Black Rabbit and Other Stories (19 page)

Irene smiled. “So you work with the kids?”

“I volunteer, yes, on my free time.”

When Irene reached for her full Pepsi can she knocked the empty one to the floor. The man jumped from his seat and recovered it before it stopped rattling. He sat down again, stood the empty can beside the other one. She noticed that his red sleeves were dry and undamaged, as was the rest of the jacket. It had somehow escaped getting wet. She wondered if it was another one, identical to the first.

“You're not with the kids today?”

He smiled. “They're at the Butterfly Conservatory.”

This made no sense to Irene, but she didn't want to be rude and press further. Besides, she felt strange in the hazy light of the food court, people shuffling in and out of focus, a muffled hubbub. She glanced at the man's face but couldn't fix on any of its details. Her heart continued pounding. For a second she thought she might faint—how horrible that would have been—but she sipped from her cold can of Pepsi and then held it between her wrists. This helped.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes, I'm fine,” she said, unable to focus her eyes. She felt like a schoolgirl. It was ridiculous. What was she doing here? She glanced at her watch. She was late. But she didn't move.

The man pried the lid off his cup, the nails of his long fingers glossed and perfectly half-mooned. He pursed his lips and blew on the coffee, then sipped it with a soft sound. Streaked with silver, his brows and sideburns didn't match his thick black hair. How odd. Then Irene realized he was wearing a toupee. He was older than she had first thought. Beneath the collar of his black shirt lurked a wrinkled neck.

Under the table Irene felt his foot nudge hers.

“Well,” he said, looking up from his coffee and squinting his eyes. “I see from your nametag that your name is Irene. Lovely name, Irene.”

“Thank you,” she said, taking deep breaths.

“Irene, Irene,” he said, almost to himself. “Did you know that the name Irene comes from the Greek word meaning peace?”

“I didn't know that.”

“Well, now you do.” He flared his nostrils and reached his hand across the table. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Irene.”

She stared at his hand. The ruby of his pinky ring shone like a little lamp.

Rocco Schillaci regarded himself in the hallway mirror with some disappointment. Three years ago, at his son Johnny's funeral, the black suit was loose; and it fit perfectly last August when his father-in-law passed away. And now? It had been a long winter. He unbuckled his belt and let it out a notch. Yesterday, his cousin Joe Garzo died in hospital. Rocco had admired and respected Joe and had shared many fine moments with him and his family. Hard to believe he was gone. He'd been so fit for an eighty-year-old, sharp as a tack, even nimble. Then, a month ago, his abdomen swelled up. Tests revealed cirrhosis of the liver. The doctors could do nothing.

Isn't it cruel? Rocco thought, squatting and pulling at the seat of his pants. You dodge all the bullets of life, avoid the calamities, then you hit eighty and parts wear out, the machine breaks down. There's no escaping it. And if your body doesn't go, the brain turns to cheese. His maternal grandfather, Luigi, came to mind: he lived to be ninety-three but spent his last ten years counting and recounting a demijohn full of pennies. Rocco undid his belt another notch. Anyway, not likely he'd live to be ninety-three. He was fifty-five, smoked a pack of cigarettes a day, drank too much, and ate like a pig. He'd be happy to make it to eighty, he'd be lucky.

He smoothed his lapels and stepped out on the deck for a smoke. They'd be burying Joe the day after tomorrow. Why the wait? he wondered. Why the spectacle? Let him go already. Rocco expected his wife, Domenica, back any minute from Sunday mass. Only the second
of May and the twin magnolia trees behind the wood shack had shed their blooms; now forsythia pushed up against the old stone wall and tulips crayoned Domenica's flower garden. The Schillacis had bought the homestead off Green's Road near Winona back in the spring of '75. It seemed they'd moved to the wilderness, but by the '90s Winona, Fruitland, Stoney Creek, and most land east of Hamilton had been developed. Rocco loved the big house and the three lush acres, a far cry from the postage stamp lots being parceled out now. A creek ran along the end of the property line, beyond a row of scrolling birches. Rocco used to walk down there to smoke and reflect. But after Johnny died he stopped going, less taken to reflection. The way he saw it, all riches and joys, poverty and sorrow, were meted out in this lifetime. And that was fine.

At Friscolanti's Funeral Home in downtown Hamilton, Rocco's brother Pepe greeted him and Domenica in the foyer. Pepe's wife, Petrina, in a drab purple dress, her black hair pinned back in a severe bun, didn't acknowledge them. She and Domenica weren't speaking; or rather she wasn't speaking to Domenica for reasons unclear. Four years Rocco's junior, Pepe looked it; the brothers came from the same mold. Yet they had little in common and seldom saw each other any more: each viewed the other's wife as shrewish and controlling. Rocco considered Petrina a sourpuss; nothing made her smile, and she had a way of spreading her misery. Pepe, who long ago had courted Domenica, thought her the ultimate opportunist. She had said at the time that he wasn't serious enough for her. Not serious enough? A year later she was married to his more “serious” brother.

“One by one they're dropping,” Pepe said. “Petrina's Zi Tomasso died in Thorold last week.”

“Sorry to hear. What of?”

“Stroke.”

“How old was he?”

“Eighty-one.”

Rocco sighed, passed a hand over his face. “Let's go out for a smoke.”

“You know I don't smoke.”

“Just step out with me.”

Pepe rolled his eyes, put his hands in his pockets, and followed his brother across the foyer to the front doors. They exited into the fresh air. Rocco loosened his tie and lit himself a cigarette. “How are Caterina and Miccu doing?” He hadn't seen Pepe's children since Christmas.

“Good. They're good. Miccu just finished his third-year exams at Guelph, and Caterina is still with the City. And the boys? I saw Carlo at Maria's the other day.”

“At my mother-in-law's?”

“Yes, I was dropping off biscotti my wife baked for her. Poor Maria. All alone in that house.”

“And Carlo was there?”

“He was. He was clipping her toenails.”

Rocco squinted and brought the glowing cigarette to his lips. He looked up at the sleek evening sky and exhaled a bluish plume of smoke.

A fire engine clanged and wailed in the distance. He glanced at Pepe's dull black shoes. Domenica wanted to take in Maria. His mother had been dead for years and, with the boys gone, rooms sat empty. But she hadn't asked yet, and he wasn't about to bring it up. Maria was a wretched hypochondriac. How ironic that her husband died first.

Ugo Troccoli, a friend of Joe Garzo's and Rocco's cousin by marriage, also stepped out for a smoke. He was a trim seventy-year-old, with cropped white hair and a raspy voice. “Rocco, Pepe.” He gently shook their hands and took a drag of his cigarette. “The King is dead,” he whispered.

“Yes,” Rocco said. Ugo had given Joe the moniker during their poker-playing days for his knack of drawing kings.

“Rocco,” Ugo's tone changed. “Isabella tells me you're getting rid of the Malibu.”

Rocco grimaced at the thought of that rust-bucket. He had spent thousands keeping it roadworthy, yet neither he nor the wife ever drove it, and his sons had their own vehicles. “Yes,” he said. “Cost me an arm and a leg this past year.”

“My grandson Luca is going for his licence tomorrow. How much do you want for it?”

“Zi Ugo, I don't want anything.”

“Is it certifiable?”

“I think so. The transmission's new, but the engine burns oil. It won't last the year. You can have it if you want.”

Ugo seemed pleased. “How's your mother-in-law?” he asked.

“She's fine,” Rocco said.

“But she was on her deathbed, no?”

The men burst out laughing.

“Ah,” Ugo sighed, staring at the starry sky. “King.” His black eyes moistened.

After the funeral home Rocco and Domenica stopped by her mother's house in Hamilton's East End. She had her hair in angry curlers and a trademark scowl pinching her face. She was eighty, always ill with one enigmatic malady or another, but Rocco suspected that she'd outlive them all.

“Hi, Ma,” Domenica said, kissing both her cheeks. “We went to see Joe Garzo.”

“He's joined Antonio now,” she droned. “But that's okay. We'll be joining them too. We're all going there sooner or later. We're all in line. The other day, diarrhea. I almost died. When is it going to end? Tell me. All this suffering. When? Let me die. Let me die now. Rocco, you don't say anything?”

He shrugged.

“Yes,” she said, “You too, my boy. You too. Don't worry.”

Rocco endured her laments while Domenica made espresso. Maria and he had never gotten along. She didn't like him or his brother, considered them underachieving peasants. He had long ago stopped listening to anything she had to say. He shook his head as she went on. Life is a mess, he thought, watching her baleful mouth churn. It seems okay at times, but at bottom it's a mess.

When they got home, Domenica and he sat at the kitchen table. She peeled and sliced a couple of pears. He looked at his wife, at her pale familiar neck, at the thin blue vein faintly striping her
temple, the soft cheek . . . He remembered the first time he saw that profile. His brother had just started bringing her around. She was all of eighteen, shy as a doe. Born in Serradifalco, Sicily, she had just emigrated to Canada. Rocco couldn't take his eyes off her. He hated coveting his brother's girl, but he sensed that she shared his attraction. And she did.

“What are you looking at?” she asked.

“You, bella.”

But she frowned and stood up from the table. She moved to the sink, turned the tap on full. She was never good with compliments, he thought, as he chewed some pear and poured wine into a glass.

Later, Marco the second-youngest came by to borrow his mother's pasta-maker; he and his beautiful wife Giannamaria had invited friends over Friday evening for lasagna. She was five months pregnant. That girl was a miracle, a real mother's daughter. Her lasagna rivaled Domenica's. How she fell for Marco, of all people, was beyond him. He thought Marco the flimsiest of his five sons.

After one glass too many, Rocco started berating him for never going to his brother's grave site—he had skipped the funeral. Marco claimed he didn't have the strength. Didn't have the strength? What did that mean? There was no mystery to it, in Rocco's opinion. Marco's attitude reeked of self-absorption and cowardice. A man had to face up to his responsibilities. Rocco was curious to see how he would deal with fatherhood, and how he would measure up in the event of a
tragedy
. Tomorrow, May third, marked the anniversary of Johnny's death. Rocco had loved Johnny, his firstborn. Unlike the sombre, thin-necked Marco, Johnny could light up a room; Johnny had style.

“What did he ever do to you?” Rocco asked, his voice cracking.

Marco blinked.

Domenica put her hand on her husband's shoulder.

Next morning, Rocco's hangover had fur and green teeth and was
gnawing on his brain. He smoked a cigarette upon waking and moments later rushed to the bathroom to vomit. Oddly hungry after that, he went down to the kitchen and fried himself two eggs. Domenica had left a note: she'd gone grocery shopping with Carlo, and don't forget to shave, shower, and put on your black suit.

Rocco had booked the week off from his millwright's job at Stelco, using up accumulated lieu time. Twenty-seven years toiling with steel and it felt like it. His shoulder was acting up again—he'd injured it a few years ago in a fall off a scaffold. Given Joe's death and the anniversary of Johnny's death, it was a good time to take a break.

He ate his eggs with an end of Calabrian bread and some black olives, washing it all down with a half-carton of orange juice. He drank a shot of cognac, smoked a cigarette, and then felt better. He felt quite fine considering—that is, until Domenica returned.

“So you managed to get up, eh?” she said. “Didn't die in your sleep? Sounded like you might.”

“Where's Carlo?”

“He dropped me off and went home. You'd better be planning to go back to work next week. I've had enough of you around the house. Want coffee? I see you already made yourself something to eat. You can cook when you have to, hmm? If you made a mess in the bathroom I'll cut your head off.”

“Do you have to talk so loud?” Rocco pressed his fingertips to his temples.

Domenica brewed another pot of espresso and Rocco drank a sugar-thickened cupful with a dash of anisette. He smoked another cigarette. The telephone rang. Domenica answered. “It's Benny,” she said.

Rocco covered his face with his hands. Benny was his youngest son and the brightest next to Johnny. But he'd been away at Dalhousie University for most of the last five years, and would be there for at least two more finishing his law degree. Rocco doubted he'd ever move back home.

“Your father's hung over.”

“Dom—”

“Talk to him, Benny. Talk some sense to him.”

“Domenica!” Why wouldn't she just let up?

She handed him the receiver. He glowered at her; he didn't feel like talking to Benny, at least not now. He put the receiver to his ear.

“Pa?”

“Yeah, Benny. How are you, son?”

“I'm good. Did Ma tell you I'm staying in Halifax for the summer? I got a clerical job with a big law firm.”

“Yes, she told me. Good for you, Benny.”