My red Schwinn Tornado was freedom; I didn’t need a destination. I found a stretch of Brooklyn street without traffic where I pedaled to top speed, then coasted and relished the breeze on my face. Sometimes, I’d clothespin a playing card between the rear tire spokes, click-clacking as I rode. If I picked up a nail, or the chain needed repair, I took my bike to Gaspar’s.
“Ciao Anthony, come stai?”
Gaspar had immigrated from Avellino. He was swarthy, sleepy eyed, with a black mustache. His hands and fingernails were stained with grease. The shop was little more than a kiosk, with spare bicycle parts strewn about as if a hand grenade had exploded inside.
I responded. “Except for my flat tire, I’m fine. And you?”
Gaspar glanced at his wife, Bonifacia, sitting outside on a wooden, kitchen chair with arms crossed like a chunky gargoyle. A circular vaccine scar dotted her upper, right arm.
Gaspar said, “Non mi posso lamentare.”
Gaspar couldn’t complain within ear shot of Bonifacia. She was potentate of the cash register.
I greeted Bonifacia. Close up, I glimpsed wisps of jet-black facial hair.
She said, “Anthony, when will your father take Gaspar Upstate to Wildwood again? He loves the fresh air.”
Gaspar’s languid-eyes rose heavenward.
Bonifacia liked the extra money that Gaspar received for helping my dad and Charlie Spazzolato, my friend, Lenny’s father. They had a deal with the owner of Wildwood, a private property in the Adirondacks. On weekends, they earned extra money building an extension to Wildwood’s cabin, plus they received permission to hunt on the four-hundred acres. Lenny apprenticed with his father laying brick. I helped my dad with the carpentry. Gaspar shouldered the job’s grunt work.
I said to Bonifacia, “Deer season starts soon. We’re leaving Friday.”
Bonifacia beamed. She was missing a lower incisor.
Gaspar’s shoulders drooped.
Gaspar unbolted the flat tire from my bike frame, removed the inner tube, then scraped the damage around the puncture. He applied plastic adhesive and the patch. While we waited for the repair to harden, Gaspar said, “Signor Spazzolato, he’s not my amico, but your father is a good man.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Gaspar plunged the tube into water and tested for bubbles as it filled with air.
After he’d bolted the tire onto my bike, I asked, “How much?”
Gaspar took a quick glance at Bonifacia, then waved his hand. “No charge. We’re paisani, right?”
I smiled. “Grazie.”
A drive to Wildwood in the Adirondacks was a chance to bask in my father’s company. Whether he cleaned his Winchester 30-06 bolt-action with scope, or examined his red-and-black-checked hunting jacket for moth holes, my pulse rate rose. The .22 rifle that I’d received for Christmas had just been repaired. I dry-fired at every Indian and bad guy appearing on TV westerns until the firing pin busted. I was anxious to try my marksmanship on Maxwell House coffee cans filled with water. They’d explode like a Yosemite geyser.
Charlie Spazzolato was heavy set, with blue-smudged tattoos on his forearms like Popeye. A hula girl and an Admiralty anchor. He originated from New Orleans and moved to New York for construction work. He was an avid baseball fan. He drank from a quart bottle of Schaefer while watching the Brooklyn Dodgers on TV. The closest that I got to beer was voting in the annual Miss Rheingold contest.
On this trip, Lenny had to accompany his mother to her parents for the weekend. He was pissed. Four of us piled into my dad’s four-cylinder, four-wheel-drive Kaiser-Jeep with the canvas sides and top. My father drove a maximum fifty-five miles-per-hour. I’m not sure if it was the interior noise or the risk that we’d blow the engine that limited his speed. We traveled north, on the New York Thruway. Wildwood was a dozen miles from North Creek, on a dirt, rutted road. The trip typically took seven-hours.
We stopped for gas in Kingston, and everyone stretched their legs. Across from us, a man with a full, bushy beard pumped gas into a 1956 Ford Fairlane. A young woman sat inside.
My father mused. “I wonder how his girlfriend likes being kissed with all that fuzz?”
Charlie Spazzolato said, “Where he smooches her, she matches him hair for hair.” Spazzolato roared.
Gaspar looked bewildered.
Spazzolato slapped Gaspar hard on the back. “You don’t get it, do you?”
Gaspar looked away. My father’s eyes flitted onto me, then he shot Spazzolato a sharp look.
Spazzolato swallowed and returned to the shotgun seat in the Jeep.
I wondered what was so funny about a guy kissing his girlfriend on the top of her head? Where else could she match him hair for hair? I filed this tidbit away as another of those adult comments that I didn’t understand.
Arriving late Friday, we stopped at the North Creek Diner before we shopped for the weekend’s groceries at the IGA. We sat along the Formica-counter on chrome-stemmed stools. Like she was dealing playing cards, a frenetic, redheaded waitress served us tableware, paper napkins, and a glass of water. I noticed that a black fly floated atop Gaspar’s drink. He paused, took a teaspoon and fished the bug out. He took a sip, then called the waitress over.
He said, “This water’s too warm,” and requested another glass.
Charlie Spazzolato nearly fell off his stool laughing. I had to smile. Through his dark complexion, Gaspar reddened.
Saturday’s dawn poured through Wildwood’s cabin windows. At the sound of squeaks and tiny feet scraping the linoleum floor, Charlie Spazzolato jumped from his sleeping bag. He shouted, “We got mice. Don’t move.” Spazzolato drew his .22 pistol as he drove the mice out the door onto the grass. Like a hound dog, Spazzolato pursued the family of field mice, firing his weapon. Seven bullet-ridden bodies littered the dirt when his magazine had emptied.
Awoken by gunfire, still bleary eyed, Gaspar staggered from his sleeping bag.
Spazzolato swaggered back inside. “Gaspar, did I scare you? Do I need to change your diaper?” He laughed.
I stifled a giggle.
Snow crusted the late October grass. I felt the chill in my nose. Thankfully, the scourges of the north woods, black flies, mosquitoes and no-see-ums weren’t a problem. In summer, we walked the woods slathered with OFF insect repellant and wore netted hats to keep the swarms off our faces and necks.
This was my first white-tailed deer hunt. My father gave me his Remington pump-action .308 rifle. As we crept through the paper birch and red maple, I squinted at shadows and took aim at imagined twelve-point bucks. Squirrels romping in dry leaves sounded like deer walking. A ruffled grouse flushed, and nearly stopped my heart.
I asked my father, “How can I be sure when I spot a deer?”
He grinned. “When you see one, you’ll know”
Gaspar didn’t carry a weapon. Charlie Spazzolato pointed at something dark atop a rock. “Gaspar, pick that up.”
Gaspar reached down and immediately dropped the crusty turd.
Spazzolato chuckled. “Fox shit.”
I grinned.
We moved on.
The sun hung low, red-orange in the sky, and we hadn’t come across any deer.
My father said, “Time for work.”
We returned to the cabin.
I nailed roof boards alongside my father. I hammer-smashed a finger, and the pain inscribed the memory into my brain. I became careful.
At ground level, Gaspar mixed cement. Spazzolato ran his trowel through the thin mixture of sand, water, and cement paste. “Gasper, are you making soup?”
I laughed.
Gaspar gulped and thickened the mix.
Spazzolato sent Gaspar under the cabin extension to secure a foundation stone. As Gaspar wiggled along, he squeezed out an air burst we could hear on the roof. Even remnants of the scent were vile.
Spazzolato recoiled. “Gaspar, did you find a dead body under there?”
I sniggered.
Sunday, we repeated our hunt without success. We returned to the cabin for work. My finger still throbbed.
Just before we all piled back into the Jeep for the ride home, my father and Gaspar huddled near the Franklin Stove.
I heard Gaspar say, “Bleeding.”
My father advised Gaspar to see Doctor Sprandio.
Over the next weeks in Brooklyn, Gaspar’s clothes hung more loosely on his wiry frame. He became winded at the smallest task. He never complained, and I didn’t ask how he felt, but I knew something was wrong.
Bonifacia seemed more resigned then sad. “No more trips to Wildwood for Gaspar.”
Ultimately, Gaspar was bed ridden. Like a scythe cutting wheat, the colon cancer ripped through him. When we returned from Wildwood that weekend, a notice that Gaspar had passed was hung on the bicycle shop’s door. My parents and I attended the viewing. Gaspar’s racked body seemed shrunken on a frilly-white coffin bed. The undertaker had cleaned his hands and fingernails of grease. They looked plastic. Bonifacia sobbed alone at the front. I knelt and said a prayer for Gaspar. My eyes moistened.
Death was new to me. I expected that relationships would go on forever. Gaspar was always kind to me. What had I done for him? I regretted smiling at Charlie Spazzolato’s teasing and jokes at Gaspar’s expense. My remorse lingered long, and felt worse than the pain from a smashed finger.
Joe Giordano was born in Brooklyn. He and his wife, Jane, have lived in Greece, Brazil, Belgium and the Netherlands. They now live in Texas with their shih tzu, Sophia.
–Foreground Art by Claudio Parentela
–Background Art by J Stimp
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