The Temptations of St. Frank Read online

  And then as if she’d just heard him yelling in his head, she turned and looked right at him, her sapphire eyes intense in the slanting afternoon light. He managed a lame-ass smile and forced his legs to move, absolutely terrified that he was going to blow this, that she would think he was just another jerk and just walk away, that he would become non-existent in her mind and she would never acknowledge his presence. He’d be a screaming, howling ghost, condemned to walk the earth for all time, unable to be seen or heard by mortals, most importantly by her.

  But then she talked to him.

  “Hi,” she said. And she smiled. At him. A bashful little smile, and she immediately looked down, her dark eyelashes on her cheeks like resting butterflies.

  Hi, he said. But it was in his head. He couldn’t get it out of his mouth.

  She didn’t look up. She was waiting for him to say something.

  He cleared his throat and tried it again, but the sound that came out was like a frog burping. It wasn’t even a word.

  She was still looking down but not smiling anymore. God, what a pathetic piece of shit he was! She had to be thinking he was an asshole, that he was snubbing her. Fuck!

  He tried again. “Hi,” he said. It sounded more like speech, but it also sounded like a talking frog. Shit!

  She looked up, and the little smile was back on her lips.

  Quick! he thought. Say something else, frog boy! Keep the conversation going!

  “There’s this famous painting,” he said. “One of the Impressionists, I think. A bunch of people under a porch in the shade. Ladies in long dresses. This kind of reminds me of that.”

  “What reminds you of that?” She wrinkled her nose and looked so fucking cute his knees almost buckled.

  “Under here,” he said, talking fast, “under the bleachers. The light, the people. You know what I mean?”

  She shook her head, and her hair swished over her shoulder. Oh, Jesus!

  “It’s just like the painting,” he said. “It’s a famous painting. Really.”

  “Who painted it? Monet? Manet? Renoir? Degas? Cezanne?”

  He was impressed that she could rattle off so many impressionists off the top of her head but embarrassed that he didn’t know much about any of them. “I’m not that into art,” he said. “Well, not French art—you know what I mean? But that one painting I really like.”

  Hearing himself, he wanted to die. He was a blithering idiot. How could he criticize Larry Vitale for acting like a monkey when he was the fucking village idiot? At least Larry could talk to girls.

  The fans had quieted down, and he heard John Trombetta’s voice above his head. “Hey, I don’t give a shit if babies are spitting up blood. I’m not putting up a cent for this.”

  Frank rolled his eyes upward. Babies spitting up blood? What the hell were they talking about?

  “Well, the diocese certainly doesn’t share that sentiment,” Monsignor Fitzgerald said, “but the archbishop has informed me that there just aren’t any funds in the budget to undertake this project alone. If the diocese were to do it, it would have to be in cooperation with the other party.”

  Other party? The Democratic Party? The Republican Party? The Black Panther Party? What’s he talking about?

  “Well, you can go tell the archbishop he’s in fairy-tale land. It ain’t never gonna happen. You wanna take care of your side, that’s your business. But don’t tell us what to do with ours.”

  Frank stared up at their shoes. What the fuck? Are they selling heroin?

  “I wish I could do something here,” the mayor said. “But like I said, if the feds come knocking, I won’t be able to help you.”

  Maybe it really was a drug deal, Frank thought. Holy fuck! The church, the mob and the mayor in bed together selling smack? Jesus Christ!

  “The Christian thing to do would be to pull together and solve this problem.” The monsignor used the same condescending tone he used at school assemblies whenever he was displeased with the students. But he was talking to John fucking Trombetta, talking to him as if he were some little freshman he’d caught chewing gum in the hallway. What the hell was he thinking? That a guy like Trombetta wouldn’t whack a priest? Think again, monsignor.

  Another crack of a bat and a swell of cheers from the stands drowned out the voices and distracted Frank. He looked around for Yolanda, but she was gone. Shit! He’d been ignoring her. He looked all over. The under-the-bleacher kids clustered around him, straining to get a look at the infield, but Yolanda wasn’t with them. Frank looked everywhere, swimming through bodies to get out of the crush. Finally he spotted her walking away, moving out of the shade of the bleachers and into the sun.

  “Wait!” he called to her.

  But she didn’t hear him—or didn’t want to hear him—because she just kept walking, her pleated skirt waving goodbye, her tight ass showing what she thought of him. He’d fucked this up completely, but he was too scared to run after her and try to fix it. He didn’t know how. He had no idea what he could say. She probably thought he hated her, that he thought she was a skank and had deliberately ignored her just to get rid of her. She didn’t realize he was eavesdropping on the unholy trinity, hearing about some big fucking operation they had going. He could try to tell her, but he knew he’d just sound like a bigger asshole than she already thought he was.

  Frank dropped his chin to his chest, feeling like the stupidest turd in the toilet. He glanced sideways and saw Larry Vitale and the two Nancy Sinatras.

  “Oh, fuck you, Larry,” the dirty blond Nancy said, laughing and flirting with him.

  “Yeah, fuck you, Larry,” the brunette Nancy giggled.

  Larry threw out his arms and dropped to one knee. “Anytime, girls. Anytime.”

  Frank squeezed his eyes shut. Fuck! The organ grinder’s monkey is gonna get laid before the village idiot does. Fuck!

  Chapter 7

  Frank lay on his side on the tangerine-colored shag rug, drinking a can of root beer as he flipped through the latest Playboy, checking out the girls and wondering where the hell babes like this came from. He’d thrown his maroon wool-knit Rooster tie and brown St. A’s blazer on one of the bar stools in front of the mini-bar. Dozens of pictures of the Rat Fink riding a variety of suped-up hotrods covered the wall next to the mini-bar in his buddy Dom’s basement. After blowing it with Yolanda at the ballgame, he’d come over here to hang out and hopefully forget the sad reality that he had probably destroyed any chance he ever had of making it with the girl of his dreams.

  In the “music corner,” as Dom’s father called this part of the basement, Dom sat on his amp and played his new guitar, strumming the chords to “California Girls.” Frank’s attention was divided between the Playboy bunnies and Dom’s guitar, a primo sunburst Fender Jaguar. Frank was envious. It was a lot nicer than his guitar, though in his opinion, Dom’s new amp, a Fender Pro Reverb, was not quite as good as Frank’s monster, a Vox Viscount. Of course, Dom’s rig had “fallen off the truck” while Frank’s father was still making time payments on Frank’s equipment. And his father wouldn’t let him forget it.

  Frank looked down at Miss April’s crotch. He thought he could see the barest hint—the suggestion—of downy blond pubic hair peeking over the curve of her creamy thigh.

  Dom stopped playing “California Girls” and switched to “Eight Days a Week.”

  “Fucking Yoko,” Frank said. “It’s her fault they broke up.”

  Dom stopped playing and shook his head. “It ain’t just her. It’s them. It’s what happens to people when they know each other too long.”

  “What’re you, like, a psychiatrist now?”

  “It’s true. It’s natural. It’s just how things go.” Dom started strumming again, switching to “Rag Doll.” His fucking favorites, the Four Seasons.

  “But the Beatles h
ave been friends since… since they were like our age. What am I talking about? Before that, even.”

  Dom shrugged. “So.”

  “So you’re saying we’re gonna end up like them? Enemies?”

  Dom shrugged and frowned at his fingers because he was blowing the F7 chord on the sixth fret.

  Frank ogled Miss April one more time before he turned the page, hoping there were more pictures of her, maybe one that actually showed her pubes even though Playboy never showed pubes. He liked her glittery blue eyes even if they did seem unreal. They kind of reminded him of Yolanda’s.

  “So how’re things goin’ with that girl?” Dom asked.

  Frank froze, a statue turning a page. “What girl?” He didn’t want Frank to know that he’d blown it.

  “That Ukrainian girl. What’s her name? Yvonne, Yvette.”

  Yolanda, Frank mentally correcting him. Embarrassment colored his face like an Easter egg in a bowl of red dye, but Dom didn’t notice. He was staring at his fretboard, fumbling with that seventh chord.

  Frank changed the subject. “I thought we were going to the music store. I need to get strings.”

  “Yeah, later.” Dom frowned at his fingers as if it were their fault that he didn’t know how to play seventh chords. Frank would show him if he asked, but Dom would never ask. He knew everything.

  Frank flipped the page, and Miss April stared back at him with Yolanda’s eyes. He wondered if Yolanda’s nipples were like Miss April’s little dwarf thumbs. He hoped not. That was kind of weird.

  Dom settled for an F7 on the first fret. “Nasty place, where she lives,” he said.

  “What?”

  “That Ukrainian section. The niggers won’t even live there it’s so polluted.”

  Frank glared at Dom. He sounded just like Frank’s father with the nigger-talk.

  “Oh, what’s-a matter? I say something wrong? Can’t say ‘nigger’ around you no more? They don’t say ‘nigger’ at St. A’s? Oh, right, I forgot—it’s a prep school you go to. Guess that makes you better than me.”

  “I never said that.”

  “You don’t have to. It’s obvious. You guys with your fancy blazers with the fucking coat of arms on the front pocket, the Latin motto—“

  “Actually it’s Anglo-Saxon.”

  “See what I mean? In public school nobody gives a shit about fucking Anglo-Saxon.”

  “I don’t give a shit about fucking Anglo-Saxon, Dom. What’s your point?”

  Dom furrowed his brow so hard the zits on his forehead almost popped. “I don’t need no fuckin’ point. That’s the point. Everything with you has to be a debate, a discussion, a big intellectual thing. Some things just are what they are, Frank. You don’t have to think real hard about ‘em. Sometimes it just is what it is.”

  Frank pushed the Playboy aside and sat up. “Like what? Gimme an example.”

  “Getting laid, that’s what. You’re all hot for this Ukrainian chick, but what the fuck’re you doing about it? Nothing. It’s all going on inside your head. You’re thinking like it’s the quest for the Holy fucking Grail. Trust me—it’s not that complicated.”

  Frank waved him off. “Get the fuck outta here.”

  “She’s just a girl. Ask her out and see what happens. Take her to a movie and put the moves on her.”

  “You don’t understand shit.”

  “I understand a hell of a lot more than you do. You want something, you go for it. Don’t waste your time thinking about it, wondering how you’re gonna do it, when you’re gonna do it, if you should do it. You want something that bad, you just grab it.”

  Frank nodded at Dom’s new guitar. “You mean, like that?”

  Dom scowled and shook the Jaguar by the neck. “Is this a fucking problem for you? You don’t like where it came from? You know what I think? I think you’re fucking jealous.”

  “Of what? I got my own guitar.”

  “Not like this baby.”

  Frank caught a glimpse of Yolanda’s eyes on Miss April as he got to his feet. “If you’re not gonna drive me to the music store, fine, I’m going home.”

  “For what? To jerk off?”

  Frank’s face heated up like a toaster. That was exactly what he was thinking. “No, wiseass. I got homework.”

  “Fuck homework. You gotta go get laid.”

  “Yeah, tell me something I don ‘t know.” Frank grabbed his jacket and tie from the bar stool and picked up his book bag.

  “No, I’m serious, man.” Dom put the guitar in its case and slammed the lid shut. “Let’s go back to her neighborhood. Maybe we’ll find her with her friend, that Tina girl–”

  “Hey, Frankie boy! How’s it hangin’?”

  Frank looked up to the top of the stairway. Dom’s father stood in the doorway, the fluorescent ring light on the kitchen ceiling hovering over his head like a halo but a little off kilter, which Frank thought was kind of funny, considering that the man had done time. But Frank didn’t think of Mr. Nunziato as an ex-con. He was always nice to Frank, and even though he was a crook who hung out with known lowlifes, Frank genuinely liked him.

  Mike Nunziato was stocky and mostly bald with a gap-toothed smile as wide as a two-car garage. He gestured with his hands more than most Italian-Americans, and even when he wasn’t talking, his hands always seemed to be ready at his sides, like a gunslinger’s, just in case he had a sudden thought and would have to spit it out quick. As usual he was wearing white loafers and a white belt. No matter what season it was, summer or winter, Mr. Nunziato wore white loafers and a white belt. He said he planned to move to Florida some day, and he already had the right clothes.

  Frank climbed the steps with Dom right behind him. Mr. Nunziato stepped aside to let them pass.

  “You want some pignolli cookies?” Mr. Nunziato said, gesturing toward an open white bakery box on the kitchen table. “Help yourselves.”

  Another man sat at the table, tapping his cigarette into an ashtray. Frank stopped dead in his tracks as soon as he recognized him, making Dom bump into his back.

  “Move, will ya’?” Dom hissed in his ear. He stepped around Frank to get to the cookie box. “How ya doin’, Mr. Trombetta?” he said to the man at the table as he grabbed a few cookies.

  “Good,” Mr. Trombetta said. But “good” coming out of his mouth didn’t sound so good.

  Frank felt conspicuous. Did Mr. Trombetta know that he had been eavesdropping on him at the ballgame? How could he? Still, Frank felt a little uneasy.

  Dom handed Frank a cookie, the pignolli nuts embedded in a moist round mound, like a little porcupine. “Don’t be a jerk,” Dom whispered through clenched teeth, warning him with raised eyebrows.

  “So, Frank,” Dom’s father said, “when’s your old man gonna cut my friggin’ grass, for chrissake?” He chopped the air with his hand, indicating the backyard through the kitchen window. “It’s looking like green acres out there.” Mr. Nunziato was smiling, and Frank knew he was just busting his balls, but Mr. Trombetta wasn’t smiling. He stared hard at Frank through squinty eyes as he took a drag off his cigarette, making a popping sound, the smoke sifting through his teeth.

  “I don’t know when he’s gonna come, Mr. Nunziato,” Frank said, “but I’ll tell him it needs it.”

  “Please. I’m gonna have mice and rats and snakes living out there pretty soon.”

  A white coffee cup and saucer sat by Trombetta’s elbow. He picked up the cup, cigarette in the same hand, and brought it to his mouth. “My place could use a mow, too,” he said. “Tell your father my wife wants it done by tomorrow.” He closed his eyes and took a sip.

  Frank was spooked. Even though he’d been to Trombetta’s house to mow the lawn, he didn’t think the man knew who he was. “I’ll tell him,” Frank said softly. He cleared his throat and said
it again. “I’ll tell him.”

  Mr. Trombetta lived in a big house in Short Hills, and Frank’s father considered him his most important customer. He dropped everything for Mr. Trombetta—or to be precise, for Mrs. Trombetta. Frank’s father had to deal with a lot of housewives, and in most cases they were the ones he had to make happy. But Mrs. Trombetta was extra special. For her he’d do anything.

  Mr. Nunziato, on the other hand, wasn’t a regular customer. He and Frank’s father had been friends since they were kids, and Frank’s father mowed his lawn whenever he saw that it needed it. Frank wasn’t sure that Mr. Nunziato ever paid his father because his mother often screamed at the dinner table that the man was a bum and a criminal and never paid for anything if he could steal it, but Frank’s father would scream back that Mr. Nunziato did pay, in cash, just not on a regular basis. Frank didn’t know what to believe. All he knew was that Dom’s father was always nice to him.

  Mr. Nunziato hunched his shoulders, his hands positioned in front of himself as if he were ready to catch a ball. “So where you boys goin’?”

  “Just goin’ out,” Dom said.

  “To pick up girls?” Mr. Nunziato’s eyes twinkled.

  “Yeah, to pick up girls, Dad,” Dom said with a sardonic smirk.

  “Here, take the Caddy.” He reached into his pocket and tossed a set of keys to his son.

  Mr. Trombetta’s eyes followed the flying keys over the rim of his coffee cup.

  “Just leave me your keys in case I gotta go out,” Mr. Nunziato said.

  Dom dug into his jeans for his keys and tossed them to his father. Mr. Trombetta watched Dom’s keys fly across the room, the coffee cup still at his lips. Dom’s car was a temperamental metallic blue Dodge Coronet with a white vinyl top that sometimes started and sometimes didn’t.