“Chase is my main man, too,” Officer Ottaviano says as he blows a thick stream of smoke through his nostrils.
“Looking forward to today, Paulie?” Michael asks.
“Looking forward to all the overtime we’re getting this week. Man, if Obama wins, they’ll be dancing in the streets and I’m gonna really clean up.”
“See you, Paulie. Be safe. Give my best to your brother,” Michael says, hustling Danny inside before he asks who they are and why they’ll be dancing in the streets.
“Dad, can I ask you a question?”
Too late.
“Why was that policeman smoking?”
Danny, who’s been raised in a world where adults go to extreme lengths to conceal their abominable tobacco habits from impressionable children, was probably more awestruck by the sight of Paul Ottaviano casually sucking on a Newport than by the service revolver in the holster on his hip. Michael knows it’s his responsibility to launch into a lecture of the dangers of smoking. That’s what a good upper-middle-class parent from the leafy Main Line suburbs is expected to do. But he passes on the opportunity to reinforce a life lesson this morning. There are worse crimes than taking a drag on an occasional cigarette. Goddamn, the man who may be President has been known to fire up a menthol now and then. Michael likes the fact that the guy is fucking human.
“I guess he likes to smoke, Danny,” he says, unable to work up the enthusiasm for a sermon about the life-threatening evils of tobacco.
“But it’s bad for you! That’s what you and Mama always say,” he spouts, challenging his father with the American Lung Association party line.
“Well, Officer Ottaviano has a really hard job,” he tries to explain.
“Don’t you have a really hard job?”
“Sometimes,” he laughs, scuffing him on the head. “Hey, buddy, there’s Uncle Frankie,” he says, pointing at a booth in the back of the diner.
It’s funny, seeing his brother in his Hamels jersey, his hair pushed back under a baseball cap, one more middle-aged guy dressed in age-inappropriate attire, stoking up on caffeine and carbohydrates for the big day ahead. Michael bends down and touches his face, needing physical confirmation of the stubble on his chin.
“I don’t believe it. Francis Rocco Gagliano didn’t shave this morning. You remember Father Jack, don’t you, Danny?”
“I think so. Where’s your jersey?”
“I don’t have one,” the priest says, smiling.
“How come?”
“Don’t know. Didn’t buy one.”
“Don’t you like the Phillies?”
“I love the Phillies.”
“Don’t you have any money?”
“Apologize to Father Jack,” Michael says, though truth be told, it’s hard to be indignant over his son mocking the priest. “Enough questions, Danny. What do you want for breakfast?”
“Pancakes.”
Michael orders two short stacks of blueberry pancakes and a side of bacon to share. The grown-ups pass the meal with idle chatter, their conversation interrupted by parishioners approaching the booth to pay their respects to the padre. How’s your breakfast, Father? How ’bout them Phillies, Father? I bet you wuz prayin’ for a victory! See you Sunday, Father. Jack has a pleasant word for everyone, calling them each by name. Beautiful morning, isn’t it? Couldn’t ask for a more perfect day. You get enough to eat? See you at the parade.
Michael almost feels sorry for the pathetic priest. It’s going to be hard on him once Frankie’s gone, leaving him all alone. You two are just like J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson, he’d once teased his brother. Frankie had made it clear he didn’t find the joke funny, obviously uncomfortable with the idea of a carnal relationship with a man of the cloth. Michael watches his brother making stumbling attempts to speak Spanish with the pretty young busboy, expecting it’s only a matter of time before he becomes infatuated with another demanding and deceitful gold digger looking for a human ATM machine.
Today Frankie isn’t worrying about calories and cholesterol. He mops up a pool of syrup with the last bite of French toast and scarfs down a greasy slab of scrapple. His brother and Jack tease him about this uncharacteristic lack of self-discipline and gargantuan appetite.
“I’ll take an extra Lipitor tonight,” he says.
Damn, he thinks, that’s another thing he’s going to have to take care of, something else to put on his list. He’ll need a cardiologist in Fort Lauderdale to refill his Niaspan and statins after his prescriptions expire. No wonder people stay put in one place rather than deal with the aggravation of uprooting their lives and making a new start in another part of the country. A few short months ago he would never have considered leaving this neighborhood and settling thousands of miles from his brother. Sometimes he wakes in the middle of the night, certain he’s making a terrible mistake.
Still, with each step he takes, he grows more confident. Every day that passes he’s more eager to begin the next chapter of his life in the Silver Daddy capital of the eastern United States. He’s already gotten his Florida license to practice cosmetology in the Sunshine State, and the manager of the Neiman Marcus in the Galleria was so impressed by his experience and poise (and, yes, his looks) he offered him a stylist position during his interview. His bid on a two-bedroom condo in Wilton Manors was accepted before he flew back to Philly, and he’s ordered a leather sofa and a dining table to be delivered after the closing. He’s eaten his first conch and met a handsome Cuban, a dead ringer for the young Desi Arnaz, Jr., who claims to like older men. He’s learned his lesson after Mariano and had only agreed to a first date after calling the law firm where the young man claimed to work to confirm his employment as a paralegal.
It’s going to be hard leaving Mikey, seeing him at most once or twice a year, but they agree it’s for the best. Michael won’t admit it, but Frankie knows his brother suspects it’s only a matter of time before his guileless older sibling slips up and makes some careless remark, raising suspicions about the fate of the pretty young boy who’d vanished without warning one day, never to return. Jack, though, is still arguing that there is plenty of time for Frankie to change his mind, that he can flip the Florida condo or even keep it as a second home, somewhere to escape in the dead of winter. But the die has been cast. The lead feature of the current edition of the South Philly Review is a long piece about the closing of Gagliano Cuts and Color, Family Owned Since 1928. Connie and a few of his special clients will raise a glass in a champagne toast at the close of business tomorrow before locking the door of the shop at Eighth and Carpenter the very last time.
The contractor arrives Monday morning to begin gutting the salon, stripping the walls to the studs and ripping up the floor. Frankie will be gone by Thanksgiving, maybe sooner, depending on how quickly he can put his affairs in order. It’s funny how easy it is to wind up an entire lifetime in just a few weeks, so little to keep him here. His accountant and lawyer can tend to all the details; his financial adviser assures him he has plenty to live on for the rest of his life, even before clearing another half million after selling the building. He’s half tempted to simply shutter the shop after the farewell toast and drive to Florida Sunday morning. He could take up residence in the Hilton until he closes on the condo, a safe and comfortable distance from the regrets that plague him and the memories that haunt him, leaving behind a cold trail that curious strangers won’t be able to follow. God may forgive him one day for what he has done, but somewhere in this world someone is missing Mariano, searching high and low for clues to answer their questions.
The young Mexican girl was in again yesterday, as always without an appointment. She’d unnerved him the first time she’d entered the shop, on a quiet afternoon in May, shy and hesitant, asking Frankie in heavily accented English if he would cut her hair. She was polite and quiet as she sat in the chair, making no suggestions, trusting his skill, her eyes carefully following his moves in the mirror. The resemblance was subtle but undeniable. She and Marian
o shared the same dark brown eyes, almond-shaped, the color of cocoa, the same sharply angled cheekbones, the identical plush and sensual lips. Michael tried to reassure him, saying he had an overactive imagination and watched too much tabloid television, when Frankie confided his suspicions that the girl is Mariano’s flesh and blood, a sister or cousin, determined to solve the mystery of the disappearance of the family’s little burro. Once Frankie saw her sitting with a man who resembled Randy as he walked by the window of one of the seedy cerveza joints below Washington Avenue. He’s tried talking to her as he cuts her hair, asking questions about her family back home and here in the city, but she simply smiles and shrugs her shoulders sheepishly, gesturing that her English is too poor to carry on a conversation. It’s chilling, the way her eyes scrutinize the reflection of his face in the mirror, peering into the dark corners of his conscience, trying to expose the guilty secret he will carry to the grave.
“Having a good time, buddy?” Michael asks.
Danny’s shoveling pancake into his mouth, eating like a racehorse with no one lecturing him to chew with his mouth shut and to keep his elbows off the table.
“Yes,” he says, blueberry chunks wedged in the spaces between his teeth.
Frankie and Jack are regaling him with tales of the 1980 parade, a day when dogs ran wild in the street, kids swung from the low-hanging branches of the trees, confetti and streamers poured from the highest windows of the tallest buildings, fireworks exploded in broad daylight, cannons roared, and Superman and Spider-Man both streaked across the sky.
“It wasn’t really like that, Danny,” Michael protests, throwing a bucket of water on their nostalgia-flamed memories, not wanting him to be disappointed in the parade when chariots of fire and superheroes don’t descend from the heavens.
The diner is starting to empty as folks finish their eggs and coffee and leave to stake out a good spot to watch the parade.
“Do you have to go to the bathroom before we go, Danny?”
He shakes his head no, insisting he’s fine. If worse comes to worst, Michael will take him behind a building and let him piss on a wall. Hell, he’ll probably love that. Michael had taught him how to pee like a big boy by standing him on the back porch and telling him to the aim for the boxwood shrubs.
The city’s growing livelier as they head back to the parade route. More and more people have made their way out to the streets. There’s still time to kill before the festivities begin, but Frankie and Jack have no interest in wandering the neighborhood. They’re going to plant themselves right here, thank you, and wait for the motorcade to come to them. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Louise Pelusi has reserved a pair of folding chairs outside her formal-wear rental shop and is promising to crack open a bottle of Cold Duck to toast the Phillies as they pass by her storefront.
“We’re going to take a little walk,” Michael announces. “Danny wants to check out the neighborhood, right, buddy?”
“You better be back by the time of the parade!” Frankie warns.
Michael knows South Philly must be intimidating to a kid raised in one of the priciest zip codes in the county. The auto body shops and nail salons. The holes-in-a-wall selling cigarettes and lottery tickets. The storefront counters where you order cheesesteaks and pizza by the slice. There’s a funeral home on every corner and at least two Chinese take-outs on each block. Mexican boys whiz by on their rusty used bikes, nearly clipping pedestrians on the sidewalks, racing the clock so they won’t be docked for being late at their kitchen jobs. Grizzled survivors of addiction wars malinger on the street corners, drinking coffee from paper cups and filling the hours of the day with idle gossip and strong opinions. Teenage mothers push strollers down the block, threatening their babies with physical violence if they don’t stop wailing. The streets smell like fryer grease and exhaust fumes. But by spring, summer at the latest, Danny will have adjusted to his new surroundings and urban life will be second nature to him. Times have changed since Frankie and Michael ran wild on these streets, unsupervised, in those bygone days when parents never worried about abductions or seductions or assaults. Still, Michael will insist his boy be given some independence. It’s ridiculous to assume that stalkers and predators are lurking around every corner of the neighborhood, despite Kit’s fears.
It’s been a rough year on his wife, but they seem to have weathered the first real strain in their relationship after ten years of marriage. Kit had been taken aback by his abrupt resignation from Kettleman’s office just as he was about to assume the position he’d coveted for years. She was furious he would make such a radical decision without first telling, let alone consulting, her. He’d said he’d lost the fire in his belly to put men behind bars and he’s no politician. Glad-handing and insincerity are anathema to him. She’d asked him to consider applying his talent to civil litigation, defending pharmaceutical companies and enforcing restrictive covenants. But criminal law is his lifeblood. Walter Rudenstein, the Dark Knight of the Defense Bar, hadn’t hesitated before offering Michael a partnership. In fact, he said he was greatly relieved that his protégé had been pursuing him for a job. He’d foolishly thought Michael had been trying to reach him because he was in trouble. Why would the winner of the Father Theodore Sullivan Award, All-Ivy, Order of the Coif, the straightest of arrows, ever need the services of a defense lawyer?
But it was Michael’s insistence they sell the Nook and move to his boyhood home that had completely unsettled her. He’d argued he owed it to his brother. Papa had bequeathed the house to his three children. Frankie and Michael had paid cash to their half sister for her share of the appraised value when the property was transferred at the settlement of their father’s estate. He had always insisted Frankie would get the full proceeds when the building was sold, in recognition of his significant investment in renovating the interiors and in recompense for his gentle caring for their demented parent. But housing prices had taken a sudden steep drop as a result of the latest financial crisis and Frankie was selling when the market was soft, at least for a century-old, mixed-use property at the fringes of gentrification. Michael was adamant his brother maximize his profit, which he insisted could only be accomplished if Kit and he purchased the property.
She said he wasn’t thinking rationally. He was acting impulsively. No one, least of all his brother, expected him to uproot his family. Why couldn’t he admit it made no sense? It was unfair to her and their son. Why couldn’t they just buy the house and put it on the market? They could afford to take the loss, if necessary. There was no reason they needed to actually live there. She was worried about him. The past few months she’d felt as if she had been living with a stranger. She wanted to help, if only he would let her. She’d never seen the full force of his volcanic temper until she suggested he agree to “see someone.”
He wanted to confide in her that he no longer dreams of chasing trains, but of crouching in the cold, dark basement as an angry Papa descends the staircase swinging the barber’s strop, following a glowing blue trail of Luminol, searching for Frankie, who Michael has hidden in the freezer. Michael could never feel safe with strangers living in the house at Eighth and Carpenter. Some traces of organic evidence will always remain. Skin and hair, sources of blood cells and genetic samples, can stubbornly resist a chemical reaction with bleach. But confessing to his wife would compromise her integrity and jeopardize her own freedom by making her a party to his crimes. Better to let her believe he’s crazy.
Improbably, it was her mother who persuaded Kit the Nook was only a stone-and-mortar building, albeit one with perfectly preserved period details. Houses were meant to be bought and sold, but a home was worth any price to preserve. Had Kit learned nothing from her first marriage? Dodie would have abandoned Highbrook without regret, selling her birthright to the first bidder, to share her life with an honorable man who unconditionally loved her, one born without the philandering gene. Conceding the wisdom of her mother’s advice and resigned to accepting her husband’s decisi
on, Kit took to the challenge of being a bohemian urban pioneer. And in a few years Danny will be enrolling at the Academy, its campus in the heart of the city. He’s excited by the promise of having a floor all to himself, Papa’s barbershop and Frankie’s salon converted into a bedroom and refitted into his private retreat. Michael agreed to restore the top floor to the original plan to placate the last dissenting voice. His stepdaughter, a college freshman who’s rarely at home, was devastated to learn they were moving to a house without a room she could call her own. He cheated a bit, shrinking the dimensions of her bedroom to half the square footage he and Frankie had once shared, but she’ll still have the afternoon sun from the window on Carpenter Street. Kit’s mildly disappointed the renovations will necessitate ripping out the oversize Jacuzzi and replacing it with a conventional tub. She’s hinting they ought to make love in it once before the plumbers haul it away, a house christening Michael will go to great lengths to ensure never happens.
“Jump on my back and hang on to my neck,” Michael says. Danny’s a bit heavier each time he piggybacks and Michael’s knees aren’t getting any stronger. But he’s still only sixty-five pounds and off they go, taking long strides back toward the parade route.
The crowd has gotten rowdier over the past hour. A cheer rises when it’s announced the Phillies have stepped off uptown. They’re in countdown mode; it’s only a matter of time until the cavalcade arrives to bask in the love and adoration of the city. College and high school boys strip to the waist to paint the red Phillies logo on their torsos. Kids peer into car windows, smearing whiteface on their skin and drawing baseball seams across their cheeks with black eyeliner. A young man strolls by, acknowledging the applause for his hat—a majestic construction-paper model of the championship trophy, spray-painted a glittering gold. A few people are chugging forty-fives, but most everyone is sober, stoked to a fever pitch on nothing but excitement. They’re standing on mail and newspaper boxes and shinnying up lampposts and street signs. And, yes, Frankie’s memories are accurate; they’re hanging from the branches of trees.
The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter Page 38
