The Big Hunger Read online

  “Mingo wouldn’t marry that kind of a woman,” Papa said. “He’s got better sense.”

  “Mingo, he’sa crazy. He’sa great artiste.”

  “Not that crazy” Papa answered. “Mingo’s a young man. He fools around. It’s his own business.”

  The cunning returned to Clito’s smile. “Nobody buy diamond ring, for fool around with redhead.”

  “What!” Mama said.

  Clito folded his arms and grinned like a cat.

  “Maybe the ring belongs to somebody else,” Papa ventured. The skepticism injured Clito.

  “I am talk with Frank Palladino,” he said. “Frank tell everything. The ring, she’s redhead ring.”

  They couldn’t dispute that. Palladino owned the jewelry store a few doors from the barber shop.

  “He can’t marry that kind of a woman,” Mama said. “I won’t let him!”

  “Too late,” Clito smiled. “Bird like a feather…”

  Clito left our house and made his report to the rest of our clan. Next day Mama sat at the telephone, making and getting calls. At dinner she gave my father the details. Aunt Rosa, Attilio’s wife, was prostrate with grief. Aunt Philomena was too revolted to even talk about it—an ironic thing, for she and Mama actually talked over the phone for nearly an hour. Aunt Teresa wanted to know why Mingo didn’t marry a nice, clean Italian girl like the rest of his brothers. Aunt Louisa threatened to tear out the eyes of Mingo’s woman the moment she saw her.

  For the next three days our people were in a state of mass hysteria. Aunt Teresa came to the house and wept on Mama’s shoulder. Mama and Aunt Louisa visited the church and said prayers for Mingo’s guidance. Aunt Philomena came to our house, fell on the couch, and wailed. Mama took her hand, both of them crying. Papa suggested going to the Flamingo Rooms for a talk with the woman who had caused all this chaos, but Mama grabbed him by the suspenders and screamed, “Don’t you dare!” And, “Over my dead body!”

  Three nights after the news broke, Clito was back at our house. He had gone to the police and checked the redheaded woman’s record. Here were the awful facts: the woman’s name was Joan Cavanough; she was thirty-two years old. She had been a bad woman for years, and had been arrested twice. But her real name was not Joan Cavanough; it was Mercedes Lopez.

  “Mexican, eh?” Papa said.

  “No,” Clito said. “Portuguese.”

  “Portuguese,” Papa said. “Hmm. That’s bad.”

  “The Church won’t allow it,” Mama said. “He’ll have to get married by a Protestant.”

  “If she’s Portuguese, she’s probably Catholic too,” Papa said.

  “That kind of woman a Catholic?” Mama said. “Never!”

  Suddenly Papa was furious. Maybe it was because he had always disliked his brothers-in-law; maybe it was because he loathed Uncle Clito; maybe it was because he was so fond of Uncle Mingo, who went fishing with him; whatever it was, Papa stood there and shouted his defiance, banging the table until the dishes danced.

  “Makes no difference! Mexican, American, Portuguese, Catholic, Protestant—makes no difference. A man’s got his own life to lead. Leave a man alone. Maybe he loves this woman. Maybe he don’t care who she is. Maybe he can take her out of the Flamingo Rooms and give her a home. Did you ever think of that?”

  Clito looked at Mama with a sad smile. At last Papa had been trapped; at last he had revealed the sordid liberalism of his credo. Exhausted, Papa sat down and gulped wine. Clito stared wistfully at Mama, pity on his face. As he left nobody spoke or moved.

  Papa remained at the table. Mama cleared the dishes, clattering them to indicate she was ashamed of her husband. For three hours Papa sat and drank. He was very quiet, turning the glass in his hand. Twice he went down to the cellar to refill the wine jug. He staggered when he rose to go to bed. But only his legs were drunk. The rest of him was weary with a deep melancholy.

  Clito came in a hurry the following night. Holding his hat, he stood in the dining room and made the following report. That afternoon Uncle Mingo had come to the barber shop. He had wanted a shave. There was a three-day growth on his chin. He had looked sallow and dissipated. Asked where he had been, he had said, “Here and there.” Asked what he had been doing, he had said, “This and that.” And when Uncle Clito asked if Mingo planned to marry, he had answered, “Sometimes, yes, and sometimes, no.”

  As Uncle Mingo dozed under hot towels, Uncle Clito had tiptoed to the back room and phoned Uncle Julio, the butcher. In two minutes Julio was at the shop. Mingo was still in the chair.

  “We don’t see you much these days,” Uncle Julio had said.

  “Here I am,” Mingo had smiled.

  “Tomorrow’s my wedding anniversary,” Uncle Julio had said. “Ravioli dinner. You coming?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  And after congratulating Julio on his anniversary, he had hurried away. And that was the end of Uncle Clito’s report.

  “Tomorrow isn’t Julio’s anniversary,” Mama said, “He was married in November, two days after Attilio had his teeth pulled.”

  “One o’clock tomorrow,” Clito said. “Julio’s house. Everybody come.” He smiled mysteriously and left.

  Papa didn’t want to go to Uncle Julio’s house. At noon the next day Mama was rushing from room to room, her face smudged with powder, her mouth full of hairpins, her breath coming in gasps from the pressure of her corset. Papa sat in the kitchen, wearing his new pants, drinking claret and shouting that it was a trap, that he wouldn’t go. But why had he shaved? And why was he wearing his new pants? Though his protests grew louder, he was dressed and ready before Mama.

  In single file we trooped through the path cut into the deep snow of the back yard to the shed where Papa kept his truck. Mama sat with him up front, and we three boys settled into the truck bed.

  Uncle Julio’s flat, one-story house was a mile away. When we arrived everyone was there except Uncle Mingo. Mama panted as she went up the porch stairs. Suddenly she burst into tears. Uncle Julio opened the door and embraced her.

  “There, there, Coletta,” he said. “Now don’t you worry about a thing.”

  We followed them into a parlor filled with cigar smoke, the pungency of strong wine, and men—hot, sweating men. With respectful silence they watched Mama hurry sobbing into the kitchen, and you could see Uncle Tony’s eyes fill abruptly as he bit his lip to control himself. In the kitchen Mama collapsed into the arms of my four aunts. At once they were crying and wailing as Louisa choked out little reminiscences of Mingo’s life—how sweet he had looked as an acolyte, how beautiful as an infant, how elegantly he played the piano, and how Ma and Pa (my grandparents) would roll over in their graves if Mingo married this redhead. Then there was the sharp sound of water boiling over and sizzling on the stove. At once the women stopped crying and sprang into action. As soon as the sizzling died down and the cooking was in order, they began again, this time with passionate anger.

  “I say, hang a woman like that,” Philomena said. “Hang her and let her stay right there till she rots.”

  “Hanging’s too good,” Teresa said. “Put a mark on her breast, like in that picture, and drag her through the streets. And spit on her.” She spat.

  “I’ll tear her to pieces,” Aunt Louisa said, warming up slowly. “When I see that woman, I’ll put these fingernails in her eyes, and tear them out by the roots. I’ll fix that woman so that no man will ever look at her again.”

  In the parlor Papa found a seat on the sofa, first removing with virile contempt a number of pink and green pillows upon which were engraved pictures of the State Capitol, Pikes Peak, and the ruins of Pompeii. Other pillows had poetry on their bright faces. One was a poem called “Mother,” and the other “Home Sweet Home.” The walls and the piano were weighted down with pictures of relatives, living and dead. And there was that frightfully unforgettable picture of Aunt Teresa’s first baby, who died at six months The picture was taken after the baby was dead.

  They sat
around, the men of our family. Uncle Julio, the butcher; this was his house. Uncle Clito, the barber. Uncle Pasquale, the stonecutter. Uncle Tony, the truck driver. Uncle Attilio, the laborer. My father, the bricklayer. Squashed into that ornate little parlor, they drank wine and smoked cigars, and beneath their tight Sunday clothes their short square bodies chafed and sweated.

  They didn’t speak of why they were here. Cautiously they grunted about the weather, the hard times. Their feuds were frequent and ever ready to burst anew. My father, the bricklayer, had only contempt for the work of Pasquale, the stonecutter. Uncle Tony, the truck driver, made it a rule never to haul for relatives. For this he was roundly detested. All of them considered Julio, the butcher, a bully and a hypocrite. Uncle Attilio, the laborer, resented the great care the others took to always complain of debts, thereby cutting short any hope Attilio had of borrowing money. Two things these men had in common. They worshiped Uncle Mingo because he was an artist, a bird in flight, a freewheeling, unshackled bachelor; and they hated Uncle Clito because of his evil tongue. There was no knowing what Uncle Clito felt, for he lived in the lives of others.

  Uncle Tony forced a break in the conversation.

  “Ah, boy!” he said. “That ravioli smells good.”

  “What do you mean—ravioli?” Uncle Julio said. “You think I’m made of gold? That’s spaghetti.”

  “But I thought…”

  “Never mind what you thought. You know why we’re here. What we going to do about that woman?”

  “I’ll talk to Mingo myself,” Pasquale said. “I know how to handle him.”

  “You!” Julio scoffed, the butcher addressing the laborer. “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “I want nothing to do with it,” said Uncle Tony, who never hauled for his relatives.

  “Maybe he’s right,” Papa said. “Maybe we shouldn’t interfere.”

  “A fine way to talk,” Pasquale said. “I suppose you’d like that kind of a sister-in-law.”

  Papa’s voice boiled. “I’d like her better than some I got.”

  Pasquale leaped to his feet. So did Papa. They rushed one another, their heavy bodies colliding harmlessly. The others tore them apart while they yelled at one another.

  Papa: “He’s no stonecutter, that bum!”

  Pasquale: “And I suppose you’re a bricklayer!”

  The women rushed from the kitchen, hurrying to their men, pleading with them not to fight, fluttering about like fat hummingbirds. The fight ended without blows. The men ordered the women out of the parlor.

  Their united stand against the women forged a better understanding among the men. They sat down again, and the tension was gone. Papa loosened his tie, Pasquale took off his coat, Tony put his feet on the tea table, and Uncle Attilio pulled off his shoes. A powerful odor of feet filled the room. The wine glasses were refilled. The discussion began again

  Cousin Della, Uncle Tony’s little girl, staggered into the room on uncertain feet and put her head in Julio’s lap.

  “Is the bad, bad woman coming?” she asked.

  “No,” Julio said.

  “Why isn’t she?”

  Aunt Louisa rushed in, pulled Della to a chair, laid the child across her knee, and spanked her sharply. Della’s screams filled the house. “I’ll teach you to talk about bad women,” Louisa gasped. “I’ll teach you!”

  “You’re bad too!” Della bawled. “You’re awful.”

  I took Della by the hand and led her downstairs to the long basement, where my brothers and cousins were gathered. It was a hostile camp, the girls pitted against the boys. The girls were haughty and too proud to fight, and the boys made nasty remarks.

  Upstairs in the kitchen the women were impatient. The spaghetti was done, spread into two huge platters, seasoned with sauce and sprinkled with cheese. Tables were set in the dining room for adults and the kitchen for the children. It was one-thirty.

  “He’s ashamed to come,” Louisa said.

  “And no wonder,” Rosa answered.

  The men folks, their bellies splashing with wine, were in a sour mood. Only Uncle Clito kept up his careful appearance. He sat by the window, not drinking, delicately licking his finger as he turned the pages of a woman’s magazine. My father had fallen asleep on the sofa, his mouth wide open.

  At two o’clock Uncle Julio said, “Let’s eat.”

  The men rose, their joints popping like broken sticks. Restless and hungry they fell into chairs around one section of the dining room table, grouped together in a tight half-circle. The wives objected. They felt that each man should sit beside his mate. The men scowled and refused to budge. The kids in the kitchen were seated around the table and at bridge tables set up in the middle of the room. The spaghetti was hot but pasty; the tomato sauce had dried, there wasn’t enough cheese. When we learned there would be nothing more than winter apples for dessert, everything tasted worse. Quarrels broke out at the bridge tables. Shins were kicked.

  In the dining room Uncle Julio complained bitterly. This was the worst meal he had ever eaten. He asked the men their opinion. Their mouths crammed with food, they made it clear that he was right. Aunt Teresa broke into tears, and the women consoled her. It was that redhead’s fault: she was the cause of it all. Then everyone quieted down, and all you heard was sucking, chewing, gulping and belching as we ate our spaghetti.

  The front door opened. There stood Uncle Mingo and a woman. Mingo was tall, with the golden eyes of a rooster. He had corn silk hair, and his long hands were dangling masses of bones and blue veins. He resembled my great-grandfather, whose mother had been Russian. Mingo was the only one of our people who was not dark-skinned, dark-eyed and thickly built. He was a carrot among potatoes.

  The woman at his side was small, her face brightly rouged with the quality of a pressed rose. Mingo pulled her close to him, reassuringly. She was about thirty-two, with high cheekbones and slanting dark mestizo eyes in a pretty face that had once been beautiful.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Mingo smiled.

  The women around the table exchanged glances of disgust, but you could see a kind of terror in the faces of the men. Uncle Mingo removed a red fox cape from the woman’s shoulders. Beneath it was a loose green blouse tucked into an orange skirt. She was slender, round-hipped, with thin legs. She rubbed her hands together, for they were pink with cold. Uncle Mingo took her hands and massaged them briefly.

  This was too much for the women. They got up, lifted their chins, and walked single-file into the bedroom, slamming the door after them. Uncle Mingo laughed.

  “What did I tell you?” he said.

  The woman looked at him with frightened eyes.

  Then the bedroom door opened. Aunt Rosa peered out. “Attilio,” she said. “Come in here this minute. I won’t have you out there, Attilio. You hear me?”

  Attilio half rose in his chair, but Uncle Mingo caught his glance, and he sat down again. The woman smiled, her teeth as white as a dog’s. Aunt Rosa slammed the door closed. Uncle Mingo put his arm around the woman and brought her close to the table. He introduced each man to her. They avoided her eyes, nodding coldly. To each she smiled and said, “Pleased to meet you.” To Uncle Clito she exclaimed, “Why I know you! My barber!” Clito blinked, said nothing.

  Uncle Mingo turned to us kids, crowded at the kitchen door. “Kids. This is Miss Cavanough.”

  With that, the bedroom door burst open and the women poured out, swooping down on their broods, gathering them like wandering kittens, some by the neck and hair, dragging them into the bedroom. I escaped with my cousin Albert. Mama appealed to my father, and Aunt Philomena ordered Pasquale to remove Albert. The men shrugged, afraid to offend Uncle Mingo.

  From the bedroom came the noise of kicking and screaming, of slaps being administered, the women shrilling their rage, their epithets penetrating the walls like a cold wind: that harlot, that home-breaker, that woman of the streets.

  The men squirmed and coughed, but Mingo and Miss Cavanough seemed oblivious. E
ven while Aunt Teresa shouted, “I’ll break every dish she touches,” they sat down at the table.

  “I’ll tear her eyes out!” Louisa shrieked.

  Then there was a stamping of feet and the fury of physical violence, punctuated by screams. Once more the door was flung open and Louisa, her hair disheveled, her blouse almost ripped from her, broke loose from the other women and charged across the room toward Miss Cavanough, a hairbrush in her hand.

  “I’ll kill you if you don’t get out of here!” she shrieked. “I’ll beat your brains out.”

  The woman got behind Uncle Mingo in terror as Papa and Uncle Julio carried Louisa back to the bedroom, the hairbrush crashing clack clack against Julio’s skull. They closed the door and came back, Uncle Julio rubbing his scalp painfully. Uncle Mingo’s jaw was set, his eyes full of indignation, yet he grinned steadily.

  “Don’t worry, dear,” he told the woman.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “They hate me.”

  “You’re welcome here,” Mingo said. “Everybody’s welcome in my brother’s house. Isn’t that right, Julio?”

  “Yeah,” Julio said. “I guess so, Mingo.”

  “You’re not welcome!” Philomena screamed from the bedroom.

  Miss Cavanough’s lips trembled, her fingers at her throat. She seemed about to cry. She saw a glass of wine before her and drained it in one breath. Then she sat down, put her elbows on the table, churned her hands, glancing at the men, at the walls, at her lap. Suddenly she stood up.

  “I can’t!” she sobbed “Oh, Mingo, I can’t! I can’t.” She ran into the parlor, picked up her coat and dashed out the front door. Mingo went after her, calling her to come back. He caught up with her as she was getting behind the wheel of her car, half his body inside the car door, his hands waving, pleading to her. Then he withdrew, and the car pulled away and started down the street in a sudden burst of speed.