Journal of Italian Translation - Brooklyn College - Academic Home ...

110
Journal of Italian Translation
Fred took me aside. “You take care – right?” His eyes were
shiny.
“And don’t forget to look up and down before you cross the
ocean.” Fred was making a private joke; when we were kids, my
mother had warned me to look up and down before crossing the
street. I carried out my mother’s orders to the letter. I wouldn’t cross
until I had looked up and down – up to the sky and down to the
sidewalk. Fred handed me ten dollars. “Here – for your maiden
voyage. I thought of buying a bottle of champagne to break over
your head, but I figured you’d rather have the money.” I tried giving
it back. “Keep it,” he said. “We army rejects are gonna make a
fortune out of this war.” He embraced me hard, and I felt his wet
cheek against mine.
Pop’s good-bye was like a top sergeant’s drill order. “Strength
and courage! – Write every week! – Be a man!” It wasn’t until we
embraced that his voice broke. “Remember – we love you.”
My mother’s good-bye was amazingly unemotional, the same
three bursts of Neapolitan she always gave me whenever I was about
to leave her house for more than a day. They were like bursts of
machine-gun fire catching me across the back, and I would always
go through the charade of stumbling as though mortally wounded.
This time though, she let me have it as I went to embrace her. First
burst: “Mit-tit-too-ka-putt!” (Wear your coat!). It got me in the gut,
and I doubled over. Second burst: “Mas-teek-a-bone!” (Chew your
food well!). I stumbled toward her. Third burst: “Stah-tah-kort!”
(Be careful!). I fell into her arms. As we kissed, she slipped a small
medallion into my hand. “Wear this for me,” she whispered into
my ear. “Saint Michael will protect you.”
Gabrielle and I said our good-byes alone until early morning,
when she went to the Empire State Building and I went back to the
floating arsenal waiting for me in Red Hook.
(da Woody, Cisco, & Me, Cap. 4, pp. 33-38)