Old neighborhoods
Jul. 10th, 2003 05:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraFrank the plumber flirts with me.
"That's a nice ring," he says, grabbing my hand and staring at the gold band with the green emeralds that I wear on my married lady finger. "What month were you born? May?"
"April," I say.
"April?" He drops my hand. "Me too. What day?"
I laugh. "April 11."
"Yeah, I figured you were an Aries," Frank says. "Big mouth. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Takes one to know one, right?" He turns to Mr. Cardinale who is smiling beatifically, perhaps overcome by the beauty of the newly remodeled bathroom. "Hey, she was born on the same day as Vinnie Ferenze." Turns to me again. "You know Vinnie, right? Runs the deep sea fishing boat down to the wharf? I was born on the sixth. Phillie Caputo was the ninth and Stephano Alioti was the third. You remember little Stevie, huh?"
"Yes, yes," says Mr. Cardinale, beaming. "Sure."
"There was five of us in the same class, all of us born in April and the teacher, she asks me: how come? All of you in the same month. Coincidence or what? And I laughs. Coincidence, my ass! I says to her: Our fathers were fishermen. They'd go out in the boats for a long time, and when they came back – Well. You do the math." Frank chortles.
"What school was this?" I ask. "Bayview?"
"No, no. Larkin School. Right on the corner. The house I grew up in is two blocks away on Clay Street."
"Where do you live now?"
"Seaside."
"Do you miss the old neighborhood?"
"Oh, sure," says Frank. "My mother's always trying to get me to move back. But hey, I bought the house in Seaside for thirty-five thousand dollars thirty years ago and now it's worth $450,000 and it's all paid off. Kids college all paid for, nuthin' but blue sky for the rest of my life. What do I want the aggravation of moving? You're from the East Coast, right?"
"How can you tell?" I ask. "Do I have an accent?"
"No, no. But you're not from around here or I'd know you. Where your people from? What part?"
"Pittsburgh," I say, remembering my Sicilian grandmother's little house with the orchard and the tomato plants and the fireflies on the fourth of July. "Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."
"Pittsburgh!" Frank whistles. "My grandfather too, different coast. Pittsburgh CA. A big Guinea owned a cannery up there, brought a lot of guys from the old country over. They had to work for him for a long time, pay their debt off."
"Indentured servitude," I say.
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Then they came down here to fish. Look, I put in some electrical outlets for you. Now you can use a hair-dryer. Me, I don't need a hair-dryer 'cause I ain't got no hair. Tell the truth – you never felt clean when you got out of that shower, huh? The way this bathroom used to look. Well, now you can take a shower and feel clean."
Indeed this is true. The house was built when people took baths not showers, long before bathrooms had any ventilation. This was the first major renovation in sixty years. Sixty years of shower spray condensing slowly off wooden walls. The old bathroom had literally rotted from the inside out. The stench of mold and deeper undertones of slowly draining sewage was strong. Every time one of the Pepto-Bismal pink tiles rotted off from the understructure, I would beg Ben to call the landlord. Every time, he refused and spackled it back together himself. "Just take shorter showers," he would tell me.
Finally, one of the pipes sprang a leak and the soapy water from my ablutions made a river down the street. Ben was gone, Mr. Cardinale freaked on the phone. But he was always very nice to me in person, a short, unassuming white-haired old man with an Italian accent so strong at times it is incomprehensible.
He was still standing there, staring in wonder at the newly remodeled walls and floor. The contractor had used large squares of marbled gray ceramic tile. The Roman mausoleum effect. One would indeed feel very clean washing in such a space.
"Sal," said Frank. "C'mon. Let's get out of here and let the lady take her shower."
The house had belonged to Mr. Cardinale's wife's parents, a fisherman and his wife. It was on the market for a long time during the third year we lived here and I wish I'd been able to scrape up the money to buy it then. It's probably doubled in value. Mrs. Cardinale finally bought it herself to take it out of reach of her squabbling siblings. Sometimes I still see the old lady, her mother, in the back pantry where the washing machine and dryer now are. She's a very stooped and tiny ghost, dressed as you'd expect the wife of a Sicilian fisherman to be dressed, all in black. She' looking for the big porcelain basin and wringer with which she used to wash her family's clothes. The washing machine confuses her.
I walk them to the back door, wave goodbye to Frank. "Go on," he grins. "Take a shower. Did you see I put the soap dish in special for you 'cause you're tall? You won't have to bend down. You know, there are two types of people in this world: Italians and people who wish they were Italians."
Frank drives off but Mr. Cardinale remains on the back porch, staring at the paved area behind the ugly garage with the apartments, into the alley beyond . I wonder what he's seeing. Maybe Zia Maria's old garden with the milincani, cucuzza, pumaroru and fiche, the peach trees in bloom. When we first moved into the house, one of the old peach trees was still there, a white peach struggling to fruit against the ruins of the old wooden garden shed. But they tore it out, paved the spot over.
Poor Mr. Cardinale. Life in the brave new world reneged on many of its promises. True, as the price of real estate inflates, he's grown rich. But those daughters – one a crackhead, the other fat and dour herself and married to a similarly obese guy who smiles a lot. Mark Doyle who killed his own nephew. Rolled over on the baby in his sleep. They played the 911 call on the six o'clock news. Maria Doyle, the Cardinales' daughter, frantically screaming at the dispatcher, "Oh my God. There's a pillow over his head. He's not breathing!"
Mark Doyle, never charged with homicide because he's married to the daughter of someone from the old Spaghetti Hill nabe…
I sent a card to Mr. Cardinale and his wife after it happened. I felt so bad for them. A big Hallmark card with an illustration of a lurid fruit tree in bloom. "You and your family are in our thoughts and prayers." I was lying, of course. I never pray.
Now I ask him gently, "Where in Sicily did your people come from, Mr. Cardinale?"
His eyes struggle to refocus. "Imarone. You know Imarone? Island off the coast."
"Sicily is very beautiful. Do you ever go back?"
"Go back? Sure. Very different now. Big tourist place. Lots of Germans, Swiss. They all buy houses."
He sighs, rubs his eyes and presently ambles off. I'm very grateful to have a functioning bathroom back. For ten days now I've had to plot my life around driving to public toilets. I'd staked every single one out within a five mile radius. Had to scratch the one at nearby Larkin park off the list when every time I used the facilities a blonde matron would emerge from a nearby house to glare at me. I suppose she thought I was some kind of pervert, there to lure the children to perform unspeakable acts. Very demoralizing.
Today I begin the arduous process of negotiating the Cannery Row lease.
"That's a nice ring," he says, grabbing my hand and staring at the gold band with the green emeralds that I wear on my married lady finger. "What month were you born? May?"
"April," I say.
"April?" He drops my hand. "Me too. What day?"
I laugh. "April 11."
"Yeah, I figured you were an Aries," Frank says. "Big mouth. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Takes one to know one, right?" He turns to Mr. Cardinale who is smiling beatifically, perhaps overcome by the beauty of the newly remodeled bathroom. "Hey, she was born on the same day as Vinnie Ferenze." Turns to me again. "You know Vinnie, right? Runs the deep sea fishing boat down to the wharf? I was born on the sixth. Phillie Caputo was the ninth and Stephano Alioti was the third. You remember little Stevie, huh?"
"Yes, yes," says Mr. Cardinale, beaming. "Sure."
"There was five of us in the same class, all of us born in April and the teacher, she asks me: how come? All of you in the same month. Coincidence or what? And I laughs. Coincidence, my ass! I says to her: Our fathers were fishermen. They'd go out in the boats for a long time, and when they came back – Well. You do the math." Frank chortles.
"What school was this?" I ask. "Bayview?"
"No, no. Larkin School. Right on the corner. The house I grew up in is two blocks away on Clay Street."
"Where do you live now?"
"Seaside."
"Do you miss the old neighborhood?"
"Oh, sure," says Frank. "My mother's always trying to get me to move back. But hey, I bought the house in Seaside for thirty-five thousand dollars thirty years ago and now it's worth $450,000 and it's all paid off. Kids college all paid for, nuthin' but blue sky for the rest of my life. What do I want the aggravation of moving? You're from the East Coast, right?"
"How can you tell?" I ask. "Do I have an accent?"
"No, no. But you're not from around here or I'd know you. Where your people from? What part?"
"Pittsburgh," I say, remembering my Sicilian grandmother's little house with the orchard and the tomato plants and the fireflies on the fourth of July. "Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."
"Pittsburgh!" Frank whistles. "My grandfather too, different coast. Pittsburgh CA. A big Guinea owned a cannery up there, brought a lot of guys from the old country over. They had to work for him for a long time, pay their debt off."
"Indentured servitude," I say.
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Then they came down here to fish. Look, I put in some electrical outlets for you. Now you can use a hair-dryer. Me, I don't need a hair-dryer 'cause I ain't got no hair. Tell the truth – you never felt clean when you got out of that shower, huh? The way this bathroom used to look. Well, now you can take a shower and feel clean."
Indeed this is true. The house was built when people took baths not showers, long before bathrooms had any ventilation. This was the first major renovation in sixty years. Sixty years of shower spray condensing slowly off wooden walls. The old bathroom had literally rotted from the inside out. The stench of mold and deeper undertones of slowly draining sewage was strong. Every time one of the Pepto-Bismal pink tiles rotted off from the understructure, I would beg Ben to call the landlord. Every time, he refused and spackled it back together himself. "Just take shorter showers," he would tell me.
Finally, one of the pipes sprang a leak and the soapy water from my ablutions made a river down the street. Ben was gone, Mr. Cardinale freaked on the phone. But he was always very nice to me in person, a short, unassuming white-haired old man with an Italian accent so strong at times it is incomprehensible.
He was still standing there, staring in wonder at the newly remodeled walls and floor. The contractor had used large squares of marbled gray ceramic tile. The Roman mausoleum effect. One would indeed feel very clean washing in such a space.
"Sal," said Frank. "C'mon. Let's get out of here and let the lady take her shower."
The house had belonged to Mr. Cardinale's wife's parents, a fisherman and his wife. It was on the market for a long time during the third year we lived here and I wish I'd been able to scrape up the money to buy it then. It's probably doubled in value. Mrs. Cardinale finally bought it herself to take it out of reach of her squabbling siblings. Sometimes I still see the old lady, her mother, in the back pantry where the washing machine and dryer now are. She's a very stooped and tiny ghost, dressed as you'd expect the wife of a Sicilian fisherman to be dressed, all in black. She' looking for the big porcelain basin and wringer with which she used to wash her family's clothes. The washing machine confuses her.
I walk them to the back door, wave goodbye to Frank. "Go on," he grins. "Take a shower. Did you see I put the soap dish in special for you 'cause you're tall? You won't have to bend down. You know, there are two types of people in this world: Italians and people who wish they were Italians."
Frank drives off but Mr. Cardinale remains on the back porch, staring at the paved area behind the ugly garage with the apartments, into the alley beyond . I wonder what he's seeing. Maybe Zia Maria's old garden with the milincani, cucuzza, pumaroru and fiche, the peach trees in bloom. When we first moved into the house, one of the old peach trees was still there, a white peach struggling to fruit against the ruins of the old wooden garden shed. But they tore it out, paved the spot over.
Poor Mr. Cardinale. Life in the brave new world reneged on many of its promises. True, as the price of real estate inflates, he's grown rich. But those daughters – one a crackhead, the other fat and dour herself and married to a similarly obese guy who smiles a lot. Mark Doyle who killed his own nephew. Rolled over on the baby in his sleep. They played the 911 call on the six o'clock news. Maria Doyle, the Cardinales' daughter, frantically screaming at the dispatcher, "Oh my God. There's a pillow over his head. He's not breathing!"
Mark Doyle, never charged with homicide because he's married to the daughter of someone from the old Spaghetti Hill nabe…
I sent a card to Mr. Cardinale and his wife after it happened. I felt so bad for them. A big Hallmark card with an illustration of a lurid fruit tree in bloom. "You and your family are in our thoughts and prayers." I was lying, of course. I never pray.
Now I ask him gently, "Where in Sicily did your people come from, Mr. Cardinale?"
His eyes struggle to refocus. "Imarone. You know Imarone? Island off the coast."
"Sicily is very beautiful. Do you ever go back?"
"Go back? Sure. Very different now. Big tourist place. Lots of Germans, Swiss. They all buy houses."
He sighs, rubs his eyes and presently ambles off. I'm very grateful to have a functioning bathroom back. For ten days now I've had to plot my life around driving to public toilets. I'd staked every single one out within a five mile radius. Had to scratch the one at nearby Larkin park off the list when every time I used the facilities a blonde matron would emerge from a nearby house to glare at me. I suppose she thought I was some kind of pervert, there to lure the children to perform unspeakable acts. Very demoralizing.
Today I begin the arduous process of negotiating the Cannery Row lease.
