Chapter 5
Abatangelo drove Dominic’s car south from San Francisco along the coast toward the Montara Lighthouse. Beyond Devil’s Slide the beach was windy, fogbound and desolate beneath shallow cliffs. Seagulls swept low across the hazy winter surf, struggling inland across low dunes scruffed with ice plant.
He turned into the parking lot and killed the motor. The lighthouse was open for tourists, and a half dozen of them stood in the glass-rimmed beacon, peering out into the fog. Several backpackers crouched at the door of the hostel, queued up to claim a cot for the night.
The lighthouse had always been one of his mother’s favorite landmarks. She’d come down here often to walk the beach and listen to the surf and smell the salt air. At times he’d wondered if he hadn’t inherited some of his fondness for the sea from her.
Out of the car, he stood for a moment at the edge of the gravel lot, surveying the beach. So where had the ceremony been held? The coast stretched cold and dark in both directions. The ocean seethed in a winter chop.
For the first three years of his imprisonment, Abatangelo had been badgered at least twice a month by agents trying to get him to roll on his old crowd. The younger agents had been especially full of themselves. They cracked bad Italian jokes and said he could help them. He knew the scene as well as anyone, where his partner Steve Cadaret might run in Asia, who’d he run with, who his suppliers in Bangkok were, which wholesalers stateside had not yet been tagged. If he confided these things- off the record, naturally- at most before the grand jury (a secret grand jury, mind you), they could move him back to the coast. Maybe work a cut in his time. Spring his old lady.
They offered him thirty grand and called it Good Faith Money. They told him if they supplied an attorney for him, he had to talk, they’d get a writ ad testificandum, it was “a sort-of-addendum to the Sixth Amendment.” They told him if he didn’t cooperate they’d get him holed away in Ad Seg forever. In the end, sensing a soft spot, they routinely circled back around to what he came to refer to as The Shel Beaudry Gambit: Play ball, your old lady walks.
“Come on,” they chimed, “you love her, right? Do anything for her, right? We don’t want to make you a hostile witness. We want to make you happy.”
It was a marvel to watch how much they hated you for not giving in to their insulting maneuvers. They knew you loathed them and they couldn’t stand that. They were the heroes, the high-minded brothers of your teenage sweetheart. They were only as vile as they had to be, dealing with the likes of you.
When Abatangelo’s mother fell ill, the agents gave up on The Shel Beaudry Gambit and turned to The Dying Mother Ploy. A trip to see her could be arranged, if, well, guess. Once, an agent delivered to him six months’ worth of letters he’d written to her, none of which had been posted. “You misplace these?” he asked, dropping them on Abatangelo’s bunk. “I got a better way to reach out and touch old Mom if you’re ready to act smart.”
It was insane how badly they misread him. The brinkmanship only deepened his resolve, and so his mother’s final days came and went without his being able to work so much as a call to the hospital or the funeral home. His sister never forgave him for that. Her letters stopped, and she returned his unopened; he no longer even knew where she was. But once Regina Abatangelo was dead, the badgering stopped. The government finally decided he was unworthy of further attention. The once-friendly agents advised the Bureau of Prisons to make sure Abatangelo served every last day of his ten-year term.
He headed down the sandy cliff on a pathway lined with bollards. Come sea level he marched north along the water. Seagulls gathered in swelling numbers, picking through litter. As he neared a group they fluttered up lazily, circled low across the surf, then came back down again. The last time he’d been on a beach was when he’d been arrested, and despite the unpleasant association, he felt a pleasant honing of spirit with the tang of salt and kelp in the air. As soon as parole conditions permitted and he had the money saved, he intended to buy a boat, live on it, sail it down the coast with Shel as his mate. They’d live on what they caught over the side with a drag, coming ashore only to snatch fresh water and barter for supplies.
But we’re not here to reflect on all that, he reminded himself. We’re here to remember Mother.
He tried to picture her, but the scenes that came to mind were hazy and unpleasant. His mother had been an unhappy woman married to a man born to perfect other people’s unhappiness. Vincenzo and Regina. The glib deadbeat and the suffering saint. They had two children, Daniel and Christina. There. Take a snapshot, carry it around in your wallet. Remember.
He tried to bring to bear the good things, the remarkable things. His mother at one time invested the whole of her heart in Dan and his younger sister, wanting them to regain the station in life she’d surrendered by marrying their father. At least once a week the three of them visited the Museum of Art, or the Palace of the Legion of Honor. Twice a year she treated them to the opera. She instructed them on the reasons why Verdi’s
Shortly these memories blended together until every recollection resembled the next. Then the one he always tried to avoid rose up.
It happened on a Sunday. They were just sitting down to afternoon supper when steps clattered in the hallway. Someone pounded hard on the door. His father went white and gestured for everyone at the table to be still. The pounding came again, harder, and a voice called out, “Vince, don’t fuck around, we can smell the food, you asshole.” Christina began to cry. Her father shot to her side and cupped his hand across her mouth, so hard the rest of her face flared red. She grabbed at her father’s arms, gasping, beginning to sob, and he jerked her head to remind her, Be still. Everyone stared at the door. “Have it your way, Vince,” the voice in the hallway called out. “Comin’ in.” Vince Abatangelo let go of his daughter, looked around helplessly, but only managed to edge backward, further into the room, as the first blows hit. The door cracked open on the fourth kick. A hand reached through the gash in the wood and unlatched the bolt, the door opened. There were three of them. The one who did the talking removed his hat, nodded to Gina Abatangelo, then said, “Didn’t have to be this way, Vince. Get your coat. Joey wants to talk to you.” Joey was Joey Twitch Costanza, the local shylock. The men he’d sent were collecting on a juice loan made to cover gambling debts. Once he realized he wasn’t going to be beaten in his own home, Vince Abatangelo’s mood transformed into one of groveling good cheer. He introduced his family, asking the men if they didn’t want to sit down. “Nick, we’re just about to eat. Sit.” He was told once again to get his coat. The one who did the talking nodded to Gina Abatangelo again- to say what? We’re sorry? Don’t wait? They led him out and closed the shattered door behind them. Soon their steps were on the stair, and the sound faded into the street noise. Christina sat simpering in her chair. Their mother stared at the door, hands to her face. Abatangelo could still remember the meal: ziti with summer sauce,
Abatangelo smiled drearily. And that is what there is to remember, Mother. Your son the felon, his memory’s got a certain bent. But I miss you. Miss whoever it was buried inside you I never quite came to know.
Forsaking the lighthouse trail, he made way instead up a snaking path through salty rock to one of the lower bluffs crowned with hemlock. He turned to look one last time at his mother’s resting place, the slate-gray ocean, the scavenging gulls, the relentless mass of fog. Turning to continue on, he discovered the path dead-ended halfway out. He had to forge his way through overgrowth to get back to the car.
Shel emerged from the guest room near twilight, wanting this day of all days to be over. She’d spent the whole afternoon sitting at the window, chasing one cigarette with the next and staring out at the south pasture. Danny, she thought. You never should have sent him that letter. Dumb. Pointless. You’ve got a world of unfinished business here.
She’d mulled over Frank’s latest pronouncement, the windfall he’d alluded to over lunch. I should check in on him right away, she told herself, should have done it hours ago. Return him to Planet Now. Instead she went into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth. Glancing out the bathroom window she saw Frank’s truck was gone.
She bolted into the hallway, calling out for him, lunging room to room. Please, God, she thought. Just this once.
