Music floated from outside of my grandparent’s house as I pulled up. One of my old uncles sang a classic Italian ballad from the backyard. I had the windows rolled down in my ’58 Cadillac Coupe Deville, trying to rid it of the smell of my cousin Adriano’s cheap cologne.
Another one of my cousins had gotten married, and for a man dressed in a pricy custom-made suit to attend the event, Adriano had no taste when it came to cologne. It was fucking offensive.
The thing about Italian families—they are usually large. It doesn’t matter how far down the line the cousin or whoever is. Fourth? Great-great? Still as close as first. Numbers don’t matter when it comes to family. A title is a title. Just like a leaf on a tree is still part of that tree, no matter how far from the root.
Bugsy once told me, “We don’t have friends. We have cousins.”
It seemed like the entirefamigliahad come out to celebrate my cousin Bianca’s wedding. There were too many people to keep count. They were vetted at the entry gate, and then led to an archway that led to the backyard. Guests were backed up, all trying to get to the source of the music at once.
Basically, Sunday dinner on a more lavish scale.
My grandparents had spared no cost when it came to this wedding. They had three daughters. Two were no longer living, and the third was dead to my grandfather in a sense.
Bianca’s mother had suffered a stroke and died not long after. My grandparents felt it was their duty to step in and take care of what my aunt couldn’t.
My mother hadn’t stepped foot in this house since a couple of days after I was born. My grandmother went to see her occasionally, but the relationship between my mother and grandfather was nonexistent. They didn’t speak. Hadn’t since she left his house and never looked back.
Neither one of them would tell me the reason. I got the feeling it had to do with me, but neither would speak on it.
One of my cousins had told me it had to do with my mother getting pregnant out of wedlock, but her husband had married her, so I couldn’t see my grandfather refusing to speak to her because of it. Not after all of this time.
I called my father “her husband” because he was never a father to me. He treated me like the bastard son of an enemy, so I never felt he deserved the title. It was earned, just like everything else in this life.
He was straight with the title, too. So that was how we addressed each other. Her husband. Her son.
My grandfather was more of a father to me, and after he heard the way her husband had been treating me when I was a kid from an older cousin, her husband stuck to himself, and we rarely spoke a word to each other.
My mother got the message. If there was something she needed help with, in regards to me, my grandfather handled it. He even changed my last name to his.
“Oh, mamma!” the cheer went up from the backyard.La la la la lafollowed right after.
I watched the flow of the crowd, already starting to clap even before they made it to the center of the celebration. I was watching for Bugsy.
After we returned from the desert, the night the moon was full and blood was spilled underneath it, there was already a message waiting for me atParadiso. My grandfather had sent an order, one word—home.
I was ordered to go straight to the Primo Club, a place where he frequently did business. After I’d met my grandfather there, we went straight from the club to his home, where he had me sit across from his desk. He eyed the tattoo on my neck and on my hand. He was a traditional man, stuck in traditional ways, and he always dressed the part. He didn’t like the tattoos on my body.
“You will go to Sicily,” he had said, his eyes hard on mine. “Until the situation can be taken care of.”
The situation. The bum that Bugsy had killed was connected, and he was making some men some serious cash. There were rules to consider, as well. A made man never touched another made man unless it was approved. The guy I’d killed, Garlic Breath, was an associate, but also an informant. The picture he’d taken was sent to all parties involved. I had a feeling my grandfather was going to argue that I didn’t actually kill the made man, Bugsy did. I killed the associate, who was not protected like a made man. Besides, he was a rat. I did them all a favor. Unless it brought some heat down on the family.
“With all due respect,” I’d said, sitting forward, fixing my suit and tie, “a man who runs is a coward. I refuse to run.”
We watched each other until he nodded once. “We will see how this goes.” Then he looked at his other underboss, Silvio, and nodded.
There would be men around me twenty-four/seven because of who the bum was and what he had meant to them. There was no use in arguing. My grandfather and I had conversations, but only if the lines of communication were open. He’d closed it with that nod.
Besides, arguing wasn’t allowed. Punishment was to be taken like a man. And to have men surround me constantly was the equivalent of serving time for a man like me.
It had been a week since that conversation, and my grandfather hadn’t said anything about it since. That could mean he was taking care of the situation, or it could mean something else—he was dealing with another situation that took his attention.
All five families were getting hit lately. One family blamed another, because there were things that tipped us off on each. The Scarpones were at the center of the distrust, even though they claimed to have nothing to do with what was going on. They were getting hit hard, too.
Silvio thought they were staging the hits on their own shit, just to make it look a certain way, but my grandfather didn’t believe they were that smart. He said only one man was smart enough to pull this off: Vittorio Scarpone.
Vittorio was the son of Arturo, the head of the Scarpones. Vittorio had had his throat slit years ago. His own father had ordered the hit. Vittorio didn’t kill a man named Corrado Palermo and his family when Arturo gave the order, after Palermo tried to slit Arturo’s throat.
There was just one issue with the theory that Vittorio Scarpone had arranged the mayhem that ensued: He was supposed to be dead.
