Elizabeth Street (7 page)

“Giovanna must be praying for me,” Nunzio thought on his last day at the warehouse job. Carmine had gotten a tip that they were looking for laborers for a project in Brooklyn that could keep them employed for a year or more. Nunzio had already calculated what he could save and had determined that he could return to Giovanna at the end of the year with enough money to move north so she could study.

“It’s a tank to hold the gas for the lights,” said Carmine, knowing that this explanation would appeal to Nunzio—the job might not be building a skyscraper, but it was about progress. “They’re hiring tomorrow morning. But it’s even farther north than here; we’ll be dead before we get there,” pronounced Carmine dramatically.

Nunzio picked up Carmine at three in the morning from Mulberry Street for the three-hour walk to Wythe Avenue and North Twelfth Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

“
Brutte Americane
waters!” cursed Carmine, as they followed the river south to the Brooklyn Bridge. “With no current, we could swim there in half the time.”

Nunzio looked at the stocky, bald man from the mountains and thought, current or not, he’d sink like a stone. But Carmine’s comment stoked his yearning for the turquoise waters of Scilla. They walked past another bridge being built that, if finished, would cut their walk in half. Nunzio studied the construction and could tell that this structure would not be as grand as the Brooklyn Bridge. Still, he’d love to work on it, and if that wasn’t possible, he simply wished it would open quickly and lessen his commute—were he lucky enough to get this job.

They weren’t dead, but they were exhausted by the time they reached Wythe and North Twelfth. There was already a line, but not a long one. Joining the line, Nunzio shifted the weight of his canvas bag holding his chisels, level, trowels, and hammer, which he brought in case the foreman wanted them to start right away.

Carmine gave Nunzio a disapproving look. “For me, no job, no tools. They give me a job, I bring my tools,” he blustered.

Nunzio suspected Carmine’s bravado had more to do with laziness than conviction. Nunzio had always thought there was a lazy streak in Carmine, but of course he had never voiced such a thing. It would have been the ultimate insult to an Italian. Poor, okay, but lazy—never.

TAYLOR, WOOD & CO., BALTIMORE
was printed on a sign above the building housing an office. This was good. Nothing makeshift; it meant they planned on being around a while. Nunzio looked at the barren land and imagined the tank they would build there. Carmine said he heard it was to be a giant cylinder. Nunzio thought of building curves, not angles, and was intrigued. Approaching the office, he instinctively straightened up.

The men entered one by one. An Italian translator stood next to a balding man in a suit. Nunzio had never seen a man wear a suit at a job site. The translator addressed Nunzio.

“
Come si chiama
?” asked the translator.

“Nunzio Pontillo. I speak the English, sir.”

The man in the suit looked up. “What’s your experience?”

Nunzio rattled off a progression of jobs, some true and others not, that took him from laborer to skilled mason. He had learned they didn’t check, and he had also learned not to say he was an engineer.

The boss looked approvingly at his tool bag. “You start tomorrow as a laborer. If you work out, you’ll be on this job at least six months, could be longer.”

“
Grazie
. No, thank you…”

“Sign up over there,” interrupted the translator.

Carmine was put on a “reserve line”—if no one better came along, he would be hired. Nunzio waited in the shade of one of the few trees and watched. It was July, and the sun was high at noon. He knew Carmine was on the verge of cursing them for keeping him waiting in the scorching heat, so Nunzio shot him an occasional look that said, “Behave.” At two in the afternoon, when the line had dwindled, Carmine was pulled from the reserve and signed up.

They were halfway back to Little Italy before Carmine calmed down. “They take all of those jerks right away and they don’t take me?
Stronzi
. They are all stronzi.”

Nunzio ignored him. “Carmine, let’s celebrate. When we get to Mulberry Street, we’ll eat clams.” Nunzio was not usually so extravagant. Buying clams on the half shell from a pushcart was standard fare for some men, but it was an unnecessary expenditure for one with big plans.

That night, lying in bed, Nunzio wrote to Giovanna in triumph. In all of Giovanna’s letters to Nunzio, she found a thousand ways to tell him not to worry and not to be disappointed at how long it was taking them to achieve their goals. Nunzio saw through every line. He knew when Giovanna was trying to be strong, although he was sure that no one else could pick up on this because Giovanna’s voice and body spoke with such conviction. But Nunzio could see what others could not, like the tiny flutter beneath Giovanna’s left eye. When she was suppressing emotion, Nunzio saw that twitch in Giovanna’s letters, but tonight, he imagined her reading his good news with a smile creeping across her face. She might even allow herself an open grin before she ran off to church to give thanks.

Unable to sleep because he was so happy, Nunzio got up and wrote Giovanna another letter, this time drawing what he imagined the tank would look like. And maybe because he was delirious or because he again wanted to imagine Giovanna’s laugh, he did a second drawing of the tank. This time it was situated on Scilla’s north coast and looked like a pasta pot.

They were building two tanks, one at a time. Nunzio couldn’t understand why they weren’t being built at the same time, and although he asked as politely as possible, he got a stinging rebuke from the foreman and a raised eyebrow from the supervisor. The first task was to dig a circular hole 10 feet deep and 192 feet in diameter. When the ground was excavated, they were to lay the concrete floor on which the tank would rest. The month of July was spent mixing and laying concrete in three-foot-square sections to cover the floor area.

Nunzio was lead man in a crew that included Carmine, “Pretty Boy,” “Meatball,” and “Nospeakada.” He liked to imagine that he was in charge because he was the most skilled, the engineer, but he knew it was only because he spoke English. Nunzio had a hunch that Nospeakada spoke English, but whenever he was asked a question not in Italian, his quick reply was “Nospeakada eenglish.” Pretty Boy was both pretty and young. He was lean with thick eyelashes and delicate features, but Nunzio could count on him to work the hardest. Meatball, an older man, had indulged in one meatball too many, which earned him his nickname and a stomach he struggled to bend over. Carmine was only useful when he knew the supervisor or foremen were watching, which left most of the work to Nunzio, Pretty Boy, and Nospeakada.

The supervisor, Mr. Mulligan, no longer wore a suit to work, but he was always impeccably clean and often on the telephone in the office. He communicated with the men through his foremen, who made a big show of shouting orders after Mr. Mulligan had quietly given them instructions. To get his information, Nunzio stole glances through Mr. Mulligan’s windows at the plans for the tanks tacked on his wall.

Before they had finished laying the concrete floor, large pieces of wrought iron, five by twelve feet and three-eighths of an inch thick, were delivered to the site. Nunzio’s spirits lifted when he saw the iron, and he urged the men on to finish the floor. He could imagine the largest gas tank in the world taking shape.

With the concrete set, it was time to build the tank. Supervisor Mulligan had a short meeting with the foremen, who broke from the circle, shouting to their lead men. The first step was to build the bottom of the tank. Over the next few days, they erected scaffolding on the concrete floor. When that was completed, the men hauled the sheets of iron into place, which would then be riveted together. Nunzio peered at the drawings through the windows, looking for clues as to why large numbers of jacks and timbers were showing up on the job. Unable to figure it out, he approached one of the foremen during a lunch break.

“Mister, why all the jacks? What are we going to do with them?”

“What’s it to you, wop?”

Mr. Mulligan heard the exchange, gave his foreman a look of disapproval, and answered Nunzio.

“That’s how we’re going to get her down, son.”

Nunzio was so fascinated he forgot he was just a laborer talking to the supervisor. “But how are we going to use the jacks without making holes?”

“We will make holes, but we’ll seal them when it’s lowered.” The supervisor walked on, and the foreman angrily waved Nunzio away.

“Your job’s not to ask questions, you hear?”

Nunzio couldn’t follow the supervisor’s logic—they were riveting the plates of iron on scaffolding to ensure tight seals, but then they would compromise the metal by piercing its surface. After thinking it through, he came to no conclusions but dismissed his doubts. This was America. They knew how to build with metal, and Nunzio didn’t know metal like he knew wood, stone, and brick. He would watch and learn.

There was creaking as Nunzio climbed into his cot in Lorenzo’s kitchen, but it was his body, not the bed. Settling on top of the sheet, he cursed his complaining joints and tired muscles. All was quiet in the apartment, except for the muffled sounds of Teresa’s new baby suckling at her breast. Nunzio had waited until everyone had gone to bed to read Giovanna’s letter, wanting to savor it without interruption. He unfolded the paper and marveled at her steady, fluid hand, thinking that if she didn’t become a doctor she could work in the office of the sindaco recording the births, deaths, and marriages. He excitedly refocused on her words, lingering on “
Caro
Nunzio” for a moment. Nunzio’s eyes skipped through the sentences with Giovanna’s voice echoing in his mind. The letter opened with reassuring words about the health of their parents, as it always did, and went on to chronicle the news of the village.

“Ah, she got my letter!” he thought delightedly, reading further.

I am so proud that my Nunzio is shaping this America.

I think of you on this job and know that all the men must look up to you. I imagine that there is a chorus of ‘Ask Nunzio’ all day long. I have my own question: what does the name of this job, Brooklyn Union Gas Company, mean?

Oh, but how I wish you did not have to travel so far to get there! Nunzio, you must send less money and pay to take a cart, at least for the trip home. I can’t bear to think of you working so hard all day and having to walk home. I would do anything to take those steps for you.

At least I know that Lorenzo is giving you plenty of wine with dinner. I have not showed your drawing to anyone for fear they would say that America has made Nunzio soft in the head.

I did laugh, very hard, and then, of course, I tried to imagine how much pasta we could cook in such a pot.

Nunzio smiled, pleased with himself. After commenting on Nunzio’s letter, Giovanna usually would end with assurances that time was passing quickly, even though it didn’t feel that way, and they would soon be together in Scilla. But this letter did not follow its usual course. Nunzio could see the speed in Giovanna’s writing, and he reacted by sitting up on his elbows.

Nunzio, today I delivered a little girl. It was a difficult birth, and the baby’s lungs are infected. I don’t think she will live. I was frustrated during the delivery, because if I knew more I could have helped that child. I have always relied on my instincts, which have served me well, but today, as other days, I faced my ignorance. Until this moment, I thought that if I were to study further, it would be because Nunzio wanted me to. Now I share your dream, improbable as it may seem. Thank you, my dear Nunzio, for knowing what is in my heart even before I do. Sometimes I feel like you inhabit my soul.

“Brava, Giovanna, brava,” whispered Nunzio, running his hands across the page, caressing Giovanna in its surface. He wondered how he could feel such a connection with a woman an ocean away. Carmine had tried to bring him to the house of the
puttane,
and he had allowed himself to go through the door. A dark-haired woman approached him, but even with her breath on his face, he felt physically closer to Giovanna. He turned and left Carmine to his comforts; and now, he folded the letter, laid it on his chest, and fell into a satisfied sleep.

Nunzio became lead man for three crews because so many men had quit during the next phase of construction. The metal bottom of the tank sat on wooden stilts thirty-two inches above the concrete floor. The metal plates were being riveted from above—and below. The first time he crawled into the dark beneath the disc, he sympathized with his countrymen who had become miners. But within days, he was jealous of the miners, for while the miners had to endure the soot, he believed that at least they labored standing in the cool beneath the earth. Nunzio and his co-workers entered hell each time they slithered under the tank bottom. The August sun baked the iron and the noise from the hot rivets being pounded into the metal from above created an ear-piercing, broiling torture chamber.

Nunzio’s job was to crawl on his belly to the plate that was being riveted and position the anvil to take the blows and steady the tank bottom’s weight of two hundred tons. He felt like a worm. His mind flashed back to his fantasies of building the Flatiron Building. If he weren’t so miserable he would have laughed at the irony. He tried to cheer himself by imagining this project as one part of the web that was being spun throughout New York, spanning rivers, reaching into the sky, burrowing tunnels, and stretching in every direction. He tried even harder to convince himself that he was an important piece of this puzzle and not simply cheap Italian labor.