A Goomba's Guide to Life by Steven R. Schirripa

Author:Steven R. Schirripa [Schirripa, Steven R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-52893-3
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2010-06-22T16:00:00+00:00

THE GOOMBA FUNERAL

AFTER HIS WEDDING, the funeral is the other big event in the goomba’s life. It’s a big part of goomba culture—the other end of the social spectrum from the goomba wedding. Everyone comes. You see all the same people that you saw at your wedding, or your cousin’s wedding, or your uncle’s funeral. Weddings and funerals, that’s where everyone meets.

The typical goomba funeral is a huge event. Between the burial and the wake and the funeral home visits and all the rest, it goes on for days. And it’s a big deal for the wives, like a night out! A funeral in the middle of the week is a jackpot for the goomba wife. She gets to dress up, go out, see friends, gossip with her relatives, go to a restaurant, maybe have a few drinks—all in the middle of the week! It’s like a holiday. The goomba wives love it.

In my neighborhood, Scarpaci’s Funeral Home was where everyone got prepared for burial. The mob guys, the neighborhood guys, the goomba guys—everyone went to Scarpaci in Brooklyn.

The minute you hear someone is at Scarpaci, you start to prepare. People start asking each other, “When’s the funeral? Are you going early or late? You wanna eat after? Or before? Where should we eat? You wanna get a couple of drinks before? Or after? Should we meet at Scarpaci, or someplace else?” It’s a big event, and you want to do it right.

The rules are pretty strict. You wear black. You act sad. You go in to the funeral home, you sign the book to show you were there, you give a little a boost in an envelope, to help pay for the funeral, help out the family, show your respect. You say a few words to the grieving family.

Then you go eat!

Usually you go to the funeral home in the afternoon, and then you go eat. If it’s family or someone very close, you go back to the funeral home for a while. If it’s done in two rounds, there’s always a lot of discussion between this one and that one about how to schedule things. This aunt will call that aunt, and say, “Are you going to eat before or after? Where are you going to eat? Who are you eating with?” Depending on the answer, the two aunts will decide to eat first and go to the funeral home after. Or the other way around. That way, everyone gets together and has a nice afternoon or evening, interrupted, of course, by the sad event of the funeral.

Some people, they’re almost professionals. They go to both because they got no life—and because they like funerals. There’s a character on The Sopranos even, who’s called “2 to 5, 7 to 9” because she always goes to both. There was a girl from my neighborhood, we called her Fat Pat. She was sort of lonely and she never had a boyfriend, and she started going to funerals. You’d see her at every single funeral.

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