“Pace, Fratello,” that’s how they greeted each other, because they were brothers in faith, or, more than that, in the immigrant experience. Pace, Sorella, as well; Peace, Sister, for the nonnas and bisnonnas who left their bus shoes on the outside steps of their childrens’ homes after changing into mud boots to tend the gardens. They did this because it was early in the morning and everyone was asleep, and knocking, or a doorbell, might wake the grandchildren. At parties they’d toil and keep watch, for need, for more wine, more food, for dirty dishes. And during lulls they’d drift back to the kitchen and make more pies from the gardens’ frutti and verdure. On the rare occasion that they went out, they’d still be working, or play acting at it, habitually clearing the tables or adding food to still half-full plates. They looked very uncomfortable all dressed up, yet they never seemed unhappy in a crowd of relatives.

The men, the household royalty, in their clean white shirts or shiny suits, well, they’d be catered to, and mostly, learn to be oblivious of their privilege. In or out of the house, they’d regale each other with song and story, sharing little with the older women but the joy of being a family together. The gatherings were raucous, loud, and sometimes unforgiving. Many hurt feelings would be subjugated to the greater ambitions of togetherness. How many stress-related illnesses, how many tears alone behind closed doors…

They wished each other peace but gave each other a more common ribaldry, at least for the evening, before saying arrivaderci and returning their yearnings to the heavens. Peace may not be realistic but it is aspirational. Love may not be attainable but for inspiration, but it is real nonetheless, and on display at these great little gatherings. Stop in at a home like this at Christmas, or a restaurant table like this on a beloved uncle’s birthday. See what looking for common ground; what showing up with an open heart can do.

They put so much time and effort into each other. Perhaps that’s why they wished each other peace, They needed a break from all the work needed to produce a happy family.

–Danny Grosso

 

From Chicago Gothic (2007). Artwork and text copyright Danny Grosso.

Continuing the expeditions of Jeff MacNelly, James Kilpatrick, and Eugene McCarthy, with apologies.

The Ghoul

Abiding, rather than living, in the epochs of geopolitical time, the enigmatic Ghoul is a recurring visitor to the Bestiary. Incited in periods of realpolitik, the creature rears its bespectacled head and lowers expectations in capitals all over the globe. Need to sidetrack some badly needed reform? Subpoena a Ghoul to testify before committee. Want to douse the spark of a people’s revolution? Post a Ghoul to that far-flung embassy. Trained in the dark arts of emotional distance (Ivy League) and invisible control (Langley), the creature is well suited to its tasks, in which it revels, quietly. The Ghoul, congenitally reticent and, at times, attention averse to the point of invisibility, can sometimes be easily spotted in the wild. Its recent habitats include the House GOP Caucus rooms, the international terminal at Reagan National, and the U.S. Embassy in Hong Kong.

-Danny Grosso

It’s the light this time of year. Misty, maybe primeval, and full of foreboding. There is the sense that, as the mist settles, it is reborn in the new saplings that share its fragile tint. Or is that just the light this time of year, bepaling everything in its veil?

Things falling, things springing up; all in the fresh cool of the season’s mornings, and in the teals and sky blues that burst through the bogs. The light this time of year creates specters: rainbows that appear and vanish, clouds that descend into the pavements. Bad craziness, you think; foolishness, you say. You amble through the light as if it is all emptiness, just another void to disregard. Keep your head down, you say.

And then, out of the mist, through the new palm fronds, an angel rises…

–Danny Grosso

You said once that you wished you could hush the city for good, and I think you and your dust have done it this time. But, your dust has affected the inhabitants as well, given them strange powers or robbed them of passion. They amble along, alone mostly, unable to remember what they’ve been destined to do…

 

From Chicago Gothic (2007). Artwork and text copyright Danny Grosso.

Frost on the end of his nose. It was freezing out there. People walked by stiff-necked as if already done in by the weather. Zombies from the shoulders up. Eyes glazed, joints set in the cold. Hands in gloves in pockets.

There is little sound in extreme cold. The hush is punctuated by the percussion of hard soles on hard pavement. A thousand drumstick rim strikes.

He’s bundled up as best he can, and he’s keeping his eyelids low – he knows where he’s going, and he’s gonna get there fast. There’ll be that moment when he enters the Monodnock Building two blocks up when he has to stop in his tracks and shake the cold off for a second or two, and then he’ll warm himself by bounding up the stairs.

Envelope awaits. He will be done after this pickup, at least until tonight, but at least he can wait for that call at home, or in in some warm place where the coffee is hot and the frost is on the outside. For now he’s at an open corner next to a plaza with no shield from the wind, and the cold goes right through his leather and the three layers beneath, piercing the skin and burrowing in, releasing itself out his back, surprising him with its ruthlessness.

He is the product of a rough neighborhood, so this only reminds him that if someone really wants to get him, he can be gotten. His vulnerability is constant in a big, cold world. He puts his head down and gets moving.

 

-Danny Grosso

Rain on me, I can take it. Drop your barometric burden, your overindulgence, your tears over me. I will dance between the raindrops while I can, umbrella deflect if I must, and in the end, stand out in it, awashed, but unchanged, renewed but unrepentant. I cannot go where you want me to, unless you want me to go where I am going. I will continue on, rain or shine, and dance my way home.

–Danny Grosso

You are not doing it right if it does not hurt. One wonders if the Romans said that to each other as they prepared the crowns and taunted their prisoners with the horrors of non-lethal torture. The phrase carries two meanings. It is good counsel for a couple seeking financial advice on the amount of income they should stash away as savings. Yet, the same phrase is an ominous warning for those on the weak side of a power dynamic when their opposites are lacing up the jackboots.

Passion attracts and repels. Crowds that cannot look away are repulsed by what they see. The passionate are victims of their own zeal as impulse leads them into danger. Yet they cannot revert, they cannot abstain. For them, for many, passion is the essence of being alive – the stuff without which one can find no reason to stay among the broken, the hopeless. Passion, even The Passion of biblical lore, redeems.

She stretched her arms into her coat and moved into the sunlight. “I’ll walk a little faster today.” she thought. Soon enough, she began to run.

-Danny Grosso 

He carried the realm of possibility with him, on his back, a once burdensome but now comfortable cargo that helped keep his feet on the ground. His youthful prospective was optimistic, but in time, optimism is tempered in the furnace that is a city in summer, and now the realm embraced a future full of good and bad events, and that was ok, that was life.

They called the tavern the What If, and when they played ball that first summer “The What If’s” was emblazoned on the their jersey fronts in electric blue. Lucky said he’d named the place perfectly, because prospecting was the only reason anybody ever went into a bar. He loved that the team had usurped the name; he thought so little their prospects that he surmised the only way to move was up. “The great ‘What If’s’…” Lucky would say in his neighborhood accent as they came into the door for their free round after a beating. “What if they ever amount to something someday! That’ll be somethin’!”

–Danny Grosso

The old neighborhood playgrounds were caged, though the fencing kept nobody out, or in. Similar chain-link barriers were everywhere, separating neighbors and keeping jumpers from bridges, but the high fenced, boxed-in asphalt courts really resonated with sportswriters looking for urban grit. They labeled the young basketballers playing within  “Cagers”.

He had spent most of his life leaning against the chain link waiting for his turn in pick-up games they played for money. Two or three guys were regulars on his team, the others they’d pick up on the court. There were always guys hanging around, even on the weekdays, when you’d think everyone was on a curb and gutter crew. Connections were made, and if it worked out, you might have a guy for a bag drop later, or even a short-center for your softball team, which was a big deal, since ten guys a side for slow pitch was not always an easy corral.

There were no nets on any of the hoops, the school or park property directors were wary of theft, and there were always some misdemeanors being committed during the games. But excepting the property directors, crime was not a concern. Offenses like gambling, and possession, and drinking, and dealing in the cages were not prosecuted, and there were few patrol cars in the neighborhood anyway. Everyone knew each other, or vouched for newcomers, and besides, the neighborhood policed itself, just as the hoopers called their own fouls during the games.

His softball team was called the Chi-Dons, a mash up of the city name and an Italianate, 50’s sounding motif he’d seen used by doo-wop groups. The name had stuck for a few years after prior monikers – Boozers, Beginners, and Dead Enders had lost favor. He had a green and gold jersey, with the team name screened on, wrapped around his neck as one game finished and he led his hoops team to the court to play the next. As he walked away, the impression of the chain-link marked his back – he’d been leaning shirtless against it for some time; it was what he did, what they all did, from the time they were kids.  He’d do the same thing tomorrow and next month and probably next year. You could tell the lot of them from a different crowd by the chain-link pattern marking their backs.

One wonders if the mark was permanent.

-Danny Grosso

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