Jermain

“I’m checkin’ my clothes for holes an’ my body for any missin’ parts. Cracker boy looks over at me and says somethin’. But my ears are ringin’, so I can’t hear nothin’ he sayin.’ When I look over to where mama-san an’ Chu-Hoi boy was at, there’s jus’ pieces of smokin’ rags and lumps of what looks like bloody, raw meat. I jus’ can’t git that scene outta my mind. The lieutenant an’ the other three dudes are face down in the dirt. Well, three of ‘em is face down in the dirt, but the other one ain’t got no head for a face to be on. Then I jus’ jumped up and hauled ass away from there. All these years later, I’m still tryin’ to git away from there…”

Mendocino Jack

We gazed down on a vineyard valley. The rows of vines with grape leaves were painted a palette of colors and filled the area in front of us. That was our first view of Mendocino Jack’s Place – Fruit Lake Vineyard and Winery.  Jack gave us a quick tour of the winery and then we followed him upstairs to the living area where we were immediately intoxicated by the savory smells of something delicious being prepared.  Lou and I followed the captivating aromas and into the kitchen. There, Artie stood, using a wooden spoon to stir something in a large pot. It was an Italian stew called ribolita and it was delicious. 

At dinner, Jack raised his glass of zinfandel and said: “To our new friends, may they live safe, well and long!”

I prayed that Jack’s toast came true because right now, even in this remote winery where we were hiding, our lives are in jeopardy from the cold-blooded killers after us. I could only hope that Jack and Artie, would not be risking their own lives to hide us…

Tubby and Cheech

The two guys looked like Mutt and Jeff. Cheech was tall and stout with a pock marked face, dark bags under his eyes and sagging jowls. He was only marginally more handsome than Frankenstein’s monster. He was the “brains” of the two Black Hand guys with an IQ just slightly above 90. Tubby was short and squat and sported a white handlebar mustache. He had the physique of the Pillsbury Dough Boy. He waddled when he walked and his baby face exuded innocence. He was the embodiment of the phrase, “looks can be deceiving,” because Tubby had the strength of a powerlifter with the agility and quickness of a professional football defensive back. 

Both men were stone cold killers…

The BART

He squeezed himself into the group of commuters waiting to board the Oakland subway train. He ignored the angry looks of the people he roughly moved out of the way as he cleared a path to the front of the line. When one person began to complain indignantly, he simply stared at the offended commuter with a look so chilling that the man became suddenly mute. He was now directly beside me, and I turned and looked at the man. He was small and overweight, and he was staring intently at the approaching train. Then he looked up and smiled at me with little yellow teeth.  Suddenly, I felt his arm around my waist. He was going to push me onto the tracks!...

The World

It was the night before Easter when I returned from Vietnam to the “World.” On Easter morning, I walked across the street to my Grandparents’ home to visit with them. I entered their home and saw Grandma Luisa at the stove stirring something in a large pot. It had to be pasta sauce because the room was suffused with the spicy, rich aroma of simmering marinara. Grandma turned, and when she saw me, she made the sign of the cross and mumbled a silent prayer. Then she opened her arms to me. We hugged and when we separated, I watched Grandma wipe tears from her eyes. I got down on one knee and took her extended hand and in Italian asked: 

“Posso avere la tua benedizione, Nonna?” (May I have your blessing, Grandmother?)

Asking for the blessing of the patriarch and matriarch of the family on Easter Sunday is an Italian custom that immigrants from Calabria brought with them when they came to this country. It was something my family – especially we children – had always been encouraged to recite on Easter Sunday… 

Shell Shock

I was fortunate to make it back from Vietnam in one piece, but my experiences in that country ten thousand miles away had left their mark on me. I arrived home from the war in the spring of 1970 as damaged goods. They called my condition “shell shock in World War II. I was having flashbacks and nightmares, and I didn’t know what to do or how I might get better. I was also embarrassed to tell anyone about my issues. My nightmares featured a disparate cast of characters in a maddening kaleidoscope of incidents that produced a frightening, nonsensical and eclectic stew of hallucinations. 

And when I enrolled in graduate school, my waking hours were almost as traumatic as my bad dreams. From the moment I stepped on campus, I faced verbal taunts and then physical assaults by other students who knew I had been soldier in Vietnam. I was called “baby killer” too many times to count. It was an utterly miserable time and I quit school.

I had left the war, but the war had not left me…

Lou

Through my cannabis and booze-fueled mind haze, I started looking around the bar. Someone was standing behind the empty barstool next to me.

“Are you saving this seat for anyone?” I heard a female voice ask.

I turned and looked into the liquid green eyes of a raven-haired woman. “Been holding this seat just for you,” I replied, slightly slurring my words. “What took you so long to get here?” 

“Sounds like you’ve been here since about noon,” she said. 

I was transfixed by this woman. She was dazzling. I felt spell bound as I looked back at her. 
“Sorry. My name is Augie,” I said, and extended my hand.

 “My name is Louise. But you can call me Louise.” This time her smile almost turned into a laugh.

I was finding it difficult to turn away from the woman. She had an oval face, a milky white complexion with full lips and a slightly aquiline nose. She also had long legs and an athletic-looking body, but it was her incredibly deep, liquid green eyes that sealed the deal for me.

“Actually,” she said, “you can call me Lou. It’s shorter and I can tell you’re having difficulty enunciating words with more than one syllable….”

Hambone
He grabbed the guitar case sitting on the bench seat next to him, got out of his truck and walked to the back door on the deck. He reached into his pants pocket, got his key and opened the door. With his hand still on the door handle, Hambone felt, rather than heard, a heavy presence moving quickly behind him onto the deck.

In one fluid motion, he dropped his guitar case, slipped his right hand into his pants pocket and quickly pulled out a .45 caliber pistol. He turned and fired the gun at the huge figure now flying through the air toward him. With a deafening roar, the pistol shot just missed the right ear of Frankie Three Fingers Bonamico…

Guard Duty

It had taken the enemy sapper just twenty minutes to cut through the wire and crawl on his stomach over almost 250 meters of open ground, pushing a bandoleer of high explosives in front of him with one hand and dragging his AK-47 assault rifle with the other. The man was clothed only in shorts, and the rest of his body was blackened with mud. He was aided in his mission by a very dark and cloudy night with no visible moon. 

The sapper could now hear the hum of the giant American generator. He silently cursed it and the searchlights it powered, which swept over the kill zone, where he was hoping to avoid detection. Now twenty-five meters from his target, he located the deadly enemy claymore mine just to his left and moved to it. Satisfied that the Americans had not booby-trapped the mine, he gingerly picked it up, turned it around 180 degrees and angled it up toward the American bunker directly in front of him…. 

Aunt Lia

Aunt Lia was renowned for many dishes. Her stuffed squid and other seafood treats, which she prepared on Christmas Eve, were truly delicious. But Aunt Lia did not like following recipes. She viewed them only as a guide and objected to following them strictly, feeling they would inhibit her culinary creativity. She could also find fault with certain food traditions, even sacrosanct ones. For instance, she didn’t really object to participating in the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve; she was just offended that the saints had limited the feast to only seven edible sea creatures. 

“So where do they get off telling us what we can and can’t eat?” Aunt Lia asked my mother.  “I mean, they scare the shit out of us by saying we’re going to burn in hell for eternity if we eat meat on Friday. That it’s a mortal sin. But then they tell us it’s okay to eat fish. Isn’t fish meat? I bet it was Saint Peter that made that rule up. He was a fisherman, right?” Aunt Lia looked pained in her exasperation… 

Rocket Attack

 At 4:40 a.m., the whistling whine of 100-pound rockets played their brief warning melody and then began to rain down on us. The rockets exploded in thunderous roars, indiscriminately spewing chunks of hot metal that landed harmlessly in open areas or tore through structures and into sleeping human beings. If you heard the impact, you were safe, at least for the next few seconds, and usually able to scramble outside your hooch into the protective bunkers. 

Rolling out of my cot, I ripped the mosquito netting and, in a rush, fueled by pure adrenalin, I stumbled out of the hooch and fell hard, tripping on the wooden steps. I was vaguely aware of men running over and around me. I lay there for a few seconds unable to move. Stunned by the fall, I was now also paralyzed by the sensory overload, as the sights, sounds, and smells of the attack overwhelmed me. I drank it all in the bright white flashes and red flames, the searing heat, the acrid burning stench, and the deafening explosions….

Grandpa Salvatore

My grandfather, Salvatore Emilio Costanza, was the founder and proprietor of the Chestnut Baking Company, a business he had dreamed of and saved for during fifteen years of backbreaking labor in the coal mines of north central West Virginia. His and Grandma’s journey to, and success in, this country reflect the prototypical American Dream story. And I was able to learn about it in bits and pieces through the years from the adult relatives in my large Italian American family.  My Grandparents began their life together in a company house, amid the squalor of a coal camp. In particularly dark moments, Grandpa would shake his head at the irony of his situation. “La Bella America,” he would mutter, feeling as much like an indentured serf as those friends and family he had left behind in Calabria. But here, he would reassure himself, there was still hope. Here, there was opportunity and Salvatore Costanza would make the most of it…