For the Sins of My Father Read online

  Of course, I could. I was proud that my father trusted me.

  “Your uncle Vinny steals things. He's a nice guy, but he steals just about anything he can lay his hands on. And he bets on horses a lot, so I loaned him some money, and he can't pay it back because he keeps betting. This is his way of repaying me. I don't ask him where the stuff comes from. I don't want to know.”

  Uncle Vinny was a thief? But he seemed so nice, and I could tell my father liked him. If my father liked him, he must be all right.

  Saturdays were good, but Sunday was the best day of the week. My father got up early on Sundays to cook us breakfast. My Sunday alarm was the sound of the juice machine as my father squeezed fresh orange juice to go with the meal. I piled into the kitchen with my sisters one late spring morning to find the table loaded down with stacks of pancakes, butter and warm syrup, homemade hash browns, eggs to order, and bacon and sausage. We ate until our stomachs hurt as my father sat and watched, smiling to see our enjoyment. Afterward my mother chased us upstairs to get ready for church.

  In half an hour, we were all back downstairs in our Sunday best. My sisters had lovely dresses and patent leather shoes, and I wore a nice suit and tie, with my shoes polished and my nails manicured. While Dad cleaned up from the morning's cooking, my mother drove us to the local Lutheran church and walked us each to our respective classes. Then she left to do errands while my sisters and I attended Sunday school and mass. She never came with us. Mom had been raised Lutheran, and Dad had been raised Catholic. Neither of them practiced their religion anymore, but they wanted us to grow up with a belief in God and good morals: conscientious, well mannered, honest, and respectful. I was polite and well behaved in church, but I found most of the lessons boring. Afterward, my mother picked us all up in the Cadillac and took us home to prepare for dinner and company.

  Uncle Joe drove up in his limo and pulled into the driveway shortly after we got back from church. Joe had salvaged the limo from a junkyard for a hundred dollars and had done the body work himself. I'd sat with my father and sisters at the junkyard every Saturday for weeks, watching Joe work on the car. He used a crane to flip it on one side, worked on it a while, then flipped it on the other side and continued. We kids thought it was the coolest thing we'd ever seen. The limo was a shiny black 1960 Fleetwood Cadillac with all the luxuries: leather seats, radio, intercom, and phone. When Uncle Joe finally got it done, he used it to chauffeur us kids around on Sunday afternoons. One Sunday he took us to Coney Island Joe's for the best burgers and hot dogs in town; the next Sunday he piled us in with a dozen neighborhood kids and took us for ice cream. We all argued over who got to ride shotgun. We had double-scoop cones and then rode back home to eat Sunday dinner. My sisters had each invited a friend to eat with us. I didn't want to invite anybody. I liked to hang out in the workshop or yard with Dad and Uncle Joe, chatting about guy things like cars. Barbara and Jim walked over later in the afternoon and brought their children with them. Jim never pulled Sunday patrol. He came downstairs with Dad and Joe and me while Barbara went inside to help my mother.

  Sunday was “sauce” day for our extended Italian family. My mother had been cooking for hours in the big downstairs kitchen by the time we got back with Joe: chopping ingredients for marinara sauce, mixing flour for homemade pasta, and grinding sausage for Italian meatballs. Barbara washed and mixed the salad greens and sliced the bread. Uncle Vinny had delivered several baskets of fresh bread that morning. Mom had made desserts the day before while we were out with Dad: brownies, pie, and three kinds of cookies. Dad had also made his specialty while we were at church—zabaglione, an egg custard made with muscatel wine and served warm over fruit. I came in the house every hour or so to sample the goodies. The aromas surrounding me in the warm kitchen gave me a heady rush. Mikey Hammer and his wife walked into the kitchen at about four o'clock. Like Uncle Vinny, Mikey wasn't really a relative, but he seemed like one. My parents knew him from the old days in Brooklyn. Uncle Mikey was one of my favorite uncles. He was stout and strong, with gray hair and hands like slabs. He was also nearly deaf. I had to shout at him to say hello. Mikey's wife and my mom started talking about gardening, so Uncle Mikey headed down to the basement where the men were talking cars.

  Everything was perfect until my grandmother got up from her nap. Grandma DeMeo had arrived in state the afternoon before while I was out with Dad. My first hint that she was spending the night had been the sight of her huge undergarment hanging on the bathroom door at bedtime. My grandmother always wore a large girdle-brassiere combination made up of whalebone stays that was strong enough to stand up on its own. I could not understand why anyone would wear such a torture device. Her entrance cast a gloom over the cheery kitchen. She sat ramrod straight on the Naugahyde chair, her hair perfectly arranged and her face fully made up. Grandma was a statuesque woman, full busted and vain to a fault. She seemed to fill the room. Suddenly stricken with claustrophobia, I went out into the backyard to see my dad.

  Just as my mother was finishing dinner, my aunt Marie arrived with my cousins. My father made me visit with them. Benny, the oldest, was ten years older than I was and had an attitude that made me uncomfortable. He was always looking around our house; and every time my father got a new car, Benny would look at me and smirk. I didn't understand why he watched me with that knowing grin. Sitting down on the bench by our big redwood picnic table that evening, he stared at my father as if he were fascinated. There was something about the way he looked at my father that I didn't like. I went back inside where my grandmother was setting the dining room table for dinner.

  Grandma had brought a big casserole with her special lasagna, and as she placed it on the lace tablecloth, an idea came to me. When she went back into the kitchen, I ran to my room and got the rubber dog droppings I had bought from my favorite joke store. Creeping back down the hall, I arranged them carefully on Grandma's prized lasagna. She was nearly finished setting the table before she noticed. Clutching her chest, she turned purple and started screaming obscenities in Italian. Grabbing a wooden spoon, she raced down the stairs and into the yard in search of the dog. By the time I caught up with her, she had the poor creature by the collar, beating him as the dog whimpered in terror. My father shouted, “What the hell are you doing? Let go of that dog!” Letting go of its collar, she gave it one last kick and started back in the house.

  “You see what he do!” she raged as my father followed her upstairs. Storming once more into the dining room, she pointed at the casserole. “The stupid animal, he poop all over my lasagna!”

  I had been pulling on her sleeve for over a minute by then, and she finally noticed. “What you want, Albert?” she said, shaking me loose.

  “Grandma, it wasn't the dog, it was me. I did it. I got fake dog poop from the store.”

  Her face twisted. “You do what? Why, you . . .” and grabbing me by the wrist, she sank her teeth into my forearm so deeply she drew blood and then began beating me over the head with the wooden spoon she still held in her other hand.

  My mother had come out of the kitchen by that time, and I heard her cry out, “Mama, for God's sake!” The next thing I knew, my father was carrying me into the kitchen while my mother tried to calm my grandmother.

  To distract Grandma from her hysterics over the ruined lasagna, Mom suggested we eat outdoors instead, as it was such a beautiful evening. Barbara and Uncle Mikey's wife quickly took the hint and began carrying the food and dishes outside to the picnic table where the men sat. It was a huge redwood table that Dad had had custom built for us. It was ten feet long and could seat nearly twenty people. My mother got Grandma settled in a chair in a warm spot and continued setting things up for dinner.

  It was beautiful in the yard that evening. Barbara's kids were playing on the big swing set and slide; Lisa was in the playhouse Dad had built next to it, in the shade of the big tree. I wanted to go swimming, but Dad said the water was too cold. Dad and I had built a fifteen- by thirty-foot above-ground poo
l with a wooden deck the summer before. We'd also dug a rose bed for my mother around the front and sides of the house, so the entire yard smelled like roses in the evening air. Giant yellow sunflowers twice my height framed the picnic table. My grandmother was oblivious to all the beauty. She kept lamenting how sick she was, how unloved, how neglected.

  “Albert,” she said, “you almost kill me today with your tricks. You'll see. One of these mornings I'm gonna wake up, and I'll be dead!” She looked strong as an ox to me. I headed over to the slide and began climbing. My father went back in the house to bring out another bottle of wine.

  I was halfway up the slide when I noticed a sick-looking squirrel at the base of the big tree nearby. Something about the animal didn't look right, so I went over to where the adults were sitting and said there was something wrong with the squirrel by the tree. Within seconds, all hell broke loose.

  Everyone rushed over to look, and as soon as my grandmother saw it, she began screaming hysterically in Italian, “Roy, come quickly, there's a squirrel with rabies!” My aunt began shooing us kids away to the other side of the yard as my father ran back outside to see what all the yelling was about.

  It only took a glance for him to see that my grandmother was right. He lunged for the big redwood table and pushed it over on its side, shouting at everyone to get behind the barrier. Food and dinnerware went flying in all directions. We all crouched behind the table as my dad ran into the garage and raced back out a few seconds later carrying his rifle. By then the squirrel was spooked by all the excitement and was running excitedly around the yard. My grandmother, who had been screaming the whole time, kept shouting at the top of her lungs, “Shoot, Roy, shoot!” as my father took aim.

  Meanwhile my father was yelling, “Stay down! Stay down!” as he opened fire on the squirrel. The bullets caught the squirrel as it raced up the redwood decking toward the pool, going straight through the squirrel's body and into the side of the pool. As the squirrel went limp, water began pouring through the sides of the pool. Dad ran back into the garage to put the gun away and find something to stop the water while we children raced over to see if the squirrel was really dead. While we ran, my father kept shouting, “Stay away from it, kids! Don't touch it! It's still dangerous!”

  All the time this was going on, my grandmother was screaming at the top of her lungs in a mixture of Italian and English, “He killed him! Oh my God, Roy killed him!”

  Running back toward the pool with rags to stuff in the holes, my father shouted furiously, “You told me to shoot! You wanted me to shoot!” as my grandmother continued to wail.

  Meanwhile my mother, who had been in the kitchen with Barbara, heard the gunfire and ran to the back door in panic just in time to hear Grandma screaming, “Roy killed him!” I looked up to see my mother standing in the doorway with horror all over her face, calling out to my father.

  “Oh my God, Roy! Roy! Tell me you didn't shoot somebody! You wouldn't!”

  My parents sent us kids inside while the adults cleaned up the mess, plugged the holes in the pool, and buried the rabid squirrel. Benny and I went downstairs to watch TV in the den while the girls watched the upstairs TV in the living room. There was a movie on called The Valachi Papers, starring Charles Bronson as Joe Valachi, one of the first men to inform on the Mafia to the FBI. I wouldn't have paid much attention to it if Benny hadn't kept looking over at me. I wondered what was wrong with him. About half an hour into the film, there was a scene where Joseph Profaci, the boss of the Mob family, is choosing the men who will work for him. Cousin Benny turned to me with a big grin on his face and said, “You know who that is, don't you? That's Mrs. P's brother-in-law!”

  “Oh, uh-huh,” I replied. “Grandma talks about him sometimes.” I didn't know what he was getting at.

  Benny started laughing. I knew that he was laughing at me, but I didn't understand what the joke was. I always felt like Benny meant something he wasn't saying. When he introduced me to someone, he never said, “This is my cousin Albert.” He always said, “This is Albert, you know, Roy DeMeo's son, like I told you about,” and the person would look me over like some kind of lab specimen.

  A little while later Dad and Uncle Joe brought home hamburgers and hot dogs from the local diner, and we all ate in silence upstairs around the kitchen table. All except for Grandma, who couldn't eat a thing. She kept saying over and over that her heart was beating so hard, she was sure she was having another heart attack, that no one ever thought of her comfort and safety. For once even my father was too tired to try to talk her out of it. I was relieved when Aunt Marie said good night and took Grandma and my cousins home. Uncle Mikey and his wife left a short while later, with Jim and Barbara close behind.

  Everyone looked tired and a little sad, so my father said, “How about some jokes, Albert?” Nearly every Sunday I told jokes in the living room after we finished eating. The ritual was always the same: Everyone would help my mother clear the table, and while she stacked dishes in the dishwasher, Dad would pop a huge kettle of Jiffy Pop popcorn and take it in the living room. By then I would be ready with my comedy box of items from the joke store down the street. I had all kinds of funny glasses in there: Groucho Marx glasses with a moustache and nose, X-ray glasses, glasses with eyeballs attached to coiled wires, even Chinese glasses with slanted eyes. That night I put on the moustache glasses and did my best impression of Groucho. Everyone laughed, even my sisters, and suddenly everyone felt better.

  Then my father picked up Lisa's favorite teddy bear from its perch on the back of the couch and started teasing her, saying it was his bear now. It was her favorite game. She screamed, “Daddy!” and dove for the bear as my dad pulled it away. The chase was on, my dad running and dodging around the living room with Lisa in hot pursuit. When she got close, Dad grabbed her and tossed her in the air while my mother protested that he would make her throw up so soon after eating. He responded by picking me up in the other arm and tickling us both. Only when we had screamed and giggled ourselves into exhaustion did he put us down. By then it was time for The Wonderful World of Disney. Mom sent us to change into our pajamas, and when we came back, we dog piled on the couch with Dad to munch popcorn and watch TV. The excitement of the day was getting to me by then, and I found myself dozing on my father's broad chest. Lisa was already sound asleep on his other shoulder. I snuggled closer, Dad's chest hairs prickling my ear through his knit shirt. Picking us both up together, one in each arm, he carried us down the hall through the darkness. Still holding Lisa in the other arm, he placed me gently on the bed and pulled the covers up under my chin. I slept deeply that night, filled to the brim with food and contentment.

  Most weekends we would all be together at home with my mother and sisters. Sometimes, though, my father had to get some business done on Saturdays. When I was about five years old, he started taking me with him on some of his Saturday errands. Most of them were on Long Island, to the car dealership Dad owned down the highway or to small shops and office buildings. I loved riding in the big car and meeting the interesting people he knew. It was on those Saturday outings that I gradually became acquainted with the long series of “uncles” that became an ongoing part of my life. They liked me, and I liked them, too. I was especially interested in their nicknames.

  There was my uncle Frankie, also known as Frankie the Wop. He was perched on a wobbly wooden chair on a sidewalk in front of a grocery store the day I met him, drinking milk and eating Kit Kat bars. When my father introduced us, Uncle Frankie grinned at me and handed me an entire box of Kit Kats. I was thrilled. Uncle Frankie was the biggest man I had ever seen. A guy who knew him told me Frankie weighed four hundred pounds. Uncle Frankie did business with my father. Or so my father told me, though Frankie never seemed to do much of anything but eat. His favorite pastime was going to “all you can eat” establishments and staying there all day. My father told me Uncle Frankie would eat until his stomach touched the table. After a while, the restaurants where they knew him actu
ally paid Uncle Frankie to go away.

  One day Uncle Frankie went to the bathroom at one of the restaurants, and while he was sitting on the toilet, a mosquito flew in. Uncle Frankie panicked and tried to wave it away with a wooden toilet brush. When that didn't work, he reached for the spray cleaner and tried spraying it. That didn't work, either, and he really started to panic. He was afraid to even get up from the toilet, for fear it would attract the mosquito's attention, especially since he'd be stuck bare-bottomed in a stall where he could barely turn around. Finally, in desperation, he pulled out his .38 revolver and shot the mosquito. When the cops arrived a few minutes later to arrest him for discharging a firearm, they were astonished. He'd gotten the mosquito in a single shot.

  I met another Uncle Frankie on our Saturday outings, too. This Uncle Frankie was nicknamed Frankie Elbows. My dad said that was because his arms were so long, everyone joked that his elbows dragged on the ground like a chimpanzee's. Frankie Elbows was a mortician who sometimes helped my father with his business.

  One uncle who never came to our house was my uncle Nino. His real name was Anthony Gaggi, and he was a business associate of my father. I'd heard his name around the house from as far back as I could remember. Sometimes at night my dad would come home with a toy or a little money and say it was from Uncle Nino. I was about six years old when I finally got to meet him.

  My father had taken me in the car to the city one Saturday, where he'd stopped to talk to a few people he knew. We were on our way home for dinner when my father stopped to make a call at a pay phone in Manhattan. When he got back in, he told me we needed to make one more stop before we went home. We drove a couple more miles to a tailor shop near the financial district. By the time my father parked the car and we got out, it was nearly dark.

  As we walked toward the tailor shop, a man stepped out of the entrance onto the sidewalk. He was middle-aged, expensively dressed in an Italian suit, with black receding hair. There was a feeling of power surrounding him that I sensed right away. In spite of the deepening gloom, he wore black sunglasses that completely hid his eyes. I remember thinking how odd it was. I had never seen anyone wear sunglasses at night. How could he see when it was already so dark outside?