AFTER THE DELIVERY AND subsequent procedure, Bella—clouded in the haze of a strange journey, fevered, and bleeding—was wheeled into her hospital room and foisted into an iron bed. In and out of consciousness. Hysterical dreams, as choppy as a stormy sea. Her papa tossing her over the caterwauling ocean waves and missing her when she came down. “Papa! Catch me!” Under the salty sea and drowning. “I can’t breathe!” Her mamma’s depressed wheezing. Little Luigi, a tiny baby again, teething and roaring like the MGM lion. ARS GRATIA ARTIS. Gary Cooper and Clark Gable kissing. Joan Crawford Charleston flailing. Nasty churchwomen flapping around crowded belfries. Nuns pulling ropes and screaming, “Thank me and kiss Christ’s ring! Thank me and kiss Christ’s ring!” The factory whistle shrieking. The toothy Robertson Scale gates chewing the ass out of the sky. A red river of blood flowing down the aisles of Saint Anthony’s. Her brother Tony boxing with a circus bear. Her papa and mamma, young again, tossing meatball beach balls in the air. Mrs. Concannon mixing mountains of dough, forming them into monstrous potatoes. Big Betty LoMonico’s sweaty hands inflated like a Macy’s parade balloon, like Mickey the Mouse gloves reaching for the moon. Dino Montebologna swimming in a colossal bottle of olive oil like an Italian king. Joe sniffing her fingers and sucking each one. Joe gnawing on his nails and telling her he wishes they were having a son. Was that Joe she heard sitting next to her bed, barking through the fog, “How long has she been out like this? How long has she been in Dreamland?” Was that a kiss she felt on her forehead and Joe telling her not to worry, that he would take care of everything? Francis lifting barbells shaped like cannoli. Swans diving through blazing circus rings. Jesus naked on the cross, sins dangling. Her mamma coming for her stomach with the cheek-slicing blade. “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart!” Mary Mozzarelli firing a gun the size of a circus cannon. A rocket-sized bullet knocking the fire out of the sun. Terelli curling his own hair with tree trunks, a smoking factory stack dangling from his lips. “Can you dance? You can get a job in Sin City!” WANTED: Female Dancers for Coney Island Revue! A rollicking roller-coaster ride around the Glasgow-grinning moon. Francis Anthony Mozzarelli picking a rose from one of her papa’s bushes and presenting it to her before vanishing in an explosion of furious flames. Her baby being yanked out of her bleeding heart. A wolf’s lonely cry. “What the hell’s going on? Where the fuck am I?” A nervous young man, with the face of Francis, cinched into a bow-tied suit and standing in front of her with a bouquet of brilliant white roses in his shaking hand.
Do you know who I am?