Last Night in Twisted River

Of all the people who were surprised, puzzled, disappointed, or indifferent regarding what the writer Daniel Baciagalupo would choose for a nom de plume, Carmella Del Popolo was without a doubt the most pleased. For when Family Life in Coos County, by Danny Angel, was published, Carmella was sure that Secondo had always known he was her surrogate son--just as surely as everyone in Vicino di Napoli knew (Carmella, most of all) that absolutely no one could replace her cherished but departed Angelu.

III.

WINDHAM COUNTY,

VERMONT, 1983

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CHAPTER 7

BENEVENTO AND AVELLINO

THE BUILDING WAS OLD AND MUCH ABUSED BY ITS PROXIMITY to the Connecticut River. A few of the apartments had been abused, too, but not exclusively by the river; back in the sixties, a couple of Windham College kids had made a mess of one of them. Once cheap, the apartments were slightly more expensive now. The Connecticut had been cleaned up, and the town of Brattleboro was much improved by it. The cook's second-floor apartment was in the back of the old Main Street building, overlooking the river. Most mornings, Dominic would go downstairs to his empty restaurant and the deserted kitchen to make himself some espresso; the kitchen was also in the back, with a good view of the river.

On the ground

floor, there had always been a storefront or some kind of restaurant on the Main Street side of the weather-beaten apartment building, which was across the street from an army-navy clothing store and the local movie theater, known as the Latchis.

If you walked down the hill on Main Street, past the Latchis, you would come to Canal Street and the market where the cook did most of his shopping. From there, heading out of town, you could find your way to the hospital and a shopping mall--and, out by Interstate 91, a bunch of gas stations and the usual fast-food places.

If you walked north on Main Street, up the hill, you came to The Book Cellar--quite a good bookstore, where the now-famous author Danny Angel had done a reading or two, and his share of book signings. The cook had met a couple of his Vermont lady friends in The Book Cellar, where they all knew Dominic Del Popolo, ne Baciagalupo, as Mr. Angel--the celebrated novelist's father, and the owner-chef of the best Italian restaurant around.

After Daniel chose that nom de plume, Dominic had had to rename himself, too.

"Shit, I suppose you should both be Angels--maybe that much is clear," Ketchum had said. "Like father, like son--and all that goes with that." But Ketchum had insisted that the cook lose the Dominic, too.

"How about Tony?" Danny had suggested to his dad. It was the Fourth of July, 1967, and Ketchum had nearly burned down the Putney farmhouse with his fireworks display; little Joe continued to scream for five minutes after the last cherry bomb went off.

The name Tony still sounded Italian but was nicely anonymous, Danny was thinking, while Dominic liked the name because of his fondness for Tony Molinari; only a few nights away from Boston, the cook already knew how much he was going to miss Molinari. Tony Angel, previously Dominic Del Popolo, previously Bacigalupo, would miss Paul Polcari, too--nor would the cook think any less of Paul when he heard about what happened in August of that same summer.

Tony Angel would blame Ketchum for the mishap of the cowboy getting out of Vicino di Napoli alive--not Paul Polcari. Poor Paul could never have squeezed the trigger. It was Ketchum's fault, in the cook's opinion, because Ketchum had told them all that it didn't matter which one of them was back in the kitchen with the shotgun. Come on! For someone who knew guns as well as Ketchum did, he should have known that of course it mattered who was taking aim and would (or would not) pull the trigger! Tony Angel would never blame sweet, gentle Paul.

"You blame Ketchum too much, for everything," Danny would tell his dad more than once, but that was just the way it was.

If Molinari had been back in the kitchen, Dominic Del Popolo would have changed his name back to Dominic Baciagalupo--and he would have gone back to Boston, to Carmella. The cook would never have had to become Tony Angel. And the writer Danny Angel, whose fourth novel was his first bestseller--now in 1983, his fifth novel had already been translated into more than thirty foreign languages--would have gone back to calling himself, as he dearly wanted to, Daniel Baciagalupo.

"Damn it, Ketchum!" the cook had said to his old friend. "If Carmella had been back in the kitchen with your blessed Ithaca, she would have shot Carl twice while he was still squinting at her. If the idiot busboy had been back there, I swear he would have pulled that trigger!"

"I'm sorry, Cookie. They were your friends--I didn't know them. You should have told me there was a nonshooter--a fucking pacifist!--among them."

"Stop blaming each other," Danny would tell them repeatedly.

After all, it had been sixteen years--or it would be, this coming August--since Paul Polcari failed to pull the trigger of Ketchum's single-shot 20-gauge. It had all worked out, hadn't it? the cook was thinking, as he sipped his espresso and watched the Connecticut River run by his kitchen window.

They had once run logs down the Connecticut. In the dining room of the restaurant, which looked out upon Main Street and the marquee with the name of whatever movie was currently playing at the Latchis Theatre, the cook had framed a big black-and-white photograph of a logjam in Brattleboro. The photo had been taken years ago, of course; they weren't moving logs over water in Vermont or New Hampshire anymore.

River driving had lasted longer in Maine, which was why Ketchum had worked so much in Maine in the sixties and seventies. But the last river drive in Maine was in 1976--from Moosehead Lake, down the Kennebec River. Naturally, Ketchum had been in the thick of it. He'd called the cook collect from some bar in Bath, Maine, not far from the mouth of the Kennebec.

"I'm trying to distract myself from some asshole shipyard worker, who is sorely tempting me to cause him a little bodily harm," Ketchum began.

"Just remember you're an out-of-stater, Ketchum. The local authorities will take the side of the shipyard worker."

"Christ, Cookie--do you know what it costs to move logs over water? I mean getting them from where you cut them to the mill--about fifteen fucking cents a cord! That's all a river drive will cost you."

The cook had heard this argument too many times. I could hang up, Tony Angel thought, but he stayed on the phone--perhaps out of pity for the shipyard worker.

"It'll cost you six or seven dollars a cord to get logs to the mill over land!" Ketchum shouted. "Most roads in northern New England aren't worth shit to begin with, and now there'll be nothing but asshole truck drivers on them! You may think it's already a world of accidents, Cookie, but imagine an overloaded logging truck tipping over and crushing a carload of skiers!"