Kiss Carlo Page 6

  The best-behaved boys of the eighth-grade, crisply dressed in black slacks, white shirts, and light blue ties, walked along the sides of the slow-moving float single file, while the rest marched in rows behind the flatbed. They carried black rosary beads; some bunched them in their hands while other boys laced them through their fingers.

  Vinnie Matera, the class troublemaker with a flair for comedy, swung his beads, in a long loop, the tip end of the crucifix almost grazing the ground, until Sister Robbie Pentecost jogged up beside him and snapped her fingers. Vinnie quickly reeled his rosary back into his palm to safety and joined the rest of the class as they recited the sorrowful mysteries.

  Broad Street was lined with onlookers who had taken their lunch hours to watch the procession. For the devout, it was a holy day. The priest would bless them, they would ask the Mother of God to intercede for their needs in heaven, or pray for their own mothers, grateful for their sacrifices on behalf of their families. For everyone else, it was the official kick-off of summer: with night games at Shibe Park cheering on the Phillies, days spent at Willow Grove Amusement Park on thrill rides like Sir Hiram Maxim’s Captive Flying Machine, and enjoying a week of rest during the annual union vacation over the Fourth of July holiday.

  Holy water spiked through the air like a shower of diamonds as the priest blessed the crowd. The old-timers genuflected as the priest passed, while the younger people bowed their heads. Calla Borelli pulled her scarf up over her head to cover it as the holy water touched her face in drops like soft rain. She made the sign of the cross, whispering along with the drone of the crowd, “In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, Amen.”

  Dom Palazzini stood on the corner of Broad and Montrose as the procession passed. As the float turned the corner, he went down on one knee and a pain ripped through his leg. He winced but did not make a sound, though he did make the sign of the cross on his way up to standing. He felt old, everything hurt, even though he had just been to Dr. Schrenker, who told him he wasn’t in terrible shape, but admonished him to smoke less, eat less, and walk more. At sixty years old Dom wasn’t going to start listening to doctors. Defiantly, he pulled a Tiparillo out of his shirt pocket, unwrapped it, and lit it with the swanky monogrammed silver lighter his kids had given him on his last birthday.

  A block down the route, Mike Palazzini knelt on the opposite side of Broad Street, feeling the cool drops of holy water on his face as the priest sprinkled the crowd. He made the sign of the cross, stood with ease, and dusted off the knees of his fine wool trousers before replacing his Borsalino fedora on his head. He slanted the brim over one eye before turning down Broad Street.

  Mike walked against the crowd as it dispersed, nodding his head when recognized, flashing a bright white smile that matched his thick hair. He was fifty-nine years old and didn’t look or feel a day of it. He was strolling along thinking about the order his wife had placed at Paulie & Gloria Martines’ Cheese Shop, wondering whether Nancy had ordered enough parm and scamorza, when his brother Dom ran into him, almost toppling him. At first Mike didn’t recognize his brother. Mike’s instinct was to apologize and extend his hand, but Dom’s red face looked like a cartoon drawing of a bull galloping at full charge toward a matador. Mike could almost hear the snorting. All that was missing was the nose ring.

  “Whoa,” Mike said under his breath. “Excuse me.”

  “Hmph,” Dom grunted before moving past him.

  “Not going to say anything? Not a hello?” Mike said sarcastically as Dom walked off. Mike noticed Dom’s limp. Too many baba au rhums, Mike thought to himself. His brother overdid the sweets. Dom had gotten heavy.

  It had been at least ten years, probably eleven, since Mike had last run into his brother. He couldn’t remember. Dom appeared to be wearing the same suit he wore the day the brothers parted. Looked like the same shoes too. It wasn’t just Dom’s clothes that were old; he moved like the elderly. There was the protruding stomach, of course, but Dom had lost height as his knees had given out, heck, curved out, so his legs were shaped like two half-moons that would never connect to make a full one. But it was Dom’s face etched with anger lines and the deep wrinkles that develop from expressions of chronic annoyance that Mike noticed the most. Dom reveled in anger, it was as if holding a grudge held him together. The passage of time had obviously taught him nothing. After all these years, Dom had not yet learned how to live; he had not figured out that spending money should be more fun than making it. That was too bad. Mike shook his head in disbelief and entered the cheese shop.

  Dom fished his handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his forehead. He figured it had been two or three years since he had seen his brother on the street. He couldn’t remember. Curious for a second look at his banished sibling, Dom turned around to look where Mike had gone. The Martines Cheese Shop. Of course Mike shopped there. Only the best imported cheese brought in aged barrels from Italy. And Mike’s clothes! Only the most expensive lid, suit, and loafers for his fancy kid brother. Where had he gotten a suntan in May? Did he sit out on the sidewalk over on Fitzwater with a tinfoil foldout at high noon? Probably went to Bermuda. Of course Mike looked sharp—his idea of hard work was kibitzing with the customers and taking plenty of time off. As Dom remembered the argument that had severed their relationship, a fresh wave of resentment coursed through his veins.

  Mike had been right about one thing—Dom liked being angry. Dom had been right about one thing, too—Mike looked good.

  Around the corner, in the parking lot of the school, four members of the sodality of Saint Mary Magdalen de Pazzi, the social club and service organization for the ladies of the church, carefully lifted the statue of the Blessed Lady off the float, handing her off to the school janitor, who carried her in his arms like a bride over the threshold and back into the building.

  Elsa stood at the base of the steps, holding a box, collecting the rosebud crowns she had made as the girls, in their pink dresses, filed back into the school for the reception. Elsa wore a simple beige wool coat over a day dress and a Breton hat of navy straw with a beige grosgrain ribbon at the crown, which set off her auburn hair.

  “Where’s the cake?” Dom barked as he walked up the sidewalk.

  “Inside, Pop. In the cafeteria.”

  Dom gripped the metal banister of the stairs and worked his way up the steps.

  “Are your knees bothering you?” Elsa asked him.

  “The sun is shining, of course they are,” he groused.

  “Look for Mabel. She saved you a seat,” Elsa called after him as he went inside.

  “Thank you for your hard work, Mrs. Palazzini.” Sister Theresa, a young nun in a crisp black-and-white habit, placed the crown from the statue in the box. “I let Carol keep her crown. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.”

  “You made the day special. I heard so many wonderful comments as the procession passed. The Blessed Mother will protect you always.” Sister Theresa squeezed Elsa’s hand before going into the school. Elsa looked down into the box of crowns she had so carefully constructed. It had taken hours to anchor the fresh flowers and weave the ribbons through the wires. Once assembled, she had spritzed them with cold sugar water, wrapped them in muslin, and stored them in the refrigerator. She had taken such pains with each crown, making them works of art. What had been so lovely was now a tangled mess. The circles of wire intersected one another in the box like magician’s loops. The ribbons were knotted. Elsa’s eyes filled with tears.

  “It’s a shame. One parade, one day, and it’s all over,” Mabel said, standing above her on the steps. “I could weep too. And I might. All your effort. All those thorns. All those crowns.” Gio’s wife wore a black maternity coat with a white collar. Her blue eyes looked lavender against the sky. “Hey, Elsa. Pop’s inside, having cake and coffee with the priest. And I got a newsflash. The sky over South Philly hasn’t fallen.”

  Elsa smiled. Mabel always managed to cheer her up.

  Mabel j
oined Elsa at the bottom of the stairs and took the box of crowns from her. “Come inside and hear the compliments. Your crowns made the May Day. They’re all yakking. All the mothers said so.”

  “They did?”

  “Every single one. And these Neapolitans are a fussy bunch. Don’t say I said it.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You and me have to stick together. We’re the outsiders. The Irish and the Pole in the middle of all this marinara. You know what I mean.” Mabel winked.

  “I know exactly what you mean.”

  “Now, come on inside. I want my sister-in-law to get her due. Let them fawn. The nuns included.”

  Mabel turned to go back up the steps. Elsa stood still, looking off in the distance.

  “Are you all right?” Mabel asked.

  “It all goes by so quickly. There’s something sad about it.”

  “It won’t be sad when our kids are in it. Your Dominic will march when he has his Confirmation. And you never know, maybe I’ll have a girl and she’ll be the May Queen someday and you’ll make her crown. Won’t that be something?”

  “That’d be nice.” Elsa followed Mabel into the school. She wasn’t thinking about the parade, or the roses or the crowns. On this holy day of remembrance honoring mothers, Elsa was thinking about her own, and how much she missed her, and how it never hurt any less to know that she would never see her again.

  2

  The night air had a nip as Nicky pedaled through Bella Vista on his bicycle. He’d had a nourishing supper of pasta fazool with a heel of bread washed down with a glass of homemade wine before heading out to his second job. He stood up on the pedals and swerved onto Broad Street, feeling the breeze on his face as he skimmed past the childhood homes of his friends, where he had spent time as a boy when he wasn’t with his cousins.

  Nicky shifted his weight as he grabbed the handlebars, lifted his feet off the pedals, and jumped the curb, landing on the sidewalk as though the bike were a horse and he were a jockey. As he pedaled past the old houses, he sang the family names of the folks who lived inside like lyrics from an aria:

  DeMeo, LaPrea,

  Festa, Testa, Fiordellisi, Giovannini,

  Ochemo, Cudemo, Communale,

  Larantino, Constantino,

  Imbesi, Concessi, Belgiorno, Morrone! Spatafora!

  Cuttone, Caruso, Micucci, Meucci,

  Gerace, Ciarlante, Stampone, Cantone,

  Messina, Cortina, Matera, Ferrara,

  Cucinelli, Marinelli, Bellanca, Ronca,

  Palermo, Zeppa! Ferragamo!

  Ruggiero, Florio, D’iorio . . . Sabatine, DeRea, Martino!

  Nicky peeled off the macadam and onto the dirt alley behind the Borelli Theatrical Company as he sang out one last name:

  Sempre Borelli!

  He parked his bike on the loading dock next to the stage door and walked around to the front entrance of the theater, whistling as he went.

  When Nicky entered the lobby of Borelli’s, he walked into the vestibule of his own cathedral. The lobby was gloriously Belle Epoque—that is, if the belle had been through hard times, come out the other side, and survived. The vaulted ceiling, papered in gold leaf, was peeling from age but still shimmered. An impressive set of double-arched staircases swirled up to the mezzanine. Upon close inspection, the velvet rope that draped to the top and served as a banister was worn in places and the treads of carpet on the steps were thin, but from a distance, the rich red velvet and wool remained regal.

  A hand-painted mural of a landscape of Pennsylvania horse country provided a backdrop on the landing that had appealed to the fancy orchestra patrons. The luster of the paint had faded over time, leaving behind a soft patina in shades of butter mints.

  Overhead an opulent Murano glass chandelier with hand-blown horns of white milk glass twinkled over the polished terrazzo floor, causing the gold flecks in the black-and-white stone to sparkle. The lobby’s flaws might be obvious in daylight, but at night, when the chandelier was dimmed, the soft glow made everything look lovely, including the patrons.

  Sam Borelli’s parents had founded the theater seventy-five years before. The company staged Italian operas, which were popular with Neapolitan immigrants who longed for the music and stories that conjured home. Sung and performed in their native language, a night at Borelli’s made them feel as if the turquoise sea off the Amalfi Coast and the white beaches of Sicily were as close as the Jersey shore. But as these Italians became more American, their tastes changed as their memories faded. Soon, they preferred Broadway shows, plays and movies that featured stories about shop girls, men in uniform, and the swell set, young people with ambition and dough. No longer did they seek entertainment that reminded them of where they came from; they bought tickets to shows that dramatized where they were going: to the top, in Main Line style.

  The Borellis were a show-business family, so instead of giving up, they adapted, forming an acting company. They dropped the opera, leaving it to the Academy of Music farther down on Broad Street, and instead began to produce classic plays, knowing anything British had appeal for their aspirational, working-class audience.

  The company was semi-professional. Actors and staff were nominally paid, but locals often volunteered in exchange for ticket privileges. Nicky Castone found a community at Borelli’s where he was welcome. There wasn’t a job in the theater beneath him. As prompter, he ran lines with actors, helped them into their costumes, assisted the prop master, and placed and moved scenery during shows.

  Nicky performed any task asked of him. He polished the brass on the staircase, washed the windows in the lobby, and swept the sidewalk. Sometimes he helped out in the box office, where they typically ran out of change on show nights. Latecomers knew that since there were always plenty of empty seats, they were let in whether they paid for a ticket or not. The first rule of show business is that everyone in it would do it for free but as a professional company, the artists were paid, which meant that the second rule of show business—you must charge for performances—was essential to survival. But the second rule was often waived at Borelli’s, which is why the books showed the company was in the red.

  “How’s the house tonight?” Nicky asked, stopping at the ticket window.

  Rosa DeNero, a round woman with a full-moon face, looked up from the pulp novel she was reading. “Could be better. Orchestra is sold about three-quarters full. Mez is empty. Might as well break a hole in the ceiling and rent the place out to pigeons.” She held her place in her book with her thumb and looked at him. “You’d sell some tickets if you did a musical.”

  “We’re a Shakespeare company.”

  “There’s your trouble. Shakespeare is for snobs.”

  “What are you reading?”

  Rosa held up the paperback. Sin Cruise: She Was Tired of Being Good. The busty woman on the cover looked anything but.

  “Shakespeare is a very lusty writer, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

  “I can’t understand what anybody on the stage is saying,” Rosa said and sat back on her rolling stool.

  “He wrote for the people. People like us. You ever heard of the groundlings?”

  “Not interested.”

  “But you work in a theater.”

  “Don’t care.”

  “Something must have compelled you to work in the oldest art form on earth.”

  “Twenty bucks a week called my name. That’s what brought me to Borelli’s. I’m saving up for a washing machine. I’m sick of the wringer.”

  “It can’t just be about the money. There’s more to you than that.” Nicky tried to flirt, but his charm didn’t land on Rosa, rather circled around her like an annoying housefly. “How about it, Rosa? Surrender to the make-believe.”

  “I might think about it if you people would come up with something I’d want to see. Warm for May or something good like that. Something with sizzle.”

  “Twelfth Night has sizzle.”

  “Yeah. That’s what the pa
trons say on the way out,” Rosa cracked.

  “You don’t have to be mean about it.”

  “Nobody has the crust around here to tell it like it is.” Rosa went back to her book.

  “Will you put a ticket aside for Teresa DePino?”

  “You paying?

  “Put it on my tab.”

  “Half the world is on a tab.”

  Nicky ignored her jab and entered the theater. The scent of walnut oil, fresh paint, and stale perfume hung in the air, dense as the heavy green velvet curtains that were hoisted high in half-moons that draped the proscenium arch. As Nicky made his way down the aisle, the work lights cast full circles of light onto the stage floor. He was on his way up the stage-left steps when he saw Tony Coppolella, the leading man of the troupe, leaning against the upstage wall, studying his lines.

  “We’ve already opened. You’re still on script?”

  “An actor never masters Shakespeare. ‘If you take your eyes off the page, you’ll never put it on the stage.’ Sam Borelli taught me that.” Tony puffed on a cigarette before tucking the script under his arm.

  Had Tony been born anywhere but South Philly, he would have been a star. Tall and lithe, with black eyes, a strong jaw, good diction, and a limber body, he was a natural for the stage. But it was not to be: his father had died when he was a boy, and he helped raise his six younger sisters and brothers. Now, at forty, he had a family of his own and ran the shipping department at the A-Treat soda plant. For him, it was too late for a life in the theater beyond Borelli’s.

  Tony joined Nicky at the prop table. “What’s with the suit? Somebody die?”

  “I have a date later.”

  “We’re never gonna meet your girl, are we?”

  “You will tonight.”

  “No kidding.”

  “She’s coming to the show.”