Return to Shepherd Avenue

by Charlie Carillo

  What’d you pay for that long tablecloth? You coulda put two short ones together!

  Not this time, Connie. Not this time.

  * * *

  On Sunday Vic pulled up in front of the house in his rusting Chevy and tapped the horn three times. He obviously didn’t want to come inside, and when I got into his car I was shocked to see him wearing a white shirt and a tie.

  “Jesus, Vic, you didn’t tell me to dress up!”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Where the hell are you taking me?”

  “Not far.”

  Vic was clean-shaved and his hair was immaculately combed. It was a look he couldn’t quite sell. He looked like a criminal desperately trying to make a good impression on a jury.

  I was wearing tattered jeans and a T-shirt under my peacoat. We rode in silence until Vic started talking about his baseball team.

  “Got ‘em playin’ fall ball,” he said. “It’s a little cold out, so all they can do is complain about how much their hands sting when they hit the ball. Makin’ their fathers buy ‘em batting gloves. You believe this shit? What the hell is happening to boys? Have they all gone soft?”

  “Vic, where are we going?”

  “We’re there,” he said, making a turn into the entrance at St. John’s Cemetery, and I knew immediately where we were going: Connie and Angie’s final resting place.

  “It’s her birthday,” Vic said, pulling into the parking lot. “She would have been one hundred and five years old today.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Anyway, I do this every year. Didn’t feel like going alone this time. You’ve never been back, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you’re overdue. Come on, we won’t stay long.”

  Vic carried a small paper bag on the walk through the cemetery. Here and there a spray of cut flowers put a little color into the otherwise gray scene.

  “If I’d known where you were taking me I could have brought flowers.”

  “What for?”

  “It’s a nice touch.”

  Vic chuckled. “Think back. Was my mother the type to appreciate flowers? You can’t eat flowers. Did you ever see a single bouquet on Shepherd Avenue?”

  “All right, forget I said anything. Just let me enjoy this surprise of yours.”

  At last we came upon the two tombstones, Connie’s and Angie’s, side by side. Angie’s stone seemed to sag a bit but Connie’s stood upright, straight and true.

  Vic put a hand on my shoulder. “I appreciate you comin’ with me, Joey.”

  “I’m not crazy about cemeteries.”

  “Nobody is. But once a year won’t kill you.”

  “You don’t come here on Angie’s birthday?”

  “Nope. This is a two-fer visit. I commemorate both birthdays at once.”

  “I feel kind of funny coming here empty-handed.”

  “We’re not empty-handed.”

  From the paper bag Vic removed and unwrapped a cream cheese bagel, which he set atop Connie’s tombstone.

  “Happy hundred and five, Ma.”

  Then he took out a pack of Chesterfield unfiltered cigarettes, which he placed atop Angie’s stone.

  “Sorry I forgot the matches, Pop.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “Christ, Vic!”

  “You remember how my mother loved cream cheese bagels, and my father with his Chesterfields?”

  I remembered. I had to laugh. “Once I hid his cigarettes, trying to get him to quit. This was after you left to play ball. He came into my room and picked me up by my elbows, holding me straight out. What a grip, and his forearms bulging like Popeye’s! ‘Where’d you put ‘em?’ he asked me, calm as could be. Me dangling like a kitten who’d just wet the floor, and him not even trembling. Jesus, he was strong! He must have held me five minutes before I broke down and told him the cigarettes were under my bed.”

  Vic had never heard that story. His eyes were shiny with tears. “How could somebody that strong die so young?” he wondered out loud. “He wasn’t even sixty! And poor you, sittin’ right next to him when it happened.”

  I hesitated. “Did I ever tell you his last words, Vic, up on that Ferris wheel? He told me about our name. ‘Ambrosio, like ambrosia,’ he said. ‘Nectar of the gods. It’s in you as tight as the pipes I put in all them buildings.’ Then he promised me that I was going to taste life, all the way to here.”

  I touched the bottom of my throat. Vic seemed transfixed.

  “Then what?” he dared to ask.

  “Then he told me Connie wasn’t a bad person, even though she killed the chickens, and he made me point at buildings in every direction. Said he’d worked in all those places, everywhere I pointed, and that the neighborhood was his, all his. Then he closed his eyes . . .”

  I couldn’t speak anymore. Vic stared at Angie’s headstone, letting it all sink in. “It’s like he knew his time was up. Wanted to give you a little hope before he checked out.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Think it worked?”

  I shrugged. “I’m still here. So are you. We’re Ambrosios, man. Nectar of the gods.”

  “That’s nice, but the gods drink the nectar, not us.”

  I had to chuckle. “Oh, Vic, how I love you.”

  The sun was sinking low, and a chilly wind blew brown leaves that rattled across the ground. I wanted to leave, but I also wanted to ask Vic something I’d always wanted to ask him, and this sure seemed like the right time and place. I gestured at the headstones.

  “Hey. Think they were happy together?”

  Vic shrugged, chuckled. “I’m not sure that’s what they were aiming for. They were satisfied with survival, which is maybe why it worked.” He smiled. “Your parents—now, they were happy together. Which is probably why your father flipped out when he lost her. Love’s a dangerous thing, Joey. You probably figured that out for yourself. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  He turned and started walking so fast I had to trot to catch up with him.

  “You’re going to just leave the bagel and the smokes?”

  “Why not?”

  “What would your parents say? It’s a waste!”

  “Nah, the old gardener here knows me, saw us come in. He’ll eat the bagel and smoke the cigarettes. Nice gift to him, huh? Heart disease and lung cancer. Walk faster, Joey, I hate being here after dark.”

  He drove me home but didn’t want to come inside. I got out of his car and he rolled down his window.

  “I appreciate you comin’ today, kid.”

  “Great surprise. Thursday’s my turn to surprise you.”

  “Yeah? With what?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “I don’t need surprises at my age.”

  “What do you need, Uncle?”

  He put the car in gear. “A third baseman who can make the throw to first. But I ain’t holdin’ my breath.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  I got up early Thanksgiving morning to do the prep work. The vegetables were ready to cook and the chestnut stuffing was mixed. I had bowls of chips and pretzels to go with the drinks and I set the table.

  I hadn’t heard back from Rose, so I had no idea whether or not she and Justin were coming.

  Jenny Sutherland was another question mark. She’d never gotten back to me and it seemed unlikely she’d show. I’d be feeding at least ten people and at most thirteen.

  I erred on the side of optimism and set the table for thirteen.

  Connie used to say that thirteen was a bad-luck number. Maybe I should have heeded those words.

  * * *

  It was a little past eleven in the morning when I went to the butcher shop to pick up the turkey. The butcher held it up proudly by its neck, as if he’d tracked it down in the woods and shot it himself.

  “Is that a turkey, or is that a turkey?”

  “That certainly is a turkey, my friend!”

  He bundled it up in heavy brown paper before p
assing it over the counter to me.

  “Three hours, cook it slow,” he advised. “Keep bastin’ it and it’ll be the best turkey you ever tasted.”

  It was so big I had to hug it to my chest with both arms as I walked toward Shepherd Avenue. It was a beautiful morning, cold but sunny, and the shadows through the elevated train tracks made a lovely laddered pattern on the street.

  I was looking at that pattern when suddenly two human shadows approached my own shadow at high speed. They were getting close, I thought, and as our three shadows converged into one, something came down hard on my head. The last thing I remembered before passing out was the turkey being torn from my arms and the sound of gleeful laughter.

  I couldn’t have been unconscious for more than a few minutes, and when I opened my eyes I was surrounded by half-a-dozen people, pointing at me and chattering in frantic Spanish. A cop car with flashing red lights roared onto the scene, siren wailing, and the next thing I knew they were taking me to the local police station, a place I had never been.

  One of the cops was tall and lean, with thick crinkly hair just starting to go gray. His nameplate said SORRENTINO. The other cop, MURPHY, was short and chubby, with a complexion like rare roast beef.

  I sat on a wooden bench with Murphy, who had a notebook and pen in hand. Sorrentino stood behind him, looking bored. The only other person in sight was a weary-looking desk sergeant, who yawned as he thumbed through the pages of Sports Illustrated.

  “We were hopin’ for a peaceful Thanksgiving,” Murphy said.

  I shrugged. “Sorry about that, guys.”

  “You say they came up behind you?”

  “Right.”

  “Two of them?”

  “I think so.”

  Sorrentino spread his hands. “Black, Hispanic, Asian?”

  “All I saw was their shadows. Which were black.”

  Murphy stared at me. “You a comedian?”

  “Sorry. I didn’t get a look at them. One of them bopped me, the other took the bird.”

  “So that’s all they got?” Sorrentino asked. “Your turkey?”

  “It was a twenty-pounder. You call that all?”

  “What I mean is, they didn’t get your wallet?”

  “Wasn’t carrying my wallet. I just walked a few blocks to pick up my turkey, which I’d already paid for.”

  “What about your house keys?” Murphy asked. “If they got your house keys you could be in trouble, down the line.”

  “Didn’t have my keys.”

  The cops exchanged puzzled looks “That’s a little strange, don’t you think?” Murphy asked.

  “Figured I’d be back in ten minutes, and I couldn’t find my keys, so I left the door unlocked.”

  Murphy made a snorting sound. “That is not advisable in this neighborhood, sir.”

  “My grandfather lived in my house before me, and he never locked his doors.”

  “Yeah? When was this?”

  I felt my face redden. “Well, he died in ‘61.”

  Both cops chuckled. “Different world now, my friend,” Sorrentino said.

  Murphy was looking at his notes. “Hey,” he said to his partner, “this guy lives on Shepherd. Bet he’s the one who took the bars off his windows!” He turned to look at me in wonder. “Is that you?”

  I was stunned. “You know my house?”

  “Sure. It’s the matter-o’-time house.”

  “Huh?”

  “Just a matter o’ time before someone breaks in.”

  I got to my feet, a motion that made my head throb.

  “Whoa, whoa, buddy,” Murphy said. “Where you think you’re goin’?”

  “Home.”

  “Sit. We’ll have a doctor look you over.”

  “I’m all right. Got to go, I’m expecting company.”

  “At least let us give you a ride.”

  “Thanks, but I need the air.”

  I got as far as the door when Officer Sorrentino called out to me.

  “Want some free advice, Mr. Ambrosio?” he asked. “Lock your doors from now on, and put the bars back on the windows. Sixty-one was a long time ago.”

  * * *

  I walked slowly. I seemed to have to instruct my legs on how to operate: left, right. The day had turned cloudy and the neighborhood never looked rattier. I actually saw a rat, darting between cracks in the broken wall of a burned-out pizza parlor.

  The elevated train passed overhead, and it seemed to rattle the fillings in my teeth. My head was pounding. Two flashily dressed Puerto Ricans walked toward me, laughing hard. I thought they were going to collide with me but at the last instant they veered around me, like two ships avoiding an iceberg.

  Iceberg: Jesus, I felt as cold as an iceberg! I shivered and hugged myself as I walked, the only man in a blizzard nobody else could detect. I had no idea what time it was. I had all those people coming over, and no turkey to feed them.

  At Shepherd Avenue I made the turn toward my house and suddenly, it seemed impossibly far away. I couldn’t make it. I was out of gas, out of hope, out of everything.

  Where was I? Right outside Rose’s house. It was only across the street from mine, but that street might as well have been the English Channel.

  I climbed the steps to her door and banged on it with my fist, barely hard enough to crack an egg.

  The door opened. “Oh my God!” Rose cried, putting her arms out to catch me as I literally fell into her home.

  She was strong. She dragged me to her couch and eased me down on my back. Though my head whirled I could see that the walls had been stripped of all that Justin memorabilia, and the floor was covered with big cardboard boxes full of her stuff. Rose was preparing to leave Shepherd Avenue forever.

  She stroked my hair, and I winced when she reached the bump.

  “What happened to your head, Jo-Jo?”

  “Got mugged. Couple of kids stole my turkey.”

  “Bastards!”

  I heard footsteps coming down the stairs and of course it was Justin, who froze at the sight of me.

  “He got mugged,” Rose said. “They stole his turkey!”

  Justin nodded like a sage. “Looks like we’re gettin’ out of here just in time.”

  I shut my eyes, hoping that would calm the dizziness, but it didn’t. Then I said to the ceiling, “It would have been nice if you’d at least acknowledged my Thanksgiving invitation. Not that I have anything to offer now.”

  “Jo-Jo, I’ve been so busy packin’!”

  I opened my eyes. “Ro-Ro, that is bullshit.”

  “Hey,” Justin said, “don’t talk to my mother like that.”

  “It’s okay, Justin, he’s right.” She hung her head. “I’m sorry, Jo-Jo. Just couldn’t handle sayin’ goodbye to you.”

  “When are you clearing out?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  She turned to Justin and ordered him to fill a plastic bag with ice cubes for my head. When he hesitated she screamed at him, and that multimillion-dollar ballplayer hustled to the kitchen like a little boy trying to avoid a spanking.

  In the midst of all this craziness came something I had to ask, the question that had unconsciously nagged and plagued me since I was a boy, running up and down Shepherd Avenue. It was a question I’d never asked a friend, a cop, a shrink or a parent. I was going to unload it on Rose, this special person I’d known just a few months, and would probably never see again.

  The dizziness was fading. Rose’s face was just above mine, old and young at the same time.

  “Hey, Rose. Can I ask you something?”

  “Shoot.”

  “It’s important, so if you don’t feel like hearing it . . .”

  “How the hell can I know if I don’t feel like hearin’ it until I hear it?”

  “Right, right.”

  I shut my eyes again and felt tears leak down my cheeks. Rose stroked my hair again, careful to avoid the bump.

  “Justin! Bring the goddamn ice, already!”

 
; I heard him hand her the ice bag. She held it gently against the bump, and a sense of sweet relief did battle with the sting of the cold on my scalp. The relief was well worth the sting.

  “Feel good?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Ask your damn question, already.”

  I opened my eyes. Justin was standing behind her, hands folded like a penitent. Rose held the ice bag steady on my head.

  “Guess it’s pretty simple,” I said. “I was just wondering, do you think anybody . . .”

  “Come on, spit it out, Jo-Jo!”

  I cleared my throat. “Do you think anybody really loves anybody?”

  And there was no answer to my question, or if there was I didn’t hear it, because as soon as my words were out I passed out as if the turkey thieves had conked me again.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  When I opened my eyes I felt as if I’d been asleep for years. I’d been covered with a blanket and Justin was standing over me, looking at me the way I expected God to be looking at me on Judgment Day, had I believed in God or Judgment Day.

  “I care about your mother, Justin.”

  “So do I.”

  “You’re making the right move, both of you.”

  His face softened. “Hope so.”

  I hesitated. “If I were twenty years younger . . .”

  “But you ain’t, so don’t sweat it.” He smiled. “You know, you run pretty good for an old man.”

  “Oh, I’ve got a few miles left in me. Where’s your mother?”

  “Kitchen.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Little after one.”

  “Jesus, I’ve got to go home! They’ll be here in an hour!”

  I tried to get up but Justin pressed down on my shoulders, turned his face toward the kitchen and shouted, “Mom, he’s awake!”

  Rose appeared with a mug of tea. I sat up and she held it to my lips. I took a long, sweet swallow.

  “You can’t be makin’ no Thanksgiving dinner,” Rose said.

  “It’s too late. They’re all on their way.”

  “What you gonna do, Jo-Jo?”

  “I’ll improvise. Got everything but the turkey.”

  I got to my feet and started for the door with Justin and Rose at each elbow, ready to catch me if I faltered. But I was okay.

  “Good luck in Seattle,” I said, turning to shake Justin’s hand. Then I offered my hand to Rose, who ignored it.