The Fortunate Pilgrim - Mario Puzo [57]
He did not come up to her chin. She looked into his eyes, two great black pools of rage, crazy with a small boy’s frustration. He lifted up the stickball bat and threw it blindly, but carefully aimed not to hit anyone. The long thin stick arched gracefully and swept the table clean of its pile of china. There was a tremendous crash. Painted bits of dishes and cups flew around the room.
A moment of great stunned silence followed. Gino gave one startled look at his mother and Octavia, turned, and fled. Out the door, down the stairs, and into Tenth Avenue and the fresh spring sunlight. His mother recovered enough to shout down the dark hallway, through the smell of peppers, frying garlic, and olive oil, “Figlio de puttana! Beast! Animal! Don’t come home to eat.”
Gino felt a lot better walking up 31st Street. The hell with everybody. The hell with his mother and sister. They could all go to hell. He jumped when he felt a tug on his arm, but it was only Vinnie.
“Come on home,” Vinnie said. “Octavia says I gotta bring you home.”
Gino turned around. He gave Vinnie a push and said, “You wanna fight, you son-of-a-bitch?”
Vinnie looked at him gravely and said, “Come on, I’ll help with the windows. Then we’ll play ball.”
Gino ran up toward Ninth Avenue, and though Vinnie was a faster runner, there was no sound of anyone chasing him.
HE WAS FREE, but he felt a strange discontent. He wasn’t even mad. He just wasn’t going to do what anybody told him, not even Larry. The thought of Larry made him pause. He would have to get out of the neighborhood. Sure as hell they would send Larry after him.
On Ninth Avenue Gino hitched on the back of a horse and wagon going uptown. After a couple of blocks, the driver, a burly mustached Italian, saw him and flicked his whip. Gino jumped off, picked up a rock, and sailed it in the direction of the wagon. He had not taken aim really, but it came close. There was a roar of curses, the wagon stopped, and Gino fled toward Eighth Avenue. There he hitched on the back of a taxi. The driver saw him and went fast so that he couldn’t hop off until Central Park. The driver thumbed his nose and grinned at Gino.
For the first time in his life, he went into Central Park. He saw a fountain near a horse trough and took a drink of warm water. He did not even have a penny for a soda. He walked deeper into the park, as far as he could from west to east, until he saw the great white square stones that housed the rich. They meant nothing to him. His childish dreams did not include thoughts of money. He dreamed of bravery on a battlefield, of greatness on a baseball diamond. He dreamed of his own uniqueness.
Gino tried to find a spot in the park where he could sit against a tree and not see stone against the sky or, darting through the screen of leaves, the black shadows of moving cars and wagons. He searched for the illusion of a forest. But no matter where he stood or sat, whenever he made a complete turn, he found at least one facade of stone above the trees, a billboard suspended near the sky, the sound of honking horns, or the clatter of horses’ hoofs. The smell of gasoline mingled with the scent of grass and trees. Finally, exhausted, Gino lay down by a lake that had concrete banks, and, lidding his eyes, made the tall buildings lose their solidity and become airy, suspended above the trees like a picture in a fairy tale. Later he would come out of the forest and enter the city. Without warning, he fell asleep.
He slept an enchanted sleep. He knew people walked by and looked at him, a ball bounced near him, and two feather merchants came after it and stood looking down at him. But he could never wake up enough to really see them. The seasons changed as if years were going by. First it was very hot and Gino rolled along the grass to the shade of a tree. Then there were light sunny rains and he got wet, and then he was cold and it was dark, and then it was sunny again like summer. But he was too tired to ever get up. Cradling his head in his arms,