I wished I had some of that stale bread I used to crumble up in my small fingers and scatter on the flat feeder Dad had built. Maybe at this moment, early morning in Boston, Mom was opening the window and tossing out seed and bread crumbs, maybe watching the cardinals flutter in for a landing and remembering how we used to watch them. Funny, I'd been away from home for more than a year, and that was the first time I'd thought about those birds. It was nice but sad too. I decided the jury was still out on the value of remembering things. Everything that had come back to me was either a mixed bag or very bad news.
I realized we weren't climbing anymore. We'd come around the crest of a hill and the trail continued on flat below it. Sciafani sat on a rock by the side of the trail, and I joined him, thankful for a rest. Below us, rows of olive trees curved downward to a sluggish stream that drifted through the valley.
"Ravanusa," Sciafani said, pointing to the next hill. "A small town. We should go around it."
"Germans?" I asked.
"Or Fascists," he said. "It is all the same. We must find water."
I watched Sciafani rub his eyes with the palms of his hands. He had an odd habit of shifting the conversation in midstream, as if he didn't want to think about any one thing for too long. He raised one hand to shield his eyes and gazed at the horizon to the west.
"It will be dark soon. We need shelter too," he said.
"Do you know anyone in Ravanusa?"
"Yes, but no one I could trust."
"No family, you mean," I said.
"Exactly, my friend. You are beginning to understand Sicily perhaps."
"It's not so different really. That's how I got my job back home. All the men in my family are policemen. My father is a detective, and so was I."
"And what are you now?"
I opened my mouth to answer, but there were no words. I remembered that I was Uncle Ike's special investigator, but that sounded hollow, nothing but a title. Who was I now? A killer, an assassin, a deserter, a coward, maybe all those things.
"Let's go," I said. "We need water."
Sciafani led the way into the olive grove.
Who am I? I knew my name, knew my rank, but didn't seem to know myself.
Remember who you are.
I heard my father's voice, saw him leaning over the table at Kirby's, his tie loose the way it always was at the end of the day. I was still in my patrolman's blues, a rookie, still walking the beat in my neighborhood so folks could keep an eye out for me. They had.
It was all because of Al. Alphonse DeAngelo, a guy I went to school with. He was Sicilian, and I'd known him since the fourth grade when we'd had a fistfight at recess and ended up in the principal's office, each of us telling the other he was lucky Miss Bayley had broken up the fight before it really got started. We both had hot tempers. We were sent home with notes for our parents. Al ripped his up in the street and tossed it over his shoulder. I brought mine home, and Dad got out the strap. I should have known right then and there Al was going to go in one direction and me in the other. But before our paths diverged, we became pals, the original beef between us forgotten as we ran through the streets and parks, fished in the bay, played hooky, and caused all sorts of minor mischief. That summer after fourth grade, we'd play mumblety-peg with our jackknives, flipping them into the ground out of our hands or off our heads or whatever the rules of the game demanded. Al could always make the tough casts, his knife flying through the air and slicing into the ground at just the right angle. He was good with that knife.
Four summers later was our last as pals. When it was over I went up Telegraph Hill to South Boston High School, and Al went to work. His old man had something to do with the numbers, which didn't mean much to me at the time, but I could tell that my old man was glad to see the last of Al. I'd run into him on the street every now and then, but it wasn't the same. He looked and acted older, which he might've been by a year or two. He was almost grown-up, and I was trying to act grown-up, so there was no room for memories of childhood play. All that was behind us; we were nearly men now.
High school over, I joined the cops, started walking a rookie's beat. That's when I started seeing Al every day again, walking his own beat, collecting numbers receipts just as his old man had, while I wore the bluecoat, just as my old man had. We 'd chat a bit, then we started having a cup of coffee together at Noonan's Diner, where we'd cross paths about ten o'clock each morning. That's what did it.
"That bum takes people's hard-earned nickels and dimes every day," Dad had said as soon as we sat down at Kirby's. "Next he'll be shaking them down for protection, just like his old man over in Dorchester."
"Everyone plays the numbers, Dad, there's no harm in that. No one forces anyone to play."
I was sure about myself on that subject, but I didn't know what to say about protection. There were rumors that the mob was expanding its activities, and for all I knew, Al and his numbers were the start of it in our neighborhood. But childhood loyalties die hard. I watched as my father drew in a deep breath, as if he were filling his lungs for a long speech.
"There's something you have to understand, Billy. There's three kinds of people in the world. First, there's the people out there, everyone you see each day on your beat, the rich and the poor, the bastards on Beacon Hill, and the Irish folk in Southie." He stretched out his hand, palm up, and drew it around, the gesture taking in everyone in the tavern and beyond.
"Then there's those who feed off the poor and helpless, who use their strength to take from others with less strength, or courage, or luck. Finally, there's them who stand up for the weak and the helpless. I'll be the first to say that I'm no angel, but I know who I am. I'm not one of the helpless, thank the Lord, and I know I'll never take advantage of a man worse off than me."
I remember thinking how that left a lot of leeway, while at the same time feeling glad of having enough wit not to point it out.
"What do you think the folks on your beat think when they see you and Al drinkin' coffee together, and he pays each time?"
"I'm not doing anything wrong, Dad. I'm not on his payroll." There were cops who were on retainer with mobsters, paid regularly to pass on tips about arrests and snitches.
"It doesn't matter," he said, with a sad shake of his head, speaking in a low voice. "We're the third kind of people, you and me. What matters is that you are supposed to protect the common folk. If you're going to do that, you can't buddy around with someone who takes from them. It's only the numbers now, but someday soon, mark my words, it will be more. And then, boy-o, how can these poor folk come to you if you're still pals with the one threatening to burn their store down if they don't pay protection?"
"You think that's why Al is being friendly?" I'd asked.
"It doesn't matter, Billy," he'd answered, leaning in close to me so I could feel his breath on my cheek. "What matters is that you remember who you are."
With that, he slid out of the booth and left me there, before a pint could be served. The next day I told Al we weren't kids anymore, and that he should watch his step on my beat. Part of me felt like a bum, and part of me understood that there was more to growing up and being a man than height and weight.
Remember who you are.
I wished I was sitting at Kirby's, a cool pint in front of me, feeling the glass sweat into the palm of my hand, and having my old man explain it all to me again. I'd forgotten so much.
"Here," Sciafani said, shocking me out of my thoughts. I realized I hadn't been paying attention to anything around me. We were still in the olive groves, but nothing looked familiar. How long had we been walking?