Good Blood. K. C. Pastore
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turned slowly toward the sink. As she swiveled, I saw the secret item. Lo and behold, it was a spray can of whipped cream. She’d been trying to put whipped cream on the pies? This was a big deal. Because Grandma made basically everything herself and wrinkled her lip at any kind of modern innovation. Grandma shook and squeezed that metal can in every possible way, but nothing happened.
“You’ve got to put your finger over the spout-thing.” I gestured. “And lean it to the left or right.”
She stuck out her bottom teeth and stared at me.
I made the hand motion at least fifteen times. Then, high-browed and wide-eyed, she put her finger up next to the spout-thing, and poof! White fluff, literally everywhere. It went all over her face, my face, the cupboards, the cantaloupe, the clean dishes, and the dish towels. The bottle spun on the floor. It filled up every crevice and chip in the grout. Grandma had pushed the spout-thing with such vigor that she’d ripped that sucker right off.
Cream-covered-face and all, Grandma dissolved into laughter. Her hand grasped my shoulder kind of swinging me about with her own laughter. I started to laugh too. I swiped a bit of cream off of my shoulder and ate it, which led Grandma to do the same.
Everything got dead silent while I waited for her to process the sensation.
Suddenly, Grandma—hand on my shoulder—looked straight into my eyes, her face grave. The pregnant pause had gripped my nerves. Her eyes opened wide and she said, “Isa-good!” We busted out into even greater laughter.
I loved Grandma—the world’s greatest optimist. She pretty much always made a good time out of anything, even when she had to rewash the dishes, change her clothes, mop the floor, rinse the cantaloupe, wipe down the cupboards and replace the dish towels. I though it must have been nice to never get angry. I mean, I knew if Popi or Dad were in that kitchen what kind of fire-blazing situation they would create.
My mind snapped back to the present—the kneeler and my throbbing knee. I found it a real pain in the you-know-what to think I went through that whole fight with Angelo only to acquire a bruised patella. Nicky, on the other hand, just waltzed in and took the prize.
Guess life’s like that, I muttered to myself.
Luckily the kneelers were comfortably padded in St. Mary’s Church, unlike the cracked old wood ones at Madonna’s. I opened my eyes and looked ahead to the silent altar. The church was perfectly still, save two crows having an argument outside. I scanned over the pews. Carmine no longer sat up ahead of me. I concluded that he must have left when I got lost in the covering of whipped cream.
Footsteps echoed. I glanced over my left shoulder as two men entered a pew several rows back. Their olive skin and thick raven black hair gave them away—Sicilians. Both wore black suits with white button-down dress shirts. Italian guys who came straight from the Mother Land always left the top two buttons undone, making way for a plumage of rich and horrifying, black chest hair. American-born Italians kept their chests covered. But, what could I say? I too was Sicilian, and Popi was one of those chest-hair exhibitionists.
I looked back again. The Sicilians sat oddly close, that is, close to each other. They weren’t kneeling or anything and they really looked out of place, not praying and all. Besides solemn prayer, I couldn’t work out any other reason a soul would enter a sanctuary at that god-forsaken hour.
I kneeled. They sat behind me. I shivered at the thought of them staring straight into my back. The clunk of my swallow and that weight sinking down, down in the pit of my stomach told me they knew I had the cross and chain and finally I was about to meet my own foreboding retribution. Soon enough, I found myself wrapping up my prayers so I could get the hell out of there.
Grandma insisted that I light two candles in front of Mary every day, one from me and one from her, since she couldn’t make it down there herself. Luckily, my route to Mary and back down the side aisle totally avoided the men. I had deduced a great likelihood of their “being up to no good,” which radiated from their imposing, irreverent postures—inappropriate for inside a church. So, keeping my distance seemed wise. I stood, crossed myself, and proceeded toward the altar. As I stood, the cool, metallic crucifix touched my chest. I had it draped around my neck and tucked into my shirt. Surely only one thing was true; those guys could not see me with that chain. My mind raced to find a way to get it off.
I stepped forward. A pair of familiar shoes caught my periphery. Carmine Carmidio hadn’t left after all. Beneath the horizon of the pew to my right, there he lay, flat on the pew, face down, stiff as a board. I would have thought he’d died, but I hadn’t heard him fall. I tried not to think about it.
I tried to continue my slow pace to Mary and proceeded to light the candles—without looking like anything was off. I stretched up to the top, back row, as most people never lit the candles there. As I did so, I held my shirt close to my stomach to avoid being lit on fire. But even though I tried to avoid the flame, one of them licked my right elbow. It took a second to notice it, because elbows are not exactly the most sensitive part of the body. But then . . . I saw. Flames! I threw down the match and flipped my arm over. A very light pink patch already formed at the tip. My attempt at inconspicuousness was drastically failing. I could feel their eyes. The wick’s smoke swirled into the air, and with a surge of enthusiastic dread, I turned down the side-aisle, breaking into a sprint. I didn’t care what those dagos thought. I’d already called attention to myself multiple times. There just wasn’t much to hide anymore.
Just after I passed the confessional, the door opened behind me. I tripped over my own foot and slammed onto the whirling gray, marble floor. I immediately shot up and beetled to the door.
“Are you all right?” a man’s voice asked.
I spun around. It was Father Piccolo.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I proceeded my scuttling out the door.
“Did you fall?”
“Yeah.” I entered the vestibule and leapt out the doors.
My knees didn’t start aching or my elbow burning until I had peddled halfway home. All that adrenaline wore off. And I could feel something again.
Chapter 5
I peddled onto Elm. When I rounded the corner, I could see Dad and Angelo. Angelo stood, arms folded, on the grass next to the tool box, looking down at the bottom of our ’57 station wagon. Dad rolled out from under the car on his little red creeper. It wasn’t all that unusual to see Dad rolling around under that dusty-brown piece of junk at least once a week. Basically, something was always wrong with it, and my guess is he also just liked rolling around.
I hoped off my bike and walked it over, my saddle shoes slapping their way across the concrete. As I got closer I could see the blackness of their hands and the sweat swelling on the base of their necks.
“What’s goin’ on?” I yelled as I made my way up the sidewalk and landed beside Angelo.
“Brake line,” Angelo said.
“Ah-h,” I nodded, arms folded, as I stood on the other side of the tool box from him. I had no idea what that meant. But judging from the slight edgy quality of Angelo’s answer, I decided not to ask. I found that it is better in times like those to just keep my mouth shut. But I stood there for a few more seconds, acting like everything was normal. When the silence continued, I figured it was in my best interest to split.
I ran up the stairs and swung around the banister to effectively launch my body into my room. I jiggled open my dresser drawer, which had a tendency to get stuck at about two inches open. The drawer lurched open so hard the whole dresser clanked around. The lamp on top tipped from side to side like a sailor home from sea. But before it even had a chance to think about leaping off the dresser I seized the base and brought it, seemingly, back to sobriety. Dad’s voice in unformatted syllables pounded on the window. After grabbing a pair of shorts from the drawer, I scooted over to the pane. As I slid off my nice shorts and slid into my play shorts, or in this case work shorts, I leaned toward the window to see what was going on.
Angelo