The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter

by Tom Mendicino

  Luigi lost his ability to speak even the most basic English after being admitted to a dementia unit. Frankie was secretly relieved of the responsibility of caring for him, no longer torn between the demands of his father and those of Charlie Haldermann, his schoolteacher “friend.” He dedicated three evenings a week and Sunday afternoons to sitting with Luigi. Michael, at his brother’s insistence, came to the nursing home on his father’s birthday and Christmas and an occasional weekend when he couldn’t bear Frankie’s nagging any longer. His sons were puzzled by their father’s frequent crying jags. Frankie could make out a few of his words, but they amounted to nonsense, something about a red wagon. Michael shrugged, not terribly interested, and said whatever memories tortured him would forever remain a mystery. Maybe they’d been fooling themselves and Papa had known all along about the secret they and Miss Eileen had conspired to keep from him that long ago Christmas Day. Luigi faded slowly, his limbs withering with atrophy, refusing even small bites of food. He died two days short of his eighty-first birthday. His funeral Mass was ten a.m. on Tuesday, the eleventh of September, 2001.

  Only his sons and the pallbearers accompanied the body to the cemetery. The other mourners had raced directly to the Speakeasy, where the staff brought television sets into the private dining room Frankie had reserved for the funeral lunch. Luigi was an afterthought at his own wake, the guests too preoccupied by the unimaginable images of horror ninety miles to the north to mourn him. The booze flowed and everyone lingered long after the meal, eyes riveted to the screen.

  It felt like an eternity before Frankie was able to collapse on the sofa with a vodka tonic, his first drink of the day. He remembered Helen Constanza had had a son who worked at the Trade Center and offered a quick prayer he wasn’t among the many lying in the rubble. He reached for the remote, having seen enough death and tragedy for one day. He heard Jack Centafore’s heavy footsteps on the back staircase, returning with Indian takeout despite Frankie’s protest he had no appetite. The vodka went to his head quickly and he decided he shouldn’t have a second, knowing his embarrassing tendency to get sad and sentimental when under the influence. But he didn’t argue when Jack poured him a refill, even stronger than the first, and turned on the television.

  “Can I ask you something?” Frankie ventured, emboldened by the liquor.

  Jack nodded his head without looking away from Peter Jennings reporting live from the smoking rubble.

  “Were the terrorists good men?” he asked.

  Jack stared at him as if he were crazy.

  “What do you think? I can’t believe you would even ask.”

  “Do you think they’re burning in hell?”

  “That’s a better fate than they deserve.”

  “Was my father a good man?”

  Jack carefully chewed his food, cogitating, trying to compose a diplomatic answer.

  “That’s not for us to judge, Frankie. The only opinion that counts is God’s,” he said, contradicting his own knee-jerk condemnation of the men who had brought down the tallest buildings in New York.

  “What would you say if I told you I didn’t believe in heaven or hell? That when you die, you die, and there’s nothing more to it.”

  This time Jack was quick to respond.

  “I’d say you’re exhausted, you’re grieving your father’s death, and you’re starting to get a little tipsy.”

  It was pointless to argue and Jack was right. He was a little drunk.

  “You know what I’ve never understood?” Jack asked, finally posing a question that had perplexed him for years. “Why did your brother hate your father so much? If anyone had a reason to despise the old man it was you.”

  “It’s my fault. I’m to blame. Even when he was a little boy he thought he had to protect me. He would cling to Papa’s leg, crying when Papa would hit me with the strop, begging him to stop. He threw a can of tomatoes at Papa’s head for slapping my face when he was only seven years old. God only knows what Papa would have done if Miss Eileen hadn’t been there. Mikey hated Papa because of me.”

  FRANKIE, 1966

  She was the most amazing creature in his world. Each day after school he sat at the kitchen table, waiting patiently to hear the clacking sound of her shoes and the static feedback on her transistor radio as she climbed the wooden staircase. She called him her shadow when Papa and his mother were in earshot and, affectionately, her little shit-bag when they weren’t. It was his special nickname, a secret, one of many shared between them. Frankie was his half sister’s sounding board, her confidante, an enlisted ally in her war against their father.

  The baby still slept in Papa and Mama’s bedroom and Frankie’s bed was in a small space, not much larger than a walk-in closet, behind the kitchen. Polly’s room, on the third floor, across from her father’s, the one Frankie would later share with his younger brother, had a window facing Carpenter Street and, at night, the streetlight cast a warm glow through the pink sheer curtains. He would stand at the door, waiting to be invited into this magical refuge in the otherwise dark and dour house. Polly would sigh and call him a pest, barely tolerated. It was part of the game. The difference in their ages meant they could never be real friends. But a six-year-old boy was a perfect acolyte for a sixteen-soon-to-be-seventeen-year-old adolescent needing constant, adoring reassurance of her attractiveness and desirability and an audience for her rants about the strict rules enforced by Papa and the harsh penalties imposed whenever they were transgressed.

  Frankie would sit cross-legged on her bed, rapt, listening to her stories of life at her all-girls high school under the strict supervision of the “crows,” the black-bonneted Sisters of Charity. To an impressionable little boy, it was a place as mysterious and enchanted as Oz, populated by wicked nuns wielding yardsticks rather than broomsticks and an ever-shifting cast of best friends, enemies, and rivals. There were brash girls with fierce tempers and girls too timid to speak. Some were loyal girls who had your back and others were treacherous sluts who would stab you in the chest. Worst of all were the smug little brats, hated by all, who curried favor with the crows in black, informing on who was smoking in the bathroom and who rolled up the waists of their skirts, exposing the white skin of their thighs, when they loitered outside the entrance to the boys’ high school two blocks away.

  Frankie’s favorite of her stories were her tales of those boys, especially the ones about the efforts, not entirely unwelcome, of Bobby Ottaviano, whose beauty rivaled that of Rodney Harrington on Peyton Place, to persuade her to “go all the way.” She told Frankie he would understand what she was talking about when he was older, but he already knew how it felt to be in love with Bobby Ottaviano. But, even at six, he sensed he could never share his secret with anyone, not even Polly, that there was something wrong and shameful about his feelings for his half-sister’s boyfriend. Boys were only supposed to fall in love with girls, not other boys.

  Frankie hated whenever Papa and Polly fought, which seemed to be almost every night. His mother tried to comfort and counsel her niece and stepdaughter, only to be cruelly rebuffed with tearful recriminations. You’re not my mother. I hate you. I wish you were the one who died. Even Polly knew she’d gone too far when she called Frankie’s mother a mean and ugly cunt. She begged her stepmother not to tell her father, fearing the certain brutal consequences of her filthy mouth and disrespect. Frankie watched his mother take Polly into her arms, assuring her it was their little secret. She stroked her sister’s daughter’s hair, a simple, kind gesture that unleashed the girl’s inconsolable grief over being abandoned by a mother who had loved her and rejected by a father who treated her like an unwanted reminder of a former life.

  Polly was heartbroken, swearing she would never get over it, when Bobby Ottaviano told her they were breaking up after she finally relented, believing his promises of an engagement ring, and let him put “it” in her. She was certain he would change his mind if she were prettier, like her mother and aunt, not a drab brown hen whose o
nly good feature was her piercing blue eyes. She enlisted Frankie as her accomplice one Sunday afternoon when Papa and Frankie’s mother drove to New Jersey to visit an ancient dying Avilla aunt who had never seen the baby. They made a mess of Papa’s shop, slopping peroxide on the floor as they stripped the mousy color from her hair, transforming her into a bleached blonde who could pass as Nancy Sinatra’s twin. Polly was in a celebratory mood, shocking her little brother by pulling a pack of Salems from her purse and puffing away as if she had been smoking for years. Frankie followed her to her bedroom and watched with rapt attention as she frosted her lips and made up her eyes.

  Papa was enraged to return home to find his daughter looking like a cheap puttana. Frankie’s mother had to plead with her husband to persuade him not to strap the girl to his barber chair and shear her head down to a clean scalp. Polly wept bitterly, conceding defeat, accepting the compromise punishment of being forced to restore her beautiful blond hair to an approximation of its natural color with a bottle of Nice ’N Easy from the Sun-Ray Drugstore. That night, Frankie sat on the floor beside her locked door, forbidden by Papa to enter to comfort her, whispering in a voice loud enough for only her to hear. She looked beautiful, he assured her, prettier than Nancy Sinatra, prettier even than Connie Stevens. She’d be a movie star someday, he promised, just like she dreamed, and Papa would regret being so mean and hang her pictures on the walls of his barbershop for everyone to see.

  FRANKIE AND MICHAEL, APRIL 1968

  Michael didn’t struggle as Frankie slowly marched him down the long, brightly lit corridor. He was big for his age, sometimes mistaken for a child of five, and had inherited a stubborn, sometimes ornery, personality from his father. At home he could be loud and boisterous, running from room to room, jumping on the furniture until the heavy thumping on the ceiling summoned an angry Papa from the barbershop below. But the hallways of Methodist Hospital were unfamiliar surroundings, patrolled by intimidating women in starched white uniforms with funny hats pinned to their hair, and he shrank behind his brother’s back as a fierce-looking nurse approached them.

  “Are you boys lost?” she asked as they stood by the elevator, placing her hand over the call button before Frankie could reach it.

  “No, ma’am,” Frankie assured her, afraid to admit he might have gotten confused and taken a wrong turn, forgetting Papa’s careful directions.

  “Where is your mother?”

  “In her room,” he answered.

  “Is she a patient here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does your father know where you are?” she asked.

  “He told me to take my brother to the cafeteria.”

  “How old are you boys?” she asked, skeptical that a child as young as Frankie would be charged with supervising a toddler, especially with all the terrible things on the evening news the past few days.

  “My brother is gonna be three and I’m eight.”

  “All right, go on then. But don’t let go of his hand now, you promise?” she said, sending them on their way against her better judgment, her voice softer and kinder.

  “I won’t,” he said as the elevator door closed behind them.

  The cafeteria was filled with empty tables. An old colored man sat alone in a far corner of the room, drinking coffee and listening to a transistor radio. Frankie put his arm around Michael’s shoulder as the cashier took their money, holding him tightly to keep him from wandering off.

  “You boys sit where I can see you,” she said as she handed Frankie his change. “You come tell me if that nigger says anything to you.”

  Michael ate a few bites of his hot dog and drank a carton of chocolate milk. Frankie felt safer knowing a grown-up was keeping an eye on them. Sal Pinto was supposed to be watching them, but he’d gone home to check on his wife and daughters, worried the riots were spreading to the streets of South Philadelphia. Everyone was talking about what they would do if the moulinyan tried to burn down their houses. Sal Pinto said he had a shotgun and Papa swore he would crack open the skull of anyone who tried to break down his doors.

  No curious nurses stopped them as they made their way back to their mother’s floor. An old woman sitting in the visitors’ room looked up from her rosary beads as they opened the door. The thermostat in the boiler room hadn’t been adjusted for the warmer temperatures of spring and the radiators banged and hissed, pumping heat into the stuffy, windowless space. Papa had dressed his sons in heavy wool sweaters and Michael was cranky and agitated, tugging at the scratchy collar rubbing against his neck. The woman put her rosary in her pocketbook and picked among the butts in the overflowing ashtray, finally choosing a suitable one to smoke.

  “He should be in bed,” she snapped.

  “He’s just hot,” Frankie said as he yanked his brother’s sweater over his head. He pulled a frayed copy of Go, Dog. Go! and a Hershey bar from his book bag, hoping to pacify Michael until their father returned. Maybe Sal Pinto would come soon to take them home. Sal Pinto, unlike Papa, didn’t care that it was a school night and that Bewitched didn’t start until after bedtime. Michael was squirming in his seat, his face bright red. Frankie looked up from the book and saw his father in the doorway, seething as his youngest son smeared melted chocolate across his white dress shirt. Papa’s aim was sure, the slap crisp and sharp, hard to enough to break the skin of Frankie’s upper lip.

  “What did I tell you? You were supposed to watch him,” Papa said, never raising his voice.

  Frankie’s eyes swelled with tears and his lower lip trembled. The old woman cackled at his misfortune, covering her stained teeth with her hand.

  “Stop it, before I give you something to cry about,” Papa snapped as he grabbed Frankie by the chin to inspect the damage. “It’s just a little bit of blood. Take your brother to the bathroom and clean him up, then wash your face and comb your hair. Hurry up, now. Your mother’s waiting.”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “Stand by the bed and hold her hand. Don’t complain. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “Go on, now. Don’t make me come looking for you,” his father said as he turned and walked away, still looking fresh and pressed, his clothes unwrinkled, his hair neatly parted, forever and always the impeccably groomed barber.

  Frankie washed Michael’s face, doing his best to make him presentable, then took him by the hand and slowly walked him from the bathroom to their mother’s room. A plaster statue of Our Lady of Lourdes was on the table by the bed, a burning red votive candle at her feet. A wilted Easter lily and a vase of carnations sat on the windowsill. Voices were whispering in Italian behind the drawn white curtain separating the patients in the semi-private room. Michael clung to his brother’s arm, turning away from the thin and brittle woman propped up against a bank of pillows, a sheet pulled up to her chest.

  “Come here, closer, so I can see you,” she said, speaking with difficulty as she struggled for breath.

  “Go ahead, Mikey,” Frankie said, encouraging him.

  “I don’t want to, Boo! I don’t want to!” Michael insisted, burying his face in Frankie’s chest. Boo had been Michael’s first word and the name he’d christened his older brother. Papa called it childish gibberish, baby talk, but Mama said it was a harmless endearment he’d soon grow out of.

  “I’m right beside you,” he promised, urging his brother to go to the bedside.

  She was wearing a pretty pink cotton dressing gown with a white lace collar buttoned at the neck. She’d put on red lipstick and a touch of makeup to brighten her face and Papa had washed and brushed her hair.

  “Go to your mother,” Papa pleaded as he tried to pry Michael from his brother.

  Michael started to howl, refusing to leave Frankie’s side.

  “He’s scared, Mama,” Frankie said, finding his tongue, almost as frightened as his little brother by the long plastic tube dangling from her nose. “Let’s go say good night, Mikey. Me and you,” he said quietly, gently easing Michael
toward the bed. Frankie picked up his mother’s hand and held it, heeding his father’s warning.

  “Such handsome boys! The girls are going to fall in love with you!” she gushed, pausing between words to catch her breath.

  Frankie was blue-eyed and fair, like his mother. Michael was dark, his features less chiseled and perfect than his brother’s, with brown eyes that seemed to sink into his face, giving him a gravitas unusual for a boy of his age. They shared a dignified Roman nose worthy of a marble bust, marking them as true Gaglianos.

  She sank back into her pillows and closed her eyes, gasping for breath through her open mouth. But her grip on her oldest son’s hand was firm, unwilling to release him. Frankie stood perfectly still, not daring to move. His mind began to wander, his thoughts drifting to Samantha Stephens and Endora and Gladys Kravitz, the nosy neighbor across the street. He couldn’t see the face of his wristwatch, a Timex his godfather Mr. Ferri had given him the morning of his First Communion. He made a bold move, twisting his forearm to check the time, knowing that nothing, not even the slightest movement, escaped Papa’s eyes. Eight o’clock was fast approaching, when, just like magic, summoned by Samantha’s twitching nose, Sal Pinto arrived to take them home.

  “Frankie,” his mother whispered as he gave her a good-night kiss.

  “Yes, Mama?”

  “Promise me you’ll always take care of each other. Frankie, you make sure you tell your brother I asked you both to do that when he’s old enough to understand.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “Remember to say your prayers.”

  “I will,” he promised, growing anxious again. They would have to hurry if they were going to make it home on time.

  “You send them straight to bed, Sal,” Papa insisted. “Don’t let that one tell you he can stay up all night watching television.”