him and straddled my bike.
He snuffed out a couple of breathy laughs. “Maybe you outta go’n check on’em. Tell’m I’m back here waitin’.”
“You can knock on the door, ya know,”
“Rather not,” he stated, bluntly. There was a pause. He reached back and knocked two knocks on the door. His eyes glared at me.
I cycled away, around the shrubs and onto Cascade. And then something odd interrupted my journey. Just as after I rounded the corner, a whisper came from behind me, “Rosie.” I spun around. No one. So I proceeded ahead.
“Rosie!” The whisper came again.
This time I saw a little shrub shivering. A white plump hand shot out. “Help me outa’ere.”
I shifted my eyes from side to side. No one else was around except Mr. Primivera rocking on his porch a few houses down. My bike clanked down onto the cement. I grabbed hold of the hand and yanked.
“Ah!” I grabbed ahold of his forearm with both hands, and using my entire one-hundred and five pounds of flesh and bones, I broke a short rather portly human out through the branches.
“Hog! What the heck you doin’ in the Lombardo’s shrubs?” I demanded.
“Listen here, Rosie,” he whispered. He pulled me down, close to his face. “Been followin’ Mugga. He’d been goin’ house to house all mornin’ and then started up again after mass.”
“So, what’s it to you?”
“Don’t know, yet. He’s been talkin’ to all his friends, but none’a dem been comin’ out with’m.”
I didn’t know Hog all that well, only from school and CCD. He and I were in the same grade and had ended up in the same class the previous year—the “B” class. Char was in the “A” class, the one with all the smart stuffs. But, me and Hog, we weren’t good enough. Actually I was surprised to see Hog even in the “B” class. He always had a kind of dumb look about him, not to mention he slept in class all the time, but regardless, when he was awake, he took a liking to talking to me. Couldn’t say I really liked him all that much, but then again I barely knew him.
Hog’s family was big time in the “biz” as he called it. They were real “big time.” I could tell Hog wasn’t lying, because on my way to Char’s I’d biked past his house on Baker Street—the less steep, though rather lack-luster route up Union hill. And Hog’s dad always had the latest cars. I mean he, like, changed out cars two, sometimes three, times a year.
“Listen here, Rosie,” Hog still whispered, “I gotta feelin’ Mugga’s up to no good.”
“Mugga’s always up to no good, dummy.”
He tilted his square head to the side and glared his puppy eyes at me.
“Go home, you spud.” I swiveled and kept on down Cascade.
I only walked my bike about three yards before hearing short-gaited pattering feet rush up behind me. “Rose, listen here.”
“Damn it, Hog. Get outa here and stop snooping around my house.”
“I’m on’verge of a real breakthrough, ya see. I think Mugga’s turnin’ up a new business, been goin’ around tryin’ to employ people. Been’ fixin’ up dis garage by r’house, bought a dump truck and all. Been haulin’ wood chips and all that for the past week.”
“Oh man, well, that’s re-e-e-ally something, Hog.” I pointed. “Did’at shrub tell ya all that?” I swiveled my eyes forward. “I got to get to the shoe shop. Popi’s expecting me to take inventory.”
“All right, Rose, all right. I know ur’ lyin’ cuz its Sunday, and ya just wan’me outa ya hair. Just know ’dis ol’Moon, he came over two nights ago. Gave Mugga a real hard time and ripped his crucifix right off’is neck.” Hog patted two hard thuds on my back and raised his eyebrows initiating a cunning wide-eyed gaze.
Unimpressed, I stared at him. “What’s that got to do with me?”
Hog wrapped his arm around my back and leaned close. “I seen ya, Rose.” His eyebrows wiggled up and down. “Eye’n up that very same gold chain . . . at the reunion.”
“What’r ya talkin’ about Hog?” My eyes darted back and forth between his left eye, right eye, left eye, right eye, left eye. The smell of pie. The baby blue dress. The flicker of sunlight. To tell you the truth, I should have just asked Hog right then, who those guys were and what they were up to, but for some reason I found it necessary to lie.
“I seen ya. And, you know what I’m talkin’ about. You even asked ur Grandma ‘bout the crucifix. I seen ya point at it.”
“I don’t care about the chain,” I lied.
“Yea, well. I’m goin’ down to the Joint to check on the location of that very chain.” And with that, he stomped his way across the street and down the next alleyway.
The wind picked up. It felt like a nighttime breeze, though it was awfully early for that. But nighttime breeze or not, the way it weaseled through my hair relaxed me. I mean that’s the only sane reason I can come up with to explain why I followed him down that alley.
Chapter 3
Despite Hog’s stump-like stature, his little legs could move pretty quick. I’ve found this to be true of most short people. The tall lanky kind often move slowly, willowy, swaying in the breeze, but the short ones move with crafty agility, weaving in, out, and around any obstacle with ease—yet rather absent of finesse. Eventually, I caught up with Hog, but only with the help of my bike.
We strode up the alley and crossed Elm into another one. “You only take alley routes?” I asked.
“Yep.” His face kept forward, focused, and his arms pumped his stocky frame onward.
“Streets’re easier, ya know. No gravel. Or weeds. Or crap lying around.”
“Nah. Dis is fine.”
I hopped off my bike and walked it along. At the edge of the alley, Hog slapped his forearm across my shoulders, like Dad often did in the station wagon when he slammed for a stop sign.
He pointed to my bike. “Set it down,” he whispered.
I leaned it against the fence while Hog peered around the corner.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Desolate,” he responded.
How the heck did he know that word? I wondered.
The Joint was vacant. In those days, the Mahoningtown train station, otherwise known as the Joint, was the hang-out for the guys. Now, it’s just a big patch of grass. Then various assortments of Italian ragazzi lurked on its benches and squatted in its shadows—smoking, cussing, drinking and, of course, having a damned good time. I’m still envious of those picturesque scenes I never had the luck or audacity to belong in.
“Wonder
