by Jim Fusilli
“Oh, Jesus!” he shouted, hopping in place, waving frantically. “I’ll go get help.” He ran off, ignoring the blare of horns by drivers who hadn’t seen the boy in the road. Syrupy blood clotted on the asphalt.
After the ambulance took Bebe to St. Patrick’s, the cops wandered around Elysian Fields and then called down the detectives, who tried to verify the driver’s claim that he hadn’t run over Hennie Rosiglino’s son, that the kid appeared in the road already broken.
Seven people said Bebe jumped.
“Like he could fly?” a cop asked.
“Like he wanted it to look like he tried to kill himself,” replied Mrs. Matuschek, who’d brought her three kids to the park.
“But just try, not do?” the detective asked with a frown.
“Well, he didn’t throw himself on his head, if that’s what you mean.”
Hennie wavered between hysteria and fury. By the time Bebe came out of surgery, she insisted the driver be charged, even though she was told he’d done nothing but stop his load from crushing her son.
The mayor came to offer comfort and reason, passing along the irrefutable testimony reported by the detectives. But Hennie was resolute. She wouldn’t be seen as the reason for Bebe’s stunt. Everybody knew she adored her beautiful boy.
She turned to Vincenzo, teary eyed in his blue Hook & Ladder uniform, his face a rag of worry.
“Get Carlo,” she told him.
For once, Hennie knew less than she thought. Carlo Farcolini was born in Vallelunga, Sicily, on the same block and was baptized in the same church as Vincenzo Rosiglino’s late father, Guillermo. Vincenzo didn’t know this, but Farcolini did and, before Bebe was born, he employed Vincenzo, his paesano, as a truck driver running bootleg whiskey from the Narrows Gate docks to speakeasies throughout North Jersey. When Vincenzo was pinched by the cops, he kept his mouth shut and took the 18-month hit, as Farcolini knew a man from northwest Sicily would. He had Mimmo deliver $1,000 to Vincenzo’s wife, a brassy bigmouth he couldn’t tolerate.
To Farcolini’s mind, he and the Rosiglinos were even. So now, years later, when Mimmo called to tell him Hennie wanted a meeting, at first Farcolini waved it off. But then, recalling Vincenzo as a stand-up guy, he agreed to her request.
Tossing the mayor’s name around, Hennie had Bebe put in a private room in the adult ward at St. Patrick’s. When Farcolini, Frankie Fortune and Mimmo arrived, the room overflowed with Bebe’s aunts and cousins, a few of the Siciliani, plus the flowers the police chief had sent.
“Mimmo,” said Fortune, as Farcolini waited in the hospital corridor with forbearance, looking down at his shoes, hands stuffed in his pockets.
Mimmo went in and cleared everybody out, leaving Vincenzo, Hennie and Bebe, his damaged leg in traction, the bone shoved back in place, stitches and the swollen thigh yellow and purple. In the bottle on the hook was some kind of pain relief and Bebe looked stupid and content.
Farcolini and Fortune entered and Mimmo shut the door behind them. The streetlights cast ghostly shadows into the room. Thick windows muted the conviviality in the park below. Vincenzo rose to greet his former patron. Farcolini took his hands as Vincenzo kissed his cheeks. When Vincenzo offered his chair, Farcolini, raising his hand, said no.
From the other side of the bed, Hennie explained in Sicilian, “Carlo, they ran over my son.”
Frankie Fortune answered in English. “So?”
Through his haze, Bebe believed Fortune was the best-looking man he’d ever seen, a regular Adonis.
Farcolini stared at the injured boy.
“Like he was nothing, they ran him over,” Hennie continued. “A mutt in the street.”
Mimmo had told Farcolini what happened. Fortune knew too—sources in the police department and at the Jersey Observer confirming Mimmo’s report.
“As I understand it, the driver saved the boy,” Fortune said.
“After he hit him,” she insisted.
“Not so,” he replied.
Hennie raised her voice. “He fell and—”
“He did not.” Fortune again. The measure of respect that remained in his demeanor was in deference to Vincenzo.
“You owe us,” she said. “My husband—”
Farcolini turned and dismissed her with a withering gaze. Then he leaned in, cupped Bebe’s chin in his hand, patted his cheek. The boy returned his smile.
As he turned, Farcolini said, “Vincenzo.”
Rosiglino nodded in appreciation.
Fortune rapped a knuckle on the door.
Mimmo opened it. “Safe,” he said. Nuns and nurses had cleared out.
The three men left, Fortune squeezing Vincenzo’s steely bicep as he passed.
“Driver Cleared in Waterfront Mishap.” The headline in the morning’s Jersey Observer. The write-up explained that William Rosiglino, the lively young son of Vincenzo Rosiglino, a member of Hook & Ladder Company Number 5, and his wife, Henrietta, tumbled onto River Road while playing near Elysian Fields. The brave boy suffered a terrifying injury without complaint and was recovering at St. Patrick’s Hospital.
“In a private room,” Hennie told the Irish newspaper in her fist. “None but the best for my beautiful boy.”
Later that day, Mimmo delivered a radio to the kid at St. Patrick’s Hospital.
“You speak Sicilian?” he panted. The fuckin’ radio weighed almost as much as he did.
Bebe said, “Si.”
A nun at the window watched as Mimmo wiped his damp brow. Physical labor took its toll. In addition to sun-sensitive eyes, he had flat feet that slapped the ground like somebody threw down fish.
In Sicilian, he said, “From your Uncle Carlo. This.”
“OK,” Bebe said. “Thanks.”
Two in the morning, Indian summer 1930, the neighborhood graveyard silent. Hennie was blowing smoke toward the moon, sambuca in the teacup as she sat on her stoop, shoes off, cajoling anybody who passed by, busting balls if they asked a favor. The Irish, they saw she thought herself the queen of the neighborhood, this gasbag, this Depression-proof fixer, friend to the mayor, friend to Mimmo and the rest of his crew at the God-forsaken end of the town. It pissed them off no end.
For the past few weeks, Hennie was slapped sideways by a troubled mind. No way she could figure what her son was going to do when he grew up and what kind of ciuccio he’d be after she died or had a stroke that sent her drooling. Now 15 years old, Bebe was gangly, as graceful as a drunk on a ladder, dopey looking with those ears and slow to catch on. What a package. The kid got fired from the Avalon Theater, McSquinty telling her, “Hennie, he can’t make change. He don’t know which end of the broom to push.”
Over dinner, she said, “Bebe, let me ask one question: Is your head empty or is there something going on?”
Twirling spaghetti on a spoon, he said, “I’m supposed to clean bubblegum off the bottom of seats? Me?”
“You’re too good to scrape gum?”
“That’s a job for bums.”
“So what’s a job for you? Tell me, Bebe. If you got an idea, share it, for Christ’s sake.”
After the Avalon told him to get lost, Hennie sent him to the Jersey Observer, a guy who worked at the Hook & Ladder offering to intervene. The first night, Bebe was over by the presses for maybe 10 minutes: all he had to do was keep the linotype machine lubricated, but he tripped and banged his head, type flying out of the magazine, the front page ruined. Worse, he fell on the operator and the guy’s wrist broke.
Bebe walked home along Polk Street, his head hanging, slacks covered in grease. Everybody saw clear that he’d fucked up again. Too bad Hennie taught the kid to treat the neighborhood like it was a sewer. Somebody might’ve thrown him a kind word.
For his part, Bebe could’ve sat on the curb and cried. His mother was right: He was a first-class clown. Everything he touched turned to failure. OK, the Avalon was a shit job, but the Observer, Jesus, Bebe went in trying. He wanted to succeed, to make his mother proud. He wanted to belo
ng. They gave him a locker and the boss seemed all right. The guys in gray overalls and paper hats moved like they were parts in the machines. He tried to do exactly what he was told—all the clanging, grinding, the lubricant’s scent, the slippery oilcan in his hand. He tried to concentrate, but his mind drifted, ideas were interrupted. Then catastrophe and soon he was facing the long walk home.
Now, a couple of weeks later, sitting out there in front of her house, Hennie was thinking, What am I going to do with this kid? A car passed, somebody she didn’t recognize, and then silence returned. She flicked a cigarette toward the curb.
And then she heard it.
Upstairs in his room, Bebe was singing.
Hennie leaned back to listen hard. At first, she doubted it was him. Bebe’s voice was sweet, feathery sort of, wasn’t it? He could carry a tune, but not enough so they let him sing “Ave Maria” at a solemn High Mass, everybody looking at him impressed, looking at her. But this voice, the one she was hearing now, was a man’s voice, not only deeper but richer. It held its tone, to her amateur ears. It had personality. It’s Bebe and, my hand to God, it ain’t half bad.
By now, Hennie was huffing up the stairs, ignoring Vincenzo asleep on the sofa. Up another flight, she knocked on Bebe’s door.
He stood there in his boxers and undershirt. She could count his ribs he’s so skinny.
“Do that again,” she said as she stepped into the room.
“What?” Bebe thought he was in trouble, even if he didn’t know what he’d done.
“Sing.”
“Ah, for Christ’s sakes, Ma—”
“Come on. I heard you. Come on.”
Bebe hesitated. Maybe five years ago, Hennie dressed him up in a sailor’s suit and a little Charlie Chaplin cane and had him sing for coins at Chatterbox, telling him, “Fuck the choirmaster, you’ve got talent, real talent, you go sing, Bebe. Show ’em, that’s right.” In the bar, Bebe saw the rolling eyes, the grimaces, felt the dull pats on his back. Feeney’s crowd gave him money to get lost. But his mother was proud.
“Go ahead,” she added now, sitting on the edge of his bed.
Bebe took a breath. Then he started in, snapping his fingers, doing it with pep, the words flying out like tommy-gun fire.
“Wait. Hold on,” Hennie said. “What’s that?”
Bebe flushed with embarrassment. “All right, Ma. This I don’t need at two in the morning.”
“No, do it nice and easy. Like before.”
“Like when?”
“Bebe, three fuckin’ minutes ago. Come on.”
He tried to remember. Three minutes ago, he was changing his slacks on their hangers to make sure there were no wrinkles; lemons and rosemary sprigs were in his closet so his clothes smelled good. Three minutes ago, he was thinking the world could go to hell. He was wishing he had a friend.
Bebe began to hum the same tune—“You’re the Cream in My Coffee”—and then he started in singing soft, letting the notes come out puffy to waft above his head.
Hennie looked at him in amazement.
His eyes closed. Bebe kept singing, the cloud-notes now floating around his bedroom. “You will always be my necessity. I’d be lost without you…” He swayed, opened his hands at his sides, tilted his head just right.
“Beautiful,” said Hennie when he finished. She labored to hoist off the bed. “Beautiful.”
Bebe studied her face for a hint of sarcasm. None.
“You can do that again?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Who showed you to sing like that? You know, with the charm.”
Bebe didn’t know. He liked to make it up. Take the melody and go a little bit slower, maybe listen to the words and find how to tell the story gentle, like he was whispering down some girl’s neck. He shrugged. Then he threw a thumb toward the radio in the corner, the one Carlo Farcolini had given him years ago. “There’s all sorts of singers, but they sound the same.”
Hennie said, “Don’t do nothing till you hear from me.”
The next day, she intercepted Nino Terrasini as he was leaving the Venus Pencil factory, his shift done, and now, after he’d washed up, he was walking through Church Square Park over to the Union Club where he played piano to make a few extra bucks. He was also in a combo called the Hudson Four. Hennie heard they showed promise.
Terrasini was a good-looking Sicilian, his hair coal black; his eyes, too. He walked tall, like America had put steel in his spine. He was 18 and dated a Polish girl up in Weehawken, her father a successful purveyor of smoked meats. The girl meant Terrasini planned to get out of Narrows Gate. Maybe he could use a boost.
“Nino,” said Hennie. She was on a bench, waiting. She patted the wood. “Sit.”
Terrasini was a friendly guy, so he sat.
She offered him a cigarette, but he took out one of his own.
“Tell me about the Hudson Four,” she said.
Terrasini nodded. “There’s these three guys.”
“Three? Then why the Hudson Four?”
“I’m the fourth,” he replied. “They sing, the three.”
The kids had begun to leave the park, rushing, running, screaming, shoving as they headed home. When the day shift ended at the factories, shipyards and piers in Narrows Gate, it was time for dinner.
“They sing good?” she asked.
Terrasini shrugged. “Mezzo-mezzo.”
“Who’s the weak spot?”
He pondered. “I would say Vinnie.”
“Vinnie?”
“Patroni. Vinnie Patroni.”
“Who is he?”
“Who is he? He sings in the Hudson Four.”
“Nino, come on.”
“He’s like anybody else. He works at the five-and-dime.”
“His father?”
“Dead.”
Ah, thought Hennie. Patroni’s a nobody. “Here’s what you do,” she said, turning to face Terrasini. “You dump this Patroni. In comes Bebe.”
“Bebe?” Terrasini smiled. “He’s a kid.”
“Don’t worry. He’ll have his working papers.”
“No, I mean, who wants to see a kid singing?”
“You take him in, Nino, and you tell me what you need.”
Leaning an elbow on the back rail, Terrasini tilted toward her. Like everybody else in Narrows Gate, he knew Hennie was a fixer. “For one, I need to get out of the Union Club. I’m lucky I take in two bucks a night in tips.”
“You sign a contract?”
Terrasini said no.
She took the cigarette off her lip. “So what’s the problem?”
“Two dollars is two—”
“You play the Blue Onyx.”
“Mimmo’s joint?”
Hennie nodded.
“I don’t know…” he said warily.
“Don’t be cute. Mimmo’s not stocking the crew with piano players.”
She’s right, thought Terrasini. Some imbecile makes a move the Farcolinis don’t agree, they don’t ask for a lullaby.
“But you go slow,” Hennie said. “Your job is to take care of Bebe. Ease him in. You understand me?”
Terrasini looked over her head to the pencil factory. “If I had a car, the Hudson Four could work all over,” he said.
“Like Weehawken.”
“You can’t take a public-address system on a bus.”
This one is smarter than he looks, Hennie thought as she agreed to his terms. She’d ask Mimmo to get someone to boost him a car. If Terrasini went back on his word and let Bebe struggle, the cops would find the old plates hidden in the trunk and nail him for grand theft auto.
Then she went to work, the new Hudson Four in the papers almost every day as they played school dances all over the county, private parties as far south as Asbury Park, and dinner clubs, mostly as relief for experienced acts. She found them a weekly gig singing on the radio in Elizabeth, a free advertisement that produced more opportunities to hone their material. Any palm needed greasing, Hennie came
across, and soon the emcees were introducing the group by saying Billy Rosiglino and the Hudson Four.
Terrasini had a pretty good idea where this thing was headed, and he didn’t mind. Growing up in Narrows Gate, he saw Bebe as an ass wipe, but he had to hand it to him. The kid was working his bones off. OK, so Hennie was knocking on doors and making telephone calls, turning smart, leathery music business guys mushy with phony charm; if you knew her in Narrows Gate you would piss yourself laughing.
But it was Bebe, too. He took singing lessons, diction lessons, went to dancing school so he could hide the limp from the leg he broke as a kid. By now he could read music as good as Terrasini, who took piano lessons starting at age 4. He’d rehearse from daybreak until well past midnight. Tell Bebe something once and he never forgot. And gracious? Always sir, ma’am, always by name, always asking after the family. After a while, Hennie didn’t have to tell him to send flowers with a thank-you note.
All the “Bebe this, Bebe that” caused a rift in the group. The other two guys asked Terrasini for a private meet.
From the minute Terrasini picked them up, they started bitching, making Bebe’s minor failings into a reason to set him on fire. They accused him of hijacking the group, ignoring the fact that he put in about a hundred times the effort they did developing his talents.
After Terrasini drove up and down Hudson Boulevard listening to this crap, one of the guys said, “What do you think?”
“We’re working, right?” he replied. “Who gives a shit the emcee says his name?”
The other two continued to protest.
“Excuse me,” Terrasini said. “Are we making three, four times a week what we made with Patroni? Are we playing bigger rooms, the radio? Plus the broads. Are you kidding me? As far as I’m concerned, you should kiss Bebe’s ass.”
The two howled in derision.
“We should kick his ass, the little fuck,” said the one in the backseat.
Terrasini looked in the rearview. “One, nobody touches Bebe. Two, you feel things suck so bad, maybe you ought to think about quitting.”
