CHAPTER 8

THE FIRST FINE Saturday of spring Octavia decided to give the house a good cleaning. Vinnie and Gino were sent off to janitor the building—to wash the halls and stairs, and clean the backyard of the tenement. Little Sal and Baby Lena were given rags to dust the chairs and the great wooden table; the chairs with their many ringed rungs, the table with its great mysterious arches of wood beneath it, forming caves in which the two little children could sit and hide. With the great greasy bottle of lemon oil, they made everything shiny and green-black and slick so that Octavia had to go over it with a dry rag.

Everything was taken out of all the closets, and the shelves were lined with fresh clean newspaper. All the china was spread over the kitchen table to be washed of its film of dirt.

In an hour Vincent and Gino were back in the apartment with their broom and mop and pail and the kettle for hot soapy water. Gino said, “We’re all finished. I gotta go out and play stickball.”

Octavia’s head jerked out of the closet. She was angry. There had been a change in Gino the last few months. He had always been irresponsible; but pinned down, with no chance to disappear, he had worked cheerfully and well. Now he was sullen, defiant. He spoiled everything. She frowned at them both. Vinnie was getting just as bad.

Octavia called out, “Ma, look. They washed the whole building with one kettle of hot water. Four flights of stairs and four halls and the ground-floor marble with one lousy kettle of hot water.” She laughed contemptuously.

Lucia Santa said from the kitchen, “Eh, well, as long as it looks a little clean.”

Octavia almost screamed. “How the hell could it look clean with one kettle of hot water?” She heard her mother laugh and she laughed herself. It was such a beautiful morning. The apartment was flooded with yellow light.

The two boys standing there with the mop and pail looked so comical, they hated it so. Their faces were all twisted up with disgust. “All right,” Octavia said, “Vinnie, you help me with the closets; Gino, you wash the windows on the inside. Then you and Vinnie can bring all the junk down in the yard and I’ll finish the windows.”

“Like hell I will,” Gino said.

Octavia didn’t even look at him. “Don’t be smart.”

“I’m going out,” Gino said.

Vinnie and Sal were aghast at Gino’s audacity. None of the brothers ever dared defy Octavia; even Larry took orders from her sometimes. She always pulled their hair and slapped them when they were fresh and did not obey. Once she even hit Larry on the head with a milk bottle.

Octavia was kneeling half in the closet. She said over her shoulder, “Don’t make me get up.”

“I don’t care,” Gino said. “I ain’t washing any goddamn windows, I’m playing stickball.”

Octavia leaped up from the floor and was upon him. With one hand she grabbed his hair, with the other gave him two good slaps in the face. He tried to get away, but she was too strong for him. She held him fast. She pummeled him, though she did not really hurt him. She screamed, “Now you little bastard, say you won’t wash the windows and I’ll kill you.”

Gino didn’t answer. He tore himself free of her with an unexpected burst of strength. He looked at her, not with hate or fear, but with his painfully disarming surprise, his nakedly defenseless bewilderment. Octavia could never get used to that look. She beat Vinnie worse sometimes, so it was not guilt that she felt. And despite her feelings about the stepfather, she never thought of Lena, Sal, and Gino as half sister and brothers. They were her mother’s children.

Lucia Santa came out of the kitchen. She said to Octavia, “Enough, no more. Gino, just wash the two front windows and then go out and play.”

But Gino’s thin dark face was filled now with stubbornness and rage. He said, “I’m not washing no son-of-a-bitch windows.” He waited to see what they would do.

Conciliatingly, tentatively, Lucia Santa said, “Don’t curse, a small boy like you.”

Gino yelled, “Octavia curses all the time. And she’s a girl. You never say anything about her. And with other people she’s such a phony lady.” The mother smiled and Octavia turned her face away to keep from laughing outright. It was true. The boy friends, especially the Panettiere’s son, never dreamed how she swore. They would not dare use words in her presence that she used at home when irritated with her mother or her little brothers. Sometimes, when she was hysterical with rage, she shocked even herself. One of her girl friends had called her the “filthy-mouthed virgin.”

“Good, good,” the mother said. “Just help until lunchtime; then you can go out. The food will be ready soon.” She was aware that Octavia was angry at being overruled, but things had been going so well that she wanted peace in the family.

To her surprise, Gino said defiantly, “I ain’t hungry. I’m going out right now. The hell with lunch.” He took his stick-ball bat out of the corner and turned to leave. He was just in time to receive his mother’s hand, flush in his mouth.

She was angry. She shouted, “Animale. Hard head. You’re just like your father. Now stay in the house all day.”

He did not come up to her chin. She looked into his eyes, two great black pools of rage, crazy with a small boy’s frustration. He lifted up the stickball bat and threw it blindly, but carefully aimed not to hit anyone. The long thin stick arched gracefully and swept the table clean of its pile of china. There was a tremendous crash. Painted bits of dishes and cups flew around the room.

A moment of great stunned silence followed. Gino gave one startled look at his mother and Octavia, turned, and fled. Out the door, down the stairs, and into Tenth Avenue and the fresh spring sunlight. His mother recovered enough to shout down the dark hallway, through the smell of peppers, frying garlic, and olive oil, “Figlio de puttana! Beast! Animal! Don’t come home to eat.”

Gino felt a lot better walking up 31st Street. The hell with everybody. The hell with his mother and sister. They could all go to hell. He jumped when he felt a tug on his arm, but it was only Vinnie.

“Come on home,” Vinnie said. “Octavia says I gotta bring you home.”

Gino turned around. He gave Vinnie a push and said, “You wanna fight, you son-of-a-bitch?”

Vinnie looked at him gravely and said, “Come on, I’ll help with the windows. Then we’ll play ball.”

Gino ran up toward Ninth Avenue, and though Vinnie was a faster runner, there was no sound of anyone chasing him.

HE WAS FREE, but he felt a strange discontent. He wasn’t even mad. He just wasn’t going to do what anybody told him, not even Larry. The thought of Larry made him pause. He would have to get out of the neighborhood. Sure as hell they would send Larry after him.

On Ninth Avenue Gino hitched on the back of a horse and wagon going uptown. After a couple of blocks, the driver, a burly mustached Italian, saw him and flicked his whip. Gino jumped off, picked up a rock, and sailed it in the direction of the wagon. He had not taken aim really, but it came close. There was a roar of curses, the wagon stopped, and Gino fled toward Eighth Avenue. There he hitched on the back of a taxi. The driver saw him and went fast so that he couldn’t hop off until Central Park. The driver thumbed his nose and grinned at Gino.

For the first time in his life, he went into Central Park. He saw a fountain near a horse trough and took a drink of warm water. He did not even have a penny for a soda. He walked deeper into the park, as far as he could from west to east, until he saw the great white square stones that housed the rich. They meant nothing to him. His childish dreams did not include thoughts of money. He dreamed of bravery on a battlefield, of greatness on a baseball diamond. He dreamed of his own uniqueness.

Gino tried to find a spot in the park where he could sit against a tree and not see stone against the sky or, darting through the screen of leaves, the black shadows of moving cars and wagons. He searched for the illusion of a forest. But no matter where he stood or sat, whenever he made a complete turn, he found at least one facade of stone above the trees, a billboard suspended near the sky, the sound of honking horns, or the clatter of horses’ hoofs. The smell of gasoline mingled with the scent of grass and trees. Finally, exhausted, Gino lay down by a lake that had concrete banks, and, lidding his eyes, made the tall buildings lose their solidity and become airy, suspended above the trees like a picture in a fairy tale. Later he would come out of the forest and enter the city. Without warning, he fell asleep.

He slept an enchanted sleep. He knew people walked by and looked at him, a ball bounced near him, and two feather merchants came after it and stood looking down at him. But he could never wake up enough to really see them. The seasons changed as if years were going by. First it was very hot and Gino rolled along the grass to the shade of a tree. Then there were light sunny rains and he got wet, and then he was cold and it was dark, and then it was sunny again like summer. But he was too tired to ever get up. Cradling his head in his arms, burying his nose and eyes in fresh grass, he slept his life away, but when he awoke it was only one afternoon that had vanished.

The suspended spires of the city were all blue with approaching twilight; there were no yellow sun rays in the air. The park was black and green. Gino would have to hurry to get home before dark.

He got out of Central Park at 72nd Street. He was worried now. He wanted to get home to his own house, his own neighborhood; he wanted to see his brothers and sisters and his mother again. It was the longest he had ever been away from them. He hitched on a taxi. He was lucky; it went downtown and then over to Ninth Avenue. But at 31st Street the taxi was going too fast. Gino jumped anyway, pumping his feet before they touched the ground. He kept his balance, running swiftly. Suddenly he heard a shriek of metal behind him. He felt a shock and found himself lifted off his feet and flying through the air. He hit the pavement and jumped up. He wasn’t hurt, but he was frightened because he knew he had been run over.

A big blue car was half on the sidewalk, half in the gutter. A tall man got out of it and ran toward Gino. He had blue eyes and thin hair, and his face showed such a look of fright and concern that Gino felt sorry for him. He said immediately, “I’m O.K., mister.” But the man began feeling him all over his body for broken bones. There was only a big rip in the leg of his dungarees and blood coming out of it.

The man said with almost panicky nervousness, “Are you all right, sonny? How do you feel?”

Gino said, “My knee hurts.” The man looked at it. There was a deep scrape where blood was welling slowly. The man picked up Gino as if he were a baby and put him in the front seat of the car. To the people who had gathered around he said, “I’m bringing this kid to the hospital.”

In front of the French Hospital on 30th Street, the man parked his car and lit a cigarette. He looked at Gino intently, studying his face. “Now tell me the truth, kid, how do you feel?”

“I’m O.K.,” Gino said. His stomach felt weak. He was a little scared at being hit by a car.

“Let me see your knee,” the man said.

Gino rolled up his trousers leg. The bleeding had stopped and there was a raw scab beginning to form over the whole knee. “I never bleed when I get hurt,” Gino said proudly. “I always get a scab quick.”

The man sighed and said, “I guess we better go in.”

Gino said quickly, “Those hospitals, they always make you wait and I gotta get home or my mother will be real mad. I’m O.K., mister.” He got out of the car. “Besides, it wasn’t your fault.” His tone was that of one equal reassuring another. He limped away from the car.

The man called out, “Wait a minute, kid.” He leaned out of the window, extending a bill. It was five dollars.

Gino was embarrassed. “Nah,” he said. “It was my fault. I don’t want no money.”

“You take it,” the man said sternly. “Don’t make your old lady spend her dough on new pants because you wanta be a big shot.” He looked like Lindbergh when he was serious. When Gino took the money the man shook his hand, smiled, and said, in a relieved, flattering voice, “You’re O.K., kid.”

All Gino had to do to get home now was cross Ninth Avenue under the El and walk down 30th Street to Tenth Avenue.

He turned the corner feeling a great sense of happiness. Sal was playing in the street, his mother was sitting on her backless chair in front of the tenement, Zia Louche and another woman with her. Octavia was standing by the lemon ice stand talking with the Panettiere’s son. Gino walked past her and they made believe they didn’t see each other. In front of the tenement he stopped and faced his mother when she spoke to him.

She wasn’t mad, he could tell that. “Buona sera,” she said calmly. “You’ve decided to come home? Your supper is in the oven.” She glanced away quickly and talked to Zia Louche. Gino thought bitterly, She didn’t even notice my leg.

He limped up the stairs. He was relieved. Everything seemed to be forgotten. And now for the first time he was conscious of a dull throbbing ache in his knee. His mouth was dry and salty, his eyes hurt a little, and his legs were shaky.

Vinnie was reading in the kitchen. When he saw Gino, he took a plate of peppers and eggs and potatoes out of the oven and put it on the table. Then he went out into the hall to the icebox and brought back a bottle of milk. Gino took a slug right from the bottle. Then he sat down to eat.

Vinnie said quietly, but a little accusingly, “Where were you all day? Mom and Octavia were worried and Larry looked all over for you. They were worried about you.”

“Yeah, sure,” Gino said sarcastically. But he felt better. After a few mouthfuls he couldn’t eat any more. He put his leg up on the chair. It was stiff. He pulled up his pants leg. The scab was huge and bloody, and blown up like a black cake.

“Wow.” Vinnie was impressed. “You better put some iodine on that. And on your face and hands, too. You get in a fight?”

“Nah,” Gino said, “I just got hit by a car.” He almost cried when he said it. He went to the sink and washed. Then he went into the front room and unfolded the bed and undressed. He was cold, so he put a blanket over his body. He took the five-dollar bill from his pants and held it. His stomach quivered, his face felt hot. He saw the car now as he had not seen it then, rushing up and hitting him, and his body flying through the air. Vinnie was sitting on the bed near him. “I got hit by a car,” Gino said in a trembling voice. “See? The guy gave me five dollars. He was a nice guy. He even wanted me to go to a hospital, but I wasn’t hurt. I was just hitching and jumped off right in front of him. It was all my fault.” He opened his hand. “See? Five bucks.”

Both boys stared at the money. It was a fortune. Vinnie had a five-dollar gold piece for his Confirmation from Zia Louche, but he would never be allowed to spend it. “Gee,” Vinnie said, “what are you gonna do with it, give it to Ma?”

“Like hell,” Gino said. “If she knows I got hit by a car I’ll get a beating.” Then, seriously, “Let’s make those bottles of root beer like you always wanted to, Vinnie, and sell it and make money. Remember? Maybe we could build up a good business.”

Vinnie was delighted. It had always been his dream. “No kidding?” he asked. And when Gino nodded, Vinnie said, “You better let me hold the money. Ma might take it off you and make you save it.”

“No, sir,” Gino said suspiciously. “I’m gonna hold this money myself.”

Vinnie was surprised and hurt. Gino always let him hold his money, the ice money, the winnings from Seven-and-a-half.

“C’mon,” Vinnie said. “Let me hold the five dollars. You’ll lose it.”

Gino said spitefully, “I got hit by the car, you didn’t. You didn’t even come with me. You were on Octavia’s side. You’re lucky I made you a partner.”

He lay back on his pillow. Vinnie watched him carefully. Gino had never acted this way before. “O.K.,” he said. “You hold the money.”

Gino lay back on the pillow and said almost absently, “And I have to be the boss making the root beer. It’s my money.”

This hurt Vinnie’s feelings. He was the older and it was his idea. He nearly said, “You and your five dollars can go to hell.” But instead he said, “O.K., you’ll be the boss. You want a bandage on your knee?”

“Nah, it don’t hurt,” Gino said. “Let’s talk about how to make that root beer. And remember, don’t tell anybody I got hit by a car. I’ll just get a beating.”

Vinnie said, “I’ll go get a paper and pencil to figure expenses.” He went into the kitchen and cleaned the table and washed the dishes. The mother had given strict orders that Gino was to clean up after eating supper. Then he got the pencil and pad from his schoolbag.

When Vinnie got back to the front room it was almost dark, the last shreds of twilight. In the dimness he saw Gino’s relaxed hand on the blanket. The crumpled five-dollar bill was on the floor. Gino was sound asleep, his body completely inert, his eyes closed.

But there were strange sounds coming from the bed. Vinnie went closer and saw that his brother was crying in his sleep, tears streaming down his face. Vinnie shook him to wake him out of the nightmare, but his brother kept sleeping, breathing easily and deeply. The sounds of crying stopped finally, leaving only his face and eyelashes wet. Vinnie waited for a while beside the bed in case his brother should wake up and want the five dollars back. Then he put the money in their secret hiding place in the wall.

Vinnie sat on the window sill in the darkness. It was a very still night, too early in the spring for the people on the Avenue to stay down late. Even the railroad yards were quiet; there were no engines moving, no ringing of steel. Vinnie kept looking at the bed to make sure his brother was all right, and figuring where they could get the bottles for the root beer they would make. He knew that Gino would let him be the boss.