by F. P. Lione
Hoots and shouts of “Here! Here!” could be heard around the room.
“Great,” I mumbled as Michele stood next to me.
“Tony and Michele,” Vinny started, looking like he was gonna cry. “I’d like to wish the both of you a very happy marriage. May you have many more children and nothing but good times all of your life. Salute!”
“Salute!” the crowd cheered. Vinny handed the microphone back to Gino, who added, “And may all your ups and downs be between the sheets!” Some numbskull always has to say it.
The crowd cheered for that too, and I looked over at Michele, who colored a little but smiled anyway.
“Okay everybody, enjoy the food,” Gino said, and the tables emptied as people made their way to the buffet. The room got quieter as everyone sat down to eat.
12
Once dinner was over, all of the males in my family from about twelve years old on went over to the bar for shots of sambuca. The bartender lined them up while the room chanted, “Tony! Tony! Tony!”
The guys from my precinct went over to the bar for a shot, leaving Fiore and all the wives sitting there. I was standing in the middle of the dance floor, on my way down to the bathroom, when they started. I looked over at Michele, who was talking to Donna. I guess I looked panic-stricken, and I felt like everyone in the room was looking at me, which they were. My mother seemed disgusted as she watched them, especially my father, but gave a small smile and a wink when she saw me looking at her.
My cousin Paulie brought a shot over to me, then put his arm around my shoulder while holding his own shot in the other hand.
“Salute!” He held up his glass.
“Salute!” everyone cheered.
Michele gave me what looked to be a “Go ahead” nod, and I threw back the shot but didn’t drink all of it. It burned my throat and my eyes teared, but I held up the glass to everybody so they could clap.
Yeah, clap, you morons, I thought. The alcoholic just had a drink, highlights at eleven.
I walked over to Fiore’s table and set the shot glass down. I guess I wanted them to see that I didn’t drink it all.
“Don’t worry about it, honey,” Michele said as she forced a smile. “There was nothing else you could do without making a scene.”
“There’s no booze at the wedding, right?” I asked. “There’s those little complimentary bottles of wine from the vineyard at each table as the favors, and a champagne toast, but that’s it,” she said.
Our wedding is an afternoon thing at one of the wineries on the North Fork of Long Island. Since it’s an afternoon and in the off-season, it was pretty reasonable. The place is beautiful, and the people who go there drink wine and listen to classical music. My family leans toward shots of sambuca and Frank Sinatra. If there’s no booze there, I’ll probably find most of them in some local dive halfway through the wedding, like they do at the funerals.
Gino started playing “YMCA,” and Grandma was out on the dance floor lifting her arms up and down trying to make the letters. The next song was a slow one, and Gino called Michele and me out to the dance floor.
Since the last time I danced I was in my underwear doing a bar slide, I felt a little self-conscious. “You alright there?” I asked Michele, keeping my voice low while we danced.
“So far, so good,” she said.
“No way, babe—the alcohol hasn’t started taking effect yet. They’ll really get going in about an hour.”
“You did your shot, you could get out of the next one.” She smiled at everyone while she talked.
“That’s it for me. My future son is here—don’t want to set a bad example,” I said, smiling back.
“He didn’t even see it. When Paulie walked over to you, your mother brought him over to show him the cake,” she said.
We clapped when the song ended and got off the dance floor, heading for Fiore’s table, when “The Twist” came on. Denise was still talking to Romano, but she grabbed Stevie and pulled him out on the dance floor.
“You okay, buddy?” Fiore asked.
“A little more relaxed now that I have a little sambuca in me,” I laughed.
“There was nothing you could do without drawing more attention to it. You didn’t even finish it.” He nodded to the glass, still about a third of the way full.
“Yeah, but I still drank it.”
A couple of my cousin’s kids were there; they were gathered around the karaoke machine, picking out songs. Paulie’s daughter, who was probably thirteen but looked nineteen, took the microphone and started singing a Britney Spears song. She was moving her hips and pointing at one of the other kids as she sang, “Oops! I Did It Again.” She sang off-key and looked ridiculous. I’m not saying I’ve never sung karaoke, I’ve just never done it without a few hours of drinking behind me.
My uncle Henny was next to grab the mic. He was wearing a blue suit and was holding a drink against his stomach. He had dyed black hair and a jowly face with broken blood vessels from years of whiskey sours. He was singing “Hound Dog” while he swayed his hips, rheumatoid style, doing a bad impression of Elvis.
Stevie was still dancing with Denise, only now Romano had joined them and put Stevie on his shoulders. They clapped while Uncle Henny sang.
Gino called my father into the middle of the dance floor and played the song everyone in the family always says is about him, “Macho Man.” The crowd on the dance floor circled my father while he hammed it up, sticking his fists in the air, egging them on.
“I’ll be right back,” I told Michele.
“Where are you going?” she asked, and I hoped she wasn’t worried about me having a drink.
“Gonna use the bathroom.” I wanted to say a quick “I’m sorry” to God about the drinking. I still have some of that old “God’s gonna get me” mentality and I had to shake it off.
I went downstairs and saw there was a line outside the bathroom.
It was smaller down here, with dark-paneled walls adorned with the American Legion crest, Sons of the American Legion, and the American Legion Auxiliary.
The old-timers were sitting around the bar, their eyes glued to a baseball game on the TV perched over the bar.
There was one guy waiting in line for the bathroom; since he wasn’t from my party, we weren’t talking to each other. I concentrated on reading the notices on the wall. Monday is hot wing night, twenty cents a wing. I folded my arms and read about an upcoming spaghetti dinner, complete with bread and salad for five bucks. The budget meeting was Wednesday, Bingo was Friday. I heard Marie’s voice and looked over to see her on the pay phone with her back to me.
“I can’t get away, Bobby,” she said impatiently. “It’s an engagement party for Vince’s son—I have to be here.”
She played with the metal wire to the phone while she listened, then said, “Yeah, well, Vince isn’t as stupid as Ellen. No one could be as stupid as Ellen, and he didn’t buy the trip to Florida thing—he called my mother.” More listening and an impatient huff. “Bobby, she didn’t tell him anything except that I went to the beach for the day. She understands what I’m going through.”
I wanted to take the phone out of her hand and rip it out of the wall. I couldn’t believe she had the nerve to call her boyfriend while her husband was upstairs at her stepson’s engagement party. I took a step toward her and heard her say, “I’m not going to empty the account until I’m ready to leave.”
My head snapped up at that.
“Vince checks it all the time, and he wants to invest it with Pete Catalano’s son-in-law, supposedly he’s some financial wiz. No, I won’t get half his pension. We haven’t been married for ten years.”
Whatever he said seemed to aggravate her more, and she said, “No, I can’t stick it out for a few more years!”
I thought about all the damage Marie had done to my family because she supposedly loved my father so much. Just last Christmas she was telling me and Denise that he had to leave our family because he was so miserable wit
h us and she made him happy. She reminded me of the tornados I see on the weather channel. They blast through, oblivious to the damage they do, and move on looking for something else to destroy.
The bathroom door opened, and the guy in front of me walked in. As I moved up, Marie looked over her shoulder and saw me standing there.
“Are you spying on me?” she asked indignantly.
“I’m waiting to use the bathroom,” I said angrily.
“You’re a snake, Tony,” she spat.
“I’m a snake? You’re really something, lady.” I shook my head.
“I have to go,” she said into the phone and hung up. “Don’t you have anything better to do than snoop in my business, like make sure your mother isn’t at the bar sneaking a drink?” She folded her arms to enhance her already augmented chest.
She smiled when she caught me looking, but the smile dropped when she realized it was with disgust.
“Get out of my way,” she said as she pushed past me and headed for the stairs.
“I like your apartment,” I called after her.
She stopped and turned. “What apartment?”
“The one in Brooklyn.”
“I don’t have an apartment in Brooklyn.”
She said it nasty, but I knew I had her.
“I’m telling my father, and don’t even try to empty the bank accounts,” I said, dead serious.
She smiled. “He won’t believe you.”
“I know,” I said. “But I have pictures, and a copy of the lease to your apartment with Bobby Egan.”
“You had me followed?” She had the chutzpah to look appalled.
“No, but someone else did. I just wound up with the information. You’d think you’d be more careful—didn’t your last husband catch you the same way?”
“Don’t mess with me, Tony, you’ll only get hurt.”
“Oh yeah, tough girl, what are you gonna do? Marry my father and make my life miserable?” I laughed cynically.
She threw out something more suitable for a dockworker and turned to walk upstairs.
I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. I looked at myself in the mirror and tried to feel right about what I said to her. The truth was I was mad at myself for stooping to her level, and for drinking the shot of booze. I told God I was sorry and asked for some help. I looked at my watch—4:00. Two more hours of this and I could leave.
The party was rocking when I got back upstairs, and the train passed me as it made its way around the room.
Grandma’s next-door neighbor Margie was leading the train. She was grayhaired, stoopshouldered, and doublewide, wearing blue polyester pants, a white turtleneck, and orthopedic shoes. She kept pulling an imaginary horn, yelling, “Toot! Toot!”
“Come on, Tony,” Grandma said as she passed. She pulled me in behind her, and I tried to follow as my hands slipped on the material of her pantsuit.
I choo-chooed around the room, grabbing Stevie from Denise. He was sweating and his cheeks were flushed, so I took his jacket off him and tossed it on a chair.
Gino pulled out a box of party favors, blow-up guitars, big plastic hammers, sunglasses, glow necklaces, and those Hawaiian things you put around your neck. Being a deejay he gets them cheap, but he probably charged my grandmother an arm and a leg for them.
He put on the song “Hammer Time,” and everyone started bashing each other with the hammers. Denise saw Marie standing at the edge of the dance floor, scowling at me. I saw Denise smile, and she walked over to Marie and hit her with the hammer, hard enough to knock her head to the side.
“It’s hammer time, Marie!” Denise yelled, laughing.
“Oh no,” I said, walking toward them.
Marie’s hair was messed where Denise hit her, and she was spitting mad. She looked like she was gonna go after Denise, but she saw me coming over. She told Denise where she could stick the hammer and stomped over to the bar.
“Sorry,” Denise said, laughing and not looking sorry at all.
“I just want to get through this without a brawl, okay?” I said calmly, holding up my hands.
“Okay, no more. I promise,” she said seriously.
“Good shot,” I said, wishing I was the one wielding the hammer.
The guys from work were having a good time. Cops are funny like that—no matter how raunchy and obnoxious they are, when your family’s around they act right.
Everyone was getting wild now, and with the exception of the table with Michele’s family, everyone was on the dance floor or at the bar. Michele was dancing with Donna, and when the song ended and some line dance that everyone else seemed to know started, she walked over to me.
“Your mother looks like she’s gonna have a stroke,” I said as I nodded toward her mother, who was watching the dance floor and playing with her necklace.
“No, finding out I was pregnant with Stevie and not getting married almost gave her a stroke. She’ll put up with anything as long as there’s a ring on my finger.”
“Let’s elope,” I said. “Now, this week.”
“No way, Cavalucci, I want to see you wear the monkey suit,” she said, kissing me.
“I don’t know, legs, I’m picturing a beach, maybe in Maui at sunset. Flowers in your hair, no family.” I put my arm around her.
“You’re just picturing no family,” she chuckled.
“A beautiful hotel,” I continued. “Breakfast in bed, white sand beaches, no family.”
“Forget it,” she said. “I want a wedding.”
Uncle Charlie, my mother’s brother, was singing Sinatra now. “Is he for real?” I asked as he started singing “My Way.” He was drunk and dramatic, and when he sang, “I did it my way,” everyone else sang, “I did it sideways.”
They brought out the trays of cookies and the cake and acted like it was a wedding. They had Michele and me cut it and feed each other a piece. They whooped it up when we were feeding each other, hoping one of us would go off and smash the other in the face, stuffing canolli cream up in our nostrils.
My cousin Michael, Uncle Charlie’s son who’s two years older than me, showed up late. As usual, he was dressed like a psycho. Black T-shirt, jeans, black stomper boots, a spike dog collar, and his hair cut in a Mohawk. There’s always been something wrong with him. When we were kids, his favorite pastime was torturing cats and scaring girls. Denise still twitches when she sees him.
Gino played the “Electric Slide,” and the tables emptied again as everyone hit the dance floor. Stevie was in a sugar rush now, and his face was flushed as he rolled around on the floor. He alternated between playing his blow-up guitar and bashing whoever was next to him with it. He looked up and saw my cousin Michael’s Mohawk and stared at him for a minute before running away.
The younger kids were on the dance floor now. All the girls looked the same in low-waisted jeans, belly shirts, clodhopper shoes, and long straight hair. I was surprised at the amount of tattoos and belly rings I saw on the girls. I couldn’t believe that their parents let them do that at sixteen years old.
The guys were more or less dressed the same, in beige pants and black button-down shirts. One of them stuck out by wearing an orange shirt with a grey bulldog on it.
I was standing by the dance floor, making sure Marie didn’t come after Denise, when Michele came over, fanning herself from the heat.
“Having fun?” I asked.
She smiled at me. “Yeah, come and dance.”
“Give me a minute.”
“What’s the matter? You look upset.”
“I’m fine,” I said. We stood, not talking, watching everyone on the dance floor.
Little Gina was really going now, gyrating in sync to some disco song. She danced around my father seductively, and if he was sitting down, it would have been a lap dance. I was half expecting him to stick a dollar bill down her shirt.
Michael had pulled Grandma out on the dance floor, and she wiped out in the middle of “Cotton-Eyed Joe,” a compl
icated-looking country line jig. She fell into Little Gina, who fell into my father, and they all wound up on the floor. Aunt Rose had half a load on and wound up in the middle of the dance floor, doing the worm in her muumuu.
“Just think,” I said, “pretty soon you’ll be related to all these people.”
Michele gave an unladylike snort.
The dance floor cleared as Gino changed the music back over to the Italian songs “That’s Amore,” “Buono Sera,” and “Shaddup-a You Face.” I danced with my mother to “Mama” and called it a day.
I made nice, collected envelopes at each table, kissed cheeks, and schmoozed with everyone. I walked Michele and Stevie out to the car. He was tired and cranky and would probably pass out before they got out of the parking lot.
“Are you coming out to the house tomorrow?” she asked.
“No, I have something to take care of,” I said.
“What?”
“I’ll talk to you about it tomorrow.” She looked concerned and I said, “It’s nothing. I love you—go home and dream about me.”
I had given Michele the envelopes from the party to go through so she could put the money in the safe I keep out on Long Island. We’d have to go through them and sign the checks and put the money in the account we opened out there.
I breathed a sigh of relief when the only people left were Denise and Romano, who was sticking to her like glue, me, Fiore, and Donna. We were standing outside on the front steps where me, Romano, and Denise were smoking cigarettes.
“Tony, are you coming out to the island tonight?” Donna asked.
“No, you two need a night without me,” I said.
“We don’t mind, Tony, you know that,” Fiore said.
“I know, Joe, I appreciate it. I have some stuff to do tomorrow.” Like go see my father.
When I first met Joe, I had been flirting with the idea of eating my gun. When he realized how depressed I was, he wouldn’t leave me alone. We went back and forth from me staying with him and him staying with me, until I was out of the woods. It seems like a long time ago, when in reality it’s been less than a year. I get hit with waves of gratitude toward him sometimes, but I didn’t want to get too emotional about it. Instead, I threw a dig to Romano.
