Vendetta Olympics by Daniel Tomasulo- written version
Posted by Reader at 2/8/2008 2:55 PM 
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: mafia mob cookies catty behavior assassin Italian Grandmother
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: mafia mob cookies catty behavior assassin Italian Grandmother
The Vendetta Olympics
My grandmother was an assassin. She killed for sport, yet despite this character flaw she died in her sleep at the age of ninety-six, and a swarm of octogenarians filled Perrozis' funeral parlor and Saint Anthony's church in Greenwich Village. When Grandma took someone out she didn't use the traditional weapons of knives, guns, or poisons. She preferred something else, something more painful and treacherous. Shame-based humiliation and character mutilation were her weapons of choice. Her victims were not random. They were the not-so-innocent, and soon to be doomed, who slighted my grandmother socially. Grandmother was skilled in the art of retaliation and knew more about getting even than most Mafia dons or budding psychopaths. If you crossed my grandmother, your "to do" list should include getting your affairs in order.
Getting even was a serious game for Lulu. What a perfect name for narcissism's poster child. She considered herself royalty, demanded respect, and took no responsibility for hurting anyone's feelings. On the surface she was the most wonderful grandmother alive. She sang and danced the Tarantella, always had a slightly off-color joke to tell, and gossiped about who did what to whom. She also offered a daily, unsolicited review of " the Chinaman's" fresh fruit and vegetables ("Don't buy his cantaloupe today, but the tomatoes are nice."). I remember explaining to her that the man she referred to was actually Korean. She made a face at me that looked as though she had just bitten into a rotten lemon. This was a warning shot. If I tried to correct her again I might not get off so easily. The lemon face was a courtesy reserved for family. She was giving you a chance to atone for your sin. When a friend of hers outside the family crossed her, her expression did not reveal merely a warning, but rather the pin from the grenade in her teeth: dead friend walking.
Puttanesca is Italian for "whore," and the pasta dish was so named because it was "fast and easy". That's how Lulu made her friends, puttanesca style. Everybody who met her loved her—at first. She cooked them a plate of fried meatballs, a little chicken cacciatore, or some eggplant rolletine. She made friends faster than anyone I knew. She had to: she was killing her old ones off at an even faster pace. People making a social faux pas with Lulu might not know until it was too late. Once she had detected a social snub, even a minor one, it was over. She held herself in the highest regard, reminding those who couldn't care less that Mayor La Guardia came and danced with her at her wedding. She always hinted that she could have been Mrs. La Guardia. Welcome to Lulu Airport.
Grandma had absolute criteria for right and wrong. Right was her way of thinking; wrong was anything else. She was master of the double bind. You were damned if you did, damned if you didn't. She could paralyze me with a request. "Pour me a glass of wine," she'd say. I'd begin to shake. It was impossible for me to carry out this simple task to her satisfaction. Never once did I get it right. I'd pour too much; I'd pour too little. There were endless variations of this trap. I'd pour; she'd stare at the glass cocking her head toward me with a quizzical, annoyed look. "Am I on a diet? Is that why you only gave me half a glass?" she'd say, or I'd fill it up and she would chastise me, "You didn't leave room for the soda." Or I'd make it exactly like the one before and she'd say, "I don't want ice," or "Not that wine again," or "Try to fill it this time," or "I wanted red wine," or "What are you trying to do? Get me drunk?" And when all else failed, she relied on the old standby, "I don't use those glasses anymore."
Her spouse was certainly no match for her. Lulu and Louie (do you believe it?) chose each other at the tender age of sixteen. He was an unassuming spherical man void of ambition and vice. At sixteen my grandmother made sure she opted for someone who could never dispute her grandiosity. My grandfather never did; he simply succumbed to the solace found in Lulu's food. He lived with her for nearly sixty years and, as best as I can tell, walked away from every fight. I never detected much love between them. Within an hour after he died, Lulu charmed a dentist into removing Louie's gold teeth for "sentimental value." She sold them for cash before the funeral and couldn't understand why my father was so upset. “He ain’t gonna need them where he’s going," she said and dismissed her only son's petulance with one of her citrus sneers.
Some of Lulu's game rules for vendetta were implied. First, she never used any physical retaliation. She might wish that the insulting party would suffer a severe bout with cold sores, back wrenching sciatica, or aggravated bunions, but she would never physically assault her victim. Her second rule was never to rush the retaliation. She took her time, enjoying the planning, execution, and gratification that came with being at the top of her game. Her favorite pastime was scrimmaging with her friends. She would take an entire afternoon just to act out some small vengeance. One particular time comes to mind. When you were summoned to my grandmother's for coffee and dessert you were supposed to bring the dessert. ("What, am I made of money?") The invitation insinuated that you had been chosen to delight the queen with a wonderful dessert. If you brought a nice box of Italian cookies from Zito's or her favorite pie from Balducci's, you were okay. If you brought a pound cake from the A&P or a box of Fig Newtons, you might want to do a few laps on the Rosary.
"Hi, Lulu. I brought you a pie."
"What kind?"
"Strawberry rhubarb, your favorite."
"Come in, come in, come in! Lemme take your coat."
This exchange often occurred with her oldest and dearest friend, Emma. Emma was Lulu's best friend for seventy years and was an anomaly. Emma knew all the rules of appeasement and was in a category by herself. I think they befriended each other much the same way wealthy businessmen befriend each other, or professional athletes work out together. They form a class by themselves, in a relationship that the common people can’t fathom. Emma understood Grandma’s rules, which she only breached they wanted to joust.
Behind Emma was a new neighbor carrying a bag. Lulu invited her in, took her coat, and returned to the bag. "What do we have here?" asked Lulu. Her search revealed a package of Pepperidge Farm cookies. The new neighbor offered her apology: "I didn't know what you liked." Emma, knowing what was to come, shrugged slightly to Lulu and tilted her head as she closed her eyes.
One of the rules of any competition is to match your retaliation equally to the offense committed. If you misjudge the retaliation and go overboard the other party is required to respond. While it is perfectly acceptable to do a little more than what was done to you; doing too much would be a personal foul. My grandmother put the cookies back in the bag and put out Emma's pie. The pie was fussed over, complimented and savored. When it was time to go, the untouched bag of cookies was handed back to the guest ("Keep these for yourself for emergencies, or for the pigeons, dear.") along with a piece of the strawberry rhubarb pie. There she was – my grandmother as artiste on the uneven parallel bars: A perfect ten.
To my grandmother most people were stupid, spineless, or worthless. Having once passed such judgment, Lulu enjoyed playing with them, even though they hardly rated as proper demolition targets for someone with her prodigious talent. My grandmother admired only one type of opponent: someone who provided her with a genuine challenge -- a "testa dura" (hard head).
Once she found a worthy match, she would pronounce that individual as a testa dura, and thereafter referred to him/her with an unnerving mixture of disgust and ambition. But once one was identified, Grandma saw it as her personal responsibility to remove such a person from the community.
She could have taught courses at NYU or the New School on Vendetta Sportsmanship. I could see her standing in front of the class. Her round four-foot-six body, her sweet Muppetlike face with soft, rippling wrinkles; her calm, bright blue eyes; her hair in a bun; her thick black rim Vince Lombardi-style glasses. With her hands gently clasped over her navel, she would command a fusion of respect and awe: Yoda and Don Corleone in a black house dress.
My grandmother’s championship vendetta was directed toward a newcomer to the family: a testa dura named Nunzio* who was marrying my second cousin, Delores.* Nunzio was a lieutenant in the Mafia. (of course there is no such thing as the Mafia, the Sons of Italy, organized crime, or the Black Hand, but if there were, Nunzio would be involved up to his curly chest hair and gold chain). My grandmother disapproved of this marriage. She knew who and what Nunzio was and didn't want Delores to marry him. Now to be honest Delores was no great catch. She was a medium-height zaftig creature with inch-long brown hair and a face constructed from uncooked dumplings. Except for hard drugs she was addicted to everything else. Food, gambling, vodka, cigarettes, and daytime soap opera were among the top ten. She had no plans to work as her fiancé was designated the calzone winner in the family. Nunzio had an interesting line of work. He owned a limousine service with twenty-one limos in all. He didn't rent them, didn't have an ad in the Yellow Pages, and yet had a steady stream of business. I came to find out that these limousines were for the exclusive use of The Maf.., of Italian American businessmen looking for a secure means of travel. The limos, you see, were what Nunzio called the "three Bs" (only he pronounced it "tree Bs," but I didn't dare correct him). He called them that because the limos were bullet proof, bomb proof, and loaded with booze.
I met Nunzio the month before their wedding when my grandmother and I were invited to eat dinner at Delores's apartment. One bodyguard stayed outside, another was inside in a back room. The amount of food for the four of us would have been enough to feed Rhode Island. Nunzio was a huge man at six foot four and over three hundred pounds. No one could say he was fat (not to his face), but he might have done well to cut out a few cannoli here and there. Truth was he looked like an enormous baby. He had absolutely no facial hair of any kind, and the thin hair on his head didn't do much to sparkle up his teardrop of a body. My grandmother didn't like the whole setup. Nunzio had made all the preparations, and Lulu considered herself to be beyond comparison as a cook. She set the tone of the evening by tasting one of Nunzio's beautifully stuffed mushrooms. This was her ploy: she could disparage him by criticizing his food. He had been bragging how the recipe had been handed down from his great-grandmother to his grandmother to his mother and how he was now proud to be able to pass it along to Delores. My grandmother listened intently and sensed Nunzio's vulnerability. She inspected the mushroom the way a jeweler might study a flawed diamond. She looked at it from every angle before finally placing it on her tongue. She chewed it as if it were someone else's gum. Although Nunzio pretended not to notice, he was scrutinizing her every move. Finally my grandmother took the cloth napkin alongside her plate and made a halfhearted attempt to hide the fact that she was spitting the mushroom into it. Nunzio tried to conceal his reaction by turning his attention to breading the eggplant. Eventually he began talking to no one in particular: "My mother tells me that when my great grandmother served her stuffed mushrooms she could tell the people of class, from the commoners. The people of class knew they were tasting something extraordinary while the lower form of humanity didn't have the acquired taste to appreciate what they were eating." Gently placing a large thin piece of eggplant into the oil, Nunzio let his words, and the oil, sink in. " So Lulu," he finally said, "whaddaya tink of my mushrooms?"
Grandmother had found her match – her long sought after testa dura. The theme song from Rocky was in the air as the next month the two of them tried to outdo each another. Nunzio would send my grandmother a large crate of her favorite cookies only to have her complain about how many had arrived broken. Lulu would cook potato croquettes stuffed with mozzarella and Genoa salami only to have Nunzio infer that the salami wasn't top grade.
By some twist of fate, I was slated to sit at the head table at Delores and Nunzio's wedding with my grandmother. The day of the wedding I was waiting with her for one of Nunzio's limos to pick us up from her apartment. A very classy stretch pulls up to her building on West Fourth Street, and we got in. The driver apologized for any inconvenience as he handed us each a bottle of Dom Perignon and a silk blindfold. He then went on to say that for our own protection, would we please place the blindfold over our eyes. I cracked a few jokes then asked why it was necessary. The dutiful driver cracked one of his own jokes: "To quote Confucius," he said, "whacha don't know can't hurtcha." Everyone in the wedding was picked up by limo, blindfolded, and taken to the parking garage of the reception hall. In a scene right out of The Godfather each guest was ushered into an opulent room with ice and cheese sculptures, champagne fountains, and a full orchestra. At least two dozen of the guests were bodyguards: gun-carrying, Green Bay tackle-built, make-you-sleep-with-the-fishes bodyguards. These mutants were all business, transfixed on watching the exits, waiters, and waitresses. I overheard chatter and the reason for the blindfold was made clear. It seemed our boy, Nunzio Balboa, was wanted for questioning by the FBI concerning the disappearance of a certain member of a rival Italian American family. There was a half-million-dollar contract out on Nunzio, and they were taking no chances that one of the guests might leak information on the whereabouts of the wedding. The invitations gave bogus information about the church and the reception. Everybody was fooled. But it occurred to me that if they were this serious about trying to keep all this secret—having the wedding and the reception in this hidden place-wouldn't those he was hiding from be just as vigilant in trying to find him? I wasn't worried about the FBI, but what if the other family decides to make their move during the reception? Isn't that how it happens in all the made-for-TV specials? How would they do it? Machine-gunning the entire head table was at the top of my list of possibilities. For this reason I spent more time in the bathroom than any other guest at the wedding.
After a brief ceremony (where they frisked the priest), I made a dash for my chosen hideout, but a guerrilla bodyguard walked into the men's room in front of me. Standing at the urinal next to him I glanced over and noticed a gun in a shoulder holster. I had never been this close to a gun before and did the unthinkable: I stared.
Somewhere between three seconds and three years I gawked at the deep brown wood handle and steel blue revolver. He kept pissing and looked at me in a way that suggested as soon as he finished banging his dick on the side of the urinal he'd choke me to death before zipping up his fly. But instead he spoke: "Whaddayou lookinat?" Nothing came out of my mouth, nothing. I was about to take in some oxygen on the off chance I might be able to speak when I realized I was not even close to getting any of my urine into the urinal. I was mortified to look down and see that I had missed it completely while staring at the gun. A small yellow pond of my former self was engulfing my shoes. The man with the gun looked on and asked the second of his piercing questions, "Whadiswrongwidchew?"
Everything about the wedding was an annoyance to my grandmother. She didn't like where the head table was situated, she didn't like where she was seated at the table, and she didn't care for the musicians, the food, the wine, or the dresses. She was unhappy about every detail and wasn't ashamed to let the groom know. After a while Nunzio was fed up with trying to please her and finally said to her point-blank (to use a manner of speech) that he could arrange for one of the limos to take her home if she was having such a bad time. Many people witnessed the exchange between them, but didn't know what it was about. It was clear that Nunzio thought he had had the last word with her. He thought this suggestion would be enough to shut her up and let her know who was boss. I remember seeing Lulu's broad, smug grin that followed his suggestion. He might have been better of with the FBI or the disgruntled members of the rival family.
Back at the table Lulu went to work. She reached into her purse and retrieved two folded shopping bags. With her napkin she wiped the food off of her plate, cleaned her silverware, rubbed the inside of her coffee cup, and placed everything into one of the bags. She repeated this ritual with my setting and was working her way counterclockwise around the table. The coffee service was gold plated and went directly into the bag (even the sugar). People looked, laughed, and pointed. Lulu smiled back, occasionally holding up a spoon or saucer to show her fans before placing it in her bag. When confronted by one of the quests at the next table Lulu surprised us all. She told the woman what a terrific guy Nunzio was, and that if the woman had been socially adept she would have known that it was tradition when men of his caliber get married to have the guests take their place settings as mementos of the wedding. "I was just telling him before…” said Lulu, "… that it was too expensive and that we shouldn't do it. He was very insistent with me and told me it's what would make him happy,” she added. " Ask him if you don't believe me and want to embarrass yourself. I brought my own bag– but the waiters will wrap it for you if you want. This is good stuff,” she said. That Nunzio is a prince."
No one was sure what to make of it but it certainly changed the tone in the room. Everyone was buzzing, and my grandmother's cavalier attitude and broad daylight approach seemed to lend credence to what appeared to be insanity. Nunzio and Delores were making the rounds with their own shopping bag to collect envelopes stuffed with cash and checks as gifts. I watched as Grandma wrote out a check for two thousand dollars to the bride and groom. It was the summer of 1973, and two thousand dollars was more than her life savings. She saw me watching as she wrote the check and flashed me one of her patented smiles. I had no idea what to make of her gesture.
By the time Nunzio and Delores made their way over to Grandma they had figured out what she had done. Nunzio knew he had been challenged, but actually seemed to enjoy the competition with Lulu. When she put the envelope in their bag she said, " I wish I could have done more." Like an old vaudeville routine, Nunzio picked up on the straight line and shot back, "Lulu, you've done more than enough already."
Three weeks to the day after the wedding, suddenly, at the tender age of forty-one, Nunzio died of "natural causes." But the circumstances left room for doubt, and suspicions were heightened when a member of the rival family was thrown out of the funeral parlor after sticking a hat pin in Nunzio's body. Lulu told the story of how she stole the dishes and how lots of others followed along. Outliving the competition was a particularly sweet form of revenge; Lulu was the life of the funeral.
Claiming victory, the winner and still champion told me what she had done. She wrote out a check for two thousand dollars --but didn't sign it, thus forcing Nunzio and Delores to either forge her signature to either get the money, or come crawling to her to have her sign it. If they forged it --the check was no good anyway, and the check would bounce for insufficient funds. She would have the law on her side and could hold it over them forever. If they crawled back to her, she would rip up the check and write one out for two hundred dollars with the lame apology to Nunzio that she was an old woman and had made a mistake with all those zeros. It was as brilliant --twisted, but brilliant.
But two weeks after Nunzio took the stretch limo to a better place, Lulu died in her sleep. That was when I learned the other side of the story. It was my job to clean out her apartment, and folded inside the cover of her Bible I found a handwritten letter from Nunzio. It was dated only two days before his untimely (but totally “natural”) death.
Dear Lulu,
They say a person’s generosity is a measure of their character. I know this is the case with you. Thank you for your check, but we don’t need the money and decided to donate it to the church. I’ve endorsed it and sent it to your priest, Father McCann, over at Saint Anthony’s. I am sure they can use the money for the children’s program.
One small thing, since you forgot to sign it I told Father McCann that he can bring the check over to your apartment. He said he would be glad to bring it over. He wanted to give me all the credit for the donation, but I told him he needed to thank you in person.
With respect,
Nunzio
I can’t imagine the conversation between Father McCann and Grandma, but I do know that Saint Anthony’s went on to build a new children’s center, and as you walk in the front door there is a plaque listing my grandmother as an “angel,” their highest honor for donors of over a thousand dollars.
In overtime, in a sudden-death play-off, Nunzio was posthumously awarded the gold medal.
*Delores and Nunzio aren't their real names, but for health and safety reasons (mine), I thought it best to use pseudonyms don't you?
My grandmother was an assassin. She killed for sport, yet despite this character flaw she died in her sleep at the age of ninety-six, and a swarm of octogenarians filled Perrozis' funeral parlor and Saint Anthony's church in Greenwich Village. When Grandma took someone out she didn't use the traditional weapons of knives, guns, or poisons. She preferred something else, something more painful and treacherous. Shame-based humiliation and character mutilation were her weapons of choice. Her victims were not random. They were the not-so-innocent, and soon to be doomed, who slighted my grandmother socially. Grandmother was skilled in the art of retaliation and knew more about getting even than most Mafia dons or budding psychopaths. If you crossed my grandmother, your "to do" list should include getting your affairs in order.
Getting even was a serious game for Lulu. What a perfect name for narcissism's poster child. She considered herself royalty, demanded respect, and took no responsibility for hurting anyone's feelings. On the surface she was the most wonderful grandmother alive. She sang and danced the Tarantella, always had a slightly off-color joke to tell, and gossiped about who did what to whom. She also offered a daily, unsolicited review of " the Chinaman's" fresh fruit and vegetables ("Don't buy his cantaloupe today, but the tomatoes are nice."). I remember explaining to her that the man she referred to was actually Korean. She made a face at me that looked as though she had just bitten into a rotten lemon. This was a warning shot. If I tried to correct her again I might not get off so easily. The lemon face was a courtesy reserved for family. She was giving you a chance to atone for your sin. When a friend of hers outside the family crossed her, her expression did not reveal merely a warning, but rather the pin from the grenade in her teeth: dead friend walking.
Puttanesca is Italian for "whore," and the pasta dish was so named because it was "fast and easy". That's how Lulu made her friends, puttanesca style. Everybody who met her loved her—at first. She cooked them a plate of fried meatballs, a little chicken cacciatore, or some eggplant rolletine. She made friends faster than anyone I knew. She had to: she was killing her old ones off at an even faster pace. People making a social faux pas with Lulu might not know until it was too late. Once she had detected a social snub, even a minor one, it was over. She held herself in the highest regard, reminding those who couldn't care less that Mayor La Guardia came and danced with her at her wedding. She always hinted that she could have been Mrs. La Guardia. Welcome to Lulu Airport.
Grandma had absolute criteria for right and wrong. Right was her way of thinking; wrong was anything else. She was master of the double bind. You were damned if you did, damned if you didn't. She could paralyze me with a request. "Pour me a glass of wine," she'd say. I'd begin to shake. It was impossible for me to carry out this simple task to her satisfaction. Never once did I get it right. I'd pour too much; I'd pour too little. There were endless variations of this trap. I'd pour; she'd stare at the glass cocking her head toward me with a quizzical, annoyed look. "Am I on a diet? Is that why you only gave me half a glass?" she'd say, or I'd fill it up and she would chastise me, "You didn't leave room for the soda." Or I'd make it exactly like the one before and she'd say, "I don't want ice," or "Not that wine again," or "Try to fill it this time," or "I wanted red wine," or "What are you trying to do? Get me drunk?" And when all else failed, she relied on the old standby, "I don't use those glasses anymore."
Her spouse was certainly no match for her. Lulu and Louie (do you believe it?) chose each other at the tender age of sixteen. He was an unassuming spherical man void of ambition and vice. At sixteen my grandmother made sure she opted for someone who could never dispute her grandiosity. My grandfather never did; he simply succumbed to the solace found in Lulu's food. He lived with her for nearly sixty years and, as best as I can tell, walked away from every fight. I never detected much love between them. Within an hour after he died, Lulu charmed a dentist into removing Louie's gold teeth for "sentimental value." She sold them for cash before the funeral and couldn't understand why my father was so upset. “He ain’t gonna need them where he’s going," she said and dismissed her only son's petulance with one of her citrus sneers.
Some of Lulu's game rules for vendetta were implied. First, she never used any physical retaliation. She might wish that the insulting party would suffer a severe bout with cold sores, back wrenching sciatica, or aggravated bunions, but she would never physically assault her victim. Her second rule was never to rush the retaliation. She took her time, enjoying the planning, execution, and gratification that came with being at the top of her game. Her favorite pastime was scrimmaging with her friends. She would take an entire afternoon just to act out some small vengeance. One particular time comes to mind. When you were summoned to my grandmother's for coffee and dessert you were supposed to bring the dessert. ("What, am I made of money?") The invitation insinuated that you had been chosen to delight the queen with a wonderful dessert. If you brought a nice box of Italian cookies from Zito's or her favorite pie from Balducci's, you were okay. If you brought a pound cake from the A&P or a box of Fig Newtons, you might want to do a few laps on the Rosary.
"Hi, Lulu. I brought you a pie."
"What kind?"
"Strawberry rhubarb, your favorite."
"Come in, come in, come in! Lemme take your coat."
This exchange often occurred with her oldest and dearest friend, Emma. Emma was Lulu's best friend for seventy years and was an anomaly. Emma knew all the rules of appeasement and was in a category by herself. I think they befriended each other much the same way wealthy businessmen befriend each other, or professional athletes work out together. They form a class by themselves, in a relationship that the common people can’t fathom. Emma understood Grandma’s rules, which she only breached they wanted to joust.
Behind Emma was a new neighbor carrying a bag. Lulu invited her in, took her coat, and returned to the bag. "What do we have here?" asked Lulu. Her search revealed a package of Pepperidge Farm cookies. The new neighbor offered her apology: "I didn't know what you liked." Emma, knowing what was to come, shrugged slightly to Lulu and tilted her head as she closed her eyes.
One of the rules of any competition is to match your retaliation equally to the offense committed. If you misjudge the retaliation and go overboard the other party is required to respond. While it is perfectly acceptable to do a little more than what was done to you; doing too much would be a personal foul. My grandmother put the cookies back in the bag and put out Emma's pie. The pie was fussed over, complimented and savored. When it was time to go, the untouched bag of cookies was handed back to the guest ("Keep these for yourself for emergencies, or for the pigeons, dear.") along with a piece of the strawberry rhubarb pie. There she was – my grandmother as artiste on the uneven parallel bars: A perfect ten.
To my grandmother most people were stupid, spineless, or worthless. Having once passed such judgment, Lulu enjoyed playing with them, even though they hardly rated as proper demolition targets for someone with her prodigious talent. My grandmother admired only one type of opponent: someone who provided her with a genuine challenge -- a "testa dura" (hard head).
Once she found a worthy match, she would pronounce that individual as a testa dura, and thereafter referred to him/her with an unnerving mixture of disgust and ambition. But once one was identified, Grandma saw it as her personal responsibility to remove such a person from the community.
She could have taught courses at NYU or the New School on Vendetta Sportsmanship. I could see her standing in front of the class. Her round four-foot-six body, her sweet Muppetlike face with soft, rippling wrinkles; her calm, bright blue eyes; her hair in a bun; her thick black rim Vince Lombardi-style glasses. With her hands gently clasped over her navel, she would command a fusion of respect and awe: Yoda and Don Corleone in a black house dress.
My grandmother’s championship vendetta was directed toward a newcomer to the family: a testa dura named Nunzio* who was marrying my second cousin, Delores.* Nunzio was a lieutenant in the Mafia. (of course there is no such thing as the Mafia, the Sons of Italy, organized crime, or the Black Hand, but if there were, Nunzio would be involved up to his curly chest hair and gold chain). My grandmother disapproved of this marriage. She knew who and what Nunzio was and didn't want Delores to marry him. Now to be honest Delores was no great catch. She was a medium-height zaftig creature with inch-long brown hair and a face constructed from uncooked dumplings. Except for hard drugs she was addicted to everything else. Food, gambling, vodka, cigarettes, and daytime soap opera were among the top ten. She had no plans to work as her fiancé was designated the calzone winner in the family. Nunzio had an interesting line of work. He owned a limousine service with twenty-one limos in all. He didn't rent them, didn't have an ad in the Yellow Pages, and yet had a steady stream of business. I came to find out that these limousines were for the exclusive use of The Maf.., of Italian American businessmen looking for a secure means of travel. The limos, you see, were what Nunzio called the "three Bs" (only he pronounced it "tree Bs," but I didn't dare correct him). He called them that because the limos were bullet proof, bomb proof, and loaded with booze.
I met Nunzio the month before their wedding when my grandmother and I were invited to eat dinner at Delores's apartment. One bodyguard stayed outside, another was inside in a back room. The amount of food for the four of us would have been enough to feed Rhode Island. Nunzio was a huge man at six foot four and over three hundred pounds. No one could say he was fat (not to his face), but he might have done well to cut out a few cannoli here and there. Truth was he looked like an enormous baby. He had absolutely no facial hair of any kind, and the thin hair on his head didn't do much to sparkle up his teardrop of a body. My grandmother didn't like the whole setup. Nunzio had made all the preparations, and Lulu considered herself to be beyond comparison as a cook. She set the tone of the evening by tasting one of Nunzio's beautifully stuffed mushrooms. This was her ploy: she could disparage him by criticizing his food. He had been bragging how the recipe had been handed down from his great-grandmother to his grandmother to his mother and how he was now proud to be able to pass it along to Delores. My grandmother listened intently and sensed Nunzio's vulnerability. She inspected the mushroom the way a jeweler might study a flawed diamond. She looked at it from every angle before finally placing it on her tongue. She chewed it as if it were someone else's gum. Although Nunzio pretended not to notice, he was scrutinizing her every move. Finally my grandmother took the cloth napkin alongside her plate and made a halfhearted attempt to hide the fact that she was spitting the mushroom into it. Nunzio tried to conceal his reaction by turning his attention to breading the eggplant. Eventually he began talking to no one in particular: "My mother tells me that when my great grandmother served her stuffed mushrooms she could tell the people of class, from the commoners. The people of class knew they were tasting something extraordinary while the lower form of humanity didn't have the acquired taste to appreciate what they were eating." Gently placing a large thin piece of eggplant into the oil, Nunzio let his words, and the oil, sink in. " So Lulu," he finally said, "whaddaya tink of my mushrooms?"
Grandmother had found her match – her long sought after testa dura. The theme song from Rocky was in the air as the next month the two of them tried to outdo each another. Nunzio would send my grandmother a large crate of her favorite cookies only to have her complain about how many had arrived broken. Lulu would cook potato croquettes stuffed with mozzarella and Genoa salami only to have Nunzio infer that the salami wasn't top grade.
By some twist of fate, I was slated to sit at the head table at Delores and Nunzio's wedding with my grandmother. The day of the wedding I was waiting with her for one of Nunzio's limos to pick us up from her apartment. A very classy stretch pulls up to her building on West Fourth Street, and we got in. The driver apologized for any inconvenience as he handed us each a bottle of Dom Perignon and a silk blindfold. He then went on to say that for our own protection, would we please place the blindfold over our eyes. I cracked a few jokes then asked why it was necessary. The dutiful driver cracked one of his own jokes: "To quote Confucius," he said, "whacha don't know can't hurtcha." Everyone in the wedding was picked up by limo, blindfolded, and taken to the parking garage of the reception hall. In a scene right out of The Godfather each guest was ushered into an opulent room with ice and cheese sculptures, champagne fountains, and a full orchestra. At least two dozen of the guests were bodyguards: gun-carrying, Green Bay tackle-built, make-you-sleep-with-the-fishes bodyguards. These mutants were all business, transfixed on watching the exits, waiters, and waitresses. I overheard chatter and the reason for the blindfold was made clear. It seemed our boy, Nunzio Balboa, was wanted for questioning by the FBI concerning the disappearance of a certain member of a rival Italian American family. There was a half-million-dollar contract out on Nunzio, and they were taking no chances that one of the guests might leak information on the whereabouts of the wedding. The invitations gave bogus information about the church and the reception. Everybody was fooled. But it occurred to me that if they were this serious about trying to keep all this secret—having the wedding and the reception in this hidden place-wouldn't those he was hiding from be just as vigilant in trying to find him? I wasn't worried about the FBI, but what if the other family decides to make their move during the reception? Isn't that how it happens in all the made-for-TV specials? How would they do it? Machine-gunning the entire head table was at the top of my list of possibilities. For this reason I spent more time in the bathroom than any other guest at the wedding.
After a brief ceremony (where they frisked the priest), I made a dash for my chosen hideout, but a guerrilla bodyguard walked into the men's room in front of me. Standing at the urinal next to him I glanced over and noticed a gun in a shoulder holster. I had never been this close to a gun before and did the unthinkable: I stared.
Somewhere between three seconds and three years I gawked at the deep brown wood handle and steel blue revolver. He kept pissing and looked at me in a way that suggested as soon as he finished banging his dick on the side of the urinal he'd choke me to death before zipping up his fly. But instead he spoke: "Whaddayou lookinat?" Nothing came out of my mouth, nothing. I was about to take in some oxygen on the off chance I might be able to speak when I realized I was not even close to getting any of my urine into the urinal. I was mortified to look down and see that I had missed it completely while staring at the gun. A small yellow pond of my former self was engulfing my shoes. The man with the gun looked on and asked the second of his piercing questions, "Whadiswrongwidchew?"
Everything about the wedding was an annoyance to my grandmother. She didn't like where the head table was situated, she didn't like where she was seated at the table, and she didn't care for the musicians, the food, the wine, or the dresses. She was unhappy about every detail and wasn't ashamed to let the groom know. After a while Nunzio was fed up with trying to please her and finally said to her point-blank (to use a manner of speech) that he could arrange for one of the limos to take her home if she was having such a bad time. Many people witnessed the exchange between them, but didn't know what it was about. It was clear that Nunzio thought he had had the last word with her. He thought this suggestion would be enough to shut her up and let her know who was boss. I remember seeing Lulu's broad, smug grin that followed his suggestion. He might have been better of with the FBI or the disgruntled members of the rival family.
Back at the table Lulu went to work. She reached into her purse and retrieved two folded shopping bags. With her napkin she wiped the food off of her plate, cleaned her silverware, rubbed the inside of her coffee cup, and placed everything into one of the bags. She repeated this ritual with my setting and was working her way counterclockwise around the table. The coffee service was gold plated and went directly into the bag (even the sugar). People looked, laughed, and pointed. Lulu smiled back, occasionally holding up a spoon or saucer to show her fans before placing it in her bag. When confronted by one of the quests at the next table Lulu surprised us all. She told the woman what a terrific guy Nunzio was, and that if the woman had been socially adept she would have known that it was tradition when men of his caliber get married to have the guests take their place settings as mementos of the wedding. "I was just telling him before…” said Lulu, "… that it was too expensive and that we shouldn't do it. He was very insistent with me and told me it's what would make him happy,” she added. " Ask him if you don't believe me and want to embarrass yourself. I brought my own bag– but the waiters will wrap it for you if you want. This is good stuff,” she said. That Nunzio is a prince."
No one was sure what to make of it but it certainly changed the tone in the room. Everyone was buzzing, and my grandmother's cavalier attitude and broad daylight approach seemed to lend credence to what appeared to be insanity. Nunzio and Delores were making the rounds with their own shopping bag to collect envelopes stuffed with cash and checks as gifts. I watched as Grandma wrote out a check for two thousand dollars to the bride and groom. It was the summer of 1973, and two thousand dollars was more than her life savings. She saw me watching as she wrote the check and flashed me one of her patented smiles. I had no idea what to make of her gesture.
By the time Nunzio and Delores made their way over to Grandma they had figured out what she had done. Nunzio knew he had been challenged, but actually seemed to enjoy the competition with Lulu. When she put the envelope in their bag she said, " I wish I could have done more." Like an old vaudeville routine, Nunzio picked up on the straight line and shot back, "Lulu, you've done more than enough already."
Three weeks to the day after the wedding, suddenly, at the tender age of forty-one, Nunzio died of "natural causes." But the circumstances left room for doubt, and suspicions were heightened when a member of the rival family was thrown out of the funeral parlor after sticking a hat pin in Nunzio's body. Lulu told the story of how she stole the dishes and how lots of others followed along. Outliving the competition was a particularly sweet form of revenge; Lulu was the life of the funeral.
Claiming victory, the winner and still champion told me what she had done. She wrote out a check for two thousand dollars --but didn't sign it, thus forcing Nunzio and Delores to either forge her signature to either get the money, or come crawling to her to have her sign it. If they forged it --the check was no good anyway, and the check would bounce for insufficient funds. She would have the law on her side and could hold it over them forever. If they crawled back to her, she would rip up the check and write one out for two hundred dollars with the lame apology to Nunzio that she was an old woman and had made a mistake with all those zeros. It was as brilliant --twisted, but brilliant.
But two weeks after Nunzio took the stretch limo to a better place, Lulu died in her sleep. That was when I learned the other side of the story. It was my job to clean out her apartment, and folded inside the cover of her Bible I found a handwritten letter from Nunzio. It was dated only two days before his untimely (but totally “natural”) death.
Dear Lulu,
They say a person’s generosity is a measure of their character. I know this is the case with you. Thank you for your check, but we don’t need the money and decided to donate it to the church. I’ve endorsed it and sent it to your priest, Father McCann, over at Saint Anthony’s. I am sure they can use the money for the children’s program.
One small thing, since you forgot to sign it I told Father McCann that he can bring the check over to your apartment. He said he would be glad to bring it over. He wanted to give me all the credit for the donation, but I told him he needed to thank you in person.
With respect,
Nunzio
I can’t imagine the conversation between Father McCann and Grandma, but I do know that Saint Anthony’s went on to build a new children’s center, and as you walk in the front door there is a plaque listing my grandmother as an “angel,” their highest honor for donors of over a thousand dollars.
In overtime, in a sudden-death play-off, Nunzio was posthumously awarded the gold medal.
*Delores and Nunzio aren't their real names, but for health and safety reasons (mine), I thought it best to use pseudonyms don't you?
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