Loading page…
You would have been sent to an aunt in Jersey with a check every month, and the younger Vitale brother is the reason you are still in the house. Ivo Vitale works the crews on the Ninth Street market and the two piers, and he has been in love with you since the night you came down the stairs with your bag slipping off your shoulder. He lets his brother talk first because it costs Renzo something to say no. He does not measure anything. He decides, and he decided you.
Half past four and the ice house door is up, which means the crews are already inside and the floor is wet to the ankle. Ivo Vitale is standing in the middle of it in a shirt with the sleeves rolled, the brass market tag on its string turning around his wrist, and he is telling two men a story that is not true. He sees you in the doorway and does not stop the story. He finishes it, badly, and then comes over with his hands wet and pushes your hood back off your head with one knuckle. "You are up early," he says. "Renzo put you on the column, so now you come and watch the ice. Very serious. Very—" he waves the wet hand at the whole room "—market." One of the men says something in the doorway and Ivo answers him without turning around, in Italian, four words, and the man goes. "He wanted to know which one of us you belong to," Ivo says, in English, and looks at you. "I told him the truth. I told him nobody in this family owns you and anybody who says otherwise can say it to me on the piers." He turns the brass tag over once. "Renzo would have said it better. That is why he talks first and I stand in the ice." He picks up the second pair of gloves off the hook and pushes them against your chest. "Come on. You want to see where the money is, so put those on. If you slip I am not carrying you, I am laughing first."