The Brotherhood of the Grape Read Online Free

of my father, for he was an old man now; his days were thinning out, and the less time remaining the more rebellious he got, whereas it seemed that my mother, despite her failing eyesight, rheumatic fingers and backache, would be with us for many years to come.
    My father would have been a happier man without a family. Were it not for his four children he would have been divorced and long gone to other towns. He loved Stockton, which was full of Italians, and Marysville, where one could play the Chinese lottery day and night. His children were the nails that crucified him to my mother. No kids and he would have been as free as a bird.
    He did not like us particularly, and certainly he did not love us at all. We were just ordinary kids, plain and undistinguished, and he expected more. We were chores that had to be done, not a rich harvest, not asparagus or figs or dates, but humbler fare, potatoes and corn and beans, and he was stuck with the toil of it, cursing and kicking clods until the crops matured.
    He was a hard-nosed, big-fisted mountain man from Abruzzi, short, five feet seven, wide as a door, born in a part of Italy where poverty was as spectacular as the surrounding glaciers, and any child who survived the first five years would live to eighty-five. Of course, not many reached the age of five. He and my Aunt Pepina, now eighty and living in Denver, were the only two out of thirteen who had survived. That way of life gave my father his toughness. Bread and onions, he used to boast, bread and onions—what else does a man need? That was why my whole life has been a loathing of bread and onions. He was more than the head of the family. He was judge, jury and executioner, Jehovah himself.
    Nobody crossed him without a battle. He disliked almost everything, particularly his wife, his children, his neighbors, his church, his priest, his town, his state, his country, and the country from which he emigrated. Nor did he give a damn for the world either, or the sun or the stars, or the universe, or heaven or hell. But he liked women.
    He also liked his work and half a dozen paisani who, like himself, were Italians in the dictator mold. He was a flawless craftsman whose imagination and intelligence seemed centered in his marvelously strong hands, and though he called himself a building contractor I came to regard him as a sculptor, for he could shape a rock into man or beast. He was a superb, swift, neat bricklayer as well as an excellent carpenter, plasterer and concrete builder.
    He had great contempt for himself, yet was proud and even conceited. Nick Molise believed that every brick he laid, every stone he carved, every sidewalk and wall and fireplace he built, every gravestone he fashioned, belonged to posterity. He had a terrifying lust for work and a bitter squint at the sun which, in his view, moved too fast across the sky. To finish a job brought him deep sadness. His love for stone was a pleasure more fulfilling than his passion for gambling, or wine, or women. He usually worked far beyond quitting time, even into darkness, and he had a bad reputation among hod carriers and helpers for overworking them. He was always in bad standing with the bricklayers’ union.
    The town of San Elmo was his Louvre, his work spread out for the world to see. He was angry that the town did not recognize his talents. Had the city council awarded him a medal or a scroll it might have changed his entire life. What the hell, every year the Chamber of Commerce passed out commendations to noteworthy citizens; they gave Cramer, the Ford distributor, a scroll for Man of the Year, and they gave another to G. K. Laurel, the druggist—so how come they never took notice of what Nick Molise had done for their asshole town?
    A consistent breadwinner, my father had a problem—he never brought the bread home. The poker game at the Elks Club had sucked up thousands of dollars over the years. I remember him counting out seven hundred and eighty