MOODS OVER A SEPTEMBER MOON -PART II

We walk for what seems like forever. Dad says we have time before
our boat lifts anchor, and besides it would be good to walk and talk
and look at the various landmarks and different people who, too, are
out taking advantage of this most perfect day. On this day, everybody
is out. This day is warm, much warmer
than most September days and Chicago is alive with its many children,
who are carrying on and enjoying what this perfect day has to offer.
For some, it will be a day at Lincoln Park Zoo. And for others, a day
unfurled on a stretch of sandy beach. Today, there will be family
picnics, slow-pitch softball games. Horseshoes will be tossed,
volleyballs slapped, basketballs dribbled. Today, perhaps one last romp
before the sun turns its face and the leaves fall from the trees and
then the snow builds icy fortresses along the avenues and boulevards,
keeping the city's many children hostage until Spring comes along again
and pays ransom.
We come to the Michigan Avenue Bridge and cross over it, below us the
Chicago River gleaming in the sun. Once on the other side, Dad takes my
hand and leads me down a flight of stairs to the dock. Awaiting our
embarkation is the boat that'll take us down the river and then out to
the lake. Today I'm a sailor and I feel so proud. Scampering across the
planks, head held high, I know that there are worlds to conquer. I'm
young, full of hopes and dreams and ambitions and nothing could stop
this boy from accomplishing his mission. I look up at Dad and he, too,
is beaming with pride. He knows that he'll duly fulfill his obligations
to his family and his country and nothing will stop him. He'll find
another job, a good job and finally buy me that bicycle I wanted for
the last two years. And maybe that shiny electric guitar I saw in the
window of Morley's Music. With his new job, we can move into a bigger
apartment, maybe one with three or four bedrooms. Maybe Lenny could
have his own room and big sis Trish, hers. And little Wendy, she could
get that canopy bed she had wished for. Yeah, things are going to be
great. I know this, Dad knows this, and the entire world will know
it.
We board. Tourists gather at the bow, cameras strapped around their
shoulders. They stare and point and talk amongst themselves in a
foreign language.
We choose a seat facing the aft. Dad reasons, "to see better where one
has been and not worry so much what is yet ahead. Because whatever is
ahead, we will soon pass. Ricky, do you understand?"
"Yes, Dad,"
He nods and then closes his eyes. He put his hands together,
prayer-like and begins whispering. I try to listen but I cannot hear
what he's saying, his soft and tender words suddenly being drowned out
by a loud ruckus emanating from mid-ship. My attention to my father has
been thwarted, derailed, stolen from me by a gang of hooligans who are
in the process of antagonizing a smaller, innocent boy looking not much
older or bigger than myself. I could hear:
"Hey punk, you got a problem?"
"You wanna put a bag on that ugly face of yours? You might scare those
Japanese people!"
"Hey punk, aren't you listening? You better put a bag on your face
before one of those foreign people jumps off this boat and drowns. Hah,
hah, hah?
I endure this bantering and tormenting and taunting for a good three
or four minutes before all becomes quiet again, except for the sound of
the motor under us, revving and purring and preparing for the journey
ahead. I'm excited and happy again. I turn to look at Dad and I see a
stream running down his cheeks and onto his chin. "Why?" I ask.
"I'm okay," he says. He then unfolds his hands and places them on my
shoulders. "Happy birthday, Ricky."
"Thanks, Dad."
Soon we're out on the Second Great Lake. A flotilla of pleasure craft,
hewing and hawing, bouncing and bobbing, surround us. Aboard, young
ladies, bikinied and tanned, wave and cheer; beer-bellied men,
bellicose and vain, grunt and growl. We're a curiosity, an oddity, an
attraction.
A little while later, perched atop the waters, aided by rehearsed
narration, I learn more about the city that has been my home since
arriving here twelve years ago. Home to brother Lenny for fifteen.
Wendy, seven years. And big sis Trish, sixteen years and counting.
She's been talking a lot about California lately. She and her
hippie-looking friends, the ones with the tie-die and moccasins. Behind
me, the speakers speak and I listen:
"Chicago, the City of Big Shoulders?
My shoulders are kind of big, not that big though. Maybe I have to
work on them more, do more push-ups, pull-ups, maybe lift weights and
end up looking the way Dad used to look, a zillion years ago, when he
was a serious body-builder, had his picture in Physique magazine a few
times, when he used to be the hero of the neighborhood, Taylor
Street-taking care of the bullies and providing security for his
buddies. Dad was serious about his body; four, five, six hours a day at
the gym, eating all the right foods, not smoking, not drinking,
drinking, drinking, drinking-
?Chicago, the Windy City, incorporated March 4, 1837?
Gee, that was one hundred and thirty-six years ago. I am pretty darn
quick adding numbers like this in my head, just like Dad is. We are of
the same cloth, I guess, have pretty much the same genes. People say I
look like him, I guess I do, different color eyes though-his, blue,
mine, green, but same high cheekbones, pouting lips, aquiline nose.
Lenny, he has more of Mother's genes, lighter hair, rounder face. Both
Wendy and Trish, they have a good mix of both Dad and Mom, their hair,
a combination of black and blond, probably brown, although it's hard to
tell sometimes, especially when we have to stare at each other in the
candlelight because the power had been turned off again because somehow
Dad had lost the money to pay the power bill. Sometimes, we would have
to wait for a week or so or until Mom gets up the nerve to ask Papa Joe
for a small loan. Mom hates to ask her father, well, stepfather for
money, she doesn't want him to know our problems, especially doesn't
want to let Nee know, my grandmother. Sometimes, it's better to keep
things in the dark, I guess.
?The John Hancock building, one thousand, one hundred and five feet,
ninety-seven stories, built 1969. Big John?
Uncle Johnny, I admire the man. He has always provided well for Aunt
Mary and cousins Mickey, Mitch and Little John. What he does for a
living, I'm not quite sure, a little bit of this and a little bit of
that, I suppose. He doesn't have a regular job, the kind you have to go
to usually at the same time every day. At all different hours of the
day or night, he'd jump in his Cadillac and head off, maybe for three
or four or five hours and then come home, breast pocket of his jacket
full of cash. He'd throw a wad down on the table and instruct Aunt Mary
to pay the bills and stock up the pantry and fill the freezer with the
"best steaks money can buy. And while you're at it, make sure the kids
get their favorite snack food. And since Ricky is sleeping over, let
him pick out whatever he wants. He's kind of looking skinny. Have you
been eating right, Ricky?"
"Yes, Uncle Johnny, we always have plenty of food at home." I hate to
lie but Mom always warns me: "Ricky, don't you dare let my sister, your
Aunt Mary, know about your dear father losing his job." Or, "Ricky,
please do not let your Uncle Johnny and Aunt Mary know that our
refrigerator is empty again."
?Chicago's world-renowned Art Institute, founded 1879?
Art. Impressive. Lenny, left handed and talented, sitting in the
corner of the room, next to the half-open window, drawing with colored
pencil the many objects of his obsession-dragsters, souped-up
motorcycles. With change of mood and pencil, caricatures of various
funny men-Laurel and Hardy, Abbot and Costello. An occasional Jack
Benny. For Mom, a Dean Martin holding a huge martini glass, green olive
and all.
Art. Very Impressive. Uncle Gino, Dad's brother, creates in his
bedroom-studio with charcoal or oil renditions of Michelangelo's Pieta,
Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper. Uncle Gino also loves clowns. Once
in a while he would sell one of his clown paintings to a neighborhood
caf? or tavern. Otherwise, if he didn't sell some of his paintings,
where else would he get the money to pay for the tobacco that fills his
ever-present pipe. Uncle Gino doesn't work outside the house, no, his
sister does-my Aunt Tina. She slaves away every day at some factory,
making shoes or sweaters or airplane parts. Bless her heart, that
woman. She is primarily the sole breadwinner, taking care of both Uncle
Gino and Grandma Rosa, paying for the apartment that they share on
Cicero Avenue, above a diner.
?The Chicago Public Library?
Books. I love books, all kinds of books. Books on astronomy, I'm
traveling through space without a care in the world. Books on Hawaii,
I'm sitting under a palm tree, watching the tides roll in. Books on
fish, I'm a guppy in a pond full of sharks. No, I'm a dolphin at Sea
World, entertaining the children, jumping through hoops and being fed
mackerel. And then there are the classics.
I had started a collection, my very first-War and Peace, in hardcover,
given to me by Mother's friend, Trudy Myers, who claims to have read it
three times already and no longer has use for it. Bless her heart, that
woman.
?About ten miles due west of downtown is Oak Park and birthplace of
two of its famous sons, Ernest Hemingway and Frank Lloyd Wright. Now,
Frank?
Frank Morelli, my best friend; friends since that day back in fourth
grade when he tried to steal my swing. New to the school, how dare he
jump aboard the swing that I just got off, only momentarily, so that I
could tie my shoes. What's wrong with you taking my swing, I ask him,
fists clenched. You got off, he tells me. Yeah, but to tie my shoes. I
push him and he pushes me back and I go flying.
Boy, this new guy has some strength. I tell him that he could have the
swing and he thanks me and introduces himself: "My name is Frank, Frank
Morelli, just moved here from Kostner and Armitage, my father bought a
house just down the street, on Parkside." I apologize and we become
friends.
It was hard for Frank at the new school with a lot of the other kids
making fun of him, trying to start fights with him, ganging up on him.
And why? Just because he was grossly overweight? How dare these kids
call him these ugly names, Sewer Rat, The Blob. How dare they,
huh?
Frank and I, we became Batman and Robin, the dynamic duo and not only
did I help him in a few brawls but also with his homework. I'd do his
homework and he'd buy me candy and soda pops and stuff like that.
Unlike me, Frank always seemed to have money. Unlike him, I loved doing
schoolwork. I excelled in it. Ever since kindergarten, everything that
was taught, I grasped, rather easily.
Until one day, maybe the beginning of sixth grade, I realized how
foolish I had been doing my best friend's schoolwork. What was he
learning? Nothing! I told him that he was learning nothing with me
doing his homework and that he'd have to do it himself from now on. I
told him how I appreciated the candy and stuff but my concern for his
welfare was greater. "I understand," he says, "and I'll do my own
homework from now on. And I'll still buy you candy and soda pop and
stuff at lunchtime, okay?"
"Thanks, Frank."
"No problem, buddy."
"Frank, by the way? you look like you lost some weight, well, did
you?"
"I sure did. About twenty pounds. Been laying off a lot of the junk,
especially at night before bed."
"Great, Frank."