“Yeah… it’s from when I was up at Tony’s.”
“I thought I told him not to let you drink?!”
“Come on, Dad. And it’s like, not of me drinking. I’m just holding a bottle of whiskey. But I took it down.”
“Okay. Well, I can’t say I’m happy about this, Vito. Ya know? What if the recruiters hear about this, huh? Oh, did Coach tell you about Lycoming?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, great. Maybe we’ll take a trip out there. Oh, and Vito, who do you think put up the picture?”
Pierce Stone had always considered himself a member of the soccer team—the Jew Crew was very much represented on its roster—even though his daily wake-and-bakes and lunch volcano hits rendered him inept at jogging twenty yards without dry heaving. Therefore any perceived injustice committed against his Crew by my family would result in swift retaliation—he might as well signed have his name at the bottom of the damn picture.
“I don’t know, Dad,” I said, a blatant lie.
I left my father’s office in a frenzy so terrifying even the teachers and custodians stayed out of my path so they wouldn’t get trampled by the football captain turned orc. It was the threshold of fifth period and I thought if I rushed to the seniors’ parking lot I might be able to catch the bastard before he departed for lunch.
“Vic, man, what are you doing?” Jabie, my voice of reason, followed behind at a trot. “Yo, don’t do anything stupid.”
“I’m gonna end this motherfucker,” I said, broad-shouldering through the hall like some sort of stereotype I had never imagined becoming—I suppose it beats being the squashable cockroach.
Text from 973-555-7767: Vic, I heard you’re getting suspended for drinking.
Text from 973-555-7767: What happened? You can talk to me.
I ignored Maria’s texts and continued to plow through the hallway until I burst out of the high school and into the parking lot, spotting the bright yellow Hummer against the sun-soaked pavement—if there was life on Mars, those green-heads would be able to see this vehicle from outer space.
Audis, BMWs, and Acuras parted for me like I was Moses mid-metamorphosis into Mr. Hyde as I approached Pierce Stone, guffaw-deep in an absolutely lovely anecdote with John Thompson, Josh Glassman, et al. expanding and taking over the parking lot like an amoeba. Jabie had followed me out of the school, jabbering in my ear how I shouldn’t do anything stupid, but that he still “had my back” and “was my boy.”
I wanted to release a barbaric cry that I had pent up throughout the years of my coexistence with Pierce Stone that would make the blacktop shake and car windows shatter. But when I attempted to yell, what came out was the flickering ember of a yelp that vanished into thin air, and the group turned toward me as if I had interrupted a classified meeting—I was nine years old again, trying to sneak into “double digits.”
John Thompson, who had been the focal point of attention since sixth grade, submissively backed away from the circle and allowed Pierce Stone to step forward, acting as his own champion.
We stepped up to each other and neither of us spoke a word—him smirking, me clutching my jaw so tight I thought my molars would pop out. Somewhere in the depths of my psyche the levees broke, and every memory I had of Pierce Stone flooded into the senior parking lot as apparitions, mixing and mingling as if attending a soiree in Rosenblatt’s basement.
I could see words like “guinea” and “guido” float into the air like balloons, and a tingle climbed up my spine and whispered in my ear: “You can’t even reeeeeeeeaaaaad.” Little burgundy demons climbed out from the blacktop and danced with their flaming tridents above their heads in celebration, summoning rains of uncircumcised penises as snakes wrapped around Pierce Stone’s legs, exploding their heads as they reached right above the knees. Cracks of thunder erupted, screaming “Dammit, Ferraro! Dammit, Ferraro! Dammit, Ferraro!” Michaela Silves lay spread eagle on the hood of the Hummer, clutching a hairbrush tight in her snatch, as boys wearing “Summit Hilltoppers” varsity jackets surrounded her, lacrosse sticks in hand—she sat up on her elbows and said, “Don’t worry, Victor. The camera loves me.” And right when it all began to shake like the stream of a river beyond recognition, my focus slipped as I saw Ivanka seated in the passenger seat of the bright yellow monster, attempting to remain motionless as if I were a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
I caught myself searching the pockets of my pants and jacket in a frantic fury and dropped to the ground when I realized I lacked any semblance of a weapon—in a moment I had been subconsciously planning for my entire life—and I started to laugh. I flipped onto my back and splayed out my arms and could hear my father’s voice telling me, “Only hit someone in the face if you really want to hurt them, Vito.”
But I didn’t want to hurt Pierce Stone—I wanted to kill him.
Had I been born in the age of sabers or revolver dueling, only one of us would’ve made it through Glenwood. But despite the progress espoused by our modern age, the strong continue to do as they please while the Melians continue to suffer what we must.
I was still laughing quietly to myself as Jabie and John Thompson lifted me from the blacktop, dusted the pebbles and pavement debris from the back of my head, and put me on my feet.
By the time spring arrived, I had decided to attend Ursinus College, a tiny liberal arts school in the Philadelphia suburbs where I was promised the big-fish-in-a-small-pond lifestyle.
“Your Uncle Simon—I guess your Great Uncle Simon—will be so glad to hear it, Victor. Stop playing with your hair. You should call him,” said my mother as she searched for the cordless phone in the kitchen fray.
“When did he graduate from Ursinus?”
“Oh jeez, I’m not sure about that. That’s something you can ask him. Let’s just say it was back when they limited the amount of admitted Jews.”
“What? Uncle Simon is Jewish?”
“You didn’t know that? I mean, I don’t think he practices, but…”
This whole time I had a familial connection—albeit not by blood—to the Jewish community, and she let me go naked and afraid into all of those bar mitzvah services at B’nai Buh-Bi See Ya Later Goy without this essential factoid? Perhaps I’ll give accounting a shot.
“His last name is Saperstein, for heaven’s sake. I wanted to name you after him, but your father insisted on Gerrardo or Bruno or Vito. But I refused to…”
Probably missed some opportunities to present myself as a real mensch and take a shvitz and kvetch with a Columbia alum. Now I gotta shlep down to Montgomery County, PA—the chutzpah of this one! To thine own self be Jew.
“… and so we agreed on Victor.”
“I see. Okay, I’ll call him tonight. I’m going to Oscar’s with Karl and Mrs. Geiger.”
“Okay, I’m going to pick up Britney from the middle school. If you don’t get there early enough that car line is murder,” she said, rifling through her purse. “You need money?”
But I was already out the door.
Oscar’s was a small establishment wedged on a commercial block of Millburn Avenue downtown. Set above the cashiers at a downward sloping angle, a bright green menu shined the variety of sandwiches with their respective ingredients tailing off in smaller white print. While Oscar’s floated in restaurant purgatory somewhere between a deli and a diner (perhaps a luncheonette?), it was still nevertheless fully operated by a sun-tinged Greek family who shouted orders to each other in their native tongue while gracefully slipping back into English to speak to us customers. I would enviously picture them strolling along the white beaches of the Greek islands, handing out sandwiches to the Northern European tourists from platters that reflected the Mediterranean sun.
The multi-layered sandwiches were all named after Greek islands, with exotic titles like Mykonos, Ios, Rhodes, and the Peloponnesian.
“You know what you want?” Karl asked, s
ticking with his go-to of succulent white meat chicken fingers and a side of fries.
I had yet to obtain an Oscar’s “usual” and was caught in the ingredients of an island I could barely pronounce when something grabbed my attention: Capicola. I had long considered myself a lunchmeat aficionado and was baffled when I failed to place this—possibly Greek—delicacy. “Cap-I-Cola.” I pronounced it like I put ketchup on my spaghetti, like I ate pineapple pizza, exaggerated ameriganz.
From what exotic animal did these pioneers of democracy and philosophy concoct this sumptuous sandwich stuffer that slipped through my lunch-munching tenure?
“Capicola.” I whispered, letting it slip off my tongue like a naughty little secret.
“Vic?”
But as I repeated the meat like a lush, I felt as if eyes had opened in the walls and ceiling and were watching me, and I could suddenly understand the Greek chorus, mocking my cultural ignorance: “They must not teach the great civilizations at the top school in the state!” I heard a cashier shout to a short-order cook flipping an egg.
I understand you! Send me to your islands!
“Hey, Vic!”
“What the hell is capicola?” I asked no one in particular.
Mrs. Geiger, taking over Karl’s role as knower of all things, leaned her head to the side and said “Gabagool,” translating it into the language of my people.
“Gabagool…” I said to myself. “Gabagool.” (Translation: capicola.)
I was riding such a high from averting my existential crisis that I, too, ordered the chicken fingers and drenched them in honey mustard, as all of a sudden the Hellenistic sandwiches didn’t feel quite so exotic.
Mrs. Geiger dropped me off at the foot of our driveway and I waved as they pulled up West Road, past their cascading front lawn that ran down to the cobblestoned sewer, and into their own driveway right next door.
I only had a few more months in Short Hills before being shipped off to Collegeville, Pennsylvania—yes, the real and aptly named hometown of Ursinus College where, if the movies and my experience up at Tony’s school held true, there would be a plethora of loose women whose boxes held the antidote to get over Maria, or perhaps replace her. In the meantime, my father had arranged for me to work out with a specialist over the summer who would get me into position to compete for a starting spot as a freshman.
I was on my way through the garage and into the basement when I heard my mother’s voice cracking as she screamed upstairs. My father’s car wasn’t in the driveway, so I assumed she’d found the phone and was yelling at him for doing something stupid like inviting the entire extended family over on two days’ notice. I was about to descend further and get in a few hours on Xbox Live until I heard crying, and I stopped.
I rushed up the stairs—skipping every other step—expecting that when I reached the top I’d be informed that another one of my friends’ dads had jumped in front of the train.
“I want their GODDAMN NAMES!” she shouted into the cordless phone as she slammed her closed fist down on the kitchen granite.
“Mom, what the hell is going on?”
“You know, she has two older brothers who… uh huh… yeah… no, I won’t do anything just yet. But… uh huh… well, have you spoken to my husband?” She pulled out one of the chairs tucked underneath the kitchen table and plopped onto it. Her shoulders sank. Her head dropped and she started to cry. “Okay… okay, thank you, Sharon. You must understand. You’re a mother, too. Hold on.” She grabbed a used envelope and a pencil out of the kitchen fray. “Okay, go ahead.” She scribbled on the envelope, pausing every few moments for an “mhmm” or “go ahead,” said thank you to Sharon one more time, and hung up the phone.
Wiping a tear from her eye, shaking so hard I could hear the bracelets on her wrist rattle, she told me Britney had been bullied at school. A group of girls formed a circle around her in the hallway, said things to her she wouldn’t understand, pushed her into a locker, knocked her books to the floor, and called her “retarded” and said that’s why she was still at the middle school.
“Thank God another girl heard those little bitches and reported it to a teacher, who came out and saw what was happening.”
“Where’s Britney? Is she okay?”
But either not hearing me or ignoring my question, my mother asked, “How can people be so cruel, Victor?” For a moment I thought she actually believed I held the answer and was waiting for me to respond. “I mean, your sister is just… pure goodness. It breaks my heart.” She got up from the table and we hugged before she gave me a kiss on the cheek. Then she left and headed in the direction of Britney’s room.
I took her spot at the table and read the names written in smeared gray graphite.
I wasn’t familiar with the first five, but I stared at the sixth name until my eyes watered: Stone.
I imagined a circle of Pierce Stones surrounding Britney in the hallway, pointing and shouting, “Retard, retard, retard.”
When I came to, “Stone” had been smeared across the white of the envelope and my fingertip was a shiny gray, as if my subconscious had been attempting to erase the family from existence. But it wasn’t Pierce Stone—it was his sister who assaulted my family, I thought as I stomped down the hallway to Britney’s room. Pierce Stone had spoken so often about his brother like a muse, I had forgotten there was a third Stone infiltrating Millburn’s public schools.
I opened the door to Britney’s room, where my mother was sitting on the edge of the bed, running her nails through my sister’s hair, the only part of Brit’s body not blanketed by her cream white comforter. My mother spoke in that soothing tone I believed all mothers were gifted after having their first child. “Come here, Victor. We’re having a talk,” she said, never taking her eyes away from my sister.
I sat down next to her on the bed and stroked Britney’s covered leg, but failed to say anything.
“Britney, your big brother is here.”
Britney’s voice was muffled by the pillow. “H—hi, Victor.”
“See, Britney-baby? We are here for you and we love you. You don’t have to be upset.”
“But… I’m so sad.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” my mother sang like a mollifying nursery song.
My father threw open the door and rushed to the other side of the bed, dropped to his knees, and kissed Britney on the head.
For a few moments, the only sounds were the creaking of the bed and Britney’s sniffles and coughs.
“Victor, do you mind keeping your little sis company while I speak with your father?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Thanks, pal,” my father said as he gave Britney one more kiss on the head. And they both left the room.
I slid up the bed and placed a hand on Britney’s shoulder. She was hot, like she had pneumonia all over again—I brushed her hair away and placed a hand on her forehead. I had failed her—God created brothers to protect sisters.
The light that had crept through the window shade had left with the sun, casting the bedroom in a lavender twilight. I lay down atop the covers and curled up next to Britney, my mother’s warmth still resonating where she sat only a few moments ago.
“Is this a dream?” Britney asked, still muffled by the pillow.
“How about we pretend it was?” I said.
“Okay, Victor.”
I wanted to cry but realized that wouldn’t help anyone but myself, so I fell asleep next to my sister, further retreating from the inevitable pain that seemed to be slowly flooding West Road from all directions.
I woke up curled in a ball on the pullout couch in the basement. I had no recollection of descending into my cave and figured my father must’ve carried me down while I was asleep, like he used to do when I was a child when I’d fake it so I wouldn’t have to move. The television was blinding, brighter than usual, so I
rubbed my eyes to focus. Tom Jones Cleaver was sitting in his cream white suit in front of a crackling fireplace, almost as if he was waiting for me to wake up before he started to talk.
“Welcome back.”
I sat up on my elbows, trying to grasp whether it was night or morning. The curtains were pulled down and the digital clock on the cable box read 6:29. I threw off the sheets and went to splash some water on my face at the wet bar, but when I dried it with a paper towel and instinctively read the list of Prominent Italians framed at eye level, my forefathers’ names—Modigliani, Michelangelo, Machiavelli—had been replaced with Stone, Stone, Stone, Stone, Stone.
The analog clock struck three, a huge discrepancy from the digital clock in the cable box, a rarity in the Ferraro household—my father practiced priest-like dedication to their timeliness.
“Rise! Rise! Rise!” Tom Jones Cleaver shouted from his throne, disrupting my concentration as I instinctively attempted to figure out the time in Arizona.
Why didn’t Dad wake me up for school?
“Eeeek tal’alla mande, eeeek tal’alla mande!”
I threw on jeans and a white t-shirt and ran out to the garage, ducking under the slow- moving door, and hopped into the Jeep. I tore down West Road in the direction of the B’nai Deerfield section of town and called Carina on my RAZR.
“Hello?”
The sun burst bright through my windshield, causing me to drop the visor and hunch over the steering wheel to focus like I was drunk.
“C! It’s Vic.”
“Victor? Are you okay?”
“C! I need Pierre and Henri’s number. I need to talk to... to ask them something.”
“Oh… actually, they’re here right now. We were about…”
“Great! Hold them there.”
“We aren’t going…”
“Okay! I’ll be right there!”
The Jeep screeeeeeeched into the DeVallos’ driveway and I left it with the engine running. The front door at Tank’s was always unlocked, so I flung it open, ran through the kitchen, and jumped up the flight of steps in search of the Haitians. Laughter came from behind Tank’s old bedroom door, where a sliver of light sliced through the darkness, indicating “Enter” like I was in a video game.
Lunchmeat Page 24
