Clear Blue Sky

by F. P. Lione

  “No, but I didn’t want you worrying that she’d be coming to the house. I don’t know what I thought, but I thought it would be better if I kept my mouth shut about it.”

  “I’m glad you told me, Tony, about Kim and wanting a drink.”

  “Is this the part where you tell me you’re glad but you’re really mad and this really isn’t over?”

  “Only if it happens again,” she said.

  We talked for a while, and I put on ESPN to watch the game highlights. Both New York teams won. The Yankees beat Boston 3 to 2 up in the Bronx. The Mets were down in Florida and beat the Marlins 6 to 1. I sat there until my eyes were closing and finally went to bed around 1:00.

  11

  I woke up at 8:30 to the sound of kids playing. I had slept with the window open and wound up having to grab a blanket in the middle of the night. I heard what sounded like a skateboard on the sidewalk outside. I guess the block was already closed off for the party and the kids were taking advantage of playing in the street. The “No Parking Today” signs are posted the day before, so the kids are up at the crack of dawn to cross the street without hearing the screech of tires and having to run for their lives while they dodge cars.

  I heard Alfonse calling for Julia to bring out the tablecloths, and I could hear the scrape of his picnic table against the concrete.

  I put some coffee on and jumped in the shower. It was cool in my apartment, and I put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, but it’d probably be 80 degrees by noon and I’d have to change.

  Someone knocked on my door at 9:00, and when I opened the door there were two foil-covered trays sitting outside it. I thought it was from Sandy across the street until I heard Denise talking to Alfonse.

  “Oh, these are beautiful, I love figs!” she said. “Thank you. Should I rinse them?”

  “Ah, just eat them, you’ll be fine,” he said.

  I guess they were picking them right off the trees. He had two big trees with the purple figs, and they were perfect this time of year. He’s been giving me figs for a couple of weeks now, but I never get sick of them.

  “Wait till my grandmother sees these,” Denise said. “Her and my grandfather always had fig trees. When he had a stroke they sold the house, and now she’s in an apartment.”

  I couldn’t hear what Alfonse said after that; they were walking toward the front of the house.

  I was taking one of the trays in when Denise came back down the stairs. She was dressed in low-riding jean shorts that showed off her belly-button ring, black sandals, and a skimpy red shirt, and her hair was long and straight. She was carrying two glass-handled bottles of mudslide mix.

  “Hey, Tony,” she said as she kissed my cheek. “I’m glad you’re up already.”

  “Mudslides?” I nodded at the bottles.

  “Yeah,” she said, daring me to say something.

  “I don’t remember asking you to bring any booze,” I snapped.

  “I’m glad you’re in such a good mood. Hopefully, you’ll cheer up by the time everyone gets here,” she said.

  “Who’s everybody?” I asked. “I don’t remember inviting everybody.”

  “Vinny, Christie, Dad, Marie, Mom, Ron—”

  “Who’s Ron?” I cut her off.

  “I told you, the guy Mom’s been seeing. Plus, you invited Aunt Rose, Aunt Elena, and the cousins.

  “I didn’t invite them, they invited themselves,” I said.

  “Either way, they’re coming,” Denise said as she put the mudslides on the counter and started out the door again. “Give me a hand with the food.”

  “What did you bring?” I asked.

  “I made potato salad, the one with the scallions and bacon that you like. This tray is ribs, I marinated them. The other is Jell-O Jigglers for the kids. I made a tossed salad and a fruit salad.”

  The truth is, whenever we have a party or dinner Denise always comes early to help set up. She cooks food and then stays to clean up. I like that about her.

  “Thanks, Denise, I appreciate it,” I said.

  She had to ruin it by saying, “And I brought a bunch of those test-tube tequila shots,” when she was already halfway up the steps.

  “Are you out of your mind?” I yelled at her. “Things are bad enough with everyone to begin with. Mom’s bringing her new boyfriend, and you bring shots of tequila? You know better than that. Get rid of them.”

  “Excuse me? You’re the one that decided to have a block party, Tony, not me,” she said. “And then you go and invite the whole family, cousins, aunts, uncles, and expect me to get through it without alcohol? You’re the one that’s out of your mind. The tequila stays.”

  “If anyone dies, remember who brought the tequila,” I said, pointing my finger at her.

  We walked outside, and I saw the street cleared of cars. Kids were on their bikes and skateboards. Sandy’s two kids were trying out their roller skates, and Chris and Joanne, a fireman and his wife who live two doors down from me, were out with their five daughters, who were writing on the street with chalk.

  Up and down the street people were setting up their tables and chairs and barbeques. At the corner the police barriers were set up, closing off the street. The rides we rented for the day were there. A huge red blow-up slide that looked about twenty feet long was already inflated. They were working on the moon walk, which still had a ways to go. Some of the kids were standing around watching, and I was sure the rubber on the ride would probably stink of feet by this afternoon.

  The way we do the block party is all the families chip in and pool their money. The money covers the permit, the rides, the face painters, a candy cart, and a DJ. Everyone is responsible for their own food and drinks, and the fire trucks show up for nothing.

  The weather was perfect, clear and cool without a cloud in the sky.

  “Tony, do you have a picnic table?” Denise asked.

  “No, but Alfonse has two folding tables he said I can use. Joe’s bringing chairs, and I told Paulie to bring chairs. If we run out, Alfonse said he’s got a bunch in the garage.”

  “Is Romano coming?” I asked, thinking maybe he got called into work.

  “Yeah, he’s picking up his daughter. He’ll be here about noon,” Denise said.

  “You brought booze and Romano’s kid’s gonna be here? What’s wrong with you?”

  “For your information, Mr. Twelve Stepper, she’s only gonna be here for a couple of hours. The booze is for when she leaves. And before you get all high and mighty, I can remember plenty of parties where you were not only the one bringing the booze, but you were drinking most of it. Remember? BC?”

  “What’s BC?” I asked.

  “Before Christ.”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head, a classic look I inherited from my father that says “You’re a moron” without saying a word. I got the tables and chairs out of the garage. They were sturdy folding tables, kind of like the ones they use in the cafeterias at school. They were old and stained, and Julia brought me out white tablecloths to cover them. Denise made a couple of trips for the metal folding chairs while I helped Alfonse carry the barbeque out to the front of the house. He wanted me to help him put together a plastic canopy in case it got too hot in the sun for anyone. We wrestled with it for a half hour and just about had it together when a breeze hit it and sent it tumbling.

  At around 10:30 Denise took a ride with me to the beer distributor on Hylan Boulevard where we picked up ice and soda. Denise had the kid that worked there pick up two cases of Budweiser and carry them to the counter for her.

  “You’re killin’ me, Denise,” I said. “I don’t want any problems today, and you keep loading up the drinks.”

  “Tony, there’s not enough liquor here to get me drunk, never mind fifty people.”

  “If that’s not enough liquor to get you drunk, you’ve got problems,” I said. “Plus, birdbrain, we can’t drive down the street, we have to carry it from wherever we can get a parking spot.”

  We bic
kered back and forth until we got back. I had to park two blocks down from my corner. I saw Fiore and Donna and the three kids and hit the horn. When they turned around I realized Fiore’s parents were with them. I forgot they were coming and was glad they were there. I love Joe’s parents. His father, Lou, is big, round, and balding. His mother, Connie, is pretty, short, and round, with dark red hair and pretty green eyes.

  “Tony Baloney,” Lou said, shaking my hand and pulling me in for a hug.

  “Big Lou, good to see ya. Hey, Connie, looking beautiful as always,” I said, giving her a kiss.

  “Here, Denise, let me help you with that,” Lou said, taking a case of beer she was trying to lift out of the car while he carried three folding chairs with his other hand. If he disapproved of the beer he didn’t say anything, and he and Joe helped us carry everything to my house.

  I had bought a small charcoal grill, and Joe fired it up while I filled up two coolers with ice, one for soda and one for Denise’s beer and the mudslide mix.

  Michele and Stevie got there next, dressed in shorts and T-shirts. Michele had brought Stevie’s bicycle, a little two-wheeler with the training wheels still on. She wanted Stevie to keep a hat on. His skin’s pretty light and he burns easy, but he said it was too hot. We got some sunscreen on him, and Joe went back to his van for Josh and Joey’s bikes. Little Gracie, Joe’s daughter, was pushing a little pink stroller around. She smiled when she saw me and lifted her arms for me to pick her up. She was finally getting some hair, and it was dark and straight with a clip thing on top of it.

  “Hey, Gracie, is your baby in there?” I asked her, kissing her cheek and pointing at the carriage.

  She gave me a blank look.

  “What’s in the stroller?” I peeked in to see what she had, figuring it was a baby doll or something. The ugliest stuffed gorilla was in there, covered with a pink blanket.

  “Is that your baby?” I asked her.

  She looked at me like I was a moron and shook her head no.

  Donna heard me and laughed. “Tony, I have no idea what it is with the gorilla, she loves it. Joey got it at the zoo, and we can’t get it away from her.”

  “We have incoming,” I heard Denise say, and I looked up the block to see my father, my grandmother, and Marie walking toward us. They had released Grandma from the hospital the morning after I was there, telling her she’d had an anxiety attack.

  “I thought Dad wasn’t talking to you,” Denise said.

  “He’s not. I don’t know why he’s here,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Because I won’t talk to him and you’re not around a lot,” she said. “He has no one to fight with.”

  I heard the pipes of a Harley and saw a motorcycle parking near the corner.

  “Tell me that isn’t Mom,” I said.

  “Trust me, Tony, you’ll like Ron,” Denise said.

  My father was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt, with his hair slicked back DeNiro style. Marie was wearing white shorts small enough to be underwear, a little black shirt with plenty of cleavage showing, and black-heeled sandals. It’s funny, no matter how much I go to church and want to serve God, I can’t seem to get past how I feel about Marie. I don’t hate her like I used to, but as much as I try, I still can’t stomach her.

  Grandma was wearing black shorts that came to her knobby knees, gold shoes, and a black T-shirt decorated with gold sparkles. After my grandfather died she went the way of her foremothers and dressed in all black mourning clothes, but her partiality for cheesy gold and sparkly materials won out, and it only lasted about a month. Either that or it was her way of spitting on my grandfather’s grave, I couldn’t tell.

  Traditionally when in mourning, Italian men wear black ties and armbands for a year, while the women wear black for the rest of their lives. The tradition isn’t practiced much now, but some of the old Italians still do it.

  I eyed up Ron as he walked down the street holding hands with my mother. He looked about fifty, a little chubby, with dark brown hair and blue eyes. He looked like a nice guy in a jolly kind of way. My mother looked good. She was dressed in jeans and a white tank top. Her dark red hair was a little windblown, and when she got closer I could tell she was nervous. Ron was carrying a big bakery box tied up with red string.

  “Grandma Marilyn,” Stevie yelled as he rode over to her on his bike.

  Her face lit up when she saw him, and she pulled something out of her pocket to give him as she gave him a kiss. It looked like candy from where I was standing, and I saw him unwrap it and put it in his mouth.

  When we were kids and she pulled something out of her pocket, it was money to get her cigarettes or to stop at the liquor store. Believe it or not, back then she could call ahead to the deli or the liquor store and tell them what to give us.

  My father held up a foil-covered tray. “Tony, where do you want this?”

  “What is it?”

  “Antipasti,” he said. “Your grandmother made it even though she’s supposed to be taking it easy.”

  “Put it on the table in the shade. How’re you feeling, Grandma?” I asked as she kissed and hugged me.

  “Well, I went to bingo last night at St. Michael’s with Lucy Dellatore, but I got tired and had to leave early.”

  “You just got out of the hospital,” my father said. “You shouldn’t be going to bingo.”

  If Grandma went to bingo, then she was fine. She’s been going to Friday night bingo at St. Michael’s for as long as I can remember. But she doesn’t go for the bingo, it’s the side bets she loves. You’d be amazed at how much gambling goes on at St. Michael’s on a Friday night. Kinda like offtrack betting, but with old Italian women in rolled-down stockings.

  Denise hasn’t spoken to my father since last Christmas, so she breezed past him and Marie and gave a hug and kiss to my mother and Ron. My father’s face got red when she did it, but I didn’t know if he was mad at her, Ron, or my mother.

  I saw Marie look my mother up and down and then walk up to Ron with her hand out.

  “Hi, I’m Marie Cavalucci, Vince’s wife,” she said and smiled.

  “Ron Dumbrowski,” he said, shaking her hand.

  “Dumbrowski?” My father choked on a laugh. “Come on, Marilyn, a Pollack?”

  Ron put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to my mother.

  “I told ya,” she said and smiled and passed the twenty bucks on to Denise.

  Denise smiled and shook her head while she stuck the bill in her shorts. “So predictable.”

  My father looked confused for a second, but then Ron put his hand out to my father and said, “That’s the thing about having a name like Dumbrowski, you learn how to fight young.” He said it with a smile, but my father got the message. Not so stupid for a guy with a name like Dumbrowski.

  “You’re looking good, Marilyn,” my father said and smiled.

  We all stood there, shocked. I don’t think anyone was as shocked as Marie, who looked like he’d bit her. It’s not that my mother didn’t look good, it’s just that he’s never had a nice thing to say about her.

  I saw the uh-oh look on Michele’s face and the wave of panic that came after it. She’d been around long enough that she knew what was gonna cause a fight. Marie hated my mother, so anyone, especially my father, saying anything nice to her was a declaration of war. Plus, Michele knew that whether or not she said hello to everyone was important. To give her credit, she sucked it up and smiled and said hello to everyone. My mother, Ron, and Denise all gave her a kiss and hug, but my father and Marie just gave her a nod, and when she tried to kiss Grandma, Grandma turned her face.

  “Tough crowd,” Lou Fiore said.

  “You have no idea,” Michele said.

  I could feel the tension, and I guess Lou did too because he said to everyone in general, “How about those Mets last night, ha?” Baseball is Lou’s answer to everything.

  “We’re Yankee fans,” Grandma said.

  “Ya
nkee fans? How about some Yankee trivia?” Lou smiled and looked around.

  “And you know so much about baseball?” my father asked.

  I don’t know why he’s so obnoxious sometimes. Lou was just trying to be nice.

  “I love the game,” Lou said with a shrug. “I know a little about it.”

  “Okay, so ask me something, see if you can stump me,” my father said as he smiled and lit a cigarette. It wasn’t a happy smile; it was an arrogant smile. “But only about New York teams, they’re the only ones I follow.”

  “Okay,” Lou said, clapping twice and rubbing his hands together. “Let’s see, you guys are Yankee fans. We’ll start if off easy. What’s the name of the song that is played at the end of the game when the Yankees win at home?”

  “That’s simple,” my father said. “‘New York, New York’ by Frank Sinatra.”

  “That’s right.” Lou nodded. “What song is played at the end of the game when they lose at home?”

  Of course nobody knew the song. I didn’t even know the song even though I’ve been at Yankee Stadium when they lost.

  “So what’s the song?” This from my father.

  “‘New York, New York,’ but the original version by Liza Minelli.”

  “Okay, you got me,” my father said. “I have one for you. Only one player in baseball history has ever played on the winning team in the World Series ten times. Who was it?”

  My father didn’t realize Lou knew everything about baseball and he’d know this.

  “That would be Yogi Berra,” Lou said, which wasn’t bad until he added, “Of course, he played for the Yankees. I’ll even give you the years—1947 and 1949, 1950 through 1953 . . . let’s see that’s six”—he was counting on his hands—“1956, 1958, 1961, and 1962.”

  I saw how mad my father was getting.

  “Dad, you’ll never get him,” I said, trying to laugh. “I’ve tried a lot of times. I even took books out of the library, and I couldn’t stump him.”

  “Are you saying he’s smarter than me?” His eyebrows shot up. “Who is this guy, anyway?” He nodded toward Lou.