West of Rome Read online

  There was a sudden movement in the depths of the straw. It lifted Stupid to his feet, emerging slowly and indistinctly. It was a pig, a white pig with reddish markings, thrusting Stupid aside as it scrambled to its feet. It looked at Griswold and me, snorting happily at the sight of us, straw drifting from its back as it trotted in our direction.

  “That’s Emma,” Griswold said.

  She was young and round as a snowball, with white bouncing udders and a perpetual smile on her serene face. She came right to me and looked up with sparkling blue eyes, her snout quivering with pleasure. Griswold lowered his hand and she nuzzled it. I reached down and she slobbered happily when my palm touched her warm nose. Stupid came quickly to her side, sloshing her lips and eyes with his tongue. He was wild about her.

  “How old is she?”

  ‘Two years. Neighbor gave her to me for a brake reline.”

  “How come they’re together?”

  “It was the dog’s choice, not mine. He kept jumping over the fence.”

  “Is there anything going on between them? I mean, do they go for one another?”

  It agitated Griswold.

  “Nothing personal, Griswold. He happens to be a very eccentric dog.”

  Griswold shot a charge of tobacco juice. “Matter of fact he did try something a couple of times, but she mauled him good. Now he behaves himself. You know what I think? I think he thinks Emma’s his mother.”

  The pig crossed the enclosure to a faucet dripping water into a washtub, Stupid following. She drank and so did he. Then she trotted back to us, staring upward longingly at me, while Stupid licked bits of straw from her sleek back. He admired her tremendously.

  All at once a frivolous mood took possession of the dog. He dropped to his belly and barked at the pig a couple of times. Then he took off, running in a circle, barking, pouncing near her, rolling on his back, teasing her, jealous of the attention she showed us. She grunted and took out after him on her short white legs, and he permitted himself to be cornered. She bounced him against the wall, her two hundred pounds rolling against him while he gently nibbled her ears. Then she lost her temper and bit his leg. With a howl he limped off to the bed of straw and lay down.

  “They’ll miss one another,” I said.

  “Not for long. I’m butchering her in a couple of days.”

  I stared. “Butchering her?”

  “She’s a great bacon hog. Look at those shoulders.”

  Emma smiled at me as if we would be together forever.

  “Will you shoot her?”

  “You hang them by their hind legs and slit their throats. That way they bleed properly.”

  There he was, with his calm bearded face and Peace over his door, planning the murder of that lovely creature. I had to flee the place, away from him and from the blithe smile of that adoring hog. I took out my wallet and counted three hundred dollars into Griswold’s calloused palm.

  Stupid did not howl when we dragged him from the pen at the end of a rope, but he seemed to weep in silence as he fought the noose and the unhappy Emma grunted and sniffed at him all the way to the gate. We hoisted him into the station wagon and slammed the tailgate shut. Then he began to howl, scratching on the windows, his feet sliding out from under him, his cries peaking the ears of the distant burros, the chickens clucking and about to panic.

  Mary.

  I looked back at the pen. The pig was on her hind legs, trying to peer over the barrier, but she was too short, only her snout was visible.

  Mary.

  I waved to Griswold and got into the car while the half-crazed dog jumped and clawed at the rear window.

  “You like a nice pork roast?” Griswold said.

  “Not particularly.”

  “Ill see that you get one.”

  Mary.

  “Griswold,” I said. “You know what I’d do if I owned that pig?”

  He spat tobacco juice.

  “I’d name her Mary, after my mother.”

  ‘That’s funny.”

  “I don’t mean to compare my mother with a pig, Griswold, but she was always smiling too.”

  “That right?”

  I started the engine.

  “How much do you want for her, Griswold?”

  “She’s not for sale.”

  “How much?”

  He drew closer and put his hands on the roof of the car.

  “You really want her?”

  “Yes.”

  He squinted at me like a man sighting down a rifle barrel.

  “Three hundred.”

  “I hate being gauche, Griswold, but you’re a prick. It’s a deal.”

  He smiled.

  I peeled off another three hundred and he went to the pocket with it. Rome was among the planets now. I backed the car to the enclosure and we lifted Mary over the tailgate. Stupid was hysterical with joy, jumping so high he banged his head against the roof. Snorting and excited, the pig skidded on the floor and finally found comfort and security in one corner. Stupid spotted a dirty blotch on her stomach and promptly erased it with his tongue.

  “What do you feed her, Griswold?”

  “Garbage. I have an arrangement with Decker Inn. All the garbage you want for five a month. I’ll see that you get the same deal. Bring your own garbage can.”

  “No thanks. From now on that pig eats grain and corn.”

  Griswold spat and looked at me mockingly.

  “You want to buy a good garbage can?”

  “I already have a garbage can.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The corral was on the northern half of my acre, behind an ivy hedge dividing the property. It was a small corral attached to a shed where Tina had kept a couple of mounts during her horse period.

  I wanted to surprise Harriet. I knew she would be happy and relieved at the dog’s return, and as for the pig, well, at least it wasn’t another bull terrier. Besides, Harriet liked pigs. There had been pigs in her childhood, on the farm where she grew up near Sacramento. As quietly as possible I rolled the stationwagon through the hedge opening and backed it to the corral gate.

  My thought was to confront Harriet with a scene of idyllic rusticity, the dog and the pig gamboling on the clean, bare earth within the corral, but the enclosure was shabby from neglect, overgrown with weeds and pocked with gopher holes. Not being a weed man, I postponed the cleanup for another time.

  Using a couple of planks, I made a ramp for Mary’s removal from the car. She took the down-grade fearlessly, sliding on her bottom into the corral. Stupid leaped to join her and I closed the gate. Sniffing and gurgling with pleasure, the pig made a swift inspection of her new home, barreling through the weeds on quick little hooves. Then she went to work on the weeds, tearing them out by the roots. Stupid tried a couple of shoots and quickly lost interest. I put a washtub under the hydrant and filled it with water. They moved to it and drank side by side.

  The smiling pig never took her eyes off me and I knew we were going to make out fine. Perched on the top rail of the corral, I watched her snout plow a furrow among the gopher mounds, her round back shimmering like a massive pearl in the sunlight. She gave off comfortable bourgeois vibrations of stability and faith in the Holy Ghost. She was my mother all over again. Her snout crusted with dirt, she stretched indolently on the warm ground. Stupid dropped beside her and washed her face. I had never seen him so content. His hangups had vanished. There was a softness in his bearish face. The brooding melancholy was gone.

  “Henry?”

  I glanced off to Harriet watching me from the hedge. I waved for her to come closer. She hesitated.

  “What is it?”

  I waved again.

  She seemed uneasy as she waded through the weeds and around the car to the corral. The pig and the dog lay side by side, the pig’s teats drooping like collapsed balloons. Something crumbled inside Harriet as she stared. I felt it crashing deep within her. Her eyes left the corral and settled on me. They throbbed with pity, confusion and hopeles
sness. Without a word she turned and started back toward the house.

  I sat perched high and watching her recede from me, away and away, walking deliberately, beyond the hedge, past the garage, through the back door and into the depths of the big, lonely house.

  I stared beyond the house to the horizon of the blue bay. Glinting in the sunlight, a 747 droned remotely as it made the wide circle over the sea and looped back to the mainland, heading east for Chicago, New York or even Rome. My gaze dropped to the white roof of the Y-shaped house, past the organdie curtains of Tina’s window to the branches of a big ponderosa that still held the remnants of a tree-house Dominic had built when he was a boy, and then my eyes shifted to the rusted bumper of Denny’s car protruding from the garage, and above that to the tattered net of Jamie’s basketball hoop.

  Suddenly I began to cry.

  The Orgy

  ONE

  His name was Frank Gagliano, and he did not believe in God. He was that most singular and startling craftsman of the building trade—a left-handed bricklayer. Like my father, Frank came from Torcella Peligna, a cliff-hugging town in the Abruzzi. Lean as a spider, he wore a leather cap and puttees the year around, and he was so bowlegged a dog could lope between his knees without touching them.

  Often, but not always, Frank was my father’s best friend. But he was always and without exception my mother’s mortal enemy. To my mother’s way of thinking, Frank Gagliano was an evil disciple of the devil whose sinister philsophy sent a chill through her blood. Next to the shame of an unfrocked priest, she believed atheism to be the most degrading condition of man.

  I was ten that Colorado summer in 1925, sitting on the porch steps with Buck, my Airedale, as my father and Frank approached along Arapahoe Street. Long before they came into view I heard Frank’s strident, sheet metal voice, so loud and grating that the elms seemed to quiver. Buck opened one eye and lifted his ears and began to growl, for he felt the same repugnance toward Gagliano as my mother who, having heard his thunderous voice, now emerged on the front porch with a broom in her hand. Her green eyes flaming with outrage, she stood above Buck and me like a spear-bearing angel guarding the tomb of Our Lord.

  As Frank and my father turned into the yard, the fur on Buck’s back rose like a porcupine’s quills and he growled through exposed fangs. My mother thrust out the straw end of her broom.

  “Stop where you are, Frank Gagliano!” she commanded. “You’re not welcome in this house.”

  Frank and my father came to a halt.

  “Will you cut that out?” Papa demanded. ‘This man is my friend. He’s going to have a glass of wine with me, and what he thinks is none of your business.” He took Gagliano’s arm. “Come on, Frank. Don’t pay any attention. This is my house, too.”

  But Frank didn’t budge. Smiling suavely, he raised his palm. “Now wait a minute,” he said. “Let’s get this straight once and for all. Lady, maybe you don’t like what I believe, but did I ever do anything to you?”

  “You hate God!” my mother fired back. “And any man who hates God isn’t going to desecrate the house where I live with my husband and my children.”

  ‘You got me all wrong, missus,” Frank said, trying to be reasonable. “I don’t hate God. I just don’t believe in him.”

  It made my mother gasp. Frank could not have said a worse thing. Annoyed with herself for having even spoken to him, she looked dangerously at my father.

  “Get him out of here,” she warned. “If he comes in, then I go out.” She folded her arms, clasping the broom to her. “Take your choice. It’s him or me.”

  Her ultimatum brought Buck to his feet in a crouching position, a savage rumble coming from inside his ribs. Frank’s small black eyes were intent on the dog.

  “I don’t want any trouble with your dog, either,” he said.

  My father flicked an ill-boding glance at Mama as he put a friendly hand on Frank’s shoulder. ‘Tell you what, Frank. Go around back to the tool shed, and I’ll get the wine. Then we can have a drink in peace.”

  “Okay by me,” Frank said. He glared at Buck. “What about that mangy cur?”

  “He won’t bother you,” Papa said. “He’s a fake. All bluff.”

  “That’s not true!” I said. “He can lick anything!”

  Frank took a step forward. Quick as a girl my mother was down the porch steps and blocking his way. Buck was right at her side, snarling and salivating.

  “Get outa there, Buck!” my father commanded. He turned to me. “Get that cur out of the way.”

  I sprang up and reached for Buck’s collar. He promptly whirled and bit three of my fingers. Not a vicious, tearing bite, merely a dog’s way of warning me to keep out of it.

  I howled and sucked my fingers. My mother pulled my hand from my mouth and examined the marks of teeth across my knuckles. The skin was not broken.

  “See what you did!” she glared at Frank. Furious now, she hustled her broom forward like a bayonet. “You get off my property!”

  “Your property?” My father’s voice was full of pain.

  Frank backed toward the street.

  “Forget it,” he jeered. “Let’s forget the whole thing!” His voice rattled the neighborhood. “I guess I know when I’m not wanted.”

  He strode off down the sidewalk, Buck at his heels, yapping at his puttees, my father calling the dog in vain. Suddenly Frank Gagliano spun around and aimed a left-footed kick at Buck, and though he missed, Buck emitted a howl of fear and ran into the street, from where he kept up a furious barking as he followed Frank from a safe distance.

  My parents now faced each other. It was one of those rare times when my mother had succeeded in imposing her will in a family crisis. The thrust of her disapproval, her glittering eyes, her determination not to crack under his bitter sneer forced my father to crumble in disgust and bewilderment. Wearily he dropped on the porch steps, clasped his head and rocked back and forth.

  “God help me,” he groaned.

  My mother flounced past him and into the house, slamming the screen door hard. He reached into his shirt pocket for the stump of a cigar and jabbed it into his mouth. As he clawed through his pants for a match the screen door flew open and there was Mama again, clutching a straw-covered wine bottle to her bosom. I recognized the bottle. It contained holy water—specially blessed for use around the house.

  (My mother and grandmother depended on holy water for many things. It was splashed in a sick room during an illness, or in any bedroom where a child was awakened screaming from a nightmare. It was sprinkled on the doorpost in a lightning storm. But its chief use at our house was in the attic, from which, two or three times a year, we heard the creak of unexplained footsteps.)

  Uncorking the bottle, my mother came down the porch steps to the spot where Frank Gagliano had stood. She poured a palmful of water and scattered it over the ground. Then she moved up the path to the street, casting water about like a farmer sowing seed, ridding the yard of whatever remained of Frank Gagliano’s presence. My father was so disgusted that he lowered his head and squeezed his eyes shut, blotting out the scene. But as Mama returned to the porch steps he raised a withering gaze toward her. Quickly she filled her hand with holy water and let him have it in the face.

  TWO

  My mother could drive Frank Gagliano away from the house, but his association with my father as a bricklayer was an economic fact of life she had to accept. That was the year my father, Gagliano, and a third bricklayer named Luke did the brick work on the new J. C. Penney store in downtown Boulder.

  I too was a member of my father’s work crew—the waterboy. Every half hour it was my job to move along the scaffold with a bucket of fresh water into which I had squeezed the juice of one lemon. The bricklayers dipped a tin cup into the bucket, flushed out their mouths, spat to the distant ground, and then drank.

  It was a grand and important job for a kid, specially as the wall rose and the scaffolding grew taller. A crowd of onlookers was always on hand as I
swaggered up the ladder, one hand holding the bucket. Often one of my buddies was down below and I daringly let go to wave casually. My father provided me with a time card exactly like that of the hodcarrier and the bricklayers, and I signed it at the end of each working day. A perfect job, except for the presence of Frank Gagliano.

  At noon I was privileged to eat with the men from my own lunch pail, and the bricklayers, carpenters and electricians treated me just like a man. There was talk of hunting and fishing and baseball, and they listened whenever I made a comment or asked a question. But sure enough, about the time the lunches were eaten and the workmen reached for their cigarettes, Frank Gagliano would steer the conversation his way. Silent until then, he would intrude a gambit like: “Ever hear the story of the monsignor and the three altar boys?”

  His sheet metal voice attracted immediate attention, for the men enjoyed his scandalous tales. Then there was a discreet pause, long enough for my father to glance at me and nod his head, indicating I must leave the scene so that Frank could speak freely and without the inhibiting presence of an innocent boy.

  But I was more humiliated than innocent as I slunk away, loathing Frank Gagliano for cutting me down to boy size, whereas the others took me for a man.

  I would go and sit alone on the sandpile or a stack of lumber, grinding my jaws and agreeing with my mother that the cruddiest, lousiest people on earth were atheists. Then an explosion of laughter would burst from the workmen as Frank slammed them with the punch line of his story, and I loathed him all over again and was ashamed to be so young.

  One way or another, Frank Gagliano was always treading on me. There was the matter of my salary. My father paid me three cents an hour, a comfortable and bulky-sounding sum when computed at 24 cents a day and a dollar and 20 cents a week. But one day I discovered that bricklayers earned two dollars an hour, and I was suddenly embarrassed by my minuscule wages. An adjustment seemed reasonable, and I climbed the ladder to the scaffold where my father and Frank Gagliano worked side by side.