The Patron Saint of Ugly Page 15

  I wasn’t even thinking when I swiveled to face them. “His name is not Nigger Toe! It’s Radisson! Radisson-Radisson-Radisson!”

  All sound disappeared as the boys glared in disbelief at a girl daring to challenge them. They turned away from the car and toward me, hands balling into fists. “She’s even uglier up close,” one of them said as they all inched toward me. “God, what a freak.” I genuinely thought this might be the end of me. And then I glimpsed Mr. Flannigan on his second-story balcony with a phone to his ear, the cord stretched taut from all the way inside. “They’re out there right now harassing my customers. You’ve got to come, Mickey. Come now!” And the blessed sound of a distant police siren racing to save us. The Stooges scattered like cockroaches, leaving Radisson and me trembling. He put his hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right, miss?”

  I could only nod since a glob of adrenaline was jammed in my throat.

  “Would you like a ride home?”

  I nodded again and turned around to include Nicky, but he was nowhere in sight. Radisson started to open the rear door, but I jumped in the shotgun seat since I rarely had that privilege. Radisson got in and turned the key in the ignition. We didn’t speak as he spiraled up the hill, passing neighbor kids who pointed at the spectacle of stain-faced me being ferried in such grand style. The only one who did not look up at the car was Nicky, who trudged not to La Strega’s library but homeward, nose practically touching the blacktop, probably listing infamous cowards.

  TAPE TEN

  The Saint Brigid’s Day Massacre

  O Padre, My Padre:

  I’m walking to the wine cellar, so bear with me as I negotiate these narrow and—eww—slimy passageways. Nonna is leading the way with a flashlight—

  (Watch out for the wall sconce, Nonna!)

  (Son-ama-beetch!)

  I told Nonna I would get the wine for her—

  (You no know which-a vino I need!)

  But apparently I no know which-a vino she need. What’s the name again, Nonna?

  (Moot Rot-a-chile.)

  That’s it, the one and only wine that will go with her marinara, though I don’t know what we’ll do when that particular rack is cleared.

  (I no drink-a too much!)

  (I really and truly do not give a gnat’s ass, Nonna.)

  Nonna certainly deserves refined wine after enduring Grandpa’s hand-pressed Gaglioppo swill all those years.

  And here we are, another room I love because of the ploink-ploink of water dripping from the stone ceiling. It’s also thirty-five degrees cooler, so I’ve been known to drag a folding chair here on hot July nights. Last summer Nonna began lobbying for central air-conditioning. I’m on the verge of acquiescing and not because it’s-a her dying wish.

  Nonna is marching us back, carrying her Rot-a-chile like a scepter. Can you hear that? She’s humming—not our E note but the theme from The Godfather. When The Godfather: Part II came out last year, she made me take her to see it five times, and I had to buy out the Sweetwater Cinema for secrecy. Nonna blubbered when the actors spoke in her mother tongue and the camera panned the Sicilian countryside. I been-a there! She also claims she knew Don Ciccio: I know that no-good son-ama-Ciaffaglione-beetch! Watch out for you life! I didn’t have the heart to tell her he was a fiction, but by now most of her memories of life in Sicilia are probably fictions too.

  Now we’re in Nonna’s basement kitchen, several steps below the main one. The flagstone floor is terra firma for the butcher-block table Nonna hauled up from her old Via Dolorosa house. I’m rubbing my hand over the concave depression made after years of Nonna’s kneading dough and cutting pasta.

  (Pop!)

  Here comes the red wine. One glass for me (grazie, Nonna), one for her, one for the marinara.

  (And-a one for Padre. Salute!)

  (Salute.)

  A New York City scene in Godfather II resonated with me the same way the Sicilian ones must have with Nonna: the San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy when the young Vito Corleone offed the Black Hand.

  One sweltering July, Sweetwater held its own patron-saint festival. The lampposts on the north side of Appian Way were decorated with Saint Brigid of Kildare gewgaws: reed crosses, like the kind Brigid fashioned when she was converting pagan chieftains, and papier-mâché red-eared cows, its milk the only source of nourishment for Brigid when she was a child. Their sidewalk was crowded with booths selling oatcakes and Guinness stout, plus tables where children could color pages that looked like the illuminated Book of Kildare, the original of which had been handmade in the monastery founded by that Irish Saint Brigid.

  The south side of the street was decorated with Saint Brigid of Tuscany tributes. The streetlights were hung with flags of angels, like the ones who ferried Saint Brigid to her brother Saint Andrew’s deathbed, and papier-mâché Apennine Mountains, where that Brigid lived out her life in a cave. Their booths sold cannolis and Chianti.

  Residents lined the street waiting for the double procession that would bring the two Saint Brigid statues from the church, through the village, and to the town square. The occasion would also be the inaugural ringing of the newly installed church bells.

  In the school parking lot, white-clad children gathered in rows: peat-pressers on the left, garlic-grinders on the right. At the end of the lines, directly behind the two statues, each in her own cart, was a third cart holding a throne upon which sat the one and only Saint Brigid Queen. The nuns conspired, yet again, on behalf of a certain hill girl who was as divided as the congregation: half Italian, half British; half healer, half charlatan; half pale pink ocean, half mulberry continents. The Kildare Brigid had disfigured her face to avoid suitors, and I was sure I was chosen because I already looked the part.

  I was sweating in the bride gown hand-sewn by Nonna. A lace veil covered my face, and though just five years before I would have luxuriated in all the netting, that day I felt ridiculous.

  Eventually Grand Marshal Father Luigi bellowed, “Forward ho!” He marched ahead of everyone, waving both arms as if he were a celebrity, followed by a formation of nuns whirling rosary beads like propeller blades. Next came the children scattering oats and reed switches or blowing rude noises from ram horns. Bringing up the rear were the three Saint Brigid carts pulled by church ushers.

  Families on both sides cheered as we passed, and though I was shrouded in netting, familiar wails drifted from the toddlers held in their parents’ arms: “Daddy! What’s wrong with—” Then I spotted Mom, mother of the bride; Nonna, mother of the bride gown; and Aunt Betty, mother of none. Beside them, Dad downed Chianti and longed to be in his basement sawing wood. Dom flirted with one of Dino’s waitresses. Ray-Ray flicked lit matches at Paddy’s dog before Paddy chased him off. Conspicuously absent was Grandpa, likely tending his grapevine.

  Something glinted before me in the dark-haired row of Italian children: Nicky’s blond head in the noonday sun.

  I wasn’t privy to what was going on behind the scenes, but I imagine that as we processed, the Four Stooges slunk into an alley and clambered up the fire escape to the connected store roofs of the Italian side of the street, with their leader, Moe, wearing a white sailor’s hat. They carried burlap sacks as they wove through chimneys and pipes and crouched behind the three-foot-high brick façade of Italia Imports. The Stooges opened their sacks filled with hundreds of overripe tomatoes, Moe seething as he said, “We’ll teach Map Face not to stand up for Nigger Toe.”

  Three minutes before noon, just as Father Luigi stopped in front of the basin, the Stooges lined up tomatoes on the ledge. The obedient nuns halted immediately but the inattentive children banged into one another like bumper cars; the ushers had a difficult time stopping their carts, and the two Brigids and I lurched precariously forward and back before tipping into place.

  Father Luigi held up a starter pistol, finger on the trigger as the town clock ticked toward twelve o’clock.

  Nicky later told me that it was at that point he looked longingly
at La Strega’s house and imagined her library, which he still hadn’t seen. When he dragged his eyes away he spotted something bobbing on the top of Italia Imports, a white sailor’s cap, then the top of the other Stooges’ heads, and, most significant, a row of plump ammunition. He assessed the situation and followed the goons’ line of sight to find their target: the Saint Brigid Queen.

  Nicky started jostling toward me through the children, looking up at Moe, who pointed to the clock only seven ticks away from high noon. As Father Luigi’s finger began depressing the trigger, all four goons stood and cocked their arms in my direction.

  Nicky pushed children out of the way and stepped onto my cart. Initially I was angry at him for stealing my limelight. I lifted the veil. “What are you doing?”

  “Get down!”

  “What?”

  Nicky looked up at the clock. It was exactly noon. Father Luigi squeezed the trigger, and at the same moment it fired, the Stooges lobbed their pulpy grenades. With superhero strength, Nicky sprang from the cart step and shot upward in front of me, acting as a spindly shield. I shouted, “What’s going on?” as church bells began ringing.

  Nicky took the first hit to the side of his face; the red gunk splattered into his ear, streaked his hair. The second hit him squarely in the back, the third his left butt cheek, the fourth his right calf. He was propelled completely over the cart and onto the other side, where he landed headfirst on the concrete sidewalk and was knocked unconscious.

  I leaped down, protected from the red volley by the cart, and knelt beside Nicky, who lay belly-down. I opened my arms wide, looked up at the goons still firing into the crowd, and bellowed, “Why? Why?”

  A photojournalist for the Sweetwater Herald snapped a picture of me kneeling over Nicky that looked amazingly similar to the one John Filo would take eight years later of Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over that dead Kent State boy.

  Their original target protected, the Stooges began firing at random into the children: irresistible, pristine targets. Parents dove into the mêlée to grab their youngsters and drag them to safety. The unflappable nuns surrounded Father Luigi, who cowered with his hands covering his (and Abe Lincoln’s) head as the church bells clanged and clanged.

  TAPE ELEVEN

  Mirror, Mirror

  Archibald,

  I’m being a naughty girl while Nonna and Betty are at the village beauty parlor. Betty finally convinced Nonna to have her hair styled, for the first time in her life. A horde of photographers has camped outside, flashbulbs flaring every time we sneeze, so Betty wants us to look perpetually photo-ready. The paparazzi increase daily thanks to you, Padre. Did you really have to speak with Mike Wallace?

  I’m hiding in the Packard inside the carriage house ogling the empty space where Aunt Betty’s Corvette is usually parked, my gift to her when she passed her driver’s test last year. Just how many Hail Marys do I have to recite as penance for the half o’ cake I just snarfed down that I don’t want to share with my roomies?

  I receive dozens of packages every month containing photos of loved ones’ maladies for me to pray over, toddlers’ nightgowns for me to bless, dog collars so I might heal Rover’s and Fido’s mange. Occasionally I get a thank-you parcel, like this German-chocolate marvel, for some healing that’s been pinned on me.

  I have an insatiable sweet tooth, a venial sin at least. During my early years I devoured penny candy from Flannigan’s until a horrid association left it forever unpalatable to me. The first years of my life, my baked confections came mostly from Nonna (and Annette Funicello), but there was a brief spell when I considered her cannolis too provincial for my palate.

  It started after the Saint Brigid’s Day Massacre when, thanks to my brother, I was the only kid who walked away un-tomatoed. Nicky sported a bump on his noggin from hitting the sidewalk. That earned him the prize of setting the box fan in his bedroom during his convalescence. In my view he deserved an even richer reward.

  A week after the massacre I slipped into Nicky’s room, where he sat at his desk reading about flame-retardant clothing. He must have felt my breath on his neck because he turned around. “What do you want?”

  I cleared my throat, though I couldn’t believe what I was about to propose. “I think we should go see La Strega’s library.”

  Nicky was also stunned, his head jerking up, but such was the depth of my gratitude.

  “You know she wants to show it off and you’re the only person who can appreciate it.”

  His mouth started to form the word no, so I pressed on.

  “Radisson won’t care. I saw him at the festival and I could tell he was proud of what you did to save me.”

  “You saw him?”

  “Yes!” It was a lie. “You have redeemed yourself!” That line had sounded so much better during rehearsal.

  “You think so?”

  “I do.” I revved up my nerve so I could bolster Nicky’s. “Let’s go right now.”

  Amazingly, Nicky stood in front of his mirror to check his teeth.

  Mom was in the kitchen mixing cream soup and canned tuna together. I coughed to camouflage the jumble of Nonna’s protective amulets rattling in my pocket; I’d gathered them from my room. “Where are you going?” she asked. Nicky hadn’t been outside since the festival.

  “For a walk. Nicky could use some fresh air”—words Dad had spoken the previous night while he smoked his cigar on the porch and Mom darned a sock.

  “Sounds wonderful.” She crumbled potato chips over the casserole.

  Outside, Nicky and I spiraled up to La Strega’s intercom button. I thought we were going to have to play one-potato, two-potato.

  “You go.”

  “No, you.”

  “No, you.”

  Mercifully, the carriage-house door opened and out came Radisson steering a wheelbarrow filled with potted begonias. Nicky inched behind me as Radisson approached and set down the barrow.

  “Good afternoon, miss.” He looked over his shoulder to see if La Strega was watching from her parlor window. She was. “And sir.”

  Before I lost my nerve I said, “Radisson, Nicky would like to see the library if that’s okay.”

  Radisson groaned as if he could already predict how this would end. Ever obedient, however, he walked to one of those stone pillars, opened a door on its back, reached in, and pulled out a telephone. “Master Nicky and Miss Garnet would like to see the library.”

  A pause as he listened and the parlor drapes rippled.

  Radisson hung up, pressed a secret button, and the gate clanked open. “Madame will be happy to receive Master Nicholas, and Miss Garnet is also welcome.”

  I waited for Nicky to correct his name, but he didn’t.

  Nicholas stepped onto La Strega’s property, but I couldn’t move. “Come on,” he said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to.” And truly, it was as if the soles of my shoes were slathered with tar.

  Radisson shot me a look that conveyed the message You’re making the right decision.

  Nicky adjusted his collar, flattened his hair. “Okay. I’ll see you later.”

  As my brother walked toward the house, extra vertebrae seemed to appear in his spine, making him taller and taller. By the time he reached the house, he stood nine feet and had to duck to clear the gargoyles. I wished I’d slipped some tocca ferro charms into Nicky’s pocket.

  Radisson dipped into the wheelbarrow and pulled out a begonia. “For you, miss.” Then he whispered something that sounded like “Run like the wind, Miss Garnet! Fly like the wind!”

  I raced to our house, whirred up the blinds in Nicky’s room, and squinted up at the mansion where my brother was being versed in black magic.

  An hour later, he returned with two books under his arm: Oliver Twist and Great Expectations. At the time I didn’t understand their significance.

  Thus began Nicky’s education under the direction of La Strega. For an hour each week she grilled him on his assigned reading and stuffed h
im with cookies. He smuggled back handfuls in his pocket for me, doughy sweets shaped like strawberries and pears and sprinkled with clear sugar. I wasn’t expecting graft to keep his secret from Mom and Dad. We could both imagine their reactions if they knew about his forays.

  Initially I was afraid to eat La Strega’s food, which I imagined was laced with gopher piss and newt eyes, but they were too pretty to resist, those leaves made out of white chocolate.

  Every week I hid in my closet and inspected each one before popping it into my mouth. I began to crave those pieces of heaven, x-ing out days on the calendar until I would get my next fix. I’m ashamed to admit that during that time, when Nonna visited with a shirt box filled with cannolis, centered it on the kitchen table, and pulled off the lid, I didn’t squeal as I usually did. Suddenly they looked clunky and unrefined. “Provincial,” Nicky declared, scraping away from the table. “So crude,” I added, getting up to leave, grabbing two cannolis so I would understand what provincial tasted like. I’m glad I didn’t look at Nonna’s face just then.

  Nicky started bringing home, in addition to cookies, trinkets La Strega had given him: a porcelain figure of a bowing, golden-haired boy in knickers, one arm trailing behind him, a hand clutching a plumed hat. Very much like the boy in the painting in the whippet room. “It’s a Hummel,” Nicky said, apparently implying that it had real value.

  I was not impressed. “Gee. Wonder who this is supposed to be?”

  I didn’t envy him that statue, but I lusted after the fountain pen that sucked ink from a bottle. With it came a box of stationery. “Like you ever write letters.” Over the next months he accrued a chess set with marble rooks and pawns, a key chain and money clip, tie tacks and cuff links, and hand-painted Chinese teacups.

  When fall came La Strega started buying him clothes. A sleeveless sweater vest that screamed: Punch me! Argyle socks with diamonds running up the shaft. Dress shirts with button-down collars. Silk neckties. Every punk in the neighborhood, including all the Stooges, would have slammed Nicky with mud balls if he ever wore one of those getups in public. And that was the irony. He never could wear any of it outside. He had to hide them in the back of his closet. When Mom and Dad were out, however, he’d play dress-up, marching from gilt mirror to mirror to practice his new manners. “I’ll take two, thank you. Please pass the cream.”