Alligator Bayou Page 4

  “All right, all right.” Francesco rubs his hands together. “You’ll paint it black. But later. Tomorrow paint it white. The day following that is Sunday, so I’ll invite Dr. Hodge over for limoncello after he gets out of his fancy church. He’ll say no—they all say no—but I’ll insist. He’ll see how fancy we can be. With a new wood porch, white and clean. As good as his. We’ll have a nice talk. After the doctor goes home, you can paint it black.”

  Wasting all that white paint—all that money—just to impress the doctor?

  Supper is quiet; things have settled down. Francesco’s talk with Dr. Hodge yesterday morning went well. Francesco told Carlo all about it, and I eavesdropped. The doctor didn’t mention goats. Just like Joe Evans said, he only wanted to talk about Willy Rogers—about both of them not “overreacting.” Francesco is going to leave his shotgun at home. And when Willy needs groceries, he’ll send a servant. If the two men see each other on the street, one of them will cross to the other side. That’s what the doctor promised, anyhow. The shotgun is closed away in Francesco’s trunk for the next time someone goes hunting.

  We move outside and sit on the floor of the new porch to eat cold berries for dessert. And I’m happy we’ve got a porch now.

  “Strawberries.” Carlo holds up his bowl. “And not the small wild ones from the woods—big fat juicy ones.”

  “All the way from Tangipahoa Parish, down south,” says Francesco with pride. “Sicilians own practically the whole parish. Fields and fields.”

  “Imagine a Saturday night down there,” says Rosario. “Like heaven—Sicilians dancing and singing.”

  “And eating.” Francesco puts a berry in his mouth and sucks noisily. “Perfect.”

  And Carlo knew the perfect thing to do with them. He put them in the icebox. They froze and their inner parts got all squishy, so they melt in our mouths.

  Five goats come trotting around from behind the house.

  “Stay back!” Giuseppe shouts at them.

  They stop. Giuseppe’s the only one gruff enough to make the goats behave. But Bedda jumps onto the porch and head butts Francesco in the shoulder. He grabs her by the hair at the front of her chest and feeds her a strawberry.

  “What are you doing that for?” says Giuseppe in disgust. “Tomorrow is June third. Decoration Day. The whole town will be buying food for parties. These strawberries will sell at top price, every last one of them.”

  Bedda’s baby, Giada, takes a timid step forward. Giuseppe slams the back of his shoe against the porch, and the little thing goes skittering off to the others.

  I ask, “What’s Decoration Day?”

  “A day to honor the men who died in war,” says Carlo. “Big celebrations.”

  “Except the rest of the country celebrated it this past Tuesday,” says Giuseppe.

  I look at Giuseppe, puzzled.

  Francesco leans across Bedda’s neck toward me. “Louisiana and some other states in the South—they have their own laws. The rest of America celebrates on May thirtieth and honors men who died on both sides of the Civil War. Here they celebrate on June third, Jefferson Davis’ birthday, and honor just the Confederate dead.”

  I know I’ve heard Jefferson Davis’ name in my lessons with Frank Raymond. “So we’re celebrating?”

  “Course not.” Francesco gives Bedda a kiss between her eyes, then stands and stretches. “This is nonsense—honoring only their own. But on Decoration Day people need food for parties. You boys paint the porch first thing in the morning—white paint. Then hustle over to the grocery store.”

  “Aw,” says Cirone under his breath.

  We had planned to paint slowly and take the whole day at it, go a little easy. “Both of us?” I say. “Who’ll help Rosario at the stand?”

  “I hired two men,” says Rosario. “You boys work in the grocery.”

  Cirone and I exchange doleful glances.

  Rosario gets his mandolin and plucks a few notes. “Who wants to sing tonight?”

  “Me.” Francesco reaches into his pocket. “And here. For you boys.” He places pennies on the floor between us: one, two, three, four. Four! “In case you want to skip the music and go have some other kind of fun tonight.”

  I pocket all four pennies. After all, I’m older. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you,” says Cirone.

  We walk toward town, our uncles’ songs fading in the background. It will be the usual night at home—music and dance and cigars. Pretending like they’re back in Sicily, surrounded by neighbors, joking and laughing. Just the four of them. Or maybe only three, ’cause they take turns going across the river to Vicksburg for fun. Vicksburg is four times the size of Tallulah; there’s plenty going on.

  All at once I’m blue, thinking about them. They’re lonely. At least Francesco is—saying all that to Joe. If I didn’t have Cirone, I don’t know what I’d do.

  “How about the slaughterhouse?” asks Cirone as soon as we’re out of sight.

  “You want to risk crossing a panther again?”

  “Aw, come on. He didn’t hurt us.”

  “Why do you like that place so much, anyway?”

  Cirone says real quiet, “My father was a butcher.”

  My father was a fisherman. With thick arms from pulling in nets, and pocked cheeks from facing the salty wind all the time. He left for America to find his fortune, right after Rocco was born. We never heard from him again. I was ten when I last saw him, but I remember everything about him, his voice, even his smell. Cirone was only four when he last saw his father. What can he possibly remember? “All right. But I’m not going near the woods where that panther came out. Race you.”

  We run across the meadow, past the lit-up slaughterhouse, then I punch Cirone lightly in the shoulder and slow us to a walk. Running in town draws attention. A few minutes later I turn onto Cedar Street.

  “Not yet.” Cirone catches me by the elbow. “The ice cream saloon isn’t for two more blocks.”

  I smile. We haven’t said a word to each other about where we’re going to spend those four cents, but of course the ice cream saloon is the best choice. I feel proud at the idea of going somewhere public without my uncles, which is dumb. I’m fourteen! But Francesco keeps tight rein on us, as though we’re little kids, so this is new to me.

  “If we go down Cedar, we pass the courthouse,” I say.

  “Who cares? What do you want to look at it for?”

  “It’s different at night.”

  “How?”

  “Did I give you a hard time about going past the slaughterhouse?”

  Cirone pads along after me.

  Sometimes I think I’ll never get used to the dirt streets here. I miss the cobblestones of Cefalù. But at least the dirt lies flat tonight. In the daytime it’s dusty, stirred up by people, wagons, horses, carts, mules, hogs.

  Dead quiet.

  Except for the crickets. There must be millions of them.

  We pass Sheriff Lucas’ house, and his two dogs charge off the porch, ears and jowls flopping. I’m glad there’s a fence. The dogs are massive, and their short hair covers loose, wrinkled skin. I pull back. Cirone reaches between pickets and pets one.

  I gasp. “Are you crazy?” But that dog is acting as if he likes it.

  “They don’t bite unless the sheriff tells them to.”

  I feel stupid. “I thought you didn’t like dogs.”

  “I don’t.” Cirone shoves the hand that petted the dog in my face.

  “Yuck.” I sneeze. “That stinks.”

  Cirone laughs. “Their drool stinks even worse.”

  A soft sound comes from above. It’s a large bird. From the ragged zigzags I know it’s a yellow-headed night heron. Francesco taught me that. They’re good eating.

  The redbrick courthouse looms at the corner of Depot Street, a two-story giant with front balconies and chimneys up the north side. On the south a stand of cottonwoods lifts its arms as if in praise. The windows are tall, and the columns and railings and
arches on the balconies seem to move in the dusky light. At the very top a little alcove juts up with a round window, like a loving eye looking out over everything. It seems a grand, welcoming home. The seat of justice. It presides over Tallulah, like the cathedral presides over Cefalù.

  Cirone elbows me in the ribs. “Look.”

  Three boys walk bent, picking things up off the road, throwing them in sacks.

  “Hey,” I call.

  Charles jerks his head up, then away. The other boys don’t even bother to look.

  I pull on Cirone’s arm.

  “Stop,” he says. “Don’t go near them. They hate us.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Everyone hates us.” Cirone curls his shoulders and shrinks in on himself. “You don’t know.”

  “What? These boys are all right.” I drag him over. “What’re you doing?” I say in English.

  “Y’all ain’t got eyes?” Charles doesn’t look up.

  Stupid question. They’re collecting horse manure.

  Cirone moves closer to me. “How come?” he says real soft.

  I don’t get to hear Cirone speak English much. But I know he talks good. He sounds like everyone else from Tallulah, not like Frank Raymond, which is who I sound like. No one accuses Cirone of talking fancy, like Mrs. Rogers said to me.

  “What you use on your fields?” asks Rock. “Human turds?”

  The boys laugh.

  It takes me a second, ’cause that’s the first time I’ve heard that English word, but I’m laughing, too. I’m laughing so hard, I double over. Then I pick up dung. The soft, round ball smells sweet. I drop it in Ben’s bag, closest to me.

  All three boys straighten up and look at me.

  I pick up another piece and add it to Rock’s bag. Then Cirone does the same and we’re all picking up clods. We go the length of Depot Street, through the town center. Men are noisy in the whisky saloon. Families are noisy in the ice cream saloon. I look through the window. Boys my age are scrambling to buy soda water for girls, offering them gumdrops and peanuts from the candy store. Children sit on laps and eat ice cream from shiny spoons. A man pounds out a quick melody on the old piano.

  Whatever they pay the piano player, I’m sure it’s more than Patricia gets for cleaning the Baptist church. “Hey, Charles.” I walk up beside him. “Hear that? Your sister should apply for a job playing piano.”

  Charles drops his head toward me. “You sure you smart enough to collect dung?”

  “What?”

  “Colored folk ain’t allowed in that ice cream saloon. We stand outside and put our money in a cup on the ground, and they lay us a scoop on a piece of old newspaper.”

  My face goes hot. It’s those Jim Crow laws again—whites and Negroes can’t be served food in the same eating establishment at the same time. How could I forget? But I work all day, every day but Sunday. I go to bed early, except Saturday. I don’t really see how this town works.

  I wonder what Cirone’s thinking as we pass by the laughter of those families around the piano. Can he taste the ice cream we’re not eating? I pray he doesn’t say it. But he won’t. I bet he never forgets who is and isn’t allowed in the ice cream saloon or anywhere else. Cirone knows everything. He doesn’t even give me a meaningful glance. He just throws dung balls in the boys’ sacks.

  We own two horses: Granni and Docili. In the winter they stay in the shed. Hired hands muck out the stalls and spread the manure on our fields. That’s what any farmer who can afford it does. But I never thought about the farmers who don’t have horses. There are farms around here where men push plows through the dirt with their shoulders.

  A dog barks; a second joins him.

  “Sheriff Lucas’ dogs,” says Charles. “They’ll be a-howling all night.”

  Goats trot over the railroad tracks and up Elm Street. Five. They’re ours. I bet they passed by Sheriff Lucas’ and drove those dogs wild. Have they been tramping on Dr. Hodge’s porch? I look around anxiously. Will the doctor come tearing after them?

  Nothing.

  We go on collecting dung. When we reach West Street, at the edge of town, Charles stands straight and presses a hand into the small of his back. In the dark he seems like an old man. The other boys roll their heads around on their necks and swing their arms, like Francesco dancing across the new porch.

  Cirone had the same thought, because he throws himself into the middle and dances the tarantella. He hops around, clapping over his head like a crazy man. Before you know it, all of us are running and hopping and clapping for no reason, but it’s so much fun. We dance till we fall exhausted in the grass by the side of the road.

  “Some dancer!” Rock says to Cirone.

  “So, this mean we taking Dancer ’gator hunting, too?” Charles says to me.

  I’d hoped he’d forgotten about that. “I don’t know.”

  “You got a name, Dancer?” Charles says to Cirone.

  “Cirone.” He holds out his hand to shake.

  “That’s a dirty hand you got there.”

  “No dirtier than yours,” says Cirone.

  Charles laughs and they shake. Then Cirone shakes hands and exchanges names with Rock and Ben, too. But they all keep calling him Dancer.

  “You coming ’gator hunting?” asks Rock.

  “Are you really going?” Cirone says in Sicilian in my ear.

  I look quickly at the boys. I don’t want them hearing Sicilian; it reminds them we’re foreigners. I want them to be friends. Our first American friends.

  But the boys don’t seem to care.

  “I don’t know,” I answer in Sicilian. “It’s dangerous.”

  “They do it, and they’re still alive.” Cirone turns to Rock. “Yeah. When?” He doesn’t even notice I haven’t agreed.

  “School out, so we can go to the swamp anytime,” says Charles.

  “Monday,” says Rock.

  “Monday,” repeats Ben.

  My throat is too tight to speak.

  “Where South Street end at Brushy Bayou—meet there. Monday after the midday meal.”

  “We got to work,” I manage to squeak out.

  “You think we don’t?” says Ben.

  “A little time off won’t starve no one,” says Charles. “You two the food men. So bring food.”

  “Dago food?” says Ben. “Forget it. I can haul supper in a sack. Breakfast, too.”

  “Breakfast?” I say in quick alarm. “We’re going to stay all night?”

  “Bless your soul,” says Rock. “Y’all don’t know nothing. Night the only way.”

  seven

  My family’s sitting out back of the house, the six of us on the kitchen benches that Cirone and I carried out here. We fold our hands and listen to Father May’s gospel.

  The three Difatta brothers share one bench: Carlo, Giuseppe, and Francesco. From shortest to tallest, fattest to thinnest, oldest to youngest. They look so much alike, it’s as though the Lord made them out of the same size lump of clay, but with each version pulled the clay more upward than outward. Even their hair is the same, close-cropped and wavy. I wish I looked more like them.

  But I look like my father. And my brother Rocco looks like me. That’s good. How it should be. I blink and try to pay attention to what Father May’s saying.

  Father May is French, so he’s giving the gospel in that language. We don’t understand a word. Still, we try to look interested. The rest of the service is a mix of Latin and English. Father May’s Latin isn’t like the church Latin back in Cefalù, and his English is hard to make out. But the Lord knows we’re doing the best we can.

  Father May travels to small Catholic groups all around north Louisiana. There isn’t a Catholic church to be found anywhere, but Francesco says if you scratch hard enough, you’ll always find Catholics anyplace—and anyplace makes a fine setting for a Mass.

  I look forward to Father May’s visits. I never fail to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion when he makes it to Tallulah.
Mamma would be glad about that.

  Rosario sits beside me. He whispers, “I like the service outside. And just once a month. Not like in Sicily where the women dragged us to church every week.”

  I’m surprised his thoughts are so far from mine.

  Goats wander through, nibbling at our pant legs. No one pays them any mind. In Sicily goats run free, too, but they aren’t allowed in church.

  I miss a real church. The cathedral in Cefalù has two bell towers and high ceilings and mosaics. When you kneel under the centerpiece, you know the Lord watches over you, no matter how small you are. I went there every week with Mamma. And she’d let Rocco sit on my lap. She said I was best at keeping him quiet, but I think she didn’t want him to wrinkle her Sunday dress. After she died, I took Rocco to Mass myself. But only for three months. Then I left for America.

  A pang of homesickness hits me. Is Rocco in church now?

  When the service ends, I pump fresh water from the well, and we all wash our hands in front of Father May to impress him with our cleanliness.

  We carry the benches inside to eat. I’m silent through it all, because I have little idea what Father May is saying. I think no one does, but they talk anyway, as though it doesn’t matter that they’re talking past one another. Usually Cirone and I trade glances at this point in Father May’s visit, but Cirone is lost in his own world today.

  I’m alone. I feel strange, almost chilled.

  With my eyes I beg Carlo to excuse me. He’s in charge of mealtime.

  When he finally gives me the nod, I run like mad for Frank Raymond’s. I’m always late to my lessons when Father May’s in town.

  “I’ve got questions today,” I say as I burst through the door.

  “I knew that.” Frank Raymond is cleaning the paint out of his brush. He looks at me. “Do you know what a joy it is to paint by this window in the morning?”

  I smile. “Morning light is best. You tell me every Sunday.”

  “This week I’ve been in the saloon working on that blessèd mural.” He sighs. “I’ve missed this window—this light.”