American Ace (3 page)

W
e agreed to stop at Uncle Father Joe's,

which was only a couple of blocks away.

His midday Mass was probably ending,

and he always likes to make lunch for us.

As he boiled water and sliced tomatoes,

Uncle Father Joe asked Dad about the ring.

This is just the most amazing story,

Tony. Did Papa treat you differently?

Dad said,
I wouldn't have guessed in a million years

that Papa wasn't my natural dad.

He called me “my beloved firstborn son.”

He often told me he was proud of me.

Uncle Father Joe said,
And he WAS, too!

Let's see the ring, Connor.
I took it off.

It left a white line around my finger.

The Forcean,
he read.
1940.

Suo Marte. The initials MS. Josten.

He gave it back.
“Suo Marte”: Latin:

“By our own strength.” I sure wonder who he was.

This is a mystery for Sherlock Holmes!

Sit. Bless our meal, and us to Thy service.

Mangiamo!
Salad and carbonara:

I wolfed them down, inwardly promising

that I would learn what the ring had to teach.

F
or a couple of weeks, I studied it closely,

from every angle. I memorized its wear,

the depth of the engraving, each digit.

Inside, the word
Josten,
the initials.

My teachers must have thought I was obsessed.

Kids started teasing, calling me “Gollum.”

My homies, Zach and Jonah, knew about

the mystery, so they cut me some slack.

But this cute girl, Amy, kept suggesting

I should give her my ring for safekeeping:

She'd wear it on a chain around her neck,

and keep it away from the Dark Powers.

One Date Night, after pizza, Theresa

and I googled
Josten
and
Forcean
for hours.

The Powers were definitely not with us:

Josten'
s a brand name;
Forcean,
a dead end.

We were so glum when Mom and Dad got home—

feeding our faces microwave popcorn

and drinking blueberry yogurt smoothies—

that Mom asked what was wrong. When we told her,

she said,
A good research librarian

can guide you like thread through a labyrinth.

She said she'd take us to the library.

B
etween classes, Amy kept showing up

near my locker, as if by accident,

blushing, dimpled, offering to keep my ring.

I think, in her mind, what she really meant

was we were starting a relationship.

Did I say she's cute? She's adorable.

But why was she drawn to me by the ring?

I started to feel like it had power:

It set me off, made me somehow different,

even though its meaning was still hidden.

I told her I couldn't give up my ring,

but I'd like to hang out with her sometime.

And thus began a beautiful friendship:

She came with me to the college library.

We talked to the research librarian,

then walked around the beautiful campus

until Mom picked us up and drove us home.

Three Saturdays led to the same dead ends,

but made Amy part of the family.

We were a new Bianchini couple,

brought together by “The Mystery Ring.”

Finally, Jake, the research librarian,

pursued
The Forcean
to Google Books.

And then things started getting interesting.

J
ake thought the ring might be related to

an unauthored book called
The Forcean,

which was published in 1939.

The New York Public Library owned one:

He could order it through interlibrary loan.

He showed us a description of the book.

One hundred and twenty-seven pages.

Amy squealed, in a small library voice.

Jake grinned, then typed into his computer.

He said,
They'll lend it to the library;

you'll have to read it here, in our Rare Books

Department. We'll have it here next Friday.

Theresa bounced up and down in her seat

as Amy and I described the breakthrough.

Mom smiled at me in the rearview mirror.

Oh, you guys,
she said,
isn't this thrilling?

What if Ace IS connected to this book?

What if he was an aspiring writer?

I know a couple of famous American poets

were military pilots during the war.

Let's hope this isn't another dead end.

In the backseat, my fingers and Amy's

interwoven pulsed like two hearts conjoined.

I knew
The Forcean
wasn't a dead end.

W
e all agreed that Dad should be the first

to see the book. We couldn't go Friday:

The mayor planned a dinner for his supporters

at Mama Lucia's. So, on Saturday,

we'd drive: to campus, around, then to lunch.

You know how time slows down when you're watching,

like watched water takes forever to boil?

The week was like ketchup at the bottom

of a bottle. Friday was molasses.

The dinner's four courses, dominated

by speeches, toasts, and kisses next to cheeks,

lasted past Mama Lucia's closing time.

Saturday morning, sleepy, out of sorts,

we set out early, to parallel park

on the business street next to the college

before we headed up to see the book.

Dad seemed too tired to talk, except about

turning the wheel, braking, and backing up.

After a while we parked on the campus

and walked across the quad to the library.

We found Jake in the Rare Books Department,

waiting. He said,
It's a college yearbook!

It's for Wilberforce University!

But Wilberforce is an HBCU.

J
ake explained:
An HBCU's a black

college or university, from back

in the old days of segregated schools.

Dad took the book and sat down heavily.

He seemed to have had the wind knocked from his sails.

I sat beside him. He turned the pages.

THE CLASS OF 1939 PRESENTS . . .

Wilberforce, Ohio . . .
Big brick buildings.

The president in wire-rimmed spectacles,

a distinguished pinstripe suit, a small mustache.

Faculty. Administrators. Clubs.

The
Forcean
staff. The graduating class.

Their names and nicknames, their activities,

their favorite quotes, and black-and-white photos

of young, earnest-looking college students

who would graduate into a world at war.

Fraternities, sororities, sports teams.

“Miss Wilberforce”: brown, pretty, a cute grin.

“Miss Classic”: ivory and elegant.

Collages of miniature snapshots,

stiff, uniformed groups of ROTC cadets.

And everyone in every photograph

was African American. Was black.

We read the ads. And then Dad closed the book.

W
ell, I'll be damned,
Dad said. He tried to stand,

but something happened: He got his foot caught

between chair leg and table leg, I guess.

Anyway, he fell suddenly in a heap,

with a loud
OOF!
Jake and I helped him up

and sat him down again. He was so pale,

his sideburns and eyebrows looked black again.

My father may have been a colored man?!

We could see the book again the following week,

with new questions. For now, we shook Jake's hand

and thanked him. Then we hiked across the quad.

When we got to the van, Dad was panting.

Talk about “lost in thought.” I turned the key

and pulled into traffic unconsciously,

my mind going a hundred directions

of
what-if
s and
this mean
s
.
The first
what-if

was what if this is just a red herring?

What if
Forcean
's really something else,

and the Wilberforce yearbook is irrelevant?

My second
what-if
was what if it's right,

and Nonna's love was African American?

So Dad's biracial? Will this change our lives?

Dad's eyes were closed. He was kind of snoring

when we pulled up at Uncle Father Joe's.

F
our guys were in the rectory driveway

making good use of the basketball hoop.

Dad opened the passenger door and couldn't stand.

One of the guys cried,
Oh, my God! A stroke!

Just like my Moms! He need a ambulance!

I ran around the car, but he caught Dad.

Dad stayed overnight, “for observation.”

I waited with Mom, Theresa, Amy,

most of the uncles, some aunts and cousins:

Bianchinis there for Bianchinis,

illustrating what families are for.

That guy—his name is Antwan—stayed with us.

My half brother, Carlo, and I exchanged

some texts. He said they were praying for Dad.

Then the earth settled back on its axis:

Dad was okay! It was a false alarm!

But they would monitor his blood pressure.

He didn't talk much, after he got home.

He hadn't had a stroke, but he had had

a glimpse beyond. All of us had had that.

It makes you think, when somebody you love

looks Death in its steel eye. It makes you think.

Dad said,
Listen. This wasn't caused by shock.

It was years of cannolis and that hike!

W
e spent our evenings googling.
Wilberforce

led us to William Wilberforce, a great

British orator/abolitionist.

Amazing grace and philanthropic zeal

made Wilberforce champion chimney sweeps,

single mothers, orphans, and juvenile

delinquents, made him condemn cruelty

to animals. But he primarily

spoke of the misery and wretchedness

of the hundreds of stolen people chained

to each other in the holds of slave ships.

He won: England abolished the slave trade.

The university that bears his name

was founded in 1856, the first

HBCU in the United States,

its first students the mixed-race children

of rich, guilt-ridden Southern slave owners.

Plagued by financial insecurity,

tornadoes, and arson, it still survives,

welcoming students of all faiths, races,

and ethnic and national origins.

Its motto:
Suo Marte:
“By our own strength.”

Ray Charles donated two million dollars

for a Music Department scholarship.

T
he bare oak branches outside my window

scratched the screens like pets wanting to come in.

The moon's light was magnified by the snow.

Gray clouds scudded across like ocean liners.

I bent over the desk in my bedroom,

scribbling from margin to margin to hide

the poem I'd been writing about Amy:

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O.

Love made every molecule of me smile

every time one of them thought of Amy.

Did Ace sometimes look out at the moonlight

writing poems about Nonna Lucia, his girl?

We drove to campus through mixed rain and snow,

behind a windshield smeared by wiper blades.

With Dad's new Handicapped parking permit

we parked near the library's main entrance

and elevatored upstairs to meet Jake.

The three of us studied
The Forcean
,

trying to figure out how to find Ace.

Jake said,
Maybe Ace is a cul-de-sac.

(I asked him later: That means a dead end.)

Let's start with the initials M
and
S
.

We can ask the Department of Defense

if the men we find have service records.