“That’s all right. Everyone deserves a good defense.” Dom buried his hands into his pockets.
Dom looked around the lot. He remembered when his father had purchased it for a song, a nickel, a pittance. No matter. The lot was a steal. Their father had a grand scheme to own Montrose Street, with both sons beholden to his power and wealth. Domenico was a journeyman, but he schemed like a king. He had big American dreams like a Rockefeller, but possessed enough self-recrimination to punish his sons for his own shortcomings. Instead of being circumspect, he was envious, even of his boys and their relationship, so he broke it. It was he who planted doubt between them, and allowed it to fester. Two against one never works in any competition, so the old gambler hedged his bet so both sons would remain loyal to him instead of each other. They did. But now, they were the only players left at the table. Neither Dom nor Mike had anything to prove.
Mike reached into the breast pocket of his coat and removed a blue envelope, folded and sealed. “Here’s the deed.”
“You keep it.”
“What?” Mike was stunned.
“You keep it. I got enough real estate.”
“Are you kidding me? You wanted it, now I’m giving it to you, and you won’t take it?”
“How much is it worth?” Dom reached into his pocket, pulled out a pack of matches, and picked his canine tooth with the edge of the cover.
“I don’t know,” Mike answered honestly.
“No appraisal?”
“No.” Mike was confused.
“Haven’t called Bones Bonocetti?”
“Why would I call him?”
“To find out what the lot is worth.”
“I don’t care what the lot is worth, Dominic.”
“Maybe that’s why it’s so easy for you to part with it. It holds no value for you.”
“What?” Mike felt steam rising from his collar.
“You got a parcel in your real estate portfolio, and you don’t know its worth? What are you? An idiot?”
“Dom, I’ll knock you to the Parkway.” Mike backed up as if to slug his brother.
Dom took a step back, shuffling as if to avoid a punch. “Hey, hey, take it easy!”
Mike saw the glint of a tease in his older brother’s eye and dropped his fists. “You son of a—”
Dom chuckled. “I’m playing with you.”
“And I fell for it.” Mike massaged his chest. “I thought you were serious. My blood pressure. Mary Mother of God help me.”
“You’ll be all right.” Dom smirked and walked onto the lot. “Come on.”
Mike followed his brother.
No matter how old a man grows, the boy he was slumbers within him, taking up a corner of his soul where he once occupied the sum total of it. There are times when the sleeping boy stirs within the man, roused by the niggle of an old score that needs settling, or jolted awake by a sudden burst of physical strength that galvanizes his body in its ferocity. The old man will even experience the unexpected ripple of sexual desire that does not pass, but must be acted upon, until he is satisfied and satisfies the object of his passion, the latter lesson learned from a place of experience. In the man’s memory, he is never old and will never grow old. He is neither father or son, but just a boy, who time cannot own.
When the brothers reached the middle of the lot, Dominic stopped and looked up.
“Lot of sky here.”
“Until they build up Broad. All you need is one ten-story building, and your sky is shot,” Mike commented. “Hey. What am I supposed to do with this?” Mike waved the deed folded neatly inside the blue envelope, which was the exact color of the sky that day.
“Put it in your pocket,” Dom said quietly.
“You’re a piece of work.” Mike shook his head. “All that time, lost for nothing.”
“It wasn’t for nothing.”
“How do you figure?”
“I had a kid brother who left me, stood on his own two feet, and built his own business. He built it so well, he almost ran me out of mine. Now, that’s a success. Had we stayed together, you never would have reached your potential.”
“You got smart in your old age?” Mike joked.
“My wife came up with that one.”
Mike bit his lip. “You really won’t take this lot?”
Dominic put his hands in his pockets. For a moment, he thought he might take the lot. He still had some ideas, a dream lying around here or there that might be realized if he massaged the situation just so. He thought of things that he could do before his life was over that might be a challenge met, or even just a fun enterprise for his amusement and profit. But none of Dom’s potential schemes mattered much when he weighed them against time he might spend with his brother. Those imagined moments, just the two of them, as they were in the beginning, happening anew, seemed priceless to Dom. They could become just a couple of kids again, figuring life out. This seemed like a pretty good segue to the inevitable dirt nap, the final good-bye, the eternal snooze after the anointing of the sick was administered on whatever dark day it happened to fall for either of them.
Dom decided he didn’t want the lot after all. But he did need to tell his brother what he had hoped all those years ago, so Mike might understand why they had a falling-out in the first place. So Dom looked down at the deed and said, “I just wanted you to offer it to me, Mike.”
Mike stood holding the deed, thinking Dom was a little nuts. If money was the cause of every split in every Italian family since the Etruscans, Mike had just found out why. Money loaned from family was validation; given, it was encouragement; shared, it was legacy; and when denied, it meant you had not measured up. You had not contributed enough. You had not made the family proud by the course of your actions, the details of your business plan, or the depth of your personal need. Money given could be a prize, but withdrawing it was always a punishment. Money was symbolic. If you made a lot of money, you knew something; if you held on to it, you were worth something. If you couldn’t do either of those things, you’d be better off becoming a priest.