John Domini - Earthquake I.D.

Barbara had already heard as much from her priest. Most convicts did their time in another penitentiary, inland, a complex a mere couple of centuries old. But these strikers had set themselves apart, defining themselves as a group, The Shell of the Hermit Crab. They proudly claimed a Catholic heritage, the same liberation theology as Cesare, and their published statements set forth twin goals: “Unum , a fixed European identity; Duo , the opportunity for individual potential.” The particulars of that agenda remained murky, as near as Barbara could tell, as did its connection to hermit crabs. Also the size of the Shell’s membership hadn’t been perfectly ascertained, as yet. But the core group remained small, clearly, and likewise anyone could understand that what they sought was better legal standing in Italy — and that they made the authorities nervous. They’d come under police scrutiny, this little crew, before they’d begun to refuse food. Unlike the vast majority of illegal aliens in-country, members in the Shell didn’t just take their under-the-table payout and keep quiet about it. Rather they shared Cesare’s fervor to speak out, to make others notice, bred in the neglected missions of upriver Africa or the isolated parishes of the Balkan hills.

In one demonstration, inside the Archeological Museum, the Shells had posed themselves beside the plaster-cast corpses of Pompeii. The next month they’d chained themselves to the statues of the kings of Naples, in the alcoves that lined the Royal Palace. That case, following their arrest, had been the first when the Shell were kept separate from other prisoners. The police pretext for this was the same as used in Guantanamo and other such places: suspicion of terrorism. And after the group — just five scrawny young men, it appeared — had been let go, in another week they lined up in the largest piazza in town. They pulled from under their battered denim jackets a full-size cardboard cutout of the Sword of Islam. These weapons were decorated oddly, in purple, with patterns of lines that didn’t make sense, but the Shell five-some had waved their swords overhead, showing their teeth and crying Allah akbar . Then once they’d drawn a crowd, including puzzled police and a few cameras, with a practiced and video-ready movement each man had folded his sword origami-style so that it formed, instead, the harmless purple rectangle that was the Italian passport.

If you asked Barb, that last public action sounded like a good one, an easy one to understand. But once more the cops had pulled out the handcuffs. As the Shell Five were hauled away, the noisiest of the bunch, a sub-Saharan runaway who might’ve been the leader, had explained at the top of his lungs: But that’s your choice, the sword or the paperwork! That’s your only choice! Fresh charges against the group had taken a couple of days to draw up, and according to Barbara’s chosen priest, they “weren’t worth the letterhead they’d been printed on.” Nonetheless the Shell of the Hermit Crab still had neither proper representation nor a trial date set, their case had gotten hung up in Parliament, when they starting doing without food.

A holding cell hadn’t been easy to come by, in a close-packed metropolis riddled, soterraneo , by tunnels. Then too, the recent quake had registered near seven on the Richter. So the most intact and manageable penal alternative in town turned out to be the oldest, Castel dell’Ovo, a hulking keep from the era of Robin Hood. This stood on a promontory in the Bay — the peninsular spot of tongue at the center of the map’s sickbed kiss. The narrow quay between fortress and mainland made policing easy.

Also anyone visiting would be perfectly safe. All in all Barbara had an easy time planting the idea. She needed no manipulations, only a word or two while watching the news with Chris and JJ, waiting for Jay’s little armada to rumble back home. A couple of hours later she mentioned something as she folded back the pima coverlets on the girls’ beds. Then again at breakfast, after Papa went to work, she spoke of the starving clandestini while she opened the doors to the dining-room balcony. When she turned to face the children, she found them all looking up, thoughtful, not even wrinkling their noses at the morning scent of sulfur.

Paul too. The boy had been gooping up his grapefruit juice with DiPio’s prescribed daily protein packet, but now he stared somewhere over her shoulder, his long-lashed eyes narrowing. Barb turned away quickly. Laundry.

Then the Hummer in the piazza, Kahlberg-free. The driver made the explanations, unnecessary explanations, as everyone slid into the air conditioning. The tenente had many important duties; the tenente wouldn’t be coming.

But the Lulucitas could see what was on the itinerary: a trip down the coast to the town where Barbara’s mother had been born. “Torre del Greco,” the driver announced. “Where they make the cameos.”

The man’s smile was pretty puny. He didn’t use the vehicle sound-system, instead turning to face the family without undoing his seatbelt. Barb shot a look at JJ; he was the one to get things started.

“Hey,” the boy said. “Who needs the ten-nenn-tay? Only reason I’ll go where he has in mind is, I know my girl’ll find us.”

The mother didn’t much care for that My girl , but never mind.

JJ went on, “Hey, we could go wherever we wanted, and she’ll find us.”

The driver was too much of a flunky to drop his smile, but he turned away and geared up. Barbara reminded herself: right time, right place. “Dora, Syl,” she began, “I just can’t stop thinking about those men on their hunger strike. Down in the castle.”

“Yeah,” Dora said. “That’s sad.”

“Sad,” said Syl. “Some people have been badly abused.”

“I can’t stop wishing we could do more for them,” Barb said. ‘You know, something like what Papa did.”

“That’s what I’ve been wishing too, Mama.”

“Last night we lay in bed wishing,” Sylvia said. “It’s like Jesus.”

Barbara wasn’t sure what that meant, but she knew what would happen once Dora and Sylvia came up with questions. Already her second oldest was taking on his lecturer’s look, avid, almost charismatic. Chris’s eyes were his best feature, no bookworm’s goggle. In another minute you would’ve thought he’d taken over the Humvee’s address system.

“Guys, can you imagine the scene down there? Incredible, I mean like, totally.”

His body English set the vinyl squeaking beneath him. “I mean, on the one hand it’s up to the minute. It’s satellite feeds and state-of-the-art machine guns.”

“Okay, bro.” JJ didn’t sound like he was making a crack. “Rock’n’roll.”

“Yeah but, on the other hand, all this is happening in a castle that’s a thousand years old. Like, from the Crusades.”

“Rock’n’roll,” the older brother repeated. “Next stop, dell’Ovo.”

Barb was getting so good at insinuation, she was practically Neapolitan. “Now wait a minute, you two. I realize we’ve been talking about this, but, wait a minute.” Careful of her tone. “But I’ve got to say, down there, with men in their condition, it won’t be pretty. Are you sure you want to…”

The kids came back like something out of a Jell-O commercial. Yeah please, come on please. Yeah!

“Mom,” Chris said, “where else could we do good like we’d do there? Have you thought about that? Torre del Greco, that would be like, merely personal.”

“Where your Mom grew up,” JJ said, “that’s totally personal. Hey, none of us ever knew her.”

Careful of her frown, her posture.

“Plus, I mean. Where does it say we have to obey the tenente?”