Eggplant Alley (9781593731410) (16 page)

“Now your horrid sweetie doesn't even return your letters,” Nicky thought savagely. “So there.”

D
ad and his brother, Uncle Angelo, were in the front seat and Mom, Nicky, and Aunt Amelia were in the backseat, watching the sun climb as Uncle Angelo's Buick inched across the Whitestone Bridge in a line of sizzling traffic. As far back as Nicky could remember, the annual Goombah Picnic was held the first Sunday in July. Dad's relatives and old neighborhood pals would gather at Jones Beach, the magnificent, vast shoreline way out on Long Island. It was one of the few surviving summer treats. The only good excuse for not being there was if you were in jail, in the army, or dead.

Nicky was in the backseat wedged between the women, but he wanted to be in the front seat between the men. Aunt Amelia's perfume smelled sweet and hot in the stuffy rear seat. Mom fanned herself with the church bulletin. Nicky leaned forward and rested his chin on the front seat.

“Sit back,” Mom commanded.

Nicky sat back. Roy would ride in he front seat with the men on these trips to the beach. Roy was away, so now there was an opening. He wanted to be with Dad and Uncle Angelo. He watched the backs of their heads as they spoke over the car radio,
which was tuned to the all-news station. Dad mentioned the Yankees. Uncle Angelo nodded solemnly. Uncle Angelo pointed out a nearby car. Dad shrugged and said he had heard bad things about the engine block on that particular model.

The men talked about movies, mentioning the war picture about General Patton and a gangster movie and then Dad's voice dropped and Nicky heard him say “that one with Stella Stevens.”

Nicky leaned forward and rested his chin on the front seat.

“Sit back,” Mom said.

“Sit back,” Dad said over his shoulder.

Nicky sat back.

Two hours later, Mom, Dad, Uncle Angelo, Aunt Amelia, and Nicky traipsed across the broiling-hot sand, sweating, lugging coolers and beach chairs and blankets and umbrellas.

“There they are, at last,” Orzo the Baker said. “We thought you got captured.”

“Muddun, the bridge,” said Uncle Angelo.

Dad and Uncle Angelo planted chairs alongside the boys from the old neighborhood. They were handed sweaty bottles of Ballantine beer, cold from the cooler.

“We got lasagna if you want,” Orzo said.

The beach was packed. Nicky imagined he could walk from blanket to blanket for miles without touching sand, and the thought appealed to him. Nicky hated the sand. He also hated the water, because he was secretly afraid of slimy sea creatures. He hated the hot sun, too, because he tended to burn crispy red.

But he loved the beach, because he loved the sensations of the beach. The smell of salt water and coconut tanning lotion. The
sound of waves thudding and seagulls squawking and hundreds of tiny radios squeaking out Top 40 hits and baseball games. And starting last year, he enjoyed staring with telescoping bug eyes at the young girls, hundreds of them, some in yellow polka-dot bikinis.

The women and children of the Goombah Picnic migrated to the water. They moved as a unit. The men stayed behind, serene in their chairs low to the sand. Bottles of Ballantine were plucked steadily from the cooler. Nicky stayed behind with the men. This was a first.

“Hey, Nicky-boy, that's some scar you got there.”

Orzo was calling. Orzo pointed the neck of his green beer bottle toward the ripply red zigzag on Nicky's right ankle. “You got that when the jigs broke it, huh? I never noticed.”

Nicky shrugged and slid the ankle under the blanket.

Orzo saw Nicky hide the ankle and said, “Well, no matter. It ain't no big deal.”

Orzo belched loudly. He said, “I mean, that's nothing. Barely notice it. It's nothing.” Ballantine cooking in his brain, Orzo didn't know when to stop. “I mean, lookit this. Take a look.”

Orzo settled his bottle into the sand. He twisted his right shoulder blade into view and cocked his head, indicating “Take a lookit this.” The skin was pocked with dozens of holes, as if someone had poked a pencil into the skin, a quarter inch deep, over and over.

“German grenade,” Orzo said. He sat back and smiled proudly. “Looks like the goddamn moon, don't it?”

Tommy Two-Shoes said, “That's nothing.”

“Christ, Tommy, don't,” Franky the Angel said.

“Don't look, if you don't wanna see,” Tommy Two-Shoes said. He sipped his beer and smiled a big Ballantine grin. He kicked off his powder-blue loafers. He held his feet out toward Nicky at eye level.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Franky the Angel said.

Nicky stared at the feet. He looked at Tommy. He looked back at the feet. Nicky jerked his head side-to-side, showing that he didn't get it.

“Well?” Tommy said. “Geez, kid, what school do you go to? The toes. Count 'em. Hey, Sal, what school you sending this kid to?”

Nicky counted. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven …

Seven.

“Oh,” Nicky said.

“Yeah,” Tommy Two-Shoes said, grinning. “I got frostbit at the Battle of the Bulge. I was lucky. Some of the guys, their whole feet got chopped off.”

“My turn,” said Tizino, another from the old neighborhood.

“Here we go,” said Franky the Angel.

“This guy, he's gonna get us thrown in jail,” Tommy Two-Shoes said cheerfully, working back into his loafers.

“Nicky, you gotta see this,” Tizino said.

Tizino stood, swayed, steadied himself. He lowered one side of his baggy bathing trunks and uncovered his left buttock, a handful of flesh missing.

“Can you believe this guy?” Franky the Angel said.

“Our tin can went down off Guadalcanal,” Tizino said, off-balance, swaying. “Jap sub got us. I was in the water three days.
Guess some shark was inna mood for Italian food, 'cause he took a chomp out my rear end.”

“Okay, put it away, Tizzy,” Angelo said.

“Hey, just because you got away without a scratch,” Tizino said.

“I had my close calls.”

“We all did,” Tommy Two-Shoes said. “Muddun, we all did. Right, Sal? Hey, Nicky, ask your father about the monkey statue. He ever tell you about that? Jesus H. Christ. Saved by the monkey.”

“Okay, enough,” Dad said.

“Tell me about the monkey,” Nicky said.

“Go for a swim, why don't you.”

“Come on, Pop.”

“I'm not in the mood for stories,” Dad said.

“Yeah, enough with ancient history,” said Tommy Two-Shoes.

“Yeah,” said Angelo, rattling the ice as he fished into the cooler. “Who needs a brew?”

Green bottles were passed out up and down the line. Dad put his fresh beer down in the sand and headed toward the water.

“The men's room is the third wave on the left,” Tommy Two-Shoes said, and they all laughed. Dad gave the A-OK sign over his shoulder as he walked.

“Hey, Nicky-boy, how's Roy doing? You hear from him much?” Tizino said.

Nicky shrugged.

“What's he doing? Is he seeing much action?”

“Not too much yet. I don't know.”

“Well, the important thing is, he's there. He answered the call.
Not like the rest of them goddamn peace creeps. I swear, they make me sick. You seen them on TV?”

“Someday they're gonna have to answer for not doing their duty,” Uncle Angelo said.

“That's right,” said Franky the Angel. “What the hell they gonna say when their kids ask what they did in the war? ‘Well, son, I ran to Canada like a scared bunny.'”

The men shook their heads, disgusted.

“Yuh, ‘I did my part by growing a beard and skipping baths,'” Uncle Angelo said.

The men grunted and shook their heads.

“Old Roy will be able to hold his head high. For the rest of his life,” Tommy Two-Shoes said.

“You gotta live with what you do, what you don't do, and what happens because of what you do and don't do,” Tizino said.

“And that's the straight doo-doo,” Frankie the Angel said solemnly.

Nicky peered through the hot haze to pick out Dad. He was waist-deep, getting shoved by the rolling waves. Dad was shading his eyes with his hands, looking up. He walked farther into the surf, deeper under water, and a wave rolled hard into his chest, staggering him. A small plane, glittery in the bright sun, engine throbbing, flew out to sea. Dad kept walking, looking up at the plane. He watched the plane until it was a small buzzing speck on the horizon.

T
hat night a loud boom jolted Nicky from a deep sleep. Nicky wondered if he had dreamed the noise or if the noise really happened. Either way, he was awake.

Nicky hated feeling alone in the dark. He tried to go back to sleep. He wondered if the boom was an atomic blast. It's the kind of thought that makes perfect sense in the first hours past midnight. He was sure an atomic bomb would hit New York one of these days. Atomic bombs always hit New York or Washington in the movies, so it added up. Every day at noon, the air raid siren went off. They tested it seven days a week. It was a sickening sound. A howl of terror. Now in the dark Nicky wondered what would happen if the Russians happened to attack at noon. Every citizen would think it was just a test, and go on eating their Velveeta sandwiches as enemy bombers closed in. Nicky wondered if anybody besides him thought about this.

Only small sounds came from the courtyard. Cutlery hit a plate softly; someone home from the night shift, snacking. The fans were humming. A child coughed. Probably one of the hard-luck Sweeney boys.

From the kitchen came a raspy belch. One of Dad's. His signature
burp. What was Dad doing awake? Now what? A heart attack? A burglar? A fire? Atomic bombs tumbling toward Eggplant Alley?

There was no good reason for Dad to be awake at this hour. Nicky hit the floor with bare feet, gritty with Jones Beach sand, and hurried to the kitchen.

Dad jumped when he saw Nicky. Dad said, “What is it? What's the matter?”

Nicky said, “Nothing. What is it? What's the matter?”

“Nothing. My stomach. I think there was something bad with Orzo's lasagna. I wish I could burp. Go to bed.”

On the kitchen table were a glass of fizzy water, a pen, a pad of paper, and the monkey statue. It was a porcelain rendition of a leering chimp. The monkey wore a blue suit, a green shirt, a red tie, and a beret at a jaunty angle. In the corner of the monkey's mouth was a tidy hole the diameter of a cigarette.

Nicky slid into a kitchen chair and lifted the porcelain monkey.

“Don't touch the monkey,” Dad said.

Nicky carefully placed the monkey on the table. He noticed writing on the paper in front of Dad.

“What are you writing?” Nicky said.

“My Christmas list. Go to bed, Nicky. Don't touch the monkey. Don't give me any more agita.”

Dad was not the kind to scribble on a notepad. He didn't write much. Mom handled absence notes to school; lists for the milkman; letters to Roy; Christmas cards.

“Are you writing a letter?”

“What, are you writing a book? Nicky, do me a favor, go back to sleep, will you please? Don't be a scooch. I wish I could burp.”

“You're not having a heart attack or anything, are you?”

“You're gonna give me one, I swear. Go to bed.”

Nicky placed his fingertips on the porcelain monkey.

“Don't touch the monkey,” Dad said.

“I want you to tell me the story.”

“Ain't you a little old for bedtime stories?”

“I want you to tell me the story about this monkey. I'm sick of being the only one who doesn't know the stories.”

“Not now, Nicky. Geez, can't I get any peace, even in the middle of the night?”

“Why won't you tell me the story?”

“Not now.”

“Please?”

“Not now.”

“Please?”

“Not now.”

“Please. Please. Please.”

Dad dropped the pen onto the pad and rubbed his fingers into his temples. He sighed.

Dad said, “If I tell you the story, will you go to bed?”

“I swear.”

“Get me a beer. It will help my stomach.”

Nicky pulled a can of Ballantine from the refrigerator. He punched two holes in the can with an opener and handed the can to Dad.

“Thanks, pal,” Dad said, taking a sip. “That's good coffee. So you wanna hear the big story? Okay.”

And Nicky and Dad had the longest talk they would ever have.

“You know I was in Europe during the war, right?” Dad said. “Of course you know. I was in the Third Army. Patton's army. I was with the Hundred and Fiftieth Ordnance Battalion. Bomb disposal squadron. You know what that means? When they found a bomb that didn't blow up, it was our job to disarm it. Take it apart. Make it safe. We were good. The best. Tough work, lemme tell you. The kind of job for the young and stupid.”

Nicky had heard all this before.

Dad sipped and continued. “Because when you're young, you think you're gonna live forever. You get old, you know better. Anyway, we were in this town in Czechoslovakia. This was after the war. The war was all over. But they were still coming across bombs that didn't go off. We had plenty of jobs.

“One day, my squad was on duty. One squad would be on, the other squad off. We took turns. Just sitting around. We would go days without nothing. Just sat around.

“On this day we were sitting around. We were going to pull out of the town that night. Got it? There was this little shop down the block. It had this porcelain monkey in the window. There was this girl back home. I guess you could say I was sweet on her. A Cherry Street girl. This was before I knew your mother. This girl's name was Gina. She was crazy about monkeys. Don't ask me why, because I don't know. But I wanna get her this monkey. Bring it home as a present. So I asked the lieutenant if he minds if I go down to the shop and buy this monkey. Because I don't want the shop to close and then we move out and I can't buy it. I mean, Gina. She was a real doll. You following this?”