And that was it. The owner was more than willing to drop what he was doing in Houston, find himself an attorney and fill out the contract by fax. I called Mark Stimpson, back home and had him get a wire ready for the next morning, gave him the escrow account numbers for the closing attorney and told him to call me when it was on it’s way.
Then Angie and I took Jannie to lunch. We chit-chatted a bit, talked about schools, and restaurants and dance schools for Emily. Then she told us she had another appointment and said her goodbye. She’d call us in the morning.
The rest of the day was spent sight-seeing, meeting up with some of my old college friends in the ‘Burg, most of whom Angie knew, but a few of whom were first-time acquaintances, and settling into that feeling of having just done something enormous and life changing. Like the way a married couple feels about four days after they get back from their honeymoon and they experience each other’s morning-breath for the first time. It’s cute, but it feels weird. We drove back to our new house before dinner. I wanted to see the sunset.
Turns out, sunset from our new back yard is breathtaking. It settles down on the little valley to our left and I swear...it looks like the Campania. Angie and I went to Italy once, right before the kids were born. We found some of Nonno’s distant relatives and instantly became celebrities. We both loved it, and promised we’d go back someday. Now I guess we were living in our very own Campania range. Sort of. Angie was standing in front of me and I had my arms around her and my hands crossed in front. “Feels a little like Italy, ya think?” I whispered to her. “Yeah,” she laughed. “Italy in Central Virginia.” “Well we’ll bring the old neighborhood down here with us,” I smiled. I’ll put a Bocce court in the back corner; maybe grow some grapes and figs, and some ‘to-may-ter-iz.” Angie chuckled at that. Our next door neighbor, Mr. Donello, pronounced “tomatoes” that way. He was originally from Brooklyn, and had that thick New York accent, the one everyone associates with the Mob. Everyone who doesn’t know any better that is. He’d stand on a chair and lean over the fence and ask me “Hey Joe, you got a couple-ah to-may-ter-iz I could get from you for my salad?” Every year he tried a garden of his own. Every year he failed at it. The guy probably couldn’t even grow a beard.
So that was it. Homecoming went as Homecomings generally do. I played in the alumni hockey game, overdid it a little bit, but survived it for another year; saw a lot of old friends. And my wife and I bought ourselves a house. We were heading for the South, like we’d been talking about. We’d be driving back home on Monday morning, so we visited with some friends on Sunday afternoon. Anj and I decided to host a little get-together with the people in Lynchburg we were closest to and tell them the news. So we went to the grocery store and bought some food and drinks and what-have you and text messaged the street address to about a half dozen couples in town and had them meet us at our new house. Jannie reminded us this was against protocol since we technically didn’t own the place yet, but since the entire purchase price was already sitting in her attorney’s escrow account in cash, she could look the other way.
Our friends arrived around Four PM and we were waiting out front for them. They were ecstatic. Leo and his wife Lisa, Cyndi and Jeff, Don and Pam, Jannie and Kirk, Kirk and Robin. It was a small gathering, but it was the people we knew would do the most to make us feel at home and help us settle in quickly. They thought we were kidding at first, but Jannie convinced them that yes, we had actually bought this place. Whooping and hollering ensued. Our friends headed out around Seven PM and Angie and I were locking the house up and making some notes about carpet colors and wall paint. We walked outside to see another sunset. Neither of us said a word as the sun sank slowly just left of our backyard and turned the entire New River Valley into a brilliant burst of color. “This is amazing” she whispered. She was right. We walked to the front door and locked our way out. It was just getting dark. “Son of a...!” I said to Angie. “What babe...No! You didn’t lock your keys in the house did you?” she asked me. I paused a minute. “No’” I said quietly. “Turn to your left slowly and casually, our neighbor across the street is a peeper.” “No he is not!” Angie screeched. “Yeah, he’s doing it right now.” Now a “peeper” back home, is a nosy neighbor who watches your business through the blinds in his living room. Every block has one back in Philly. Ours was Mrs. Begnetti, the widow who cooked for the parish priests. She did this so she had a reason to be at the rectory every day picking up juicy bits of gossip. Angie turned and saw him. “Good Lord, Joey, he isn’t even any good at it. He’s got a light on behind him. He might as well open the blinds and stare at us with binoculars!” When you are looking out your window and there is a light on behind you, you stand in a huge black silhouette. It’s the most amateur thing in the world.
It really irritated me for a minute. What business were we of his? But I decided to let it go for now. I told Angie, “Aaah I’ll go say hello when we get back down here. Maybe he’s just a bored old guy who hasn’t seen a beautiful, exotic, Italian angel in his whole life!” Angie laughed. “Yeah...that has to be it.” she said sarcastically. I opened her door and she climbed in. I walked around to my side and paused for a second. It must have been a longer second than I thought because Angie lowered her window and asked me if I was okay.
All the sudden it dawned on me. I looked at Anj and I said “You hear that?” Angie shot me a puzzled look. “Hear what, Joe?” “Nothing,” I said, “What you don’t hear is nothing. It’s dead quiet. No trucks on the highway, no kids playing in the street, no next door neighbors. Nothing!” Angie smiled...a beautiful smile that spread itself across her face like an artist’s stroke on a canvas. “Yeah, I hear that.” She said. “This place is a lot different from home.” Boy, was she right.
6
Getting
My Father' s
Blessing
We left Lynchburg for home on Monday morning. Angie chattered about the house, making a mental list of draperies and bathroom colors and all the things that a woman does when she goes about making a house into a home. I was more concerned with the garage and the workshop and staking out my garden for the following spring.
We got home at Four PM and went straight to my folk’s house to pick up the kids. We walked in to exuberant, gleeful hello from Emily and the usual ho-hum wave of the hand from the boys. And we felt the palpable uneasiness of my mother and father. I had talked to them before the trip and they knew why we were going to Lynchburg. They understood, but they were very upset at the same time. They could see why we wanted to move. They also wished it wasn’t going to happen.
We didn’t talk about it right then. We gathered up the kids and got them into the truck and I told the Old Man I’d call him later and we’d talk. His face wore a grim, forced smile as he hugged the kids and gave them each a silver dollar. He’d done that every time they visited for as long as they’d been alive. Uncle Tony did that for me when I was little. Family traditions. I thought. This was not going to be easy.
The Old Man called me later that night. The kids had wound down and were getting ready for bed and he asked me if he could come over. Now, this was a big deal for Pop, because typically he just showed up. Sometimes, if he was feeling particularly gregarious, he might call on his way over. Usually he did this as he was turning the corner to my street and then I’d hear him cursing at the cell phone, unable to find the “end call” button. But tonight he called from his house. He sounded very subdued on the phone. I figured I knew what was coming tonight. “Sure Pop,” I said, “Come on over as soon as you want.” “Okay, son,” He answered, “I’m just finishing washing the front steps.” Yeah...he rinsed off the front steps about three times a week. He said it kept the dust down. Philadelphia streets haven’t been dusty in about seventy years, but Pop still washes his steps in response to the dust. I think it’s simply him doing what Giuseppe did when Pop was a boy.
He showed up at 7:45 with a bottle of Red wine in one hand, a sack of cold cuts in the other,
and a loaf of semolina bread, from Musticelli’s bakery, under his chin. Looking like the stereotypical fun-loving Italian, it was hard to not smile at him. I think he was putting forward a good face in front of Anj. We talked for a minute, the three of us, and then he asked me if I’d take a walk with him. I immediately got a lump in my throat. Pop and I hadn’t walked the streets together since the night Giuseppe died. He’s not an overly emotional guy, unless the Phillies were winning a World Series, so I knew this was going to mean something. I grabbed my keys, gave Angie a peck on the cheek and walked out with the Old Man.
It was early October, but still a little muggy out on the concrete. There were still windows open and Italian Opera was coming from Mrs. Begnetti’s living room. Pop and I walked past her house and without looking up, I said, “Buonasera, Senora Begnetti.” The curtains ruffled back into place, and the metal venetian blinds clattered as she quickly pulled her fingers back from where they had been holding the slats open, ever so slightly. Mrs. B. tried to duck into what shadows existed in her living room. Her nosiness stopped bothering me years ago. I figured she was a little frightened at being a widow and she was just living like a scared little old lady. I had made an effort in recent years to go check on her every couple of days. I’d check a few windows and make sure her deadbolts were working. I made a big production out of it so she’d feel safe. Anymore, when I saw her peeping I just let her know that I saw her, and figured that might actually make her feel better. God forbid she ever gets the notion to turn off the lights in the room before she spies on the block until midnight...she might actually see something.
“I remember when her husband was alive.” My Old Man said, “Best car mechanic in the neighborhood. Couldn’t find his way around a diesel engine or Zippie would have hired him.” The Old Man sounded wistful. I thought it best to just let him talk. We walked along Fourteenth Street and stopped at Romignoli’s for a cup of coffee and a biscotti. Alfonso Romignoli knew the Old Man about as well as he knew his own father. This place was my dad’s favorite hangout. They brewed his coffee the way he liked it, which was strong enough to start one of our trash trucks. Pop brewed an equal-parts mixture of Folger’s and Medaglia D’oro Espresso. The stuff would literally make your heart race. First time I tried it, the tachycardia was so bad it scared me. “How can you drink that and not stay awake all night?” I asked him. He just smiled and dunked his biscotti. “It’s how God made me, son.” He said with a shrug, “Caffeine has no effect on me at all.”
I knew the Old Man wanted to talk about us leaving. I also knew that he had no real way of dealing with what he was feeling inside, and didn’t know how to open the conversation. Men of his generation weren’t talkers. I figured I’d let it work itself out for a while before just diving in myself. We sat on a bench outside of Romignoli’s for about fifteen minutes, sipping coffee and people-watching, and commenting on the sights and sounds. “These have always been the best biscotti’s in the neighborhood, you know?” I said. My dad looked at me and smiled. “They taste like your mother’s don’t they?” he said. “Yeah, you know they really do, now that you mention it.” I was shocked that I had never noticed before. My old man leaned over and, with that tone that parents have when they reveal a family secret, said, “They are your mother’s biscotti.” I looked at him in amazement. “Yeah,” he said, “It’s true. Mrs. Romignoli could never get the recipe to work. She tried for like, two years when they first opened the shop. One day she’s sitting at the house with your mother and she’s eating one of Mamma’s biscotti and she asks her how she makes them. Your mom made a batch with her, right there in the kitchen. Just pulled out the pans and went to work. And they’ve been serving them at the cafe ever since.” This brought a smile to my face. “I never knew that, Pop.”
The Old Man stood up and tossed his cup into the trash and we walked down the street toward St. Monica’s. Before I knew it, we were wiping our feet on the doormat and entering the marble and glass foyer. Pop removed his everpresent fedora and dipped his fingers into the Holy Water. He gave me a gentle elbow and whispered, “You still know how to sprinkle?” Of course I did. I just hadn’t done it in a while. “What are we doing here, Pop? There’s no mass tonight.” I asked him. “Yeah I know. Sometimes I come here just to be alone and talk to God. This building...it just feels sacred, you know? “I mean, you just feel like you need to whisper and lower your head a little in here. Anyway, it helps me connect.”
I knew what the Old Man meant. I was a Baptist in practice since high school, but there is a wonder, and awe, and sense of history and majesty in the old Marble and stained-glass cathedrals and basilicas of my hometown. We walked down to the front of the sanctuary and Pop kept going. We were apparently heading to one of the grottoes to light a candle. “You remember how to say a Novena?” he whispered to me. “Pop, I went to CCD, Catholic School. Mass every week. You think I forget that stuff?” “Good!” the Old Man said, “Then say one with me.” “For what, Pop?” I whispered.
“For God’s blessing on this new chapter in your life, son.” “I turned and looked at him. I realized there would be no talking about this. He was giving me his blessing in this way. I felt tears coming to my eyes and I fought them as best I could. I was never more thankful for the buyout as I was in that moment. If Pop and I had continued on as business partners, he may never have felt like he could show me this side of himself. I wished we had done this years ago.
I knelt next to my Old Man. We prayed a Novena together. At some point he looked at me and I leaned over and said “Charlie.” It took him a minute and then a smile crept across his lips. “That’s right,” he whispered. “Charlie. How long was he missing, a week? Ten days? Then boom! He’s back!” “Yeah Pop,” I said, “I think that was the last time we prayed a Novena together.” Charlie was my mom’s cranky old Cocker Spaniel. He was a great dog, but as he got older, he attached himself to my mother and wouldn’t really get friendly with any of us. Cockers are known to do that. He got a whiff of a female in heat one day and off he went. He was gone for over a week. Now –truth be told- I didn’t like him as much as other dogs we’d had, until he went missing. Then my heart was broken. I was pretty torn up about it and my mother...oh Maddonn, the way she cried! So me and the Old Man spent every evening after school and work walking the neighborhood looking for him. One night we stopped in here at St. Monica’s and said a Novena for him. To St. Anthony, the patron Saint of Lost Things, because Charlie was lost. The next morning, the randy old boy was lying on the front porch; sound asleep, like he’d never left. It was a pretty impressive introduction to prayer for an eight year old.
The old man prayed his Novena and then he turned to me. He put his arm around me. Oh God! I was not ready for that. He put his arm around me and said, “You’re everything a man could want in a son. God has blessed me and this family. Take that blessing with you when you go, son. And make a new place for the Mezilli name to be counted-on and trusted, and respected.” The Old Man was crying.
We walked out a few minutes later. Pop was taking his time now. “I love this neighborhood.” He said. “I remember when Zippie bought the old house. It was such a big deal to move from the apartment. All the other immigrant families thought your grandfather had stolen money from someone. Nobody there even knew anyone who lived in a house, much less actually bought one.” My dad was smiling now. With tears in his eyes. “Zippie was a hard man. Hard to understand sometimes, and hard to please. I think it was the Depression and the poverty and leaving his family so young. Twelve years old is very young to be on your own in a new country.”
This was about the most I’d ever heard the Old Man talk about his father. To me, Giuseppe was intimidating. And I had the benefit of the natural barrier that grandchildren have. My father didn’t have that. He had been brought up under the constant insufficiency that so many children of self-employed men feel. Their dads were driven by need, and desperation, and they never could understand why their kids didn’t feel the same hunger
in their belly. It was probably because they were just kids. But Giuseppe always saw it as laziness or slack. He drove my Old Man pretty hard. I have to give my dad credit; he found the balance with me. He didn’t force me into the business or make me hate those trash trucks because of the toll they took on him, but he didn’t coddle me either.
We walked the block near the Church and he told me about how Giuseppe had bought a truck load of marble for the Cathedral. The parish priests had been asking for donations for the building when it was being constructed. They were trying to raise so much money per truckload of marble. Giuseppe somehow was suspicious of the request, especially since they were instructed to send the money to the Diocese and then the Diocese would handle paying the bills. Giuseppe made some calls, found out what kind of marble they were using, and went to the quarry and paid in cash for a truckload to be delivered to the building site. Father Fizzano called him and asked him what was going on. He said “You asked for money for marble. I just cut out the middle man.” I laughed out loud at that. “You never told me that story, Pop.” I told my dad. “No? You sure?” he said. “No, dad, I sure would have remembered that story.” I told him.
We walked a while longer and eventually found ourselves back at his house. We stood there in silence for a minute; the only sound was the steady tinkle of the peeing cherub in his front yard. Finally I said to him, “You hear all this background noise, Pop? The highway and the neighbors and the airplanes and the sirens? At the new place there’s nothing but silence. Silence and stars at night.” The Old Man shuffled his feet. “I bet that’s beautiful, son. I am really happy for you and Angie. You go. You make this move and I’ll stay here and hold down the fort and take care of Nonna. We’ll be okay.”
The Legend of Joey Trucks: The Accidental Mobster Page 11
