Read Online The Brotherhood of the Grape by John Fante - Free Book Online

shape, a man with toothache of the soul. My mother’s melancholy eyes took up most of his large Neapolitan face.
    “How’s Edith?”
    “Three guesses.” He smiled feebly, like a man on the gallows.
    “Good God, Virgil. Not again!”
    He nodded with a great head that wearied his shoulders.
    “You should stop, Virgil. You ever hear of a drugstore? Use something.”
    “I use my cock. You have any other suggestions?”
    “What about vasectomy?”
    “That’s for dogs. I’m a man…I think.”
    “Come on in. Let’s have a glass of vino.”
    “I won’t go in there,” he scowled. “I’m pissed off at them.”
    “At Mama? Nobody else is here.”
    “Mama, Papa, Mario, the whole family. That paranoia in front of the police station. I can’t take it anymore. They’ve destroyed me in this fucking town. Now they’re trying to bury me.”
    I opened the door.
    “Come on, Virgil. Mama’s fixed a lovely dinner.”
    “Naturally,” he smiled. “Tell me something. How come crazy old ladies cook so well? Same thing with my wife’s mother. A real psychopath, but God, what stroganoff!” He looked toward the house, tempted, but suddenly he leaned over and jerked the door shut.
    “I won’t go in there. I’ll starve first!”
    The screen door squealed and we looked toward the house as Mama stepped outside. “Come and eat, Virgil. It’s all fixed.”
    “No, thanks, Ma.”
    “Baked eggplant, Virgil,” she coaxed. “I fixed it special the way you like it. And gnocchi in milk and butter, and veal in wine.”
    “Thank you just the same, Ma.”
    She was hurt and startled by his refusal and slipped back into the darkness of the house. I stared at him.
    “Nice going, you jerk.”
    “I have my reasons.”
    “How does she know your reasons? All she’s thinking about is your gut.”
    “What’s this new madness? Mario says you’re going to work for the old man.”
    “He’s crazy.”
    “I know that. But is it true?”
    “Of course it’s not true. What kind of an idiot do you take me for? I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”
    “Leave town, Henry. Leave before they trap you.”
    “Nobody traps me. I’m my own man.”
    “Henry,” he smiled patiently. “Please. I’ve heard all that bullshit before. Get out of here as fast as you can. Tonight. Leave now. I’ll drive you to the airport.”
    “Thanks, Virgil. I’m staying.”
    “The old man’s too old to lay stone. Tell him. Then get the hell out.”
    “If he wants to lay stone, let him. It’s his life.”
    “And it could be the end of his life.”
    “You want to talk to him, Virgil? You want to reason with that old bastard? He’s down at the Café Roma right now. Go on down there and talk it over.”
    He threw up his hands.
    “God, what a family!”
    He started the car and I stepped away and watched it move forward about thirty feet. Then it rolled back to where I stood. A foolish, helpless smile crinkled Virgil’s fat face.
    “Is the eggplant made with bread crumbs and Romano cheese?”
    “It sure is.”
    Resigned, he turned off the engine. Together we walked into the house.
    The kitchen. La cucina, the true mother country, this warm cave of the good witch deep in the desolate land of loneliness, with pots of sweet potions bubbling over the fire, a cavern of magic herbs, rosemary and thyme and sage and oregano, balm of lotus that brought sanity to lunatics, peace to the troubled, joy to the joyless, this small twenty-by-twenty world, the altar a kitchen range, the magic circle a checkered tablecloth where the children fed, the old children, lured back to their beginnings, the taste of mother’s milk still haunting their memories, fragrance in the nostrils, eyes brightening, the wicked world receding as the old mother witch sheltered her brood from the wolves outside.
    Beguiled and voracious Virgil filled his cheeks with gnocchi and eggplant and veal, and flooded them down his gullet with the fabulous grape of Joe Musso, spellbound, captivated,