Elly passed up the first of the black-and-white photos. “Where did you get these, anyway?”
Keith hammered a nail into the wall with manly efficiency. “They’re my grandfather’s old photos from Italy.” He pointed to the one Elly held in her hand. “That’s my grandfather, the tall man on the left.”
She glanced down at the photo: three men all stood together, and only the tall man on the left was smiling. His ruddy cheeks were puffed out with apparent joy, as he stood beside a hanging skinned pig.
“I like him,” said Elly, touching the picture lightly. “He looks like you.”
“Oh, yes. I very much take after my grandfather. He was a butcher in the old country—Brindisi. It’s gorgeous there—I’ll take you someday.” Someday. Elly flushed, her heart spinning. “Anyway, he worked almost his whole life at Piazza il Manzo, a tiny butcher shop on the coast there. Anyone who knows food knows that Italian butchers are not like the others. They are as essential to everyday life in Italy as a good coffee shop is here. My grandfather knew every type of cut and flavor of meat there was—and he didn’t suffer fools lightly. If you came into the Piazza il Manzo, you had better know your pork and veal mince, pork and fennel sausage, and a good pancetta. He worked thirty years at the same butcher shop until he finally was able to buy it. Then he and my grandmother moved to America to start their own business and well….” He looked uncomfortable for a moment. “And that was that. After he died, he was ground up in a mixer.”
Elly’s mouth dropped open and she stared up at Keith with revulsion and horror.
He gave her a pitying look. “Elly, you are such an easy mark. No, he died of a heart attack in his early sixties, same as my dad.” A look of sadness passed over Keith’s face. He took the picture from her hands and hooked it on the nail, then returned to the ground beside her and sorted through the remaining frames. “See, here is a picture of the butcher shop … see that butcher’s block up against the wall?” Keith pointed to the corner of the store, where a massive dark block of wood sat in front of the windows. “I don’t use it, really, but I love having it in here, a piece of my true history. Sometimes, when the seating is limited….” That’s every day, thought Elly. “I see kids playing on or around it, and it brings me a lot of joy. My parents wouldn’t have appreciated it, but he would have.” Keith flipped through the frames. “Ah, here it is, the first Carcelo’s Deli. See, that’s my dad right here, with my sister and me.”
Elly peered at the picture. Another tall man stood at the center. His resemblance to Keith was startling. It was like Keith had put on a stage mustache, but other than that, they could be brothers. His hands rested squarely on the shoulders of two young children: an apple-cheeked girl with jet-black hair, and Keith, a chubby child with his hair cropped close to his head. They stood in front of a brick building with a metal sign on the door that read Cary’s. The name rang a bell in her mind, but she was distracted by the children in the picture; the little girl looked miserable, but Keith’s dorky grin stretched from ear to ear. “Oh,” exhaled Elly, her heart warming to a brand new feeling. “Keith, these pictures are amazing. You were so cute as a little boy!” She swore that her ovaries did a tiny jig at the thought of his children.
Keith gave a deep laugh. “Yeah, I loved growing up in the deli. My sister, not so much. She’s a vegetarian now. And annoying.”
“So you’ve told me,” replied Elly. His sister’s veganism and spending habits were a source of great annoyance to Keith. “Who becomes a vegetarian with this kind of impressive lineage?” Elly shook her head. “Such a tragedy.”
Keith huffed. “In a family of butchers, it is.”
Elly looked at the next picture. “And this car? What does it say on it? Cary’s … why does that sound familiar?”
Keith grabbed it quickly out of her hand. “Oh, my dad started delivering meats by car in the late sixties to local delis. It made him very popular in the neighborhood. And in a time where racism was still rampant, he didn’t discriminate. Everyone who wanted Carcelo’s cuts got them.”
Elly watched as he continued hanging up picture after picture, displaying his family history. Keith seemed so proud of his family, while at the same time dodging questions about his parents. Eh, she understood. She lately had found herself wishing that she had known more about her past. It made her long to pick Dennis’s brain, something she knew she wouldn’t be able to do for a long time. “So,” she started casually, as Keith raised his hammer, “I asked Dennis to move in with me.”