Berto's World_Stories

by R. A. Comunale M. D.

  Next stop, Dr. Agnelli.

  I headed to the free clinic run by my mentor. My legs were lengthening now, along with the rest of my anatomy, and running had become far easier than when I was younger. I didn’t even get winded. I opened the big glass door and was greeted by the nursing staff with whistles and “Hey, Berto.”

  Truth be told, I was pretty damned good-looking as a teen.

  Dr. Agnelli had just finished with a little boy who had supposedly fallen down the stairs and broken his arm. He wasn’t smiling.

  “Mrs. Pesca, are you sure Ignatio fell?”

  He stared into the tremulous woman’s eyes and saw the resolving bruises in the whites and fresh bruises on her arms and forearms.

  He turned to me, and I knew that look. He was angry—not at me or the woman or her son, but at her wife-beating, child-abusing, common-law husband who had done this. He reached for the phone, and as the rotary dial whizzed and clicked out its connecting signal I recognized the number of the local police.

  Mrs. Pesca jumped up and pressed the handset bar down to disconnect him.

  “No, dottore, no! Please, no do this. It make things worse!”

  He shook his head then went to an old, gray-painted, double-drawer filing cabinet and took out an envelope.

  I was astonished when I saw him begin counting out twenty dollar bills—ten of them. He gave the wad to the woman and held her hands.

  “Maria, take this. Go away. Leave him. I don’t want to see either you or your baby dead. Please … for Ignatio.”

  She stood there silently for a moment staring at the floor then took the money and stuffed it into the top of her dress. She was crying as she picked up her son. Dr. Agnelli put his hand on her shoulder and walked her out, all the time telling her it would be all right.

  I wasn’t sure what to do. After what I had just witnessed, nothing I could say would be important. I turned to leave but stopped as the good doctor returned and sat in the old, spring-sprung desk chair. He put his hands to his face briefly then looked up at me. He seemed emotionally drained.

  “Uh, I can come back another time, Dr. Agnelli.”

  “No, Berto, no. Sit down. You look excited. You got a girlfriend, young man?”

  Jeez, did I have something tattooed on my forehead?

  I blushed again.

  “Sit down, Berto, sit down.”

  He went to the refrigerator and took out a Moxie, popped the cap off the bottle, and handed it to me. He picked up his cup of day-old cold coffee and sipped it. I never could drink that stuff. Still can’t.

  “What’s the story?”

  His eyes twinkled even through the fatigue. He looked at me and smiled.

  “Berto, I’m a guy, too. Been there, done that. Capice?”

  I blushed even more and kept looking at the floor.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Bernice.”

  What he said next stunned me.

  “Little Bernice Johnson?”

  I couldn’t help but grin.

  “She’s not so little anymore.”

  He burst out laughing.

  “Neither are you, Berto. Neither are you. Now, how can I help you? I think we’ve already done the birds and bees bit, haven’t we? Besides, if you get even close to that I will box your ears until they fall off. You hear me, young man?”

  I gulped, “Yes, sir.”

  “So, what’s your question?”

  “Uh, what do girls like? You know … what makes them happy?”

  “Berto, you ask a question that has plagued us men ever since Eve fell in with that serpent and lured poor old Adam to his doom. What you’re really asking is how could you make this girl like you, right?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re lucky. Thirteen-year-old girls aren’t too expensive to please. Later on, well, hold onto your wallet, kid. Things will get pretty costly.”

  Ah, Corrado, my old mentor, you don’t know how right you were. I wish I had remembered your words of wisdom in medical school.

  “Right now, Berto, the safest thing is to give her some sweets and maybe take her to the Saturday cartoon show at the theater. Then, if it seems right, stop at the parlor for an ice cream soda. How’s that sound?”

  It sounded great. Only problem was my name wasn’t Rockefeller.

  A smile creased his face as he seemed to read my mind.

  “Let’s see, two movie tickets, two ice-cream sodas, some candy—oh, and a haircut, too, Topsy. Think two bucks will do it?”

  He reached into that magic drawer once more and took out a pair of bills.

  Strange. I still remember looking at those two pieces of gray-green currency with the blue seal and the words SILVER CERTIFICATE on them. I had never held so much money before.

  I couldn’t say anything. It was hard for me to keep my eyes from misting. He ran his hand through my unruly hair and shook my hand. We were now fellow members of the male brotherhood.

  On to Thomas the Barber.

  “Berto, you no come by a while. You have girl?”

  Okay, I give up. Forget the blushing bit. I was ready to shout, “Yeah, I’m horny as hell about this girl.”

  What I did instead was grin and nod my head.

  “She got big bazookas, kid?”

  He cupped his hands on his chest to demonstrate then laughed as I did blush. Damn the autonomic nervous system!

  In a weird way, embarrassing as hell as it was, I was proud that he was able to speak to me that way. Thirteen-year-old guys feel grown up if a real adult thinks they’re old enough for some locker-room humor.

  “What is girl’s name?”

  “Bernice.”

  “Chocolate girl I see hanging with you?”

  I had never heard that expression before. I won’t say what I had heard.

  “She’s beautiful, Thomas … and smart, too.”

  Then he turned serious.

  “Berto, you know I travel world, meet many, many girls.”

  He sighed.

  “I wish I your age again.”

  Then he looked right at me.

  “Color? Mean nothing, boy. It what here…” He tapped his forehead. “And here.” He tapped his chest. “You old enough I tell about North African girl I meet 1921. Want hear?”

  “Uh … ummm … not today, Thomas. I’m gonna ask Bernice to go out with me on Saturday.”

  Two days away. It seemed like forever.

  He raised his hand in forbearance, walked to the back of the shop, opened the old chestnut-wood ice box, took out two Moxies, and handed me one. Good thing there was nothing wrong with my bladder then. Now? Well … you know.

  “Here, Berto, sit in chair.”

  He pointed to the one in the middle, and I hopped up on it—it had been years since I needed that booster cushion. He started to twirl the protective sheet around my neck, when in through the doorway strode Samuel Welch Sr. His son Sammy was my classmate, a mean sonofabitch, and his father was even meaner. He wore his police uniform like a license to harass and bully the locals. He knew he could get away with it, too. The folks here were all immigrants and feared what the police stood for. It was a shame. Most officers were there to help. Sam Sr. was the exception but, like the proverbial bad apple, he gave the rest of the force a black eye.

  “Thomas, I’m in a hurry. I need a shave and a haircut now.”

  “I work on kid first.”

  “That damned dago? Get outta the chair, ya little wop.”

  I quickly vacated my seat. Welch gave me a canine-tooth smirk, and I felt a shiver down my back.

  Thomas said nothing. He wrapped the pinstripe sheet over the cop and started his routine. Snip-snip click, snip-snip click. He seemed to go faster and faster, his scissors in one hand and comb in the other, both hands moving like giant, gray-brown spiders over Welch’s scalp. The hair flew off his head onto the floor. I got up and grabbed the old broom lying against the back wall and began to sweep the clippings into a dustpan and emptied them into the tra
sh barrel.

  Welch snickered as he watched me work.

  “Yeah, kid, now yer learning a trade.”

  Thomas finished the haircut then began to lather the man’s face. He didn’t bother to strop the razor. As it slid across the stubbled cheeks I saw small rivulets of blood seeping down the cop’s thick neck from behind and onto the back of his uniform.

  Thomas finished and wiped Welch’s face. As he stood up from the chair, he looked at me one more time.

  “Hey, kid, you the one hangin’ ‘round with that …?

  What he said is not for family consumption.

  “Your parents know? Hell, you organ grinders ain’t got much taste, but it ain’t natural what yer doin’.”

  I have to stop and catch my breath. Even now, many decades later, I wish I could go back in time and throttle that bastard.

  If you’re too young to know, things were different then. Harry Truman was leaving office, and the administration of former General Dwight David Eisenhower was about to begin. Civil rights leaders were still fighting mostly losing battles. It would be two years before the Supreme Court handed down Brown v. Board of Education and three years before a courageous lady named Rosa Parks kick-started the revolution on that bus in Birmingham, Alabama.

  Samuel Welch Sr. was bigotry in the flesh. If he had lived in Birmingham he would have been one of Bull Connor’s finest.

  He got up, handed Thomas four bits (fifty cents to you youngsters), then tossed a nickel at me.

  “Here, kid, go eat some pissgetti.”

  He guffawed, as I bent over and picked the coin off the floor, a buffalo nickel.

  I let out my breath, as he strutted away unaware of the bloodstain on his shirt. The hair on the back of his head didn’t look right, either.

  Thomas put his finger to his lips, winked, and pointed to another barber chair.

  “I no want you sit where scum sit. I must scrub chair with soap.”

  “I’ll do it for you, Thomas.”

  That day, he gave me the best haircut I ever had. Then he rubbed the back of his hand over my front lip and cheeks.

  “You man now, Berto. I give you shave.”

  By golly, so he did—my first shave. Wow!

  I kept my word. I scrubbed that barber chair, and as I finished Thomas lightly punched my shoulder. He winked and laughingly told me to stop by early Saturday.

  “I put cologne your face. Girls like nice smell.”

  I started to think it was gonna be one helluva Saturday!

  I headed back home at a fast pace. As I passed Mr. Ruddy’s shoe-repair shop, I felt the sole on my left shoe start to flop loosely. My feet were growing even faster than the rest of me, and these were the only shoes that fit even remotely. This I did not need. I hoped he was still open.

  I peered through the window and, sure enough, I saw the cobbler sitting on his toadstool-shaped swivel chair. I had long since stopped being distracted by the absence of anything below his waist.

  I walked in and apologized for bothering him so late in the day.

  “Mr. Ruddy, the sole on my left shoe is starting to work loose, and I…”

  “He’s trying to say he’s got a date on Saturday, Mr. R.”

  What the hell? It was Sal’s voice but…

  Then I looked up and there he was, hanging upside down from the ceiling bars and ropes that Mr. Ruddy used to move around the little workplace. He let himself drop to the floor, monkeylike, and put his hand on my shoulder.

  “Old Berto here’s got a girlfriend. I think he’s in heat.”

  Harold Ruddy’s brilliant blue eyes scanned me. He raised one humongous, muscled arm and held out his hand. I took off the shoe and handed it to him. Those huge fingers peeled off the remaining sole like it was paper. He examined that shoe and then the one still on my right foot and shook his head.

  “Berto, your shoes need a good burial. Don’t you have another pair?”

  I was too embarrassed to answer, and Sal knew it. He looked at Mr. Ruddy and shook his head then patted my shoulder to comfort me.

  I felt like crying. Everything had been going so well. How could I even go to school, much less a date, without shoes that fit?

  Mr. Ruddy understood. He pointed to a shelf along the side wall.

  “Berto, see if any of those fit.”

  “Mr. Ruddy, I can’t take someone else’s shoes!”

  “Kid, they’ve all been sitting there for months. The damned deadbeats who brought them never returned. They’re mine now, and I think you two fellas are smart enough to realize I can’t use them.

  “Come to think of it, little Miss Sally, get yourself a pair, too. I’ve seen you sniffin’ ‘round that Cynthia girl. God, you two guys are turnin’ inta ruttin’ alley cats!”

  That Yoda-like, legless, mushroom man laughed as Sal the big oaf blushed—first time I ever saw that. Mr. Ruddy was right. Sal’s shoes were in about the same shape as mine.

  We stumbled over each other to reach that shelf of dreams. Sal grabbed a set of oxfords and I reached for a pair of brown wingtips.

  They fit!

  Mr. Ruddy surveyed the two of us as we sat on the floor and pulled on our own versions of Dorothy’s ruby slippers.

  “You guys have fun with your dates. God, I still remember that one mademoiselle from Gay Paree. Damned if she didn’t give me the clap. Good thing that artillery shell cured it.”

  Sal and I knew what the clap was by then. We also knew about rubbers. The older kids kept them in their pockets to impress the younger guys like us.

  “Have fun, but be careful. We don’t need any little Sals and Bertos around here—least not yet. And Berto…”

  He paused, uncertain about whether he should say more. Then he tipped his head and continued.

  “Berto, your girl. She’s really the bee’s knees.”

  Sal and I exchanged looks.

  “She’s good lookin’ and cute. Understand?”

  We nodded.

  “She’s also … different.”

  He speeded up his words before I could protest.

  “Berto, listen. I’m different, too. Look at me. You know what I mean. You also know there are assholes out there who live to attack what they don’t understand, what they fear out of ignorance.”

  I had never heard Mr. Ruddy talk like this. I thought of Samuel Welch Sr.

  “Son, all I want is to warn you. Be careful.”

  We both stood up.

  “Mr. Ruddy, can I stay and watch you awhile?”

  “Sal, you want to be a shoemaker?”

  Oh, Sal, I wish to God you had become a shoemaker. You might have lived a lot longer than you did.

  “I dunno. What you do looks neat. ‘Sides, bet I can beat you arm wrestling now, old man.”

  Sal had been working out with weights and was really getting strong.

  Harold Ruddy’s eyes lit up. He swirled around in his chair, put his giant-sized arm on the counter and said, “Come and get it, boy!”

  I left as the two musclemen gripped hands.

  Mama and Papa were sitting at their respective chairs at the table waiting for me to come home for dinner. Papa spotted my shoes first, and I immediately had to explain what happened—and that, no, I didn’t owe Mr. Ruddy money I didn’t have.

  Mama showed me a shirt and a pair of pants she had been saving for me. She smiled and said they were special date pants. Papa winked at me!

  It was Friday…one more day. The morning classes ended with the twelve o’clock bell, and we all raced out to the playground. It was warm enough to lean against the dark-red, brick-walled building. A relic of the nineteenth century, it still possessed gas lamps, in place but no longer used.

  Angie, Tomas, Sal, and I ate the food we had brought wrapped in sheets of newspaper. Our families couldn’t afford metal lunch boxes. Mama had given me an apple and a cabbage sandwich. We had just finished when we heard some of the girls screaming and yelling Sammy Welch’s name.

  I looked up to see the
Welch kid pulling on Bernice’s hair and calling her that hateful name. She was crying for him to stop.

  I saw Sister Mercy Grace watching. She did nothing.

  I ran over and yelled at him to quit it. He snickered and called me another name having to do with Bernice’s ancestry, my affection for her, and my own ancestry. His face became feral, as he faced me and held up his arms, fists clenched.

  Sam’s father had taught him to box, and he knew he could put my lights out easily.

  Tomas and Angie wanted to help, but Sal held them back. I heard him telling them that I had to do this myself.

  I did the only thing a gentleman could do when faced with overwhelming odds. I yelled “Pearl Harbor” and kicked him in the balls.

  Out of nowhere Sister Mercy Grace suddenly appeared next to me. She grabbed my left ear and started to pull me toward the principal’s office. Once more I heard Sal. This time it was a man’s voice.

  “Leggo his ear, Sister!”

  She stopped on a dime, turned to look at him—and let go. Through clenched teeth she told me follow her. We walked through an honor guard of other kids, some of the girls blowing kisses to me. It would have been a real turn on if I hadn’t known what my destination was.

  I stood before Sister Dominic Grace. She was smaller than I was, but she was mighty, exuding an aura of authority none of us dared challenge. She was not only principal of the school but also Mother Superior of the adjacent convent. Except for the parish priest, she was the big boss.

  “Roberto Galen, you surprise me. I’ve never had to discipline you before.”

  She turned to Sister Mercy Grace.

  “What happened?”

  I stood in open-mouthed amazement as this so-called woman of God made me the aggressor. She made no mention of Sammy’s bullying of Bernice or his awful language. I couldn’t help it. I turned to her and shouted, “That’s not true!”

  In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say.

  I rattled off what happened and finished by asking Sister Dominic Grace to call in Bernice and some of the other kids in to verify my story.

  “Roberto, go on back outside. Go to the boy’s room and wash your face and hands.”

  She opened the door to her office and let me out. As I walked away, I heard Sister Mercy Grace’s voice rise as she snarled, “I warned you not to let that ... that girl come here.”