'74 & Sunny
Page 20
When Rosalie and I got home, she helped remove my jersey and shoulder pads before we called out to anybody who might have been home.
“Ma . . . we’re home,” Rosalie hollered. When nobody answered back, we slowly followed the bit of a ruckus we heard going on in the kitchen. The room sounded like it had more than just my mother and Gino inside it.
“They didn’t hear us,” Ro said.
“Let’s see what’s going on.”
When we entered the room I saw what looked like the early stages of a pajama party unfolding right there at my kitchen table. Standing in a half circle, with their backs to us, were Lorraine, Arlene, Aunt Mary, Aunt Mae, and my cousin Grace Marie. In other words, a typical summer night.
“Hello,” Ro said. But nobody turned around.
When we finally walked to the table and into the thick of the action, the girls parted and revealed my mother sitting on a spinning kitchen chair with enough metal on her head to look like a human satellite. It wasn’t until I got right on them that I saw Gino combing the sides of her hair and making room for more.
“What the hell is going on?” I shrieked, looking at all the happy and amused female faces.
“Gino is curling my hair,” my mother calmly said.
“I can see that,” I said. “With what?”
“Soda cans,” the girls all said, and laughed.
Apparently, while I was slaving away at practice (and climbing through neighbors’ trash), Gino had suggested a get-together for all the women. “Some of my electric rollers were broken,” Lorraine turned to me and said, with a head full of loose curls. “So Gino told us he could do a better job with Coke cans.”
“You gotta be kidding me,” I said. “Where the hell did you learn how to do that?”
“I’ve seen my brother Larry do my sisters’ hair a hundred times,” Gino said.
I turned to Rosalie a few feet behind me. “What do you say about that?” I said. Rosalie handed me her pocketbook and walked into the fray. “I’m next!” she said.
When I finally accepted what was happening, I was able to focus in on the table that was stacked with empty soda cans of Tab, Fresca, Shasta, White Rock, Dad’s, and plenty of Cokes. In addition, Arlene, Grace Marie, and Lorraine had all brought their nail polish kits too. Apparently, the girls who weren’t sitting in the curling chair at “Chez Gino” were all passing the time by coloring their nails.
“Gino,” my mother joked, “what can you do with A.J.’s mop?”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “How much longer until you’re all done taking over the kitchen?”
“That depends how long it takes Gino to give me fuller hair with more volume,” Rosalie laughed.
After my mother told Ro to wash her hair in the sink, Gino explained to me how easy it was—“Practically a snap,” he said—to use soda cans instead of curlers. With my mother’s hair finally set, Gino used Rosalie’s wet hair to explain: “First you give a real good comb-out,” he said. “Then you part the hair in the middle and clip the sides out of the way.”
“Oh, Gino,” Lorraine said. “You sound like a real hairdresser in a fancy salon.”
“Oh my God . . .” I said.
“Then you start in the middle, from the top of the head to the back,” Gino continued, grabbing a Fresca can and wrapping her hair around it. Then he kept it in place with a rubber band before he moved on to the next curl and can. “It’s easy, A.J.” He giggled. “You could even do this. It’s a lot easier than diving.” That got a good laugh from all the girls. And it got me to walk away, take a long, hot shower, and clear my head.
When I dried off and went back downstairs, I saw that the party in the kitchen had ended and a small group had assembled by the steps of the pool. On warm summer nights the best relief from the heat and humidity was taking a late dip in the pool with all the citronella candles lit and the light in the deep end perfectly illuminating the pool so that you could see all the dents our heels made in the mushy vinyl at the bottom. Before I pushed through the dining room screen door and dived into the pool, I hung back to watch what looked like a tender scene unfolding in the shallow end. Rosalie was on the steps of the pool. She was holding her son, my two-year old nephew, Jackie. He was fearless of the water and loved to walk to the third step, where the water was up higher than his diaper. I watched as Jackie cackled at his accomplishment and his chest heaved with excitement at the cool temperature of the water and the gentle splashes that shot up and rained down to rest on his curls.
Then my mother, even with a mountain of soda cans still on her head, looked so elegant as she softly swam up to Gino on the steps and pulled him in close against her favorite flower-patterned one-piece. If my father had a way of realigning the gravitational pull of the entire day if he raised his voice to the right level, my mother’s nuances and quiet encouragement could change your outlook on life in no time at all.
“How is my beautiful nephew?” she said softly into Gino’s ear. “Thank you so much for my beauty parlor treatment. Oh . . . you spoiled me!”
Gino blushed a little as he pushed off to meet her at the foot of the steps. “Oh . . . you’re welcome, Aunt Lilly. I was happy I could do that for you.”
“You know something? I saw your face on the first day you got here and your aunt Lilly could tell, I don’t think you had any idea what the hell you were getting yourself into, did you?”
“Yeah. No,” Gino said. “I really didn’t know. Especially after those first few days!”
“Well,” my mother went on, “those two can be real ball-breakers—my husband and my son. But they only wanted what was best for you, honey. You know that, right?”
“Yeah. I know.”
“But, listen to me, sometimes Frick and Frack are more bark than bite. I wish they wouldn’t yell so loud and get so goddamn passionate about everything. I mean, my son thinks he’s the policeman of the world! I know you know what I’m talking about.”
“Yeah,” Gino said. “I think I know what you mean.”
The two of them shared a laugh and floated across to the other side of the shallow end, closest to where I was standing—hiding behind the dining room’s screen door.
“Well, you might have heard your mother and I getting a little loud the other day,” she said.
Gino cocked his head and leaned in a bit closer as my mother lowered her voice to a whisper.
“Let me tell you something, your mother and your father love you very, very much. You know that.”
“Umm-hmm,” Gino said, staring down at the water.
“But sometimes it’s not so easy raising a young boy at different times in his life. You know your cousin A.J., he was a real friggin’ project, let me tell you.”
“A.J. was, huh?” Gino laughed.
“Oh my God. Last year we didn’t know if he’d finish the fifth grade,” she said. “He was a bundle of nerves, full of twitches and stomachaches, and we didn’t know what the hell to do with him.”
“I didn’t know anything about that,” Gino said, slightly smiling. “He acts like he’s always together and everything.”
“Ha!” My mother laughed. “Your uncle Al and I were pulling our hair out—‘What are we gonna do with this kid?’ ”
“What’d you do?”
“Well, we just asked for help, Gino,” she said. “We went to Aunt Mae, Arlene, Ro, Jack, NuNu, and Frankie, anyone we could think of. And little by little, with everybody pitching in here and there, we got him on his feet and past a very, very tough time for him.”
“What do you think was wrong with him?” Gino asked softly.
“Sometimes boys have a rough go of it, you know? It has to do with how old you are, who your friends are, if your family is listening to you. Don’t you feel that way sometimes?”
“Well, yeah, but I didn’t think A.J. got that way,” Gino said.
“And he’s better now?”
“I think so, yeah,” she said. “But it doesn’t mean he won’t need help down the road one day. Everybody needs a little help getting through life every now and then. And I think your mother and father brought you to us at the perfect time in all of our lives.”
“Yeah, Aunt Lil, that makes sense,” he said.
“Are you happy you’re here, or are you ready to go home?”
“Well, I love being here. But I do miss seeing everybody at home,” Gino said. “I’m anxious to tell them how much fun I had. How I learned to clam and catch crabs and kill slugs and grab earthworms . . .”
I broke up the warm embrace my mother and Gino were sharing by sticking my head out the door and finishing his sentence. “But you still can’t dive!”
“No,” Gino yelled to me. “I’m doing that too. Watch!”
He gently pushed his way past Rosalie and Jackie and bounced up the steps. Then he streaked past me on the white concrete slabs that separated the house from the pool before jumping onto the diving board in the deep end. He came to a complete stop at the very edge and let out a nervous giggle. “A.J., I’m gonna do this,” he said defiantly.
“Then do it,” I said. “Just bend your knees, squeeze your ears, and lean forward.”
I remember I held my breath the exact moment I saw Gino do the same. But this time when he bent his body forward, there was no moment of panic or hesitation as he got into position. He shot the water a look of determination and began a slow push forward that meant as much to him as it did for me. I watched Gino slice into the still water and perfectly dive into the pool without so much as a splash as his body slipped underneath. I’m sure he could hear all our cheers eight feet down. It looked like a baptism of sorts, where he was washing away some of the summer’s shame, the frustration, and especially the unknown. I always said being in water made that boy feel equal on some sort of other level.
17
SHINING STAR
At some point, I grabbed a calendar off the wall and started doing some math. I’m not sure if it was because I was keyed up that my first year of junior high school was approaching or disappointed that summer was coming to a close. It could have even been I was just plain curious about what the coming days would be like without Gino by my side. I flipped a few pages, did some quick math, and saw that Gino had been with us for almost an entire summer vacation. Labor Day was a week away, and I knew Uncle Larry was set to pick him up and whisk him back to Jersey that weekend. I was a little uneasy with that. There was no way around it: I was gonna miss having him around.
Normally, whenever a relative or close friend had spent any extended time with us, it was customary to throw some sort of going-away dinner for them. Nothing too huge, mind you. But, in addition to the usual big dinners my mother cooked up, we always carved out time to make a cake or a big fat pizza rustica pie the day the person was leaving. I’m not sure when that started, but I don’t remember a time when that didn’t exist. Hell, we never needed any excuses to eat more food or have more fun around the table anyway. But then it was the Friday before the holiday and I hadn’t heard a thing about anybody doing anything special for Gino’s departure.
I quietly approached my mother while she was busy paying some bills at the kitchen table. That was always a delicate time because she never used a calculator and we never had enough money.
“Ma, what are you doing?”
“Bouncing checks left and right,” she said. “What’s the matter?”
“Uncle Larry’s coming to get Gino on Sunday, right?”
“No. He called. He’s gotta work Sunday,” she said, licking her fingers to turn the pages of the checkbook. “So he’s coming tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!”
“Yeah, tomorrow morning,” she said. “What’s the problem?”
“Well, it’s just that Gino’s been here, like, eighty days . . .”
“What’d you look at, a calendar?”
“No, really, Ma. It’s about eighty days, give or take,” I explained. “Are we, uh, doing something for him?”
“What do you want me to do? We opened our door for your cousin for the whole summer. You want me to bake a cake too?”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “Some kind of big dinner or cake or something. You know, like we usually do.”
She sat up in her chair and spun the checkbook at me. “Here, look,” she said. “If a trip around the world cost five dollars, we wouldn’t have enough money to get off the block!”
“Come on, Ma, I’m serious,” I said as she gave me a look. “Well, then, what are you making for dinner tonight?”
“Your father feels like tuna fish,” she said.
“Tuna fish! That’s not even cooking. What’s wrong?”
“If you don’t want tuna fish, I got peppers and eggs,” she said, folding the checkbook closed. “We never eat meat on Fridays.”
“Can’t we make an exception?” I begged. “Who the hell are we kidding? We’re not even religious.”
“Watch your mouth,” she said, lighting a cigarette and walking out of the room. “Tuna or eggs. You’ll live.”
It wasn’t like my mother to be so matter-of-fact on the subject of dinner, but I said all I could on the matter. Outside of appealing to Lorraine and Ro, there was little I could do. I was more disappointed in what Gino would feel come dinnertime. Not that he was a huge eater or anything, but even he would know such simple dishes were not the norm for our family. Especially on the eve of his leaving. Still, I couldn’t resist running upstairs to our bedroom and pulling his attention away from PBS.
“For some reason, all we’re having is tuna fish for dinner tonight,” I said.
“Okay,” Gino said.
“That’s all,” I said. “No fish, no cutlets, no pasta, nothing.”
“That’s fine. With me packing and all, I don’t think I’m gonna have a huge appetite anyhow.”
“Did you know you were leaving tomorrow and not Sunday?”
“Yeah, my father has to work Sunday, so he called this morning and said he’s coming tomorrow.” He went back to watching TV.
“And you’re okay with that on such short notice?” I said.
“Yeah, I guess. What can I do about it?”
“Jesus, what’s wrong with everybody?” I said.
It took up a big part of the day, but eventually I simmered down and tried my best to make Gino’s final full day somewhat memorable. We spent the afternoon shooting baskets at the hoop before a dozen or so friends wandered over to play ball and say good-bye to Gino. That’s the way it was growing up in a new development of homes back in the 1970s. I don’t recall any summer day when I wasn’t a part of ten to fifteen boys looking for some hell to raise. It wasn’t like that for Gino back in Succasunna. And as the summer wore on, he became as spoiled as I was, literally acting bratty or disappointed whenever a dozen or so friends didn’t materialize within a half hour of us walking outside the front door.
“Don’t look now,” he said, “but here comes Coogan.”
“Okay. Don’t worry about anything, I’ll handle it,” I said.
Gino wasn’t sweating it too much, but he couldn’t help but wonder why Coogan was headed for us with a smirk on his face after what went down in his foyer earlier that summer.
“You think he’ll start anything?” he asked.
“After the scene my father made, he’d have to be out of his mind to even think about it.”
We braced ourselves for the worst, until it was clear that all Coogan wanted to do was fall back in good graces of us. “Hey, man,” he shouted from the sidewalk. “Lemme take a half-court shot.”
“You suck from out there,” I said as I rolled him the
ball.
Gino and I followed the arc of his shot and watched it clank off the top of the backboard. “Brick,” I shouted as Gino laughed to himself.
“Big whoop, I hate basketball anyway,” Coogan said.
To Gino’s credit, he ran to fetch the ball, and Coogan followed him before finally addressing him for the first time. “Hey, man, how much longer are you gonna be here?” he asked.
When Gino explained he was leaving the next day and that tonight was actually his final night, Coogan looked a bit depressed. “No shit? I was gonna invite you guys to go fishing for bluefish on our boat Sunday.”
“Really?” I said. “How does your dad feel about that?”
“It was his idea,” he said. And then his expression gave way to the real embarrassment he was feeling. “Dude,” he said to Gino. “It was my brothers’ idea, that whole sidewalk thing. I didn’t want any part of it. They’re too scared to come by and apologize to your face. But I will for them.”
For some reason, I never felt comfortable watching a guilty party grovel and apologize for some dumb thing they had done. I felt my father’s anger was enough to even the score. Listening to a heartfelt apology made me squirm.
“It’s cool, Coogan,” I said, kind of cutting him off. “It’s in the past. I didn’t think that was something you dreamed up.”
And just when I was willing to let it go away, Gino spoke up. “Yeah, A.J. said he knew it had to be your dumb brothers anyway, because you probably know how to spell queer.”
That comment left me happily stunned, but it also melted Coogan into a bundle of awkward expressions and forced laughter. “Hey, you’re okay with me, Gino,” he said. “Sorry you’re leaving now that we’re finally getting to know each other. But I’m sure we’ll hang out more the next time you visit.”
“Yeah, he’ll be coming more often from now on,” I said.
After a few minutes more of shooting hoops and playing several games of H-O-R-S-E, Pete D’Ascoli and Richie Tischler spilled out of Pete’s garage and raced their new skateboards up and down my driveway.