Gowanus Crossing/A Life Along the Canal Chapter 2

Chapter 2

That evening, Americo entered the apartment as if there were land mines under the linoleum. Sometimes a slamming door was enough to trigger his father's anger. His twin brothers, Joey and Tommy, were curled like kittens on the parlor floor watching television, the dinner table, already set in the cramped dining room.
"Where's Daddy?"
His brothers, engrossed in the finale of the Mickey Mouse Club song, ignored him.
"....K-E-Y."
"WHY? BECAUSE WE LIKE YOU!"
Americo stared at Annette Funicello's breasts jiggling under her white turtleneck.
"M-O-U-S-E!" Tommy belted out the letters like a cabaret singer.
"You stink ‘Merico," said Joey wrinkling his nose. "Like the canal."
“You too.”
His mother was in the kitchen stirring a pot of boiling pasta.
"I'm home Ma," he yelled and darted for the stairs to stash his ruined pants.
"Almost 6:00 o'clock! Why so late?"
"I helped Sister clean the classroom."
"Why always you?"
" She says I’ll be a janitor someday."
"Don’t mind her! Go get washed."
In the upstairs bathroom, he scrubbed his pants with Ivory soap hoping to get the grease out, smearing the sink wit black streaks. He poured Ajax on the knees, then some of his father's Old Spice aftershave and scrubbed some more. Frustrated, he rolled the pants up, tied the legs into a double knot and stuffed them onto the top shelf of the hall closet behind unopened bottles of Anisette, Creme de Menthe and Four Roses whiskey, gifts from Christmases past.
He was on the couch reading a Superman comic when his father pounded on the door, making the Christmas bells, they used for a knocker, dance. Tommy let out a yelp.
Joe Guzzi didn't have a key to his own house. In his world, wife and kids were always home, dinner always on the table. Joey and Tommy ran to pull the door open. Americo stood up. Joe stood in the doorway in and army fatigue jacket and blue watch cap, his face wind-burned and raw. He carried yellow rawhide gloves and wooden-handled steel hooks, the tools of his trade, hung off his shoulder like epaulets. Tommy and Joey stood around him yelping like puppies.
"What did you bring us Daddy! Whatja bring!"
Gloria came up behind them wiping her hands on her apron, as eager as the kids. Americo, grinning like an idiot, felt himself drawn into the old routine. Joe unzipped his jacket. It was stiff, crackly with cold. Nothing. Joey and Tommy moaned. Americo could smell the salt tang of the Atlantic Ocean on his father. Tommy pulled at the thick army sweater Joe wore underneath his jacket. Dutch chocolates--dozens of tiny Easter eggs wrapped in brightly-colored aluminum foil, cascaded to the floor. Tommy and Joey squealed, then scrambled to pick up the candy. Gloria kneeling beside them.
"A Dutch merchant docked yesterday," said Joe. "A couple of crates slid off the draft and busted." Americo knew not to question good fortune. Every kid in the neighborhood would have bellyaches from chocolate tomorrow Joe reached into his jacket and handed Americo a brown paper bag.
"Go ahead guy. It's for you. I traded for it with Mikey Bats. His gang was working the Number One hatch. Different stuff."
Americo opened the bag. He pulled out a pair of hand-carved wooden shoes. A miniature Dutch village was painted in blue and yellow and red onto the tops of the shoes. Americo could even make out a blond boy and girl holding hands. The girl held a bunch of tulips.
"I figured you'd go for that."
"Thanks Dad."
Americo reached up to kiss his father's cheek. It was bristly, cold as ice in the overheated apartment.
"Let me carry the hooks. I'll be careful." He turned and hung the tools in the closet under the stairs. Gloria scrambled to collect the chocolate from the twins who were stuffing Easter eggs into their mouths.
Friday was payday. When his sons groaned at the piselli and pasta, hard-boiled eggs and tuna fish Gloria, a devout Catholic, had prepared, Joe ordered a pizza from Lenny's on Fifth Avenue. Half-an-hour later, Americo was gorging himself on pepperoni pizza, washed down with cream soda and chocolate.
After dinner, he called Sally. The line was busy, busy, busy.
At 10:00 P.M., feverish and shivery, Americo crawled upstairs, climbed into the lumpy bed beside his sleeping brothers. Joey was rolled up, a mummy in the thin chenille bedspread. Americo unwrapped him, covered Thomas's frail, milk-white body and lay back. He could hear his parents downstairs going through bills, could smell Joe’s Lucky Strikes burning one after another. He decided he'd tell his father what they’d found in the lot first thing in the morning. Despite his racing thoughts, he fell asleep.
"’Merico....’Merico, wake up! Please wake up! "
He was jolted from some dark and terrible dream. "Wha...What?"
Thomas was frantically tugging at his arm. Half-asleep, Americo sent him flying with a forearm.
"What?"
"PLEASE!" They're fighting!”
The shouts, echoing in the narrow stairwell, cleared the sleep from his eyes. The crazed voice deafening, obscene, familiar.
"You fucking cunt! I told you not to spend no more money!"
This was his other father, the father hated. Americo leaped out of bed and ran down the hall. Joey, stood trembling in his underwear at the top of the steps. The stairwell was enclosed in wood-paneling, a dark vertiginous tunnel where the beast raged. He plunged down the stairs, his bare feet slipping, almost falling, catching himself on the banister, the twins racing behind him.
He saw a chair tumbling over...heard his father roaring...his mother mouthing the familiar plea, "Don't let the neighbors hear!"...the squeal of the table legs over linoleum as his father shoved it, trying to pin Gloria against the dining room wall...Coffee cups and ashtrays crashing to the floor.
"Stop it!...Leave her alone!"
Gloria turned toward her children, tried to cover where he'd torn her blouse, and in that moment, Joe was on her, slapping her, pulling her hair, smashing her head against the wall. Gloria raked him with her nails, leaving loody streaks on his cheeks
"Look what you did to me!"
Americo stood frozen, tears streaming from his eyes.
"Please!" He tried to scream. It came out a whimper.
"Daddy Please!"
Thomas and Joey raced past him, wailing. Thomas grabbed his father's legs and Joe shook him off like a dog. Joey was trying to embrace his parents as if he could stop them with a little boy’s love. Gloria was sobbing her helplessness and shame. Joe slapped her again, screaming,
"You fucking cunt!"
Americo felt himself moving. He saw himself come between his parents. Saw himself tear his father away from his mother. He saw Joe fly backward into the kitchen crash into the washing machine. And go down. Americo heard his own heart pounding in the awful silence. Then, almost a whisper: "You hit your father?"
This was a battle for which Americo would never be ready. He turned and faced him. His father was 5'9", 19o lbs. He squared his shoulders, and dropped his hands as Joe charged. The first punch, a short, brutal left, caught Americo in the stomach. He crumpled, gasping, careful to keep his hands by his side. The second, a roundhouse right to the top of his head, knocked him to the linoleum floor.
"You fucking hit your father!"
Joe, still wearing the heavy work shoes, kicked Americo, who only loved him, in the ribs. Gloria and the kids shrieked. There was a roaring in Americo's ears. Dazed, he tried to cover his head, gasping at the pain, tasting blood where he'd bitten through his lip. Yet, in some dark and secret place, Americo knew he'd won. He'd diverted his father's rage. And a part of him, floating beyond the reach of thetattoo of kicks and punches, a part of him was happy.
"I'm calling the cops!" Gloria screamed rushing for the phone by the bathroom door. Joe tore it out of her hands and threw it into the bathtub. In the moment, Americo was up, his brothers holding him, moving him toward the stairs. His father lunged again, but the attack was half-hearted, the storm passing. Americo was in the tunnel ascending. He heard his mother and father cursing each other, heard his own sobs ,and then Thomas' trembling wail: "I hate you! I hope you die!”
A rooster crowed. Americo jolted awake. Gray light seeped past the thick curtains draped over the windows. He watched his brothers sleeping, their pumping hearts already healing, he knew preparing to love their father again.
"Not this time," Americo thought. "Not now."

Continued