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Mari Tomasi
OCT 14 1940
I CAN SKATE LOOPS AROUND TEAT GUY
The boy limped away from the crowd at the further end of
the skating rink, holding in his hand a skate that dangled
from its lacing. :4!) had been racing whin somettlag happened
to his skate; now he laughed at the good...natured scoffs and
raillery of his friends.
"I'd have skated loops around that guy in two seconds,"
he bragiAd with a bright grin. "I've beat him more times 'n
he's beat me. We're neither of us in shape right now, it'll
just a weok we've becn skating this year, but wait till the
end of the year, that'll be a race for you."
"Ve have an awful job getting the rink free of little
kids. The place is cluttered with them. Seems every kid in
the neighborhood's got a pair of skates. All the girls think
they're going to be another Sonja :Ceinie. It's not so bad
tonight. The girls are out Christmas shopping, most of them.
Guess the fellows do what I do. I give my money to my sister
and ask her to pick out something for each one in the family,
even for herself. That way I'm not bothered at all. Smart,
eh?"
The boy's faoe was small, impish, topped with short, crispy
black curls that fell beneath a green woolen toque. He wort,
a green coat sweater over a lighter weight white pullover.
2,
"I'm a junior in high school, The fellow I raced with
tonight is a senior. We're good friends but it gets under his
skin when I beat him, Bels used to getting the laurels in most
sports. He's one of the best football players we've got. And
can he swim& His old man's Spanish and his mother's Scotch.
Joe doesn't understand either language, all he speaks is English.
Last year we were doing some house to house canvassing to get
money for a trip -not the high school football trip, lust a
neighborhood team- and we thought it'd be best for him to take
the Spanish houses seeing he's half that way. But he wouldn't
do it. Said he'd be ashamed to admit he couldn't understand
or speak Spanish. His old man's a foreman in a stoneshed.
But Joe never'll go into the sheds. he wants to go to collage,
play football, and then pro football. He's good all right.
it "I don't know what we'll do without him for basketball next
year, he's the best we've got in the school. Anyway we've got
him this year, that means one more chance to run rings around
Montpelier and Burlington. Just watch us."
The boy sat on the bench removing the other skate. The
rink was a jagged oval, defined by waist -high heaps of snow.
It lay in an open field facing the Montpelier -Barre road. Be-
hind it rose the pale slant of snowed hill, its crest merging
into the night sky exoept where the twinkling lights of the
sanatorium allowed clear delineations. A quarter of a mile
up the road Barre's business street under arches of colored
bulbs seethed with Christmas activity.
A girl broke from the group at the end of the rink. She
z.
skated with swift, graceful strides. The boy made room for her
on the bench, but she shook her head and sank to the hard bank
of snow. She was as tall as the boy, and as slime There was
a serious depth to her gray eyes that the boy's laughing brown
eyes lacked.
"Joe says he'll race you again for the eats at Firpo's,"
she announced.
The boy scowled. "With a bum skate? I guess not-"
"He's sent Wine up to the house for her brother's skates,"
she explained. "You've tried 'em before. You had 'em on last
week. They fit you."
"Ye-ah, but I'm not used to them. And Joe eats like a
horse when another guy's paying for it, kina, too. I've paid
for their eats before."
Lou ve never had to pay from losing in a skating race,"
the girl pointed out. "You're betteen he is. Besides," she
added practically, "you and I are going to eat anyway, why not
beat hir and make him pay for everything?"
"I can skate loops around him any day," the boy bragged.
"Course you can."
"I'd have beat him tonight if the skate hadn't coma apart*"
"Eure, I know it."
peI s tops in basketball and football but I can skate
loops around him any day."
"You're telling me-"
"114, can do fancy stuff all right but his speed's no good
on skates. Zpeddls what counts, and I got it-"
4.
"You sure have," the girl affirmed.
"Okay, okay," the boy agreed. "I'll race him. Even with
somebody else's skates I'll race him. And he'd better have
plenty of money on him, cause I'm sure going to skate loops
around that guy."
The girl was satisfied. She shook hard little pellets
of srlow and ice from her skirt and moved up to the bench be«
tween us. her name was Gay*
"Gabriella, really," se confided, "but I don't like it.
It's too foreign sounding. 73verybody calls me Gay except my
mother and father. They stick to Gabriella* I've given up
trying to meke them see it my way. Mom says Az is a good
enough name for a dog or a cat, but not for her daughter. In
the grades I wrote my name Gabriella until I was in the sixth
grade. It's been Gay ever since. My last name's a good long
one- Paequanollis Pallis means nester. Gabriella Pasquanelli„«
that's a name for you/ It doesn't sound like me at all, does
it? If I ever sugLested changing my last name my fatherld
ra5se the roof off the houses There was a family lived next
door to us with the name londocani. It means world of dos.
When the kids got grown up they Changed their name to 1.ondi.
I don't blame them any. Iather thought it was disgraceful, I
mean changing the name. Le said he was ashamed to own them as
Italians.
"There aren't many Italians in town who Change their names,
and some of the naaes are eure tongue -twisters and funny* It
wasn't ao long ago that Cedar Street and Poet Street were Galled
5.
Po Bemprebuone Plows and L. Bottellino Platte after the first
Italians who built houses on those streets. The city changed
the names of these streets to make it simpler for everybody,
I guess* The girl made a face. 'Wouldn't this look cute on
an envelope .0
Vise Oabriella Pasquanelli
22 L. B9ttellino Place
Barre, Vermont*
"Sounds more like an address in Italy than 4a ddress in
Vermont; doesn't it? But I'd hateto have it be Italy
"?ather works with two Frenchmen. In a stone shed. They
gave up their names for English ones years a6o. Yy father says
they had reason to do tliat. They'd started work lore at the
time of the strike, and father says a French name was poison
in those days.. They're as Prenchy French as any canucks you've
seen, yet they go around with perfectly swell Bounding Enzlish
names, and-"
"Fey, take it easy, the boy interrupted with his ever-
re.ady grin. "My old man came down from Canada himself."
"Eis wasn't a strike breaker," Cay said lightly. "Ye isn't
included with the rest of the French."
"You certainly don't lose any love on the French," the
boy remarked with a moody twist of his lips.
"I said I was going to eat with you, didn't I?" the girl
hurried to say. "I wouldn't eat with anyone disliked; would re
The boy stared hard at his skates. "Flo Blodgett broke
her engagement with Bqueek Fernandes right after he bought her
a swell feed in the Barre Restaurant, The same night, and it
6.
didn't bother her a bit. Squeek says he's going to join the
army.
"Well, I'm not Plo Blodgett nor anyone like hen" Two
spots of red flamed in the girl's cheeks.
"No," the boy grinned. "You're Gabriella Pasquanelli.
Gabriella Pasquanolli."
"Listen, Pete Vitleau„ if you're trying to get me nore-"
“Who's trying to get who sore?*
you're out of luck, 'cause I'm not getting me an ugly
rocd tonight."
"Aw, forget it-"
"Look," I interrupted pointing to a figure skim_7-ing over
the field of snow. "Isn't that the girl who was going for a
pair of skates for you?*
"Yes, that's Pins,* the girl agreed.
The boy said nothing. Gay bent dawn, unlaced her shoes,
and did them up again tightly. the fussed with her scarf, and
took time pushing strands of dark brown hair under her beret,
She wouldn't look at the boy. 'Tor would he look at her.
The group at the end of the rink began shouting. "Hey,
Pete, you coming?" And Joe's loud voice. "CtImons wise guy,
put on these skates and let's see what you can dot"
wish you'd try it.," I put in. "I'd like to sec you
win."
*Say, I can skate loops around that guy any day," the boy
said with a quick jerk of his head.
*Pow about letting me see you do it?" I urged.
The girl stuffed her hands into her pockets. "Are you
7.
backing out, Pete Vitleau?"
"Vho's backing out?"
"You don't seem very eager to get started," the girl Clashed.
"Aw, quit it," he mumbled. "I'm not running across the
ice in my stocking test. Go get the skates for mej will you,
Gay?"
lay threw him a smile over her shoulder and sped across
the ice for the skates*
"Gee," the boy said sheepishly, "she can get me plenty
sore--"