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nine to the head.
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Idiots, Imbeciles, & Morons

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Thurs|11.21

The d'Alcamos' relatives had afflictions I'd never heard of. One cousin had sugar; another, Mrs. d'Alcamo said, knocking on her head, was "titched."

Sugar. Mmmm. I wondered how you could have it in a bad way. Sugar.

The sauce smelled done to me. Mrs. d'Alcamo tasted a bit from a spoon that she barely tipped into the pan. She nodded her head, satisfied. The windows were steamed from all of the cooking, and it was time for me to leave.

"Mena!" Mrs. d'Alcamo called. "Come say goodbye to Cleo."

Mena was doing her hair again, squeezing in one last time before dinner. She often left me in the kitchen with her mother to do whatever in the back of the house once Mrs. d'Alcamo had gotten home from work, and the two of us would talk while she moved around the house, putting her purse there, her coat here, touching her hair with her fingers as she caught a glimpse of it reflected in a window or the hall mirror.

She would check on the dinner makings Mena had started, which sometimes were unsatisfactory ("Mena! Why did you use this sausage? Didn't I tell you to use the one from the freezer?" to which Mena would roll her eyes on her way into another room, saying, "Yeahhh Maaaa...." and Mrs. d'Alcamo would be left in the kitchen with me and the wrong sausage, shaking her head, not knowing what to do about that girl) and if she was angry enough about Mena's carelessness, she would start the dinner all over in the way she'd told Mena to do it in the first place, and her lips would become a thin straight line and I would leave earlier than usual, just a wee bit frightened.

Frankie d'Alcamo came home from the Navy, all finished, while Mena and I were still in high school. He was soft-spoken, and his face was so sweet, with chocolate brown eyes, long lashes, and dimples in his cheeks, but I had trouble looking at him straight on. His curling smile and the light in his eyes awoke something frightening within me. Hey, his eyes seemed to say. Want some trouble? It'll be worth it.

When Frankie and I were in the same room I found myself blushing hotly for no good reason. I was unable to answer his polite questions and act as if we were just normal people passing time, so I found myself leaving rooms that he'd entered, or examining my hair for split ends, or pretending to read the directions on the back of a box of something or other.

Mena spoke often about his quick temper but I had yet to see it. He seemed nothing but sweet to me. I watched for it with nervous anticipation. It was interesting to see what exactly would make a man angry.

After a while I realized that he'd been angry several times without my even noticing. I was disappointed. There would be no fireworks from him, no slamming things around or yelling in front of me, or at me. He was perfectly calm and friendly when he was angry, and if I didn't see the light in his eyes go flat, or realize that he was repeating every sentence said to him back to the speaker in question form (which seemed to be the only clear signs), then I would be informed about it later by Mena. ("Frankie was SO PISSED!" "He was? When? Why?")

It was bewildering. How was this a temper? What was setting him off, when I couldn't even tell that he'd been set off? I tried harder to figure it out, but without much success. Finally, I just took Mena's word for it: Frankie had a temper.

He dated our art teacher for a while, then a string of older sisters of our classmates, and old girlfriends from his high school days, and finally, women we'd never heard of, women we had no connection to.

Their older brother Michael came home every now and then, but only on leave. He was making a career out of the Navy. He was married and Mena and I often sat for his little daughter, who looked exactly like I pictured Mena as a baby, fearless, with bright black eyes and a tiny red bow mouth.

Mena's father was a cop, a tall, gruff man who was dryly funny when I least expected it. He disapproved of a lot of things Mena did, such as wearing makeup and dating boys, and would rope me into agreeing with him whenever he told her something. It would go a little something like this: "What is that on your face?" "Nothing, Dad." "You shouldn't wear makeup. Right, Cleo?" "Right, Mr. d'Alcamo!" Big smile, red cheeks. "Right." He'd nod sternly and turn back to the television, or to the book he was reading. "Dad! Cleo's wearing makeup." "So what? I'm not her father," he'd shrug. "Right, Cleo?" "Right, Mr. d'Alcamo!" Big smile, very red cheeks.

Mena would snort and we'd go to her room to gossip about people at school. Sometimes, if he added something to his no-makeup line like, "it makes you look cheap, right Cleo?" I would hem at agreeing, until he said "Right, Cleo?" in a louder, even sterner fashion, and I would break down. "Right, Mr. d'Alcamo!" "Right." The satisfied nod, and then we were dismissed.

I was intimidated by all of them, sometimes even Mena, and I breathed a sigh of dazed relief each time I escaped through their garage and crunched through the snow toward my own home, the air cold on my flushed face.

My family I understood. Mena's, not so much.

My faux pas were many; often they were explained by Mena to Mrs. d'Alcamo thusly: "Ma, she's a mayonnaise face! She don't know."

Holiday gatherings of her extended family were hard; I feared breaking some unspoken d'Alcamo rule in front of everyone. I did it a lot, but it felt much worse to do so in front of all of these aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents, and in front of Frankie.

I would usually stay long enough to greet everyone and talk briefly about school and eat a cookie, and then would beg off, since I had my own family to get back to.

Mena and I would take breaks to "go for a walk" which usually meant joining Frankie outside for a smoke. It was here, in the cold crisp air, letting him light my Marlboros, that I first began to feel comfortable with him.

Outside was different. I could go anywhere, I could do anything. My breath was visible, the snow squeaked and crunched beneath me, and my right hand grew chapped and cold as I held my cigarette between increasingly numb fingers. I jumped back and forth in the street, smiling a real smile at Frankie.

Yeahhhh, I thought. I could be up for some trouble.

He smiled back.