Broken English

I never took Italian in high school. Nonna said the rosary for me everyday as a direct result of this. “ Che cosa’ai? Ma whadda you gonna do when I’ma old and can’t talka to you no more?” Yeah, she was a pro at laying on the Italian guilt trip, and I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t make me feel remorseful.

I knew that if I could rewind back to filling out my course schedule my freshman year of high school, I would bubble in circle B: Italian with Signor Policita, dedicating myself to that familiar language my Nonna had sung me to sleep in countless nights, while my body koalaed around hers.

I grew up singing the wrong words to The Beatles because of Nonna and Tata’s broken English. To me, the lyrics sounded just as good when they ended “Hanytime, hany day, you’lla come backa to me, Oh my Dolly…putta putta pum”. It didn’t matter that my friends didn’t understand why I always had to be home in time for Sunday dinners, or why as a 6th grader I brought leftover pasta fagioli to lunch instead of PB&J’s.

They didn’t know rules like “No dipping bread into the sauce while it’s cooking!”, or that there has to be seven different kinds of fish at Christmas Eve dinner. No one else I knew could have Biscotti’s, dip them in Mom’s coffee, and get away with calling it breakfast.

Jenny and Julie, my Americana friends down on Prospect Street, both had finished basements that hosted our middle school slumber parties. My basement, had a wine cellar. Dad and Uncle Lou would let us bambinas climb into the enormous purple stained barrel to run in circles to crush the grapes.

Me and my siblings, Elisa, Antonio, and Gianna, always fought to be the first to sink our feet into that disgustingly wonderful barrel where we could run and play follow the leader, until an accidental tripping was retaliated with purposeful shove. When the sibling rivalry flared up like that, a stern “Ay-Yo, knockitoff” from one of the men would fend us off for a while.

I could always measure how impatient we’d be for Dad or Uncle Lou to hoist us into the barrel by how sore our ribs were from jumping up to lean over the rim. We’d check if we could hear the grapes pop and sizzle as they fermented, or feel if they were still giving off heat.

It was worth the wait to squish into those grapes. Stomp, crush, squash. Stomp, crush, squash. Yell for the bosses when the oozing purple liquid fills the bucket below. They never sat far from us squishers, puffing their cherry cigars, singing along to the Rat Pack, washing out vintage wine bottles, waiting to refill with them their own vino.

While the basement is for the men, upstairs in our kitchen is where the hens of the family always gather. Clucking tends to peak before Christmas when it’s time to discuss the menu, the timing, and who’s gotten fatter since last year. Of course all this planning never works out, so I don’t know why they all insist on getting together.

Dinner always ends up being at least an hour late, and somebody always accidentally doubles up on the main entrée. I guess when you’re feeding a growing family of 40 to 50 the amount of food brought to the table is never enough.

No matter how many Christmas dinners at Nonny Rose’s you’ve been to, seeing a pot of ravioli so big that it takes all four burners on her stove to cook it is still a jaw dropper. So is the folding card table covered in bottles of Sambucca, Lemoncello, and Torre Gaia sent over from those cousins in Napoli. The ones who will call without fail and want to talk to everyone, even if it’s just to say, “Ciao”.

But after the phone call and 12-course dinner, the desserts are brought out and the shots of Sambucca become sloppier. Carmela is usually trying to persuade Tony or Lucia, to trade Yankee Swap gifts with her so she can have the lotto tickets they luckily picked. Alfie, Peter, Joey, and Steve always sneak out to smoke a joint before NeeNee corral’s us all out onto the front porch for the traditional family photo. Every year, as our familigia grows, the once sturdy porch on that white Victorian house seems to buckle a little more.

The passing cars on Hartford Ave honk at us as we sway and swing to try to keep warm while NeeNee is perched on the top rung of a ladder, setting the automatic timer on her Nikon camera and making sure the eight foot tall flashbulb is balanced in the snow.

As soon as the red light starts flashing, it’s our signal to start cheering NeeNee on as she races to scramble down the ladder, and sprint to join us on the porch. After several failed attempts at beating the timer, she finally makes it into the photo, but the flash never goes off. We give her one more chance before we all ditch the photo shoot and opt for the desserts inside.

Soon after, the dinner table’s covered in roasted chestnut shells and half eaten Tiramisu, but no one’s ready to clean up just yet. Four new babies are lined up sleeping peacefully in their car seats and don’t seem to mind the old Italians playing Scopa and serenading each other with “O Sole Mio”, that familiar makeshift lullaby we’ve all grown up falling asleep to.