Olive Branches Don't Grow on Trees (8 page)

He
eventually became disillusioned with the system, after seeing one too many good
people wronged by it.  His disillusionment edged its way in through his
spirit, little by little, until he turned into a broken man.  The final
culprit was an elderly client evicted from her apartment so that the new
landlord could convert her apartment building into condominiums.  She was
ruthlessly kicked out, and when Frank tried to fight for her rights, he was
smashed by a system that was too big to fight.  When he was asked to be a
judge in his town’s local courthouse, he accepted this honor with indifference.
 The part of him with hopes and dreams, the part that Vince had so
strongly inherited, had faded out of him.  Silvia could almost understand
how something, like a lost dream, could drive a person drink.  

But
Donna claimed that it was not just a series of bad events that led to his
alcoholism, but that he had been a drunk for most of this life.  She
thought that if he had had a different mother, he may have never been an
alcoholic.  But if he had a different mother, Silvia thought, he would not
be who he was and, therefore, neither would she.  Frank’s mother was an angry
short woman, with tremendous breasts and an intensely stern stare.  She
was calculating and clandestine and she spent her time spreading false rumors
about her children in an effort to turn them against each other.  She told
Paul that Frank thought he was cheap, and told Frank the same thing about Paul.
 She told Nick that Frank did not think much of him because he and his
wife were childless, and told Frank that Nick thought his kids were spoiled
brats.

By
the time Silvia was old enough to have any recognition of anything, most of the
damage in her father’s family had already been done, and she only experienced
the aftermath of the many wars that had taken place.  For a short while,
Paul lived in the same town as Frank, and when any member of one family would encounter
a member of the other, they would just pretend that they did not see each
other.  Frank’s children were forbidden to speak with any of their Uncle
Paul’s children, so she had no opinion of her cousins because she did not know
them. 

Silvia’s
memories of her Grandma Greco were mostly of her talking about dying, which,
according to Frank, she had been doing since he was a small boy.  She
talked about it like it was a formal occasion, like a prom, a ball, or a
wedding.  She talked about her death like it would be the end of
everybody’s world.  She talked about it like it was something she was
looking forward to.  But when her body actually got old, she held onto
life like a vine clings to an old brick building, seeping her crinkled hands
into the cracks of humanity.

She
stayed in her house and saturated every nook and cranny with her crusty old
smell.  Silvia hated her house, which was dark and stale smelling and
cluttered with useless, tasteless crap, like cheap ceramic figurines that
looked like they could have been purchased at the local dollar store. 
Silvia remembered being very disappointed when she found out that she and her
family had to go to her house for Easter one year.  Grandma Greco insisted
on having the occasion at her house with her three sons and their
children.  Easter was her favorite holiday. Donna figured that this was
because Easter had something to do with the long and painful suffering of
Jesus.  She relished her own suffering, as if she got the greatest joy
from it.  Grandma
Tucci
would call this “
bella
miseria
,” which meant
beautiful misery.

Grandma
Greco had palms hanging on the walls in her kitchen and her dining room. 
She made stuffed shells and a ham with pineapple.  She bought
Perogina
chocolate eggs that were to be given out to the
grandchildren.  Unfortunately, there were not enough eggs for all of them.

“I
didn’t expect your family to come,” she said to Frank in her shriveled up
voice. “You didn’t come last year or the year before.”  Frank could have
responded back that they were not invited to her house for the past two years,
but he did not say anything.  He respected her simply because she was his
mother.  Not only did he say nothing in his defense, but he also told his
mother that she did not need to give any chocolate to his children, and there
they sat for the remainder of the feast, sad and
chocolateless
,
gazing resentfully at their cousins.  Uncle Nick went out after dinner and
bought some Easter candy for Frank’s kids as a form of compensation, but the
old woman had nothing for them.  Nor did she have any remorse or regret
for buying less.  Donna assumed it was intentional.

Silvia
did not hate anything short of the really evil stuff like Nazis and terrorists,
but she came pretty close to hating her Grandma Greco.  It was not so much
for the way she had treated her and her siblings.  It was how diligently
and perseveringly she had damaged her father.  According to Donna, she
downright disliked Frank and disliked him even more after his motorcycle
accident.  What use could he be to her around the yard with that pathetic
limp he developed as a result of the accident?  Donna felt that Grandma
Greco’s feelings for her son may have come from the fact that he strongly
resembled her own mother, who had chosen her as the least favorite of her four
daughters.

Her
husband, Silvia’s grandfather, was a tall lanky man who looked like a tree that
had grown crookedly.  In the pictures that Silvia had seen, his hunched
back and his forward leaning head made him look like he was always carrying a
load of stuff on his shoulders.  He died of a heart attack before Silvia
was born.  According to Donna, he smoked and drank heavily.  “And
with a wife like his, who wouldn’t?” Donna would add.  Silvia was relieved
when her sinister grandma died, as she could not contaminate any more family
gatherings, including Vince’s graduation dinner.  She thought that she
would ask her father about this occasion tonight as he was in a decent
mood. 

“I
think that we should do something to commemorate Vince’s graduation,” Silvia
said in a nervous voice. “We can all go out to the Central Cafe or something.”

“Are
you serious?  You know I’m going to end up paying for the whole thing if
we do have something.  You know I’m paying for his tuition and, for Christ
sake, taxes are due in a couple of months!”

Silvia
could have persisted, but she did not.  In fact, she did not say another
word on the subject on this night.  She had so few good times with her
father, and she did not want to spoil the good time that she was having with
him now.  So she kept her mouth shut and decided that she would
re-approach the subject the very next time that he was in a bearable mood.
 She only hoped that that time would be soon, for Vince’s graduation was
around the corner. 

CHAPTER THREE:  HOW TO BE FREE

When
Silvia painted, she was free.  Time did not move forward, but swayed back
and forth like a palm tree’s branches in a tropical breeze.  This was not
true of her other escapes, like music or movies.  But through her own
creation, she was afforded an opportunity to fly.  She never thought of
moving to a new place when she painted.  She never thought of going
anywhere.  It was the only time when she was just where she wanted to be
and when her mind was still rather than whirling about like a stick in a
tornado.  The more she painted, the less she noticed what was wrong with
her surroundings and the less she thought about moving.

She
used bright, cheerful colors and painted with big thick lines.  Her world
was inhabited by mythological beings, with human-like qualities, that lived in
nature.  Her fantastical universe was set against the strange and
beautiful back drop of a place resembling the Sonoran desert, with big, black,
mystery birds, giant saguaros that looked like they should be growing on some
other planet, and ocotillo trees with long, skinny branches reaching up like
they were trying to grab onto the sky.  If Hieronymus Bosch was born a
Mexican folk artist, his paintings might resemble Silvia’s.

Painting
real life was boring to Silvia, so she was surprised when she caught herself
starting a self-portrait.  She wanted to capture who she was beneath her
skin.  She wanted to convey the greatness of the spirit trapped inside her
tiny body, how she was young and old at the same time, and how her mind
wandered far and wide in an attempt to escape the confines of her skin.
 She made herself small enough to fit other stuff on her canvas, but was
not sure what else she wanted to include in the painting.

She
listened to the Beatles album
Revolver,
as she painted herself.  She always listened to music when she painted.
 Not the kind of music that bounced off her, but rather the kind of music
that penetrated her skin and touched every cell of her being.  Her taste
was eclectic-- everything from rock to folk to psychedelic.  The music
seemed to go right through her and ended up, somehow, on the canvas.  If
you stared at any of her paintings long enough, you could hear guitars,
harmonicas and even the occasional
wah-wah
peddle.

She
had been invited to join in gallery receptions and even had a couple of her
own.  But she steered away from the more elitist galleries, as she thought
art was for everyone, not just the wealthy and affluent.  She participated
in making public murals, and even did some of her own street art on the sneak.
 Even though he really did not fully appreciate her work, Frank thought
that she was foolish by choosing not to capitalize on her talents.  But he
must have known that plenty of other people did appreciate and admire her work.
 She would not have received a full scholarship to a well-respected art
college if her work had not been worthy of attention and admiration.

“Well
I’m sure somebody will like it,” he said of one of her paintings after studying
it for a long time with a confounded face.

Maybe
he was right, she was thinking on this particular rainy day.  And maybe,
if she had listened to him, she would not be driving to a nearby shopping mall
in search of a job and thinking how lucky she would be, due to the current
economy, to find one at all.  Shopping malls were no by means one of her
favorite places, and it depressed her to look for a job at one.  At this
time, she felt that she did not have a lot of options besides the mall. 
She figured that malls were still better than convenience stores, gas stations,
and supermarkets, all of which she had worked at one time or another.

She
tried, unsuccessfully, to tell herself that malls were really not that bad.
 They were so completely insulated that they reminded her of Biosphere 2
or some other weird science fiction experiment, and made her feel more
claustrophobic than she was already.  The excess of merchandise everywhere
had a reverse effect upon her by not only making her not want to shop, but by
making her never want to own anything for the rest of her life.  The
constant low grade noise that pervaded the air made her weak and dizzy.
 The other shoppers walking casually, as if they were enjoying themselves,
made her feel alien because she could not relate to their ability to derive
pleasure in this environment.  Despite her negative feelings towards the
mall, she needed a job and was scared.  And with Silvia, fear always
outweighed every other emotion, including disgust.  Her biggest fear of
being stuck in her father’s house, had already come true, and she knew that the
way out required money.  She was ready and willing to do whatever
necessary to make money, so that she could move far away.

She
dressed in her most conservative looking attire, which consisted of plain black
cotton pants and a plain white button down shirt-- the same outfit she had worn
at a previous banquet server job.  Her hair was evenly and freshly colored
dark brown and pulled back in a big, slick, black barrette.  Copies of her
resume were in hand, showing all of her work experience.  She listed only
jobs that she had left in good standing, which eliminated most of the jobs at
which she had worked.  She had listed in reverse chronological order:
 A natural food market in Tucson, a pottery store in Philadelphia, a used
bookstore in Chicago, and an art supply store in Brooklyn. 

Silvia’s
problem was never finding a job.  Her problem was keeping one.  She
did not need the lure of a “Help Wanted” sign to walk into a shop and ask if
help was needed, and for her proactive approach, she was often rewarded.
 But on this particular day, she tried nearly thirty shops with nothing
but negative responses.  She was ready to go for her second
Cinnabon
when she noticed a candy store that appeared to be
new to the mall.

It
was called, Savor the Flavor, and was filled with big, plastic bins containing
a rainbow of bright, artificially colored candy.  It had everything from
gummy worms to candy corn to yogurt coated malt balls to chocolate covered
raisins.  The place was crammed with shoppers loading up little white
paper bags with candy and taking them to the register.  The cashier looked
overwhelmed and jaded at the same time and wore an electric green apron that
matched the rest of the store.  Silvia was reluctant to ask her if help
was needed because of the very uninviting expression on her face, but
approached the girl none-the-less.  The girl, in turn, called out to a man
named James, who came through a door in the back wearing a maroon suit jacket.
The dullness in his eyes made his head look as empty as a cow’s head.  He
was either the owner or the manager.

“Hello,”
Silvia greeted him professionally, “I was wondering if you are looking for
help.”

“As
a matter of fact, we are looking for a store manager.  What kind of
experience do you have?”  He was curt and to the point, and Silvia liked
that in a person.  She took her resume out and handed it to him.  He
took one look at her resume and blurted out, “How do you live in all these
places?”

She
laughed, pretending to find this comment a humorous interpretation of her life,
instead of the truth.  She had a rich laugh that was just one more thing
adding to her magnetism, and after hearing it for only a few seconds, he seemed
to be impressed.  
Or at least impressed enough to want
to do a small interview with her.
 

“Let’s
go sit down and talk in the office,” he said.

She
had never had such an easy time making it to the interview stage and she
anxiously followed him while rehearsing in her head what she would say to sell
herself.  He was tall, skinny, stiff and moved like a life-sized puppet
made of wood.  He took her into the “office,” which was little more than a
broom closet jammed full of boxes of candy stacked on top of each other on some
shelves made of steel.

They
each sat on a couple of stools parked in the center of the room.  When he
asked her if she had any managing experience, she drew upon the few times that
she had to train a new employee at her previous job at the natural foods market. 
She also talked about her opening and closing responsibilities at the art
supply shop and how she was solely responsible for the upkeep of the pottery
store.  She did not mention the fact that the pottery store was the size
of a large walk-in closet, and that, therefore, there was not much inventory to
be responsible for.  Nor did she mention that the opening and closing
responsibilities at the art supply store involved unlocking and locking the
front door of the store.  Rather, she embellished the duties of her past
jobs.  She also provided James with a brief description of the many
qualities that would be sure to add greatly to the candy store’s success. 
“I’m a fast learner, punctual, hard-working, and enthusiastic,” she said, her
eyes open wide, as if she had drunk too much coffee.  Except for the fast
learner thing, these were all lies, but she had the looks and the energy to
make anyone believe that she did possess all of these qualities and more. 
James certainly seemed convinced.  But convincing this stranger that she
was here to stay would be much more difficult than convincing him that she
would make a good candy store manager.

“I
just purchased a mobile home only a few miles away from the mall,” she told
him.  “So, I won’t be going anywhere soon.”

She
surprised herself at coming up with this lie.  It must have come from her
experience driving past a mobile home development this morning on the way to
the mall.  Maybe, while driving by, she subconsciously was pondering what
it would be like to live there.  James looked back at her with a
combination of credulity and admiration, undoubtedly for being so young to have
purchased her own home.  She knew that mobile homes were cheap, especially
in today’s crumbling real estate market, so this lie was not so far out of the
realm of possibility.

He
told her that he would give her a call after he checked her references, and he
kept his promise.  He called the next night to tell her that she was hired
as the new store manager.  She was scheduled every day from nine to six
except Tuesday and Thursday.  He told her about the other employees at the
store.  There was Dave who was diabetic, so “you don’t have to worry about
him stealing the candy.”  There was Casey, who was a senior in high school
and worked the night shift, and did way too much socializing during her shift.
 “But you know how high school kids are,” he added.  There was
Melesha
, who was a kindergarten teacher and worked as the
night manager.  He told her that he would meet her the next day at nine in
the morning in front of the store. 

She
hung the phone up feeling proud of herself.  She was almost embarrassed
for feeling proud of her new mall job.  But it
was,
never-the-less, an accomplishment.  It was a management job.  And it
was in a candy store.  It would be fun. When she thought of candy, she
thought of her family’s summer trips to Canada when she was always sure to get
a lollipop almost as big as she was.  It had vibrant swirls that went
around and around. She enjoyed looking at it even more than she enjoyed eating
it.  Cosmo would try to hypnotize her with it.  Angie tried to steal
it from her.  And Vince just looked at it with curiosity and
wonderment.  There were no giant sized swirl lollipops at Savor the
Flavor, but there was a plethora of other candy varieties.  The next day
when James met her at the store, he talked about all of the candy, but mostly
about the gummy bears.

“They’re
your bread and butter,” he said with a big grin, assuming she cared about the
sales of the store as much as he did.  “If the distributor ever tries to
send you a box of blue whales after you’ve specified gummy bears on the order
form, don’t accept it!” he warned her.  Then he went on about the blue
whales like he had something against them.  “They just sit there in the
bins. They don’t move.”

Silvia
could not imagine getting on the phone with anyone, demanding that they
compensate for their blue whale mistake.  She wondered how long James
worked for the company before he began speaking in this strange candy language.
 Furthermore, she found it difficult to keep a straight face as she
listened to a grown man talk so seriously and passionately about candy.
 But he was, after all, the vice president of the company.  And to
his credit, the company was doing well, even in these tough times.  There
were eleven other
Savor
the Flavors spread throughout
malls in Southern New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania.  The store where
Silvia now worked ranked pathetically low in sales at number ten, but she felt
nothing for the cause of bringing up the sales.  In fact, she was probably
doing the locals a favor by keeping the sales low, thereby not contributing to
the country’s obesity problem in this geographic area.  Of course, she
would not reveal a trace of her work ethic or her inherent laziness for this
cause to James.  As far as he was concerned, she was a shiny, young,
ambitious recruit starved for learning the business of candy and eager to
increase sales.

While
James continued to talk, she half paid attention and half fantasized about
moving to Portland, and as the minutes drifted on, his voice got so muffled, he
came to sound like an adult in a Charlie Brown cartoon.  Fantasizing would
be the only way she would be able to endure the remainder of her orientation.
 She imagined herself clearly in the downtown of Portland with her friend,
Emily.  They were talking about something more meaningful to her than
gummy bears and blue whales.  She then saw herself riding her bike in the
rain and going out to eat burritos with her new boyfriend.  And of course,
he was
the one
.  She had
searched high and low, but she had finally found
the one
.  She then imagined herself at whatever job she
could find there, and this is where the fantasy became most vague and even
somewhat disturbing.  She saw herself working in a mall job just like this
one, and all of a sudden, James’s speech became more clear and pronounced.
 It was actually a good time for her fantasy to go sour, as he was talking
about the process for ordering.