Alligator Bayou (11 page)

Back at the grocery John Wilson, the saloon keeper, is standing in the doorway.

I touch the tip of my cap. “Good day, Mr. Wilson.”

Mr. Wilson smirks, but doesn’t say a word. And doesn’t move.

“Could we get by, please, sir?”

He moves aside.

Cirone and I slip past him.

“You open it?” Francesco’s talking to old Pat Matthews, loud with anger. I’m surprised; we’ve always been on good terms with Pat. He makes himself useful doing odd jobs here and there. Francesco’s hired him lots of times. We’re all usually real gentle with him ’cause he’s sick in the head from his war days. “Who tell you do that?”

“The box was sitting there,” says Pat. “What’s the harm? It ain’t nothing personal. It just came off the train.”

“Somebody tell you, eh? Somebody nose in my business? How much they pay you?” Francesco picks up the broom from behind the weighing counter. “You go back to Milliken’s Bend.” He chases Pat out the door.

Mr. Wilson moves aside obligingly as Pat passes. He turns to face into the store. “I can’t hardly believe my eyes. If I ain’t mistaken, you just chased a white man with a broom. And I ain’t mistaken. Pat’s old and broken-down with the drink and all—but he was a soldier. You either color blind or plum crazy.”

“This trouble no concern you,” says Francesco.

“Got troubles, huh? That’s what you people attract: trouble.” His upper lip curls at the words
you people
.

“You stand in doorway,” says Francesco. “Fifteen minutes you stand there. Why?”

“So no one comes in.”

“You block business.”

“Now you got the idea.” Mr. Wilson taps his temple. “You block my business, I block yours.”

“I no understand.”

“I just bet you no understand. Play dumb with me? Where’s this lemon stuff you’re thinking of selling?”

“Ah, I understand. You sell whisky. I no sell whisky.”

“You bet your sorry ass you no sell whisky. It takes a permit to sell whisky. Y’all ain’t got no permit.”

“I no sell whisky.”

“That’s right. You got no permit. You got no government tax stamps. That’s how it works in Louisiana. Ain’t nothing like that country you come from. We regulate. Understand?”

“I no sell whisky.”

“You sell one drop of that lemon stuff and I’ll get Sheriff Lucas in here so fast, you won’t have time to cock a gun.”

“You see gun here? No gun here.”

“Good.”

“You want vegetable? Fruit?”

“No.”

“Then you leave my store.”

“If I hear…”

“I no sell whisky.”

“You got the chorus right. Go back to your goats now. Drink that stinky milk. Eat that rotten cheese. Use just one barrel of flour to make miles of that crap you eat—those wormy strands. Don’t buy nothing from nobody. That’s fine. We don’t need your money. We can get through these hard times without dirty money from dirty foreigners. But listen good.” He points a finger at Francesco’s nose. “Ain’t that much business these days—and ain’t no one going to stand for you stealing theirs.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Wilson.”

Mr. Wilson leaves.

Francesco turns to us. “Never go in his saloon,” he shouts in Sicilian.

“We don’t go in saloons,” I say.

“Don’t talk back to me.” He slams his hand on the weighing counter. “Get to work. We have to fill the pint bottles with
limoncello
. It’s business time.”

“You just promised Mr. Wilson you wouldn’t sell it,” says Cirone.

“I promised I wouldn’t sell whisky.
Limoncello
isn’t whisky. And I’ve already got orders for almost all of it. Get to work.”

“I’ve got to go mail my present for Rocco,” I say.

Francesco looks at me. “All right. We agreed on that. But hurry.”

eighteen

“W
e’re not Protestants.” Carlo chops potatoes on the big board.

I’m standing beside him, peeling onions. Rosario sits with his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. Francesco and Giuseppe are out on the porch talking. We have to hurry, Cirone and me. We have to get Carlo and Rosario on our side before Francesco comes in. It’s already afternoon. The Fourth of July is going to pass us by.

“It’s a birthday party,” says Cirone. “The birthday party of this country. It has nothing to do with religion.”

“Then why is it at a church?” says Carlo.

“The graduation party was at the church,” Cirone says. “And we went to that.”

Good for him. He’s getting good at arguing.

“That was different,” says Carlo. “That was the school’s party.”

“This is the country’s party.”

“Stop!” Rosario looks up. His eyelids droop as if he’s got a headache. “We’re not going to that church.”

“We went there before,” says Cirone. “And we had a good time.”

“Stop!” This time it’s Francesco. He comes into the room and takes a seat. Giuseppe’s right behind him.

“Onions.” Carlo holds out his hand.

I push two peeled onions toward him and work on a third.

“We were just talking about the Fourth of July,” says Cirone in a reasonable tone.

“I know exactly what you were talking about,” says Francesco. “We’re not going to the Protestant church.”

“The American birthday party,” says Cirone. “That’s all it is. And we’re Americans.”

“I’m not,” says Giuseppe. “And neither are you two boys.”

“It’s a picnic,” says Cirone.

“You want a picnic?” says Carlo. “I’m making a
frittata.”

“No,” says Cirone. “They don’t eat
frittata
at a picnic. They eat—”

“Stop!” Francesco slaps the table. “You heard Carlo.”

“Besides,” says Carlo, “we’re having our own party.”

“We can’t have our own party on the Fourth of July,” says Cirone. “It’s an American party—it’s got to be at an American place.”

I’m stunned. Cirone’s never acted like this. Downright belligerent.

“I didn’t mean today,” says Carlo. “Next Saturday is July fifteenth. Perfect for the
festa
of Santa Rosalia. A good Catholic celebration.”

“We can’t do a
festa
then,” says Rosario. “That’s the day of the town ball and tournament. We’ll have lots of extra work.”

“Right,” says Francesco. “We’ll postpone a week. Santa Rosalia won’t mind.”

“Beppe and Salvatore always come,” says Carlo. “Someone’s got to tell them.”

I perk up in spite of myself. “I’ll go to Milliken’s Bend.” Beppe and Salvatore are the only other Sicilians in this part of Louisiana; just being around them makes all of us happy. Beppe is married to the sister of Francesco and Giuseppe and Carlo. She’s back in Cefalù. Salvatore is Beppe’s son. He’s ten years old. All through the winter we saw them every Saturday, but now we haven’t seen them since before spring planting.

“Look at all you,” Cirone bursts out. He puts his hands together as if in prayer and shakes them furiously at Carlo and Francesco and all of them. “You don’t get excited at a Fourth of July festival—a huge thing—but you jump with joy at some dumb saint’s
festa
. You act like we’re still back in Sicily.”

“We don’t forget the saints,” says Carlo. “No matter where we are.”

Giuseppe walks toward Cirone, glaring. “And we never forget we’re Sicilian.”

“All right, all right,” says Rosario. He steps in front of Cirone. “That’s settled. Carlo’s making a picnic. Let’s all help.”

And so we carry a table out near the edge of the woods and we spread a tablecloth on it and set out the plates and forks and knives and spoons. We eat
frittata
under the broiling sun. And hot watermelon.

“I hate this,” whispers Cirone to me in English.

“Frittata?”
I whisper back. “What’s wrong with
frittata?”

“They call it omelet here.”

“Omelet?”

“It’s a French word. From New Orleans. French is better than Sicilian.” He blows through his lips in disgust. “This ain’t how it’s done in America.”

“How’s it done?”

“Barbecue. You got to see for yourself.” Cirone stands up. “Can we go get ice cream?” he says loudly in Sicilian to no one in particular.

“We’ve got cold
limoncello
back at the house,” says Carlo.

“Ice cream is what you eat on the Fourth of July,” says Cirone.

“Like you know all about it,” says Rosario.

“My friends told me.”

And I’m scanning my memory. Charles and Ben and Rock—they never said anything about ice cream in front of me. What’s Cirone talking about?

“Ice cream would go down easy in this heat,” says Francesco. “I’d like some.”

“No, I mean just Calogero and me. Can we go? It’s a holiday for everyone in the whole country. Let us go get ice cream.”

“Go on,” says Francesco. “Here.” He takes a nickel out of his pocket. “Have fun. And bring back a penny.”

I take the nickel.

Cirone glances at me sideways. But I don’t get why.

We walk toward town. There’s music coming from somewhere near Depot Street. But once we’re out of sight of the men, Cirone turns off the path.

“Where are you going?”

“The church,” says Cirone in English. “The ice cream saloon is closed, anyway. Everything closes on the Fourth of July.”

“You’ll get in trouble with Rosario,” I answer in English. “And I’ll get in worse trouble with Francesco.”

“They told us to go have fun. They didn’t tell us not to go to the church.”

“Are you crazy? We both know what they meant. And they know we know it. Besides, you said we were going for ice cream.”

“There’ll be ice cream at the church. All we have to do is eat some and we can answer—we went out for ice cream.” Cirone looks at me in disgust. “By the way, Mister Pocket-the-Money, what happened to the four pennies Francesco gave us last time?”

“I spent them.”

“On what?”

“Postage. I didn’t think it would be that much. I sent a birthday present to Rocco. I’m sorry. You can have the four cents this time.”

“You don’t tell anyone we went to the church, and we can share these four cents.”

“All right.” My heart is beating hard. “Maybe we should bring something.”

Cirone stops. “Like what?”

“We didn’t sell all the
limoncello
pints yesterday.”

“Good thinking.”

We turn again and go to the grocery. It’s locked, of course. But it’s easy to get in through the high rear window. I give Cirone a boost and he’s up and inside fast.

“Here.” He holds a pint out the window.

I take it.

“Here.” He holds out another.

I take it.

“Here.”

“Francesco will notice. Two’s enough.”

“Just take it.”

I do.

He climbs to the window and jumps out onto the ground.

I look around. “We can’t walk through town with bottles in our hands.”

Cirone takes off his shirt and wraps them in it. “It’s too hot for a shirt, anyway.”

Nee-haw
. Bedda peeks around the grocery corner and bolts over to greet us.

“You are such a bother.” I push Bedda in the side. “Go on home.”

We walk and she follows.

“Don’t look back,” I say. “She’ll go away if we don’t look at her.”

But she doesn’t go away.

“We can’t go to a picnic with a goat. Here, hold these.” Cirone hands me the bundle of
limoncello
pints. He races at Bedda shouting, “
Via
, via—away!”

“Well, look who’s here.” Three boys come down the street. It’s the bullies. The one who just spoke is the one who kicked my cap from my hand.

“With a goat this time.”

“She’s probably their girlfriend.”

They laugh.

Cirone backs up till he’s half behind me.

Bedda follows him, but the tallest bully quick catches her around the neck. She bucks. He’s big and strong, though; he holds on. “Want your girlfriend back, boys?”

“What are you ready to do to get your girlfriend back? Huh?” says another bully. “Y’all going to shoot us?”

“Yeah. We know about that noisy one. The liar who runs the grocery store. He shot a little darkie boy just for stealing a watermelon.”

They’ve got it all wrong. Francesco didn’t shoot Jerome the Thief. Giuseppe just went “bang” with his finger.

“And that other one—the one who don’t speak any English at all. He shot the old soldier from Milliken’s Bend. He shot a white man!”

Who’s spreading these lies?

“No gun today, boys?” says the one holding Bedda. “Well, if you want her back, you got to pay. You got money?” His arms are around her neck. Will he strangle her?

I put my hand in my pocket.

“Whoa!” shouts one of the boys. “Stop right there. You chunk a rock at us and y’all’ll be sorry. We’ll pitch a fight you ain’t never going to forget.”

I slowly take the nickel out of my pocket and roll it in the street.

The tall bully’s eyes go wide. He lets go of Bedda and chases the nickel.

We run, Cirone and Bedda and me. When I look back, they’re gone.

“That was dumb,” says Cirone in English. “Now they’ll try to get money off us all the time. And we ain’t got a penny to give back to Francesco. Dumb!”

“What would you have done?”

“Same dumb thing you did.”

I laugh, but I’m not happy. “I’ll tell Francesco I lost the penny.”

“Good.”

“If you tell him you stole the
limoncello.”

Cirone spits in the street. “He ain’t going to notice the
limoncello
. Stop whining.”

I’m just jittery because of those bullies. “Why are we speaking English?”

“I’m sick of being Italian, Calogero. I been thinking about it since you read me those newspapers. I been remembering. I can’t stand being different. I can’t stand it no more. I’ve gone my whole life without friends because I was afraid.” He looks down. His bottom lip trembles just the slightest.

All those years before I came, Cirone had no one. I swallow and throw my arm across his skinny bare shoulders.

He shrugs me off and looks me in the face. “Rosario and Carlo and Francesco and Giuseppe, they were like a wall around me. Well, I ain’t staying inside no wall no more. I’m different now. I got friends. And I don’t care who beats me up—I’m keeping them. I’m speaking English outside the house.”

“All right. Me too.”

“I’m going to eat American food every chance I get.”

I love Sicilian food. But this is important. “Me too.”

“I’m going to act American. I’ll become an American citizen.”

“Maybe I will, too.”

Music comes from ahead, from the direction of Patricia’s church. A brass band.

“We can’t take Bedda to the church,” I say.

“We go back home now and we ain’t never going to get out again.”

I take off my shirt without unbuttoning it and slip it over Bedda’s head so that it hangs around her neck. Then I grab on to the shirt so that I’ve got her tight. The buttons won’t hold if she fights me. I pet her, to calm her.

Cirone laughs. “The both of us, half naked. What do you think they’ll do?”

“Guess we’ll find out.” I grin.

The church lawn is filled with people again. Some are at tables. Others have spread tablecloths on the grass and they’re sitting right there on the ground, eating. Some aren’t even using forks. Just picking up food with their fingers and talking and laughing.

“Now that’s a barbecue,” says Cirone. “This is America. Let’s be all-American for one afternoon.”

Patricia walks up the road as though she’s been on the lookout. There’re ribbons in her hair. Red, white, and blue, like the flag. Her legs stick out from under that old flowered dress, strong in the sunlight. I will be American for this girl. I will be anything she wants me to be.

“You sure jar my preserves.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

She laughs. “You came. No shirt. And a goat. But you came.” And she smiles.

Cirone unwraps the
limoncello
pints. “These are for your family. But you got to put them in the icebox before you drink them.”

Patricia gapes at the bottles. “Liquor? Y’all crazy? Can’t bring no liquor to church.”

Cirone shrugs. “We ain’t got nothing else to bring.”

“Y’all already done contributed two melons. But come on, follow me.” She leads us along the road and around to the far side of the church. There’s a rose trellis running half the length of the wall, covered with red blossoms so thick it looks like a green and red blanket. She disappears behind it and sticks out her hand. “Gimme.”

Patricia stashes those three pints somewhere behind the roses.

Cirone puts on his shirt. “Where’re the boys?”

“Follow the food smell and you’ll find them for sure.”

Cirone sniffs loudly and grins. “See you later.” He takes off.

Patricia puts out her hand again.

I go behind the rose trellis.

The dim air hangs dense with rose perfume. It makes me woozy.

Patricia takes the ribbons from her hair. She ties them together in a long string. Then she takes my shirt off Bedda and she ties Bedda to the trellis with her ribbons.

I put on my shirt and peer at her in the shady dark. I don’t know what to say. “How do you make sweet potato pies?”

She laughs. “Roast the biggest ones in the fire. Then peel them and squish them and add chopped pecans. And butter, if y’all got it. If not, milk. If not, it don’t matter. And sugar. Or, if you like the taste, molasses. Or skip it. Only thing matter is the pecans. Then put it all in a baked pie shell and stick it in the oven. Easy.”

“Much obliged.”

“So that’s how it is?”

“That’s how what is?”

“Ain’t you going to kiss me hello?”

And I do.

“Want to go out to the party?” she asks.

“No. I want to stay here, with you.”

She laughs, again. “Too bad for you.” And she leads me out to my first American Fourth of July.