Salvatore Difalco

Last of Tony

 

The pigeons on my balcony woke me with their cooing. Their cooing reminded me of death. It had snowed all night and the pigeons had found shelter there; but the previous winter, when I had permitted this behaviour, they shat all over the balcony. Then spring arrived and the snow melted but their crap remained, white and black in drips and rude squiggles like a fetid abstract artwork. I could have stomped around the pigeons’ creation shirtless and become its very gesture, but a meteor could have also fallen from the sky and destroyed my apartment building. In other words, the odds of that happening were not zero but close. And yet improbabilities always surface.

​

I seized a meat mallet from the kitchen, opened the balcony door, and beat the mallet against a discarded air-conditioning unit. The clamour startled the dozing birds, and drove them to the balcony’s edge, where they bobbed their heads under the railing and flapped off.

 

My cell phone buzzed. It was Rosetti, a cousin of Carmine, my bookie. I had not seen Carmine since the outset of the pandemic. I owed him money for a few longstanding gambling debts, and I hadn’t exactly gone out of my way to pay him off, what with the lockdown. But I considered him a fair man and I thought he’d cut me a little slack given that times were tough and money was tight.  I didn’t think Rosetti had been contracted to collect the debt or punish me for welshing, not at all. 

​

“What’s up with you, Tony?” he said in his raspy voice.

​

“Just chased some pigeons off my balcony, Rosetti. They creep me out.”

​

“I hear you, bro. Vermin with wings, pigeons are. So, listen. Buddy in the east end told me about some 60’ flat screens that fell off a truck. Two yards a pop. I say we jet over and grab a couple and maybe stop for a munch at Valentino’s—maybe some sausage and peppers—there’s one near his place.”

 

“I just bought a smart TV. I don’t need a new one. And to be honest, my stomach is agitated. I couldn’t eat sausage and peppers right now if you paid me.”

​

“Have something else. A chicken parm sandwich or whatever.”

 

“I’m gonna pass, man.”

 

“Aw, that’s too bad.”

​

I heard knocking at my door. “Just a sec,” I said, “someone’s knocking.”

 

“No problem,” Rosetti said.

​

When I tried to see who it was through my peephole, the person at the door had turned their back. “Who the fuck is it?” I said.

 

“It’s me,” Rosetti said, both behind the door and on the phone.

​

I opened the door and started. Rosetti stood there grinning ghoulishly, dressed completely in black and carrying an oily brown paper bag.

 

“Surprise,” he said. 

​

“Indeed,” I said. This visit was, well, unexpected. It’s not as if he had ever been to my place. I barely knew him to tell the truth and only insofar as he and Carmine were related. Something about the way he flashed his teeth when he smiled disturbed me. I could not recall him smiling like that. He wasn’t really the big smiling type. 

 

“What’s up?” I asked, studying his body language, wary of any sudden movements. Then again, I thought, if he were here to harm me, it would have already happened. 

 

“Just in the neighbourhood, bro. My mechanic’s like five minutes away from here. Had to get my brakes checked. They were whining, you know. And I was kidding about the flat screens. Haha, flat screens. But I did grab you a chicken parm sandwich at this little joint in that strip mall down the street. You can eat it later if you’re not hungry. What’s going on, man? You don’t look too happy to see me.”

 

It’s not that I was unhappy to see him—he had never been to my place—but I had set aside the day to do some long-neglected journaling. My counselor had told me it played an important part in my recovery. I didn’t believe everything I had been told, but the journaling, and working out shit on paper, helped reduce my anxiety levels. Unsettled stuff that normally swirled around in my head when I was trying to fall asleep now filled the pages of my journal. 

​

“No,” I said. “It’s cool. I just didn’t expect to see you of all people. Come in.”

​

“I grabbed two chinottos for us as well. Chinotto’s good for the stomach. The bitters they use, or whatever.”

​

He sat on my sofa under a large print of Picasso’s Three Musicians. His triangular face and blocky clothes complemented the image. He set the paper bag with sandwiches and drinks on my coffee table.

​

“Need a glass?” I asked.

 

“Nah, I’m good. So tell me everything.”

​

“Nothing,” I said. “I’m better. Better than I was. Can’t you tell? I’ve gained back some weight and I’m walking a kilometer or two a day. Still taking twenty pills a day. Hasn’t been easy, to be honest, but I’m managing.”

​

“Good to hear,” Rosetti said, opening the paper bag and lifting out his sandwich and a can of chinotto. “Help yourself,” he said.

 

“Why not?” I said, and grabbed the remaining sandwich and the can of chinotto. The still-warm sandwich smelled delicious and nauseating at the same time. 

​

We ate in silence. Rosetti had the ugly habit of eating with his mouth wide open, crumbs and morsels flying from it. He devoured his sandwich like a famished dog. My sandwich was tasty, but far too salty.

 

“What’s the place called, where you got these?”

 

“Gatti’s or Gatto’s, something like that. It’s in the strip mall just down the street a bit, right next to the 7-11. Good?”

​

“A little heavy on the salt, you know.”

​

“Oh. Mine’s fine,” he said, chomping into his sandwich.

​

“Yeah, it’s okay. Thanks, by the way.”

 

“Don’t mention it. So what have you been doing with your time? You’re not back at work yet, are you?”

 

“No, I took a leave. Sales were slow anyway. I’ve been doing a lot of journaling.”

 

“Journaling? You mean, like keeping a diary?”

​

“Sort of,” I said. “It’s not really a diary, like teenage girls keep or used to keep. I don’t know if it’s even a thing with them these days. But for me it’s more like writing shit down that I’m thinking about, and trying to work it out on the page.”

​

Rosetti said nothing as he finished his sandwich and drank from his can. Then he covered his mouth and belched. I ate half of my sandwich and couldn’t eat another bite. The chinotto was nice and cold, but so sweet it made my teeth ache. I wasn’t going to complain about that. Rosetti was known to have a bit of a temper. I could tell I’d put him off a bit.

 

“So when you’re journaling later on,” Rosetti said, “are you gonna write that I came to visit you and brought these crappy sandwiches?”

​

I chuckled. “No. It’s not like that. I’m not recording the blow-by-blows of my daily life. It’s nothing like that. It’s more like figuring out why my old man was such a prick to me, and why I became an addict, why I became a junkie. Last thing I would’ve ever thought when I was younger, that I’d get hooked on opioids. Pills were never my thing. I was a stoner. Then I fucked up my back and I started up with them and couldn’t stop even when my back got better.”

 

Rosetti sat back and finished off the chinotto, belching into his hand again.

​

“Anyway,” I said. “It’s like that.”

 

“So, you’re sort of writing a book—what do they call those things, memoirs. You’re writing a memoir.”

​

“Kind of.” I didn’t really know what I was writing. “I guess.

 

“Maybe you can get it published, you know. People love stories about suffering.”

 

Was it really suffering, though? People have had it far worse than you, I thought. All of the people who still starve to death, sex slaves. Sure, your old man was a prick, verbally abusive, and never came to your little league games, but he never left you and your family and never beat you with a belt or anything. Just an occasional backhand like they meted out in the old days, whether you needed one or not, to keep you straight. 

​

“The divorce is almost final,” Rosetti said with a sigh.

 

“Oh,” I said, “good news, right?”

 

“Gonna cost me large, bro. But I’ll get to see the kids every second weekend.”

​

“You have two, right?”

 

“Lucy and Pino. You met them at my place last Christmas. Remember? Carmine brought you. You must have been high that time, huh?”

​

I shrugged. At the mention of his kids I had drawn an utter blank, and I still couldn’t picture them. Nor could I picture his soon to be ex-wife. My wife had left me a decade ago. She’d met a lawyer, but then she left him for a musician. I still thought about her every day. I don’t know if I had feelings left for her, but I thought about her. It had become more or less a replaying of scenes from our marriage—a slideshow of my memories with her. What was odd about this was when I thought about her I never replayed a single happy scene. All of them were ugly. Could I actually recall a single happy scene, or memory? Of course I could. But there was something satisfying about dwelling on the negative.

​

“I’m glad you’re sober now,” Rosetti said. “You do look better. Absolutely.”

 

“I make a lot of soups, you know. Light eating. Can’t stomach heavy foods anymore.”

 

“You didn’t finish your sandwich.”

​

“That’s what I mean. I’m nauseated, just from that.”

 

A silence passed. 

​

“So, Tony,” Rosetti said, reaching into his belt. “Can I ask you something? It’s kinda personal, so you don’t have to answer.”

​

“Go ahead.”

 

He pulled out a handgun fitted with a silencer and rested it on the table. “Did your old man beat you when you were a kid?”

 

I gulped. “Look,” I said. “I thought Bookie was giving me more time.”

 

“Time, time,” Rosetti said. “We all wish we had more time, huh? Like sands through the hourglass … something like that.”

He sniffed and smiled to himself. “So go on, tell me about your old man. Did he beat you?”

 

“Not really,” I said, my hands shaking. “It was, uh, more like intimidation, you know. Belittlement.”

​

“My old man used to tear a strip off me when I acted up. The dude had a hair-trigger temper. No self-control. He used wear himself out on me and my brother. There’s that poem.”

​

“Poem?” This came out of left field.

​

“About your mom and dad fucking you up.” 

 

I had no idea where he was going with this. If he had come to kill me, why was he playing games? Maybe I deserved to be whacked, but I didn’t deserve an ear beating.

​

“Cat got your tongue?”

​

“What is this? Why are you fucking with me? Do what you gotta do, but don’t fuck with me.”

​

“You’re right about that, Tony. I should be more of a friend, right? Even though you’re a deadbeat junkie. And you know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking it all comes down to bad parenting. We’re not born with a handbook, Tony. And neither were my kids. Damn. But I love them, man. It’s that protective, undying thing. If you haven’t had kids it’s hard to explain. I hate my wife, yes. But I love my kids, even though they’ve put me through the wringer, both of them. But I can tell you one thing, pal. They will not grow up to be deadbeat junkies.”

​

The pigeons had returned to my balcony, thumping their wings and cooing. I winced at the sound. I felt the walls closing in on me. 

 

“You gonna chase them off again?” Rosetti asked.

​

I smiled mirthlessly.

 

“Like I said, Tony, vermin with wings.”

​

I nodded. I don’t know what he was waiting for.

 

After a long moment, he said, “My old man died of cirrhosis of the liver. Yeah. He wasn’t even a drinker. Swear to God. It’s been ten years. My mother still wears black. Do you believe that shit? She goes to mass for him and still wears black. No one’s gonna wear black for me, I can tell you that. Is anyone gonna wear black for you, Tony.”

 

I shrugged. My eyes filled with tears. My parents were both gone and I had no kids. My ex wouldn’t wear black for me if colours had been disinvented.

 

“Then maybe I’ll wear black for you,” he said, gripping the handgun.

​

“I have one request, Rosetti.”

​

“Request? What do you think this is, Tony?”

 

“I know what it is. And I know there’s nothing I can do to change it. I fucked up. I never realized how egregiously I had fucked up, but I take full responsibility.”

 

“So, tell me, I’m curious—what’s this request?”

 

I looked into Rosario’s small black depthless cold ursine eyes—a feature he shared with his cousin, Carmine—and knew he’d likely scoff at anything I said; I was done, I was more than done. Nevertheless I went ahead. 

 

“May I finish my journal entry for today? Otherwise it would be left incomplete.”

 

“You’re serious.”

 

I nodded. “Just give me thirty minutes or so to finish the thing.”

​

Rosario’s nostrils flared and he laughed in his chest. “You really want me to sit here while you scribble away for half an hour?”

​

“Why not? We were never enemies. I never did you any harm.”

​

“You know this isn’t personal.”

​

“Well, I don’t know about that. It’s pretty personal to me. I mean … look, grant a dying man his last wish. What’s the harm?”

​

“You’re crazy.”

​

“Maybe I am. And I’m not afraid to die, but I would like to end my life on a poetic note. Surely you can appreciate that, no?”

 

Rosario sucked on his lips and lifted the handgun. He tightened the silencer in his palm as he mulled over my request.

Finally, after tanking for a good ten seconds, he agreed. “Thirty minutes only, Tony. I’ll pop you then even if you’re in mid sentence.”

​

“How can I thank you?”

​

“Write well, that’s how.”

​

“I’ll do my best,” I said, opening the notepad and uncapping my pen.

 

I wrote: The pigeons on my balcony woke me with their cooing …

 

​
 

Sicilian-Canadian writer Salvatore Difalco is the author of five books, including the story collection Black Rabbit (Anvil Press). Benvenuto al ballo, Salvatore.

​

​