Dago Red

Chicago, Illinois

June 18.1949

Noting his flickering eyes, “Gee, it’s really nice there.” she said, though in truth she had no idea of where Homan and Ogden were.

He’d never thought of his neighborhood as being really nice or even nice, but in comparison to this neighborhood it was. “Yeah, it’s okay, I guess.”

“Yeah! He’s just gotta love this neighborhood, ’specially since he almost got himself banged up real good by a couple’a assholes.”

“What couple’a assholes, Frankie?” Gina asked.

“These two guys that hang out together, Guido and Al.”

“Yeah, I know them cocksuckers.”

He’d never heard a girl swear as much as Gina, and Mitchell stared at her.

“So, what happened?” she asked.

“Shit!” Frank said, taking one of Gina’s Camels. “It was all my fault. I had’a do some work for my pop for a couple’a minutes, an’ it was hot in the store so I told Mitch to wait outside, an’ then them two pricks came along an’ started hasslin’ him…”

“Yeah,” Mitchell interjected, “an’ ol’ Frank here came out like Gang Busters an’ kicked the…” hesitating a moment because up to now he’d never sworn in front of a girl but, Oh, well, he rationalized, swearing doesn’t seem to bother these two. “…shit out’a both of ’em.”

“I feel bad whenever somethin’ like that happens to anyone ’round here, but to Mitch? Jesus, was I ever mad!”

No one spoke for a few seconds but, afraid of letting the conversation come to a complete halt again, “An’ talk about puke!” Frank said.

“Puke?” Lisa laughed. “Who’s talkin’ ’bout puke?”

“Gina! When she came out’a the toilet she said smokin’ makes her puke. You should’a heard what Mitch here said ’bout Mama’s pizza.”

“Come on, Frankie! If you didn’t fill me full’a cheap booze,” he said jokingly, “I’d’a never said such’a thing.”

“Yeah? What’d he say, Frankie?” Lisa asked.

“Would’j’ya believe he’s never had any before, and said Mama’s pizza looked like puke on’a pancake… An’ it was only one or two teensy,” holding his thumb and forefinger a half inch apart, “weensy glasses of Chianti. Guess Jews just don’t hold their liquor too good. That’s if you want to call one or two teensy, weensy glasses of Chianti liquor.”

“Mitchie, it’s true ? You’ve never had pizza before?”

“Gina, I’ve never even heard of pizza before. But, really,” enjoying the humor of the situation, he began to laugh so hard he was almost unable to continue talking, “after I burnt my tongue and my fingers, an’ almost had the whole damn thing slip off the crust and land on my lap, it was really pretty good… No! It was great!”

“Frank,” Lisa scolded good-naturedly, “maybe, for Italians, eating pizza comes naturally, but for a Jewish guy like Mitchie maybe it don’t, and maybe you should have taught him how to eat it.”

“I did! But the dumb shit was so drunk he wouldn’t listen.”

“Dumb shit? You schmuck! You dared me… you double dared me to drink the wine. An’ the glass was this big!” holding both index fingers, vertically, a foot apart.

“Schmuck?” This tickling him, “Schmuck?” Frank fell onto his side laughing. “You called me a schmuck in front’a these ladies.” Catching his breath after about thirty seconds of prolonged laughter, that, though not quite understanding the joke, the three others joined in, Frank sat up. “An’ talkin’ ’bout vino!” He looked at Lisa. “How’s ’bout it? How’s ’bout us bringin’ some’a your ol’ man’s stuff up?”

“Mitchie, Lisa’s pop makes the best Dago Red you ever tasted… Well, I wouldn’t wanna use your taste in vino as an example, but believe me, it’s great, an’ Lisa’n’me’n’Gina here helped Lisa’s ol’ man make it… But I suppose, in your case, Lipensky, any vino would taste good.”

“Or bad!” Mitchell added. “How’d he make it? You guys don’t crush the grapes in a tub with your feet, do you?” In geography, he’d seen a movie about people from around the world and remembered the scene of a group of people in a huge vat crushing grapes with their bare feet. He envisioned Gina, bare-footed, crushing grapes with her feet that, he was sure, had to be at least as dirty as her neck.

“Nah!” Gina said… “That’s the way they do in the old country,” while inching closer to him. “Here we use a grape press.” As she came closer, her skirt hiked up further, showing more bare thigh, and…

Mitchell looked away because each time he looked at her, his eyes, as though magnetized, were drawn to her naked thigh that, Oh, God, fighting the urge to do it, I wanna touch so badly! As…

Jesus, Gina thought, everything Frankie’s said about him is true ! He’s just about the best lookin’ guy I ever seen. And, subconsciously, no longer aware of her action, doing something she’d been doing since she was a child: tightening and loosening the muscles of her groin and rectum, Gina was invisibly masturbating.

“Gina, why don’t’j’ya tell Mitch all about makin’ vino while Lisa’n’me go on down to the basement an’ get a jug.” Turning to Lisa, “Huh, babe,” he asked. “Ya wanna go downstairs with me?”

“Your parents let you drink wine?” Mitchell asked Gina.

“My ol’ lady don’t give a crap ’bout whatever I do,” she said bitterly. “Yeah, I’d like vino. Go on, Frank, go get a jug.” Thinking, It’ll gi’me a chance to be alone with him.

“Yeah, okay!” Standing, taking Lisa’s hand, Frank pulled her to her feet. “An’ while we’re gone,” winking conspiratorially at Mitchell, “why don’t you two try an’ get better acquainted.”

Panicking at the thought of being alone with Gina, Mitchell asked, “Maybe you guys need help?”

“No!” Emphatically shaking his head, “Lisa’n’me sure don’t need no help in the basement. Do we, babe?”

“Nope,” she smiled. “We sure don’t need help down there.”

Having spent a lot of time alone in the basement, holding hands, going through the kitchen, Lisa and Frank went down the back stairway, and…

The moment they were out of sight, Gina laid her hand on Mitchell’s thigh.

This being the first time a girl had ever placed her hand on his thigh, staring at the hand a moment, “Uh, Gina,” he said, searching for something—anything—to say, “before, you said your parents let you drink wine, an’ it’s okay with them?”

“Jeeze, Mitchie, this must really be important to ya.” Sighing, “In Italy,” she moved back a couple of inches, much to his… Mitchell wasn’t sure if he was glad or sad that she’d moved away… “kids drink wine ’stead’a milk.”

“Really?” Desperate to keep the conversation going, “Why?”

“For one thing, it’s a lot cheaper ’cause there’s more grape farmers than cow farmers. An’ also, the adults there think vino’s better for ’em than milk. Here, in America, we think that ain’t true , you know, ’bout vino bein’ better’n’milk. An’ also, here a bottle’a milk cost ten cents, an’ a bottle’a wine, even shitty stuff, is at least twenty cents. So like the ol’ sayin’ goes: ‘In Rome do as the Romans do.’ Only here in America we do as the Americans do an’ drink milk. Only it’s just that drinkin’ vino is somethin’ we wops been doin’ a long time, so most parents don’t care so much if we do drink vino, only don’t want us drinkin’ it as much as the kids in Italy. Capisce?”

He smiled. “Yeah, I capisce. Your parents, they come from Italy?”

“My Ma’n’Pa, when I had a Pa, came from Sicily.”

“Really! When’d they come here?”

“Nineteen-thirty-five, when I was two.”

The thought that Mitchell might not like her had never entered Gina’s mind. All guys like me! So she’d thought. “Your mom’n’dad,” she asked, moving her hand along the back of the sofa, touching the back of his neck, “where they from?”

Her touch going through him like the scraping of fingernails on a blackboard, “Here.” Standing, he walked to the window, parted the curtain and looked out.

He’s just bein’ bashful. “Here?”

“Here, in Chicago. My Mom was born on the west side and my Dad on the north side.”

So bashful! “Know what?”

Not answering immediately, trying to fathom why, I hate her touching me, an’ yet I’d’a given anything to touch her leg a little while ago. Turning from the window, “Know what, what?”

“I d’know hardly any second-generation Americans.”

“Second-generation Americans?”

“Yeah. Like me’n’my’Ma’n’Pa were born in Sicily, an’ Frank an’ Lisa’s parents were born in Italy, so that makes Lisa’n’Frank first generation Americans, an’ because I wasn’t born here, I ain’t even that. An’ because your parents were born here, right here in Chicago, an’ you were born here, too, then that makes you a second generation American… Capisce?”

“Yeah, I capisce.” Crossing the room, going to a chair, he sat down. “You hate your school, too? What’s it called again?”

“Immaculate Heart. Yeah, I do! Where do you go? You like it there?”

“Harrison. It’s okay, I guess, but I don’t really like going to school too much.”

“Yeah, me, too! What do you like to do, Mitch?”

What he liked to do, not necessarily in this order, was go to the movies, listen to the radio, watch television, occasionally play touch or tackle football, or baseball with the guys—really, with Phyllis and Sharon—and think about girls and masturbate… but he wasn’t about to tell her that, so… “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Stuff.”

Other than playing baseball, or touch or tackle football, neither knew just how alike they were.

“So,” still fishing for conversation, “Immaculate Heart just let out today, an’ you came here right from school?”

“Yeah. Frankie said you’d be here ’bout twelve… Uh, you Jewish kids, you don’t go to a religious school?”

“Yeah, sometimes. I had my Bar Mitzvah two… almost three years ago, an’ that was it for me! God, I hated chader!”

Unable to pronounce the, throat-clearing “ch,” “K-Kader?” Gina asked.

Seeing the look of confusion on her face, “Chader’s a Hebrew school, an’ a Bar Mitzvah’s… When a Jewish guy is thirteen, the Bible, uh, our Bible, says a guy’s a man when he’s thirteen, an’ he has this big ceremony, an’ after…”

“Know what?” Not waiting for an answer, her tongue parting her lips, looking at him seductively, or at least as seductively as a girl with a ring of dirt around her neck and green teeth could look, Gina said, “You sure look like a man to me!”

God, he thought, she really likes me! Why’s she gotta look so dirty? His eyes dropped from Gina’s face to the, albeit small, twin points of her breasts, then to the white flesh of her bare, inner thigh, and what he’d been hoping to avoid, the conversation lagged and the room, once again, became quiet, but fortunately not for too long because within seconds…

Sounds came from the rear of the apartment, then a moment later Frank, carrying a bottle in his hands, was back in the living room while Lisa did something in the kitchen.

Breathing a sigh of relief, “Hey, what took you guys so long? We was startin’ to think you got lost…” He sees traces of lipstick on Frank’s mouth. “…or somethin’.”

“Nah!” Calling to Lisa, “We weren’t lost, were we, Babe?”

“Nah, you’n’me, Frankie, we sure weren’t lost,” came the reply from the kitchen.

Nodding to the bottle that Frank placed onto the coffee table, “So that’s what bathtub wine looks like, huh?”