Alligator Bayou - Donna Jo Napoli [1]
The cat hisses low. Then he walks on toward the stench of the slaughterhouse.
Cirone’s fingers dig into my arm. “A panther,” he breathes. “They stay in the forests, away from people. It’s special to see one so close to town.”
“Special?” I’m shaking. In Sicily mountain wildcats don’t even come up to your knees. “I can do without special. I can go the whole rest of my life without special.”
“We did good. We did really good, Calo. You’re never supposed to run from them. You just stare. A panther won’t attack unless you look away. If you stare right at them, they think you’re going to eat them.”
I yank his arm, and we run. We don’t slow down till we see our house.
Out front we hear a man arguing with Francesco in English. Shouting. The man stomps off into the night, throwing curses over his shoulder. Cirone and I crouch off to the side. It’s so dark, all we can see is the tip of Francesco’s cigar, glowing red when he sucks on it. And he’s sucking fast. Red, red, red, red. He’s mad, all right.
Cirone and I sneak to the back and climb in through a window. We quick move the sacks of pinecones in our bed that were doubling for us and stash them. We dive under the sheet fully clothed.
My heart still bangs against my rib cage. A panther. This place is full of surprises. Nasty ones.
I have to push Cirone’s feet away from my chin. Mine reach past his nose. Feet stink, especially when you don’t dip them in the wash pan before sleeping. But lying head to toe is the only way we both still fit in this bed.
I turn my head to the right and listen to the noisy breathing of Rosario, Cirone’s brother, in the next bed. He’s thirty-seven, old enough to be Cirone’s father. Rosario has a big beak of a nose and long sideburns. Cirone’s nose is small like mine.
Beyond Rosario there’s Carlo, in his fifties. And in the next bed, Giuseppe, who’s thirty-six. Carlo and Giuseppe are Francesco’s brothers. Francesco, the youngest, is only thirty, but he’s the leader. It’s his nature. He sleeps in the bed closest to the door—the first to face trouble, if any comes.
These two sets of brothers are cousins to each other. And then there’s me. We’re all from Cefalù, in Sicily. The men call me nephew, and Cirone calls me cousin, even though my father was just good friends with them.
Back in Cefalù I have a younger brother, Rocco. The spitting image of me. The one person alive in the world I know for sure I’m related to. When Mamma died last summer, there we were, Rocco and me, with nobody but each other. Our father disappeared years ago. The Buzzi family next door took in Rocco, but they couldn’t afford me; I eat too much. They put me on a ship to Louisiana. They said Francesco would take me in. My father paid his passage to America years before–it was time for Francesco to repay the favor.
I miss Cefalù, with its stone and stucco buildings; I miss the glowing colors of the cathedral mosaics. I miss the sense of how small I become when I kneel in the pews. The music in the public squares. The sharp-and-sweet spongy cassata on holidays, lemony, creamy with ricotta. The purple artichoke flowers in fields that go on forever. The smell of the sea night and day, wherever you go. How close the sky is.
I miss Rocco.
And most of all I miss Mamma. My cheeks heat up. My father left so long ago, I hardly think about him anymore. Lots of fathers went to America and never showed up again. But Mamma, she’s different. The fact that she’s gone still feels unreal. I hardly believe I won’t see her till I join her in Paradise.
So it’s better that I’m in America. I have a chance to make something of myself. That’s what Signora Buzzi said when she packed my things and walked me to the boat.
The door to the bedroom creaks, and I hear Francesco undress and lower himself onto the bed.
Inside my head I see the glowing tip of his cigar