THE EVIL THAT MEN DO
PART 5
It would be six weeks before Scaramucci approached me again.
It was a Saturday afternoon and I was stepping out of the bus at my stop along the plaza Risorgimento, my school year all but complete. The sky was clear, a soft cerulean blue you only see in paintings on the frescoed walls of the Vatican. There was a light wind coming in from the South, blowing bits of paper along the sidewalk as easily as it tossed the leaves and dirt about; there’s no discriminating in Nature it seems, that’s something only people do to each other. The sidewalks were busy with shoppers and tourists, all of them dressed for the weekend with their smart shoes and high fashions; cars on the streets leaned on their horns every now and then; and there was the constant sputter of little Vespa scooters weaving in and out of traffic. It was warm. Summer would be here soon and all I could think of was that I’d be done with school in three weeks.
And then what? I asked myself.
I hadn’t thought too much about what I’d do once I finished school. In fact, I’d never really given it any thought at all. It was something I knew I was going to have to discuss with Momma and Zia: I don’t think they expected me to work in the shop for the rest of my life; at least, I hoped they didn’t. It wasn’t something I was planning on doing myself. It was well aware that it was all I knew, but it wasn’t something I was passionate about. There was nothing I could think of that I was passionate about.
And then, there was my compulsory service in the Army to look forward to.
I didn’t see him until it was too late; he was right there in front of me, eating the last three bites of a deli sandwich. I stopped. He smiled down at me and put an arm around my shoulder, squeezing me like we were old friends who hadn’t seen each other in years. I shrugged him off, or at least, I tried to, but he just held me tighter, smiling as he guided me to the other side of the plaza Risorgimento. We were across from the trams, trains, and buses, out of sight of any passersby, or possible witnesses, I realized. He invited me to sit down and then put his foot up on the bench, leaning forward. I could see the paisley lining of his pin-striped jacket as he unbuttoned it, the watch chain and fob in the pocket of his waistcoat—the suspenders underneath where they buttoned to his pants.
And I could see his gun.
“Look, I’ve been looking out for you since you were a kid, you know?” He’d been talking around the last bites of his sandwich and I had a hard time understanding what he was saying. I’d just nodded instead, looking around with a sense of anxiousness and unease.
“Wait. What? No you haven’t,” I said, just at that moment realizing what he was saying. The only time he’d ever spoken to me was that day outside of the elevator in front of signora Rabizzi’s apartment. And now he was claiming he was a secret benefactor of some sort—or something like that.
“Momma, Zia, and signora Rabizzi have been the only ones watching over me for as long as I can remember. I don’t remember you being there,” I added, wondering for the first time if I was in trouble just for being the son of someone he used to know.
“You don’t remember me being there?” He waved his arms in the air and did a little pirouette as he smacked himself on the forehead, laughing, putting his foot back up on the bench. He crossed his arms on his lap as he looked at me, grinning.
“Go ahead, ask me when that was,” he said.
“When it was?”
“Yes. Ask me when it was.”
“Okay. When was that?” I said.
“When you were in your crib and I was doing your Zia,” he said with another laugh. “You know what that means, don’t you? I remember you were watching us—you liked watching us, didn’t you?—because I was giving it to her good—the way she likes it—and you kept on watching. But then you started bawling, and I held her down so she couldn’t get to you. You want a wild ride? Just try holding a woman back from her kid.”
“She’s not my mother!” I made to stand up but he pushed me back down again.
“What’s the matter? You don’t like me?” he said, suddenly serious. Menacing. “Well, you wouldn’t be the first one, would you? But you got a mouth, too, did you know that?” he said, pulling a cigarette out of a package he had in his shirt pocket. He offered me one and I shook my head. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a zippo. He looked around as he lighted the cigarette, and a part of me told myself he was looking for witnesses.
“What’re you gonna do with the rest of your life, Lorenzo? Do you even have a plan?” he asked, swinging his arms around as if he were trying to take the whole world into his arms. “I mean look at this place. You ever see a city as beautiful as this? No. Of course you haven’t; you’ve never been anywhere, have you? What am I thinking?”
“I can’t think about going anywhere. I have to register.”
“Register? For what?” he asked.
“The Army? Compulsory service? Didn’t they have that when you were younger?”
“There’s that mouth again,” he said. “But no, we had a little thing they called the War,” he added with another grin. “Ever heard of it? It was in all the papers.”
“They told me you didn’t serve.”
“Who told you that?” he asked.
“Zia,” I said.
“Of course she did, the bitch,” he said, taking his foot off the bench and standing up straight. He turned his back to me and for a moment I wondered if he was daring me to try and run away
“Are you saying that you did?” I asked instead.
“Yeah, of course I served.,” he said, turning to look at me. “I was with the Resistance. Me an’ your Ol’ Man. I told them I was a Conscientious Objector. Do you know what that is? I told them I was a Jehovah’s Witness if you can believe that, and they told me I didn’t have to go to war. I could stay in Rome and do for them what I was doing for myself anyway. Your Ol’ Man did the same. We ran this town.”
“What about signora Rabizzi’s husband?”
“What about him?”
“Did you have anything to do with him being sent to Russia?”
“Me? Why the hell would you think I had anything to do with that? Is that what they told you?”
“Signora Rabizzi thinks that’s what happened—”
“Of course she does.”
“She said you could’ve helped him, but you didn’t.”
“That’s not true. He wanted to go. He was a patriot. He was a fool, if you ask me. Got a gorgeous wife at home, and he volunteers to go to Russia? Who does that? He said he didn’t want to owe me.”
“Owe you what?”
“The same thing everyone else around here owes me: his life,” he said, nodding. He looked at me closely, maybe trying to figure me out, or understand where I stood with his version of the past. I don’t think he understood that I wasn’t concerned about the past. My father was dead. It was a s simple as that. Whether he was the man who killed him or not, I couldn’t say, but if I had to ask him anything, I’d ask him why.
“My father never owed you his life, did he? You owed him. That’s what Zia told me.”
“She did, did she? Why would she tell you something like that?”
“Isn’t it true?”
“Don’t believe everything you hear, kid—especially from those three.”
He sat down beside me. I could see the fine lines and wrinkles of his face, a few small scars on his jawline. He watched as a train came into the station. He smiled and followed it with his eyes as it screeched past us, the brakes screaming in protest. There was a blast of wind, along with the acrid, wafting, smell of metal on metal; the sparks riding on the gathering breeze.
“How much do you think that thing weighs?” he asked me, still watching it.
“Never thought of it,” I said purposely.
“We wanted to take over the Union a few years back, but we never could. Now, they’re all trying to organize themselves into one big Union. Do you know how hard it is to take over a union in the first place?”
“Haven’t thought much about that, either,” I said.
“I suppose no one told you about the day your father died?” he said, changing the subject.
I shook my head.
“Do you want to know? I was there when it happened.”
“My mother said he was murdered.”
“I’ll bet you she says I did it, too,” he said with a shake of his head.
“Did you?” I asked, wondering if maybe I’d gone too far. I could see him stiffen, almost as if he was offended I should think he was responsible.
“She says that because that’s what everybody says happened. But they weren’t there, were they? She wasn’t there. I was.”
I shook my head. I mean, as much as I wanted to know what happened to my father, I knew Scaramucci wasn’t the man to tell me what happened; not the truth, anyway. He’d tell me his version of what he thought I wanted to hear, sure, but it would be what he wanted me to tell me, and what he wanted me to hear. I knew better than to let myself trust the man.
As much as I wanted him to tell me, I shook me head.
“I don’t need to know what happened,” I said after a moment. “I don’t remember him, so what does it matter to me how he died, or who did it?” I said.
He was silent for a moment.
“If you were my kid, I’d slap you for saying that,” he said, grabbing me by my shirt and pulling me closer. He looked at me, and for a moment I thought maybe he was going to hit me. “What kind of a kid doesn’t want to know how his father died? Or who did it? Your father would be spinning in his grave if he heard you talking like that,” he added, throwing me back against the bench.
“That’s the whole point, isn’t it? He’s in his grave,” I said. “I don’t have a father.”
He was silent for a moment, took a last pull on his cigarette and then stubbed it out on my knee. I screamed and made to push his hand away, but he grabbed my knee with his other hand and looked me in the eye. He squeezed my leg and I tried to pull his hand off my leg, screaming at the pain. He punched me in the chest—a short, quick, jab—and I fell against the bench. I could feel tears in my eyes as I gasped to catch my breath.
“Things are going to change around here,” he said. “Do you know what that means?”
I shook my head. He pulled his gun out and pressed it to my forehead.
“If you say you don’t have a father and you don’t care, then why am I protecting you? Tell your mother the price just went up. Do you know what that means? When she asks you why, you tell her what you just told me. Tell her it’s your fault.”
He pushed me back against the bench and stood up, looking down at me and shaking his head.
“I’m glad your father’s dead. He’d die of shame if he heard you talking like that,” he added, putting his gun back in the holster. “You tell your mother I want a hundred lire next week. If she doesn’t give it to me, tell her I’m not going to do anything to her, or the shop, but to you. Do you understand me?”
I nodded.
He stepped up to me and grabbed me by the shirt again. I could feel three of the buttons popping off, watched them rolling on the ground, telling myself I had to pick them up or Momma would be angry.
“I asked you if you understand?”
“Yes,” I managed to say, the tears in my eyes streaming down my cheeks.