The Islands of Divine Music

by John Addiego

  Ciso’s plan was to let Angie hang out in the restaurant with him and, after a while, sneak into the gaming area at his side. They’d spent a half hour drinking coffee and Cokes before Angie watched the ugliest man he’d ever seen shamble up and shake hands with his uncle. This swarthy monster, a man with huge lumps on his face and pointed yellow teeth, talked about horses with Ciso, then motioned for him and Angie to follow him to the slots.

  Ciso gave his nephew a stack of nickels to drop into a slot machine while he talked with the behemoth, a guy Uncle Lu later referred to as Jimmy the Finger. Angie won a dollar on a nickel. The machine flashed and jangled as the coins spilled into its receptacle. The two men laughed and slapped his back.

  It was a few years after Sputnik, which had happened the same week Angie’s grandfather had dropped dead in San Francisco. He always connected the two events in his mind, the old womanizing Italian patriarch keeling over on the beach and this tiny Russian spirit beeping in the heavens, circling dangerously about the earth. It was the year before Nikita Khrushchev got the notion to slip some missiles under Jack Kennedy’s nose. It was a night that changed Angie’s life.

  It had something to do with the wrinkly necks and the old-goat tobacco and Brylcreem smells of his uncles while they stood in that crowd of people waiting for the floor show. After his long day of travel and gambling nickels and walking down the streets of the desert town to snoop in pawnshops and field questions from winos and con men, he imagined he would look and smell like his uncles someday, that he would shuffle into the darkness with other souls, all of them waiting for something which they couldn’t understand and were anxious to see. The gates to the show were guarded by Jimmy the Finger and two other monsters, and the people who descended stepped uncertainly like frightened children, their drinks held aloft like lanterns and their small miseries plain on their faces. Angie felt almost invisible among these people in the middle of their lives, people feeling their way down a dark path; he felt unformed while they were shaped and sculpted grotesquely by the beliefs and fears of a lifetime, wrinkled by worries and greed and cheating, swollen by depression and gluttony and lust. When the monster with yellow fangs touched his shoulder and parted the aisle to lead their foursome to a front-row table, the stage lights glowed before him like embers. Angie breathed deeply.

  Rich stifled sobs and wiped his florid face. Angie’s uncles patted the patrolman’s shoulders and offered cheerful words, but the old cop said he was a worthless piece of shit who drank and gambled and didn’t deserve his lovely wife. He needed to tell all of them that he had been a good man once, a decorated soldier and steady husband and father, before he’d become a worthless piece of shit. Chorus girls and a singer in sailor blues did a couple of numbers, the women’s legs and breasts swinging hypnotically before Angie’s face as the old cop snuffled. Then the main act walked on stage.

  A man known as a lovable cherub with a speech disorder in movies and TV became a foul-mouthed, crotch-snatching, mean-spirited wise guy on stage. Rich’s blubbery face blended with the embarrassed, laughing ones around him, and Angie sat, stunned. It was beautiful and horrible to watch the performer and his audience. The man spoke of hemorrhoids, and the people squirmed in their seats. He spoke of cruelty and infidelity, of alcoholics and immigrants with thick accents, while people keeled over. A spotlight swept the casino and came to rest on Angie. You, the comedian said. Come up here.

  He froze until Ciso and Lu nudged and practically lifted him on stage. Then he stood on some ledge above the contorted faces in brilliant light, afraid to move. When the mike swung under his face, Angie asked, What do you want?

  What do I want? People laughed, and the comedian waited. Angie’s knees shook, his heart pounded in his throat. What do I want? Well, I don’t want any shit from you, kid! What’s your name?

  Why?

  Why? The casino shook with laughter. This goddamned kid don’t trust me! Hey, I’ll tell you what I want: Why weren’t you laughing at my shtick?

  I thought I was. I’m sorry.

  HEY! DON’T PITY ME, KID! Angie could see the beads of sweat shake off the comedian’s face, the slick makeup. You ain’t perfect yourself! I noticed you got a few zits on your face, Kid!

  Angie waited for the noise to die down. He caught his breath. Actually, sir, I got a whole mountain range of zits.

  Mountain range? Like the Sierra Nevada? You got ski resorts, too?

  I don’t think so, sir. I mean, don’t you need snow?

  The comedian waited for the laughing to stop and eyed Angie with the same aggression he’d seen in the eyes of Jimmy the Finger when he’d tossed a drunk out the door. Then he put his arm on the boy’s shoulder and looked around. It was a hammy, conspiratorial gesture. When I was your age, he said, they told me that the only way to get rid of my zits was to go get schtooked.

  Angie waited a long time. His heart was pounding so hard he thought he would keel over, but a voice was coming to him. The voice he found was an adolescent version of the man’s beside him: And where does a guy get schtooked, if you don’t mind my asking?

  Again the comedian had to wait. Something between a smile and a grimace crossed his features. I’ll tell you what not to do, kid. Don’t go into a drugstore, like I did, and ask, Can I get schtooked here?

  Angie could hear moans and barks of laughter. The comedian’s thick hand was still on his shoulder, damp and warm as a facecloth. Angie cleared his throat. You mean the pharmacist wouldn’t let you get schtooked?

  NOT EVEN FOR SIX BITS, KID! NOT EVEN BACK THERE NEXT TO THE GERITOL AND THE PREPARATION H!

  Jeez. Angie shook his head. He could see Uncle Lu’s teeth gleaming red with the lights and Rich’s contorted face leaning against Ciso’s shoulder. Well, since you ain’t got zits no more, you musta got schtooked somewheres.

  Kid. The comedian shook his head, patted Angie’s shoulder, and looked around the theater. Kid, I got schtooked so many places and in so many ways, if I told you half of them they’d kick me outta this place. They’d toss me in the middle of Lake Tahoe.

  Wow. Angie stood with his mouth open a moment, gazing into the spotlights, while the crowd roared and convulsed. A woman with sciatica bent double and had to be carried out at the end of the show. An obese Realtor choked on a wad of Bazooka Bubble Gum. Must be one of them product advertisement restrictions or something.

  You might could say that, kid.

  I never even seen one ad for getting schtooked, though.

  The comedian started to speak, but an amazing thing happened: his mouth widened into a laugh! People were crying, blowing their noses, falling and writhing on the floor while the comedian laughed and Angie stared in wonder at the lights. Years from then he would remember the lights and the man’s hand on his shoulder, damp and warm through his acrylic dress shirt. When his brother would return from Vietnam crazy and addicted to heroin, when his father would take him to see Bobby Rich’s yellowish body in the casket; when his older sister would disappear with the criminal she fell in love with, he’d return to that evening onstage beside the comedian.

  Kid, you’d be surprised. Ahem! The man was having trouble speaking, his hand was twitching, and all Angie had to do was stand there with his look of innocence, with his all-American gaze of ignorance and awe. Kid. If I’m not mistaken, there’s some ladies, ahem! There’s some ladies right in this casino who advertise for getting schtooked, but don’t quote me on this.

  Certain advertising restrictions must apply, Angie said.

  Exactly. And let me give you some . . . The man’s voice trailed off, and his eyes squeezed shut. His entire pudgy body shook in the stiff tuxedo. People were coughing, choking, dropping out of their seats. An incontinent army colonel fell to one knee and wet his trousers before he could reach the boys’ room. A Catholic priest seated beside his mistress had a heart fibrillation and thought he might die. Kid, the man started to say.

  He would return to that evening. Whenever he’d read about people gassed or shot an
d dropped into the trenches they’d just dug, whenever he’d walk past the dying drunks and junkies on city sidewalks, he’d remember that night above the crowd. He’d remember the man beside him, the grotesque faces, the agonized bodies beneath them, and a small voice. It said, Not you, kid. Not you.

  A TERRIBLE NEW LIFE

  Paulie

  Akeenness left Paulie Verbicaro that summer. The oak leaves lost their teethed edges, and a ball slapped the catcher’s mitt before he saw it. He drifted into the watery light of distant blue gum trees and the sudden nebula bursts of passing windshields, not knowing, for some weeks, why the world had changed, why he had fallen from grace.

  Put simply, his eyes were getting weak. But the loss had been gradual, and he only sensed that he was losing his game for some bizarre reason—timing, coordination, God’s idea of justice, who knows? It was Uncle Ludovico who first noticed it was vision, while they were heading to give an estimate for a driveway. Hey, you drove right past it, he said. I told you 2525, on the mailbox.

  It was on the mailbox?

  Yes. You blind?

  No.

  Lu had played third with the best, before Paulie was born, in old Seals Stadium on 16th and Bryant. In fact, he and Paulie’s father, Joe, had shared the sandlots and fields of San Francisco with future stars, playing on Boys’ Club teams sponsored by olive oil and produce companies. They’d chased line drives hit by the Italian pantheon which Paulie’s father and all the older men spoke of in hushed tones. Frank Crosetti, who moved like a cat to snatch the ball an inch above the ground. Tony Lazzeri with his big bat and shrewd smile. The shrimp Billy Martin of the Oakland Oaks, who played like a Tasmanian devil in his private fury. On fields more gold with dandelions than green they’d played pepper with any of the DiMaggio brothers who could escape their father’s fishing boat long enough to get on a diamond, Mike, Tom, Vince, Dominick, a family of prodigious hitters, three making it to the majors. In the same old wooden ballpark, under the Hamm’s smokestack and against Potrero Hill, where Paulie and his father had seen the Giants play their first two seasons, Uncle Lu had swung a bat for the Missions and popped a Texas leaguer to the greatest of them all, Joe DiMaggio.

  Can you read the numbers on that house?

  What numbers?

  Christ, no wonder you’re hitting like that Who’s Who Alou kid on the Giants. You need specs, like your old man.

  A week into the school year he got them, big black frames like Buddy Holly’s, but he left them in his glove box and only put them on to drive or to watch TV. His season was over, and he wondered if he could recover his game come spring with new eyes. Now and then he tripped on a step walking from the TV to the fridge. His feet seemed three yards from his head.

  His French teacher, Mrs. Rinaldi, noticed the problem one day when she was at the board. She asked him to stay after class for a few minutes. You’re off on a bad road, she said. Right now your grades are in the dustbin.

  The dustbin?

  And my husband says you want to play for some hotsy-totsy university.

  I hope.

  Which mightn’t consider you if you fail this class. She sat sideways in a student desk, facing him. Her long, crossed leg swung, and Paulie could see a bit of her thigh and the lace of her slip. Can you see?

  Beg pardon?

  You misspelled all those verbs I conjugated on the board the other day.

  I’ve always had a conjugal problem.

  When she laughed he could see her teeth, which were a little crooked and coffee-stained. At this distance he could see the fine wrinkles around her squinched eyes, the flecks of blond in her red hair, the filigree hem of her slip. Join the club, she said.

  That year, the year DiMaggio’s former wife and the president’s gorgeous mistress took an overdose, the Giants were the best team in baseball. They made Paulie miserable and ecstatic at the same time. Here it was September 23 and they were four games behind Los Angeles with seven left to play. Here they had gone out of their way to lose ground in the stretch, and Lu and Joe and all the older men had written them off, but Paulie had to believe in them.

  He sensed that his baseball fanaticism made him weird for his age, that he lacked friends for ample reason, even though he was a nice-looking kid and a good athlete. Paulie had to listen to every game for the rest of the season and perform rituals for certain players, Mays, McCovey, Cepeda, the three Alou brothers, José Pagan, new heroes who’d come to the city of Italian gods like beautiful black and Caribbean Argonauts. He had to squeeze the visor of his cap once and touch his left foot with his right twice before they batted. He had to say the words, Hum, baby, in hushed tones and tap his glove with a fist between pitches.

  Like DiMaggio, Paulie was tall for an Italian American, and he had a big, level swing which his father always compared to that of the great man. In addition, he was quiet and shy like Joe D., and his game was one which beat you with its beauty and not, as in the case of his father and uncle, with its dogged tenacity. Paulie loved the game and thought it the most blessed and democratic vocation in the world. He loved Orlando Cepeda, he loved the way black guys, or guys who couldn’t speak English, were spoken of like family members at the dinner table. He loved the way little guys and fat guys who would be trampled or laughed at on a gridiron or basketball court could win by their craft and idiosyncrasies, by fashioning a knuckler or a perfect swing, like some artisan at his bench, and bringing it to bear in the clutch.

  Baseball touched the deepest place in Paulie. He pictured one spring day in an African valley when some knuckle-draggers learned to feed their young by throwing cobbles at an ibis or swinging branches at hyenas. Baseball felt like what his body was meant to do. The way ballplayers moved embodied some mythic system of personality. The way first basemen and catchers and shortstops and relief pitchers moved was as distinct from their fellows as figures along nine stations in a zodiac.

  And the Giants had it all, but they also had the single greatest player in the game, a man whose presence shone above the others like Achilles driving his chariot before the walls of Troy: Willie Mays. Even so, the Dodgers usually found their weak heel and beat them with pitching and cunning, and now they were ahead by four with seven left, and only a fool would hope as he hoped. He ducked out of school at lunchtime in order to park by the bay and perform his hat and foot rituals while listening to the game against Houston. It worked: the Giants won, and Los Angeles lost to Saint Louis.

  On Tuesday neither team played, and Paulie sat in class thinking: Three down with six to play. He didn’t hear Mrs. Rinaldi’s question until she’d repeated it: Ou est la bibliotheque? Monsieur Paul, attention, s’il vous plait.

  She kept him after class again and had him practice conjugating verbs. She made him scoot a desk right up to the board where she wrote the verbs, and when her back was to him he watched the way her dress moved over her hips as she wrote. She turned and leaned over him and had him watch her lips as she enunciated. When he pursed his lips and copied what her mouth did she congratulated him. So, why did you miss class yesterday?

  I got sick. Something I ate in the cafeteria.

  The next day, Wednesday, he skipped class again and listened on the transistor radio as the Giants beat the Cardinals. Russ Hodges, the Giants’ announcer, kept him updated on the Dodgers’ loss to the Houston Colt Forty-fives. Paulie danced along the bay, on a strip of scummy sand and sea cobbles near the freeway. A couple of old Japanese men with bamboo fishing rods asked about the scores. They smacked his shoulders, and one of the guys gave Paulie a bottle of beer with an unreadable label. Two down with five to go!

  Mrs. Rinaldi saw him in the hall before lunch Thursday and warned him about the trouble he’d be in if he skipped class. The veins in her neck stood out, and she looked older than he remembered. One day of three is a poor average, she said. He tried to guess her age that afternoon, assessing the various parts of her body, her long legs, the loose skin of her upper arms, the nest of wrinkles around her nervous eyes, the
flecks of blond or silver in her auburn hair. Neither French nor Italian, Mrs. Rinaldi was a British girl who’d married an American GI during the war, one of his uncle’s golf cronies, a little old man who drank whiskey on the course and sold houses up and down the East Bay. Paulie knew she wasn’t near as old as Pete Rinaldi. That day when he left her class he meandered home in his jalopy, listening to the end of the game as he circled Lake Merrit in Oakland. His team won without his help, but so did the Dodgers. Two down, four to go.

  Friday there was a verb quiz, and Paulie thought he did okay. Mrs. Rinaldi looked frayed around the edges when she handed out the mimeographed sheets, as if she hadn’t slept well. Even her dress was kind of lumpy-looking, thick and unpressed. She yelled at two girls for what Paulie thought was no reason. He left class in time to hear the Giants lose, and he blamed himself for not keeping the fires burning.

  On Saturday San Francisco split a double-header with Houston, and Paulie’s dad said, That’s all she wrote. That night the boy cruised in his salt-faded Ford sedan. He drove it slowly up and down the avenue in a myopic daze, waving blindly to passersby. A couple of freshmen he barely knew tapped on the window at a corner, one of them brandishing a quart bottle, and Paulie threw the door open before he recognized them. The boys looked in some transitional stage between hoods and surfers, their hair slicked back, their shirts baggy madras with cigarette packs bulging in the pockets. They urged Paulie to hit his horn when some girls drove by in a ’56 Chevy, and asked who he was going with, but Paulie just shrugged.