Page 145 of Candy Hearts, Vol. 2

CHAPTER 2

NICO

It’s Tuesday afternoon, and I’m scraping years of built-up dirt off a carburetor.

I sort through the nuts and washers in the old tuna can until I find one I think will fit. The sunlight filters through the dirty window onto the newspapers covering my cheap kitchen table. It’s filthy like only a city can dirty things, that window. Exhaust and smoke, not just dust.

I covered this wobbly POS table with yesterday’s newspaper like Mama would have made me do at home in Maranello. I try to read it a little as I scrape, but much of the English is too advanced for me. Actually, I wasn’t allowed to bring car parts into the house; the only times I remember my mother cursing at my father was when he’d try to sneak his little projects inside. I chuckle at the memory, even though my heart aches.

It’s worth it. It’s all worth it. To care for my family, my sister, my nieces and nephews.

I haven’t hung up their pictures yet, but I should. It hurts too much, in this all-white place, like a skeleton. Bare walls. Bare windows. I look around again and sigh. I keep meaning to do something about it. But I meant to do something about it weeks ago, and still it stands as empty as a football stadium on Christmas. Football like in Italia, played with feet, not here, where they play with hands.

Scrape, scrape, scrape goes the sandpaper against the metal, an ugly sound, and I blow on the carburetor to get rid of the filings, scowling when most of it falls to the floor. It’s not silent here, but the noise is so mechanical. Cars going by. The hum of the fridge, the hiss of the radiator.

No nephews playing nascondino under the workbench in the shop—no nieces rolling marbles on the smooth concrete floor and losing them in the pit.

God, I miss them so much.

My new boss, Giacomo, his son comes to the garage after school sometimes, but all he wants to do is play on the computer. Giacomo seems not to mind only because the boy is practicing his arithmetic, making the little character jump on the correct answer. He’s pushing only letter keys, but the character jumps on the number, so I don’t know how that works. I tried to ask the boy, but he doesn’t speak much Italian. His mother, she’s American, and Giacomo works too much to teach his son. Someday, I promise myself, my son will speak Italian.

Not that it will be easy for me to have a son since my dick does not like women, but I’ll find a way. There are many children who need homes, and I would be a good papa.

My thoughts finally quiet as I finish up the carburetor and put it back into the box I snuck it home in. Giacomo doesn’t want to give me too much to do at first; he says I should be acclimating, learning English. I frown at the newspaper again, trying harder, but it’s too much. He must not remember what an empty place this full city can be. I need to work; I have nothing else. Nothing else that feels as right as a warm engine roaring to race down the road. I don’t even have a driver’s license here yet.

I hear the full noise of a French horn above me, and a smile floats onto my face, just like the notes coming through the floor. The musician is home. I think it’s the man; I sometimes hear the higher voice while the musician is playing, and I have seen the two of them together, coming and going. He has a nice smile: very white, straight teeth, like a movie star. Nice hair, also—gold, like Adonis. The skin of many men here is pale, and he is no exception, but I can hardly blame him with all the fog surrounding us. The locals, they even give it a name: Carl. Some days, it does not break until evening, even though this is not what I was told about California.

But that music? It is my sunshine. The warm sound of it wraps around me as I put my work away, packing parts and rags carefully into the old fruit box before I put on the lid, and then I sit, eyes closed, enjoying the lilt and the way the music wanders; the melody reminds me of an old dog with big ears sniffing around the yard for any dropped food.

I’m still imagining that when I hear footsteps in the hall outside my door and a whoosh as something slides under it. I open my eyes; it’s a white envelope. It doesn’t look like another ad for the disgusting “pizza” down the street, all grease and tiny, thick circles of meat pretending to be pepperoni.

I look down at my hands; they’re greasy too, black with carbon and dirt. I stare at the envelope. It looks like a … letter? But it has no name on the front? I can’t imagine who in the building I have so offended that they would write to me this way. Could it be from the management of the building, thinking I am not at home? But there was no knock. I stare at it again. I wish I could open it with my feet so I don’t have to take the time to wash these dirty mitts with the harsh soap required to get them clean enough to touch something white.

My horn player is doing scales now. He is so dedicated. He leaves his favorites for the end, opting instead to do the work first. I imagine, as I scrub away at the blackness under my fingernails, that as a boy, he never snuck a cookie from the kitchen. That’s right, he was that kind, I think as the whorls and lines of my fingertips become visible again. A good boy. He always takes his trash out too, not leaving it by the door like some do until the flies come. Finally, my skin is red, but spotless, and I wipe my hands on a clean part of my coveralls as I go back to the door. I break the seal on the letter and pull out the crisp, lined paper to read.

You probably don’t know who I am, but I live up on the fourth floor, and I’ve been wanting to introduce myself for weeks now.

I stop to get my Italian/English dictionary, looking up “probably,” “fourth,” and “introduce.” My high school English teacher mostly focused on kitchen vocabulary for some reason, which has not helped me here except to express some angry thoughts about that “pizza.” I did some practical tapes and practiced with my father before I left, but even that has only gotten me so far. Someone has noticed me here? It hasn’t seemed that way to me; I feel like a ghost, floating by the other tenants with barely a nod, afraid they’ll start a conversation where I can’t hold up on my end, sputtering like a faulty transmission. But maybe I have not been as alone as I thought. My eyes skip to the end: Sincerely, Greg.

Not only noticed, but by a man ?

This is serious now.

I’m new in San Francisco and I was wondering if you wanted to get coffee or go listen to some music or something. I’m up in 401 and I’m home most evenings. Just let me know if you’re interested.

After a little rummaging, I find some paper and a pencil to compose a message to my shy neighbor, hope swelling for the first time that my stay in America will be more than long days passed working by dirty windows in too much quiet.