Berto's World: Stories. R. A. Comunale M.D.

and change your clothes. Now!”

      I went to my room and stripped to my long johns. I paused and looked out the window. Down on the street the coal man again was replacing the sluice onto his truck after finishing next door. Then he looked up and, to this day, I swear he saw me standing at the window and waved at me. He climbed into the truck and drove off.

      Only minutes later, when I had put on relatively clean clothes and was heading toward the kitchen, I heard shouting coming from outside. My mother went to the window and opened it, and the voice of Mrs. Brown, Tim Brown’s wife, shrieked in the cold air.

      Mama ran to the living room, where my father was sitting, feet, propped up, and whispered in his ear. He stood up more quickly than I thought possible, grabbed his coat, and ran out the door. I heard his feet stomping down the squeaky stairway and the front door of the building open and slam shut.

      I went to the kitchen and saw my mother sitting at the table, her head in her hands.

      “Mamma, che ha torto?”

      Mama, what’s wrong?

      She shook her head and said nothing.

      In a little while I heard Papa’s heavy steps, slower now, climbing the stairs. When he entered the apartment, Mama looked up at him. He shook his head

      “Il vecchio Signor Brown appena è morto.”

      Old Mr. Brown just died.

      To this day I remember those words.

      The memories they stir in me are a mixed and varied lot. By the time I was ten I had seen death in the knife fights on Hamilton Street. I had even tried to help, to stop the outflow of the red river of life from those slashed and cut. But these were the deaths of strangers.

      I knew Mr. Brown. I liked Mr. Brown. He was one of the Old Guys. And now there would be one fewer member at those meetings in Mr. Ruddy’s shoe-repair shop.

      Later in my life, my father’s words from that day struck another chord.

      He had called him “Old Mr. Brown.” Back then, old meant someone in their forties, maybe even fifty. It was not usual for men to live too long, whatever that meant. Old Mr. Brown wasn’t more than forty-eight.

      But, dear reader, there is one final memory, one that haunts me even now. Was it a trick of the imagination, an overactive ten-year-old boy’s flight of fancy? Or did I really see it?

      That moment, when the coal man looked up at me and waved, another person in his truck also looked up, smiled, and waved: Timothy Brown.