A Guy from Brooklyn

All Rights Reserved © 2002 by Don LoCicero

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

Writers Club Press an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.

For information address: iUniverse, Inc. 5220 S. 16th St., Suite 200 Lincoln, NE 68512 www.iuniverse.com

ISBN: 0-595-25296-6

ISBN 978-1-4697-9698-7 (ebook)

Contents

A GUY FROM BROOKLYN

The Beginning

McFadden Street

Stench

The Move

129 Highwood Street

The House Next Door

Elementary School

Florence

Sal’s Garden

The Cellar

The Clubhouse

The Pigeon Coop

Television

Richland Park

KOCH’S

Mortality

The Corner

Walls

Jail

The Glass House

Another New Year’s Party

Animal

High School

Bullshit

Latin Class

College

Multi-Stencil

Unemployed

Fate

A New Job

Apex

Simon Lubko

Promotion

The Christmas Party

So Long, Jack

A New Era

Roy Hicks

Car-Mitzvah

Awakening

Bruno

Park Ave

Stethoscope

Uniforms

Lisa

Church

Draft

Time

Wedding Plans

Father Paul

Father Colletto

Wedding

Married Life

Coming Home

To my family and friends

The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved…only outgrown.

—Carl Jung

Men are like wine—some turn to vinegar, but the Best improve with age.

—Pope John XXIII

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.

—Thomas Jefferson

The Beginning

Guido Lorenzo was born prematurely on a cold autumn morning in 1937. His birthplace was neither as celebrated in song and verse as Camelot or Shangri-La, but it was easily as rich as either in colorful characters and epic tales. In fact, one would be hard put to refute the claim made by many Brooklynites that their beloved borough was the closest the United States would ever come to producing a mythical realm. To have been born there during those pre World War II years gave one a unique place in the American social order: somewhere between that of a divinity and a bum.

From the start everyone called him Guy, even though his parents had done their duty by naming him Guido after the paternal grandfather, a Sicilian padrone whom Guy never met. The official family story was that grandpa Guido had been a left-wing revolutionary in either Brazil or Argentina, killed while leading a group of his followers in a premature and badly bungled attempt to stage a coup against the right wing government in power. Guy learned the truth years later. Like the English poet, Lord Byron, his namesake had died a less than heroic death, succumbing to dysentery after eating some contaminated squid; but unlike the British bard, he had been neither a lord, a great lover, nor a famous poet. Rather, the elder Guy had worked as a shoemaker in a small upstate New York town with a strange-sounding Indian name. Whether or not he had ever been in South America remained uncertain, and Guy never felt the need to learn the truth. Dead is dead, he thought, regardless of geography.

Guy began to lose faith in humanity when he was only five years old and had a very sore throat.

His tonsils are infected, said old Doctor Goldhush, shaking his head solemnly. They have to go. Guy’s mother, Marie, pleaded with the kindly Jewish doctor, rolling her soft, brown eyes pitifully to get him to change his diagnosis, but the die had been cast. No reprieve.

What the hell, Guy’s father, Tony Lorenzo, remarked when asked his opinion that night. Tonsils are useless, and going through the clinic won’t cost us a dime, so let them cut the sons of bitches out. Thus, despite her doubts Guy’s mother gave in and although her heart was breaking, made the necessary arrangements.

Guy screamed and cried all the way to the hospital. He refused to be soothed by his mother’s promises of ice cream and toys if he would just cooperate with the doctors and let them make his throat better. It didn’t make any sense to him. Why hadn’t Dr. Goldhush made it better himself, like the time he sewed up Guy’s head when some nasty kids on Sumpter Street used it for target practice in a rock-throwing contest? At any rate, he decided he wouldn’t go without a fight, and so he kept screaming, which made his throat hurt even more.

Guy didn’t like the hospital one bit. There were crying kids all over the place, and strange looking people all dressed in white who made squeaky sounds with their heels as they ran up and down the halls. The doctor who examined him was the strangest of all, a beady-eyed, large-toothed character with a shiny thing on his head that made him look like someone from outer space. When he put a stick on Guy’s tongue and told him to say aahh, his tone wasn’t friendly like Dr. Goldhush’s. Dr. Goldhush always smiled and told him what a good little soldier he was, and when the examination was over he would give Guy a lollypop. The doctor with the shiny thing on his head didn’t smile or tell him that he was a good little soldier. He didn’t give him a lollypop either. He just put the lousy-tasting stick on Guy’s tongue, looked down his throat with a big light, whispered a few words to Mrs. Lorenzo, whose face was etched with despair, and then walked briskly out of the room squeaking his heels.

Guy’s fear grew to terror as a fat lady in white came over, handed his mother some kind of shirt with strings on it and told her to put it on him. The fat lady had warts on her nose with long, ugly hairs growing out of them. And she smelled like a mixture of cooked onions and salami. Guy began to scream again, much louder than ever. The fat lady in white’s face contorted with anger, her cheeks wrinkling up like the surface of a prune, but before she could tell him to shut his goddamned little trap, he jumped out of the chair and tried to make his getaway. Unfortunately, he was not fast enough. By the time he got to the door she was already there, her hairy warts hovering over him like fleshy spiders. Then, in an oily sing-song voice she told him to be a good little soldier so they could make his throat feel good again. She took the stringed shirt from Guy’s mother and motioned with her head for the latter to leave the room. His mother, by that time as upset and terrified as he, didn’t have the strength to resist. She blew her son a kiss, told him she would be back later, and seemed to float out into the corridor. The gargantuan nurse slammed the door shut immediately, foiling Guy’s second attempt to escape. Then, waiting a few seconds to be sure Mrs. Lorenzo was out of earshot, she put her face next to Guy’s and hissed,

You be a good little soldier or I’ll kick your ass from here to Broadway. Her tone was so threatening that Guy stopped short and looked up at her in astonishment. She was not fooling around.

And take off your clothes, you goddamned little brat, she added, confident that she had established her position of strength. Guy obeyed instinctively, his street-sense warning him of danger. As he put on the hospital gown, though, he had one thought: he would get even with the lousy bitch the first chance he got. Yeah, he’d fix her ass for real.

Sometime later, they put him on a padded cart and wheeled him to a room with bright lights on the ceiling. The masked stranger who hovered over him assured him that it wouldn’t hurt, and that he should be calm like a good little soldier. He remained silent, even though he didn’t believe a word of it. He knew by then that he was dealing with the enemy and had already begun to plan his counterattack.

The last thing he remembered was someone putting a mask-type thing over his face, telling him to breathe deeply and count to ten. Whatever was on the mask smelled terrible and made his nose burn. He had nightmares about dragons and other monsters chasing him, fat monsters with hairy, wart-covered faces. When he woke up it was the next morning and his throat hurt worse than ever; it hurt so much, in fact, that he couldn’t even talk. In spite of the pain, Guy concentrated on a plan to exact revenge. He remembered a story his father had told his uncle Carlo one day. Uncle Carlo, a devout Catholic, had asked the elder Lorenzo why he didn’t believe in anything. The father explained that a few years earlier he, too, had gone to church regularly, and had even donated quite a bit of time and labor to his parish. That had changed one day, though, when he was painting the ceiling in the church. It seems that while he was up on the ladder someone sneaked into the back room and stole his only pair of dress pants. Because the wallet in the back pocket of his pants only contained two dollars and a social security card, he was inclined not to make too big a deal out of it, to go home in his painting clothes and try to put it out of his mind. But when the monsignor told him that it must have been God’s will for him to lose the pants, perhaps a test of his faith, Tony Lorenzo suddenly saw things in a different light. He threw the paintbrush onto the floor, muttered a few curses at the startled cleric and stormed out of the church, never to return. He wasn’t going to take it lying down the way Job did. No way! If God wasn’t interested enough or powerful enough to protect a lousy pair of pants, how the hell could you trust Him to help you with really important problems?

Although at that time Guy hadn’t given much conscious thought to the story, he suddenly began to understand what his father had felt. And he had come to his own conclusion: if you couldn’t trust or depend on God, it was a sure thing that you couldn’t trust or depend on people.

Marie Lorenzo’s face was etched with pain and guilt when she came into the ward to fetch her son on the next morning. He was sitting on the edge of the bed with a hardened expression on his face. She went over to him, kissed him tenderly, and began to tell him how much it had hurt her to leave him all alone the day before. He would see, though, within a few days he would feel much better, and now that his tonsils were gone he wouldn’t be getting those sore throats all the time.

Guy hardly listened to what his mother was saying. She was either in it with the others, he thought, or had been stupid enough to let them fool her too. His father was always yelling at her for trusting all the goddamned crooks and lying bastards around them, but apparently she hadn’t learned her lesson. Well, they might keep fooling her, but they wouldn’t fool Guy Lorenzo again. Not if he lived to be a hundred.

Guy’s mother was uneasy over the fact that her son didn’t show any emotion. She knew from experience that when he became quiet and withdrawn like that he was usually up to no good. Like the time he had set the vanity chair on fire after being spanked for some prank she no longer remembered. He had worn the same blank expression then. Luckily, she had smelled the smoke and gotten there in time to extinguish the flames, otherwise the house might have burned down. But she never guessed that Guy was about to do something terrible to the nice nurse who had been so considerate the day before. The latter had just entered the room to tidy things up a bit, and was saying all kinds of sweet things about her good little soldier.

Guy eyed her the whole time, carefully tracking her as she waddled over to him and his mother. Her face beamed with feigned tenderness as she looked at Guy and spoke in her oily, sing-song voice.

And how is the brave little soldier today? Her smirk was apparent only to Guy. He knew what she meant; he knew damned well what she meant. But she had underestimated the enemy, and as any good little soldier knows, that is one mistake you never make in battle. When she bent over him and smirked again, Guy lifted the bedpan from the stand at the side of the bed and flung its contents directly into her face. He could still hear her screaming curses as he reached the end of the corridor and bolted through the door. The sight of his urine dripping from her wart hairs remained with him for the rest of his life. It had been beautiful. Revenge was so sweet. Let them try to fool Guy Lorenzo in the future. Let them just try. No one would be able to do it. And nobody, but nobody was ever going to steal his goddamned pants. That was for sure.

McFadden Street

Guy didn’t recall very many other specific episodes from those early years. He didn’t remember the rats who shared their three room fat on McFadden Street, although he had heard about them often enough from his mother and other relatives. On the other hand, the cockroaches were an unforgettable aesthetic experience. Many years later, he could still visualize them scampering along the sink and walls of their dingy apartment when the light was turned on, forming patterns as intricate and complex as those in a kaleidoscope, only to disappear miraculously into invisible openings in the woodwork when someone approached them. Guy found the roaches fascinating, and would often creep into the kitchen in the middle of the night and turn on the light so that he could catch a glimpse of them. He couldn’t understand why his father had unleashed a string of choice profanities and hit him with his belt when he discovered the jar of roaches Guy had hidden in one of the cardboard boxes. Guy explained that he wanted to take them with him when they moved to their new apartment. What the hell was the big deal? After all, roaches didn’t bite you on the ass while you were sleeping like mosquitoes and they didn’t leave their droppings all over the floor like the rats. Another distinct memory he had of McFadden Street was of an event that took place when he was about three or four. Guy’s older brother, Sal, was sick in bed with the measles. To pass the time, Sal was playing with his toy gun, the kind that shot corks attached to a string and was called a popgun because of the sound it made. Sal’s bed was right next to the window overlooking the street, and since it was a hot summer day the window was open. Nobody saw Sal throw the gun out of the window, so it was a complete surprise when there was a sudden pounding on the door, and someone on the other side began screaming curses at the top of his lungs. Marie Lorenzo opened the door with the safety chain on and peered out through the small space. She immediately knew what had happened. A well dressed man stood in the hall, a thin trickle of blood running down the side of his head. Clutched in one of his trembling hands was Sal’s familiar toy popgun.

I’ll sue you goddamned people for all you’re worth! he screamed, dabbing at his wound with a blood stained handkerchief. The other tenants of the apartment had cracked their doors, providing an audience for the event. I’ll see you all in prison, continued the bleeding man, his eyes rolling. He waved the popgun menacingly to demonstrate that he meant what he said.

To compound the misfortune for the injured stranger, it so happened that Tony Lorenzo was home eating lunch at that moment. Now and then on nice days he would take the short walk from the hat band factory where he worked so that he could enjoy the midday meal in his private castle. At the same time, he was able to keep his voice and authority up to snuff by yelling at his wife and children for a half hour or so.

Who the hell is making that goddamned racket out there? bellowed the irate head of the family. He rushed past his wife without waiting for an answer, and tore the door open. The stranger, startled by this new presence, became silent for a moment, but his anger immediately boiled up again and he resumed his threats. He was going to call the police, judges, detectives, the law courts etc. etc. He ranted on for several seconds, his face as red as a ripe tomato. Tony Lorenzo let him scream, eyeing him as one would a repulsive, alien life form that has suddenly fallen from the sky. Finally, he broke his silence.

I don’t know who the hell you are, buddy, he bellowed, much louder than the stranger had, his hot breath causing the latter to blink in pain. Then, in an even more threatening voice he added, But if you don’t get your sorry ass out of here right away I’ll crack your head wide open like a walnut and shove my foot so far up your ass that my shoe will come out of your stupid mouth! In the heat of the moment, Tony hadn’t noticed that the man’s head was already cracked open, nor did he take notice of his son’s popgun dangling from the latter’s hand.

Although badly shaken by the unexpected counter attack, the hapless stranger continued to call on one authority after another, but now his voice betrayed more than a trace of uncertainty and fear. He seemed to be totally disoriented. His confusion was compounded tenfold when Tony Lorenzo grasped his shirt front in a practiced manner, spun him around with the skill of a ballroom dancer and delivered a hard kick to his backside.

Now get the hell out of here, you stupid son of a bitch, shouted the elder Lorenzo, and in a stunning display of balance and coordination worthy of a professional soccer player, he shoved and kicked the poor fellow along the hall, and down the stairs. And even though by the time they reached the front door the thoroughly beaten stranger was attempting to escape rather than resist, Tony delivered the coup de grace, a vicious kick that propelled him out onto the stoop as if he had been shot from a cannon. Clucks of approval echoed from the other tenants who had streamed out of their apartments to watch the fun.

Tony Lorenzo muttered curses as he returned to his fat, railing at the fact that a man was unable to find peace even in his own home.

Those lousy sons of bitches in fancy suits should stay uptown where they belong, he screamed, as he stood in the doorway like some mythical warrior. He held the popgun in his hand, having automatically picked it up from the floor of the hall where it had fallen during his attack. And tell those damned kids of yours to keep their toys out of the hall! he bellowed, as he walked past his terrified mate, who was too stunned to say a word. Somebody could trip over them and get hurt. He threw the popgun onto Sal’s bed, went back into the kitchen and finished his sandwich with one big bite.

Stench

It is a known fact that scent plays a dominant role in the lives of most animals. Dogs are a good example of this. For example, next to eating, dogs seem to be happiest when sniffing each other’s anus or genital area, and when these delights are not available, they derive the greatest pleasure when burying their noses in the body waste products of their peers wherever these have been left as markers. The canine world is not the only one where smell is so important. Indeed, humans are also greatly influenced by their noses, although they have learned to be subtle about it. Fortunes have been made on perfumes, shaving lotions, incense and other products designed to either eliminate offensive smells or introduce enticing, pleasurable fragrances to the environment. It has been scientifically proven, moreover, that exposure to a particular odor often triggers the release of treasured moments in one’s past. A familiar smell can bring one back to another time and place with the accompanying mood alteration that such a memory induces. If any such odor had this power it was the one to which Guy Lorenzo had been exposed during his McFadden Street era. It was then that he experienced a smell so compelling that many years later the mere thought of it would be enough to make his nose quiver. To say that this was no ordinary aroma would be a gross understatement. The word stink was inadequate to describe it, and so the stronger term stench must be applied. Stench. This was the nickname given to the portly landlady on McFadden Street, and it was an apt one.

One knew immediately when Stench was within ten yards, even if one was outside and there was no wind blowing. Her odor was overwhelming not only by virtue of its strength, but because of its complexity. It was an amalgamation of diverse olfactory elements, fused together to produce a supreme symphony of smell. Tony Lorenzo, not one who feared addressing complex subjects, gave his evaluation.

She stinks like a goddamned garbage heap, he offered in his usual bellowing tone, not appreciating the fact that this unique human being had achieved a total integration of such varying odors as sweat, urine, garlic, onions, cabbage, leather, and kerosene, to name just a few. To a connoisseur of smell she was what a fire hydrant is to a sniffing Fido. To Tony Lorenzo and the other amateur noses in their building, though, she was Stench, the smelly old bitch who collected the rent. To Guy and Sal she was a pain in the ass, particularly because she loved children. All children. Childless herself, she could not resist hugging any and every youngster who came within her reach. It was only with difficulty that the two younger Lorenzos managed to escape her clutches on their way out of or into the house. Stench sat by her door like a patient hunter behind a blind, waiting for an unsuspecting victim. When the boys reached her landing she would throw open the door and begin to cajole them, asking all kinds of questions about their day at school and the like. Most of the time they would simply say a fast hello and scoot past her like two miniature racing cars, holding their noses in mock derision once they reached the open air. One day, though, the pattern was changed.

Guy had just finished lunch, and was heading outside to meet a couple of his buddies down by the icehouse. It was summer, so they spent a lot of time there; it was nice and cool and an ideal place for kids to hang out on hot summer days. They sat around between the large blocks of ice and every once and a while chipped off a piece to suck on or throw down each other’s shirt. As Guy got to the landlady’s landing, Stench appeared as usual, but he sensed that something was different. Instinctively, he stopped in his tracks, curious to find out what it was.

Ya wanna come in to see my parrot? Stench’s heavy Brooklyn accent couldn’t cover a sadness Guy had never heard in her voice before. He’s such a byooteeful boid, she continued, her eyes misted. There was a plea in her simple offer, almost a prayer. Guy knew about her parrot; he had always wanted to go in to see it and hear it talk, but Stench’s odor was a barrier he couldn’t bring himself to cross. Anyway, the guys were waiting for him, so he shot past her as usual without even saying hello. What the hell, he thought, she smelled like a sewer pipe, and who knew what kind of a nut she was. Guy’s mother had never said anything negative about her, but she broke out in the hives every time she saw Stench. By the time he reached the corner, Guy had forgotten completely about Stench and her parrot.

A few days later, someone smelled gas coming from the landlady’s fat. When no one responded to the repeated knocks, the police were called. They found Stench with her head in the oven, the jets on full blast. There was a dead parrot in the next room. One of the policemen offered the information that it must have died a day or two before, since it was already beginning to decompose. A second policeman unceremoniously put it into a paper bag and deposited it in the garbage pail by the gate. Then they took Stench’s body away in an ambulance as all of the tenants watched.

In spite of her tragic fate, however, it was clear that the old landlady had triumphed in death. Before long, she became a legend in the neighborhood, her story passed from mouth to ear as were heroic epics in times gone by, until everyone on McFadden Street and beyond could recite it verbatim. It was said that the policemen who entered her apartment held dampened rags over their noses, not so much to protect themselves from the lethal gas as to suppress the overwhelming odor issuing from the dead woman. She had proven herself to be, so said an aspiring neighborhood poet, the undisputed queen of stink. And even the most cynical among the listeners had to grudgingly acknowledge her unsurpassed greatness in that, her chosen field.

P.U., muttered one of the tenants, pinching his nose between thumb and index finger as the covered body was carried down the stoop. But this exclamation was not offered in a negative way. His voice betrayed admiration rather than disdain, yes, even a degree of respect.

She smells worse than a corpse, chimed in another, unaware of the irony in his appraisal.

What kind of a crazy bastard kills herself because of some dumbassed bird? queried Tony Lorenzo when his wife informed him of Stench’s suicide. The parrot probably choked to death from smelling her stink, he added, almost smiling. Guy didn’t find his father’s remark very funny. The truth was, he felt sad and even a little bit guilty. He didn’t understand why he felt that way, however, and never told anyone about it.

The Move

The long awaited day finally arrived. The days of living in a slum were over; Utopia was waiting for the Lorenzos. They were moving up the social ladder at last. Goodbye McFadden Street. Ciao Williamsburg. Farewell rats and roaches. Adieu broken stairs and peeling paint. The American dream was about to be realized; Guy and his family were headed for the greener pastures of East New York. It was still Brooklyn, true, but this greatest of all boroughs was a huge and diverse place, a combination of heaven, hell and purgatory. Arrivederci hell! Auf Wiedersehen. Hasta la vista. Doe Sveedania. Up, up and away!

The seven-room apartment on Highwood Street had been freshly painted for the new tenants. As a special enticement, the landlord had even put down new linoleum in the kitchen. And wonder of wonders—you could turn on the tap and get hot water. Hot water! Paradise could offer little more. Guy’s mother was ecstatic, her poetic temperament brimming with romantic visions. Even Tony Lorenzo seemed changed. While he still ranted and raved about every triviality, it was obvious that he was only keeping in practice, just in case. The customary rancor was lacking in his tone. At any rate, he was thoroughly preoccupied with the final preparations for the move, and filled with thoughts of brighter times ahead. He was on a roll; a week before he had received notification that his score on the civil service examination for a position in the Parks’ Department was high enough to put him on the top of the list for appointment in the very near future. Security was just around the corner, and it was about goddamned time, too. Hadn’t he broken his ass for years without any recognition? Damn right, he thought. Damn right.

Guy was not as enthusiastic as his parents about the impending move. He would be leaving all of his friends, and would have to get used to a strange new world. Adults didn’t understand; they didn’t realize how difficult it was for someone his age to make such a drastic change. What kind of kids would there be in East New York? Would he fit in with them? Would they try to prove they were hotshots and use him for a punching bag just because he was the new kid on the block? Well, just let them try it, he decided. He knew how to take care of himself. They would be sorry if they decided to pick on Guy Lorenzo. Still, he was worried. And frightened. Not his brother Sal, though, who didn’t give a rat’s ass whether they moved or stayed put. All his four year older brother did the whole day was study or work, so what did it matter where he was? Sal always got straight A’s in school and the teachers all loved him. Not that Guy’s grades were bad. In fact, he was always right there near the top of the class in all of his subjects except conduct. He knew he was lucky that school came easy for him, because his father would have kicked his ass around the block if he didn’t get good marks. The one thing he wouldn’t do, though, was study. Playing ball and shooting the shit with friends was more important than sticking your nose in a boring book. Yeah, he was too smart to have to study his life away.

A crowd of curious children gathered around the large moving truck as it drew up to the curb in front of 129 Highwood Street. Curtains were pulled back from surrounding windows, and Venetian blinds were separated a crack to give curious eyes a glimpse of