A Utica Boyhood

[Dave]

I wasn’t in the habit of discussing a lot of stuff with my father. A teenage boy goes places and does things he’s knows not to ask about or discuss, if he doesn’t want to be told to desist. I hung around a pool hall after school sometimes and my parents would have disapproved if they knew. And to save bus fare, I often hitchhiked along the major city streets. I couldn’t get over why people paid for a bus when most of us could just stick out our thumb and be given a free ride.

Coming back from a school basketball game the night after I discovered Miss Satini in the picture puzzle, I walked along the town’s main thoroughfare with my thumb stuck out. A car slowed down and stopped. As I opened the door to jump in, I saw only a pair of long nylon stocking-ed legs beneath the steering wheel. Before I dropped into the seat and recognized the driver, Miss Santini said hello to me.




“Don’t you know hitch hiking is” … and here she hiccuped … “dangerous? You could be taken advantage of by a desperate woman.” The last two words came out quite slurred, followed by a cackling laugh.

I tried to make conversation … about my paper route, I think. But her white blouse was open and her skirt was hiked up beyond her stocking tops. She drove me to my street and parked the car three doors away from my home in front of a house where all the lights were off for the night. She turned the ignition off and slid over next to me.

Putting her head on my chest she said, “Do you want to kiss me?”

I don’t know why I didn’t. She was certainly attractive, although her breath smelled of a sickly sweetness. Call it instinct, but I sensed something terribly wrong with this way of coming of age.

Or maybe I was just scared.

[Dave]

Attempting to change the subject as my hand searched for the door handle, I said, “I saw the puzzle.”

She immediately sobered and sat back from me.

”She showed you?” Miss Santini all but screamed.

“Well, no, I was ….” I began.

“Va gootz,” she said loudly. “Hey, wait a minute!” I said. “You shouldn’t say such…”

“Fancul! I’ll kill her, the dumb bitch!”

She was so upset she scared me. Her face was awful, like a little girl wanting to kill the older sister who took her doll away. The hatred erupted from her like bottled up poison as she continued to curse and tell me why her sister would be better off dead.

“Oh, c’mon,” I said, in an attempt to calm her down. “You’re just upset. She’s your sister.”

“She’s the devil and I should have gotten rid of her long ago,” Miss Santini said, and the slurring returned. “I’ll cut her heart out, just like a chicken.”

From somewhere a small pearl handled knife appeared. She may have had it under her clothing. Maybe she kept it for protection when she was out for the evening. Miss Santini passed it under my chin, the point scraping my skin as a chilling smile took over her features.

“Look,” I said, “she didn’t mean for me to see the puzzle.”

“Get out!” she said. “Go home.”

One can’t reason with a drunken woman, especially if she has a weapon. I left her and walked the half block to my house. My mother waited at the door.

“Did you just get out of that car down the street?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Couple of old people lost and asking directions.”

”To where?” she asked, suspicious.

“The cemetery,” I said brusquely and walked by her to the bedroom. I was upset with the ferociousness of Miss Santini. I never knew anyone who would seriously hurt a brother or sister, but I wondered if I had finally met someone evil enough to do so. In the morning I found blood on my pillow.

[Dave]

After school on the following Friday I walked along my paper route and made up my mind to ask Annette out for a chocolate soda after the dance that evening. I pictured the two of us on the dance floor as I issued the invitation and received an enthusiastic response And maybe she’d throw in a full body hug to make it worth the double bus fare.

I threw the papers in the back hall and noticed Mrs. Spina’s door ajar. It seemed odd. No sound came from inside the flat when I knocked. My imagination had been working overtime since my ride with her sister. I knocked again, hoping Mrs. Spina would open the door. This was not good. Mrs. Spina seldom left her flat, except for Sunday Mass, and certainly never with the door left open. I told myself Miss Santini could not have been serious about hurting her sister.

I pushed the door open a little farther and peeked in the kitchen.

“Mrs. Spina?” I said, my voice beginning to quaver.

There was no response. The kitchen seemed unused. Often there was a dish cooking on the stove or ingredients lined up on the counter for a later meal. I called her name again. I was reminded of a fellow paper boy’s experience a few blocks away. He found an old man dying in a kitchen the year before when he heard moaning and opened the door. I didn’t want to find a dead or dying woman. I had no idea how to handle such a catastrophe.




Maybe she was upstairs, I thought, although I’d never seen her up there with her sister. But I pulled my head out of the kitchen doorway and turned and headed up the stairs. At least this delayed going into Mrs. Spina’s flat and searching for her. Hopefully that would prove unnecessary when I found her upstairs.

Halfway up I saw red streaks on the wall of the hallway. I wondered if Miss Santini might have brought down a dish with red sauce and spilled some on the way. I should say that’s what I hoped. It really looked like blood, I had to admit, and when I saw a smeared palm print, the shock almost sent me reeling over backward down the stairs. I don’t know how long I stared at that palm print, but finally I allowed it to tell me I must go back down the stairs and search for Mrs. Spina.

[Dave]

“Mrs. Spina?” I called as I passed through the kitchen. I saw more blood on the yellow wall telephone and red drops spattered on the linoleum floor beneath. My stomach was about to heave. In the dining room, more blood had dribbled on the floor. The puzzle lay on the table and was almost complete. In the photograph, Miss Santini as a young pretty woman sat naked in bed, a sheet partially covering her. One arm held a cheap Brownie camera just below her smirking face. Her other arm was raised and so was her middle finger. Miss Santini had taken the photo in the mirror that sat atop a low dresser across from the bed. She must have first tipped the mirror down like my brother and I did with Mom’s mirror when we were kids.

A man with a head of curly black hair lay in bed with her, on his back and evidently sleeping, most of his face away from the camera. I wondered if he was Mrs. Spina’s late husband. Her sister’s middle finger and the look of triumph on her face said everything about who was a winner and who was a loser. Who wins is the winner. That’s what Mrs. Spina had told me.

Was this the first that Mrs. Spina knew her sister slept with her late husband? Why would Miss Santini send the photo to her sister, and why have it made into a puzzle? Why now?

I must have said the word “why” out loud, because a man’s voice answered.

“Good question,” he said. “What the hell are you doing here?”

[Dave]

In a bedroom off the dining room Annette’s father, police detective and my former Little League Coach, sat on the foot of a bed. He stood up and walked toward me.



“I’m their paper boy, Coach,” I whined
.
“And the worst right fielder I ever had on my team,” he said. “Now you’re a woman killer.”

A thick leather patch hung from the pocket of his sport coat. On it was a silver badge that must have weighed three pounds.

“I didn’t kill her,” I said, suddenly afraid I’d be accused of Mrs. Spina’s murder. And maybe Miss Santini’s murder. Mr. Altomare simply shook his head. Up and down or sideways it was impossible to tell. He just moved it around a little.

“What happened?” I cried.

“Did you know these women very well?” he asked. I noted he used the past tense for both sisters.

“I just deliver the paper,” I whined.

“The lady in the puzzle,” he said. “Who is she?”

“I don’t know,” I answered.

Detective Altomare sighed with impatience. He glanced down at the floor, shifted his weight from one foot to the other and quickly back again. The he looked at me and continued to stare into my face.

[Dave]

“Who’s the guy sleeping in the bed?” said the detective.

“I don’t know,” I said.

He leaned closer, towering over me. I easily understood he owned the air I was breathing.



“Why don’t you just start telling me everything you know, punk,” he said, quietly. “And if it’s helpful, maybe I won’t arrest you for murder or breaking into this flat and maybe I won’t send your sorry little ass off to jail for anything I can think up.” He ended his statement with a much louder, “Huh?”

I told him everything I knew ... almost ... everything I considered possible and I even began to tell him I thought it could be Communist agents who wanted the house for a radio listening post. I stopped in mid sentence when he glared at me with an evil eye. He didn’t want speculation. I didn’t tell him the lady in the bed was Miss Santini. Here I was a prime suspect and I was trying to save the woman who could have murdered her sister and maybe taken her own life.
Detective Altomare let me go after 45 minutes.

“The Grand Jury may want to indict you,” he added. “Don’t leave town.”

Where would I go? I probably had enough money only for a bus ticket to Albany. I didn’t know anyone there, but I had read Legs Diamond hid out there when the police were chasing him.

[Dave]

My mother asked me twice at supper why I was so quiet. Even Dad looked quizzically at me, and he was never in the habit of worrying about the moods of teenage boys, having once been one.

Half of my thoughts concerned the killing. How could such a terrible thing happen and who killed the sisters? And I was also trying to come to grips with the idea of being accused of murder. How could anyone think I would do such a thing? What if I were wrongly convicted? If I got out of prison in 20 years, would Annette Altomare be waiting and would her father hopefully be dead? And how would she look as an older woman of 35? What about college? What about turning 18 and being able to drink beer. Did they drink beer in prison?



There was a guy in the paper a year before who had his murder sentence upped to life because he raped his victim. Would I be accused of that and never get out of jail? How could I prove I was a virgin? Is there a test?

My father went out to a church meeting in the evening and my mother began to work on me.

“You can always tell me anything,” she said. “I know something is bothering you.”

“No, I’m OK,” I said. But I knew if I didn’t confess, she would hound me to tears.

“Nothing is ever that terrible,” she said.

“I’ve been accused of murdering two ladies on my paper route,” I said. “Two sisters.”

If someone had walked into the room and whacked my mother over the head with a baseball bat, the instant look of shock on her face would have been no different.

[Dave]

Recovering a bit, she squeaked, “Were they Jewish?”

“I’m not a Nazi, Mom,” I said.

“No,” she said, “I meant the only two sisters I know on your route are the Fineberg girls.”

I told her about the Santini sisters, the puzzle, Detective Altomare and Angelo the dog, who of course I had not met.

“We can get through this,” she said. “Don’t worry,” she repeated several times. But she looked more worried than I could remember.

“I have to leave,” I said.

“Don’t run from the law!” she almost shouted. “We can get through this.”

“I have to go to the dance,” I said.

”You can’t go to a dance,” she said, incredulous. “You’re a suspected murderer!”

“I didn’t do it, Mom,” I whined.

“Well, I mean … this is serious,” she said. “Wait for your father to come home.”

“I’ll be home early,” I said. “I really have to go. Really!

“Are you in the Post Office yet?” she asked.

“I’ll be home when Dad gets back,” I lied. And I jumped up and ran out of the house.

[Dave]

I forgot to wear my best shirt. And tonight might be the last time I’d see Annette. I doubted her father would allow her to visit me in the basement of the city jail while I awaited trial. I remembered I needed to make a few early collections on the paper route for the two dollars to take Annette out and pay her bus fare home. I ran the three blocks between my house and the paper route. It was getting dark and I looked for lights in the windows to signal who was at home. Mr. and Mrs. Rigley Field overcame their surprise and gave me their 40 cents. So did a few other customers as I worked my way up the street.

A light shone from a window in Mrs. Spina’s flat. Detective Altomare was back. I felt a little sick about it, but I had to go in there and tell the detective the woman in the puzzle was Miss Santini.

I knocked on the back door and Mrs. Spina opened it. Quite a large dressing sat above one eye, held in place with a band around her head.

“You’re alive!” I exclaimed. “I’m glad you’re OK,” was all I could think to add. A thousand pound weight lifted off my shoulders.

“That puttana!” she spat. “She can’t kill me!” She stepped out of her door and turned to the stairway.



“Sfatcheem!” she bellowed up the stairs. A muffled stream of invective I couldn’t understand came back down the stairs, but I could imagine her reaction to have been called Shitface.

Satisfied to have that out of the way, Mrs. Spina turned back to me with gentle lady-like smile.

[Dave]

“I went up to tell her I guessed the puzzle,” she said. “She threw a water glass at me! Hit me in the head,” she said, pointing to her scalp where the bandage covered the hair line. “I tried to have her arrested, but the police wouldn’t do it.”

“They thought I killed the two of you,” I said.

She laughed, then looked apologetic.

“I’m sorry about all of this,” she said. “The detective, he told me you helped him.”

“Well,” I answered, “I guess so. Sure.”

“You saw the puzzle after we went to the hospital?” she asked.

“Well, not very well,” I lied.

“Did you tell the detective you saw Angelo in the picture?” she asked, looking at me intently.

“There was no dog I could see in the photo, Mrs. Spina,” I said.

She nodded her head, as if in understanding.

“I told you Angelo was a dog before you saw the whole puzzle,” she said. “Angelo was the man in the bed with my sister.”

I was embarrassed, but I couldn’t help myself from saying, “Was that your husband?”

[Dave]

“Oh, no. Poor Marco, he died in the war. So young. No, this was all after the war.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“After the war, my sister and I went to dances together. We met Angelo and he came back here. One night downstairs, other night upstairs.” She giggled, then said, “Finally, Angelo chose her. She won, she was the winner. It was OK then, none of us were married.

She looked at me earnestly and said. “Married changes things. Terrible sin. Not right.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“She still rubs my face in it,” Mrs. Spina continued. “ I saw that picture years ago. I almost killed her then. When she was out of ideas for a puzzle, she used that photograph from way back when. She knew it would get to me. I didn’t recognize the picture yet when you saw it the first time. You tell the detective that was Angelo in the picture.”

I wondered why she wanted to involve Angelo with the police.

“Are you sure you want me to tell Detective Altomare about Angelo?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” she responded. “You tell him you saw Angelo in the picture.”

“But all I saw was a head of hair,” I said. “I don’t even know the guy.”

“You tell him,” she said.

[Dave]

With my arms loosely around Annette in the middle of the gym floor at the school dance an hour later, I popped the question, asking if she would like to accompany me to the soda shop afterward. To my stunned amazement, she said yes.

It was a rather quiet date. I now felt bad I’d left Mom at home to announce to my father their boy was accused of murder. I should have found a pay telephone and called her, but that was another dime and I was afraid if I left Annette alone for one second, she would bolt out the door and find her own way home. The money I‘d save on her bus fare was not worth the defeat of having my first date run out on me.

I could think of absolutely nothing to say to Annette as I sat across from her at the Soda Shop. I ached to tell her I’d been accused of a sordid murder and was now exonerated, but even at fifteen I had the sense to not bring it up. And of all the dumb stunts, I feigned disinterest because I’d rather appear bored than tongue tied. I probably insulted her. I just couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound stupid. I sat there rigid and it occurred to me there was nothing for me to brag about, except I could tightly roll a newspaper and throw it ten yards, solve a quadratic equation and swallow air and burp the longest of any boy I knew. I sensed she wouldn’t be interested in any of these accomplishments.

[Dave]

Finally, on the bus ride home, Annette erupted in chatter. Maybe she tired of my silence and didn’t want to appear in public like an undertaker saving money and bringing a body on the bus to its grave.




At her door, she asked me to come in to meet her parents.

“Oh, no, I can’t,” I said. I never wanted to see Detective Altomare again.

Annette was annoyed. “It’s customary,” she said “for you to meet my parents.”

“Yes, but…” I began. The door suddenly swung open wide and Detective Coach Altomare filled the door frame. His surprise at discovering me outside his door with his daughter would have been funny if I hadn’t recently been a murder suspect.

“I didn’t know you two were out tonight,” he said.

“Daddy, let us in the house,” said Annette.

“Well, honey,” her father said, “your date and I have to go outside and talk business for a minute. You come inside and I’ll be right back.”

A woman I presumed was Mrs. Altomare came up behind the detective and said, “Angelo, is everything all right?”

[Dave]

Angelo? His hair had grayed a little, but this could be the same head of curly hair I’d seen in bed in the picture puzzle.
He hustled me off the porch and guided me to the sidewalk and then down the street.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“Mrs. Spina told me to tell you I saw Angelo in the picture puzzle,” I said.

“I’ll just bet she did,” he said, anger in his voice.

I stopped and looked up at the man. He was obviously uncomfortable.

“Was that you?” I asked.

“That was many years ago,” he said. “Before I met Annette’s mother.”

I remembered hearing someone on the stairs the day I was in Mrs. Spina’s dining room. And she had roughly pulled me into the kitchen when she noticed something or maybe someone behind me.

“That was you,” I said. “The day Mrs. Spina pulled me in her kitchen. You must have been out on the back porch. And then you went up to see Miss Santini.”

He looked crestfallen and guilty, caught.

“I can explain that,” he said. “I can also cause a lot of trouble for you and your big mouth.”

“You can’t charge me with murder,” I said.

[Dave]

When I got home that night, my father made me tell him everything, twice. He was upset, and advised me to keep the story to myself and to not get into any more conversations with Mrs. Spina or her sister. Or any of the Altomares.

“That’s not right,” I said.

“You let me decide what’s right in this case,” he said. “Concentrate on your school work.”

Annette immediately began to ignore me in the halls at school. Poor kid, I can’t imagine what she went through, because her father began to show up regularly in the Santini sisters’ driveway before the end of the school year. I heard later he divorced Annette’s mother and took up with Miss Santini.

I left the paper route a short time later when I lied about my age and went to work for an advertising specialty company delivering soap samples to people’s homes. It paid better, but wasn’t as much fun. You definitely couldn’t throw bars of soap against people’s doors. Two years later I went off to college and seldom returned to my home town, except for family disasters.

In my late thirties, I flew back for Aunt Lily’s funeral. I sat up near the front of the church behind the immediate family of cousins and when the pews emptied out I was one of the last to leave the church. An older woman approached me and said Hello. It took a moment for me to recognize her.

“Mrs. Spina,” I said. “My gosh, it’s been years. You look well.”

“And you’re all grown up,” she cooed.

“And how is your sister?” I asked, carefully.
A cloud seemed to cross her features.

“Oh,” she replied, avoiding my eyes, “not so good.”

I saw myself as a youngster and a feeling of dread echoed from the past in my stomach. Instantly, pity rose in me for the kid who had been subjected to these two women so long ago. A delayed anger accompanied it.