In 1998, in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, the neighborhood is geared up for Halloween, when a neighbor is found, dead on her balcony, disguised as a holiday witch. In the ensuing investigation, a rookie detective suspects his uncle, who is a neurodivergent local handyman. Numerous secrets and memories of childhood abuse are disclosed, and each of the three main characters are challenged to confront their complicated extended family relationships and their own identities. The story unfolds in the context of the Sicilian-American culture of the neighborhood, where relationships have developed over generations. The story explores the nature of trauma and how adults can begin to heal from long-held psychological wounds.
OCTOBER 30, 1998
1
CHAPTER ONE
Helper
He touches his initials in the sweater vest his mother made him thirty-six years ago, when he was fourteen. FB was knit in white, just above his fourteen-year-old heart. Fortunato Bonaventura, that’s him. He wearsthe vest everyday, except when he washes it. It reminds him who he is.
There, Mama had said with a smile as she smoothed the front of the just-finished sweater on Helper. She had made horizontal red and dark blue stripes because that’s what he wanted and she was showing him in her full-length mirror. His thick brown hair was itchy and messy, stickingup all over, and he saw the sparse beginnings of a first moustache. Gino always said he was fat, which meantwrong, which made him want to curl up under the stoop and hide, become brown to match the color of the building.
But the sweater vest was beautiful. Brand new, bold colors, made by her, just for him. She’dlet him pick the colors.It was just three strong notes: The triad of C-E-G.
Look, darling. See the FB? That stands for you, Fortunato Bonaventura, she’d said, looking in the mirror with him and pointing. Then she’d taken him by the chin and made him face her.I know everyone calls you Helper nowadaysbecause you help everyoneall the time, but this sweater I made for you, this is to remind you of your true self. Fortunato.The lucky one. The special one. Only a specialgenius could have figured out how to recover from that coma. Somehow you figured it out, in some
part of your brain. We don’t know how. You can figurethings out. Maybe nobody else will know it about you, but I know and now you will know. See, Fortu, she’d said, turninghim back to the mirror. Feel the letters with your fingers, Fortu. And he did it then. And he does it now on this fall day in October1998, and he does it often. Just to remind himself.
Now, he is fifty, a small man, barely 5’2” so he can still wear the vest, even though it has pilled and stretched over his round panza. Relativeshave said it is too small because the white t-shirt under it shows between his pants and the vest. He doesn’t use the mirror very much because Gino said he lookedlike TV’s Lou Costello, who was alwaysfoolish. That gave him a low, sinking sensation, brownish gray and wispy, like a broken pigeon wing. A low, sour B-flat.
Mary Pat, whom he has always avoided, asks for a favor when she sees him next to the soups at Met Food.They never spoke before. She is a slightly stooped, older lady and wears her short steel-colored hair curled under with long bangs. He remembers when she used to have curly dyed-red hair like Lucille Ball. She is a long-time neighbor, regarded with suspi-cion by many in Carroll Gardens. She is Irish in this old Italian neighborhood, but it is not just that.
Mary Pat has a reputation for being mean and stingy while smiling and laughing.Sometimes she is unsteady on her feet and smells of wine, and she’s known for fooling people. Whenever they mention her name, people shake their heads and purse their lips. They say, Well,that’s Mary Pat. What do you expect? No one can understand why she still lives there, up on the third floor of the brick row house after her only sis-ter moved away, years ago now. Mary Pat is like June Allyson in a 1940s movie, chipper and too cheerful but all the while scheming, like Bette Davis.
One time, she made a play for one of Helper’s cousins, a long time ago. He wanted nothing to do with her despite the
tins of homemade cookies she routinely brought over to his firehouse. He finally turned her down and the next morning, when the firemen woke up, they found dog poo smeared all over their front door. No one knew for sure, but everyone assumed it was Mary Pat. That’s just how she is.
Helper, mycloset shelf fell down. She frowns. Can youfix that for me? she whines and pouts, head tilted, like a little girl trying to charm someone. It’s too complicated. He doesn’t know how to respond, so she waits. When there is too much silence,she looks impatient and so, too quickly, he says Okay, befuddled by the unfamiliar contact. When he leaves her, he has mustard-yellow doubting feelings.
Later, when he goes over, besides the fallen-down shelf, she shows him a lock that needs changing and a warped shelf in the bathroom. And there’s some broken tile, too. He says, Okay, but when he leaves, expecting to return laterwith tools, he reflectson all this. It’s all wrong. It’s not a favor. It’s a job. Fora job you’re supposed to get paid, Papa always said.
A favor is one thing.You do it to be friendly, becauseyou want to be a good neighbor, because you are a helper, Papa said, but then turnedhis stubbly face to him. A job is another thing! A job you do to get PAID. You might not even like them but you want the MONEY. They need it done, but it’s not easy work. Then, it’s a job and you get paid. DON’T MIX THEM UP! he’d said, pointing his thick fingerat Helper. Papa was some-times a fast-moving storm cloud.
After visiting Mary Pat’s apartment, Helper sits on the curb around the corner, on his own tree-lined street, shady in the late fall afternoon. Some redbrowngreen leaves hang-ing onto the maples.The gingkos are still all yellow with bare black branches.
‘The falling leavesdrift past my window. The autumn leavesof red and gold.’ D-E-F-B-flat…Mamaplaying the piano, singing in her quavery soprano, like translucent rice paper. He idly looks
up and sees Halloween decorations on the brownstone oppo-site. Fake spiderwebs around the banisters and a life-sized Dracula in shiny blackandred satin up at the door. Its bony hands hold a bowl that’s emptynow but tomorrowafternoon will be filled with tiny candies.
Mary Pat isa neighbor, but sheis notnice. Helper has seen her at the bakery,pretending to tip the girls when he is in line to get coffee and a pastry. She puts her hand in her walletand then over the tip jar, but there’sno money in her hand.All the while, she is chattingwith the bakery girls and smiling like a ventriloquist’s dummy.
He has heard her call the old Arabic man who runs the corner store, Joseph, even thougheveryone else calls him Mr. Olam. That doesn’t seem right. Once, at Met Food, he saw her drop a jar of pickles that cracked. She glanced around to see if anyone saw, and then put it back, pickle juice dripping onto the shelf, under all the other pickle jars and down onto the floor. Papa had said she’s camurria, a pain in the neck, and Mama said she’s tischi-toschi, thinks she’s a bigshot. Helper knows he has to tell her that it’s a job she wants, not a favor, and she needs to pay him. Mama says in his head, Speak up, Helper. She says that because he is quiet too much.
Later, when he goes over to Mary Pat’s, he expects some-thing bad, like the dread when he had to tell on Gino. Mary Pat buzzes him in and he trudges up the narrow stairway to the third-floor apartment with cinderblock feet. Partway up, his sweater vest gets caughton a sharp piece of metal railing. He tugs back and it pulls,and the threads tear apart.The blue stripe is torn now, and the ends of the yarn are stickingup on the right front.
O no! Ono ono ono ono ono ono… He sits on the step, heavy with remorse about the damage and dialogues with scowling Mama inside his head.
Your fault! You should never have said yes. You should never have even talked to that strega. You saw how we never talked to her. And his father’s face is angry, too.
He is tearful when Mary Pat opens her apartment door. She says, in sugary Doris Day tones, Helper?What’s wrong? C’mon up. He turns and slowly finishes the climb, with her watching. She is wearinga mask of thin concernon her face. When they get into her apartment, she scrutinizes him and says, like it doesn’t matter, Oh, you tore your old sweater. Don’t worryabout that. I’ll just cut off the ends. She quickly digs a big silver scissorsout of the kitchen drawerand walks back toward him. The shiny scissors look huge and catch the afternoon light coming in from the front balcony. For a moment, the reflection is blinding.
Big silver scissors. Gino holding them.Cousin Rocco holding the panicked mouse by its tail. Gino says, Look, Fortu,look what I do to him. If you don’t do what I say, then I do this to you. And snip, the mouse’s head comes off and blood comes out and Fortu throws up.
Another time. Mama, in the kitchen, says, hands on hips, Who took that money from my drawer? I’m saving for Rosa’s baby. I had ten dollars. You know, Fortu?He almost says— It was Gino, but Gino, quietly behind Mama, has the scissors behind his back and brings them in front and Helper sees. But Mama can’t see. And Gino opens and closes the scissors, and Helper says, No, Mama, I don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t know.Then Helper knows he lied to Mama and he can’t tell the priest. He stillhasn’t had communion. So, now, he’s a bad boy.Bad boys go to Hell,where there’s fire.
And now the shiny scissors are blinding and the sharp ends are pointingat his chest, and Mary Pat says, Here, let me, and reaches for him. And he yells, NO! and pushes her back,
hard. And she loses her balance and falls backwardin the liv-ing room againstthe raised slateshelf under the fireplace. She falls straight back and her head hits smack against the shelf and then onto the floor, and there’s blood flooding out, and he watches and can’t move. It’s like a horror movie.
When the fear fills his legs, seconds later, he runs away. He runs away. He runs out of the apartment, leaving the door open. He runs down the flight of stairs, out onto the outdoor landing, down the tall steps, across the street, down Strong Place to his brownstone, where he’s always lived. Stooping under the brownstone stairs, he hurries to the room no one goes to now but him. In Mama’s brown corduroy rocker, he curls up and rocks and imagines talking to his mother and listens to the sounds outsidethe house: The singsong of little girls chalking a potsy grid on the sidewalk and then playing the game; an ambulance calls out a few blocks away, B-F#, B-F#. Bah-bah, bah-bah. He touches the broken strands of yarn in the front of his sweater and cringes and leaks tears.
Later, it’s gotten dark. The window into the garden level tells him it’s turned nighttime. He should be hungry, but he has seasick nausea like the world is tipping back and forth. What do I do? I should go back. But…do what? Papa, in his mind, says, DON’T LEAVE A MESS! Whether you’re just help-ing or doing a job, don’t EVER leave a mess. NOBODY LIKES THAT! You see how we clean up, your uncles and me, when we buildsomething? We leave it spotless! SPOTLESS! Helper sees his fatherand uncles carryingdiscarded pieces of drywall and collecting hardware into little boxes, sweeping and mopping after a day of making a new room for someone.
What about the lady? he asks Papa.
That part is over, says Papa. That’s all done. Now it’s the mess you pay attention to! YOU DON’T TELL ANYBODY! That’s private business. That’s family business.Nobody ever talks about the dead bodies.JUST CLEAN THE MESS!
What about the lady? he asks Mama.
That’s God who did that part. Godtakes thesoul. Nowjust listen to Papa.
His eyes land on theunfinished part of hisbedroom, across the way. After the stoop accident, Papa started to sleep down here because Mama said she wouldnever speak to him again, so, he had to finish the basement for himself, but only got as far as finishing the bedroom part. Over on the other side are a bunch of storage bins and metal shelvesand old furniture, the washer and dryer, the deep sink, and Papa’s brown bear of a wooden workbench.No wooden floor over there, just the con-crete. Helperdoes all the laundry, so Gino never comes down here. Downhere is just for him.
He sees a couple of camp trunksand old suitcases. In one trunk he finds Mama and Papa’s clothes, and Nonna’s white sweater, and a few of Nonno’s ties, all smelling like moth-balls. On a shelf,there are Christmasdecorations, lights with wires hanging out of the box, and next to it the crèche they put in front of the house after Thanksgiving. Knickknacks and furniture from Nonna. Some relatives stored things here since it is the biggestbasement. And behind a chair,where he almost misses it, a plasticbag with clothes. He pulls out bunny ears, a mask, a stethoscope. Costumes. Where did these come from? A cousin’s Halloween party from twenty-five years ago? Somethingcatches his eye deeper down and he brings it out of the bag.
He waits along time. Gino comes home late, after drinking, and clompsaround upstairs, callingout drunkenly for Helper a few times. Helper listens but doesn’t answer because he is waiting. He listensto the squeaking of loosefloorboards, the sound of water in the upstairs bathroom. The toilet flushes. Finally, Gino goes to bed, shuts his door, and is quiet. Helper creeps up the steps to the kitchen and hears Gino snoring through the ceiling. He quietly gathers supplies:black trash
bags, duct tape, alcohol, Cloroxcleaning spray, paper towels, rags. He knows about cleaning. He got taught how to do it. It’s how he became Helper when he couldn’t be Fortunato any-more. He puts it all into one of the big trash bags and brings it down to his room.
Looking outhis window, the sidewalk is empty. The white cat clock with the swinging rhinestone tail says it’s 2:00. Nobody around at this hour, so he opens his door under the stoop, listens, then climbs the two stepsto the little patio, lis-tens again, then the three steps up to the sidewalk where he squints up and down the street. Nobody.It’s a dark night, with clouds covering the harvestmoon. He slidesthe trash bag out and up to the sidewalk.There’s only half a block to walk. He could do it with a blindfold, he knows it so well.
Now at the bottom of her stoop,he looks up to the landing and her balcony above. Someonehas shut the outside door,so he finds his little tool and climbs up to jimmy the lock. The old Yorkie in the second-floor apartment barks a sharp little series of high yelps, musicalnote A-A-A-A, and Helper stops for a moment. The elderly couple are hard of hearing and don’t wake up and the dog is quieting.
When he gets to the third-floor apartment, the door is ajar. He pushes it open and scans.It’s dark but he sees that it’s allhow he left it. A big mess.The biggest mess he ever made in his whole life. His chest becomeshollow, filled with tones of timpani and bass viol as he takes a deep breathand sees it all. She’s face up on the living room floor, her eyes and mouth wide open, like she’s surprised, her head lying in a big pud-dle of bright and then darker blood. Her wrist is lying outside the blood, next to the gray rug. He goes to feel it like he was taught to sense a pulse when Mama was sick. Nothing.
She seems dead,like when Mama died in the diningroom bed. But Mama’s eyes were closed then. Mama looked yel-low, like this, but he could tell she wasn’t there anymore. Her
soul had left for Heaven. They had opened all the windows in the parlor, so her soul wouldfly away like it was supposed to. She told him a few days before that she would be leav-ing for Heaven, so he wasn’t surprised. Mama had explained that when someone dies, the people are not in charge. It’s always God’s doing. But he is unsure now, looking at the body of Mary Pat. Many questions. She has left,too. Did she go to Heaven, too? Or, that other place, Purgatory. That was like a waiting room, Mama said. Could Mary Pat have been so bad that she went to Hell with all the fire? He can’t figure it out.
There is so much blood.He is surprised at how much. By the light of the streetlight, across from her balcony, he sur-veys the living room scene.The blood is around her head and shoulders and soaked into the gray shag rug in front of the fireplace. There’s bloodon the wall and the slate shelfin front of the fireplace, where she hit her head. His nausea is back.
Suddenly, the brightorange bass drum voice of his father booms CLEAN THAT UP! SHAME ON YOU TO MAKE SUCH A MESS. LOOK WHAT YOU DID! YOU BRING SHAME ON YOUR WHOLE FAMILY! DON’T BE FANULLONE! WHAT’S WRONGWITH YOU? DIDN’T I TEACH YOU BETTER?
Helper sees tall Papa pointinga finger like an oak limb at him and drops his head with shame, like a hellebore bloom.
He says,I’m sorry for it, Papa.
TO HELL WITH SORRY! PEOPLE WILL SAY, LUIGI,LOOK WHAT YOUR RETARD SONDID!
I’ll fix it, Papa.
When he and his brother and cousins clean up at a con-struction site, they all know the rules. Only now, he is all by himself, and he has to be quiet and fast. Focus on the tasks, otherwisethere’s confusion like water goingdown around the drain. He takes off his old black beat-up sneakers, leaves them by the front door, and pulls all the supplies out of the black bag. He has to fix it so Papa is not so mad at him.
It takes a long time—mopping up all the blood. Now it’s only red stuff, like paintor oil. He has to work quicklyby the streetlight and the lights from the neighbors’ patios in the backyard. He turns her over and rolls her up in an old blanket so he can clean the floor. He is small, but strong, like all the men in the family,so he lifts her with his back and arm mus-cles and carries her through the narrow bathroomdoor. She’s stiff, so it’s like carryinglong pieces of heavy lumber at a work site. He puts her into the tub and turns on the shower to get rid of the red on her body.
They always wash the body when someone dies. When Papa died because a machine fell on him at work,they all had to kiss his cheek, where he lay in the coffin, which Helper didn’t want to do, but Gino told him he had to. So, he knows he has to do this thing, even though he doesn’t want to. In the bathroom, he has the patio lights from below and her night-light plugged into the socket. It is dark, like a cathedral at midnight mass, when only candleslight up the space. Did her soulreally leave yet? How can you tell? He lets the shower run while he finishes the living room and comesback and forthto move the body around to make sure it’s all washed.
When he finds the scissors,under where the body landed, it is shocking and makes him turn away.
Papa’s voice shouts ARE YOU DONE?
Not yet, he answers, and gingerly picks up the scissors with a paper towel, bringingit to the kitchen sink.He washes and dries it and puts it back in the kitchen drawer. He closes the drawer quietly and breathes, that’s done.
After draining the tub,he unwraps the body. She is pale, and still stiff. He tries not to look at her too much and feels his father pinchingthe back of his neck to make him hurryup. Helper wraps her in an oversized chamois and rolls her until she is dry enough, then wrings out the cloth, puts it into one of the black bags, and goes back to clean the tub.
Now he regardsher on the wooden livingroom floor. The bloody rug has been rolled up and wrapped in plastic. She looks like she did when she was alive, but even more fake. In his supply bag he finds the costume. He will not undress her because that would be rude. He has neverundressed a woman inhis life. The closest he ever came was helpingMama do up her corset in the back. But the costume can just go on top of everything.
Checking her balcony on the front of the building, he sees the street is still deserted down below. On the balcony are her wicker chair, pumpkins, and a garland of tiny black cats around the railing.He can’t just open a window to make sure her soul will fly up like they did for Mama.There’s only the sliding door to the balcony here. Putting her outside will make sure the rest of her soul will be released.
He costumes her, mask, hat and all, and carries her out to the chair. It is tricky to fix her to the chair, since she is still stiff, but he uses a lot of duct tape and bungee cordsand arranges the flowinggown and cape.It seems right.One more thing. He brings out a broom from the kitchen utility closet and tapes it to the railing next to her. He regards the scene and nods approval.
Then Helper closes the balcony door decisively behind him and examines the apartment, slowly, with deliberation. He has to look closely becauseit is dark. There is no lon-ger any sign of red. Not in the living room, or bathroom, or kitchen. Not on the floors, or sinks, or counters, not on the walls or slate shelf next to the fireplace. He has made sure to spray and rub all the surfaces he has touched, as carefully as he always cleans the keys of Mama’s piano. Next to the door sitthe five industrial-sized black trash bags,closed at the top. Nomore mess. Spotless, like Papa said. He sees Papa nodding his head and is relievedthat he isn’ttalking to him anymore. Helper releases his shoulders and feels a xylophone glissando
in stretching his back and neck. He bows his head in gratitude and takes a deep breath.
After he puts on his shoes, he pulls the bags out to the landing and locks the door.Looking down, he sees it will take twotrips to get the bags down each staircase. He tiptoes down tothe second floorwith two of the bags. When he goes up to get the last three, the little dog barks again, so he stands still on the third floor until there is quiet. Then he brings down the last three, and quick-like-a-bunny, shoves them all out-side.He locks the front door behind him, just as the dog starts another series of barks.
Quickly descending the stoop, he leaves the first bags on the sidewalk and speeds up to retrievethe last ones. The little dog is still barking,and it makes him sweat,redflashinglights in his head, but no one inside the house reacts. There is a line of trash bins across the street at the curb, waiting for the san-itation truck, so he ferries his bags over to join them. Then he checks the street and sidewalk to make sure there were no leaks, but the bags are good thick ones for construction, so no trail.
Finally, Helper walks to his corner to go home, but thinks tolook back at the balcony.A break in the clouds,and the full moon shows his witch appearing exactly right, next to the life-sized figures on the next-doorbalconies—a Frankenstein on one side and a ghost, arms outstretched, on the other. He madethe apartment look okay, and now, the neighborhood is okay.It all looks like it’s supposed to. He made a restoration. Relieved, he sighs deeply.
Papa nods andgrimaces andsays onemore thing in aloud, gruff voice. DON’TTELL ANYONE! He touches his cudgel forefinger to his closed lips.
Helper nods and goes home to bed. He is very tired.