CHAPTER 21: GRAVESIDE LIFELINE
Vincent
I sat there utterly dazed after Brad left. The whole thing sure had the makings of some crazy dream — getting interviewed for a magazine story about our rock band and finding out Al was my father all in one shot. But every time I tried to tell myself it was a dream and I would wake up any minute, my right hand shoved my mother’s note back in my face to remind me that all of this was indeed real. Brad had given me the handwritten letter from my mother after he had successfully completed his mission and dropped his life-changing bomb on me.
I won’t rehash the whole letter, but in my mind my mother was now getting me back for wiping my ass all those times many years ago. Now it was my turn to clean up her dirty work — an 18-year lie to my brand new father and her former paramour that needed to die. She apologized many times in the letter for putting me in this position and even gave me the option of letting Al find out when the magazine story hit the shelves, but I knew what I had to do.
“Al,” I said, calling him on my cell phone. “It’s me Vin. I need to meet you right away.”
“I was planning to go to the Mohegan today,” he said, referring to a casino right over the Connecticut line.
“You shouldn’t gamble,” I said, trying to remind myself that I was now talking to my father for the first time. I was confident there was no chance I would slip and say “dad” at that point in time. It was all too surreal.
“No, Vin, you shouldn’t gamble,” Al said, “because you can’t handle it and can’t pay your debts. I gamble a set amount on blackjack that I know I can afford and if that money runs out, I don’t go back for more or steal from somebody so I can return to the table. Understand the difference?”
“Sure,” I said, cutting off the lesson and getting to my point. “Meet me at my father’s gravestone in one hour … or sooner if possible.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Al asked, clearly pissed off.
“You heard me. I have a major announcement to make that affects you, me and my father,” I said.
“Are you crazy?” he asked. “You better not be taking drugs, Vin. Don’t ruin your musical career before we even go on tour and start making real money.”
“I’m dead serious, Al,” I said. “I have a letter here from my mother. Meet me at my father’s gravestone if you want to find out what it says.”
“What? You better not be bullshitting me about this,” Al said. “Where’s your mother? Let me talk to her.”
“She took off,” I said.
“Took off where?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” I replied.
“I’ll meet you at the gravestone in 30 minutes,” Al finally said after several awkward seconds of silence.
I drove to Rose Hill Cemetery in North Providence, parked my truck and walked toward Frank Masoli’s modest gravestone under a huge weeping willow tree. The clouds were heavy on that overcast day and the late-winter wind still had plenty of bite. It had been several years since I had come to visit Frank, my dead uncle who unknowingly inspired the words to “Papa Was A Gravestone.” I reflected on the fact that the first single for Freeway & the Vin Numbers was now just a black flag on its own castle made of sand — one big lie that was finally going to be swept into the sea of truth.
I stooped down to look at the faded words and numbers that at one time had been all too clear to the overwhelmed, innocent eyes of my childhood: “Frank Edward Masoli, born January 11, 1971 - died March 24, 1992.” Then I thought about the words that didn’t get chiseled onto his gravestone. “This guy was married at 20 and dead at 21. Betrayed by his own brother and supposed wife.”
How could I not feel terrible for my former father, my new uncle? How could I not feel a tremendous level of disgust for my new father and my fuck-and-run mother? But honestly, at that moment, I didn’t feel much at all. The whole sordid saga was too much of a mind fuck to process. The one thing I was sure about was that I never wanted to sing “Papa Was A Gravestone” ever again. I even told Brad that later in our interview. How’s that for your rock band story? This new, up-and-coming band refuses to play its first single live. Good luck with that.
Al trudged toward me wearing his black mafia hat and black mafia trench coat. It crossed my mind that he didn’t look so tough anymore. I wondered how long it had been since he stopped by to visit his brother. I thought about how it could’ve been me lying six feet under right now if he and his goon had been successful in their attempt to take me out at the Halloween show. I feared that the father I so longed to have for so many years would, now that I found him, only be deserving of my hatred, not love. Could I forgive him? Could I forgive my mother? Could I look them in the eye at some point and not think about what they did to cause the death of Frank Edward Masoli? I was supposed to be the one who acted compulsively without thinking about the consequences, not them. It was all too much. They were young adults when all of this happened. Now their shit was being dumped on me as I entered adulthood. How would I handle it? Would this new reality fuck me up beyond repair? I hoped the combination of Saturn’s love and music would be enough to cure me, but on that day at least, I had my doubts.
Al came up and stood next to me as I continued to stoop in front of Frank’s grave. We were both silent at first, paying our respects before launching into the inevitable. Then I stood up and faced him. He struggled to look me in the eye.
“Give me the letter,” he said.
“She lied to you, everybody lied to me and Frank got the worst of it,” I said, looking right at him with zero fear and shoving the letter into his trigger hand.
He took it and braced himself for a moment before opening it. That gave me the second I needed to fire off a zinger that needed to be said.
“Maybe you and my mother should make your confessions to nana, too,” I quipped.
Al absorbed the jab silently and opened the letter. He quietly read every word and learned that I was his bastard child. Welcome to the “Secret’s Out Club,” dad.
There aren’t many things that can bring a mobster to his knees, but that letter beside the grave of his brutally betrayed dead younger brother did exactly that. All the buried guilt came rushing back to the surface and knocked Al over. He bent down beside Frank’s gravestone and wept into his left hand. I wondered if he had ever truly mourned his brother when he was younger. I was glad he reacted like that, because if he didn’t, I don’t think I could have ever began to consider him my father.
I let Al cry for a couple of minutes, but then I relented and put my hand on his shoulder. We had to start somewhere. He immediately grabbed my hand, stood up and gave me a bear hug.
“I’m so sorry Vin,” he said as he wept and continued to hold onto me tightly. “You deserve a better father than me. I’m an evil person. It should be me in that dirt right now, not Frank, not Frank. He was my little brother and I fucked him over like a piece of garbage. My own flesh and blood. What kind of person does that?”
The irony of the moment was not lost on me. I guess fucking over your family members runs in our family. I recalled Al screaming at me for stealing from nana, my own flesh and blood. Lying, stealing, adultery, betrayal, suicide — somehow we needed to stop that cycle and turn this family around. Whether I liked it or not, I knew I had to throw my new father a lifeline.
“You were an evil person,” I told him as he backed away, wiped the tears with his handkerchief and tried to look me in the eye. “That was a long time ago. We’ve got to find a way to let this go and move on. Today’s a new day. My mother finally told the truth. You’re finally dealing with what you did to your brother. I found my father. You found a son. Hopefully, we’ve all still got a lot of living to do. This is a second chance to make things better.”
Al looked at me like I was the pope himself. He was truly humbled that I had given him a slice of hope and left the door open to a father-son relationship. He hugged me again.
“You’re growing up before my eyes Vin,” Al said.
“Thank you for this. I swear I will make the most of this second chance.”
“Just don’t kill my mother,” I said.
He backed up, put his hands on my shoulders, then leaned forward and kissed my forehead.
“Vincent, I swear on my life I will never harm the mother of my only son and I will never harm you, I don’t care what lyrics you use,” he said with a smile. “You’re absolutely right. This is a new start for all of us.”
I smiled back.
“I’ll call my mother and tell her she doesn’t have to lam it anymore unless she really needs a vacation, which she probably does,” I said.
“I think we all do,” Al said, turning more serious again. “Vin, would you excuse me? I’d like to talk to my brother alone for a few minutes.”
I gave him a hug.
“I’ll call you later …,” I said before the tears interrupted me. “I’ll call you later, dad.”
We both started crying and I walked away so Al could make peace with my uncle.