by John Fante
I said: “God strike me dead, Ma.”
Then my father came home. I heard his shoes scrape on the front porch. I was out of luck. He came in without taking off his hat.
I said “Papa, Mamma doesn’t believe I got pinched, and she won’t lick me. You tell her.”
He said: “Sure I will, later. Now you get in there”—meaning me. Also meaning the bedroom.
I went in there. I got it again. I got a hell of an awful licking. The worst I ever got in my whole life, except the time I broke Alloback’s window and the time I kicked my brother in the head and the time I stole Mamma’s purse. Anyhow, it was a plenty tough licking. It stung and stung and stung. Then my father threw me on the bed and went to talk to my mother.
He told my mother about it. I heard him. He told her and told her. But she would not believe him. She said I was too little to steal and get arrested; that made my father get mad.
He said: “By God, you don’t know what a devil that kid is.” And my father is right, because I am plenty tough.
He went out. My mother came into the bedroom. I was still crying from my licking. I had a right to cry, because it was the worst I got in my whole life. My mother got the menthol and pulled down my pants. She didn’t believe me yet. The menthol felt like ice, cold ice. While she was rubbing me, she tried to tell me I didn’t do it. But I said I did, all right.
She said: “I know you didn’t do it.”
I said: “I know I did.”
She said: “Come on, say you didn’t do it.”
I said: “But I did, too, do it.”
She said: “Oh, you did not.”
I said: “I did!”
She said: “No you didn’t. You can’t fool your mother.”
I said: “The heck I can’t! If you don’t believe me, go down to the jailhouse and see. You go there, and you’ll see where me and Dibber cut our names on the wall.”
But she shook her head, meaning she still thought I was fooling her.
She went away, and I could hear her in the kitchen. She was singing. My mother always sings the same old song, and it’s not such a hot song, either. I learned it a long time ago, when I was a first-grade punk. It’s “The Farmer in the Dell.”
The right way to sing “The Farmer in the Dell” is like this:
The farmer in the dell,
The farmer in the dell,
Heigho, the merrio,
The farmer in the dell.
Which is plenty bad enough, but this is how my mother was singing it, which makes it a very goofy song:
Oh, I know he didn’t do it,
I know he didn’t do it,
Heigho, the merrio,
I know he didn’t do it.
She meant me, she meant I didn’t do it, which is nuts, because I did do it. And if she wants proof she can go down to the jailhouse and see mine and Dibber’s names cut in the wall.
Dibber cut his: “Kansas City Lannon.”
I cut mine: “Two-Gun Toscana, the Death Kid.”
I like mine best.
A Wife for Dino Rossi
HIS NAME WAS DINO ROSSI, and he was a barber down in North Denver, down there in the Italian quarter where we lived when we were kids. In the early days he had courted my mother. That was around 1909, before my father came upon the scene. Dino Rossi couldn’t have been very ardent at courtship; he was too gentle for that; he was so thin, so soft-spoken, his hands and feet so small. He had been no match for my father, who was a bricklayer, no competition at all. Under Dino’s very nose my father and mother had been married. Dino Rossi was one of my earliest memories. I can remember playing horseback on his knees, bouncing up and down on his bony knees.
Six or seven times a year Dino came to our house for dinner. Papa used to insist on his coming. Papa used to go out of his way to Dino’s barber shop to invite him to dinner. To us kids, Mike and Tony and Clara and me, the reason was obvious: Papa liked Dino sitting there because Dino had failed in his efforts to marry Mamma, while Papa had succeeded. All the time, walking in and out of the room, hovering over the table and serving dinner, there was Mamma, one man’s prize and another man’s loss. Whenever Dino was there Papa developed a remarkable fondness for Mamma. From where he sat between Tony and me, Dino’s soft eyes would watch Papa embrace Mamma every time she came from the kitchen with the roast, or the macaroni, or whatever it might be. Other times Papa would seize Mamma and kiss her violently.
This was extraordinary, as well as disgusting, because Papa never did such things when Dino wasn’t around. Papa was inclined to fits of moodiness: he would sulk for days and make scenes over trifles: if his eggs were too soft, or his handkerchiefs unironed, or a button was gone from his shirt, he would raise both fists to the ceiling, rip out tufts of his hair, and shout threats. If the bread or the salt and pepper were forgotten at table, he would generally warn us, Mamma in particular, that he was tiring of it all, and intended to strike out alone. We were used to these outbursts, and nobody paid any attention to them, not even Papa himself.
But if Dino was there, mamma mia, how different Papa was! I was fourteen in those days, but even my brother Tony, barely six, sensed the stiletto behind Papa’s peculiar conduct. Papa was simply twisting it in, torturing Dino, who lived in two rooms behind the barber shop on Osage Street, and would probably never marry and have a wife take care of him. Papa would always bring up the subject of marriage—Dino’s—in the presence of all of us, there at the table.
“What the devil’s the matter with you, Dino? Are you a man, or what? Almost forty years old, your hair falling out, and still you live in that hole behind the barber shop. Get yourself a wife, Dino! Madonna, how can you stand it? How can you live without a woman?”
Then he would turn and grab Mamma by the waist, squeezing her with his heavy arms as Mamma smiled patiently, her gentle face begging Dino to understand, to forgive Papa.
“Look at me, now!” Papa would continue. “Look what I got. And look at the food on this table. Such cooking, so good for a man’s stomach! Did you ever taste ravioli like this, Dino?”
Dino would smile his praises.
“Answer me, Dino! Don’t be afraid. Don’t be shy in front of my wife. You were once in love with her. Once you even tried to marry her.”
Dino always spoke in Italian.
“The ravioli is delicious, Guido,” he would answer. “Ambrosial!” And he would pluck a kiss from his lips and toss it toward the platter.
“Of course it is. Everything’s ambrosial when your own wife cooks it. Ah, Dino, what a fool you are, living in that shack. You, with all your money saved, and what has it got you? Nothing! Solitude, loneliness, gray hair, old age.” Then his voice would change to a confidential tone. “Dino, you must have twenty-five, thirty thousand dollars in the bank, huh, Dino?”
Dino would lower his eyes, and all of us would suffer with him, for Dino was not a man who boasted of what he possessed; nor was he without generosity, Dino Rossi, who gave us free haircuts, and a quarter apiece every time he came to our house, and swell presents at Christmas time.
After dinner it was worse. Dino would help Mamma and Clara with the dishes, and then he would go into the front room, where Papa sat waiting impatiently for him, contemptuous of a full-grown man assisting in lowly female tasks. They would sip anisette and smoke cigars. It was our turn after dinner, our turn to become the tools of Papa’s conceit.
We always sneaked away quietly to the back part of the house, out of his sight and out of his reach, but inevitably he would call us, his voice disgustingly affectionate, yet with a quality of command that we feared. We would drop our toys and march in, sullenly, with bitter mouths, unhappy for Dino, still more unhappy at what lay before us.
Papa would be sitting in the big rocker by the window, and Dino would be on the davenport near the bookcase. Like wooden soldiers we would march into the middle of the gray carpet, there to stand with our hands dangling foolishly, each of us aware that Papa’s strong burgundy had by now r
eached its full effect upon him. There Papa sat, a Nero on his throne, his body deep in the rocker, his arms limp over the sides, his legs stretched before him. Mike and Tony and myself, we always felt like running deep into the night, there to hide our faces in shame. With Clara it was different; Papa didn’t care much about her, because she was a girl.
“There they are, Dino,” Papa would begin. “My sons. Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. My handiwork, Dino. I created these boys, I, and I alone. Ah, Dino! The joy of creating sons! Observe them; clear eyes, thick hair, strong bones, healthy skins. They carry my name, they immortalize me, they save me from the grave. When I am gone from this earth, my spirit goes on and on in the flesh of these boys, and their sons, and their sons’ sons.”
We three would look at one another, perplexed and feeling terribly naked, our eyes asking one another the same question: Why the heck does he do this? But in the end it was little Tony who got the worst of it, because he was the youngest and fairest, and it was he whom Papa called to him. Tony would frown as he walked with dragging toes toward Papa, and Papa would lift Tony up on his lap, holding him there and tightening his big arms every time Tony tried to squirm loose. Too bad for Tony! Mike and I would rush to the back of the house, gasping with relief, cursing: “Goddamn him, goddamn him.” But Tony had to sit there and be bounced on Papa’s knees, and even be kissed, which was pretty awful, because Papa smoked those powerful black Toscanelli cigars, and when Tony finally got away his mouth would stiffen, as though he were trying to push it away from his face.
“I have found a wife for Dino Rossi.”
It was Papa talking. We were in bed, four of us in one bed, Tony and Hugo, our Airedale, in the middle, Mike and I on the outside. Clara slept on the davenport in the front room. Papa had just come home from the Little Italy Club, and we could hear him in the next room, talking to Mamma as he undressed, coins and nails jingling in his pockets as he took off his pants.
“You’ve found a wife?”
That was Mamma’s voice, and the bed springs creaked, and we knew she had sat up at his words.
“A wife. Dino Rossi is going to get married, by God!”
“But when? Who?”
“Coletta Drigo,” Papa said.
“And who’s Coletta Drigo?”
“A woman,” Papa said.
“But who? What kind of a woman?”
“A beautiful woman. From Chicago.”
“Does Dino love her?”
“He ain’t even met her yet.”
Mamma gasped. Mike and I sat up, waiting to hear more. Hugo’s ears stood out like funnels, and he began to growl. From the silence we knew Mamma was speechless. For a long time there wasn’t a sound. One of Papa’s shoes thumped to the floor, then the other. Hugo began to lick Tony’s face, and Tony sat up too. We heard Papa pad across the floor in his bare feet, heard the light switch click off, and the sound of his feet once more as he crossed to his side of the bed.
“You must be out of your head,” Mamma said. “Dino doesn’t want to get married. He’s very happy.”
“No he’s not,” Papa said.
“What kind of a woman is she?”
“Oh,” Papa said, “she’s not so bad.” From the way he said it we knew that Coletta Drigo, whoever she was, must indeed be a pretty bad woman. Papa yawned. “Met her tonight,” he said. “She’s a stranger in town. She’s coming to dinner tomorrow. So’s Dino.”
“You mean—coming here, to this house?”
“Sure,” Papa said. “Where do you suppose?”
Mamma got out of bed, hurried across the room, and switched on the light. It leaped into our bedroom too, because the door was half open. “I won’t have this woman in my house,” Mamma said. “Do you hear me? I won’t have her under my roof, eating at my table. I won’t have anything to do with it.”
“What do you mean, your house?” Papa said. “What do you mean, your roof? Your table? I’m the money maker in this family, and what I say goes.”
“You heard me!” Mamma said. “Poor Dino, poor, innocent Dino. Well, I won’t have it!” We heard the closet door rattle, the sound of Mamma slipping into her robe, then the soft sound of Mamma’s feet pushing into bedroom slippers. The light in the front room flooded the rest of the house when Mamma left the bedroom. We could hear her walking around, as though walking furiously in a circle.
“A wife for Dino!” she gasped. “Why, the very idea!”
“Come to bed!” Papa shouted. “I’m a bricklayer, in case you don’t remember. I got to be on the job at seven in the morning.”
Mamma turned off the lights and went back to bed. We heard her talking unhappily to herself. Mike and I lay in the darkness, our ears alert. Tony was asleep now, Hugo’s chin across his neck, Hugo’s thick lips puffing in and out. After a while Mamma groaned and tossed. She was sitting up again. Papa gasped.
“What now?”
“She’s not coming. I won’t have it!”
“You heard me the first time. She’s coming to dinner and so’s Dino. It’s about time he got married, and by God I’ll see that he does.”
“I won’t cook dinner. I won’t do it.”
“Yes, you will.”
Back and forth the argument went on, until Mike fell asleep and Hugo became so disgusted with the noise that he jumped from the bed and went to his place behind the kitchen stove. I listened to their voices in the darkness, but nothing more was said to clear up the mystery of Coletta Drigo. Mamma’s voice was thick with bitterness. It was always “that woman,” but never her name. Even as I fell asleep the argument went on, with Mamma insisting she wouldn’t cook dinner for that woman, and Papa warning her that she’d better.
Papa won the argument. For that matter, Papa never lost an argument with Mamma, but I knew he had won again when I got home from school next afternoon and smelled the rich odor of ravioli sauce through the house. Ravioli meant one of two things at our house: either it was Easter Sunday or Christmas, or company was coming. It wasn’t Christmas, and it wasn’t Easter.
One look at Hugo’s sad eyes and fallen ears, and I knew Mamma was dangerous. Hugo wouldn’t even come into the house. I stepped into the kitchen and Mamma turned, her face hot and perspiring, and ordered me out of the room. Blobs of flour smeared her apron and she tried to blow a strand of hair from her eyes.
I just want some bread and peanut butter,” I said.
She raised her arm and pointed toward the door. I didn’t move. She stood there, pointing and blowing at the loose hair. I shrugged and walked away. Tony got the same treatment. He kicked and shrieked for his regular after-school bread and peanut butter, but it did no good. When Mike came home, he too walked empty-handed into the back yard. Clara was the only one who got anything. She stayed in the kitchen with Mama. We sat in silent dejection under the apple tree. It was that woman, that Coletta Drigo person, who was the cause of it all.
Papa got home a few minutes before six. The back yard was pink in the sunset. We heard Papa in the house, his iron-cleated heels pounding the floor, and then the song he whistled as he shaved. Long shadows fell away from the back fence. We didn’t say a word. After a while Papa stopped whistling, and Hugo whimpered uncomfortably. A strange calm came with darkness. We sat looking at the kitchen window, watching Mamma as she moved back and forth from the table to the stove. Pretty soon Papa came outside. He was shaved and powdered and we could smell him, and it was like sitting in a barber shop. He carried a small glass of wine. Seated on the back steps, he sipped it in the dangerous silence. Once he smacked his lips loudly, but that was bravado, for there was guilt in the way he looked about him; and when he snapped his fingers and called Hugo, the dog got up and slowly walked away.
Then Dino arrived. Mamma put her head out the door and told us to come in now. Papa jumped to his feet.
“Dino!” he said. “Is Dino here? Well, what do you know about that!”
It was as if he were trying to convince all of us that Dino’s arrival was an extraordin
ary event, despite the fact that he had personally invited Dino to come. We went inside. Papa had rushed into the cellar to his wine barrels, and Dino stood over the stove, his eyes closed reverently as he inhaled the wonderful aroma of Mamma’s tomato sauce. He had a way with him, that Dino. Mamma’s cooking was so much better when he was there to praise it with small gesturing fingers and the worshipful sparkle in his cool eyes.
We stood against the kitchen wall, watching him from a different perspective than ever before. Hugo smelled his shoes suspiciously. We had always felt vaguely sorry for Dino, and now we pitied him and were ashamed that we knew in secret what was about to befall him. A woman was going to get Dino. It meant nothing to us, and yet it was catastrophic, but we didn’t know why. When he saw our lugubrious faces he would not have it. With unexpected gusto he clapped his hands.
“Come, come!” he said. “Why so gloomy?”
He reached into his pockets and drew out all his silver and began dividing it among us. It wouldn’t divide evenly. With an impatient smile he poured all the coins into Tony’s hands. “Divide it among yourselves.” We thanked him without enthusiasm. As we retreated to the front part of the house, he stood in the kitchen door and scratched his head, his face lined with amazement.
“What’s the matter with them?”
“They are probably tired,” Mamma said.
But what about the mysterious Coletta Drigo? Our eagerness to see her made us stiffen at the slightest sound on the front porch. Hugo put his nose against the crack at the base of the door and lay there waiting, now and then growling uncertainly.
In the kitchen Papa poured wine for himself and Dino. His voice had a wild, defensive tone. He seemed eager to distract Dino, and he went to absurd lengths to make Dino comfortable. He made foolish inquiries about Dino’s health, his business, and how are you sleeping these nights, Dino, and is your wine cold enough, and how do you like the weather we’re having? If Dino was suspicious, he concealed it, for he acted as always, his voice as gentle as his eyes.
