The 70s
were always like the Third Great Awakening. Revolutions left and right, Vietnam
coming to end, and of course, the birth of the internet.
I remember
in particular the year 1978; it was a year full of absurdities and
incredulities. It was one of those years that started off on the wrong foot,
though no one wanted to admit it at the time.
There was
that Indian plane explosion on January 1st that killed over 200
people. You hear something like that on the news on the first day of the New
Year and say to yourself, “It doesn’t mean anything.” But you know everyone was
thinking the same thing: was this some kind of omen?
See, that’s
the thing about human beings. We prefer beautiful, comforting ignorance to the
harsh and cold truth.
But I’m
not here to tell you about that plane crash, or how the Cowboys beat the
Broncos 27-10 that year, or how Spinks beat Muhammad Ali for the heavy weight
boxing title.
You can
look that up, on your Google, or whatever.
This story
is one that never hit the press. Like so many other stories similar to it, this
one was simply swept under the rug and everyone pretended not to notice it.
I was
eighteen that summer. I was the embodiment
of eighteen, and everything that came with it. I had exchanged my baby fat for lanky
limbs, my acne for some hint of stubble on my chin. The only thing that
remained the same about me was my tallness, of an awkward sort, and the mess of
jet black hair on my head that always seemed to be in need of a haircut, which
was inconvenient.
Once every
other month, I’d go get it cut so short, I was essentially a breath away from
bald.
I didn’t
mind.
That way I
saved the $7.00 I’d have spent on cutting it every two weeks. It always grew
out like freshly cut grass, standing straight up, but when it got long enough
it clung to my head. It would eventually become a hassle, as it would always
get in my eyes, so I took to pinning my bangs back with one of my sister’s snap
clips whenever I was working. The kitchen boys got a real kick out of that. When
I came in the next morning, they had similar clips in their own hair, paired
with big grins on their faces. Although they had hair the same length as mine, theirs
was much curlier, so it managed to stay out of their eyes. The snap clips just
gave them a comical look, which was hilarious, and I found myself wondering if
I looked just as ridiculous.
When I
came in the next day sans my characteristically long hair, they threw their
hands up in exaggerated despair and called me a spoil sport. One of them hooked
his arm around my neck and rubbed my head, asking for three wishes.
“Hey, Tappo,”
my boss, Vinnie, said to me from the kitchen doorway when he saw my hair – or,
lack thereof. “Did you get the cancer, boy?” Vinnie had taken to calling me Tappo since the day I walked in through
the doors of Stella’s. It means “short”
apparently, a jest at my height, which I didn’t mind.
“No,” I
grunted as I heaved a bag of flour onto a shelf. “Just a haircut.”
“Just a
haircut,” he repeated with a laugh. “Okay, Tappo,
come out to the front, I have a delivery for you.”
I had only
started working at Stella’s six days
ago. I needed some spending money, this place was nearby, it required almost no
skills, and the pay was better than other places. The free lunch was a plus,
too, although I wasn’t exactly a devoted pizza fan. But things were generally
going well.
And we
know that that never, ever lasts.
The beginning
started when I came in to open up the store on the seventh day of my employment.
It was odd; the metal roll up gate was unlocked. I scanned the sidewalk for the
huge padlock that would normally have been there, but it was missing,
completely gone.
Who closed
up last night?
Did they
forget to lock the gate?
How the
hell do you forget to do something like that?
But then where’s
the pad lock?
Could it
be robbers?
My mind
was reeling at 60 miles per hour.
Just
earlier that year, a mere three months ago, some mafia group called the Red
Brigades had kidnapped the Italian prime minister and shot him to death when the
government wouldn’t comply with their demands.
Sure, that
was in Italy, and the mafias here weren’t nearly as daring, but still. I heard
stories. It didn’t help that the whole neighborhood was full of Italians.
And I wasn’t
Italian.
I was an
outsider. I had immigrated to the States when I was 9 years old. I didn’t know
the first thing about how to win the approval of a Mafioso. I had enough common
sense to know how to stay out of trouble, but what about when trouble finds
you?
Why don’t
they teach us about this crap in high school?!
I unlocked
the store’s glass door and propped it open, cursing myself for not continuing
with those karate classes I used to take as a kid. It was 8AM on a Saturday
morning. Everyone was asleep. No one would wake, even if I did scream. How
comforting.
“Hello?” I
called out, flipping light switches on as I ventured deeper into the store. I
was surprised to find that my voice was steadier than my nerves. I paused, ears
straining to hear. The fan was on in Vinnie’s small office next to the kitchen.
Was it always that loud?
“Hello?” I
called again.
“That you,
Tappo?” Vinnie called back. His voice
was dull, rusty, like that was the first sentence he had spoken in a long time.
I heaved a breath of relief that I didn’t realize I was holding and made my way
to his office. It was dark; I could just distinguish a vague outline of someone
sitting at the desk. I flipped the light switch on.
Vinnie was
in yesterday’s clothes, his face buried in his hands. From the way his hair was
standing, it seemed like he had ran his hands through it one too many times.
I was only
eighteen. I didn’t know squat about life. But I knew the look of a ruined man. I
knew it because of the look on Vinnie’s face when he finally glanced at me.
“Go get us
some coffee, Tappo. Take money from
the register.”
When I
returned with the coffee, Vinnie took the cup wordlessly and sat there, staring
off into space. I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t, and I was
awkward and uncomfortable, and the coffee was really hot in my hands and I didn’t
want to reach over and put it on his desk because the desk was a little out of
reach from where the chair I was sitting in was, and it was already a few
minutes to 10, we’d be open soon, but I was really curious –
“Gooooood
mornin’!”
One of the
kitchen boys had arrived. I looked at Vinnie, who didn’t seem to hear him. I
cleared my throat and took my leave from his office.
The
kitchen boy caught me at the door way to the office. He was the one with the
chipped front tooth. “Tappo. You
opened today?” Then he looked behind me and saw Vinnie sitting at his desk. His
smile faltered and his eyes took up a look of pity.
“Hey boss,”
Chip said solemnly. Vinnie waved his greeting aside. Chip took me by the elbow
and ushered me out. He closed the door to Vinnie’s office and shook his head. “Come
on, we gotta lot-a work to do.”
An hour
into kneading dough, mixing pizza sauce, and rolling garlic knots, I decided to
ask what the hell was going on. Don’t misunderstand me; my ethnic background
had adopted the ‘nosy people lose their noses’ standpoint. I never venture into
other people’s lives.
But I was
so curious.
Perhaps
that’s where my fault lay.
I looked
up from my work. Chip was at the sink, elbow deep in soap suds.
“Um.”
He looked
up at me. I titled my head in the general direction of Vinnie’s office, and
raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
Chip
sighed and took his hands out of the sink, wiping them on his apron.
“Vinnie,
ah,” he took out a pack of Newports, tapped the box against his palm until one
came out, and stuck it between his teeth. “He likes to gamble.” He paused. “Addicted,
you know?” he added. He offered me a cigarette, which I declined, and then continued
to pat in his pockets in search of a lighter. When he couldn’t find it, he
turned on the burner and lowered his face to it so he could light his
cigarette. I remember foolishly thinking how cool he looked; I was so young and
watched too many movies.
“You know
Atlantic City?” He asked me from behind a cloud of smoke.
I nodded.
I wasn’t a total social outcast, even
though I’d never been there myself.
“Yeah.
Vinnie, he likes to go there on Friday night after closing time. Leaves here at
eleven, gets there at maybe one or two in the morning.” He took a long drag on
his cigarette. “Comes back broke as a beggar, you know?” He flicked cigarette
ash into the sink. “Bad luck.”
I looked
away, feeling embarrassed for some reason.
“He doesn’t
go home after he finishes at Atlantic City, you know? Can’t face Stella – that’s
his wife, Stella,” he pointed at the ground. “He named the store after her.
Anyway. He can’t face Stella and the kids after blowing away so much money, you
know?” Chip put his cigarette down to turn a pie of pizza in the oven. “Always
same thing, every week.” He shrugged his shoulders. “But listen Tappo, Vinnie makes good money. The
store,” he picked up his cigarette again as he gestured widely. “Make a lot-a
money, you know? And he has another store, too. Vinnie’s not poor, Tappo.” He shook his head. “Vinnie, he makes
more money than you or me ever make in our whole life.” Another flick into the
sink, and then he shrugged. “But he burns it all on gambling.” He pointed at me
to make his next point, “Stella knows. She knows about his gambling. She just tired
of arguing about it, you know?”
Chip was
silent for a few minutes, so I figured that was the end of that. I went back to
kneading dough.
“But there’s
other stuff too, Tappo.” His tone
made me look up again. His face was grave. “Vinnie, he’s stupid.” He shook his
head in – in what? Disappointment? Sympathy?
He put out
his cigarette in the sink and went back to work.
I stared
at his back for a moment longer before resuming my own work, thoughts still
swimming in my head.
Later that
night, as I was taking the garbage out, something else happened. It was like a
scene out of movie, I tell ya.
A man in a
pinstripe suit and cuff links that caught the light walked into the store. I
could see a shock of dark hair under his fedora, streaked with grey at his
temples.
“We’re
closed,” I said, but when he looked at me in a way that made the little hairs
on the back of my neck stand, I quickly added, “sir.”
He leaned
on his glossy cane and gave me a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, revealing a
row of crooked teeth. “You must be new here.”
I shifted
from one foot to the other, suddenly aware of the loud laughing going on in the
kitchen. I wished one of the other guys would come out already.
“Go fetch
Vinnie, kid.” An order. He pulled up a bar stool and sat down, placing his cane
and a briefcase on the counter. “I’ll wait.” Another dead smile.
I told
Vinnie that there was someone outside asking for him. It might have been the
look on my face that gave it away: this was no ordinary person. I remember
naively thinking maybe he was a lawyer or something. Vinnie got up tucked his
shirt into his pants as he rushed out the door. I went to the kitchen and
watched from the doorway. There was some talk between the two, and then Vinnie
pulled out his keys and unlocked the register. He took out all the money in it –
all of it – and handed it to the
stranger. The stranger tucked the cash into his brief case and then pointed at
Vinnie and said something before leaving.
He didn’t
even use the cane. It was clear he didn’t need it. He didn’t eve limp.
Who was
this guy?
Vinnie
lingered in his place, head bent, looking dismal.
“See, Tappo?” I jumped at the voice that was
suddenly close, and turned around. Chip was looking at Vinnie and then raised
his eyebrows at me. “He burns all his money, you know? And then he takes loans
from the wrong people, only to burn all that away, too.”
“I thought
you said he makes a lot of money?”
Chip
nodded. “He does. He keeps up with his payments, you know? But still. Would you
want someone like that coming into your store every week to collect?”
No, sir.
Two days
later, Vinnie was gone. No one knew where he was, and no one wanted to call the
cops. Stella came in and started running the store, a perpetual look of anxiety
on her face, a constant frown pulling at the corners of her lips.
On the morning
of the third day of Vinnie’s disappearance, I came in to work to find yellow
tape marking off the sidewalk in front of the store. A crowd of nosy onlookers
had collected nearby, hoping to catch sight of something worth telling stories
about. Confused, I made my way through the crowd to the front of the yellow
tape and ducked underneath it.
“Hey!” A
police officer put his hand on the top of my head and pushed me back under the
tape and to the other side. “Don’t you see the tape? This is off of bounds.”
I opened
my mouth to explain that I worked here, but someone called my name.
“Tappo!”
Well, sort
of.
I looked
past the police officer and saw one of the other delivery boys, the one with
the red hair, making his way toward me from inside the store. His face looked
pale, and a knot formed in my stomach.
“It’s okay
officer, he’s with us,” Red told the officer. When the officer shook his head,
Red insisted. “He’s family.”
The
officer looked from me to Red incredulously and I felt my ears turn warm in
embarrassment. I looked nothing like
family.
“You gotta
be kidding me,” the officer said to Red, who was already pulling me under the
yellow tape.
“Through
marriage,” he said to the officer who was now frowning at us, but at the same
time made no move to stop me.
When we
finally got into the store, everything came crashing in around me; it was like
a sudden burst of “too much”. Too much noise, too much lighting, too much of
that horrible smell – what the hell was that?
I slowly
started to take in the scene, bits at a time.
There were
detectives with their notepads out, Chip standing to my right by the door, an
unlit cigarette between his teeth. Red went to stand next to Chip, and the
other guys stood next to him. I felt my heel slip a little, and I glanced down
to see a trail of little droplets of pizza sauce that disappeared into a crowd
of people crouching on the floor, rubber gloves on their hands.
Finally my
eyes settled on the chair at the back of the store’s dining area, and the woman
sitting in it: Stella. It was almost like the whole scene was building up to
this.
To her.
The way
she was sobbing into a napkin, mascara running down her face. She occasionally
gave a wail so heart wrenching, it sounded only like the sort of cries a woman
would make if she had lost her…
Suddenly,
I felt bile in the back of my throat. I turned away from her quickly and my
eyes found Chip. I grabbed his shoulder.
“It’s
Vinnie,” he began. I felt dread build up in my stomach. It was in the middle of
June, but it suddenly felt as cold as Antarctica. I waited for Chip to tell me
what I already knew. And he did. “They killed him.”
My mouth
was dry, I couldn’t even swallow my own spit – I had none. “How?” I croaked.
“Stella
came to open up this morning. Said there was a big black garbage bag in front
of the store, so she tried to move it so she can unlock the door, you know? And
then she saw that the bag…” He took a deep breath. “The bag was leaking blood,
so she called the police.” He looked away and tried to take a drag on his cigarette,
realized it was unlit, and then tucked it behind his ear. “Vinnie was in the
bag. Not in one piece.”
I felt my
arms slack, my knees started to shake. And I was so cold.
I had
meant to ask him “who”, but it had come out “how”. But after hearing this, I
didn’t even want to know who it was anymore.
This was
crazy.
It was
insane.
Stuff like
this didn’t happen in real life.
Not in my real life at least.
I didn’t
know anybody. I didn’t talk to people. I come from a middle class immigrant
family, we never had anything to do with anyone.
I just
wanted a temporary summer job for some spending money.
None of
this stuff.
I was
suddenly aware that it wasn’t pizza sauce that I had stepped in.
The
realization made me throw up this morning’s breakfast, right there, in the
middle of the store, on Chip’s sneakers.
