LITMIR.BIZ

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love me, Charlie. Most of them have known me since I was a young girl. Many went to grammar school and high school with me. They know that I lost my parents when I was a child and I guess they all see me as a bit vulnerable emotionally. I guess in some ways I am, but I am also strong in ways they don’t really understand. I am what you might call resilient, Charlie. I can bounce back pretty quick and I have learned over the years to deal with disappointment and not to idealize people. But my friends protect me anyway, and I love them for their concern.”

      “Well, so far every one of them that I have met has been a really nice, unpretentious and open person. You pick your friends well, Gina.”

      “I think so, and I’m glad you like them. They have all said they like you.”

      After dinner at the bistro where they swapped stories about their respective weeks, they left for the jazz cellar. It was a typical jazz place. You walked down a flight of stairs where tables were bunched up around a makeshift stage area. A single spotlight in the ceiling illuminated a trio. A piano, an acoustic bass, and a drum set played sets of old jazz standards. It was the kind of melodic jazz that Charlie liked. Moreover, it was romantic. The dark cellar and easy listening jazz was about as good as it gets when you are with a beautiful woman. The waiter showed them to a quiet table where they were a little separated from the other patrons and away from the trio so they were able to talk without talking over the music. It looked to Charlie like the best table in the house.

      Again, Charlie was amazed at how beautiful women always seem to get the best without even having to ask. They ordered drinks – scotch on the rocks for Charlie and a manhattan with two cherries for Gina. When the drinks arrived Gina said, “They make a wicked manhattan here, Charlie, have a taste.” Charlie sipped the manhattan and it was perfect – not too sweet, not too dry. “I really don’t like manhattans that much, Charlie, I’m crazy about cherries,” Gina laughed.

      They clinked their glasses together and before Charlie could say anything Gina said, “To the horny wives of Shoreville – they sure as hell know what they’re missing!” She broke out into a laugh.

      Charlie laughed with her and said, “Gina, that’s the first time I’ve heard a profane word from you since I’ve known you.”

      “Surprised Charlie Mullins? I’m not Little-Bo-Peep you know. I can hold my own with the best of them. I’m a Philly broad, remember?” and she laughed again.

      She reached over and unbuttoned his first button on his shirt, “Look at you, all buttoned up like an executive! Let’s open that shirt and relax a bit.” That solved Charlie’s problem about whether to button or unbutton the first one. He thought he would blow up when Gina unbuttoned his shirt and the temptation just to rip it completely off seized him.

      Gina was in a really light mood and Charlie had never seen her so relaxed. She was completely at ease with him and he felt like he owned the entire world. The trio did a jazz rendition of “Stairway to the Stars” followed by “Stardust”, two of Charlie’s favorites and he noticed that Gina would close her eyes for a few seconds and savor the music. She was in a romantic mood and so was Charlie.

      “It’s nice here, no Charlie? So relaxed.”

      “You bet. I love this kind of music and the place. Not many places like this in Shoreville and I enjoy jazz trios. I remember when I was a kid and we would go to Atlantic City – before the casinos. There were always some guys on the beach or the boardwalk playing music. They’d have a set of conga drums and an acoustic guitar. Once in a while there would be a singer there too. I used to love to just stand there and listen.”

      Gina reached across the table and squeezed Charlie’s hand. “I think you’re a great guy Charlie Mullins.” She didn’t remove her hand and Charlie covered hers with his other hand.

      They sat in silence for a few minutes and Charlie, emboldened by her gesture and the romantic environment, said, “Gina, I think all the time about you. I can’t wait to get up here to see you. If I could I would be around you all the time. I feel like a kid when we are together. Even if our relationship never goes beyond friendship, I want you to know that I would never, ever do anything that I thought would hurt you. You’re special to me, Gina, more special than you are even to your wonderful friends.”

      “I’m sure our relationship is going to take us beyond friendship, Charlie. I haven’t known you long, but I think I am a pretty good judge of people. I trust you Charlie. I think I know what you value and what you don’t. You really believe the things you say and you live them. I admire that and I have looked for it in the people I have met and generally found it lacking. In a word I guess I am saying you have character, Charlie. And character to me is more important than money, than advancing in this world, even more than my friends. I drop anyone from my circle of friends who does not have character. I would never be able to love someone who did not have character. And I don’t believe character means following a bunch of rules imposed by society. Character arises from loyalty. Loyalty first to one’s family, to friends, and most of all to oneself. A person with character keeps his word. I grew up in South Philly around a lot of poor people. Many, like my uncle, were Sicilian immigrants who spoke practically no English. I went to school with their kids. Some of them stole to feed their families. They cheated the bosses that hired them at sub-human wages. Some of them ran numbers. Some were enforcers for the Black Hand. They had to survive and they did so the best way they could. I would never judge them.”

      “I know what you mean, Gina. My great-grandparents came from Western Ireland. Their land was taken over by Irish landlords to raise horses. The family was part of a deliberate effort by the Irish elite to “export” their own people. They called it ‘landlord assisted emigration’. You were assisted by the local sheriff who tore down your cottage and the goons of the landlord who marched you down to a boat at the point of a shotgun. At the dock you signed on to work in America. The company hiring you covered the cost of passage which they would deduct from your meager wages once over here. It was a lot cheaper than having to feed the people when the potato famine struck. Some people were so starved they even ate the same grass the landlord’s horses grazed on. I guess the landlords didn’t want to share even that grass. Those that couldn’t leave were put into forced labor and allowed to die. The English helped, of course, but they were largely content to let the Irish landlords kill their own. That’s the English way.”

      “I never knew much about the Irish, Charlie. That’s a horrible story.”

      “You should see the newspaper articles from the ‘London Times’ during the potato famine! One article was about a man on a works project. He was seen leaning on his shovel instead of digging up the field as he had been ordered. The reporter had cited him as an example of the lazy, good-for-nothing Irish. When someone went out to see why the man wasn’t working they discovered that he was dead! Dead, Gina! The guy died propped up on a shovel. Another article informed the world that the Irish were little more than primitive cannibals because a bunch of starving people attacked and ate parts of the corpse of a man who had drowned and his body washed up on shore. And every St. Patrick’s Day, the descendents of those unfortunate wretches go out and parade, yell ‘Erin Go Bragh’, and wear green in honor of their Irish ‘heritage’. They give money to the IRA in the ridiculous belief that they are somehow supporting the noble cause of Irish independence. The only thing Irish about me is my name, Gina. How can anyone proudly claim a cultural inheritance from a country that tried to kill them?”

      “Wow, Charlie. Ireland sounds like it suffered even more than Sicily that was invaded over and over by outsiders.”

      “Well, I don’t know much about the history of Sicily but I’m not sure one can compare levels of suffering. Suffering is personal. It’s like pain. Everyone has a certain threshold. One man’s suffering is another man’s absolute grief. There’s no way to put a number or a value on horror and suffering.”

      “I agree,” Gina said, “my grandparents came over from Sicily as displaced persons. They arrived here with about twenty-five dollars and everything else they owned in a small suitcase that each was allowed to bring along. My uncle was five years old when his parents brought him over from a war-ravaged Sicily. He spoke only

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