The John Fante Reader Read online

  “Ah, shut yer mouth. You’re too little!”

  “I’ll tell, then.”

  They joined forces then, and threw him out of bed. He bumped against the floor, whimpering. The cold air seized him with a sudden fury and pricked him with ten thousand needles. He screamed and tried to get under the covers again, but they were stronger than he and he dashed around the bed and into his mother’s room. She was pulling on her cotton stockings. He was screaming with dismay.

  “They kicked me out! Arturo did. August did!”

  “Snitcher!” yelled from the next room.

  He was so beautiful to her, that Federico; his skin was so beautiful to her. She took him into her arms and rubbed her hands into his back, pinching his beautiful little bottom, squeezing him hard, pushing heat into him, and he thought of the odor of her, wondering what it was and how good it was in the morning.

  “Sleep in Mamma’s bed,” she said.

  He climbed in quickly, and she clamped the covers around him, shaking him with delight, and he was so glad he was on Mamma’s side of the bed, with his head in the nest Mamma’s hair made, because he didn’t like Papa’s pillow; it was kind of sour and strong, but Mamma’s smelt sweet and made him warm all over.

  “I know somethin’ else,” Arturo said. “But I ain’t telling.”

  August was ten; he didn’t know much. Of course he knew more than his punk brother Federico, but not half so much as the brother beside him, Arturo, who knew plenty about women and stuff.

  “What’ll ya give me if I tell ya?” Arturo said.

  “Give you a milk nickel.”

  “Milk nickel! What the heck! Who wants a milk nickel in winter?”

  “Give it to you next summer.”

  “Nuts to you. What’ll ya give me now?”

  “Give you anything I got.”

  “It’s a bet. Whatcha got?”

  “Ain’t got nothing.”

  “Okay. I ain’t telling nothing, then.”

  “You ain’t got anything to tell.”

  “Like hell I haven’t!”

  “Tell me for nothing.”

  “Nothing doing.”

  “You’re lying, that’s why. You’re a liar.”

  “Don’t call me a liar!”

  “You’re a liar if you don’t tell. Liar!”

  He was Arturo, and he was fourteen. He was a miniature of his father, without the mustache. His upper lip curled with such gentle cruelty. Freckles swarmed over his face like ants over a piece of cake. He was the oldest, and he thought he was pretty tough, and no sap kid brother could call him a liar and get away with it. In five seconds August was writhing. Arturo was under the covers at his brother’s feet.

  “That’s my toe hold,” he said.

  “’Ow! Leggo!”

  “Who’s a liar!”

  “Nobody!”

  Their mother was Maria, but they called her Mamma, and she was beside them now, still frightened at the duty of motherhood, still mystified by it. There was August now; it was easy to be his mother. He had yellow hair, and a hundred times a day, out of nowhere at all, there came that thought, that her second son had yellow hair. She could kiss August at will, lean down and taste the yellow hair and press her mouth on his face and eyes. He was a good boy, August was. Of course, she had had a lot of trouble with him. Weak kidneys, Doctor Hewson had said, but that was over now, and the mattress was never wet anymore in the mornings. August would grow up to be a fine man now, never wetting the bed. A hundred nights she had spent on her knees at his side while he slept, her rosary beads clicking in the dark as she prayed God, please Blessed Lord, don’t let my son wet the bed anymore. A hundred, two hundred nights. The doctor had called it weak kidneys; she had called it God’s will; and Svevo Bandini had called it goddamn carelessness and was in favor of making August sleep in the chicken yard, yellow hair or no yellow hair. There had been all sorts of suggestions for cure. The doctor kept prescribing pills. Svevo was in favor of the razor strap, but she had always tricked him out of the idea; and her own mother, Donna Toscana had insisted that August drink his own urine. But her name was Maria, and so was the Savior’s mother, and she had gone to that other Maria over miles and miles of rosary beads. Well, August had stopped, hadn’t he? When she slipped her hand under him in the early hours of the morning, wasn’t he dry and warm? And why? Maria knew why. Nobody else could explain it. Bandini had said, by God it’s about time; the doctor had said it was the pills had done it, and Donna Toscana insisted it would have stopped a long time ago had they followed her suggestion. Even August was amazed and delighted on those mornings when he wakened to find himself dry and clean. He could remember those nights when he woke up to find his mother on her knees beside him, her face against his, the beads ticking, her breath in his nostrils and the whispered little words, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, poured into his nose and eyes until he felt an eerie melancholy as he lay between these two women, a helplessness that choked him and made him determined to please them both. He simply wouldn’t pee the bed again.

  It was easy to be the mother of August. She could play with the yellow hair whenever she pleased because he was filled with the wonder and mystery of her. She had done so much for him, that Maria. She had made him grow up. She had made him feel like a real boy, and no longer could Arturo tease him and hurt him because of his weak kidneys. When she came on whispering feet to his bedside each night he had only to feel the warm fingers caressing his hair, and he was reminded again that she and another Maria had changed him from a sissy to a real guy. No wonder she smelled so good. And Maria never forgot the wonder of that yellow hair. Where it came from God only knew, and she was so proud of it.

  Breakfast for three boys and a man. His name was Arturo, but he hated it and wanted to be called John. His last name was Bandini, and he wanted it to be Jones. His mother and father were Italians, but he wanted to be an American. His father was a bricklayer, but he wanted to be a pitcher for the Chicago Cubs. They lived in Rocklin, Colorado, population ten thousand, but he wanted to live in Denver, thirty miles away. His face was freckled, but he wanted it to be clear. He went to a Catholic school, but he wanted to go to a public school. He had a girl named Rosa, but she hated him. He was an altar boy, but he was a devil and hated altar boys. He wanted to be a good boy, but he was afraid to be a good boy because he was afraid his friends would call him a good boy. He was Arturo and he loved his father, but he lived in dread of the day when he would grow up and be able to lick his father. He worshipped his father, but he thought his mother was a sissy and a fool.

  Why was his mother unlike other mothers? She was that, and everyday he saw it again. Jack Hawley’s mother excited him: she had a way of handing him cookies that made his heart purr. Jim Toland’s mother had bright legs. Carl Molla’s mother never wore anything but a gingham dress; when she swept the floor of the Molla kitchen he stood on the back porch in an ecstasy, watching Mrs. Molla sweep, his hot eyes gulping the movement of her hips. He was twelve, and the realization that his mother did not excite him made him hate her secretly. Always out of the corner of his eye he watched his mother. He loved his mother, but he hated her.

  Why did his mother permit Bandini to boss her? Why was she afraid of him? When they were in bed and he lay awake sweating in hatred, why did his mother let Bandini do that to her? When she left the bathroom and came into the boys’ bedroom, why did she smile in the darkness? He could not see her smile, but he knew it was upon her face, that content of the night, so much in love with the darkness and hidden lights warming her face. Then he hated them both, but his hatred of her was greatest. He felt like spitting on her, and long after she had returned to bed the hatred was upon his face, the muscles in his cheeks weary with it.

  Breakfast was ready. He could hear his father asking for coffee. Why did his father have to yell all the time? Couldn’t he talk in a low voice? Everybody in the neighborhood knew everything that went on in their house on account of his father constantly shouting. The Moreys nex
t dooryou never heard a peep out of them, never; quiet, American people. But his father wasn’t satisfied with being an Italian, he had to be a noisy Italian.

  “Arturo,” his mother called. “Breakfast.”

  As if he didn’t know breakfast was ready! As if everybody in Colorado didn’t know by this time that the Bandini family was having breakfast!

  He hated soap and water, and he could never understand why you had to wash your face every morning. He hated the bathroom because there was no bathtub in it. He hated toothbrushes. He hated the toothpaste his mother bought. He hated the family comb, always clogged with mortar from his father’s hair, and he loathed his own hair because it never stayed down. Above all, he hated his own face spotted with freckles like ten thousand pennies poured over a rug. The only thing about the bathroom he liked was the loose floorboard in the corner. Here he hid Scarlet Crime and Terror Tales.

  “Arturo! Your eggs are getting cold.”

  Eggs. Oh Lord, how he hated eggs.

  They were cold, alright; but no colder than the eyes of his father, who glared at him as he sat down. Then he remembered, and a glance told him that his mother had snitched. Oh Jesus! To think that his own mother should rat on him! Bandini nodded to the window with eight panes across the room, one pane gone, the opening covered with a dish towel.

  “So you pushed your brother’s head through the window?”

  It was too much for Federico. All over again he saw it: Arturo angry Arturo pushing him into the window, the crash of glass. Suddenly Federico began to cry. He had not cried last night, but now he remembered: blood coming out of his hair, his mother washing the wound, telling him to be brave. It was awful. Why hadn’t he cried last night? He couldn’t remember, but he was crying now, the knuckle of his fist twisting tears out of his eyes.

  “Shut up!” Bandini said.

  “Let somebody push your head through a window,” Federico sobbed. “See if you don’t cry!”

  Arturo loathed him. Why did he have to have a little brother? Why had he stood in front of the window? What kind of people were these Wops? Look at his father, there. Look at him smashing eggs with his fork to show how angry he was. Look at the egg yellow on his father’s chin! And on his mustache. Oh sure, he was a Dago Wop, so he had to have a mustache, but did he have to pour those eggs through his ears? Couldn’t he find his mouth? Oh God, these Italians!

  —Wait Until Spring, Bandini

  THE ODYSSEY OF A WOP

  II

  FROM THE BEGINNING, I hear my mother use the words Wop and Dago with such vigor as to denote violent distaste. She spits them out. They leap from her lips. To her, they contain the essence of poverty, squalor, filth. If I don’t wash my teeth, or hang up my cap, my mother says: “Don’t be like that. Don’t be a Wop.” Thus, as I begin to acquire her values, Wop and Dago to me become synonymous with things evil. But she’s consistent.

  My father isn’t. He’s loose with his tongue. His moods create his judgments. I at once notice that to him Wop and Dago are without any distinct meaning, though if one not an Italian slaps them onto him, he’s instantly insulted. Christopher Columbus was the greatest Wop who ever lived, says my father. So is Caruso. So is this fellow and that. But his very good friend Peter Ladonna is not only a drunken pig, but a Wop on top of it; and of course all his brothers-in-law are good-for-nothing Wops.

  He pretends to hate the Irish. He really doesn’t, but he likes to think so, and he warns us children against them. Our grocer’s name is O’Neil. Frequently and inadvertently he makes errors when my mother is at his store. She tells my father about short weights in meats, and now and then of a stale egg.

  Straightway my father grows tense, his lower lip curling. “This is the last time that Irish bum robs me!” And he goes out, goes to the grocery-store, his heels booming.

  Soon he returns. He’s smiling. His fists bulge with cigars. “From now on,” says he, “everything’s gonna be all right.”

  I don’t like the grocer. My mother sends me to his store every day, and instantly he chokes up my breathing with the greeting: “Hello, you little Dago! What’ll you have?” So I detest him, and never enter his store if other customers are to be seen, for to be called a Dago before others is a ghastly, almost a physical, humiliation. My stomach expands and contracts, and I feel naked.

  I steal recklessly when the grocer’s back is turned. I enjoy stealing from him—candy bars, cookies, fruit. When he goes into his refrigerator I lean on his meat scales, hoping to snap a spring; I press my toe into egg baskets. Sometimes I pilfer too much. Then, what a pleasure it is to stand on the curb, my appetite gorged, and heave his candy bars, his cookies, his apples into the high yellow weeds across the street! … “Damn you, O’Neil, you can’t call me a Dago and get away with it!”

  His daughter is of my age. She’s cross-eyed. Twice a week she passes our house on her way to her music lesson. Above the street, and high in the branches of an elm tree, I watch her coming down the sidewalk, swinging her violin case. When she is under me, I jeer in sing-song:

  Martha’s Croooooss-eyed!

  Martha’s Croooooss-eyed!

  Martha’s Croooooss-eyed!

  —The Wine of Youth

  CHARGE IT

  THE GROCERY BILL—I can never forget it. Like a tireless ghost it haunts me, though boyhood is gone and those days are no more. We lived in a small town in northern Colorado. Our red brick house was my mother’s wedding gift from my father. Brick for brick he had built it himself, working evenings and on Sundays.

  It took a year to build that house, and on the first anniversary of their marriage my mother and father took possession. I was the first son and the only child not born in the red brick house. In the first year in the new house my brother was born. The following year another brother was born. And then another. And another. And another. My mother gave birth to sons with such rapidity that my bricklaying father was sent spinning into a daze from which he never entirely recovered. There were nine of us.

  Next door to the red brick house was Mr. Craik’s grocery store. Shortly after moving into the new house my father opened a credit account with Mr. Craik. In the first years he managed to keep the bills paid. But the children grew older and hungrier, more children arrived, and still more, and the grocery bill whizzed into crazy figures. Worse, every time we had a birth in our house, it seemed to bring my father bad luck. His worries and his brood moved up a notch, and his income moved down. He was sure that God had a powerful grudge against him for earlier excesses. Money! When I was twelve my father had so many bills that even I knew he had no intention or opportunity to pay them.

  But the grocery bill harassed him. Owing Mr. Craik a hundred dollars, he paid fifty. Owing two hundred, he paid seventy-five. Owing three hundred, he somehow managed to pay a hundred. And so it was with all his debts. There was no mystery about them. There were no hidden motives in their non-payment. No budget could solve them. No planned economy could alter them. It was very simple—his family ate more than he earned. He knew his only escape lay in a streak of good luck. His tireless presumption that such good luck was coming had staged his desertion and kept him from blowing out his brains. He constantly threatened both, but did neither.

  Mr. Craik complained unceasingly. He never really trusted my father. If our family had not lived next door to his store, where he could keep an eye on us, and if he had not felt that ultimately he would receive at least part of the money owed him, he would not have allowed further credit. He sympathized with my mother, and pitied her with that quasi-sympathy and cold pity that businessmen show the poor as a class, and with that frigid apathy toward individual members of it. Now that the bill was so high, he abused my mother and even insulted her. He knew that she herself was honest to the point of childish innocence, but that did not seem relevant when she came to his store to make additional increases on the account. He was a man who dealt in merchandise and not feelings. Money was owed him and he was allowing her additional credit. His de
mands for money were in vain. Under the circumstances, his attitude was the best he could possibly muster.

  It took courage for my mother to go in and face him day after day. She had to coax herself to a pitch of inspired audacity. My father didn’t pay much attention to her mortifications at the hands of Mr. Craik. Beyond expressing her dismay at again confronting the grocer she did not tell my father of Mr. Craik’s cruelty in detail. It was too humiliating. And so my father was not fully aware of it. He suspected it, but that was the sort of suspicion one hated verifying. He naturally expected some trouble in obtaining additional credit. As his wife, that was her obligation. To his way of thinking, it wasn’t his fault that there were so many children. He looked upon that part of it as a deliberate conspiracy between her and God. He was merely a man who worked for a living. He loved his children of course-but after all! And so she had to do her part, which he thought was awfully easy, since it had nothing to do with the sweat and toll of his trade.

  All afternoon and until an hour before dinner, my mother would wait for the valiant and desperate inspiration so necessary for a trip to the store. She sat with hands in her apron pockets—waiting. But her courage slept from overuse and would not rise.

  This winter afternoon was typical. I remember: it was late. From the window she could see me across the street with a gang of neighborhood kids. We were having a snowball fight. She opened the door.

  “Arturo!”

  I saw her standing at the edge of the porch. She called me because I was the oldest. It was almost darkness. Deep shadows crept fast across the milky snow. The streetlamps burned coldly, a cold glow in a colder haze. An automobile passed, its tire chains clanging dismally.

  “Arturo!”

  I knew what she wanted. In disgust I snapped my fingers. I just knew she wanted me to go to the store. Her voice had that peculiar, desperate tremor that came with grocery-store time. I tried to get out of it by pretending I hadn’t heard, but she kept calling until I was ready to scream and the rest of the kids stopped throwing snowballs.