from Popi, and a mint-green super ball.
Now that I had my own gloves we could have a real fight.
Weekly, sometimes bi-weekly, Angelo instructed me in boxing. He started teaching me when he started, a year and a half earlier. But since I was smaller and a girl, he used to give me the gloves. I felt lucky and angry by the whole process, and that was even before I recognized he couldn’t actually hit me like he is supposed to, because without gloves, he’d probably break his hand and my face simultaneously. But after I got his hand-me-down, we both had our respective sets of gloves, allowing us to have a proper fight.
Angelo leapt back down the stairs and entered the living room exhibiting his new footwork. He flailed his arms out to the sides and crossed them over each other in front of him, all while keeping up the Charleston-like feet. I stoically watched him approach—that’s what I did when I didn’t know what else to do. On about the third flail, his right arm swung back so far that he smacked the lamp on the end table. The lamp fringe fluttered to the side as it fell in slow motion. Angelo spun around and caught the lamp before it concluded the leap to its death.
I laughed so hard I had to brace myself on the wall. Grandma peeked her head around the corner from the kitchen before returning to whatever she was doing in there.
Angelo pulled himself together. He began his approach. I struck first. Left, left, right. Cover the jaw, keep the knees bent and the feet active. Stay aware, stay very aware. Deflect. Strike. Keep the feet active. Look in his eyes. Left, left, right. Feet active. Uppercut. Deflect. Take a hit. Respond. Look in his eyes. Stay aware. Stay aware. It would be a lie to say that I didn’t notice he was taking it easy on me. Angelo wouldn’t have dared to actually clock me a good one, and it’s not because he was merely avoiding the guilt he’d feel for hurting his kid sister. He was just kind, that’s all.
And that is when the injury happened. I’d dropped, free-falling, avoiding Ang’s left hook, and whacked my knee on the corner of the coffee table. The front door slammed shut. I’d ducked, again, under one of Ang’s cross-jabs and nailed him right in the gut.
Nicky clonked down the hall and looked into the living room. “Oh, come on. Stop teaching her to fight,” he insisted. “She’s gonna get herself in trouble one of these days. And, you know how that’ll look.”
“You jealous? You jealous, Nicky!?” Angelo taunted. “You jealous your kid-sister fights better than you?” He kept bouncing back and forth, alternating feet and brilliantly smiling.
Nicky swaggered past the still-frightened lamp.
“Come on, Nick. Hit me! Hit me, Nicky! Hit me!” Angelo taunted.
Nicky walked up to Ang, and with confident ease punched him right in the face. Nicky slammed him so hard that Ang actually spun in a circle before he smashed up against the mantle. Like ten of Grandma’s knick-knacks shattered on the floor.
Grandma shuffled in from the kitchen. “Angi ,what-a happen?”
She knew exactly what happened. Her head snapped over to Nicky.
Like all the Italians did, Nicky extended his hands and hunched his shoulders forward. “What?”
Grandma rested her fists on her hips, what was left of them anyway. She had evolved into a rather symmetrical cylinder.
“He asked me to hit’m,” Nicky continued. “So I did. What’s wrong with’at?”
Grandma turned to Angelo, extending her hands and hunching her shoulders forward. “You-a break-a the house. You-a be ashame-ed Angi!” She vigorously patted him on the side of the face—not quite a smack, but not exactly lovingly. “Clean up-a!” She shuffled back to the kitchen, her hand flapping above her head all the way.
Ang got back up from the floor. After I retrieved some frozen peas for his face, I lurked near the hallway door for a while, just watching. The room emitted bland badness like a gray cloud on a Sunday. Nicky brushed into me as he left, but Ang raked up all the ceramic pieces. I turned and meandered into the kitchen,
Grandma had her back to me. She was rifling with something. Her arms tensed up and released, tensed and released.
“What you doin’ over there?” I asked.
Grandma turned slowly toward the sink. As she swiveled, I saw the secret item. Lo and behold, it was a spray can of whipped cream. She’d been trying to put whipped cream on the pies? This was a big deal. Because Grandma made basically everything herself and wrinkled her lip at any kind of modern innovation. Grandma shook and squeezed that metal can in every possible way, but nothing happened.
“You’ve got to put your finger over the spout-thing.” I gestured. “And lean it to the left or right.”
She stuck out her bottom teeth and stared at me.
I made the hand motion at least fifteen times. Then, high-browed and wide-eyed, she put her finger up next to the spout-thing, and poof! White fluff, literally everywhere. It went all over her face, my face, the cupboards, the cantaloupe, the clean dishes, and the dish towels. The bottle spun on the floor. It filled up every crevice and chip in the grout. Grandma had pushed the spout-thing with such vigor that she’d ripped that sucker right off.
Cream-covered-face and all, Grandma dissolved into laughter. Her hand grasped my shoulder kind of swinging me about with her own laughter. I started to laugh too. I swiped a bit of cream off of my shoulder and ate it, which led Grandma to do the same.
Everything got dead silent while I waited for her to process the sensation.
Suddenly, Grandma—hand on my shoulder—looked straight into my eyes, her face grave. The pregnant pause had gripped my nerves. Her eyes opened wide and she said, “Isa-good!” We busted out into even greater laughter.
I loved Grandma—the world’s greatest optimist. She pretty much always made a good time out of anything, even when she had to rewash the dishes, change her clothes, mop the floor, rinse the cantaloupe, wipe down the cupboards and replace the dish towels. I though it must have been nice to never get angry. I mean, I knew if Popi or Dad were in that kitchen what kind of fire-blazing situation they would create.
My mind snapped back to the present—the kneeler and my throbbing knee. I found it a real pain in the you-know-what to think I went through that whole fight with Angelo only to acquire a bruised patella. Nicky, on the other hand, just waltzed in and took the prize.
Guess life’s like that, I muttered to myself.
Luckily the kneelers were comfortably padded in St. Mary’s Church, unlike the cracked old wood ones at Madonna’s. I opened my eyes and looked ahead to the silent altar. The church was perfectly still, save two crows having an argument outside. I scanned over the pews. Carmine no longer sat up ahead of me. I concluded that he must have left when I got lost in the covering of whipped cream.
Footsteps echoed. I glanced over my left shoulder as two men entered a pew several rows back. Their olive skin and thick raven black hair gave them away—Sicilians. Both wore black suits with white button-down dress shirts. Italian guys who came straight from the Mother Land always left the top two buttons undone, making way for a plumage of rich and horrifying, black chest hair. American-born Italians kept their chests covered. But, what could I say? I too was Sicilian, and Popi was one of those chest-hair exhibitionists.
I looked back again. The Sicilians sat oddly close,
