Advertisement
Published: December 26th 2007
Edit Blog Post
WOULD YOU BELIEVE THIS?
We spent Christmas day at the beach. South Africans apparently do that. In Strand large apartment buildings, tall office blocks, and low decaying vintage seaside businesses line the shore along a boulevard. On Christmas day it looked as if the United Nations had sent all their delegates to Coney Island. Only, of course, we were in South Africa. I have never seen a more amazing and multicolored collection of people. On beaches in the United States people tend to "blanket' and stay put, relatively speaking. Here in Strand the crowd moved, walked, played cricket, ran in rugby matches, dribbled soccer balls, rolled in the sand, dashed into the water, wheeled strollers, stood on their heads, surfed. It was like Brownian Motion lathered in sunscreen. I felt like I was in the middle of an atom. Then there was this one guy telling stories. He wore a shirt with the words, "Agrippina di Mineo" across his chest. He spoke dramatically, like a poet with a Boston accent, and told this story to a crowd of sundrenched revelers. "Way back when, before there was cars,
Beverly Mangiotta Vespucci,
commonly known as BVM, and her
main squeeze
Giuseppe Giussepe,
or Joe Joe to you,
walk all the way from Sommerville
to Prince Street one night because
BVM wants a slice of Regina’s,
and Joe Joe is out of Perodis.
BVM is pregnant, that’s why she wants
the slice. She tells Joe Joe
that he’s the father, although
he don’t remember it, ‘cause
he sometimes drinks heavy with the boys from
Carpenter’s Local 361.
She actually don’t know why she’s pregnant.
It’s a big friggin’ mystery, ya know what I mean?
When they gets to Regina’s and Joe Joe
is dousing their slices heavy with
the olive oil, BVM she gets this kick from
the inside, like from a goddamn three
pound hammer swung by a stone mason.
Then she goes into it real good, because this
little guy wants to get out in the worst way,
because, Joe Joe says, he smells the pie.
They can’t get back to Sommervile, ‘cause this is
a long. long time ago before there was cars
or busses or maybe even horses.
But there was goats, and sheep, and cows,
‘cause how the hell are you gonna
make mozzarella anyway?
So BVM and Joe Joe go next door to
Frangini’s Cheese
Factory where they got
goats and sheep and cows for
the mozzarella and the ricotta. It’s fresh
there at Frangini’s. Everyone knows.
BVM, she has to lie down in the hay,
because, well because this ain’t no hotel,
it’s a goddamn cheese factory for christ’s sake.
Then these three wise guys show up, with
a dirty little ragazzo who told them that
Joe Joe was there because he knows that
Joe Joe owes them some money and
he figures he might get a little juice.
These wise guys they want him to pay up,
which is only natural, but they get there
just as BVM lets out this scream
and the little guys slides out. Then
the wise guys all start crying ‘cause they all
got soft spots for this kind of thing.
They’re so moved that they let Joe Joe off,
and actually they all pull out big rolls
and start peeling off C-notes for BVM
and the bambino, because by this time
they see that it’s a he, not a she, which
they like, being wise guys. So this
story gets around the neighborhoods and
nobody can believe it, because these wise
guys never let nobody slide. So
this kid
grows up, gets a union card, but never has to
do nothin’ strenuous because the foremen
all know the story about the wise guys.
Everyone loves the kid.
But then, and this really stinks, a
dope who really wants to get to the wise guys,
someone who they pissed off big time,
has the kid whacked.
And then, get this, they steal the body from the
Bova’s Funeral Parlor. Now the whole friggin’
neighborhood goes into some kind of hysterical
uproar, because these people, believe me,
can make up all sorts of whacko stuff.
And the wise guys ain’t throwin’
water on the flames.
You know what I mean?"
Advertisement
Tot: 0.066s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0348s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb