Before My Life Began (36 page)

Lillian said that when I was angry I sounded just like Abe. My mother talked about how she felt sorry for me, how she had hoped that the prospect of a new baby might change me. I turned away, stared out at the trees, the sky, the rooftops of other buildings. I lowered my gaze to the houses across the street, small two-storey wooden homes, gray and white and brown. Who lived in them? It had puzzled me, when I was younger, that there was a long row of private homes, without alleyways or driveways between them, and that I never knew any of the people—mostly elderly couples, German Catholics—who lived in them. Sometimes I saw them in the deli on Rogers Avenue, carrying out food in little white containers, and sometimes I saw them in front of their houses, clipping hedges, raking leaves. Behind their closed doors and drawn curtains, did they scream and shout at each other the way we did?

I looked up again. Two blocks away birds swirled lazily, drifting downwards on warm currents of air, settling into the tower of Holy Cross Church, into the dark vaulted space next to the clock. Twenty past four.

Gail's hand was on my shoulder. I controlled the impulse to shrug it off. “I'll be okay,” I said. “Don't worry about me so much, all right? And don't tell me again that I'm not my father.”

“Do you want to hear the craziest thing, though?” my mother said. “The craziest thing is this call I had from Mr. Rothenberg the other day, inviting me to come out and have tea with him on his estate one day. So what do you make of it?”

“I make nothing of it,” Lillian said. She had a small mirror propped up on the edge of the roof and was putting on makeup, painting her eyelids silver-blue. “In fact, I'd make believe it never happened because all he is, if you ask me, is an old man with most of his marbles gone. Including the ones in his pants. I hear they got him in a wheelchair with a big black guy who does everything for him. And I mean
everything.”

“What I said to Sam, see, was that if the only thing I cared about in this life was money, then all I'd have to do was to be nice to Mr. Rothenberg the way a woman still knows how. But I told Sam that I just happen to be the kind of girl who's not like that. Only listen, Davey. He told me he'd been dreaming about snow. Can you believe it? He talked about how his dreams were full of clean snow and in the middle of the snow was my mother in a black sable coat. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever known, he said, and—get this—before he died, since he couldn't see her face again and since he had no pictures, he wondered if I could visit him. He said he remembered how much we resembled one another. So what should I do?”

The roof door swung open. Lillian put a finger to her lips, in warning. Sheila tried to kiss Vincent, to put her arms around his neck. Vincent pushed her aside, grinned, came toward me, his hand extended. Light flashed from a dark tiger's-eye pinky ring. “Hey Davey, how you been? How's tricks? I just saw you up on the roof, did you know that?” He laughed, told Sheila that it was too hot for smooching. He wore canary yellow slacks, a navy-blue sport shirt open at the neck, a gold medallion hanging there on a heavy chain. He was about five-foot-six, Sheila's height—stocky and broad, with a football player's build, perfect for what coaches called a watch-charm guard. He stopped a few feet from me, feet spread, saw that I was not going to shake his hand. “I hear good things about you, Davey. I hear you and your beautiful wife is expecting.” He turned to the others, moved his hand to his head. He was balding. I figured him to be eight to ten years older than me, pushing thirty. “Gonna make one beautiful kid, two good-looking parents like this, don't you think, ladies? All that dark hair, right?”

He put an arm around Lillian, asked if she could talk her husband into coming to the wedding, then laughed when Lillian and Sheila started arguing with each other about whether or not it was a free country, about who would have to live with Abe afterwards.

“Hey hey hey,” Vincent said, one arm around each of them. “Calm down—just calm down, ladies. Let's not get all excited for nothing.
Piano piano
, right Davey?”

I stared right through him. Vincent D'Agostino owed Abe over twelve thousand dollars in gambling debts. Vincent D'Agostino was a punk, a born loser, an Italian butterfly—even his own kind didn't want him, Abe said. Still, we had to be wary. If Vincent got too deep in debt, or—worse still—if he got so deep in debt that he had nothing left to lose, he would do whatever he had to in order to stay alive. Abe did not believe for a second that Vincent was making a move on Sheila merely so that Abe would erase his debts. Things were rarely that simple. Abe believed that they were trying to set him up. Why had Vincent come to us with his bets in the first place? Why had Benny taken the bets when Vincent was not in our territory? Our family life should have taught us that, at least, Abe said to me—that sometimes when people agreed to marriage, what they really wanted was war and death.

Vincent put a hand on my arm.

“Don't touch me.”

“Ah come on, Davey—don't be so goddamned sensitive. What do you think I am, some kind of faggot?” He laughed. “Hey listen, ladies, speaking of faggots, did you hear the one about the guy who gets in bed with his wife on their wedding night and just before they're about to you-know-what, he says to her that he got this confession to make, see, that he used to be a homo when he was younger.” He paused, for effect. “So the poor girl, see, she didn't know which way to turn—” Sheila laughed. Vincent followed me, whispered: “Did it ever hurt a guy to listen? You got nothing to lose, believe me.” He turned to the others. “Hey—I got a terrific idea. How about we all go out to eat at the Chink's. My treat.”

“With whose money?” I asked.

“Ah come on, Davey,” he said, and I was angry at once for having spoken. “I told Little Benny this morning—I'm gonna take care of all that in the next ten days. Cross my heart.”

Gail touched my hand. “I don't feel well,” she said. “Can we go? I'd like to lie down.”

Before I knew it, my mother was helping Gail across the roof, telling me to get the umbrella and ice chest. Vincent pulled the umbrella from its socket, pressed down on the struts. I bent over, picked up the ice chest. The women were gone.

“Look—I know what's on your mind, Davey,” Vincent said. “Only think of it this way: if I married your cousin and if Abe gave his blessing it would be like in the olden days, right? The way kings and queens used to make deals with their countries by marrying their children off to each other. It stopped a lot of wars that didn't have to be.”

“Save it.”

“You want me to spell it out for you? Okay then, I'll spell it out for you. You want me to say what we both know anyway, but without words? Okay. I'll do that too.” His voice was hard in a way that surprised me. “Listen hey—you think I like being in the middle of all this? Not on your life. All I know is what they tell me, and what they tell me is that they got nothing against you. Absolutely nothing and you should know that. They don't really got nothing against your uncle either. All they want is peace, do you follow? All they want is for him to listen to reason. Only, like you know, your uncle can be a very stubborn guy. Him and Rothenberg.”

I watched the words pouring from his mouth and tried to do what Abe had taught me to do, to imagine him as he'd been when he was a kid. Vincent talked about his debt, about being on the level with Sheila, about territory and borders. Everything could be straightened out easily enough if only people were willing to sit down and talk things out reasonably. That was the message. They wanted to be generous to my uncle. They liked the fact that there had been peace between our organizations for so many years now. They wanted to keep that peace. They respected my uncle. They wanted his goodwill. He was a good businessman, a fine organizer.

Vincent was jiggling coins from hand to hand. I thought of the metal slugs Tony and I had used, the change that poured from the vending machines. Vincent slipped the coins into his side pocket, told me that all they wanted was to keep things clean and legitimate—maybe to consolidate a bit—but that if my uncle wouldn't talk with them, they would be very interested in talking with me because they figured that I was his heir, right?

I had him against the wall before he could take his hand from his pocket, my knee wedged hard against his crotch to keep him from moving, my fist at his throat, yanking up on his gold chain. His eyes rolled. I smelled whiskey and after-shave lotion. I pulled him toward me as if to smash him backwards, to crack his head against the bricks that housed the staircase. He was whimpering, begging me not to hurt him, and I was seeing a small, fat, dark-haired boy sitting at a kitchen table, picking his nose. His older brothers were laughing at him. His mother served him soup, rapped him on the side of the head with the ladle, warned him that the next time she caught him with his finger in his nose she'd break his head.

Vincent kept begging me not to hurt him. If I spoke I knew that the only sound that would come from my mouth would be air, like the sound from a leaking tire. I shoved him against the wall again, then let go. He bent over, his face in his hands, tried to catch his breath. He looked up at me slowly and smiled. He had stopped whimpering. His eyes showed no fear. Why not? I stared at the hole in his face—at his mouth—and I remembered Little Benny sitting on my uncle's desk, telling the guys about someone who had once tried to welch on a bet, who had asked if Benny wanted him to suck his cock. Benny had shoved the barrel of his gun into the guy's mouth. “This is my cock,” he said, and he'd pulled the trigger.

Had he been bragging? Was he trying to impress me? To scare me? Vincent brushed the back of his hair down with his hand.

“But I delivered the message, right? You're my witness. You got the message.”

Sheila was screaming at Vincent to hurry. I moved toward him, but he held up a hand, cautioned me to come no closer. “Here. I want to show you something first, okay? Let me show you something else.”

He reached down, lifted his cuff as if to straighten his socks, and then a small black pistol was in his hand, aimed at my chest. “You'd be surprised at my speed,” he said, and before I could react, the gun was gone, and he was holding the beach umbrella in his hand. He walked toward the staircase, opened the roof door, turned back to me. “No kidding, Davey—like I said, I got nothing against you. In fact, I been trying to talk Mr. Fasalino into waiting on things till after your kid comes. I mean, you know how we Wops are—what suckers we are for women and kids.” I said nothing. “You ask your old pal Tony. A smart guy like you ain't cut out for this kind of stuff, which is why you should take my advice and go have a talk with them, private, or you should talk your uncle into one. Believe me, they ain't playing potsie.” He started down the stairs.

I didn't move. I wanted to tear his tongue from his mouth, to jam it onto an iron stake.

“I could have done something real bad to you, kid, like I hope you realize, but I figure you're under a lot of stress, right? I mean with your uncle's troubles and the baby coming, and who likes the fucking city in August? I'll tell you something else though—with me and Sheila, it's the real thing, just like with you and Gail.”

“Vin-cent!”
Sheila screamed.

“Times are changing, Davey.” He mopped his forehead and neck with a handkerchief. “Who needs this lousy heat, but maybe the sun is better for some people than others. Your uncle, he should consider going someplace like California or Arizona, where he can have sunshine all year round. That's what you're supposed to tell him. He should come and talk with my family and then he should take a long voyage and live a happy life.”

“Vincent!”

“I'm coming, I'm coming,” he called. He winked at me. “Women! Who ain't a sucker for a beautiful face, right?” He picked up the umbrella and the towels. “But she got a good heart, Sheila. When we're alone, just the two of us—I mean, you'd be surprised….” He gave me a quick glance, his eyes watering. “No hard feelings, okay, Davey?”

Gail was asleep on the living room couch, her hands straight at her sides, an electric fan set on a chair, directed at her face. The room was dark, the Venetian blinds drawn. My mother took my hand, led me toward my bedroom, told me that she loved Gail as if Gail were her own daughter. She put a finger to her lips.

“Shh. Come. You come with me first, so you can see the surprise I got waiting for you in your old room. And Davey?”

“Yes.”

“I been scared to do this and all I ask is that you promise me first not to tell Abe, okay?” She held her hand in front of her. “See how I'm shaking, an old woman like me? Would you promise me that—that you'll let me tell Abe when I'm ready?”

“I promise.”

She opened the door and the cold air rushed at me, as if a wall of it had given way. “Sam got it for me because of the heat wave.”

I entered the room. At the far end, between the two windows, a man was sitting in a wooden chair, his back to us, his head tilted so that the air conditioner blew on his face. The door closed. Nothing was the same. Everything, except for the mirror, had been rearranged. Where were my books and magazines? My desk? My mother spoke into the man's ear.

“Poppa, listen—it's me, Evie. I got Davey here. He wants to see you. Come—”

She helped him to turn so that I could see his face. I stayed where I was, watched motes of dust spin around in the late afternoon sunlight, drift down upon him. Despite the soft white light, his face was all sharp angles. How long had it been since I'd seen him—three years? Four? There were purple crescents under his eyes, like raised scars. There were patches of dark stubble along his cheek and neck and chin. I stared at the shape of his skull, the gray skin stretched over it, stained here and there with brown liver spots, the dome of his head veined with pale-blue threads.