The Brotherhood of the Grape by John Fante Read Free Book Online

“Hello” to everybody, and two or three answered with preoccupied growls, not bothering to look at me. Some I remembered. Lou Cavallaro, a retired brakeman. Bosco Antrilli, once the super at the telegraph office, the father of Nellie Antrilli, whom I seduced on an anthill in a field south of town in the dead of night (the anthill unseen, Nellie and I fully clothed, then screaming and tearing off our clothes as the outraged ants attacked us). Pete Benedetti, formerly postmaster. The game ended, the chips were drawn in, and the players finally took time to study me while Zarlingo shuffled the cards. They were not impressed.
    “Which boy is this one, Nick?” Zarlingo asked.
    “Writes books.”
    Zarlingo looked at me.
    “Books, uh? What kind of books?”
    “Novels.”
    “What kind?”
    “Take your finger out of your ass and deal the cards,” Antrilli said.
    “Fuck you, you shit-kicker,” Zarlingo fired back.
    The profanity embarrassed my father, for in his mind I was still fourteen, the kid he dragged around on his tours, and he wanted to shield me from the vulgarity of his more mature friends. He whispered, “Come on,” and drew me away, and I followed him out into the trembling sunshine.
    “What you hanging around here for?” he said. “No place for you.”
    “Come on, Papa. I’m fifty years old. I’ve heard just about everything. I came to tell you I’m staying in town for a while.”
    It was like poking a stick into a hornet’s nest. He squinted at me with his little hot red eyes. “Suit yourself, but don’t do me no favors. I don’t need any of you people. I been working since I was eight years old. I was laying stone on the streets of Ban twenty years before you were born, so don’t think I can’t do it myself.”
    “Do what?”
    “Never mind.”
    I lifted my palms. “Papa, listen. Don’t get sore. Let’s get out of this heat and talk it over.”
    His hands plunged from one pocket to another until he found it—the stub of a black cigar. He struck a wooden match against his thigh and lit up, a cloud of white smoke burying his face.
    “Okay. Let’s talk business.”
    “Business?”
    I followed him into the Roma to the bar. They had no hard liquor, only beer and wine. The bartender was the youngest man in the place, a kid of around forty-five, with hair down to the small of his back and a hip mustache that curled over his cheeks like quarter moons.
    “Frank,” Papa said. “This here’s my son. Give him a beer.” To me he said, “This is Frank Mascarini.”
    Frank drew me an overflowing stein from the tap. He served my father a decanter of Musso claret from one of the wine barrels beneath the bar. Papa took his decanter and a glass to one of the tables and I followed with the beer and we sat down. He sipped his wine thoughtfully. Whatever was on his mind, he was carefully tooling up to speak it.
    Finally he said, “I got a chance to make some real money.”
    “Glad to hear of it.”
    He was a poor man but not a pauper. Social Security and checks from Virgil and me took care of him and Mama. They lived frugally but well, for my mother could make a meal from hot water and a bone, and dandelions were free in any empty lot.
    “What’s the job?”
    “A stone smokehouse, up in the mountains.”
    “Can you handle it?”
    He chortled at the foolishness of such a question. “When I was fourteen I built a well in the mountains of Abruzzi. Down through solid rock. Thirty feet deep and ten feet wide. Cold spring water. I did it myself. Carried rock out of the hole, then carried it back. I worked in water up to my ass. It took me three months. I got paid a hundred lira. You know how much that was, in those days? Forty-five cents. Fifteen-cents-a-month wages. Now I got a chance to make fifteen hundred dollars in one month, and you want to know if I can handle it!” This amused him. He laughed. “Of course I can handle it! All I need is a little help.”
    “Papa, you’re a liar. Nobody