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  KyleeliseTHT

  Copyright 2013 KyleeliseTHT

  Cover Art by D. Lammie Hanson used with permission from the artist.

  Table of Contents

  * Il Dolce Suono*

  * The Arrangement*

  * Ruins Revived*

  * Mournings*

  * Reputation *

  * The Intercessor *

  *“An Angel, Not So Much”*

  * The Prettiest Boy on Bokeem*

  * Who Will Sing for Concetta?*

  * Buried Burdens*

  * CHARACTERS FOR BACKGROUND MUSIC*

  About the Author

  *Il Dolce Suono*

  The old women on Bokeem Street cried when Concetta Pianto sang each morning, while their men played cards outside Frankie’s Pizza Palace across the street. There, Frankie De Luca and his son, Frankie Jr., kneaded and proofed dough to be divvied up for pizza, bread, and his Hawaiian wife’s Italian-style dango jiru. And those men out front, who’d sit every day, just across the street from Concetta’s place, looked up only occasionally from their games to watch dolled up Tito-G float O’s from his mouth, plentiful as those churned out from a bubble-making machine.

  No matter how haunting her lyrics, Concetta’s “il dolce suono” prettied the air. Sung out from her kitchen window, two stories high above the street, the matriarchs‒even the ones around the corner on Rockwood and as far away as Sepher‒slowed to take them in. And their eyes lowered, as if some sadness slipped between smiles and tugged at their comfortably deep pains.

  Why did Concetta sing so often? No one ever asked. Nor did they query the vibrant bruises, tracked downward from her face to her limbs.

  Her arias should have saved her. At least that’s what her mother had taught her.

  “Sing your mad song should a time come when you must,” Concetta recalled the lesson. “A good man will fall to his knees and never hurt you again.”

  Maybe six years ago. Not since. Michael Pianto never learned to be a man. And he wasn’t good. Concetta’s songs were like shards of glass set to blackboards, screeching jagged words incomprehensible yet enjoyable to the man’s sadistic ear. He’d never turn them off. No one ever suggested that he should.

  * The Arrangement*

  Concetta had been handed over to Michael and made his wife after Billy J, the neighborhood’s kingpin numbers runner, made sure that her first husband, Sammy Rouledge, and their two boys, disappeared. They’d been friends, Sammy and Michael, all their lives. And it seemed reasonable that Michael would be the one who’d protect Concetta after Sammy was gone, especially since his friend had asked him to.

  But his mother, Maria Pianto, worried about the way things had been worked out. Her son had a horrible temper, the kind he only revealed in the presence of women, and she was sure he’d abuse Concetta.

  Not that Mrs. Pianto cared all that much. Concetta had never been a friend. She was an outsider girl, as far as Mrs. Pianto was concerned, a rich Yonkers transplant from a hotshot family.

  Concetta tried to fit in. But there was no room for her on Bokeem, where people come from someplace across the water and stay put for generations. No dancing across the sea for holidays in Vienna (the way Concetta had with her family) or shirking parental responsibilities by dumping children off at fancy boarding schools (like the one Concetta had been sent to). No, to Bokeem you immigrate, you settle, and you raise your own children. No one ever moves out. And border dancers never move in.

  Sammy, now, he was a third-generation Bokeem boy. He belonged. And, although no one ever said it out loud, he was known to be dangerous. So even though it was rumored that Billy J had pushed Sammy to the “otherside,” as far as Mrs. Pianto was concerned, that man, even if dead, still couldn’t be trusted.

  Michael counted on his victims to keep quiet. And they had. He counted on his mother to stay quiet, too. But she hadn’t. Instead, Maria Pianto spread the word about her son through whispers to other mothers, warning them to keep their daughters away from him. Concetta heard about Michael when those mothers gossiped in hushed voices on the walk outside the door of her used-to-be-home. She was afraid of him, and she had good reason to be. And though she wished she could’ve undone the thing Sammy and Michael had worked out between them, at least she’d have a chance at staying alive. Without Michael, Concetta would’ve been left alone, a situation she feared might even be more dangerous if Billy J had his way.

  Mrs. Pianto’s worries weren’t strong enough for her to discourage Michael from getting involved in Sammy’s troubles. In fact she pushed him into the bargain. There was money to be made from the phony marriage, monthly payoffs and an insurance policy on Concetta’s life in Michael’s name. And her judgment was clouded by the thought of all the beautiful gifts Michael could afford to buy her with the extra money.

  What to do about Michael’s temper was out of her hands. That was the problem. If word got out that Concetta was battered, Mrs. Pianto feared she’d wind up being a spectator at one of those fancy funerals Sammy had been known to arrange.

  She’d tried to change him. But as is the case with most mothers, her wrath was always tempered by her love, so Michael never took her objections seriously. Concetta’s downfall was the only way to keep her son safe.

  What if nobody cared enough to pay attention? Or, better yet, what if they thought Concetta deserved what Michael would do? That’s it, Mrs. Pianto schemed. Sully Concetta’s reputation and nobody would care to interfere. No one would complain. Not a word said or heard of the matter.

  To make her plan work, Mrs. Pianto paid Anita Remita to spread whorish lies about Concetta. And whorish lies Anita Remita did spread. Her first ones were real doozies.

  “Trust me, Concetta has been blowing the mailman for years,” she informed one neighbor. “Did you know she banged Toni Russo right on top of a washing machine at Dolly’s Laundromat?” she told another. “Trust me, I‘d never say a thing like that if it wasn’t true.”

  Michael nearly killed Concetta when Anita’s rumors took root and their branches, spilled out and suctioned like prowling tentacles, grew their own lies, even viler than the poisoned seeds from which they had sprouted.

  No woman on Bokeem, except Frankie’s stubborn wife, Momma De Luca, felt sorry for Concetta after that. She was ostracized. And the women dared their men to breach Concetta’s shunning, even as Michael’s abuse marked the shuffling of cards dealt in plain sight of her torture.

  The deal was most profitable for Maria Pianto. Concetta had two miscarriages, brought on by the thrice weekly beatings Michael delivered between his morning cups of coffee and straightening his tie, before heading to work. He had to do it, he said, because his mother had been shamed to tears herself.

  One would think that Michael could count the days, extrapolate the pattern, figure out that Monday, Thursday, and Saturday were always his mother’s “crying” days—part of her plan to remind him of the shameful rumors—and the impetus for the beatings. But he never did.

  The first time he attacked her, Concetta had been ironing his work shirt. It was a late Saturday evening. Michael, who’d been out drinking, with a little philandering on the side, stumbled inside their apartment, demanding that she do for him what she’d been doing for the mailman. Concetta had no idea what he was talking about, and she told him so.

  Michael snatched the iron cord from the wall outlet and promised to beat Concetta with it until she remembered. When she couldn’t, he swung the cord wildly, slamming the metal plug against her back and legs. Michael was relentless, and it seemed he’d never stop. Sing, Concetta remembered. She hoped that would calm him.

  Concetta sang in a whisper. And Michael beat her, still. Then louder, she tried. And he beat her harder. “Il dolce suo
no,” the details were exact in her mind. She sang out beautifully the madness of the moment. Michael would not stop!

  Nearly every woman on Bokeem stopped walking and taking. The card players stopped playing. Frankie and his boy stopped kneading. Tito-G stopped churning out O’s.

  The more Michael beat Concetta, the more tortured her song. Everyone, except Momma De Luca had stopped. Everyone, except her, listened. But not one of them looked up—not even Tito-G.

  Momma De Luca almost stopped. She wanted to. Lives lived without confrontation, she remembered. That’s the Bokeem way. She’d had her own struggles in that suffocating little enclave. And she wasn’t about to forfeit her gains so easily.

  * Ruins Revived*

  Whatever Momma De Luca’s backstory, she’s told little of it. She was living in Nānākuli Valley in Hawaii when she met Frankie, who was a radio operator, stationed at Lualualei Naval Base. Frankie married her, finished his tour of duty, and they caught a hop back to the East Coast. That’s it. No one even knows Momma De Luca’s real name.

  What happened when Frankie brought Momma De Luca home to Bokeem? Now, that story is infamous.

  Momma De Luca showed up with a boatload of cash. She has never told anyone in the neighborhood about that, either. It’s hard to tell whether Frankie had any inkling. Anyway, the Palace used to be owned by Frankie’s uncle, John De Luca. John was an upstanding citizen—his wife, Anna, not so much.

  Anna was a slumlord. She owned a derelict apartment building on the south end of Bokeem, six units, down by the river. The City was about to put her out of business—something to do with missing fire escapes and faulty electrical wiring. Anna wanted to cash out, anyway. She was tired of those “low-life maggot” occupants, who kept demanding heat in November and expected her to send out an exterminator every time they saw a couple of rats huddled up inside their apartments.

  At the same time, Frankie was busy making a deal with John De Luca to take over his pizza business.

  Anna insisted that if Frankie wanted to buy the restaurant, he’d have to purchase her riverfront tenement, as well. Of course, she didn’t think Frankie could afford to buy the building. She just wanted to hold on to the only property that had any real value—the restaurant. John tried to squash Anna’s proposal. After all, Frankie was family, and Anna’s deal was the kind only a thief and a sucker would negotiate. But Anna slung the words “divorce” and “steep alimony” around with enough force to remind her husband that her sideways deal was far better than the courthouse battle he knew she’d drag him through.

  Momma De Luca hadn’t said much during the bantering back and forth about the properties. Frankie had a month to figure out what he could do, so she let him stew in his option—nothing—until the eleventh hour.

  Frankie was a defeated man on decision day. Here he had dragged his wife from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and he hadn’t a pot to piss in or a window to toss it. He was sure Momma De Luca would be on her way back to Nānākuli Valley once she figured out his sorry state.

  Momma De Luca sat down to breakfast that morning, where Frankie had laid out a lovely platter of sausages, grilled potatoes, and eggs. Frankie broke down right away.

  “I’m so ashamed,” he blathered.

  “Pick up the envelope, honey,” Momma De Luca spoke without emotion.

  “I promised you so much more,” Frankie went on.

  “Pick up the damn envelope, honey.” Again, Momma De Luca spoke without agitation.

  Frankie had fallen completely apart by the time he got around to picking up the envelope that Momma De Luca had set next to his water glass.

  He wailed when he opened it.

  “Three things.” she said to her sobbing husband. “First, we buy Anna’s crappy building and Uncle’s restaurant. Okay?

  “Okay,” answered Frankie, still bawling.

  “Next thing,” she went on, “Crappy building come down right away. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Last thing, maggot tenants get new home.”

  That “last thing” troubled Frankie. “What new home?” he asked.

  “I buy nice building next door to Anna—fourteen apartments, six empty,” Momma De Luca finished.

  In no time, Frankie’s Pizza Palace was up and running; the riverfront tenement was demolished, and Anna De Luca inherited six families worth of new neighbors.

  At the time, Sammy Rouledge was working the best food cart in the neighborhood, all the while dreaming of opening a restaurant. A couple thousand more, that’s all he needed.

  Mommy De Luca loved Sammy’s cooking, but that dream of his worried her. Frankie had just opened the Palace. If Sammy had set up shop nearby, Frankie’s dream would’ve been shut down quicker than Momma De Luca had felled Anna’s waterfront tenement.

  Sure, Sammy had the best corned beef and cabbage in the neighborhood, and he knew it, even if it was served at the side of the road. But he never imagined that anyone would drop two grand for a container of it.

  Inside Momma De Luca’s envelope (the one she handed Sammy when she paid for her meal) was a lease on a lovely little corner eatery and convenience store on Rockwood, around the corner and three blocks east of the Palace.

  Of course Frankie and Sammy became good friends, seeing as they were in the same business but at a safe distance. When Concetta moved to Bokeem some years later, Momma De Luca got herself a real ally, too, a girlfriend, and someone she could confide in when she needed, which was rare.

  Frankie’s Pizza Palace was a buzzing establishment. The take-out business, alone, brought in forty or so lunch orders a day. Frankie couldn’t afford to hire extra help in the kitchen, and Frankie Jr. had school during the busiest hours.

  Momma De Luca couldn’t cook all that well, a truth she’d withheld. Instead, she’d convinced Frankie that the heat from the oven and the steam from pots of boiling pasta and sauce in the kitchen made her dizzy. She’d be better off running the register and waiting tables out front.

  Frankie was getting slammed. Sunrise through lunch, he slaved. It was just a matter of time before he’d collapse from exhaustion. Momma De Luca had to do something. This is one of the few times she confided in Concetta, sharing she didn’t know how long her excuse for not helping, or her husband, would hold up.

  There was only one recipe Momma De Luca could even attempt to put together. She’d watched her grandmother make a kind of stew or soup, with dumplings and spam. Hawaiian-style Dango jiru, she called it. Even though Dango jiru isn’t an Italian dish, Concetta thought her friend could turn it into one, with a little help.

  The women experimented with Momma De Luca’s family recipe. Fresh dumplings made from Frankie’s pizza dough, spam, browned with olive oil, peppers, onions, a palm full of garlic and cayenne pepper and a touch of soy sauce (Momma De Luca’s grandmother would have insisted). Italian-style dango jiru. Momma De Luca and Concetta couldn’t wait to try it out at the Palace.

  The dish was a hit! Customers raved, and Frankie finally got some relief. Forty or so lunch orders, half of them for Momma’s De Luca’s Italian-style dango jiru. The women worked thick as tireless thieves in the kitchen making sure there was enough to go around.

  Momma De Luca and Concetta loved working together and had done so up to the day Sammy and the boys disappeared.

  Concetta shut herself in, after that. How she ended up at that church and came out married to Michael Pianto, few really know.

  Momma De Luca wanted to go to her friend when her screams echoed throughout the neighborhood. But Frankie wouldn’t allow it. “Better to let it be,” he’d insist.

  And so things went.

  Momma De Luca taught herself never to be still when Concetta was being tortured. She’d make up stuff to do, anything, as long as it kept her inside the Palace walls.

  When Concetta’s screams turned into songs, and everyone else, Frankie included, stopped to hear them, Momma De Luca kept toiling, giving herself an excuse for never having the time to look up and
face the madness.

  * Mournings*

  On All Souls Day, Tito-G had tried to coax Concetta down from her apartment. He wanted her to help mark the anniversary of the passing of his mother, and his mutt, Red-eyed Blue, who’d been slain last winter.—all because his mother refused to grow Tito-G into a “man.”

  Tito-G’s father, Mr. Giarizzo, had read it in King James: “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” And Mr. Giarizzo’s heart believed it true.

  Mr. Giarizzo warned them both, but neither would change their mind. She’d had her chance, Mrs. Giarizzo. So had Tito-G. She could have turned the boy, and he could easily have given in to polo shirts and khaki pants.

  No one else on Bokeem cared about Tito-G’s swaying hips or that he liked dressing up. But the parlor men around the corner on Rockwood, where Tito-G’s father shot pool on Fridays, hushed themselves from laughing whenever Mr. Giarizzo was around—except for Tony Belcastro. Just an hour before Mr. Giarizzo butchered his wife, Tony slipped the eight ball into a side pocket. He looked up at Mr. Giarizzo and said, “Better an eight ball in my pocket than a fracio dancing around my house.”

  This wasn’t the first time Mr. Giarizzo had heard something like that—but never to his face. He’d stopped himself from swinging at that man. Instead, he collected his simmering rage, balled it in his fists, and returned to Bokeem Street, where he planned to slam it into Tito-G’s face. But the boy was nowhere in sight. He was out of view inside Concetta’s hallway by the time Mr. Giarizzo made it back to the block. But Tito-G’s mother was standing in plain sight outside the Palace, frolicking with Momma De Luca. The women hadn’t noticed Mr. Giarizzo stalking towards them from across the street. They were too busy to notice, too busy with their shared happiness over something, too busy animating their joy with full-swinging arms.