A Painful Duty Read online

  Gildino was tied with a rope to a kitchen chair under the apple tree. All he could do was cry. He knew Rilly and made his moaning sound. One day Rilly found him rocking the chair. It eventually tipped over backwards. Gildino lay on the ground sobbing. Rilly lifted him up.

  Rilly did not like to greet Gildino when the family was around. They yelled their heads off at the boy and used their hands on him. They slapped his face. The flies were sent scurrying. Gildino rocked the chair and tipped it every chance he got.

  Gildino’s father nailed planks to the feet of the chair. It could not be tipped. Gildino could not shake off the flies that covered his face. The kitchen chair was specked black. Nobody did anything about his chest. It was always wet and sticky from the saliva that hung in strings from Gildino’s mouth.

  They got him crutches. They untied and propped him on the new wooden legs. Rilly watched. Gildino made his excited sound. They told him to walk. They let go of him. He hung there a second or two, then curled and collapsed to the ground. The crutches knocked together and cracked against his head. They picked him up. They told him to walk. He fell.

  ‘Walk!’ they shouted.

  His face struck the back of the fly-specked chair. Again they made him try.

  ‘Walk! Walk!’ they said.

  Gildino twisted and went down in a heap. They screamed. They cursed. They threatened. Slaps. Punches. They beat him because he refused to learn. Gildino lay on the ground whimpering. They wrenched him up and tied him to the chair again.

  Rilly, who was looking on, got an angry glare. A moment later a fist in the face sent him flying. Rilly never went back there again.

  Rilly As Showman

  When he reached Thompsonville Rilly changed his name to Bill. He was now William (Bill) De Santis. He was older when he became, as all Thompsonville called it, a contractor. This meant he went into the construction business. Bill had partners. They called themselves DVM. De Santis, Vespa, Macalone. Vespa’s wife was the sister Bill left the Upper Peninsula to live with as a boy. DVM took on building and paving projects. They also piled split logs on the dirt track to my uncle’s dump. In the winter, when outdoor work closed down, they sawed the wood on an ancient apparatus.

  As he grew up Bill became interested in certain aspects of the old wild west. He taught himself lassoing and rope twirling. He turned it into a professional act. He did his twirling on stage in Boston vaudeville theatres.

  Bill’s act would be announced. The lights were lowered. He came out from the wings with an enormous cowhide rope. At first he made small circles with it. Gradually these grew in size. They widened out to a considerable diameter. One night things went wrong. The lariat grew so big that when it skimmed along the floor its metal ring smashed a number of footlights. Bill thought he’d had it for destroying the theatre’s property. The audience rose to its feet. They would not stop clapping.

  Bill thought he’d be fired on the spot. The manager had a word with him after the show. Could he not put out the lights in like manner every night?

  In later years Bill’s life was tinged with sadness. He had four children. One, Roy, died as a boy. Bill never got over the event. He went to church early every morning, spoke to the priest, and squeezed money into his hand. It was to pray for Roy’s soul. After months, the priest took Bill aside and told him these contributions were not necessary. Bill was disillusioned. He never saw the priest or attended church again.

  Bill had three other children. Two handsome boys and a beautiful daughter. One of the boys was so good-looking that he earned himself the nickname ‘Handsome’. Both sons ended working for Bill.

  In the late afternoon, the boys drove the big truck home and garaged it. Bill followed in the pickup. He stopped off first at a bar on Union Street in Newton Center. He drank bottle after bottle of beer. He always got home well but stinking of drink.

  He and his wife bickered and bickered. She swore at him in dialect. Her father had been a prominent member of the community. Elisa herself, a good-looking woman, had very dark skin and a bitter tongue. Their daughter was a beauty even into old age.

  Bill was a consummate raconteur. His tales have bewitched my sister and me since the day we first heard them over our kitchen table. Even now I have the sound of Bill’s voice in my ear.

  Perry in Massachusetts

  Francesco left Michigan. He found himself work in coal mines near Springfield, Illinois. He also found himself a wife there, a widow with two children. They were Leonilda and Pancrazio and were the same ages as Francesco’s own three. Virginia, the new wife, was sickly. Most of her time was spent in bed, where she was waited on. Lucy and Pierina began to look askance at their stepmother. She stayed in bed most of the day. Neither son nor daughter lifted a finger for her.

  There was no horse or cow. School was out of the question. Pierina was ashamed to be thrown in with small children. Lucy cooked and Pierina cleaned. After a few years Virginia died. Francesco’s sisters in Thompsonville wrote and told him to bring his family to Massachusetts. He lost little time in doing so.

  * * *

  Leonilda married Francesco’s son, Silvio. They were both sixteen. He was now called Sam. Leonilda, now called Nelda, was a copy of her late mother. She was forever ailing and seeing doctors. She locked the bathroom door and spent most of her day seated on the toilet. She read movie magazines as fast as they were printed.

  The handwriting on the wall was all too clear to Lucy. The years of unpaid housekeeping and cooking for others was over. She quietly rebelled. The first chance she got she married and left home. She took care to put plenty of distance between herself and Thompsonville.

  As for Pancrazio, so used to the easy life, he got involved in petty pilfering. To the family’s relief he was soon carted off to reform school. There he specialized in learning the trade of crime. He went in and out of jails. The in stretches were long. He brought great shame to his sister and brother-in-law. They were pleased that he had a different surname.

  Sam taught himself to play the piano accordion. He was good enough to appear on a regular radio program. It was called ‘Sam, the Accordion Man’. Francesco plunked himself before the radio on the nights of Sam’s performances. He was half drunk and tearful. When his son finished a number he would shout, ‘Play it again, Sammy.’

  Francesco worked as a laborer for the City of Newton. Behind his house was a small two-stall horse barn. There was ample space above for storing hay and straw. The horses were used in winter to pull heavy wooden V-shaped plows that cleared the sidewalks of snow. Having a horse again, this time with someone else paying for its keep, was Francesco’s heaven.

  He and Sam erected an elaborate grape arbor over a large part of the property. Pipework supported the vines. They planted Concord grapes. The two pruned the vines in the winter. They built a small extension to the house that was half underground. Here they arranged stalls for six oak barrels. They installed a wine press. There was always plenty of the grape for Francesco to invite his cronies around.

  When the Concord grapes were ripe Nelda came alive. She made jars of grape jelly that lasted a whole year. The jars were sealed with wax. The jelly was excellent.

  There was an incident. Francesco’s dog nipped a passerby. The house was in an uproar. They feared a lawsuit. Francesco feared losing the house and all his property. Nelda had an idea. Was it cupidity or mere cleverness that prompted her solution? She said they should put the house in her name. This was done. There was no lawsuit. Lucy and Pierina had been cheated out of their inheritance.

  Pierina, now called Perry, wanted to earn a living. She wanted a job outside the house. Francesco was enthusiastic about more money coming in. The silk mill, in the Upper Falls, was full of young women like his daughter. Many of them were from Thompsonville. The idea of her working in the mill did not go down well with Nelda. The housekeeping had to be shared at the weekends.

  * * *

  The Upper Peninsula of Michigan was a bad memory. No one ever spoke about it.
Perry was pleased that Thompsonville was clean and it teemed with friendly people. Neighbors dropped in. Most everyone spoke English and versions of Italian. The sidewalks were paved. A tramline that stopped down at the Block ran straight into Boston and the other way to the silk mill.

  * * *

  Thompsonville did not reform Francesco. When Perry brought home her first pay envelope, trouble erupted. Francesco snatched the whole lot. Perry screamed and tried to claw the money back. Her father slapped her. She fell to the floor. He began kicking her.

  Sam flew in from another room. He slammed Francesco against the wall and helped his sister up.

  ‘This is not a boarding house,’ the old man said.

  It was not clear what he meant.

  ‘This is going to stop now,’ Sam shouted at Francesco. ‘Use your hands on her one more time and it will be the last thing you do.’

  Francesco did not argue. He was afraid of Sam.

  ‘He doesn’t even want to give me fare for the tram,’ Perry said. She did not resort to tears. She had to stand up for herself.

  Sam handed her money back. Perry sat at the kitchen table. She set aside what she thought she owed for room and board. She pushed the money at her father.

  Francesco did not bother to count it. He left the room without a word. He never struck Perry again. He never laid another finger on her.

  Pancrazio's Patriotism

  Pancrazio was home. He had been released from State Prison. His sister gave him a room. Sam was of two minds about this. Pancrazio had no job. He hung around the house with a grin on his face. It was a sheepish grin. He wore the look of a man who knows something but is not going to tell anyone what it is.

  He went out for part of the day but never said where. In the evening, after supper and cleaning up, the family settled down before the radio in the parlour. Pancrazio leaned in the doorway, on his face the grin. Nelda and Sam were engrossed with the radio serial. Pancrazio slipped out into the dark. He was careful how he closed the screen door.

  He went out for two or three hours. He never explained his movements. He got back while the others were still glued to the radio. In the kitchen he made coffee and offered them some. Nelda said it would keep her awake. Pancrazio showed his crafty smile.

  Pancrazio liked to slouch in doorways. He kept a hand in a pants pocket and jiggled something. Keys? A fistful of coins? If anyone seemed to notice he grinned and moved away.

  The man with the jingling pockets cased gas stations by day and broke into them at night. Their tills were full of coins. This was petty criminal activity and yet he seemed proud of his vocation. One night toward the end of his career he spotted police cars drawing in. He made it out the back window and was seen to have thrown something away. The police found it. It was a gun. Those pockets did not jingle again. With his criminal record and now the business of the revolver he was well and truly nailed. Pancrazio was back inside for a long, long time. The local paper splashed the news in banner headlines. To Sam and Nelda’s chagrin Pancrazio’s address, their address, was revealed in the account of his crimes. Sam denounced him as a persona non grata. His wife concurred.

  * * *

  It was the midst of the war. Pancrazio was uselessly stuck behind bars. It struck him that if he were able to persuade the authorities to let him out of the state prison he’d be willing to help the U.S. Army in their war effort. He convinced them. He was released, put into a GI uniform, and trained in weapons and warfare.

  Pancrazio came home on a farewell visit before being shipped overseas. He was as bright as a new penny in his beautifully ironed army shirt and pants. He even sported a khaki necktie. The grin was still there. This time nothing jingled in his pockets.

  He was now licensed to practice his expertise in foreign lands. He landed in Belgium. He wore army fatigues. He shouldered a rifle. He might be shot dead at any moment. He understood taking chances.

  * * *

  In a corner of the dining room Nelda had a glass cabinet. It had four shelves. There was little of value in it. Soon after his heroic return from the war Pancrazio gave his sister a gift he had bought for her in Belgium. It was a set of six coffee spoons. Each had an elaborate enameled back.

  Nelda immediately scrubbed the whole cabinet until its shelves sparkled. She then tried out various ways to display her new treasure.

  Was she duped or was foreign loot to be overlooked, its illicit provenance acceptable? Did he really buy them, or were the spoons the just spoils of war? Belgium was a long way off. Nelda asked no questions. Neither did Sam.

  Pancrazio himself gave the game away. His smile. No longer sheepish, it was clearly brazen.

  Nelda, the Dump, and the Doctors

  Perry’s sister-in-law, my Aunt Nelda, enjoyed in the main three things in life. One was being waited on in bed. Two was sitting for hours on the toilet. Three, an adjunct to number two, was reading movie magazines.

  She had trouble with her gums. She was forever using cotton buds, dipped in some foul-smelling tincture, to rub on her teeth and gums. Her serious medical problems, never revealed, never resolved, were perhaps her fourth greatest enjoyment.

  In those days there was no municipal rubbish collection – or if there was, we were unaware of it. Our household waste got thrown down the cellar stairs in bags.

  After a week or so my cousin Al and I would load our old wheelbarrow – it was one of those gardener’s wheelbarrows you rarely see any more. It was made of wood and had wooden sides that could be slotted free. The wheel had its own particular squeal.

  We pushed the barrow a couple hundred yards to where the ground fell away in a steep slope. This slope was gradually being filled in by us and by building and gardening contractors, who had permission to dump their waste here. One lone chokecherry tree grew along the way. Its branches were infested with ugly nests of tent caterpillars. A large part of the area was taken over by builders’ leftovers – sawhorses, and a myriad of planks. Skunk cabbages sprouted between the piles of old timber. The dump itself was home to woodchucks and skunks. As the movie magazines were always stained by the smelly tincture I was never tempted to linger over any of them.

  Back to the main theme – my arrogant aunt. She frequented – or used – hospitals for her various ailments. She liked nothing more than to be put under a strict regimen of tests. During these periods she was told to leave all of her current medications at home. Did she?

  Knowing better than her doctors, she got one of her sons or her daughter to bring some of this prohibited medicine to her. Surreptitiously, of course.

  When the doctors were baffled by the results of her tests, my aunt grew excited. Here she was, a mere Thompsonville housewife, outwitting the men of science.

  ‘These doctors,’ she would sneer. ‘What I have seems to buffalo them.’

  Cousin Dino and Mr Volpe

  Cousin Dino lived in one of the elegant old homes on Beacon Street, in the heart of Newton Center. In Dino’s day the place operated as a rooming house. The building itself, set back from the street, was fronted by a big, well-kept lawn. Identical houses bordered it on either side. One of these was the property of Luigi Volpe, the proprietor of a smart liquor store only a few blocks away.

  Luigi Volpe, like his shop, was elegant if not dapper. Mild-mannered and soft-spoken, he was proud of his immaculate emporium and proud of his home. On coming back from work, if he spotted an out-of-place leaf or wind-blown scrap on the lawn he took great pains to remove it. Whenever their paths crossed, he and Cousin Dino exchanged cordial regards.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Volpe.’

  ‘And a very good morning to you, Mr Alterio. Fine day.’

  ‘Yes, an exceptionally fine day.’

  Cousin Dino was a kindly person with a warm, outgoing personality. He ran a haberdashery and had a following among the young men of Thompsonville. They were changing their mode of dress. Gangster suits were out. Quiet, close-fitting Italian-style suits were in. Dino was an enemy of cheap vulgarity. At
the same time there was an entirely opposite side to Cousin Dino’s personality. He took great pleasure in practical jokes. Some of them bordered on the cruel.

  For Dino a night out with the younger men usually revolved around an expensive restaurant. The finest steaks or chops and of course lobster. A meal without lobster was unthinkable. At the end of the evening, with a wink to the waiter, Dino was handed a bagful of lobster shells from what the gang had consumed. The waiters never asked what Cousin Dino wanted them for. Nor did he offer any explanation.

  It was the wee hours when the revelry finished and Dino was dropped off at his Beacon Street residence. Then, with a quick look around, Dino shook out the contents of his bag over Luigi Volpe’s immaculate lawn. He sprinkled the remains evenly over the whole lawn area.

  In the morning, Cousin Dino timed his exit to work at the moment he saw Mr Volpe step onto his broad wooden porch.

  Mr Volpe looked stricken. The color drained from his face as he raised his fists to his temples. ‘Why?’ he cried out, ‘why does the public do this to me?’

  Cousin Dino commiserated. Why indeed?

  It was not long before the story ran the circle of Cousin Dino’s young friends. They knew the story by heart.

  Cousin Dino chuckled deep in his throat as he repeated Luigi Volpe’s words. He then turned mock angry. ‘The public,’ he said. ‘The public. There is no public. I am the public.’

  Mike

  He was small and his face wizened. It was a cheerful face, nut-brown and bright-eyed. Mike was the name he was commonly called. To distinguish him from any other Mike he was also known as Skippy. Skippy was one of Thompsonville’s handful of Neapolitans.