Sons of Italy, it was at this time that I conceived my plan to seek my
fortuna
in America! More tomorrow. That rabbit-faced daughter of mine calls me to eat my lunch and I have to stop just to shut up her voice.
16 July 1949
I had read much about
la
’
Merica
—anything I could get my hands on, though in Giuliana, printed matter was rare and precious. America seemed a fitting place for me. I was, after all, the descendant of landowners. In that big country, I read, land went crying for ownership. America was the place for Great Men! In a land far away from earthquakes and slanderous old masons, I would fulfill my destiny!
We had
famiglia
there already. Papa’s cousins, Vitaglio and Lena Buonano, had made the trip three years earlier and were rich I Know[526-565] 7/24/02 2:08 PM Page 538
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already. My two brothers also wished to seek their destiny in the New World and to escape Mama’s crazy screaming, which grew worse and worse. I therefore agreed to carry the burden of the firstborn son across the sea and allow my brothers to accompany me. In July 1901, Domenico, Pasquale, and Vincenzo Tempesta signed on as steerage passengers aboard the SS
Napolitano
.
Our dear Mama opposed our adventure, fearing that our departure would make of her a destitute beggarwoman. She conjured pitiable pictures of herself, an old white-haired hag, forced until her dying days to survive on crusts of bread and rinds of cheese—left with only the moths to talk to. God would damn me, she warned, for forsaking my own mother. What would I have her do once we were gone? Roast rats for meat while her wicked sons bathed in honey and milk and counted their gold?
Despite Mama’s protests, Pasquale, Vincenzo, and I sailed from Catania on the morning of 11 September 1901. Mama carried her objections all the way to the wagon that would transport us and our belongings from the village square to the seaport where the SS
Napolitano
was moored. As that rickety wagon rolled away, I looked back to see Mama raise her hands—one good, one scarred—and shout to God above, and to the sea on which we would travel, and to
Italia
itself that every mother’s son should shrivel in the womb rather than grow and thrive only to rip out the heart of the woman who had borne him. “I bleed from the knife my sons have stuck in me!” Mama shrieked, over and over again, as the wagon pulled away. Her bloodcurdling chant carried above the sound of horses’
hooves and the wagon’s squeaky wheels. “I bleed! I bleed!”
That was the last I ever saw of my mother. Later, she married Uncle Pig-Face just to spite me—took to her bed the man who had made it necessary for my father to surrender his gold
medaglia
to that greedy, buck-toothed
magistrato,
the man who had spit on my boots and ruined me with his lies. Until Mama’s marriage to Nardo, I had dutifully sent her pretty postcards and, at Christmastime, gifts I Know[526-565] 7/24/02 2:08 PM Page 539
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of money and sweets. These were never acknowledged. Ha, never returned either! After that marriage, however, I stopped wasting my money. She died in 1913, but left me the legacy of her screaming, which I still hear in my memory. “I bleed! I bleed! I bleed!” Sitting in this room, talking into this goddamned machine, I hear her still!
Mama, what would you have had me do? Stay, and be supported by an old woman’s lacemaking? Stay, and be starved out of work by the slanderer who polluted my father’s bed? It was you, not I, who brought dishonor to the name of Giacomo Tempesta. It was
you
!
17 July 1949
Ours was a terrible twenty-four-day journey to
la ’Merica
, made unbearable by spoiled food, tainted water, and rolling seas. A broken propeller delayed us off the coast of Portugal for three extra days and nights of hell. Worst of all was the darkness and stink of life below, inside the belly of the big ship. Where there is sun and fresh air, there is hope, but here the sun did not shine and the air we breathed was stale and fetid. Aboveboard, bands played and the filthy rich dined off china and drank from fancy glasses. We in steerage lived like rats. Women and children sobbed, men fought each other over trifles, and everyone suffered the stench of vomit and excrement. There was a stabbing en route, and the birth of a baby, and the death of the child’s mother two days later. That crying
bambino
was passed from breast to breast after that, and we prayed for its fate. All our fates. That baby cried for us all!
There were rats, too, plenty of them; nighttime was when those goddamned creatures prowled. One night I woke to find one sitting on my neck, sniffing at my mustache. I screamed out, waking even my brother Pasquale, who always slept like a dead man. After that night, I took no chances, napping as best I could while sitting or leaning against beams and walls. Day and night fell together on I Know[526-565] 7/24/02 2:08 PM Page 540
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that hellish journey across the sea, and my mind existed in a place between sleep and vigilance.
During the voyage, my brother Vincenzo was as shamefully behaved as always—pinching women’s behinds, boasting about his mischief, cheating at cards against men with bad and worsening tempers. Vincenzo was forever wandering away from Pasquale and me and getting himself in trouble, then calling for me to settle some dispute he had provoked. It is the firstborn’s burden to unravel the knots that younger brothers make.
Throughout that endless and terrible journey across the ocean, I was afflicted with lice and worry—scratching and haunting myself with the cold fear of what would come to pass once we landed in this place I had risked everything to reach. For a Sicilian, home is everything. How could I have done this? Had I been bewitched into thinking that the unknown would be preferable to putting up with the petty nuisances of a stonemason who would die off in time anyway? The rumbling every few years of a distant
vulcano
? As much as I hated Etna for the damage it had visited upon my
famiglia
, the lives it had claimed, at least it was an enemy I could watch. What enemies awaited me in this
Mundo Novu
toward which we sailed?
My heart was sick from thinking and worrying and pinching those goddamned lice between my fingernails!
The little rest I stole came to me in short, interrupted naps made terrible with nightmares. In my dreams, I saw flowing lava, cracking earth, screaming women stuck in fiery trees. Somewhere in the middle of one of those desperate nights, I promised myself that I would never again put myself through such a hellish journey—that I would never return home. That night I said farewell to Sicily forever. Whatever
la ’Merica
held in store for me, it was where I would stay for the rest of my days. The vow was small comfort, but comfort nonetheless.
Sometimes as the other steerage travelers slept, I crept amongst them and over them and did what was forbidden: climbed the narrow stairs to the ship’s deck where the wealthier travelers I Know[526-565] 8/19/02 11:34 AM Page 541
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strolled and where I might take into my lungs the clean salt air or watch the moon’s rippling reflection against that endless sea. In the school run by the good Sisters of Humility, I had envied the rich boys their supplies of India ink. Now, here in the moonlight, was an ocean full of it through which we traveled—enough
inchiostro
di china
in which to drown the whole world, let alone Domenico Tempesta. But I would not give those haughty boys at the convent school the satisfaction of dying! I was not weak. I had been the best of them—the student most loved by the good sisters—and I would prevail!
On one such night of watching the endless ocean, the moon shone brighter than usual, illuminating a small school of dolphins that jumped and swam alongside the SS
Napolitano
. I have always been a modern man who leaves superstition to ignorant old women, but the sight of those
delfini
that night—their bodies arcing toward the sky, their taut skin glistening in the moonlight—it seemed to me a powerful omen. That night, I stood smiling through my tears and was comforted. I knelt on the ship’s deck to pray and, in that position, fell into the only sweet, deep sleep I enjoyed during that long and horrible journey.
I awakened next morning to the blinding sun, a mocking voice, and a kick in the ribs! When I squinted and looked up, I was peering into the arrogant face of a ship’s waiter. Nearby, a well-dressed couple stood staring at me with looks of disdain. “Get back down where you belong,” the haughty waiter ordered—commanding me, the son of a hero! The grandson of landowners!
A man who had once been singled out by the Blessed Virgin herself!
The rich woman shook her head and chattered like a squirrel.
“
Poveri si, sporchi no,
”
she told the rich man.*
Still half-asleep, I rose and stumbled toward the ship’s hold, and the waiter and the well-dressed couple moved on. My dignity returned along with my consciousness. Boldly, I turned back, shouting to the three of them, “
Il mondo e fatto a scale, chi le scende e chi
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One day, I vowed, I would have power and money enough to spit in the faces of those who had humiliated me! In America, my destiny would be realized and I would be avenged!
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Rain drummed against the car roof. From the east, a flash of light, a low rumble. Thunder? In February?
Exit 4: Division Street and Downtown
.
Should have canceled, I thought. Those stairs at Dr. Patel’s were going to be a bitch to climb on crutches. Why was I even
doing
this?
Because you’re looking for help, I reminded myself. For answers.
I reached over and punched the radio buttons, trying to get some news. Now that Saddam had set all the oil wells on fire, there was talk that the CIA, or the Israelis, or someone in his own ranks was going to whack the bastard.
“—
held in Washington this morning, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman
Colin Powell stated that, although allied combat operations have dramatically exceeded expectations, a ground campaign will most likely be
necessary to ensure total victory against Iraqi aggression.
”
You hear that, Papa? Not just
meeting
our expectations;
exceeding
them. Money and power, man, just like you said. Might still makes right. God bless America.
543
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“
Meanwhile, in Kuwait, the hundreds of oil installations ablaze since
yesterday have blocked the sun, shrouding the region in eerie daytime
darkness.
”
I pictured it like one of those Biblical epics Ma used to take us to.
Ben Hur, King of Kings
—one of those wide-screen jobs. And hey, Desert Storm
was
Biblical, in a way: fire and brimstone, slaughtered innocents. If you cocked your head and squinted a little, you could see that all those crazy prophesies of Thomas’s had hit their mark. Hey, the freakin’
sun
wasn’t even shining anymore. . . . You hear that, Domenico? You thought
you
were touched by God because you saw some stupid statue crying? He
trumped
you, man. Your crazy grandson’s a
prophet
.
He’d surprised me these past weeks, though. Thomas. His nonreaction to the war. I’d gone down to Hatch the morning after they’d fired the first missiles, expecting to have to peel him off the ceiling. See him in restraints, or something. But he’d just sat there, clear-eyed, staring at CNN, same as everyone else. By then, he’d resigned himself to war—had become indifferent to the thing that, three months earlier, he’d cut off his friggin’
hand
to try and stop.
Part of it was the Haldol, like they said, but not all of it. It was like
. . . like he’d waved the white flag. Resigned his post as Chairman of Jesus’ Joint Chiefs of Staff. These days, for good or bad, Thomas’s fighting spirit was as gone as his right hand.
I had to face it: he was lost down there, no matter how much I rattled the cage door on his behalf. And hey, hadn’t I finally gotten what I always wanted? Separation? Free agency? Be careful what you wish for. Right, Domenico?
I took a quick glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror. Thought: well, your brother may be lost, but at least you’re still here. Fell three stories off that roof and lived to tell the tale. Got through that other night, too—the night you
really
hit bottom. . . .
And it
had
gotten better, hadn’t it? Just like Leo and the doctors and everyone else had promised it would. Not great, not perfect. But
better
. I was down from two crutches to one. I was driving again. A Ford Escort beat walking. Right?
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A heartbeat was more than
some
people had. Right, Papa, you sanctimonious son of a bitch? Right, Rood?
I signaled a right into the strip mall and pulled into a handicapped space near her door. Fished out my permit. It was one of the few perks of being a gimp: primo parking, the empty space by the door in the middle of a rainstorm. I cut the engine. Sat there for a minute or so, thinking about how much I
didn’t
want to go up there. Get on with the autopsy of my life. All our lives, really—mine and Thomas’s, Ma’s, Ray’s. Even old Domenico’s, I guess. Judging from the little bit I’d read so far of the “great man from humble beginnings,” I was going to have to factor that old bastard into the equation, too.