Our Frail Blood Read online

  OUR FRAIL

  BLOOD

  Also by Peter Nathaniel Malae

  Teach the Free Man

  What We Are

  PETER NATHANIEL MALAE

  OUR FRAIL BLOOD

  Black Cat

  New York

  A paperback original imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  Copyright © 2013 by Peter Nathaniel Malae

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 or [email protected].

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or localities is entirely coincidental.

  “Mother” from ANNE STEVENSON: POEMS 1955-2005

  by Anne Stevenson. Copyright © 2005.

  Reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books.

  Excerpt from “Oysters” from OPENED GROUND: SELECTED

  POEMS 1966-1996 by Seamus Heaney. Copyright © 1998

  by Seamus Heaney. Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd

  and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-9371-1

  Black Cat

  imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  841 Broadway

  New York, NY 10003

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  www.groveatlantic.com

  As all else,

  this book

  is for Christina

  Of course I love them, they are my children.

  That is my daughter and this my son.

  And this is my life I give them to please them.

  It has never been used. Keep it safe, pass it on.

  —Anne Stevenson, “The Mother”

  Contents

  The Felices

  Upland Examiner in the Kitchen of Big Victor

  September 2, 1967

  Part I: Anthony

  1. Murron Leonora Teinetoa

  E-Mail in East Palo Alto

  October 25, 2007

  2. Anthony Constantine Felice II

  Iraq War Protest at the Mount Shasta Amphitheater

  November 12, 2003

  3. Murron Leonora Teinetoa

  The Flowers of Elysium Fields

  October 31, 2007

  4. Anthony Constantine Felice II

  Dream of the Camp America Cabin

  May 3, 1996

  5. Murron Leonora Teinetoa

  Critical Review of Shakespeare

  November 13, 2007

  6. Anthony Constantine Felice II

  Soup Kitchen of St. Joseph’s Cathedral

  June 3, 1993

  The Felices

  Christmas Lights of Big Victor

  December 12, 1963

  Part II: Richmond

  7. Murron Leonora Teinetoa

  Land of Endless Possibility

  November 29, 2007

  8. Richmond Lincoln Felice

  Walk Across Manhattan

  June 20, 1999

  9. Murron Leonora Teinetoa

  Discussion After the Long Day

  November 30, 2007

  10. Richmond Lincoln Felice

  Drive Through the Tenderloin

  March 10, 1996

  11. Murron Leonora Teinetoa

  No Country for Old Men in Starbucks

  December 9, 2007

  12. Richmond Lincoln Felice

  Flight to Montparnesse

  April 13, 1993

  The Felices

  Summer Vacation at the Grand Canyon

  August 8, 1956

  Part III: Johnny

  13. Murron Leonora Teinetoa

  Scrapbook of Anthony Constantine Felice Sr.

  January 4, 2008

  14. Johnny Benedetto Capone

  Afternoon Drink at Blinky’s Can’t Say Lounge

  April 28, 2004

  15. Murron Leonora Teinetoa

  Calling Forth of Lazarus

  January 10, 2008

  16. Johnny Benedetto Capone

  Share of the Rosy-Flush Clip-On

  January 8, 1981

  17. Murron Leonora Teinetoa

  Blackjack at the Ohlone Indian Casino

  January 15, 2008

  18. Johnny Benedetto Capone

  Last Shot at Peter Entry Films

  March 22, 1979

  The Felices

  Vision at the Upland Independence Day Parade

  July 4, 1955

  Part IV: Lazarus

  19. Murron Leonora Teinetoa

  House Hunt with Anthony

  March 2, 2008

  20. Lazarus Corsa Felice

  Recall of the Hell Hospital

  October 6, 1997

  21. Murron Leonora Teinetoa

  Boiling Water in the Room

  March 12, 2008

  22. Lazarus Corsa Felice

  Enrollment at Università degli Studi di Palermo, Sicilia

  March 19, 1987

  23. Murron Leonora Teinetoa

  Terms of the Correspondence

  March 13, 2008

  24. Lazarus Corsa Felice

  Arrival of the Package

  July 23, 1982

  The Felices

  Jimmy Baldwin of the Upland Little League

  July 29, 1954

  Part V: Mary Anna

  25. Murron Leonora Teinetoa

  Motherhood on the Terrace

  March 25, 2008

  26. Mary Anna Felice

  Abstinence at the Estate

  July 4, 1998

  27. Murron Leonora Teinetoa

  Nakedness on the Big Date

  April 1, 2008

  28. Mary Anna Felice

  Spring Sports Banquet at Hayward State University

  May 16, 1993

  29. Murron Leonora Teinetoa

  First Day with Mary Capone Felice

  February 9, 2010

  30. Mary Anna Felice

  Seventieth Birthday Party for Anthony Constantine Felice Sr.

  September 6, 1983

  The Felices

  Prayer at the Upland Carmelite Mission

  July 8, 1953

  The Felices

  Upland Examiner in the Kitchen of Big Victor

  September 2, 1967

  When little Limus Baldwin, younger brother to Jimmy, whipped the paper like a Frisbee over his shoulder, weaving heavily down Third Street on his silver Schwinn ten-speed, the frame’s center saddled with sixteen more deliveries in town before the clock struck noon, they came out to the porch of their house, Big Victor, and picked it up. He had his father’s meerschaum pipe in his mouth, unlit as of yet, about to be smoked at the oaken kitchen table while plucking through the vitals
of this very paper. She had on her Big Mama apron, clean as of yet, about to be messed with the day’s early baking at her stove. She was excited about the news, maybe delirious in some dormant chamber of her heart, having no understanding of the flak her family would soon enough face from certain elements in the town of Upland, thinking from her fairly uninformed historical perspective that the Victory Parade she’d witnessed in the autumn of 1945, their first year in California, was something of the standard when it came to the reception of her country to its veterans, but this would change in time, as certainly as the seasons, an awakening of sorts to a darker dream not to be pondered as of yet.

  Now, in front of her husband, head down as if she were prepared to push through a crowd to save her own child, she stomped into Big Victor. Their daughter, the last of the brood, was an hour into practice for the Upland Junior High School softball team. This first Saturday in September, ten minutes before twelve, the sun as bright as it would ever be, the oranges on the counter fatter than grapefruits, the sheen on the rinds glowing with the fertile nutrients of Southern California soil. The grove behind Big Victor still put out the best citrus in America, the entire state of Florida be damned. She stood next to his spot at the head of the table, gripping the bridge of his chair, and waited. He came in casually, rolling the rubber band off the paper as he walked, as if this were just another day in their life, perhaps to balance her predictable southern Italian response of pure emotion, this due to the contents of today’s issue of the Upland Examiner, purportedly on the first page. And then, also, he didn’t expect good news when good news was supposed to happen, especially to loved ones, the survivor’s trait sometimes proven beneficial and called guardedness, sometimes not and called cynicism. However defined, residual drip-down of the Great Depression. Now he was really dragging the moment out, stretching the dramatic undercurrent as if it were a piece of taffy in his hands, now lighting his pipe, looking over at his wife with mischief in his eyes. Maybe he believed in the good news this time, maybe the man from the paper had kept his word. Maybe he was just bathing in hope.

  “Anthony!” she shouted.

  “Okay, okay.”

  He unrolled the paper and laid it across the table.

  “Dear God!” she shouted. “How wonderful!”

  A cloud of applewood smoke drifted over his long face, goose bumps running the lengths of his arms, still muscular from his early years in the coal mines. They’d gotten the front page all right, the whole of it. Article on the left, photos on the right. Four black-and-white portraits of his boys in their dress formals, each, except one, on his way to Vietnam.

  “Anthony!”

  “It looks good,” he said. “Really good.”

  “Are you happy, honey?”

  “I am,” he said. “I really am.”

  The phone rang. He walked over to the living room, the floorboards of Big Victor creaking like a saloon in an Old West ghost town, and picked it up.

  “Anthony Felice Sr.”

  She went to stand at her husband’s side, the creaking less severe but still there, always there for the twenty-two years of the family’s residency in these elegant yet warm, colossal yet intimate Victorian halls, there as the children ran across, ran through, ran up the house in the wild middle of a hide-and-seek game, there during the prayer before dinner, there during the debate over Kennedy and Johnson and Nixon and a hot plate of pasta fazool, there watching Cronkite in utter silence, palms at the sides of their bottoms, rocking back and forth as if at sea, there serving tea to neighbors, beer to coaches, wine to priests, most of the guests ignoring the strange sounds, strange emissions, strange utterances that came of a familiar and beneficent source, the creaking erupting during the fistfights, the creaking steady in the ad hominem attacks, there during the epithets and false accusations, there during the making up, the apologies, this sole and trusted witness to all lovemaking, there while they slept in their own hidden corners, as a son, a brother, someone no one deep down really knew and maybe couldn’t love or like anyway, the tragedy of the species, crept through the dark corridors in the midnight hour, on the spy’s toes, in the crook’s covetous trance, and there after the joy and beauty, the horror and ignorance, the familial flame which in harsh and soft winds both was the ever-flittering story of the Felices, and then there for two more families, six years in Spanish with the Aragons, three in Vietnamese with the Nguyens until over four smoggy summer days in the early nineties the creaking floors gone forever, Big Victor torn to the ground, turned to a lot more or less, or a site, its resurrection considered in strictly fiscal terms by out-of-state contractors from back east, then declared a week later unlikely via fax, finally deemed impossible in a single phone call from a man in New Jersey, confirmed by all involved by running memo, the Fourth Street Grove sold like a black-market good to a foreign entrepreneur whose name no one but a few parties in the old neighborhood knew, the whole of Third Street blasted for the erection of a super-sized porn theater baptized as Mr. Peeps and a convenience store christened as Larry’s Liquor.

  For now, Anthony Felice Sr. said, “Thank you, Ron. I will give them your best.” Then: “Yes, I will. Definitely will.” And: “You, too, Ron. Absolute best to the missus.”

  The calls came in fast, thirteen before lunch. Congratulatory, kind, grateful. It was a day to celebrate, and nothing else. Some of the callers were on their way over. She would be ready, she was born to cook for many. She would host her guests with tuna salad sandwiches and assorted fruit, black licorice for desert and hand-squeezed orange juice from the grove. Aniseed biscotti in little brown bags to be taken home for the kids. She would not say much except for the soulful greeting and gentle salutation inherent to her person, she would watch the Flecks and Mr. Bierce and Principal O’Connor speak to her husband on the paper’s front-page topic, dropping plaudits like flower petals on a trail, and she’d return to the kitchen beaming from their praise of her boys, knowing that no one but God could take away the greatness of this day from her family. She would wash the dishes looking out the window, she would take in none of the specifics of the conversations, content with the kind tone of them. No thought at all about the certainties of this life, that benumbing minute when the loss of all things innocent even dreams even love would return to the same doorstep where this joyous day had begun.

  PART I

  Anthony

  1

  Murron Leonora Teinetoa

  E-mail in East Palo Alto

  October 25, 2007

  I don’t know why sometimes, but I try.

  Once I get home, my mother says, “Is it one of those come-hell-or-high-water days, baby?” and while I’d like to be honest about it and say, “Yes, those bastards are talking about cutting my column,” I realize that in the grand sum of things my concern about the job is rather small, not because it means less to me or to the world but because I really have no say in the long run who stays or goes at the Chronicle, even when the who is me. Which, obviously, means everything.

  Focus on the stuff in your life you have control over, I say.

  “How was your day, Mom?”

  “Very interesting,” she says, the cryptic avoidance of my eyes meaning something that, I’m sure, will eventually reveal itself.

  I go straight to the underwater-blue glow by the telephone, the one with the virtual rainbow of tropical fishes happily blowing bubbles into the darkness, make them vanish with one tap on the keyboard, check my e-mails. If Lokapi is going to take Prince for the weekend, I want to know how long he’s keeping him and when and where the pickups and drop-offs are going to happen.

  A couple coworkers, especially the divorced ones, think it’s weird that I don’t feel any animosity toward Lokapi. Being a single mom is tough enough without having haters on your contact list. The haters always want you, too, to hate. “It’s not natural to be so nonjudgmental, Murron.” “Are you even human,
girl?” “Should you hand Prince over so nonchalantly?”

  Forget weird. I consider their suggestions to be somewhat stupid because when it comes down to it, from top to bottom, inside and out, my kid is one-half Lokapi. No matter how much I or anyone propagandize Prince, some genome on the spiral ladder will be summoning blood to revolt, and I know this. And even if I did feel the way they say I’m supposed to, I still wouldn’t exhibit those feelings in front of Prince, who’s savvy and sensitive enough to know when someone’s being devious.

  So I let Lokapi have Prince as much as he wants. From the start, we’ve never involved the courts, and it’s my deepest truest hope that we never do. I don’t really see how anyone else should have say over our son’s life and, luckily, so far, Lokapi feels the same way.

  I flick through the standard e-mails—weekend playdates at the Watergarden, doting Richard and his downie.dick (@aol.com), enough spam to either save or kill a third-world nation—and then drag to one I’ve never seen before: [email protected].

  When I open it, every so-called relative I have is on the CC, even my mother: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected].

  Hello everyone. As you know, I have been the primary contact over the past few years when it comes to Mother’s health. This is due, of course, to my decades of work and leadership in the health care industry. Mother’s systems are now shutting down. If you wish to get your good-byes in before she goes, I’d strongly encourage you doing it soon. She will be at the Elysium Fields Hospice in East San José. I have spoken with Janice Ashton, the hospice administrator, and she informed me that all visits are terminated by 7:00 p.m. Please respect her wishes.

  Mary Anna

  I put my hand on my chest, the palpitations of my heart increasing. Weird that I feel no sadness about the news, just a vague, lingering dread, the kind I get before a triathlon. I want to know how these people found me. Prince runs into the room with my mother who doesn’t want to look me in the eyes.

  “Who’s that, Mama?” Prince asks.

  He’s bouncing on his toes, shadowboxing like the UFC fighters he watches at Lokapi’s, shirtless, barefoot, his hands wrapping and rewrapping his lavalava around his tiny waist. The yellow and blue flowers on the fabric stand out so beautifully against his copper skin. With my encouragement, he’s been learning Samoan customs and phrases at his father’s place, but it sometimes feels like our apartment is not completely our apartment. That Kapi still lives here, and that I don’t have anything comparable to offer my son when it comes to culture, and lineage, and language, and name.