Camille Cusumano

Excerpt from The Last Cannoli

Rena 1961

Tar Bubbles

I was sitting on the curb at the corner of Creek Street, as far as I could get from my house without asking permission. I was tempted to run one block to my West where the train tracks passed. Or a block to my east where the creek ran, probably all the way to the Atlantic Ocean I wouldn’t see this summer. But neither the tracks nor the creek offered me any hope of travel anywhere. I stared down at the black tar bubbles. It was still early for a Saturday so none of my friends were up and out yet and I could hear the crickets still buzzing loud by the creek. Quiet down, you crickets, I thought. You’re getting on my nerves this morning.
Which bubble would I bust first? My hands itched to bust every last one of them. But I held back. I would stretch the only fun I could have today. When the tar bubbles were gone, the day would be just another hot boring summer day in Rahway, the sun hammering away on my little head of boring straight brown hair.
I heard the express train whistle by a block away. Oh, it seemed to be going so far, far away, even though I knew that train full of people was just 15 minutes from New York. They were people from the outside world going to see Broadway shows, to shop and spend money like fools. That didn’t bug me—I always knew that’s what the outside world was made of. And then there was my family.
It was the whistle of the Jersey Shore Line heading the opposite way that got me. The sound of it bounced off the humid air like a slap in my sweaty face. I slammed my first fist of the day down on a big, fat bubble just right and got a good high squirt—about six inches. The drops of water felt warm as blood. They felt good, like something secret in nature that you don’t usually get to see and that I was setting free. Like that blue robin’s eggshell I found once. Empty, but perfect and blue. I knew that something lively had just fled.
Ah, yeah, that felt good to bust the bubble, but it would’ve felt better if one of my friends was here to see it. Or even one of my brothers—Vinnie, Carmine, or Frankie. But then if my brothers were here I wouldn’t be the one popping bubbles. They would be showing me how they could do it better, just like they always had to win at rummy, Monopoly, stick ball, the hand-slapping game, you name the game. When they found out the family wasn’t going down the shore, they went off to build a hot rod with their friends.
I looked down the block toward my house and saw Paulie walking toward me. He only had one brother, two years younger. I had to hurry up and bust the bubbles or he would want one. There were about six left when he got to me.
“Hi Rena, I thought you were going down the shore,” he said.
“We were,” I said.
“Well, how come you’re here?”
“We’re not going anymore,” I muttered guarding my tar bubbles in case he got any ideas.
“Are you going to squish them all?” he asked when he spotted them. He was six months younger than me. He spoke to me the way I spoke to my brothers. Almost always in questions.
“When I’m good and ready,” I said. He sat next to me and wiped the sweat off his face with his shirt.
“How come you’re not going down the shore?”
“Because someone stole my father’s whole pay.”
“When?”
“Last night and we don’t have any money left.” I said any money like it was a curse word and I had to say it in a loud whisper. I could get punished big time for saying we don’t have any money. If my father heard me it would be all over. I’d be in the cellar the rest of my life eating bread and water—after I got a long licking with the belt.
“Huh?” Paulie said. He was waiting for the whole story. Which I didn’t feel like telling him.
“You ask so many questions,” I said, like my brothers said to me, like my father would say to my brothers.
The night before was like a dream that I didn’t think could go wrong. Lucy was having a big sweet 16 birthday party and Mario’s band played in the cellar. Hundreds and hundreds of their friends came. It seemed like thousands maybe. I lost count. Boys and girls were all over our house and in the back yard. To keep the mosquitoes away we strung up citronella candles on the clothesline that stretched from our back door to the mulberry tree over the creek. Me and Maddelena caught lightning bugs and hid them in jars under the neighbor’s bushes. We were allowed to stay up really late, till midnight and we saw some cool stuff, like the big kids dancing the jitterbug and making out all over the place when they thought my parents weren’t looking. We saw boys and girls smoking cigarettes and blowing smoke rings.
“I heard the music all way down by my house,” said Paulie.
“So, good for you.” He got up and found a Popsicle stick to poke at the tar. I stretched my leg out so he came nowhere near my bubbles. The tar was softer than pizza dough.
My mother made hundreds of pizza pies. My sister and brother only had to tell one friend each when they were having a party. Because of my mother’s pizza, the word spread—“like a flu epidemic” my father said—and every teenager in town heard and came by. Always more than my mother expected. My parents didn’t mind—it was just like having a few more kids as far as they were concerned. In fact, it made them the happiest they could be.
And besides, my mother knew how to make the dough grow. She had a way with the yeast. I would watch her and try to learn, but I couldn’t say exactly how she did it. She massaged the yeast and water into the flour with her thick hands. She spoke low, over her breath, and when the dough was a small ball in her palm, she rubbed some olive oil onto it, the way she massaged baby oil into my baby sisters’ tushis. She talked to the yeast, too, in Italian. When Lucy told her there might be more than 50 kids, my mother pounded the pizza dough in the big bowl, and said, ma putana fa napoli. This must have been a special blessing because I had heard my Grandmother Coniglio, her mother, say it, too. She put a cross in the dough and covered the bowl with a dish towel.
And, that dough grew. My mother gave life to that flour and water. I saw it. The dough doubled and tripled and hung over the bowl’s sides. She punched it down. And it grew again. The kids poured in for the party. And all night long, she was in the kitchen, punching dough, rolling it out into big pans. The more kids came, the more pies she made, the more the dough increased in size. My father awoke from his long sleep to help her. His malaria from the war made him tired during the day, when he wasn’t at work, but he always woke up when my brother played music. He liked music and he liked telling stories. He never had a bad temper when we had a lot of people over for parties. He talked and laughed with them, told stories. He cut the steaming hot pizza with the scissors for my mother and handed it to Lucy who made sure everyone got some. There was tons of pizza and I stuffed my face. So did my sister Maddelena, but I beat her. I ate seven, she only ate six. And we danced to the band.
My brother’s band played a lot of cool songs like At the Hop and Blue Moon and kids were dancing all over the house and backyard. When they played Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool, a girl with a basket of high teased hair and tight black skirt and black ballerina slippers went up to the mike and sang just like Connie Francis. My brother knew a lot of real rock ‘n’ roll singers, too. Two of the big girls danced with me and Maddelena. When we went to bed the party was still going. But my bag was packed to leave for vacation the next morning. I got up early.
“Well . . . how come they stole your money?” Paulie asked again.
“How come, how come,” I mocked.
We were going to stay at my father’s goombah’s house, Johnny Biondi’s in Lavalette. Johnny didn’t have a wife or kids, so he could afford a big fancy house. I couldn’t wait to get out of Rahway and as we drove in our station wagon, watch the country roads turn to sandy-edged ones. Going down the shore was like going to confession and having your sins washed away. You felt pure afterward. I closed my eyes and could just feel the warm yellow sand with bits of smooth shell; I could the smell of fish, the boardwalk, the sea air, the sky, sea, and earth. The shore was a bigger and better mystery than the Blessed Trinity. You needed hardly any clothes. The sea and sand were like a big free treasure chest.
But now we had no money for gas or for bringing food to feed us all. We didn’t know when the money was taken from my father’s wallet in his drawer. My father didn’t know it was gone until this morning when the car was all packed for us to go. Everyone remembered seeing lots of kids all over the house, in every room at one time or other. But no one could say who would have taken my father’s whole pay check and stole our vacation. No one could pick the thief out of hundreds and hundreds of kids eating pizza or dancing or making out. We had no suspects.
“Not even a buck for a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread,” my father said holding out his empty wallet.
My parents, who could get in a major uproar over a dirty dish left in the sink or a crumb on the counter, spoke calmly. “Call your goombah,” my mother said.
“I’ll start unpacking the car,” he said. They acted as if it was all their own fault. There was nothing that could be done.
“That’s that,” sighed my mother. They broke the news to us. We weren’t going down the shore. I wished they would have gotten real mad.
“Why don’t we call Baciagalupe?” I asked. He was the cop down the street who always helped us find lost kids or balls, or talk to mean neighbors.
“You ask too many questions,” my father said and went back to bed. I put down the leftover pizza I was eating with my bowl of coffee. And came looking for tar bubbles to bust.

“Oh, don’t squish that bubble with your foot!” Paulie said pointing to one I hadn’t seen by my sneaker. He scrunched up his brow like he always did, like he might cry.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I know it’s there.”
It was the last big tar bubble and I was going to bust it good when I thought I might be nice and let Paulie have it. I thought about how my brother Carmine might do this. He would make me do or say something first. I thought of what I might make Paulie do for the pleasure of punching down that juicy black bubble.
“It’ll squirt high—I know how to do it, OK?” he pleaded.
“First say, ‘pretty please with whipped cream and cherries on top.’ ” I smiled, proud of myself for thinking of this. But Paulie took advantage of me. He pushed me aside.
“I know how to do it – let me, please?” he yelled and bent and busted the bubble and got such a good high squirt I was fit to be tied.
“You . . . punk! . . . Carmine makes them squirt much higher,” I yelled at him. Paulie looked deflated.
“I know,” he said quietly. “Well, but, he’s a lot bigger than me.” He waited for me to say something, praise him, or suggest a game, but I just wished for more tar bubbles to bust. I didn’t want him to leave, but I didn’t want him to stay.
“I didn’t say you could have it,” I said.
“You broke all those others,” Paulie said.
“So what, I got here first, they were mine.”
“You don’t own them.”
“Shut up.”
Paulie was too pleased with himself. He hummed and walked around with his head bent to his waist looking for more bubbles.
When he didn’t find any, he asked, “Want to go in my backyard to play house?”
“Nah,” I said. “I’m going into third grade, Paulie, that’s a baby game.”
We had been playing house since I was in kindergarten. Paulie would be the husband, me the wife. He would kiss me good-bye and go through a make-believe door off to work, like our fathers, while I stayed in our make-believe home and cleaned just like our mothers. While Paulie was at work, the bad guys came to the house and tried to rob and kill me. Paulie got home before they succeeded and fought them off. He punched the air and wrestled himself to the ground grunting. I hid behind make-believe furniture as he almost died doing this. But we always had some medicine on the table, which was a product we saw advertised on TV—Tums, Pepto Bismol, Alka Seltzer, or Geritol. Just before he died, Paulie grabbed the drug and swallowed the whole bottle, came alive, and killed the bad guys as they tried to get away. We hugged and kissed and lived happily ever after.
“How about tag?” he asked.
“Not with only two of us,” I said. “I want to play with someone who has a pool and get invited in it.” I thought of the Adams. They had the pool, tons of board games, and one bike per kid in their family. What Paulie had, imagination, I had plenty of myself.
“My mom said maybe we’ll get a pool this summer,” he said.
“Call me when you do. But don’t bother if it’s only two feet deep. Adams is five feet.”
“That’s over our heads,” said Paulie.
“Yeah, well, maybe I can’t swim,” I said. “but I know how to tread water.”
“Girls can’t swim as good as boys,” Paulie said.
“Says who?”
“Me. And I’m glad I’m not a girl,” he said. Paulie’s eyes rolled around and he looked like he was going to tell me something good.
“Why?” I asked.
He made queer sounds and didn’t answer.
“Tell me why . . . or I’ll . . . knock your block off,” I said.
“Cause girls have to get big fat bellies and have babies,” he laughed.
“That’s a big lie,” I answered without blinking. “They do not get fat bellies. Liar.” Then, I thought about it. My mother had a fat belly for most of my life. I tried to think if it was before or after Teresa and Maria were born. But either way, she was my mother. What happened to her didn’t happen to anyone else.
“Liar,” I growled at Paulie. “I’m glad I’m not a boy because boys have to go fight wars and the Communists and get captured and tortured and killed.”
Paulie’s eyes settled down. He swallowed and said, “Only bad guys die in war.”
“That’s only in the movies,” I said.
“Well . . . well . . . I still rather not be a girl. Fat belly, fat belly.” He laughed.
I stood up and pushed him and he pushed me back. I pushed harder and he fell on his butt. He stood up and slapped my chest open-handed right. It hurt and stung right through the sleeveless top my mother made me out of her old house dress. It made me ready for war, to do him in. The only bigger and better weapon I had at hand was my foot. So I kicked. I kicked him once, real hard, like a ballet dancer kick, up between his legs. He bent over and howled. And turned and ran home. I didn’t feel any satisfaction because the fight ended too soon. I ran home. I slipped past my mother. I snuck a peek at her and tried to remember if she was going to have another baby or not. She was busy trying to unpack, clean house, and give attention to Teresa, who just learned to walk and who had been lost during the party—someone found her sleeping with her blanket behind the couch. I looked in the mirror and saw that I was marked. There was a Paulie-size hand welt just below my neck. I sat on my bed and tried to read my book, Pinocchio. I loved the part in the whale’s belly and wished it could be me in there. It made me feel better just to believe that I could—if I ever got out of Rahway.
I stared at the altar of saint statues in the room I shared with Lucy and Maddelena. The Blessed Virgin, scapulars, medals, holy pictures huddled together on the vanity along with our patrons, Mary Magdalene, Saint Lucy, and Jesus of Nazarene for me, Nazarena. I didn’t feel like being sorry yet. Paulie would probably get a clot or infection and die within 24 hours. My heart pounded. I would say it was an accident, that I meant to show him how I play kick ball. No, lying would make it a compound mortal sin. Of course, it only took one mortal to send you to Hell. I would miss Paulie, but there were a dozen other kids on the block I could play with. With pools, games, bikes, and transistor radios even.
A little while later I heard a knock at our front door and I knew it was Paulie’s mother coming to tell us he was dead or dying and what had I done to him. My mother answered. I stood at the top of the stairs and heard Mrs. Larson, Paulie’s mother. She was dragging Paulie by the arm up our front porch. He was screaming, “No, I don’t want to.” After they spoke, my mother called me down stairs and I went very slowly and stood behind her. She was listening to Paulie’s mother.
“Rena, my mother said, “would you please go make up with Paulie.” I knew from the sound of her voice she was busy doing her chores and just wanted to get back to them. But she didn’t want to be impolite to Mrs. Larsen. I didn’t want to show her what Paulie did to me because it meant I lost the fight to a younger kid.
“Do I have to, Mom?”
“G’head,” she pushed me a little and I knew she was asking me as a favor to her. Which softened me up a little. She had so much to do since we weren’t going down the shore.
“Oh, O.K. I’m sorry for kicking you, Paulie.” And then, I remembered what my father always said after giving us lickings, “it hurt me more than it hurt you.” That made him wail louder, but the grown-ups chuckled.
“That’s a good girl, Rena,” said Mrs. Larsen. “What do you say, Paulie?” He opened his mouth and wailed even though I think he was out of tears and then said through sniffles, “I’m sorry, too.” He wanted to get this over with as much as I did.
Mrs. Larsen rolled her eyes like “well, better than nothing” and turned to my mother and said. “Magdalena, I was wondering if you could tell me how to make pizza dough.” Mrs. Larsen was so skinny, she looked like she should eat a lot of pizza. That gave me an idea. My mother invited Mrs. Larsen in to sit in the parlor and they both told us to go play.
“I want to get a drink of water first,” I said. While they sat there talking I ran into the kitchen and found a little packet of yeast.
“C’mon Paulie,” I said running out the front door. “Let’s go see if there are any new tar bubbles.” It was so hot, there might be a few new ones coming up. He stopped whimpering long enough to say, “OK.”
We reached the corner and sat on the curb. Neither of us could find any new bubbles.
“I wanna go play with my brother,” he said.
“What?”
“War.”
“Cards?”
“No,” he said, “real war. I make my brother be the bad guy.”
“Why do you want to play that?”
“Because,” he said, “I like war. my father was in a real war.”
“So was my father,” I said.
“Yeah? Where?
“Ummmm, you tell me where yours was first,” I said trying to think where.
“My father flew airplanes over Germany and dropped bombs and killed a whole bunch of German bad guys.”
“Oh. I think my father was in the Japanese war,” I said. “I think he killed all the Japs. He got shot at and bitten by mosquitoes as big as airplanes, too.”
“Oh,” said Paulie. He scrunched his face again. “Which war?”
“I don’t know, Paulie. I don’t care what war it was. I don’t care about war. War has nothing to do with me. I don’t have to go to war because I’m a girl. War is stupid.”
“It is not,” said Paulie. “My father is not stupid.”
“I didn’t say he was. Neither is my father. Just mean sometimes.”
“Mine’s stupid sometimes. But war is cool,” Paulie said.
“I’ll show you something cool,” I said. I tore open the yeast.
“What’s that?”
“It’s magic. It’ll make the tar grow and grow.” I sprinkled the yeast over a patch of tar and began to knead it in with my fingers. It felt warm and soft and so good and giving. Ma putana fa napoli, I chanted.
“Say it with me,” I ordered Paulie. “It’s magic words.”
Ma putana fa napoli we both sang. We got on our hands and knees and both kneaded the tar rubbing the yeast into it. The little beige specks blended in. Our fingers got black and shiny.
“Close your eyes, Paulie,” I said, “when you open them, the tar will be double in size and there will be so many tar bubbles for every kid on the block, it’ll take you the rest of our lives to bust them. I’m not kiddin’ ”
Ma putana fa napoli, we sang and kneaded together and giggled.
Paulie opened his eyes and said, “Wow, look at that!”
“What?” I asked.
“The tar is growing!”
“It is?”
“Yeah,” he said. His hands and knees were blacker than mine. “keep rubbing it. We’re gonna have tar to spare for kids on the next block.”
“Wow, I said, pointing beyond his shoulder, look at that!”
“What?” he turned and looked at the tar patch.
“That bubble that just came up. It is so big we could both climb inside of it and sit down and hide.”
“Let’s go!” said Paulie. He stood up and climbed over the sides of the bubble and sat. I followed him and sat cross-legged facing him. We stared at each other and said nothing. But I know what we were both thinking. That just over our shoulders would be another bubble, even bigger. In it we could fit anything you could think of. We started naming the things that would fit in it.
“The train to New York.” I said.
“The Shore Line,” he said.
“The creek and all the crickets.”
“My house.”
“An my house.”
“My family station wagon.”
“Down the shore.”
“The whole Atlantic Ocean.”
“China.”
And all the Adams’s bikes and pools, all the money for going down the shore. And all the kids at the party last night except for the thief . . .”
And we would still have room to spare.