How We Live

Here she comes, the queen of Caroline Street. Watch her stalk right by us and not even look. That poor imbecille she’s dragging behind by his wrist? Johnny, her son. A grown man, treated like a bag of trash to be hauled to the curb. And the whole time, she’s the reason he’s like that. You can ask anyone.

I’m telling you. If that woman made even one friend in the neighborhood, she wouldn’t be living off junk food. Half an hour it takes her to tow Johnny as far as the convenience store when it’s only around the corner on Eighth. Remember where DiCicco’s pharmacy used to be? Some foreigners have the place now. Arabs, maybe? I don’t go there myself. Not even for milk.

See that? It hurts me to my heart to watch her yank Johnny’s arm. His shoulder jerks forward. The rest of him stays put. His joints could pull apart, like those Tinkertoys kids used to have. You think he has to fall on his face. Then his foot moves. His bones stumble into line. There he stands, with no more idea than an infant of taking the next step. Madonn! He’s turning forty. Five months younger than Dominic, my baby. Him and Dom were so close once they could of been Siamese twins, except for Johnny’s blond hair and blue eyes. His hair’s still the same but his eyes are empty, empty and blue as the sky.

So. How’s life in the suburbs? Makes me sad, all you young people moving out. Where are you headed? Your mother’s? I’ll walk with you as far as the curb market, if we stay on this side of the street. All of a sudden I’m wishing for fennel. A fennel and cucumber salad. For me, fennel is a taste of spring.

It’s been thirty-five years. Can you believe it? Thirty-five years with that woman next door and her refusing to talk. That’s not how we live here. You grew up in the neighborhood. You know how close row house people are. Like family. Used to be, I would hear her husband coughing at night through the party wall. We could of been in bed together. She never spoke, except back in the beginning when she would call on the phone for me to send Johnny home. Sono la madre di Giancarlo.

La madre my ass. Did she ever step outside to see him back safe? Poor baby had to stretch up on his tiptoes to reach the bell. Her door was always kept locked.

Know what I’m thinking now? Braised fennel. With black olives and thyme. Ever try that? Does your stomach good, like a tonic.

Listen. Hear those car horns going crazy? It takes her forever to cross. Makes drivers nuts. Once, some guy with Jersey tags yelled at her out his car window. Go back where you came from, lady. I had to laugh. He didn’t live here no more, but he knew just from looking: She didn’t belong.

She only ever had the one child, but she didn’t have no time to watch him. It was all about the violin. Her playing her violin while he was out playing by himself in the street. I brought him inside. Let him watch TV with my boys. That’s how he learned to talk English. He never would of learned at home. I tried to tell her. Iddu è sularinu. He’s lonely. Know what she says? Lui è solitario. Like I should learn good Italian.

They came from there, her and her husband. From the North. Milan. He got hired to teach piano at the Institute of Music. Hiring her too was the price of his coming. When they practiced with their groups, neighbors sat on my steps to listen. No one got invited in. What do you expect? We all come from immigrants, but we’re Sicilians. Or Calabres’. Too dark. Too ignorant. Not refined like them, with hands so delicate they couldn’t pick up a broom. Us peasants cleaned their sidewalk. My Chuckie still shovels her snow, even when I tell him don’t bother. Let the city give her a ticket if she can’t put her head out to say thanks.

And San Rocco’s parish school that was good enough for us? Not good enough for them. Johnny had to go uptown, to Wentworth Academy. After school, a cab took him for music lessons. Sight reading. Ear training. Finger exercises. Practice? Ha! He was always over to my house, while she was at the Institute, teaching brilliant students from around the world. He never practiced. The lessons stopped.

Just walk across to Claudio’s with me while I get my olives. I’ll buy you some nice cheese to take home. A couple of Dave’s artichoke hearts. Make you wish you never left the neighborhood.

Know what Johnny missed most, not going to school at San Rocco’s? He wanted to be an altar boy, like all four of my kids. They got out of class to serve funerals. But Johnny, he was dying to dress up in the cassock and surplice. Carry the incense boat. Tap that three-tiered brass gong when the priest genuflects at the consecration of the host.

I was the one begged Father Lorenzo to give him a chance, so guess who had to wash and iron the lace surplice. She didn’t even show up to watch him, the one Sunday he got to serve.

Like a little blond angel he was, kneeling on the altar step, face lifted, eyes on the priest, holding the leather-wrapped mallet ready. With the church all hushed and waiting, Johnny tapped that gong perfect. One, two, three. But he didn’t stop there. He had to go on playing a tune. “Mary Had A Little Lamb.” Played it right to the end. I never had to hand-wash no more lace for him.

They started a band together, him and my two youngest boys, down in the basement where I put up tomatoes for gravy. Johnny on keyboard. Pat on drums. Dom on that electric guitar Chuckie bought him. Eighty bucks, new. Could of fell off a truck maybe. I knew not to ask.

If Johnny heard a song once, he could play it, but he wouldn’t stay with the tune. He had to wrap it around, up, down and sideways, with all kind of extra notes. Dom said it wasn’t rock. Johnny just laughed. The madder Dom got, the more Johnny laughed. Laughed so hard he fell on the floor. Him rolling around on my cellar floor laughing with Dominic all the while kicking him, kicking him. That mamaluke thought it was a joke, anyone trying to hurt him. I had to pull Dominic off by his hair. That was the end of the band.

Feel this fennel how nice. Solid. Not a spot on the bulb. When Johnny used to cook with me, he browned his fennel in butter. Liked it more than in oil.

He wasn’t like other kids, Johnny. He’d sit in my kitchen and talk. Chatter, chatter, chatter. If I asked my own boys what happened at school, they’d tell me nothing. Nothing happened.

Talk, talk, talk. What a twitch he was, playing with my garlic press, my juicer. No idea what his hands was doing. All the time asking questions. Why wipe a fish before you sear it? Because oil and water don’t mix. Why use only male eggplants? Less seeds, and they’re sweeter. How do you tell the boys from the girls? You look at the bottom.

He choked.

I’m serious, I told him. Have some respect. Do a thing right or don’t do it.

He tried not to laugh. He held his breath to keep from cracking up, like I had to be putting him on. I wasn’t.

Johnny blushed when he laughed. His face turned red as boiled lobster. Eyes squeezed shut. Tears leaking out the corners. Tears so clear they looked blue. Pale blue tears.

When he handed me back my zester with the handle broke off, I said it’s time you got serious. I showed him how to strip lemon peel without digging into the white. Chop with his fingers bent. He laughed. When I went to add it, the zest was red with his blood.

I tried to teach him to measure. He wanted to cook the way I do, by feel. A pinch of this. A handful of that. First follow the rules, I told him. Rules are there for a reason. He never did learn no respect.

It was all new to Johnny. They must of lived off antipast’ over there because she never cooked. Johnny said she hated the garlic smell coming through the wall. Still, she had to live in our neighborhood. Where else could she walk two blocks and find every imported cheese? Fresh macaronis. All kind of seafood. Proscuitt’. Salami. Oil they sell by the ounce, like perfume. She wanted to live in our neighborhood, but she didn’t want us to.

Know what’s nice with fennel? Chopped anchovies. Four or five, if you have them. Don’t make it fishy. Just add some depth to the flavor.

Johnny took his time growing up. In his teens, he was tall and thin and soft as overcooked spaghetti. My niece Gina pushed him around and she was two years younger than him. Johnny just laughed.

My boys were sneaking Playboy into the house. Johnny bought Gourmet magazine. Making fun of them. And me. Mocking what anyone thought was so all-important. If we got mad, he laughed more. But good natured, you know? Amazed and delighted, like it was some comedy routine, us taking serious what to him was a joke. He’d be wiping his eyes, waiting for us to laugh too, once we caught on that we were fooling ourselves.

See where the t-shirt place is on the corner? That was my dad’s restaurant. Angie’s. You can still read the sign painted up there on the stucco. It’s faded now. Maybe someday I’ll bring a ladder and freshen it up.

My dad ran a card game when he was younger. Behind Orsino’s camera shop. Remember him? Jerry Orsino? On Sixth Street? Before your time, I guess.

Even gamblers get hungry, my dad said, so he learned to cook. Then, when the street tax doubled, he shut down the game and opened his own place. Nice, with white table cloths, candles. If he was short-handed, he put us kids in the kitchen to do the prep. It was only another neighborhood restaurant, but you don’t make it here serving crap. Eating good is our tradition. People come from all over. And people like you come back.

Celebrities too. Frank Sinatra. Dean Martin, when he was in town. Nico Papelino—Papa, they called him—that was head of the mob here for twenty years. Papa loved my dad’s veal rollatini. When the big boys passed though on their way down the shore, he brought them along, but he never did business there. He had respect. And he got respected.

Eighty-dollar bottles of wine Papa would order and share with the tables around him. Try a little of the white pizza. Give me your plate. Like the fresh mozzarell’? Calamari? Tonno? Don’t be afraid. Taste the pepperoncini.

Papa had French cuffs with gold cufflinks. The manicured nails. A pinky ring with a ruby. Three-piece suits, all custom. But conservative, you know? Never the flashy silk those young guys liked to strut around in, trying to draw attention. You were from the neighborhood? You had a problem? If Papa could fix it, he would. He was generous with the tips. The room got brighter when he came in. That’s the power he had. Like a prince.

It was my dad’s place those young Turks picked to blow Papa away. Three shooters in a room of innocent people. Mirrors all smashed. Eleven bullets in him and Papa still took two nights and two days to die.

That started the war. You won’t remember, but thirty people got whacked before it was over. Bodies left lying in the street. All those young guys dead or disappeared into witness protection. Too greedy to wait their turn.

Johnny read every word they wrote in the papers. Couldn’t talk about nothing else. None of our business, I told him. We don’t bother them. They don’t bother us.

To him, the mob was a joke. Like The Three Stooges on cable TV. Johnny loved The Three Stooges. He would love those tours Marie Martello gives. A bunch of mayonnaise faces stand around staring at a patch of sidewalk while she tells them how this one and that one got hit. What the medical examiner found stuffed down their throat, up their ass. A roll of cash. A canary. The tourists laugh, but it’s a nervous laugh. It should be.

Back on the bus, Marie tries to sell them her book. Cucinare con La Nonna. Who is she kidding? Our grandmothers never followed a recipe in their life. They couldn’t read. I read fine, but I don’t do real gourmet. Mostly I cook what my mother cooked. I feel more comfortable, knowing what to expect.

What do you think? Can somebody like Johnny still taste? A clear, clean taste like fennel, maybe. How hard would it be to buy extra? A couple more bulbs. Just take me a minute. Okay?

Even as a kid, Johnny had a talent for combining flavors. Said he’d go to restaurant school after graduation. That was just talk. They sent him away to college. He flunked out his first year.

No kid that age should have so much time on his hands. I said I’d find him a job bussing tables or prepping. I still had the contacts. He would of learned how professionals work. He would of had something solid. Johnny just laughed. He looked at me and he laughed, face all red, eyes floating like oysters on the half shell. I told him don’t come over no more. That’s how mad he made me. I got past it soon enough, but he never came back. What was I supposed to do, chase after him?

He did fill out, finally. Johnny could of been a male model, he looked that good in clothes. Maybe the Rossi girl thought she could have him on the side. She should of known that’s not how it works. Some women get a thrill being close to danger.

I swear to God. Everybody knew Carla Rossi was Tommy Tassone’s comar’. Tommy Two Toes, they called him. Toes wasn’t a made man. Just an associate that still had to prove himself. He couldn’t let nothing like that slide.

Everybody knew, but nobody said nothing. Not to Johnny. Not to her. They lived in their world. We lived in ours. What are you going to do?

Used to be, Wise Guys took their girlfriends out Fridays. Saturday was for wives. Rules like that would make Johnny laugh ’til he cried. If he even knew.

That Saturday, Toes took his wife to Atlantic City. He made sure plenty of people saw them. Left three of his crew waiting outside Carla Rossi’s apartment.

Johnny would think it was a game, three thugs dancing around him, Larry, Curly, and Moe. He’d be laughing himself limp. Until he got beat into the ground. Left to lay in his blood until morning.

He woke up with a metal plate in his head. The piano player took off back to Milan. No music comes out of that house now. She’s busy changing diapers, spooning in the convenience food. Sono la madre di Giancarlo. What kind of joke is that?

So. Am I kidding myself thinking a taste can reach him? Would Johnny laugh if he knew? Will she slam the door in my face?

Wait a minute. Cardamom. I forgot the cardamom. That’s how long it’s been. Johnny would taste the difference. At least I hope he would. Thyme I got growing in pots on my windowsill, but for cardamom pods, I go to the Vietnamese woman down the end of the block. If she’s still there. The Vietnamese are moving out to the suburbs now. Mexicans moving in. Taking over the Italians’ stalls. Selling mangos, papayas. Cactus. Those people eat cactus. How do they cook it? Maybe the way I cook fennel, simmered in chicken stock. Unless they use a microwave, like everybody your age does.

Seen those new houses? Used to be the market’s parking lot there. Town homes, they’re calling them, but you and I know they’re row houses, even with roof decks and garages underneath for their cars. The rest of us fight for what street parking is left.

Did your mother tell you San Rocco’s school got turned into condominiums? The candy stores are all gone now. You don’t smell garlic on every block in the late afternoons. Everything’s changing. Except me. And her. Me on my side of the wall. Her on hers. The two of us blaming each other, like Johnny himself didn’t do nothing. He’d be laughing for sure.

Now I’m wondering. What if Johnny was right and it is all a joke? What if how we live doesn’t matter? Thinking that makes me feel dizzy. Like in this dream I have where I open the door to a room with no walls, no floor. One step and I’m falling, falling through empty space with nothing solid to grab. Who can live like that? Not me.

Never mind. I’m doing fennel for Chuckie and me. How hard can it be to chop some small enough to eat with a spoon? Brown it in butter. Three cloves of garlic. Four if my garlic’s not fresh. I don’t skimp on garlic. If she throws it back in my face, that’s on her. The wall will be there between us, like always. I can live with that. But you know what I’m missing? Music. I miss hearing the music.