Backbone > Frankly Speaking
Those Grapes
by Frank Crocitto
Illustration by Leslie Bender

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The grapes, the grapes are what undid me. I can still see them dangling in full, purple clusters, the grape leaves all a-tremor around them like sycophants around a royal throne. Yet not only the grapes as they were that summery mid-September day but how they would, with care and skill, be transubstantiated into the mystic liquid of wine, wine poured into crystal glasses uplifted in elegant toasts, sipped languorously, warming the heart and coloring the world with the rainbow of romanticism. All this?in a prophetic glimpse?is what made me stop the car up on Prospect Hill.

There spread before me under the mellow sun, was a long, wide expanse of grapevines. This was not a commercial vineyard?it was too well cared for. The vines were fenced in by patterned wrought iron, painted black and gold, and overlooked by an imposing private home. These were indeed grapes and grapevines for the making of wine. My grandfather had a grand vine in our backyard when I was a boy, an immense one that flourished on a trellis that shaded the whole backyard, and with those grapes he produced a heady dago red that accompanied the family dinners throughout the year. Under the magical shade of that vine I passed many a scorching summer day. Dreamy and bubbling with visions, I grew and ripened with the grapes.

Whose vines these were I had no idea. But since one doesn't see such fine vines every day, I pulled the car closer and reaching out touched some rough leaves that had been allowed to drape over the fence. Drawn deeper into the lure of the place I backed the car into the driveway.

Being a writer I felt I had the liberty to stop and savor things when it pleased me, and being a newspaperman gave me?so I believed?the right to do anything and go anywhere in search of a story. Furthermore, my divorce papers had just been finalized, which made the world a resplendent, open field, a place for venturing, a place for spontaneity.

Except for the dull buzz of an infrequent fly, the driveway and the yard beside it was forebodingly still. The afternoon air was thick and seemed to be leaning on the vines, as well as on the two bounteous peach trees that arched the drive. In the quiet, with the absence of human activity, the house and its grapevines seemed a dream. But, no, there in the far distance I heard the low growl of a machine. I looked around and for a moment?made timid by the unknown?I wondered if I should move on down the hill toward home.

The house was palatial, Italianate, faced with a pale, pinkish brick. I was on some rich man's property. Since, in my limited experience, the rich are rarely cordial, I anticipated a cool welcome. After all I was a stranger descending out of the day with an unknown purpose.
Decisively, I stepped out of the car.

My boy Tommy was in the car. We had gone out for the day to eat, to ride, to see the world. I told him to wait a minute. He was only six so he took things literally.

—One minute, Daddy, he said. Look at your watch. Alright?

I looked at my watch. I looked back at him and smiled. He seemed so much like his mother.


—Alright? he insisted.

I gave him a sincere, reassuring response.

—Alright. Now, Tommy, I'll only be a minute, but if I'm going to be longer I'll come get you. Alright? I tapped the car to assuage his doubts.


—Where are you going? he called after me.


—I'm just going to see if anybody's home.


—Why?

I didn't answer the question, pretending not to hear it.


—Why? Daddy, why? he called.

I turned and gave him a wave as I walked quickly away from the car. I came to a door at the side of the house, a sliding glass door. I peered in, it looked like a laundry room. Further along, another path led to another door. I looked back at Tommy but he was occupied, working the steering wheel in an imaginary ride. I took the path and went up some steps to the other door. It was locked and there was no bell. But there was a little window. I looked into what appeared to be a workshop or a garage. Dimly, I began to realize that, despite the nobility of its appearance, this was the back of the house. The path continued past the garage and around the corner to the front of the house. This was an idea from the old country, to have the backside face the road. Before I disappeared I looked back at Tommy who was watching me, and waved. He didn't wave back.

As I was striding noisily on the rose-tinted gravel I thought how opulent the estate was and how unusual for there to be no dog to protect it. It was the kind of house that would often have a few guard dogs. Something made me slow down and walk more quietly. At the end of the house I turned the corner.

And there he was. He had been dozing luxuriantly in the autumnal sun, and at my sudden appearance he slowly stood up and stretched. Then, quite respectfully, he sat on his haunches, blinked his eyes, and examined me with simple curiosity.

When he came at me he came so fiercely, he roared so ferociously, I thought for a moment that he couldn't be serious. He was a dark dog, brown and black, sizeable. His lips curled back and exhibited most of his white teeth. To this day I can see the gleam of the moisture on his thick, black nose and the thread of saliva between his upper and lower fangs. Most of the dogs I've known would show their teeth this way when you rough-housed with them, which accounted for my momentary confusion about his intentions. The confusion served me, for it kept fear from gripping me, leaving me marvelously indifferent.

I threw up my left arm. He clamped his heavy teeth onto it. I had no doubt this rottweiler was without a sense of humor. Back-stepping, nearly falling, stumbling backward, reaching with my free hand for support I kept looking for someone to appear, someone to rush to my rescue, someone with a commanding voice. I finally did fall; I scrambled?crabwise?backward. He stopped coming at me when he came to the end of his chain. Before I got free, by punching his left eye, he'd made off with a good chunk of my blue velour shirt.

He'd left my arm hurting and damp. I struggled up, breathless and undignified, though caring little for how I appeared. I drifted away from his majestic fury. At a distance, across the lawn, two men were coaxing a red roto-tiller. They never looked my way. The rottweiler kept at his horrific snarling. At last an old woman appeared, no doubt from the laundry room, either a maid or the lady of the house. She was very disturbed. I fumbled, explaining my business there. She noted the way I was cuddling my arm and that there was a piece missing from my shirt and that a piece of velour of comparable size and hue was under King's raging chops. That was his name?King.


—I should have killed that monster a long time ago, she said in a gravelly voice. Shut up, you! she screamed and threw a rock at King.
Peremptorily, she took my arm and led me down the path to the laundry room door. Tommy's face was sticking out of the window of the car and wore a worried look.


—Daddy, are you coming back?


—I'll be right there.


—Is that your son? the old lady asked.


—He is. And he's a worrier.

The old lady, who smelled of Clorox, scrubbed my arm with brown soap.

—I told my daughter that dog is a menace. But one of these days I'm going to take care of it, she said darkly.


—Sometimes a dog gets frightened when you surprise him. I surprised him.


—That monster wouldn't be frightened by Hitler and his whole Gestapo.


—He's a good guard dog.

The old lady dried my arm and poured alcohol over it.


—It's only a few scratches, I said calmly.


—One scratch is enough. You can die if those lousy germs get into your blood. Miserable, dirty dog.


—I'm telling you it was me, I surprised him.

The old dame cast a glittering eye on me, as if it was the first time she was seeing me.


—What in the hell are you doing here, anyway? What's your name?
After answering all her questions I got my boy Tommy from the car. He was fascinated by my wounds and seemed as proud of me as a war hero.

The two men were in from the field and the old lady, with a slap to the back of his head, dispatched the elder, the father, Giacomo, to take Tommy and me on a tour of his vineyards.

When we all sat down on the patio, which was overhung with an ancient grapevine, a young woman came out with a tray piled with sandwiches and long-stemmed glasses of last year's wine. She had green eyes and an air of scornful efficiency about her. I watched her body move under her silk dress. Our eyes met once as she served me my wine. I smiled at her, but she only glared at me, turned, and went back inside.
I asked who she was and the old man grimaced and said,


—That's my educated daughter, Caterina. She's so educated I'm going to be supporting her till I keel over. Don't pay any attention to her.
She came back out in a few minutes and stood off to the side near King, who continued a low, rumbling growl. I lifted my glass toward her with sly significance. She smirked. Then she walked over to me and tossed the lost piece of velour onto my lap.

?Here's the rest of your shirt, stupid.

Soon as she called me stupid I knew she was the woman I had been searching for all my life.

Ah, those grapes, those grapes…