Well, apologies. With my having not posted anything on this blog in so long, FACEBOOK has been the dominant exchange medium.
However, below is an essay I submitted recently to the Essex County Legacy Contest for 2015. Like the three before it, the story is the true one I fictionalized in the chapter by the same name in my novel, Bad News on the Doorstep.
"... a Quarter to Five" is also posted on FACEBOOK, on April 28, JOSEPHROCCOCERVASIO.
I hope you enjoy this journey back to 1959, ... and hope it will be ... a magic time for you. If so, share it with others.
“… A QUARTER TO FIVE”
Friday, May 15, 1959 was as clear and sunny as I could ever remember. The spring was in full bloom in Belleville, New Jersey, nestled in the folds of Essex County. A gentle wind chauffeured the scent of my mother’s dainty lilacs struggling amongst some weeds that signaled summer was not far behind. The warm early morning sun kissed and caressed my face as I walked up Belleville Avenue. PS Number Ten awaited the arrival of an eleven year old, who later that day would begin to learn about the beauty of each moment and the value of respect, tradition, and family.
Classes passed by quickly. When I shuffled slowly down the crumbled, worn asphalt driveway that afternoon into the backyard of my home, it was 4 PM. The sweet, yet pungent aroma of yeast was lapping at my nostrils like a calm wave from a faraway ocean. I was grateful we lived near that factory in Bloomfield.
After stacking my books on the dented aluminum milk box by our back door, I jumped onto the patio to stretch out on the rusty beach chair. Along with the tattered, torn, tasseled hammock, it represented our family’s total outdoor furniture package.
While resting in the chair, I was contemplating the start of junior league baseball and the addicting sound of a leather hard ball cracking against a brand new Adirondack bat, with Mickey Mantle’s name on it. I was alone in this precious moment.
The whistle from a Lackawanna commuter train ushered me back from my baseball sojourn. Then I rose up to call into the kitchen just above me. My mother’s home-made tomato sauce was simmering on her temperamental stove, and that mid-spring breeze had wafted it over my reclining body to tease my juvenile taste buds.
“Anybody home?” I yelled. “Hey, Ma, what’s for dinner?”
I was holding my breath as my mother’s blessed voice made the announcement I feared:
“Eggs in the gravy with peas. Uncle Pete dropped off some Giordano’s bread. If it’s not enough, we’ll order tomato pies with allege before I go to work.”
I hated sunny side up eggs in tomato sauce. But I detested even more that my mother, born Marietta Rose Frasso, from Fifth Street and Bloomfield Avenue in Newark, had to work the graveyard shift from midnight to 7 AM. This masterpiece of a “Depression Meal” served two purposes: cheap… and easy to make for my weary mom.
“What time is it, Ma?”
“Almost a quarter to five.”
It seemed school had just ended, but when you’re so immersed in your bliss, there is no dimension of time. While I could not explain this thought, at that moment, I knew it was true. What I did know, though, was that it was… “ almost a quarter to five”.
I leaned back again to close my eyes, enjoying the last morsels of my youthful reprieve, when I was startled by someone appearing at the foot of the chair. It was our garage tenant, ex-Navy fighter pilot, Aldo Mackie.
“Joseph, your dad home?”
“Not yet, Al.”
“No problem. Just tell him he’ll get the last rent check next Friday. I’m getting married next week, and it’s time to get rid of the cycle. My fiancé doesn’t want any part of it.”
“OK, Al,” was my tentative reaction.
I exhaled in relief. My grateful thought was, Thank God he wasn’t about to scold me for sitting on his motorcycle a thousand times over the last year, making goofy engine sounds and screeches as I fantasized riding on that chromed machine, sporting the imaginary leather jacket and motor cycle boots my father would never buy for me.
Al turned away to the garage to retrieve his motorcycle for the last time. But, he stopped suddenly. His back still to me, as if thinking what to do next, he quickly turned. “Hey, Joey, how ‘bout takin’ the last ride with me? Get some wind in your face. Nothing like it, kid. Maybe you’ll want to become a pilot like me some day… or own a Harley.”
My spirit soared. Other than my fantasy rides, naturally I’d never been on a motorcycle. I did always love speeding my Roadmaster bicycle around the neighborhood.
Wow, this one last ride with Al would be my first!
I was speechless.
“Well, I think I have your interest,” observed a smiling Al.
Is Al reading my mind? A euphoric feeling came over me. Oh, God, I really want to go, just this one time. But, I can’t surrender to this urge. My dad would never approve. Hey, wait, I thought, riding on a motorcycle isn’t a sin. I wouldn’t even have to confess it to Father Francis at St. Peter’s Church.
The silence was deafening. My heart was pounding, ready to explode in pure enthusiasm. The images in my mind were delectable—gliding up Belleville Avenue into Bloomfield on the back of that huge leather seat. Maybe even some of the eighth grade girls would see me… and even some high school guys!
I jumped up and out of the beach chair like I was going to race Al to the garage.
All at once I froze, taking that breath I needed to avoid fainting. My heart slowed down. Al wasn’t quite sure what juvenile emotion I was dealing with at that point. We were both perplexed.
The tempting urge that was about to choke me moments before seemed to dissipate, gently flowing away, out of my heart, to my chest, and past my throat like a cool stream on a hot day. As that daring spirit vacated my bosom, I felt empty, but at peace. My mother’s lilacs dominated my senses once more.
Without thinking, I calmly recited a sentence as if it were part of a symphony I had no control conducting: “It’s almost a quarter to five.”
“A quarter to five? What’s that mean, Joseph?” Al had been so swept up in my trance-like transition; he really was searching for an answer … from an eleven year old kid!
“Yea, I can’t go now. I can’t ride with you, Al.”
“OK?” The muscular and athletic veteran was in respectful anticipation of a punch line.
And then, still not looking at him, but rather the open garage and the lonely motorcycle, I uttered these fateful words: “It’s almost a quarter to five. I have to be ready to eat when my father gets home… at a quarter to five.”
“I understand,” he responded, as if I were his peer.
While Al was a Korean War pilot, my dad’s name was Rocky, and he was a Marine, having fought hand-to-hand with the enemy; he stormed the beaches in the South Pacific in World War II. Yea, he loved me more than anything and was my biggest fan, but “a quarter to five…” was his number one rule.
I glanced back at Al. Speechless and a bit embarrassed, I was almost hoping he would try to convince me otherwise. Thank God he did not.
“Alright, kid,” he responded, seemingly still processing my abrupt emotional boomerang. “Give my regards to your dad. And tell him, ‘Semper Fi’… just one more time.”
Al strutted to the garage, retrieved the motorcycle, and walked it out the backyard, giving me a final nod as he passed. He started it on Belleville Avenue, and it quickly rumbled to Frank Davis’ Shell Station on the corner, only fifty yards away.
I picked up my books and entered the house, shortly before my father arrived home. I was emotionally drained, but I was now safe in my mother’s kitchen. It was as if my conversation with Aldo Mackie never happened.
As my younger sister Donna and I wiggled into our chairs at the table, my father appeared at the kitchen door. My year old brother Alan was quiet in his baby high chair, pushing some cheese and Cheerios around. My father kissed us all, washed at the sink, and settled into his location at the head. My mother was cutting the hard-crusted Giordano bread. She already had on her blue work uniform. It was a quarter to five on Friday, May 15, 1959.
Everyone’s plate was empty by the time I requested to be excused. Dinner had taken more than an hour. Only my mother and father really cherished the meatless Friday dinner, with Giordano’s bread making for some delectable dish cleaning of the yoke and tomato sauce. My sister and I would have preferred some alternative menu, but we had at least honored our hard-working parents by leaving no trace of food.
The peace and quiet at the table was the same that had engulfed me when that thought of riding on Al’s cycle had evaporated on the patio. It was familiar and breath-taking. Reminded by that transcendent moment, I instinctively conveyed to my dad of Al’s plans of getting married and vacating the garage. He just nodded. We all slowly pushed away from the cluttered kitchen table. Mom went to the sink, Donna to her newest doll, and my father and I to the TV. He wanted to make sure it was working for the Friday night fights from St. Nick’s Arena. My little brother was still playing with the cheese and Cheerios.
Just after 6 PM the sound of sirens rang out. Unknown vehicles sped up Belleville Avenue toward Bloomfield.
“Multiple alarm fire,” suggested Rocky.
“Ambulance and Belleville cops!” I yelled from the front porch.
Curiosity pulled my father to the front of the house. He hurried out the door as I followed. We could see people running at the junction of Willet Street and Belleville Avenue.
“Dad, can we go take a look?” I asked.
Walking past Frank’s Shell Station to the top of the hill that divided Bloomfield from Belleville, we could see ambulance and police personnel two hundred yards up blanketing two bodies.
Faceless spectators walking away from the scene were uttering, “Two guys on a motorcycle!”
My dad froze. My whole body went numb. I reached for my dad’s muscular right arm.
“What’s what?” my father asked a stranger.
“Motorcycle must have hit a rock or somethin’. The two guys are gone. Frank Davis from the Shell Station and his buddy, Aldo Mackie.”
While he’d lost friends in the South Pacific, my father choked up. Frank Davis was also a Marine. What we all remembered most was his constant ridicule of motorcycle riding. He feared nothing … except that! Now it had killed him. His good friend, Al, had somehow convinced him to take the last ride.
My father and I returned home and broke the news to my mother. She was inspired to speak of how … “God is already talking to both men, welcoming them through his heavenly gates as they entered with thanksgiving and praise. He’s giving them his final and merciful judgment, but reminding them both how fond he is of them.”
My mom’s quoting of Holy Scripture didn’t surprise me or my dad. Her closest friends at work were Nora and Queenie, two black Christian girls from Alabama.
I never told my parents about that backyard conversation in May of 1959. I was too embarrassed to imply how close I had come to saying yes. After all, “I had to be home … at a quarter to five ... for dad.”
Forty-four years later, I finally shared this story with my childhood dentist, Doctor Michael DelTufo, who had befriended my dad after the sudden passing of my mom at forty-seven years old. He smiled, recalling both of them, and then, spun another quarter to five tale; this one about his twin uncles in World War II.
“Yea, I got a good one,” he related. “It says a lot about the way we all lived in this area, … ya know, Newark, Belleville, Bloomfield, Nutley, the Oranges.”
Doctor Mike began a long story about how one of his twin uncles saved the other on the battle fields of Normandy with a “quarter to five” whistle they had always used to announce when their father would be home for dinner. The Newark Star Ledger published it back during the War.
“Doc, better story than mine,” I admitted.
“Nah, they’re the same. Love, respect for family, values, tradition. That’s what saves lives, Joey. Things are different today though. We gotta tell these stories to the kids, so they get it.”
Frank’s Shell Station is no longer there. It’s been replaced by a car wash that I frequent every couple of weeks. When I step out of my automobile, I can’t avoid glancing into the backyard of my beloved childhood home. Regardless of the season, I smell my mother’s lilacs colliding with the yeast from a far-a-way factory; I hear the clickity-click and the whistle of a train; the heavenly scent of my mother’s sauce, waiting to join a couple of eggs, makes its way to my spirit; and … it always seems to be “a quarter to five”.
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