Nota bene

She wandered over to my desk and whispered, "You. You were the only one."

Writing is hard. I think I just gave away my whole story. In just the first line. I'm supposed to have set the stage, put the story in perspective, and stuff like that. But I do have a grabber (I hope) first line. She really said that.

To be quick about it: the year was 1961. I was in the 7th grade and the woman speaking those words was my English teacher. She was very old-fashioned in an era that was bringing change to the culture even in a backward Indiana town. She wore straight long skirts, a pin-tucked blouse, a light cardigan, and always pearls. She had a difficult time with what is now called "classroom management". The room was generally in chaos. I remember the names of many of my classmates,  particularly the older sister of my brother's girlfriend, whom I helped as much as I could, even letting her copy my homework, because I was fond of my brother and helping his girlfriend's sister helped him. Ok, that's boring, but it did work. They had a long relationship and are still friends.

She didn't fascinate me like Mr. Farkas did with his challenge to draw a triangle with 2 right angles. I spent hours on that one, but was limited by imagination. It can be done.

She wasn't flamboyant, like our music teacher, aka "Daddio Diaphragm", who started class each week by having one of the biggest boys in the class come and punch him in the gut, to demonstrate the strength of the diaphragm. He'd show the kid where to punch, the kid would hit him as hard as he could (and some of those boys hated him).  Daddio would then carry on as if nothing had happened, running us through exercises to strengthen our diaphragms.

Our English teacher did none of those attention getting things. She read to us, or assigned reading to us, and sat at her desk while kids threw spit balls and paper airplanes and practiced saying "goddam" under their breath. That was a very bad word in Indiana in the early 60's. By the end of the decade, many of the boys were in Vietnam, I suppose, learning other words and throwing other things.

I didn't care as long as I could be left alone. I was fond of her, and felt sorry for her impotence in the face of the snickers and hoots as she explained the homework, written on the board in her elegant handwriting, always headed by "N.B.", short for the Latin (she told us) Nota Bene, or note well. "Not a booger", the kids said. So maybe I wasn't surprised the day she came into class, about 10 in the morning, weaving more than a little, talking nonsense, drawing clumsy squiggles on the board. The teacher from next door came by presently, and told her to go to the office. I think; I don't remember exactly how she came to leave. Of course we never saw her again, and no explanation was given.

But on her way out, she stopped by my desk and leaned over. And whispered to me.

Been a long time coming

From the Neapolitan side of the family  

Not all of my heritage is Sicilian, despite what I may have said elsewhere. There are ancestors from Caserta, the town near Naples most famous for having the jail where Sophia Loren was kept. One of those relatives was my great-uncle Aldo, of whom I have written. Aldo was not Mafia, he was just mob. Italian, not Sicilian. One has to be Sicilian to be Mafia, although perhaps they have relaxed the standards. He operated out of Boston, robbing trains and bootlegging, regular stuff. He was the one who supplied his sister with the gun she used to shoot at her husband. She emptied it in his direction at fairly close range but missed. Six times. Maybe she didn't really want to kill him although I doubt that. I think she was unpracticed.

Finally Aldo did something (I never learned what) that got him thrown out of New England. He left his wife behind and went to Chicago where he thrived.  This was about the time our family moved from New York to Indiana so we got to know him better.  I know I somewhere told the story of Uncle Aldo arriving at our house with a beautiful woman. She had blonde hair, bright red lips and nails and a luscious fur coat. Almost as soon as they walked in the door there was a terrible fight. I didn't understand any of it and Italian children know enough to go to their rooms when the adults are fighting. At any rate, the fight would have been in Italian (actually Neapolitan dialect), and very loud. When it settled down, Aldo and the woman I thought was as lovely as a fairy princess were both gone. Quietly I asked my mother why they had left and she said they weren't hungry.

As I said, Aldo thrived in Chicago. His visits to our house were occasional and, with that one exception, without accompaniment. My father, for the most part, showed him great deference. For the most part. When Aldo brought a paper sack full of watches for us to pick from and keep, my father would not let us. Aldo said they fell off a truck. I thought my father was angry that Aldo hadn't run after the truck to tell the driver something fell off.

After dinner, Aldo and my dad would go in the family room to smoke and talk. Aldo liked to brag about what he had done. I liked to listen, quietly, on the other side of the door. One time he talked about managing a nightclub in Chicago. He was the third or fourth manager of the place; all the others had been quickly fired. As soon as he was hired, he noticed that the prior managers were skimming off the top. Of course they were, that was to be expected. Along with bribes to police and ward bosses. What surprised Aldo was the sheer amounts that were being taken. Some was to be expected but these guys were taking as much as they could. Thus they were discovered, thus they were fired. Or worse.

"Minchia", Aldo said, "they were taking it all." He described devising a system whereby he could take enough to enrich himself but not so much that it would attract attention. "You gotta take a little, leave a little. You can't take it all."

This fairly simple statement made an impression on me. My father was an absolutist. Nothing but the whole cake would do. Nothing but one's total best, nothing but a total conquest; nothing else was acceptable. My dad would never engage in illegal activities, but he did strive for total victory and total surrender from an opponent. In an argument, he would continue until he heard that he was right, totally right. If he did the lawn, he did the whole lawn, every blade. Every speck on the garage floor cleaned. Every report card filled with A's. Anything less than all was failure. It was the principle of the thing.

Hearing those words "You can't take it all" took the huge weight of his perfectionism off my shoulders. It was more than a strategy to not get caught, it was a relaxed philosophy of life. "Ya win some, ya lose some." And that's ok. I'm a perfectionist enough; it's great to have permission to leave a little. Not every weed pulled, not every game won, not every task completed. It's ok.

I always have problems with finishing my stories. I'm at that spot now. So I will stop. Might come back to do more editing.

Oh, you want to know what happened to Aldo. So do we. He disappeared several decades ago. The body was later found in the Chicago river. His wife claimed it and brought it back to New England.