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Gnocchi
Gaetano Fadda and his new cohorts need a place to talk in private, so they go out back in the alley behind Joplin’s.
Calamita begins, “He is weak. We need to…”
“Shhh! You hear that?” They freeze and listen. A rustling in the piles of garbage behind them. They pull out their guns. Something moves behind the cans.
“Is just a rat.” Calamita says. It rattles again, louder this time. They look closer. Something sticks it’s head (maybe?) out and quickly disappears back into the garbage.
“You have big rats in America!” Gaetano exclaims.
They turn back around and resume their conversation. A second later Gaetano sees out of the corner of his eye, it scurry from one can to another.
“What is that?” Antoon asks.
“It’s just a rat! Ignore it!” Calamita is getting annoyed.
“I used to shoot rats for target practice” Gaetano says and points his gun at the trash. He waits a few seconds for it to reappear. Calamita loses patience.
“We don’t have time for this.” He walks over to the cans and kicks one, making a ruckus. The creature runs out into a corner between the building and fence.
“I don’t think that is a rat. It has long hair.” Antoon says.
“What else could it be?” Paolo wonders and walks closer.
“It growled at me! Do rats growl? What noise do rats make?”
“I don’t think that is a rat…”
“It’s a rat!”
“Rats have pointy nose, this has no nose at all!”
Gaetano takes a few steps closer and aims. It growls louder. Gaetano cocks his gun. It barks.
“I think it’s a poopie…”
“It’s pronounced puppy, boss.” Paolo corrects. Gaetano gives him a wide-eyed glare. “Or poopie, same thing, whatever you want!” He raises his hands defensively.
“Whatever it is, it’s disgusting; kill it already!” Calamita commands.
Gaetano points the gun again, but the poopie is looking right at him. He makes eye contact. It cocks its head to the side. He does the same. It looks at him. He looks at it. They look into each other’s eyes. Gaetano hears music - whatever the Italian Operatic equivalent of Dreamweaver is.
“Are you going to shoot it or not?” Gaetano ignores the question and approaches the thing. He reaches his hand out and makes a little kissy sound. It bites him and he pulls his hand back. He looks at it - it’s bleeding. He looks back at the thing.
“It’s hungry.”
Calamita and Antoon go back inside the club while Gaetano and Paolo walk down the street to buy it a hamburger.
-
He starts saving the scraps from his meals in napkins to toss at the little trash monster. It looks like a clog from a shower drain with googlie eyes and upside down vampire teeth. After a week it starts coming out and doing a little tippy tappy dance when it hears Gaetano’s footsteps, but it won’t let him near without biting. That’s ok, he just hasn’t found the right food.
-
The news is on the radio in the living room. The local weather forecast - 75% chance of freezing rain. Gaetano jumps up and stomps all over the house until he finds Rabbi’s room.
“You, Rabbi! Where you keep the tools?”
“In the basement. Why, what do you need?”
-
That night the bartender at Joplin’s brings the trash out. He’s caught off guard to see a large man holding an umbrella over a skinny man crouching down, struggling to hammer something in the alley. The large man gives him a dangerous look and he goes back inside, the bags can wait in the hallway.
-
Next morning the creature drags a t-bone as big as the creature itself into its new crudely built doghouse and chews contentedly.
-
A few weeks later, Josto walks into the kitchen. His eyebrows shoot up.
“Oh my god! What is that smell?!” Gaetano, standing at the sink, holds up a greasy, hairball in one hand. “Is that a guinea pig?”
“What did you call me?!”
“No, no! I wasn’t… A guinea pig, it’s a- a thing, it’s the name of an animal. A rodent. Anyway, what is that?”
“Is poopie.”
“It’s poopie, alright! I can smell it from here! You can’t have that filthy thing in the kitchen.”
“I give bath.”
“In the sink?! No way!”
Gaetano stands to his full height and leans over his brother. The creature growls.
“No… look…that’s… those are the dishes that we eat off of!” He points. It gnashes his finger and he jumps back.
“We don’t care.”
“Well… don’t let mom see!”
-
The Fadda family dinner table is very quiet. Everyone is staring at Gaetano who has a small, frizzy, fantasy creature with a fanged underbite perched on his shoulder. He doesn’t notice anything is amiss. As he eats, he takes 2 bites for himself and then 1 for the thing, who eats it off his fork.
Antoon sits next to him. He reaches for the potatoes in front of his brother-in-law. As he leans in closer, the creature snarls and lunges as him. He screams and nearly falls off his chair. Gaetano catches the little guy before it flies off his arm, laughing hysterically.
“She don’t like you!”
“It doesn’t like anybody!” Naneeda chastises. “The children are terrified. Can’t it stay outside?” Gaetano stops laughing.
“Why don’t your dumb kids stay outside, eh?”
“Gaetano Nostrodamus Fadda, don’t you talk to your sister like that!” His mother chides.
“I’m sorry, mama. I’m sorry Naneeda.” To the creature he whispers “I’m sorry, poopie” and feeds it another bite of pork chop.
-
Satchel is out back building a snowman, Rabbi is supervising from the porch, drinking tea. Gaetano brings his wee little monster outside to pee. Satchel runs over.
“Can I pet your dog?” He asks, but doesn’t wait for an answer, reaching out for it’s… ears? Does it have ears? Where the ears are supposed to be.
Rabbi screams “NOOOOOOO!” And drops his teacup. But there’s no bloodbath, it just licks his cold hands. It’s a miracle that can’t be explained by modern science.
“Hey, look at that! She likes you!” Gaetano beams.
“All dogs like me cuz I like them. What’s her name?”
“I just call her poopie.” Satchel frowns.
“She needs a real name.”
“Like what?”
“Let’s see…” He lifts the critter in the air and looks it over. He turns it on it’s back and cradles it like a baby, scratching it’s belly, where there is slightly less stringy fur.
“Um, for starters, this is a boy. So it needs a boy name.”
“What? No, it’s got no thing.”
“It’s right there” Satchel points to it’s tiny schmeckle.
“That? No, it’s too small, looks more like a nipple.” Satchel looks at him confusedly.
“It’s a 2 pound dog, what do you think it’s gonna look like?”
“Really? That little pignoli? Nah…”
“Well, does it lift its leg to pee?” Rabbi chimes in from a few feet back.
They put it down and wait for it to find a spot to do its business. When it does, it sort of half squats half lifts a leg. Well, that didn’t help.
“We can just give it a unisex name, like Happy or Lucky.”
“I don’t think those names suit the thing at all” Rabbi says.
“Hmm,” Satchel muses, “What’s its favorite food?”
-
Gaetano leaves the leather worker’s shop with his new custom itty bitty collar. It has both metal spikes and rhinestones. Next stop is the jeweler to pick up the hand engraved, silver plated dog tag that reads GNOCCHI. He had wanted to get gold, but the jeweler convinced him that dog tags get scratched up and lost all the time, it was better to go with a more reasonably priced tag. She could not persuade him to give up the diamond in the O, though.
His last errand of the day is the post office to mail some letters to Italy. He stands in line with Gnocchi, bedecked in his new finery, in a sling across his chest. The woman in front of him in line notices the little bundle and coos “oh, what do we have here!” She goes to pet him and nearly loses a hand.
“You should have warned me it bites!” She screams.
“Look out. It bites.” Gaetano smirks.
-
The members of the Fadda house have taken to stuffing folded newspaper down the back of their socks to act as ankle armor. Even the women have started wearing trousers for added leg protection.
“Hey, Rabbi, if you’re going to the store can you get some more bandages?” Josto asks.
“That’s exactly what I’m going for. That thing bit me again this morning. Jumped out from under a cabinet.”
“It got me from behind the sofa! How is it always attacking us when it never leaves his side?! It’s in 3 places at once! I’m telling you…”
“No.” Rabbi holds up his hands. “I will not hear any more of your superstitious claptrap.”
“It’s evil, Rabbi!”
“Well, obviously it’s evil! But it’s not supernatural. Just sneaky, is all.”
“It’s a gremlin.”
“At least it’s a good distraction - he’s not trying to take over the business anymore.”
“Honestly, I preferred that. I feared for my life less then than I do now. In fact, any day now you’re going to walk into the office and that mutt is going to be sitting in my chair gnawing on my severed head.” Rabbi sighs.
“Probably.”
-
Gaetano shows up to the club with a large bandaid across his face.
“G, did you try to kiss that thing and it bit your nose off?”
“Her name is Gnocchi, and it’s just a little love bite.”
“It’s a boy and you’re bleeding.” Gnocchi growls.
“You tell him, tesoro!” He kisses the top of its head. It growls louder.
-
Satchel and Gaetano take Gnocchi to the ice cream parlor. Gnocchi sits at the end of the table in a high chair with a little embroidered cushion they brought. They each get a sundae: hot fudge and caramel for the humans, vanilla and peanut butter for the dog. The waitress hesitantly approaches the table.
“Here’s your extra nuts… aaaah!” Gnocchi snaps at her and she drops the bowl.
They laugh.
“More nuts, please.”
“You are nuts if you think I’m coming back!”
Satchel scoops the spilled peanuts onto the ice cream while Gaetano makes little kissy faces at it.
-
Loy arrives at the playground for a check-in with his son. Satchel runs over and hugs him around the chest.
“Hi, dad!!” Loy beams at the unusually chipper greeting.
“Hey Satchel, how ya doing?”
“Great!”
“Now that’s what I like to hear!” His smile fades slightly as Rabbi walks over looking sour.
“Kid, go play for a minute, I gotta talk to your dad.” Satchel pouts.
“Don’t be a fink!” He runs off. Loy is concerned.
“What’s going on?”
“The kid’s out of control. Don’t listen to me no more.”
“Did something happen?” Rabbi scowls.
“He’s got a new friend who’s a bit of a bad influence.” Loy looks over at Satchel playing tug with a hideous little cat looking thing and Gaetano standing nearby cheering them on.
“The brother?”
“His dog.”
“That’s a dog?”
“It’s evil.”
“Dogs can’t be evil.”
“This one’s evil.”
-
Gaetano dances around the club, light on his feet for such a large man. The little gremlin attacks his shoes but he seems delighted by the violent attention. As he glides along with the fur ball eating his laces, he sings a little song to the tune of his favorite Opera:
“Oh, my little Gnocchi/ I find you in the trash/ they thought you were a rat but you are not a rat/ my heart goes barrrapapapapapa like a machine gun/ explodes with affections/ my little Gnocchi the baby dog…”
Satchel looks to Josto and asks “Does that rhyme in Italian?” He shakes his head.
“No, kid. I think he’s just making it up as he goes.”
“He’s a good singer, though.”
“I guess. I prefer jazz.”
“No you don’t, you’re just trying to sound cool!”
“Shut up, kid.” Josto glares. He and Rabbi are sitting on the bar with their feet out of bite range.
“He hasn’t shot, stabbed, or beaten anyone in weeks” Josto says to the Irishman.
“That’s good, right?”
“Well, it’s great for now, but eventually we’ll need him to do his job. He’s definitely staying now, since he can’t take the dog back to Italy.”
“Sure he can. The UK has a quarantine on animals coming in, but not Italy, I don’t think.”
“Both planes and boats require animals to be in cages, so he won’t do it.”
“Since when does Gaetano follow rules?”
“I dunno, maybe around the time he started baking.”
“He’s going to make my birthday cake!” Satchel chimes in, “Chocolate with marshmellow frosting and rainbow sprinkles.”
“That’s nice, kid. You’re lucky, I never had birthday cakes growing up” Rabbi says. Satchel looks sad for a second, then runs over to join Gaetano and the snarling critter. Gaetano stops singing and they whisper together.
“I don’t know where he learned to bake,” Josto wonders, “but he’s good at it.”
“Did he make those cookies? I thought that was your mother.”
“He made the cookies. And a cheesecake. Best I ever had, actually.”
“There was cheesecake? I didn’t get any.” Rabbi pouts.
“Well that’s what you get for hiding in your room.”
“Can you blame me?”
“No. *sigh* And to be honest, I ate most of it myself. I can’t stop eating these days. I eat when I’m stressed and this goddamn war is so stressful. I’ve gained 20 pounds since my dad died.”
“Aww, compagno,” Rabbi rubs his back. “We just need to find a better coping mechanism for you. Have you tried screaming into a pillow?”
“Nah. The choke-sex was helping, but then my girlfriend broke up with me. Lousy jealous dames. I told her I loved her and she threw me out! Can ya believe that?”
“I can’t believe you told her you love her after only a few weeks.”
“Maybe I rushed into it a little…”
“You barely knew her.”
“Sure I did!”
“What was her name?” Josto freezes.
“Um. She was from Minnesota.”
“That’s where she’s from, but what’s her name?”
“It’s… I want to say areola…”
“That’s the outer part of a nipple, Josto.”
“Her last name’s a ship. The Santa Maria, I think?”
“Areola Santa Maria. Right, that’s a normal human name. Are you sure you don’t mean Oraetta Mayflower?”
“That’s it! How did you know?”
“I saw it on the door bell of the building when I went looking for you that one time. Apartment 2B”
“And you remembered? Cripes. This is why I need you back in the game, Rabbi, you’re actually good at your job.”
“Thanks. And if you want, I can choke you a little. Or a lot. Any time you need it.” Josto points and arches his eyebrow.
“See? This is why my father kept you around, you’re a team player. Real good egg.” Rabbi blushes a little. He hopes he’ll take him up on it.
-
It’s Satchel’s birthday. He, Rabbi, Naneeda, and her kids are gathered in the dining room. The poopie is in Satchel’s lap, which is why he’s a few feet from everyone else. Gaetano comes in carrying a large birthday cake with 12 candles and they all sing “Happy Birthday”, the enormous man’s voice trills over everyone else’s. Satchel blows out the candles and they clap. Rabbi goes to cut the cake but Satchel grabs his hand.
“Wait! We’re not done!” Rabbi looks confused.
Satchel jumps up and the creature jumps to the ground barking. Everyone sitting pulls their feet up in fear, Rabbi just stands very still. Satchel and Gaetano run back to the kitchen and a minute later come back out with a second cake. It’s pink and in green piping says “HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY RAB” they ran out of room for the bi. (That’s ok, Josto is bi enough for everyone.) There’s no candles because no one knows how old he is (could be 31 or 39, it’s not important but it’s annoying that it’s so ambiguous.)
Rabbi is trying really hard not to cry; he’s got a weird expression on his face.
“But… I thought you didn’t like me no more?”
“Of course I like you!” Satchel admonishes. “I just don’t like being told what to do. You’re still my friend.”
“Thank you” he manages to say with tears in his eyes, and squeezes Satchel’s shoulder.
“I made you some strawberry cake, don’t act like there’s no tomorrow” Gaetano laughs and swats him on the back. It’s a friendly gesture but almost knocks the smaller man over. Gaetano laughs again. He holds his hand out and they shake. Gnocchi doesn’t like this and bites Rabbi’s calf. He doesn’t dare kick out for fear of retaliation.
“Haha, little poopie is jealous! Come here, mi Gnocchi…” He uses a spoon to pry the tiny jaws off. Rabbi cries for real, but pretends like he’s just happy.
They all eat cake with just a little bit of blood in it.