From: pechever@phakt.usc.edu (up and crumbling) Subject: Il Santo Date: 20 Sep 1994 18:32:00 -0700 Your grandfather is dying. He has accepted the fact quietly, perhaps because you were upset enough for two when you found out. He's old, well past eighty; you think that his long life is the reason he faces death so calmly. You are wrong about his being calm, of course; at fourteen, you are wrong about most things, and what you're right about you don't get credit for. You are in the park, watching your grandfather feed pigeons. It mortifies you that he fulfills such a tired caricature of age, but you love the old man, so you stay. His movements -- the hand swaying to and from the bag, his foot tapping absently to some tune from the days of spats and Tommy guns, his lips pushing in and out as he whistles soundlessly -- are small and measured, comforting because they are comfortable. "Domingo," he says without looking at you. "Yes, gran'pa?" Something in his voice makes you look at his face: shiny coal eyes in a face of seamed Italian cork. He does not return your gaze, but focuses instead on his wrinkled, liver-spotted hand moving to the bag. From the bag. Releasing crumbs. To the bag. From the bag. Releasing crumbs. To the bag. The pigeons throng around the two of you, muttering darkly to themselves. You fidget, just a tiny bit. "What have they taught you about saints, Domingo?" His voice is very low, and his attention is still focused on his hand. You squirm inside; this is going to be hard to answer without hurting your grandfather. "Not very much, gran'pa. It's been a long time since Sunday school." He looks startled. "When did you stop going?" Taking a deep breath, you answer. "About a year after my First Communion." "And your mama, she agreed to this?" He sounds as if he's asking after a neighbor's injured daughter: polite, genuinely concerned, but distant. Not what you expected. "Not at first." Internally you wince at the way you've glossed over the weeks of histrionics, the random outbursts of weeping, the long talks with papa in the living room (_it's always smelled of garlic, for as long as I can remember_, you think irrelevantly, _garlic and olive oil, what a fucking cliche'_). "I see." To the bag. From the bag. Releasing crumbs. "When I was young, perhaps as young as you are now, Padre Santino told me about the saints. They lived good and holy lives, never causing harm, never straying from God's will. Perfect people. You believe in perfect people, Domingo?" "No, gran'pa." Then, daring, "I don't believe in much of anything any more." He glares, and suddenly you can believe the rumors that are whispered a round the family, the stories that your gran'pa Enzo once worked for a bigger, rougher Family. "That's bullshit, 'mingo. Complete _merda_. A man can pull a gun on you and have you praying for Mary, Jesus and all the saints in thirty seconds. You don't know enough to really disbelieve anything." "I don't think so," you fire back. Clever you. "No?" Suddenly, you're staring down the barrel of your grandfather's .38, the one you've watched him take apart and clean countless times. His knuckle is white on the trigger and his face has no expression. The pigeons notice the interruption in the crumbfall and look up expectantly. His finger spasms on the trigger and you realize that if you die now you'll never know whether he meant to pull the trigger or not. Hard on the heels of that thought comes a monolithic realization: you could die. _You_ could die, _right now_. _I'd miss gran'pa;s funeral_, you think inanely. Miss the rest of your life. You become aware of your lips moving. After a few seconds you realize you're mouthing a rosary as fast as you can rattle it off, Hail Mary following Hail Mary with no wooden beads to guide them. "You win, gran'pa." Your voice is low and shaky. The gun disappears and the crumbfall resumes its steady rhythm. The pigeons mill about in the same aimless patterns again. The old man laughs, not a gaffer's cackle or a senile titter, but a rich, throaty old man's laugh that echoes through the trees. "No, I didn't 'win,' 'mingo. I _drew_." And he sends that vibrant laugh out across the grass again, and after a while you join in, because, hey, it's funny, and there's not much time left, in either the day or your grandfather's life. You walk home after a while, go to sleep, mark your fourteen-year-old time. Too soon, the old man dies. He leaves you a sealed box -- _so mysterious, to leave a box for Domingo, why did Father do that?_, clucks your mother in the corner of the kitchen with her sisters, heads down like gossip- feeding chickens -- and you run up to your room with your father standing guard on the other side of the closed door, insuring your privacy. Making you feel very adult and important. You break the wax seal on the box, crack it open. Smells of cedar and gun oil prickle your nose: the .38 is there, nestled in red velvet as it should be. As you pick it up, you find a note, marked with tiny oilstains, under the cylinder. The note reads, _I always thought Padre Santino was full of shit myself. --Enzo_. You put the gun in the box, the box under your bed, your head on your pillow, and you laugh like a loon, like a crazy person, like someone who found an expired winning lottery ticket while sorting laundry, while the pigeons land on your windowsill and look in with flat black eyes. heckler feedback, you scurvies, feedback! -- "If she is determined to destroy me in order to protect herself, then I cannot prevent it; that is the nature of our relationship." -- From _Agyar_, by Steven Brust