“Dad, when are you going to sell this place?”
Thwack! His glasses, owing to their weight, slipped to the bumpy end of his nose. His eyesight was worsening daily; he was becoming the Mr. Magoo of butchers. He’d knife himself someday, if somebody else didn’t.
“Come on, Dad. You’re not mad at me for the trial, you’re mad because of the Sullivan case.”
“Right.”
Vito speaks! “How long you gonna stay mad?”
“Forever.”
Such a reasonable man. “Dad, you want to discuss this rationally for a change?”
“Fine, Miss Fresh Mouth.”
My full name. Usually he shortened it to Miss Fresh. “Listen, Fiske Hamilton is a federal judge, one of the most respected on the bench. He needed a lawyer, so he came to me. What’s wrong with that?”
“You’re livin’ with his son.”
“Yeah, so?” I lived with Paul Hamilton without benefit of marriage. The fact still rankled my father, even though he didn’t like Paul at all. Just one of the many paradoxes that made up Vito Morrone.
Thwack!
“Dad?”
“Like I said,” he said cryptically.
LeVonne Bayson, who was sweeping up sawdust in the corner, smiled to himself. LeVonne was the shy black teenager who worked for my father. We all pretended LeVonne was there to help with the customers, but that wasn’t the real reason. There weren’t enough customers to keep even my father busy, or my Uncle Sal, who hung out in the shop from time to time.
“LeVonne,” I called out, “do you know what this man is talking about? Can you translate for me? Would you tell the butcher I’m very happy to be in his country?”
LeVonne smiled like someone on a TV on mute and continued rearranging the sawdust.
Thwack! “What? What’sa matter, she don’t understand English, Professor? Tell her it means ‘like I said.’”
LeVonne shook his head, showing the wisdom not to referee. His skin was smooth, he was on the small side, and his features were still boyish as he looked down over the worn end of the broomstick. He wore his hair cut close to his head and a sparse patch of black fuzz was beginning to sprout under his chin.
“Why don’t you just talk to me, Dad?”
“You shoulda said no. No. N-O.”
“Turned down the Sullivan case? Why? It’s the biggest sexual harassment case in the country, it’s once-in-a-lifetime.”
“That’s why you’re doing it?”
Partly. “Christ, what was I supposed to do? Say ‘Look, Judge, I know you’re in trouble and I’m a hot-shit lawyer and I’m practically engaged to your son, but can you just take your business elsewhere?’”
“Hmph.” He wiped the cleaver on his apron and dropped it into the slot beside the carving board. Then he grabbed a well-worn boning knife, sliced a sliver of spongy fat from a chop, and threw the fat into a dented bucket. “Rita, did you ever think the judge mighta done it? Huh?”
I had, but I rejected it. “Fiske Hamilton? He’s a class act, Dad. A Yale grad, a partner at Morgan Lewis for ten years before he went on the bench. He didn’t harass her. I asked him and he denied it.”
Milky brown eyes flared behind his glasses. “It said in the paper he was chasin’ her around the office, right in the courthouse. It was in the Daily News, did you see?”
“You gonna believe everything you read?”
“You gonna believe everything you hear?” He laughed, then looked over at LeVonne. “Mr. President, you like that one?” he shouted, and LeVonne smiled his secret smile.
“Dad, this woman’s asking for three million dollars in damages. Intentional infliction of emotional distress, the whole works. She just wants to make a quick buck, that’s all there is to it.”
“No, I saw that girl’s picture, I saw that girl’s face, and I’m tellin’ you, she’s not doin’ it for the money.” He flopped the chop over and trimmed the remaining streaks of fat from the moist, pink flesh. A trickle of thin blood oozed onto the carving board, a lighter color than the Jackson Pollock bloodstains on his apron. This was why I became a vegetarian, no question.
“Dad, why are you still mad about this? It’s a done deal. I take her deposition tomorrow.”
“I don’t care how classy the judge is, I don’t like him usin’ my daughter.”
It stung. “He’s not using me.”
“The judge was screwin’ around on his wife and he thinks you’ll cover it up. He’s bluffin’ you and you don’t even see it.”
“He’s not bluffing. I asked him, I watched him answer.”
He wagged the knife at me. “Don’t watch the player, watch the cards. You got the cards in front of you and you’re not lookin’ at them. He’s playin’ you for a chump.”
“But I know Fiske. He’s Paul’s father. He’s family.”
“Whose family? You’re not married, so the judge ain’t family. I don’t know him, wouldn’t know him if I ran over him.”
I stifled a laugh at my father’s choice of words. His eyesight was so poor he ran over two bicycles and a child’s foot last year. Remarkably, the foot was fine, but the Schwinns were DOA.
“Dad, Fiske is a federal judge.”
“Oh, yeah? So what’s he got between his legs-a gavel?”
So genteel. My father loved to talk dirty; it was his favorite thing, after butchering lambs and running over the toes of small children. His coarseness drove my mother nuts until she fooled us both and had the last laugh.
“Mark my words,” he said, making circles in the air with the pointy knife. “I’ve been around the block a few times.”
“Not in the car, I hope.”
LeVonne actually laughed out loud, or at least audibly. My father managed a smile, too, but I think it was at the lamb chops. There on the carving board, in carnal tribute to his skill, stood twelve pink chops, evenly sliced and arranged like a king’s crown. “Ain’t that pretty?” he said.
“It’s art, Vito.”
“Miss Fresh Mouth.”
“You’re the one. You.”
Silence fell while we both cooled down. I knew we would, we always did. Coming apart and coming together, like pigeons fussing on a street corner. It had been like this for as long as I could remember. He had raised me by himself, in this shop. I cut my first chicken at age eight and my first deck of cards the year later. An atypical girlhood, we’ll leave it at that.
“All right, the chops are pretty,” I said finally.
He nodded. “So. You want something to take home? I got nice Delmonicos in the back.”
“No thanks. I don’t eat dead things, remember?” I watched him set the lamb on an old white scale. On its side were yellowed stickers from Licenses and Inspections and a gold star from some forgotten something when I was little. He peered down through his bifocals to read the numbers on the scale.
“Miss Priss. You need red meat. It’s good for you, gives you protein.”
Right. “Anyway, I want to go out and eat. To celebrate.”
“Take the steaks, honey.” He winked and wrapped up the chops. “Stay in and celebrate.”
I forced a smile. My father didn’t know Paul and I hadn’t been getting along. I’d been trying not to worry about it, it happened in a relationship. I’d hoped it would change with Sullivan. Paul was close to his parents and was already showing an interest in his father’s defense. We were talking more than we ever had. It was the reason I’d taken the case, even though judges and butchers apparently disapproved.
And it didn’t matter, really, whether Judge Hamilton had harassed his secretary or not.