My Short Story, "The Photographs."

 

Copyright Glo Lewis 9/21/2023

 

Dear Readers of My Blog, 💚

 

I have decided to share my short story, “The Photographs,” with you. This is a work of fiction; it is not a memoir; my grandfather never killed anyone. Here is the story below (As usual, God bless, and I'll be in touch soon):

 

 

The Photographs

Copyright Glo Lewis 9/21/2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

   It is an opaque, rainy day in Portland, Oregon, caught somewhere between November and December in 2003, in that nebulous sort of way in which days seem to stall between seasons; the heavens punctuate this passage of time and appear to mourn it, as the sky breaks open with a pattern of thunderous claps, followed by the crazy zigzagging of lightning and rain, which crashes heavily, darkly, and with abandon from pregnant clouds.

   I look around for something to do as the rain pelts the windows. It is a good day to stay indoors, I decide. I pour myself a glass of water and bring it into the front room with a shoebox full of old photographs and a magnifying glass. I set the glass of water on the windowsill and relax into my swivel recliner next to the bay window facing the garden.

   I gingerly remove the photographs from the box, and examine them individually, sometimes using the magnifying glass; they represent my childhood, including members of my family. There we are: my father, my mother, Aunt Liza, Granny, me-- our images from the past preserved on paper.

   As I reach the last photo in my stack, the face of my maternal grandfather, Vicente Vito, smiles back at me. I lift the glass from the windowsill and drink. Looking down again, I notice that a tiny bead of the water has dripped onto the photograph of my grandfather. It glistens like a tear. The smiling face and the teardrop are incongruent. I wipe the water with my fingers, but the sheen stays.

   I remember my grandfather well. Yet, nearly 30 years after his death, he remains a mystery to me. Looking back, down the winding staircase of years, I realize that though my grandfather was once my age of fifty-three, when I was a child, he always looked ancient to me. He was from “the old country,” as the Italian immigrants were wont to say when referring to the high boot of a country known as Italy. From a gilt-edged moment, framed like a portrait in my mind, I recall him, stooped and solemn, with a modest chest and large, strong hands. His face, browned by the suns of innumerable summers, would turn to a blue-black hue by early fall. His thick, graying, brown hair was combed and parted neatly. He walked ever so slowly, always in loose-fitting, comfortable clothes, pacing every moment of his days as though to cherish even the core of a fruit.

   Once, I had him all to myself. I remember it vividly: my eleventh birthday-- an unusually windy, second summer day (previously called Indian summer, which is no longer acceptable) in Oakland, California, where most of our family eventually migrated because of the warm weather. I am restless. Grandpa and I are in his golden garden that shimmers like autumn apples. I advance tentatively through the colorful rosebushes, avoiding their thorns while collecting fallen petals, and meander around the red grape trellis and the stocky rows of chunky lettuce. My auburn hair, flying behind me, snags on the wind.

   “Cat Eyes, come-a here,” my grandfather calls out to me from his wooden chair in the garden. (He always refers to me as “Cat Eyes” -- a little reminder to me that my eyes are slanted and green; he never calls me by my name, which is Jillian.) I race to his side, sucking on a beefsteak tomato that I have plucked from the garden, its pulpy seeds dripping onto my clothes.

   Grandpa lights a cigar and motions for me to sit beside him on one of the mottled marble benches, which seems to exist eternally in the flowering shrubs. We are in a remote area, far from the house, near a small picket fence that borders the garden. We study each other in the dry breeze, his dark, liquid eyes seeming to speak of distant times and places, worlds and ages, in fact, that I will never know. “Grandpa, tell me about the olden days,” I say, tugging gently at the sleeve of his white shirt. My grandfather looks thoughtful as I wait with anticipation for him to speak.

   “Cat Eyes, when I firsta come to this country in-a 1917, I speaka no English. I was-a seventeen. I come-a over on-a da boat with a lot-a people-- all together like-a grapes for da vino. We dirty, but-a we have-a to washa with-a salt water. Da padrone, he get-a me work on-a da Brooklyn Bridge.”

   “Where’s the Brooklyn Bridge?” I say, picking tomato seeds off my blouse.

   “That’sa in New York. You know, backa East.” Grandpa moves his hands around, almost pointing, as though to indicate “east.” He augments his speech by pressing his fingers together and moving his hands as though to speak with them also, which is the Italian way. “But-a don’ta interrupt. I’m-a try to tell you a story,” he says.

   “Later on, you know, this guy, he tell me about work in da coal mines. So, I go. I go to Pennsylvania. That’sa where I meeta your grandmother.” He taps his cigar, and the ashes swirl in gray cylinders in the breeze.

   “Oh,” I say.

   He nods. “Then, I geta job in da coal mines. Da darker men, they worka up ahead. Da Italians, we worka far back in da mine. We stay together. We don’t-a, none of us, speaka da English. We trust-a no one. It’sa dark. We just-a have-a da lanterns. We don’t-a see so good.” Grandpa compresses his eyes as though he is, for a moment, back in the mine.

   “One day, two of these Italianos, they starta to fight. One-a says-a da other one, he pockets his money when it fall from his pocket.

   “Da other Italiano, he worka hard. He was a hard worker, that guy. He says-a to leave him alone, to get-a back to work.

   “But this firsta guy, he won’t-a shut up. He starta to push and shove da other guy.” Grandpa gestures with his hand to illustrate this point, pushing hard at the wind as though it is an opponent.

   “All da Italianos starta to shout and curse. With all this-a goin’ on, some of da lanterns get-a knocked around. It’sa pitch black.

   “These two Italianos, though, they keep on beatin’ on each other. I get-a hit, and I hit back.

   “Picks and shovels are flyin’. Da coal dust, it’sa in our eyes. We don’t-a see so good. I feel this Italiano fall.

   “Then, it’sa real quiet. I can-a feel the blood. It’s sticky. My clothes are wet and sticky. I’m-a shaking.

   “Some of da darker men, they must-a hear all a this goin’ on, and they starta walkin’ back toward us. We see their lanterns swinging, bringing da light closer to us. We hear them shuffling toward us.

   “We wave-a them back. Some speaka da English a little, and they yell to da dark men, ‘It’s nothin.’ Go back. Go back.’ And they wave-a da Black men back to work.

   “One paisano, he gets a lantern. We look at da man that’sa on da ground. He’s-a dead.

   “We don’t-a speaka da English so good. No one could see. No one meant to kill. We don’t-a know da law in this country. What if they gonna kill us all for this? We get-a scared.

   “We bury this Italiano down there in da coal mine. We bury him good. I guess-a he was-a not-a married, ‘cause-a no one came-a lookin’ for him. I guess-a he’s-a still down there in that old Pennsylvania mine.”

   I gazed at my grandfather for a long while that fall day. He puffed on his cigar, knocking the ashes into tiny, dark specks which, carried on the wind, toiled frantically in gray swirls, finally scattering into the moist, dark soil. His eyes were dewy.

   Now, after a lifetime, I again contemplate those eyes-- in the photograph. Bolts of lightning flash outside, followed by a shower of rain, which cascades across the wide expanse of window. The reflection of light, coupled with that sheen from the water in my glass, creates the illusion in the snapshot that my grandfather is crying. I suddenly comprehend the scope of his confession.

   The rain taps at the window, trying, it seems, to get in. I gaze out at the garden, appreciating its details. Here, there are rosebushes; over there, short, stocky vegetation; in the distance are some large trees. The scene reminds me of my grandfather’s garden.

   Who was my grandfather, after all? Was he a murderer, or a man who acted in self-defense? Why did he choose me as his confidante? Had Grandpa cast the fatal blow? I might never know the answer to this last question since perhaps Grandpa was not sure either; possibly, he was, though. Maybe, at the end of the scuffle, he knew the truth, but why tell me when I was just a child? Conceivably, that was precisely why grandfather had confided in me-- because I was a child. Whom was I going to tell? We were Italians, after all, bound by blood and its fierce loyalty. Even as a child, I understood instinctively never to divulge a family secret, never to cross the bonds of the family. True Italians know this in the eyes. With one dark look, you are silenced. In addition, Grandpa had probably reasoned that because I was a child, I would not fully understand his story-- and I had not, until now.

   I struggle with questions, my mind as sluggish as a fish flopping in muddy waters. I am resolved to explore my concerns with my mother, Grandpa’s daughter. Mother, in her late seventies now, still has a sharp memory. Will she be straightforward with me? I wonder.

   A feeling of tiredness overtakes me, and I fall asleep in my recliner where I dream pell-mell, awakening more than once to the realization that my dreams embrace memories. In one scene, I am twenty, a college student visiting Grandpa at his home in Oakland, California. We sit at his formica kitchen table while he eats fried eggs that he has scorched, a favorite dish of his. “Want some?” he offers, nodding at the blackened mass covered by a pool of running yellow yokes.

   “No thank you!” I say, grimacing at the unsavory meal.

   Grandpa finishes eating quickly. He removes a whole chicken from the refrigerator, washes it in his small, white porcelain sink, and then places it in a pot and covers it with water. He carries the pot over to the gas stove and sets it on a front burner. He cracks an egg and drops that in the pot too. He sprinkles these ingredients lavishly with salt and pepper, sets the lid in place, strikes a wooden match, and lights the pilot. He adjusts the flame to a medium heat.

   “Is this how you eat since Granny died?” I ask, flipping my long hair off my shoulder.

   It is 1970—the era of the hippie movement. I desperately want to be a hippie because I consider myself hip. Nevertheless, I do not qualify as a hippie because I do not use drugs, and I cannot give up cosmetics. With makeup, a woman can go from fair to fantastic, using the colors like paints applied to the canvas of her face. Therefore, I compromise: I go braless, and live in leotards with my nipples hard and pointy as pens and jeans with holes in the legs. One pair has an appliqué of a turquoise Siamese cat with bejeweled blue eyes that my mother made and sewed on the left pant leg for me. A boyfriend visits me at the apartment that I share with my mother on a day when I am wearing those jeans. He stares at the Siamese cat appliqué for a long time, and says finally, “I like your pussy.”

   “I eat how I eat,” Grandpa says. He is a man of simple vocabulary. He has been a dark, exotic figure speaking broken English, a fast wind that billowed the curtains of my life, making his entrances and his hasty exits like an indifferent actor in an offbeat play. We are not close. I have a remote love for him, but he is not someone whom I want my friends to meet. I am a little ashamed of him.

   The chicken pot boils over in great spits of yellow-white foam. Grandpa rises from the table and lowers the blue flame under the burner. He mops up the mess with a small towel and trudges to the sink and rinses his plate and fork.

   He sits down again at the table and lights a corona with hands as brown as the cigar. We keep each other company in silence for a while before I glance at the silver crucifix, conjoined with a tiny bowl for holy water, hanging on his wall. We are Catholics. “Do you still go to church?” I ask, resting my elbow on the table, my head in the palm of my hand.

   “Sometime.”

   “Only sometimes?”

   “Hey!” Irritation, bubbling like champagne, sweeps across his darkening face while he gestures widely with his cigar hand. His exclamation warns me that I am bordering on disrespect, which my Italian elders never tolerate. “I go sometime. But I can’t-a kneel down-- it hurta my knees. I sit and listen. You know, the Latin-- sometime I sleep,” he says, tapping the cigar ash into an empty Campbell’s Tomato Soup can.

   “You sleep in church? That’s funny, Grandpa. Sometimes I’d like to.”

   The back porch door is propped open by a black Scottie figurine, a collector’s item. Outside, the birds chirp. A sweet breeze wafts through the kitchen.

   “You know, I helped raise you,” Grandpa says at last. He puffs on his cigar, his inky, aqueous eyes squinting at me around the exhaled smoke.

   “Oh no you didn’t! Mom’s told me all about it. You barely had anything to do with me as a child. Why didn’t you spend time with me?”

   “No speaka da English.”

   “What do you mean, you don’t speak English? We’ve been sitting here speaking English.”

   “No speaka da English.”    

   Grandpa, who loves poker, keeps his betting face. If he is hurt, he does not let it show.

   Bridled, and with the cool assessment of youth, I am content with my candor. Other than that one day in the garden when I was eleven, Grandpa has never had much to do with me. For a time, when I was eight, and Granny was still alive, my parents and I lived in the apartment below their house, and because of this largess, he feels that he has helped raise me. Inwardly, I burn at his dishonest audacity.

   Later, I awake in my recliner and note that the day is moving along. I remember that I have questions about my grandfather, and I call my mother in California.

   “Mom, I have something to ask you about Grandpa.”

   “Okay.”

   “When I was a kid, did I tell you that Grandpa told me about a fight in a coalmine where a man died?”

   “Oh, I don’t know, Jillian. I can’t remember back that far.”

   “I was wondering if you knew about that-- the fight and the guy dying. Did Grandpa tell you?” I finger the photo of Grandpa.

   “My father told me a lot of things, Jillian. Hold on-- my cat’s doing something he’s not supposed to.”

   I wait, thumping my fingers softly on the arm of my chair. “Mother?”

   “Yes, I’m back.”   

   “What was your cat doing?”

   “Poking his head through the mini blind.”

   “So back to my question.”

   “I don’t want to talk about all that, Jillian.”

   “Please, Mom. I need to know.”

   “Why do you need to know?”

   “I’m trying to understand it. Did Grandpa kill the man?”

   She sighs. “I don’t know what I know sometimes.”  

   “Mom, a person doesn’t forget a thing like that: a fight to the death in a coalmine. Grandpa told me about it. He wanted me to know. I want the details. If you don’t tell me, who will?

   Mother is quiet for a moment.

   “Some things are best left in the past, Jillian.”

   “I know, but not this, Mom. Please.”

   “Mmmm.” (She gives the universal mothers’ growl.) “The fight got out of hand,” she says. “The man was choking your grandfather. Those guys had strong hands-- they worked hard with them all day long. Grandpa, I understood, reached up and pushed the guy in the face to get him off him. He pushed too hard, though, and he slammed the man’s head back into the sidewall of the mine. You know the rest; he lived with that….”

   My grandfather was an interesting figure. He was a modest immigrant who journeyed to the United States in search of a better life because he did not want to be a farmer in Italy, where such an occupation was crude at best, and work generally, was scarce. Surely, it never occurred to him, as a teenager leaving home and country behind, and booking solo passage on Moshulu, the ship that sailed him to America, that he would one day kill a man, a fellow Italian immigrant, who was also aspiring to more. However, when we chart our course, only one thing is certain in life-- uncertainty.

 

 

 

The End