Black Rabbit and Other Stories Read Free

said, wiping her tears.
    Mike stared off into space.
    â€œDid you hear me?”
    â€œYes,” Mike said, distracted.
    â€œGo get your dark blue suit on. Visitors will be received after two o’clock.”
    Mike nodded. Dead. Dead. Just like that. One moment among the living, then death, then nothing. He took a final bite of pear and gathered up his napkin and scraps.
    At Friscolanti’s they were seated in the family section with a few other relatives. Joe’s wife, daughters, and sisters occupied chairs adjacent to the casket, all of them in black. Vince, Joe’s son, a small, neat young man, stood behind his mother, weeping.
    How awful to lose your father, thought Mike; especially when he happened to be a good man. His own father had died at the age of fifty, a hard death, enduring stomach cancer for a year before succumbing, venting invective on his family. No wonder Mike’s mother was the way she was. The man had dummied her, shaped her into something like himself. Mike was twenty then, engaged to Mufalda, but with no prospects. He recalled the black shroud that seemed to flutter around them. Nothing was right back then, and he hadn’t been able to seebeyond that dark fabric. Such was life in Racalmuto, their hometown in Sicily. He believed that coming to Canada had saved his life.
    Mike’s son Che Che showed up after a while without his wife Rena. The two never appeared in public together. She was a cross, dumpy little woman with big haunches. When Che Che first brought her around Mike was taken aback. He thought his son could have done better. Che Che wasn’t a brain surgeon but he was tall, hardworking. Probably like the old man in the bed, Mike thought. Anyway, he wouldn’t suffer from jealousy. Mufalda had been a looker when she was young—Mike’s jealousy had been tested on more than one occasion because of that. He wasn’t considered in her league, and perhaps he wasn’t, but he had been determined. And back then Mufalda had pitied him to some extent.
    Che Che wore a pale blue suit that looked inappropriate, insubstantial. His wife must have chosen it. Further, he had grown a goatee that made his face look long and sombre. Che Che stood almost two metres tall. He was a mule of a worker and provided well for his wife and three children.
    After he paid his respects to the Garzos, Che Che joined his parents.
    â€œSad, eh, cousin Joe?” Mike intoned.
    â€œWhat can you do? Ma, how are you?” He leaned down and kissed her cheeks.
    â€œI’m fine, son,” she said, peering at him. “That hair on your face is not you. Shave it off. A moustache, okay. But that stuff. Your father shaved his off. You didn’t notice?”
    Che Che’s eyes widened.
    â€œPa—”
    â€œShut up.”
    His son’s mouth clacked shut, but his eyes widened further.
    Mike felt like belting him. He wasn’t too big to be belted, that big salami.
    â€œChe Che, are you coming Sunday for
pranzo?
”
    â€œNo, Ma. I told you we were invited to Rena’s mother’s.”
    â€œWhen’s the last time you came, ah?”
    â€œLeave him alone,” said Mike laughing to himself. “He has responsibilities.”
    â€œWho asked you, you harelip?”
    They were interrupted by the appearance of Grace, Mike’s daughter. She was with her husband Lillo, a three-hundred-pound obstacle to Mike’s felicity. Grace had always been ample, but perhaps encouraged by her obese and gluttonous husband, she had let herself go. Mike grimaced whenever Lillo came around; he held his tongue to maintain peace, but in his view Lillo was a pathetic slob of a man. Pathologically lazy, he had been on Worker’s Compensation three years running for a variety of questionable ailments.
    â€œMind yourself,” Mufalda whispered.
    â€œWhat?” he said. He glanced at his son, standing there with his mouth agape. “What are you gawking