Black Rabbit and Other Stories (2 page)

“I killed the rabbit,” I said.

“Don't be afraid of him,” she said. “He'll pay for what he did. He'll pay. Come with me.”

My grandmother took my hand and led me to the bathroom. She told me to wash the blood off my face. I washed my face and toweled it dry.

“Are you afraid?”

“No, I'm not afraid,” I said.

She took me back into the parlor. We passed the three old women sitting on the divan with their legs spread and their hands on their swollen bellies. My father still stood by the casket. This time he held
a wreath of red flowers at his chest. With his mouth wide open and his eyes shut tight, he looked like he was singing but I heard no song, only the rumble of the people, some weeping, many eating from steaming plates.

“Are you hungry?” asked my grandmother.

“No,” I said. “I'm not hungry,”

On the morning of his sixtieth birthday, Mike Crea got out of bed early and shaved off his moustache. Except for the time he shaved it to remove a growth on his upper lip, he had sported some sort of moustache since he was twenty. When he went down for breakfast, his wife Mufalda noticed nothing out of the ordinary. She wished him a happy birthday. He thanked her. Then, after a moment, she realized what he had done.

“Jesus, Mike. You shaved it.”

He said nothing. Truth was, he felt self-conscious about it. His upper lip looked too long. It was one of those lips that suited a moustache, that invited one.

“You look ridiculous,” she said.

“Oh, be quiet.”

She bared her teeth and let out a laugh.

It wasn't right, her reaction. How could she laugh at him? He didn't laugh at her the day she plucked her eyebrows and pencilled them back in. He didn't say anything.

“You'd better grow it back,” she said.

“Never.”

Her laughter reverberated in the kitchen.

He went upstairs to the bathroom, but though he sat on the toilet for half an hour he couldn't perform. Mufalda had sunk him like a bloated porpoise, and his bowels weren't moving as they should have been after breakfast. He stood up from the toilet, did up his pants,
and looked at himself in the mirror. He wasn't going to grow back the moustache, not under any circumstances. He didn't look bad; he looked younger, yes. But of course he had doubts.

He went to visit his mother Filippa that morning. She was eighty-three years old, crude and pungent. When she noticed the missing moustache she let fly the pepper.

“You were never good-looking. Not like your brother. He took after my side. You took after your miserable father.”

Indeed, relatives in private joked about how much Mike looked like his
mother
. The two were virtually twins, said some. Like mother like son, said others. He himself didn't note the resemblance, and perhaps not much should be made of it, but Mike's upper lip had been inherited from his mother and not his father, as evidenced in every family photograph. Mufalda had long ago stopped caring that Mike looked like his mother, though it must be said the moustache had much to do with this. Free of the moustache, the lip cried out its provenance.

“Ma,” Mike said. “Leave it alone. I don't need this today.”

“What you need is a good slap in the face to wake you up.”

“Ma—”

“You want coffee?”

“Okay.”

“Make it yourself. You know where everything is. And grow that damn moustache back. You make me regret you. That's the problem these days. People are vain. Even men. Men more than women these days. You're vain. You were never vain, and now that you're an old sack of shit you're vain. You think that you look younger without the moustache. But without the moustache you don't look younger. You look like a jackass. My son, the jackass. Go make the coffee, jackass. Go now.”

Mike walked away grumbling. He made coffee. He saw his reflection in the mirror over the kitchen sink and, turning his head this way and that, thought, I don't look so bad. I don't. I look good. Not bad at all for my age. My mother is senile. She doesn't know what she's talking about.

When he brought his mother a cup of coffee, she was laughing, her toothless mouth open and wet. Tears erupted from her small hard eyes and trickled down her leathery cheeks.

“Ma,” he said. “Enough.”

“Shut up.”

“Enough.”

“Shut up. Don't talk to me like that. Not to the woman who bore you without the assistance of a doctor. Dio, you had a head like a Sicilian eggplant. I don't know how I did it. And you talk back. Bend over here, let me slap your face, come on.”

“Ma—”

“You're a jackass.”

“I'm leaving.”

“Leave then, go on.” She smiled. “By the way, Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday, Mikey.”

After a week without the moustache, Mike got accustomed to the naked lip and ignored Mufalda's hectoring. Who did she think she was? He didn't bug her to let her leg hair grow, though he thought of it. He liked the hairy legs of a woman. He was sitting at the kitchen table one afternoon, eating a pear with a hunk of bread. Mufalda stared at him with her dark, dry eyes.

“What is it?” he asked. For a moment he thought she was about to riff on the moustache again. She'd been merciless. But by mocking him she just solidified his resolve. Nothing in the universe could make him grow it back, nothing.

“Joe Garzo passed away.”

“Joe?” The news startled him. He felt as though someone had punched him in the stomach.

Mufalda trembled and began weeping.

“My God,” said Mike. “I just talked to him the other day.” Joe had been in hospital several weeks with a diseased liver. Mike had visited twice, the last time three days ago; he'd found Joe jaundiced and
bloated, but in good spirits, joking about the nurses and such. Mike couldn't believe it. His jaws arrested. He couldn't believe that Joe was dead.

Mufalda sobbed; she had been close to her cousin Joe, though he was almost twenty years her senior. He had always been more like an older brother to her than a cousin. How unexpected. How utterly unexpected. Joe was one of the constants of Mike's circle, one of those people you assume will always be there. They've always been there. Mike shook his head. Joe was a fine man, a gentleman; he had been most respectful to the Creas over the years. His loss would be deeply felt.

“He'll be at Friscolanti's,” Mufalda said, wiping her tears.

Mike stared off into space.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes,” Mike said, distracted.

“Go get your dark blue suit on. Visitors will be received after two o'clock.”

Mike nodded. Dead. Dead. Just like that. One moment among the living, then death, then nothing. He took a final bite of pear and gathered up his napkin and scraps.

At Friscolanti's they were seated in the family section with a few other relatives. Joe's wife, daughters, and sisters occupied chairs adjacent to the casket, all of them in black. Vince, Joe's son, a small, neat young man, stood behind his mother, weeping.

How awful to lose your father, thought Mike; especially when he happened to be a good man. His own father had died at the age of fifty, a hard death, enduring stomach cancer for a year before succumbing, venting invective on his family. No wonder Mike's mother was the way she was. The man had dummied her, shaped her into something like himself. Mike was twenty then, engaged to Mufalda, but with no prospects. He recalled the black shroud that seemed to flutter around them. Nothing was right back then, and he hadn't been able to see
beyond that dark fabric. Such was life in Racalmuto, their hometown in Sicily. He believed that coming to Canada had saved his life.

Mike's son Che Che showed up after a while without his wife Rena. The two never appeared in public together. She was a cross, dumpy little woman with big haunches. When Che Che first brought her around Mike was taken aback. He thought his son could have done better. Che Che wasn't a brain surgeon but he was tall, hardworking. Probably like the old man in the bed, Mike thought. Anyway, he wouldn't suffer from jealousy. Mufalda had been a looker when she was young—Mike's jealousy had been tested on more than one occasion because of that. He wasn't considered in her league, and perhaps he wasn't, but he had been determined. And back then Mufalda had pitied him to some extent.

Che Che wore a pale blue suit that looked inappropriate, insubstantial. His wife must have chosen it. Further, he had grown a goatee that made his face look long and sombre. Che Che stood almost two metres tall. He was a mule of a worker and provided well for his wife and three children.

After he paid his respects to the Garzos, Che Che joined his parents.

“Sad, eh, cousin Joe?” Mike intoned.

“What can you do? Ma, how are you?” He leaned down and kissed her cheeks.

“I'm fine, son,” she said, peering at him. “That hair on your face is not you. Shave it off. A moustache, okay. But that stuff. Your father shaved his off. You didn't notice?”

Che Che's eyes widened.

“Pa—”

“Shut up.”

His son's mouth clacked shut, but his eyes widened further.

Mike felt like belting him. He wasn't too big to be belted, that big salami.

“Che Che, are you coming Sunday for
pranzo?
”

“No, Ma. I told you we were invited to Rena's mother's.”

“When's the last time you came, ah?”

“Leave him alone,” said Mike laughing to himself. “He has responsibilities.”

“Who asked you, you harelip?”

They were interrupted by the appearance of Grace, Mike's daughter. She was with her husband Lillo, a three-hundred-pound obstacle to Mike's felicity. Grace had always been ample, but perhaps encouraged by her obese and gluttonous husband, she had let herself go. Mike grimaced whenever Lillo came around; he held his tongue to maintain peace, but in his view Lillo was a pathetic slob of a man. Pathologically lazy, he had been on Worker's Compensation three years running for a variety of questionable ailments.

“Mind yourself,” Mufalda whispered.

“What?” he said. He glanced at his son, standing there with his mouth agape. “What are you gawking at?”

“Nothing, Pa.” Che Che blinked. Then he put his hands in his pockets and pretended to admire the ceiling.

Mike endured an entire hour seated next to the fat slob Lillo. He reeked of sweat and garlic. He bored Mike to death yapping about his sciatic nerve, irritated due to a bulging in his spine, how excruciating the pain was, how the codeine pills he took constipated him and he hadn't shit in two weeks,
two weeks
. Mike bolted to his feet.

“What is it?” Mufalda asked.

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Well then go, for crying out loud.”

“Dad, you shaved your moustache!” Grace cried from the folds of her fat face.

Mike ignored her and his wife's dry cackling, and made his way to the bathroom. He ran into Domenic Carbone in the foyer. The insufferable old codger was bawling like a child.

“Poor Joe,” he blubbered. “Poor, poor Joe . . . ”

Poor you, thought Mike. His number was almost up, and he knew it. The man had already survived three heart attacks. It was only a matter of time. Yet he wasn't ready for death. How sad. Mike wondered if
he
was ready, if he would be ready. He wasn't afraid of it, like Domenic. But what could one think? If Mike were to die now would
his life have seemed worthwhile? His children were doing well— except, of course, Grace, though her two children were beautiful. Che Che was spanking, three kids, nice house, and so on. Francesca had married a barber on the dwarfish side, but he was a solid little fellow, respectful, honest; they had a gorgeous daughter, and a son. Carmela had married an opera baritone and lived in Milan, at the moment pregnant with her first. What more could a man want? He and his wife were fine, as fine as two people could be after thirty-five years of marriage. Thinking about all this gave him a headache.

In the washroom he tried to pee, but had no desire or need. He washed his hands and wet his hair a bit. His roots showed. His upper lip looked fleshy. So what could you do? he thought. You get old, you get ugly. What could you do? At least he wasn't fat. Mike had worn size thirty-six pants for thirty years. Not bad considering how much he ate. Walking did the trick, kept him fit. For thirty years he walked to and from the Otis Elevator plant on Burlington Street where he toiled as a janitor. He never got his driver's license, never felt the need. He still walked, though not as much. Yes his pants were a little snug, but so what? If he had to buy a bigger size, so be it.

So many people, he thought, when he sat down again. Joe was popular, well-liked. Mike knew his own funeral wouldn't draw this kind of turnout, no sir. And he didn't care one way or another. He sat away from Lillo this time, under the pretense of exchanging a few pleasantries with Mimmo Sinicropi, Joe Garzo's brother-in-law. Mimmo didn't care much for Mike, and Mike knew it. But he liked to talk to him, just to get under his skin a little.

“Mimmo,” he whispered.

“What?”

“That suit?”

“What about it?”

“Is it brown?”

“Brown?” Mimmo wore a look of annoyed puzzlement. Obviously his suit was black. He crossed his arms on his chest and raised his chin.

“Sorry,” Mike said. “It looked dark brown. Like a chocolate. Nice.”

“Mike, your voice carries.” Mimmo nodded at the assembly of mourners.

“Of course, sorry.”

He turned around and faced the casket again. Then he felt his thigh being pinched. He had to swallow a yelp. Mufalda. Was she crazy? Her face was a black-eyed mask of evil.

“What?” he said, bewildered.

“Quit making a fool of yourself.”

“But what did I do?”

“Ssst,” she said, crossing her lips with a finger.