The Wine of Youth

by John Fante

  Claudia’s apartment was an impassable heap of overturned furniture, broken pictures, and fallen plaster. I found a candle under the table in the breakfast nook, and as I stepped back to the living room I felt the soles of my feet covered with sticky marmalade; it clung like dead fingers, as if to imprison me. I scraped it off on a chair rung.

  Claudia’s jewels were buried under a heap of perfume bottles. As I gathered them a shock came. I lost my balance and the candle wavered, and it seemed my heart sprang and struck me like a snake. But I got the jewels. At the door I stooped for one last look around. Before the fireplace I was surprised to find the chesterfield unmoved, the only piece of furniture undisturbed by the quake. A long time ago Claudia and I had christened it “The Field of Honor.” We used to lie there by the hour, talking and sipping gin fizzes on hot summer afternoons. I went up to it and turned it over and shoved it across the room, thinking all the time of the laughter of Father Driscoll.

  By the time I got downstairs and into the open again the Marines had taken charge and the town was under martial law. They ordered me away from the wrecked walls and I moved to the middle of the lot. I couldn’t find Claudia. Someone had built a big bonfire, where the refugees of that district now huddled. I walked around the fire, looking into frightened, flame-shadowed faces. She wasn’t there, so I began a systematic search of the lot, starting at one corner and walking down the crowded sidewalk. Then I heard my name called. I turned toward the street and saw Claudia seated with someone in a car. I walked over. A man was at the wheel beside her, but I didn’t know him; I’d never seen him before. With eyes lowered, she open her palms and I emptied my pockets of the jewels.

  “Who’s the guy?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer.

  “What’re you doing here?” I said.

  “All set?” the man asked.

  “Claudia!” I said.

  “I can’t stay here,” she said.

  The engine started.

  “Claudia!”

  “I can’t stay here! I can’t!”

  The car moved from the curb. I stepped back as it nosed into the sweep of traffic. Once more I called, but she didn’t look back, and the last I ever saw of her was a white hand protecting the hair that flowed from her bent head. Then the traffic swallowed her. I leaned against a lamp post and lit a cigarette. I was glad she was gone.

  A heavy hand grabbed my shoulder and shook me. I looked around quickly, and before me loomed the big figure of Father Driscoll. His black suit was grimy, his reversed collar awry. He wasn’t wearing the usual soft black hat, and I noticed a trickle of blood near the line of his gray, curly head.

  I said: “Hi, Father! Swell earthquake.” Then I said: “Your head’s bleeding.”

  He was a huge man, six feet five, and looking down at me he dusted the front of his coat and smacked at the dusty spots around his knees.

  “Never mind me,” he said. “How come I don’t see you at Mass any more?”

  “Busy,” I said.

  “I ought to knock hell out of you,” he said.

  “Save it,” I said. “Your head’s bleeding.”

  “You better get smart,” he said, “you fifth-rate Huysmans!”

  “Maybe I will.”

  He took out a handkerchief and dabbed the blood.

  “Can’t talk now,” he said. “I’m needed at the hospital. You come to Mass Sunday, get me? I want to talk to you.”

  “Maybe I will,” I said.

  “No maybe about it,” he said. “You come, get me?”

  “Okay.”

  He smiled.

  “So long, sucker. Look out for the girls.”

  He slapped me on the shoulder and hurried away, dabbing at his bloody head. I watched him break into a run as he crossed the street. Then I went the other way, walking slowly, mingling with the hysterical crowd, walking along and thinking I was alone, that soon my slate would be clean again, grateful that my Church was above all a good sport.

  Hail Mary

  HAIL MARY, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O Holy Mother Mary, I am now in Hollywood, California, on the corner of Franklin and Argyle, in a house where I rent a room at six a week. Remember, O Blessed Virgin, remember the night twenty years ago in Colorado when my father went to the hospital for his operation, and I got all my brothers and sisters down on the floor in our bedroom, and I said: “Now by gosh—pray! Papa’s sick, so you kids pray.” Ah, boy, we prayed, you Virgin Mary, you Honey, we prayed and my blood sang, and I felt big feelings in my chest, the ripple of electricity, the power of cold faith, and we all got up and walked to different parts of the house. I sat in the kitchen and smirked. They had said at the hospital that Papa was going to die, and nobody knew it but me and Mamma and you, you Honey, but we had prayed and I sat smirking, pooh-poohing at death because we had prayed and I knew we had done our share for Papa, and that he would live.

  The rest of them wouldn’t go to bed that night, they were afraid Papa would die, and they all waited, and already Grandma planned the funeral, but I smirked and went to bed and slept very happy, with your beads in my fingers, kissing the cross a few times and then dozing off because Papa could not die after my prayers, because you were my girl, my queen, and there was no doubt in my heart.

  And in the morning there was wild joy to wake me, because Papa had lived and would live some more, a lot of years to come, and there was Mamma back from the hospital, beaming and sticky when she kissed us for joy, and I heard her say to Grandma: “He lived because he has an iron constitution. He is a strong man. You can’t kill that man.” And when I heard that, I snickered. They didn’t know, these people, they didn’t know about you and me, you Honey, and I thought of your pale face, your dark hair, your feet on the serpent at the side-altar, and I said, she’s wonderful, she’s sure wonderful.

  Oh, those were the days! Oh, I loved you then! You were the celestial blue, and I looked up at you when I walked to school with books under my arms, and my ecstasy was simple and smashing, crushing and mad and whirling, all these things across my chest, sensations, and you in the blue sky, in my blue shirt, in the covers of my blue-covered book. You were the color blue and I saw you everywhere and then I saw the statue in the church, at the side-altar, with your feet on the serpent, and I said and said a thousand times, I said, oh, you Honey, and I wasn’t afraid of anything….

  Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O Holy Mother Mary, I want to ask a favor of you, but first I want to remind you of something I once did for you.

  You will say that I am bragging again, and that you have heard this story before, but I am proud of it, and my heart is beating wildly and there is the rustle of a bird in my throat, and I could cry, and I am crying because I loved you, oh, I loved you so. That hot flash on my cheek is the course of my tears, and I flick it off with the point of my finger, and the finger comes away warm and wet, and I sit here and I am of the living, I am saying this is a dream.

  His name was Willie Cox, and he went to Grover Cleveland. He was always razzing me because I was a Catholic. O you Mary! I have told you this before, I admit the braggadocio, but tonight, one day removed from Christmas Eve, I am in Hollywood, California, on the corner of Franklin and Argyle, and the rent is six a week, and I want to ask you a favor, and I cannot ask until I tell you once more about this Willie Cox.

  He chewed tobacco, this Willie Cox. He went to Grover Cleveland, and he chewed tobacco, and I went to St. Catherine’s and we used to pass one another on the corner, and he used to squirt tobacco juice on my shoes and legs and say: “That for the Catholics. They stink.”

  Willie Cox, where are you tonight? I am on the corner of Franklin and Argyle, and this is Hollywood, so it is quite possible that you are two blocks away, but wherever you are, Mr. Willie Cox, I call upon you to bear witness to the truth of my narrative. Willie Cox, I took
a hell of a lot of your guff that spring. When you said the priests ate the nuns’ babies, and then spat on my shoes, I took it. When you said we had human sacrifices at Mass, and the priest drank the blood of young girls, and you spat across my knees, I took that. The truth is, Willie, and tonight I admit, you scared me. You were very tough, and I decided to do as the martyrs did—to do nothing. To take it.

  Hail Mary, full of grace! I was a boy then, and there was no love like my love. And there was no tougher boy than Willie Cox, and I feared him. Ah, but my days were celestial blues and my eyes had only to lift and there was my love, and I was not afraid. And yet, in spite of it all, I was afraid of Willie Cox.

  How is your nose today, Willie Cox? Did your front teeth grow out again? He was on his way to Grover Cleveland and I was on my way to St. Catherine’s and it was eight o’clock in the morning. He shifted the wad in his jaw, and I held my breath.

  “Hi, Red Neck.”

  “Hello, Willie.”

  “What’s your hurry, Catholic?”

  “Gotta, Willie. I’m late.”

  “What’sa matter? Scared of the nunnies?”

  “Don’t, Willie. You’re choking me.”

  “Scared of the nunnies?”

  “Don’t, Willie! I can’t hardly breathe!”

  “I heard somethin’, Red Neck. My old man, he tells me you Catlickers think Jesus was borned without his mother having kids like other people have kids. Is that right?”

  “It’s the Immaculate Conception. Ouch!”

  “Immaculate, crap! I bet she was a whore like all Catlickers.”

  “Willie Cox, you dirty dog!”

  Mr. Thomas Holyoke, you are dead now, you died two years later, but even in death you may speak out tonight and tell what you saw from your window, there on the lawn, fourteen years ago one morning in the spring. You may say what you said to the policeman who ran from the courthouse steps, you may say again:

  “I saw the dark lad here struggling to get free. The Cox boy was choking him. I thought he’d hurt the boy, and I was about to intervene. All at once the dark lad here swung his fist, and the Cox boy went sprawling across my new spring lawn. I thought they were playing, until I saw the Cox boy didn’t move. When I ran out his nose was bleeding and his front teeth were missing.”

  Hail Mary, full of grace! Here in Hollywood, on the corner of Franklin and Argyle, I look through my window and gaze and gaze at an unending pattern of celestial blue. I wait and I remember. O you Honey, where are you now? Oh, endless blue, you have not changed!

  In her room next to mine, my landlady sits before the radio. Willie Cox, I know now that you are in Hollywood. Willie Cox, you are the woman in the next room playing the radio. You have given up the vulgar habit of chewing tobacco, but, oh, Willie, you had charm in those days, and you were not nearly so monstrous as you are now, slipping little pieces of paper under my door, telling me over and over that I owe you eighteen dollars.

  Hail Mary, full of grace! Today when I talked to my agent he said there was a slump in Hollywood, that the condition was serious. I went down the stairs of his office and into the big, late afternoon. Such a blue sky! Such riotous blue in the Santa Monica mountains! I looked everywhere above, and I sighed, and I said, well, it won’t rain tonight, anyway. That was this afternoon. Willie Cox, you are my landlady and you are a Slump in Hollywood.

  Mary in the Sky, what has happened to me? O tall queen standing on the serpent at the side-altar, O sweet girl with waxen fingers, there is a Slump in Hollywood, my landlady slips little pieces of paper under my door, and when I gaze at the sky it is to form an opinion about the weather. This is funny. It is probably goddamn funny to the world and it is funny to me, but this gathering dust in my throat, this quiet in my chest where once there was whirling, this cigarette-clenching mouth that once bore a smirk of faith and joy in destiny—there is no laughter in these things. Willie Cox has got me by the throat again.

  Willie Cox, I am not afraid of you. I know that I cannot bloody the nose of a Slump in Hollywood or knock the teeth out of my landlady’s mouth, but, Willie Cox, remember that I still look to the sky. Remember that there are nights like these when I pause to listen, to search, to feel, to grope.

  Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, and blessed art thou among women. Holy Mary, Mother of God, I was going to ask a favor, I was going to ask boldly about that rent. I see it is not necessary now. I see that you have not deserted me. For in a little while I shall slip this into an envelope and send it off. There is a Slump in Hollywood, and my landlady slips little pieces of paper under my door, and once more I sit in the kitchen of my world, a smirk on my lips….

  Later Stories

  A Nun No More

  MY MOTHER WENT to a high school which was run by the nuns. After she got through she wanted to be a nun too. My Grandma Toscana told me. But Grandma and the whole family didn’t want her to become a nun. They told her it was all right for girls in other families to become nuns, but not their daughter. My mother’s name was Regina Toscana and she was so holy the holiness lit up her eyes. She had a statue of St. Teresa in her room, and when they kicked about her becoming a nun she stayed in her room day and night praying to St. Teresa.

  “Oh beloved St. Teresa!” she prayed. “Grant me the light to see the path thou hast made for me, that I might do thy holy bidding. Visit me with sanctifying grace in the name of our Blessed Mother and the Lord Jesus, amen!”

  Some prayer. But it didn’t do any good because Grandma Toscana still said nothing doing. She told my mother to cut out acting like a sick calf and get some sense. They all talked to her like that, Uncle Jim, Uncle Tony, and Grandma and Grandpa Toscana. They were Italian people and they didn’t like the way she was acting, because Italians hate it when their women don’t want to get married. They hate it and they think something is screwy somewhere. It is best for the Italian women to get married. Then the husband pays and the whole family saves money. And that was the way they talked to my mother.

  Then my Uncle Tony got an idea. One night he brought a man named Pasquale Martello to the house. Uncle Tony introduced him to my mother, and he had a hunch she would go for him and maybe marry him and forget about the nun business. My mother was a honey and I know it, because we have some pictures and I can prove it.

  Pasquale Martello owned a grocery store and he was lousy with money, but otherwise he wasn’t so hot for a girl like my mother. He sold fancy things in his store, like Parmesan cheese, salami, and a special kind of fancy garlic. He dressed real loud in green shirts with white stripes and red neckties. The only reason my mother went with him was on account of she was afraid of Uncle Tony, who raised hell if she didn’t go out with him. Pretty soon Pasquale Martello got a crush on my mother and he tried to get her to marry him.

  But he had so many bad habits that my mother got awfully tired of him pretty soon. For one thing, he ate too much fancy garlic and his breath was something fierce. He carried garlic around in a sack in his pockets and he used to toss it up in the air and catch it in his mouth the way you eat salted peanuts. He took my mother to different places, like Lakeside Park, and the dance, and to the movies. On account of that garlic you could smell him coming for miles. Every time they went to the movies people got up and found other seats. Any my mother wanted to become a nun! It was very embarrassing for her. After the show they used to sit in front of the big stove in Grandma Toscana’s parlor and talk. He was so dumb that my mother yawned right in his face and he never did catch on that she was hinting and wanted to go to bed. She had to tell him to go home or he would still be in that parlor, talking.

  Every morning Uncle Tony asked the same question.

  “Well, well! And when’s the marriage going to be?”

  “Never,” my mother said. “There isn’t going to be any marriage.”

  “Are you crazy?” Uncle Tony said. “That guy’s got money!”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “My life is in another direction.”

&
nbsp; “Meaning?”

  “My life is dedicated to the service of our Blessed Lady.”

  “My God!” Uncle Tony said. “Did you hear that one! I give up!”

  “I’m sorry,” my mother said. “I’m really sorry.”

  “Sangue de la madonna!” Uncle Tony said. “And after all I’ve done for her! There’s gratitude for you.”

  My mother went up to her room and stayed there all day, until Pasquale came that night. He always brought my grandmother something from the store, cheese mostly and sometimes tomato sauce in big cans, or Italian paste. Grandma Toscana liked him most on account of the Parmesan cheese, which was a dollar a pound in those days.

  That night my mother told Pasquale it was too bad, but he would have to find another girl because she did not love him. He was crazy about her all right. He got down on his knees and kissed her hands, and he walked out of the house bawling. The next day he called Uncle Tony on the phone and told him my mother had given him the gate and wouldn’t let him come around any more.

  Uncle Tony got boiling mad. He ran home from work and raised hell with the whole family. When he came to my mother he shook his fist in her face and pushed her against the sideboard so hard it knocked the wind out of her.

  “You crazy fool!” he hollered. “What good are you anyhow?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Good God!” he said. “Don’t you know anything else but ‘I’m sorry’?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Listen to her!” he yelled. “She’s sorry!”

  “But I am sorry,” she said.