming on. Sure enough, she began making passes at me, those mother-passes that leave you helpless. She stood behind me and touched my hair. She fondled my ears. She let her arms drop over my shoulders, her palms rubbing my chest. I kept reaching for things, extricating myelf from every new hold. She finally took my left hand and began exploring the fingers. I tried tugging it away, gently, but she would not let go, kissing each finger. I felt great pity for her, for all women with their great consuming mother passion. Then she found a little mark on my neck where a cat had scratched me as a boy, and this brought a fresh facet of her loneliness, and she hurried to the trunk in the bedroom, and I knew it was coming, a picture of me at six months, popeyed and naked on a velvet pedestal. I jumped up from the table.
“Please, Mama. For God’s sake, not that.”
She put the picture away and began clearing the table. I drank wine, watched the clock on the stove, and read the Sacramento Bee. Mama took a colander of scraps out to the chicken yard. Pretty soon she was back with three egs. One in particular she singled out and brought to me at the table.
“Feel. It’s warm, from the mother hen.”
I didn’t want to feel it. Warm or cold, I wanted nothing to do with it.
“Feel how nice and warm it is.”
I wouldn’t. I just stared at it. The egg stared back like a white oval eye, melancholy, stupid.
“They’re good for you. Eat lots of them.”
“Take it away. Put it some place else.”
Time passed. I watched the clock and listened for footsteps in the yard. It was good to see my people again, but now I wanted to get away. Though I had plane reservations for the next day, and a ticket for Papa, I considered leaving that night. I had brought unhappiness to Papa. Best now to leave and let time and distance restore him.
Mama had unpacked my grip that afternoon. Now she began another inspection of the contents. She wanted to know the price of everything. I had brought an extra pair of slacks. She carried them out of the closet and flung them on the table. She examined the cuffs, the seat, the zipper. There was a food spot in front. With an exclamation she discovered this spot.
“What on earth do you suppose it is?”
“Don’t worry about it, Mama. Just put it away.”
She spread the trousers on the table and made a production out of it. She got a small cloth and soap and water and began scrubbing the place.
“I wonder what it is.”
“Please, Mama. Leave it alone.”
“It won’t come off.”
She kep
t probing around. I leaped out of the chair and took the trousers away from her.
“I’ll send them to the cleaners.”
“That costs money.”
“I don’t care.”
“Doesn’t Joyce look after your clothes?”
“Of course.”
“Sending them to the cleaners—that’s the American style.”
I went out on the front porch and sat in the moonlight. The stars floated low and cool. Thirty miles to the east shone the Sierra snows, star-stuff, distant and lonely. A passenger plane droned through the sky, green and red lights blinking. I was homesick for my wife, and worried about my father. It was ten o’clock. There was a midnight plane out of Sacramento for the South. I made a decision: I would find Papa, bring him home, and take that plane.
Then this car with feeble headlights came clattering down the road. It was Joe Muto’s old Ford. Joe was driving. He pulled up in front of the house. I went down to the fence and we greeted one another.
“You look for your father?” he said.
“Have you seen him?”
“On my land. Now. I think he have too much to drink.”
I climbed into the truck and he turned it around. We went bumping down the broken road I had traveled that afternoon with my father.
“I hear him in there,” Joe said. “He feel pretty bad.”
We descended the small hill where the road turned left until we came to the section of uncultivated land. Joe stopped the car and I jumped out. Everything was clear in the moonlight. A community of bullfrogs and crickets filled the air with mating calls. Then I saw my father. He was sitting under one of the old lemon trees, a bottle in his hand. If he saw me, he paid no attention. Joe Muto stayed in the car and I went forward through the whistling weeds.
My father was talking to himself.
“Don’t you worry about your Grandpa. He’s not so old like they think. You’ll get your house, little boy. Your Grandpa, he’s not dead yet. Everybody tries to kill an old man, but your Grandpa ain’t through yet.”
I clenched my teeth to hold back the pain.
“Papa.”
