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We went to a few couple’s therapy sessions and now he thinks he can always just read my mind.
“I’m not going to say you did nothing wrong,” he replied, and at that I did open my eyes to stare at him through actual rose-colored glasses. “I’m not going to say you did a good thing or even the right thing. It’s not as simple as that. You did the best you could do for us and our family. Everyone one else in the world may judge you, but to us and our family, it means everything. Thank you, Cora, for everything.” He kissed the back of my hand.
Was it possible to feel guilty without regretting what you had done? If so, that was how I felt. Leaning toward him, I didn’t speak because I didn’t know what to say. Instead, I just laid my head on his shoulder.
Life would be a lot easier without guilt.
FEDEL
“You shouda seen these idiots half dazed, they were just walkin around like motherfucking zombies, had half a mind to go out there beat some sense into them. Their poor mothers mustuv lost their minds. All of them running around screaming Potresti aiutarmi? Ho bisogno di un dottore!” Big Tony spoke to the whole barbershop as he leaned in close to the back of the man’s head sitting in the chair across from me, using a comb and scissors to cut closer. Despite his name, Big Tony was actually no taller than 5’7” and weighed less than one sixty, but what he lacked in appearance, he made up for in personality. He had moved to Chicago from Jersey at eight years old and now at fifty-four, his shop was where all the Italians came for their cut or a good bullshit story.
“Aeh Fedel, what the bosses saying about this new drug and shit? Is it really making people into zombies like Big Tony says or he blowin’ hot air again?” Giulio, the man in the chair, snickered.
“Yeah.” I lifted my chin for Dino, my barber, to spread the shaving cream. “It’s the apocalypse, Giulio, we got people eating faces and shit.” I got a few laughs from everyone around the shop, even Big Tony. “No, but this Blphine, it ain’t safe, and will kill you faster than taking smack and crystal back to back.”
“What I tell you, boys? Things made in China!” Big Tony replied and even I snickered at that. “Probably sniffing smog, plastic, and dog bones.”
“You racist as shit, Big Tony,” someone yelled and he just flipped them off.
“Vai e for titi, grassone bastardo,” he snapped back, which got the man on his feet. Three seconds—that’s how long it took for us to get into an argument. Jesus, our people, I swore they lived for that shit.
“What all this bitchin about, you little babies?” Uncle Vinnie hollered, coming out of the bathroom still adjusting his belt. Always clean-shaven with a top hat, sweater, and tie, Vincent Buccieri—or Uncle Vinnie as everyone called him because he really was like that odd old uncle no really knew at the wedding but somehow everyone was talking to anyway—was the oldest of us all, pushing eighty-seven next month. “When I was your age we were kickin them Irish dogs out the city, not fightin our own damn selves.”
“How many times we gotta tell you? We ain’t at war with the Irish any more, Uncle Vinnie,” Big Tony reminded him.
“We always at war!” He pointed his cane back at him. “You pussies have forgotten that since you been following pussy.”
One by one their eyes all shifted to me. It wasn’t a secret that I was the right hand of Melody Nicci Giovanni Callahan; it was part of the reason so many of them also came here, to get a word or a favor or a job in through me. They never ma
de the mistake of insulting her in front of me.
“Oh yeah, Uncle Vinnie,” I said, sitting up in the chair. “The boss wanted me to thank you and your wife for the bottle of 1990 Masseto.”
“Non c'è problema!” he said, moving to take a seat in an empty barber chair.
“She asked if your wife enjoyed the 1961 Barolo Riserva she sent over,” I added.
“E' perfetto!” He kissed his fingertips. “I’ve always said no one can pick a bottle of wine like a Giovanni. When Orlando was young, they used to say if wine wasn’t flowing in the street of Bosa, he was either sleeping or fucking.”
I snickered at that. The last time I’d gone back to Bosa was right after Wyatt and Donatella’s fourth birthday.
“Fedel, how many more free haircuts until I'm upgraded to bottle service?” Big Tony asked me.
“When have I ever gotten a free anything?”
He frowned at me clippers, then at me. “See this, my friends? Straight up stingy, complaining about free haircuts when he can afford them.”
“Let’s not get sidetracked. Uncle Vinnie, when did you start givin and gettin thousand dollar bottles?” Giulio gasped out like the rest of the men there.
Uncle Vinnie pulled out his newspaper, proudly stating, “Il Buccieri e Giovanni sono famiglia.”
“If you two are family, what are the rest of us?” Giulio questioned.
Everyone turned to Uncle Vinnie, who looked over the corner of his paper. “I don’t know about them, but sei uno stronzo!”
We all laughed so hard at how matter-of-factly he said it.
“What so funny?” asked a small boy who looked around the same age as Ethan and had short brown hair and hazel yes. “I don’t understand.”
