Joe’s idea, it was. Joe, five-and-twenty and more American than any of them, had seen the writing on the wall, had argued, prevailed, and proven himself right. Mr. Ginotta had not stood prosperity. He was afraid of the new floor, to begin with. It was too slick, dangerous for a man of his age and bulk; and to look out of his kitchen, that kitchen into which he no longer dared bring his stained apron, upon a room once crowded with his friends and noisy and cheerful with eating and smells of food…
But all that was changed now. The very waiters themselves he did not know, and the food they bore back and forth was not food; and the noise was now a turgid pandemonium of saxophones and drums and, riding above it like distracted birds, a shrill and metallic laughter of women, ceaseless and without joy; and the smells a blending of tobacco and alcohol and unchaste scent. And from the kitchen there came no longer any odor of cooking at all: even his range was gone, replaced by an oil stove.
So he died, fairly full of years and with more money to his name in the bank than most Italian princes have. Mrs. Ginotta had the flu at the same time. It had settled in her ears and as time passed she became quite deaf; and because of the fact that her old friends now went elsewhere to dine and the people who came now arrived quite late, after she was in bed mostly, and her old man was dead and her sons were such Americans now, busy and rich and taciturn, and because the strange waiters frightened her a little, the old lady had got out of the habit of talking at all.
She prepared food for her sons on the new stove of which she was afraid, but they were in and out so much it was hard to anticipate their mealtimes; and her eyes being no longer good enough for sewing, she spent her time puttering about their living quarters overhead or in a corner of the kitchen where she would be out of the way, preparing vegetables and such — things that didn’t require keenness of sight or attention.
The room itself she would not enter, though from her accustomed corner in the kitchen she could on occasion watch the boneless sophistication of the saxophone player and the drummer’s flapping elbows, and years ago she had heard the noise they made.
But that was long ago and she had forgotten it, and now she accepted their antics as she accepted the other changes, associating no sound with them at all. Joe had several automobiles now: big noticeable ones, and he used to try to persuade her to ride in them. But she refused stubbornly always, though it was a matter of neighborhood comment, how good the Ginotta boys were to the old lady.
But Joe, with his shrewd taciturn face and his thinning hair and his shirt of heavy striped silk smoothly taut across his tight embryonic paunch — Joe, standing with his head-waiter at the desk, paused in his occupation to glance down that room with its every modern fixture, its tiled floor and lights and mirrors, with commendable pride.
With the quiet joy of ownership his gaze followed its mirrored diminishing tunnel and passed on to the discreetly curtained entrance beneath that electric sign, that ultimate accolade of Americanization, flashing his name in golden letters in rain or mist or against the remote insane stars themselves; and to his brother slanting his damaged hat defiantly, turning in beneath it.
Joe held his sheaf of banknotes in one hand and his poised wetted finger over it and watched Pete traverse the mirrored length of the room.
“Where in hell you been?” he demanded.
“To the country,” Pete answered shortly. “Anything to eat?”
“Eat, hell,” his brother exclaimed. “Here I’ve had to pay a man two days just because you were off helling around somewheres. And now you come in talking about something to eat. Here—” he put aside his sheaf of money and from a drawer he took a pack of small slips of paper and ran through them. The headwaiter counted money undisturbed, methodically.
“I promised this stuff to her by noon. You get busy and run it out there — here’s the address — and no more foolishness, see? Eat, hell.” But Pete had brushed past the other without even pausing. His brother followed him. “You get right at it, you hear?” He raised his voice. “You think you can walk out of here and stay as long as you want, huh? You think you can come strolling back after a week, huh? You think you own this place?”
The old lady was waiting inside the kitchen. She didn’t hardly talk at all any more: only made sounds, wet sounds of satisfaction and alarm; and she saw her older son’s face and she made these sounds now, looking from one to the other but not offering to touch them. Pete entered the room and his brother stopped at the door, and the old lady shuffled across to the stove and fetched Pete a plate of warmed-over spaghetti and fish and set it before him at a zinc-covered table. His brother stood in the door and glared at him.
“Get up from there, now, like I told you. Come on, come on, you can eat when you get back.”
But the old lady bustled around, getting between them with the stubborn barrier of her deafness, and her alarmed sounds rose again, then fell and became a sort of meaningless crooning while she kept herself between them, pushing Pete’s plate nearer, patting his knife and fork into his hands. “Look out,” Pete said at last, pushing her hands away. Joe glared from the door, but he humored her, as he always did.
“Make it snappy,” he said gruffly, turning away. When he had gone the old lady returned to her chair and her discarded bowl of vegetables.
Pete ate hungrily. Sounds came back to him: a broom, and indistinguishable words, and then the street door opened and closed and above a swift tapping of heels he heard a woman’s voice. It spoke to his brother at the desk, but the brittle staccato came on without stopping, and as Pete raised his head the girl entered on her high cheap heels and an unbelievable length of pale stocking severed sharply by her skimpy dark frock. Within the small bright bell of her hat, her painted passionate face, and her tawdry shrillness was jointless and poised as a thin tree.
“Where you been?” she asked.
“Off with some women.” He resumed his meal.
“More than one?” she asked quickly, watching him.
“Yeh. Five or six. Reason it took me so long.”
“Oh,” she said. “You’re some little poppa, ain’t you?” He continued to eat and she came over beside him. “Whatcher so glum about? Somebody take your candy away from you?” She removed his hat. “Say, look at your hat.” She stared at it, then laid it on the table and sliding her hand into his thickly curling hair she tugged his face up, and his queer golden eyes. “Wipe your mouth off,” she said. But she kissed him anyway, and raised her head again.
“You better wipe it off now, sure enough,” she said with contemplation. She released his hair. “Well, I got to go.” And she turned, but paused again at the old lady’s chair and screamed at her in Italian. The old lady looked up, nodding her head, then bent over her beans again.
Pete finished his meal. He could still hear her shrill voice from the other room, and he lit a cigarette and strolled out. The old lady hadn’t been watching him, but as soon as he was gone, she got up and removed the plate and washed it and put it away, and then sat down again and picked up her bowl.
“Ready to go, huh?” his brother looked up from the desk. “Here’s the address. Snap it up, now: I told her I’d have it out there by noon.” The bulk of Joe’s business was outside, like this. He had a name for reliability of which he was proud. “Take the Studebaker,” he added.
“That old hack?” Pete paused, protesting, “I’ll take your Chrysler.”
“Damn if you will,” his brother rejoined, heating again. “Get on, now; take that Studebaker like I told you,” he said violently. “If you don’t like it, buy one of your own.”
“Ah, shut up.” Pete turned away. Within one of the booths, beyond a partly drawn curtain, he saw her facing the mirror, renewing the paint on her mouth. Beside her stood one of the waiters in his shirtsleeves, holding a mop. She made a swift signal with her hand to his reflection in the glass. He slanted his hat again, without replying.
She was an old hack, beside the fawn-and-nickel splendor of the new Chrysler, but she would go and she’d carry six or seven cases comfortably — the four cases he
