INTO THE RIVER

I never met my Great Uncle Joe because he drowned in a river as a young man--years before I was born. Died in the relatively calm waters of the Seneca River near Syracuse, New York. He had been a good swimmer, they said, so no one really knew what happened.

They called him Bon Ami (Good Friend) Joe which was odd considering he was Italian. But in those days being Italian was considered disreputable at best, so I guess Buon Amico Joe would have been distasteful. I wonder if they felt dubbing him Bon Ami Joe gave him some sort of class or stature they felt was lacking from his unfortunate Italian birth.

I say this with all due respect to my Italian heritage, but Italians often have issues with telling they truth. In other words, they lie--often. One story bandied about was that Bon Ami Joe did not accidentally drown in the river, but that he killed himself. Now, if you were to mention that to one of his siblings, they would fall into a fainting spell the likes of which you’ve never seen.

The Italians in my family could stir up drama like no one. I remember my Grandmother coming to visit and each we’d pick her up at the Greyhound bus station (she was afraid to fly) and bring her home, my house became drama central. Years after Bon Ami Joe’s unfortunate “accident,” another of her brothers died. I answered the phone and cringed as I relayed the message to my father, hoping he would break the news gently. Rather, after I whispered the message in my father's ear as he stood carving roast beef for dinner he said, without hesitation, “Ma, Frank died.”

My grandmother's body went totally rigid and she fell off the chair right onto the floor and started convulsing in tears. I was frozen to the spot, 13 years old. My father continued carving the roast beef as though nothing out of the ordinary was happening. I tried to help her up but she resisted my attempts and continued to moan, “I’m on my way to join you, Frank. I can feel my heart giving out. I’ll be there soon, Frank, FRAAAANNKKK!!!!” in her advanced state of histrionics. Her eyes were rolling back in her head and I yelled at my father to help her “She’ll get over it,” he said, stepping over his writhing mother and heading toward the refrigerator for some horseradish sauce. Sure enough she did.

Then there was my grandfather’s funeral. Of course, my grandmother talked incessantly about how horrible he was: An ingrate, a blustering, drunken, uneducated, feckless Irish fool. But no sooner was he dead, then he might as well have been fast-tracked to canonization. At the funeral my grandmother and her sisters, small women all, wore black dresses, Mary Janes, and my grandmother had to be restrained several times from throwing herself into the coffin. No one appeared overly taken aback at this behavior—just reached out from time to time to keep Grandma from hopping into the casket and continued with the business at hand. The grieving sisters kept up a wailing that I’m surprised didn’t awaken old Grandpa Al.

Bon Ami Joe, I’m told, had the soul of a poet, was pious, loving, a joy to his mother, a good friend to all, hence the nickname. Although for all I know he could have been an axe murderer or a child molester. Bon Ami Joe’s parents detested each other (although managed to have nine children) and fought constantly. My great grandfather had been in love with another woman back in Sicily and while he came to America, she married another and he was sent a replacement bride. (See post The Surprise Bride.) Although the veracity of this story remains in contention to this day.

The family was isolated because they were the only Italians in an Irish area. To my grandmother’s dying day, she spoke of how she had won a “blindly judged” essay contest. The winner’s name went on a “loving cup” that was displayed in a case in the school lobby. When it turned out her essay won, they chose another because they did not want an Italian name displayed in the school lobby. In her later 90s, after her entire life, this was the story she recounted most often.

I did not know my great uncles, but I vividly recall my great aunts. One was a lesbian who lived with her lover for 50 years and everyone insisted they were just friends (I always thought her lover was a man.) The other looked like the wicked witch of the west, ate food straight out of a can, and had creepy velvet pictures of Rudolph Valentino hung all about her apartment. I had always felt a somber sense of sorrow for poor Bon Ami Joe with his sensitive soul and his good friend name, brought up in this isolated home with his gloomy, phobic, dark, family shrouded in mystery and superstition. I saw his picture once—soulful dark eyes, olive complexion; truly a melancholic, beautiful face.

Only Bon Ami Joe and the Seneca River will ever know what happened but I have my suspicions.