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Vary Tomasi
*THE BOCCINIS ARE ,:;.00L HARRIERS"
Jc ction Files
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I got only two rooms," Steve B000ini says. It is not an apology.
He rube the swollen, ohisel-distortod knuckle of his little finger against
tho gray stubble of his Ohba; a calloused index finger caresses a hoavy
moustache. His dark eyes travel the cimbination kitchen -living, and
bedroom. *What uso I got for morote he asks. "There's only me hors.*
Steve Besoini's apartment is on the secrnd floor of the Ptlingetti
block en Hain Street. At night rod neon lights from the boor garden
across the street flood the veils. Tonight a batty was whimpering up-
stairs in law, selfoomusement that promised to keep up indefinitely.
Across the hail came the rattle and splash of sumr dishes drowned
occasionally in a bistro of radio music.
"Seery two, throe days my daughter oozes up to clean,* Boecini said.
She come this morning to do the wishing. When I come home tonight I find
it out on the porch line, almost frozen. I take it in right sway, wet
or no, I &net oars. I bang it here by the radiator. Setter to has, it
drip a little water in here tonight ant have the clothes nice ant warm
to put on in the morning. MO cold underwear for me. Not met"
Two pairs of hoary undorwear and a few dark shirts were draped over
chairs. Largo rod hankorchies and 'fool= seeks hissed a moist heat over
the radiator.
"I donut like that my daughter bother to oome hero to clean,* Boocini
continued. "he's got enough work to do at her own place with two babies.
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I say to her, *Look, Lola, I earn pretty •food money in the shed. I can
pay to have someone come to do the cleaning.' IAA, no. She want to
come herself." The dark eyes smiled. "Guess she don't trust me. She's
afraid I will marry again. The men in m: family are rOOd narriers from
'way back many years. Take my father. Lets alive now with the third
wife. No„ no divoree. No divoroe. The women they all two died from
honest sickness. One when she is having a baby, the other from something
here in her chest.
"I was 21 years old when I leave the old country, ant my father is
fresh married then for two weeks. Younger than me, my stepmother is.
An' she's :;•ot ohildren younger than nine. Liy father, he don't bother to
write to ne no mere. put her, she writes once in a while. Near Alessandria
they live, up in the north of Italy. A small place. They tell me that
now they cot a hospital there, an' more stores. I have a letter only last
week from py stepmother. She says the flat fields beyond the school is
made into a big air base, ant all round it are (maps of soldiers. Night
there is the natural, easy path to get to France ant Germany, an' they
got to be ready in case of war. Lio, it's hard to believe they are all
waiting for gar excitement to come to them. Lverything used to be so quiet.
'Now if Italy 2oes to war all that north country will be spoiled. All
the homes, the farm land, an' the roads. Ant they tell ma all good new
roads have been built. WAS in service under tht red, white ant ;Teen
flag in Tripoli for three months. Just three months. .he climate was
no eood for me. Too hot. all the Li e we march ant varch the border. The
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food would spoil an' it seemed we was gettirg rotten, too. SometiL;es it
seemed like I couldn't breathe, so they sent me home.
'War is bad business. My father used to say it was like thunder.
It happens in the sky, one big noise, an' the houses feel it an' shake
even for miles away. We feel this war over here across the ocean. Right
here in Barre yr feel it, an' it's lucky for us it is a :mad feeling. It
will help the granite business plenty. Already the sheds are getting more
orders for memorials. Sack a few years the granite business begin to slide
down fast because it was cheaper to buy the memorials from Finland an'
Sweden. I remember in '36 the duty on the imported stuff dropped way
down fro.. twenty4ive cents a cubic foot, to twelve...and-a half. Then you
figure that the men over there they work for only 4240 a day, well,
you can see how they can sell below our price. But now all that is cluing-
.ing. The war is coing it. Lhe duty is shooting right up again. An'
cargo insurance, too. An1 the ships that dare o roes the ocean would
rather carry something that's got more value than heavy stone. granite
sheds ought to go full blast this year. I don't care so much for myself.
There's only me to take oare of, an' I make enough for that even when I'm
laid off a few days. Tell you the truth, I an glad for a few slack days
in the winter. It Ives me the chance to 70 hunting. j:hat's the only
good sport for me. :he last few weeks I got so many rabbits en' paltridL:es
I don't remember how many. Mostly I give them away. I don't like to
bother to do a bi- cooking. Mostly I give them to the woman across the
hall, ant when they're cooked I eat them with her." Again Steve boocini's
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dark eyes erinkled and smiled. Two small children she's 7et an' her
husband isdead•
I guess that's what my daughter is soared for. .hat I'll
get marrieC again. Lio„ she don't have to get scared. A Ilate of rabbit
stew ant eolenta, well, it's rabbit stew an' polenta, but no more marrye
ing for me.
"1y shotgun, I been using that now quite a few weeks. But the rifle
I just take it out last night to clean it. Gee -"Bocoini pointed to a
corner where rifle and ihotgun stooe side by side stock end down. "I got
that shotgun now for twenty year, an' I wouldn't trade her for the best one
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you can bey in any store. Already she's IA me A deer. hest week's the
deer season. I wish it would snow. ihat's the sport, that's the fun
to track the deer. ihie year four of us will o up Groton way to a camp.
With this. weather I :tie:14w* can co all the way by oar. Bometikes in the
middle of the winter when the snow is too high we have to leave the oar at
a farmhouse. :hen we rot to get out an' walk two miles to the camp. We
find the camp colds so the first night we drink ilenty of wine, but after
that just a few swallows ,o keep warm. You have to keep your head to be
:!ood hunter.
"When my kids are small an' 1 have my own house, always I keep a good
rabbit do:. Lost the Italians here ,ot good hunting cogs. But to keep one
here in these two rooms, no, no. A rabit dog is made to be out in the air,
not to be shut in.
"leer hunting is a fine sport, but the season is too short. Now
rabbits, those we hunt a long time. An' it's a fine sport, too. The
devils is hard to catch. In the fall they got color like a mruse
they look like the dry leaves on the ground. in the winter they're almost
white like the snow an hard to see. All those animals we hunt got a way
to protect thenself. You take when we hunt the pheasant in the fall. tie,
that's the hard sport, they got the pretty, bright colors just like the
leaves they are hiding in. Sonetines you think they are a part of the
bush. Smarts too, those birds. The bright colored ones, they Let brave,
an sit there in the bright leaves just like they are laughing at you
because you can't see them. An' the ones with the fade color, they're
smart, too. They hide limey down the bottom of the bush so you can't see
them."
Steve boccini bent his stocky back to tug at the lacings of his
heavy shoett. As he stooped the ezrds cane in grunts. "Excuse me, yes, if
I take off my shoes? I wear these all day on a hard °anent floor, an'
at night my toes, they are always happy to get loose. Some of the sheds
got just dirt floors sprinkled with water to hold the dust down. But
we are lucky to have a oement floor in our shed. ihe dirt floor is easy
on the feet but bad on the rheumatism." Le puliea off his shoes and
wrig led the woolen toes in relief. Suddenly he pulled himself up in his
choir and laughed loud aria long. "every time I talk about hunting I got
to tell what my boy do when he was a little fellow.
then is hunUn., just like his father. Ile was crazy
other kids he Ilayed with. As., well, 1 ,Ness I was
All he think abcut
for suns, him an' the
born with a gun in
my hands. I figure any boy is safe with a ,,;un so long he's got sense.
Tut my wife, no she always tell the toyt wait till you grow up... So
one day when he tease ant tease to go rabbit hunting I tell him a story
how I used to get rabbits in the old country without a gun. I tell him
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just for fun.
"I tell him like this; look Jo -Jo, a smart bey, he don't need no
gun for rabbits. In the old country I used to start out in the morning,
no eun it my hand, only a bie sack. When I come back at night the sack
is full of rabeits. Lvery one at home *all me a eod hunter an' I laugh
to pyself because I know I catch them without work an' without spending
one penny for bullets. This is hew I do it, iqrst, I find a path in
the weeds where 1 know the rabbits will run, an/ at the end of the path
just in front of a hie, hard tree I build a little stone wall. Then I
take a bie eloth with lushes painted on it, an* I nail it in frent of
the tree. I tell the bey who is with me to eo back in the woods an
scare the rabbits out. Pretty soon they come hopping out, one, two
three, :our rabbits. They hop fast up the path. 2hey nee the cloth with
the painted bushes, ant they think to jump the wall an' hide themeelf in
the bushes. 1:Hut uhen they jump they strike the heads on the hard tree,
an' they fall down, knocked out, aleost like dead. An' there I an behind
the wall with the sack wide open, ready to pi k up the raVits an' stick
them in. JoeJo, what you think now about your 016 man? good way
to hunt. The easy way to eet rabbits, no?
has the story I tell py boy one night. I think no more about
it till eretey soon in three, four days the teacher meet py wife dem the
street an' the ask her why Jo -Jo is not in school fortwo days, an' if he
is sick.
'Well, anyway, we iind out that Jo -Jo has believed my story, an'
he has Leen eine to the woods with another bey for two days to get rabbits."
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Steve eoccinils rambling laugh filled the roam. "Ea, I think it is
a coed joke. I tell all my friends about it. /But my wife, she did not
think it was funny. Never again have I seen her so mad. 24ot so mid at
Jo -Jos it's me she's mad at. 'The boy, he don't know no better,' she say.
'But you, Steve, you're the old fool.' She's mad because the bay he has
take the two best sheets she's eot in the house. Sheets all pretty with
embroidery„ an' on these Jo -Jo has painted bid bushes. ihey're no good
lee more, an' next day y wife she is expeotire her sister. an' children
from Si-heate for a visit. She say for over a week, she has thought hew
she will chew eef with those pretty sheets. Now they are spoil. Mat's
why she is mad. Well, I try to pleese her. I eo out an' bey the two best
sheets I can find. ;hey haven't Jot embroidery, but they're eood sheets.
It don't do no eood. Lie for a whole month she is mad.
"Jo -Jo was a little fellow then. Now he is out in Banes° City in a
meat packiel:, elaoe. Once in a vhile when he come home for a visit I ask
him to come huntine with me. But no, he say he secs no more fun in it.
So much dead meat he sees out there where he is workine that he sets no
more fun in huntine. Jo -Jo is a fine bie man now. bieeer than me. Five
years he's been ,one from home. This sumeer he eot married. Us sent me
a picture of the eirl. A plain face she's eot, but she looks like she's
got sense. Jo -Jo needs someone like that. Always he does things in a
hurry, always he never thinks twice. he says maybe he will come to visit
next rveaer. :let here with no. I got only room for myself. hut they can
stay with my dau2hter Lola. They are a eood brother an' sister, they get
alone fine together.
S.
"I ,:ot more children. I Jot two more boys from another wife. Those
two are ir rew ampshire. Gne has Jot work in a Aill. The other, well,
he's ':ot no steady work. He does whatever 1,0 ern fLnd„ an' he picks up
a little money at nir;ht. rie plays che violin in a pretty _ood orchestra.
The boys :et facelp; ,:ood with Jo -Jo ant Lola, they're nice to each other,
but they oon't bother to visit.
"I was married three times, just like my father. 4-,y first wife, she
lived only feur monuhe after we are married. 4:he doctor, he say it was
poison from Lnahrooms that we picked in the moods. But me, I find it
hard to believe. eat tiv mushrooms, too, that day, an' I never feel
even a bellyacLe. 4111 the years I pick an' eat mushrooms, I never find
one that made me sick. Look, I even eat those that my wife picked a few
days before she Lied. he dried them out in the sun so they will keep.
I even eat those, an' I'm not scarcd to ei now the mushrooms. I
know the :cod an' the bad.
niy second wife is a woman I used o know in the old country. She
come over here wi-h her brother. I have siAte a tLie to marry her, her
family, they write to her for a lone time an' be her not to marry me.
They tell her no woman is luAcy to marry a oocini Lan. I -uses maybe
they are ri_ht. Anyway, Ay wires, they all Lied.