THE MEATBALL MAN

It seemed every Sunday morning in Brooklyn was the same. It started about 11:30 am, and consisted of two visits. Something like the three ghosts of Ebenezer Scrooge, one at a time they came. The doorbell downstairs was pushed, shattering Mom’s concentration at the big pot, and Mom or Dad would return the ring from our third floor walkup. Calling from three flights down, Mike, our compadre, would climb the three flights after announcing himself.

Shaking hands with Dad, kissing Mom on the cheek, and patting my head then musing up my hair, Mike would reach for a fork, and dig deep into Mom’s meat pot, and extract like a surgeon, one of Mom’s meatballs!

With one motion, fork and meat sphere would be deposited. The meat was HOT, but every Sunday, down in one shot it would go, with even a wrinkle of Mike’s brow. I would stand there in awe, as this man did this amazing feat.

After Mike left, he would pass the baton to his dad, who was making HIS Sunday rounds! Once again, the downstairs doorbell would ring, and Mom would lean into her doorbell, to release the outer doors downstairs.

Slowly, Il Compadre would climb the steps. A big hulking man, with very little English and a heart as big as Italy, would fill the doorframe of our apartment, being greeted like a long lost friend, by all in the house at the time. The old man was a hard working Pennsylvania trackman, who was crippled on the job, but worked anyway. There was no compensation for people in those days.

Dad would go into the kitchen closet, reach up top and grab a bottle of whiskey and a shot glass, pour the old man a glass, and in one gulp, bye, bye, birdie!

These are memories that die, hard. They are not important in and of themselves, but they suggest the ethnic clannishness of a by-gone era, one of love and brotherhood in its commonality.



View my new post!
I decided to put my novel up as a preview! Please comment if you like. Go to: http://deliterature.blogspot.com/
This is the last chapter I will preview from my book, Chapter 3, Tolik's Odyssey.