Xhenet Aliu - Brass

“I live here,” he said and slid an empty fork into his mouth.

“No, you know what I mean. Where are you from .”

“I came from Italy,” he said.

Greta looked up at the plate of spaghetti-art she’d been working on for the past twenty minutes. “You said he was from Albania.”

I looked at Bashkim. “He is. Italy?”

He shrugged. “I was there for a year before coming here.”

“That wasn’t the question,” I said.

“But you’re Albanian really?” Greta asked.

“I lived in Greece for a while, too,” he said.

“But yes, he’s Albanian,” I said, since Bashkim didn’t seem to want to. He looked embarrassed, like I’d given something away, as if he thought Mamie wouldn’t notice his accent, or his skin, or his pinkie ring with tiny flecks of diamonds encrusted in it. Guys from around here didn’t even wear wedding rings, just thick gold ropes and brass knuckles if they were from the east side. If they were from the north side, they tattooed the names of their children’s mothers around their ring fingers. Gold rings, meanwhile, seemed to wash up on the shore of the Adriatic instead of seaweed, since every Albanian guy I’ve ever seen, including the ones who could barely afford Ring Pops from Joe’s Corner Grocery, had them wrapped around at least one of their fingers.

“Most people don’t know of Albania. I tell them what they know,” he said.

“Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear. I know about Albania,” Mamie said. “I mean, at least I know that they’re coming over here in droves. I’ve worked with some, too. Remember, Elsie, when my hubcaps were stolen and I bought a new set from one of the guys in the shop? He was Albanian, that guy.”

“I thought that guy was Puerto Rican,” Greta said.

“Well, I don’t know. I just remember an accent.”

“Bashkim doesn’t steal hubcaps,” I said.

“I’m not saying he does. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“It’s the Blue Nun did that,” Greta said.

“Why would I have anything against Albanians? My parents were immigrants, too.”

“Not Albanian immigrants,” Greta said.

“No, they were just the regular kind,” said Mamie.

“At least he’s not black, right, Mamie?” Greta said.

“He’s kind of tan,” Mamie said. “But I don’t care about that. I’m not racist, is the point.”

What Bashkim was at that moment was red, and somehow half the size he was at the beginning of dinner. I wondered if his feet could even touch the ground from his chair.

“We have dessert,” I said. “An Entenmann’s, if anybody wants.”

“So are you Catholic, then, or Orthodox, like the Greeks?” Mamie asked.

“What difference does it make?” Greta said, dropping her head down to the table. “This is embarrassing.”

“What’s embarrassing? I’m just making conversation. I’m interested. I think Bashkim is very interesting.”

“I am nothing, really,” Bashkim said.

“Oh, that’s not true. Everybody’s something. We’re Catholic. It was very unpopular in this country to be Catholic.”

“Everybody in Waterbury is Catholic,” Greta said.

“Not everybody. There used to be a lot of Jews here, too. And there’s that Jehovah’s Witness temple or whatever they call it up on North Main.”

“Mamie, nobody here is religious. I don’t want to talk about this,” I said.

“Don’t speak for me. I’m religious,” Mamie said.

“I’ve literally never been in a Catholic church with you except for funerals,” Greta said.

“That doesn’t mean I’m not religious. It’s a faith thing.”

“Anybody want coffee?” I asked. “I got Chock full o’Nuts.”

“The Albanian kids at school are Muslim,” Greta said.

I kicked her underneath the table. I think I grazed Mamie’s shin on the way but she didn’t notice. She held herself perfectly still, and even shut up for a second.

“Muslim, wow,” she said. “Wow. That is really interesting.”

“I am not really anything,” he said.

“But I mean, is that what your family is?”

“In Albania, you were nothing. There was no religion, except for the Party.”

“The Party?”

“Communist,” I said. “Like Lithuania.”

Mamie shook her head. “No, not like Lithuania. We didn’t want to be Communist. The Russians made us. Why do you think we all ended up over here?”

“The same reason Bashkim did,” I said.

“And we didn’t come looking for handouts. We wanted to work.”

“Like Bashkim. Bashkim works really hard,” I said.

“The Russians had nothing to do with us,” Bashkim said.

“I’m just saying, you came here because you wanted a better life, just like everybody who comes to America does,” I said.

“And he ended up in Waterbury. God,” Greta said.

“Yeah, with Elsie!” Mamie said. “What a gyp.”

“Thanks. That’s great,” I said.

We all stared down at our hands on the table like dogs playing poker. Bashkim had taken the whole night off from work for this, and instead of melting behind the grill he was melting right there before us, beads of sweat forming at the roots of his ridiculously thick hair. The strands were thick like pipe cleaners, and on other nights, nights when Mamie wasn’t there, I would shape them into whatever I wanted while we sat together on the love seat we picked up from the Salvation Army, watching the thirteen-inch Panasonic Janice at work had given us when she’d saved enough for a new twenty-seven-inch for herself. We were getting by, just like everybody else, that’s what I wanted Mamie to see, that we were no worse off than she was. We were better, even, because I had someone else’s hair to run my fingers through, at least until he got sick of it and pulled my hand away.

He wouldn’t even look at me now.

“I like the built-in china cabinet in the kitchen,” Mamie said, finally. “Not like there’s china in there.”

“Thank you,” Bashkim said softly.

“But I mean, who has china these days? I don’t have china. You don’t need fine china to heat up a can of Progresso, do you?”

“No,” I said.

Mamie bounced her pack of Basics on the table but didn’t pull one out to smoke. “It’s not like this is the olden days. People don’t get china for their weddings, they get, I don’t know, bread machines. You ever see how many bread machines there are at Goodwill? They’ve got their own aisle. Every one of them a dead marriage.”

“Who needs bread machines? There’s a Hostess outlet right down the road. Bag of Wonder bread for ninety-nine cents,” I said.

“Who needs bread machines is right. Who needs china. Christ, who even needs marriage. Don’t need a husband for a family, right? Look at us. Me and my girls. We did all right, eh? You guys never wanted for nothing, right?”

Greta looked at me from across the table, and shook her head just enough for me to see it.

“Not really,” I said.

“Bullshit,” Mamie said. “You wanted for everything. You still want for everything.”

“Mamie,” Greta said.

“No. I know I fucked this all up. I can admit that. I know I wasn’t sitting at home with you, helping out with your homework and dragging you to Girl Scouts and whatnot, but I really thought you’d learn something from that. You both wanted so bad to get away from me. And for what? For this?”

My hands were asleep from sitting on them. My neck was strained from looking down. “There’s nothing wrong with this place. You said you liked the china cabinet,” I said.

Mamie pressed her palms into her eyes. “I do. I love the china cabinet. I love the big empty china cabinet.”

“We keep our plates in there,” I said.