A yankee red sox wedding, p.3
A Yankee Red Sox Wedding, page 3
He’d put his best foot forward from day one, having maxed out his only credit card on a turn-of-the-century wardrobe at Bloomies in midtown—a landmark he’d never seen the inside of. First time he’d ever really bought his own clothes, dressed himself, and not relied on his sisters and mother showering him blindly with unregistered gifts along with Jack Junior’s brazen, unwelcomed hand-me-downs. He even had his hair sculptured at Luigi’s in Whitestone—to such perfection Luigi himself came out and demanded a snap shot for the wall. But, depression knows no hairdo and it seemed, in his mind anyway, that the Boston girls were paying little notice as he could barely get a good morning out of the Flint receptionist, the friendliest girl in the place. Maybe they were just busy lawyers like himself. Or maybe, he was just paranoid. Not trusting people, though, didn’t mean you didn’t like them. Except for that maggot Chester, ‘Chrome Dome’, he generally liked his new coworkers—even the Red Sox fans, which meant everyone.
He especially liked his boss Kenny Kelly. “Thirty-Nine Forever,” Kenny was divorced three lightening years gone by now. No kids. Swore he’d never do it again. Unlike most, he actually meant it. Chris was surprised how much more the “D” word meant in Boston than New York; Bostonites far more chastising of the divorced, and even singles, over thirty. Kenny interviewed and hired Chris. There was supposed to be a second interview with Kenny’s boss, but it never happened. During their farewell elevator shake—that prolonged, dignified grip of implicit male companionship—Chris felt his chance of landing that job was worse than the Sox pennant hopes…zero to none. He’d made too many unintelligible, patronizing comments on Kenny’s Sox-littered office paraphernalia, which made him feel like David Duke auditioning for the role of Malcolm X.
Flint Financial Incorporated, c/o Mr. Kenneth Kelly, had FedEx’ed an offer to the Bronx within twenty-four hours. Kenny litigated eleven years for Flint, the last four as Lead Attorney of Flint’s Northeast Claims Division handling not-for-profits. He walked his talk, never complaining, though constantly citing deficiencies in Flint’s legal operations. He never kissed ass, was respected by all, and under his lead, the Northeast division experienced record revenue for three consecutive fiscal years.
The two attorneys, jocks and committed drinkers—who could easily co-author a ‘how to’ book called Work hard, Play Hard—wouldn’t dare discuss nor admit the fun they’d enjoyed together the last eight weeks, bonding like young American G.I.s from different time zones, fighting the same battle against an enemy they couldn’t understand—not knowing if their next drink, smoke, or laugh would be their last. When Chris left the Bronx, he would’ve never guessed he’d be out drinking with his new boss three to four times a week in Boston, but he was, and it was quickly becoming loads of fun. He liked Kenny during the interview, there was something magnetic about that inquisitive smirk on his face after each question. As if the substance and tone in your answer were irrelevant in comparison to your undertone; that subversive vibe he received, defining, in an otherwise trivial moment, everything you were and ever stood for.
Rattling ice, Kenny scoped his bourbon’s watery bottom for alcohol, thinking deeply. Chris often touched a nerve with some useful adage way beyond his years, driving Kenny to drink hard. Chris, without knowing, proved vital in helping Kenny finally conquer the bitter doldrums of his devastating divorce.
“Get over it chief. The ink is dry, move on.”
Kenny liked that. It served to do his eluding for him, as if he was genuinely self-reflecting, and not seeking empathy, and it was someone else for a change who didn’t want to hear it. Their off-work role playing developed into a chemistry as solid as their nine-to-five one. “Thanks, big guy.”
“No problem boss, that’s why you hired me.”
One Sunday afternoon, the two sat in the exact same corner seats they always did at the Flogger, watching Red Sox Universe air season highlights and arguing once again why the Yankees won the World Series, and why the Red Sox didn’t. Chris had quickly discovered the joy of listening covertly in on patrons’ conversations and even watching Sox televised replays undercover—wallowing in their agony, comforting their frustrated, loser fans without them knowing.
“Wait till next year,” Kenny hiccupped into his flat beer.
Chris grinned cruelly, sipping his dark autumn brew deliberately. “Speak for yourself old man. The pinstripes wait for no one. We wait only for next week, as usual.”
Kenny gazed oddly from some whimsical brain shortage in his head. “Isn’t that what the Dodgers used to say to you guys? ‘Wait till next year.’”
“L.A.?” Chris tried throwing him off. “Who cares what they say. They suck.”
The baffled attorney covered his eyes in thought until his blushed mug finally lit up. “No. Brooklyn.” He wrapped his arm aggressively around Chris’ neck.
Chris was expressionless. “Bums. They sucked too.”
“Yeah, but one year they finally beat the Yan—”
“I wonder what Torre’s starting rotation will be next year,” Chris stomped out Kenny’s thoughts. “Sorry,” he turned and sighed sheepishly at a group of sore Red Sox fans.
“One more,” the boss demanded.
“Blue label,” Chris shot back.
“You Yankee bastard, you’re gunna soak my Christmas bonus dry before I ever see it. Seany, two shots of Johnny Walker, one red, one blue.”
At least you get a bonus, Kenny. Chris was underpaid, undervalued, and had law school loans he’d probably be paying off with his first social security check. In a way, he was already married, to Sally Mae; and what a bitch she was. His bi-monthly net barely kept him above Boston’s competitive cost of living. They both knew this, and Chris felt no guilt when Kenny took good care of him.
Another argument ended. As did Chris’ first seven weeks of hardship in Boston, and Kenny’s first truly “free” year since his divorce. They’d only known each other a couple of months and already felt like they’d watched a thousand Red Sox games, drunk a thousand beers, done a thousand shots of Walker, blue and red, and revealed a thousand frightening truths. The two lawyers raised their amber snifters and toasted to the same damned thing they did the first night they drank: to starting over.
5
Angela was dosing off when the bus’s tires came to a crunching halt in the filthy salt. Stepping down carefully off the bus in a slippery thud, she felt her cheap rubber-souled flats fill with ice water as she began the long haul down North End’s Atlantic Avenue. That first snow a week before had left the streets of North End a pool of sludge. Mushy and blistered from her brutal overtime worked through a blur of summer and fall, she liked the soothing effect the cool slush had on her feet. Forgetting her gloves, her hands were already needling. Maureen’s winter coat covered her nurse’s skirt, but left her pale nippy legs—which hadn’t known a Cape sun in years—mostly exposed. She realized just how unprepared she was for the months to come.
As she shuffled briskly through the cold, she wondered whether Marianne would be there this year, or if she would give them all a break and celebrate the holidays with her quiet boyfriend’s normal family. Having turned thirty the prior October, Angela Bambino wouldn’t miss her twenties; though she didn’t exactly see the big 3-0 as embarking on a path of gold either. No, it loomed instead another ugly decade in that same tortured skin—thanks to a prolonged nursing education devouring her twenties and some adolescent need for closure on some elusive family reconciliation. She still lived in the basement of that same worn little red house with that same lovable little family she’d endured for three agonizing decades. Her life’s proudest achievement, thus far, was liberating herself from that cramped, rose-painted girly room upstairs, which she once shared with Marianne, and escaping into the Bambino barn’s cold, dark depths below. What a resume. That and a mound of debt she’d be paying off until she was a patient herself in JoA’s geriatric ward. For now, she’d chosen to focus on her career, savings, and fleeing the nut house. While her friends pushed the panic button, Angela pushed paper, working obscene hours to avoid her obscener family.
Bellowing into her blue hands, Angela bustled passed Columbus Park, pondering what she always did when passing its otherwise pleasant scenery: her Columbus Complex. The Bambinos were a North End stronghold and proud to live in the immediate vicinity of Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park. Joseph Bambino Senior, “JoBa,” proud Italian-American and Vietnam Veteran, made sure his family worshipped Columbus like a Saint, celebrating the struggles of his grandfather, Guiseppe Bambiniello, who, shortly after thawing out in line at the disease check-in counter nearly a century earlier, was duly re-baptized—compliments of Ellis Island’s rubber stamp:
United States Department of Immigration & Naturalization
Immigration Documentation
Document #:1903-16498783434USE: BAMBINO
Passenger Identification Number: 00076531957891
DOB: December 3, 1883
Port of Departure: Naples, Italy
Port of Entry: New York, Ellis Island
Destination: Boston, MassachusettsSTAMP OF APPROVAL BELOW:
Date of entry: March 27-1903023612649454164603-27-1903
Gender: Male
Marital Status: Single
Passenger Name: Giuseppe S. Bambiniello x
Giuseppe Bambiniello grew to love his “baze-a-ball” as much as his big Italian family. Though he could only afford to take one of his children each year, following baze-a-ball and the Red Stockings in the daily newspaper was Guiseppe’s way of learning the language and becoming an American. To the Bambinos, being an American meant loving their Red Sox.
Nancy Bambino (nee Murphy), liked to piss her husband off, interrupting Columbus Day dinner—“pastafest” Angela coined scornfully—by casually revealing she’d read somewhere that Leif Someone had actually discovered America. The pasta went flying as brother Anthony, “Tony Bam,” covered little Angela’s ears like it were a string of obscenities being spoken. Yet, Angela believed for years that her mother was bluffing and that the Bambino men were in the right about Columbus.
Years later at UMASS, still majoring in Art History, Angela was heartbroken when renowned Professor Rodney O’Toole—whose classes sold out like a Beatle’s reunion—held a protest make-up lecture on Columbus Day for his Great Discoveries of the Renaissance class, citing the day in contempt, pronouncing decisively that Columbus indeed did not discover America. It was in fact Leif…the other guy. O’Toole claimed the Vikings utilized only manual journals, diaries, folklore, and troubadours to document voyages and claim discoveries in the 1300s. The printing press arrived in the 1450s, four decades before Columbus’ infamous voyage, granting Chris “ink” and enabling news of his bold voyage to spread rapidly throughout Europe, copy after copy, bundle after bundle.
“…So Columbus,” O’Toole orated as he fired up his pipe, propping up his baggy trouser leg on the empty seat affront Angela’s, his scrotum practically resting on her desk, sucking three times hearty and blowing three tight smoke rings, “a full century behind Erickson, got all the credit for discovering America simply due the advantage of 15th century technological advancement.”
On that fateful October day, Columbus D-Day, Angela returned from Harbor Point to the annual Columbus Day feast blasting all, revealing bitterly what O’Toole had said. The table went berserk. Tony Bam reached for Angela’s ears, but this time she busted his grip, flinging his hands aside defiantly. Spiraling into a state of depression following her Columbus manifest betrayal, she’d learned that something dear to one’s heart may not only slip away, but may never have been real to begin with. Boldly jumping over to UMASS’ nursing program in rebellion, while minoring in Psychology, she’d concluded one night, while lying on that cracked foam cot in the Bambino basement, that if she couldn’t help herself—couldn’t save herself—then helping others was what she wanted to do, what she was born to do.
Walking briskly along Atlantic to generate body warmth, Angela stared off in the distance. Within the genial, working class hamlet, at the nook of a drooping hill, nestled between two identically quaint houses with identically smoking soot stained chimneys, stood—humble yet proud—the fading red Bambino barn. During the holidays, and all through to opening day, the Bambino property spoke louder to neighbors and passersby than all of North End combined. Closing in, Angela spotted that far-end corner of the backyard; her favorite, most imaginative place to play alone as a child, with its snow laden, green tomato stakes erected beside that tilted swing dangling from hairy rope, suspended from the arching branch of a weeping willow, a layer of snow caked on its splintered bench.
Hearing the piano music, Angela rubbed her burning cold fists before her misty white breath, scoping the front yard with hope, as if it might have changed from what she’d left that morning. Throbbing multicolored bulbs illuminated dashing spectrums on all sides of the estate. A frowning Frosty with a rotting cob and cracked Red Sox helmet melted hopelessly center yard beside a twenty-foot glowing sleigh wired with a demented, movable head Santa—face half charred from electrical shortage, scowling shrilly at frightened children and slowing drive-by’s—his reindeer scared airborne. Razor-eared wooden elves scattered throughout the snow packed yard; their creepy defeatist smiles hardened by decades of naked public display. Smirking dwarves on mechanical strings donned strawberry derbies, poking candy canes at each other and then the night. On the east end an attic-tortured Sinatra—decapitated, raised arms, asking only why—entertained a water-logged toy soldier while penguins with red top hats, each boasting their own fairy, waddled in sync around a one-armed gingerbread man. To the west, a bulimic, washed up Santa reminisced as a somber Drummer Boy—Sox cap sideways, gift-less—marched impatiently in place, banging mini bats angrily in slow motion.
“No change,” she mumbled and walked right in.
Hammering rickety keys with pruning fingers to the final note of Champion My Love Forever, as her niece boiled away in the kitchen, the charming old woman sensed Angela’s presence without looking up, like she’d expected her. The lingering melody evaporated like the bubbling spurts jetting from the overflowing pots just feet away. “Hello dearie!” she cried over yellowed sheet music. “We were worried about you.”
Angela dug her salty, soaking flats maliciously into the wretched fur of the ‘Family that stays together’ welcome mat. “Hello Aunt Tess, Merry Christmas.”
“And to you as well.” Still not looking, she bridged into some ominous ballad of hers and hers alone. Something about that raspy, hollow sounding piano always irked Angela. Its dithering cadence, whiny acoustics, and that one discernibly torturous ringing note—yes, that one—always sending some melodious Morse code, a cryptic message left unfairly to decipher over a lifetime. Over the years, Angela had accumulated baseless snippets from Maureen of some uncanny legend behind Tess’ mysterious piano. True or not, Tess refrained from discussing it to this day.
Yawning indiscreetly, Tony woke to intoxicating smells. Rolling off the vinyl living room sofa ten feet from Tess’ piano, he pressed his aching lower back, snatched a prosciutto and melon impaled toothpick from an ashtray, and wolfed it down. Hobbling into the kitchen, Nuf Ced tailed him, sniffing his back crotch all the way. Part Basset Hound, part Beagle with a white coat and spotted red ears and belly, Nuf Ced was the only truly happy Bambino. A marvelous pooch, named in honor of Mike “Nuf Ced” McGreevey of Boston Royal Rooter fame—whose nickname he derived from breaking up heated arguments in his bar between local Braves and Red Sox fans during Boston’s early baseball years. “Nuf Ced,” he’d lean between fanatics pounding the bar twice with his knuckles. Tess actually met Nuf Ced as a child in his Third Base Saloon on Huntington where she and her fellow privileged brats would sip pop and sing along while their daddies got juiced before heading over to the Huntington Avenue Baseball Grounds to root for the Red Sox. She still professed her love for Nuf Ced, playing all the classic Rooter fight songs on piano to all the Murphy and Bambino children and theirs. Nuf Ced’s folklore grew only prouder over the decades, cementing into unquestionable mythology, urban gospel, deep within their tender minds.
Tony wore his signature holiday attire of paint blotted purplish sweats and a Red Sox tee ripped at both arm pits. “Ah, smells good, let’s eat, Amen,” Tony and twin Joey chimed simultaneously. Joey Bam was officially older than Tony Bam, entering Red Sox Nation just minutes before his sidekick, and never letting him forget it. Both college dropouts—Joey having served in the Marines—they’d found a proud place in civil service, through their old man, in North End’s Department of Sanitation.
“Don’t get smaht,” Nancy said.
Nuf Ced tailed Tony into the kitchen alcove, her stinging wet snout glued to the seat of his sweats until he planted himself in his usual middle chair.
“You could’ve dressed nicer,” Nancy criticized Tony for the millionth time.
“Get the dog away from the table,” JoBa ordered, squatting down at the head of the round foldout table. They all knew where the head was.
“In Cali, everyone dresses like that,” Connie Bambino noted, tugging the cottony knee strings of her ripped jeans, “and no one cares.”
“Well this ain’t Cali,” JoBa reminded his youngest child.
Connie missed Los Angeles already. Living near the beach with three girlfriends, getting high on their porch or at tailgate parties at Chavez Ravine before Dodger games, she partied with the blue, but still bled red.
“Your father’s right Connemara. My Angela! You look so tired. Long week honey? Sit down.”
Her mother never waited for an answer after asking a question, rendering the question meaningless. Angela sat in a daze at the table’s far left bend, where she always sat, scrunched against the corner niche. It’s one thing to be staring at a glass ceiling; it’s quite another to be captive to a house of mirrors, a one-way prism of disturbing images. Where ‘single-at-thirty’ posed no crisis, ‘prisoner to a domestic hostage crisis’—a non-negotiable one—posed a living hell. For as long as she could remember, Angela had wanted nothing more than to escape the house—and Boston. She’d wanted to go away for college to some place fun, like New York—like so many of her girlfriends had. They went to places called Columbia and St. John’s, SUNY this, or CUNY that, NYU, and Fordham. Fordham. She’d seen pictures, wow. She had gotten in there too. Paid for the application herself working at Racanelli’s. Her lifelong sanitation worker father, however, refused to let her go. He said it was too far away from her roots and her family; and besides, it was in the Bronx, the South Bronx, and her father wasn’t going to let his little girl go to school in the South Bronx. Not because it had a reputation for being a dangerous neighborhood—he didn’t give a rat’s ass about that, and he knew his rats’ asses—but for another reason.
