The Penny Ferry - Rick Boyer (14 page)

Mary squirmed in her seat and drew her breath in
sharply, her eyes bugged out in her anger.

"You're shitting me!"

"Nope."

"And those bastards executed them anyway?"

"Yep."

"
Charlie, you're shitting me!"

"Cross my heart . . ."

"Bastards!" she shouted, smacking the
dashboard with her fists. She does this on big slabs of clay to get
the air bubbles out before firing. The clay could take it; the Audi,
despite its engineering, probably couldn't.

"Easy, kid. The guy's name was Celestino
Madeiros, a Portuguese boy who was already indicted for murder in
another holdup. He was executed the same night as Sacco and Vanzetti.
He had nothing to gain by the confession. He said he felt sorry for
the two guys held wrongly. He felt especially sorry for Sacco's wife,
Rosina, and their son, Dante."

We were now passing Mass. General Hospital, and swept
around it and over to Causeway Street. Then a right turn onto
Washington and we were there. The whole time Mary sat silently,
glowering through the windshield. We met Joe in the open-air patio
court for a drink. I ordered a dry Tanqueray martini and got it wet,
which invariably happens in any Italian restaurant, and we waited for
our table. Mary sipped on a Campari, having forsworn peppermint
schnapps forever.

"What's the matter, Sis?" asked Joe, who
couldn't help noticing her subdued state. She told him, and we
launched into the case a am.

"I agree with you, Doc. There was an invisible
hand behind it all, pulling the strings and pushing the buttons. The
worst thing though was the prosecution's constant claim that this and
that evidence showed that the defendants could have committed the
crime. Their alibi witnesses could be lying to protect their friends;
therefore they were lying. The men could have been in South
Braintree, so therefore they were there, and therefore they did
commit the robbery. Bullshit! American law says the prosecution must
prove guilt. It does not say the defense must prove innocence. They
were marked men."

He rapped the table twice as he said the words again:
"Marked men."

We went in and ordered dinner. I had the house
specialty, which is steak a la Mafia. It was great. We all shared the
antipasti and pasta, and a liter of good house red. Three couples
came in, obviously young studs and foxy mamas from the North End.
They wore the local outfit. The women, who were gorgeous, had on
tight blouses, choker necklaces, and pants that were sprayed 
on. This ensemble was set off by four-inch stiletto heels. Their hair
was swept back, short, thick, black, and slightly wet. Their faces
were heavily made up and their cheeks blood-red.

Their lips were purple and wet and slick as the
underside of a lily pad. Mary said that she didn't care if the punk
look was the rage, they looked like cheap whores. No doubt about it,
they looked a bit tawdry. They looked wanton. They looked wicked and
nasty. They looked terrific.

The guys, between the three of them, were wearing
more gold than Fort Knox. Necklaces, crucifixes, St. Chris medals,
St. Francis medals, St. Jude, St. Anthony, St. Peter, and so on.
Rings, I.D. bracelets, watches, buckles. If they tried to board a
plane at Logan Airport the metal detector would get a hernia. They
wore continental-cut jackets with a little sheen to them, black
calfskin boots with heels— they needed the heels to be taller than
their dates— and pants that were skin-tight at the crotch to show
the world that they were hung like seed bulls. Their hair looked a
lot like their dates' hair. All of them had mustaches; one also wore
a beard. Their white silk shirts had big collars and were open to the
navel, this to reveal both the array of chains and charms and medals
and the chest rugs. Each guy's bosom looked like a coconut-fiber
doormat. I've heard it rumored that Caesare's Men's Boutique sells
not only hairpieces but chest rugs too, for those who aren't
naturally endowed. I could use one. Another item that purports to
move well at Caesare's is a padded-cup jock for guys who want to look
hung like a seed bull but aren't. I could use one. . .

"Well at least you can tell the boys from the
girls here," I said.

"That's refreshing anyway." Never had I
seen such blatant sexuality; never was human sexual dimorphism more
exaggerated.

"And don't bother staring at their pants, Mary;
they're just wearing those padded jocks."

"
If I have another glass of wine I think I'll go
check," she said.

"
By the way, I notice you haven't taken your
eyes off that tall girl's ass since she walked in."

"Huh?"

"Don't 'huh' me, buster. How would you like me
to dress like that?"

"I'd love it."

"
Hey Joe! Joey!" A fat man with an enormous
mustache was working his way over to our table. Joe jumped up and
pumped his hand. Then his arm slowed down. He was looking at the
man's face. He had obviously been crying.

"Joey—" the man said quickly, and he
leaned over and whispered in Joe's ear.

"
I know."

"Oh, sorry," the man said, turning to us,
"didn't mean to do that. Something sad just happened. Sorry."

Then he turned back to Joe again and leaned over him.
"Can you come for a few minutes anyhow?"

"Yes," answered Joe. "We'll be right
over when we finish."

The fat man left, his eyes glancing to and fro— as
if looking for others to accost. We dove into our ice cream, and Joe
explained that they had Andy Santuccio laid out at Langone's funeral
parlor a couple of blocks away and that he was going to stop by and
pay his respects. We said we'd come along.

The place was crowded. People of all shapes and ages
milled about, talking in low tones. They kissed each other, embraced,
sobbed quietly, and said the rosary. About half spoke English, half
Italian. There was a lot of black, especially worn by the older
women. Men wore dark hats. It almost resembled a congregation of
Orthodox Jews on the Lower East Side. The parlor room which held the
remains was packed with flowers. Two old aunts stood at the casket,
shaking hands with mourners and wiping their eyes. Many people came
and went from the chapel room. The only things missing were the
street procession and the men with the trumpets following behind,
playing the dirge. Otherwise it very closely resembled the Sicilian
funeral scene in The Godfather. I made this observation to Joe, who
suddenly realized something.

"Follow me," he said, leading us back past
the offices to a small room crammed with mementos and pictures on all
the walls. Joe looked through several volumes of photographs and
newspaper clippings before showing me a picture of Hanover Street
crowded to overflowing with spectators as a pair of hearses inched
down the street. All the men wore hats: skimmers, fedoras, bowlers,
even top hats. The women wore wide hats with flowers on top and big,
full-skirted dresses. The hearses looked about 1920s vintage.

"
What's this?" I asked him.

"The funeral procession of Sacco and Vanzetti.
Look. See the armbands worn by all the mourners? Look, here's another
one."

He turned the page and I saw a grisly photo of two
dead men on slabs. They were partially draped, but their upper torsos
and heads were visible. Their faces had the vacant, collapsed look of
death. Then Joe turned another page and we saw the two men formally
laid out in suits, placed in caskets with the lids propped open, and
covered with flowers, much as poor young Andy was next door. But a
crowd was tightly pressed around the corpses. The people in the crowd
were holding up a huge banner, which read: DID You SEE WHAT I DID TO
THOSE ANARCHIST BASTARDS
THE OTHER DAY?

"Do you know about that quote, Doc?"

"
Yeah. It was supposedly said by the judge at
the trial, Webster Thayer, when he was playing golf with friends in
Worcester. It showed he was just a wee bit biased. It doesn't say
very much for American jurisprudence, does it?"

"Nah. It sure doesn't."

The fat man with the watery eyes and walrus mustache
came into the room and looked at the pictures with us for a few
minutes. He kept apologizing for interrupting us and Joe kept telling
him he wasn't. His name was Gus Giordano, and I liked him immediately
and intensely. Like Moe Abramson, he seemed to be a giving person.

"So sad," he said, looking down at the
photographs of the funeral procession. "So very sad."

Big drops were falling on the pictures. Giordano was
crying. He wiped his eyes and looked at Mary. He managed a weak smile
and she hugged him.

"But you should see the real thing. The films of
it. Joey, you know Frank Bertoni?"

"Never heard of him."

"He lives just up the street. He's a film nut,
you know? Collects all kinds of old movies. He's put together a film
based on old newsreels of the trial. Took him years to get all the
footage. We've shown it at Sons of Italy and sometimes—"

"Wait a minute," said Joe, looking up
quickly. "Hey, I think I've seen that film. It's like old-time
movies? Like Chaplin?"

"That's it," said Giordano. "Well, if
you've seen it already . . ."

"
But we haven't," said Mary. "Do you
think it's possible for us to—"

"For you, the world," said Giordano, and
went to a phone.

He returned in less than five minutes and handed Joe
a slip of paper with a name and address on it.

"He's a great guy and he loves to show the film;
it's his pride and joy. I'd go too but I really should stay awhile.
Arrivederla."

After Joe spent another ten minutes pumping hands and
giving hugs, we left Langone's and walked four blocks to the
apartment building of Frank Bertoni, who let us in at the front door
and walked us up two floors. He was young and blondish and wore
wire-rimmed granny glasses. His apartment was small but neat, the
walls covered with old movie posters. There was a photo of Charlie
Chaplin in a repairman's suit, wielding a huge wrench to giant
machinery. There were posters featuring Gable and Lombard, Tracy and
Hepburn, Jane Russell, and lots more.

Frank had prepared for our arrival; armchairs were
set up in the living room in a row facing a screen. Behind the seats
sat a projector on a table. He switched the projector on, the house
lights off. The whirring of the projector was the only noise in the
room. The movie was silent, the seconds ticked off by a line like a
radar blip that moved counterclockwise in a circle: 5 .. .4. . . 3 .
. . 2.. . 1 . ..and then we saw the title in black and white:

THE NEVER-ENDING WRONG
a
film by
Francis J. Bertoni

The window was open, and the street noises of
babbling pedestrians and car traffic that filtered up through the
window were a natural accompaniment to the crowd scenes and protests
we saw on film. The film was, of course, a spliced collection of the
original film footage. The moving images on the screen bore all the
earmarks of age, with ropelike streaks that moved back and forth
across the pictures, making them look like it was raining, and great
white blobs and {lashes that exploded continually all over the
screen. Most striking, though, was the high-speed, Chaplinesque
puppet dance of the people, which failed to lend the necessary comic
relief to the grim scenes that paraded before us.

The first thing we saw was a huge crowd of protesters
carrying signs and banners in the rain. I was puzzled to see a
gigantic pillar in the center of the picture. A shot from farther
back revealed it to be the base of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar
Square. Tall-helmeted bobbies milled around the fringes of the mob.
Flash to Paris, where a similar throng stood and pranced around the
Arc de Triomphe, the primitive camera making the solemn marchers look
like square dancers as they jumped and turned and sashayed arm in
arm. On to Moscow, where, as one would suspect, they were going
bananas. Whole trainloads of protesters, probably encouraged by the
state, filed off railroad cars and drummed through the wide streets
as they met farmers driving troikas and oxcarts. Around St. Basil's
the multitudes in tall hats and billowing skirts shouted and raised
their hands together, sang, and hopped about like bunny rabbits. In
Rome the crowds were tumultuous, as might be expected in the home
country of the accused. Though lightly clad in comparison to their
northern cousins, the crowds in St. Peter's Square engaged in the
same tragicomic square dance.

Shot of a building. Bertoni announced that it was the
Dedham courthouse, scene of the trial. Pan down the street toward
another biggish building, which we cannot see. Then another shot. It
is a prison, complete with high brick wall and coil of barbed wire,
barely visible, creeping over the edge. Two watchtowers, and the big
cell-block building itself, with barred windows. The Dedham jail
looks the way we think a jail should look— perfect for a movie set.
A crowd coming toward the camera, with all the people doing that
old-time-movie polka dance that's usually funny but now is not.
Close-up of four men. I see instantly that the two in the middle are
Sacco and Vanzetti. They look young . . . and hopeful. Sacco even
manages a weak and fleeting smile. Vanzetti looks stern. He is
talking. He is holding hands with his fellow prisoner, a nice
gesture. No, wait. They're handcuffed together. Their outer arms are
also handcuffed, to the marshals beside them. Vanzetti is trying to
say something, but he wants to use his hands and he cannot. He
finally manages to bow his head and remove his worker's snap-brim
hat, which he holds, and speaks to the camera. Shot of Sacco, saying
nothing. Vanzetti is tall and handsome; his giant drooping mustache
gives him the air of an orator. Sacco is short, stocky, and trim in
his dark suit and bowler hat. Very close shot of Sacco's face.
Typically Italian. Dark, with rather prominent nose and cheekbones.
Intense and handsome. The face aroused much controversy because
witnesses swore that it was Nick Sacco they saw at the scene of the
robbery and murder. Nobody claimed to have seen Vanzetti. And yet
Herbert Ehrmann, the young, bright assistant defense counsel, showed
the striking resemblance between Sacco's typical Italian face and
that of Joe Morelli, leader of the holdup gang in Providence. A
resemblance that was not twinlike but clonelike. The prosecution and
the state refused to consider the evidence.