ON THE FIRST DAY of first grade at Saint Anthony’s Catholic grammar school in Clifton, New Jersey, in our good Lord’s year of 1926, every immigrant student in Sister Mary Cara Malloy’s classroom got a good ole U-S-of-A American name.
Elvira became Ellen, Giacomo became Joe, Igor became Eric, Rosaria became Rose, and so on.
“And what is your name, please?” the ruler-wielding nun, an odious old penguin, asked six-year-old Italian factory mouse Belladonna Marie Donato.
Bella’s mamma had given her the name Belladonna (beautiful girl) because when she was born she was so goddamned ugly. Her papa sometimes called her gabadost because she was so goddamned stubborn and strong-willed.
She was also fiercely intelligent and incredibly independent.
Full of the guile and charm of a Sicilian folk-tale fox.
She had the fortitude and strength of ten Italian elephants.
She could charm the socks off rocks.
“My name is Belladonna Marie.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Yes, it is.”
The fierce-looking old Irish nun, one of a bitter baker’s dozen farmed down from an ancient abbey in Singac, slammed her ruler onto Bella’s desk with the force of one of Lucifer’s better demons.
The entire class jumped out of their skirts and knickers.
“Young miss, we do not talk back in God’s classroom!” The penguin’s rheumy eyes traveled up to the fractured ceiling like she was searching for something. “Now, let me see …” She tapped her ruler on Bella’s desk while squinting up through the cracks. No one was breathing. “BARBARA!” she suddenly screamed. “From now on, in God’s classrooms your name will be Barbara Mary!” She extended her skeletal hand and smiled, baring green, tobacco-stained teeth. “Now thank me and kiss Christ’s ring.”
No one, except maybe Belladonna Marie Donato’s papa, was ever able to make Bella do anything.
The little girl crossed her arms. “No!”
“What did you say to me?”
“I said NO!”
The stunned nun’s feathers puffed out of her habit. Her beak snapped open. “Barbara Mary, if you do not thank me and kiss Christ’s ring this very instant you will be one very sorry little EYE-talyan monkey.”
“Vaffanculo, vecchio pazzo pinguino irlandese!”
“What did you say to me?”
“FUCK YOU, YOU CRAZY OLD IRISH PENGUIN!”
All twenty-seven students—all the Stevies, the Charlies, the Carols, the Harrys, and the Shellys, bolted to the outskirts of the room and started praying.
“YOU GREASY LITTLE ROACH OF A WOP!”
The old bird’s hands flew, but quick as a whip, Bella ducked and plowed into the nun’s wool-sheathed shins. Teeth sank, warm blood bled.
“IN THE HOLY NAME OF JESUS CHRIST, LET GO OF ME!”
While the students stomped and cheered, the Italian monkey and the old Irish penguin flailed up one side of the classroom and toppled down the next. They plowed through chairs and flipped desks. They slammed into the blackboard and tumbled out the door. They rolled together like a two-headed, four-armed, four-legged bowling ball down a long, waxed corridor. They bounced down thirty-seven marble stairs, splintered through two more doors, pinwheeled past the school’s front offices, and crashed into Reverend Monsignor Teschio’s formidable desk.
That’s when Bella unlocked her jaw, stood up, spit out a mouthful of wool, and wiped her lips.
“MY NAME IS BELLADONNA MARIE DONATO!” she panted. “AND I AM NOT KISSING ANYTHING!”