so down I go.”
He gulped wine. Connie said, “He’s talkin’ so much he’s dry.”
“Ten feet,” Freddie continued. “Even in August it’s cold like ice in that hole. You press your fist against the side and it gets numb. Am I right, Anj?”
“Always cold in a hole,” Angie said.
“Next thing I know I hear the dirt slidin’. Slidin’ like somebody’s pushin’ it, not like it’s fallin’ by itself. I turn my head to look and the dirt gets in my eyes, so now I’m blind. But I know what’s goin’ on, all right.”
Freddie’s color changed, as if a wash of black ink had been brushed over his face. Angie poured more wine for him. The apple slice in front of him was browning.
“I get down on my hands and knees and put my arms around my head to make an air pocket,” he continued softly. “So’s I can keep breathin’ awhile, you know?”
He demonstrated, putting his head on the table. He stayed in place so long the top of his head went pink.
Connie snapped him out of it by saying, “You should have joined the union.”
He lifted his head. “Damn the union!”
I swallowed. “Then what?”
He grinned evilly. “What could I do but wait? I wait for the bastards to dig, I listen for the shovels. Tons of dirt on my back, I can’t move an inch.”
He leaned toward me, his face inches from mine. “Darkness,” he said, the word riding to my face on a wave of wine. “Darkness like no man knows. You think you know what darkness is? Only corpses know. You shut off the light in the bedroom but the light from the street shines through the curtains. You can go in the closet but the light still comes in under the door.” He prodded my shoulder. “If you wake up at three in the morning don’t you see the whole room, the pictures on the walls clear as day?”
“The light bothers him at night,” Vic said. Freddie snapped him an irritated look for interrupting his narrative.
“They waited till they thought I was dead,” Freddie said. “But oh, how I fooled ’em! When I heard the shovels comin’ close I made like I was dead. The lousy shit foreman puts his hands around my waist to pull me up and I turn around and punch him, boom! Knocked him out cold.”
“Your language,” Connie commented.
“He’s heard worse,” Freddie said, the spooky mood dissolving with the end of his story. Actually, I’d rarely heard vulgarity from either of my parents. Freddie drained his wine glass and held it out for more.
“That happened twice?” I said. He nodded. “How come you fell for it twice?”
Vic roared with laughter. Angie hid his face so Freddie wouldn’t see him smile. Freddie waved me off.
“Ah, you got nothin’ to worry about. You’ll go to college and work in an office and have soft hands like a prince.”
“Wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world,” Angie said.
“Feel these hands.” Freddie cupped his hands around my elbow, then dragged them down toward my wrist in a snaky spiral. “That’s how a man’s hands should feel.”
Connie said, “All your hard hands ever got you was buried twice. The second time you were unconscious, you almost died. So shut up.”
“But I got out!” he exclaimed, releasing my wrist. “By Christ, I got out!” Blood tingled back into my hand.
“Calluses,” Connie said wearily. “Your tongue oughta have calluses, the way you talk. And in the end you joined that union.”
“They made a rule,” Freddie said meekly. “You can’t fight a rule.”
Connie clapped her hands. “Enough. All of you put on clean shirts, we have to be there in twenty minutes.”
“Where?” Angie asked, his brow knotting. “What’s going on?”
“The christening party for the new baby down the block. I told you about it last week.”
“Another present,” Angie moaned. “You take care of it?”
“We’re giving money. Freddie, go home and change.” She spoke as if he were a child. He climbed off the bench without thanking her for supper and cracked Vic across the back of his head with three knuckles.
“Don’t be so scared of dirt, Mr. All-Star.”
Vic rubbed his skull and said, “Let’s compare bankbooks in a year.”
The house with the baby was near the train, a sister house to my grandfather’s. The only differences were green shutters instead of black ones, and a slightly less ornate wrought-iron fence in front.
The family’s name was Caruso. They lived on the second floor, above the new mother’s parents. As we entered the vestibule a strong, soupy odor filled our nostrils, but that smell was displaced by the tang of laundered diapers as we climbed the stairs.
I stayed close to Vic as we made our way across the crowded flat, a porpoise following a ship. He shook hands with people, dutifully pecked hairy-faced women on the cheek, and introduced me with the word, “S’mynephew.”
He got us soda in paper cups. We sat on a long couch, crinkling the plastic slipcovers. The place was so jammed with covered furniture that it would have seemed crowded with no people in it. Even the long windows lent no sense of space — they were veiled in white fishnet curtains that were rough to the touch, like screens. They billowed at the faintest breeze.
I sipped my soda and gagged. “This went bad, Vic, it’s sour,” I whispered.
He sipped from my cup. “It’s fine.”
“That’s not what Coke tastes like.”
“You dope. You never had cream soda? Hey, look at this guy comin’ in now, he’s a real character. Junkman. Lives across the street from us.”
Mel hadn’t told me about Zip Aiello. He was short and wide-hipped and his thinning brown hair was slicked straight back. His mouth was set in a severe pucker, as if the tang of lemon juice were on his tongue.
He made his way toward us, hands deep in the pockets of his loose gray pants. Vic introduced me and Zip went into a nodding routine, as if some biting, ironic truth had been whispered into his ear by his Creator. I lifted my hand to shake with him, but his balled fist never left his pocket.
“I seen you from the window,” he said.
Vic winked at me. “So what’s happening, Zip?”
Zip shrugged. “Found a little copper,” he said casually. “Thirty, forty feet. Leaders. Guy was throwin’ ’em out, puttin’ up new ones. Amoolinum.”
“Aluminum?”
“Whatever. What are you, an English teacher?”
