Good <i>Papàs</i> and the Story of My Many Fathers

If you haven't read all the essays presented here, go back and do it. I will not discuss them all in any detail for that's been done quite well by Elisa and Theodora in their introduction. I will say that I enjoyed them all very much and learned much regarding the representation of the Italian American father in fiction and nonfiction. William Boelhower's article helps us to see what happens to American scholarship that is uninformed when it comes to Southern Italian family ways. Carla Francellini reveals the depth of Pietro di Donato's father figures that are usually only interpreted through his classic Christ in Concrete (1937). Elisa Bordin's survey of the development of the father throughout John Fante's oeuvre reminds us that, in some ways, a man is never considered a man until his father is dead. Theodora Patrona's brilliant pairing of Hendin's and Capotorto's novels allows us to see beyond the usual portrait of the father-dominated family. Michail-Chrysovalantis Markodimitrakis's journey through the Rocky films diverges from earlier interpretative roads of Rocky as Italian American to show us that the father figure can be many things over the course of his life and that a single “type” will never do justice to our idea of the Italian American father. And Cristina Di Maio's unique insight into The Bear television series reminds us that fatherhood can transcend the bounds of the nuclear family, something we can also find in the writings of Diane di Prima in her memoir Recollections of My Life as a Woman (2002). Each of these articles presents a strong foundation upon which to build future studies, and together, they represent some of the best thinking going on in the field of Italian diaspora studies. So, then what can I add to the wonderful discussions that appear before this afterword?While I have commented on father characters in a number of works throughout my career, I have never given it the attention it deserves in a single essay. That could very well be due to the fact that I lost my father at an early age and have been looking for the Italian American father ever since I lost mine back in 1963, four months, exactly to the day, before the US lost JFK.I wasn't as surprised as the other kids when we learned about Kennedy's assassination. I knew that if I my father could be murdered, then it could happen to anyone else's father at any time. His death was so sudden and shocking that my life seems to have become a mission to try to understand that loss by never letting go. Perhaps it is my attempt to avoid the pain of a grief that seemed to have no ending, or because in the short time we were together we had become more than father and son, whatever the reason, I have kept him alive for more than fifty years by reliving that past.My father was a lean and muscular man who, at 5 feet, 7 inches tall, was Hollywood handsome and looked a lot like Robert De Niro. I noticed this for the first time when De Niro played a musician in the film New York, New York (1977). Since then, as the actor has aged, I imagine I can see what my father would have looked like had he lived past his thirty-fifth birthday.My father survives through the stories I would hear about him. My Uncle Johnny used to tell us that my father once punched out a movie star by the name of Sonny Tuffs who had made a personal appearance at the Melrose Theater. But while he might have been a tough guy on the streets when he had to be, he was certainly a warm and loving father.On good days I am inspired by something I remember he said or did. Like the time he was umpiring one of my Little League baseball games and someone in the grandstands threw a pair of eyeglasses onto the field to express his frustration at one of my father's calls. I expected him to jump into the stands and confront the man, but my father simply kicked the glasses off to the side, shouted “Play Ball,” and the game resumed.When I was younger, and believed in things like ghosts, I expected he wouldshow up anytime and surprise me somewhere, most likely somewhere I shouldn't have been, while I was doing something I shouldn't have been doing. Sometimes when I would enter a dark room, I imagined that as soon as I threw the light switch on, there he'd be, with that incredibly disarming smile he used to defuse any potentially explosive situation. But he never showed, and least not while I was awake.Where he did come to me is in dreams, and we have met in soft, soothing scenes in which he returns to tell me he's fine, and rough, scary nightmares where he is trying to warn me about danger. No matter which ones I have, I find they bring me comfort as I'm growing up. I am the oldest son, and one of four children of a mother who was widowed when she was very young. When I was ten I became “the man” for my family, and while I didn't think much of it back then, when I look back, I realize it was a major obstacle to my emotional development. I worked and paid my own way through all my education, which while it taught me much about the value of hard work, kept me from devoting full concentration to my studies. I also grew up in an environment that did not put much value on classroom education. I used to work in places where the older men mocked my education by calling me “professor” even when I was in high school. I suppose you could also say that the streets where I grew up challenged my attempts to educate myself out of there.I have always found reading to be a refuge from the streets where I grew up. I loved the street, it's just that the stress it places on kids can be devastating, especially if you live in a place where violence is common, expected, and sanctioned by the authorities and the criminals. Reading became a way to leave the crazy world for a while and escape into the world of others, even if they were sometimes more violent than mine.As for living through those tragedies, I have to say, first of all, I couldn't have done it without the strength of my family. They succeeded where all the public institutions failed in terms of providing support and a structure for dealing with the tragedies that befell our family. After that, I would say it was reading and writing, only sometimes in the formal classroom, but always in my own personal life. I read the way some people breathe air, constantly and rarely consciously, and that, along with being put to work at the age of ten and working throughout my whole life, has helped me to avoid tsunamis of emotion and self- (and even other-) destruction that can sweep over one's life from time to time. And of course there's that sense of humor; without it, I would probably have become a hermit or be dead by now.On bad days, I'm depressed as I recall all the times when my father wasn't there for me or for my mother or my sister and brothers, and I imagine how different our lives would have been had he lived longer. So, for me, in some way, every day since his death has become a father's day of sorts. Without him, I've had to continue looking for the Italian American father, and I have found him in many men over the years.After my father's death, my mother's oldest brother, Uncle Pat, loomed large in my life when it seemed fun was something I would never know again. He stuck with me throughout the funeral. I remember holding back my tears as everyone had been telling me that I didn't need to cry since I was now the man. The man, what was that? I was ten years old; everyone else was crying, why couldn't I? He must have noticed how uncomfortable I was, and after taking me up to my room, he said to me, “Freddy, go ahead, you can cry.” Then we both burst into tears. And when I was done, he handed me his handkerchief and said, “OK, now you be strong and take care of your mother and the kids. You're the man now.” That's when I learned men could cry. This year I cried hard and long at the news of his death.Other fathers included my grandfathers. As different as night and day, each in his own way taught me things that have helped me live a better life.There were my uncles. Uncle Carmen taught me how to snap a football and use a slide rule, Uncle Rocky, how to play songs on the accordion and dance the tarantella, and Uncle Joe, how to work hard. Most of all they all taught me that being a man meant more than being a tough guy.After my grandfathers died, and my uncles moved out of the neighborhood, my next father figures became men like Tom Eboli. Not old enough to actually be my father, he did become a surrogate father during a particularly difficult period of my life. I think my mother was worried that I would end up a troublemaker without the guidance of a strong man, and so she must have taken it upon herself to knock on his door and ask him to give me a job. I had no experience, other than working in my grandfather's pawnshop, but Tom, Louis, and Joey took me on. And there began the first of many lessons I would learn about work and life. I started sweeping floors, a job I thought I already knew how to do well from working as the janitor for my grandfather's building. But one day Tom watched me and criticized my sweeping. He then took the broom from my hands and showed me the right way, or was it his way, to use a push broom, and how to hang it up, so it wouldn't get ruined, when the work was done. Now everyone knows that Tom always dressed well, but no matter what he was wearing he was never afraid of getting dirty. That day, as the dust clouded around his shoes, he took the time to show me just how to sweep a floor. It was the first of many things he would teach me. And while this tiny event might have passed others’ memories, for me it stood out because I thought, “Why is the boss so concerned about something as lowly as sweeping the floor?” But that was Tom. The details were what mattered because all those details added up to an impression given to people about the type of place they were in. I first told this story in a eulogy at his funeral some years ago.In most all the instances, my father figures have taught me more through their actions than their words. They could be following that old Italian macho maxim, “le parole sono femmine, i fatti sono maschi” (words are for women, actions for men). Whether it was through their words or deeds, I learned the good papàs may teach you how to work hard, but they also give you a place to rest, and sometimes, if you're not too old, it's in their arms. So, while I may have lost the father who made me, thanks to my Italian family and old neighborhood upbringing, I got to have many versions of a good papà in my life. And through writings, both creative and, with this publication, critical, I have learned to recognize a rich and diverse variety of father types in Italian American culture.