OCallaghan - A Yonkers Kinda Girl

ISBN 10:1482302586
ISBN 13:978-1482302585

Copyright TXu1-839-146

With deepest gratitude, to my editor, Sheila Nason

And special thanks to my sister Cathy who supported me and always believed the book was worth writing

Cover art courtesy of the artist Kate Abercrombie and The Fleisher Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia Pa.

Patrick

When I was child

My father died.

My large raucous family slid.

Out of its orbit and began to disintegrate.

It was the sixties.

Pre Berkeley, pre hippie, pre generation sixties.

I ran around my Leave It To Beaver neighborhood.

A child Cassandra calling:

Its coming apart

Its coming apart!

The words froze in the air, desiccating,

And blew into the cracks.

The neighbors pitied my vacant mother.

When I was a child my father died.

It was my own personal catastrophe.

Tito della Robbia was intoxicated by America before he saw the New York skyline. On the deck of a cruise ship, surrounded by returning tourists, he gazed through the grey drizzle at his dreamland. He heard of people who left Ellis Island with the generic name di Napoli. He passed through customs with both his name and dignity intact.

Tito had read letters to his mother from Tatiana DAgusta as she nodded over memorized passages. He planned to follow the DAgustas years before he did, but a road construction accident killed his father, leaving his mother heavy with pregnancy and plunging his working class family into poverty. Nick was born in 1930, and Maria della Robbia died shortly thereafter.

Tito was barely a teenager when he was left with three brothers, one an infant. When Mussolini ordered the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, Tito was almost unique a healthy young man immune from military service. All the neighborhood mothers helped raise his brothers, and he worked night and day, saving for emigration.

By 1939, Tito could no longer deny that the world was going to explode into war. He used his America fund to send his baby brother to the DAgustas. Meanwhile, he remained in Naples, trying to keep himself and his teenage brothers alive.

The end of the war brought new opportunities for Tito. He worked with the American Army, mastering English and incorporating colloquialisms into his speech. Immigration laws had become stricter. It took Tito five years to gain entry, even with letters of recommendation from American officers and with a minor brother already in the country. By 1951, Nick was now a man of 21. He had graduated from high school and gone on to police training and become a Yonkers patrolman, He was going to college part time.

Tito started to pass through the crowd. Nick was quickly upon him. Tito had expected Nick to drive a big Chevy, but instead they walked from the wharf across lower Manhattan to Little Italy. In Naples, Tito was a big man, but here he shrank to his five-foot six-inch frame. He felt as meager as his possessions.

The DAgustas had been aware that Tito was coming but had not known when he would arrive. Tatiana had regaled her daughters with tales of Maria della Robbia. Maria had helped Tatiana adjust to losing her wealth, family, and country.

Tatiana had escaped from Russia with her ill husband and baby daughter, but in their flight, walking night and day as fall turned into winter, her daughter had died of pneumonia. They slept in railroad yards, only to be rousted in the morning with all the other refugees both Russians fleeing the revolution and nomads from throughout Europe following the First World War.

Tatiana and her husband finally arrived in Naples. He had seemed better almost immediately. His remission was temporary, and two months later he died. Maria della Robbia had opened her home to them when she came across them on her way home from Mass. Tatianas regal bearing throughout her mourning touched Maria.

A year passed. Marias gentle cousin had come to Naples en route to America, and the spark between Tatiana and Anno was undeniable. Soon, Anno and Tatiana DAgusta left for America.

Tatiana never forgot the silent boy who had carried water for her dying husband and rubbed her hand after his death. Tatiana wanted to help Tito find the family she felt he needed, and a man who had raised three brothers through Mussolini and the war and had given up his life savings to protect his little brother would certainly make a fine son-in-law.

Tatianas eldest daughter was married, but her second daughter, Isabel, was 29 and single. She had a steady boyfriend in Anthony Trotti, a thoroughly Americanized man whom Tatiana did not trust. Lately, there had been a change in Isabel. She had stopped speaking and would not even acknowledge her younger sister, Carmela. She was also gone late into the evening and early in the morning.

Tatiana was certain Carmela had done something to cause the rift, but she didnt know what. Carmela was 17 and too provocative for her own good. She had a way of touching men with her fingertips when she spoke that would surely bring trouble.

Isabel worked in a three-generation tailor shop started by her father, Anno, and his partner, both from the small village of Cicciano. She made alterations and repairs and did the books. Isabel was close to the tailors wife, who was expecting their first child.

What Tatiana did not know was that a few days earlier, Isabel had arrived at work to be greeted with the news that the baby had been born. Isabel went home to get the layette she had made. She entered the room she shared with Carmela only to find Carmela in bed with Anthony Trotti. Isabel uttered a short scream and ran out.

She ran up to the roof and walked among the laundry trees, fuming. Anthony was a driver for one of the families and had the respect of all the punks in the neighborhood. Isabel had seen the lust in Anthonys eyes when Carmela seductively pranced around.

When she finally returned to work without the present, the tailor was concerned. Hey, you OK?

Isabel didnt answer, and he thought it was best not to push. Late in the afternoon, Isabel started to work like a woman possessed, but the tailor insisted it was time to close.

Isabel, not wanting to have a confrontation in front of her mother, avoided going home. She walked around her neighborhood. Later that evening, she arrived home, expecting to see Carmela at least put up a repentant front, but Carmela sat beside their mother as though she was challenging Isabel.

Tatiana said, Youre so late. I thought you were with Anthony.

Carmela quickly added, Whats the matter? Anthony getting bored with you?

Isabel had no reply. She left for work early the next morning, as her family was just stirring. She walked the same streets she had covered the night before, waiting for the tailor shop to open. Once inside, she sewed sometimes in a fury of speed and at other times through tears. She took to walking before and after work, trodding forlornly.

She was vaguely approaching her home one evening when she came upon the della Robbia brothers.

Nicky, how are you? What brings you down here? she said warmly to her adopted brother.

Isabel this is my brother, Tito. He just got off the boat. Were going to your mothers.

Tito grasped her hand and started pumping. Hiya, Isabel. Glad to meetya.

Isabel laughed. Well this one we wont have to teach English at the kitchen table.

They walked on, stopping for Italian ices.

Italian ice? I never had this, but its OK.

Nick warned him, Wait till you have some Italian food, Tito. Like nothing youve ever had.

Tatiana welcomed them warmly. Tito allowed his hopes to soar.