Free The Italians at Cleat's Corner Store by Jo Riccioni Page B

against the bar. Polvere stood above him, legs wide and swaying as if balancing on a moving cart. ‘Primo, my boy. Good lad, good lad,’ the baker said, grabbing Lucio by the shoulder. ‘Barilo,’ he yelled, a cigarette dancing in the corner of his mouth and dusting his waistcoat with ash, ‘your lad’s here. Primo! Primo Carnera! Heavyweight champion of the world, eh?’ He pulled on Lucio’s head and attempted two quick feints to his jaw. The sudden exertion made the baker stagger: Lucio had to grab his arm and set him right again. His grandfather stirred at the scuffle.
    Lucio was used to the mistaken identities, the banter, the same old stories. He’d heard them all before. Every night’s conversation was new to the drunk. Sometimes, when the men were drinking his grandfather’s grappa, Raimondi Gold, he felt like he was the only one left remembering. He bent to haul Nonno Raimondi up and caught the familiar scent of him — piss and ash and yeasty clothes. He held his mouth shut as he jammed himself under the old man’s armpit in a practised manoeuvre. They danced for an instant, but when his grandfather got his balance, he pushed Lucio to arm’s length, keeping a hand on his neck for security.
    â€˜Look at him, Polve, would you? Eyes all over everything and a face like thunder.’ Nonno Raimondi reached for Lucio’s cheeks and squeezed them hard so that his lips popped open. ‘See that? That gap in his front teeth? He’s a gypsy. Wild and wily, like his mother … like his grandmother.’
    Lucio had heard this before too. On nights when the Gold made his grandfather sentimental, his grandmother had been half Romani; other times she was descended from mountain bandits who had lived in the caves. His mother told him not to believe everything Nonno Raimondi said, especially things intended to bait his father, who thought gypsies and brigands were the curse of the last century, part of the peasant culture that held Italy back. But sometimes Lucio liked to think there might be some truth in his grandfather’s claims. For on autumn mornings when they collected mushrooms on Collelungo and the scent of bonfires carried on the thin air, he heard his mother singing snatches of folksongs in the old mountain dialect.
    Nonno Raimondi sniffed and let go of Lucio’s cheeks. ‘I tell you, Polve,’ he said, trying to lay a finger along his nose to signal a great secret about to be revealed, ‘this is the one to watch. This Gufo, here. Not Primo.’
    â€˜Doesn’t say much for himself, though, does he?’ Polvere shouted as if Lucio was deaf as well as silent.
    â€˜The mouth that is shut …’ his grandfather began grandly, then trailed off, forgetting the proverb.
    â€˜â€¦ catches no flies?’ Polvere finished. ‘But it won’t get heard either.’
    â€˜By the saint’s tits, Polve! This boy can say more with one look than you have in a whole lifetime.’ But the baker had already rested his head on his arm, his eyes closed, and was dribbling on the bar.
    Outside, Nonno Raimondi tried to wedge a cigarette behind Lucio’s ear. ‘Don’t pay any mind to Polve, boy,’ he murmured. ‘When the Montelupinese talk, it’s their arseholes that move. That’s why they can’t tell a crap from a Caravaggio!’
    Lucio shuffled him towards Vicolo Giotto and stopped before the drain. His grandfather spread his legs stiffly and rocked, fighting with his fly. His piss, when it came, made a glistening arc against the wall. Lucio waited. There would be more. Nonno Raimondi sucked air through his teeth. ‘Porco Giuda! I’m dying.’
    He said the same thing every night, if he hadn’t already pissed himself. A draught was scuffing through the alley. Lucio could smell winter on it. He knew his mother would still be up. She never slept until they got