I Know This Much Is True (112 page)

I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE

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telegramma
from no less a dignitary than the Governor of the State of Connecticut! Father Guglielmo was the last to speak.

“Stand up, Domenico,” he said. “Stand up, please.” So I stood.

Every eye in that hall was upon me.

Without the help of Domenico Tempesta, Guglielmo said, the new parish school would not have been built. “We are forever grateful to this man.” Then four of the children from the new school came forward, giggling in spite of the looks the nuns gave them.

They handed red roses to Ignazia and gave me a little box. “Open it, my good friend! Open it!” Guglielmo told me. He was giggling like those foolish schoolgirls!

Inside the box was a red ribbon tied to a
medaglia
(silver-plated, not gold). Stamped onto one side was the cross of Jesus Christ and the Lamp of Knowledge. Engraved on the other side were these words: “To Domenico Tempesta, With Sincere Appreciation from the Students of St. Mary of Jesus Christ School.” That’s what it said.

The archbishop stood and came forward. He took the medal from the box, lifted it over my head, and hung it around my neck.

Then everyone stood up, gave me
ovazione in piedi
. Vitaglio and Lena, the Tusias, even some of the workers from American Woolen who had come—all of them off their chairs and onto their feet. Their hand-clapping made so much noise, I thought maybe the church would fall down!

Ignazia stood up, too. And the girl. Ignazia was holding that bouquet of roses they’d given her. The week before, I had handed her eight dollars to get herself a little something extra for the dedication ceremony. She’d bought material for a new dress for Concettina and a velvet hat for herself—bright red one, same color as those roses and the ribbon around my neck! I turned and looked at my wife. She was the prettiest woman in that crowded hall . . .

standing there, clapping and blushing, wearing her new red hat.

Then she put the flowers on the table and took the girl’s hands—made Concettina’s little hands clap, too.

“Papa! Papa!” Concettina said. “Hooray for Papa!”

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I was all right until I heard that. Then I had to blow my nose and leave the hall for a few minutes. “Speech, Mr. Tempesta!” people called from the crowd as I tried to get out of there for a minute or two. “Make a speech! Make a speech!”

But all I could do was thank them and wave and blow my nose.

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Ray and I sat side by side in the wood-paneled office of Fitzgerald’s Funeral Home, banging out the details: closed casket, no calling hours, private burial.

“Funeral Mass?” the undertaker asked. He had an overly helpful manner, seriously bad false teeth. The Fitzgeralds had retired since Ma’s death—had sold this guy their business and their name.

“Funeral Mass?” I repeated. Ray’s yes and my no came out simultaneously.

“He was
religious,
” Ray said.

“He was crazy,” I snapped back. “It’s
over.
”

It was False Teeth who brokered the compromise: priest at the graveside, a simple private service. The only other sticking point was what to do afterward. “Most people have a little something,” the undertaker said. “But you don’t
have
to go that route. You do whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“It’ll be around noon by the time it’s over,” I pointed out to Ray.

“People will
expect
something.” I told him I’d order some food from
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Franco’s, go over to Hollyhock Avenue early and help him set up stuff—that over at my place, even a small crowd would be packed in like sardines. Ray gave grudging approval to the plan and I sat there thinking, hey, he
grew up
in that house. Our grandfather
built
that place. Why
shouldn’t
we have it there?

When I got home, I made a list: people who’d been decent to Thomas over the years—had treated him like a human being. The names and phone numbers fit on an index card. That was hard, making those calls—asking one more thing from the few people who’d already “anted up” on Thomas’s behalf. I saved the two hardest calls for last.

“
You have reached Ralph Drinkwater, tribal pipe-keeper of the
Wequonnoc Nation. If this is Tribal Council business . . .
”

I closed my eyes, stammered the particulars to Ralph’s machine: 11:00 A.M., Boswell Avenue Cemetery, a twenty-minute service. “No big deal if you can’t make it,” I said. “It’s just that . . . Well, if you
want
to come . . .” Hanging up, I asked myself what the hell I was shaking for. I’d just been talking to a goddamned answering machine.

But I wasn’t lucky enough to get the machine when I called Dessa.

He
answered. The potter. “Eleven?” he said. “Okay, I’ll tell her. Anything else we can do?”

I closed my eyes. Thought: yeah, stop saying
we
. “Uh-uh. Thanks.

Nope.”

There was a three- or four-second pause where “Goodbye” should have been. Dan the Man was the first to break the silence. “I . . . I lost one of
my
brothers,” he said. “Six years ago now. Motorcycle accident.”

He’d lost
one
of his brothers? I wasn’t even
whole
anymore.

“My brother Jeff,” he said. “He and I were pretty tight, too.” I closed my eyes. Promised myself this would be over in another ten seconds. “Gone for good: it’s tough, man. Out of the five of us, Jeff was the only one who’d ever pick up the phone, find out if you were still breathing. . . . Well, you hang in there. That’s all I’m trying to say. You want her to call you back when she gets home?”

No need, I said. She could if she wanted to.

After I hung up, I ripped up that index card list of names and I Know[749-858] 7/24/02 1:42 PM Page 751

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numbers. Tore the pieces into smaller pieces. At least that part was over. Halfway across the kitchen, I stopped, doubled over by it.

Gone for good.

If your twin was dead, were you still a twin?

It was sunny the morning of the funeral—warm for April, but windy.

Someone had planted red and white tulips in front of the headstone.

Dessa, maybe? I knew she came out to the cemetery pretty regularly to visit Angela’s grave, across the street in the children’s section. Not me.

For me, that cemetery was like a land-mine field. Angela, Ma, my grandparents. And now my brother, too.

“JESUS, MEEK AND HUMBLE, MAKE MY HEART

LIKE UNTO THINE.”

CONCETTINA TEMPESTA BIRDSEY, 1916–1987

RAYMOND ALVAH BIRDSEY, 1923–

THOMAS JOSEPH BIRDSEY, 1949–

The headstone was midsized, salt and pepper granite. Ray and Ma had bought the plot right after she got sick, I remember. She’d called me afterward. Said they figured I might marry again—that I’d probably want to make my
own
arrangements—but she needed to have Thomas taken care of. She was going to have Thomas buried with
her
.

The wind kept swaying those tulips, bending them one way, then the other way, ding-donging the heads together. A late frost would zap those mothers.

False Teeth had said six pallbearers was the usual but that we could make do with four. That’s what we did: made do. Ray, me, Leo, and Mr. Anthony from across the street. The casket was heavier than I thought it’d be. Toward the end, Thomas had outweighed me by fifty or sixty pounds. All that starchy food and sedative. All that sitting around down at Hatch.

Most everyone I’d invited showed up. Leo and Angie (minus the kids), Jerry Martineau, the Anthonys. . . . Sam and Vera Jacobs came.

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been good to my brother. Cards on his birthday and Christmas, that kind of thing. Thomas had kept them all. I found twenty or thirty of them, dated and bound together with an elastic in a box with his other stuff. So I’d put the Jacobses on my list. If he’d kept those cards, they must have meant something. Right?

Dessa was a no-show. Dessa and Ralph Drinkwater. Well, I told myself, what goes around comes around. Here’s your personal history coming back to kick you in the teeth, Dominick. You betrayed both of them. Gave him up that night at the state police barracks.

Gave your grieving wife up every night you’d wake up and hear her sobbing down the hall and just
lie
there.
Not
get out of bed.
Not
go to her, because it hurt too much. . . . Survival of the fittest, Birdsey: this was what it got you down the line.

The priest was goofy—not one of the regulars over at St. Mary’s, but someone they’d had to dig up from Danielson. I felt bad for Ray.

He’d been volunteering over at St. Anthony’s for more than twenty years—plumbing, electrical work, yard work every spring and fall.

But not
one
of those three priests could wiggle out of his “previous commitment.” . . . Father LaVie, this guy’s name was. He reminded me of someone—I couldn’t quite think of who. He’d sounded young over the phone, but then, in person, he
wasn’t
young. Late fifties, maybe? Early sixties? Shows up at the cemetery wearing sandals instead of shoes and socks. What was
that
all about? Trying to play Jesus or something? Like I said, it was warm for April, but it wasn’t
that
warm.

It hurt, though, whether I deserved it or not: Dessa’s not being there. All during the service, I kept waiting for her late arrival—kept picturing in my head how I’d gesture her over next to me when she got there. Hold her hand, maybe. Because our history was
more
than just the crash-and-burn ending. And because Thomas had loved her, too. “Dessa’s my very, very, VERY best friend,” he used to say.

He told me that lots of times. . . . A car door slammed in the middle of things, and I thought,
here
she is.
Here’s
Dess. But it was Lisa Sheffer, hustling down the hill, her trenchcoat flapping behind her.

Good old Sheffer, late as usual.

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Father LaVie. Father Life. . . . He performed that hocus-pocus they do with the incense, fed us the usual about ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Read us some Scripture. Anything special you’d like? he had asked me over the phone. No, I’d said. Whatever he thought might be appropriate. And what he’d come up with was that same psalm I’d heard Thomas recite a hundred times.“
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

In verdant pastures He gives me repose; beside restful waters he leads me.
. . .”

Father LaVie had asked me about Ma. Breast cancer, I’d said.

Told him how she used to worry herself sick about what was going to happen to Thomas after she died. “They were close?” Father LaVie had asked. “Like two peas in a pod,” I’d said. Two peas in a pod, two coffins in the ground. Mrs. Calabash and Mrs. Floon. . . .

Near the end of the service, Father LaVie closed his prayer book and put his hand on Thomas’s casket. Made us a Walt Disney ending: Thomas and Ma, reunited in Heaven, all of their burdens lifted.

He smiled over at me, and I smiled back, thinking: George Carlin.

That’s
who he reminds me of. . . . Thinking: Free at last! Free at last!

They’re “playing nice” in Heaven!

You go downstairs now, Dominick. Tell us if Ray comes. I made a
special treat for you in the refrigerator. . . .

I looked over at Ray. He was scowling, pulling on the tips of his pallbearer’s gloves. My teammate, my accomplice.

What goes on in this house is nobody else’s business
.
You hear me?

Aye aye, Admiral! Yes, sir! . . . My eyes found Doc Patel’s eyes.

She gave me a nod, a half-smile. Can you read it on my face, Doc?

That worst day—the one I’ve edited out of all our little powwows?

Can you see our secret, Doc?

Go downstairs, Dominick. Watch out for Ray. This wouldn’t be any
fun for you.

Yes, Ma! Sure thing, Ma! Will you love me then, Ma?

And she was right, too. It
wouldn’t
have been any fun up there. It was
stupid,
what they did. Ladies’ hats, ladies’ gloves, those tea parties up there. The older we got, the more their “playing nice” humiliated me. . . .

More tea, Mrs. Calabash?

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Yes, thank you, Mrs. Floon.

I
hated
them being up there.
Hated
being their stupid lookout, eating whatever bribe she had put in the refrigerator that day.

Listening for Ray, watching out for the Big Bad Wolf. I
hated
it, Ma. I wanted you to stay downstairs. To love us
both
. . . .

I remembered everything about that day: the weather (gray and drizzly), the clothes I was wearing (dungarees,
Old Yeller
sweatshirt).

Our supper—beef stew—was simmering on the stove; the kitchen windows dripped with moisture from the bubbling pot. Ma had left me pudding that day: butterscotch pudding and whipped cream in a squirt can. We’d been begging her for weeks to buy that canned cream. . . . We were fifth-graders now. It was
humiliating
. He was too
old
to “play nice.”