What About Reb

by What About Reb (retail) (epub)

  ‘By the way,’ the major said. ‘What’s that catchy little tune you keep whistling to yourself under there?’

  ‘Oh that. Just some old song,’ Reb said, tensing up. But there was no sign of suspicion on the major’s face.

  ‘Italian?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it is.’ A spirit of recklessness came over Reb. ‘Learned it from my father as a matter of fact. Every fall he’s out there in the backyard jumping up and down inside this big tub full of grapes. Barefoot. You don’t know any Italian do you, sir?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. I mean it goes something like this.’ And Reb singing, ‘Avanti, o popolo, alla riscossa.’

  ‘Oh? And what’s that in English?’ the major said. ‘Rough translation, of course.’

  ‘Yes.’ Reb laughed. ‘It means I hope this wine comes out good. Just a simple little song, sir. Good and red.’

  Now the major laughed. ‘You’re carrying on a family tradition then. I approve, Soderini, I approve.’

  ‘Thank you for saying so, sir,’ Reb said. ‘I think my father would approve too.’ He took a dozen steps toward the door with the major. ‘I know you want to be proud of these floats in the parade, that’s why I took the extra trouble with the bolts. The work has to be strong too. All of them potted azaleas, you know.’

  ‘Azaleas. You mean with weaponry? By god I never thought of that.’

  ‘Well, you thought of it now. Sir.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I think we might have a look into the idea. But let me get out of your way, here come your men.’

  Ten days later Reb sat in civilian clothes on a train bound for New York. It was the end of April, the floats were completed, the major was happy, and Reb was heading home on a three week leave.

  He changed trains, there was a long delay, and at last they were moving along the Connecticut shore. It was night. He peered out over the dark water, watching, unable to relax, unable to unwind. Bragg was still not far enough behind.

  A chill stream of air rolled down the aisle and his eyes opened to the gray light of morning. The train was stopped in the Providence station. There was another hour to go.

  Then came the scrubby woods of Massachusetts with brown leaves still clinging in the clumps of small oaks. The train moved through the backyards of factory towns, its sound clattering off weatherstained wooden fences, and below the embankment Reb glimpsed occasional splashes of forsythia. With the familiar sights a good feeling seeped in. He was home again.

  Now his anxieties began to peel away. Those noon hours when his helpers were at mess, the rows of bolts, the jaws of the vise, the hacksaw. He had cut through the shank of each long bolt leaving in the middle only a thread of soft metal. The doctored bolts tapped into place, with a wrench Reb snugged each nut up tight but not so tight as to snap the bolts in two.

  Don’t think it was easy doing it to you, Major. And your pretty wife so generous with that money. But I never started this war and never asked to be part of it either. Sir.

  The train racketed through an underpass and a face stared back at Reb in the window. His own needing a shave. He felt his chin. On May tenth the major would be on the reviewing stand, proud of the post’s entry, the guns and girls and flowers passing by. And if it worked right then the whole thing would go ass over teakettle all down the avenue. On that same day Reb would be out in the backyard with Vinnie and a case of Bud, celebrating. By then there’d be leaves on the maples too. And if they nail me for it when I go back, two court martials, one for each float, what will I tell them. Will I stand up in court and say twentytwo years of Emilio Soderini made me do it. A few minutes more and Reb would get off at Back Bay. He took down his bag and made his way to the end of the car. That way when the train pulled in he’d find himself fifty feet closer to home.

  22

  The six of them were tightly pressed one behind the other in the long paneled entrance to Arduino’s, worming their way forward in the wedge ploughed by Vinnie. All around was a turmoil of churning shoulders and bobbing heads and the ears were assaulted by bits and snatches of laughter and half shouted conversation.

  ‘Open up. Open up, please,’ Vinnie chanted above the din. ‘Make room for those holding reservations.’

  Reb marveled to see him parting with his hands the dark suited men and fur draped women. Vinnie had thought of everything. Borrowed the Buick from Teo, had it washed, fixed up the reservations without which you couldn’t get into the new Arduino’s, and then told Reb they weren’t letting him pay a cent out of his own pocket. Sal had been invited too and Reb was glad, even if Sal seemed a little nervous when they shook hands. Was it because of the fifteen he still owed Reb? Reb was going to let that ride. Tonight he was at ease, completely at ease, and he was out to enjoy himself with his friends.

  Arduino’s. He could hardly wait to get inside. Vinnie had written to say it had been remodeled, rebuilt really, and had a whole new clientele. It wasn’t an Italian restaurant anymore, the new Arduino’s was a steak house and the steaks were big thick ones cooked twenty at a time on a huge grill in the open where you could watch. Here in the entrance now, where there was still a crush and Reb and his friends were stalled, Reb noticed a number of paintings hung on the walnut paneling. Signed too. Van Duyms, Von Artens, and all antique no doubt.

  Vinnie turned and said, ‘Remember, you’re not putting your hand near your pocket, not even one round of drinks or the tip. We wanna let you know ahead of time so you won’t pull no scene afterwards.’

  ‘Scene,’ Reb said. ‘What scene?’

  ‘You know, throwing the money on the floor and everything,’ Chub said.

  ‘Oh, that,’ Reb said. ‘Yes, that,’ Alex said.

  ‘Marino, party of six,’ Vinnie said. He had broken through and stood face to face with the hostess tracing a finger down her list in search of his name.

  ‘Running half an hour late on our reservations, sir.’ She drew the list away and held it tight against her bosom. ‘We’re sorry but if you gentlemen would care to be seated in the bar I’ll call you when a table’s ready.’

  ‘Be a pleasure, miss,’ Vinnie said, eyeing her sideways and down and herding the rest of them into the bar.

  ‘I’ll grab a waitress and order a round,’ Chub said.

  ‘Yeah and grab her for me too,’ Lee said.

  ‘I’ll get this round, Vin,’ Reb said.

  ‘For chrissake, you gonna start so soon,’ Vinnie said.

  Whiskies came. A table was vacated and they took it.

  ‘Sal, you’re quiet,’ Reb said. ‘Say something.’

  ‘Boo,’ Sal said.

  ‘Let him alone,’ Lee said. ‘Can’t have all our mouths open at once.’

  ‘I just wanted to make sure everybody was having a good time,’ Reb said.

  ‘I’m having a good time,’ Sal said.

  ‘Well, what do you think, Reb?’ Vinnie said.

  ‘Of Arduino’s?’ Reb said. ‘Pretty classy, all right.’

  ‘Well, Rebbie, I see you put on the old Ivy League suit and everything tonight,’ Lee said. ‘Looking pretty Harvard there.’

  ‘Necktie too,’ Reb said, fingering it. It was the tie Alex had given him.

  The waitress set down a second round of drinks. Sal bent toward Reb trying to get out the words of an apology and Reb told him to forget the whole thing, it was a long time ago.

  ‘But hitting a friend,’ Sal said.

  ‘Sometimes they’re the only ones you can reach,’ Reb said.

  ‘Then there’s that fifteen bucks I loaned off of you, remember? Here it is back.’ Sal handed him a folded slip.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘My check, read it.’

  ‘Forget it,’ Reb said. ‘I forgot all about it, honest.’

  ‘I was gonna send it to you but I couldn’t without writing a letter too and I never thought I could of put it all down on paper. How I felt. You know Mary had a miscarriage after six weeks.’

  ‘I heard. Is everything okay then,
Sal?’

  ‘Things are running along, Rebbie, running along.’

  ‘Good to see you smiling like that again,’ Reb said. He took the folded check and slipped it into a jacket pocket.

  ‘Should of made it twenty for the interest all these months.’

  ‘Hey, come on or I’ll never cash this thing.’

  ‘Don’t do that, Reb. You’ll screw up my bookkeeping.’

  ‘Here, drink,’ Reb said. ‘Here’s to me and you, Sal baby.’

  ‘Me and you, Rebbie.’

  The hostess’ voice came like a shriek into the bar. ‘Mister Marino, Mister Marino.’ The six of them leaped to their feet getting cheers and a warm round of applause from their neighbors. Vinnie sent the others ahead and stopped with Reb to show him the big hooded grill where amid leaping flames a man in a chef ’s suit worked at a frantic pace turning steaks, lifting off charred ones, laying out raw ones.

  At their table, a round one, decisions were being made about which steaks to order. The list was hand lettered on an old wine bottle. They passed the bottle around. Reb chose the steak and lobster combination even after they told him it wasn’t expensive enough. Vinnie asked Alex to turn in their orders and he whisked Reb away for a look around.

  Off the dining rooms was a series of alcoves partitioned with eight inch walls of second hand brick. Vinnie pointed out how everything was modern, none of that cheesy fake colonial. In a corner of each alcove stood a long sideboard laid out with stacks of plates and large loaves of various breads along with cutting boards and long knives. Bread and salad you served yourself. In a bowl three feet across there was a hill of lettuce with a line of smaller bowls nearby, each with its own large ladle, filled with different dressings. Vinnie told Reb they had even had to change their way of eating. No more salad last, now they did it American style and ate it first otherwise there was no room for it after the steaks. Anyway it gave you something to do while the meat was grilling.

  ‘Ain’t like the old Arduino’s, is it?’ Reb said. ‘Ain’t like a mess hall either, is it?’ Vinnie said. ‘I’m really grateful to you guys for this.’

  ‘Grateful? What kind of a thing is that to say to friends?’

  ‘Now look, Vin, just let me buy a couple of bottles of wine to go with the steak, okay?’

  ‘Hey, Reb, you want a kick square in the balls right here in front of all these people?’

  ‘But wine, Vinnie. We gotta have wine.’

  ‘Dummy, who said we wouldn’t. Let’s sit down. The guys are getting ready to eat.’

  They were finishing their salad when Reb looked up and saw a waiter with a thick chain around his neck bending over Alex and washing his hands. Without soap and water.

  ‘Have you some on ice?’ Alex said.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the wine waiter said.

  ‘Three bottles at once then.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  ‘And is it the best you have?’ Alex said.

  ‘The best, sir.’

  Jumping christ, they had gone nuts. Champagne. Three times twelve. Thirtysix beans just on champagne and with the drinks they’d had before Arduino’s Reb felt half in the bag already. He beamed.

  The wine waiter wheeled in a tub with the tops of three tall bottles sticking up through cracked ice, an assistant set out big glasses, and the first cork popped. A murmur circled the room. People at the other tables craned their necks for a look. Alex tasted. He nodded. The assistant filled the glasses all around. Bowing and backing away the waiter with the chain withdrew. Then up with their glasses, saying hey, saying christ, saying wow, saying tastes like cider.

  ‘Okay, if you don’t like it stop lapping it up,’ Vinnie said.

  ‘Like hell,’ Chub said.

  ‘Call that guy back to keep these glasses full,’ Lee said.

  ‘Easy, you guys. It ain’t ginger ale you know,’ Reb said.

  ‘But it sure goes down like ginger,’ Sal said.

  ‘Will it kick, Alex?’ Chub said.

  ‘Yeah, will it kick?’ Lee said.

  ‘It will kick,’ Alex said.

  Then all of them talking at once. Saying easy now, jeezus. Saying don’t just drain it chrissakes. Saying taste it. Saying the hell, we still got two bottles of it left.

  ‘Wait, wait.’ Sal lifted his glass high. ‘To the one of us who’s not here tonight.’

  The rest of them chanted,‘Wiggy, Wiggy, Wiggy.’ There was a rapid crossfire of questions. Vinnie answered them, sketching Wiggy’s fortunes and whereabouts. He had landed in the motor pool at Fort Benning. Then came the steaks, Reb’s with a lobster tail. Oohs and ahs all around the table, knives and forks into action.

  ‘Guess you heard about Jimmy Bono,’ Chub said.

  ‘Yeah, Livvy wrote me,’ Reb said.

  ‘You know his mother told them she don’t want him buried overseas,’ Chub said.

  ‘Please, Chub,’ Reb said.

  ‘So they’re gonna dig up the coffin and send the body home. The family wantsa hold their own funeral right from the house.’

  ‘Talk about something else,’ Reb said.

  ‘Can’t you shut up, Chub? You’re spoiling everything,’ Vinnie said.

  ‘But I didn’t know Reb felt so. I mean is it cause there’s still a chance they could send you over?’

  ‘No, they can’t.’ Reb forced a laugh to break the pall. ‘The only place they can ship me now is Leavenworth.’

  ‘Leavenworth, where’s that?’ Lee said.

  ‘He’s just joking, dummy,’ Vinnie said. ‘Can’t send him there. It’s the army pen. Right, Reb?’

  ‘Right it’s the pen,’ Reb said.

  The only trace of his lobster tail, Reb noticed, was a streak of butter across his plate. He wondered how so much steak got eaten so fast too. The third cork had long since popped. He loved the way the little bubbles streamed up and burst in his face. They were drinking red wine now.

  Vinnie said, ‘Talking about Wiggy I want to tell you guys the greatest story I ever heard.’ Giggles, laughs, and disbelief circled the table. Wetting his throat, Vinnie demanded their attention. ‘Wiggy’s old lady never been near an airplane in her life and last week she flies down there to see him.’

  ‘Down Fort Benning?’ Sal said.

  ‘Fort Benning, Georgia, yeah.’

  ‘Christ, she must be way over sixty,’ Lee said. ‘And all alone she went?’

  ‘Alone, alone.’

  ‘Wow,’ Reb said.

  ‘But that ain’t nothing,’ Vinnie said. ‘Guess what she’s got in the suitcase with her.’

  ‘What?’ Alex said.

  ‘A nice salami,’ Chub said.

  ‘Nah, guess again.’

  ‘A provolone,’ Lee said.

  ‘Nah, I’ll tell you. She’s got a stenituro in there.’

  ‘A what?’ Reb said.

  ‘Stenituro,’ Vinnie said.

  ‘What’s that?’ Chub said.

  ‘You dope, it’s a rolling pin,’ Sal said.

  ‘Rolling pin. What’s she gonna do conk some colonel with it?’ Lee said.

  ‘Very funny,’ Vinnie said. ‘Make homemade macaroni for Wiggy.’

  ‘What?’ Lee said. ‘She flies down there to make.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Vinnie said.

  ‘That’s a mother for you, a real mother,’ Reb said.

  ‘But this stenituro, how did she get it in the suitcase?’ Alex said. ‘They’re much longer than the American ones.’

  ‘That’s what I asked her too,’ Vinnie said.

  ‘But it’s easy,’ Sal said. ‘She put it in like this.’

  ‘Yeah, on the diagonal,’ Chub said. ‘Corner to corner.’

  ‘That’s right, that’s what she told me,’ Vinnie said. ‘Easy she goes. And she did what Sal did, she made this half an X in the air cause she don’t know diagonal. The word.’

  ‘And it fit?’ Alex said.

  ‘Well, she admitted she had to saw off a couple of inches first.’

  ‘Trave
led in a plane with a rolling pin in her suitcase to make her son macaroni in Georgia. Hoo hoo hoo,’ Lee said.

  ‘Did she bring her own flour?’ Chub said.

  ‘Flour you can buy anywhere. Eggs too,’ Reb said.

  ‘I can see her down in the cellar with one of Wiggy’s saws hacking off them couple of inches,’ Sal said.

  ‘That’s nothing, can you see her checked into some motel rolling out the dough,’ Lee said.

  ‘It’s a war story, that’s what it is,’ Alex said. ‘Vinnie, you’re not pulling our legs now, are you? That’s the greatest war story I ever heard.’

  ‘War or peace what’s the difference,’ Vinnie said. ‘It’s the greatest story of all time.’

  ‘A mother, that’s a mother,’ Reb said. ‘Gee, I’m gonna cry.’

  ‘Reb’s right, you know. They ought to take that woman to Washington,’ Alex said. ‘Medal of Honor.’

  ‘Joint session of Congress,’ Vinnie said. ‘Wiggy’s old lady walking down the aisle and all the Congressmen up on their feet applauding.’

  ‘Wait,’ Sal said. ‘That’s Saltonstall there leading her by the hand.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Vinnie said. ‘And in the other hand the ooh ha. The hoo hoo ha. Stenituro.’

  ‘You bastard, you’re making fun of her now,’ Reb said.

  ‘Making fun nothing. I said it was the greatest story in the world and I meant it.’

  ‘Deserves the recognition of governments everywhere,’ Reb said.

  ‘Jeezus, Reb, are you crying or laughing,’ Vinnie said, leaning toward Reb. ‘Them are tears in your eyes.’

  ‘Why not.’ Reb dabbing his eyes with a napkin. ‘I love that woman. So beautiful. And tomorrow I’m going to bring her a present.’

  ‘Tomorrow we’re all going to bring her a present,’ Lee said. ‘Here. Here’s five from me.’ His hand down on the table and Reb saw a portrait of Lincoln peeping out between Lee’s fingers.

  Then everyone was going for his back pocket, wallets were out, hands flew, and several Washingtons and a Jefferson fluttered down over the table. Alex was last. He lay down a crisp new Jackson and took the rest. They had raised twenty dollars. A discussion followed about what they would get her. A nightgown, one said. What for, another said. Sleep in, a third said. Then someone said a houseplant. Someone else said twenty beans for a houseplant was crazy. Vinnie said they should see the rosemary she grew in tubs in the backyard. Something to wear came up again and they asked Alex. Someone said a sweater. Someone else said what about her size. Silence. All six were stumped. ‘We could just slip the twenty into an envelope,’ Alex said.