Dinner at Fiorello’s

by Rick R. Reed

  “You want me to lie down with you?”

  There was hope in Henry’s voice, hope Vito knew he had put there, but he couldn’t bear the thought. He suddenly couldn’t abide the idea of any company other than the two dogs.

  “No.” Vito stared down at the street. He rationalized, At least it’s a hot day. The rain’s stopped. The sun’s shining. Not so terrible to be outside…. “I want you to leave.”

  “What?” Henry asked, his voice soft, tentative.

  Vito spoke louder, harsher. “I said, you need to go, man. I gave you a place to crash. Made you breakfast. You’re not moving in, you know.” Vito could see how each of his words was piercing Henry, and it turned his stomach. Yet he couldn’t stop himself.

  “I didn’t think I was.” Henry stood. “I just don’t know where I’ll go between now and work.”

  Vito gestured toward the window. “It’s a gorgeous day out there. You mean you can’t think of something to do with it? Go to the beach. Hop on the ‘L’ and take a ride downtown, walk around Millennium Park. Got a bike? Go home and get it and ride the Green Bay Trail. It’s beautiful.”

  Henry stared at him. “You’re a prick, you know that?”

  Vito nodded. “Yeah, I know it. And I thought you did too.” Vito moved across the room. “As I said, I need a nap, and I have to think about what I want to serve you losers for family meal tonight. So take a few minutes, get yourself dressed, and—” Vito smiled but knew there was only cruelty in it, like baring his teeth. “—and get out, dude. I’ve done enough.”

  “Yeah, you have.”

  Henry hurried into the bedroom, and Vito could hear him getting dressed. When he came out, he had on a pair of Vito’s shorts and one of his T-shirts, a red one with the Giordano’s Pizza name and logo emblazoned across its front. The shorts were too big for him. “What am I gonna do tonight?” Henry asked.

  “You’re gonna go to work, like me.”

  “I mean, after that. Maybe you didn’t hear me. My dad kicked me out. I’m homeless.”

  “I hear the Y in Evanston is nice.”

  Henry shook his head and frowned at Vito. “Fuck you.”

  He opened the door and then stopped, frozen, in the doorframe. Vito thought he would say something to berate him, and in an absurd kind of way he welcomed that, wanted it, but then Henry was gone. He didn’t even slam the door on his way out.

  Vito walked to the door, bolted it, and then slumped on the couch, staring straight ahead. He listened to Henry’s footfalls on the stairway outside his door. The dogs lifted their heads from the floor and stared at him but made no move to join him on the couch. “Yeah, stay over there,” Vito said to them. “I don’t deserve your affection, do I? But see, I had to do it. We’re better off alone. This way, nobody gets hurt.”

  Vito hoisted himself off the couch, the heat and the unburdening leaving him feeling drained, as though his bones were heavier. He felt like he could go back to bed and just sleep until it was time to go in for his shift again.

  On his way to the bedroom, though, he paused by the window and looked down at Henry, making his way east, toward the lakefront on Morse Avenue. Vito pressed his hand to the glass. Henry’s blond hair caught the sunlight, and it made him stand out among the other people milling around on the street. His shoulders were broad, and Vito was paradoxically happy and sad to see that Henry walked with purpose. Those shoulders were not slumped with defeat. He could imagine him making his way to the lake, shucking off his T-shirt at the water’s sparkling edge. He could see that smooth, satiny chest, the pecs firm and defined. He wanted to kiss them, first one and then the other.

  Vito forced himself to turn away from the window. The boy would be better off without him. He told the girls so.

  And then he went back to bed.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  HENRY WALKED east on Morse, thinking the newly washed air and the bright sunshine warming his face might make him feel better, lift his spirits a bit. After all, they had nowhere to go but up. But all he felt was alone.

  He didn’t know where he was going, not in a literal sense, not in a figurative one. A couple of months ago, he had been a high school kid from a well-to-do family with the promise of an affluent path laid before him, if only he would follow in the family footsteps. Everyone would have been happier if he had only done so! But no, he had to pursue his dream of cooking for a living. Cooking! His father was right—it was a stupid dream. Look at him now—nothing more than minimum-wage kitchen help, the kind of person his dad employed to pass a tray around or park cars at their annual Christmas party.

  He had nothing. Nothing. Not even a place to live. Hell, he didn’t even drink or smoke or use drugs. Those things, at least, would offer a kind of oblivion.

  And men! Men… what a disappointment they had turned out to be. His only experiences with them had been fraught with disillusionment and heartache. And Henry had so much to give!

  In no time, he had reached the lakefront. Even though it wasn’t even noon yet, the broad expanse of sand at the end of the street was already filling up with frolickers and sunbathers. Umbrellas, beach towels, and half-naked bodies littered the shoreline, while little kids braved Lake Michigan’s icy surf. The air was coconut scented. A vendor with his cart was already out, peddling frozen treats.

  The kids’ screams, snatches of music, and conversation came to him dimly as he stood under a tree just off the beach, frowning. The scene before him should have made him happy and excited, should have made him want to join the carefree hordes on the sand, yet they only served to cause him to feel excluded, that he was alone in the world, a world that had no place for him.

  He sat down on a bench and watched for a while, not thinking. And then, after letting his mind go completely blank for at least fifteen minutes—and perhaps letting the sun fry his brain through his skull—he had an epiphany, one he knew was a bad idea the moment it was born.

  I have to go back. He needs me. Whether he knows it or not, he does.

  Henry stood and brushed grit off his ass. He headed west, walking with purpose and not allowing himself to ponder if what he was doing was right or appropriate or sane. He knew if he thought about things too much, he would never have the courage to do what he planned. He was setting himself up for pain, putting himself in the line of fire. But the beauty of his situation—losing almost everything that was important—made it easy to gamble, to take outrageous risks. What else did he have to lose? Yet there was hope and the possibility that he might gain something.

  It has to be so. Even Henry realized his thoughts were those of an innocent, of someone who had seen too little of the world to understand his odds completely. And again he realized that his youth, his lack of maturity and knowing, just might be to his advantage.

  At last he stood outside Vito’s apartment building, pacing. He was sure about what he wanted to do, but he didn’t quite know how to accomplish it. Right now Vito was in a kind of fortress, with barriers both physical and emotional surrounding him.

  Physically, the real things holding him back from simply getting in Vito’s face and confronting him—the front door to the apartment vestibule was locked. Vito’s own front door was bolted. Henry had heard it click into place as he was leaving.

  He considered the back staircase and the screen door, the latter of which Vito may or may not have left unlocked. But to get to those stairs, one had to traverse the narrow space between Vito’s building and the next. Henry walked there now and peered into its shadows. Barring his path was an iron gate, topped with spikes and locked. Henry peered longingly through it at the little patch of green he could see in the back.

  But these obstacles weren’t the ones that really worried Henry. What made his extremities go cold with a peculiar kind of fear were Vito’s emotional deadbolts. His grief, Henry could see, had made Vito erect all kinds of barriers to closeness. Even if Henry could talk to him, reason with him and tell him how much he cared, even though their knowing each other was
new and brief, he didn’t know at all that he could get through to the man. Their knowledge of each other was still kind of profound. It was what propelled Henry forward, back to Vito’s outer front door.

  Henry leaned on the buzzer. No answer. He leaned again, waiting, pressing harder and knowing Vito was up there. Henry didn’t believe he was sleeping. Yet there was still no answer. Henry pushed the intercom button again, leaning into it as though the extra pressure would bring about the desired response. This time he heard the dogs’ barking through the screened window above his head. He could even make out Vito’s whispers, telling them to shut up.

  Henry smiled—and rang the intercom one more time.

  There was a pause, and Henry wondered if he really would be unable to see Vito again, at least before their shift at Fiorello’s was due to start. The pause lasted long enough for Henry to begin thinking seriously how he might spend his day. If his father was sincere in wanting him out, perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to ride the ‘L’ up to Evanston and see if he could get a room at the YMCA. He had no idea what it would cost, but surely even his meager paycheck could cover a room at the frickin’ Y.

  The front door clicked, letting Henry know it had been unlocked. No voice came through the intercom. Henry grabbed the doorknob before the door locked itself again, dashed inside, and hurried up the stairs.

  He had no idea what was waiting for him. He heard the door above him open. He looked up to see the dogs come out onto the landing. They stared down at him as though accusing, “You again.”

  Vito was nowhere in sight.

  Henry took the last couple of steps cautiously. Even though the staircase, with its frayed, colorless carpeting, was dashed with brilliant sunlight, he was afraid, as though he were feeling his way in the darkness, unsure of what lay ahead.

  At the top of the stairs, he stopped. The dogs looked up at him, seemingly considering. Henry thought they must have realized he was no one new, not worthy even of sniffing, and they turned tail and headed back inside the apartment.

  Henry followed.

  Inside, the apartment was dark and quiet, no music or sounds from the kitchen. After Henry left, Vito must have pulled all the blinds. Sunshine peeked in through the gaps, creating slats of light in which dust motes danced. Henry looked around and didn’t see Vito in the living room or the kitchen. The bathroom door, in the hallway off the living room, yawned open. Unless Vito was hiding behind the shower curtain, he wasn’t in there either.

  Henry moved to the hallway and peeked into the master bedroom, where he had slept the night before. The sheets were still mussed, and their pale blue was dappled with warm yellow light. Here, Vito had not shut the blinds. But this room too was empty.

  Henry turned, looking around, expecting Vito to maybe slide out from under the bed, grinning. The absurdity of the notion made him chuckle.

  And then the anxiety returned and the laughter stopped.

  Had Vito left the apartment while Henry was at the beach? But hadn’t he said he was tired? Needing a nap?

  He has to be here! I’m sure it wasn’t one of the dogs who buzzed me in. As if in response to the thought, Henry heard a crash from the other bedroom. It sounded like something had dropped to the floor and shattered.

  Henry walked slowly to the other room, uncertain why he had this vague queasy feeling in his gut. He knew the other bedroom must have belonged to Sal.

  The door to that room was partially closed. Henry pressed gently on it, and with a creak, the door swung open fully. Henry stood silently at the threshold, taking in the scene.

  Vito knelt on the floor, weeping. Before him were the broken shards of a pale blue ceramic piggy bank. The head was still intact, and just below the grinning cartoonish face was a darker blue bow tie. Scattered across the floor were coins, mostly pennies, but nickels, dimes, and even a few quarters mingled with them.

  Before saying anything, Henry continued to process what he was seeing. The bed was stripped bare. At the foot of it, in a rumpled heap, lay a colorful comforter decorated with Sesame Street characters. There were two big cardboard boxes in the room, and Henry could see that both were about halfway full of little-boy toys—cars, balls, action figures, a stuffed animal or two. Beside them was the plastic container of toys from the hall closet Henry had seen earlier. It was closed, and duct tape held it shut. The walls were bare, but Henry could see, from the paler rectangles, that pictures or posters of some sort must have recently hung on them.

  He’s stripping the room, wiping it clean of his son. Why?

  Vito continued to cry, his face buried in his hands, shoulders jerking up and down. Behind Henry, the dogs paced, casting nervous glances into the second bedroom. Connie, Henry thought her name was, whimpered low in her throat in sympathy for her master.

  “Vito?” Henry asked, taking a step into the room.

  Vito looked up. His face was stained with tears, and his eyes and the area around them were red. His nostrils were moist. In spite of this, Henry couldn’t help but think that Vito was still one of the most handsome men Henry had ever seen. Henry asked, “Why did you buzz me in?”

  Vito sniffed and seemed to pull himself together a bit. He used his hands to gingerly brush the shards of shattered blue ceramic into a pile, then looked up at Henry again. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  Henry took a few steps closer and then knelt down on the floor in front of Vito. He forced Vito to look at him. “Because you wanted someone here? Because what you’re doing is one of the hardest things you’ve ever had to do, and maybe you didn’t want to be alone for it? You needed someone—”

  Vito cut him off and grabbed one of Henry’s hands in his own. “No.”

  “No?” Henry asked.

  “No. I didn’t want someone. I wanted you.” Vito’s watery gaze scanned Sal’s room.

  Already, Henry thought it was devoid of character, with its blank white walls, pale yellow sheets on the bed, and its furniture stripped of anything that might personalize the room.

  “You did?” Henry covered Vito’s hand and squeezed, locking it inside his own two hands. “I’m glad. Is there something I can help you with?” Henry made sure his voice was soft and, he hoped, comforting. At the moment, big, strong, and taciturn Vito seemed very fragile.

  Vito shook his head. “I’m pretty much done here. Maybe later, before work, you can help me seal up these boxes and take them to the Goodwill down the street.”

  “Sure, I can do that.” Henry felt selfishly glad that Vito was at least considering a “later” with him in it.

  And without another word, Henry fell in to work with Vito, packing up the toys and, at one point, getting a broom and dustpan from the kitchen so he could sweep up the remains of the shattered piggy bank. He gathered up the change and put it into the top drawer of the dresser.

  Inside the dresser were lots of little-boy clothes. Henry opened and shut the maple drawers, revealing small shirts, shorts, jeans, socks, and underwear—tiny tighty-whities like Henry himself used to wear. Just the smallness of the clothes, and the loss they represented, took Henry’s breath away for a moment.

  He turned to Vito. “The clothes too?”

  Vito looked at him, and Henry could discern the anguish on his face as he nodded.

  “Look, why don’t you go lie down. I’ll finish packing in here and come get you when it’s all ready to carry downstairs and over to that Goodwill you mentioned.”

  “I should do it,” Vito said, his voice barely rising above a whisper. “He was my boy.” The last few words came out ragged.

  Henry went over to where Vito still sat, cross-legged, on the hardwood floor. “No. No, you shouldn’t. You’ve made this decision, and I think it’s a good thing, a healthy thing, even though you might not see it that way. Not now.” Henry allowed himself to touch Vito’s tightly curled hair. It was surprisingly soft, and he let his fingers linger in its strands for a moment. He wanted to hold him, to kiss him, but didn’t think that now was the right
time.

  “Please, Vito, let me finish up here.”

  Vito said nothing as he rose from the floor and left the room. Henry stood frozen, a pair of OshKosh B’Gosh jeans in his hands, listening. He heard the creak of the bed, the clicks of the dogs’ toenails on the floor as they followed Vito. Henry lowered his shoulders a bit, relieved that Vito had lain down.

  There really wasn’t much left to be done, so Henry had the two boxes of clothes and toys packed up and sealed shut with duct tape in no time. He glanced around the room and felt sad—it looked so lifeless. It could have been anyone’s room.

  He looked at the broken piggy bank in the dustpan. He was about to go get the trash can from the kitchen and dump it inside, but the eyes of the pig looked up at him, and Henry thought maybe there was one thing Vito would like to hang on to. He went into the kitchen and rummaged through the drawers until he found what he was looking for—a tube of Elmer’s glue.

  He returned to the bedroom and painstakingly, as though he were assembling a jigsaw puzzle, glued the pig back together. It took a while, and the pig crumpled a couple of times, but at last he had it together, even if it was cracked all over. Henry smiled sadly at the grinning face and the upturned snout, thinking that blue was an appropriate color for this pig.

  He crept out of the bedroom and closed the door behind him so the dogs wouldn’t get inside to disturb the piggy bank. Henry wanted it to set. He hoped it would be a nice surprise for Vito, a gesture that showed Henry cared. Henry walked on silent feet down the hallway, wondering if Vito had fallen asleep. He took his time getting from one bedroom to the other, trying not to make the floorboards creak. If Vito was sleeping, Henry didn’t want to wake him.

  He reached the other bedroom and looked inside. Vito was stretched out on the bed, wearing only his boxers. The dogs lay on the floor beside the bed. One lifted her head to regard Henry and then returned it to the floor.

  Henry paused there, almost breathless.

  He had two choices. One, he could quietly move the boxes to the front door, and maybe if Vito hadn’t awakened from that, he could take the boxes to Goodwill himself. Henry thought Vito might appreciate the small kindness.