South by Mario Fortunato

Author:Mario Fortunato [Fortunato, Mario]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2023-05-16T00:00:00+00:00

50. OUR MUTUAL FRIEND FRANK

At the end of April 1956, a year before the Lawyer was elected mayor, the town woke up to find itself overflowing with banners, posters, and leaflets enthusiastically lauding our mutual friend Frank, wishing him long life and prosperity, and also vowing him eternal gratitude. In the bar in the town’s main square, what seemed to be a program of civic events appeared, announcing—over the course of the following week—a series of activities and public celebrations to welcome the aforementioned mutual friend.

Among the many interpretations given to that unexpected frenzy of initiatives, the Notary was inclined to favor a political reading of events, thus offering proof both of his own acumen and of the southern Italian tendency to see conspiracies and intrigue just about everywhere. As it happens, our mutual friend Frank was none other than Signor Franco Rizzuto, who had emigrated to the United States in 1909 at the age of eighteen. Rizzuto had settled in Brooklyn, where he made his fortune in the food industry (he had owned a chain of butcher shops), remaining a bachelor and very attached to the family of his birth. Contradictory rumors abounded: some folk insisted he was very religious and particularly devoted to the Blessed Virgin, some would have him a ruthless member of the New York Mafia, and others saw no contradiction between the two things. Now an old man, Franco—who had evolved into Frank forty-seven years and a few million lire after his departure from the town—had decided to come back for a few weeks, to convince his nieces and nephews—for the most part unemployed and hard up—to join him in New York, where he would offer them a financially untroubled future in exchange for a little affection and company in his fast-approaching old age. And since he was coming back after almost half a century away and wanted to offer a tangible demonstration of the riches he had accrued, Frank Rizzuto had also made arrangements for a conspicuous donation to the town church, which was in need of a new roof and a general refurbishment. Hence the little posters and the banners welcoming and thanking him.

Nonetheless, Frank Rizzuto’s visit happened to be taking place twelve months before fresh municipal elections were due to be held—which explains why the Notary chose to give a political interpretation to the civic celebrations in honor of a fellow townsman who, returning to the place of his birth after so long away, had not concerned himself with the living conditions (mostly wretched) enjoyed by relatives, friends, and neighbors, but had first and foremost helped out the local parish—thereby furnishing an extraordinary argument in favor of, and offering a considerable number of dollars to, the political bloc headed up by Father Marcello and the Christian Democrats. As a result, the celebrations marking Frank Rizzuto’s arrival ended up splitting the townsfolk into two camps. Those who took part—and perhaps even managed to wrangle something small in the way of a cash handout,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.