He stand and brushes the dirt off his pants. “I’m a father!” he shouts to the empty stands.
Then Nick walks to the bullpen, pulling up the zipper on his jacket. He rests on the bench, closes his eyes for a moment. Sleeps.
“Good morning,” Bev says. “So this is outside of Treno’s?”
Nick squints in the bright early sunshine.
“We looked all over for you last night, Nick. Then this morning Anne said, ‘Let’s try the field, maybe Nick is at the field.’”
“Where is she?” Nick asks, sitting up.
Bev points to her car. Nick smiles and runs.
“Anne.” He pulls open the car door. “Listen, I’ve got great news.”
“So do I,” Anne says. “Last night I started my period.”
Nick rubs his forehead, then looks around his apartment for a cigarette. He sees a pack lying on top of the empty console of his television. Inside where the tubes were he keeps a stringy philodendron along with his cap and ball and glove.
“So now you know everything,” he says.
Vicky smiles and motions for a cigarette.
“I work downtown at the Art Institute,” she says. “Did I tell you that, Nick? I’ll have to wake up early in the morning.”
“I kind of like you, Vicky.”
“Maybe I’ll be back tomorrow night.”
Nick and Vicky are in bed, and Nick is thinking about meteors. He falls through the sky and screams. He sees the earth below and drops over it, looking for Fort Gordon, Georgia, for Urbana-Champaign. Nick shifts into third, pushes the accelerator to the floor. He pulls back, drops the banana peel on the marble steps. He burns and flames like the meteor, dropping gently down again.
Nick is yelling from the pitcher’s mound for somebody, for anybody, to please track down the ball. Nick is crying into an empty phone in a suddenly lonely basement apartment. Then hs is standing and running and knocking over his refrigerator. Nick kicks Bev’s car door, he feels like throwing up, he doesn’t know whether to rejoice or put his fist through the windshield. Nick plots trajectories, frequents fruit markets, never honks his horn. He packs his broken TV and moves to Chicago, driving a rented van up old Highway 45 and listening to the Cubs on the radio. He goes out each morning for the newspaper, he reads the sports and then the obituaries, he speeds faster down the asphalt road, he loses his footing on the slippery peel, in a whoosh he spills through the brown and green treetops.
Vicky is smiling. Vicky is warm. Vicky isn’t yawning.
“You didn’t cry,” Nick whispers.
“Why should I cry?” She pulls up the sheet.
“Because you should, Vicky. Because I need to know these things. I need to know everything.”
“Nick, do you work tomorrow night?”
“I work every night. But I’ll quit tending bar this spring. Then I’ll try out for semi-pro ball.” He laughs. “At least it will keep me in shape, ducking all the line drives and running back to the locker room.”
Vicky smiles. Nick stares at his hands.
“I’ll come by tomorrow after work, Nick.”
Nick is still living the middle.
“You know,” he says, “we all should have died that day.”
“But you didn’t,” Vicky says. “Nick? Nick, you didn’t.”
He gets out of bed, walks to the kitchen, stares at the refrigerator. Then he goes over to his TV and puts on his cap and glove. Naked except for his cap and glove, he walks back to the bedroom and rocks in the doorway.
“I talked her out of the abortion, but she married him anyway.” He looks in his glove and sighs. “I found that out from Bev. She said he took a bus up from Georgia and sort of surprised her. I had a shutout going that afternoon against Michigan State, but it was called on account of rain.”
“Nick, come back to bed.”
“He married her right in the middle of finals week. She must have been just starting her sixth month then. The day outside the Student Union was the last time I saw her. I never found out if it was a boy or a girl.”
“Nick, you look stupid.”
“Lady, I’m a ballplayer.”
“You still look stupid.”
“This is how ballplayers look.”
“Let’s sleep on it, Nick. You didn’t die.”
He takes off his cap, puts down his glove. He slips under the covers. Vicky is warm alongside him. He puts his arms behind his head and stares up at the ceiling. Morning light begins to fill the room.
“I didn’t die?” he says.
“Nick, you definitely didn’t die. Take my word.” Vicky snuggles next to him, then kisses him on the cheek.
“I’m not dead?” Nick says.
“No,” Vicky sighs.
He pictures Anne walking away from the Union, her arms full of books, her womb round and heavy. “Probably not,” Nick finally says. In his mind Nick nods to Anne, then waves.
Nonna
She has seen it all change.
Follow her now as she slowly walks down Loomis toward Taylor, her heavy black purse dangling at her side. Though it is the middle of summer she wears her black overcoat. The air conditioning is too cold inside the stores, she thinks. But the woman is not sure she is outside today to do her shopping. It is afternoon, and on summer afternoons she walks to escape the stifling heat of her tiny apartment, the thick drapes drawn shut to shade her two rooms from the sun, the air flat and silent, except for the ticking of her clock. Walking is good for her blood, she believes. Like eating the cloves of aglio.
She hesitates, the taste of aglio on her tongue. Perhaps she is outside this afternoon to shop. She cannot decide. The children of the old neighborhood call out to her as she passes them. Na-na! The sound used to call in goats from feeding. Or, sometimes, to tease. Or is it Nonna, grandmother, that they call? It makes no difference, the woman thinks. The thin-ribbed city dogs sniff the hem of her long black dress, wagging their dark tails against her legs. Birds fly above her head.
Around her is the bustle of the street corner, the steady rumble and jounce of cars and delivery trucks, the sharply honking horns, the long screeching hiss of a braking CTA bus. The young men from the Taylor Street Social and Athletic Club seem to ignore her as she passes. They lean against streetlight poles and parking meters in the afternoon sun. One chews a cigar; another, a toothpick. One walks in front of her, then turns to the gutter and spits. The woman looks into their faces but she does not recognize any of them, though she knows they are the sons of the sons of the neighborhood men she and her Vincenzo once knew. Grandsons of compari. Do they speak the old language? she wonders. Like a young girl, she is too shy to ask them.
One boy wears a cornicela and a thin cross around his neck. The gold sparkles in the light. Nonna squints. Well, at least they are still Catholics, she thinks, and her lips move as she says to herself They are still Catholics, and her hand begins to form the sign of the Cross. Then she remembers she is out on the street, so she stops herself. Some things are better done privately. The boy’s muscled arms are dark, tanned, folded gracefully over his sleeveless T-shirt. The boy has a strong chin. Nonna smiles and wets her lips in anticipation of greeting him, but his eyes stare past her, vacantly, at the rutted potholes and assorted litter lying next to the curb in the street.
She looks at what he stares at. He grunts to himself and joins his friends. On the shaded side of Loomis is the new store, a bookstore. The letters above the front window read T SWANKS. Could the T stand for Tonio? she wonders. She crosses the street. Then it should properly be an A. For Antonio. Anthony. Named for any one of the holy Antonios, maybe even the gentle Francescano from Padova. Nonna always preferred the Francescano but never told anyone. He had helped her to find many lost things. She believes that if she were to speak her preference aloud she would give offense to all the others, and what does she know of them—Heaven is full of marvelous saints. Her lips whisper Padova.
The sound is light. Nonna enjoys it and smiles. She pictures P
adova on the worn, tired boot. Vincenzo called Italy that. Nonna remembers that Padova sits far up in the north, west of Venezia. She looks down at her black shoes. Italia. She was from the south, from Napoli, and Vincenzo, her husband, may he rest, came from the town of Altofonte, near Palermo, in Sicilia. The good strong second son of contadini.
A placard in the bookstore window reads FREE TEA OR COFFEE—BROWSERS WELCOME. Nonna is tempted to enter. She draws together the flaps of her black overcoat. She could look at a map of Italia if the store had one, and then maybe she could ask Mr. Swanks for which of the Antonios was he named. And what part of the boot his family came from, and does he still speak the old language. She does not realize that T Swanks might not be the name of the store’s proprietor. She assumes that, like many, Swanks is an Italian who has shortened his name.
Beneath the sign in the window is a chess set. Its pieces are made of ivory. The woman stares at the tiny white horse. It resembles bone. She remembers the evening she and Vincenzo were out walking in the fields and came across a skeleton. That was in New Jersey, where they had met, before they came to Chicago. She thought the skeleton was a young child’s—she flailed her arms and screamed—but then Vincenzo held her hands and assured her it was only an animal. Eh, a dog or a lamb, he had said, his thin face smiling. Digging with his shoe, Vincenzo then uncovered the carcass. It indeed had looked like a dog or a lamb. That was a night she would never forget, the woman thinks. And that smell. Dio! It had made her young husband turn away and vomit. But Nonna is certain now that what she saw in that field that dusky autumn evening had been a child, a newborn bambino, clothed only by a damp blanket of leaves. The Devil had made it look like a dog! New Jersey was never the same after that. She made Vincenzo quit his good job at the foundry. They had to go away from that terrible place. Nonna openly makes the sign of the Cross.
She knows what she has seen. And she knows what kind of woman did it. Not a Catholic, she thinks, for that would have been the very worst of sins. It had been someone without religious training. Maybe a Mexican. But there hadn’t been any Mexicans in New Jersey. Nonna is puzzled again. And all Mexicans are Catholics, she thinks. Each Sunday now the church is full of them. They sit to the one side, the Virgin’s side, in the back pews. Afterward they all go to their Mexican grocery store. And what do they buy? Nonna had wondered about that all during Mass one bright morning, and then from church she had followed them. The Mexicans came out of their strange store talking their quick Mexican and carrying bananas and bags of little flat breads. Great bunches of long bananas. So green—
Maybe Mexicans don’t know how to bake with yeast. Nonna realizes her lips are moving again, so she covers her mouth with her hand. If that is true, she thinks, then maybe she should go inside Mr. Antonio Swanks’s new bookstore and see if he has a book on how to use yeast. Then she could bring it to the Mexicans. It might make them happy. When they kneel in the rear pews, the Mexicans never look happy. Nonna shifts her weight from foot to foot, staring at the little white horse.
But the book would have to be in Mexican. And it would cost money, she thinks. She does not have much money. Barely enough for necessities, for neckbones and the beans of coffee and formaggio and aglio and salt. And of course for bread. What was she thinking about? she asks herself. Did she have to go to the store to buy something? Or is she just outside for her walk?
She looks inside the bookstore window and sees a longhaired girl behind the counter. Her head is bent. She is reading. Nonna smiles. It is what a young girl should do when she is in a bookstore. She should study books. When she is in church she should pray for a good husband, someone young, with a job, who will not hit her. Then when she is older, married, she should pray to the Madonna for some children. To have one. To have enough. Nonna nods and begins counting on her fingers. For a moment she stops, wondering where she placed her rosary.
No, she says aloud. She is counting children, not saying the rosary.
Nonna is pleased she has remembered. It is a pleasant thought. Five children for the girl—one for each finger—and one special child for her to hold tightly in her palm. That would be enough. They would keep the girl busy until she became an old woman, and then, if she has been a good mother, she could live with one of her sons. The girl behind the counter turns a page of her book. Nonna wonders what happened to her own children. Where were Nonna’s sons?
She hears a shout from the street. She turns. A carload of boys has driven up, and now, from the long red automobile, the boys are spilling out. Are they her sons? Nonna stares at them. The boys gather around the car’s hood. One thumps his hand on the shining metal on his way to the others. One boy is laughing. She sees his white teeth. He embraces the other boy, then throws a mock punch.
They are not her sons.
She turns back. It is clear to her now that the girl has no children. So that is why she is praying there behind the counter! Nonna wants to go inside so she can tell the unfortunate Mrs. Swanks not to give up her hopes yet, that she is still young and healthy, that there is still time, that regardless of how it appears the holy saints are always listening, always testing, always waiting for you to throw up your hands and say basta and give up so that they can say heh, we would have given you a house full of bambini if only you had said one more novena. Recited one more rosary. Lit one more candle. But you gave up hope. The saints and the Madonna were like that. Time to them does not mean very much. And even God knows that each woman deserves her own baby. Didn’t He even give the Virgin a son?
Poor Mrs. Swanks, Nonna thinks. Her Antonio must not be good for her. It is often the fault of the man. The doctors in New Jersey had told her that. Not once, but many times. That was so long ago. But do you think I listened? Nonna says to herself. For one moment? For all those years? My ears were deaf! Nonna is gesturing angrily with her hands. She strikes the store’s glass window. It was part of Heaven’s test, she is saying, to see if I would stop believing. She pulls her arms to her breasts as she notices the black horses. They stare at her with hollow eyes. Inside the bookstore the manager closes his book and comes toward the window. Nonna watches her close her book and stand, then raise her head. She wears a mustache. It is a boy.
Nonna shuts her eyes and turns. She was thinking of something— But now she has forgotten again. She breathes through her open mouth. It was the boys, she thinks. They did something to upset her. She walks slowly now to slow her racing heart. Did they throw snowballs at me? No, it is not winter again. Nonna looks around at the street and the sidewalk. No, there is no snow. But she feels cold.
Then they must have said something again, she thinks. What was it? Something cruel. She stops on the street. Something about—
The word returns. Bread.
So she is outside to go to the bakery. Nonna smiles. It is a very good idea, she thinks, because she has no bread. She begins walking again, wondering why she had trekked all the way to Taylor Street if she was out only for bread. The Speranza Bakery is on Flournoy Street, she says aloud. Still, it is pleasant today and walking is good for her heart. She thinks of what she might buy. A small roll to soak in her evening coffee?
The afternoon is bright, and Nonna walks up the shaded side of Loomis, looking ahead like an excited child at the statue of Christopher Columbus in the park. She likes the statue. Furry white clouds float behind the statue’s head. Jets of water splash at its feet. She remembers the day the workers uncovered it. There had been a big parade and many important speeches. Was there a parade now? Nonna faces the street. There is only a garbage truck.
So it must not be Columbus Day. Unless the garbage truck is leading the parade. But it is the mayor who leads the parade, Nonna says, and he is not a garbage truck. She laughs at her joke. She is enjoying herself, and she looks again at the green leaves on the trees and at the pure clean clouds in the blue sky.
The mayor, she hears herself saying, is Irish. Nonna wonders why Irish is green. Italia too is green, but it is also red and white. The garbage
truck clattering by her now is blue. So many colors.
She thinks of something but cannot place it. It is something about Italians and the Irish. The mayor. His name. He cannot be paesano because he is not from Italy. But she knows it is something to do with that. At the curb alongside her a pigeon pecks a crushed can.
It is Judas. Nonna remembers everything now. How the mayor unveiled the statue and then switched on the water in the fountain, how all of the neighborhood people cheered him when he waved to them from the street. All the police. Then the people were very angry, and the police held them back. Where did they want to go? Nonna thinks, then remembers. To the university, she says, to the new school of Illinois that the Irish Judas had decided to build in their neighborhood. The mayor’s Judas shovel broke the dirt. And then, one by one, the old Italian stores closed, and the compari and amici boxed their belongings and moved, and the Judas trucks and bulldozers drove in and knocked down their stores and houses. The people watched from the broken sidewalk. Nonna remembers the woman who had tapped on her door, asking if she would sign the petition paper. The paper asked the mayor to leave the university where it was, out on a pier on the lake. Was that any place for a school? Nonna asked the woman. The woman then spoke to her in the old language, but in the Sicilian dialect, saying that Navy Pier was a perfectly good place. Then why build the school here? Nonna said. Daley, the woman said. Because of Mayor Daley. Because he betrayed us. Because he wants to destroy all that the Italians have built. First on the North Side, with the Cabrini Green projects, he drove us out. Now he wants to do it again here. He wants to drive us entirely from his city, even though we have always voted for him and supported his machine. Sign the paper. If you understand me and agree, please sign the paper. For a moment Nonna thinks she is the woman. She looks down to see the paper in her hands.
The Evening News Page 15
