What About Reb

by What About Reb (retail) (epub)

Vinnie reached for the bulb burning over his eyes, then dropped his arm. ‘Hey, by the way. Where the hell did you disappear anyway?’

  ‘Me? Oh, I just went down the road for a little while. Mario’s. I was trying to pick up some slut that ended up calling me a filthy minded guinea. Hey, you want that light off, Vin? Lemme get it.’

  ‘That’s okay. I can reach it.’

  ‘What about another brew then?’

  ‘Sure if you wanna bring me it.’

  When Reb returned the light was off and Vinnie had collapsed into sleep. Reb called the others in.

  ‘Wow, just like a baby,’ Wiggy said.

  ‘Let’s get the poor bastard in bed,’ Lee said. ‘He’s wiped out.’

  Four of them linked their arms under Vinnie and lifted him, reeling, into one of the bedrooms.

  ‘Slip off his shoes and socks.’

  ‘Better take off everything,’ Reb said. ‘Vinnie always sleeps stripped.’

  The others left the room. Reb drew the shades against the gray light of dawn and decided it was time he went to bed too. From across the room came Vinnie’s steady breathing.

  Rolling over, Reb crushed the pillow around his face. He knew he would not drift easily into sleep. He knew his thoughts would flit without clarity from one troubling topic to the next to the next. Guinea, he thought. It was the way she said it. That one word killed everything. And next he thought, That’s all I need now on top of this draft business. A paternity suit breathing down my neck.

  15

  He found the bedrooms empty, the kitchen spotless. It was hot and the sunlight struck the windowsills like a gong. On the living room couch, in his underwear and socks, Chub lay asleep. Reb opened the porch door, then sat in the chair by the sofa and rocked him awake.

  ‘Aw, Reb, lemme sleep. I just come to bed.’

  ‘It’s nine o’clock. What happened to everybody?’

  Chub sat upright and yawned. They had stayed up the rest of the night, he told Reb, and at seven thirty the others left to spend the day on the beach. But first they had all pitched in and licked the kitchen into shape.

  ‘I suppose everybody was half in the bag,’ Reb said.

  ‘No, not too bad.’

  ‘Maybe we could try to find them,’ Reb said. ‘Like hell. You’re driving me straight to Sal’s. I got the broad waiting, remember? What about Vinnie?’

  ‘Still dead to the world. We won’t wake him up till the last minute. I’ll get my brother to drive Dom’s car back.’

  By ten they were down to the final touches of their picking up. Fresh towels had been hung in the bathroom and water mopped from the floor. In the unoccupied bedrooms they had punched the pillows back into shape, smoothed the bedspreads, straightened the scatter rugs. Chub had hosed down the porch. Reb had folded the card table and set the living room furniture the way his sister Livvy liked it.

  ‘One last look around and I’ll see about Vinnie.’

  ‘I’ll take our stuff out to the Buick,’ Chub said.

  The screen door banged shut behind him. ‘Here they come,’ he called back. ‘The first load.’

  From down on his hands and knees, where he was fishing tattered magazines out from under the sofa, Reb craned his neck. ‘Who’s in it?’ He heard car doors slam, he heard the squeal of Livvy’s kids and his mother’s voice. ‘Chub. Is my father with them?’

  He heard a tiptoeing sound in the kitchen. ‘Pa’s not coming.’

  ‘Livvy, you’re like a cat.’ His sister stood there, trim and energetic, her head bound in a square ended orange kerchief. Livvy was thirty. She wore tight yellow slacks and a floppy orange blouse with big blue flowers on it. Reb thought she might be wearing curlers until she tore the kerchief off and swung her head so that her thick hair fell into place. It was black. Reb was annoyed at her for startling him. At the same time, having caught the grim set of her face, he made ready to defend himself.

  His sister’s barrage began. ‘Why didn’t you tell us? You turned your back on your family.’

  ‘I didn’t. I only wanted to spare you.’

  ‘You spared us all right. Pa’s home miserable. Ma looks like she’s been to a funeral.’

  ‘Is it my fault? Did I ask to be drafted?’ Reb was making an effort to restrain his voice.

  ‘She’s torn.’ Livvy was making an effort to restrain hers. ‘Don’t you see she’s torn?’

  ‘Look, godammit. I’m the one who’s going in. Don’t I get any sympathy?’

  Before Livvy could answer, her husband entered carrying a box of groceries. He was babyfaced and boyish and had a cheerful disposition. He was not Italian.

  ‘Hi, Ralph,’ Reb said.

  ‘What’s the matter,’ Ralph said. ‘Liv being a little hard on your housekeeping? What did they do, leave a speck of dirt somewhere?’ He winked at Reb, set the box down, and went out again.

  Ralph was an engineer. Reb admired and sometimes hated him for the fact that nothing seemed to ruffle him. Reb loved and sometimes hated Livvy for the fact that everything ruffled her. Consequently he was wary of them both.

  ‘Aren’t you people a little early?’ Reb said.

  ‘Why? You haven’t had any of those girls of yours around here, have you?’ Livvy started deliberately down the corridor to the bedrooms. Reb tagged behind. ‘Just remember your own mother’s going to sleep in these beds and my two kids and I don’t want them picking up anything.’

  ‘But you’re always changing the sheets.’

  Livvy whirled around. ‘I change the sheets, don’t forget, but not the mattresses.’

  Ralph’s head appeared in the hall doorway. ‘She still on the subject of dirt?’

  ‘And how,’ Reb said.

  ‘And what about these friends of yours?’ Livvy said, peering into the bathroom. ‘Who else was here besides Chub? I’m sure they go around, you know.’

  Reb gave his brother in law a wink. ‘Go around where, Liv?’ he said. Her indirect language irked him.

  ‘Come off it, Livvy, you’re being ridiculous,’ Ralph said.

  ‘Why is this door closed?’ she said. ‘Who’ve you got in here?’

  ‘Hey, don’t,’ Reb said, planting himself between his sister and the room where Vinnie was still asleep.

  ‘Oho. Out of my way. I’m going in there to drag her out and I don’t care if she’s bare ass.’ Livvy’s face was alight with exultation. She wrenched the knob and flung the door open. Vinnie lay there on the bed in a luxurious sprawl, sheet off him, absolutely naked, his pecker up like a flagpole.

  ‘You bastard, you bastard. It’s a man.’ Livvy screamed and whimpered all in one breath and she scampered down the hall to the living room. ‘Who was it anyway?’

  ‘Vinnie,’ Reb said.

  ‘Vinnie? Patsy’s Vinnie?’

  ‘Yeah, Vinnie Marino.’

  ‘Oh, no. How can I ever face him again?’

  ‘He never opened his eyes,’ Reb said.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  Ralph laughed. ‘If you saw anything in there you’ve never seen before our marriage is in trouble.’ Reb whooped and ducked down the hall to get Vinnie out of bed.

  A minute or two later a different Reb, subdued and apprehensive now, edged into the kitchen, where his sister was making coffee. The unavoidable was at hand. Facing his mother. Before either he or Livvy could say a word Angelina came in from outdoors. The moment Angelina saw him she sighed. It was the same one she had used when Reb quit high school five years before. It was the tragic sigh never abused or misused that she reserved for grave occasions, such as loss or calamity or resignation in the face of utter hopelessness.

  ‘Hi, Ma,’ he said.

  ‘Hot already,’ she said, tightlipped, fanning herself with a hand.

  ‘What were you doing out there all this time, Ma?’ Livvy said.

  ‘Keeping an eye on things. You never know with so many strangers around and Ralph can’t look after everything.’

  Reb put an arm around his mother and
squeezed her. In other circumstances this gesture prompted a fond chuckle, making her tell him not to be so rough, and loosed a litany of instructions about how he was to manage at home in her absence. Instead, Angelina said nothing, did not complain about his roughness.

  Livvy understood this and was quick to say, her voice buoyant and cheerful, ‘Look how nice they left everything, Ma.’

  ‘Yes, they cleaned up pretty good around this kitchen,’ Angelina said without enthusiasm. ‘Chubbie told me they had a very good time. He said they cooked the sausages until they were nice and brown all the way through.’

  ‘Hey, I can hear everything you’re saying about me in there,’ came Chub’s voice through the screen door.

  ‘Chub, whattaya doing?’ Reb said.

  ‘He was helping Ralph take the things down from the roof of the car,’ Angelina said.

  Chub strode in. ‘You wake Vinnie up yet?’

  ‘No, but my sister did.’

  ‘Reb,’ Livvy said.

  ‘Hey, Livvy, whattaya say we go dancing tonight,’ Chub said. ‘Cheek to cheek.’ Circling her, face moony, eyes half shut, he held one arm out long while the other crushed a paperthin partner.

  ‘How’s Cynthia?’ Livvy said.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘When are you two going to get married?’ Angelina said.

  ‘Ha ha,’ Reb said.

  ‘We haven’t been together too long,’ Chub said.

  ‘I’ll be happy when Ribelle brings home a nice girl,’ Angelina said.

  ‘I better go see how Vinnie’s doing,’ Reb said.

  ‘Why don’t you go out and give poor Ralph a hand?’ Livvy said.

  ‘Let me help too,’ Angelina said.

  ‘Oh no, Ma. You’re not doing a thing,’ Livvy said. ‘You just take it easy now.’

  Ralph came in with two suitcases.

  ‘Take it easy?’ Angelina said. ‘That’s what I do every day. Let me be of some use.’

  ‘Oh my god,’ Livvy said. ‘Check on the kids, somebody.’

  ‘They’re out there digging in the sand,’ Chub said.

  ‘Watch they don’t go near the road, Ralph,’ Livvy said.

  ‘I’ll go out with them,’ Angelina said.

  ‘Would you, Ma? Just for a little while. And Ralph, bring in all the food first before it cooks in the sun.’

  ‘Come on, Ralph. I’ll give you a hand,’ Chub said.

  When they were alone Livvy said to Reb, ‘You see what you’ve done to her?’

  ‘Did Ma mention Sweden?’ Reb said. ‘Did she mention Mexico to you?’

  ‘Yes, I know all that,’ Livvy said.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’s an anarchist. It’ll be worse than killing him to see his son in the army.’

  ‘This isn’t the past now, this isn’t tomorrow,’ Reb said. ‘Him and Patsy. All they ever talk about is fifty years ago or the future. It’s not that simple.’

  ‘What’s so wrong with thinking about the future?’

  ‘This tomorrow of theirs. When does it start?’

  ‘You’ve no family loyalty,’ Livvy said.

  Ralph came in and set down another box. ‘Lay off him, Liv. We can hear every word out there. Your mother included.’

  ‘Stay out of this, Ralph,’ Livvy said.

  Ralph said, ‘Why don’t you just let Reb go in the army like everybody else?’

  ‘Reb isn’t like everybody else,’ Livvy said.

  ‘You Italians and your warmth. You smother people,’ Ralph said.

  ‘This has nothing to do with Italians,’ Livvy said.

  ‘The hell it doesn’t,’ Ralph said.

  ‘Hey, Ralph, I could be shipped to Korea.’

  ‘Okay, fight your own battle,’ Ralph said.

  ‘That’s what I am doing,’ Reb said.

  ‘He had to quit school,’ Livvy said. ‘College students are getting deferments.’

  ‘I was never ashamed of being a carpenter.’

  Just then Reb saw his mother start past the stunted chokecherry and up the dusty road with Livvy’s kids in hand. He dashed out on the landing. ‘Ma, where are you going?’

  ‘The kids want me to take them up the hill to see the water.’

  ‘Ma, you’re crazy. You’re gonna walk all that way in this sun? Lemme drive you up in the car, okay?’

  Livvy’s kids squinted back impatiently. Chub stood there at the foot of the landing.

  ‘Chub, what do you say. Take the Buick and drive my mother and the kids up to the end of the road. Let them look at the water for a minute, huh?’

  ‘Sure. You get Vinnie to shake a leg so we can hit the road. Come on, Angelina,’ Chub said. ‘I’ll take you.’

  The kids came running. ‘Varoom, Varoom.’ Chub went into a crouch, revving up, and scooped them into his arms.

  ‘Ey, Chubbie. You drive slow now,’ Angelina said.

  ‘Sure thing, Angie,’ Chub said. ‘I’ll stay under a hundred.’

  But Angelina’s face registered only sorrow. Jeezus. What was he doing to her. She was a machine for giving and he a machine for taking. This thought, his selfishness, confused and angered him. She was about to be ground down between him and his father. Reb’s mouth went dry. He felt himself physically cringe in shame.

  In the kitchen, when he came indoors, his sister turned away.

  16

  ‘Wey, Ribelle. Come in, come in.’

  ‘Hi, Pats. You doing anything?’

  ‘Nah, sit down there. You just miss Libero by twenty minutes.’ Patsy set out another wineglass. ‘He hadda take the mother to a wake. It’s a papalini crowd with the bench in front of the casket for kneeling down. That’s not for Patsy.’

  A copy of L’Adunata was spread open on the kitchen table. Reb folded the paper up.

  ‘Well, here’s to you, Ribelle.’ Patsy’s glass made an arc to his lips and was half emptied. ‘Don’t be bashful.’

  Reb took a swallow. ‘Hey, what is this anyway? Burns you something wicked.’

  ‘Brandy,’ Patsy said. ‘Cognac.’ He brought Reb’s glass full again. ‘Tell you the true, Lee din say if he was coming back straight or not.’

  ‘I really came to talk to you, Pats.’ Reb tried the cognac again. ‘Wanted to ask you a couple of things.’

  Patsy nodded, waiting.

  ‘You probably heard I was drafted,’ Reb said.

  ‘Libero mentioned something about that.’

  ‘Well, me and the old man kind of had a fight over it. He wanted me to do things the anarchist way and take off.’ Reb told Patsy how he and his father argued on Friday night, the words, the shouting back and forth, all of it.

  After a silence Patsy asked, ‘Ti posso dire qualcosa?’

  ‘Sure, Pats. Say it. What?’

  ‘Ribelle. That’s your name and that’s what your father wants you to be. Simple. A rebel.’

  ‘It wouldn’t work,’ Reb said.

  ‘Reason?’ Patsy said.

  ‘It won’t work,’ Reb said. ‘Unless you mean have I the guts. Do you?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Look, Pats. If I thought the thing would work out I’d get up the guts. But just having the guts alone. That’s suicide.’

  Patsy poured his own glass full again. ‘Okay, Ribelle. But you still having to understand your father too. Any anarchist would say the same. Making propaganda against the militarism, that’s us. Natural like you breathing that air there. It’s our way. Drink, don’t be bashful.’

  Reb was not bashful.

  ‘Look,’ Patsy said. ‘You want to hear about history?’

  ‘No. Pats. No history.’

  ‘One time over in Italy the sovversivi was going inside the army gladly just to make the propaganda.’

  ‘Hey, that’s a new wrinkle,’ Reb said.

  ‘When Italy was having the war with Turkey.’

  ‘When was that, Pats?’

  ‘Forty years ago.’

  Reb said, ‘That’s history.’

  ‘
You know something else?’ Patsy asked.

  ‘Please, Patsy. If it’s the past, no more.’

  ‘Mothers and sisters coming out and laying down on the tracks. The trains with the soldiers couldn’t move outside the station.’

  ‘What?’ Reb said. ‘Front of the trains?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Patsy said. ‘Laying across the tracks. The sweethearts too.’

  ‘Jeezus.’

  ‘And another time one soldier convinced of our propaganda took a good shot at his own colonel. Supposed to be standing there at attention and ping. First World War.’

  Reb pictured that. Ping. The pot shot. ‘Listen, Pats. When I told the old man it was easy for him to talk but it was my skin they were after was that the wrong thing to say?’

  Patsy nodded. ‘This much I can tell you. Your father never served in the Italian majesty’s army.’

  ‘But jeezus, Pats. How did he get out of it?’

  ‘Scappava.’ Patsy brushed his hands together in a couple of little slaps. ‘He run. And didn’t stop till he reached here, Putnam Mass.’

  ‘But why didn’t he tell me he ran away? He said the anarchists. Half these stories you hear about the old man you never know what he really done.’

  ‘Course. Counts more that the things get done, not who done them. That’s Emilio. That’s anarchist.’

  ‘What happened to him over here? World War One.’

  ‘Think your father run away from one army special so he can join another one? That’s taking him for stupid.’ Patsy got up from the table and sliced bread and salame.

  ‘I didn’t say that. Look, Pats. You and him are compagni and everything so come on. Put me straight.’

  ‘More than compagni. Friends too. Here, eat.’ Patsy speared four or five slices of salame with the tip of the knife, lay them on a slice of bread, and pushed the result at Reb.

  ‘Well, how come he didn’t get nabbed here?’ Reb ate.

  ‘Too old. Only under thirtyone had to register. But don’t worry, Emilio used to went around making the propaganda just the same. Gainst the draft, gainst the war, and saying how it was all for the profits.’

  ‘When he could of kept his mouth shut.’

  ‘Sure,’ Patsy said. ‘And how many times distribute the literature tough guys try to beat you up. Cops too. Think they had the free speech then? Like hell. And if they catch you, out you go. The deportation. I remember they used to come around the job forcing you to buy the Liberty Bonds on top of it. For support of the war. When they asked your father too. Emilio spat in their eyes. Goodbye the job.’