Noses

Joey was named after his grandfather. Actually, his grandfather’s name was ‘Giuseppe,’ but since before the war second generation Italian Americans had abandoned the names of the old country in favor of what was used in their new one. So, Giuseppe became Joseph, Mateo became Matthew, Luigi became Louis, Francisco became Frank, Vincenzo became Vincent, and Antonio became Anthony.

But it didn’t stop there; later on, Anthony became Tony, Vincent became Jimmy, and Frank became Cheech, for reasons no one understood.

Going to his grandparent’s bungalow in Staten Island for three weeks in the summer was an adventure for Joey. In Brooklyn, Joey’s time outside was in the school playground during school days and maybe an hour after, or in the cement-surfaced park on Fourth Avenue on the weekends. But Grandpa and Grandma lived at the end of their street; indeed, the pavement ended a few hundred feet away from their front door and only dirt led up to it. On the other side, past their house, was just woods.

Joey had been going there with his parents, his older brother—just a little more than a year older--and his little sister—for two years, but he was only eight years-old and it was only this year that he was thinking about. He wouldn’t remember the times when he was six or seven until he was much older.

In the summer of 1952 most kids Joey’s age, living where he was living, spent their summers in Brooklyn. There was the beach at Coney Island, the Cyclone and Luna Park, the Aquarium, Prospect Park and the Zoo, and the local parks, one every couple of blocks, and all of them with a hard cement wading pool that you could cool your feet in, even if you couldn’t swim. The mothers sat on the park benches watching their kids play or wade. Every night you came home with a skinned elbow or knee, but you were out of a hot apartment and with your friends.

If it was really hot you stayed at home, inside, in the summer, even though the beach at Coney wasn’t that far away. Mothers didn’t drive in those days; indeed, most fathers didn’t have cars, and getting there on the bus, streetcar or subway was just too hot and just too much. Twenty years later, when Joey was grown and married, his wife packed their kids in the family car and drove them to soccer, gymnastics, dance classes; anywhere they wanted or needed to go. By then, times had changed.

“Put everything in your bag,” said Joey’s mother.

The ‘bag” really was a bag—a brown grocery bag from the A&P. His mother had kept a few aside from her weekly food shopping in anticipation of the vacation at Grandma’s. Joey’s bag had his name written on it in crayon.

“Don’t just throw your clothes in there,” scolded Joey’s mother. “Fold them. If you just throw them, they’ll come out how they went in. I’m not pressing at Grandma’s.”

Today we call it “ironing.” Then, it was “pressing.” Joey used to watch his mother ‘press’ his clothes. She would put them in the ‘spin dryer’; it was a small basket at one end of the washing machine that spun at high speed and drained away the water from the washed clothes. After hanging them out to dry a bit on her clothesline (or on the radiator in the Winter) she would put the clothes on her ironing board, fill the iron with water and heat it up. When she thought it was ready, she put some water on her finger and touched the bottom of the iron. If it just dripped, it was too soon. If it hissed, the iron was ready.

On the night before he was going to Grandpa’s Joey went to bed at the usual time, but this time he didn’t go to sleep right away. Usually, he just closed his eyes and before he could think about anything he was asleep. This night he thought about everything. He thought about walking in the woods and picking ferns for his mother. Ferns were everywhere and didn’t look like much, thought Joey; but his mother always acted like they were glorious roses of the kind you couldn’t find anywhere. She would put them in a vase and say, “How beautiful!” They only lasted a day. On the second day, after Joey spent the day playing, when he came home, he found the vase was empty.

He also thought about the walks he would take with his father at Grandpa’s. In Brooklyn there were no walks. His father worked five days a week and a half day on Saturday. The time-and-half-day on Saturday made a big difference. His father made $1.90 an hour at the sheet metal shop where he operated a “brake.” He shaped metal to meet the needs of the customers. The place he worked at, KC Metal, had military contracts, and lots of the metal Joey’s father shaped became cylinders that were parts of military rockets. There was war in Korea, and KC Metal had military contracts that were big. Joey’s father worked a lot of overtime. Groceries cost $20.00 a week, including the meat. For $20, you got eight bags of food. Because of the overtime there was a lot of food in the refrigerator at Joey’s house.

And he thought about his Grandfather.

As much as he liked going to the bungalow, when he was there, he was always on pins and needles because of his grandfather. With Grandpa, he couldn’t do anything right.

The bungalow had three railroad rooms—a living room in the front, bedroom in the middle and a kitchen in the back—and when Joey came home from playing outside, he would burst through the front door, run through the bedroom, and crash into the kitchen looking for lunch.

“Mannaggia il diavolo!” his grandfather would bellow from the bedroom.

Grandpa had taken off his overalls, put on his long-tailed night cap, and crawled into bed in his long johns to take his daily afternoon nap, and had just drifted off when Joey came crashing through. Grandpa napped every afternoon, and almost every afternoon Joey forgot to be quiet. Seeing his grandfather in his long johns, with his nightcap on, his face red with anger, was not a pleasant sight. Joey was scared every day, but every day he forgot when it was that Grandpa took his nap.

If it wasn’t the bedroom, it was Grandpa’s garden. Sunflowers, tomatoes, squash, strawberries—Joeys stepped on all of them chasing an errant baseball, or a butterfly, or just by hiding among the tomato vines during a game of hide and seek.

“Mannaggia il diavolo,” Joey’s Grandpa would yell. Joey was sure Grandpa didn’t like him.

“Sit in your seat, and stay still,” said Joey’s mom.

They were driving down to the 69th Street Ferry. It was the only way to get to Staten Island, at least from Brooklyn. Sure, you could drive to Manhattan and take the ‘New York’ ferry. But Joey lived in Brooklyn. Why would you drive 15 miles and go all the way to New York when you could go one mile by ferry to get to Staten Island?

The line-up to the ferry was long. It started on 69th Street, went down to the water where you could see New York Bay, and turned left. Not much to see, though. Joey’s brother had fallen asleep right after they got into the car. His sister was asleep before they left the apartment.

Joey looked out the window and took everything in. The line moved slowly. After a while, Joey could see the dock where the ferry came in. The ferry that had landed was named the “Tides,” and it was big, squat and green. There were soft lights lit on the second deck, where the passengers sat, but the vehicle deck was brightly lit. The line of cars moved slowly ahead as each vehicle rolled on to the boat. But Joey’s car stopped 20 cars short. The ferry held about 50 cars, but the line was longer than that. The ‘Tides’ rolled down its gate, blew its horn, and left the dock on its way to Staten Island.

Joey’s father looked over his passengers. His wife was fumbling through her pocketbook, looking for something; Joey’s older brother was under a blanket in the back seat of the ’48 Frazer and his sister hadn’t moved since they left the apartment. It was his father’s family and his father loved all of them.

“Do you want an ice cream?” asked Joey’s Dad. There was a stand there on the dock. “No.” said Joey. He was ok.

The dark night brightened, and the lights of the next ferry illuminated the dock area. It was the ‘Narrows,” a ferry identical to the “Tides” and just as big, green and squat. It wasn’t long before they had boarded the boat, crossed the narrow body of water, and landed at the ferry dock on Staten Island.

The water between Brooklyn and Staten Island—the Narrows-- is only about a mile wide, but in those days the distance between the Brooklyn side and the Staten Island side could not be measured in just miles.

Brooklyn had grid streets, row houses, delicatessens (a German word eventually co-opted by the Italians), restaurants, street gangs that prided themselves on their ethnic allegiance but had no thought of violence; and entire families sitting on their stoops in the evening. Brooklyn had Coney Island, the Parachute Jump, its own way of talking so distinct that you almost needed subtitles to understand it. It had Blacks in Williamsburg, Jews in Ocean Parkway, and Italians everywhere else.

Staten Island had old farmhouses with sloping Dutch roofs; farm fields still producing fruits and vegetables; egg farms; sometimes even goats walking on main streets; fishermen hauling in crabs and shellfish. It had Norwegians and Swedes in the middle, a few Irish on the north shore, Polish in Elm Park, some Italians in New Dorp, and a polyglot of Germans, Dutch, English and others everywhere else. At night you sat outside, looked at the night sky, and in the summer swatted mosquitoes. In Brooklyn, most people were Catholic, although that didn’t mean they went to church. On Staten Island, you were Presbyterian, other Protestants, Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopal, a few Catholics, and even fewer Jews. In West Brighton, there was even a church for Anglicans. Wherever the services were, on Staten Island, you went. Not so in Brooklyn. In Brooklyn kids played in playgrounds and rooted for the Dodgers. In Staten Island kids played on sandlots and most liked the Yankees.

Joey looked sleepily out the window of the Frazer as it drove up Bay Street after leaving the ferry, turned right at Victory Boulevard, and drove up the hill toward his grandparents’ house. The car engine hummed and climbing the hill pressed him into the cloth seat. When he woke up, it was the next morning, and he was in his bed in the Screen House.

Grandpa lived in “The House that Jack Built.” There were no building codes then; and if it didn’t fall down after you put it up, it was your house. Grandpa had built the bungalow with framing, tar paper and stucco, with a grape arbor leading to the front door, plantings on both sides, and a concrete walkway. Italians know how to do concrete and brick. He had also built a pool. It had a foundation underground, a very small ramp of concrete that led up to a small landing, and a little pool area the size of a large bathtub and open to the sky. When it was finished, before Joey was even born, Grandpa filled up the pool with water so that it was about three feet deep. One night after it was finished, he went to bed, and came out the next morning, before his wife Rosie woke up, completely naked, and went to the pool for a dip. But there was no water in the pool. It had all drained through the porous concrete, to the foundation below. The clay in the earth kept the water there and, from that day on, the little foundation was always full of dark, cold water, while the pool itself was always dry, and no one ever went into it. One time, Joey’s cousin Sal told him he threw a bag of cats into the dark water in the foundation. Joey never tried to find out if that story was true.

Grandpa also built the Screen House. There wasn’t any room for family in the bungalow, so Grandpa built a shed out next to the pool. It was about 30 feet long and about 10 feet wide with a short cement knee wall all around and, instead of windows, just screens from the wall to the shed roof. It was open to the air but had a wooden floor and was sturdily built. Three single cots, a dresser and a small table to hold a lamp made up the furniture. There was no electricity, so the dresser held two lamps and the table, one. Kerosene lamps. No one could sleep there in the winter. But in the summer, with the air warm and the smell of kerosene making Joey, his brother and sister drowsy, sleep came easily. They woke up damp from dew and smelling a little of mold. But their clothes freshened once they went out into the sun.

There was Rice Krispies for breakfast and Joey and his brother ate their fill. There was a little TV is a small room off the kitchen that Joey’ grandfather built a year or two ago so that his grandchildren could have some extra space on rainy days, but Joey and his brother and sister never thought to go there. There was so much to do around the little bungalow. An open yard on one side had enough room for a catch; you could play stickball in the dirt street at the front of the house; there were woods, with paths through them, across and at the end of the street, and those paths stretched on forever. The woods had blueberry and blackberry bushes, crab (they tasted sour) and real apples growing there, and wildflowers to pick and bring home. Playing hide and seek in woods that were acres around was daunting; but the kids always managed to find their friends hiding out there. Joey and his brother came home at the end of the day. Sometimes, Joey’s Dad made a fire at the end of Grandpa’s property and, when the fire was hot, threw some potatoes on the coals. “We’ll roast some mickeys,” he would say. Joey didn’t like potatoes, but he liked roasted mickeys.

Other times, Joey’s Dad just made a fire. A big tree had fallen down and Joey’s father sawed through the trunk to make a log about two feet around. It became a mantle for the fire Joey’s Dad made most summer nights at the bungalow. Joey’s Dad would lay stones against the log, then add paper, twigs and small branches. Joey, his brother and his Dad made fires there for years, and the log never burned way. They would sit close to the fire, watch it burn, and sometimes collect dried weeds to keep the fire going. When the mosquitoes came out and started to bite, they went home, into the Screen House. Joey would go to sleep with one or two mosquitoes clinging to the ceiling of the Screen House. They would buzz in his ear, and he would swat them while he was sleeping.

Grandpa was sitting on the short brick wall along the walkway to his front door, smoking his pipe. He was 70, thick, short and round, with large, calloused hands that roughened Joey’s baby skin when the two of them infrequently shook hands. When he napped, he wore a nightcap; but during the day he had a small, Scottish-style hat that covered his balding head. Joey almost never saw him without a hat and remembered clearly the first time he saw Grandpa without one, and how much smaller, younger, and weaker he looked without it, with his head mostly bald and just wisps of gray hair above his ears. His English was poor, and most of the time he spoke Italian or used gestures, but everyone knew what he was saying.

Mostly, Joey remembered his grandfather’s smell. It was pipe tobacco, Javel bleach, and the wet earth from the garden that infused his clothes from his wiping his hands on them.

Joey had disturbed Grandpa’s nap 10 or more times and trampled a lot of fruit and vegetables. He wanted to apologize. He walked up to his grandfather, sitting on the wall. Giuseppe was tapping his pipe against the cement wall, and the tobacco fell out, smoldering and giving off an intoxicating odor. Joey came up and touched the old man’s arm. Giuseppe put his heavy hand on Joey’s shoulder and pulled him little closer. Joey sat on the wall and leaned toward his grandfather. But then he felt a little heat, then a burning, and then real pain. The seat of his pants was on fire! He had sat on his grandfather’s pipe ashes and his jeans were smoldering!

“Rosie!” yelled Joey’s Grandpa, and Joey’s mother came flying out of the bungalow. She lifted Joey up and sat his bottom into the planting bed alongside the walkway, where Grandpa’s cherry tomatoes were blooming, crushing four or five plants. But the damp earth put out the fire in Joey’s pants. She looked at her father.

“You old fool,” she snarled.

Grandpa looked at the crushed plants and at Joey. Grandpa never said it, but Joey could hear it. “Mannaggia il diavolo.” Joey ran back to the Screen House and buried his head in the pillow of his cot. Later, his mother put Vaseline on his bottom.

* * * * *

It was August, and school would start in another week. Grandpa had gathered the last of the eggs from the chickens he brought to the bungalow at the beginning of the summer, and the chickens that had laid them and that he had kept, fed, cleaned up after, and taken care of in his homemade coop and pen, had become soup, chicken gravy, and Sunday dinner as the summer wound down.

The family finished dinner on this last night at the bungalow and, after the dishes were cleared, sat at the kitchen table. Joey’s father had a deck of cards and, as they had done many times during the summer, began dealing them out to play a game of “Noses.”

Usually, just Joey’s Dad, Mom, Grandpa and Grandma played, but this time Joey and his brother were asked to sit in. Joey and his brother had watched the game, but never played.

Each player received four cards and, in each round, took one card from the player on the left, and discarded one to the player on the right. The first player to get four of the same cards was supposed to touch his or her finger to his or her nose. Seeing that, all the other players would then touch their noses and the last one to touch his or her nose was “Out.” The last one standing was the winner.

It was confusing for an eight-year old, but the cards kept coming, and Joey kept passing one to his right. His Mom was on his right and kept talking sweetly to him. Grandpa was on his left, and Joey didn’t look his way.

They had gone about six rounds when Joey suddenly felt a tap at his left foot. He passed a card to his right, and felt another tap, stronger this time. He looked at his Grandpa, and his Grandpa was sneaking a look his way, with a little smile at the corner of his mouth.

The cards were going around and would come around again to Grandpa in a second. Joey got another, stronger tap. Grandpa took his right hand from his cards and scratched his chin.

Suddenly, Joey knew what the taps meant.

Grandpa touched his nose, and Joey touched his nose right behind. The rest of the table followed. Joey’s mother was last and was “Out.”

“Joey,” said his Mom with a big smile, “You really learned this game fast!”

Joey looked at his Grandpa. Grandpa picked up his pipe and pushed down the tobacco in its bowl. He shifted a bit in his chair, and put his big, rough hand on Joey’s head, and tousled Joey’s hair.

“Che bedda,” said Grandpa.

Now Joey knew. All the bad things he had done didn’t matter. His Grandpa loved him after all.