Elizabeth Street - Laurie Fabiano [83]
“No! I told you! No!”
The clicking of my grandmother’s knitting needles was bothering me, so I turned up the TV. It was Sunday afternoon, and I was watching an old black-and-white movie. A baker in the movie had decided not to pay extortion money after his daughter cried, and now the bad guys were breaking into his store. I cringed. It was a horrible scene. They had the guy tied to a chair and were cracking eggs over his head before they put him in a brick oven.
“Does it go this way or that way?” asked my grandmother, turning around the paper on which I had drawn a peace sign.
Without turning away from the TV, I flipped the peace sign right side up. “This way.”
“Do you like the orange?”
“Yes, I like it.” I tried not to show my exasperation at being interrupted again because she was doing me a favor by knitting a patch for my jeans.
As politely as possible, I turned my attention back to the guy from McHale’s Navy who was playing an Italian cop.
“That’s so loud,” complained Nanny.
“You keep talking.”
“Turn it down. What are you watching anyway?”
“Some old movie about the Mafia.”
“You shouldn’t watch that garbage.”
“I know, I know…” I was familiar with my grandmother’s feelings about anything that was Mafia-related.
I was relieved. The good guy in the oven was saved and the Italian cop was interrogating him as he was brought out.
“Who did this to you?”
“Lupo and two others.”
“Are you sure it was Lupo?”
The half-finished orange peace sign attached to Nanny’s needles dropped to the floor. My grandmother tentatively rose from the crushed velvet La-Z-Boy and walked toward the TV, stopping before she got too close. She leaned sideways to look at the picture, acting as if she got too near the television it could hurt her. Nanny watched and listened for a few moments before gasping in air and clasping her hand to her mouth. For a second she seemed rooted to the checkered linoleum.
“Turn it off!” she shouted, before storming up the den stairs into the kitchen. I heard her continue up the second set of stairs leading to the bedrooms.
My grandmother was not beyond throwing a fit, but this seemed odd. I was torn between wanting to finish watching the movie—now the baker’s daughter was being attacked in a dark hallway—and my curiosity about why my grandmother was acting so weird. It didn’t occur to me to be concerned; Nanny wasn’t the kind of person who evoked worry or sympathy. Even at the worst of times, she was strong and eerily detached. Eventually, curiosity and guilt won out.
Nanny was in my room sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Did you turn that off?” demanded Nanny without looking at me.
“Yes,” I lied. “What’s the matter? I’m sorry if it was too loud.”
“I told you not to watch that garbage.”
“Nanny, not all Mafia stuff is garbage. You act like the Mafia’s not real or something.”
“Don’t tell me! I know what’s real and what’s not!”
“Why are you screaming?”
“Because you don’t know what you’re talking about. Go do your homework!”
“I did it already. What’s the big deal? It’s a dumb old Mafia movie!”
“It’s not the Mafia, it’s the Black Hand!”
“Same thing.”
“See! You know nothing!”
“They just said it! The movie’s based on a true story, a cop named Petrosino fighting the Mafia.”
“They killed him.”
“Who?”
“The policeman, Petrosino.”
“Did you see the movie?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know he gets killed?”
She didn’t answer.
“How do you know he gets killed, Nanny?”
That night, I left Nanny with my sister and went to the local pizza parlor parking lot to hang out with my friends. I had decided not to tell anyone, but that lasted about fifteen minutes.
“I’m telling you, Thea, my grandmother was kidnapped.”
“That’s so cool,” Thea marveled.
“I don’t think she thought it was cool. She was only four.”
“How did they get her back?”
“I’m not sure. I think they paid a ransom or something. She didn’t tell me much.”
“Was it, like, Al Capone?”
“No, it was the Black Hand. They came before the Mafia.”
“You gotta get her to tell you more.”
“I don’t think