Chapter 1: A Normal Valentine's Day
Luigi Masciarelli thought of himself as a fortunate man. He was fortunate to be a card-carrying member of the coveted United Association Plumbers Local 13, having sat, ate, and slept three days and nights outside of the union business office for a number and an application to interview for a spot among the fifty out of five thousand. Like with many unions, entry was largely determined by who the applicant knows; he was fortunate to be Mario (III) Masciarelli's little brother, Joe Masciarelli's nephew, and Mario (I)'s grandson. He was fortunate to have survived the Great Recession and multiple layoffs over the course of his five-year indentured servitude to secure one of the journeyman positions available in his shop, Brooklyn Plumbing and Mechanical Works, Inc., as well as a decent hourly wage, benefits, and overtime. Even more rare for a New Yorker in his late twenties, Luigi co-owned his Bensonhurst brick house with his older brother, Mario. He resented paying the bi-annual property taxes and the ever-increasing Crap Ed monthly, but he was fortunate that there was no building superintendent to screw them out of the fixes that either he or Mario could do within a few hours. He owned the same pairs of blue jeans, long-sleeved button-downs or thermals, grey Carhart's, and New York Mets ball cap since just after high school, as he had not physically changed much, save for a developed dark-brown mustache and a long-limbed muscular build from years of lifting and setting metal pipes and machinery. Compared to the many New Yorkers shouldered with debt and a dead-end job, Luigi lived una bella vita.
The only thing that he did not have was the necessary New York City Master Plumber qualification, which he could not obtain for another year or two. The board and union were weary of giving the title to someone in their twenties and with only nine years of experience, even though it had occurred once or twice in recent history. Master Plumbers could request and execute plumbing project permits in the five boroughs; they also could take the civil servant's exam and, if they scored well, work for the city and expect the royal road to retirement. As for his brother, Mario, Uncle Sam had sent him on several tours to Iraq and Afghanistan and still owned him for another sixteen months, thus interrupting his mandatory seven-year consecutive work history. Despite having to spend another year in the journeyman's purgatory of clogged sinks and busted water or gas pipes, Luigi reminded himself to be thankful. It was a decent, albeit boring life. A boring life meant predictable, even if nothing important happened.
Well, almost nothing.
The tall, lanky plumber opened the glass door of the 'upscale' bodega. Thanks to the hipsters that had moved into Carroll Gardens and Williamsburg in the past decade, the bodega evolved from a hole-in-the-wall deli-cum-canned goods-pet-a-cat stop and shop to a heavenly experience complete with ivory walls and French café-inspired décor. Like most good guys from Brooklyn, Luigi believed some things were sacred – family, food, the Mets, and institutions like the bodega – in that order. A French café was not a bodega! But at least they kept the lazy orange tabby who normally laid content in the corner near the back of the store. Although he vehemently objected to the nomenclature, Luigi internally and grudgingly admitted that it had decent enough bagels, and the morning guy, Sami, always saved him one from the grubby hands of the eight o'clock rush. He had started coming to this bodega about four months prior. The first time, he was on his way to Gowanus to remove several used condoms stuffed down a seedy bar and grille's kitchen was the first of four consecutively disgusting jobs that would normally have left him in a bad mood for a solid day or two, had it not been for "The Sighting" that morning at the bodega. He began ordering the same thing – a coffee and a plain bagel with a schmeer – as the price of admission to the best five-minute show in Brooklyn. Luigi checked his watch to make sure that he was a few minutes early, as it was especially important today to be on time.
7:55 am.
"Yo, Lou, you're early!" called out Sami, who was setting out the bagels in the plastic baskets on the side of the ordering counter. "Just a sec' and I'll get your usual."
"Thanks, Sami," replied Luigi, first shoving his hands in the pockets of his black puffer jacket, then removing them nervously to flick imaginary dirt off the front. Despite the dirty nature of his profession, Luigi was fastidious about his appearance. Earning the nicknames "GQ," "Pretty boy Plumber," and more nastily, "El Maricón," by the guys at the shop, he always arrived to work with a pressed button-down shirt, clean cargo pants or jeans without holes, carefully trimmed mustache and nails, exfoliated skin, and light gel in his hair. This morning was no different, though he opted for a forest green turtleneck, designer blue jeans, and brown work boots.
He checked his watch again and shivered.
"Here's your regular and a bagel with a schmeer, Lou," Sami suddenly announced, smiling mischievously. Like a frightened animal, Luigi's blue eyes widened, and his body started to vibrate as if he were staying and running out at the same time.
Schrödinger's Plumber.
"Relax, Sbak Lou, I'm not telling anyone," replied Sami good-naturedly. "Oh, and this one's on the house."
Before Luigi could thank him for the gift, the glass door swung open to reveal a medium-framed young woman dressed in a yellow windbreaker, an orange and white long-sleeved tunic, and black yoga pants. She was carrying a black backpack with a large tennis racket stuffed in the large flap, the head and strings pointing outward. Her dark auburn hair was tied up in a messy bun and her freckled, olive-colored skin shined with drying sweat. Luigi felt his face get hot and flush; he dropped his gaze to her athletic legs in case she saw him.
Big mistake.
He hoped that neither Sami nor the girl could hear the faint whimper vibrate in his throat as his eyes zeroed in on the latter's heart-shaped ass. Luigi pretended that it was the first time – and not the fifty-seventh – that he had noticed that particular part of her anatomy.
Minchia, sono proprio un pervertito, he mentally castigated himself. Under normal circumstances, the plumber was a consummate gentleman when it came to women; he did not look or fantasize about them, even if they were beautiful by American or Italian standards. He swore off meeting and courting women three years prior, following an exceptionally bad double date that Mario and his girlfriend, Peach, had arranged. The woman – a cute ragazza from 73rd Street whom his brother had met on a job – understandably became annoyed after he failed to utter more than a n-nice-t-to-m-meet-y-you throughout the two-hour dinner at Fiorita's. To be fair, it was not entirely his fault; the pinnacle of the ragazza's intellectual curiosity was the latest episode of Survivor, a show that had never lured him from Modern Engineering or his MIT edX classes on robotics. Afterward, it was easy for him, as the nice Italian girls in Bensonhurst already all seemed to blur into the same carbon copies of Sophia Loren or Elena Santarelli – just Mario's type. Yet every time he saw the auburn-haired girl in Sami's bodega, he wanted to give into the stereotype and serenade her with cheesy gondola tunes or take her out for a cappuccino before spending the day and night in her apartment, boss and job be damned.
The thoughts of what type of pizza she would eat or what color her bedsheets might be were suddenly interrupted by a size eight women's shoe crushing his size ten plumber's boot. He yelped, sliding his foot away, the abrupt movement causing her to lose balance and domino back-first against his chest. Using lightning-fast reflexes honed by years of catching runaway pipes, Luigi wrapped his arms around her waist to stop her fall. Once she managed to arrange her feet underneath her frame, he gently let go, slender finger by finger.
The young woman turned to face him. "Oh, sorry, my bad. I didn't know you were behind me," she said in a slightly ashamed tone.
Luigi did not reply, instead staring at her intently. Forget the gondola barcarolle, he thought; how would he sing to one with an angel's voice? Go on; say something, otherwise she's gonna think you're a perv. He willed his mouth to open, but all he could manage was parted lips.
The girl frowned at the man's silence. New Yorkers were such an unfriendly and unforgiving bunch. "Uh, okay, sorry again," she half-growled. Asshole.
As she turned her back to Sami, who had been watching the scene with a combination of amusement and vicarious embarrassment, Luigi impulsively darted in front of her, nearly knocking her into the edge of the counter. "I-I'll p-pay for her order and m-mine, S-Sami," he stammered. The girl's mouth and fists, which had been curled in outrage, morphed into a shocked oval. Sami chuckled, as his client had apparently forgotten that his order was free, but nonetheless charged her order to him. As the plumber fished out the folded ten-dollar bill in his coat pocket, several pennies and a bunched-up paper napkin flew out in different directions, finally clattering to the floor a few seconds later. He blushed furiously as he presented the beat-up Hamilton to the middle-aged Yemeni who calmly entered the cash amount into the point of sale and handed change back to the younger man.
"Sorry, my fault," Luigi and the woman both said to each other at the same time.
The woman smiled a little, her round cheeks becoming pinker. "Er, thank you for breakfast."
Luigi's blush darkened from bright pink to crimson. "U-Uh, y-you're w-w-welcome. Y'know, a-a-ny t-t-ime. N-no worries."
She smiled again politely and said in a softer tone, "Well, maybe I should step on your shoes more often then. More bagels."
The mustachioed plumber laughed nervously. "I wouldn't feel it, y'know, in my boots." He then winced inwardly. Real smooth, Casanova.
She raised a dark auburn eyebrow at his last remark, then sighed. "Uh, yeah. Well, I need to get going now. Thanks again for the bagel. I guess I'll see you around?" As she turned to leave with her food, the tennis racket that had been haphazardly stuffed in the black backpack slipped out and jangled onto the linoleum floor. She extended her dainty hand to pick it up, but found it occupied with the bagel. Luigi bent down and carefully picked up the racket, rotating it in his hands to inspect it for damage. He then gestured with his left hand to turn around; the woman complied and pivoted so that her back was facing him. She watched over her right shoulder as he opened the zips of the largest flap and inserted the racket's head downward. Bringing each zip toward the handle and grip, his blue eyes met her brown ones and he smiled shily. She returned it briefly, then began to walk away, leaving him to gasp and extend his hand. Just as abruptly, the auburn-haired Venus turned to Luigi and called out at the door, "Thanks for saving my poor racket."
XXXX
Luigi leaned back heavily in the driver's seat of the silver company pickup truck; the bagel was stuffed halfway into his mouth. She actually spoke to me! Mamma mia! Granted, he managed to utter three or four sentences, but that was a start. It was better than h-hi or nothing at all. Plus, he saved her racket. Bonus points. Then the plumber frowned. Today was Valentine's Day and a Friday; in addition to an agonizing two-day wait to see her again, more than likely, she had a date with some blond yuppie from Manhattan or the Hamptons who thought he was 'roughing it' in dingy-ass Brooklyn. No, Luigi decided; she did not seem like the type. While her clothes were expensive – North Face, boutique yoga pants, Gucci backpack – she was down to earth. Still, the chances of her being alone on Valentine's Day were slim.
Unlike him. Hell, even Mario and Yoshi had dates tonight. Mario was doing something with Peach uptown later in the evening and Yoshi had mentioned taking his girl, Birdo, to some club or rave associated with Columbia. Yoshi and Birdo had invited him along, insisting that they could get him in despite not being a student, but he declined. Luigi already hated being the third wheel and sidekick's sidekick on the Mario and Peach Super Show. After work, he would no doubt return to his empty 17th Avenue brick house, eat Mario's three-day-old Kung Pao chicken, and make progress in his edX robotics course.
Like always, he was alone.
As he bit into the now soggy bagel, his iPhone rang; a quick glance showed the name "Sal Maldonado." The plumber groaned; it was time for work. He brought the phone to his ear and pressed the green key, quickly chewing a piece of bagel to answer.
"Yeah, boss, I'm on my way," Luigi said, gulping down a mouthful of bagel and cheese.
"No worries, Lou," replied the middle-aged man kindly. "I just wanted to give you a heads up that you're goin' to the Bowery ASAP. Once you're done, you can come back here and pick up your list."
Luigi's eyes darkened and his enthusiastic chewing slowed. "The Bowery?" he asked carefully. "Why there and why me? There are plenty of plumbers in Manhattan who they can call."
He could hear Sal sigh resignedly on the phone. "I know how you feel about goin' to the City, kid. But we got three apartments top-down with a bad leak, and they need someone there right now. Our nearest guys are in Harlem and Bushwick, and we don't want the fuckin' rats to get there and take work from Union boys. You won't be by yourself. Mario will meet you there. I'll text you the address. Look, you know the drill; be good to the Union, and it'll be good to you. I know you're lookin' to take the Master Plumber test in the next year or so."
Lou closed his eyes and laid his head against the steering wheel. "Yeah, okey-dokey, boss. I'll be there in twenty-five or so."
"Good man. Find out what the hell's goin' on and get back here." Two seconds later, the plumber heard the beep-beep signaling the end of the call. He took a calming breath and continued to lay against the steering wheel. His boss, Salvador Maldonado, a portly Sanjuanero in his fifties who had been his mentor for the past five years, was unusually accommodating of his reluctance to service jobs in Manhattan, instead assigning him jobs in Brooklyn, Queens, and even as far as Long Island. Normally, this would have stunted his career, as the important projects were eight times out of ten located in the City. However, Sal was a man who, over the course of nearly forty years, had acquired numerous connections and friends in high places and effectively used them to keep Lou Masciarelli's name in the pot as a top New York City journeyman. Thus, Luigi felt extra indebted to the man on the relatively rare occasions that he asked him to go to the City.
He lifted his head off the wheel and reached over to open the glove compartment. Atop the company registration, insurance, and paper maps of New York City from the 1990s lay a pack of Marlboros and a green lighter. He fished the cigarettes and lighter out, closed the compartment, and put them on the passenger seat. After taking another bite of the bagel and slowly sipping the now cold coffee that had been sitting in the cupholder, he felt the food and drink threatening to retreat from his stomach into his esophagus, and his heart began to hammer against his ribcage. He grabbed the square package in the passenger seat, slid out one of the cigarettes, and popped it between his lips. Setting the package down, Lou lit the end with his green lighter, breathing in the carcinogens and nicotine.
Breathe in; breathe out.
Luigi took another drag of his cigarette, lowered the driver-side window, buckled his seat belt, and started the truck's engine. He needed to leave quickly if he hoped to beat the non-union sewer rats as well as any eager members of the NYPD looking to issue a ticket for smoking in an unauthorized location. Pulling away from the curb onto Clinton Street, he reluctantly proceeded to drive in a northernly direction toward the Manhattan Bridge.
The red brick buildings, rows of trees, and narrow streets blurred together as he put himself on autopilot to the Bowery. He kept the burning poison stick between his index and middle fingers, bringing it to his lips from the steering wheel every so often. Since his semi-permanent stateside return in December 2009, Mario tried several times to hide, trash, or flush the ever-present package of cigarettes and plastic lighter that Luigi kept close, either in the glove compartment or the driver's side door of the company truck and his ruby-red 2010 Suzuki Swift. "Those things will kill ya," he said. In response, Luigi took to hiding the cigarettes in his tool belt or tucked in the waistband of his skinny jeans and boxers. He remembered one such occasion from two years prior. After Mario had made a Facegram video of flushing his new pack, cigarette by cigarette, down the bathroom toilet, the next morning, Luigi had gotten up at 4 am to visit the nearest bodega. At midday, while working on an especially cumbersome pipe fifteen stories above the streets of downtown Brooklyn, he smugly lifted his shirt, coat, and yellow vest and removed the Marlboro package from the waistband of his jeans. Giving Mario the one-finger salute and a cocky smile, he lit a cigarette with his blowtorch and took a five-minute victory smoke. Unfortunately, the foreman also learned of Luigi's stunt and nearly gave him a write-up for violating safety protocols. The look on Mario's face was, however, worth the ass-chewing by both the foreman and Sal, and his brother left his cigarettes unmolested for the next month and a half.
What would she think of his nasty habit?
While stopped at the red traffic light, Luigi opened the coffee in the holder, tossed the finished cigarette butt inside, and re-covered the now contaminated drink. That would likely be a problem as she had a very athletic figure. On the other hand, Luigi did not have a daily habit; he often went weeks without a smoke if he did not have to work in the City, in cramped spaces whose inhabitants consisted of spiders or three-foot-long rats, or anywhere near Fort Greene or Clinton Hill. The light turned green, and Luigi allowed his mind to go blank again. He barely registered driving onto the Manhattan Bridge, preferring to keep his eyes forward on the narrow road. He attempted to ignore the heavy spasms in his throat and chest, but his heart skipped a beat so suddenly that his hand jerked the steering wheel, causing the front of the truck to swerve and the traffic behind him to honk impatiently. Lou gripped the wheel with an iron grip and sweaty palms; he counted the remaining seconds that it took to cross the bridge and approach Chinatown and Little Italy. Roughly ten minutes later, he recognized the slim brick buildings of the Bowery and maneuvered the silver truck into a parallel park near the building. Thankfully, he did not need to circle the block which he almost always had to do in the morning. Luigi shut off the engine and closed his eyes, permitting a few tears and a quiet sob to escape. The young plumber inhaled deeply to control his nerves. Although he knew that he was breathing the smoggy New York air, Luigi's lungs contracted painfully as if he were drowning in the East River.
Get a hold of yourself; you got a job to do. You gotta get on with it like Mario does.
About thirty feet away, he spied his mustachioed elder brother who was standing akimbo, muscular arms crossed, staring down a couple of angry workmen ahead of him. Dressed in his usual crusty jeans, faded black long-sleeved shirt, stained red zip-up hoodie, and an old Mets baseball cap that covered his military-trimmed brown curls, Mario Masciarelli stood between the entrance way of the job and the two men whom Luigi assumed to be the non-union scum in question. Lou took another few quick breaths before unbuckling his seat belt and exiting the vehicle to join Mario.
All the while Luigi approached the group of three men, Mario did not remove his dark blue eyes from the "independent" plumbers before him. Once his younger brother was within a few feet from his side, Mario took a small shuffle forward, keeping his arms crossed. "Hey, bro, get a look at these fuckin' worms. They think they're gonna spin shit pipes into gold," he growled.
The six-foot-four blond plumber sneered back at the shorter Italian man. "Ah, finally, the number two of the Mario Brothers joins the party. Go fuck off to your union cocks and let us do our jobs," he retorted with a slight Slavic accent, grabbing his genitals to emphasize the point.
Luigi, who was standing directly behind his shorter brother, rolled his eyes at the insult. "Yo, Matusz, normally, I'd suggest you go buy a wheel and fuckin' hit yourself in the forehead a couple times, but you'd probably play chase with it instead." Mario chuckled at his younger brother's retort.
The other independent plumber, a brown-haired Hungarian named Ferenc, stepped forward. Even though he was significantly shorter than his colleague, he made up for it in muscle. "Ah, Princess Louisa, go back to hiding in Mario's trousers. Let the men talk."
Without changing his body positioning, Mario turned his head to Ferenc and spat in front of the Hungarian's boot. The four men stared each other down for a solid minute before Mario broke the silence and walked forward until he was toe-to-toe with Matusz, who towered over his five-foot-six heavy build. "Listen, asshole, we're not letting you in, period. This is a union job. If you want in, either pay your fucking dues or take your best shot right here. But I'll tell ya' right now: if you want to try your luck, you better fuckin' end it, 'cause I will."
Matusz laughed in Mario's face. "You're talking horseshit, Mario. We all know that you'd be too busy protecting Princess here. He can't fight when he's too worried about breaking a nail. It wouldn't be fair."
Luigi snickered in derision, having contended with numerous homophobic and misogynistic slurs from fellow plumbers since his apprenticeship. When he began his training at LaGuardia City College, his instructors and union reps were thrilled to have another good fella from Bensonhurst. They were the tough, old-school Italians and Irish who wore white string vests on Sundays and carried Louisville sluggers to enforce an unspoken code of respecting la famiglia who lived on the block as well as the one up or down from theirs. But about three months into the training, their excitement turned to disappointment and even to hostility. The newest Bensonhurst boy did not show up to jobs or class in dirty clothes or with an unkempt appearance, did not use profanity beyond what would be acceptable in a New York establishment, and did not join in sexually harassing the only two women in a class of twenty-five apprentices. On his lunch breaks, which he kept religiously, he read Les Misérables and Doctor Zhivago while eating a small salad or leftover trofie al pesto. His fellow good ol' boy plumbers, however, jawed on about the New York Jets and expanded their waistlines with hearty Italian subs or large slices of Sicilian pizza. More controversially, Lou adamantly refused to join in squabbles or fistfights between union and non-union guys or union picketers and the police. Not conforming to unwritten rules earned him several unkind nicknames and, on occasion, a punch or two. Yet like his father used to say, silence was just as, if not more, powerful as a man's fists. He audibly yawned, stretched his arms over his head as if he were warming up for a ballgame, and stepped forward to position himself next to Mario. "Come on, bro, we don't have time for this bullshit," he said calmly. "Let's show the customers the difference between Leonardo da Vinci and a septic tank."
The Polish plumber howled with amusement and bore his knuckles. "See, Ferenc, what did I tell ya? Louisa's got no balls. Lucky for you, Princess, Mario's here. Who knows what would happen if you were all alone?"
Before Ferenc could add more, Mario grabbed Matusz's brown Carhart coat lapels with both fists and lifted the large man six inches off the ground. As the stunned man flailed about, the elder brother roared, "If you even think about touching my brother, now or in the future, you Polish piece of shit, I will kill you. I will tear you apart with my bare hands and the parts will end up in a landfill out in Jersey. Capisci?" Mario let the man dangle for a moment before throwing him to the ground. He spun quickly toward Ferenc, who quickly backed up to give the irate Italian space. "And you, sewer rat, give Fat Tony a message for me: if I see youse screwing around here again, I'll personally make his life a nightmare. Now get outta here!"
"Go fuck yourself, goombah!" griped Matusz as he and Ferenc started to walk to their van to leave the site. Mario moved his right side forward in an offensive position and watched them with narrowed blue eyes as they got into a garish yellow van with "Tony's Plumbing and Heating" printed on its sides and hurriedly pulled away from the curb.
After they were a distance away, Mario relaxed his posture and pivoted on his left foot toward Luigi who was exhibiting a mixed gaze of disapproval and adulation. The elder plumber inhaled deeply, then put his arm around his younger brother, leaving his hand on the left shoulder as they walked inside the housing complex. Mario sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Bro, you know those things will kill ya."
XXXX
The job, or what Mario called "Fat Tony's 1,598th Fuck Up," took until mid-afternoon to finish. Other than a leak within faulty pipes made of the cheapest and most questionable materials on the market, they located several city gas pipes along the building that would inevitably explode. It was an open secret among New York electricians, pipe fitters, and plumbers that the five boroughs sat on a maze of early-twentieth-century era gas pipes that already had and would continue to burst. The thought of the ticking time bomb that politicians on both sides of the aisle studiously avoided made Mario sick to his stomach. After patching up the irredeemably piss-poor network of pipes in that equally poor excuse of an apartment complex, he handed the super a five-digit bill and arranged to return and replace the pipes later that month. He and Luigi then drove their individual vehicles back to Cobble Hill for a late lunch, as the latter became the grouchiest Italian in all of New York if he missed his midday meal.
Seated inside a red-brick burger joint, Mario watched his brother not-so-quietly slurp a black and white milkshake. The elder plumber enjoyed the silence, as he had endured five minutes of unadulterated Luigi Masciarelli vinegar and sass while they decided on and gave their order to the waitress. Normally, Luigi carried a Choco-Bar or one of those hippie-dippie fruit-and-nut bars in his tool belt to prevent the Green Demon from emerging; Mario reasoned that he must have forgotten due to being called out to his third or fourth least favorite place in the world. Once one o'clock came and went, Mario insisted on wrapping up what they could and escorting him to a more substantial lunch than those cutesy salad or noodle bowls that Luigi optimistically called a meal. He watched as Luigi rubbed his face of the perspiration and antagonism that had been building since noon, a physical sign that he was returning to the state of unflappable kid brother.
Mario smiled a little. "Feel better?" he asked.
Luigi nodded. "Yeah."
"Did you forget your granola bar?"
The younger brother shrugged. "Must've. I didn't finish my bagel, either."
Mario shook his head and wiped his mustache with his right hand. "You gotta eat, Weeg. You're already too thin as it is."
Luigi rolled his eyes and took another slurp of his milkshake. "I've been the same weight since I was sixteen."
"Exactly."
The brothers eyed each other, warning and then silently agreeing that some things were best left unsaid. Five more minutes of silence passed when the waitress brought them their lunch orders: a regular cheeseburger for Luigi and a double bacon cheeseburger with fries and a regular Coke for Mario. As Luigi bit into his medium rare-cooked meat and cheese, Mario reached for the ketchup bottle and shook it vigorously. He created a lake of the condiment on the burger, fried potatoes, and white restaurant plate. Once satisfied with the amount, he set the partially empty bottle on the table. Mario hummed happily as he popped a ketchup drenched fry into his mouth, licking his fingers.
Luigi blinked at the red mess in front of him. "Jesus, Mario. Can you even taste your food?"
"Hey, I'm a growin' boy! I need my veggies!" cried Mario in mock outrage. He took a large bite of his equally sizeable bacon cheeseburger. A glob of aioli and ketchup fell onto the plate.
"Yeah, since when did you start listening to the advice of five-hundred thirty-five stupid assholes?" asked Luigi, chewing his burger, cheese, and pickles.
"Since they counted pizza sauce as a vegetable," replied Mario.
Luigi grabbed a wad of paper napkins from the side of the table. "I don't think that should be a ringing endorsement of their collective intelligence."
His elder brother wordlessly smirked, popping a handful of ketchup-covered fries into his mouth, then stealing two of Luigi's napkins to wipe his fingers. Luigi inwardly gagged as he left a smear of ketchup on the remainder. "Hey, that's politics – use and discard the fuckers. They do it to us, so why not?" He knew that his brother could and would not argue that point, so he continued, "Ketchup is freedom; it was the closest that the fuckin' WASPs could get to sauce. You don't put sauce on fries or burgers to zhuzh it up, and BBQ sauce is what rednecks use. It's one of life's simple pleasures, especially in this fuckin' city with everyone workin' more to earn less and stay somehow afloat. So, they and you can try to pry the ketchup bottle from my cold, dead hands, grazie."
Luigi mouthed Mario's last words, having heard them uttered two hundred times in the past.
Mario shook his head, taking a bite of his ketchup drenched bacon cheeseburger. "You're full of piss today, Weeg. It's Valentine's Day, y'know. Chocolates, hearts, that kinda shit. The kinda shit that a twenty-eight-year-old skinny ragazz' should be doing."
The younger plumber raised an eyebrow while slurping the remnants of his milkshake. "And?"
"Well, Peaches and I were gonna go out, but if you're gonna be alone…."
"No!" interjected Luigi, causing Mario to blink in surprise. "I mean, no," he repeated in a quieter tone. "It's Valentine's Day – you need to take Peach out, otherwise you'll be in the doghouse again. I'll be okay. I-I got plenty to do. The coding project that I'm doing for the robotics class is taking a little longer than I expected. I'm still trying to learn the C++, and semi-colons are, frankly, bullshit."
Mario grimaced and popped a few soggy fries into his mouth and took another bite of the burger to avoid replying. Over the years, the tall, lanky man before him had attracted quite a bit of attention from men and women, though Mario was not sure if he was fully aware of it. Following his return from an ill-fated 2009 mission in Afghanistan, the elder brother tried to introduce him to Emilia, Paola, two Marias, and two Lauras. Mario had even offered, albeit subtly, to set him up with Peach's semi-closeted Turinese cousin, Enzo. Luigi gave him the silent treatment for a week. Mario finally gave up arranging double dates after he refused to say three words to the last girl, Lisa, and conveyed his lack of interest by looking at his phone the entire time. Luigi had always kept to himself, be it with his rector sets, robot toys, or books, but Mario was completely shaken by how inaccessible the former had become. His younger brother had a few friends from the Professor's "Brobot Club" – Yoshi, the Professor's kid, and Miles – and their nonna, aunts, uncles, and cousins who had moved to Staten Island and New Jersey in the early nineties following the Yusuf Hawkins murder, but he lived in self-imposed exile and solitude in their childhood home. In his absence, Mario had hoped that as a plumber's apprentice, Luigi would find friends, a girlfriend, and a good life, though he was honestly surprised that he had decided upon plumbing as a profession. It was not what their late father wanted for his beloved youngest child.
He unconsciously touched his right leg which was fitted with a top-of-the-line prosthesis below the knee. Luigi was not the only Masciarelli who knew loss; sometimes, he could still feel the flesh, bone, blood, and pain that he left in bits after a sniper's bullet severed his leg from the rest of his body. Fourteen months of surgeries and grueling post-amputee 'rehabilitation' in Bethesda, during which Luigi drove an eight-hour round trip to and from Bethesda almost every weekend to see him, narrowly resulted in avoiding a discharge from the Army. Nevertheless, they 'encouraged' him to serve his remaining few years of duty as a '18C Weekend Warrior' with the 20th Special Forces Group in Massachusetts. When he was not serving his monthly weekend in Springfield, he was redoing stupid assholes' so-called plumbing jobs, trying to persuade Peach to move in with him and Luigi, and watching the latter's back. Just like when they were kids and their father was out on several consecutive late night jobs that would turn into a forty-eight to seventy-two hour shift.
Mario watched with silent pleasure as Luigi gobbled the last of his cheeseburger. If he could not get Luigi a girl, he could at least make sure that he did not become anorexic. Mangia, picciriddu! he heard his Sicilian mother's voice echo. Once he was satisfied that Luigi had sufficiently eaten, Mario followed suit and finished his meal. The waitress then deposited the check on their table. Before Luigi could react, Mario slid the paper toward him and fished out his worn black leather wallet.
"What the hell are ya' doin'?" demanded Luigi. "You picked up the check last time."
Mario laughed. "You snooze, you lose, bro."
"I can pick up the check once! I'm not poor, bro," the younger plumber insisted.
"Fratellino, I had to sit and listen to your pissin' and moanin' for five minutes. I can't tolerate another five."
Luigi rolled his eyes and pulled his hands close to his body, pinching his fingers like pinecones in the Che vuoi.
Mario raised his brown eyebrow at his brother's hand gesture and countered by turning his palms to the ceiling and cupping them as though he were balancing two heavy objects – uffa che palle !
The brothers smirked at the little ritual that they observed at mealtimes since they were children. As they each found out by age five or six, swearing in English, Italian, or Sicilian would get them a smack on the head by their father, Mario, who fluently spoke the first two and competently understood the third. To avoid the elder Mario's powerful swat, Mario and Luigi resorted to using hand gestures under the table. When his back was turned to mind the sauce or fetch the prosciutto (pronounced prozhoot by any good Bensonhurst boy) or bacon, depending on the time of day, one of the brothers began with che vuoi, then the other replied with uffa che palle – you're bustin' my balls. This, of course, continued to the hand-biting si t'anacagliu – I'm gonna kill you – which escalated to the famous chin flick, and ended with the ombrello – the full-arm go fuck yourself. On occasion, Mario would up the ante with a ti faccio un coso così – I'll split your asscrack even wider! Eventually, they were caught when Luigi was thirteen and Mario twenty-one; the elder Mario just shook his head and called them a bunch of putzes – Putz One and Putz Two.
He never specified which were number one and number two.
Once the ritual was concluded, Mario picked up the ball-point pen and closed his eyes to concentrate. Math was never his strong suit; to pass his plumber's apprentice, journeyman, and military exams, he "estimated" figures based on common measurements that he knew from hands-on experience.
"If you're leaving a twenty-percent tip, that would be six dollars and nine cents," Luigi said smugly.
Mario rolled his eyes. "Asshole." He wrote six dollars and ten cents on the top line and signed the check. He took one last napkin, wiped his mouth, rolled it up into a ball, and tossed it at Luigi. "Andiamo, Mr. Calculator. Betcha don't know the fourth root of eighty-six."
Luigi picked up the used napkin and flicked it onto Mario's ketchup-coated plate, then stood up and picked up his coat from the booth. "Well, let's see," he started dramatically, pretending to stall, "I think, no, I know it's three point zero four five two…"
"Shut up, Weegie!"
XXXX
Luigi and Mario parted ways around three o'clock when they returned to the shop to retrieve the rest of their tickets. Upon learning that Mario had run off the two rats from the Bowery job, Sal declared victory and a job well done, then gave him the rest of the day off. Mario grabbed his duffle bag and headed to their neighborhood boxing club to put in his daily two-hour exercise regimen before meeting Peach for their Valentine's Day date. As for Luigi, Sal kept him until five-thirty to chit-chat and introduce him to new and important clients for upcoming projects. Lou forced himself to ass-lick and schmooze with the cheap suits and the oily union rep – service with a smile – until they checked their watches and rushed home to their presumably irritated spouses.
An exhausted Luigi started the engine of the company truck to make the thirty-minute drive in traffic from Dumbo to Bensonhurst. Maybe he would abandon the robotics project for the night and just go to bed early. As he began to back out of the shop entrance, his cellphone rang. He checked the caller ID – Yoshi Miyamoto.
Luigi frowned and answered the call, putting the truck into neutral. "Yoshi, I already told you that I'm not comin'."
"Lou, don't hang up! You gotta help us!" Yoshi reacted with a vaguely panicked voice.
Sitting up straighter in the driver's seat, Luigi leaned into the phone, his expression quickly evolving from annoyance to concern. "You okay, Yoshi? Is someone in trouble?"
"You know that party I was tellin' you about? Well, the bar sink at the club's apparently clogged, so they might have to cancel the event. Miles may have let it slip that we know one of New York's finest plumbers who can get it unclogged. It's the hottest VD party in all of New York and if you can fix it, we'll be heroes. Y'know, Bensonhurst geek trash saving those City duh-ta-dahs? C'mon, man," cajoled Yoshi.
Luigi rubbed his face with his left hand, finally pinching the bridge of his Roman nose. "Jesus Christ, Yosh, why'd youse do that? If it's an actual job that requires more than a snake, I could lose my license. I'm a journeyman, not a master plumber, so I can't just work on jobs without a permit 'cause I can't write 'em. Tell 'em no way. There are plenty of emergency guys in Manhattan."
"Two hundred stressed-out Columbia and NYU students are depending on you. And it's not in Manhattan. I'd never ask you to go to the City, you know that. This needs to be under the table. The host doesn't want undue attention to his girlfriend. Apparently, his father is some racist dickhead chaebol."
Lou slouched defeatedly in his seat. Like he had anything better to do. "Okay, fine. I'll take a look, but I make no promises. If it's bad, then he needs to call an emergency guy, 'cause the city and my boss'll have my ass. Where's it at?" He heard Yoshi ask a male voice for the address and then repeated it to the plumber. Between Gowanus and Red Hook. "Alright, alright. Give me twenty, twenty-five minutes. I'm going to stop at a bodega to have a nosh and then I'll be over. You owe me, Yoshi!" With Yoshi's numerous, pleading statements of gratitude, Luigi hung up and resumed his exit from the shop.
