There was this girl called Gabrielle. What happened there?
When I spoke to her, which I had to do often, my voice spluttered, and my breath caught and lost itself.
Childhood
The altar boy. Yes, I was an altar boy.
“Joe, it’s so cold this morning. Will you be okay?” My mother is still in her nightgown. It is dark in the bedroom I share…
Lunch is served
The locker room, obviously designed for a Western palate, was shocked by the introduction of an avalanche of Southern Mediterranean pre-packaged food from home.
On the way home
On the way home, as usual, I hide under my mother’s large ankle-length coat for as long as I can. It engulfs us both in its woollen warmth. The only way to tell there are two humans inside this cavernous piece of clothing is if you look down where two pairs of shoes stick out.
Playing in the streets
The ground we played on was always the same. It existed on a sad patch of asphalt we called our street at Victoria Grove Brunswick. The patch we played on mostly ran between my house on the left side of Victoria Grove and Chris’s house on the right side of the road.
Off to work we go. My mother and I.
“Teresa, is this your boy?” A large lady in her late 30s bends down to take a piece of my cheek between thumb and forefinger,…
My big brother
Just imagine, for seven years, you are the sole consumer of your parent’s love and attention, plus the unconditional love of your grandparents. (And then I come along. What hope did he have?)
A dairy entry of childhood holidays
I am between 10 to 13 years old, a chubby, soft boy during my summer holidays. This time I’m in Gippsland, Victoria, on a dairy farm owned by the Cascone family who comes from the same small village in Sicily as my family. We’re Paesani.
Why do I remember the Bank Manager?
“Here”, is Mr Walter’s office. Blank walls, denuded desk, overly tiny chair struggling with Mr Walter’s heft. He is a plump man. As my mother would say later: “he must be eight months pregnant with a stomach like that. The baby would come out smelling of beer.”
Sound and fury, signifying nothing
Somewhere, I see him playing with his grandchildren, on a playground, or in a room full of toys. One of them is tearing off the head of a Marvel figurine.