I shook my head.
‘Labor organization sorta thing… unions and truckers and construction crews an’ all that sorta stuff. Hell, I heard the Teamsters even got a union for the hookers and the strippers.’
‘No shit?’ Tony Pro said. ‘Hell, ain’t we movin’ with the times.’
‘Anyways,’ Calligaris went on. ‘Teamsters, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, they’re a big fucking organization, handle all the unions and the pension funds and all manner of shit.’ He turned to his left. ‘Hey, Matteo, you deal with this thing enough, what’s the word on the Teamsters?’
Matteo Rossi cleared his throat. ‘Organizes the unorganized, makes workers’ voices heard in the corridors of power, negotiates contracts that make the American dream a reality for millions, protects workers’ health and safety, and fights to keep jobs in North America.’
There was a ripple of applause amongst the crowd.
‘Seems to me,’ Tony Pro said, ‘that someone should look out for Jimmy fuckin’ Hoffa’s health and fuckin’ safety.’
The crew laughed. They talked some more, and then there was more food coming and the music got louder, and a girl with breasts the size of basketballs came out and showed the family how she could make the tassels on her nipples spin in two different directions at the same time.
We ate, we drank, and the name of Jimmy Hoffa was not mentioned again that night. Had I been aware of what would happen I would have asked questions, but I was new, it was not my place, and I didn’t wish to alienate myself from these people before I even got to know them.
It was three days later that I saw her.
Her name was Angelina Maria Tiacoli.
I saw her in a fruit market on Mott Street, a block over from Mulberry. She had on a summer print dress, over it a camelcolored overcoat and in her hand she carried a brown paper grocery bag loaded with oranges and lemons.
Her hair was rich and dark, her complexion olive and smooth, and her eyes, hell, her eyes were the color of warm creamy coffee. I held my breath when she looked at me and I looked away quickly. Ten Cent was with me and he told her ‘Hi Angel’, and the girl smiled and blushed a little and mouthed ‘Hi’ back.
I watched her go, watched her intently, and Ten Cent nudged me and told me to put my eyes back in my head.
‘Who is she?’ I asked.
‘Angel,’ he said. ‘Angelina Tiacoli. Sweet girl, sad story.’
I looked at Ten Cent. He shook his head. ‘Don’t be getting any fucked-up ideas, ya Cuban fruitcake. She’s strictly out of bounds.’
‘Out of bounds?’
Ten Cent shook his head. ‘Jesus, you ain’t fuckin’ listenin’ to me… I say she’s no go then she’s no go, okay?’
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘but just tell me who she is.’
‘You remember the other night at the Blue Flame?’
I nodded.
‘Guy down at the end, guy called Giovanni Alessandro?’
I didn’t remember, but then there had been so many people, so many names.
‘His father is Don Alessandro. Big boss. No fucking about. Don Alessandro has a brother… well, he
‘Went out?’ I asked.
‘Christ, kid, you really is from the farm, ain’tcha? He went out… you know, he went and fucked some other broad. You know what that means?’
‘Yes, I know what that means.’
‘Lord God, the kid’s a fucking genius! Anyways, Don Alessandro’s brother goes and fucks some other broad and this broad has a kid… and the kid is Angelina. Everyone knows she ain’t exactly blood, but hell she’s a good kid and she’s sure as hell pretty, so Don Alessandro keeps her here around the family.’
‘And her mother?’
‘That’s the sad part. Her mother was some hooker or stripper from someplace, crazy junkie bitch, and she and Don Alessandro’s brother got to fighting one night when Angelina was about eight or nine years old, and they ended up shooting each other.
Don Alessandro had already told his brother not to see her any more, that he would make sure everything was taken care of for the kid if he just promised to stop fucking the hooker, but Louis Alessandro was a crazy bastard, and he went on seeing this junkie bitch for years, and then all hell broke loose and this pair of fruitcakes ended up whacking each other, and Angelina ends up losing her father and her birth mother, and she ain’t got nothin’ left but her dad’s wife who ain’t her real mother, you follow me?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Anyway, her father’s wife, the woman who shoulda been her mother but wasn’t, she don’t want anything to do with Angelina, and so she tells Don Alessandro that he better take care of the girl seein’ as how the girl is his niece, and she’s gonna go someplace upstate and start her life over again away from her dead husband’s crazy good-for-nothin’ family. So Don Alessandro gave her some money, and then he made sure Angelina was looked after until she was all growed up, and then he bought her a place. That’s where she lives now, all by herself.’
‘And how come she’s out of bounds?’ I asked.
‘Because it just ain’t done, you know? The girl’s mother wasn’t Italian, she wasn’t part of the family… the poor kid’s mother was some half-crazy fucked-up junkie bitch from no place special who put her pussy where it shouldn’t have been. Now get the fucking oranges would ya for Christ’s sake… what the fuck is this with the third fuckin’ degree anyway?’
I saw her again a week later. Same store. Was down there by myself collecting groceries for Ten Cent. I made a point of saying ‘Hi’ to her, and though she said nothing in response she did look at me for a heartbeat, and in that heartbeat there was the ghost of a smile, and in that smile I saw the promise of everything else that might lie behind it.
The day after I saw her in the street. She was leaving a hairstyling salon on Hester. She wore the same summer print dress and camel-colored overcoat. She carried her purse tight in both her hands as if afraid someone would snatch it from her. I approached her, and ten or twelve feet away I sensed that she was aware of my presence. I slowed down and stopped on the sidewalk. She slowed down also. She glanced to her right as if wondering whether to cross the street to avoid me, but she hesitated, hesitated long enough for me to raise my hand and smile at her.
She tried to smile back, but it was as if the muscles of her face were denying her the right. Her hands did not move; they clutched the purse tightly, as if the purse was the only thing she could be sure of in that moment.
‘Miss Tiacoli,’ I said quietly, because I knew her name from Ten Cent, and would not have forgotten that name even if forgetting had been a life-and-death matter.
She tried to smile again but could not. She opened her mouth as if she planned to say something, but not a word came forth. She looked to her right again, and then once back at me, and then she stepped suddenly from the sidewalk to the street and hurried across Hester.
I watched her go. I followed her a good fifteen yards on the other side of the road.
She stopped suddenly. She turned towards me. Cars went by unnoticed between us. She let go of the purse with her right hand and raised it, palm facing me as if to stop me coming any further, and then as quickly as she had stopped she started walking again, faster this time. I let her go. I wanted to follow her but I let her go. At the corner of Hester and Elizabeth she glanced back once, just for a split second, and then she turned and was gone.
I walked back to the house empty-handed. Ten Cent called me a ‘dumb fuckin’ Cuban’, and sent me out once again to get cigarettes.
In April of 1974 we moved house. Apparently where we were had been marked by the Feds and it was no longer safe. Don Calligaris stayed in his tall narrow house on Mulberry but me and Ten Cent went over Canal
