The Wine of Youth (19 page)

“If you say another word to that girl I'll knock your head off!”

The minute my mother saw him something happened. Uncle Tony got so mad he went into the front room without speaking. My mother kept looking at the man with the trowel and the little
red mustache. All at once they both started laughing. He went back to work, still laughing. At noon he sat on the scaffold looking down into the kitchen window. My mother could see him. He whistled. !She laughed and came to the window. What he wanted was some salt for his sandwich. That was how it got started. The man was my father. Every day he laughed and asked for something. If it wasn't salt it was pepper, and my mother laughed and got it for him. Another time he asked for some fresh fruit to go with his lunch. One day he came to the window and laughed and asked if she had any wine. Then he wanted to know if she could cook. My mother laughed and laughed. Finally she told him not to bring his lunch any more but to come over and eat with her. He laughed and said sure. Two months later, instead of going to Kentucky, my mother came to our town and got married.

U
PON THE DEATH
of old Father Ambrose, the Bishop of Denver assigned a new priest to St. Catherine's parish. He was Father Bruno Ramponi, a young Dominican from Boston. Father Ramponi's picture appeared on the front page of the Boulder
Herald
. Actually there were two pictures—one of a swarthy, short-necked prelate bulging inside a black suit and reversed collar, the other an action shot of Father Ramponi in football gear leaping with outstretched hands for a forward pass. Our new pastor was famous. He had been a football star, an All-American halfback from Boston College.

My father studied the pictures at the supper table.

“A Sicilian,” he decided. “Look how black he is.”

“How can he be a Sicilian?” my mother asked. “The paper says he was born in Boston.”

“I don't care where he was born. I know a Sicilian when I see one.” His brows quivered like caterpillars as he studied the face of Father Ramponi. “I don't want any trouble with this priest,” he brooded.

It was an ominous reminder of the many futile years Father Ambrose had tried to bring my father back to the church. “The glorious return to divine grace,” Father Ambrose had called it. “The prodigal son falling into the arms of his heavenly father.” On the job or in the street, at band concerts and in the pool hall, the old pastor constantly swooped down on my father with these pious objurations which only served to drive him deeper among the heathens, so that the priest's death brought a gasp of relief.

But in Father Ramponi he sensed a renewal of the tedious struggle for his soul, for it was only a question of time before
the new priest discovered that my father never attended Mass. Not that my mother and we four kids didn't make up for his absences. He insisted that it had to be that way, and every Sunday, through rain, sleet and snow he watched us trek off to St. Catherine's ten blocks away, his conscience vicariously soothed, his own cop-out veiled in righteous paternalism.

The day after the announcement of Father Ramponi's appointment, St. Catherine's school droned like an agitated beehive with rumors about our new priest. Gathered in clusters along the halls, the nuns whispered breathlessly. On the playground the boys set aside the usual touchball game to crowd into the lavatory and relate wild reports. The older boys did all the talking, cigarettes dangling from their lips, while second graders like myself listened with bulging eyes.

It was said that Father Ramponi was so powerful that he could bring down a bull with one punch, that he was structured like a gorilla, and that his nose had been kicked in on an historic Saturday afternoon when he had torn apart the Notre Dame line. We younger kids stiffened in fear and awe. After the gentle Father Ambrose, the thought of being hauled before Father Ramponi for discipline was too ghastly to contemplate. When the first bell rang we rushed to our classrooms, dreading the sudden, unexpected appearance of Father Ramponi in the halls.

At 11:30, in the midst of arithmetic, the classroom door opened and our principal, Sister Mary Justinus, entered. Her cheeks shone like apples. Her eyes glittered with excitement.

“The class will please rise,” she announced.

We got to our feet and caught sight of him in the hall. This was it. The awesome Father Ramponi was about to make his debut before the Second Grade class.

‘Children,' Sister Justinus fluttered, “I want you to say ‘Good morning,' to your new pastor, Father Bruno Ramponi.” She raised her hands like a symphony conductor and brought them down briskly as we chanted, “Good morning, Father,” and the priest stepped into the room.

He moved forward to stand before us with massive hands clasped at his waist, a grin kneading his broken face. All the rumors about him were true—a bull of a man with dark skin
and wide, crushed nostrils out of which black hairs flared. His jaw was as square as a brickbat, his short neck like a creosoted telephone pole. From out of his coat sleeves small bouquets of black hair burst over his wrists.

“Please be seated,” he smiled.

The moment he uttered those three words the myth of his ferocity vanished. For his voice was small and sibilant, surprisingly sweet and uncertain, a mighty lion with the roar of a kitten. The whole class breathed a sigh of deliverance as we sat down.

For twenty seconds he stood there lost for words, his large face oozing perspiration. With the uncanny intuition of children we were on to him, knowing somehow that this colossus of the gridiron would never loose his terrible wrath upon us, that he was as docile as a cow and harmless as a butterfly.

Drawing a handkerchief from his pocket, he dabbed at his moist neck and we grew uneasy and embarrassed waiting for him to say more, but he was locked to the spot, his tongue bolted down.

Finally Sister Justinus came to his rescue, breaking the silence with a brisk slap of her hands. “Now children, I want each of you to rise and give Father your name so that he can greet you personally.”

One at a time we stood and pronounced our names, and in each instance Father Ramponi nodded and said, “How do you do, Tom,” or “How do you do, Mary,” or “How do you do, Patrick.”

At my turn I rose and spoke my name.

“Paisan,” the priest grinned.

I managed a smile.

“Tell your folks I'll be around to meet them soon.”

Even though he told most of the students the same thing, I sat there in a state of shock. There were some things I could tell my father and others I preferred to delete, but there was one thing I didn't dare tell him—that a priest was coming to visit him.

With my mother it didn't matter, and upon hearing that Father Ramponi was coming she lifted her eyes to heaven and moaned.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “Whatever you do, don't tell your father. We might lose him for good.”

It was our secret, my mother's and mine, and we paid the price, specially Mamma. All that was required of me was to keep the
front yard clean, raking the October leaves and sweeping the front porch every day. She took on the rest of the house alone, and in the days that followed she washed the walls and ceilings, she washed the windows, she laundered and ironed the curtains, she waxed the linoleum, she dragged the frazzled rugs out to the back yard, flung them over the clothesline and beat them with a broom.

Every evening, home from work, my father strode through the house and paused, the smell of ammonia in his nostrils as he looked around and found some small new change. The gas heater in the living room polished and shining, its chrome gleaming like a band of dazzling silver, the furniture luminous as dark mirrors, the broken rocker repaired, the worn needle-point replaced with a piece of blue wool from an old coat.

He crossed the linoleum that sparkled like a sheet of ice. “What's happening?” he asked. “What's going on around here?”

“House cleaning,” my mother said, her face careworn, her hair coming loose from the bun in back, her bones aching. He frowned at her curiously.

“Take it easy. What's the good of a clean house if you end up in the hospital?”

Days passed and November showed up, bringing the first snow of winter. But Father Ramponi did not visit us. I saw him almost every day at school, and he always tossed a word or two my way, but he made no mention of the visit.

The snow fell steadily. The streets disappeared. The windows frosted. My mother strung clotheslines around the stove in the living room, in order to dry the washing. The cold weather confined the little ones indoors. Crayons were crushed underfoot, toys kicked beneath the furniture. My brother spilled a bottle of ink on the linoleum, my sister drew a pumpkin face with black crayon on the best wall in the front room. Then she melted the crayon against the side of the hot stove. Mama threw up her hands in defeat. If Father Ramponi ever visited us, he would have to take us for what we were—just plain, stupid peasants.

The snow was my father's deadly enemy, burying his job in desolate white mounds, engulfing brick, cement and scaffolding, robbing him of his livelihood and sending him home with an unopened lunch pail. He became a prisoner in his own house.

Nor was he the loving husband a woman could enjoy through long winter days. He insisted on taking command of a ship that was already on course through rough waters. Lounging in the kitchen he watched my mother's every move as she prepared meals, finding fault with everything. More salt, too much pepper, turn up the oven, turn down the oven, watch the potatoes, add some onion, where's the oregano, fry some garlic, and finally, “Let me do that!”

She flung down her apron and stalked out of the kitchen to join us in the living room, her arms folded, her eyes blazing. Oh God! If Father Ramponi didn't arrive soon she would be driven to the rectory to see him herself.

Our house on Sunday morning was chaos. I can still see my frantic mother dashing from bedroom to bedroom in her pink slip, her braided hair piled atop her head, as she got us dressed for ten o'clock Mass. She polished our shoes, fashioned knots in our neckties, sewed buttons, patched holes, prepared breakfast, ironed pleats in my sister's dress, raced from one of us to the other, picking up a shoe on the way, a toy. Armed with a washcloth, she inspected our ears and the backs of our necks, scraping away dirt, my sister screaming, “you're cruel, cruel!”

Lastly, in the final moments before we departed, she slapped talcum powder over her face and came out to the front room where my oblivious father sprawled reading the Denver
Post
. She turned her back for him to button up her dress.

“Fix me.”

Chewing a cigar, he squinted as the curling smoke blurred his eyes and he worked the buttons through the holes with blunt fingers. It was the only contribution he made to those hectic mornings.

“Why don't you come to Mass with us?” she often asked.

“What for?”

“To worship God. To set an example for your children.”

“God sees my family at church. That's enough. He knows I sent them.”

“Wouldn't it be better if God saw you there too?”

“God's everywhere, so why do I have to see Him in a church? He's right here too, in this house, this room. He's in my hand.
Look.” He opened and closed his fist. “He's right in there. In my eyes, my mouth, my ears, my blood. So what's the sense of walking eight blocks through the snow, when all I got to do is sit right here with God in my own house.”

We children stood listening enthralled at this great and refreshing piece of theology, our collars pinching, our eyes moving to the window as the silent snow drifted down, shivering at the thought of plowing through the drifts to the cold church.

“Papa's right,” I said. “God is everywhere. It says so in the catechism.”

We looked imploringly at my mother as she put on her wool coat with the rabbit fur collar, and there was a sob in my sister's voice as she begged, “Can't we all just kneel down here and pray for a while? God won't mind.”

“You see!” my mother glared at my father.

“Nobody prays here but me,” he said. “The rest of you get going.”

“It's not fair!” I yelled. “Who're
you?
”

“I'll tell you who I am,” he said threateningly. “I'm the owner of this house. I come and go as I please. I can throw you out any time I feel like it. Now get going!” He rose in a towering fury and pointed at the door, and we filed out like humble serfs, heads bowed, trudging through snow a foot deep. God, it was cold! And so unfair. I clenched my fists and longed for the day I would become a man and knock my father's brains out.

 

In the seventh week of his pastorate Father Ramponi finally visited our house. He came in the darkness of evening, through a roaring storm, his arrival presaged by the heavy pounding of his overshoes on the front porch as he kicked off the clinging snow. It shook the house.

My father sat at the dining room table drinking wine and I sat across from him, doing my homework. We both stared as the wine in the carafe tossed like a small red sea. Mamma and Grandma came startled from the kitchen. We heard the rap of knuckles on the front door.

“Come in!” my father shouted.

Father Ramponi loomed in the doorway, hat in hand, so tall he barely made it through the door. Had the President of the
United States entered, we could not have been more surprised.

“Good evening,” he smiled.

“Whaddya say there,” Papa said, too astonished for amenities as Father Ramponi walked deeper into the house. All a twitter, my mother's face tingled with excitement as she hurried to take the priest's overcoat. He laid it across her arms like a massive black rug, so large that it dragged over the floor as she hauled it away to the bedroom.

By now the rest of us were on our feet, staring at the towering priest. Everything shrank proportionately, the room, the furniture, and the members of our family. Suddenly we were a tribe of pygmies confronted by a giant explorer from the outside world.

As they shook hands, Father Ramponi lowered a friendly paw on Papa's shoulder and spoke in his high, gentle voice.

“They tell me you're the finest stonemason in Colorado. Is it true?”

My father's face blossomed like a sunflower.

“That's the truth, Father.”

“Fine, fine I like a man who's not ashamed of his worth.”

Reeling with flattery, Papa turned and ordered the room cleared. “Everybody out!”

With grand pretensions of authority Mamma herded us into the living room, which didn't in the least add to the privacy since the two rooms were separated by French doors, only there weren't any doors. Just the hinges. The doors were out in the garage, for reasons nobody ever questioned.

We kids flung ourselves on the floor near the stove and Mamma settled into the rocking chair. Presently Grandma appeared, a black shawl around her shoulders, the rosary twined in her fingers, and she too found a chair. No more than four feet away, Papa and Father Ramponi had the entire dining room to themselves.