Dust Devil (6 page)

Afterward,
the apartment had rung so with violent shouts and slaps and Renzo’s
bawling that the neighbors had banged angrily on the walls,
threatening to call the police.

That
was why he was being sent away.

“
Some
relatives of your father want you to come live with them, Renzo,”
his mother had announced, smiling brightly, brittlely. “They’ve
got a house, a real house in a small, country town, and no children,
so you’ll have a bedroom of your own, all to yourself. Won’t
that be grand, Renzo? You won’t have to grow up in the big
city, breathing smog, listening to the rats and roaches at night, and
hustling and scavenging just to make ends meet. You’ll go
to
a nice school, too, where you won’t have to worry anymore about
being beat up and robbed of your lunch money.... Oh, it’s such
a wonderful opportunity for you, Renzo! It’ll be great! Why,
you’ll be so happy that you’ll wish you’d always
lived there. Just you wait and see. And of course, I’ll come
down to visit you now and then, so you won’t forget me....”

But
of course, she wouldn’t come. Somehow Renzo had known that
instinctively, just as he had known she was secretly glad and
relieved to be rid of him. He was a burden, a hindrance to the life
Sofie Cassavettes had embarked upon even before his birth, a tie she
itched to sever now that she no longer needed it to bind his father
to her.

So
it was that today Renzo perched dejectedly upon the broken, sunken,
concrete steps of the old tenement that, despite its dereliction, was
the only home he had ever known. He wore a new suit, tie, and socks
and shoes— bought just yesterday by his mother and paid for by
Uncle Vinnie—and he felt constrained and awkward in the
unfamiliar clothes. The tie choked him, and the stiff leather of the
tightly laced shoes had already rubbed a blister on one heel. Beside
him sat a small, battered old suitcase dragged from beneath his
mother’s bed and into which she had crammed all his meager
belongings, except for Teddy, the stuffed brown bear he clutched like
a lifeline. It was several years old, ragged, dirty and one eyed, but
a gift from his parents at his birth, tangible evidence that once,
however briefly, they had welcomed and celebrated and loved him. So
Renzo clung to it, his most prized possession.

“
You
mustn’t be afraid, Teddy,” he said quietly now to
the
bear, his lower lip quivering. “We’re only going on a
trip, you know, to a new home. And I’ll take care of you
there...really, I will! Mama says the Martinellis are nice people.
Mr. Martinelli owns a newspaper. They live in the country, with lots
of trees and ponds, so we’ll be able to go swimming and fishing
and—and... It’ll be just like a real adventure. It’ll
be great, Teddy... you’ll see....” He echoed his mother’s
words to him before he buried his face in the bear’s scruffy
fur, damp from his tears.

After
a time, not wanting anyone to see he had been crying, Renzo lifted
his head and, with his sleeve, resolutely wiped his red-rimmed eyes
and sniffling nose. He must be brave, he told himself, like Batman
and Captain Marvel and all the other superheroes that peopled the
comic books he read, the imaginary world in which he lived in his
mind, so different from the world in which he existed.

It
was then the cocoon caught his eye. Once, long ago, someone had
planted a honeysuckle vine in front of the tenement, and somehow it
had not only survived, but also thrived. So it was wildly overgrown,
its tendrils running up the grimy bricks of the building and snaking
along cracks in the badly settled sidewalk. Hanging from a small
section of the vine was the cocoon. It was an ugly thing, a hard
shell that harbored an equally ugly, wormlike caterpillar, Renzo
knew, having broken open a cocoon once. But even as he gazed at it,
something wondrous happened. The shell suddenly split along one side,
and what gradually emerged was not the fat, grubby caterpillar he
expected, but a big, gorgeous butterfly.

Renzo
watched, enthralled, as, free at last, the insect slowly spread its
fragile, gossamer wings and flicked them tentatively, once, twice.
For a fleeting eternity, it poised on the cocoon. Then, without
warning, it took flight, soaring up and away until it finally
disappeared in the pale blue sky. And in that moment, with a
startling clarity far advanced for his tender years, Renzo
thought,
Someday,
I, too, will soar—because if an ugly caterpillar can change
into a beautiful butterfly, who is to say what I may become, if only
I try?

Behind
him, the front door of the tenement opened, then shut with a bang. He
heard the brisk clatter of his mother’s spiky high heels upon
the concrete porch even before he saw them. Her shoes were bright
red, like blood, and matched the color of the lipstick she had
smeared upon her mouth and the polish with which she had painted her
long, false nails. As he glanced up at her, silently pleading with
her to change her mind and let him stay, Sofie Cassavettes smacked
the gum she was chewing vigorously and fiddled nervously with one of
her long, dangling earrings, refusing to meet his eyes.

“
Come
on, Renzo. It’s time to go,” she said tersely.

Even
as she spoke, Uncle Vinne pulled up alongside the curb. He was
dressed in a new suit, too, and the top was down on his long, flashy,
two-toned convertible, which Renzo knew the neighbors—behind
Uncle Vinnie’s back— referred to as “the
pimpmobile.” Smiling brightly, waving and calling out to Uncle
Vinnie, her generous hips swaying in the tight leather miniskirt she
wore, Sofie sashayed toward the waiting car. Feeling as though the
weight of the entire world rested squarely on his small, miserable,
hunched shoulders, Renzo followed more slowly, clutching his teddy
bear tightly and lugging his suitcase behind him.

Without
protest—because, like Renzo’s father, Uncle Vinnie had a
short, explosive fuse and quick, hard fists—Renzo climbed into
the backseat of the garish convertible. As they drove away from the
tenement, he didn’t look back. Instead, he forced himself to
remember the butterfly, and he told himself fiercely that he wasn’t
leaving the only home he had never known. He was breaking free of his
cocoon.

And
at that, if only in his mind, he soared.

I
have seen the wicked in great power,

and
spreading himself like a green bay tree.

The
Holy Bible

—
The
Book of Psalms, 37:35

It
was a long drive for a little boy, despite the fact that Uncle Vinnie
kept the pedal to the metal all the way, so it seemed as though the
convertible flew instead of sped down the highways and dusty country
roads to the small, rural town that was its destination. But finally,
the car entered the town limits and slowed, nearly crawling along the
old, shady, tree-lined, brick-paved streets, as though now,
strangely, Uncle Vinnie were in no hurry to end their trip. Abruptly,
he reached out and snapped off the blaring radio. Then he frowned at
Sofie by his side, her short skirt hiked up to reveal her thighs, her
blouse gaping where he had unbuttoned it earlier to fondle her dusky
breasts as he drove.

“
For
God’s sake, tidy yourself up, woman—and wipe some of that
damned lipstick off your mouth, too, while you’re at it!”
he demanded irritably. “You look like a hooker!”

“
That’s
not what you said when you saw me earlier, Vinnie,” Sofie
whined petulantly, her full, generous lips curving into a little-girl
pout. “You thought I looked real good then.”

“
Yeah,
well... earlier, we weren’t just about to pull up in Papa
Nick’s driveway.” Uncle Vinnie stuck a finger under his
sweat-dampened collar and ran it back and forth, as though his tie
were knotted too tightly around his throat. “And he won’t
like you looking thataway in front of Mama Rosa. Business is one
thing, family’s another. And whatever you do, don’t
mention the brat’s father. Just let me do all the talking.
Capisce
?”

“
Sure,
Vinnie. Whatever you say.” Sofie shrugged carelessly, smacking
her gum loudly as she reached into her purse for a Kleenex and began
obediently to scrub at her mouth. “But I don’t see what
you’re so all-fired edgy about. Papa Nick’s just a big,
mean old spider who should long ago have crawled back into whatever
hole he crawled out of in the first place. He’s probably senile
and bedridden by now.”

“
You’re
worse than a fool, Sofie, if that’s what you think—and
that’s all the more reason for you to keep your goddamned trap
shut this afternoon!” Uncle Vinnie growled, shooting her a
sharp, quelling stare.

Sofie
shrugged again. But she didn’t speak, knowing from his glance
that Vinnie was nervous enough to reach over and belt her a good one.
She didn’t want another black eye, like the one he had given
her last week.

In
the backseat, Renzo, too, was silent—and afraid. He had thought
his mother had said the Martinellis were nice people. But if Uncle
Vinnie were frightened, that couldn’t possibly be true, because
Uncle Vinnie wasn’t scared of anybody. In fact, it was just the
opposite. Most people with any sense at all were usually scared to
death of Uncle Vinnie. He kept a big pistol in a leather shoulder
holster underneath his suit jacket, and he had been known to pull it
out and use it. One night at the tenement, when some young thug named
Carlo had insulted Sofie and put his hands on her, Uncle Vinnie had
without warning yanked out his gun and pressed the barrel right
between Carlo’s bugged-out brown eyes. Terrified, Renzo had
huddled in a comer of the apartment, certain he was about to witness
cold-blooded murder right then and there. But in the end, Carlo had
apologized profusely, and the two men had finally laughed and clapped
each other on the shoulders, then gone back to their drinking.

Now
Renzo gazed with awe and fear at the huge, spike-topped, wrought-iron
gates that swung slowly open to admit the convertible after Uncle
Vinnie had pulled it to a halt before the barrier and spoken into a
telephone box at the side of the drive. The car wound through stands
of trees, up the long, serpentine drive until at last Renzo spied the
tall, square, red-brick house that perched on the rise before them.
He had never seen a house so large and imposing, and he quivered like
a petrified rabbit at the thought that he was to live there, watched
over by some horrendous, mean old spider of a man. Renzo felt as
though he were going to be sick all over himself, or disgrace himself
even worse by peeing his pants.

That
would never do, especially since it was obvious from the number of
cars parked out front of the house that some kind of party was in
progress. After Uncle Vinnie eased the convertible to a stop, the
three of them got out. Glancing at Renzo, Sofie pulled her Kleenex
from her purse again and, with her tongue, dampened the tissue, using
it to wipe a smudge of dirt from his cheek. Then she straightened
Renzo’s tie and smoothed his windblown hair, while Uncle Vinnie
rang the doorbell. Presently, they were ushered by a man in a dark
suit through the beautiful old house to a wide veranda out back.

There,
long picnic tables covered the sweeping green lawn, on a strip of
which a game of boccie was taking place, and the smell of barbecued
beef and chicken wafted from the grill around which a knot of men
were gathered, smoking and drinking. Gaily dressed women moved to and
fro, laden with platters and bowls, carefully skirting the children
who ran and played among the tables and benches. On a portable stage,
a small band played, and young couples danced in the grass. The air
rang with music, talk, shouts and laughter.