466
PARTISAN REVIEW
idea. On the block behind my parents' house, there's a club for men, for men
from a particular town or region in Italy: six or seven tables, some on the
sidewalk beneath a garish red, green, and white sign; no women allowed or
welcome unless they're with men; and no women at all during the day when
the real business of the club - a game of cards for old men - is is progress.
Still, I know that inside the club would be coffee and a
cremolata
ice. I'm
thirty-eight, well-dressed, very respectable looking; I know what I want. I
also know I'm not supposed to enter that club. I enter anyway, asking the
teenage boy behind the counter firmly , in my most professional tones, for a
cremolata
ice. Dazzled, he complies immediately. The old men at the card
table have been staring at this scene, unable to place me exactly, though my
facial type is familiar. Finally, a few old men's hisses pierce the air. "Strega," I
hear as I leave, "mala strega," "witch ," or "brazen whore." I have been in
Bensonhurst less than a week, but I have managed
to
reproduce, on my final
day there for this visit, the conditions of my youth. Knowing the rules, I have
broken them. I shake hands with my discreetly rebellious past, still an out–
sider walking through the neighborhood, marked and insulted - though un–
likely to be shot.
