Chapter 5: Two Plates

On Sunday I did not go to Bensonhurst to apologise.

Aunt Lucia texted me nine times before noon, and I put the phone in a drawer.

I had slept six nights on the cot in the back of Dino's garage.

He had slept in the loft above the lumber and never once complained.

On Sunday morning I walked to the market on Van Brunt Street.

I came back with sausages, peppers and a tray of eggplant.

Then I set my mother's table in the middle of the floor and made dinner on two hotplates.

It was her braciole, from the recipe card with the grease stain in the corner.

By five the whole garage smelled of garlic and basil.

The old man who owned the building came in from the shop next door with sawdust in his white mustache and stood in the doorway sniffing.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Dinner."

"For who?"

"For two. Dino and me."

"I'm a hungry man."

"Then you can have a container," I said. "But we don't start until we're both at the table. That's the rule."

He looked at the two plates.

"Where's Dino?"

"Delivering a chair."

"It's five-forty."

"Then we wait," I said.

"In my day, you ate when the food was ready."

"Your day is over."

He laughed so hard he had to hold the door frame.

He stayed anyway and told me three stories about Dino at nineteen.

Each one ended with Dino being wrong about a miter joint.

At 6:20 the roll-up door rattled, and Dino walked in carrying a paper bag with both arms.

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