The Great Caruso

    I thank God that I grew up in the days of little parental interference.  We kids could enjoy the summertime and have a separate life from our parents.  We could leave our homes in the morning only to return for meals and then leave again until the streetlights would come on at night.  We would, of course, have to ask permission if we were going to leave our usual stomping grounds and tried to get the go-ahead while we were home for lunch or dinner.  At least I tried to anyway.  You see, to say that my mother did not do well in the summertime would be an understatement.   I think that she coined the sayings, “the dog days of August” and “it’s not the heat – it’s the humidity!”   She was just miserable, in every possible way, when it was hot outside.  If I did have to run back home to ask her something I would try not to go inside the house, I had perfected a ballet of sorts by running up to our screen door and throwing it open with my left arm and shouting  “Ma, can I …” and waiting for her answer while spinning in a circle and catching the door with my right arm to close it without a slam.

    At lunchtime, this particular August day in my thirteenth year, I had got the OK to go to the park for the afternoon.  I ran over to meet my friend and neighbor, Carla, and we jumped onto our bikes and headed out of our street for the park – or so I thought until Carla shouted,     “Where are you going?”

    “To the park!”  I yelled.

    “Wait up!” she hollered, “I forgot to ask if I could go!”

    “Shit, Carla, you’re stupid,” I said in an understanding way as I turned my bike around.

    “Shut up, Jackie!  Let’s just go back and I’ll ask now!”

    We headed back to Carla’s house, and she stopped a few doors away and said, “Shit. I can’t go in to ask now.  My Dad just got home from work, and Ma’s got the music on so he can take a nap.”

    “So what?  Just go ask, it’ll take two seconds!”  I said.

    “I can’t.  I forgot that he would be home today and now the stupid music is playing already.  Us kids can’t go inside for anything until it stops.”

    “I don’t get it,” I said. “How long is the song – or is it an album, Christ, don’t tell me it’s an album?”

    “I dunno…”

    “Shit, Carla. What the hell kind of music is it anyway?” I asked trying to listen more closely, “And what the hell kind of language is that they’re singing in?”

    “It’s Italian, OK, love songs or something, I dunno, just shut up, Jackie, will ya?”

    I pretended like I was going to hit Carla, and I guess she thought she should duck, because she fell over backwards and her bike fell on top of her.

    “OWWWWWWW!” she hollered.

    “You’re fine!”  I said, as I dropped my bike and ran over to lift hers off of her. 

    “My head hurts!” she said.

    “Shut up, you didn’t even hit your head, dipshit!”

    “Ya I did – the handlebars hit me right here!”
 
    I looked more closely at her forehead and saw a bump rising.

    “Ya you musta got hit. Sorry – but I thought you knew I was just fake hitting you.”

    “No, obviously I didn’t.”

    “Well, obviously you’re stupid.”

    “Well, obviously you’re more stupid cause you started this.”

    Ya, she was right about that.

    “Sorry Carla.  I didn’t mean it, really.  Does it hurt bad?”

    “Ya. I got a headache too, and now it feels like its bleeding or something.”

    “It ain’t bleeding, but we should probably go have your Ma check it out, in case you have one of those percussions or something,” I said.

    “Are you deaf?  I can’t go in the house until the music stops, I said!”
 
    “Jesus Christ, Carla, you have a lump on your head. What are they gonna do, kill ya?”

    “Shut up, dipshit!  Let’s have your Ma look at it instead,” she said.

    “My day is ruined,” I thought as we walked our bikes to my house and the dragons’ lair. My Ma would be watching her favorite soap opera now, and her temper would climb like the thermometer when we walked in.

    We went in and I started babbling before Ma could say anything, “Ma, Carla kind of hit her head on her bike and we were wondering if you could look at it and see if she’s OK.”

    To my surprise, Ma didn’t say anything and just got up to look at Carla’s head, and then got a facecloth from the bathroom. 

    “It doesn’t look too bad,” she said as she wiped the sweat from Carla’s face.  “Are you dizzy or anything?” she asked.

    “Not dizzy but I have a bad headache,” Carla said.

    “Well, you better go home and have your mother look at it then.”

    “She can’t, Ma,” I said  “Her father just got home from work and he’s taking a nap.”

    “How can he sleep with that music blaring through the neighborhood?” Ma asked loudly.

    “Oh, oh, there goes the mercury rising,” I thought, but said, “That’s OK, Ma, thanks.  We’ll just go over to her house.”  I pushed Carla through the door and towards home.

    “C’mon, Carla. Don’t you think that your Ma would want to know that you’re hurt?”

    “Ya but, let’s just sit on the stairs till the music stops.”

    We sat on her cool cement steps, grateful for the shade of a tall pine tree in front of her house.  Carla put her head down on her arms while we waited for the music to stop.  I tried to figure out what to do next.  The music was really loud.  They must have had the phonograph stuck right in the window somehow.  My mother could be ornery sometimes, but she was right about one thing. How could anyone sleep through this noise?  I knew Carla’s Dad worked for the fire department; 72 hours on and 72 hours off or something, but how could he possibly sleep through this?

    “I think I’m gonna puke, Jack,” Carla said.

    “Lets go inside then.  We’ll be real quiet and not bother your father and just talk to your Mom,” I said.
 
    “Okay.”

    We went around to the back of her house to the back door that was always unlocked.  We went inside and covered our ears.  Her Mom was nowhere to be seen. 

    “Maybe she’s in the bathroom,” Carla yelled in my ear.

    I was looking at the record album cover that I found on the kitchen table.

    “Who the hell is this ugly guy?”  I yelled.

    “What’s it say, dumbass?  It says its  ‘THE GREAT CARUSO’ or something doesn’t it?”

    “What’s so great about him except he’s really loud?”  I asked while I examined the album cover. “And it says here ‘canzone d’amore’, does that mean it’s his second album or something?”   Carla started to look really sick, but that didn’t stop my questions. “How come your father likes Italian music, when only your mother speaks Italian and…”

    Carla bolted down the hall and I followed her into the bathroom.  She was throwing up in the toilet. 

    “Get my Ma, she must be in the bedroom,” she said after a minute.

I crossed the hall and knocked on the door.  Nothing.  I knocked again.  Nothing.  I banged really hard and heard Carla’s mother holler, “WHAT?”

    I opened the door saying, “Mrs. Palumbo, Carla hit her head, and she’s got a lump, and she’s puking in the toilet and…”

    Mr. Palumbo covered his bare chest as Mrs. Palumbo jumped out of bed naked, and walked quickly as a white, silky slip, slid from around her neck and down to her knees.   She came over to me with a strained and quizzical look on her face.  I felt really strange and just pointed to Carla hanging over the toilet across the hall.  As Mrs. P started asking me questions about what had happened, I noticed that I could see her dark nipples and black pubic hair through her thin garment.  I kept staring and thought, “ Why doesn’t she have underwear on…oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!” as I realized that I had likely walked in on one of those acts of ‘where babies come from,’ as my mother called it. 

    “Carla is fine now Jackie. Jackie?”  said Mrs. P. My face was on fire from embarrassment.

    “What???”  I finally asked. 

    “She’s fine, I think that she’s reacting to this horrible heat more so than the little bump on her head.  In fact you look really flushed too.  I’ll get you both some cold orange juice.”

    “Oh good, oh thanks, oh fine,” I mumbled.

    Carla was feeling better so we went into her room and lay on her bed, and soon she fell asleep.   My mind was still reeling from the event that I had interrupted, the ‘where babies come from’ scene as my mother called it or ‘the dance of love’, as Nana sometimes said.  In a little while, I calmed down and fell asleep, too.   After a bit Mrs. Palumbo woke us up, and Carla was fine, and I was invited to stay for supper. 

    Carla and I walked over to my house and I ran up to the door, opening it with my left arm and yelled,     “Ma can I eat at Carla’s?”

    “Ya, okay.” I heard her holler as I pirouetted around, catching the door with my right arm, closing it without a slam. 

    “Nice spin, dipshit.” Carla said, “Maybe we should put ‘The Great Caruso’ back on the record player, and you can practice twirling around some more.”

    “Maybe you should shut up and start running,” I said, and raced her back to her house.

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