“That’s pazzu, Mamma. When is the next shoe going to drop?” It pleased Nick that she shared her secret with him, something she would not have done before. His mother’s face looked flushed with grief, making his stomach feel weak, as if he might puke any minute. He tried to fathom his parents’ past life, bounced around like cargo poorly fastened to the deck, leaving the fishing village, Sciacca, in Western Sicily for the port of Palermo, then Naples, the ocean liner hub for the Americas, dropped off like baggage in Brooklyn, the gateway to the United States, and eventually third class by rail to the San Francisco Bay Area with plenty of fish filling his nets, now more quicksilver than all the silver that had come their way after such a long journey.
“I shouldn’t have brought it up.” She smiled. “I don’t need your help. It’s your special day—I can’t believe you’re eighteen. My handsome son.” She patted him on the face. “How did you ever get to be six feet, Madonna?” She left him standing alone in the living room. He turned on the radio, hoping to catch some big band jazz, anything to lighten up his ‘special day.’
In the evening Gaetano instructed Nick to open the shed house. His crew had just arrived and he ordered his mates to step lively into the backyard, as if he were still on his purse seiner. His father twisted his bushy moustache, while the men brought in a makeshift table of long boards to be placed together over wooden horses, since the dining room table would not be long enough. Nick grabbed some of the heavier pieces under the watchful eye of his father.
Zia Concetta had joined her sister in the kitchen but Lucia ruled her domain without a cookbook on the shelf. Everyone in the family, even the neighbors, agreed that Lucia’s sardine sauce was the best. Maria, Zia Concetta’s dark-haired daughter, maneuvered around the kitchen, rinsing, peeling and chopping. Nick peeked into the kitchen to assess the assembly line of ingredients for a menu of varied antipasti, the primo, pasta alla Norma for the children and pasta cu li sardi for the adults, to be followed by the secondo, featuring platters of both veal and swordfish spiedini with spinaci and patate alla siciliana as contorni, rounded off with espresso, fruits, nuts and gelato for the children. Ziu Francesco had made his own red wine from Primitivo grapes. Nick’s uncle carried a wooden crate of jugs from his cellar into their house, placing it on the floor of the kitchen, his bambini, little Francesco and his sister, Vincenza, in tow, gawking at the piles of food.
As the guests settled around a table that now extended all the way into the living room, a parade of food followed. Nick felt it could have been a celebration for the feast of Santa Rosalia, judging by the excitement over the colorful display of food. He made it a point to be solicitous to the old Sicilian men, who reminded him of his father. He knew the fishermen did not want to mention aloud that their livelihood had just been abducted. That would be bad manners or worse, sfortuna—bad luck. No need for any malocchio, the evil eye, to ogle at Nick on his birthday. Instead, the fishermen spun tales and gestured their way through the past for Nick, tales of the Mediterraneo and the Pacific coast and how they were finally able to make good money in America, netting schools of sardines spotted in the dead of night by their telltale, phosphorescent glow.
Nick devoured their stories, suspecting they might be the last he would ever hear, eyeing his father at the head of the table as he sat in silence. He was amazed that his father’s expression revealed no anxiety, but then who wanted to lose face in front of guests? Nick kept up with their wine consumption and prayed nothing embarrassing would spill out from all the banter. He swore he heard whispers in Sicilianu about the missing fishing boats, when all of sudden everyone raised their glasses to joyful cries of Buon compleanu! Cent’anni! Nicolo—sicilianu-americanu! He felt self-conscious everyone was celebrating in his honor, just because he happened to have been born. Nick panned the faces of his parents, relatives and paesani. Narcissism got the better of him. He wanted to freeze this friggin’ Frank Capra moment for what it was worth.
After the espresso and Sambuca Manzi, Nick worked the table, lavishing attention on his uncle’s family, making the children, Francesco and Vincenza, giggle with light teasing. Cuginu Paul joined up with Nick when he went over to Maria. Nick held her hand. “Maria, you are a bella donna. I cannot believe my eyes. You have been sent from heaven to make the boys go wild.”
Maria poked him. “Pregu, Nicolo, you are embarrassing me in front of everyone. You and my brother have been drinking too much of Papà’s wine.”
“Come on, sis. Don’t be so snooty,” Paul interjected as he tugged her hair.
“Leave her alone, cuginu. I started it.”
“Why don’t we scram from here and hang one on?” Nick’s eyes brightened as Paul added in a low voice: “Maybe we’ll pick up a couple of broads for your birthday.” Maria got up in disgust and sat near her mother. “Let’s act like we’re looking for some more food in the kitchen and we’ll give everyone the slip. Whaddaya say, cuginu?” Paul blessed Nick’s forehead with wine like a priest spreading holy water in church.
“Sure, why not?”
The cugini hopped a bus on Columbus Avenue and zigzagged their way to Jack’s Tavern in the Lower Haight section, which was one of the few places in town that catered to Negroes. Nick looked around the crowded place dotted with cabaret tables lit by small table lamps, a cloud of smoke hanging over the customers’ heads and wafting its smell of nicotine mixed with a more pungent odor. It was cheaper to sit at the bar, so they plunked onto the bar stools, placing some cash on the counter. The Negro bartender gave Nick and Paul the once over but didn’t bother to proof them. The music set was just ending with a looser version of swing, not arranged like the big bands. Nick preferred swing any way it was played.
“What’ll you all have tonight?”
“A boiler maker,” Paul quipped as Nick frowned. “Ah, make that two for us.” Paul poked Nick in the ribs.
“You want it mixed, young man, or a shot and a beer.”
“Don’t mix it.”
“We already had a lot of vinu, Paul,” Nick exclaimed as the bartender stepped away to pull the lever on the tap beer.
“It’s your birthday, pal. We got a lot to celebrate.” They stared at each other in the oversized mirror hanging on the wall. The bartender placed the beers down and poured the whiskey. They clinked shot glasses and drank some. “Feels nice and warm inside, Nick. It’s been awhile since we spent some time together.”
Nick drank his beer watching his cousin and he thought about growing up without siblings, one of the many things that made him feel different in North Beach, filled with large families of Italian immigrants, first coming from Genoa and Tuscany, followed by Sicily and Calabria. Emotional ties between Paul and him went way back. His cuginu was more like a brother, replete with all the ribbing, but once out of grammar school, Nick wound up in Saint Ignatius High School run by the Jesuits and Paul, Samuel Gompers Trade School, and that’s when things changed.