The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter

by Tom Mendicino

  She nodded and walked away, self-conscious, feeling she had intruded on something intimate, private, a place where no one else was welcome, sealed by a locked door without a key.

  FRANKIE, 2007

  The revenues were healthy from the day Frankie opened the doors of Gagliano Cuts and Color, Family Owned Since 1928 and grew steadily each year. The stylish shop even attracted the new arrivals to the neighborhood, young urban bohemians with sizable incomes attracted to the ten-year tax abatements for purchasers of the expensive new town houses built by ambitious developers. He had an easy rapport with a breed of woman who pushed Maclaren strollers and carried yoga mats and eco-friendly Whole Foods shopping bags. But he’d learned early on to carefully schedule their appointments, separating them from his longtime regulars, though his dotty assistant Connie occasionally fucked up, leading to an inevitable and uncomfortable exchange of opinions on the politics of George W. Bush and the archdiocese’s culpability in the pedophile scandal in the Catholic Church.

  It all made for long, exhausting days, often twelve or thirteen hours, Tuesday morning through Saturday night. Success left Frankie little time to dwell on the fact that the likelihood of ever finding someone to share his life with was growing dimmer and dimmer. He’d tried dating, letting himself be fixed up with a succession of middle-aged florists and church organists and real estate agents who his matchmaking clients insisted were absolutely “perfect” for him. He’d suffered through too many long dinners and meet-for-drinks-or-coffees with these promised soul mates, trying to feign interest in an unattractive stranger’s tales of his prodigy nieces and nephews and pampered and adored cats. Worse yet was the occasional rejection by the rare possible suitor he found himself attracted to, like the handsome, barrel-chested, sandy-bearded delivery truck driver who sheepishly apologized he had only agreed to meet Frankie because he didn’t want his sister to know he was only interested in black men with prominent scars and criminal records.

  Solitude had its advantages. He had Jack for companionship and, though his brother was often distracted, occasionally irritable, Michael had drawn him into the heartbeat of the family he had made with his wife and son, the bond between motherless boys being impossible to sever.

  And if physical desires were not yet completely extinguished, they, at least, were more infrequent, and easily satisfied by the services of the city’s premier escort agency, all companions bonded and regularly tested for STDs. He’d grown quite attached to Stefan from Prague, a gangly six-foot-seven blond, who had even accompanied Frankie on a weekend jaunt to the Bahamas for the reasonable fee of fifteen hundred dollars. Frankie was far more devastated than he should have been, considering Stefan’s exclusively mercenary interest in spending quality time together, when the agency explained Stefan had an unfortunate encounter with Homeland Security and would no longer be available for “modeling” sessions.

  But after the occasional extra glass of Pinot (a rare indulgence for a man who strictly monitored his calories), nursing a mild buzz while he wept over tearjerkers like The Notebook, he would yearn for his own Ryan Gosling to enter his life. And then he would tumble into a blue funk. His capacity for self-pity surprised him. But he longed to know how it felt to be truly, deeply loved, and the clock was ticking, the window of opportunity closing. He wanted to feel something more than the convenience and apathy, the habit and familiarity, of his years with Charlie Haldermann. He wanted to hear the words I love you from someone who loved him like he had once loved Charlie before the drinking and debts and infidelities slowly but steadily drained the passion, and eventually even the affection, from his feelings.

  The days felt endless and he would fall into bed early in the evening and sleep until morning, exhausted by the effort of simply going through the motions, smiling and exchanging pleasantries, concealing his despair. The most recent black mood had been the worst yet. An unrelenting pessimism had poisoned his thoughts, his situation seemingly hopeless, until the bitterly cold Valentine’s Day night when a beautiful young Mexican, a boy whose smooth cheeks had never seen a razor, shyly approached his table in a low-rent tacqueria and handed him a folded napkin with his phone number scrawled in crooked letters.

  BOOK TWO

  riti familiari

  March 4, 2008–April 13, 2008

  MARCH 4, 2008

  When you think Tim McGraw . . .

  Frankie can’t get that damn song out of his head. His own divas were all legends before the dawn of the Reagan administration and the heyday of Alexis and Krystle. There’s Barbra and Miss Ross, Aretha and Cher, and of course, Stevie, the woman who stole his soul the first time he heard “Rhiannon,” casting a spell that’s endured for decades. She is a witch, a benign one, of course, a sorceress, a wizard who conjures up mystical potions of pain, loss, and love. One minute she’s a dervish, an apparition of swirling chiffon and lace. Blink your eyes and she’s an urchin in ruffles and feathers and leather boots, veiled in a sweeping gossamer shawl. She’s beauty and power and mystery. Her top hat from the 1977 Rumours tour, bought for six thousand dollars at a charity auction, is preserved in a glass shrine for all who enter his shop to admire and revere. No one will ever write a song as haunting as “Landslide” or one as powerful as “Dreams.” No one will ever inspire him more.

  But lately he’s been making an effort to keep up with the times, or trying to at least. His iPod doesn’t terrify him anymore and he’s learned how to download tunes. He’s been listening to Beyoncé and Rihanna and Shakira (all true divas need only a single name), though, if truth be told, he has a hard time telling one from the other since all of their songs sound alike, all beats, no melody. But he’s fallen in love with this little girl Mariano worships, Taylor Swift, just eighteen or nineteen years old. He’s been playing her music incessantly in the shop until his clients have begun teasing him about jilting Stevie for jailbait. He humors them, knowing they’re not actually talking about the music, that they’re gently mocking him for taking up with a nineteen-year-old boy. It’s taken time, but they’ve begun to believe the sincerity of the young man’s feelings for him, most of them at least.

  He turns on the television while he waits for the coffee to brew. Hillary looks absolutely stunning in canary yellow. Whoever’s dressing her these days deserves an award from Women’s Wear Daily. His ring tone, “Gold Dust Woman,” announces an incoming call. Michael. Again. He’d better answer this time before the cavalry arrives at the front door to rescue him from whatever crisis is fomenting in his brother’s overactive imagination.

  “Have you forgotten how to answer your telephone?”

  “I just sent you a text, Mikey.”

  “I tried to reach you three times yesterday. Why the hell didn’t you call me back?”

  No excuse will satisfy his brother so the question just lingers in the silence, unanswered.

  “Kit is expecting you to come out for the neighborhood festivities Sunday night. Act surprised when she brings out your birthday cake.”

  “Jack is taking me to the opera on Sunday.”

  “You’re going to a matinee. Come out later. Bring the damn priest if you want.”

  “Please don’t waste good money on a birthday cake, Mikey.”

  Frankie refuses to commit unless a formal invitation is extended to Mariano, a Rubicon Michael refuses to cross.

  “We’re expecting you. Don’t disappoint my wife.”

  Michael pauses, then asks a question.

  “Are you all right? Is everything okay down there?”

  Michael has an almost preternatural way of sensing trouble. Frankie sometimes thinks his younger brother was born with a microchip in his brain cell that sounds a red alert at the slightest indication that things are off-kilter, out of alignment.

  “What’s wrong, Frankie?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “I can hear it in your voice.”

  “Nothing’s wrong. Honestly.”

  It’s the God’s truth. Nothing’s wrong, at l
east not anything serious. It’s just a deep bruise. There’s nothing to do but take ibuprofen for the pain and give the swelling time to subside. The next few days will be awkward, trying to navigate the salon with an ACE bandage wrapped around his hand. He can handle the wash-and-sets and the color jobs. He’s rescheduled any cuts for later in the week when he’ll be able to grip the scissors. It was his own fault, really. He should never have tried to reach for the door as Mariano slammed it in his face. His brother, as always, would jump to conclusions if Frankie told him about the accident. He would assume the worst, accuse Mariano of assault, threaten to notify Immigration and Citizenship Services of an undocumented alien residing at Eighth and Carpenter. It was nothing but a silly tantrum. Over and forgotten. Frankie admits Mariano can be high-strung at times. He’s young, impatient, and wants his own way. A nineteen-year-old boy needs breathing space to grow.

  And certainly the good things in their relationship far outweigh the bad. Frankie had thought his best days were behind him, that the years ahead would be a slow progression to becoming one of those old coots at Rite Aid or CVS, arguing with the cashier for not accepting an expired coupon for a dollar off a twelve-ounce bottle of Lemon Scent Joy. He’d resigned himself to spending the rest of his life alone. Then thirteen months ago, on Valentine’s Day night, he was sitting in one of the hole-in-the-wall tacquerias popping up throughout the neighborhood, swirling chips in a big bowl of guacamole while Jack counseled the owner, one of his parishioners, in the tiny kitchen. Frankie had tried not to stare at the beautiful young Mexican hunkered over a plate of rice and beans, bopping his head to the loud tunes leaking through his earphones. Frankie had quickly looked away when his gaze caught the boy’s attention. When he finally summoned the courage to sneak another peek at this exotic creature’s butternut skin and dark canine features, he saw the young man smiling at him, his eyes inviting Frankie to introduce himself.

  His name was Mariano and his English was so rudimentary that further conversation was difficult if not nigh on impossible. The boy quickly scribbled his number on the back of a napkin and shoved it into Frankie’s hand before Jack returned to the table. Mariano was intuitive, knowing not to allow a look of recognition to pass between them as Jack paid the check and said adiós to the owner. Frankie called three hours later and they’ve been together ever since. The prospect of being alone again is far bleaker than suffering an occasional nuisance like a minor bruise. The first blissful days of a new romance aren’t meant to last and the past few months have been tense. Mariano’s been on edge, his fuse short, his temper quick to flare, the outbursts more frequent.

  Frankie understands his frustration. Mariano’s frightened, his future uncertain until his situation is settled. Frankie’s promised to find a way to keep him in the country legally. Mikey knows a thousand lawyers who can get Mariano the right papers, but he keeps dragging his feet about recommending one. Things will settle down and Mariano will once again be the sweet-natured boy he fell in love with when they can stop looking over their shoulders, wondering every time a stranger appears at the door if this is the dreaded day Mariano will be exiled to his mother’s shack back in Puebla.

  Michael hangs up the phone, his dogged persistence eliciting an unconvincing maybe from his brother, and turns up the volume of the car radio.

  Give us twenty minutes and we’ll give you the world.

  It’s a slow news day and Tommy Corcoran is the top story of the morning.

  Corcoran had been scheduled for execution by lethal injection for his role in the hate-crime murder of Ridley resident Carmine Torino. Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Gagliano, speaking at a press conference, expressed the prosecution’s disappointment in the decision and informed reporters the Commonwealth was considering whether to request a retrial of the first-degree homicide charge.

  Yesterday afternoon, at precisely 4:58, a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s conditional grant of habeas corpus, vacating the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence of Tommy Corcoran, an accomplice to the torture and murder of Carmine Torino, execution of the writ to be stayed for 180 days to allow the Commonwealth to seek a new trial on the capital offense. Michael’s suffered a few professional disappointments in his career; it goes with the territory. But this one hurts. The Three Stooges of the Third Circuit—Moe, Larry, and Curly—weren’t satisfied with stabbing the dedicated prosecutor in the chest. They’re twisting the knife, enjoying watching him squirm.

  Michael flips the station to sports radio to listen to predictions about the Phillies upcoming season and postmortems on the Eagles’ last one. The jokers on the morning show are riffing about the competition for the starting rotation, shifting to an argument about whether Entourage has jumped the shark, then segueing into a Freudian analysis of the fragile ego of Donovan McNabb. No one is talking about Tommy Corcoran or Obama and Hillary and the goddamn primary campaign. The hosts are about go live with the marble-mouthed Phillies manager in Clearwater for a spring training update when the telephone beckons. It’s from his office.

  “Michael, are you almost there? The kid has to be back at school by nine thirty.”

  He remembers he’s supposed to be sitting in the dining room of the Four Seasons, doing a service for both his alma maters. Michael’s been enlisted to recruit a National Merit Scholar and All-Catholic League tackle to bolster the Princeton Tigers defensive line the next four years. The kid and his father and an academic adviser from Matteo Ricci Preparatory Academy have been cooling their heels for a half hour.

  “Call them back and tell them I’m running late. I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” he instructs his assistant Carol before hanging up. He changes stations, back to news radio for the traffic report, hoping to avoid any congestion on the expressway on his drive into the city.

  He thinks of the perfect excuse as he hands his car keys to the valet. He’ll say that early Mass ran late. The legendary Academy alum who’d lettered at Princeton and made Penn Law Review goes to Mass every morning during Lent! The kid will never know this paragon of virtue only crosses the threshold of the House of God one day a year. He apologizes profusely as he introduces himself to the boy and his father. The kid is nothing like Michael was at his age. He’s cocky, unlikable, uninterested in anything Michael has to say. He’s been offered preferred walk-on status by Notre Dame and, after five minutes, Michael’s ready to hand him a first-class ticket to South Bend. It’ll serve the little shit right to be ground up and tossed aside by the unsentimental Fighting Irish, his gridiron career over by his sophomore year. A decade from now when he’s the bitter alcoholic manager of a car dealership, he’ll hate himself for fucking up his entire life because he was too arrogant to take the advice of Michael Rocco Gagliano and accept an academic scholarship to Princeton.

  Michael’s anxious to end this little fiasco and get on with his day. He wishes the boy the best of luck, assuring him he’ll make the Academy proud whatever decision he makes. The academic adviser is clearly embarrassed by the kid’s behavior and thanks Michael, a major contributor to the alumni association, for his generosity to his high school, citing him as a model alumnus. The father, a massive, red-faced hulk of a man, seems truly humiliated. He pushes his chair from the table and, standing behind his son, places one of his enormous hands on the boy’s shoulder. His basso profundo voice trembles with barely contained rage as he asks Mr. Gagliano—Call me Michael, no need to be so formal—to excuse him and his son for a minute, please. The boy seems shrunken, diminished, and the father calmer, his authority asserted, when they return.

  “I want to apologize to you for being so rude, Mr. Gagliano. I know you are an important man and I really appreciate you taking an interest in me,” the boy says, sounding, to Michael’s ears, sincere and contrite.

  His father, Officer Ivan Scalzo, is a city cop raising six kids in a Roxborough row house. He’s a Father Judge alum, a massive middle guard during Michael’s glory years at t
he Academy as an All-Catholic center and linebacker, the unanimous choice for the league’s Most Valuable Player in his senior year, a sixty-minute-man hailed by local sportswriters as the prep school incarnation of Chuck Bednarik, the legendary hero of the 1960 NFL championship. Their paths would cross again years later when Michael, a young ADA in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, newly promoted to the Major Crimes Unit, won the conviction of the punk who crippled Ivan’s partner in a random shooting during a routine investigation of a domestic disturbance. Michael suspects Officer Scalzo has just threatened a felony assault offense himself, promising to smash his kid’s face against the wall of the fancy hotel bathroom if he didn’t show Mr. Gagliano the respect and deference he deserved.

  Michael quickly assesses that the boy actually is smart, with an obvious brain between his ears despite the fact his head looks like it should be attached to his eighteen-inch neck with a steel rod. Young Scalzo asks thoughtful questions and is eager to talk about his interest in mechanical engineering. He’d look more intelligent if he didn’t buzz his hair so short, and he’s rough around the edges, but he’s no more awkward and lumbering than Michael had been at the age of seventeen. He nods, half listening to the kid, who suddenly seems hell-bent on impressing him. He wonders if he’s doing the kid any favors, if the boy’s chances for happiness wouldn’t be better if he settled for a career driving a beer truck. No decisions are announced on the spot, but Michael’s confident that, come September, the policeman’s kid from Roxborough will be suiting up as a Princeton Tiger.

  “My wife and I would like to have you over for dinner one night to show our appreciation, Mr. Gagliano,” Officer Scalzo says.