Charles R. Vermilyea Jr. The Mayor of New York Standing in the middle of East 221st Street facing west, I can hear the elevated train. Its rattle and clack brought to me on waves of yellow summer heat. I stare toward the sound like I’m waiting for it to deliver a message. And, there is a message. It’s my grandmother, telling me, in her broken English, to get on the sidewalk where I’ll be safe: “Ona the side-a-walk where you safe. Watch-a the car.” I hesitate, still trying to grasp the message from the train noise reverberating through Bronx canyons. But behind Granma, Uncle Pete. Pete DeFlorio, former Genovese caporegime, on his way to his retirement job as a bodyguard for entertainers at the Copacabana. He makes a signal, just a flick of his right hand, because Pete DeFlorio rarely needs the spoken word. A gesture will do. And I’m on the sidewalk. “Get in the car,” says he. “I’ll take you home.” The Chevy coup, black like most cars of the 1940s, rattles over broken Bronx streets that look like coal in a sea of molten tar. “Where’s your hat,” says Uncle Pete. “You don’t have anything to cover your head.” “I don’t like hats.” “Here! Wear my cap.” He puts his Yankees cap on my head with his right hand. “We have to make a stop first. It’s on the way.” That is on the way to my home with my parents on Hughes Avenue in Belmont, a Bronx section closer to Manhattan, where my mother and father work, hairdresser and butcher, while my grandparents care for me during vacation. “I have a job for you,” says Uncle Pete. “You have to go to a house and give the box of cookies in the back seat to a man and give him a message. Can you do this?” “OK,” say I. Although the thought of the task makes me nervous. “Good. His name is Chick Chickoleno. You call him Mr. Chickoleno. Got it? Mr. Chickoleno.” We go through a neighborhood I would later know as Fordham Heights to a brick row house, like my grandparents’, but nicer. “OK. Here’s what you do: You go to the door, ring the bell and ask for Mr. Chickoleno. If his wife comes, say you want to see Mr. Chickoleno. He’ll be home because it’s dinner time. Got me so far?” “Yeah.” “Good. Now, you give the box of cookies to Chick, I mean Mr. Chickoleno! And give him this message: ‘Is everything OK with Pete?’ When you get the answer, come back to the car; I’ll be down the street.”
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